Inside the Decommissioning of San Onofre Nuclear Power Station
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- čas přidán 24. 06. 2022
- In this video I visit the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station or SONGS for short. I was given pretty awesome access to parts of the facility after reaching out to John Dobken the Public Information Officer for SONGS. I was extremely curious as to what went into decommissioning a site like this and how radioactive some of the areas were still. The radiation levels were very low even right next to the nuclear reactor containment building. Even if the reactor was running similar low readings would have been seen. SONGS was permanently retired in 2013.
This video is Part 1 of my visit there. The next video will be a look inside the spent fuel pool and the dry storage of the spent nuclear fuel.
Additional camera work and stills by Colin Rich
Camera Used in this video: amzn.to/3WZsU53
Lens Used: amzn.to/3Gg6vub
Variable ND Used: amzn.to/3UDmBlY
First off Drew, great video for those who have never been to the plant. I myself was an in house mechanic there up until closing when we were laid off. I was employed by Southern California Edison. I was extremely involved in the maintenance of the plant, particularly the faulty steam generator during our last days. Here is some information you and the public would love to know:
1. We were an INPO 4 plant, meaning we had a lot of personnel issues with running the plant. At one point when I started in 2005, we're were INPO 1, and gradually degraded our performance. There are 4 levels of INPO performance ratings and were at the bottom, at risk of getting shut down by regulators already.
2. Unit 2 was fine, it did not have the same harmonic issues that Unit 3 had. Unit 2 was in a refueling outage when we needed to shutdown Unit 3. In order to start a unit, we would draw steam off of the other unit, so a dual unit shutdown was very undesirable as an expensive aux boiler was needed to be rented in order to get a unit started.
3. We fixed the steam generators on Unit 3, this involved adding stabilizer rods and tensioning those rods through the U-Tube style heat exchanger within the steam generator. Unfortunately, so many were stabilized that it was going to reduce our efficiency. This would have a significant cost of operation on the long run, as Unit 3 was not able to run at 100% capacity anymore. Preventable repairs on Unit 2 did not affect it's capacity, she was ready to rock and roll at full capacity. Unit 3 was ready to rock and roll at slightly less than full capacity, and it still would have been profitable to.
4. The decision to run at reduced output, 75% capacity, was only for ONE month, shut down, verify repairs were successful, then do the same for six months. After that, determine if it could be ran at full power. This is much like a break in period of running a newly rebuilt motor in your vehicle. Here is where the lies came into play, regulators required a 2 (could have been 1) month commentary period from the public, where if anyone had issues of us running they could challenge the company, and the company was required to address the concerns. Everytime we did, the commentary period reset, and more concerns would come in. It was never ending. We were sitting on our asses waiting to hit the GO button. We had aux boiler in place, rented at the tune of $1M/Month. We had employees on payroll, with zero profits being made. This went on for a year. That's quite expensive for the company, so the decision to shutdown was largely made based off of the cost. We even had our company CEO at the time, Mr. Ted Craver come and meet us face to face in our morning meeting to assure us we were going to start up. I don't blame the company though, it's meant to make money...and it was not in fact doing that.
5. Unit 2 had zero issues. That was 1100MW of clean energy that could be on the grid this very minute.
6. This is my favorite one you won't hear about. During shipment of the steam generators for unit 3 from Japan, Mitsubishi had DROPPED the generator that had tube fretting while loading it onto a barge. 550Tons of precision equipment fell 3' (from what we were told, maybe more?). Do you think this would cause damage? Broken welds internally? Our issues with fretting we're directly related to the supporting structures of the tubes. Is that a coincidence?? When the generator finally arrived on site, there was extensive eddy current testing performed on that generator compared to the others we had prepared. We spent an entire extra month inspecting what we could to determine whether or not there was damage from being dropped. There is no equipment that can analyze structural integrity of a weld on the internals of it though. Guess what? You probably didn't hear of that. Nobody other than those involved know about that, as once it was deemed acceptable to use...that issue was brushed under the rug.
7. Fuck you Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. You crippled a plant, you crippled 1000+ workers dreams, you crippled a community, and you crippled pride.
8. WE WERE FINE. BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR GREEN PEACE AND FRIENDS OF THE EARTH. Now your electrical grid is supported even more so by fossil fuels. If you don't know what you are fighting for, educate yourself before you battle. You literally caused more harm than good to our environment. Who gives a fuck if we wanted to run at partial power, it's not like it was going to blow up or some shit... these things are so damn safe to operate with highly trained employees. We literally shut it down to protect the environment, we could have just kept on running with a leak you pricks.
Wow, that is some great info to know. Would make sense why that steam generator had so many problems. Being that big and dropped 3 feet will cause all kinds of problems. Thanks for sharing this.
@@RadioactiveDrew there's obviously more to it all, but you get a better idea. The spokesperson who gave you a tour, he was about 95% accurate. You gotta remember, Edison International is a public owned company, they do not want to do anything that will lose shareholder interest. Public companies of that size need to have quarterly profits. They say they care about the grid, they say they care about clean energy, but in the end it's all about shareholder value and absolutely massive CEO bonuses. Decommissioning a plant shows profit gains vs loss, as the decommissioning fund had already matured. The plant was worth more dead than alive so long as the community prevented plant startup. Now you purchase your power from other utilities at a premium rate, experience brownouts due to the lack of available power on the grid, increased your carbon footprint, and also pay a little extra on your electric bill for decommissioning of the plant...which makes absolutely zero sense since the decommissioning fund had fully matured and decommissioning was already paid for by the customer. Check your bill 😉
Where the pieces of turbine lay on the ground, that was our maintenance building. There was also a warehouse and engineering building just east of the maintenance building
@Matt Pierce If only the RSG’s were bought from Westinghouse and NOT Mitsubishi. The plant wouldn’t have been in this mess.
Thank you for that information. I live north and inland of that plant and always thought there’s great future in Nuclear. It takes many sources and as a Havasu regular seeing Lake Meade/Havasu water levels drop it terrifies me why we aren’t making a more aggressive push towards nuclear and wind powered, along with wave generation.
I’m sorry you lost your employment to a careless mistake of dropping the equipment. I hope things have worked out for you ❤️
I machined the big low pressure steam turbine blades for the 1200MW turbines in Rugby, England for this power plant. I have photos of the complete low pressure shafts being transported through Rugby. They were 15 foot 10 inches in diameter and weighed 171 tons. Each 1200 MW set had 700 tons of revolving metal in it.
They decommissioned and finished demolishing the plant near me in Zion, IL not too long ago. Wish I had my geiger counter when I got to see it still standing. It's sad seeing these plants get decommissioned when nuclear is such a good form of actual clean energy
Yeah, its a shame that its being decommissioned in the first place. But there is still something to learn in the whole process.
Clean, lmao. Go live in a nuclear power plant then. It's not only harmful for the environment and workers there, it's also the most expensive way to produce electricity given the costs of multiple hundreds of billion dollars of taxpayers money for safe storage of the nuclear waste.
I used to live in Winthrop Harbor as well through the decommissioning. It took out a lot of jobs as well that the area desperately needs.
@@renegade_patriot It is still a job creator, all the doctors needed to treat mesothelioma and other disorders facing the workers who sifted through the smoke and gritty atmosphere of decomm'ing the reactor. It was like asking a supersonic plane to fly constantly for years at top speed without breaking. Sure, you can do it, but after 60 years the thing is OLD and prone to accidents like anyone 60 years old. The total cost of the thing can never be found, but the federal gov and state and city and military...planning, construction and tearing it down is astronomical! It is a net drain on job creating resources, a nepotistic, shady and very small group of people the plants employed were all reasons the utilities loved these nukes. Now they complain the Fed's don't have a repository...The whole tech is sad and old. Boiling water is crazy. Come up with a better way to translate the energy into outlets and you have a winner. Ther machine itself is the problem. It just looks idiotic now.
@@widescreennavel the power was replaced by coal and natural gas. How many cases of lung cancer did that create? Guarantee that number is higher than nuclear power.
Awesome video. Hate seeing nukes get shut down. One thing he almost mentioned about the refueling is that after running for 18 months or 2 yrs (depends on site), only a third of the fuel is replaced by new fuel, then the plant runs another full cycle. During a refuel, All fuel assemblies are labeled. Removed from the core, placed in the spent fuel pool, maintenance is done to the site, then the core is refueled with used fuel and a third of new fuel. Pretty insane the amount of electricity that’s sent out on the grid in 2 years with shuffled around old fuel and 33% new.
Thanks for explaining that a little further.
Anyone that isn't a Californian knew this. They knew nuclear was the clean way to go before they rewrote the science textbooks to damn it.
I lived about a mile and a half from the plant. The blackouts in parts of San Clemente were constant while they were in the primary process of decommissioning.
I used to kayak down the coast over near the water outlets and fish. The ocean life near the exits was crazy, it loved that extra 1 degree of water temp.
Good ole leftist mismanagement
Same for the Turkey Point Nuclear plant in Florida. The American Crocodile are thriving there in the cooling canals around the plant and is one of the few spots where they can be found.
Grew up in the area since the late 1960's lived in several of the beach cities the outlet was a common place to go fishing we would go there many times a year in our boat. I moved out of state in the late 1990's didn't think much of the plant when I lived there until that Jane Fonda movie came out The China Syndrome everyone talked about it.
@@Mike-01234 so Jane Fonda destroyed your warm water fishing 🎣 and lost Vietnam war? 😂
@@markhankins3023 Vietnam war was a loser idea from the start. America had a chance right after WW2 some Generals decided to ignore the people and hand it back to France. Fonda going there was wrong.
The Ron Pontes guy is my dad. The information he gave was very cool. The plant shutting down is a big event, that’s always being shared with our family not in much detail. Thank you for this video for our understanding upon tearing the plant down has expanded
Well your dad is a very well informed guy and we all had a great time making this video. Glad I could shed a little light on what goes on at the plant.
Your father gave a clear and definitive description of the overall plant state. I hope, you are proud of your father more after knowning his work better.
Love working with your dad! Great guy
Your Dad is one hell of a nice guy and a true genius in the field.
He’s been outstanding person to have worked with and I feel honored to have had that experience.
👍🏼
He did a very good job of explaining what's going on. Hope this project helps him get to the end of a well done career.
I could sit and listen to this guy, and learn about this for days. It's so very fascinating.
I lived 15 miles downwind of SONGS for 36 years and never had a single problem. It was a very nice neighbor, and we loved the cheap electricity. I moved out of CA the year that Gray-Out Davis ignorantly quadrupled energy costs and installed a dozen new natural gas power plants DIRECTLY AFTER the TX/MEX gas line bottleneck and problems. It's sad to see SONGS being decommissioned. I can't wait for all the new SMRs coming online in the near future. We need them to become safe from regional outages by having them locally everywhere. Thanks for the vids, Drew.
No problem...glad you enjoyed it.
Man, I never knew that the precipitant of the shutdown of the plant was that the new generators weren't working well. Makes it even worse to then hear how much work went into replacing them in the first place in 2009. That's heartbreaking. Something meant to extend/maintain the life of the plant is what ends up killing it. Still drive by this place somewhat regularly, definitely giving me some new perspective.
In the mid 1970s my family moved to san diego from florida because my dad got a job building that power plant. I remember him telling me how the containment dome was built on the ground and lifted with a massive custom engineered crane and set on top of the walls. He made good money as a sheet metal worker on that job and to this day i reap the rewards of the labor he put in on that project. I truly believe that job was a turning point on his path towards financial stability.
My Dad had a foreman job on a fertiliser plant and a chemical ant during the "Think Big" projects of the late 80's and early 90's. He made good money on those and like your dad it set him up for a good life.
It was such an iconic plant, featured in Koyaanisqatsi too. Sad to see it go.
I wish it was staying around as well...maybe used as some kind of experimental small reactor testing area. Either one of those containment domes could handle a test reactor.
I don't know what the situation is today, but the fact that you could sunbathe and go to the beach next to an active power plant was pretty cool
@vasarnapp the beach is still open to everyone.
I actually learned more about radiation and nuclear plants here than in school.
Glad these videos can be educational.
Such a knowledgeable engineer and you can sense the enthusiasm for his subject. The lemmings will not miss this plant until the lights go off as they probably will soon.
Their original steam generators were leaking radioactive reactor coolant into the "clean" secondary side so they replaced them at a cost of $1 billion and the replacement steam generators also leaked. When these old plants, and we have over 90 of them, have a major component fail, it is no longer coat effective to operate. On average, 1-2 shutdown every year.
Why did you scrap your perfectly good 1970s automobile just because the engine was blown when it would only cost $5,000 to repair a vehicle worth only $2,000? What a waste of a good car!
@@clarkkent9080 a valid point well made Sir. I am a bit cynical cos here in the uk where I am, we shut down perfectly functional generation stations for carbon brownie points and now we are staring blackouts in the face.
Then when we get to crisis point they quietly fire up a mothballed coal plant and think nobody will notice! So childish. We need to get the grownups back on the job. And this from one involved in offshore renewables!🙄
@@robinwells8879 I can only speak intelligently about SONGS and the U.S. nuclear industry.
In the U.S. it is the utility's responsibility to provide power. The number 1 priority of utilities used to be providing dependable reliable power. Following deregulation in the U.S., the number 1 priority of investor-owned utilities became profits.
My point was that closing down a plant as old as SONGS was an economic one. Palisades just shutdown a few months ago due to control rod seals needing replaced.
We have ~ 90 old currently operating reactors and everyone is one major component failure away from shutdown. Diablo Canyon will continue to operate but will require billions in needed repairs. So, you will have the same amount of power, but electric rates will increase, and people will complain about that.
The closure of SONGS wasn’t an economic one. They could have kept the power station running with one reactor until the repairs to the steam generator happened. But since there is a very deliberate effort in CA to kill nuclear the utility wanted to appease the public and close it down.
@@RadioactiveDrew I work in offshore renewables and even I don’t think that this false narrative panic rush away from the legacy power supplies is wise. I am concerned that the consequences will turn public opinion away from renewables just as we were beginning to gain traction.
Not only that but the engineered energy crisis has made field development costs explode thus damaging the very economics.
I do wish that we could keep the politicians and fanboys out of the debate. I know that they think they are helping but……
My wife and I both worked there in the late 80’s. I was an NPEO an she was in Chemistry. Sad to see it being torn down😢.
I know. It’s a very cool location that generated a bunch of power.
@@RadioactiveDrew And consumed too, obviously.
RIP SONGS, thank you for the decades of carbon-free electricity. Thanks for such a cool tour.
No problem, glad you enjoyed it.
I worked at this site at a special Inspector for Soils compaction. Right down into the middle of plant for 2 days testing how solid the Soils was after they backfilled some stuff. Fun job!
Even when I went to the restroom I had to be escorted by them onsite.
I used to work when they would initiate a shutdown for refueling as a contracted construction worker. This brings back such great memories seeing all of this stuff again. These plants are incredibly complex.
They are way more complex than people realize.
This is by far some of the coolest content I’ve seen on the nuclear industry. You done an amazing job filming and shown so much insight that people usually wouldn’t see.
Thanks. I'm glad it turned out as good as it did. Hopefully part 2 will be just as interesting.
this guy knows alot, but never asks the obvious question, why the hell is all this crap still here 10 years after the reactor was turned off?
Something about the inlet area where the pumps were reminds me of a scene from Doom 2.
My father was an Operating Engineer from Fallbrook, and was involved in the construction of the plant. I can't believe it's getting decommissioned.
Amazing!! Thank you Drew!! Please also give our thanks to Ron for a wonderful tour with excellent info!!!
I’m sure Ron has either watched the video or will next week. Hopefully he reads the comments. But yeah he was full of great info.
We camped on the Camp Pendleton beach every year. I remember there were dunes and lots of tidepools where SONGS was built. And I got stung, floating on my raft, by a huge school of jellyfish attracted by the warm water outflow. But I am sad to see it go so soon.
Both of these videos are great. Super good info for me to know about. I would be in charge of sending any emergency responses to this area and this educated me on the current state of the facility.
Fascinating, thanks for the great video! The engineer was great at explaining everything that’s going on!
I live in Germany and unfortunately the nuclear power plants are being shut down here, I think that we will soon be heating with whale oil or penguin oil again, you read it here first.
While one of the Mitsubishi steam generators was dropped, the most significant problem was the computer model Mitsubishi developed to analyze fluid flow and tube vibration was inadequate for the operating conditions that the steam generators would experience. It turned out that the generators were more efficient at producing steam than expected but that “drier” steam was less effective at damping out vibrations (called fluid elastic instability) of the tubes cause by flow of steam and water.
After SONGS, I worked on a new nuclear project in another state and was shocked to find that the design of that steam generator was very similar to the Mitsubishi steam generator (the reactor had almost identical power output to SONGS). I did some checking and found that the computer model used showed that the steam conditions would not lead to the same fault as at San Onofre. Apparently the lessons learned were incorporated into the model even though the designer and manufacturer were completely different from Mitsubishi. Although the project I worked on was cancelled (that’s a story for another time), those steam generators have been in service in several Chinese plants and now at 2 reactors in Georgia and have shown to be fine.
When I went into the USN, due to my test scores and technological background, I could have gone into Nuclear Power or Electronics. After completing my Background Investigation, and getting my security clearance, I had the choice of Nuclear Power or Cryptology. Calling Oregon home at the time, the Nuclear filed would have limited my post Navy options to the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, or the Trojan Nuclear plant on the Columbia River. Having only two options in the state, which is not guaranteed, I opted for the electronics field instead. After the tour of duty, went to work closer to home, and even spend time with my wife working in the Cayman Islands for a while. Then worked for Intel in R&D. I might have made more in the nuclear field, but work life just wasn't there for me. Thanks for the great video of where I could have ended up working.
Glad you enjoyed a look at this facility. It was a really cool video to make.
This is the future that you could have had. You make the right choice. With old nuclear plants shutting down every year and, after Vogtle, no new plants even being considered, navy nukes have very few opportunities in the field.
If you live in the U.S. here is the reality for the last 4 state of the art Westinghouse AP1000 ADVANCED passive safety features new nuclear power projects and spent fuel reprocessing and in the U.S. over the last 20 years. You decide if this YT video was presenting the truth.
The Southeastern U.S. is super pro-nuclear MAGA, has zero anti-nukes, and 100% media and political support.
