Nukes in the Central Valley: Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, oh, and a few questions...

Jobs, jobs, jobs! 11,000 of them in an economically depressed area! Water, water, water, in a drought-stricken area! Clean energy! And it will "...not be located in seismically active or cultural areas..." It's obviously a no-brainer.

It's come to my attention through the twitter universe (thanks @RL_Miller for the catch) that a business group wants to put a "Clean Energy Park" in western Fresno County (The Business Journal, April 7). This park will begin with the construction of wind turbines and a 150-megawatt solar thermal plant, which is a probably a great idea. But the other phase is the construction of two nuclear reactor plants. The plan is to pump up brackish groundwater, desalinate it, and make it available to agriculture in the region to the tune of 1 million acre-feet per year.

I don't know, maybe I'm overthinking this a little bit, but a couple of questions occurred to me as I read about this plan. I realize that brackish groundwater is useless for most human and agricultural uses, but have they considered the effect of removing 1 million acre-feet of water from underground in this area? The south end of the Central Valley has a long history of pumping water from deep aquifers, and one of the more profound outcomes is a serious level of subsidence, i.e. the sinking of the ground surface. In some places, the ground sank 30 feet or more. This, in a flat valley that is barely above sea level. I'm no expert on groundwater issues in that particular area, but how sustainable is removing 1 million acre-feet every year?

Then there is that issue of being located in what is not a "seismically active" area. It takes only a moment to find western Fresno County on the California Geological Survey's online interactive fault map (screen shot below). Um...that's California's Coast Ranges, one of the geologically youngest mountain ranges on the planet, which is riddled with fault lines. The San Andreas, of course, off to the west, but also the Hayward/Calaveras system, the Ortigalita zone, and the O'Neil fault system, and maybe the most worrisome system, the San Joaquin fault. Worrisome because it is not well mapped or understood.

The earthquake history of California is riddled with surprises. Many, or really most of California's earthquakes take place on faults other than the San Andreas. And many damaging earthquakes have taken place on faults that were thought to be inactive, or which were not mapped or known at all. The Coalinga quake of 1983, a few miles to the south of this area, was one of those surprises.

Well, at least the nuclear power plant will be safe from tsunamis. It apparently will be on a floodplain, though, and there are growing concerns of the possibility of a megaflood brought on by an atmospheric river storm (ARkstorm). Will this energy park be ready for something like that?

And of course there are those pesky concerns about "clean" nuclear energy. If we gear up and build dozens more nukes across the country, where will the uranium be coming from? Will the mines be as clean and tidy as the power plants? And where are they going to store the waste? It's been fifty years, and we still don't know where to put highly radioactive spent fuel rods. And when they do decide, do you want the railway system or highway system that they will use to transport those fuel rods to run through your neighborhood? Oh yeah, and what about that whole terrorism thing that certain political parties want us to always worry about? Do you trust that the rent-a-cops they will hire to defend the nuclear site will be up to the job?

Yeah, 11,000 construction jobs is great, though it will turn into just 400 jobs to run the plant. Solar and wind energy are great ideas, but I just don't know about this one....

I Didn't Feel Like Teaching Today...

...but it was the kind of day that demands teaching.

My first day back with classes after the magnitude 9.0 quake and tsunami in Sendai, Japan, and the perfect teachable moment. Only it doesn't feel like a teachable moment. I just felt sorrow. So much is going on, and the situation seems to change hour to hour. First it was a magnitude 9.0 earthquake. Those don't happen very often, and that would be enough by itself to toss out the lesson plan of the day and discuss earthquakes and magnitude. But then there was the horrific tsunami that changed everything. 80 miles is a pretty good distance to be from a magnitude 9 quake, and it looks like the structures along Japan's coast weathered the shaking pretty well. But the tsunami raged through and erased towns, wiping them out of existence. Without the tsunami, the quake would have been a footnote. With the tsunami this event became the ultimate human tragedy. Thousands dead, hundreds of thousands homeless. It's hard to even speak of it, much less try and understand the pain and suffering that is taking place across the sea.

