Culture and Coexistence into the Great Unknown
Right after Chernobyl blew its top, Edward Teller said on the ABC Evening News in late April 1986, “The chances of a real calamity at a nuclear power station are infinitesimally small. But should it happen, the consequences are impossible to imagine.” Now after Japan’s Fukushima disaster, radiation continues to spread across the Pacific to North America with unimaginable consequences.
“Yes, Madam, the tuna is marinated at sea during its long migration from Japan to here in both Cesium-134 and Cesium-137. It’s so good, it glows.”
Edison estimates a $65 million cost to replace the failed steam generators, with an overall $100 million associated losses. Edison has already backed off assertions of a June opening, due to lingering safety concerns. Meanwhile, an earthquake study moves forward, albeit with less outside oversight than that of Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant.
Update from Fukushima: cooling water pours in, instantly drains out highly radiated, through unknown openings, workers can’t locate, due to extreme radioactivity, as more quakes persist. Could things get worse? Seems so.
There’s no way on God’s green earth, San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) can fix 19,454 (per dome) rotting pipes, without a plumbing overhaul of nuclear proportions, keeping its creaky ol’double boilers shut down for years, or maybe decades. Good.
The Good Ol’Boys at the club say: “Nuclear is risky but, as an investment opportunity, with trillions in governmental subsidies, and naive ratepayers picking up the rest, how can one’s portfolio be without it? That said, I heat the spas and pools in all of my homes with solar.”
Edison illuminates for elementary schoolers nuclear fission’s faulty towers, “Let’s Color and Do Activities with The Atoms Family!” Cancer or evacuations not included.