Shut Down San Onofre Movement Gains Momentum
The case against restarting SoCal Edison’s faulty nuclear reactors received a wider hearing June 4th with the webcast by av4b.com of a public forum entitled Fukushima – Lessons for California. Held in the San Diego City Council chambers, the historic event was organized by Friends of the Earth, Physicians for Social Responsibility and San Clemente Green and was a major step forward in the growing local, state and national campaign to permanently decommission the San Onofre nuclear reactors. Mucho Kudos to the organizers!

The distinguished panel of speakers was headed by former Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who was in office at the start of the on-going Fukushima disaster.

In addition to Prime Minister Kan (ably translated by Cathy Iwane), speakers included:
Gregory Jaczko, Former Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer, Fairewinds Associates; Peter A. Bradford, former member of the NRC; and Kendra Ulrich, Friends of the Earth, Nuclear Expert.

The Friends of the Earth Synopsis of the seminar is here.

Full video series of the symposium is here. (recorded by Ray Lutz)

Here are excerpts of the av4b.com webcast captured and re-posted by EON as a public service. Please circulate widely. Scroll down for links to press coverage and critical analysis by Roger Herried.

Friends of the Earth’s Kendra Ulrich gave a succinct analysis of current developments in the decommissioning push, pointing out that restarting Unit 2 at partial power to test SCE’s hypothesis that it can be done ‘safely’ would constitute an experiment involving the unconsenting 8.7 million human subjects who live in the surrounding densely populated urban area.

Naoto Kan, Former Prime Minister of Japan [Thanks to San Clemente Green for the following bios.]
In 2011, Mr. Kan was Japan’s Prime Minister during the Fukushima nuclear disaster. At one point Japan faced a situation where there was a chance that people might not be able to live in the capital zone including Tokyo and would have to evacuate. Mr. Kan declared the need for Japan to end its reliance on atomic power and promote renewable sources of energy, such as solar that have long taken a back seat in the resource-poor country’s energy mix. Mr. Kan resigned as Prime Minister in August 2011 and now serves the Democratic Party of Japan to garner support for alternative energy policies.

Gregory Jaczko, Former Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Mr. Jaczko was first sworn in as a Commissioner of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on January 21, 2005. On May 13, 2009, President Obama designated him the organization’s Chairman. During the Fukushima crisis, Chairman Jaczko recommended that Americans evacuate 50 miles outside Fukushima. On February 9, 2012 Mr. Jaczko cast the lone dissenting vote on plans to build the first new nuclear power plant in more than 30 years when the NRC voted 4-1 to allow Atlanta-based Southern Co. to build and operate two new nuclear power reactors at its existing Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia. He cited safety concerns stemming from Japan’s 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, stating, “I cannot support issuing this license as if Fukushima never happened.” His pro-safety stance caused much friction with the other commissioners, resulting in his departure from the NRC. He has since been appointed to a post on a Congressional panel overseeing the National Nuclear Security Administration.

Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer, Fairewinds Associates
Arnold “Arnie” Gundersen is chief engineer of energy consulting company, Fairewinds Associates. Arnie Gundersen has 40-years of nuclear power engineering experience. He attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) where he earned his Bachelor Degree cum laude while also becoming the recipient of a prestigious Atomic Energy Commission Fellowship for his Masters Degree in nuclear engineering. Arnie holds a nuclear safety patent, was a licensed reactor operator, and is a former nuclear industry senior vice president. During his nuclear power industry career, Arnie also managed and coordinated projects at 70-nuclear power plants in the US.

Peter A. Bradford, former member of the NRC
Mr. Bradford was a member of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission during the Three Mile Island accident. He was also the former chair of the New York and Maine utility regulatory commissions, Peter Bradford has taught at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and currently is an Adjunct Professor at Vermont Law School teaching “Nuclear Power and Public Policy”. A member of the China Sustainable Energy Policy Council, he served on a recent panel evaluating the reliability of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, on the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development Panel advising how best to replace the remaining Chernobyl nuclear plants in Ukraine, a panel on the opening of the Mochovce nuclear power plant in Slovakia, and the Keystone Center collaborative on nuclear power and climate change. He is the author of “Fragile Structures: A Story of Oil Refineries, National Securities and the Coast of Maine” and many articles. He is a graduate of Yale University and the Yale Law School and is Vice Chair of the board of The Union of Concerned Scientists.

Other Media Coverage:

Roger Harried comments:
I’d like to make an addition to the article, about just who the man to the right of PM Kan is holding the camera in the picture.

That happens to be Iori Mochizuki of Fukushima Diary, one of the most prolific bloggers covering the aftermath of Fukushima. He traveled here to the US to attend the 4 hour event and also asked the very question that I also wanted Kan to answer about evacuation of the public.

Kan’s response of course, was that he relied on his experts, that were the usual bunch of industry safety experts. Sadly, Kan stuck by their position, nor did he disclose his own discussions that there were even plans to evacuate Tokyo especially if the event escalated.

In San Diego, Fukushima legacy comes calling
By Morgan Lee7:51 p.m.June 4, 2013 – UT San Diego
Ongoing efforts to restart the plant have been overshadowed by allegations that Edison may have misled regulators about the extent of design changes to replacement generators installed starting in 2009 in order to avoid a more thorough review. Edison says it did not install generators that it believed to be unsafe or unreliable.

Jaczko said a more thorough regulatory review under license amendment procedures might have caught design flaws. Read more

Published on Jun 5, 2013

Clips from Gregory Jaczko’s presentation at the San Diego Seminar — Fukushima Daiichi Disaster: Lessons for California, June 4th, 2013
Video by Ace Hoffman www.acehoffman.org
Accidents do happen: Fmr NRC chairman Gregory Jaczko speaking in San Diego

Ace comments: Note that the full cost to Japan of Fukushima quoted by Jaczko in the clip — $500 billion USD — could be incurred again (and again…) if restarting of the currently-shut reactors in Japan occurs. There is no such thing as a completely safe reactor. There are no safe containment structures, and there are no safe, stable locations for reactors or spent fuel.

The following list of media coverage was compiled and distributed by the Peace Resource Center of San Diego
Please support Their work by becoming a member and/or making a donation!
Great photos of seminar by Mark Thormalen

Other coverage:

Ex-PM Naoto Kan attends anti-nuclear symposium in California
by Faith Aquino – Japan Daily Press
Former Prime Minister Naoto Kan shared his change of paradigm regarding nuclear power during an environmental symposium in California, where an ailing nuclear power plant also stands. He said that what happened in Fukushima in 2011, when he was still Japan’s premier, opened his eyes to the dangers nuclear power brings. Kan even admitted shame for being an instrument of Japan in exporting nuclear technologies. More…

Ex-NRC head Jaczko: San Onofre restart proposal ‘does not instill a lot of confidence’
Ben Bergman – Southern California Public Radio
Gregory Jaczko, who chaired the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) from 2009 to 2012, said he has doubts about Edison’s proposal to restart the San Onofre nuclear plant at 70 percent power for five months.
“The approach does not instill a lot of confidence in me,” he said Tuesday in San Diego. “It’s a fairly novel idea to allow a plant to operate at a reduced power level because of a safety issue.”
He said the proposal raises doubts about the nuclear plant’s operations.
More…

Ex-NRC chief: San Onofre restart plan doesn’t instill confidence
By Abby Sewell – LA Times
The former head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Southern California Edison’s plan to restart the darkened San Onofre nuclear plant at reduced power for safety reasons is “not one that instills tremendous confidence in me.” More…

Lessons From Fukushima For San Onofre
By Alison St John – KPBS Radio
…Jaczko said the melt down at Fukushima was a wake-up call that made him realize the industry needs a new way to measure risk. More…

Lessons from Fukushima for San Onofre
Posted by Ken Stone (Editor), June 5, 2013 at 11:23 am
Former NRC chief Gregory Jaczko said the meltdown at Fukushima was a wake-up call that made him realize the industry needs a new way to measure risk. more...

Excellent resources and information about nuclear power SanOnofreSafety.org

Important Nuclear Safety Event Gets Pitiful Coverage
Comments on the San Diego event that included former Prime Minister Kan – SanO’s big picture
Roger Herried – Abalone Alliance Clearinghouse archivist – Energy Net

On Tuesday, June 4th 2013, the former Prime Minister of Japan Naoto Kan and the former head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Gregory Jaczko, along with Peter Bradford, also a former NRC Commissioner and Arnie Gundersen spoke about the lessons learned at Fukushima and how they might apply to the San Onofre nuclear facility that is located within 50 miles of over 8 million people. Also speaking was Kendra Ulrich from Friends of the Earth that along with Arnie Gundersen has been involved in the legal battle to keep San Onofre from reopening.

The four hour long symposium received no national media attention, and horrible coverage by the Los Angeles Times. Other local coverage was somewhat better, but still mostly censored considering the timely nature of the event. For anyone looking at just how biased the current state of US media coverage has become barely two years after Fukushima, its clear that we are witnessing an intentional agenda of walking away from protecting this country from similar future events. Imagine if a former president of the United States spoke out about a prominent global issue and only had three major media outlets show up, with two of those from Japan.

The event itself was invaluable in that it brought Naoto Kan to speak outside of Japan for the first time since he stepped down as the acting head of Japan during Fukushima, the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Northeast Japan on March 11th 2011. Even though he was a supporter of nuclear power prior to the disaster, Mr. Kan now supports the idea of a nuclear free Japan as well as the development of renewable energy sources to replace all of his country’s nuclear energy.

The timely theme of the event comes at a critical moment as the Southern California Edison, the owner of the San Onofre nuclear facility, has been pushing to reopen unit two of the facility possibly as early as this month. The ongoing controversy over the newly installed steam generators that have forced the twin reactors to stay closed for nearly a year and a half has spurred a campaign to keep the reactors closed for a number of major reasons, highlighted by strong possibility that what happened at Fukushima could happen at San Onofre.

Rather than attempt to summarize Prime Minister Kan’s presentation first, since it largely about his own personal experience in dealing with events surrounding Fukushima, it was Gregory Jaczko’s presentation that could have made a difference in the current debate around San Onofre. Sadly, that didn’t happen, even though there were a number of important general issues he did speak to. The most important comment he did make was his concern about how complex computer models are being used to evaluate the probability of events to rationalize against doing anything about severe events similar to Fukushima. He also believes that the industry should not doing any further licensing of reactors until twelve major recommendations of changes to the current safety regime is done. And of primary concern the agency’s current procedure of making safety changes at reactors voluntary rather than mandatory! The next most important concern he had was that extending the operations of current fleet of aging reactors beyond their original licenses should be reconsidered. During the question and answer session he pointed out that the NRC should not have allowed such a major modification of critical equipment as the replacement of the steam generators in the procedural manner that it did.

Gregory also went onto to describe the agency’s order calling for all Americans within 50 miles of Fukushima to evacuate more as a travel advisory in nature when asked why similar rules are not part of US regulations here that only require mandatory evacuations out to 10 miles. Even though his comments are significant, including his acknowledgement of the human costs of Fukushima and that the American Nuclear Society has estimated the disaster costs at $500 billion, there was much that wasn’t said, including far stronger language. His acknowledgement of our version of Japan’s “Nuclear Village” was clearly a major letdown. The term “Nuclear Village” in Japan goes to the heart of the Japan’s own investigation into what happened at Fukushima and not mentioned at all by Prime Minister Kan or Mr. Jaczko! In July of 2012, the 6 month long government investigation done by Japan’s legislative body (Diet) stated that it was the Nuclear Industry’s control over all regulatory agencies – that led to lax safety procedures was the root cause of the Fukushima disaster. Thus the term “Nuclear Village” where a regulated industry has almost complete control over the government’s regulatory authority of itself.

It would be former NRC Commissioner Peter Bradford who would properly frame the current state of affairs with our own “Nuclear Village”, giving details of how the industry controlled NRC has gutted the ability of the public to participate in the regulatory process. Let alone all but dictates how the agency runs, as seen by a recent congressional letter threatening the Commissioners if they attempted to push too hard on safety issues from Fukushima that was initiated by Jaczko. Peter’s presentation also detailed the fact that collapse of the highly touted “Nuclear Renaissance” in the US has died on economic grounds. As demonstrated by decision to close two facilities this year and the abandonment of most of the reactors that were announced after former President Bush and congress handed the industry $13 billion in 2005 and additional $18 billion in federal loan guarantees.

It is very important that Arnie Gundersen made his presentation on why San Onofre should not be allowed to conduct go back online as well as the controversy about how its owner had snuck through the steam generator replacements that are estimated to have cost the region over $1 billion which is now being investigated by the California Public Utilities Commission as to whether or not ratepayers or Southern California Edison should be responsible for paying. Especially since Senator Boxer’s call for a criminal investigation of the matter of the company intentionally lying to the government.

However, there was no presentation about the real dangers of what the region faces if there is a major earthquake and meltdown at San Onofre. Just as the people of Japan were told for decades, that such an event could never happen, but did, Southern Californian’s have also been spoon fed the exact same claim. And unlike the situation in Japan, there is a massive population far closer and directly downwind of San Onofre. And of course, what is of most concern is the fact that the potential of such a Fukushima repeat isn’t just a remote possibility, but has been on the radar as a very serious concern by the California Energy Commission for over five years.

However, as anyone close to the issue knows, the NRC has exclusive authority over all reactors in the US, thus resulting in the owners of state’s nuclear facilities long ignoring their own legal authority as granted by state law. As clearly stated by Peter Bradford during the event, California’s unique regulatory relationship with the NRC goes far deeper. In fact, there is no other example known where a regulatory body has been caught breaking its own rules but was then protected by the US court system to continue on with its legal activities has is the case with NRC’s illegal and original licensing of both Diablo Canyon and San Onofre.

