Ace Hoffman's Nuclear Failures Reports

Monday, August 6, 2012

San Onofre Nuclear (Waste) Generating Station: Our Fukushima?

Date: August 6th, 2012
To: Laguna Beach City Council
From: Ace Hoffman, Concerned Citizen (Carlsbad, CA)

Dear City Council members, honorable Mayor Egly,

Laguna Beach is about as far to the north of San Onofre Nuclear Waste Generating Station (SONWGS) as I am to its south, where I reside in Carlsbad.

The waters that go past San Onofre will go past you or me afterwards, depending on current conditions. The winds will do the same.

In Japan, they are burning collected radioactive garbage to make it all someone else's problem. Japanese authorities recently opened a beach 40 miles away from the Fukushima reactors for the first time, nearly a year and a half after the triple meltdowns there. However, the plants continue to spew radioactive crud, so perhaps it was still too soon.

On the same day, far more Japanese people flocked to protests against nuclear power than flocked to the reopened beach. But you can guess which got more media coverage here in the U.S.A..

Closer beaches to Fukushima remain highly contaminated with plutonium and other radioactive isotopes. A constant resupply of these poisons pours forth from local rivers and streams in Fukushima Prefecture. Some beaches near the reactors won't reopen any time in the foreseeable future, and nor will their towns be re-occupied.

Not because of the earthquake, or the tsunami, or "human error", or design flaws, but because the reactors were THERE. They were there, and they were going to be there until they failed. They all will, unless someone stops them.

Laguna Beach and Carlsbad are both much closer to San Onofre than 40 miles. Let's not make the same mistake here. We care what happens in Japan, and they care what happens here. We've seen the deformed babies from bomb testing in the Pacific Islands, and from Chernobyl, and we know it is happening in Japan, we just aren't seeing it.

Our national regulatory agencies -- the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) -- have both failed to protect the public time and again -- their response is "as predictable as clockwork", unlike the reactors they promote (DOE) and regulate (NRC).

By law -- a preposterous law -- our state's agencies cannot consider safety issues at San Onofre. But they can -- and do -- ensure that its owners will make a profit. The state agencies forced the bill-payers to pay for the failed steam generator replacement project the first time. I want my money back!

Of course, San Onofre isn't another Fukushima -- not yet, anyway. But SanO is already a global, national, state, local, and personal issue for us all. In fact right now, it's the laughing-stock of the world's nuclear fleet.

And what ARE the differences between San Onofre and Fukushima? Fukushima's reactors were designed in America. Our steam generators (and many other parts) were made in Japan. America has 23 reactors virtually identical to Fukushima's. SanO's 2200 pounds-per-square-inch (PSI) primary loop is, indeed, a significant difference: It's one more thing that can go wrong! Pressurized Water Reactors, or PWRs, are more complex than Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs) by one whole loop at about 1200 PSI more pressure than the BWR's primary loop (and 1000 PSI higher than a PWR's secondary loop).

Both reactor types use enormous amounts of fresh water or sea water for their final coolant if they have "once-through cooling" (OTC) like SanO's reactors have and will always have, since they have been granted exemptions and extensions time and again so they don't have to build "cooling towers" (which still use a lot of water) on the other side of the tracks and highway.

At the local level, SanO is front-page news day after day these days: Excessive steam generator tube wear, seismic compliance issues, whistleblower intimidation and retaliation, the list goes on.

Thankfully we haven't experienced the "end-game" to all this: A meltdown or other catastrophic release of radioactive byproducts. There has been no Fukushima-type tragedy in America -- yet.

Does that fact PROVE that San Onofre can survive EVERY man-made or natural disaster, or have we just been lucky, or untested, or both?

There are two ways the nuclear industry (or the airline, space, chemical industry, etc.) prepare for accident scenarios. One is essentially physical, the other is essentially mathematical. The physical technique is called "Design In Depth" (DID). The mathematical technique is called "Probabilistic Risk Assessment" (PRA).

Design In Depth requires building engineered solutions for all "foreseeable" accident scenarios. As practiced in the nuclear industry, however, it assumes the designers of the reactors have successfully thought of everything that can go wrong and have properly engineered a solution for it. It assumes that small-scale physical models and computer programs will accurately simulate real-world outcomes of complex thermodynamic processes. It further assumes the construction personnel will all do their jobs properly, and the plant will be properly maintained for decades to come. But in fact, these assumptions are dangerous. Computer simulations failed to predict the flow rates in redesigned steam generators at San Onofre. Traffic in fraudulent parts is a huge problem in the electronics industry, and improper alloys and fabrication procedures is a huge problem in the metals industry and may also be a factor at SanO. All these problems can be very difficult to detect.

Probabilistic Risk Assessment assumes that there are things that the engineers cannot design a solution for (within economic constraints, or perhaps not at all): Earthquakes too large and/or too close, tsunamis too high, terrorist actions too difficult for terrorist groups to carry out, meteor impacts, solar flares causing a planetary blackout ... things like that. To every one of these unstoppable occurrences (and many others) a probability is assigned: One in a million, one in ten million, one in a billion, one in a trillion (for meteors, it's assumed to be even less likely than that). After assigning so many zeros after the one, they write it like this: "1 *10^-9" or something similar. Beyond one in ten million, often the engineers are not required to do a thing about it. For example, a dry cask or a spent fuel pool is NOT significantly protected against a jet aircraft impact, and the reactor itself barely is (those domes are for protection for a small hydrogen explosion within (similar to what was seen in Fukushima). San Onofre is directly under several major airline routes. Planes fall uncontrollably from the sky sometimes. Has San Onofre's risk been properly assigned for this and a thousand other dangers?

And what if something presumed to have a one in a million, or one in ten million, chance of occurring actually happens?

That's where "mitigation" comes in.

Before Fukushima, the nuclear industry never talked about "mitigation." Instead, it always assured the public that accidents simply wouldn't happen.

After Fukushima, the industry found a new mantra: Mitigation.

Mitigation is a gentle term for an awful thing. Crops are destroyed, homes are devalued, entire cities -- yours, mine, and everything in-between and far out beyond -- are destroyed. Lives are lost. Even with a "proper" evacuation -- something the world has never seen -- some number of children in the impacted zone won't survive to adulthood, some number of young adults won't survive to old age. Some old folks will weaken and die before their time, too. Severely deformed beings will die shortly after being born, unable to feed themselves, or even to breath. The number of spontaneous abortions will rise significantly.

That's "mitigation."

Cancer is caused by damage to the body's DNA. It often requires a dozen or more progressive changes to your DNA to occur before it manifests itself. These changes often take many years to transpire, which is one reason a constant low dose of radiation can be particularly insidious -- it can accelerate each step.

Fukushima might kill thousands of people around the world, but it will mostly impact those who were closest to the plant during its worst days, and those who continue to live in the shadow of its plume.

I would not buy land in Fukushima.

Around Chernobyl, over sixty cities have been abandoned for a quarter century already, and will remain abandoned (by people) for decades or even centuries to come. Animals cannot read "no trespassing" signs and do not carry geiger counters; they cannot detect the radiation around them in any way. Many of them -- wolves, rats, predatory birds, vultures, and others -- will eat their deformed young, and "simply" have more young. But that's not really a "healthy" environment.

