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San Onofre's Closure: What Was Missed
Lasrick writes "John Mecklin explores the context that was missed when the LA Times and the San Diego Union Tribune reported on the closing of the remaining two San Onofre nuclear reactors: 'U-T San Diego published a similar flurry of well-reported stories that covered the basics of the reasons for the closure, as well as the impact on consumers, workers, and the electricity supply. At both papers, coverage included infographics that effectively explained the problem that forced the plant to close—vibration that caused wear in tubes for the plant's steam generators. (The Times's tick-tock takeout on the history of the steam generator snafu, published in July, is especially comprehensive.) The specifics of the San Onofre closing were covered well and thoroughly. The context within which those basics reside, however, was far less well-examined, and the two major newspapers closest to the San Onofre plant both therefore missed a real opportunity to inform readers about the major energy choices California and the country will need to make in the coming decade.' Excellent work at the Columbia Journalism Review."
Earlier today I was looking for an image of Nukiedog to do some ascii art of him as a response to Aspidog in earlier today, but alas, found nothing.
What a synchronicity!
PS: As usual, Google's Usenet archive search fails big time.
Seastead this.
An article that decries all the valuable, important stuff that could have been brought up, but then doesn't bother to bring them up and/or discuss them in any detail?
This article was a waste of my time. I wish Slashdot had a thumbs up/down on articles.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
I live quite close to this reactor. I met a guy at the laundromat that said he was working on the reactor. He said they expected vibration along one axis but were seeing it on another, and that was the source of the corrosion. He felt ultimately it was a political move to shut it down. He also wouldn't be surprised if the decision were reversed, when people realize what the shutdown would do to electricity rates (double them).
In the local stories I have read that there are suspicions about contamination in the ground water under the reactor (it is on a beach FWIW). And there are 3 million pounds of spent fuel there, so hot, that no repository in the US is allowed to take it. I just imagine transporting all that waste by train through the many residential neighborhoods along the track.
A kayak competition is held very near the reactor where people row out, fall out of the kayak, get back in and row back. A friend took his new underwater camera case to the area, and it is full of small sharks, perhaps there is warm water attracting them.
As long as natural gas and coal can emit CO2 without any penalty to the real cost of that emission, nuclear plants will continue to close. It is funny that every time that nuclear power is brought up that people shake their fists demand that it is able to pay its entire costs, while they never mention the tragedy of commons that is going on with fossil fuel derived power. It is a pity that our ability to do risk analysis and balance alternatives is weighted on whether it can blow up in a scary fashion and release a radioactive plume versus causing irreversible destruction to the entire planet (but slow enough that only your grandchildren will care).
I will miss that pair of breasts I ogle whenever I drive down to San Diego...
Guess they architects didn't see it like that, or did and had a massive laugh when they were built.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Paywalls are a relatively new development for Internet, revealing itself to the public some 10 years ago.
It's effect was often ignore, until this case, that is.
The article the former Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner Peter Bradford wrote for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists earlier this year is locked behind a paywall, an article that could have contained vital information for the public to make up their correct judge regarding the use of Nuclear Energy to generate electricity for the United States of America.
The more articles being locked behind paywalls, the less informed the public are going to become.
The less informed the public are, the more power the elite 0.1% is going to garner, for the public will have no cause to oppose whatever they propose, as vital information locked up, so that a few could make some money, while the masses lose.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Yes coal is a major source of electricity, about 40%, and it is going to get harder with new regulation. But again, like nuclear, the reason we building more coal plants it dogma. People believe it is the best solution. It is certainly a profitable solution. There are tens of thousands of people who are willing to dig coal for a middle class income in working conditions that keep the overall costs low. So we have the job argument, the argument that we can't live without electricity, and the argument that technology will make it cleaner. But that technology is funded by the taxpayer, and maybe we want to do something new that will help us long term, not just keep established corporations in power.
In any case, the short term future is natural gas, and the long term future is wind, solar, and conservation. This is where the technology is. Building more efficient electronics. Building better turbines and solar cells. Building superconducting batteries, storing energy in elevated mass, flywheels, etc so that we are not generating for peak capacity 24 hours a day, and then throwing away a quarter of it. It is not something that your C level executive understands, it is not something your coal miner wants to go to school to learn, it is not something that is going to transfer millions of dollars of tax payers money directly into the pockets of investors, but it is something that will build the intellectual and long term economic wealth of the country.
And I mentions conservation. These plants supplied one millions homes in a state of 38 million. That is 2% reduction in capacity. The big thing we need to realize is that energy is neither free nor infinate. We can go and buy a 60" TV that us going to use almost 400KWh in a year, or one that uses under 200. We can browse on our 120 watt computer, or on our 5W tablet. We can turn on the lights in the middle of the day, or not. How much would we need to do to save 2% of the electricity? Who much would be need to do to save 10%?
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
There are dozens of power pools operating around the world. They are all regulated markets. Most have market caps and floors. California's pool didn't. That is a failure of regulation. You will point out that the companies manipulated the system, I will point out that you are only seeing half the problem.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I will miss that pair of breasts I ogle whenever I drive down to San Diego...
Back in the days when I was in California, and that was many moons ago, that cute pair was known as "Dolly Parton"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolly_Parton
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Funny thing about the company that made the pipes anti vibration assembly, it was for larger pipes. (I guess using metric was the problem.) The big story in Orange County is, "who is going to pay for this party?" As an Edison customer in the O.C., I hope it's the company that made the pipe assembly and NOT Edison.
And something else, Anahiem use to own 3% of San'O; I guess it's a warning when Mickey Mouse says, "Bye Gang!".
Guess they architects didn't see it like that, or did and had a massive laugh when they were built.
God, I hope no architects were involved. Hopefully it was designed by engineers. I can only imagine what a nuke plant would look like if Frank Gehry designed it.
Anyone with money pays.
I just received a chatty letter from SDG&E, mostly blather about how they are saving money at the SDG&E office by cutting down on energy and water use, reducing paper use, updating their vehicle fleet, etc... BLAH BLAH BLAH...
The gist of the letter is "about a quarter of our customers will see a noticeable increase in their bills in September..." (due to the San Onofre shutdown).
How much? "If your bill is typically around $100... about $15" -- "If your bill is usually about $250... about $75". (and I am sure it goes higher - see the non-linear trend? 2.5x bill - 5x extra cost... bearing in mind the bill itself is already tiered.
Meh, what's another $1000 a year to live in the Golden State. Guess I need to fire some more of my household staff to make up the difference (as if - but seriously, middle income folks who haven't had a raise in a few years do tend to cut back on stuff like gardeners and house cleaners to make up for new taxes and other stuff like this... cancel the gym membership, do my own gardening. Net same cost to me, two businesses lose out on my patronage and the economy shrinks a bit more.)
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Not to mention that California did have retail caps on the price of energy, and the way they implemented that ("soft caps") was part of the problem of their energy crisis. Once they became an importer of energy (while allowing exports!), all those nonsensical regulations became a weapon to be used against them.
The regulation apologists want you to think that the crisis was a manufactured financial one, rather than a over-regulated supply one. In reality it was both, with one enabling the other.
"His name was James Damore."
Pre or post melt-down?
I can't imagine anything more "geeky" or "stuff that matters" than talking about the effects of shutting down nuclear power around the world. Building nuclear power plants is the ultimate in nerd culture, where nuclear engineering used to be the hot college major that everybody with half a brain would try to enroll into and where you would find all of the math nerds who wanted to make money.
As for the consequences of nuclear power, it really doesn't matter what your political leanings might be, this is pretty interesting stuff and something that really does have a long-term impact upon human society. You might be at odds about the approach that should be taken and if shutting down all of these nuclear power plants is a good or bad thing to do, but it really matters to very ordinary people who receive the electrical power from these plants. It certainly has a major impact upon your day to day activities and your monthly utility bills, not to mention just about every other aspect of your daily life in the 21st Century.
That is also sort of the point of the article, that a bunch of people who should know better are missing an important story that is not currently a part of the national or international forum of ideas. It really does matter.
It was screwy half-hearted deregulation where in many ways the worst parts were deregulated but the parts that really would spur on competition were kept heavily in regulations. It still is near impossible for a neighborhood to build a bunch of solar cell panels and small wind turbines as a neighborhood power co-op and sell the excess power on the grid (possible, but very difficult and full of regulations). That is the kind of thing that needs to happen.
It really is so weird that to go through the California regulations on power needs a full time team of lawyers (not just a single lawyer) even for a small neighborhood group, much less a private individual. The big power companies have those teams, which is why those kind of regulations stay in place. The de-regulation was simply that once the lawyers figured out how to weasel their way through the regulations and required forms, that the state couldn't stop them from any subsequent actions.
I all for shutting it down...
...you know, as a pissy attempt to get the steam turbine manufacturer to come down on price, it was a pretty stupid negotiating tactic, but I have to agree it's their right to shut it down...
...you know: as long as the rolling blackouts hit San Diego first.
Plus, as Chevron has demonstrated, even if you have plenty of fuel, controlling the rate at which you turn that fuel usable is a great way of getting more money by jacking up prices, while simultaneously reducing your costs.
middle income folks who haven't had a raise in a few years do tend to cut back on stuff like gardeners and house cleaners to make up for new taxes and other stuff like this...
Hmm.. middle income must mean something completely different in the Golden State.
Here in the midwest, it surely doesn't correspond to gardeners and house maids.
It's not weird that the small players are locked out, that's working according to design.
If the USA would cut down on bribery of elected officials under the name of "lobbying" you would see less of this.
It is a shame we haven't pursued and embraced reactor tech like Thorium fuel cycles and heavy water designs like CANDU that can run on almost any fuel cycle with little issue including natural uranium.
