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Mike Blake / Reuters
The San Onofre nuclear power plant lies along the coast between Los Angeles and San Diego.
Security has been beefed up at the San Onofre nuclear power plant in Southern California after it was discovered that a generator there might have been tampered with, the plant operator said. The plant has been out of service since January due to a leak in a steam generator.
Southern California Edison said it discovered engine coolant in an oil system in the backup diesel generator in late October during routine monitoring. An internal probe found evidence of potential tampering, though it could not be confirmed.
The presence of coolant posed no safety risk, the company said.
The news is the latest blow to San Onofre's majority owner, which earlier this month said the cost of the prolonged outage at the damaged nuclear power plant has topped $317 million. San Onofre's Unit 2 and Unit 3 reactors have been shut down since January after operators discovered a leak in a steam generator tube in Unit 3.
Technicians later found excessive wear on hundreds of tubes in units 3 and 2, which had been taken offline earlier for maintenance.
The problems center on damage to alloy tubing in four steam generators that were installed during a $670 million overhaul in 2009 and 2010.
A three-month federal probe blamed a botched computer analysis for generator design flaws that ultimately resulted in excessive wear to the tubes.
Last month, Edison asked federal regulators for permission to restart the Unit 2 reactor and run it at reduced power.
The utility and the NRC scheduled a public meeting on the issue Friday in Southern California.
However, an NRC decision is not expected for months.
The investigation into the potential tampering is ongoing, the utility said, adding that it has enhanced security at the nuclear power plant that sits on the coast about halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego.
The company informed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission of the issue on Oct. 30 and told the agency of the potential tampering on Nov. 27.
NRC officials were not immediately available for comment.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Leave a Comment:
"Might have been tampered with"...??? they don't know, wow, are we in trouble...
ARREST THAT PERSON...
BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU POST....
YOU WILL GET ARRESTED....
A POLICE STATE HAS ARRIVED IN AMERICA
RICHMOND, Va. — A former Marine involuntarily detained for psychiatric evaluation for posting strident anti-government messages on Facebook has received an outpouring of support from people who say authorities are trampling on his First Amendment rights.
Brandon J. Raub, 26, has been in custody since FBI, Secret Service agents and police in Virginia's Chesterfield County questioned him Thursday evening about what they said were ominous posts talking about a coming revolution. In one message earlier this month according to authorities, Raub wrote: "Sharpen my axe; I'm here to sever heads."
Police – acting under a state law that allows emergency, temporary psychiatric commitments upon the recommendation of a mental health professional – took Raub to the John Randolph Medical Center in Hopewell. He was not charged with any crime.
A Virginia-based civil liberties group, The Rutherford Institute, dispatched one of its attorneys to the hospital to represent Raub at a hearing Monday. A judge ordered Raub detained for another month, Rutherford executive director John Whitehead said.
"For government officials to not only arrest Brandon Raub for doing nothing more than exercising his First Amendment rights but to actually force him to undergo psychological evaluations and detain him against his will goes against every constitutional principle this country was founded upon," Whitehead said.
Raub's mother, Cathleen Thomas, said by telephone that the government had overstepped its bounds.
"The bottom line is his freedom of speech has been violated," she said.
Thomas said her son, who served tours as a combat engineer in Iraq and Afghanistan, is "concerned about all the wars we've experienced" and believes the U.S. government was complicit in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. One of his Facebook posts, she said, pictured the gaping hole in the Pentagon and asked "where's the plane?"
Whitehead said he found nothing alarming in Raub's social media commentaries. "The posts I read that supposedly were of concern were libertarian-type posts I see all the time," he said.
The big concern, Whitehead said, is whether government officials are monitoring citizens' private Facebook pages and detaining people with whom they disagree.
Dee Rybiski, an FBI spokeswoman in Richmond, said there was no Facebook snooping by her agency.
"We received quite a few complaints about what were perceived as threatening posts," she said. "Given the circumstances with the things that have gone on in the country with some of these mass shootings, it would be horrible for law enforcement not to pay attention to complaints."
Whitehead said some of the posts in question were made on a closed Facebook page that Raub had recently created so he questioned whether anyone from the public would have complained about them.
"Support Brandon Raub" Facebook pages have drawn significant interest, and other Internet sites had numerous comments from people outraged by the veteran's detention.
Raub's supporters characterized the detention as an arrest, complaining he was handcuffed and whisked away in a police cruiser without being served a warrant or read his rights. But authorities say it wasn't an arrest because Raub doesn't face criminal charges.
Col. Thierry Dupuis, the county police chief, said Raub was taken into custody upon the recommendation of mental health crisis intervention workers. He said the action was taken under the state's emergency custody statute, which allows a magistrate to order the civil detention and psychiatric evaluation of a person who is considered potentially dangerous.
He said Raub was handcuffed because he resisted officers' attempts to take him into custody.
1. 8/12/2012, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/21/brandon-j-raub-marine-detained_n_1817484.html
Peel... what's your point?
Sounds like a nut that needs to be evaluated before he harms folks. Too bad nobody treated James Holmes this way.
If you're so worried about this, I'd stop posting things online.
Peel-Layer
And that has what to do about a nuclear generating plant?
As long as you brought it up: One of the things we have a right to do is be pissed off at our government. What we do not have a right to do is promote violence against it based on bullsh!t.
This is not to say our government isn't getting way out of line regarding personal freedom.
As to the topic at hand. Murphy's law says that "If it can it will". Nukes are the worst idea we've ever had. Anybody remember when they were selling us on the idea that nuclear produced electricity would be so cheap, almost next to free?
If that plant goes the way it likely will after enough time, That part of California will become uninhabitable. The thing is they are only good for so long then all that's left to do is shut them down and bury them in a mountain of cement. My guess is the owners will just want to keep making all that money and hope nothing happens until after they are dead. Thinking beyond one's own life time is a rarity.
Peel-layer is a drooling idiot, and his non sequiturs are without equal in their breathtaking irrelevance. I don't think he ever gets off the toilet seat, given the prolific volume of verbal diarrhea he generates. He is a good target for mockery and contempt, though.
Yep, there are screwballs in our country.
Look how much damage was done to that nuclear submarine undergoing repairs in Maine:
Heck, there were folks throwing wrenches into propeller shafts on-board ships during the Vietnam war just so the ship could not get underway.
Wouldn't surprise me one bit if the perpetrator, if there was one, was a tree hugger.
I hope they find the individual(s), if not equipment related incident, responsible for this and send them to Gitmo to join the OTHER "Terrorists".
Look.....those yahoss filled their old steam generators with sea water......Foul Play? Give us a break. If the coolant was found in the oil......most folks would look for a leaking head gasket. They sat around so long.
If the coolant was in the diesel fuel, then a wrong part of the maintenace procedure was executed, probably that of adding coolant vs. diesel oil. You know I have seen water in the separtator alot of times. Operators were not trained properly to look for it.
apparently the people who fix diesels engines there know nothing about diesels, cylinder liners do leak especially if they rust out or roll a seal during installation, hence coolant in the oil sump.....
Yeah, I have doubts about tampering being the cause. Too many, "normal" causes for this. I don't see this a causing anything like "instantaneous" damage either unless it was an enormous amount of coolant. Even then, you'd hope they have a maintenance and inspection plan on these back-up generators, so it seems unlikely to have gone unnoticed for any length of time. Sounds like that is how they found it.
Frankly, the reactor issue is far more disturbing. This plant has a history of issue and failure to follow NRC regulations. As I understand it, the heat exchanger tubes that failed and resulted in a small release of radioactive steam were not of an NRC approved design. They can try to blame a flawed computer simulation for premature wear, but this sounds a lot like some cost cutting move to use some cheaper alloy material. On the whole, the history of this plant suggests very poor management. The plant also has a history of protests associated with it too. I think the plant managers are trying to deflect some attention from their own problems by pointing a finger at some outside source by suggesting tampering.
These are pressurized water reactors. The reactor primary cooling water under high pressure is passed through the failed/failing tubes in the steam generator, which is a heat exchanger. Heat from the primary cooling water flowing through the tubes heats water in the exchanger which gets vaporized into steam. This secondary system then supplies steam to the turbines. The tubes in question are what isolates the radioactive primary loop water from the secondary steam loop. Leaks in these tubes then contaminate the secondary loop and can cause the pressure to rise quickly leading to the release. The steam generator/heat exchanger is in the containment building, but the secondary steam loop is not. The failure of these tubes is a serious issue because it allows contamination, albeit somewhat diluted, into the outside world.
