SCE Cited For Major Nuclear Related Safety Violation At San Onofre

Get SCE Out of San Onofre

Background: NRC Spent Fuel Pool Cooling Requirements:

“Each licensee shall develop and implement guidance and strategies intended to maintain or restore core cooling, containment, and spent fuel pool cooling capabilities under the circumstances associated with loss of large areas of the plant due to explosions or fire ….”

The San Onofre spent fuel cooling fire protection plan in the event of a large fire and/or explosion hinges on the expertise and staffing of the on-sight San Onofre Fire Department.

Since the San Onofre Fire Department and Emergency Planning Personnel Staffing was reduced to a skeleton crew without prior approval from the NRC after a full and proper evaluation, the existing fire plan is now outdated and unrealistic in event of a large fire or explosion.

A Spent Fuel Pool Cooling Accident, in case of a large fire or explosion without adequate and demonstrated mitigation measures is a MAJOR Nuclear Safety Concern for all the millions of Southern Californians living within the 10 Mile Emergency Protection Zone.  Remember Fukushima's triple meltdowns occurred because of a failure to keep their reactors cool after the big earth quake and tsunami which occurred on 03/11/11.

Last Friday, the NRC cited SCE, the operator of San Onofre's nuclear power plant for violating NRC rules by failing to get approval before eliminating 39 emergency-response jobs after the plant closed last year.

Historically, NRC Region IV has had the habit of citing Southern California Edison with only low level violations, even if the violations were actually severe violations.  This cozy relationship was a contributing factor in the radioactive leak that resulted in the early decommissioning of San Onofre Units 2 & 3 and the loss of billions of dollars to SoCal ratepayers that could have been prevented, if the NRC had enforced the Federal Regulations as written.  This type of safety enforcement is not good for Californians or the NRC.  Now a serious review/investigation and proper action/fines are required by the NRC and its Commissioners, to assure Nuclear Safety is maintained at San Onofre and all the other US Nuclear Power Plants.

The question the NRC should ask is, "Knowing that the SPENT FUEL POOLS MUST STILL BE KEPT COOL 24/7 no matter what, if a major earth quake occurred tonight, would San Onofre Fire Dept.'s skeleton crew be able to guarantee US that they could prevent a nuclear accident from occurring, especially since the 39 emergency-response positions that were illegally eliminated, probably cost ratepayers much less than even one still employed highly paid nuclear manager who would be home sleeping?  

The question that the CPUC should ask is, "If SEC is really interested in safety as they keep telling us, what is the reasonableness of continually cutting corners on those that actually insure our safety, while at the same time retaining other highly paid nuclear Staff?

Related articles

• San Onofre Nuclear Plant Hit With Violation
• San Onofre nuclear plant hit with violation
• San Onofre nuclear plant hit with violation
• Nation's nuclear waste a deepening concern
• Customers would get $1.4 billion in refunds in San Onofre deal

What Mass Evacuation Plan for San Onofre?

Emergency response professional Deanna Polk talks about the many holes in radiological emergency preparedness in the region surrounding the leaky San Onofre nuke, including lack of training and resources for first responders and the absence of a realistic mass evacuation plan.

Jen Tucker are you listening?

No Escape From San Onofre Meltdown.

San Onofre Unit 2 Retainer Bars Could Cause Massive ☢ Leakage

In an accident like a main steam line break at San Onofre, the badly designed retainers bars in Unit 2 could actually make things much worse by causing more damage to any of the 9,727 already fatigued tubes in each of its steam generators which could lead to additional leakage of highly radioactive reactor core coolant and/or cause a nuclear incident or worse a nuclear accident like Fukushima!

Radioactive Leaks and ruptures can happen without notice:

Allegation/Violations

The NRC has decided in AIT follow-up report dated 11/09/2012, “Item 3. “(Closed) Unresolved Item 05000362/2012007-03, ‘Evaluation of Retainer Bars Vibration during the Original Design of the Replacement Steam Generators” as a non-cited violation in accordance with Section 2.3.2 of the NRC’s Enforcement Policy.”  However, as shown below, SCE/MHI’s failure to verify the adequacy of the retainer bar design as required by SCE/MHI’s procedures have resulted in plugging of several hundred tubes in the brand new replacement generators. This has resulted in these violations:

1. Failure to meet NRC Chairman Standards on Nuclear Safety by SCE,
2. Failure to meet Senator Boxer’s Committee on Environment and Public Works
(EPW) Standards on Nuclear Safety by SCE,
3. Failure to enforce SCE Edison Contract Document instructions to MHI by SCE,
4. Failure to meet SONGS Technical Specifications by SCE,
5. Failure to meet general design criteria (GDC) in Appendix A, “General Design
Criteria for Nuclear Power Plants,” to 10 CFR Part 50, “Domestic
Licensing of Production and Utilization Facilities GDC 14, “Reactor
Coolant Pressure Boundary” by SCE/MHI,
6. Failure to demonstrate that Unit 2 retainer bars will maintain tube bundle
geometry at 70% power due to fluid elastic instability during a main line
steam break (MSLB) design basis event, and
7. SCE/MHI took shortcuts by avoiding the 10 CFR 50.90 License Amendment
Process under the false pretense of “like for a like” replacement steam
generator.  SCE added 377 more tubes, increased the average length of the
heated tubes and changed the thermal-hydraulic operation of the RSGs without

proper safety analysis and inadequate 10CFR 50.59 Evaluation.

This intentional action to produce more thermal megawatts out of the

RSGs compromised safety at SONGS Unit 2 due to the failure of 90

percent through wall thickness of a tube by the inadequate design of the

r

etainer bar.

Recommended Actions:

NRC San Onofre Special Panel is requested to resolve the above listed Allegations and/or Violations within 30 days of receipt of this email and prior to granting SCE’s permission to do any restart "testing" of Unit 2. Answer all allegations factually, don't just void them.
 
See Full Document: Media Alert: San Onofre Retainer Bar Problems

10-18-12 SCE's RSG Testing Update + New NRC Blog Topic

The NRC has just posted this new topic on their blog site:

In Response to Your Letters: Proposed Restart of SONGS Unit 2

by Allison Macfarlane

NRC Chairman

http://public-blog.nrc-gateway.gov/

You are encouraged to add your own comments, but be advised that moderation/posting is glacial!

====== 10/18/12 RESTART NEWS UPDATE =====

Information Concerning SCE's Ongoing RSG  Restart Testing At SanO:

I saw this info and I've had this email conversation with NRC Region IV about it:

(I saw this on Oct. 17, 2012 and sent it to the NRC)

Sir

I saw this posted on Twitter today and wanted to forward it to you, in the hope that it is not factual, because if it is, then the NRC has more problems at San Onofre than just damaged and leaking SG tubes...

This was posted on Facebook:

"ACTION ALERT! San Onofre Nuke Plant could Re-Start Within 10 Days!
From a whistle-blower at San Onofre nuclear plant in Southern California: "We are working on Unit 2, bringing it up from Mode 5 to 4 and are preparing to go from Mode 4 to 3 by the weekend of October 20th. Southern California Edison (SCE) brought in the auxiliary boiler (which runs off of oil), and assigned 12 hour shifts. SCE are making damn sure that no steam leaves the domes for fear the public will catch on. I can’t believe how audacious they are, but for all practical purposes, they are going to restart Unit 2—which still is highly radioactive—without the NRC thoroughly reviewing Edison’s application that was just submitted. Their motivation is to see if they fixed the new reactor head which leaked profusely the first time they tried it. They don’t want anything holding them back from actually restarting when they get the green light from the NRC. The NRC’s Confirmatory Action Letter allows them to take it up to Mode 3 because the reactor is not “critical”, (fission reaction is on hold). They are trying to beat the clock before time runs out on them and the CPUC (California Public Utility Commission) sticks Edison with the cost of the outage instead of the ratepayers.” -M

Question: Has the NRC approved this new TESTING, (as it was my understanding that there would be no restarting until the NRC decided it was safe to do so)?   You should be able to confirm the validity of the above with a simple phone call to the resident inspector at San Onofre...

Hopefully Mr. Elmo Collins will honor his quote, "We don't experiment with safety"...

I look forward to your timely response, as I want to give the NRC a chance to comment before publishing the above.

=====

I got this reply on Oct. 18, 2012:

Southern California Edison is permitted, by their license, and by the Confirmatory Action Letter issued March 27, 2012, to heat up and pressurize Unit 2 to normal operating pressure and temperature.  This heat up is being done using offsite electrical power.  This is NOT starting up the plant.  The safety concern with Unit 2 steam generators is the excessive vibration that occurs during high steam flow conditions in the steam generator, which may result in unexpected and rapid steam generator tube wear.  This cannot occur in the condition the plant is being taken to.  The steam generators will be hot, and pressurized, but there is no heat generation from the reactor, and the heat generation from the auxiliary boiler and reactor coolant (electric) pumps is very small and cannot produce enough energy to cause vibration in the steam generator tubes.  

