1/8/2013 San Francisco CPUC prehearing conference on San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant

Please attend the January 8th 2013 California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) public prehearing conference to show your concerns about the San Onofre nuclear power plant. Groups from around the state are gathering at this first hearing in the San Onofre investigation by the CPUC.

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Prehearing Conference: Order Instituting Investigation (OII) on the CPUC’s Own Motion into the Rates, Operations, Practices, Services and Facilities of Southern California Edison Company and San Diego Gas & Electric Associated with the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station Units 2 and 3 (Proceeding I.12-10-013).  Staff: ALJ: Melanie Darling  COMMISSIONER: Michel Peter Florio

Message to the CPUC from Ratepayers

It’s time to cut our losses and permanently shut down the defective San Onofre nuclear reactors.

• Edison’s plan to restart (even at partial power) defective and damaged equipment is unacceptable. This is not a prudent or reasonable plan for ensuring cost effective and reliable power.
• Forcing customers to pay potentially billions of dollars for Edison’s aging and crippled nuclear reactors is unacceptable. Edison and SDG&E customers already have some of the highest electricity rates in California and the nation.
• The CPUC investigation should analyze costs and reliability through the current license period. This will show that Edison’s mismanaged, defective and aging nuclear reactors are a bad investment for California ratepayers.
• Near-term replacements for San Onofre power should emphasize reducing demand, and strengthening energy efficiency and renewable options. This would address economic and environmental impacts from the San Onofre outage.
• OII proceedings regarding San Onofre should be conducted in the area most impacted by the decisions of these proceedings.

Copy of above message to the CPUC – with important expanded details

Letter to CPUC from Del Mar City Council 10/23/2012

Resources

• Steam Generator Problems
  • Steam Generator Tubes Plugged Chart – San Onofre Worst in Nation
  • San Onofre Steam Generator Problems and Edison’s Broken Promises
  • Union of Concerned Scientists questions restart of San Onofre Unit 2 nuclear reactor 10/12/2012
  • 7/11/2012 San Onofre’s Steam Generators: Significantly Worse than all Others Nationwide
• Steam Generator Replacement Project
  • CPUC 2005 Steam Generator Replacement Decision 05-12-040  12/15/2005 
  • Steam Generator Replacement Project Environmental Impact Report
• CPUC Division of Ratepayer Advocates
  • 8/13/2012 letter to CPUC commissioners urging them to remove San Onofre from rate base until it comes back online.
  • 8/1/2012 joint stakeholder letter to CPUC commissioners urging them to open an investigation into the SONGS outage. DRA co-signed this letter with TURN, Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies, Friends of the Earth, and the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility.
  • Energy Efficiency Funds
• Energy Options
• Cost of Nuclear Power
• Compare Your Electric Rates
• Once-Through Cooling
  • Edison estimates $2.5 billion to retrofit San Onofre North County Times 8/8/2009
  • Edison Feasibility Study for Installation of Cooling Towers at San Onofre 9/18/2009: Estimated initial costs of more than $3 billion, and annual costs of  $85 million.
  • WRCB Once-through Cooling Water Use and CWA 316(b) Regulations
    • Amended Policy 2012
    • WRCB Alternative Cooling System Analysis for San Onofre 2/27/2008: Estimated capital and start-up costs of $593.1 million; all capital costs, operation and maintenance costs, and energy penalty costs over 20 years, discounted at 7.0% totals $2.62 billion.
    • Federal Water Pollution Control Act
  • CAISO Once-through cooling generation

News Reports

• San Onofre’s new generators installed – OC Register 12/24/2009

The new steam generators are designed to last longer, said Mike Wharton, manager of the steam-generator replacement project. ”They are designed for 40 years,” he said. “We expect we’ll actually be able to get 60 years out of them … better materials, better design. You learn over the course of years what works well and what doesn’t, and you try to build it into the next generation.”

• Who’s paying for San Onofre?  LA Times 10/14/2012

For more than eight months, ratepayers of Southern California Edison have been paying $54 million a month — a per-customer average of more than $10 — for a nuclear power plant that has been delivering no electricity. This situation should never have been allowed to drag on for so long.

• California plans probe of San Onofre nuclear plant  LA Times 10/17/2012

Ratepayers have been paying for the costs of replacing the steam generators and have continued paying for the plant’s capital and operating costs despite the fact that it is producing no power. According to the commission proposal, Edison and SDG&E are collecting $1.1 billion a year from ratepayers for costs relating to the plant.

• Energy officials plan for another summer without San Onofre  LA Times 12/14/2012

The organization that runs California’s energy grid is planning ahead in case the San Onofre nuclear plant remains out of commission in the summer of 2013.

• PUC dithers as consumers keep paying to ‘run’ crippled San Onofre  LA Times 8/29/2012

Thanks to a thoroughly botched $770-million equipment “upgrade,” the plant hasn’t been online since January and may not operate ever again. The best-case scenario is that it might get restarted sometime around the end of this year or early next, but there’s no guarantee that it will run at full strength even then.  Meanwhile, the ratepayers keep paying. Over the more than six months that San Onofre has been dark, the bill has come to $25 for every Californian in its service district, man, woman and child. The old adage that “you get what you pay for” apparently doesn’t apply in Edisonland.

• More Local Nuclear News – LA Times