The Los Angeles Times Editorial Board opines that no one really likes the idea of storing spent nuclear fuel rods at the edge of the mighty Pacific Ocean, even if they are sealed in stainless steel canisters, encased in concrete and partially buried. What would happen to the millions of people living within 50 miles, or the Pacific marine life, if there were a leak or an accident? What would happen if California were hit with a tsunami like the one that caused the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster in Japan in 2011?
This is the sort of fearful speculation that has emerged since Southern California Edison revealed its plan to store spent fuel rods from the decommissioned San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station on the power plant grounds rather than at a federally approved nuclear waste disposal site. The reason .. No such facility exists. You can thank the federal government, and specifically Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in particular, for that.
This nation approved and built nuclear plants without ever providing a safe place for their waste to be stored, knowing all along that it would remain lethally radioactive for thousands of years. Congress settled on a site for a national nuclear waste repository ... Yucca Mountain, deep in the wilderness of Nevada ... but the project stalled in 2009 after the Obama administration formally opposed it. That fulfilled a promise candidate Barack Obama had made to Reid and voters in Nevada, a key swing state.
Some members of Congress are pushing to get funding as early as next year to test out privately-run temporary storage facilities for spent fuel rods. But even if lawmakers fund the projects now, it would take a decade or longer to get the sites approved and built.
This leaves no real option for San Onofre other than nuclear beach bunkers. The California Coastal Commission came to the same conclusion last month when it approved the Edison plan to store 75 canisters on site until an off-site waste site is opened.
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