California is the 2nd most seismically active region in North America literally being hit around the clock with earthquakes every day of the year. In fact Southern California experts believe that the region is 150 years overdue for the next major quake, which is defined as event registering 6.7 or greater on the Richter scale or greater. The USGS says that there is a 97% chance of such an event in the next 30 years, having released impacts studies of what would happen if a 7.8 quake hit the region. They have withheld details of impacts of large quakes. And in the light of the previously thought impossible mega-quake that hit Japan in 2011, have failed to publicly acknowledge that at least one geologist that has been living on the San Andreas has said there is evidence of much greater historic quakes.

Yet, even with the state’s historic relationship with major earthquakes, a cavalier attitude has been in place by both the companies and oversight agencies that have all but failed in their original agenda to make California the home of nuclear power, where the country’s largest promoter – General Electric used to have its nuclear division headquartered, which has since moved to Japan. by the mid 1960′s Pacific Gas & Electric was promoting plans to build over 60 reactors in the state but resulted in the first successful movement to stop reactors anywhere, resulting in only the two operating facilities today.

In fact, when the reactors in California were licensed to operate in 1984, the NRC broke its own regulations when it intentionally did not consider the complicating effects of earthquakes on evacuation planning for a nuclear disaster. In fact, an upset NRC Commissioner intentionally leaked the secret minutes of the agency’s decision to ignore its own regulations. This led to a dramatic 2 year legal war that ended in a 5 to 4 vote by federal judges, with all the modern conservative stars of today’s Supreme Court involved. The ring leader was none other than Judge Robert Bork of the infamous Saturday Night Massacre, the only person Richard Nixon could find that was willing to fire the country’s attorney general in an attempt to stop the release of the Watergate Tapes. It was Bork who would rule that looking at the leaked transcripts would be tantamount to judicial activism. Thus to this day, the public can look at these documents that show how the agency lies to the public as well as broke its own rules rather than allow public hearings over emergency planing prior to licensing not just at Diablo Canyon but also for San Onofre! Because of Bork, we have no legal recourse to use the documents, but anyone can see our “Nuclear Village” at work and the power it wields!

Far more urgent today is the fact that when, rather than if such a major quake does happen, the public will not be prepared to deal such a disaster that could be far worse than what happened in Japan! And here we have on June 4th, an all but uncovered event, where the former head of the NRC says that the methodology in this country for estimating the chances of such an event should be dismantled and replaced with real plans or in this case, not his words, keep it shut down.

If the coming earthquake is sufficiently large to damage San Onofre, it would also be big enough to damage or destroy any number of the 30 plus aging dams and reservoirs in the area that would be potentially be as devastating to much of Orange County as the Tsunami was to the coast of Japan after 311. Furthermore, the region also has nearly 7 months a year where it is under high alert for fire, for example nearly a million people had to be evacuated in 2007 due to fires. But combine this with broken natural gas lines during a serious quake as seen during Fukushima, broken water mains and at least 1,600 estimated fires that will break out as estimated by seismic experts in just a 7.8 quake and you have a living nightmare. Yet, this is only the start of what will come.

The current emergency plans for a nuclear crisis mandates staged evacuations in the 10 mile zone only, with estimates that it could take up to 17 hours to accomplish. In such a scenario state earthquake and liquefaction maps for the area show that all evacuation routes would be compromised by landslides, or downed overpasses of which there are over a 1000 of in Los Angeles alone. The entire region will be facing an innate urge to flee from radiation without any previous preparation.

Contrary to what former NRC Chairman Jackzo said as well as Prime Minister Kan said about following the orders of emergency planners in case of a meltdown, the following issues make what they are saying ludicrous if not insane in the case of San Onofre:

The current emergency plan in place for the public farther than 10 miles away from San Onofre is to shelter everyone. That’s right, you will be told to go indoors and shut your windows – stay off the roads and don’t flee! After the above 7.8 earthquake, the USGS has estimated that over a half million homes, and other buildings will be damaged or destroyed. For anyone who has ever experiences a major quake, the very last thing they will be willing to do is stay inside a building that could potentially fall down and kill them in the hours and days following the initial quake. Furthermore, there will be an even greater number of shattered windows that will all but preclude the public from keeping radiation from getting into their homes.

As demonstrated in what happened during the Three Mile Island disaster in 1979 when an order for just over 5,000 women and children to evacuate were given, instead over 140,000 people did so in the rural area surrounding the damaged reactor. Even more disturbing is the fact in numerous studies there have been shown that there are serious problems about Shadow Evacuations of people who would complicate the emergency plans to remove just the public closest to the facility. With the latest report on this being the buried Government Accountability Office’s report released overshadowed by the NRC’s own announcement of its plans to go ahead with okaying a restart at San Onofre.

And of course, during the last emergency hearings done by the state over 20 years ago, the strategy of using police to keep people from evacuating onto freeways in Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego where so many people live would result as some suggest in the police being some of the first victims as people attempt to flee onto the freeways to get away.

