{"id":3481,"date":"2013-05-18T07:10:18","date_gmt":"2013-05-18T11:10:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=3481"},"modified":"2013-05-19T18:22:06","modified_gmt":"2013-05-19T22:22:06","slug":"san-onofre-off-forever-soon-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/san-onofre-off-forever-soon-2.html","title":{"rendered":"San Onofre Off Forever Soon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\nPeople standing up for safety and sanity may yet stop big business nukes.<br \/>\nAfter San Onofre is finally off for good, how about let&#8217;s cancel Plant Vogtle?<br \/>\n -jsq\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nukefree.org\/editorsblog\/san-onofre-no-nukes-brink\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right;border:none;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nukefree.org\/sites\/nukefree.org\/themes\/nukefree2009\/style\/i\/HarveyWasserman.jpg\"><\/a><br \/>\nHarvey Wasserman wrote for nukefree.org 16 May 2013,<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nukefree.org\/editorsblog\/san-onofre-no-nukes-brink\"><br \/>\nSan Onofre at the No Nukes Brink<\/a>,\n<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\nIn January, it seemed the restart of San Onofre Unit 2 would be a<br \/>\ncorporate cake walk.\n<\/p>\n<table style=\"float:right;width:30%;padding:15px;border:none\">\n<tr>\n<td style=\"padding:15px;font-size:120%\">Edison billed southern California ratepayers roughly $1 billion for<br \/>\nSan Onofre in 2012 even though it generated no juice.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<p>With its massive money and clout, Southern California Edison was<br \/>\nready to ram through a license exception for a reactor whose botched<br \/>\n$770 million steam generator fix had kept it shut for a year.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nBut a funny thing has happened on the way to the restart: a No Nukes<br \/>\ngroundswell has turned this routine rubber stamping into an epic<br \/>\nbattle the grassroots just might win.\n<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, if ever there was a time when individual activism could have<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\na magnified impact, this is it (see<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sanonofresafety.org\"><br \/>\nwww.sanonofresafety.org<\/a><br \/>\nand<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.a4nr.org\/\"><br \/>\nwww.a4nr.org<\/a>).\n<\/p>\n<p>\nThis comes as the nuclear industry is in nearly full retreat. Two US<br \/>\nreactors are already down this year. Yet another proposed project<br \/>\nhas just been cancelled in North Carolina. And powerful grassroots<br \/>\ncampaigns have pushed numerous operating reactors to the brink of<br \/>\nextinction throughout the US, Europe and Japan, where all but two<br \/>\nreactors remain shut since Fukushima.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nIn California, it&#8217;s San Onofre that&#8217;s perched at the brink.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nBy all accounts Southern California Edison should have the clout to<br \/>\nrestart it with ease. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been a<br \/>\nnotorious rubber stamp for decades. The California Public Utilities<br \/>\nCommission, which decides how much the utilities can gouge from the<br \/>\nratepayers, has long been in Edison&#8217;s pocket. State water quality<br \/>\nregulations could force Edison to build cooling towers, a very<br \/>\nexpensive proposition that would likely lead to a quick retirement.<br \/>\nBut Gov. Jerry Brown has been deafeningly silent on the issue.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nBut San Onofre sits in an earthquake\/tsunami zone halfway between<br \/>\nLos Angeles and San Diego. At least 8 million people live within a<br \/>\n50 mile radius, many millions more within 100. The reactors are a<br \/>\nstone&#8217;s throw from both a major interstate and the high tide line,<br \/>\nwith a 14-foot flood wall a bare fraction of the height of the<br \/>\ntsunami that overwhelmed at Fukushima.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nSan Onofre Unit One was shut in 1992 by steam generator issues.<br \/>\nEdison recently spent some three-quarters of a billion dollars<br \/>\nupgrading the steam generators for Units 2 and 3. But the pipes have<br \/>\nleaked and failed. Units 2 and 3 have been shut since January 2012.<br \/>\nEdison has now asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for<br \/>\npermission to run Unit 2 at 70% power for five months to see how the<br \/>\nreactor might do. An NRC panel has termed the idea &#8220;experimental.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>\nEdison is desperate to get the reactor running before summer. But in<br \/>\nthe wake of Fukushima, and in the midst of a major boom in solar<br \/>\nenergy, southern California is rising up to stop that from<br \/>\nhappening.\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>X A dozen cities, towns and public organizations&mdash;-including a<br \/>\nunanimous Los Angeles city council and the public school district of<br \/>\nSan Diego&mdash;-have asked that public hearings and\/or further<br \/>\nin-depth, transparent investigations be held before the reactors<br \/>\nreopen.