That definition does not mean what you think it means; you left off a rather large UPPER descriptor.
-- a bitter, degreed member of the barely middle class
Whether it was greed, hubris, or both, the PG&E folks decided they knew better than the original designers and turned the redesign up to 11. They even crowed about their accomplishment in industry publications.
What could possibly go wrong?
This is the worst possible moment in time to move away from nuclear power. Renewables may never reach the point that their energy production matches any decent size gas/coal/oil/nuclear plant. Coal has to go. So many people will talk about natural gas, because now we have so much of it available that prices are low. But the industry doesn't want the general public to know that they have been petitioning the government to export our natural gas. That's right, good old Capitalism wants to win out over energy security. Energy companies need reasons to continue to charge hundreds of dollars a month for energy they now get for a much cheaper price. Energy producers see an opportunity to increase profits, which wouldn't be bad if the end result is natural gas prices rising. In several years, the cost of nuclear power per kilowatt will once again be comparable to, if not cheaper than natural gas. By then our current plants will be even older, the cost to build a new plant will be even greater, and we'll once again wonder why we didn't grab the bull by the horns and prepare for the future in advance.
The plant would stay open under normal conditions- it produces a lot of cheap, baseload electricity- but the new fish intake rules from the Obama administration will add almost one billion dollars in costs, and that is what is really forcing the closure.
The San Onofre plant is cooled by ocean water via a 3,000 ft long pipe going into the deep ocean. Some fish get sucked into the pipe. New regulations are designed to reduce fish deaths. The easy solution to the fish problem is to put a big screened enclosure at the end of the pipe so the speed of the water at the screen is low enough to allow fish to simply swim away. The new rules will not allow the simple fix. Instead they require cooling towers and a closed loop cooling system. There is no place on-site to put the towers so a huge earth moving operation will be called for and the towers are expensive to build, thus a billion dollar bill for very little benefit.
This sort of "drive them out of business by regulatory changes" is going on everywhere in the power business. The goals may be laudable but the process is intended to replace public discussion of costs and benefits with a more closed and opaque system based on regulations.
Power Engineering magazine has covered the issue extensively (but behind a password for most web surfers). However if you Google "San Onofre water intake" you can get a pretty good picture of what is going on. Why is the cooling story and the associated cost issue not being covered in the newspaper reports? Anybody's guess.
Of course Enron didn't have all that much to say about the CA power pool. Being outsiders and all they were more or less ignored.
Also note: The lack of new plants, which was the fundamental problem, was under ratebase.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Of course it is by design. That is where those who want to see more government regulations "to help protect the little guy" end up being mere pawns in the grand games of these big companies and end up screwing "the little guy" far more than if they simply kept their trap shut.
The best way to cut down on bribery is to simply make the situation so elected officials can't do anything... because the government can't do anything. Nobody cares to lobby a government official who is on a committee with no responsibilities.... or at least only in charge of a budget so small that the lobbying amounts to be nothing more than advertisements in the Sunday newspaper. The problem is when you have officials in charge of trillion dollar budgets, spending a couple hundred million is just pocket change on any project you might be working on.
Are you really suggesting that the best way to prevent these problems is to make it so the government cannot do anything and let Enron or similar crooks loose without restriction of any kind? If so take a look at US history just over a hundred years ago to see what a horror show the Robber Barons were.
The Robber Barons were only a problem because the government was still stepping in when it wasn't needed, and not stepping in when it was. Most of J. P. Getty's monopoly was enforced simply through thug tactics really no different than a street gang or even the cartels of Mexico.... and often even involved the "Mafia" where appropriate, including burning down structures of competitors, killing people, and making death threats when they didn't have to kill. That has never in American history every been legal, nor has it needed regulation. Of course the problem was that those who ordered that to happen weren't held liable or responsible for those actions. They can and should have had their wealth stripped from them and imprisoned for engaging in those actions.
Otherwise, most of U.S. history shows that small businesses in competition with each other tends to do a better job of making most things that we need, and that when we compete against each other in a genuine free market... free from tyranny and oppression from thugs and the power hungry who resort to physical violence to achieve their ends... will tend to resolve other problems without piles of government regulation. Yes, that may be a utopian fantasy for such a free market to exist, but it at least can be something to try for.
I completely disagree with the standard characterization of the "Robber Baron Era", and certainly for most typical Americans the progress out of poverty was substantially better then than it is today. Scientific progress, economic progress, and even cultural progress was all better when the government did its best to get out of the way other than to keep us from killing each other and maintain peace in a civil society. I'm not an anarchist, as I do think there is a role for a government to be around, but that role ought to be limited. I also understand the tragedy of the commons as well, but that can be addressed in several ways.
Enron was allowed to do the things it did precisely because the government kept potential competitors from being able to compete against them.
You just don't seem to be able to get it. Due to a "small government" Enron was able to buy people in the government off and get those people to stifle competition for them. Government itself is not the problem. A government that cannot properly be held to account by the people it represents is the problem.