Caution Wins, Edison Whines - CA's Radwaste Risks
Channel: eon3
Date: 2015-06-06

Can the utility executives - whose incompetence caused the shutdown of the San Onofre nuclear power plant - be trusted to deal responsibly with tons of the plant's remaining radioactive waste being stored indefinately in a tsunami and earthquake zone?

Donna Gilmore, founder of SanOnofreSafety.org, is a retired IT executive turned investigative researcher on nuclear waste storage options.  In this May 14, 2015 presentation to the California Coastal Commission, she laid out her findings about the risky inadequacy of current radwaste management plans by the state's utilities and the agencies charged with regulating them.
 
The San Onofre nuclear power plant, on California's coast between San Diego and LA, was recently permanently shut down as a result of Southern California Edison's dangerous mismanagement and organized public outrage.  Gilmore was active in the successful grassroots movement that pressed for eventual shutdown. 
 
Then it was realized that there are still tons of highly radioactive so-called 'spent' fuel assemblies, accumulated from the plant's years of operation, that must be stored on-site for the foreseeable future - in a corrosive marine environment, in a tsunami and earthquake zone - because the US has developed no long-term radwaste storage facility, despite over 60 years of trying. Before the fuel assemblies can be placed in so-called 'dry casks' for long-term on-site storage, they must be kept for years in cooling pools.
 
Now Edison wants to cool San Onofre spent nuclear fuel pool water using air chillers (e.g., technology used to cool fish aquariums).
 
Using chillers to cool hot spent nuclear fuel pool water is unproven. If the chiller system fails, the spent nuclear fuel can boil off the water in a relatively short period of time.
 
Even a partial exposure of the nuclear fuel can cause an uncontrollable major radiation release into the environment. Access to large coastal areas and the nearby I-5 freeway could potentially be closed to the public indefinitely due to radiological contamination - just like the region around Fukushima.
 
Gilmore was able to show the Coastal Commission the holes in Edison's misleading and incomplete justification for using experimental, unproven technology.
 
With this information and comments from other concerned citizens, the Coastal Commission staff reversed their recommendation to grant Edison a Coastal permit waiver. Edison is now required to apply for a new Coastal Commission permit, which will require a more extensive review.

Edison also wants to use an experimental underground dry storage system.  Edison’s request is currently being reviewed by Coastal Commission staff.  Gilmore makes her case why this system should not be approved.  

Edison knows there are unresolved problems with this system and with the above-ground version they currently use, but instead of using better technology (widely used internationally), they continue to pursue inferior technology that may only have a 20 to 30 year lifespan due to stress corrosion cracking. 

The thin steel storage canisters cannot even be inspected or repaired, so we won’t know there is a problem until after radiation is released into the environment.
 
California's last remaining nuclear plant, Diablo Canyon, just north of Santa Barbara, is located on a shoreline laced with 13 earthquake faults in a tsunami zone, and faces similar radwaste storage risks to those at San Onofre.
 
Choosing the best available technology for storing nuclear waste would make California a leader in US nuclear waste management policy.
 
More important, it would help protect the state's population, environment and economy from the potentially catastrophic risks posed by storing tons of accumulated radwaste for an indefinite future in a corrosive seaside environment subject to earthquakes and tsunamis - just like Fukushima.

For more info: SanOnofreSafety.org