Proposal to replace nuclear power plant generators is raising controversy

Proposal to replace nuclear power plant generators is raising controversy

May 18--By Pat Brennan, The Orange County Register, Calif. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

Steam generators at the San Onofre nuclear plant must be replaced at a cost of $680 million to keep reactors running for the next 17 years, plant operators say.

But the proposal is stirring controversy. Cost concerns have caused a major rift with a San Diego utility company, and anti-nuclear activists want the proposal shelved so that the plant will have to shut down sooner.

"We're at a stage where we need to assess the negative impacts of nuclear power and be honest about it," said activist Lyn Harris Hicks, a 47-year San Clemente resident who began fighting San Onofre even before the plant was built.

"We always maintain that we're a very important asset to Southern California," said Ray Golden, spokesman for plant owner Southern California Edison. "We generate enough power for 2.2 million homes."

Replacement of the steam generators, to be discussed at California Public Utilities Commission hearings today in Oceanside and San Clemente, is needed because hundreds of tubes that channel superheated water from San Onofre's Unit 2 reactor have begun to develop microscopic cracks, Golden said.

Nearly 1,000 out of 9,000 tubes in Unit 2 have been plugged as a precaution against cracking, although the generator works fine without them and all were plugged well before the tiny cracks presented any safety issues, he said.

Edison also wants to replace steam generators in the plant's other reactor, Unit 3.

To replace all four generators -- two for each reactor -- before safety issues arise, Edison will need years of lead time. It would have to order parts from Japan, and have them made and delivered.

Without an upgrade, Unit 2 might have to be shut down in four years, Unit 3 a few years after that, Golden said.

But Hicks, head of the anti-nuclear Coalition for Responsible and Ethical Environmental Decisions, hopes to use the upgrade proposal to raise larger questions about the wisdom of nuclear power.

Hicks, as well as the Sierra Club, has weighed in on the controversy, saying nuclear power is inherently dangerous.

Hicks says the plant is also a target for terrorists, that nuclear waste is building up there and that it presents a serious threat to people living around it in case of an accident.

Golden said the plant is well-protected against any terrorist threat, that waste is stored safely on site and that an accident is highly unlikely at a plant that has been operating safely since 1968.

Replacing the steam generators could extend the life of the plant, Hicks said. Some of the plant's land leases with the Navy come up for renewal in 2013, and it is federally licensed to operate until 2022.

Golden said the refit has no bearing on extensions of the land lease or the question of relicensing the plant -- a question San Onofre officials say remains open.

The $680 million upgrade proposal faces other troubles as well. San Diego Gas & Electric has said it would rather give up its 20 percent stake in the nuclear plant than allow ratepayers to be charged for the upgrade.

The city of Anaheim, which owns a 3 percent stake, also wants to pull out and concentrate spending on renewable forms of energy, such as wind power, said Mike Ebbing, spokesman for Anaheim Public Utilities.

After analyzing comments received at the meetings, the Public Utilities Commission will decide whether to authorize replacement of the steam generators, David Gamson of the PUC said. The PUC will consider both environmental and economic questions associated with the steam-generator proposal, including activists' assertions that the plan should not be approved so that the plant ceases operations sooner than 2022.

The commission also could weigh in on questions of ownership and San Diego Gas & Electric's wish to pull out.

A decision could come as early as July, Gamson said.

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