Two energy generation stories today!
Opening soon?
(1) SAN ONOFRE MEETING: Steve Young’s Campaign Manager Marion Pack has been spreading the word — a next Tuesday will bring a chance for activists to meet with NRC and SC Edison officials:
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 9TH, 6 PM, St. Regis Hotel, Monarch Bay on PCH in Dana Point.
(Ask about reduced parking fees for those attending the meeting.)
We need another HUGE turnout for this meeting, which is in Dana Point, Orange County. Please Share with anyone who is concerned about the high risk associated with re-starting the crippled San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station and encourage them to join the growing grassroots movement to hold the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and other decision-making agencies accountable.
This will be the first time that local concerned citizens, the NRC and Southern California Edison will take part together in a roundtable discussion about San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) issues. They will also be joined at the discussion table by representatives from the California Energy Commission, the Coastal Commission and the California Public Utilities Commission.
(Marion may be reached through the Young Campaign office; I don’t want post her phone and e-mail info here.)
[2] And will San Onofre be reopening soon?
Southern California Edison, which operates the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) has submitted a plan the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, seeking to start Unit 2 of the plant at 70% power for five months, after which it would be shut down for inspection.
So Cal Edison asserts that Unit 2’s components are in better shape than the widely fault ones in Unit 3. It claims that it had identified six heat-exchange tubes from Unit 2 that were the source of the leak of radioactive steam that closed the plant in January. Those tubes, and 500 more, have been plugged, which the Utility asserts make operation of Unit 2 safe. The NRC will review and must approve the request if it is to go forward. No prospective restart date has been set.
*What was that movie……..Night of the Living Dead: “MORGAN>>>MORGAN!”
*Engine room ….more steam! Beam them up Scotty!
In the event of a major accident, we are all red-shirts.
I live in the affected area and if something happens my life will be adversely affected – job, home, medical care. I am hopping mad that these guys at Edison are WILLING to gamble with the lives of 8 million people. San Onofore needs to stay closed and if they even try to pull the “You need this valuable energy source” card, forget it! We got along just FINE this summer without their crippled reactor – no blackouts, no rate hikes.
Anyone leaving from Anaheim area? I need a ride.
Well since they don’t have to pay for accidents/injuries given a major problem thanks to the Anderson Act, they can do what they want to guilt free in terms of their investors.
And THAT’S what it’s all about. Money.
Every month, SCE/SDG&E consumers pay a collective $54 million for these plants. Since we managed to make it through the summer without event, I am of the opinion that spending that $54 million/month to increase conservation would be a LOT safer.
This is all about money and the nuclear industry’s future. It has very little to do with us.
And least you believe the NRC is particularly interested in our safety, it’s hard to explain why MORE hasn’t been done to bring SONGS into compliance with NRC provisions. Year after year after year they get away with non-compliance on safety orders. Do you think for a minute any of us could just “not comply” with code enforcement, for instance?
There’s just SO much wrong with this.
We’re getting some reports from correspondents and from Facebook. The St. Regis is packed; over 900 people showed up. You can follow the Facebook site for ShutDownSanOnofre.com for more as it comes in — obviously from only that side. https://www.facebook.com/events/332048410225364/336621859768019/
I was there… about a thousand people in the Pacific room at the St. Regis. Mostly a nice crowd. Some screwballs, but, hey, there were a lot of people.
A lot of people there were trying to save their jobs, both on stage and in the audience.
Many were wearing orange shirts that identified them as the bused in union members that obviously wanted to keep the plant open. I kinda felt sorry for them as they were low information players in the the whole story. They wanted to keep their jobs, their paychecks, and I can’t fault them for that.
Also there were a lot of people there on the dais who were trying to placate the masses by telling them that everything was okay, we understand that you don’t want to die from radiation exposure, but we know what we are doing. Which elicited a lot of nervous laughter from the audience.
My general sense of the whole affair was that everybody agrees that Reactor #3 is pretty well ruined, but the NRC is willing to let Reactor #2 test at 70% capacity to see if it works. Which seems reasonable at face value, but it would only produce at minuscule amount of the power for the SoCal grid, at a huge risk.
The cost to benefit ratio makes no sense to anyone who doesn’t depend on SONGS for a paycheck.
This story needs to be followed, as the risks are much bigger than most people want to imagine.
The damage to the new tubes seems very unusual. Either the tubes were defective to begin with or the velocity of the water in the tubes was causing cavitation due to excessive water velocity. Humm, could it be sabotage? Was a computer worm inserted into the control system causing the pumps to speed up. Just wondering.