The MOX facility (South Carolina) was a U.S. government nuclear reprocessing facility that was supposed to mix pure weapon grade Pu239 with U238 to make reactor fuel assemblies. It was canceled (2017) in the U.S. After spending $10 billion for a plant that was originally estimated to cost $1 billion and an independent report that estimated it would cost $100 billion to complete the plant and process all the Pu239, Trump canceled the project in 2017.
VC Summer (South Carolina) new nuclear units 2&3 were canceled in 2017 after spending $17 billion on the project (original estimate of $14 billion and 2016 completion date) with no clear end in sight for costs or schedule.
Vogtle (Georgia) new nuclear units 3 &4 currently 110% over budget and schedule (currently over $30 billion) and still not operating. Mid way into the build, the utility stated that had they known about the many costly delays they would never have chosen nuclear. They are now delayed another year because according to the project management, thousands of build documents are missing. If completed, Vogtle will be, for its output, the world’s most expensive nuclear power plant.
Please google any of this to confirm.
If you can’t build new nuclear in the MAGA super pro-nuclear southeast U.S. then where can you build it?
So cool. I've driven by this plant dozens, maybe hundreds of times on my way up to Los Angeles and always wondered about its inner workings. Very interesting to see how careful they are when decommissioning a nuclear power plant...
Thank you for this video. I worked there for about a year. I was there on Sept 11 and I worked in the restricted area near the end of the video. It was wild and scary.
It was a great time in my life and seeing these places again is amazing. I’m sad to see it go.
I’m glad I was able to go there and see it before it’s gone. Was truly a remarkable facility.
The amount of experience and knowledge that the instructor/guider possesses is amazing 👍🏻
what an interesting vid - full of information - love it - can't wait to see Part II.... many thanks for this fine vid.
I drove by the plant today and saw the turbine deck gantries were gone and from the freeway I could tell the turbine deck itself was also not visible anymore. I worked on the gantries back in the 90's and early 2000's and I loved working at this plant. It was so fascinating all the time. One of the safest places I have ever worked. Fantastic presentation with this video. So sad to see it go away.
Yeah, its too bad that this place is going away. I'm super grateful that I had the opportunity to go there and make these videos.
The place has been there my whole life, I will honestly be sad to see the nuclear titties go away😢
@@RadioactiveDrew do you know how they took down the gantries? Most people didn’t realize just how big they were. The main box beams were 12’ tall.
I think they have video on the SONGS site where they run the cranes off the edge of the building.
that was fascinating- a good example of how complex some large projects can be-
millions of man hours- just in the decommission of a reactor-
good job
Thanks.
Many great memories working at SONGS, great people and great environment. The local public should ashamed of NOT supporting this place. Not only did SONGS provide power at a world class level but SCE supported the local community far and beyond what any other source ever did!!! Everyone that worked here at SONGS will always be proud of a stellar work practice and making life long friendships.
So how did they manage to ignore the rotting steam generators for so long (the "hot" water that shouldn't have been "hot" was sort of a giveaway, wasn't it?), or miss it (that's not good either),? And how did they SCREW UP THE SAME REPAIR TWICE? This leakmaker was cursed from the day Bechtel built the interior machinery BACKWARDS on their first attempt. FFS. No, thanks... Oh, yeah, and the spent fuel is going to sit there right at the edge of a rising ocean. Nice work on the engineering foresight, there, dudes. Look up the radioactive kittens if they won't admit knowing about it. Ha.
Regardless of if I am watching these types of videos on Space, Trains, Planes etc, I just love listening to and learning from experts in their fields of expertise. I had no interest in Nuclear power until today. Thanks!
Great tour! Thank you for educating the public!
2 month refuel outages are not common at all anymore. Now its about 20 days unless there is a major capital upgrade being installed/replaced, like turbines, condensers or steam generators. The later of which is a sore spot for SONGS. It'd a shame too. That was a good plant and provided a huge amount of reliable and clean electricity to a power hungry area of the country.
Absolutely brilliant report. Thank you!
Glad you enjoyed it.
Excellent video with wonderful explanations. Please, keep making them.
Good vid Drew. I subscribed. Keep up your effort to educate the public on how safe our Nation's Nuclear Generated Power really is.
It is everything but safe or clean. There are very very real risk and if something happens the consequences are devastating. Much worse than anything coal or something like that can ever do. Yes we do need to get rid of as much CO2 emissions as possible. But that does not mean we should just take the risk of literally poisoning thousands of people in an area of hundreds and hundreds of square kilometers to death. Yes the risk is kind of low. Not as low as we thought though. Fukushima and Chernobyl have shown that. And theres also the waste that will contaminate our land for literally thousands of years. Calling something like this clean energy is a blatant lie.
Wow super cool video Drew. Also works as a nice documentary for everything that happened there. I'm amazed you got access. Can anyone go schedule a tour or do you need to have connections? Either way, I'm glad you were able to do this as you do amazing videography and editing in pulling everything together. Big thanks to Ron - you can tell he loves his line of work, the field, and industry.
Really sad to hear about the bad steam generators leading to the early retirement of the units as nuclear power is amazing. What went wrong with the generators? Seems insane to spend so much money to install them and have them be bad. :(
I've heard about California having power issues and brown outs. I heard that it had to do with the shutdown of these plants. If any of that is true, could make for an interesting video to tell the story there. Thanks again Drew!
I know that San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station does offer tours of the area. But the access we got was kind of above and beyond. So I'm not sure what kind of access others could expect to have. I can tell you that this shoot took a month of planning to get approvals...not really for Part 1. Part 2 is going to have some areas that most people don't get to see.
Surfed the low rollers break when I was a kid. The water was always a bit warmer in front of the plant. Definitely different temp then lower trestles just north
Great interviewer & interviewee (Ron Pontes) and interesting subject! Great Job!
I worked on units two and three as a laborer in 1976/77 swing shift they nicknamed me Mosqito it was a fun job
This is great educational information, people don't understand how safe and clean nuclear power generation is because they have been taught to hate and reject it. The oil/gas and coal companies lobbying against it for their own profits.
I hope I'm educating people on this subject...or at the very least showing them its nothing to fear like what most news organizations try and spin it as.
@@RadioactiveDrew yea how silly to reject it 🙄
Nuclear energy is generally safe, until its not, at which point it becomes an epic disaster (e.g. Fukushima). The French lead the world in safe and reliable nuclear energy generation, as an example. Here in the States we have a very good record, with some bumps along the way (3 Mile). The specific issue with San Onofre (built in the 50s during the nuclear "craze" era), is that its smack in the middle of an active siesmic zone, directly on the pacific ocean (read tsumani), in the middle of 8 million people. Plus, due to political ineptitude, the United States has NO centrally managed, safe storage for radioactive spent fuel, and no agreed means to safely transport it (rail or road?), were such a place to exist. The original plan was for the spent fuel storage location/design to be sorted by the time the first reactors needed to dispose of the material. Decades and Billions of tax dollars were spent on this, the result being the Yucca Mountain long term storage site. That is until the state of Nevada said "not in my back yard" and nuked it (pun intended) ... Fast forward... There is no central place to safely store spent fuel.. anywhere...in the entire nation.. So each nuclear site maintains their own in situ wet and dry storage solution, which was never part of the original plan. The result of all this is a total failure to manage spent fuel at a national level. San Onofre has 15 million pound of highly radioactice spent fuel rods, sitting on site, as a result.
@@stevesalier3982 so it’s safe then 🫣
People who think nuclear is safe & clean have never heard of Fukushima. John Gofmann was an early nuclear pioneer, and founded the field of Health Physics. As he attempted to warn the Public, there is no *safe level* of exposure.
He also fought against the capture of our Government by the Nuclear Industry. The epitome of this was the legislation which relived the Nuclear Industry of liability (Price Anderson, 1957), without which they'd never be able to get insurance.
Driven by there so many times. Never realized the massive size of the facility.
Like the way the series is evolving. Keep em coming
Thanks. I always have some more videos in the works.
I watched the old parts get transported by truck through Nevada all the way through Wendover in about 2012 to the final destination. Great big trucks that used the entire highway to move.
Just because it was brought up:
Yes, we have a problematic energy production/storage/consumption situation in Germany, which is almost completely independent of the (ongoing) shutdown of our nuclear powerplants.
Germany produces a surplus of electricity that is exported to neighbouring countries that lack sufficient electricity production facilities. Our problem (which as of now - November 2022) so far is only a theoretical problem and it is only about gas, which is a main energy source for heating systems of all building types and energy source for large industrial facilities. I said theoretical problem, because as of now we are having a very mild autumn, in fact so mild, that we have completely full gas storage and the gas price had plummeted into negative price range (obviously not for consumers but only at the gas exchange market) because many vessels bringing in gas are currently piled up on sea, waiting to be discharged and producing costs rather then earning revenue, because our gas consumption is (too) low for this time of the year.
I think that in total our last 3 nuclear powerplants which were supposed to be shut down around this time are being kept in the grid as a reserve, just to make sure we can still support our neighbouring countries with enough electricity.
The decommissioning and storage of the radioactive material makes nuclear energy the most expensive electricity source of all by the way. The amount of taxpayers money required for safe storage of nuclear waste is absolutely insane. But since that's a long term effect it's always out of people's and especially politicians minds in a world where only short term profits are desirable.
I started working at nuke plants in 1989, beginning with refuels outages, and then additional work between them. The work there was very interesting, sometimes difficult, but always rewarding. Between 89' and 2008, when I finally retired, I was all over the insides plants, from under the core to in the control rooms. Travelers would arrive for the outages from all over the country, so I got a chance to meet some great guys and gals along the way. I really enjoyed this video and it confirmed that all the nuke plants pretty much operate the same way.
Steve i have OCD ...im always afraid workers could accidently have radioactive debrit on your clothes or boots when you leave work for the day ...were you afraid of dragging contamination into your car or home after work ?
@@rv6205 Good question RV. Not at all. You actually go through detectors many times during the day, and one more time before you go out the gate. Thanks for the question.
My dad actually worked at this plant when it was up and running, pretty cool to see it myself!
The interview at San Onofre is awesome!
I really enjoyed listening to this guy. The knowledge and pride in the work.
Thank for this honest explination for the demise of SONGS 2&3. I worked on both units during cinstruction. I've been from the top, inside as wekk as outsude, of the containment buildings to the lower levels and the tunnels between the units. Myself and many other worked really hard and long hours to build a great plant for SCE&G. We also did a daily 155+ step climb to the parking lot at the of each working day and back down the same stepsthe next morning to start the next day. The folks removing that plant have a really tough job ahead.
SO glad they plan to leave the spent fuel casks RIGHT NEXT TO THE RISING SEA because it might cost a bit to move it. And they don't get to blame the gov't lacking a waste site: they could build their very own deep mine shaft on site to bury it under a boronated-concrete plug, BUT THEY WON'T.
Your guide is cool, interesting, and knowledgeable. I think I could listen to him talk all day long. He's a great find! Great clip Drew! Thank you!
Fantastic video, super insightful. Thanks for sharing!
No problem. Glad you liked it.
really cool Drew, thanks for sharing this!
No problem, glad you liked it.
Interesting. My father was the Senior Reactor Engineer for Unit 1 while it was being built (late 60's). I think I still have the original blueprints in my garage somewhere.
That's pretty cool.
@@RadioactiveDrew
Did he glow in the dark? The kittens did.
@@michaelmcgovern8110 the kittens did t glow in the dark…that’s a fact.
@@RadioactiveDrew
I notice you have no SUBSTANTIVE response.
If you're trying to be funny, what you said isn't. I said they glowed as a joke, dude.
Those kittens proved that piece of shit plant which Bechtel built BACKWARDS the first time they tried to assemble it leaked like hell for a LOOONG time, OK? Or are you trying to excuse long-term radiation leaks from plants that AREN'T SUPPOSED TO LEAK?
Publish them online and post the link please.
Very Interesting. I worked in Steam Turbine Design for GE and retired from there. I am very familiar with steam turbines and generators as well as hot decks in Power plants. I am glad I found your channel. New sub now.
Thanks for the sub. Glad to have you here.
Was it your designs GE shipped offshore to Fukashima because they were so flawed nobody dared build them in the US?
This is just like what we use in these refineries and chemical plants here in Louisiana and Texas, it’s cool that it’s all pretty much the same in the fact of using boilers, turbines, exchangers and all that. I love learning about this and what I do down here
Great content, very interesting!
3:00 "After some consideration for about a year and a half, we decided the most economical thing we could do would be to shut the plant down and move into decommissioning" - the man says it all.
Strange, as it has been over 42 years since I used to pass by this site, along I - 5, or PCH as we knew it.
And watching this, oddly has me feeling a bit melancholy, for lack of a better explanation.
I was stationed at
Camp San Metro, aboard Camp Pendleton, back in the mid to late 70's, which lies just over the hills to Camp San Onofre, then, " INFANTRY TRAINING SCHOOL, ( ITS ) !
Listening to this video, was the first I had ever heard that the Nuclear Plant was on Pendleton.
But now it makes sense, why we would have been called to handle it, instead of local authorities, and led to one of our impromptu training exercises.
That being Civilian Riot control !
We were told that some Hollywood types, were planning to protest at the Nuclear site, which from listening to the video, was apparently a hot topic for the area ?
Anyway, we were issued Riot gear, to include Face shields, that would attach to our steel helmets of the day, and Riot batons, as I recall were about 3 feet long, or more, and solid wood, to compliment our Flak jackets.
And put thru the paces of Riot stepping, etc. !
Fortunately, likely for the good of everyone, the protest was called off, and our services were never needed !
Seems like yesterday, actually, but my broken down body, tells me differently !
But it's interesting to learn what was going on at that site, after all these years !
Too, it seems just another,
" Doesn't make sense ",
that seems to have become the New norm in our lives !
On one hand they are telling people to buy Electric vehicles, but then say our electrical infrastructure will not support that idea ?
And it's my guess if they are going to continue to march in that direction, and wanting to move away from fossil fuels, then it would seem they will need to build more Nuclear Power Plants, not less ?
But what do I know ?
I'm just an Old Jar Head !
Emphasis on, " Old " !
🇺🇸☠️🇺🇸
Semper Fi !
this is soooo interesting. thank you so much for sharing!!!
Excellent video Drew!
Glad you enjoyed it.
there was alot more insightful information from that guy then I was expecting
I feel like I learned a lot making this video. Everyone there was very nice and super informative.
Amazing waste of a facility. Insane all these facilities were switched off.
Yes it was.
They're shutting down. It takes years. Not like a light switch.
I mean, from the standpoint of efficiency and cost, it is reasonable to decommission such a plant. The people there were troubled with design revisions and upgrades which were clearly not sustainable financially, and made the operations incur into potentially dangerous procedures.
Being a nuclear energy fan myself, I actually want newer standards built and older plants replaced. It's better in the long run
@ImAzraa still not a reason to tear down this place. You can retrofit it with new technology. It’s a giant waste to destroy the entire site.
It's a shame.
Drove by this for 6 years going to Camp Pendleton crazy it’s going going gone gonna go to San Diego soon and will check it out
I worked here 1984-85. Thanks for the memories.
No problem. Glad I could help with a trip down memory lane.
If SCE hadn’t gotten greedy and installed new steam generators this plant would probably still be generating power. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries should be paying the entire bill for this decommissioning process.
Edison and it's partners sued MHI, lawyers and international arbitration got involved, long story short MHI only paid $125 million of the $7 billion Edison sought. Amazingly, the original contract liability was only $137 million. What is more, Edison had to pay $58 million of MHI's legal fees. Edison was able to recoup $400 from its insurance policy. The net result is a $3.3 billion decommissioning bill.
@@stevesalier3982 Awful and unjust is an understatement to describe this.
Nuclear power Plants all across USA, have replaced their Steam Generators.
Fascinating video. I always wanted to know what SC Edison’s plan was when building that place, to overcome tsunami damage to the reactors. Update: you answered that question in part 2’s video. 👍
18 months straight at full capacity that’s so cool
That’s what I thought. Reactor technology is very interesting.
Mind blowing engineering and construction.
It's a shame that all these plants are closing. It's the best way of making power.
Their original steam generators were leaking radioactive reactor coolant into the "clean" secondary side so they replaced them at a cost of $1 billion and the replacement steam generators also leaked. When these old plants, and we have over 90 of them, have a major component fail, it is no longer coat effective to operate. On average, 1-2 shutdown every year.
Why did you scrap your perfectly good 1970s automobile just because the engine was blown when it would only cost $5,000 to repair a vehicle worth only $2,000? What a waste of a good car!
@@clarkkent9080 New Nuclear plants cost over 12 billion and take years upon years to make. The Irony is the decommissioning process is probably going to cost north of 5 billion. Your comparison to a automobile is not only rudimentary but ignorant and devoid of context and facts.
@@UrielX1212 My analogy is simplistic but accurate on why old nuclear plants, that are fully paid for and have license extensions, are shut down, just like Palisades, that was shutdown a few months ago.
Here is the reality of new nuclear in the U.S.
Please don’t assume that YT videos are factual. If you live in the U.S. here is the reality for the last 4 state of the art Westinghouse AP1000 ADVANCED passive safety features new nuclear power projects and spent fuel reprocessing and in the U.S. over the last 20 years. You decide if this YT video was presenting the truth.
The Southeastern U.S. is super pro-nuclear MAGA, has zero anti-nukes, and 100% media and political support.
The MOX facility (South Carolina) was a U.S. government nuclear reprocessing facility that was supposed to mix pure weapon grade Pu239 with U238 to make reactor fuel assemblies. It was canceled (2017) in the U.S. After spending $10 billion for a plant that was originally estimated to cost $1 billion and an independent report that estimated it would cost $100 billion to complete the plant and process all the Pu239, Trump canceled the project in 2017.
VC Summer (South Carolina) new nuclear units 2&3 were canceled in 2017 after spending $17 billion on the project (original estimate of $14 billion and 2016 completion date) with no clear end in sight for costs or schedule.
Vogtle (Georgia) new nuclear units 3 &4 currently 110% over budget and schedule (currently over $30 billion) and still not operating. Mid way into the build, the utility stated that had they known about the many costly delays they would never have chosen nuclear. They are now delayed another year because according to the project management, thousands of build documents are missing.
Please google any of this to confirm.
If you can’t build new nuclear in the MAGA super pro-nuclear southeast U.S. then where can you build it?
