California exposed to risk from San Onofre to be sure; gas prices and smog don't reduce heaviest traffic in nation

The San Onofre Nuclear Power Generating Station belonging to Cal Edison certainly looks close to the water.  The public access road is supposed to take you to San Onofre State Park to see the ocean – but that seems under control of Camp Pendleton of the US Marine Corps.  Access to it is left to confusion, to say the least. 

  

Furthermore, that stretch of I-5 through Camp Pendleton has no services, and the scenic viewpoint is closed when the Marines are on bivouac or maneuvers – you can see the tent city from the highway, a reminder of Basic Training and Night Infiltration back in the 1960s (and in my case, Special Training Company).

  

California Edison doesn’t let anyone stop near the plant on the road – that’s how they control photography. So that’s why I need to use Wikipedia—but this is pretty much what I saw.

   

Is it exposed to possible earthquakes and tsunami?  You bet.  And in January 2012, some of it was taken off line after a malfunction and possible small release of radioactivity.

Yet, I think we may well need nuclear power.  We need everything.  Opposition to it as a one-issue cause (as one woman did when I was with Dan Fry’s “Understanding” in the 1970s) is not for me.

  

Here’s another point:   US News has a gloss booklet (in airports and supermarkets) on space dangers, and has an essay on solar storms and coronal mass ejections.  The danger of a Carrington event is random, not necessarily more during a period of sunspot activity.  But utilities should be doing much more to harden themselves against such an event, that could take months to recover from.

The smog around LA is still there in the mornings.  And the traffic, despite 10-lane freeways, and gas prices up to almost $1 more than other places, is the heaviest in the nation, with constant slow downs, even not during rush hours.

And, note, last week, I reviewed "Last Call at the Oasis", which documented California's coming water crisis.  Is the Golden State sustainable?

Near Palm Springs, along I-10, there is one of the largest wind farm "very large arrays" in the country.

And, ever see what looks like a tornado turn out to be an industrial fire, near an Interstate?

 Wikipedia attribution link to San Onofre picture.   The facility is south of San Clemented (Richard Nixon's home) and San Juan Capistrano (the mission in "Vertigo").