Nuclear Plant Still Shut Down, Costs Mount
A plant spokesman said Monday that the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station is continuing in shutdown mode.
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The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station remains in shutdown mode and is producing no electricity. As crews are assessing and planning repairs to leaks at Unit 3 at the plant, the unplanned shutdown is costing Southern California Edison from $600,000 to $1 million per day.
The following is the text of an email to San Clemente Patch from Southern California Edison Spokesman Gil Alexander offering updates on the continuing repairs and inspections at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.
Both San Onofre generating units are in safe shut-down mode. Unit 2 was shut down Jan. 9 for a planned two-month maintenance, technology upgrade and refueling outage. Unit 3 was shut down Jan. 31 when a small water leak was detected.
The steam generator tube inspection process continues at Unit 3 to determine the source of the water leak.
The tube inspection process also continues at Unit 2 to verify preliminary findings made public last week by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
It was a week ago when operators detected a steam leak of radioactive water from the heat exchanger tubes inside the steam generator, which makes steam to turn turbines that make the electricity. The heat exchanger tubes number in the thousands and are filled with super-heated, high-pressure, radioactive water.
A Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman said last week that several hundred tubes in Unit 2 showed wearing on the inside; two were shot, and almost 900 others had significant thinning.
The components are only one to two years old. Representatives from Mitsubishi, the manufacturer of the generators, are on site, and a spokesman from Mitsubishi issued a statement Monday saying they were available to assist plant workers.
ms.sc.
11:24 am on Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Why is it that the significant wear and the volume of tubes involved in Unit 2 had to come to this point!? I thought there was an article about "No Homer Simpsons" working at SONGS! Apparently there are many "Homers". Scary. Keep the death trap shut down and let some heads start rolling! There is no way this incompetence should have ever been allowed to happen. Someone's getting rich for keeping their mouth shut on this secret. Funny thing about secrets though....
Luis
2:55 pm on Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Let's just keep it shut permanently.
BL Roberson
7:01 pm on Tuesday, February 7, 2012
LOL...the tubes go bad...its a machine folks...no danger...Its a closed system...it gets fixed and off ya go...making good clean steam power!!!! Easy
Jim Reardon
9:50 pm on Tuesday, February 7, 2012
A few months ago, there was an ammonia leak at SONGS. Ammonia is used in cooling water to reduce corrosion arising in the high temperature and pressure associated with the steam generation process. After the ammonia leak, no more information was released by SCE.
Now we hear that the pipes carrying steam at high temperature and pressure have corroded -- prematurely. Equipment that was supposed to last for decades has "worn through" in two years. Is there some connection between these events?
Is the problem systemic? SCE only found the pipe erosion by checking the OTHER REACTOR, i.e., the one that was already shutdown and not involved in the release of radiation? Could it be that they are not properly monitoring the pH of the cooling water in both units?
It's time for SCE to start answering questions. Right now, silence is trouble. A safety problem is clearly involved here, and yet SCE is behaving like their only interest is in ensuring that somebody else will pay for the damage. In such situations, everyone will look toward the electricity rate payers as a bailout. Secrecy, such as we are now witnessing, is designed to create a "cost of doing business" attitude that leads to higher electricity rates AND less safety.
PK
9:58 am on Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Riverside County Owns This Plant, so It's not even in "Their Neighborhood." I am starting to fear this place. Seriously, I think they have more problems there, than they admit to.
Jack
2:44 pm on Wednesday, February 8, 2012
All of the people commenting on this post with the disposition of a frightened child have neglected to ask two very important questions:
1. How many people have been hurt by the events at SONGS?
Answer: ZERO sick, injured, or killed (EPA numbers, not mine).
2. How many people have been hurt by emissions from fossil fuel power plants in the last year?
Answer: At least 250,000 DEAD globally from respiratory illness, mining accidents, explosions, and fires (EPA numbers, not mine).
While you carry on about an issue that affects the ability of the plant to sell electricity (not it's safety) hundreds of thousands of people are being killed by the alternative. Dare I say your ignorance is part of the problem?