NEI Nuclear Notes

Earlier today, NEI's Steve Kerekes spoke to the Washington Post concerning the announcement today by Southern California Edison that they intended to close the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station : “This is a situation that is unique to Southern California Edison and the replacement of steam generators at the San Onofre reactors,” said Steve Kerekes, a spokesman for the NEI, who added that the closures were “a blow to California’s energy diversity.”  He said that “this situation underscores the need for an efficient and effective regulatory process that results in timely decisions on the operation of these critical energy resources.” He said that independent firms had endorsed plans to restart San Onofre’s Unit 2 and that “it’s simply intolerable to delay decisions that impact millions of customers and the company’s obligation to provide electricity to those customers.” For additional links and coverage, please follow our Twitter feed .

What would happen to electricity prices in the event of a significant nuclear power plant shutdown? If recent events in Southern California are any measure, electricity prices would go up. In January of 2012, both reactors at San Onofre in Southern California were taken out of service. The result? Electricity prices in the north and south of the state are no longer comparable. Prices were up 12% in 2012 in “the Southland” compared to Northern California where PG&E ’s Diablo Canyon keeps humming along, according to new data from the US Energy Information Administration. Electric Light & Power magazine says that the difference is one of simple substitution. Switching off nuclear power has led to more expensive alternatives. But don’t look to natural gas prices as the culprit. Relative differences in natural gas prices do not seem to be driving the gap between Northern and Southern California power prices… Electricity imports (from other states) aren’t t...

Tony Pietrangelo Earlier today, the Los Angeles Times ran a letter to the editor from NEI Chief Nuclear Officer Tony Pietrangelo disputing an earlier editorial by the newspaper concerning the potential restart of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station : There is a comprehensive, deliberative process at work to resolve the steam generator challenge at San Onofre, one involving the independent federal regulatory and oversight body, the NRC. It's one that even lawmakers and activists with agendas should respect. For more than 30 years, San Onofre has safely provided clean electricity, employed thousands of workers and become a bedrock community asset in generating millions of dollars in tax revenue. Edison ought to be accorded due process in a regulatory framework, whose stringency and commitment to safety is second to none. For more information on San Onofre, please visit SONGSCommunity.com .

Pete Dietrich, SCE For most of 2012, the nuclear industry has been keeping a close watch on the situation at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, where continuing issues with the plant's steam generators have kept both units offline. As NEI member company and plant manager Southern California Edison (SCE) has been investigating the source of the problem, it has faced a unique challenge with its own employees: how to communicate about the situation when the path forward is uncertain. In the following guest post, SCE's Senior Vice President and Chief Nuclear Officer Pete Dietrich describes how he and his team embraced this unique set of circumstances. Today's post is the first in an ongoing series concerning the status of the plant. Part 1 – Aligning the understanding and expectations of a large plant workforce when the path forward is uncertain At 3:05 p.m. this past Jan.31, control room operators at our San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station detected a small ste...

A few weeks back, we asked our readers to participate in an LA Times poll on the continued operation of the San Onofre nuclear power plant . Earlier today, the San Diego Union-Tribune posted their own poll on the ultimate fate of the facility: If you support the continued operation of the plant, please take a moment to vote.

For a number of weeks, we've been paying close attention to our colleagues at Southern California Edison (SCE) as they work to resolve a problem with the steam generators at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station or SONGS. Unit #2 and #3 at SONGS have been out of service for several weeks ever since leaks were detected in the steam generators of both units. In a press briefing earlier this week, SCE's CNO delivered some good news, and said that there's a 50% chance that one or both of the plant's reactors will be back in operation by the Summer . The thing to remember here is that SCE and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission won't allow the plant's two reactors to restart until both parties are convinced that it is safe to do so. For real time updates from SCE, please visit SONGSCommunity.com . A number of outside observers, most notably Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Associates , have been commenting on the situation as well, with Gundersen publishing...

Nuclear consultants Fairewinds Associates and anti-nuclear activists Friends of the Earth are at it again with a new “report” that seeks to create concern, with little to no substance, over steam generator tube leaks at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) . The report, “ Steam Generator Failures at San Onofre ,” claims that without a thorough root cause analysis of why the plant’s recently installed steam generator tubes have become worn, that: “…radioactive releases might be significantly larger than those that occurred after the January 2012 tube leak. Such an accident would cause implementation of the California emergency evacuation plan and closing of the San Clemente beach and Interstate I-5, potentially for an extended period of time.” Fairewinds’ opinion misleads the general public to believe that the plant already released a large amount of radiation, which in fact, it has not. In a February 17 press release , Southern California Edison (SCE) clarified: ...

Earlier this week, Jamie Reno , a reporter for Tina Brown's Daily Beast wrote a story about San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, and the situation there concerning excessive wear in the steam generators . For an update on that situation, click here . In any case, Reno's story attempted to tie the operating difficulties at San Onofre to Fukushima, and efforts by anti-nuclear activists in California to shut it and the state's other nuclear power plant at Diablo Canyon . The anti-nuclear power movement in the United States peaked in 1979, with widespread protests, the “No Nukes” concert in New York City, and the release of The China Syndrome, the gripping film about a near-meltdown at a fictional California facility that foreshadowed a real-life accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania just weeks after the movie’s premiere. Since then, no new nuclear plants have been built in the U.S. That's incorrect. 50 more reactors were built after Three Mile I...

Over the past few days we've seen a raft of coverage about the incident at San Onofre last week, but little of it has put the events there in the proper context. The one exception to the rule is this report by Vikki Vargas of the NBC affiliate in Los Angeles : View more videos at: http://nbclosangeles.com . More later.

Earlier this week, we reported on our blog about a steam generator tube leak in unit 3 at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in California (see here and here ). The key facts are that: 1) the public and plant workers were never in danger; 2) the plant responded exactly how it was supposed to—sensitive monitoring instruments alerted workers to the problem & they were able to quickly shut down the plant and isolate the component within four hours of detection. Southern California Edison , the plant’s owner, also immediately notified the Nuclear Regulatory Commission , the nation’s nuclear energy regulator, of the issue; and 3) pinhole-sized leaks in steam generator tubes are not an uncommon occurrence while a new steam generator is still being broken in. (SONGS just last year finished installing new steam generators at the site.) As soon as the event occurred, some groups immediately called for the plant to close. For instance, in the San Clemente Times...