There is one pressurizer per reactor...

In June 2024, water was detected leaking from a shipment containing the pressurizer from one of San Onofre’s reactors. No leaks were detected from the shipment containing the other pressurizer, but both reactor pressurizers have been returned to San Onofre. The Orange County Register published an article by Teri Sforza which briefly mentioned the leaking pressurizer shipment.

The relevant portion of the NRC inspection report dismisses the pressurizer leak problems as “non-cited violations.” The NRC inspection report ignores the fact that NRC inspectors "observed the preparation of two pressurizers for transport by rail as Class A waste.” and includes the following details about what went wrong:

“...the licensee offered a package for shipment which was not leakproof and not properly closed and sealed to prevent release of radioactive content. Specifically, the Unit 2 pressurizer leaked RCS liquid from the manway cover during transport. The RCS liquid contained low levels of radioactive Cobalt-60 and Cesium-137. (NCV 05000361/2024004-01, Failure to ensure shipment was leakproof)

The two pressurizers were shipped as surface contaminated object ("SCO-II") packages. The shippers believed there was no free-standing liquid inside the pressurizers. After the pressurizers were returned to SONGS, the licensee’s investigation determined that the Unit 2 pressurizer contained approximately 190 gallons of RCS liquid.”

(Quotes above are from the NRC pdf at the web site of the parent company of the Orange County Register. The pdf was linked from Sfoza’s article: https://wpdash.medianewsgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/SAN-ONOFRE-NUCLEAR-GENERATING-STATION-NRC-INSPECTION-REPORT-050-00361_2024-004-AND-050-00362_2024-004.pdf)

There is one pressurizer per reactor (the thing on the far left in the still image from my animation, which was based on SCE's own drawings). The main safety purpose of the pressurizer is to prevent over-pressurization of the system when something suddenly happens, such as a valve suddenly closing somewhere. It provides time to react to all sorts of situations before they get out of hand.

The pressurizers had high pressure, highly radioactive primary coolant in them since the plants began operating. They are very large and very heavy, and once used in a reactor, their insides are undoubtedly very radioactive.

(Of note: The function and characteristics of the pressurizer were misunderstood by the control room operators at Three Mile Island, which was one of the multitude of events that caused the partial meltdown there. And the reason its purpose was misunderstood was apparently because the operators came out of the nuclear navy -- and the precise way pressurizers function within the system in a submarine is apparently somewhat different from in a commercial reactor (where the goal is to squeeze every dollar out of every calorie of heat the reactor can produce, rather than to run absolutely reliably, come hell or high water). Of further note: At Davis-Besse, about a year and a half before the TMI event, they had nearly the exact same problem, but the operators at D-B, who ALSO did the wrong thing at first (shut off primary coolant flow to the reactor), quickly re-diagnosed the problem and did the right thing, instead of what the operators at TMI did (they shut off the flow to the reactor and didn't turn it back on, thinking the pressurizer was about to "go solid." That would, of course, be a VERY bad thing if it were to happen -- but it was not the problem and wasn't about to happen. Instead, their actions (and in-actions) caused the reactor core to become uncovered.))

When Southern California Edison brought in the new steam generators, the vehicle that transported the old Steam Generators away from the plant had something like 188 wheels (I happened to find a picture of it recently (see below)). I'm not surprised Teri Sforza wouldn't publish a picture of the pressurizers being transported away! I'm sure SCE wouldn't want her to, and she licks their boots.

(Side note: I wonder if she's licked the reactor vessel itself yet for them? It can't still be thermally too hot! Seriously, a BWR in Alabama or Georgia or somewhere around there had a (very unofficial, of course!) "initiation rite" for new workers that was a quick swim in the condenser water (NOT the Spent Fuel Pool, but "slightly" radioactive water (a worker did fall into the SanO SFP a few years ago, though)).

Initiation rites are not uncommon in a lot of industries, especially dangerous ones. I had an initiation rite one time -- nearly 40 years ago. It's hard to say "no" to those things when suddenly you're told that's what lets you into the "in" crowd. (Mine was a microscopic and painless but powerful instantaneous laser burn (on my right forearm if I remember correctly) which I was assured went all the way through to the bone. (I wonder if it's what caused my Mantle Cell Lymphoma (a bone/blood cancer) 30+ years later?).)

Compared to worrying about the spent fuel canisters, worrying about the pressurizer is a distraction at best...except for this: That steel probably will end up in braces for kids since it's such "high quality" steel (despite having radioactive particles throughout). (These would have been caused, for example, by radioactive nitrogen in the primary coolant, which doesn't stick around long after the reactor is shut down, but as long as it's been operating, the radioactive nitrogen had been shooting out a very high energy gamma ray when it decays, so that's bound to have done all sorts of damage to the steel, from causing embrittling to creating additional radioactive isotopes in the steel.)