Even so-called "low-level" radioactive emissions are dangerous, and can destroy thousands of molecular bonds inside living cells, causing inflammation as well as cancer, heart disease, and even loss of brain function. The list of ways radiation harms us is far longer than this essay.

If SanO melts down, people will not buy land here. Our homes will be lost forever, with no compensation: The federal Price-Anderson Act limits a utility's liability to fractions of a penny on the dollar.

We have all been users of San Onofre's electricity. Thus we have all been generators of its waste product, known as "spent fuel". We have all ingested its poisons, such as the (poorly measured) radioactive noble gases it releases constantly during operation, or the -- slightly better measured -- 300 to 1000 curies of tritium it also releases every year when it's operating.

Tritium is so deadly, that the normal legal release limit for the entire reactor, for the entire year, is about a thirtieth of a teaspoon of tritium. Tritium is one of many extremely hazardous elements -- some of which do not exist in nature at all -- which are produced in copious quantities at San Onofre.

These are personal issues for me, since I had bladder cancer a few years ago at the tender age of 52 after living in Carlsbad for the past 20 years. The radiation from tritium is a known cause of bladder cancer. So is cigarette smoke, but I do not smoke cigarettes. I was successfully treated surgically, but thousands of Americans die each year of bladder cancer, and recurrences are not uncommon. I'm not out of the woods. I never will be. Nobody is. [Note: The author also had Mantle Cell Lymphoma in 2020]

But what are the chances? What should we worry about? I sure wouldn't smoke cigarettes!

One has to properly multiply "consequences" by "chance of occurrence" to determine overall "risk". But the nuclear industry underestimates the first two, and thus the third, all the time!

I believe the local communities' biggest danger is a massive release of radioactive fission products from a zirconium fire. This is what happened at Fukushima. Far worse accidents are also possible, but are (I hope), also far less likely.

There are three places a zirconium fire is possible. They are:

* The reactor itself, where the core assemblies are self-irradiated through a sustained critical reaction for 5 to 6 years, and then replaced. Approximately one-third of the core is replaced every 18 to 22 months. The nuclear reaction produces enormous amounts of heat and fission products, and also produces plutonium, which is about 100,000 times more toxic than uranium and can be extracted for use in nuclear weapons (or used as a "dirty" bomb right where it is).

* The spent fuel pools, where very-hot reactor cores (full of fission products, plutonium, and "decay heat") are left to cool for a minimum of five years. Half a decade is long enough to cool them thermally more than 99%, and much of the radioactivity is also gone, but it will take hundreds of thousands more years to completely reduce the radioactivity to so-called "safe" levels.

* Dry casks, which need convective currents of inert gases since the zirconium fuel rods are highly combustible -- especially if they come in contact with various chemicals commonly shipped by rail and truck.

Every dry cask is an additional potential disaster-waiting-to-happen, but dry casks have been used by the nuclear industry as the latest invention to get around various laws requiring "proper" disposal of their waste. A few years ago, dry cask storage was approved by the CPUC for California after the NRC had approved dry casks nationally as a "safe" way to alleviate the "overcrowding" in the spent fuel pools (closing the reactors permanently would have been a much better idea, and still is).

The oldest used reactor cores at SanO are being hastily transferred to dozens of "dry casks", with no real plan for the future except to construct more and more dry casks, and leave them there, turned sideways and piled three high, for perhaps as long as 300 years.

This is happening despite whistleblower warnings of fabrication problems and despite problems with other dry cask systems around the country (google "Oscar Shirani", an ASME-certified instructor and whistleblower on dry cask problems, who died of a brain tumor a few years ago).

"SONWGS" is a danger to us all. After years of denial by the nuclear industry, Fukushima proved that all reactor designs have fatal weaknesses. All are built and operated by fallible, corruptible, imperfect human beings. And if Fukushima didn't prove it, San Onofre's own problems have done so.

In Japan's case, three reactors melted down. In our case, the steam generators failed, which could have been just as catastrophic as Japan's meltdowns were -- or even worse (at least an order of magnitude worse -- per reactor).

SanO's energy output has not been missed all year. Renewable alternatives are available to fill the gap: We don't have to replace SanO with coal, oil, OR natural gas.

It would be good for our local economy AND our environment if San Onofre never operates again. A concerted effort towards solar rooftops, offshore wind turbines, passive heating and cooling, stored energy, and conservation would save Laguna Beach residents millions of dollars every year in energy costs. It could even allow Laguna Beach to become a net exporter of energy! The entire state of California can become a net exporter of clean energy within just a couple of years, but for that to happen, we all must do our part. And we must keep SanO shut down forever.

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman
Concerned Citizen
Carlsbad, California USA (images and note about Mantle Cell Lymphoma added 2025)

Please see:

My pdf on dry cask storage: NOT safe. Not cheap, either.

Spent Fuel: All dressed up, with nowhere to go:
<http://goo.gl/yqPq5>http://goo.gl/yqPq5

Additional URLs below:

Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, California USA
Author, The Code Killers:
An Expose of the Nuclear Industry
Free download: acehoffman.org
Blog: acehoffman.blogspot.com
YouTube: youtube.com/user/AceHoffman
Email: ace [at] acehoffman.org
Founder & Owner, The Animated Software Company

Saturday, August 4, 2012

California Public Utilities Commission (owned & operated by Southern California Edison)

8/4/2012

Dear Readers,

Last Thursday (August 2nd, 2012) the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) was expected to initiate a "thorough" investigation of the problems at San Onofre Nuclear (Waste) Generating Station (known as SONGS instead of SONWGS because the waste issue is ignored).

The "OII" (Order Instituting Investigation) could have begun immediately, but instead the CPUC found what they consider to be a loophole good for 90 more days. It works like this: Southern California Edison is expected to file a report with the CPUC after 9 months of continuous shutdown anyway, so the CPUC will just wait until after the report is due -- on Halloween -- to take any investigative action. Spooky...

The commissioners said they want to rewrite the plan for the OII in the meantime. They apparently want to narrow the scope. That way, they won't consider any of the pervasive problems, the generic problems, or even the obvious problems like the tsunami dangers highlighted by Fukushima. They won't redo the cost/benefit analysis for the citizens of California in light of everything that's come to light in recent years about San Onofre, such as the backup diesel generator problems, reactor pressure vessel head problems, backup battery problems, wiring problems, fire safety problems, grid stability problems, seismic problems, etc.. They won't consider the impact of the "waste confidence decision" in federal court recently, or of the lawsuits filed by reactor owners (including SCE) because the federal government hasn't taken possession of the used reactor cores as promised in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. The Act accomplished the goal of keeping the nuclear industry going with the promise that the federal government would take possession of the fuel -- an impossible expense for the industry otherwise, but an impossible promise to keep.

If the utility gets either unit at SanO operating, even at 50% power (or less), and even for only a short while, you can rest assured the CPUC will try to skip the OII entirely. And let SanO keep making more waste.

