Category: Energy

New Analysis Comes Following Grudging Edison Admission That Reactors 2 and 3 Face Same Dangerous Issues

By ROSE / April 12, 2012

A follow-up analysis released today by one of the nation’s leading independent nuclear engineers provides the first detailed picture of the extent of design changes made by Southern California Edison at its San Onofre nuclear reactors. These changes likely led to the equipment degradation and failure that has forced the reactors offline, pending a thorough and comprehensive investigation.

The study by Arnie Gundersen and Fairewinds Associates is the second in a series commissioned by nuclear watchdog Friends of the Earth. It is available online here.

It was a little over a week ago – on April 5th – that hundreds of angry rate payers jammed two public hearings on SDG&E’s plan to pass on their costs from the recent fires of 2007 to the public. In addition, charges were made that the officers holding the California Public Utility Commission hearing had conflicts of interest as they were beholden to the utility company.

An estimated 650 people attended the two public hearings held at the Al Bahr Shriner Center, so the East County Magazine reported. And most were opposed, apparently, to SDG&E’s proposed `Wildfire Expense Balancing Account’ (WEBA) plan. By far most who addressed the hearing, spoke against the WEBA plan, …

The Public Should Be Eying Mark Nelson – Not Michael Zucchet

A mild controversy swirled around Michael Zucchet from Point Loma the other day because he was one of two people appointed to the San Diego Oversight Board.

Those who still are not convinced of Zucchet’s innocence in San Diego’s “stripper-gate” scandal of 2003 to 2005, and those who are bothered because he is currently the general manager of the the City’s largest public-employee union, the San Diego Municipal Employees Association, opposed his nomination and selection by Mayor Sanders and the City Council.

Yet, the real controversy should have swirled around the other appointee, Mark Nelson, who along with Zucchet was nominated to serve on the San Diego Oversight Board, which will oversee and supervise the deconstruction of San Diego’s fourteen redevelopment projects, as mandated by State law.

Apparently, the Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Gregory Jaczko, is coming to check out the troubled San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station tomorrow, Friday, April 6th.

In response, leaders of local community groups are holding a press conference near the facility on Friday, April 6th at 10am. The location of the press conference will be near the San Onofre State Beach guard shack on Beach Club Road.

These activists are asking supporters to join them

San Diego CPUC Meeting

Al Bahr Shriners Memorial Auditorium

April 5th

2:00 pm and 6:00 pm

5440 Kearny Mesa Road

San Diego, CA 92111

By Diane Conklin / Ramona Sentinel / Originally published March 24, 2012

What will it take for the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to deny San Diego Gas & Electric’s request that you and I pay for their fires? I have thought a lot about this question and have come to this conclusion: It will take the people of San Diego County, thousands of them, to email, call, write, and participate in the process.

And one of the most important and most accessible ways to participate is to join with neighbors and friends and “Come on down” to the April 5th public hearing and tell the commission yourself what you think of this plan.

Tuesday night- March 27th – supporters of decommissioning San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station packed into the 250+ seat City of Irvine Council Chambers in Orange County.  At least 50 people wore green clothing to mark their support for San Clemente Green, an environmental action group working since the Fukushima meltdown last March towards a San Onofre shut down.

After general city announcements and a few agenda items, item 6.1 came up for the Irvine council. Councilman Larry Agran introduced the topic, stating that is was his motion to add San Onofre to the evening’s agenda; he’d invited San Clemente Green to present public comments as they had previously at city council meetings in San Clemente, Laguna Beach and San Diego’s own Solana Beach.

by Shaun Burnie / Friends of the Earth / March 27, 2012 

Friends of the Earth released today a new analysis by one of the nation’s leading independent nuclear engineers, Arnie Gunderson. The report has revealed serious unresolved safety problems at Southern California Edison’s San Onofre nuclear reactors which could lead to significant radiation releases if the plant is allowed to restart.

By Mike Lewis / East County Magazine / March 22, 2012

The proposed 100 megawatt (MW) Quail Brush Generation Power Plant Project encountered more resistance at the San Diego Planning Commission meeting downtown Thursday morning.

In a victory of sorts for the project’s opponents, a 30-day continuance was granted, delaying a decision on rezoning the 22-acre plot from open-space to industrial.

California PUC Puts Off Decision Until Thursday, March 22nd

SEMPRA’s controversial plan for a large-scale wind farm in Baja, Mexico, has been placed on the back burner – but only temporarily – by state regulators because of a question that utility customers – that’s us – would pay too much for the electricity.

This is the same cross-border project that has come under intense criticism as it would send 15,000 green jobs to Mexico. SDG&E and Sempra – its parent – have been pushing this project, the Energia Sierra Juarez project, for 5 years with claims that it would supply power to an estimated 65,000 homes.

By Serena Scaglione / East County Magazine / March 21, 2012

The California Energy Commission (CEC) will hold a workshop at 5 p.m. this Thursday, March 22 at Mission Trails to discuss the proposed Quail Brush Generation Project being developed by Quail Brush Genco, LLC, a subsidiary of Cogentrix Energy.

By Sheila Johnson

Last December, on a visit to Japan, I had a chance to spend a day being driven around Sendai and its environs to see at first hand some of the earthquake and tsunami damage of March, 2011. We did not go anywhere near the ‘dead-zone’ around Fukushima’s nuclear reactors, but what I saw was shocking enough — lamp-posts bent like pretzels by the force of the water, entire towns wiped from the map, and rice-fields that would normally have been covered with rice-stubble instead scrubbed clean of all topsoil.

Even worse, these rice-fields had been covered, I was told, by six feet of sea water. How long, I wondered, will it take for the salt to be leached from the soil so that rice can grow there again? And what about the nuclear fall-out and its damage to soil, plants, and animals?

Hundreds rallied in front of the San Onofre nuclear reactors on Sunday, March 11th, in commemoration of the disaster exactly one year ago at the Fukushima plant in Japan. And two speakers from Japan addressed the crowd and expressed appreciation for Americans’ solidarity during the warm afternoon near a cliff just off the Pacific.

Organized by local peace and anti-nuke groups, such as the Peace Resource Center in San Diego, and sponsored by a variety of progressive organizations, the rally was the largest demonstration at the San Onofre nukes in years. Protests against nuclear power were more widespread in the 1980’s, and the site just south of San Clemente has been the target of such protests over the decades.