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San
Onofre’s steam generators in worst shape of all US nuclear plants
Problems
with the steam generators and miles of tubing at the San Onofre nuclear plant
are the most severe found in comparable generators in the US and much more
severe than previously reported, according to a new report.
The
report by Fairewinds Associates (and commissioned by Friends of the Earth) also
provides an analysis of leaked documents(pdf) by plant owner Southern
California Edison that shows, despite assertions by the company and the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, thousands of tubes inside both San Onofre reactors are
severely damaged.
Friends
of the Earth, along with other nuclear experts and many concerned local
residents, say the reactors at San Onofre should remain shut down.
San
Onofre, on the Pacific Coast between Los Angeles and San Diego, has been shut
down since January, after a leak of radiation from one of the almost 20,000
thin, tightly-packed tubes that lead from the plant’s four steam generators to
its turbines. In an attempt to stop further leaks, Edison has plugged 1,317 of
the tubes that show wear. According to NRC data on 31 reactors with comparable
replacement steam generators, San Onofre has more than three and a half times
the number of steam tubes plugged as a safety measure than at all the other
reactors combined.
In
addition to the unprecedented scale of plugging at San Onofre, Fairewinds’
analysis of the leaked data from Edison shows that more than 4,000 tubes are
showing significant wear, while only 1,317 have been plugged. Fairewinds
concludes that plugging the tubes will not eliminate the cause of damage. In
fact, operating the reactors with the remaining unplugged but worn tubes could
create cascading tube failures, leading to domino-like catastrophic failure
that would release significant radiation to a large area of Southern
California.
“Edison
and the NRC have admitted that the problems with San Onofre’s steam tubes are
an anomaly, but they haven’t been forthcoming about just how historically
off-the-charts the damage is in comparison to the rest of the nuclear
industry,” said Arnie Gundersen, a nuclear engineer at Fairewinds and co-author
of the report.
“This
reveals a far greater problem than has been previously disclosed, and raises
serious questions about whether it is safe to restart either unit,” said Daniel
Hirsch, a nuclear expert at UC-Santa Cruz, to Agence France-Presse.
Meanwhile,
local anti-nuclear activists are pressing government authorities to set up a
watchdog group to oversee the San Onofre plant.
The
groups, including Residents Organized for a Safe Environment (ROSE), have
launched a letter-writing campaign to the California attorney general,
demanding that their voices have a seat at the table when it comes to nuclear safety.
“We
are aware of what happened when a committee like this was formed at Diablo
Canyon,” said Gene Stone, an organizer with ROSE. “It has taken a very long
time for a very small amount of good to come out it. We will not tolerate a San
Onofre safety committee filled with people from Southern California Edison or
Pacific Gas and Electric and the nuclear industry. We demand true public
participation.”
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