San Onofre plant
San Onofre plant
(OP)
Anyone here familiar witht he San Onofre plant? Just saw their mock drill going on on tv. The announcer mentioned that the plant was near or right on a fault line? Also, the brief picture of the plant showed it to be nearly at sea level with a very short wall to stop waves from flooding it. So, basic quetions:
1) Why are they allowed to store spent nuclear rods at a plant so close to a fault line? Why are the nuclear rods not emergency evacuated to a safer location???
2) Why are they allowed to operate with such a short sea wall between them and a potential tsunami in an earthquake prone region?
These both seem like common sense engineering safety quesitons to me! In hindsight from Fukushima, why is nobody thinking about this stuff?
1) Why are they allowed to store spent nuclear rods at a plant so close to a fault line? Why are the nuclear rods not emergency evacuated to a safer location???
2) Why are they allowed to operate with such a short sea wall between them and a potential tsunami in an earthquake prone region?
These both seem like common sense engineering safety quesitons to me! In hindsight from Fukushima, why is nobody thinking about this stuff?
www.MaguffinMicrowave.com
Maguffin Microwave wireless design consulting





RE: San Onofre plant
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Moving nuclear waste is a problem. Everyone always wants it to be "somewhere else" without specifying where that should be. And spent fuel need continuous active water cooling for a few years after it comes out of the reactor, so whatever transport container you use would need to provide that cooling in a fail-safe way. Not easy.
RE: San Onofre plant
This is even if they don't have a bias that sneaks into their reporting.
You are better off trying to gain information of this nature from technical sites written by professionals that understand the industry and the issues.
Some great sites are given in some other current threads in this forum.
rmw
RE: San Onofre plant
RE: San Onofre plant
But I think my original post is still valid. Just because someone 30 years ago when designing it thought that a 25 foot sea wall was adequate...how does that absolve engineers from re-examining those assumptions.
The assumptions made in the design of the Fukashima plant were, in hindsight, obviously optomistic!
www.MaguffinMicrowave.com
Maguffin Microwave wireless design consulting
RE: San Onofre plant
In the clarity of hindsight again, I think the American populace, including the Obama administration, might be more willing to reactivate the Yucca flats facility????
www.MaguffinMicrowave.com
Maguffin Microwave wireless design consulting
RE: San Onofre plant
www.MaguffinMicrowave.com
Maguffin Microwave wireless design consulting
RE: San Onofre plant
I don't think the San Onofre plant has a spent fuel pool with a "tin roof" over it like the Fukushima plant.
I think the safest on-site storage method will be in a dry-cask.
The NRC should mandate all spent fuel to be removed from the pool and moved into a dry-cask storage as soon as it is thermally feasable.
These storage containers are welded closed and they can be used to transport the fuel when the time comes.
RE: San Onofre plant
The thing that makes dry-cask storage so safe is that you can only put old fuel in there that has had a few years to cool in water. Putting fresh spent fuel in a dry-cask storage would result in a fire and contamination release as happened in Fukushima.
RE: San Onofre plant
How many of the 23 are vulnerable to the "one-two punch" of an earthquake and tsunami?
For SONGS, wikipedia states that the decommisioned unit 1 is being used to store fuel - is it under the 6 foot thick concrete containment?
Does anyone know how much time needs to pass before a fuel bundle can be cooled in a non-oxygen atmosphere? My guess would be no more than 5 years.
RE: San Onofre plant
SONGS unit 1 is decomissioned, and its containment now looks like swiss cheese, as you can see in this picture: http://www
From what I gather on the internet, the land around it is being used for dry cask storage like you wanted. That seems to be what Wikipedia was referring to.
The article above says that spent fuel has to stay in water pools a minimum of 5 to 7 years because of regulation, and Wikipedia says the typical stay is 10 to 20 years. Those numbers sound about right to me.
RE: San Onofre plant
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RE: San Onofre plant
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The thread could be construed to be just as "hindsight plausible" as the press in that only the earthquake and tsunami are mentioned. What about an earthquake, tsunami and jet airliner crashing into the containment building all occurring at relatively the same time? What about an earthquake, tsunami, meteor all occurring at relatively the same time? How about an earthquake, tsunami, airliner, meteor and terrorist attack all occurring at relatively the same time? Or, tsunami, airliner, military tank driven by an extremist, all occurring while the plant operators are slightly distracted by an outside national event (like Japan winning the soccer cup)?
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If every possible negative event were analyzed for each event that could harm humans (i.e., medical procedures, high-speed trains, auto driving with a cell phone, hydroelectric dams, etc.) would we ever make any progress? Baseline assumptions must be considered at almost every juncture and appropriate actions taken.
RE: San Onofre plant
Senator Harry Reid (NV, democrat) is tied to extremist liberal philosophies and ideals, most importantly towards the holy grails of "green energy" and "renewables" even though the Yucca Flats is very thoroughly contaminated with the residue from several hundreds above ground and underground nuclear explosions between 1950 and 1996. Harry Reid is the leader, his office is almost the most extreme opponent of the Yucca Flats site, despite the benefits to Nevada and the entire US of properly recycling and disposing of nuclear waste.
Harry Reid's top aide for energy policy was promoted (nominated and approved by democrats) as head of NRC. 'Nuff said.
RE: San Onofre plant
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