nuclear-news

No timetable for restarting San Onofre nuclear plant

Official: Nuclear plant will be offline, Silicon Valley Mercury News, By Associated Press  05/07/2012 LOS ANGELES — The chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Monday there is no timetable for restarting the sidelined San Onofre nuclear plant on the Southern California coast, where investigators are trying to determine the cause of unusual wear on hundreds of tubes that carry radioactive water.

The statement from Chairman Gregory Jaczko came just days after a senior executive for Southern California Edison disclosed that the company was hoping for a possible June restart. The twin-reactor plant, located between Los Angeles and San Diego, has been offline for more than three months.
The integrity of complex machinery inside the seaside plant has come
under close scrutiny since investigators found that tubing that snakes
through massive steam generators eroded at an unexpected rate, in some
cases rapidly.
Jaczko said the federal agency is waiting for documentation on repairs
and other work at the plant and “any discussion of a date for the
restart … is clearly premature.”
“We will take whatever time is necessary to conduct a thorough safety
review,” he added.
A restart would require federal approval…….. SCE projects that the
bill for repairs and tests could run as high as $65 million, and $30
million was spent on replacement power through March 31 — a bill that
keeps mounting. Gradual wear is common in such tubing, but the rate of
decay at San Onofre was startling because the equipment is relatively
new.  http://www.mercurynews.com/nation-world/ci_20571052/official-nuclear-plant-will-be-offline?source=rss

May 10, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | general