San Onofre Operator Requests to Restart Reactor

The operator of the San Onofre nuclear power plant, Southern California Edison, has submitted a draft request for a license amendment to restart the plant at 70 percent power this summer. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission meets this week to consider the request.

It’s the next step in the long-running saga of whether to restart the San Onofre nuclear power plant, which has been shut down for more than a year since a small radiation leak was detected in one of its new steam generators.

Rochelle Becker of the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility said ratepayers should oppose the idea of restarting at 70 percent power.

“When Edison originally applied to the new steam generators in 2004, their statements said the plant would only be cost effective if both units ran at 88 percent power,” she said, “so granting them a license to run at 70 percent power is not cost effective.”
[link to www.kpbs.org]
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