In the only known investigation ever done by California in 1980, it was shown that most of Orange County would shoulder the brunt of the fallout. Today there are over 3 million people living in the county with over five more million living a few more hours away in Los Angeles and San Diego. On an average day it would take between 2-4 hours for the radiation to blanket Orange County and 7-10 hours to cover Los Angeles. There is no conceivable chance that nearly 8 million people would stay in their homes, or for that matter be able to flee. Or more to the point, millions of people would be trapped, possibly facing damaged homes, fires or tsunami like flooding all at the same time. As seen with Katrina debacle in 2005, emergency planners themselves will be unable to respond at the time most needed, or be in a position to move millions of people out of way of radiation.

So what should have been communicated at the “Fukushima Lesson’s Learned” symposium is that:

Southern California is 150 years overdue for a major quake;
It is inappropriate to tell the public that there is a slim chance of a major nuclear incident;

The California Energy Commission has ordered more investigations because it is unclear if San Onofre could withstand the maximum credible earthquake

The local emergency planning body in charge of planning meets in secret as well as intentionally reduced the mandatory evacuation zone around San Onofre to just two miles

The Government is at this moment replacing the current Protective Action Guidelines that determine when the public should evacuate with new ones that don’t acknowledge that safely evacuating the public in such an event near a major city is impossible.

The agencies protecting the public still don’t acknowledge that the fact that the 2011 earthquake was never suppose to happen!

Both the Japanese and American public were lied to intentionally to allow for the development of nuclear energy in places it should have never been considered!

An earthquake greater than 7.5 would likely result in a loss of power and meltdown at San Onofre

If the largest fault, the San Andreas, which is less than 100 miles away were to produce a quake greater than 8.3 it would result a catastrophe at San Onofre

A big quake on San Andreas would set off aftershocks across the region and within a few miles of San Onofre, possibly even a Tsunami that could be larger than planned for.

Such a major event would destroy the biggest breadbasket of the entire US as just beyond Los Angeles is the country’s main agricultural area.

Los Angeles is also a trillion dollar economy beside having a similar amount of private property that is not insured from either nuclear accidents or earthquakes.

Most the country is barely aware of the fact that the region just beyond Los Angeles also happens to be the bread basket of the US producing much of this country’s produce, has the largest shipping port on the west coast has over a trillion dollar in private real estate in the region almost none of which would be protected from either earthquake or nuclear insurance.

Such an event would very likely make the following economic depressions of the past look like child’s play with this country, and all just to keep the stockholders of one company happy.

San Onofre should not be allowed to reopen simply because the human and economic consequences are too great.

Roger Herried
Abalone Alliance Clearinghouse archivist
Energy Net

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A Scientist on San Onofre Risks – Dr. Donald Mosier

Scripps Research Institute Department of Immunology scientist and Del Mar, Ca. City Council Member Prof. Donald Mosier, M.D. explains the serious risks of San Onofre nuclear plant operation from both a scientific and a public policy point of view. This is #9 in our ‘preview interview’ series, SHUTDOWN: The Case of San Onofre.

Dr. Mosier can be contacted here: dmosier@delmar.ca.us and here: dmosier@scripps.edu

For more background on Dr. Mosier go here and here and here.
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What might the radioactive fallout cloud look like at San Onofre from a Chernobyl-like or Fukushima-scale nuclear accident?
Recently two concerned men, each in his own way, have set out to answer that question. Torgen Johnson mapped a scaled overlay of the Fukushima fallout cloud over the San Onofre region. Paul Frey mapped a scaled overlay of the Chernobyl radioactive plume. Their findings are presented below.

But first, just to get a sense of how radioactive fallout can spread (depending on wind and weather patterns), check out this simulation by IRSN, Institute De Radioprotection Et De Surete Nucleaire, of the Chernobyl fallout clouds spread across Europe from April 25 to May 9, 1986…

And check out this NOAA simulation of just two weeks of releases of cesium over the Pacific from Fukushima. Of course, Fukushima is still releasing billions of bequerals per day and will be for the foreseeable future, so picture that as well. [ More info on the sumulation Fukushima Radioactive Aerosol Dispersion here. ]

Click here to view NOAA video.

Torgen Johnson is an architect and urban planner who lives with his family in region threatened by a San Onofre accident. You can see his popular interview in our series here. This is what he has to say:

I want to share this recent graphic produced of the Fukushima radioactive plume overlaid on San Onofre. The image was created for the sole purpose of illustrating the relative size of the plume in Fukushima after only 25 hours vs. the totally inadequate 10-mile EPZ radius size for a U.S. nuclear power plant.

Evacuation would be futile when confronted by a radioactive plume of this size. This is only the first 25 hours and 20 percent of the plume that Prime Minister Kan and the people of Japan faced.

Of course the plume’s shape is specific to the weather patterns in NE Japan and does not reflect what the plume’s shape would be if there was a severe nuclear accident at San Onofre.

A second image from NASA shows what happens to smoke from brush fires during a Santa Ana wind condition. The plume would not necessarily take an elongated oval shape as I have seen in some probabilistic risk assessment studies.

If just the owner-occupied homes in the City of San Clemente are valued at over $20 billion you can imagine the economic impacts of a nuclear accident in an urbanized area like Southern California. The economic impacts need to be discussed at all public meetings. Torgen

Paul Frey’s PowerPoint Presentation

Paul Frey concludes,
LA Exclusion Zones, Estimates of Economic Losses, Health Impacts, Liability and Sources

A Radioactive Exclusion Zone is generally defined as an area over 555KBq/square meter of cesium 137. Information from the sources below can show that if fog, wind and rain carried all the fallout from a worst case meltdown or 1000 ton fuel pool fire onto an area the size of the LA Basin, MUCH OF THE LOS ANGELES BASIN WOULD BE DEFINED AS AN EXCLUSION ZONE and would suffer economically for many years to come. Independent and government studies shown below estimate worst case losses in different scenarios from 500 billion to trillions of dollars.

No insurance company will insure against a nuclear disaster. In a 1 trillion dollar nuclear accident the utilities would only have to pay about 1 percent of damages whereas the taxpayers would have to try and cover the other 99 percent via the Price Anderson Act which limits the liability to 12 billion dollars for any nuclear plant accident. Health effects from radiation would depend on how quickly the population in the LA Basin could evacuate.

(1) Radiological Terrorism: Sabotage of Spent Fuel Pools Author: Hui Zhang, Journal Article, INESAP issue 22 pages 75-78. For calculating burning tons of spent fuel and resulting fallout using Chernobyl as a base reference to multiply. Showed worst case fuel pool fires in France would equal 67 Chernobyls.

(2) A Safety and Regulatory Assessment of Generic BWR and PWR Permanently Shutdown Nuclear Power Plants, Brookhaven National Laboratories, NUREG/CR-6451; BNL NUREG-52498, 1997. Shows shutdown reactors with fuel pools are capable of massive radiological releases. Estimates 546 billion dollars economic loss excluding health effects, 138,000 latent fatalities, and 2100 square miles of land condemned in worst case fuel pool fire. This studies modeling was not done using the geography of the LA Basin, which would lead to higher numbers if all the radiation was trapped in the basin.

(3) Environmental Consequences of the Chernobyl Accident and their Remediation – Twenty Years of Experience. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) 2006, for Chernobyl European fallout map. According to IAEA “Over two decades Chernobyl has cost hundreds of billions of dollars”. See IAEA “In Focus: Chernobyl” The IAEA says they do not know how many hundreds billions it really was due to the breakup of the Soviet Union.

(4) Massive Radiological Releases Profoundly Differ From Controlled Releases Author, Patrick Momal, IRSN, Institute De Radioprotection Et De Surete Nucleaire, Eurosafe Forum 2012 that showed cost for a meltdown would exceed half a trillion dollars. Unreleased leaked version of this report from Le Journal de Dimanche showed worst case costs from French nuclear reactor would be three time the GDP of France or over 4 trillion dollars. The study was done in 2007 and partly released at the Eurosafe Forum in 2012.

(5) The Health and Economic Impacts of a Terrorist Attack at the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant. Author, Edwin S. Lyman, Union of Concerned Scientists, 2004. Costs to the New York area would exceed 1 Trillion Dollars in worst case.

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“Edison has no plan, and the 70% restart proposal for Unit 2 is a path to nowhere.” John Geesman, attorney for the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility

Damaging New Evidence Revealed [ Updated ]
Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility’s attorney, John Geesman, at yesterday’s California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) hearing on San Onofre costs, was presented with letters he’d requested earlier from Southern California Edison, but that they had withheld until yesterday.

The letters reveal how the defective steam generator’s manufacturer, Mitsubishi and Edison were at a standstill over what action to take as late as December of 2012.

This has major implications for costs charged to ratepayers for running the plant – estimates range from over $400 million to $553 million to $1 billion depending on what’s included – that has produced no electricity since January 2012. SCE clearly has not been able to plan how to proceed to repair the steam generators. Ratepayers had paid $653 million dollars for replacing the steam generators less than two years before the emergency shutdown of San Onofre due to a radiation leak in the new generators.

Attorney Geesman’s point was that, with no real plan in place for the failed generators – shutdown now for over a year – how could SCE claim that charging ratepayers throughout 2012 for electric power they weren’t getting was ‘reasonable’?