Water leaking from the pressurizer during shipment is admittedly at the lowest end of the spectrum for things to worry about from San Onofre. So why would SCE be scared to show pictures and be precise about what happened? Presumably because that's the habit of the nuclear industry. Hide everything the least bit worrisome. Which is nearly everything.

An interesting item in Sforza's article is the water they said leaked out. I'm guessing that it was primary coolant that was sealed up inside the pressurizer when they closed it off. Shipping it directly to Utah or wherever it was going is by far the easiest way to get rid of it (letting it drip out along the way is even easier and not as uncommon as you might expect).

The estimate of the loss rate was obviously guesswork by someone with a vested interest. And the number of hours the pressurizer might have been leaking was not given...But they say the leaked water was all on the floor of the train car? Probably because it kept evaporating, of course! So we all breathed it in, at whatever the real rate was.

We don't know how radioactive it was, but we can be pretty sure it wasn't "less than background" as SCE claims, UNLESS they are counting long-lived deadly isotopes in low quantities to be basically "sunshine vitamins" or something -- maybe they only count the Becquerels (Bq, or decays per second). By that method of counting, perhaps it is "less than background," but it would last for decades in the case of tritium, and for eons in the case of plutonium.

So IS SCE simply using Becquerels for their claim, or are they accounting for uptake by living things from biologically-useful but radioactive elements? Are they accounting for the energy levels of the decay products, the decay chains, the half-lives, etc. or JUST the Bq for their claim that it's "less than background"? That can be a very misleading statement, and probably is.

There is no threshold, according to the widely accepted Linear, No Threshold (LNT) theory of radiation damage. (Side note: Dr. Ernest Sternglass argued that at very low levels the effect is supra-linear. Dr. John Gofman argued that the available statistical (and other) evidence strongly suggests that the effect is most likely to be LNT. And indeed, that is the accepted standard around the world, at least in theory. Personally, I don't think anyone can work in the nuclear industry and not believe in "sunshine vitamins" aka "Hormesis," for which, as far as I know, there has never been any evidence except in some very short-term studies that proved nothing overall, since the whole point of the study was (as far as I can tell) to ignore long-term health effects, in order to try to show ANY positive effect from radiation.)

“Background level” is itself misleading. Overall background levels and levels of specific isotopes vary widely around the world and background levels have increased everywhere as the result of nuclear weapons and both regular and unplanned releases from nuclear power reactors, as well as from every other stop in the nuclear fuel/bomb chain. Generally “background” radiation in the continental United States was at its highest in 1963, before the partial test-ban treaty, but has never returned to pre-1945 levels, and essentially never will, even if we stopped production of toxic radioactive isotopes today (which we should do, nevertheless).

Another reason to care about the leaking pressurizer is because some very sloppy workmanship at SCE occurred. While unfortunately, that surprises no one...it should. They handle the deadliest stuff on earth, in the most concentrated quantities. One mistake can ruin a lot of people's lives...we all should care that SCE keeps making careless mistakes.

Another reason to care is simply that the industry standard assumption regarding the risk from tritium is pathetically inaccurate. That's why worrying about the regular releases also makes sense...

And what about the mention, in Sforza's article, aboaut "drain down" of water in the "reactor cavity" itself (by which I assume they mean the reactor vessel)? It seems obvious they plan to dump that radioactive water into the ocean, a dribble at a time, which in their opinion makes it safe (even though the ocean, like the rest of the planet, is teeming with life). Is that what they're going to do?

Teri Sforza's pro-nuclear stance always leaves a lot more questions unanswered than answered. But at least she mentioned that the "inspection" was a "regular look-see." Those are VERY different from an unannounced inspection (which the NRC basically refuses to ever do unless somehow, something puts their feet to the reactor vessel surface). "Regular look-sees" (aka "pre-planned inspections") are DESIGNED to never uncover serious problems.

Ace Hoffman, Carlsbad, California USA

P.S.: Two of the three photos attached below are of an old SanO SG leaving the reactor site, and the other is a new one coming in from Japan. Note the differences! I suspect the old one was A) like these pressurizers, also contained primary coolant (just a guess!) and B) is entirely encased in another layer. Why would that be? My guess is mainly because it's so "hot" but it's also just a guess. Maybe to be transported with all that water it needed more stabilizing -- I just don't know. But I'm guessing that's why the shape is different, the size is different, and the number of wheels needed by the transport vehicle is different. And I'm to believe they just "forgot" to properly label the fact that the pressurizer shipments were radioactive? I think they didn't want any photos...

(This essay was updated and revised September 1, 2024)

---

---