Last June, the company Southern California Edison (SCE) astonished scientists, environmentalists and California residents by announcing the permanent closure of the San Onofre nuclear power plant, located on the coast between Los Angeles and San Diego.
To Robert Alvarez, author of a study commissioned by Friends of the Earth, San Onofre is now “a major radioactive waste storage site containing one of the largest concentrations of artificial radioactivity in the United States.”
An earthquake or a tsunami could cause an accident much more harmful than the Japanese Fukushima nuclear plant in March 2011, according to Alvarez.
The funds required for cleaning and dismantling the plant amount to $4.1 billion—only $2.7 billion are available to the SCE.
“Nuclear power is a costly and very dangerous way to boil water—which is essentially what this system does: the steam turns the turbines that produce electricity,” said Marylia Kelley, Executive Director of the community organization Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment), located in Livermore, Calif.
The San Onofre plant was built in 1968, and ceased operations in January 2012 due to failures caused by the degradation of tubes carrying radioactive water. This incident brought in government inquiries, and the requirements and potential costs compelled the SCE to close the plant.
Kelley believes that the Diablo Canyon plant—on the coast of San Luis Obispo, and the last nuclear plant producing electricity in California—could suffer the same fate as that of San Onofre, but its operating license will not expire until 2024. According to the California Energy Commission, PG&E, which operates the plant, would need to apply for an extension to continue operating another 20 years.
In the Bay Area the Vallecitos Nuclear Center, located in Pleasanton, is still operating. “This nuclear plant is a research facility and is no longer an energy producing facility,” said Kelley. But the danger still exists.
“It sits on the Verona fault system… and it keeps irradiated rods that contain long-lived radionuclides with a half-life of 24,400 years,” she added.
Kelley suggests adopting alternative energy sources in the following order: “Conservation, energy efficiency, solar energy, wind energy, and other, small-scale methods.”