Presiding CPUC Administrative Law Judge Melanie Darling – who seems to believe her main job is to protect SCE from the public interest advocates in the proceeding – cut off Geesman’s line of questioning, saying it was outside the scope of this hearing on the reasonableness of SCE’s continuing 2012 charges to customers for the its two non-functioning nuclear reactors.

Geesman responded, “Your honor, aren’t you suggesting that someone driving down the road with the windshield totally blacked out could be acting ‘reasonably’?”

Scroll down for a brief video excerpt of Geesman’s questioning and links to recent news coverage.

Take advantage of the webcast of this CPUC evidentiary hearing – It’s happening through Friday, May 17, 2013 from 9:30 am to 4:30 pm with an hour lunch break. It is available at this URL; https://www.californiaadmin.com/cpuc.shtml
[You must have Real Player installed to watch videos. *Recommended to install previous version of Real (vSP for Windows; v11 for Mac) . Download available on the CPUC site.]

The public pressure to have the hearing live-streamed paid off in that LA Times reporter Abby Sewell – and hopefully many others – can use the webcasts to pay close attention. Do tune in, it’s getting interesting. EON will capture the live stream, and may post excerpts to YouTube if the content warrants special public attention.

Recent News Coverage:

The American “Nuclear Renaissance” Is Over: “The Change in Nuclear’s Fortunes is Staggering” … a Horrible “Cauldron of Events” Has [Brought] the Nuclear Push to a Standstill”
Posted on May 16, 2013 by WashingtonsBlog
American Nuclear Power Suffers Series of Setbacks
CNBC reports:

Once touted as a successor, or at least a competitor, to carbon-based power, the nuclear sector has taken a beating as the momentum behind new projects stalls and enthusiasm for domestic fossil fuel production grows.

Across the country, plans to build nuclear plants have hit roadblocks recently—a sharp turn for a sector that just a few years ago was looking forward to a renaissance. [ A comprehensive summary of nuclear setbacks. Read more

MAY 16, 2013
San Onofre at the No Nukes Brink
By Harvey Wasserman
In January, it seemed the restart of San Onofre Unit 2 would be a corporate cake walk.

With its massive money and clout, Southern California Edison
was ready to ram through a license exception for a reactor whose botched $770 million steam generator fix had kept it shut for a year.

But a funny thing has happened on the way to the restart: a No Nukes groundswell has turned this routine rubber stamping into an epic battle the grassroots just might win….

… It’s common in the nuke blackmail business for a utility to threaten to shut a reactor where jobs and power are desperately needed. But Edison now has a more desperate theme. The spread of solar throughout southern California will bring far more jobs than San Onofre can begin to promise. A new feed-in tariff in Los Angeles has helped spread solar panels throughout the region.

Edison billed southern California ratepayers roughly $1 billion for San Onofre in 2012 even though it generated no juice. The CPUC would probably let them do it again, but public awareness and anger levels have soared. Major media throughout the region have been pummeling Edison, largely over economic issues.

Should San Onofre stay dead, its power void will fast be filled by cheaper, cleaner, safer green technologies destined to make southern California a major focal point in the global march to Solartopia.

This shutdown would take the number of licensed US reactors down to 100. With others on the brink at Indian Point, Vermont Yankee, Oyster Creek and elsewhere, the race to shut the world’s nukes before the next Fukushima is turning the so-called nuclear renaissance into an all-out reactor retreat. More

From Torgen Johnson
Hi All,
I want to share this recent graphic [ below ] produced of the Fukushima radioactive plume overlaid on San Onofre. The image was created for the sole purpose of illustrating the relative size of the plume in Fukushima after only 25 hours vs. the totally inadequate 10-mile EPZ radius size for a U.S. nuclear power plant.

Evacuation would be futile when confronted by a radioactive plume of this size. This is only the first 25 hours and 20 percent of the plume that Prime Minister Kan and the people of Japan faced.

Of course the plume’s shape is specific to the weather patterns in NE Japan and does not reflect what the plume’s shape would be if there was a severe nuclear accident at San Onofre.

A second image from NASA shows what happens to smoke from brush fires during a Santa Ana wind condition. The plume would not necessarily take an elongated oval shape as I have seen in some probabilistic risk assessment studies.

If just the owner occupied homes in the City of San Clemente are valued at over $20 billion you can imagine the economic impacts of a nuclear accident in an urbanized area like Southern California. The economic impacts need to be discussed at all public meetings.

