Over 1,300 Tubes Damaged at Calif. Nuclear Plant

Over 1,300 Tubes Damaged at Calif. Nuclear Plant
By MICHAEL R. BLOOD Associated Press
LOS ANGELES May 8, 2012 (AP)
ABC News Story

More than 1,300 tubes that carry radioactive water inside the San Onofre nuclear plant in Southern California are so damaged that they will be taken out of service, the utility that runs the plant said Tuesday.

The figures released by Southern California Edison are the latest disclosure in a probe of equipment problems that have kept the coastal plant sidelined for more than three months.

At issue has been the integrity of tubing that snakes through the plant's four steam generators, which were installed in a multimillion-dollar makeover in 2009 and 2010.

Am I understanding this correctly ?

These tubes are only 2 or 3 years old and already "Damaged" ?


some wisdom from the company:

"There is no timeline on nuclear safety," Edison President Ron Litzinger said.

Well I for one am REAL happy to hear that from you !


And,

"It seems that these new steam generators are falling apart and Edison doesn't know why. It would be foolhardy to restart, even at reduced power, under the current circumstances," said Daniel Hirsch, a nuclear watchdog who lectures on nuclear policy at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Wshewww -- I'm glad somebody's smart !

I wonder Who the "Corrupted" material came from ??

If I didn't know any better,

I might think we have a bungled "cost cutting" boondoggle on our hands !

Really brilliant, if it was due to cost cutting measures. I wonder who would have made that brilliant decision.

I hope any "replacement parts" don't come from the same place.

they claimed they were making repairs and then tried to expand the plant with out the regulatory supervision an expansion would entail

tepco just had a court directed nationalization so that the debt for that disaster will fall on the people the disaster is killing

a bad precedent
very bad

The video said that the radiation is miniscule and not to panic?????

Any amount of radiation IS NOT ACCEPTABLE

Well if it is from the steam system this water never had direct contact with the reactor. So this much less serious than if it was the coolant from the reactor. Still a bit radioactive though

Originally posted by mytheroy
Any amount of radiation IS NOT ACCEPTABLE

I agree, the EPA should go after those pesky cosmic rays and natural background radiation (which you are exposed to constantly) too. That is what the magnitude of this radiation is.

Nuclear power needs to be banned -

It's clearly not worth putting so many people in eminent danger.

Originally posted by Mkoll

Originally posted by mytheroy
Any amount of radiation IS NOT ACCEPTABLE

I agree, the EPA should go after those pesky cosmic rays and natural background radiation (which you are exposed to constantly) too. That is what the magnitude of this radiation is.

You trust what these busters say?

Anything that touches the radiation becomes radioactive.
So why don't we store the particles in batteries.
Because there is so much power we can't use it all.
So we use dumb power instead of free power we have too much of.
However on demand radiation does exist and is not allowed.

... Each of the generators has nearly 10,000 tubes, and the number retired is well within the limit allowed to continue operation.

... The company is drafting a plan under which the reactors would run at reduced power, at least for several months, because engineers believe that will solve a problem with vibration that the company believes has been causing unusual wear in the alloy tubing.

So the company thinks vibration is causing the wear? Perhaps the wear is causing cavitation which in turn can cause the vibration. Hydroelectric plants experience wear from cavitation within the impellers, and that's with ambient temperature water.

And this is serious because an event even a fraction of the size of Fukushima could wipe out millions of people. At least, that's my understanding of the situation. Sounds fun.

Reply to post by braindeadconservatives

I don't know if it needs to be banned... But I agree it shouldn't be used as it is. All we do is boil water with it... Surely there is a better way to use nuclear power, we just haven't figured it out yet.


Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

Sounds like San Onofre won't be coming back online any time soon.

This summer may prove to be interesting.

The more nuclear power disasters we have, hopefully the quicker we can get rid of that dangerous, out moded form of technology. The ban on photovoltaic solar cells over 22% efficiency needs to be destroyed. We have cells that are close to 40% efficiency. With that, their is high probability we could power ourselves solely on tidal, wind and solar energies.

# oil, coal and nuclear energy.

reply to post by xuenchen


Not trying to burst a bubble but it's been posted... it happened 1 or 2 months back....Other Thread

(NO ALARM WENT OFF BY THE WAY!!!)

You want to know what the sick part is... in the last 10 - 15 years they've spent a billion+ dollars to keep those decrepit "tits" from crumbling (and yes they look like tits).... instead of trying to innovate the world by investing in one or all of these alternative clean energies...

1. Wave/Tidal Generation: The thing sits right on the beach... why not expand, test and prove efficiency of wave/tidal electric generation.

2. Geothermal Generation: Just east of the San Onofre facility lays a literal hot bed of hot springs (The power lines even go off in that direction)

3. Hydrogen Energy Generation: I bring this up because they could also establish a desalination plant to begin mass production so California is not so dependent on the Colorado River (But NooOOoooOooo they'd rather establish a "Toilet to Tap" system)

Just my 2 copper coins

reply to post by Mkoll


Keep in mind that the "coolant" from the reactors is what heats the "clean" side water into steam for use in the turbines to produce power. Holes in the tubes would allow the reactor coolant to leak into the "clean" side.

I hope the summer doesn't prove to be too interesting. I live about ten minutes south of SONG, San onofre nuclear generator, and would pretty much be dead if that thing goes boom.

I worry more about what's going to happen when radioactive trash starts hitting Cali beaches. No doubt it's only a matter of time before that happens... To what degree though, who knows.

Nukes are scary.

Seems that the Nuclear PTB dont really care about the "risks, long term and short term" in regards to Nuclear Power. Are the Super Computers not being inputed with the right scenarios?? How many more NUCLEAR ACCIDENTS are we to take??

Seems a little odd to me these are all coming down at the same time.

I'd almost be willing to bet that somebody in charge of plant chemistry there is looking at the help wanted ads. Or at least they should be. Tubes typically just don't fail for no reason en masse like that.

Contaminants that seem negligible in most water systems are a whole different story when dealing with 600°F 600PSI superheated water. Also keeping minimal turbidity and a neutral pH is serious business. Etching/erosion, embrittlement, and various other forms of corrosion are greatly accelerated under plant conditions. Or at least that's a little bit I remember from many years ago. (Was a machinist's for a while, until I decided I wanted to do something else.)

If it breached into the primary, then it could be really bad. Because whatever was eating the pipes (not just the tubes) in the secondary could get into the fuel rods. (Reactor/primary should be at a higher pressure to limit that. In theory at least. Now in practice?)

Whatever it is, we can all agree that it shouldn't have happened in the first place. Then again, that's just stating the obvious.

We have been in this mess since Chernobyl
Why as a race are we not thinking and exploring alternatives that may produce energy outputs?
(Yes I know it is an old article, but what have people/government been doing?)
Why not look at alternatives?