Yeah Chernobyl, 3 mile island, SSFL we’re great. Let’s build more to increase the odds of more of the most dangerous chemicals in existence leaking into public.
Not like there’s other safe ways to make Power or anything. Genius logic.
17:56 The steam generators were replaced on 2009/10 and failed on 2012 less than three years later.
What happen? This is so unusual!
The theory is that one of the steam generators were dropped during transport damaging it.
The tubes were wearing out faster than expected, due to poor design. Repairs were made but the utility got tired of the hippies complaining and shut it down.
Great guest on your channel.
Nice doc 👍‼️looking forward to seeing part two ,curious to see how hot that water in the pool is and how they are go to store it ❓
Lenard. All of the spent fuel has been transferred to the Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation (ISFSI) so the pools are currently at ambient temperature. I am sure Drew will get more into is in part 2 but here is some more info. www.songscommunity.com/decomm-digest/spent-fuel-pools-and-decommissioning
They are empty but still cool to see and still radioactive.
Great videos. It's really too bad and short sighted that they didn't repair the steam generators. This go green FUBAR is not working.
They did replace the steam generators at a cost of $1 billion and the replacements failed. Keep trying???
California has authorized Diablo Canyon to continue to operate instead of being shutdown. But the plant will require Billions of repairs. So, California gets no more power but electric rates increase to pay those billions. Do you think people will complain about keeping that plant open??
Wow a powerplant right on a beach, interesting. Too bad it did not last too long, only 30 years? Thought that these things last like 50 years.
Not if you use tax money to decommission them.
I used to surf with Great Whites just north of San-O at the surf park, beautiful break and the sharks usually were juveniles. Great times. 🤙🏻
I live near Dounreay in Scotland, it's being decommissioned. It housed the Royal Navy's test reactors for nuclear submarines and also had a power generating Reactor too. If you're ever in Scotland, it'd be cool to see a video on it. Wick Airport was upgraded in the 2000s so USAF C17s could come to take nuclear byproducts for medical use. We in turn took some U.S. high level waste to put in our deep storage depository.
I would like to come to Scotland and check out that site. Maybe someday soon.
16:30 - speaking about Chernobyl, it should be taken into account, that the reactor configuration is much different from the PWR one. The water goes through the reactor core the inside pipes contrary to the main vessel of PWR full of pressurized water. These pipes occupy a small part of the whole reactor core container and the bubbling pools under the reactor, and generated steam have enough volume to extend. So, the main cover, named Elena, was thrown away not by steam itself but from an explosion. But almost nobody could imagine the reactor to be destroyed in a such way, and the necessity of the strained containment was under discussion.
Too bad they have to leave an ugly scar on the coastline. Not worth it, not a good idea. Just a relic now, and a warning of what NOT to do civil engineering wise.
I hate how our country has shunned nuclear power :(
Its all because of fear...I'm trying to replace that fear with some knowledge with these videos.
@@RadioactiveDrewit is very very real risk. Yes the risk is kind of low but IF something happens it will be much worse for people and the environment than anything fossil fuels can ever do. Calling nuclear power "clean" is straight up wrong. Even without accidents. We have to bury thousands and thousands of tonnes of HIGHLY toxic and deadly material for literally thousands of years. And even then a lot of it will still be highly dangerous. Nuclear power can and will be replaced with things that are much safer and better for the environment. Burying highly toxic material and forgetting about it is NOT better than blowing a bunch of CO2 in the air.
@@RadioactiveDrew Fear....fostered and financed by the fossil fuel producers.
I used to work there. I was involved in doing the safety analysis of operating with the repaired steam generators at a lower power level (~70%). We showed it was safe and we were on the verge of getting NRC approval. Then Friends of the Earth filed a lawsuit that would have required a complete relicensing of the plant. This probably would have taken years and there was no guarantee of what the outcome would be. Edison got cold feet and I believe the state (Jerry Brown was governor) also greased the skids to pull the plug like they did with Unit 1. There were some inappropriate meetings between Edison and the Public Service Commission that probably worked out a nice (if you go quietly) deal. Edison management always seemed embarrassed by San Onofre and would downplay it in their annual report while playing up wind and solar even though SONGS produced so much more power than their wind and solar generators. Believe it or not, Edison one had a founder of an antinuclear group as its CEO!
I hope SONGS is replaced with offshore wind turbines and wave-powered generating equipment so that the views are marred and the surfing is ruined. It would be an appropriate way to thank the community for their support.
The whole closing of that facility seems wrong on so many levels. I wish they would stop with the decommissioning right now and repurpose the plant for smaller reactors. Even doing tests to use spent nuclear fuel in thermal energy extraction into electricity. There’s so much that could be done with the existing infrastructure there. Horrible waste of resources.
San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant (SONGS) is well along in the decommissioning process.
One of the statements about the the open loop seawater heat exchange is wildly inaccurate. It wasn't just a few degrees warmer, it was a A LOT warmer. I have surfed at San Onofre beach dozens of times back in the 90s when SONGS was operating fully, and surfers would intentionally swim into the hot seawater outlet just to warm up, myself included. The temperature rise between ambient or "normal" seawater and the outflow was more like 15-25 F warmer than surrounding waters. It was more like the difference between an unheated pool and a hot spa or Jacuzzi. The gradient wasn't gentle, either. You would be in ice cold Pacific water in one place out in the surfing line up, and then just a few feet over you'd be in a very hot bathtub, and you could clearly see the difference in color, opacity and turbidity in the water and swim back and forth between them to modulate your body temperature. Some areas were so warm they were uncomfortable to be in for more than a few minutes.
We weren't at all scared by it and we knew it wasn't radioactive, and that it just tertiary heat exchange water from the secondary steam loop, but we also knew it was a massive amount of heat pollution that wasn't healthy for the ocean or shore. There were huge algae blooms and other signs of disturbance in the area from the heat outflow and it was basically a dead zone and permanent "red tide" area due to the massive amount of heat being pumped into the sea and upsetting the normal balance of sealife there.
That being said? Your SCE tour guides and handlers aren't being completely honest with you and they definitely skirted and danced around many of your very astute and focused questions and you know it. Their statements about the tsunami predictions is just one of those questions and corporate-friendly answers. That area of the SoCal coast has geologic records of much higher tsunami than 27-35 foot, and that dry fuel handling area right on the coast is not at all a safe bet on geological time scales. It would likely be a massive disaster if that facility was flooded with seawater.
