SCE Didn’t Opt to Repair

Mission Viejo city watchdog Joe Holtzman forwarded the following article with his comment:

“This is unbelievable. Southern California Edison turned down repair offers by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. You have got to be kidding me – restart instead of repair. Are decisions being made by lunatics? And the big-money organizations like South Orange County Chamber are in support of this.”

Repair proposal floundered at San Onofre

The manufacturer of faulty steam generators that have sidelined the San Onofre nuclear plant proposed long-term repairs last year that were never adopted by the plant operator.

Plant operator Southern California Edison is currently seeking permission to restart the plant's Unit 2 reactor at partial power to reduce damaging vibrations to steam generator tubes carrying radioactive water, while a long-term fix is devised. The replacement generators made by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries of Japan were installed starting in 2009.

In a December letter to Edison, Mitsubishi outlined a repair option that would insert thicker anti-vibration braces between generator tubes to prevent vibrations and wear. It estimated the repair would take one year. More extensive repairs involving the replacement of the entire tube bundle also were discussed, in documents filed amid investigative hearings at the California Public Utilities Commission.

Edison Vice President Thomas Palmisano testified in vague terms Wednesday that the repair raised questions about adequately restoring the steam generators. Edison declined to provide further explanation.

The hearings are an early phase of an investigation into who should pay for outage costs at San Onofre -- utility customers or corporate stockholders of Edison and minority owner San Diego Gas & Electric. The City of Riverside owns a tiny share in the plant.

Meanwhile, more than 1,800 comments have been filed with federal nuclear safety regulators concerning a provision of Edison's restart proposal that would limit the Unit 2 reactor to 70 percent power level for about two years. Staff at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission see no significant hazard in that amendment to the plant's operating license, as proposed by Edison.

The comments can be read by the public at the website regulations.gov, though processing delays mean only a handful of letters were available Thursday. Initial entries pit business chamber concerns about nuclear plant jobs and sufficient power supplies against concerns about the safety of plans that critics are calling an experiment.

The nuclear activist group San Clemente Green circulated an online petition to add thousands of signatures to its letter designed to keep San Onofre shut down, according to Gary Headrick.

The environmental groups Friends of the Earth and the Natural Resources Defense Council together submitted a lengthy critique of the no-hazard finding. The Orange County Business Council, meanwhile, showed support for the commission's approach.

Thirty days remain for the public to petition for a public hearing on the no-hazard determination.

Whether public evidentiary hearings will be held on the broader nuclear commission review of the restart remains an open question. The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, an independent authority within the agency, called for a hearing opportunity in an order published Monday.

Edison and the staff of the nuclear commission have until June 7 to appeal that decision to the full five-member nuclear commission.

From http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/may/16/repair-plan-went-nowhere/