The San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant has been shut down for good after it has been beleaguered with problems over the last 17 months. In spite of recent upgrades, it has been determined that it will be cheaper for the company that operates the plant, Southern California Edison, to take the $400 million loss of shutting the plant down and start from scratch trying to make power somewhere else. The plant is like that old car you just got rid of because it would cost more to fix it than it's worth.
Where Does That Leave Us?
In spite of what many might believe, the danger from the presence of the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant won't be abated now that it's being shut down. The Plant, along with every other nuclear power plant in the United States, has generated thousands of tons of nuclear waste from its spent fuel over its years of operation. The major problem with that is that there was never any coherent plan in place to dispose of that waste, or at least not one that was ever adopted. You see, all of the spent nuclear fuel waste generated in this country for decades has been sitting in on-site storage pools at the plants themselves. In addition, since there never was any place that the nuclear plants could ship their waste to, overflow went into dry casks, or large dumpster looking devices that sit outside the plants. This applies to both operating and retired plants.
On-site storage of possibly the most toxic waste known to man, in above-ground pools of water and dry casks in close proximity to population centers is obviously not the ideal situation. It's been postulated that the safest way to dispose of nuclear waste is to put it deep underground where there is no chance of the waste contaminating wildlife, groundwater and most importantly, humans. Wouldn't it be nice if we had some place like that in our country where we could transport and store all of this highly dangerous stuff that is a figurative time bomb waiting to explode?
Yucca Mountain
Oh wait, we do have a place like that. It's called Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository. It's a place that the Federal Government has spent $12 billion of the $32 billion fund, that the plants themselves have paid into, to build and operate the repository. It's agreed on by both environmentalists and the nuclear power industry that the best solution for spent nuclear fuel is in a deep geologic storage site like the one at Yucca Mountain.
NIMBA
The main reason for the failure to implement storage in the Yucca site is because of a mindset commonly referred to as NIMBA, or Not In My Back Yard. Currently led by Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, several groups have lobbied and taken legal action against the federal government regarding the repository since it was designated in 1987. The reasoning behind these attacks that threaten our entire nation, and the world, is that these people essentially don't want the nuclear waste being transported and stored near their homes (The closest community to the site is Las Vegas, which is about 80 miles away). This closed minded behavior has been the force slowing down and even halting progress on coming up with an adequate site for nuclear waste disposal.
Why It's Not Moving Forward Now
In 2010, the Obama Administration, folding to pressure from these ill-educated NIMBA folks, decided to withdraw the federal government's application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for approval of the Yucca Mountain site "with prejudice," essentially halting all progress on the repository. Several law suits and even legislation from Congress has been enacted to counteract this maneuver, but for now, the project is essentially dead in the water.
What a Shut-Down San Onofre Means to Southern California
A shut down of the plant then means that the region now has to continue dealing with all of the costs, and none of the benefits, of having a nuclear power plant that eerily resembles the Fukushima plant that nearly set all of Japan aglow with radiation, in its back yard. The way things have been going, for decades to come, the plant will be the site of thousands of tons of highly toxic radioactive waste. Oh yeah, and anyone for more rolling blackouts?
Sources:
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-edison-closing-san-onofre-nuclear-plant-20130607,0,7920425.story
http://www.atg.wa.gov/page.aspx?id=27624#.UbIOhNj4LPY
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/nuclear_power/2013/01/nuclear_waste_storage_why_did_yucca_mountain_fail_and_what_next.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Onofre_Nuclear_Generating_Station
http://www.lasvegasnevada.gov/information/3286.htm
Friday, June 7, 2013
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)