Is San Onofre nuclear plant irreplaceable?

Anyone who has gone to San Diego from Los Angeles and passed by the 5 Freeway must have seen the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station – or SONGS for short – located near the shore with two daunting half-domed, egg-shell like concrete structures dominating the otherwise serene scenery. Be that as it may, the plant has been one of the major sources of electric power for the city of Los Angeles and nearby cities some 65 miles away.

However, the San Onofre nuclear plant has been out of commission for a year now due to what is being said as “premature wear” on newly-installed tubes in the steam generators.  Critics blamed poor design as the main cause.

Built in the 60s, SONGS have had its share of problems ever since Bechtel inadvertently installed a 420-ton nuclear reactor vessel “backwards,” according to Wikipedia, in 1977. Also, multiple citations were issued against the plant for a variety of safety issues.

Though mostly owned and operated by Southern California Edison, restarting SONGS will depend on a decision by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission if the latter allows the company to restart the facility, which may be known in a few weeks, if not months.

According to Edison, SONGS generates  2,200 megawatts of power in two reactors, and provides 20 percent of the power to most of Southern California. Southern California Edison services some 14 million people with power generated from various locations and sources, namely natural gas, hydro, geothermal, wind and solar farm facilities and, until it shut down last year, nuclear energy from SONGS.

In a video just released by SoCal Edison, the company presented an illustration on the importance of SONGS and why it would be costly to replace it, while building other facilities of other sources may take years, if not decades.

The video, called San Onofre and Grid Reliability, and which was also posted on YouTube, showed comparisons on why reviving SONGS is more practical. The video showed it will take 4,400 new towering windmills to replace the 2,200 megawatt of power that SONGS generates. Edison added it will also require 64,000 acres of new solar farms to do the same, which the company “mockingly” illustrated would stretch some 100 miles from Los Angeles all the way to Palm Springs – in a straight line – if all 64,000 acres of solar farms are built. Meanwhile, gas-powered facilities emit hazardous plumes up in the air, the video also showed.

In addition, neither solar nor wind farms can provide continuous and reliable power – 24 hours, seven days a week – unlike SONGS because weather and other natural elements may affect their power-generating capacity compared to a plant that produces nuclear energy.

Most important is that building new power plants means erecting new power grids, transmission lines, and other equipment to capture that energy and distribute them to households. SoCal Edison said such project may take 10 years to plan, apply for permits and to construct the new facilities, not to mention allocating billions of dollars which we all know California can ill-afford in these current economic times. And despite what environmentalists claim, SoCal Edison said the San Onofre plan provides “clean, safe, affordable and reliable” energy to millions of Californians.

According to a statement released to media, SoCal Edison is “doing everything they can to meet projected demand” as we head into the summer in the next few months. “Last summer, SCE customers did an amazing job in saving energy, and SCE also made some transmission improvements that helped keep the lights on for everyone,” the statement said. “SCE hopes that they can reach even more customers this year to improve the collective impact of individual conservation measures.” Therefore, resuscitating SONGS seems paramount so we can all enjoy an unfettered source of power anytime we need them, as the video from SoCal Edision seems to portray.