2012 Shutdown
Unit 2 shut in early January 2012 for refueling and replacement of the reactor vessel head. Both reactors at San Onofre have been shut since January 2012 due to premature wear found on tubes in steam generators installed in 2010 and 2011. Plant officials have pledged not to restart the units until the cause of the tube leak and tube degradation are understood. Neither unit has yet been restarted.
In March 2012, former nuclear power executive Arnold Gundersen of Fairewinds Associates prepared a report that argued that "design modifications in the newly installed steam generators, such as different alloy for the tubes, led to problems at the plant". According to Gundersen's report, the shutdown in 2012 was due to poor design of the replacement steam generators that included many design changes that were not reviewed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. In April 2012, in a sign of mounting concern over the shutdown, NRC Chairman, Gregory Jaczko, toured the facility with Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, and U.S. Representative Darrell Issa, a Republican.
In May 2012, two retired natural gas electrical generators were brought back online to help replace the lost power generation capacity. However, the Huntington Beach Power Station produces only 440MW of power. Additionally the Encina Power Station has assisted in replacing the missing capacity, providing 965MW of power; coupled with new conservation measures, this has helped keep power available to San Diego and Riverside counties.
As of July 2012, the cost related to the shutdown has reached $165 million, with $117 million of that being the purchasing of power from other sources to replace the output of the plant. As a result, the Chairman of Edison International Ted Craver has stated that there is a possibility that reactor 3 may be scrapped as "It is not clear at this time whether Unit 3 will be able to restart without extensive additional repairs". In August 2012, Southern California Edison announced plans to lay off one-third, or 730, of the plants employees; the company said that the downsizing of the plant staff was planned more than two years ago. Rochelle Becker, of the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility, said that the layoffs show that the company is not being honest about their plans for the power plant. Due to the shutdown, the NRC ended requirements to monitor non operating systems.
In September 2012, Allison Macfarlane, the NRC Chairwoman, said that plant will be down for a prolonged period, and that the fuel from Unit 3 will be removed in September 2012, due to significant damage to the unit; Southern California Edison stated, through its spokeswoman, that it is planning to send a restarting plan for NRC approval in October 2012. As of November 2012, the cost of the outage has gone over $300 million, and discussion of restarting Unit 2 has been postponed; in December 2012, the last of the four old steam generators were transported to Clive, Utah for proper disposal.
As of January 2013, there have been no blackouts due to the lack of SONGS electricity, however more pollution has been caused due to the use of natural gas plants used to make up for the power generation, and the additional cost has led to higher utility bills. In February 2013, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission asked Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to provide a report regarding the plant's steam generators; the company produced the steam generators that were installed starting in 2009.
Read more about this topic: San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station