San Onofre Safety: Public Deserves The Facts, Not Promises
By SARAH MOSKO -- October 8, 2020 – Voice of Orange County
Nuclear safety advocates are right to question SoCal Edison’s decision to remove the cooling pools at the shuttered San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.
FACT: Highly radioactive nuclear waste will be stored on-site at San Onofre for several decades or much longer. The thin-walled (5/8 inch) canisters at San Onofre were never designed for more than very short term storage.
FACT: Edison wants to destroy the cooling pools, the only means currently available to transfer the contents of a radiation leaking canister into another container.
FACT: The thin-walled canisters do not meet ASME N3 codes for a nuclear pressure vessel used for storage and transport. They are also vulnerable to stress-corrosion cracking, one cause of which is exposure to a marine environment.
FACT: There is no technology to inspect thin-walled canisters for cracking.