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The award-winning image of San Onofre symbolically decommissioned with PASTIES, created by the frequent Orange Juice commenter known as “anon,” who ironically receives the award of great FAME for his anonymous contribution (see below.)
A timely battle cry from our friends at San Clemente Green:
Greetings!
We are at a historic milestone concerning the future of the San Onofre nuclear power plant. Edison’s CEO, Ted Craver, has publicly stated that if they are not allowed to restart their defective reactor in June, they would likely have to abandon their efforts to do so. If that is not a call to action, I don’t know what is.
Thursday, May 16th is the deadline for comments to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Our goal is to get 5000 signatures on our petition by then. We are at 1,681 at present, but it continues to grow at a moderate pace. We just need a little boost now.
Many of you have signed on, but perhaps have not reached out to others to participate. If each of those who have already taken action just got two other people to sign on, we would make our goal. Will you please take just a moment out of your busy schedule to help put an end to Edison’s reckless proposal before it’s too late?
Here is the link to a more promising future.
San Clemente Green.
Original illustration from this morning:
Diamond’s best (short-deadline) attempt at photoshopping a brassiere onto the San Onofre plant (Vern’s concept.) See below for prolix disclaimer and etcetera…*
* Diamond:
“Perspicacious readers, especially women, will immediately recognize that there is absolutely no way, none whatsoever, that that bra would fit over the twin nippled towers of San Onofre in that way. (Well, it wouldn’t be the first bra that didn’t fit right! Am I right, ladies? Anyhoo….) You are, of course, correct; the problem is not so much that we are men ignorant of mammary contours as that it’s just that difficult to find a photo of a bra aligned in just the right way to fit convincingly over San Onofre orbs — especially when you’re given about an hour to complete the task. (Seriously, we looked. This was the best we could do.) So if you’d like to see a better iconic photo symbolizing the decommissioning of San Onofre — after which it will no longer bounce around freely and with inadequate support, endangering those around it — please send a pair of photos (one of SONGS and one of bra that fits with the first photo) to chezvern@aol.com and we’ll see if we can Photoshop it right. This may be, sadly, your best chance for everlasting fame.”
Prolix, perhaps, but also wry and endearing, I hope. (I’d really like to get this one right.)
Anyway, I hope it attracts attention. Maybe I should have found a red one?
*OK…….we will also call the AQMD and tell them to ban fire rings at the same time.
Maybe an aerial shot with pasties would work better. You still see the orbs, and also get the boob reference working.
Damn, that is very funny. I salute both you and whoever (you? Vern?) put together that graphic. That is … iconic.
Nice portrait of SONGS management !
I know you care about the environment but…
San Onofre’s shutdown equates to about 9 million metric tons a year of additional CO2 in the air, because fossil fuels are filling the power gap. That’s just a fact of life NOW. Someday green resources such as solar, wind and conservation will push down this figure, but that’s a long way off. If and when the desert tortoise lovers allow the desert to become a solar power farm. Bi-polar environmentalists…
The cost to consumers overall would end up paying around $3,000,000,000, yes, that’s Three Billion. Since the public will pay for it one way or another, public utilities always pass the costs along. Then there are the losses to the investors, of those CalSTRS, which is also backed by whom? I’m sure that other retirement funds are also into it as well. Those old folks don’t really need the money do they?
Yup, just close it. Candles are so romantic anyway and I guess you can run your notebook via bike powered generator, I’m not so sure about those wifi adapters and cable/dsl modems or big screen TV’s however. good luck with those.
I’m thinking some folks will be reconsidering their past opposition to peakers, those natural gas spot generators, would look a whole lot more attractive than a freezer full of rotting food come July or August in the heat of summer.
*It only takes ONE of the following to give you an idea of what a Dead Zone that runs from Los Angeles to San Diego County might look like or cost our society:
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster
Main article: Japanese reaction to Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Japan towns, villages, and …
Timeline of the Fukushima … – Radiation effects – International reaction
*But then again…when you are cheap..you are always willing to roll those dice,
in spite of the odds.
The designs are completely different.
They are about as similar as Las Vegas and Reno.
*Dr. Carl…….we understand and appreciate your input……however, they did a computer generated exstrapolation of a meltdown and the effects and they went from Long Beach to just north of San Diego…..as the Dead Zone. Edison wants to operate at 75% Power. Those “Dylithium Crytals Cannot Take the Load….Captain Kirk!” 50% Power on the better of the two towers could still be iffy. You may want to go back and watch “Dr. NO” and his operation on “Crab Key”……pretty scary and that was 1962. Sadly, we have gained no ground since then.
Meltdown is an extreme, as you well know. Having known some of the engineers who worked at Bechtel, on the design at San Onofre and many others in Europe, the odds of a meltdown are very slim but not zero. I have faith in the original designs. How well the operating instructions have been followed…I have no idea. That is a huge factor in operating and decisions made about how long it should be operated or shutdown.
I do see some problems with workers and the perception of the corporate attitude, also a factor in the decision process. I also think Alex has some very viable points
I am curious who did the computer simulation. I would love to see it, I like than kind of stuff.
*It was in the OC Register…several months back. You may be able to research it. When they replaced the tubes……because of the degradation…..the plant was operating at about 55% capacity. As soon as they replaced the tubes…they immediately raised the power up to about 85%…… Because of the ill designed original concepts……the tubes started to fail within 18 months. They kept the power up, which wasn’t so smart until the off gas leak…and then all heck broke loose. Now, the whole system is under NRC review. Dana says: the system needs a total redesign……which is probably true. The major thing is that “we only need to make one serious mistake” and it could be irreversible.
I saw what the Register had, I’ve seen several other industry newsletters as well. I still don’t know enough to understand why they have the problems they do, as there may be several factors that contributed to the rate of failures.
The system has built in extra plumbing to account for some failures of individual pipes as has happened. As I understand it, it’s the rate of failure over the short period of time. There have been some differences of opinion in the specific pressure ratings and materials as well. It’s also the largest unit the vendor has built.
It’s very conceivable that by operating at reduced capacity, they would have lower pressures, less vibration and could have a much longer life span of the existing pipes, decreasing the rate of failure considerably. There is still plenty of capacity in the existing system to run at full power, for some period of time, but at existing rate of decay, if you will, there is a lot of concern.
It might even save Songs and is shareholders a ton of money in the long run. If they can run it at a lower than disputed pressures, then the vendor might have at least some/increased liability….
There is a TON of money involved in this whole thing, public/private investments and a ton of energy. I’m not saying either decision is wrong or right. I think there needs to be some understanding of what all is involved here. Ultimately WE will all pay for it.
It is a relatively clean source of energy, the nasty bits are already there, we might as well get some use of them. If it continues to fail, it will have to close anyway, end of story.