Trouble Brewing At The San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant In CA

[DeSwiss]

Published on Jun 20, 2012 by MsMilkytheclown

originally Published on Jun 20, 2012 by TheBigPictureRT

Paul Gunter, Beyond Nuclear joins Thom Hartmann. All is not well at the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant in California - where federal investigators have found major designs flaws in the plant. Just what kind of risk do these designs flaws pose - and could we be looking at a future nuclear disaster on the West Coast? And are our fish getting more and more radioactive? Should you bring a Geiger counter to the restaurant or supermarket yet?

See also:

Regulators delay decision on nuclear plant probe - (updated 5 minutes ago)

California finds backup power for offline San Onofre nuclear plant in Huntington Beach - (updated 4 hours ago)

[madokie]

1. It keeps getting better and better

or maybe that should read worse and worse
A link to a post I made yesterday. http://www.democraticunderground.com/112717992

[DeSwiss]

3. Yes, those so-called ''botched tests'' in the article you posted.....

...refer to tests related to the design of these 10-month old steam pipes, which resulted in a pipe design that is 1/4 the actual pressure capacity it was supposed to be designed to operate under. They spent $600 million for these new pipes. What a bunch of wankers!

The result: pipes are now so badly corroded that they could fail and possibly cause a guillotine failure of the adjacent pipes (all of which cool the reactor), which could then result in a catastrophic release of radiation -- without any type of containment or control.

These new steam pipes were just installed and have been operating for only 10 months although they were supposedly designed for 30 years of use. And the plant operator Edison, had wanted the NRC (No Regulatory Controls) to approve them to operate the plant at half power as a ''work-around'' for the design problems. Totally ignoring the fact that the system was never designed for this, that it presents the same problems as before, and the existing corrosion already evident will only get worse since some pipes were found to have high levels of degradation and corrosion.

And to make matters even worse than they already are, today they find that the backup power supply is off-line. So if they were up and running now and lost coolant capability, they wouldn't even have backup power to continue cooling the rods.

- It's time to end this.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

2. As long as the earthquakes in the area are limited to 7.0, there should be no problem.

[DeSwiss]

4. Yeah, but then there's still the pipe design flaws....

...so even a 5.0 or a 6.0 could do the trick.

And then there's always the drunk or drugged plant workers and/or just garden variety operator incompetence.

And of course, the greed and the desire to keep costs down and profits up.

And then there's the arrogance. The basic lack of concern or giving a good goddamn for anyone in the future since the good folks who designed and run these plants will all be dead -- while their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren mutate and grow extra feet and fewer fingers from the radioactive waste they've left them to deal with.

And if even all that fails, we can always count on the NRC to screw things up and then lie about it. Like they always do.

It's over.

Shut the damn things down.

- It's time for a new paradigm. The world does not belong to these people to do with as they please........

[AnotherMcIntosh]

5. Actually, given enough time, I suspect that a 7.0 quake would not be too unusual for the area.

This story from 2011 may also be of interest:

Radioactive tritium has leaked from three-quarters of U.S. commercial nuclear power sites, often into groundwater from corroded, buried piping, an Associated Press investigation shows.

The number and severity of the leaks has been escalating, even as federal regulators extend the licenses of more and more reactors across the nation.

Tritium, which is a radioactive form of hydrogen, has leaked from at least 48 of 65 sites, according to U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission records reviewed as part of the AP's yearlong examination of safety issues at aging nuclear power plants. Leaks from at least 37 of those facilities contained concentrations exceeding the federal drinking water standard — sometimes at hundreds of times the limit.
http://www.wbez.org/story/tritium-leaks-found-illinois-nuclear-sites-88386

[drynberg]

6. The San Onofre Nuke is TOAST, COME ON!

The NRC needs lots 'o HEAT before those revolving door dinks SEE THE LIGHT. Come on People, make some HEAT, I mean millions of actions, saturating the media and the streets. We just can't afford our own Fukushima, can we?