Overnight, we've seen a lot of breathless coverage about the steam generator leak that happened at San Onfre Generating Station on Tuesday , one that led to a story on the AP's national wire and another during the first segment of ABC's World News Tonight with Diane Sawyer on Wednesday evening. What happened at San Onofre is a pretty typical operational event. If you don't believe us, feel free to ask David Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists. Here's what he told one Southern California newspaper about the incident at San Onofre: The "pinhole"-sized leak in a steam generator tube that caused a partial shutdown at the San Onofre nuclear plant Tuesday is something that is actually to be expected when a plant has new generators like San Onofre does, according to one expert. San Onofre recently replaced its old generators. Whenever generators are new or very old, leaks can occur, and engineers know to be alert for the problem, said David Lochbaum,...
Former blog for NEI featuring news and commentary on the commercial nuclear energy industry. Head to NEI.org for the latest blog posts.