But then a new threat; the nuclear power stations began failing one after another in a story that is still unfolding. A human-induced tragedy superimposed over a nature event. We've concentrated radioactive substances in order to produce a form of energy, and the engineers have always told us that it can be made safe. Despite Three-Mile Island, despite Chernobyl, despite the other 30 'incidents' in the past 50 years. We've 'learned' from each of the accidents, it is said. They can't happen elsewhere. We have back up systems. We can't give up nuclear energy they say, because it is the bridge to a renewable energy future. Otherwise we'll have to burn more coal, and coal contributes to global warming. In all of the chattering among the talking heads on cable news this weekend, I have heard nothing of the threat of terrorism at nuclear power plants, nor have I heard anyone talk about where the highly radioactive waste is going to go. We've been avoiding the second problem for 50 years now. Will these questions start emerging, or will they disappear once the meltdown is complete, or once they stop the meltdown from occurring.

So the lesson plan for the day is tossed. We talk about the earthquake, the tsunami, the nuclear power plants. Questions, one after another. Some I can answer, some I cannot.

Can we have a magnitude 9 quake in California? Yes and no. The legendary San Andreas fault can produce events in the range of magnitude 8, about 1/30th of the size of the Sendai earthquake. Many other faults in California have produced dozens of quakes in the range of magnitude 6.5-7.5, and some have been very damaging. Magnitude 9? Not exactly. The Cascadia subduction zone lies off the coast of Northern California, and extends across Oregon and Washington. That system produced a magnitude 9 quake in 1700. Studies show such a quake takes place every few hundred years. Such a quake would have devastating consequences in NorCal and the Pacific Northwest.

Are the nuclear power plants going to have a full meltdown? I have no idea. I'm not an expert, and I don't know that the experts even know.

Will we be hit by a dangerous radioactive cloud? I don't think so, the experts say it will dissipate in the atmosphere and fall into the ocean before it gets here. I'm more worried about the people who live in the vicinity of the power plants. If the worst case scenario happens, the land they have lived on all their lives could be declared uninhabitable. Where will they go?

I'm glad the meltdown didn't happen here. How many of you know where your energy comes from? California has two operating nuclear power plants, both on the coast, both near fault systems. Another mothballed power plant sits unused just 80 miles from us, with all the fuel rods on site. The engineers for the plants say they're ready for whatever happens (I bite my tongue to avoid getting political).

Can a tsunami hit us in the Central Valley the way it did in Japan? No, not likely, but we have a different problem: the Sacramento Delta. The three dozen or so islands in the Delta are 'protected' by century-old levees that are prone to failure from causes as simple as excessive muskrat burrowing. The islands have sunk over the last century, and most are now below sea level. A moderate quake on nearby faults could cause widespread failure and flood the islands with seawater. If it were just lost farmlands, we could deal with it. But the intake pumps for the California Water Project are in the midst of the islands and the inundation could cut off the water supply for 20 million people for months, if not years.

What will the "Big One" do to us? It depends which "Big One" you are talking about. A repeat of the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco? Or the 1857 Fort Tejon earthquake? Or the 1872 Lone Pine quake Or another? All of them were close to magnitude 8, and if they happened again, the results would be profound. And there are dozens of other active fault zones in California. But here in the Central Valley? Harder to say. The 1906 quake was certainly felt in the region, but didn't do much damage in our town. Cities and towns on the west side of the valley will have some serious problems with shaking and liquefaction, but we are on relatively stable sediments.

Where's the best place to live? Kansas or Nebraska I should think. But watch out for tornadoes. Here in California, I would pick the Sierra foothills. Solid bedrock foundations and relatively far removed from the most active fault zones.

I have a question for the class: How many of you have an earthquake emergency kit ready at home (and in the car)? Two or three hands, including my own...

We are not ready...

