Nuclear Plant Restart Date Unclear, Despite Rumors

The San Onofre Nuclear Generating station's faulty steam tubes could force the utility to remain cold through the summer, but whether the plant could restart before summer, during summer or not until after remains unclear.

One course of evaluation of the problems won't be finished until Aug. 31, according to a Thusday filing with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Regulators have said that the plant won't re-start until the problems, causes and remedies are fully assessed.

Anti-nuclear group Friends of the Earth sent out a press release asserting the Thursday filing meant the plant couldn't re-start until the end of summer.

But Victor Dricks, NRC spokesman, said that the Aug. 31 date is just a scheduling notification from component manufacturer Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, one of many groups of technicians and consultants investigating tube failures at the plant. Dricks said plant operators and NRC investigators could identify and remedy problems before Aug. 31, or it could be into the fall.

"Nothing has changed, really," he said. "We will look at the information they give us, and we will evaluate it independently."

The possible continued shutdown through California's peak energy-use/air conditioning season, if extra steps aren't taken, could cause rolling blackouts and other disruptions, The ISO is a consortium responsible for routing power throughout the state.

According to the NRC filing, technicians pressure-tested the tubes identified through electronic probing as having high levels of wear. The next step was to submit the tubes to super-high pressures beyond normal operation to see if they could take the intense strain.

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The NRC filing orginally stated that the assessment of the rest of the tubes to identify a cause for the unprecedented wear and ensure future safety would be finished May 31, but Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the components' manufacturer, updated the filing Thursday. Mitsubishi stated it wouldn't be able to finish the assessment until Aug. 31.

Meanwhile, some experts say the continued shutdown could be costing San Onofre operator .

The tube problems, discovered , have been big problem for Edison, .

The parts in question are virtually brand new, . The earliest installation of the components in question was completed in 2009, the latest in December of 2010.

The faulty components, when operating normally, carry high-pressure, super-heated radioactive water. The tubes – almost 10,000 in each steam generator– transfer the heat from the radioactive water to pure water, which boils to create steam. That steam turns massive turbines that create electricity.

The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, when operating at full capacity, pumps about 2,200 megawatts into the grid, enough to power roughly 1.2 single-family homes at any given time.