The NRC has no concern with the structural integrity of the Unit 2 steam generator tubes today, in their current reactor shutdown condition.  The NRC is currently evaluating Southern California Edison’s proposal to restart the reactor.  This proposal states that Unit 2 can be operated, meaning it can start the reactor to produce the large amount of heat and steam flow for 70% of normal full power operation.  This amount of steam flow must be shown to not result in additional unexpected and excessive tube wear, or the NRC will not allow the reactor to be restarted. 

The reactor has not been, and will not be started up until NRC has granted permission.  The “testing” that is being referred to is normal testing that is allowed by the current license at San Onofre.  The “testing” that Mr. Collins was referring to is any test or experiment that is not currently an approved procedure and is outside the safety analysis as described in the facility Updated Final Safety Analysis Report.  As an example, the NRC would not allow the reactor to be restarted, producing the large amount of heat and steam flow, so that the licensee could monitor tube vibration to ‘see’ if excessive vibration is occurring – that would be a “test”.  The licensee must prove, with reasonable assurance, before starting the reactor, that excessive vibration will NOT occur.

Victor Dricks

Public Affairs Officer

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission / Region IV

=====

So I sent this reply yesterday:

Question 1 – Is the pressurized and hot reactor coolant (Any Amount) being circulated through SG 2E-089 under these test conditions?

Question 2 – Does the NRC postulate a MSLB outside containment under these test conditions?

Question 3 – If the answer to Question 1 and 2 is yes, does NRC postulate > 99.6 % steam voiding in the U-Tube Bundle?

 The public is going to ask ,"What is going on between Region IV and the NRC? People need the answers in a hurry.  Is the NRC more concerned about the Safety of The Public or letting Edison get away with whatever they want to do?  If NRC was strict from the very beginning with Edison, things would not have to come to this.  There is still time.  Here is a quote for your benefit, An anonymous participant in an Industry Conference was asking questions and persistently complaining about complex and unclear NRC regulations.  A NRC Branch Chief said, "Sir, to resolve any complex technical problem and understand unclear regulations, you have to, 'Read and reread in between the lines', use, 'Critical questioning and an investigative attitude' and 'Solid teamwork & alignment'."

=====

I'll update this post, if I get any additional replies

Best

CaptD

A Nuclear Issue; Trust But Verify

So the folks who run San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station are seeking permission to bill you the ratepayers for a souped-up, $64 million earthquake fault study of the area around the aging nuke plant.

But who should oversee this study? Experts working directly for Southern California Edison (the company that runs San Onofre)? Or independent types, not directly beholden to SoCal Edison?

Hearings on this question were held in San Francisco last week, before an administrative law judge for the California Public Utility Commission.

“In a post-Fukushima world—the stakes are too high to let the utility police themselves." Click for more...

A Nuclear Issue - The Great Shake Out In San Clemente

Potassium iodide 

Tuesday night, October 18th, was at least a partial victory for us in this final meeting the city held in a series of three meetings on Lessons Learned from Fukushima. It was clear from the beginning that the council would not go as far as calling for an immediate shutdown, but we felt it was worth the effort to try to persuade them while also informing a public largely blind to the true dangers of San Onofre. In our awareness campaign alone, we distributed over 6000 fliers revealing reliable and verified facts that should concern those of us living within 50 miles of the second most dangerous nuclear power plant of all 104 in the USA. In the last four months we must have attended at least six televised city council meetings with passionate and persuasive requests to take action. Often we were criticized for being alarmists and extremists, but so were four of the top independent nuclear experts that we brought into the talks. It seemed no one wanted to hear the truth from us or anyone else.

But then the Staff Recommendation came out shortly before the meeting and had an alternative proposal similar to ours, citing many of the same issues, but falling short of demanding an immediate shutdown until after the lessons from Fukushima had been applied. We were glad to see one statement in particular calling for a moratorium on re-licensing until a permanent storage solution for the highly radioactive waste was available. That shuts down any likelihood of them going past 2022, but of course we don't think we have that kind of time to wait for the next major quake in our area.

