California is dealing with a crisis with respect to the supply of electrical power available to its citizens in the southern part of the state. This crisis involves the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. I have discussed the San Onofre power plant in previous posts. The power plant is located on the Pacific Coast near San Diego. It is operated by Southern California Edison (SCE). SCE’s parent company, Edison International owns seventy eight percent of the plant. San Diego Gas & Electric Company owns another twenty percent and the city of Riverside Utilities Department owns about two percent. Unit One went operational in 1968 and was shut down in 1993 after twenty five years of operation. Unit Two was completed in 1983 with a license to operation until 2022 and Unit Three was completed in 1984 with a license to operate until 2022. At full operation, the plant can generate two thousand, two hundred and fifty megawatts of electricity.
There have been many problems at San Onofre including failure of emergency generators, bad electrical system wiring, falsified fire safety data and other issues that have earned the plant many citations from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It has also been reported that employees are afraid to report concerns for fear retaliation by the company.
In January 2012, the Unit Two reactor was shut down for refueling and replacement of a critical component. Unexpected wear was found in the tubes for steam generators installed in 2010 and 2011 for both reactors and the Unit Three reactor was also shut down. The cause of the wear in the tubing has been attributed to changes in the alloy of the tubes and design changes that were not reported to the NRC. Neither reactor has been restarted and the NRC has said that no permit will be issued until a number of problems had been corrected.
In May of 2012, the Huntington Beach Power Station restarted two natural gas generators to help make up the loss in electrical capacity caused by the San Onofre shut down. The Encina Power Station is also supplying additional electricity to the area. The substitute power and strong conservation measures have prevented serious shortfalls in electrical capacity in the San Diego area to date. However, the burning of natural gas has resulted in increased pollution in the area. The cost of electrical power has also been rising due to the reactors being offline.
The estimated costs of repairing Unit Three with all the requests of the NRC would cost billions of dollars and take at least five years. The owners of San Onofre have been considering shutting down Unit Three permanently. Recently, the owners threatened to shut down the plant permanently if they are not issued a permit to restart Unit Two in the near future.
The San Onofre power plant has been the site of many public protests. The citizens in the area are concerned that the history of problems and the new issue of the wear in the generator tubing show that the plant is unsafe to operate and anti-nuclear activists want it shut down permanently. They say that the owners care more about profits than public safety. On the other side of the debate, supporters of the plant argue that permanently shutting down both reactors would have serious economic repercussions in the region. The cost of having both reactors offline is nearly one half billion dollars to date.
The debate over the future of San Onofre and power generation in Southern California is a preview of the national debate that is heating up. The U.S. nuclear fleet is aging. Many of the operating reactors have passed their original intended lifespan and are wearing out. Using other sources of energy such as natural gas will have environmental and economic impacts. No alternative energy sources are ready to take up the slack tomorrow. There has been talk of a “nuclear renaissance” in the United States with President Obama supporting the construction of new reactors for power generation. I think that this is a bad idea. The money would be better spent on a major national push into conservation and alternative energy sources.
San Onofre Nuclear Generation Station from KPBS:
