My guess is that it was not in O.C. because of the rolling.

My dogs were acting weird when I took them for a walk 5 min. earlier. But I didn’t know why.

Update: 9:18 pm. From the L.A. Times:

A shallow magnitude 5.3 earthquake was reported Friday evening one mile from La Habra, California, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The temblor occurred at 9:09 p.m. Pacific time at a depth of 0.6 miles.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/earthquake-53-quake-strikes-near-la-habra-california-k2al0i,0,5399191.story#ixzz2xK29HeCx

By Katy Grimes

Earthquake! Tonight in Sacramento, we felt the rumblings of a 5.7 earthquake centered in in Greenville, CA, in Plumas County — 300 miles from Sacramento.

This is considered a moderate earthquake. So far, there have been 13 small aftershocks reported.

This is a rare occurrence in Sacramento; we normally don’t feel the seismic activity in the state.

Within moments, friends on Facebook were posting about it. It only took two minutes for an insurance agent to encourage everyone to buy earthquake insurance.

One of my good friends said she was glad her wine did not spill.

Fortunately, it appears that the only damage may to be a few broken pictures. But local television news channels are acting as if Hurricane Sandy just swept through the north state. Local news shows have taken over all network programing, interrupting regular shows, blathering on and on about nothing. One station interviewed the same two college girls over and over again — one girl felt it, the other did not. Wow.

The 24-hour news cycle is bad — they are desperate to find a disaster. Local news stations have been taking phone calls from Greenville, Susanville, and Chester, CA residents who are reporting the broken pictures. One station sent out a reporter to interview local people who felt the tremor. Most people didn’t feel it. But the news people are behaving as if it’s the Loma Prieta Earthquake.

The news people are even interviewing each other about what they felt.

Greenville residents reported walls shook, tables moved, “trinkets have fallen off shelves…” and my hanging pots and pans clanged. Some Greenville residents had minor damage, but remember the area is near Mount Lassen, a dormant volcano. Anything could happen.

Potential damage — “moderate” according to the United States Geological Survey.

My favorite Facebook comment was Harmeet Kaur Dhillon in San Francisco: “Quitcherbellyachin’ people. 5.7 is peanuts.”

Katy Grimes: Thursday was “The Great California Shake Out,” earthquake preparedness day. I had the great fortune to be at the CalEPA building for a California Air Resources Board meeting in Sacramento, where we were expected to “drop, cover, and hold on.”

As I huddled on the floor with my notebook over my head, hoping that the carpet was clean, I wondered why there has been such a big media push by the Earthquake Authority.

Last year I contacted the California Earthquake Authority to ask who they are and why they advertise so much. The public information officer I spoke with was uncomfortable with my questions and wanted to know why I wanted to know. Finally I got him to tell me that the CEA is a publicly managed, mostly privately funded organization that provides catastrophic residential earthquake insurance. He was insistent that they are not a public agency.

Anyone who owns a home and lives within an officially designated earthquake area must have earthquake insurance. But I still find it highly suspicious that the earthquake authority is publicly managed and “largely privately funded,” especially since many homeowners are not given a choice about carrying earthquake insurance.

The Great California Shake Out program has plastered the airwaves recently and news lately, along with the CEA’s commercials about its insurance. The Great California Shake Out website is a bit of a mystery until you scroll down to the bottom of the page. The sponsors are FEMA, the Southern California Earthquake Center at USC, California Earthquake Authority, California Emergency Management Agency, the United States Geological Survey, American Red Cross and State Farm Insurance Company.

The other strange group attached is the Earthquake Country Alliance, the organizer of California’s annual earthquake drill, a project of the USC earthquake center, funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Geological Survey. The National Science Foundation doesn’t actually do work, they fund other groups.

It’s all about the publicly-funded grants.

Obviously California earthquakes are real, but do a dozen agencies, boards, commissions and companies need to be involved? It’s a drain on public funds.

And their commercials are stupid.

By KATY GRIMES

Pacific Gas & Electric appears to be rushing to relicense the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power plant 13 years before the current license even expires. Many are asking: Why the big rush?

PG&E is under a spotlight of scrutiny about the safety of the facility, particularly after the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan caused major radioactive leakage at the Fukushima nuclear power plants.

