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Hopefully, if you live in Orange or San Diego Counties, you know that the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) has been turned into a nuclear waste site for the foreseeable future. Regardless of where you live, it is wise to keep track of domestic and foreign movements in order to increase reliance on nuclear energy.
The United States ushered in the nuclear age in 1945 by dropping a uranium bomb on Hiroshima and a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki. We now have 3.6 million pounds of these and other deadly radioactive elements in makeshift jerry cans on SONGS beach to be left indefinitely.
Nobody has figured out how to safely dispose of deadly nuclear waste. However, to combat the climate crisis, the United States and the world are proposing to get more of it done by extending the life of existing nuclear power plants and building new ones. Has the world learned nothing from the disasters of Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima?
Since SONGS closed in 2013, controversy has developed over the dry waste storage systems selected by the facility’s operator, Southern California Edison (SCE).
Like all nuclear power plants in the US, SONGS was not designed for the storage of nuclear waste after decommissioning. The 1982 Nuclear Waste Act mandates the construction of a deep geological repository to store the country’s spent fuel for the hundreds of thousands of years in which it remains fatal. However, when hopes for a repository on Yucca Mountain, Nevada collapsed amid concerns about groundwater pollution, talks turned to creating “interim storage facilities” in Texas and New Mexico, though those states, too, shy away from the prospect.
The current reality, as determined by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), is that a repository may never be created, which overwhelms nuclear power plants with unlimited on-site storage of spent fuel.
Last August, SONGS transferred all of its spent fuel to 123 dry storage canisters, each of which has the potential to release as much highly radioactive cesium-137 as was released during the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
SONGS canisters are made of thin-walled (5/8 inch) stainless steel and are prone to “stress corrosion cracking” in a marine environment. They are not designed for safe maintenance, inspection, storage, or transportation.
The potential consequences of cracks are far worse than small emissions of radiation into the atmosphere: canisters are filled with helium to limit corrosion and prevent explosions from air or water ingress.
Compare this to the thick-walled (10-19 inch) drums used in most countries that are not prone to stress corrosion cracking and are designed for maintenance, inspection, storage, and transportation.
As a waste storage location, SONGS is very risky. Located on the coast and in an earthquake zone, it is prone to destructive land seismic shifts and tsunamis. Photographs show waves that splash near the top of the dike at high tide.
If the cooling air vents surrounding the canisters are clogged with sand, water, salt, or other debris, quick cleaning of the vents may not be possible. The air cooling could stop, and even Holtec admits that temperatures could exceed 1000 ° F in a matter of days, near the maximum temperature the canisters can withstand.
Also of concern is the susceptibility of the canisters to terrorist attacks as they are stored in the open and light targets.
Requests from nuclear safety advocates to move the radioactive waste into safer thick barrels have been rejected by both the SCE and the NRC.
The US nuclear reactors were originally approved for 25 to 40 years of operation. NRC has granted several dozen reactors operational extensions of up to 60 years, raising concerns about worn components and obsolete operating systems.
Kalene Walker is a concerned Orange County resident researching the nuclear waste storage issue. In response to her query as to whether there are critical parts of reactors that can never be inspected, Dr. Allen Hiser (NRC’s Senior Technical Advisor for License Renewal Aging Management) acknowledges that some components cannot be inspected due to inaccessibility or high temperature.
Although Hiser suggests inferring the health of non-inspectable components by sampling similar inspectable parts, this cannot eliminate risks if no one can know when non-inspectable components might fail.
Nuclear energy is neither renewable nor sustainable and today costs more than solar or wind energy.
With the nuclear waste problem completely unsolved, it is frightening that 50 new nuclear reactors are being built around the world. In the USA, 24 applications for the construction of new reactors have been submitted since 2007.
The creation of more U.S. nuclear power plants and deadly waste is insane if we cannot guarantee the safety of existing aging facilities or the over 80,000 tons of spent fuel that has already been produced. The argument that nuclear energy is needed to fight global warming reflects the same foolish mindset – ignoring negative long-term effects for short-term gains – that caused the climate crisis in the first place.
We must no longer kick radioactive nuclear waste on the streets. It is time to tackle the problem head on.
Sarah Mosko is a freelance writer working on environmental challenges. With her background in basic research, her goal is to make complex environmental issues and rational solutions easy to understand.
Opinions expressed in community opinion pieces belong to the authors, not the Voice of OC.
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