But the part about them doing the best they can without a permanent federal nuclear waste facility and support is also true.
As usual, nuclear industry and their lobbyists tries to obscure and diminish really important issues.
Like unavoidable aging reactor materials embrittlement due highly stressed conditions (constant high pressure, hydrogen corrosion, radiation bombardment etc...)
Until you briefly mentioned the turbines I was under the impression that this nuclear facility employed a kind of headwear (turbans) to harness thermal energy. Thank you for providing the distinction.
Nice presentation.
Those are energy domes
That's funny. You can't simply look at a dictionary to see that both pronunciations are acceptable so you make fun of others.
Don't get your knickers in a twist, Snowflake.
Really interesting video, thanks. I live in Orange County, not too far from the plants.
Brilliant, thank you
*You can thank the government bureaucracy for over regulation which drives up the cost of your products and services!*
You seem unaware the people tell the government what to do....
@@ShainAndrews you seem unaware that is a sham! Example, North Carolina overwhelming voted for voters ID laws in 2018... A Obama appointed judge ruled it as "racist" and "illegal"... this is just one example... but hey if rolling blackouts and high energy prices is something you like more power to you!
@@markvolker1145 LOL... you can not bait me. Coming at me with voter ID as a retort on nuclear regulation? That might work in your uneducated crowd... but carries no merit with the majority of the world. Returning to the core... The people drive government, not the other way around. The fact not every decision aligns with your malfeasance changes nothing.
Those turbines you saw weren't even the big ones. That looked like a high pressure turbine. The low pressure ones were bigger. I was working in the turbine building during a power uprate and they had to replace the entire turbine and I saw the gantry cranes drop the new ones in. The most impressive part is when they move the turbine housing that covers the moving parts. That thing was 100% steel the size of a house and the crane lifted it.
suprised to see the turbines made of steel, i worked on a new coal plant and the turbines were titanium
@@nickjackson9392 the housing was steel, the blades themselves were probably some super strong alloy or titanium or similar
It almost blew up in 2013. A huge steam release and radioactivity into the air poisoning those at camp pendleton and nearly caused a local crisis. Glad its shut down, the "upgrade" was a recipe for disaster.
My late Brother, Kenneth, would surf there in the '70s.
Considering how high the cost of electricity is in the San Diego area I'll bet the people that pushed for this to close now wish they hadn't done so. And as far as the closing goes, I'm sure there's a lot more to the story than what the gentleman conveyed. He looks like a very smart man but I'm sure his hands are tied when it comes to revealing the whole story.
My parents live in Fallbrook which is inland from SONGS. Very Conservative town. They are all pissed that the eco-nuts and the state doomed it. Most folks supported its construction. The others were vocally ignorant of nuclear power.
That’s what usually happens. People that have no idea what they are talking about trying to make decisions for everyone else.
@@RangerMcFriendlyno they knew what they are doing.It’s all part of making power more expensive.Imagine by 2030 that 75% of people in California will be force to use public transport, be literally living in dark as power will be ration.
It’s a brilliant idea to decommission power plants in California, where they annually have rolling brownouts due to not having enough power. Absolutely brilliant.
The plant was old. The steam generators leaked radioactive coolant into the "clean" secondary side. They replaced the steam generators at a cost of $1 billion but the replacements leaked. Keep trying?
Your 1970s car has a blown transmission, you replace it at a cost of $4,000 and that replacement fails. What would you do? You need transportation.
Diablo Canyon will be allowed to operate longer but they need billions in repairs. So, it will be interesting to sit back while California gets no additional power from Diablo but increases rates to pay for the repairs. Me thinks people will complain about that?
@@clarkkent9080 Absolutely yes they should keep trying, there isn’t enough power, period. Cost is not the immediate concern. If repair or maintenance isn’t possible, then build new nuclear plants. If cost is that much of an issue, then maybe they should divert some of the $105 billion from the physically impossible high speed rail project.
@@agentmith Build new ones like this? Isn't it strange that YT videos on nuclear FORGOT to mention reality of new nuclear in the U.S.???? Maybe people should not educate themselves via YT videos
Please don’t assume that YT videos are factual. If you live in the U.S. here is the reality for the last 4 state of the art Westinghouse AP1000 ADVANCED passive safety features new nuclear power projects and spent fuel reprocessing and in the U.S. over the last 20 years. You decide if this YT video was presenting the truth.
The Southeastern U.S. is super pro-nuclear MAGA, has zero anti-nukes, and 100% media and political support.
The MOX facility (South Carolina) was a U.S. government nuclear reprocessing facility that was supposed to mix pure weapon grade Pu239 with U238 to make reactor fuel assemblies. It was canceled (2017) in the U.S. After spending $10 billion for a plant that was originally estimated to cost $1 billion and an independent report that estimated it would cost $100 billion to complete the plant and process all the Pu239, Trump canceled the project in 2017.
VC Summer (South Carolina) new nuclear units 2&3 were canceled in 2017 after spending $17 billion on the project (original estimate of $14 billion and 2016 completion date) with no clear end in sight for costs or schedule.
Vogtle (Georgia) new nuclear units 3 &4 currently 110% over budget and schedule (currently over $30 billion) and still not operating. Mid way into the build, the utility stated that had they known about the many costly delays they would never have chosen nuclear. They are now delayed another year because according to the project management, thousands of build documents are missing.
Please google any of this to confirm.
If you can’t build new nuclear in the MAGA super pro-nuclear southeast U.S. then where can you build it?
People will choose losing electricity once in a while over cancer any day.
I started working there as a Teamster in 1976 living in Oceanside first then Carlsbad.
Pretty radioactive! nice video, as always
Next video will show a bit higher level of radiation out at the dry fuel storage.
@@RadioactiveDrew looking forward to it
Yeah it seems like a great idea to close that power plant, it’s not like you have rolling black outs or any electric generating issues. Newsom’s driving Cali into the ground.
The reactor business needs Elon Musk very badly.
You mean like the solar roof shingles or Tesla truck?
I like this guy giving the tour. He obviously enjoys his job.
Still don't know how I feel about nuclear.
Very interesting thanks.