Current licenses for reactors at its two nuclear plants are valid through 2024 and 2025. The latest license application would allow the Diablo Canyon plant to operate until 2045.

At a special state Senate hearing on Monday to address California’s earthquake and disaster preparedness, Sen. Sam Blakeslee, R-San Luis Obispo, asked PG&E representatives to withdraw the early application for license renewal until a seismic study of the site can be done.

Blakeslee has a history with PG&E. Educated and trained as a geophysicist, right after being elected to the Assembly in 2005, Blakeslee wrote an opinion editorial warning about the significant seismic activity around the Diablo Canyon plant. He asked if the facility was safe from tsunami and earthquake damage.

Despite his request for an independent study to determine the seismic activity, Blakeslee said PG&E’s vice president also wrote an op-ed in response — which mocked Blakeslee.

Blakeslee discussed the controversy in a March 20 op-ed in the Santa Cruz Sentinel.

Assembly Bill 1632

Frustrated with PG&E for making light of his concerns over safety, Blakeslee authored AB 1632, a bill requiring the California Energy Commission to assess the vulnerability of California’s aging nuclear power plants. In 2006, it was passed by the Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“I’m concerned mostly about this culture of disregard of risk. It’s potentially putting my constituents in a place of great risk,” Blakeslee said at Monday’s hearing.

The hearing covered the impact the Japanese earthquake could have on California, and what if any additional preparations the state needs to be aware of regarding nuclear power plant safety.

If the Japanese earthquake and tsunami has shown the the United States anything, it’s that regulatory agencies seem to be overly sensitive to small, daily risks, and ill-prepared for large-scale risks.

Three panels presented information to the senators and gave an overview of California’s risk of an earthquake and tsunami like Japan just experienced, the potential impact to California, and whether California’s nuclear power plants are safe.

California Energy Commissioner James Boyd, also a liaison officer to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, told the Senate committee that the CEC has no regulatory authority over either of California’s nuclear plants. But the energy commission was authorized to oversee the disposal of spent nuclear fuel at existing or new nuclear plants in the state, and coordinates the state’s response to federal proposals for spent fuel transportation, disposal and reprocessing.

And AB 1632 directed the CEC to conduct an assessment of both Diablo Canyon and San Onofre nuclear plants to determine what vulnerabilities there are due to earthquakes, any aging effects of the plants, the impacts of the accumulation of nuclear waste at the locations, and what role nuclear power plays in California.

Boyd presented a list of recommendations surrounding seismic issues at the plants, and strongly recommended additional studies before PG&E’s licensing is granted.

Boyd said that both the San Onofre and Diablo Canyon nuclear plants are older power plants like the compromised Japanese plants, and need to address the future of spent fuel storage. The spent fuel is currently kept on site because the federal government never followed through on plans to build a spent fuel storage station.

In November 2008, Boyd had recommended that both plants have three-dimensional seismic mapping of the area done. But, he said, this has not occurred.

PG&E: “No concern.”

“We believe there is no uncertainty in the Diablo Canyon site,” said Lloyd Cluff, PG&E’s director of earthquake risk management.  When pushed to explain, Cluff said, “There’s uncertainty in everything we do. But we have no concern.”

PG&E has received heavy criticism in recent years when it was discovered that valves in the coolers had been stuck shut for nearly 18 months at the Diablo Canyon plant. But Steve David, the site director at Diablo Canyon, told the committee that the backup systems were operational, and there were other cooling-water sources available.

“Are you saying nothing bad will happen?” asked Sen. Elaine Alquist, whose district includes San Bruno, the location of the PG&E gas explosion that ripped through a neighborhood, destroying nearly 40 homes and killing four people.

“I just don’t find PG&E truly forthcoming in addressing these issues,” Alquist said.

Diablo Canyon has not been without controversy. More than one year after obtaining licensing and construction permits, the Hosgri Fault was discovered, with the capability of producing a 7.5 magnitude earthquake.