Coincidentally, today is the practice run for the "Great Shake Out" which simulates a 7.8 on the San Andreas Fault, although they know that it could easily be an 8.0 or greater, (which is twice the power of a 7.8). The death and destruction they anticipate is staggering, and even at that, it has no consideration at all for nuclear fallout in case there are problems at San Onofre. Perhaps it is simply incalculable. How foolish can our planning efforts be if we anticipate a huge earthquake with such certainty in "The Great Shake Out" but act as if the big quake is highly unlikely when discussing vulnerabilities of a nuclear power plant only built to withstand a 7.0?

Anyway, after a long night of deliberations we were pleased to get a 5-0 Vote for the staff recommendation which was actually strengthened by additional language stressing urgency and a call to action for every city in Orange County to support this effort. That was bigger than anything we ever expected. We are very grateful to the leaders of our city for showing the courage and wisdom of holding these meetings for us and for reaching beyond their comfort zones to do what is right. It is certainly quite an accomplishment in a "company town" like ours when Edison claims to contribute over $200 million to our local economy per year.

Next post we'll provide the details of the letters that are actually produced by the city.
Related articles are available at the links below.

Local Nuclear Plant Under Microscope
http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Is-San-Diego-Plant-Ready-for-Emerg...

Remove Nuclear Waste, Close La Pata Gap, San Clemente Officials Urge
http://sanclemente.patch.com/articles/council-to-pressure-for-removal-of...

On Nuclear Issues, Council Aims for Balance
http://sanclementetimes.com/bookmark/16101086

San Clemente seeks O.C. support for nuclear-plant requests
http://www.ocregister.com/news/san-322688-nuclear-onofre.html

Replace Jen Tucker San Clemente

Jen Tucker San Clemente Disaster Guru #FAIL

Jen Tucker, SC's emergency preparedness guru, as a rule, 

paints a "no worries, we've got it covered" spin to a potential 

SONGS hiccup (nuke-jargon for "OMG Chet, it's happening!!!")

I've never heard her say otherwise.

And I've heard her a bunch.

But then, what's the other choice, scream, "We're All Doomed!"

Real estate honchos and chambers of commerce 

so hate the doomed-scenario.

Sad but true reality: in South County's post-disaster, post meltdown, 

post-radiation-plume, post evac dialogue, if we Shut SONGS Now, 

the hypothetical post-nuclear holocaust preparedness mumbo jumbo 

(which flies out the window anyway when the big-one hits, as chaos 

reigns supreme, aka Fukushima  and Chernobyl), becomes unnecessary.

That said - when counting I-5 freeway overpasses between SONGS

(San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station) and Crown Valley Pkwy,

12 or so miles to the north = 12. 

1-overpass per mile. 

Hmm (what goes up, can come down).

Count'em. 

See what number you come up with. 

There may be more, where the I-5 freeway passes over, 

or under a city street, or rail line, or a creek below.

Continuing north to the 405 / I-5 interchange, at Alton Parkway: 

Overs and Unders equal = 1 per mile.

18 overpasses between SONGS and the 405?

Over or under 18-times, in 18-miles. 

4-years ago, in SJC, where I-5 spans Trubuco Creek, 

by total accident, Caltrans engineers discovered severe 

cracks in that I-5 span, and immediately retrofitted it.

I repeat - severe cracking, that was not supposed to be there.

By accident, they found it, and fixed it.

It's a safe bet, the most perfect evac-scenario conceived, 

fails, if just one of the 18, I-5 weak spots / overpasses / 

underpasses - collapse. Or in any way become

impassable. Then what?

Will the I-5 freeway, from Basilone Rd, to the 405, withstand an 8.0

at every elevated juncture?

Or a 7.5?

Or a 6.8?

Caltrans needs to give us the answer, quick.

Because, if even one cracks, when the big-one hits:

end of Evacuation Plan A (hello...Plan B?).

With SONGS shut for good, erases our one, big-bad negative 

when the big one does hit (as predicted).

So: Plan A - Shut SONGS now (for good).

Plan B: look for cracks in I-5, end-to-end, top-to-bottom, now.

Apologies to South County's chambers of commerce and 

realtors everywhere, for this unwelcome dose of 

evacuation Reality.

jerry collamer

San Clemente

Ca - 92672

Nuclear Power Earthquake Preparedness

Wouldn't it be nice if you didn't have to worry about aging nuclear power plants after an earthquake?
Get Involved!