Never mind that we all know Unit 3 can't be restarted -- PERIOD -- and shouldn't that initiate an investigation?

Never mind that Unit 2 can only be restarted if the more dire consequences of failure are ignored completely.

Never mind the waste heat and radioactive effluents (such as noble gases) that will be released for eons to come from the used reactor cores -- or the cumulative expense of storing those old reactors for thousands of generations.

Never mind the zirconium fires which, once started, are impossible to put out and would release ALL the fission products within.

Never mind a criticality event.

Never mind.

Instead of doing their sworn duty regarding investigating the problems on top of problems at San Onofre, the commission, headed for the last nine years by Michael R. Peevey, kicked the hot potato down the road for at least another three months.

"President" Peevey seemed more like a dictator as he interrupted the other commissioners after asking them for their opinion. Instead he should have admitted his many ties to San Onofre and recused himself from the discussion entirely. But since regulating San Onofre and Diablo Canyon is the main purpose of the CPUC and he's been doing it for years, that wasn't about to happen.

Peevey was president of SCE until 1992, having started as a vice president there just as reactor units 2 and 3 went online after years of delays and cost over-runs. He worked directly under the future -- and now former -- Commerce Secretary John "it was just bad judgment" Bryson, who was chairman and CEO of SCE at the time Peevey worked there.

At the hearing on Thursday, Peevey didn't mention the junkets he goes on with the current executives of his former company, to Spain, Italy, Brazil, South Africa and elsewhere (but NOT to Fukushima). He didn't mention where his wealth came from or his retirement income comes from, nor the industry-funded "clean air" organization he heads, which funds just enough green energy projects (a few tens of millions of dollars' worth) to make him look green to someone -- someone in the media.

Perhaps SCE could cut off his pension for malfeasance! Peevey could resign from the CPUC because these steam generators were HIS problem: He approved their original design (as head of the CPUC at the time) and was just as culpable as anyone else for misunderstanding the engineering, trusting the computer program's output, trusting "experts", and forcing the ratepayers (bill-payers) to cover the costs so SCE could make a profit no matter what happens.

Peevey and the CPUC have looked the other way while San Onofre's management has intimidated and retaliated against whistleblowers. Despite the intimidation and retaliation that occurs there, more safety complaints have come out of San Onofre than from any other plant in the nation.

Meanwhile, so-called "refueling" of a reactor core is actually already illegal in California -- if you interpret the law properly. California's law states that it's illegal to build new reactors. This could be interpreted to mean that as the reactor "fuel" is removed, the reactor must be shut down. The logic for this interpretation follows:

What part of a nuclear power plant is the reactor? The so-called fuel -- it's the one thing that's common to ANY reactor design, so clearly, "the reactor" IS the reactor core: The physical configuration of Uranium and Plutonium "fuel assemblies" that can achieve "criticality" until "burn-up" is achieved of the U-235 and/or Pu-239 components.

Every part of a nuclear power plant -- without those deadly assemblies -- is just a "conventional" power plant of some sort, minus a heat source. The pumps, pipes, valves, vessels, electrical cables, control systems, and so on are all basically the same until you get to the reactor -- and its safety systems. (which may or may not work).

The law provides that there will be no new reactors in California until the waste problem is solved.

Yet currently, every 18 to 22 months, one third of the reactor -- the core, the heart, the cauldron -- is replaced, resulting in a completely new reactor every five to six years. The deadly used reactor cores sit on site because there is nowhere to put them.

Shut-down is the only reasonable option, and Michael R. Peevey should resign from the CPUC.

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman, Carlsbad, California USA

Video of hearing by Steve Zeltzer:

Anti-NUKE Activists Speak Out At CPUC On San Onofre NUKE Plant "Shut It Down"
http://youtu.be/Jnv9VvaCYbA
California anti-nuclear activists spoke out at the August 3, 2012 meeting of the California Public Utility Commission in San Francisco about the threat to the people of California at the dangerous nuclear plant near San Diego. The utilities which control the commission through the former Southern California Edison executive Michael Peevey who is chair of the commission refused to do a full investigation of the causes of the accident and the cover-up by the utility which is costing the people of California hundreds of millions of dollars to rate payers and the public.

No Nukes Action Committee http://nonukesaction.wordpress.com/
Nuclear Free California www.nuclearfreecal.org

Spent Fuel: All dressed up, with nowhere to go:
http://goo.gl/yqPq5

(pdf created last week)

Contact information for the author of this newsletter:

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

The intractable problem of spent nuclear fuel

7/30/2012

Dear Readers,

Here's the link to a pdf slide show on spent nuclear fuel fires, their consequences, and how to reduce the risk as much as possible:

http://goo.gl/yqPq5

The presentation was created for an IEER Technical Training Workshop held in Takoma Park, Maryland last week (July 25-29, 2012). The title of the full workshop was: "Exploring the End of Nuclear Power and its Proliferation and Health Problems ".

My thanks to Arjun Makhijani (Director of IEER), the staff of IEER, and the other participants of the workshop (who saw me present this slide show in draft form).

The views expressed are my own.

Please share this presentation with your elected officials. Ask them to stop making ever-larger quantities of nuclear waste.

We'll never have any GOOD solutions to the "intractable" problem of what to do with nuclear waste, but we CAN stop making the problem bigger.

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman, Carlsbad, California USA

Friday, July 20, 2012

Southern California Edison's extremely weak case for restarting SanO Unit II...

7/20/2012 (images added 2025)

Dear Readers,

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has determined that (in their opinion) Southern California Edison did NOT mislead the NRC about design changes to their failed replacement steam generators for San Onofre Nuclear (Waste) Generating Station.

The billion-dollar mistake was done according to the rules. They admit that the rules might need to be changed, but the rules were followed, according to the NRC.

Actually, though, SCE arrogantly described their efforts to avoid a proper "10CFR50.59 review process" which would have entailed not just heightened NRC scrutiny, but even some citizens' public scrutiny as well! But the NRC doesn't care what SCE said in those industry publications, where SCE bragged specifically about circumventing 10CFR50.59, which requires an open regulatory review process for significant design changes at a nuclear power plant.

It should be noted that the following string of changes actually occurred, all without need for a "10CFR50.59" review: The tube material was changed to a newer, more durable, but significantly less thermally conductive alloy, requiring 10% more surface area for the same thermal output. Hence more tubes, and hence they eliminated the stay cylinder in the center (to pack in even more tubes), and hence ALL the tubes were packed in a bit tighter than before. The tighter-packed tubes were too tight around the U-bends, near where the anti-vibration bar goes along for the ride (it's not connected to anything but the tubes themselves). (See section 8.b.1)

The whole thing was basically redesigned to flutter! And yet it passed 10CFR50.59 after-the-fact "scrutiny"! It feels like a foregone conclusion.

So much for finding the real "root cause" of why San Onofre has been inoperable since January. One key phrase turned up: "The replacement steam generators were designed and fabricated in accordance with quality assurance requirements, and 10CFR50.59 does not require the licensee to presume deficiencies in the design or fabrication." (p. 36)

Rushing to make a shipping schedule probably isn't considered a deficiency the licensee needed to presume might occur, either. But in fact a decision was made: "not to control the positive pressure, the dew point of nitrogen, and the oxygen content on the primary and secondary side of the Unit 3 replacement steam generators [during transport from Japan] to accelerate delivery schedule." (p. 45) The NRC is still reviewing whether "corrective action" will be taken on that and several other issues.

Also presumed not germane to 10CFR50.59 was whether shipping the entire steam generator in other than a "gravity-neutral position" (in fact 45 degrees OFF from that position) would have any impact. It seems the lifting points made rotation to a gravity-neutral shipping position difficult.

One of Unit 3's SGs was apparently damaged in handling: "Unit 3 replacement steam generator 3E0-88 accelerometers indicated up to a 1.23 g spike with a simultaneous recording on all three of the attached accelerometers. Mitsubishi provided an evaluation of the forces which showed loads were within allowable stress limits but exceeded stress for an operating basis earthquake. The team was not able to determine if this was properly considered." (p. 46) A steam generator weighs well over a million pounds. Don't drop it. Don't bump it.

Additional fabrication problems required extensive rewelding, nearly doubling the number of rotations of the Unit 3 SGs during fabrication. (p. 63)

As for computer modeling, they have a nice phrase for an error: "nonconservative results". Such "nonconservative results" (p. 47) from one computer program which calculates flow rates were diligently fed into another computer program to determine resultant vibrations, which, of course, were way below what actually happened. Garbage In, Garbage Out.

That's why it's good to use real-world modeling, not just computer modeling. Or, as the Augmented Inspection Team put it: "The accuracy of calculating fluid-elastic instability is limited based on inputs that are best determined by design-specific mockup test data. Mitsubishi did not perform design-specific mockup tests." (p. 49)

In one attempt to use "conservatisms" in their vibration analysis, a multiplier of 1.5 was inserted... but the multiplier was actually required to match real-world testing results! (p. 50)

It should be noted that in trying to isolate which software model failed, it was admitted (p. 56) that the models only predict "bulk fluid behavior based on first principles and empirical correlations". So the models don't actually handle fabrication differences between steam generators, or structural differences, etc.. In fact, someone with a slide rule did some calculations to check on these wonderful "computer programs". They're that basic.

Back in the real world, here's what happens:

"If operating velocities reach [a] critical value, vibration amplitudes can increase rapidly and fluid-elastic instability forces can lead to rapid pulsation and damaging of tubes." (p. 49)

The U-bend region of the tubes is most susceptible, but the industry believed everything would hold together -- until San Onofre proved otherwise: "This event at SONGS is the first US operating fleet experience of in-plane fluid-elastic instability, sufficient to cause tube-to-tube contact and wear in the U-bend region."

Shocked, are we? Well, then I should add that there is no standard for what margin of safety should actually be designed into steam generators to avoid fluid-elastic instability. Each manufacturer has a different value.

So, what about restarting San Onofre?

The AIT report indicates the only way SCE might be able to restart the reactors is by changing the operational parameters, because: "SONGS replacement steam generators were not designed with adequate margin to preclude the onset of fluid-elastic instability" which can cause "tube leakage and/or tube rupture." (p 56)

Replacing the steam generators will take several years and cost about a billion dollars. And what design would they use? And who would fabricate them? The old SGs weren't much better:

"The original steam generators installed throughout the domestic fleet of pressurized water reactors, including SONGS, experienced widespread corrosion of the tubes and tube support plates, stress corrosion cracking of the tubes, and wear at tube supports. These problems led to the replacement of nearly all of the original steam generators, in most cases well before the end of their design lifetime." (p. 41) And they can't simply make the old design out of the new alloy, because the heat transfer characteristics are so different.

They've already plugged well over a thousand tubes, many because they were already severely worn, others in the hope of reducing the amount of steam compared to water in certain areas of the steam generators.

Restarting Unit III seems out of the question at this point, and to restart Unit II, SCE has already determined that it would have to be at a lower power setting. (p. 56)

But the only way to know for sure that a lower power setting will work is to try it. And that might result in a tube rupture, possibly even followed by a cascading failure of one tube after another, resulting in a massive radiological release.

Zirconium cladding, hot fuel, loss of coolant... these are a dangerous combination! Add in a multitude of companies and agencies each laying blame anywhere but on themselves, confusing and inadequate regulations and regulatory oversight, language barriers, proprietary manufacturing operations, whistleblower intimidation here (and undoubtedly in Japan too) and you have a recipe for ... exactly what happened.

Or worse. Let's not restart San Onofre. Ever.

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman, Carlsbad, California USA

Friday, July 13, 2012

San Onofre's steam generators are not SanO's biggest problem... spent fuel is.

7/13/2012

Dear Readers,

If you look at the inspection results of nearly 10,000 U-shaped tubes inside one of San Onofre's four steam generators (two steam generators per reactor) you can clearly see where their current problem is.

There's a large circle representing a cutaway slice of the steam generator, and within that large circle is a smaller circle, about a quarter the diameter of the larger circle and offset to one side. Within the smaller circle is a dot.

That's the area where there was a rupture of one of the tubes last January (2012). The innermost dot represents where a single tube failed while the reactor was running, and where seven more tubes failed subsequent pressure testing.

The inner circle that surrounds the dot shows that the wear is less and less severe as you get further and further away from where the tube ruptured.

Off to one side is a smaller area of concentrated wear, and a few other locations also show some isolated damage.

This is very bad for San Onofre. But perhaps very good for humanity.

Prior to failure, the tubes evidently vibrated for some time (minutes? hours? months?): Since the plant was shut down in January, hundreds of tubes in that one steam generator have been plugged due to damage. Within those tubes there were thousands of locations with damage, such as where the tubes pass through restraining plates that were supposed to limit their vibration to tolerable amounts.

Southern California Edison has determined that the "root cause" of the steam generator failure in January was probably "fluid elastic instability", a synchronized, uncontrolled vibration that sometimes occurs when a fluid rapidly traverses large bunches of parallel tubes. The tubes wore down until one ruptured, radiation was released, and the reactor was shut down.

Hundreds of tubes in the other three (virtually identical) steam generators also have significant wear, indicating the problem is not unique to that one steam generator.

A report by Fairewinds Associates, commissioned by Friends of the Earth (and linked to below) shows that the amount of wear is unprecedented in the nuclear power industry. Here is a relevant quote from the Fairewinds' report, quoting Edison's own Condition Report:

"'The location of the tube-to-tube wear in the Unit 2 SG was in the same region of the tube bundle as in the Unit 3 SGs. This indicates the existence of causal factors similar to those resulting in tube-to-tube wear in the Unit 3 SGs.' This quote from Edison's Condition Report is just one example indicating that the failure modes between Unit 2 and Unit 3 are identical."

But here's the thing: Southern California Edison wants to claim they can operate reactor Unit 2 at reduced power and thus avoid the problem entirely. But even if they run at 50% power, there's always the possibility they will end up pushing a steam generator beyond its capacity: For example, if one steam generator fails, they would have to immediately start removing 100% of the heat from the reactor with the only remaining steam generator (this is a "fatal flaw" of having only two steam generators, where most pressurized water reactors have three or four). Because there are only two steam generators to remove the heat, 50% power (the minimum power output SCE said they would try) seems to this author to be well above whatever maximum would ensure adequate heat removal with the other steam generator in the event of the total loss of one steam generator.

But far more frightening even than having to rely on one faulty steam generator is the possibility of a nuclear reactor runaway power surge. Such an event could cause the reactor operators to have little choice but to try to run the steam generators at full capacity (and even that might not be adequate). Such power surges were described in detail (and carefully modeled on a computer) by the late Dr. A. Stanley Thompson a decade ago.

But even that isn't San Onofre's biggest problem. In a letter to this and other activists (shown below), Dr. Thompson explained what San Onofre's biggest problem really is: The spent fuel.

If they restart the reactors, they'll begin again to produce 500 pounds per day (250 pounds per reactor) of the deadliest, most difficult-to-contain hazardous waste on the planet: Spent fuel. Spent fuel is approximately 10,000,000 times more lethal than "fresh" unused nuclear reactor fuel and contains plutonium, cesium, strontium and other radioactive poisons. Mere millionths of a gram are lethal, and they'll be making 250 pounds per day per reactor.

The taxpayers, ratepayers, local citizens, and future generations will all have to shoulder this burden forever.

So there's no reason to restart San Onofre. Don't do it.

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman, Carlsbad, California USA

Attachments:
(1) Letter from Friends of the Earth (2012)
(2) Letter from A. Stanley Thompson, (2003)
(3) Southern California Edison press release (added just after this newsletter was first circulated and posted)
(4) Contact information for the author of this newsletter

(1) Letter from Friends of the Earth (June 12th, 2012)

Dear All,

Friends of the Earth was leaked an internal Edison document regarding the tube wear in the San Onofre steam generators. It revealed that the steam generators are by far the worst in the nation. Attached you'll find our press release, the Edison document, and the recent Fairewinds report. We also just received word that the NRC just released the most comprehensive data yet on the San Onofre steam generators.

http://www.nrc.gov/info-finder/reactor/songs/songs-unit-2-steam-generator-tube-wear-data.pdf

http://www.nrc.gov/info-finder/reactor/songs/songs-unit-3-steam-generator-tube-wear-data.pdf

http://www.nrc.gov/info-finder/reactor/songs/songs-steam-generator-internal-diagram.pdf

Friends of the Earth
Washington, DC

FOE press release:
http://www.foe.org/news/blog/2012-07-skeletons-in-the-closet-leaked-edison-document-exposes-san-onofre
or: http://goo.gl/JPvQn

Fairewinds report:
http://libcloud.s3.amazonaws.com/93/a7/c/2277/Edison_San_Onofre_Generators_US_Worst_Fairewinds_report_July_2012.pdf
or: http://goo.gl/I7N0R

Edison document:
http://libcloud.s3.amazonaws.com/93/3f/4/2278/Edison_Document_Tube_Wear.pdf
or: http://goo.gl/ghCef

(2) 2003 letter from the late Dr. A Stanley Thompson (with some of his cv):

Dear [Ace] Hoffman and others:

I've been wondering about our future as anti-nuclear activists.
I want to thank you, my anti-nuclear friends, and wish us every success.

After the bombs were dropped on Japan in 1945 I accepted an invitation
into what I thought was to be my lifetime engineering occupation: to help
develop for peacetime use this limitless and safe source of energy "too
cheap to meter." I studied reactors and how to design the best possible
nuclear power plant. Based on a design course I taught to engineers at Oak
Ridge National Laboratory, I wrote the book, "Thermal Power from Nuclear
Reactors" (John Wiley, 1956).

In my study I discovered many reasons why no one should build nuclear
devices of any kind. I became unpopular with Congressional committees.
Professors in nuclear departments would not let me talk with their
students. No one would publish what I wrote. Members of the public
questioned why I was trying to spoil the gift of nuclear energy to human
society? I felt alone in my effort.

As many of you have stated, nuclear reactors have demonstrated that they
are neither cheap nor safe. They are of necessity designed, built and
operated by fallible human beings, some of whom may be vindictive. The
failure of Chernobyl demonstrated failure and some of its results,
including the death of thousands of Ukrainians, of birds in the Pt. Reyes
sanctuary in California, and the discard of polluted milk in Italy and of
reindeer meat in Lapland. The most intolerable reactor of all may be one
which comes successfully to the end of its planned life having produced
mountains of radioactive waste for which there is no disposal safe from
earthquake damage or sabotage.

Who still wants to build nuclear reactors? The military establishment in
any country can use a nuclear reactor to produce Pu-239 for nuclear bombs,
a symbol of status. With a nuclear reactor NASA can produce even more
dangerously radioactive Pu-238 for super batteries in its space projects.
With a nuclear reactor available, a university professor can head a
prestigious Department of Nuclear Engineering. With the promised
construction of nuclear reactors, his students can look forward to
prestigious employment. There is now an immense effort by vested military
and civilian groups to continue various expensive and expansive nuclear
activities.

I have self-published a pamphlet, "Comments on Nuclear Power" (100 pages).
I no longer feel alone in the fight against nuclear proliferation, thanks
to all of you. Each of us approaches the battle against military and
civilian nuclear reactors from a different life experience. Let us not be
torn asunder by our differences in viewpoint. Let us not weaken each
other's credibility with bickering and slander. Our differences of
viewpoint should be a source of strength. I hope we can use that strength
to advantage against our entrenched "paid" opposition.

A, Stanley Thompson, Eugene, Oregon, USA 13 May, 2003

###

The author of this newsletter (see below) has a copy of Dr. Thompson's pamphlet, which discusses runaway nuclear reactor power surges, and hopes the Nuclear Regulatory Commission considers Dr. Thompson's remarks carefully before relicensing San Onofre or any other reactor, anywhere. They are all deathtraps.

Southern California Edison press release (seen just after this newsletter was first posted and circulated):

July 13, 2012

Media contact: Media Relations, (626) 302-2255

Investor relations contact: Scott Cunningham, (626) 302-2540

ROSEMEAD, Calif., July 13, 2012 Southern California Edison (SCE) has released steam generator tube wear data associated with the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The data show that most of the wear, or tube wall thinning, was less than 20 percent. This is far below the 35 percent wall-thinning limit, which would require that the tube be plugged. The majority of this wear is related to support structures. The nature of the support structure wear is not unusual in new steam generators and is part of the equipment settling in.

"We're using this information and additional detailed data collected through testing to develop our repair plans according to best practices and industry standards, particularly the data on the unexpected tube-to-tube wear," said Senior Vice President and Chief Nuclear Officer Pete Dietrich. "Safety continues to be the guiding principle behind all the work we are doing."

The data include the various types of wear on the tubes and the number of tubes affected.

There were three major categories of wear: anti-vibration bar wear, tube support plate wear and tube-to-tube wear. Two minor categories of wear were also included: retainer bar wear and wear due to a foreign object. The foreign object wear, also not unusual in new steam generators, was only found in Unit 2 and was caused by a piece of welding material about the size of a quarter rubbing against two tubes.

In Unit 2, 1,595 tubes showed wear of some type and 510 tubes were ultimately plugged; six tubes for showing wear of more than 35 percent and the rest for preventative measures.

In Unit 3, 1,806 tubes showed wear of some type and 807 tubes were ultimately plugged; 381 tubes for wear of more than 35 percent and the rest for preventative measures.

The complete data for both units is available on the commission website for SONGS information: www.nrc.gov/info-finder/reactor/songs/tube-degradation.html.

Both units of the plant are currently safely shut down for inspections, analysis and tests. Unit 2 was taken out of service Jan. 9 for a planned outage. Unit 3 was safely taken offline Jan. 31 after station operators detected a leak in a steam generator tube. The units will remain shut down until SCE and the commission are satisfied that the units are safe to operate.

About Southern California Edison
An Edison International (NYSE:EIX) company, Southern California Edison is one of the nation's largest electric utilities, serving a population of nearly 14 million via 4.9 million customer accounts in a 50,000-square-mile service area within Central, Coastal and Southern California.

(4) Contact information for the author of this newsletter:

Monday, July 9, 2012

At San Onofre, "fluid elastic instability" is a fancy term for "busted"

7/9/2012

Dear Readers,

San Onofre Nuclear (Waste) Generating Station has been shut down for nearly six months, ever since one of the heat transfer tubes inside their new steam generators in Reactor Unit 3 ruptured suddenly and unexpectedly.

The normal pressure difference from one side of the tube to the other is enormous: About 1,000 pounds per square inch, so even a tiny leak spews many gallons of "primary coolant" (which is highly radioactive) into the "secondary coolant loop" (which, ideally, is not radioactive at all). When a leak occurs, the primary coolant flashes to steam as it exits the broken tube, and the steam is so hot it can cut through the tube like a welder's torch, eventually cutting a complete circle around the tube, releasing it to fling around and damage other tubes.

There are nearly 10,000 U-shaped heat transfer tubes inside each steam generator. They are about the thickness of a credit card and the diameter of your thumb.

Reactor Unit 2 was already shut down for massive repairs and refueling when Unit 3 sprang a leak. Neither unit has operated since then (and the lights have remained on. We do not need San Onofre). An older reactor, Reactor Unit 1, was retired 20 years ago for basically the same reason, and has since been dismantled. It's time to dismantle Units 2 and 3, too.

SanO's majority owner and operator, Southern California Edison, recently claimed to have identified the cause of Unit 3's current problem as "fluid elastic instability". And although Unit 2 is of identical design and also has two new steam generators which are also experiencing excessive wear, SCE claims Unit 2 will not suffer the same problem if they restart it at reduced power. SCE wants to do that next month, probably at half power, which does NOT mean the pressure differences and flow rates are half as much, because efficiency drops off substantially when the plant is not run at its maximum practical output (and so do profits for SCE!).

If Unit 2 runs without problems, they'll bump the power up to 60%, then 70% and then 80%. (So far that's as high as they've said they'll dare to go.) Then they'll start talking about restarting Unit 3 at reduced power as well.

If nothing ruptures, they'll shut the reactor down periodically to check for wear, since they can't tell what's happening inside the steam generators while the reactor is operating. The extra shutdowns are costly and hold additional dangers. (The Nuclear Regulatory Commission keeps careful track of how many times a reactor is cycled on and off.)

Restarting either SanO unit should be opposed by everyone in Southern California. It's not worth the risk.

Fluid elastic instability was first identified around 1970 and occurs when a fluid -- usually a steam/water mixture (in this case mostly steam) flows across a bundle of tubes. In the case of San Onofre, the steam/water mixture traverses the tubes at the U-portion of the tubes at their top.

A cascade of tube failures is substantially more likely under fluid elastic instability conditions than most other tube-rupture scenarios. If a cascading tube failure occurs, the fact that SanO's design has only two steam generators (whereas most Pressurized Water Reactors (PWRs) have three or four) becomes an additional serious liability: The second (only remaining) steam generator has to remove ALL the heat from the reactor. Debris from the first steam generator failure may further complicate matters.

SCE was very reluctant to admit they've got a fluid elastic instability problem, and when they made a presentation to the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) last week, they didn't try to explain what fluid elastic instability is. They just said that it was apparently the problem.

However, the phenomenon is described in a 2001 ASME handbook on flow induced vibrations by M. K. Au-Yang: Upon crossing the "critical velocity" the tube vibrations "suddenly rapidly increase without bound, until tube-to-tube impacting or other non-linear effects limit the tube motions." The vibrations: "become correlated and bear definite phase relationship to one another..."

In other words, the tubes rock back and forth together like people doing "the wave" or some other motion in a stadium.

Fluid elastic instability is difficult to model using computer simulations and SCE did not do full-scale modeling of the new steam generator design. They also skipped full-scale hot testing after installing the new steam generators in 2010 and 2011.

When a tube started to leak in January 2012, the reactor operators did NOT suspect fluid elastic instability, and did NOT do the immediate prudent thing: Shut down the reactor.

Instead, they kept running at full power until it was determined that the leak was growing -- always a bad sign. Permitted leakage rates, and total amounts, would have both soon been exceeded. Normally, when the reactor is shut down for routine maintenance, faulty tubes are plugged. This process continues for the life of the plant or until so many tubes are plugged that the steam generators have to be replaced. When the plant was built, it was believed that the steam generators would last the full life expectancy of the plant. But throughout the nuclear industry, replacing steam generators has become a huge business.

Fluid elastic instability is relatively rare but is much more frightening than a typical steam generator tube leak. Some leaks are left to spew, because rather than grow, they clog up with crud and stop spreading. But growing leaks cannot be ignored.

Of the nearly 40,000 tubes inside the four new steam generators in the two operating reactors at San Onofre, more than 1,300 were found to have excessive wear to such a degree that they needed to be plugged. About 10% of those were pressure-tested before being plugged, and eight failed the pressure tests -- some failed at pressures BELOW standard operating pressure!

SCE officials are very reluctant to say how many tubes have failed in Unit 2, stressing that "only two" tubes indicated tube-to-tube wear, which, they feel, was probably caused by turbulence, not fluid elastic instability. They aren't certain, though, and just because fluid elastic instability hasn't been experienced in Unit 2 yet, doesn't mean it can't happen there, either under normal operating conditions or during an emergency.

SCE has no idea when fluid elastic instability might occur. Their computer models are known to have been off by 300 to 400 percent. Flow rates are known to be way too high, and there is way too much steam and not nearly enough water at the top of the tubes (a mixture with more water would have been much better at dampening vibration).

Maybe SCE is right that lowering the power output will ensure safe operation. But what if they're wrong? SCE wants to experiment with all our lives.

And let's say they succeed. Let's say they get the reactors operating again. Then, they will just go back to producing more spent fuel nuclear waste, a growing problem for which there is still no solution. It will mean the next time there is an earthquake or a tsunami, San Onofre will threaten our farmlands, our cities, and our lives once again. It will mean San Onofre will continue to threaten SoCal at least until the NRC relicenses the plant in 2022/2023, and then for 20 more years after that (and so on ad infinitum). The NRC has never denied a nuclear power plant a license renewal in its history, and is especially unlikely to do so in California where new nuclear power plants are forbidden by state law.

San Onofre is shut down today because it was poorly designed, poorly constructed, and poorly operated. Let's keep it shut down. It's not going to get any better.

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman, Carlsbad, California USA (images added 2025)

The author, an educational software developer, has been observing San Onofre's follies for more than 20 years, since moving to California from Connecticut. He has studied the nuclear industries' follies for about 40 years. His book, The Code Killers, written in 2008, is available for free download from his web site: www.acehoffman.org .

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Counterfeit parts... admin admin... Code name: "Olympic Games"... Stuxnet, Duku & Flame -- oh my!

6/25/2012

Dear Readers,

If you think your computer MIGHT be vulnerable to hackers.... you're probably right.

Almost every week these days, I get an email from someone's infected computer, asking me to open an attachment. It was a local reporter's system last week. Maybe it will be yours next. Maybe it will be mine.

Major corporations are hacked with frightening regularity. Passwords and identities are stolen, credit card numbers are distributed. Lives are disrupted. It happens all the time.

Computer security software is notoriously difficult to install and maintain.

The #1 vulnerability?

Users who never even change the default passwords! (Usually username: admin, password: admin)

Vulnerable PCs and careless users transmitted the Stuxnet centrifuge controller virus from computer to computer until it quietly found its mark: The uranium processing facility in Natanz, Iran.

Once there, Stuxnet masked the damage it was doing by first intercepting the safety control signals prior to doing any damage, and then mimicking those signals as it tore the place apart, operating on multiple centrifuges at once. Stuxnet was able to destroy about 10% of Iran's enrichment facilities before anyone realized there was a software problem.

Last Sunday, Stuxnet reportedly shut itself down, following pre-programmed code. How nice. But don't rest too easy: Support programs to Stuxnet, known as "Duku" and "Flame" are still out there... and tomorrow there will be more... and counter attacks are surely coming, as well. Our troubles have just begun...

Stuxnet, launched in 2010, is currently considered the "state of the art" in computer virus programs, even called "rocket science" by the experts who analyzed it and figured out what it was designed to attack. Stuxnet's origins remain unknown, but all roads lead to... home. My country. The U.S.A..

Stuxnet and its delivery systems appear to be the "Manhattan Project" of the past decade, the result of a project inappropriately code-named "Olympic Games" (inappropriate, because the Olympic Committee tries very hard not to lose its trademarks and copyrights).

The equivalent of the Manhattan Project's "Smyth Report" (published in late August, 1945), the public revealing of the Olympic Games project, has not happened yet -- presumably because the "games" have only just begun. In fact, we're still in the qualifying events, and no one has qualified. Stuxnet was only of limited success.

So maybe, just maybe, your computer has been violated? Millions of conscientious, hard-working, diligent computer user's systems have been infected at one time or another. But even if your computer system has never been hacked, there's still a very good chance that many of the parts in it are substandard: In fact, chances are nearly 100% that SOMETHING in your computer is counterfeit.

Counterfeit parts account for an estimated $7.5 billion dollars in annual lost revenue in America, representing 11,000 jobs. Bogus transistors, diodes, capacitors, resistors, power supplies, relays, and other parts have turned up in U.S. military systems despite being accompanied by all the required "Certificates of Compliance" and all the other paperwork being in order -- including the labels on the actual parts!

A recent Senate Committee report concluded that the Department of Defense doesn't even know how large the problem is, but it surely involves millions of counterfeit parts that are now in service in the U. S. military. An accidental nuclear war is made more likely by this problem.

But they are not alone. Aerospace has also been targeted by the counterfeiters, specifically because, like "mil spec" parts, aerospace parts cost much more than normal parts do. No one wants a 5 cent resister ruining a $100 million dollar rocket launch, so a 2 dollar resister is used instead. But it might really be a 5 cent piece of junk!

Slap on a stolen hologram sticker, and it becomes very hard to tell where a part really came from.

But that's not all. "Diligent" manufacturers go astray, too. Deadlines cause line managers to order workers to skip "required" tests, for instance. This has been documented at "reputable" corporations.

And how about our nuclear reactors?

They buy the same sorts of parts our military and aerospace industries purchase.

Their computer systems and controllers are just as vulnerable to a "Stuxnet" type of virus attack as anyone else's, because those computers and their security systems are operated by humans, and humans make mistakes.

Not only are our nuclear reactors vulnerable to attack, but so are our transmission systems -- and the "smarter" the grid gets -- that is, the more computerized its controls become so they can switch between energy sources and keep the lights on -- the MORE vulnerable it will be to a sophisticated hack attack.

We have only seen the very first salvos in the coming Internet-Based Global War. It's no game, though. The stakes are very high and the players are very good at it already.

It's hard to be perfect, we're only human -- but we're battling against relentless, automated attackers. Wish us luck.

Oh and, we might lose to Mother Nature anyway. One well-aimed solar flare in our direction can do more damage than a billion Stuxnets.

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman, Carlsbad, California USA

The author has more than 30 years' experience as a computer programmer, including writing assembly language control software for concert-sized laser servos and x-y plotters. His award-winning educational software has been run on computers in thousands of universities all over the globe. His programs have also been used for military training, as well as by numerous industries. He has lectured to grant recipients of the National Science Foundation on the use of interactive computer animation in schools, and to over 100 computer user groups. Previous employment includes working as a computer programmer for banks, Fortune 500s and small start-ups.

RE: California's avoidable risk??? Shut-down is the most important next step!

June 25th, 2012

Dear Readers,

Below (top) is an email today from the "Union of (Un-)Concerned Scientists" ("UUCS") asking us to support urgently moving the nuclear waste currently being stored at California's nuclear reactors from spent fuel pools to on-site dry cask storage.

Maybe you've heard me say it before, but I'm going to say it again anyway: Dry casks are not the solution! Shutdown is!

Let's start with a correction to their letter: Dry casks are NOT "transportable" as their letter states. The fuel will have to be moved from the storage cask to a transport cask, and every transfer runs a significant additional risk. They are NOT making "transportable" dry casks at ANY reactor site that I know of, and certainly not at SanO or DC.

And let's say they start transferring and transporting this stuff and even get "good" at it. If it becomes routine, THAT runs a risk of complacency!

And don't forget: Every 80 or 100 years or so, starting several generations after providing any benefit whatsoever, someone will have to somehow take the still-highly-radioactive dried out embrittled reactor cores and transfer them to NEW dry casks, because, it's widely assumed, Yucca Mountain still won't exist (and shouldn't; it's not a safe solution either).

Multiple, dangerous transfer operations can be avoided if we leave the spent fuel in pools.

The real purpose of dry cask storage is to give the industry a way to keep going without having to spend up to approximately half a billion dollars each for new spent fuel pools, which keep the fuel properly separated, and under 40 feet of water.

