Another plan was to GIVE AWAY free fuel rods to utilities for "clean nuclear power". It seemed too good to be true, to assume the mantle of godhead, and test the limits of human perfection. Because nukes work well, only if you make NO mistakes. The rods were free, all right, but what about the cleanup costs? And opeations? What about liability for increased cancers, and so on?

Congress obligingly passed a law, according to rumor, exempting the utilities from radiation lawsuits. Sue the USA, and try to prove your cancer resulted from a 20-year old blast of radioactive Xenon that seemed innocuous at the time.

These two realities collided when the ugly San Onofre Nuclear Geneating Station was created. Those surfers became ever after implacable enemies of all things nuke, seeing the failure of the plant to operate as they had promised -- even with thermal pollution! And what do you expect,
there is, of course, a SONGS outfall. When they "decontaminate" a banana suit, or a room, where do you think that "hot" water goes?

So the "bargain" of cheap, clean power became a nightmare of cost over-runs, expensive power, outages, leaks, "regular, harmless releases from the containment dome", and now, the horror of cleaning up the mess.

All fuel rods ever used at SONGS are stored there. Just recently, the Coastal Commission (yes, the one that is called "too liberal") APPROVED continued storage of the deadly rods past 2020. And the plant cranks on.

In 1984, SONGS was ordered to either clean up the obsolete, dangerous and maintenance-infested Unit I (looks like a giant concrete cake), or bring it back into operation. Honchos were frantic. The utilities had not yet pushed though forcing the public to pick up "stranded costs"
-- another term for "unfunded liability". They either had to pop for the cost (about $2b at the time) out of EQUITY, or pretend to bring the thing back up.

The very word "maintenance" seemed to be anathema to SONGS. It was a clandestine system, and the rumor was that costs hung around 23 cents per kwh for electricity -- not too bad, since there were such outages all the time, not too many kwh. Where did the money go?

Well, hundreds of expensive "consultants", and scads of "nuclear engineers" (mostly construction workers who walked around with "nuclear paradaise" T-shirts and who had passed a "class" in nuclear safety.

Once, it was pointed out to a manager that they were using expensive ($160/mo) IBM 3279 3gxi (graphics programmable primitive terminals) when normal 3278 would do ($88/mo). The respone: "...don't worry about it. We just charge it to the rate payers...".

They succeeded in bringing up Unit I, at least long enough to pass the decommissioning expenses, huge that they now are, onto the PUBLIC RATEPAYER! Thanks to the miracle of bribing some alleged "consumer advocates", WE FOOT THE BILL for this colossal mistake.

So now, they are just going to charge to the public ratepayer the unfunded liability of purchasing expensive electricity all these years, with the ultimate goal of keeping our nuclear fuel industry alive and healthy to make those tens of thousands of nuclear bombs that we are now paying to dismantle.

The hot reactor "core", subject of decades of mistakes, bad planning, and failures, is 950 tons of TROUBLE. The other detritus was disposed of (some used the outfall, with the blessing of the CCC), but the reactor core was supposed to be moved using an elaborate series of plastic "mats" to traverse dirt and sand on the beach and SJ creek.

Thanks to Don May and Norbert Dahl, the move of this vile reactor ON THE BEACH, OVER THE NESTING GROUNDS of the snowy plover and other endangered habitat, was DELAYED just long enough to force them to wait for a few months (they were going to do it
in Sept.). Now two additional elements of sanity have entered the equation:

1) PANAMA CANAL NIXES MOVE OF REACTOR CORE. Take it around Cape Horny,
say the almost-nuked Panamanians.

2) SOUTH CAROLINA PORT NIXES USE OF DOCK due to the "war on terror".
Who says the right thing can't be done for the wrong reason.

But somehow, I firmly believe, it will all end up getting CHARGED TO THE RATEPAYER. The corrupt moguls and slime mongers REFUSE to admit their mistakes and live up to their failures.

USA TAXPAYER: forced to pay for the arrogant failures of bone-headed bureaucrats.

What to do with the nuclear waste they are accumulating in SONGS? Well, read the title of this email. Like any other beast, they will eventually perish in their own excretions, or else stop making more nuclear waste.

Think of the cost and "constant emergency" attitude at the plant, and things like "...a little radiation is good for you, it gets the juices going..." and "...tore off my [radiation] badge, and charged into the room, and changed the packing. Took a lot, a lot...".

Think of the equivalent number of windmills in the desert, or solar rooftop installations. What is the downside of a windmill? Perhaps, getting bonked in the head, or crashing down on the barren, trackless waste. Yes, there is an impact on the desert, locally severe.

But think of the downside risk of SONGS. Think of a fiery pit of boiling, radioactive brimstone, evil tendrils forever staining that surfing spot. Think of what the cleanup costs will be, as there is NO viable strategy for what to do with radioactive mistakes.

/Doug

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