David Hirsch, a lecturer at the University of California, Santa Cruz, told the committee that what started as a $360 million nuclear power plant became a $5.7 billion plant, with additional and unplanned seismic retrofits costing the bulk of the additional construction costs. Hirsch attributed the unplanned seismic retrofit costs to a permitting vote, which PG&E had heavily objected to beforehand. He told committee members that PG&E had been successful since the 1960’s at  preventing in-depth studies of the consequences of an earthquake at the Diablo Canyon plant, located on the Central Coast.

And then adding insult to injury, the blueprints for the plan were misread, and construction done incorrectly, leading to a rebuild.

Two years ago, another fault was discovered near the plant called the Shoreline Fault. PG&E and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission determined that the plant could survive an earthquake on the fault.

“Given that the license doesn’t expire until 2024-25,” said Blakeslee, “licensing should be in the hands of the CEC.” Blakeslee said that unless PG&E suspends or withdraws its licensing application, he will be “pursuing legislation,” adding “there’s more than enough time to address this.”

Alquist agreed with Blakeslee and said she wanted to take it a step further. “I don’t want to wait until 2024-25,” she said. “I think something needs to be done, or horrible things can happen.”

BY JOHN SEILER

In the long run, California’s economy probably will not be greatly affected by the economic aftershocks of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. In the short run, it could be shaken in various ways. And these assumptions presume that the news from Japan does not get much worse that it already is.

Those are conclusions drawn from numerous news reports and from Esmael Adibi, director of the A. Gary Anderson Center for Economic Research and Anderson Chair of Economic Analysis. Chapman’s annual economic forecast, to be updated in June, includes highly accurate prognostications on California’s economy, which Adibi closely watches.

“Everything will be a short-term negative impact,” Adibi told me. “Japan is one of California’s largest trade partners, number three after Mexico and Canada.”

One immediate impact is to the eastern ports of Japan, which will affect imports and exports to California ports. In particular, he said, there will be lower car production in Japan.

USA Today reported:

Toyota has halted overtime at its U.S. factories to conserve Japan-supplied components delayed by the devastating Mar. 11 earthquake and tsunami that wiped out entire portions of the country’s northeast coast.

That’s the first direct effect of the Asian wave on the U.S. auto industry. The big Japan car companies build in North America most of their U.S.-market vehicles, but some still rely on parts from Japan.

Predictably, stocks in Japan have crashed:

Japan’s Nikkei share average plunged 10.6 percent on Tuesday, posting the worst two-day rout since 1987, as hedge funds bailed out after reports of rising radiation near Tokyo. Many mutual funds were left on the sidelines, leaving them poised to dump shares into any rebound.

The yen tripped on talk of intervention by authorities trying to contain the economic impact from last week’s devastating earthquake and tsunami, but then recovered. Government bond yields rose as investors sold debt to offset stock market losses.

Meanwhile, American stocks continued their post-earthquake decline. According to today’s Reuters:

Stocks fell 1 percent on Tuesday as fears of a nuclear crisis in Japan fanned caution in equities and the market looked likely to extend its bearish trend.

The Nasdaq briefly turned negative for the year in a second straight day of losses tied to worries about Japan. Analysts said a break below 1,257 on the S&P 500, the index’s closing level for 2010, could signal deeper losses.

Positive Signs

There are some positive signs, including for California. “California will get some rebuilding activity, such as of industrial machinery,” Adibi said. “Reduced exports now will be made up down the road. For imports from Japan, the earthquake could create shortages. Nobody can anticipate how long that will last.”

He added that, for Japan’s economy, a major problem will be electricity generation, which is essential to industrial production.

Reported MSNBC:

When Japan lost a large chunk of its electricity-generating capacity to the one-two punch of earthquake and tsunami, the narrative in parts of one of the world’s most technologically advanced societies was transformed overnight into one of Third World hardship.

For most Japanese, the rolling outages instituted in the wake of the twin disasters translate to inconvenience, sacrifice and economic loss. But for tens of thousands who are now homeless and huddled in evacuation centers in the hard-hit northeast, the stakes are much higher.

The earthquake hit Japan after two decades of stagnation. The 1990s are called the country’s “lost decade,” with growth of just 1 percent a year. But the 2000s weren’t much better. Some now are speculating that the earthquake could shake Japan into a third “lost decade.”

During the past 20 years, Japan went from the second-largest economy in the world, to third place, behind China. And Japan’s economy dropped from being about half that of the economy of the United States, to one-third.