Seems to me that the decision to use these tubes in a design that was neither adequately tested or approved by the NRC, was a serious breach of trust with the public. Luckily, it appears that a catastrophe didn't occur, but I think an immediate suspension of their operating license is in order and it should only be re-instated upon thorough demonstration of corrective actions. Fines are definitely in order and a permanent shutdown ought to be considered. Any other plants under the owner's management also need to come under immediate scrutiny.
The Plant Was Closed because of damage to alloy tubing in four stream generators installed in 2009-2010 for $670M. A three month probe BLAMED a botched computer analysis! NO TAMPERING FOR ORIGINAL CLOSURE . ONLY FOR REOPENING AFTER PROBLEM 'FIXED' . This is what the article said.
It will not be REOPENED because of possible tampering in Oct. The PROBLEM was caused by the private company and faulty construction and very serious toxic damage to the public because of.
Yet the Headlines MISLEAD the public into thinking the whole thing was due to tamporing. No, only the Reopenng of the suposedly fixed danger. Now someone says possible tampering to slow down the reopening for further INSPECTION. This is too dangerous not to be inspected and reinspected.
And the worst is storage of the waste. Where is THAT going to go??? Under the ocean for 10,000 years until it becomes nontoxic?? What if it "leaks" from computer faulty analysis?
If that photo is any indication, the plant looks awfully close to the ocean. One tsunami and we'll have a Fukushima on our hands. Why do they put them in such vulnerable locations?
Look you folks.......Those Yahoos have put water in the fuel tanks before.......or there was alot of water in their diesel fill. You know, those YAHOOS even filled their Steam Generator's with sea water before. This is nothing new. You name it, it's happened at San Onofre.
These things are the most dangerous hazards we have in the USA, and these fools that own these plants are falling short on security and on plant inspection and error prevention.
Think about this for a minute fellow americans, just one of these things has the capacity to take out hundreds of millions of people in some form or another with the poison they emit.
THINK PEOPLE THINK PLEASE
It is far past time for out bought and paid for congress to start doing the job these clowns were elected to do, that being, to protect and serve the people of the united states, not the monetary interests of their handlers who got their corrupt butts elected.
So Jim, you're suggesting that one nuclear reactor could kill everyone in the US? That would be "hundreds of millions" of people.
Jim,
Really? And the population of the US is hundreds of millions - so you say the entire US population can be "taken out" with one nuclear reactor? Even Japan's catastrophic reactor failures resulted in less than 10 deaths, all of them workers.
WRONG, Jim. The most dangerous hazards we have in this country are the do-gooders who know what's best for me. Especially do-gooders with a basket weaving degree who can be led by the nose by a biased article because they don't have the time to do their own research.
Just keep believing that wind generation will solve all. How does 16% efficiency sound to you. The only way they can pay for themselves is with the government subsidy. After that's gone, we will see square miles of idle wind farms. But, it does make the anti-nuke Luddites happy.
Better add "Yellowstone caldera" to your list of worries-about-which-you-can-do-squat.
Google says now is the time for Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors. I can't see any opposition to them. There is literally no uproar over them and the resources are already here in lifetime supply. Uranium and Plutonium mining, storage, disposal... still hasn't been solved.
How long can you extend operations before it dawns that a new development is overdue? What are we waiting for?
Maybe he's talking about the SLOW death that happens from the toxic waste and leaks into water, oceans, soil, all food etc. Where is all the waste going to go?? What about the waste already buried by faulty methods. Nothing will contain it safely for hundreds of years, let alone the 1000's needed for it to be.
Actually, that sounds like a low ball estimate. Coal power is just over 30% efficient, wind power is just under 30%.
BTW Most people are advocating for hybrid systems including wind, solar, solar water, etc using battery backup systems to store power during low production periods.
Are we there, yet? Nope, research is on going and much time is needed to build the infrastructure. Considering that fossil fuels are a finite source of energy it make considerable sense to invest in future technologies.
Not lowball at all Stupe. Germany has actual data. 29 gigawatts of installed nameplate generation, 5 gigawatts of actual output. So that's 17% (off 1%, meaculpa). Check out this:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/9559656/Germanys-wind-power-chaos-should-be-a-warning-to-the-UK.html
Bring on the brownouts!
Nukeman,
According to the John Muir Trust group, who caused a stir by arguing that production was lower than the 30% touted by wind industry: “In fact, the average output from wind was 27.18% of metered capacity in 2009, 21.14% in 2010, and 24.08% between November 2008 and December 2010 inclusive.” Where are you getting your 16% from?
They are enhancing the efficiency of wind power as well; for example: “University of Minnesota researchers Roger Arndt, Leonardo P. Chamorro and Fotis Sotiropoulos believe that riblets will increase wind turbine efficiency by about 3 percent” (phys.org).
Then there are other possible ways to make the system in which wind power operates more efficient: A NY Times blog says, "A new study of wind integration, however, argues that the capacity value of windmills could be improved by building even more of them, spreading them out geographically, and connecting them with a strong grid. The reason is that the wind is always blowing somewhere, and if it can be averaged over a bigger area, the minimum amount of energy available will rise."
Oh no, I can hear the Republicans now. "Why didn't Obama announce that it was a terrorist attack on October 31?" "What did the Secretary of Energy know and when?" "Why didn't Susan Rice announce this to the UN or on the Sunday News shows?"
Maybe some medication would help with the voices you're hearing.
Jersey probably isn't under-medicated.....
Wow. What is that in the picture? A nuclear plant right next to the ocean. You know, where tsunamis come from? In a highly active earthquake region? Right now, take all the engineers, designers, politicians, and workers that made this plant, take them and also gather up one member of each of their families, and shoot them. Sorry, but this kind of insanity must never be allowed to happen again, and those people were so incredibly stupid or greedy or corrupt that they should not be allowed to taint the earth as this nuclear plant most likely will someday. There must be a lesson in this that will open people's eyes in a drastic way that will still be less than what will happen to this plant some day. Can you say Fukushima? Cherynobyl? Killing the Planet for Dummies was their handbook and we will all end up as the victims. SHUT THIS PLANT DOWN NOW! If you can't live without the electricity, move. Reduce. Recycle. Reuse. Solar. Wind. Waves. But NOT NUKE PLANTS NEXT TO THE OCEAN!!!!!!
WATER = COOLING! Cooling, people! Geez, I cannot believe how many presumed adults do not know this! Nuclear power plants are ALL near water!
If you are this uninformed, the insanity lies in your heartfelt conviction on the subject.
Last time I looked Phoenix was 400 miles East of the Ocean, did they move Phoenix and it's nuclear power plant to the ocean or a river?
You've already been schooled. Print yourself a Peek-a-Boo Certificate of Understanding if you have accepted that out-of-sight doesn't mean "not there".
My children and grandchildren live 3 miles from this plant, I am horrified, please shut it down.
Nana - You're horrified of what, exactly? Did the plant exist when your children moved there?
I'll be glad to sell you candles.
Can't they move somewhere else if you don't like them living there?
If you're so worried, how about offer to pay for their move.
Or are you really THAT horrified.
Find the saboteurs and execute them for the betterment and enlightenment of others, really . . .
Really! :-o
Nuclear plants by the ocean make as much sense as placing nuclear reactors on a fault zone. The 5.8 quake in Virginia last year moved sections of a nuclear plant over a foot. We may be smart enough build such things but not smart enough to build them in a safe place.
Lots of fault zones are minor or hidden. Yeah, building on the San Andreas? Not such a good idea. The safest places for nuclear reactors, re earthquake hazards, is in the Dakotas and Wyoming - but there aren't any reactors there. Crazy, right?
It makes a lot of sense when considering what would happen to the reactors if the water wasn't there to cool them...
What a stroke of good luck that they are all on the water, eh?!
Machspeed:
You failed geography and I am calling you out as a fool-
PHOENIX has a nuclear power plant, no where near the Ocean or a river.
A G.E. D. might be a good thing for you
It's water-cooled, fool! Note that it's the exception to all other plants in the world only in that the water isn't above ground. It's still water-cooled; the water just isn't in plain sight. (I hope that doesn't affect your ability to believe it's really there.)
Poor initial design and building, when all is said and done the ratepayers of Edison will foot the bill.
http://jwoodard.best.vwh.net/antiwar/bechtel/BechtelNukeMessFact.pdf
One of the newer reactors was even built wrong by Bechtel.
It's a glowing mess.
Probably one of the unhappy workers who is looking at being laid off or loosing job if they don't get the unit running again...
