San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant Shutting Down Permanently

By Douglas V. Gibbs

Along the Pacific Coast, where Orange County and San Diego County meets, near the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base, a pair of doomed domed generators sit silently at the edge of a sandy beach.  The San Onofre nuclear power plant has served Southern California, generating much needed electricity to the region, for 40 years.  The local power company, Southern California Edison, has announced that despite promises in recent months that they would restart the plant, San Onofre is being retired for good.

Seventeen months ago the plant faced troubles with the steam generators, leaking a small about of radioactive steam.  The plant, after a generation of use, was failing pressure tests, and the price to repair the plant was rapidly escalating into the billions of dollars.

Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric have spent more than $780 million replacing the steam generators over that last several years, and it will take billions of dollars more to complete the repairs needed in order to get the plant up to snuff.  The problem is, with the federal government pushing, and investing in, green technology, while not being shy about the administration's distaste for nuclear energy in an attempt to appease its environmentalist base, it just makes no sense to ask investors for billions of dollars to repair the facility, only for the federal government to disapprove allowing the plant to power up again.  After all, Democratic Senator, Barbara Boxer, asked the Justice Department to investigate the plant, and democrats were suggesting that the Department of Justice should pursue legal action against the plant.

Anti-nuclear activists are thrilled by the decision to shut down the nuclear power plant, agreeing with Senator Boxer that "Modifications to the San Onofre nuclear plan were unsafe and posed a danger to the eight million people living within 50 miles of the plant."

"Reactors have basically hit their middle-aged crisis. They are through their performance plateau. They are starting to experience ageing issues across the board and maintaining safety is expensive," said Jim Riccio, a nuclear safety analyst for Greenpeace. "You are having reactors with a lot of ageing problems and the NRC is catching up with problems that hadn't been fixed for a long time."

I suppose it is like an old car that may still run great, when it is running, but begins to nickel and dime you with constant maintenance needs, and therefore experiences more down time than hours on the road.

San Onofre joins two other plants shutting down this year, one at Crystal River in Florida in Feburary, and the Kewaunee reactor in Washington because the glut and dropping prices of natural gas made it impossible for the plant to compete.

The plant at Fort Calhoun in Nebraska has been off-line for repairs since April 2011, as well as have been a number of other plants, nationwide.

So if prolonging the life of these reactors is out of the question, why not build new plants to replace them?  Just a thought.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Edison will shut down the San Onofre nuclear plant for good - Los Angeles Times

Activists hail San Onofre nuclear power plant reactor shutdown - U.K. Guardian