Do you have questions? Use the comments section to ask and I will answer if I can, or find an answer somewhere.

Leetso, the Yellow Monster

How do you tell someone that the cigarettes are going to kill them? Even today, after 30-40 years of clear connections between smoking and cancer, people don't take the warnings seriously. Why? I don't smoke, and I never understood the intensity of the addiction. But part of it is the long delay between the act and the consequence. Hit someone on the head with a stick, and they immediately understand that sticks hurt. But if they don't feel the pain until 30 years later, well....

I've held a chunk of pure uranium in my hand, and it is simply a piece of metal, and not necessarily dangerous outside the body. But... the unstable isotopes do produce radioactive byproducts, including radon gas. And those byproducts are dangerous, especially in human lungs. But unfortunately, like cigarettes, the effects may not show up for a decade or more following exposure. The longer the exposure, the more likely the bad consequences, mainly lung cancer.

The miners in the 1950's worked in poorly ventilated shafts in which radon accumulated at thousands of times the currently established safe levels. They worked in ignorance, because although the danger was suspected decades prior, mine operators and the federal government couldn't be bothered to warn them or provide adequate ventilation. Cold War security concerns trumped safety concerns (it wasn't just the mines; the effects of atomic bomb tests in the southwest have been well-established), and anyway lots of money was being made.

Just like cigarettes, the consequences didn't appear for years. But by the 1960's the miners were starting to fall ill and die from lung diseases. Hundreds, who knows, maybe thousands were sickened and killed. But it didn't stop with the miners.

Thousands of mines produced millions of tons of tailings contaminated with uranium. Few regulations existed to keep the tailings from leaking into nearby rivers and watercourses, or from leaching into the groundwater, and even fewer to prevent dust from blowing about. Houses, schools and other buildings were built on contaminated soils. The full effects are only beginning to be recognized

One of the most egregious pollution problems involved Charlie Steen. Impatient with the distances to government uranium mills and the transportation costs involved, Steen's company constructed the Atlas Uranium Mill in Moab literally on the banks of the Colorado River. The mill closed decades ago but the tailings leached and leaked into the Colorado River for years. At this time, reparation work is being done and the tailings are being removed to a safe site 30 or 40 miles away. I am sure they are doing a great job...

So, you've never lived on the plateau, you weren't a miner, so "why, me worry?". Leaving aside the whole contamination of the Colorado River issue, there are unexpected connections. For quite a few years I knew there was some kind of an old mine right on the south rim of the Grand Canyon a short distance west from the El Tovar and Bright Angel Lodge. The rim trail, hiked by thousands every year, takes a long detour around the fenced 10-acre site. I always assumed it was another old copper mine, like others I had seen in my travels. It is and it isn't. It is the Orphan Mine, a turn-of-the-century copper mine in which uranium was later discovered. The uranium was mined from 1953 to 1972. Extraction rights were actually retained as late as 1988 (see the hyperlink above). The site is contaminated with ores and waste. I've heard that the dust-covered miners knocked off work and enjoyed a meal at the lodge before heading home, leading to speculation that geiger counters would have been beeping inside the restaurant.

The mine has been shut down for 35 years, so whatever...except for the headline I saw this week, via Arizona Geology. The problem at Grand Canyon National Park is that the park boundary is only a short distance south of the rim. The rest is national forest or Bureau of Land Management and is open to mining. Uranium prices are very high, and interest has been building in a renewal of mining. Thousands of mining claims are being established, and the BLM continues to process requests despite a congressional moratorium; the agency doesn’t consider the Congressional vote valid.

At least the Navajo people, as a sovereign government, have the right to block renewed mining. As Kim noted in the comments on my last post, they have placed a moratorium on new development on their lands, and work continues, however slowly, to heal their lands of the damaged caused by Leetso, the Yellow Monster.

And what are we gonna do with all of the used reactor waste? Who knows. Just remember, like our politicians tell us, that nuclear power is our "clean" bridge to a bright energy future...