California Budget

Will Japan’s problems affect the ongoing struggle over California’s state budget? “I don’t think so,” Adibi said. “It will not have a significant impact on taxable sales and so on.”

But Japan’s predicament is a cautionary tale for California, which also suffers major earthquakes, and the United States as a whole. Even before the earthquake, a major factor hobbling growth in the Japanese economy was the immense debt run up by its government the past 20 years.

Japan’s public debt was 197 percent of GDP in 2010, in second place among the nations behind only pathetic Zimbabwe, at 242 percent. The United States is at 59 percent.

Although U.S. debt seems better by comparison, it’s still in dangerous territory, especially when compared to the so-called PIIGS nations on the brink of default: Portugal (83 percent), Ireland (99 percent), Italy (119 percent), Greece (114 percent) and Spain (63 percent).

Moreover, California’s state debt for bonds currently is $72 billion, according to state Treasurer Bill Lockyer’s Web site. Amazingly, despite the state’s fiscal problems, another $10 billion was charged this year to the state’s credit card.

California’s debt rating now is the worst of the 50 states, and worse even that Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic.

The annual payment for the debt already run up now is $7.65 billion. If that payment weren’t due, Gov. Jerry Brown’s demand for $12 billion in tax increases would be a lot smaller. This shows how, as I have pointed out for decades, debt equals delayed tax increases. The debt binge of the 2000s decade, under governors Davis and Schwarzenegger, now has turned into demands for tax increases.

Moreover, Japan’s earthquake could mean higher interest payments for the state’s debt (as well as for consumers). According to Stand Strong Research:

This probably means noticeably higher interest rates across the board for Americans over the next year or so as they rebuild and start selling US gov securities in order to pay for their reconstruction.

So California’s immense debt could end up costing even more to taxpayers. And as Chriss Street writes today, California’s immense debts for government workers’ pensions and medical insurance already have the state on the brink of insolvency.

Both Japan and California are getting lessons in how debt should be run up only for emergencies, such as earthquakes, not for normal expenses, let alone for such boondoggles as the California High-Speed Rail Authority.

The Japan earthquake is another warning to get California’s fiscal house in order. When the Big One strikes here — and seismologists say it’s only a matter of time — a solvent state would be better able than an insolvent one to recover from disaster.

One solution to California’s need for electricity would have been to construct more nuclear power plants. Doing so also would have helped the state meet the requirements of AB 32 to reduce greenhouse gases. Nuke plants don’ t produce any gases.

Although nuclear plants are cheap and efficient, the safety issue has arisen big time with the explosion at one nuke plant in Japan after its earthquake; two others might be at risk.

Previously, the two major crises involving civilian nuclear power were, first, at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979. It was a partial core meltdown, which had limited health effects.

Second was the 1986 Chernobyl explosion in the Soviet Union, which killed an estimated 4,000 people and spewed radioactivity over hundreds of thousands of people in what now is Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. But Chernobyl was the result of crummy socialist technology in the final days of communism in the Soviet Union.

Indeed, the Chernobyl blast hastened the Soviet Union’s demise by displaying to the world, in deadly fashion, that socialism means total incompetence and death. (Much as Obamacare would do if fully imposed in America; Obamacare is a health-care Chernobyl.)

By contrast, Japan is a modern, capitalist nation highly efficient in making machines, especially nuclear power. Yet they couldn’t make nuke plants to survive earthquakes they knew were coming.

Any chance of reviving nuclear plants in America now is dead, especially in California, where we also have earthquakes. We have two nuke plants here in California, at San Onofre (pictured above) and Diablo Canyon. In the coming days, we’ll be hearing calls to shut them down. It could happen. Doing so would greatly increase the price of electricity in California.

Alternative ways to create electricity — wind, solar, biomass, etc. — produce at most 2 percent of electricity, and usually are economic boondoggles subsidized by taxpayers. AB 32 also retards the production of the most efficient source of electricity in California, clean natural gas.

That will leave importing electricity from nearby states, Canada and Mexico. Which will mean higher costs to California businesses and families.

Lasting working Californian to leave the state, don’t forget to turn off the lights. Actually, never mind. The lights already will be off.

March 12, 2011