Comments (10) (Please sign in to comment)

1. 

   thegreatack said, 7 months ago

   Regulation?! We don’ need no steenkin’ regulation!!!
2. 

   MortyForTyrant said, 7 months ago

   Now the NRC is considering allowing the defective reactor to restart at a lower power-level, like that would help with unknown dynamic fluctuations and uncalculable wear. These clowns are playing with the lives of millions of people and the future of the country. The operator (Edison) made a mistake in designing the new heat-exchangers and they need to own that mistake. If you get all the profit you also have to bear all the losses, anything else is corporate socialism…
3. 

   CasualBrowser said, 7 months ago

   Hmmm, everywhere I look this Halloween reminds me of Priscilla Presley.
4. 

   dtroutma said, 7 months ago

   As a SCUBA diver, saw the ocean before San Onofre, noted the lies the company put out, and then saw all the damage that was done by this facility to sea life. Now that folks are a little more worried about the people using all that power, they’re suddenly concerned??

   
   Newer designs are of course much safer, and we may well have to use nuclear for some time, like coal, gas, oil, and other systems, because the same greed to consume all that energy, rather than conserve, hasn’t changed.
5. 

   thedeathofnewwave said, 7 months ago

   If Our Corporate Insect Masters say a thing is safe, then that thing is safe. We need no regulations ! Three things are always correct : Jesus, The Marketplace, and Our Corporate Insect Masters !
6. 

   Richard Anderson said, 7 months ago

   Hmmm, I must be missing something. I thought that San Onofre was a nudist beach.
7. 

   Michael wme said, 7 months ago

   @dtroutma

   Don’t complain, give them time. They’ll do as good a job as Mr Burns. The fish will soon look like the ones in Springfield, and those three-eyed fish are good eatin’. Just ask Homer.
8. 

   Eryx said, 7 months ago

   Those reactors are essentially the same design as the ones at Fukushima. It is important to not that it wasn’t the earthquake that killed the ones in Japan: it was bad construction decisions and poor siting of the backup pumps.
9. 

   MortyForTyrant said, 7 months ago

   @Eryx

   Sorry, but i have to object. The Fukushima reactors are all Boiling Water Reactors, the ones in San Onofre are Pressurized Water Reactors. BWRs don’t have the type of heat-exchanger/steam-generator that causes all the trouble in San Onofre. They do have one inherent safety feature that would have saved Fukushima, which is a small, steam-powered pump to keep the water in motion even if all electricity is lost. If that really would work is another question…

   -

   Furthermore the pumps in Fukushima were basically not the problem. The problem was that the Emergency Power Generators and the associated switch-gear were in the basement and got flooded. Also all the Diesel got destroyed when the tsunami-wave crashed into the big aluminum-tanks outside the buildings. Which all could have been prevented if the flood-wall would have been up to spec and not down to price…

   -

   Lastly there are indications that the reactors were in deep, deep trouble even before the tsunami hit. There are pieces of concrete on the floor of the Containment Vessel (which should be impossible) and pictures released today show even nuts and bolts lying on gratings. I’m very keen on Fukushima, this is far from over and we get new information every day (as well as decaying materials in the reactors…).
10. 

    Eryx said, 7 months ago

    @MortyForTyrant

    Not to be argumentative, but both involve heat exhange. The main difference between a BWR and PWR is that a BWR core heats to steam which then drives turbine. A PWR reactor core heats water (under pressure, so it does not boil) which then exchanges heat with a lower pressure water system, which turns to steam. The steam pressure in a PWR is certainly higher and that affects the risk somewhat, but the heat exchangers are a risk in both.
    
    However, the siting of the emergency pumps is what killed the Fukushima reactors. They were inundated by the tsunami because they were placed at ground level and the seawall was not high enough (something that was discussed just a week before the earthquake), and the foundations were actually made closer to sea level so as to save money on pumping seawater.
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