nuclear-news

Those tides rolled up to San Onofre last weekend, where a sea wall stands to protect what nearby communities fear is a man-made disaster in waiting: the decommissioned but still radioactive San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS).

The following week, local officials and activists convened a set of dueling community forums that well capture the ongoing dispute over what exact risk the nuclear waste sitting at SONGS poses to all life within the area joining Orange and San Diego counties.

The debate centers on the integrity of SONGS’ nuclear waste storage system, which has been criticized as prone to failure and an ecological and human health hazard.

One Nov. 19 forum hosted by nuclear watchdogs saw some of their fears echoed back to them by Dr. Ian Fairlie, a radiation biologist in London who once headed the Secretariat of the UK Government’s CERRIE committee on internal radiation risks…….

Members of the public laid out those concerns at an Aug. 20 panel meeting, and the comments can be read here.

…….  environmentalists are looking at sea level rise’s impacts on coastlines well into 2100. Edison had previously argued studies into that time frame aren’t necessary………

There’s deep disagreement about what to do with the leftover nuclear waste, all 1,800 metric tons of which are in dry storage and embedded in concrete.

The spent fuel contains radioactive isotopes like Cesium-137, the amount of which critics say is comparable to levels released during the Chernobyl disaster of 1986.………

The contention between watchdogs and Edison is the type of dry storage the company chose.

Critics say the company has cheaped out through more cost-efficient, but less safe, thin-walled HOLTEC canisters, feared to be more prone to cracking and corrosion from conditions like the plant’s salty seaside locale. Instead, watchdogs have called for the use of thicker casks they say would better stave off the risk of failure and exposure.

Fairlie at the Nov. 19 forum, hosted by the Samuel Lawrence Foundation and local nuclear safety groups, said the current canisters in use by Edison are “not very good – they are cheap … 5/8ths of an inch thick, prone to cracking.”

They’re “designed to be temporary and they’re not really robust from external attack in my view,” he said, adding “it would be much, much, much better” for the spent fuel to be stored in a thicker cask — “Unlikely to be subject to cracks.” The only problem? “They’re very expensive.”  ……… https://voiceofoc.org/2020/11/annual-high-tide-spurs-concerns-about-future-safety-of-san-onofre-nuclear-waste-stock-near-south-oc/