Please feel free to share it. It was sized to print out at 36″ x 50″ poster size.
Torgen
[ For our in depth interview with urban planner Torgen Johnson on the risks to the ‘built environment’ of Southern California go here. ]

From Gary Headrick at San Clemente Green:

I thought you should know that today was a significant day in the saga of San Onofre. Thanks to the tremendous support we got over the past 2 weeks, we were able to submit 3,706 signatures to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. At the same time we managed to dominate (if you call 54% dominating) a Union Tribune poll on the question of a shutdown, regardless of Edison pulling every string they could to stay ahead. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much action on a poll like this, with over 10,000 votes and 366 comments.

During this brief but intense period our list of subscribers has nearly doubled to 4,709. All of this has been an impressive response from citizens concerned about a reckless restart, and the prospect of running a nuclear experiment with defective equipment in a population of over 8 million people. Let’s hope the trend continues to grow as this important restart decision draws near. We’ll report back on any results or new developments from this effort.

Most importantly, we just want to say thanks for uniting in such a powerful way in the past few days and weeks. You are an inspiration to the entire movement. Let’s keep the momentum building. Thank you!

Repair proposal floundered at San Onofre
By Morgan Lee3:13 p.m.May 16, 2013 – U-T San Diego

The manufacturer of faulty steam generators that have sidelined the San Onofre nuclear plant proposed long-term repairs last year that were never adopted by the plant operator. More

Edison, Mitsubishi hit roadblock on San Onofre’s future
By Abby Sewell – LA Times
May 15, 2013, 8:19 p.m.
A flurry of letters that went back and forth between Southern California Edison and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries late last year reveal the serious hurdles that stand in the way of the San Onofre nuclear power plant’s long-term future.
The plant had been offline at that point for nearly a year because of unusual wear on tubes that carry radioactive water in the plant’s newly replaced steam generators, which were designed and manufactured by Mitsubishi.
Edison asked federal regulators in October for permission to restart one of the plant’s two units and run it at 70% power for a few months to see if that would alleviate the conditions that led to the wear. More

Read the Southern California Edison and Mitsubishi Letters
Southern California Edison and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries wrote a series of letters back and forth late last year about possible long term repair plans for faulty steam generators at the San Onofre nuclear plant. The plant has been out of service since January 2012. The correspondence came out as part of a proceeding before the California Public Utilties Commission that could eventually lead to customers’ rates being lowered or refunded. Letters here.
— Abby Sewell

Decision on San Onofre pushed back to June at the earliest
By Abby Sewell – LA Times
May 14, 2013, 7:16 p.m.
The head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Tuesday that the agency will not make a decision on whether to restart the troubled San Onofre nuclear plant until late June at the earliest.
The timeline for the plant has been pushed back repeatedly.
The plant’s operator Southern California Edison had hoped at one point to have one of the plant’s two units operating by summer, but NRC Chairwoman Allison Macfarlane made it clear that will not happen.
Macfarlane told reporters Tuesday after a speech, “You know, the process is very complicated now. Almost every day it gets a little more complicated…. Right now I can tell you a decision on restart won’t happen until the end of June, certainly after the middle of June.
“It may get pushed back later,” she said. “I don’t know.”
Macfarlane declined to wade into a debate over the meaning of a decision issued Monday by a panel of NRC administrative judges who were tasked with deciding the fate of a petition filed by environmental group Friends of the Earth….

…Meanwhile, a first round of hearings began this week in San Francisco in a California Public Utilities Commission investigation of the costs to ratepayers from the plant’s outage, which could eventually lead to rates being lowered.
Administrative judges initially angered activists by not allowing videotaping of the proceedings, but later agreed to post a webcast of the hearings. More
[ Watch webcasts here. ]

San Onofre ruling creates confusion
By Abby Sewell – LA Times
May 13, 2013, 7:24 p.m.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and an environmental group came to vastly different interpretations Monday of a federal review panel’s decision Monday on the troubled San Onofre nuclear plant.
The plant’s owner, Southern California Edison, meanwhile, said it is still trying to figure out what the ruling means.
San Onofre has been in the midst of multiple regulatory reviews since a tube in the plant’s newly replaced steam generators sprung a leak and released a small amount of radioactive steam in January 2012. More

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If you like our work, you can support it, whatever your budget level, here.

The BioInitiative Report 2013 PDF here.

Sage Advice
Cindy Sage, environmental consultant and editor of the groundbreaking international study ‘The BioInitiative Report’ on the health effects of electromagnetic radiation exposure, shares the results of her research and how it relates to wireless ‘smart’ meters with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. In two parts.

For more information: The Sage Report on ‘Smart’ Meters

[ Thanks to EON video correspondent Laurent Malaquais in Los Angeles for this excellent video coverage. ]

Cindy Sage & LA DWP discuss Smart Meters (part 1)

Cindy Sage & LA DWP discuss Smart Meters (part 2)

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If you like our work, you can support it, whatever your budget level, here.