nuclear-news

Just exactly who should pay for San Onofre’s repairs and restart?

If San Onofre nuclear plant is restarted, who pays? The San Onofre nuclear plant must first be deemed safe to restart. But with costs already mounting, it’s unclear who would foot the bill. By Abby Sewell, Los Angeles Times August 22, 2012 
Nearly seven months after the San Onofre nuclear power plant was closed because of a leak, officials are grappling with whether it makes financial sense to bring the plant fully back online, and if so, who should pay for the necessary repairs.

Fixing San Onofre is shaping up to be an expensive proposition, with
the price tag jumping into the hundreds of millions of dollars if the
plant’s massive steam generators require replacing.

But keeping San Onofre shuttered is also proving costly to the two
utilities that own the plant. Southern California Edison had spent
$117 million by June 30 to replace the power lost when San Onofre went
offline, and San Diego Gas & Electric had spent $25 million, costs
that ratepayers may be asked to pick up.

Imported energy is more expensive than electricity generated at San
Onofre, which had provided about 20% of the power to large swaths of
Southern California.

The first task for the utilities and federal regulators is to
determine whether San Onofre can safely be restarted.

But the question of costs is also looming. One, there’s the issue of
can they do it, can the units be repaired? And if they can, then
there’s a question of whether it’s cost effective,” said Mark Pocta,
program manager for the California Public Utilities Commission’s
Division of Ratepayer Advocates.

“Safety’s the first issue, and then there’s cost effectiveness.”
Southern California Edison has said it hopes to restart one of the
plant’s two reactors — probably at reduced capacity — in the coming
months. But the issues with the other reactor are so severe that
officials said it may be unable to restart at all without extensive
repairs.

Edison is preparing to submit a plan to theU.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commissionfor restarting one of the reactors, Unit 2. The other
reactor, Unit 3, has been taken off the table indefinitely.

What the necessary repairs might be, and whether they would be worth
the cost, has not been determined, or at least not publicly disclosed.
Edison this week said only that “we see the reality that Unit 3 will
not be operating for some time…. It is too soon and would be
inappropriate to speculate as to what is needed for repair for Unit
3.”

It remains unclear who would pay………
Watchdogs have pushed back against the possibility that ratepayers,
who are still paying for plant operating costs during the outage and
for the costs of the last steam generator replacement, could be asked
to help foot the bill for repairs or another replacement. The steam
generator replacement completed less than two years ago has cost
Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric a combined $771 million, according
to recent company filings.

Matthew Freedman, staff attorney for ratepayer watchdog the Utility
Reform Network, said he thought replacing the generators again —
especially at the expense of ratepayers — would be a non-starter,
especially since the plant’s current license expires in 2022. Edison
has not submitted a renewal application….. Meanwhile, San Onofre
faces a growing chorus of opponents, including the leadership of
cities surrounding the plant, who say it should remain dark….
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0823-san-onofre-20120823,0,5050904,full.story

August 24, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, USA