<\/p>\n<li>X US Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Representative Ed Markey<br \/>\n(D-MA) have asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to thoroughly<br \/>\ninvestigate all relevant issues&mdash;&mdash;and to make them<br \/>\npublic&mdash;-before restart can occur. The Boxer\/Markey inquiry has<br \/>\nincluded some heated dialogue with regulatory staff. It&#8217;s raised<br \/>\ncritical questions about whether Edison knew it was installing<br \/>\nfaulty equipment in the first place, a potentially explosive<br \/>\nrevelation given the dangers and costs involved.<\/p>\n<li>X Newly revealed correspondence between Edison and Mitsubishi over<br \/>\nadditional steam generator issues reveal persistent unresolved<br \/>\ndisagreements about the technology involved and what needs to be<br \/>\ndone about it, casting further doubt on what might constitute safe<br \/>\noperating procedures.<\/p>\n<li>X In response to a suit by Friends of the Earth, the NRC&#8217;s Atomic<br \/>\nSafety and Licensing Board has ruled that Edison&#8217;s restart<br \/>\napplication in fact constitutes a license amendment, which should<br \/>\nrequire a full public hearing. The NRC Commissioners could overrule<br \/>\nits licensing board. But this was a unanimous decision and the<br \/>\npublic and Congressional outcry would be substantial. It&#8217;s a huge<br \/>\nsetback for Edison, damaging what&#8217;s left of its credibility and<br \/>\nlikely pushing restart far into the future. There&#8217;s also much Edison<br \/>\nis likely to want hidden from the public record.<\/p>\n<li>X NRC Chair Allison Macfarlane now says San Onofre cannot be<br \/>\nlicensed to restart at least until late June, which probably pushes<br \/>\nany actual restart date until after the summer.<\/p>\n<li>X So this could become the region&#8217;s second straight peak season with<br \/>\nno power from San Onofre. Despite utility rhetoric, its absence last<br \/>\nsummer caused no blackouts or significant shortages, and none are<br \/>\nexpected this summer either. Edison&#8217;s argument that the reactors are<br \/>\nneeded to keep the region cool and lit will thus disappear.<\/p>\n<li>X Edison CEO Theodore Craver now says San Onofre could be<br \/>\npermanently shut before the end of the year. &#8220;Edison is hemorrhaging<br \/>\ncash at San Onofre,&#8221; says FOE&#8217;s Damon Moglen. Craver is &#8220;a financial<br \/>\nguy&#8221; who is now just &#8220;looking for the right numbers to get to<br \/>\nshut-down.&#8221;\n<\/ul>\n<p>\nIt&#8217;s common in the nuke blackmail business for a utility to threaten<br \/>\nto shut a reactor where jobs and power are desperately needed. But<br \/>\nEdison now has a more desperate theme. The spread of solar<br \/>\nthroughout southern California will bring far more jobs than San<br \/>\nOnofre can begin to promise. A new feed-in tariff in Los Angeles has<br \/>\nhelped spread solar panels throughout the region (<br \/>\nhttp:\/\/prn.fm\/2013\/04\/08\/green-power-and-wellness-040813\/#axzz2TW6S1BP3<br \/>\n).\n<\/p>\n<p>\nEdison billed southern California ratepayers roughly $1 billion for<br \/>\nSan Onofre in 2012 even though it generated no juice. The CPUC would<br \/>\nprobably let them do it again, but public awareness and anger levels<br \/>\nhave soared. Major media throughout the region have been pummeling<br \/>\nEdison, largely over economic issues.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nShould San Onofre stay dead, its power void will fast be filled by<br \/>\ncheaper, cleaner, safer green technologies destined to make southern<br \/>\nCalifornia a major focal point in the global march to Solartopia.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nThis shutdown would take the number of licensed US reactors down to<br \/>\n100. With others on the brink at Indian Point, Vermont Yankee,<br \/>\nOyster Creek and elsewhere, the race to shut the world&#8217;s nukes<br \/>\nbefore the next Fukushima is turning the so-called nuclear<br \/>\nrenaissance into an all-out reactor retreat.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>People standing up for safety and sanity may yet stop big business nukes. After San Onofre is finally off for good, how about let&#8217;s cancel Plant Vogtle? -jsq Harvey Wasserman wrote for nukefree.org 16 May 2013, San Onofre at the No Nukes Brink, In January, it seemed the restart of San Onofre Unit 2 would [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[97,104,73,334,3],"tags":[8736,8701,850,8702,12,7,8737,8731,8766,6],"class_list":["post-3481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-nuclear","category-safety","category-san-onofre","category-transparency","tag-activism","tag-georgia","tag-harvey-wasserman","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-nuclear","tag-safety","tag-san-onofre","tag-valdosta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3481"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3508,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3481\/revisions\/3508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}