The real reason they're closing San Onofre?

[bananas]

http://acehoffman.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-real-reason-theyre-closing-sano.html

The real reason they're closing SanO???
6/7/2013

Dear Readers,

The letter shown below, from Pete Dietrich this morning to SanO employees, suggests that the real reason SCE is closing San Onofre Nuclear Waste Generating Station is because of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board's involvement in the case. The ASLB would not be looking into the problems at San Onofre Nuclear Waste Generating Station if Friends of the Earth (FOE) hadn't pushed the issue with carefully-planned legal actions.

FOE deserves enormous credit for their role in this event. Southern California narrowly avoided its own Fukushima on January 12th, 2012. Eight tubes in Unit three were worn enough to fail pressure tests, and one tube in Unit two was 90% worn. Unexpected vibration had done them in.

But with bullheaded determination, SCE tried to restart anyway. The 70% plan has been lingering around since nearly the beginning of the outage. Some restart plan, any restart plan. But first, FOE hired Arnie Gundersen to look into the matter, who is a world-renowned expert in steam generator technology, and then they hired a slew of other experts to confirm his findings. Independent experts, independent, that is, of SCE, NRC, and FOE also confirmed that SanO's u-tubes were beyond repair. But Arnie did the hard discovery work first. Then he explained it again and again, to activists, reporters, and regulators.

Arnie Gundersen is a hero to science and reason.

Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, CA

===============================================
FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY



To: SONGS Employees and Supplemental Workers

It is with a heavy heart that I share with you SCE's decision to permanently retire both Units 2 and 3. I recognize this difficult announcement is something none of us wanted to hear, but our decision is absolutely the right thing to do. The tough reality is that the recent Atomic Safety and Licensing Board decision creates significant additional uncertainty regarding our ability to get to an NRC decision to restart Unit 2 this year.

<snip>

[JayhawkSD]

1. A seriously hyperbolic statement

"Southern California narrowly avoided its own Fukushima on January 12th, 2012."

Not even close. The worn tubes are in the steam generator that is used for making electricity. The reactor itself is cooled with sea water and can be operated safely when the plant is not generating electricity and the steam generator in question is off line.

The heat exchanger in question is used for transferring heat from the primary coolant, often erroneously referred to as "radioactive water," to a secondary system of water/steam at lower pressure and temperature for the generation of electricity. The main reason for dividing the systems is that the primary system is at too high pressure and too hot to permit steam turbines to be operated. The second reason is to assure that radioactivity is contained within the primary containment.

The primary coolant water is not "radioactive water" because water itself cannot become radioactive. The small amounts of contaminants in the water become radioactive, so the coolant contains very small amounts of radioactivity.

In normal operation the primary coolant goes through the steam generator to create steam for power generation and then goes through another heat exchanger to be cooled by seawater, because the steam generator has barely lowered its temperature. When the plant is not generating electricity the steam generator is bypassed and the reactor is cooled by seawater.

Fukushima occurred because the reactor could not be cooled, but there was never the slightest danger of that at SONGS. The minor leak in the steam generator simply meant that electricity could not be done, but that function plays a very small role in cooling the reactor. Only one reactor was unable to generate electricity, and even if both had needed to be shut down, SONGS was still connected to the grid and receiving power to run its cooling system. Cooling the reactors was never in the slightest doubt.

[DCKit]

2. Then why are they shutting it down? Other, even more dangerous issues? nt

[JayhawkSD]

4. No. In a word: cost

The management of San Onofre was greedy and stupid when it came time to replace steam generators which had functioned well for almost thirty years. They decided to redesign to squeeze a little bit more heat exchange, to obtain a marginal increase in power generation from the plant. To do that they removed interior bracing in order to increase the number of tubes. Bad move, as it turned out, because the removed bracing was necessary to prevent the tubes from rubbing against each other.

The steam generators now have to be replaced again, and the cost of doing so is more than is economically feasible.

[DCKit]

6. Cost? But we have folks here who tell us it's almost free energy.

Cognitive dissonance.

[JayhawkSD]

9. I haven't read that, and I live in San Diego

The one argument I've read that comes close to "it's free energy" is the "sunk cost" argument. It says that we have already made the capital investment and by continuing to operate the plant we would recover those sunk costs. It's not an unreasonable argument, but offset by the bad management decision to try to obtain more power when replacing the steam generator. "Sunk cost" arguments are all too often used to persuade management to throw good money after away on investment that has already lost its usefulness. The capital investment of San Onofre ahs already been recovered, and making major additional investment now is unwise. Sort of like putting a new transmission in a 25-year-old car.

The Sunrise Power Link has reduced the critical need for San Onofre, although I will wait to see how well that will serve us without local voltage support. SDG&E assures us all will be well, but I've heard that from them before and had to read their assurances by candle light.

[DCKit]

10. Best argument "for" I've ever read or heard.

Too analogous to the arguments for all our illegal wars not to make a comparison.

"Sunk Costs": something we should all keep in mind when considering everything that's going on right now.

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. The plant is on a fault zone.

Reason enough to not have it running, in my book.
We have been damn lucky that a serious earthquake has not hit that area yet.

[JayhawkSD]

5. Not really.

The plant is built to withstand an earthquake significantly larger than is even remotely likely on any of the faults in that area.

The Diablo Canyon reactor is a different story. That reactor presents a real hazard.

[DCKit]

7. Yeah! Look at Fukushima. Builletproof.

Nookular is the safest energy ever.

[JayhawkSD]

8. Oh, please

I oppose nuclear energy because we do not have a method for safely disposing of the waste. The hazard is vastly overstated.

Fuzushima was a boiling water reactor, built to withstand ~8 earthquakes in an area known to produce 9+ earthquakes. San Onofre is a pressurized water reactor, a far more safe type, built to withstand an 8+ earthquake in an area which has never produced more than a 7. Fukushima's spent fuel storage was in the reactor building and elevated, San Onofre's fuel storage is separated and at ground level.

[DCKit]

11. Yeah, and I thought I was safe from any and all earthquakes here in DC.

But that didn't turn out to be the case.

Nearly half the people in my building lost their most precious possessions when we got hit about two years ago. Never having been in an earthquake before, I grabbed the S.O.'s flatscreen TV instead of a door frame. Folks on the floors above me/us lost everything.

SanO was built to withstand a 7.0. We know you're going to have a 9.0, in time. Who wants to deal with that level of destruction and a nuclear breach at the same time?

[JayhawkSD]

12. What else is going to happen in the future?

"We know you're going to have a 9.0, in time."

Really? And even if we did, what would be the effect on San Onofre?

Bear in mind, the reactors at Fukushima survived the 9.4 earthquake very nicely. It was the tsunami that caused the failure, and the differences regarding tsunami are multiple and overwhelming. The Japanese faule and earthquake was offshore, our faults are onshore. The seafloor near Japan creates tsunami waves, while the sea floor off California damps them down.

Not to mention that a great many geologists with advanced degrees say that a earthquake greater than 7.0 on the San Diego fault lines is exceedingly unlikely. The San Andreas is the plate boundary, and it is more than eighty miles away. Where did you get your degree in plate tectonics?