The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station shut down its Unit 3 Tuesday afternoon because sensors detected a leak in the unit's steam generator tubes.
"The potential leak poses no imminent danger to the public or plant workers," according to a Southern California Edison statement. "There has been no release to the atmosphere."
San Onofre spokesman Gil Alexander said sensors tripped this afternoon, showing mildly radioactive water was leaking from one of two water systems in the steam generator apparatus of Unit 3.
The water that touches the radioactive fuel rods--the water that is now leaking--is sealed in a series of tubes that, in turn, transfer heat to boil water in the second course. That non-radioactive water becomes the steam that turns the massive turbine blades.
A third course of seawater condenses the steam in another part of the plant.
Alexander said it is the system with the contaminated water that shows evidence of leaking. All leakage is contained within the thick concrete containment dome, he said.
The plant is set to shut itself down at the first sign of problems, that plunged Southern California into darkness in September.
But this leak was minor enough that it did not trigger the automatic shutdown of the unit; plant workers initiated it manually as a precaution at 5:31 p.m. Tuesday, Alexander said.
Alexander said Tuesday night that the dome is closed off and technicians are cooling down the reactor, a process that takes about 12 hours. After the cool-down, a crew will enter the dome, assess the leak and take steps to begin repairing it.
Visit Patch tomorrow for updates on this process.
Unit 2 is currently offline for a planned maintenance, refueling and technology upgrade outage.
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SCE has ample reserve power to meet customer needs while Unit 3 is offline, according to a company spokesman, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was immediately informed of the shutdown.
New 640-ton steam generators were installed in 2010 in the north dome and the ones in the south dome were replaced in 2009 as part of a .
—City News Service contributed to this report
Go to http://sanonofresafety.org for more information about San Onofre issues
http://www.simplyinfo.org/?p=4754 Southern California - We have excess energy WITHOUT nuclear power http://sanonofresafety.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/ca_excess_energy_without_nuclear-wemfactsheet.pdf Sign the California Nuclear Initiative http://sanonofresafety.org/california-nuclear-initiative/
Keep in mind, if San Onofre were a solar farm, or a wind farm on land leased from Camp Penddleton, there would be no need for siren drills, evacuation plans, nor areas for sheltering areas. Safe, Clean Energy? Hardly!
Sign the California Nuclear Initiative to close San Onofre and Diablo before it's too late. http://californianuclearinitiative.com/
go here for full statement...http://www.sanclementegreen.org/?q=node/206
Asbestos ..pcbs quick silver AND lead paint all used to be safe Now we are told nuclear power is safe even after repeated failures Having real world experience with machinery of all kinds I’ll state this is one genie that will not stay bottled up things break Also with major break downs approximately every 10 years after 10,000 years we'll be looking at 1,000 failures ,,witch one will leave you homeless or sick or worse The time to stop the decadent madness is now,, time to plan and set a date Please remember 10,000 years is the only way to render nuclear products safe .. The governments that permit nuclear power stations and the corporation that profit from them will most likely be gone in much less time. Also 10,000 year is 5xs longer than recorded history and most of that is very vague No one will lose their job ,,,the purpose or classification will just change
1. No Leak 2. Possible leak 3. no radiation 4. yes a small leak, no radiation. 5. A tiny leak and small amount of radiation in the containment dome. 6. a leak and some radiation in an out building.... NEXT... Just a tiny meltdown...
In the 1950s, nuclear was very new and not even understood correctly or completely by the experts. This is why the federal government took complete control of the entire industry. To control & produce materials needed to make weapons, to that end they sold the American public on nuclear energy as a future source of power. “Too cheap to meter “was the slogan. This has proven to be totally untrue. Now over 60 years later after much has been learned not only by the federal government but by the states who had to endure the constant radiation problems that persists at nuclear power plants that endanger the public welfare, producing on average 250 pounds per day per reactor. In America we have 5,000,000 pounds of highly toxic nuclear waste setting at our power plants. Which are licensed as “Power Plants not highly Toxic Nuclear Waste Dumps”. For more info go to: http://residentsorganizedforasafeenvironment.wordpress.com/