Quite convenient to just throw out the word "sabotage" with no evidence whatsoever, to absolve yourself of massive malfeasance and potential genocide should this dilapidated nuke plant melt down. It is also quite convenient to draw attention away from the pathetic condition and danger of ancient USA nuke plants in general. Most all of them have severe issues and radiation leakage, and have no business of being licensed. Don't worry though, a nuke plant operator or the NRC would never lie to you.
Read the article. It's the media throwing out the word. Why? Cause of sheep like you. Can you supply credible evidence that "most of them have severe issues and radiation leaks" for the 100+ plants in the US.
All You Nuclear Physicists and Maintenance Experts, Please shut up. Like said earlier, probably a Cylinder Liner or Head Gasket, this a one of the many backup generators. Sabotage, Hardly, things just wear out over time. Next, why locate a Nuclear Plant right next to the Ocean, it's called Cooling Water.
If the continued EPA Agenda of shutting down coal is progressed, we all better learn to love Nukes or No electricity. The generation has to come from somewhere and renewables are not the end all, do all that they are purported to be, there are times when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow. Oh, Yeah, Abundant Natural Gas, it was five or six short years ago when Natural Gas was 12.00-15.00 dollars a MBTUs and if the majority of new generation is Natural Gas seems that drives up use and demand. That means it is going to cost more, the glut will not last forever.
When you take away cheap electricity you take away a nation's ability to produce, why do you think China and India are building generation like crazy? We are headed to existence as a third world country, and you elected him. Like Justice Roberts said, the people cannot be protected from the consequences of the actions taken by those they elect.
It's a pleasure to see a rational comment. I'm afraid you are a voice in the wilderness though.
I agree. But getting back to the article, this report of "sabotage" reeks. "We think things were tampered with but we don't really know blah blah blah." My guess is that this is despicable attempt to direct attention away from the extreme damage that management has done to these power plants.
Here's what happened. After many years of successful operation, the boiler tubes and system required replacement. They promised the NRC that they would use the exact same original design because this would save the time and expense of a complex validation of a new design as required by law. Fine. Guess what they did; they changed the design.
They changed the design of the boiler tube supports. In the new design, bumping from the boiling water set up large vibrations in the boiler tubes causing wear against the support structure. For a while they attempted to fix the problem by selectively closing off many of the tubes, but ultimately that would not fix the problem.
We don't yet know why they decided to mess with the original design, but my guess is to save a few million $ (a few percent of the total cost).
China and the rest of the world (ex. Japan ans S. Korea) all use the French designed pebble-nuclear reactor, the safest nuclear design ever developed, a melt down is impossible with the French reactor design, even when it is DRY without water.
America needs to swallow it pride and start using these ultra-safe French reactors.
Sabotage? Not likely. More like a bad or failed head gasket on the generators engine. Nukes are relatively safe IF properly designed and maintained. However, introduce greed into the mix, and profitability takes a backseat to safety every time. Replace a pump or some piping? Hell no, that costs money, and our CEO will get a smaller bonus, can't have that! He is much more important than the safety of the plants neighbors!
The Southern California Edison CEO responsible for this plant received $10 million dollars in compensation last year. They screwed up these reactors by trying to cut some replacement costs by changing the original design. This blunder is going to cost electrical consumers about $1 billion.
So what do they do now? Yell sabotage!!! BS
I've always thought that the NRC needed to require civilian Nuclear Plants to comform to the same standards as the Navy does their Nuclear Plants.
The best safety record in the world on Nuclear Reactor Operation.
The Japanese Firm Toshiba Heavy Industies owns the Westinghouse Nucear Division that produces The U.S. Navy's Nuclear Reactors.
The US Navy has only lost one or two nuclear submarines!
Tim...
Where did you get your info on earthquake moving sections of North Anna more than a foot?? There were some small cracks, but that ain't one foot.. I do know what I'm saying... I was there!!
First to get an idea of how big the Emergency Diesel Generator are please take a good hard look at these examples via this link. They are every bit as large as the locomotive engines (diesel electrics), are designed to run for very long times, and sometimes have full sized V8 engines acting as starters.
http://www.alstom.com/Global/Power/Resources/Documents/Brochures/emergency-diesel-generators-nuclear-power-plants.pdf
When a huge power station is shut down, it needs to be connected to the Grid or else the power station has to supply power to run the equipment at the plant. It takes from 10-15 percent of a power stations capacity to run this equipment, this in turn means that at least 2 EDG are need to compensate for a temporary Grid outage, it also means that the plant unless so designed could run not run indefinitely without getting additional fuel.
A nuclear power plant (as we have learned) cannot be safely shutdown without power from the Grid AND without working EDG. Hence any disaster that destroys the grid, might also destroy the generators, and might destroy the infrastructure needed to deliver fuel for EDG.
It all comes down to the fact that nuclear reactors must at all costs require a very certain supply of cooling water, there is no exception.
The steam generators are nearly as large if not larger than the reactor. Roughly speaking the reactor pressure is 2,000 psi and is felt on the inside of the tubes (or tube-side) of the steam generator's (tube bundle). The tubes are supported by series of baffles through holes drilled in the baffles, all of which are at a 1,000F while operating. It has been known for 40 years that the interface gap between the tubes and the drilled holes has been problem area (and still is). The source of the problem can be understood from vibration caused by boiling water, where the steam side is at 1,000 psi and 1,000F. If you have looked at the bottom of a cooking pot that is just beginning to boil the boiling starts at tiny scratches on the bottom, and is accompanied by vibrations hear as noise. If have so much as boiled water in tea kettle, you can hear vibrations change as the water begins to boil. That noise is caused by super steam bubbles forming in the tiny scratch, expanding into the cooler water, and collapsing violently. That tiny collapses creates huge forces at on the metal surface and is quite capable of corrosion (leaking tubes). So the steam generators suffer wear and tear, and require hugely expensive replacement, and in this case, given the same cause have failed miserably.
Rich: Nice try. Just enough technical detail to make the casual reader BELIEVE you know what you are talking about. You almost had me until this statement:
A nuclear power plant (as we have learned) cannot be safely shutdown without power from the Grid AND without working EDG.
EVERY currently operating nuclear power plant is DESIGNED to be shutdown when power is lost. The Fuchishima reactors that were operating at the time of the flood ALL SHUTDOWN as designed. The problem arose when their diesel and battery power flooded then failed, resulting in the inability to COOL the reactors. How do I know this. I spent 20+ years as a licensed Senior Reactor Operator.
Are you a diesel vendor saleman or what?
This is so insulting and offensive, in the amount of money that is wasted on such danger. Dumb people. They make me feel dumb, and I don't want to be dumb, I want to be humane. First off, we should be growing hemp for all the energy and fuel that we need. Secondly, the only nuclear power humans should be getting is from THE SUN. Lastly, only business man dumbasses build nuclear power plants next to oceans or on/near major fault lines and earthquake laden lands. Come on, humans, get smart. Use your brains humanely and consciously. Please learn how to use your biochemical transmitter and receiver PROPERLY. All nuclear power plants should be banned, immediately, especially the ones dumbasses build near the water. Thank you.
According to the article, I believe the plant has moved. As I remember, it was much closer to San Diego, not half way between SD and LA, which would put it somewhere closer to Costa Mesa.
Checked it on Google maps, exactly halfway between LA and SD.
Man is in way over his head with Nuclear Plants, Intellectually, Technologically, SAFETY-WISE and PERSONNEL-WISE. They are, and will remain, "Structural Frankenstein’s" with GREED as the Contractor!
They pose constant Unknown, Unforeseen and Unimaginable dangers to ourselves and our Environment due, among other things, to UNPREDICTABLE and UNCONTROLLABLE WEATHER CONDITIONS. They are not, in my opinion, a reasonable or economical solution to our energy problems. By the time we find this out, it will be too late! We began to see evidence of their potential danger, which we seem to have ignored, at the Three Mile Island Plant and Chernobyl. Fukushima is, I hope, showing us just how dangerous.
And, may God help us, we haven't seen anything yet! Nor have we yet to see -and hopefully, not experience, the ultimate consequences of the Fukushima Disaster! What Unknown and Unimaginable potential danger do the Tanks at Fukushima holding 50 MILLION GALLONS of Radioactive Waste Water pose when these Tanks Rot -and they will eventually Rot, and release that Radioactive Water? Maybe DUMP it into the Pacific? It occurs to me more and more, that Technology, with its concomitant GREED, will eventually be our undoing! Where are we going to store OUR Continuing and Growing volumes of Nuclear Waste? And in what are we going to store it? Have we found any Containers yet that won’t ROT? We’re going to run out of storage areas at some point in time! And I am an optimist!