There are three things you desperately want to avoid with spent fuel.

One is getting near it. The intense gamma radiation and other radiation the fuel emits would kill you in seconds, and that will be true for eons. The fuel must be heavily shielded from humans and animals the entire time.

Another thing you want to avoid is a zirconium cladding fire. All spent fuel needs is a spark. The zirconium can even ignite spontaneously under certain conditions. Perhaps ALL of the casks at SanO will burn, one after another down the line, or at least the three that are stacked one on top of each other will all burn if one does, and their fission products will all be released.

The third thing you want to avoid, of course, is a "criticality event" (uncontrolled chain reaction).

To avoid the first problem you want to keep far away from the fuel and/or have it be heavily shielded -- several feet of concrete and several inches of steel and lead, or 40 feet of water will do for "industrial" sites (but even that is not nearly good enough for the public).

If a fire starts, you will not be able to get close enough to douse it with water later, and nor would it do any good. Better to keep it wet from the start and avoid the spark.

However, avoiding a criticality event means you want to keep as little of the spent fuel in one place as possible. Does that mean dry casks? Or smaller pools? Pools are vastly more expensive. But aside from that, which is better?

The fact is: Nuclear waste management costs money. Lots and lots of money. And the more waste you have to manage, and the safer you desire it to be, the more costly it will be.

Calling dry casks "much safer" than spent fuel pools, as the UUCS does below, is debatable at best, and disingenuous at worst (we'll just debate it). But more importantly, the question ISN'T one or the other. It's: Do you want BOTH? Or should we stop making (more) spent fuel instead? The answer is obvious: Close the reactors. Keep those that are closed, closed forever.

Just because you have, say, 33 dry casks at a site doesn't mean 34 isn't MUCH more dangerous. It's about 3% more dangerous, and that's a lot of added danger. But it won't stop at 34, or 68 or 136. Dry casks can just keep going until something goes very, very wrong.

Where is UUCS's call for shutting down SanO and DC forever? How come THAT's not suggested as a BETTER way to reduce the risk, instead of letting it increase day by day by day?

What about the risk SoCal residents just went through last January, from the busted up steam generators, which could have cascaded into a catastrophic meltdown? Are we simply waiting for an American Fukushima? Are we waiting for California's "Big One" (with hot sauce)?

San Onofre is currently shut down because its steam generators are busted.

But that's not all that's wrong. It's fuel pools are full. It's in a tsunami inundation zone AND an earthquake zone. It's old and decrepit. It's employees are intimidated by management and falsify reports and are afraid to report safety problems. Management likewise has its back against the wall and is desperate to prove they can restart the reactors somehow, despite the engineering logic against such a thing. Nobody wants to lose face or their job. Every state agency claims only the Nuclear Regulatory Commission can "force" San Onofre to close, and the NRC never met a nuclear power plant it didn't like.

The citizens who don't want Fukushima USA to happen here are in a bind, that's for sure. But dry casks aren't the solution. Shut-down is the most important and only logical next step.

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman
Still searching for Pamela's documentation in....
Carlsbad, California USA

At 03:57 PM 6/25/2012 -0700, "UUCS" wrote:
>
>>For decades, the federal government has failed to develop an acceptable solution for managing the nation's high-level radioactive nuclear waste. In California, some 2,000 metric tons of this highly dangerous "spent fuel" is stored on-site at the Diablo Canyon and San Onofre nuclear plantsin densely packed poolsposing significant, avoidable risks to the public.
>>
>>To better protect Californians, and all Americans, more of this dangerous waste must be transferred out of the pools into much safer, more secure, transportable dry casks.
>>
>>The federal government is under increased pressure to solve the nuclear waste problem, which has led to legislation currently being developed in the Senate. Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, as chairs of two key committees, must both play a lead role in order to ensure dry cask storage of nuclear waste is a critical first step in managing and safely disposing of the nation's growing stockpile of radioactive high-level nuclear waste.
>>
>>Urge senators Feinstein and Boxer to protect the public from dangerous nuclear waste by becoming champions of dry cask storage.
>>
>>Take Action Today!
>>
>>Sincerely,
>>
>>Sean Meyer
>>Manager of Strategic Campaigns
>>UCS Global Security Program
- - - - - - - - - - - -

Here are some additional comments from a friend:

If dry casks have a weak point then you can bet terrorist groups will find a way to exploit it. They weaponized our airline industry and I am sure they have already have ideas to weaponize spent fuel in ways that we have not conceived of yet. These pools and casks are some of the largest repositories of nuclear material in the world and our government has allowed these stockpiles to be unsecured. Why in the hell would the NRC allow that to happen?

There are open pits in the New Mexico desert containing radioactive waste from Los Alamos sitting in the open under tarps, that was vulnerable to the brush fires that swept through the area in June 2011. Staff from Los Alamos were visibly worried on the news as the fires spread throughout the area where the waste was stored. This was a sign to me that the industry has no regard for risk assessment.

I worry that the temporary solution of dry casks will become the long term solution as the public becomes complacent and casks are left semi-abandoned by the industry on shuttered nuke sites that have to be secured by the DOE or the military. They may have to remain indefinitely but http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/52363 shows that even concrete is not a totally stable material.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1705874/the_lifespan_of_concrete/ This article states that containment vessels for nuclear waste are made today to last 100 years. That's about 100,000 years less than what is needed.

And this faith in the longevity of concrete to encase spent fuel is still speculation, not practice with tested outcomes. This article about the MIT study speculates the longevity of high density concrete at 100s of thousands of years. But no one knows as steel reinforced concrete is a relatively new synthetic composite. http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract;jsessionid=2B23FD6B00CA83363B2A8CC76EF4E48F.journals?fromPage=online&aid=8112003 In an above ground configuration such as dry cask hardened enclosures, the elements will play a part in the longevity of the material. Remember that we are talking about tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years that these structure must last.

Stainless steel will have its inherent weaknesses over time as well. Just one bunker-buster from a Chinese or Russian stealth fighter, in the future, would answer the dry cask safety question.

Portland cement was used to build most of the modern world yet we do not know how long those structures will last. Ironic isn't it that the only thing that our civilization has created that we know will last for an eternity is deadly nuclear waste.

###

I left the following comment at HuffPost in response to a dry cask article by UUCS there:

Dry casks are no solution. Shut down the reactors, it's the only solution. Where do you put something that mustn't catch fire, no matter what? New spent fuel pools would cost about half a billion dollars to build, plus maintenance. Dry casks are vastly cheaper. THAT is what is driving the push to dry casks -- NOT "safety". What is anyone going to do if/WHEN a dry cask catches fire (shall I list two ways that can happen? Terrorism and accidental airplane strikes, but there are plenty of others....)? Just say no to nuclear power. www.acehoffman.org

In response to:
Wasting Time With Nuclear Waste
by:
Elliott Negin, Director of News & Commentary, Union of Concerned Scientists

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elliott-negin/wasting-time-with-nuclear_b_1619001.html

Short URL: http://goo.gl/OTJyw