Could the San Onofre Nuclear Plant Withstand Something Like the Japanese Disaster?

While the Japanese are dealing with the dangers of radiation exposure first-hand, people closer to Santee are wondering what danger the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station could pose in a situation similar to the and tsunami, and even if the Japanese radiation leak could affect Californians.

Officials with Southern California Edison announced on Monday that the  could have withstood the .

, head nuclear officer at the plant, said fail-safe mechanisms in place at the facility, such as the fuel tanks being buried below ground, would prevent the failures that have occurred at the Japanese nuclear installations.

San Onofre is built to withstand up to a 7.0 on the Richter scale, Dietrich said. Though the Japanese quake was an 8.9 to 9.0, Dietrich said the velocity with which the ground was moving at the quake’s strongest point was 3.5 Gs, or 3.5 times the force of earth’s gravity.

The San Onofre plant, however, can withstand ground movement forces of up to 6.7 Gs, nearly twice the force of the Japanese quake. This, he said, is a more accurate measure for engineers to go by.

One of the major problems with the Japanese plant was that the 23-foot tsunami wiped out backup diesel generators that run the cooling system at the plant. Dietrich said that wouldn’t happen at San Onofre; not only is the plant protected by a 30-foot reinforced seawall—seven feet higher than the crest of the tsunami that struck Japan—but also, the generators are in water-tight, missile-resistant bunkers that sit at an elevation of 30 feet above sea level.

Furthermore, he said, the fuel tanks for the generators are buried below ground and could not be wiped out by a tsunami, unlike the fuel tanks at the Japanese plant.

As for the radiation leakage and exposure in Japan, CBS news is reporting that Donald Olander, professor emeritus of nuclear engineering at the University of California at Berkeley, is classifying the disaster as "worse than Three Mile Island," but not nearly as bad as Chernobyl.

According to CBS, experts say California is in the clear, for now:

"It is true that radiation emanating from Japan is moving across the Pacific and it's feasible that one could detect those radiation levels in California," says Dr. Cham Dallas, University of Georgia professor of public health who studied the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown in Ukraine "But it's certain that it wouldn't be dangerous."