11 Years Ago Today, San Onofre Nearly Became the Next Fukushima

From San Clemente Green

Eleven years ago today — Jan. 31, 2013, we almost nuked Southern California. We owe a debt of gratitude to the nuclear operators that managed a swift and flawless emergency shutdown.

A Thank You Note to Edison Employees and a reminder to all. It is important to remember that they prevented a major disaster eleven years ago.

Your quick actions when radioactive steam began escaping into the environment, prevented a chain reaction from occurring in one of the newly replaced steam generators. It turns out that whistleblowers, afraid of known retaliation from management for such things, had rightfully warned us of this possibility two years prior.

When San Clemente Green was first asked to make the concerns of licensed nuclear operators known to the public, we got no help from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), only hollow reassurances. Little did they know that the computer model SCE and Mitsubishi relied on was flawed. The program miscalculated the actual force of the steam by 400%.

Heated discussions were taking place in the lunchroom between engineers about doing more testing before introducing radiation. Because they were behind schedule and over budget Edison opted to skip something called “Hot Functional Testing”. That is where auxiliary boilers bring the system up to full temperature and pressure. The NRC just trusted that SCE had replaced LIKE-FOR-LIKE steam generators when that was far from the truth. A core post which stabilized over 10,000 long narrow tubes had been eliminated to make room for more tubes and therefore more production capacity (profit).

This deception prevented a thorough license review which would have likely revealed the gross miscalculation. Unfortunately, that major error resulted in the tubes banging and rubbing against each other, creating much accelerated wear. The thin barriers between pure water and radioactive water had been breached. It could easily have become a cascading event. Intense heat and pressure could have quickly turned pin hole leaks into laser-like torches, cutting tubes clean in half. Those severed high pressure tubes would behave like wild garden hoses whipping and banging and destroying the other closely packed tubes. If it were not for the immediate emergency shutdown performed by alert engineers we might still be living the worst nuclear nightmare today.

We are so lucky, because, unlike the ongoing disaster in Japan, we have a dense population of 8.5 million people living within 50 miles. We also have mostly onshore winds that would have brought the plume directly over Camp Pendelton and wafted inland, up the coast, then out to sea, only to follow the ever-present eddies back again.

Not only would radioactive clouds have blasted into the atmosphere, but the water making all that steam would be depleting the cooling water that keeps the reactors from melting down. This close call could have been avoided completely if they had only listened to their own engineers and done hot functional testing.

We face a similar dilemma now, 11 years later. Experts in the field who share our concerns and were willing to speak at the next Edison backed forum, the Community Engagement Panel (CEP), were flatly rejected.

Our experts have good reason to believe that, amongst other threats, flooding has not been adequately addressed. San Clemente Green is sponsoring our own public online event to allow for this presentation by a well-respected industry insider, Paul Blanch, and other distinguished experts in a lively Q&A session to follow. Edison and the NRC will be invited also. Details are still in the works for our upcoming event. Also keep a look out for the follow up story on what happened after the leak.

For now, let’s just give our gratitude to those who protected all of SoCal from a greater than Fukushima disaster. I encourage you to set your alarm for 3:05 pm on January 31st and join me in remembering the exact moment when our surrounding communities nearly became a no-go zone for decades if not centuries to come.

We may not know you by name, but you know who you are, and you should feel proud of your heroic accomplishment. You deserve our deepest appreciation for the key roles you played in a not-to-be forgotten episode in the saga of SONGS.

A most sincere thank you to one and all.