RE: O/T: San Onofre

[Lew Hodgett]

Southern California Edison has finally announced the San Onofre nuclear plant will be permanently shut down.

The arrogance of SCE was typical of the "We know best" attitude of the utility industry found in some parts of the country.

The San Onofre nuclear plant was an inferior design according to industry watchdogs that SCE tried to get recertified when it leaked without submitting to the certifying process.

They were finally brought into submission.

To put things in perspective, there are over 8 million people living with in 50 miles of San Onofre.

Now for the plant's demolition, but leaving accumulated nuclear waste within 100 yards of the Pacific Ocean is not an option.

There is still a lot of work ahead to properly dispose of all the waste material accumulated over the years and not allow San Onofre to become an ocean side nuclear dump after the plant's demolition.

SCE will try to cut corners, that is their track record.

Vigilance to keep them under control will be vital.

Off the stump.

Lew

[Keith Nuttle]

Thank GOD, we have people in the Carolinas that are not afraid of Nuclear Energy and have trained knowledgeable people to run them in a safe manner. We have several plants that are online producing clean, environmental-friendly energy. They are not killing birds, creating noise in all frequencies. They are not taking up acres and acres of sunbaked land with no trees.

We recently had a power plant problem. They found a small crack in a pipe going to the reactor. They shut the plant down, fixed it and restarted it.

Several years ago we lived within 10 miles of one. Never did it affect our lives in a negative way. The large lake created for the cooling system was leased to the city and was a beautiful park with waking trails, picnic areas, etc. The lake itself was one of the best fishing lakes in the area.

It is nice to know we have a reliable source of energy to run our air conditioners this summer, that will run day and night. That is not dependent on the wind which may be blowing over 100 mph during a hurricane one day, and the next be so weak that they will not move my small sailboat.

[Leon]

I wonder if California's over the top restrictions and regulations are the source of the problems. I mean really, my new yard sprinkler which is also sold in California has to have cancer warning labels because something in it may or may not cause cancer in "1 in 1,000,000,000,000" test critters.

The regulations seem to be so far fetched and absurd that a "legitimate" producer simply can not operate and make a profit. So what you end up with is a business environment that is too hostile for production. As a result it appears that the ones that do operate under the "California restrictions" and are producers of "whatever" probably hide the fact, or not, that they have to cut corners at every possible step. And because of the over bearing restrictions the businesses that could possibly do a better job and make a sustainable profit simply feel that life is too short to do business in California. This leaves you with the type of businesses you rant about, those that don't care about their image, those that will lie and hide what is really going on, those that do what ever it takes to make a profit and ride that pony for all it is worth until it gets caught.

I believe for many years Californians have believed that they live in heaven, a place where every thing can be made perfectly safe, clean, and with out hazard.

May I assure you, they are not in heaven and they are the recipients of enormous amounts of deception.. They have been sold a bill of goods which they cannot afford.

[PV]

So you let them bury the nuclear waste in your backyard?

[Larry Blanchard]

I used to be a strong supporter of nuclear power. Then I did some software for a couple of nuclear plants. After listening to the managers and watching the "trained" people for a couple of months, I changed my mind.

[none]

On Sat, 8 Jun 2013 15:35:58 +0000 (UTC), Larry Blanchard

So, what did you see? People lurching from one problem to another?

[Leon]

Probably ends up in NM or Washington State.

[Leon]

Ever think it might have been the software? :~)

[PV]

It's always great to have a "reliable source of energy" when you can pawn the waste off on another place. Waste that will be hot for a long long time.

[Lew Hodgett]

----------------------------------------------------------- This was driven by the feds (NRC).

SCE finally realized they were not going to be able to stonewall this one away.

-----------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------- Is there an echo chamber in here?

That's the standard line we keep hearing from the chief idiot sitting in your governor's chair, when he trys to raid a few marginal businesses under the guise of a "trade junket".

Regardless of all the bitching, California still has an economy that is in the world's top six economies.

Must be doing something right.

Lew

[Keith Nuttle]

The Feds are not responsible for the restrictive regulations in California. In my experience with Regulation, California is many times more restrictive than the Feds or any other state regulations.

An example is trace contaminates in food and food substances. When I was working daily with regulations, California regulations were basically if you can detect a compound you must provide proof that it is safe. This is counter to the American law, which is that you are innocent until proof guilty. At least it was until 2008.

[Keith Nuttle]

If the restrictive regulations had not been employed to drive nuclear power out of existence, there would be no waste to bury. It is against the law to try to reclaim nuclear waste.

If the Chemist and Physicist had been allowed to solve the problem in the last 40 years, the raw material that we are currently are burying from nuclear plants would be used to produce additional energy.

[Keith Nuttle]

Here is a general article about the technology of processing materials coming from a nuclear plant.

Because of Jimmy Carter, a knowledgeable democrat, it can not be used in the US.

[Keith Nuttle]

[Larry Blanchard]

No, because it never got used. We were informed that the NRC required it, therefore they had to have it - but they had no intention of using it.

That's when I started getting worried.

[Larry Blanchard]

How about doors to critical areas locked with a keypad, but no way to tell how many entered or left on a single actuation?

How about spills that were marked with tape on the floor instead of cleaned up. They did get cleaned up shortly before a congressional visit

- at least the tape went away.

How about monitoring software whose consoles were left unmanned?

Operators were only required to have a high school diploma (or GED). Do you know how easy it has been to get a diploma in the last 20-30 years?

[Lew Hodgett]

----------------------------------------------- Seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Guess a majority of the 38+ million people here in California seem to also agree.

Lew

[PV]

Far from a definitive solution to the problem plus it's 4 years old, and in the meantime the stockpile of waste continues to grow but that's okay and you can ship it somewhere else to be disposed of while you enjoy dependable air conditioning

[Keith Nuttle]

If the software were any good and problems occurred, alarms would be sent to all consoles so all consoles would not need be manned.

The problem with many people in the US is they run of and make critical decision without a complete knowledge of the situation.

How many times have you heard people complaining about a company making a billion dollars profit, and do not consider the fact that the company has 50 billion in sales, or making 2% profit.

[Larry W]

Damage and deaths from coal burning air pollution and fly ash waste containment accidents dwarf anything caused to date from nuclear waste in the USA.