(pulsing music) - [Narrator] If you
were an evil mastermind, and you said "Where
could I put nuclear waste that would really scare the
bejeezus out of people?" It's hard to think of
one that's worse than San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. (waves crashing) - [Rachel Becker] This is the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, just outside of San Clemente, California. It's been closed since 2013, but it's operators are
struggling with a problem that most plants in America share; all the spent nuclear
fuel it ever generated is still trapped. Right here. (Geiger counter ticking) So the thing you notice immediately about this plant is its location. You've got the Pacific Ocean right there, you've got the Interstate Five
Freeway just over that hill, you've got L.A. and San
Diego within 75 miles, and 8.5 million people living in the area, and smack-dab in the center of it all is tons and tons of nuclear waste. Back when it was running, the San Onofre plant could power 1.4 million homes at a time. But, now the reactors are retired, and the plants operator, Southern California Edison, is preparing to dismantle it completely. So to see this whole multi-billion
dollar process firsthand, we took a tour of the power plant. Our guide is Ron Pontes, manager of Environmental
Decommissioning Strategy, and except for all of the security, the seagulls, and us, the
place is pretty empty. - [Ron Pontes] Behind us
is the containment building for Unit Three. Inside that building is the
nuclear steam supply system, which consists of the
reactor, steam generators, pressure riser, and reactor coolant pumps. - [Rachel] That's where
the fuel would normally go, bundles of hollow metal
rods that are packed with little pellets of uranium. Inside the reactor,
uranium atoms split apart in a chain reaction that produces heat. - [Ron] That's where the heat is generated that is transmitted to
the steam generators to make steam to turn the turbines, which makes electricity for our customers. - [Rachel] Only, this plant hasn't produced electricity for years, ever since one of the steam generators sprung a leak. - [Newscaster] It is a done deal. SoCal Edison has gotten
tired of waiting to reopen the troubled San Onofre power plant, so today, the utility announced it is shutting it down for good. - [Rachel] Now, the plant operators need to decontaminate the site, demolish the structures, and generally tear
everything to the ground. First though, they have to do something with all that fuel. Fresh fuel isn't actually
all that radioactive. It gets more radioactive
after it spends time in a nuclear reactor, because that chain reaction
that generates heat, it also makes other radioactive atoms, like cesium-137, strontium-90, and plutonium-239. About half of the cesium
and strontium decay in 30 or so years. The plutonium? That takes longer. Like 24,000 years longer. These days, the spent
fuel starts cooling off in cement-lined pools of water. After a few years, it's
moved to dry storage, air-cooled steel containers
inside massive concrete blocks. Eventually, they'll move all
the waste into those blocks. They're lower maintenance, and they're supposed to withstand floods, earthquakes, tornadoes,
airplane collisions, you name it. - [Ron] It requires no
pumps or active systems to support it. As long as we keep this inlet and outlet free of any debris or blockage, the system will continue to operate. - [Rachel] That's good, because that's where the spent fuel is gonna have to stay for
the foreseeable future. - [Ron] What we are faced with
here is a national problem. Every commercial plant in the States is faced with the same problem. There's nothing to do with the fuel, because the federal
government's not performing. - [Rachel] San Onofre's first
reactor powered up in 1968, at the height of nuclear energy's prime, and the height of the energy industry selling America on how
safe and powerful it was. - [Advertiser] The heat
output of one pound of uranium can equal the heat output
of 70 tons of coal. - [Rachel] There were
promises that one day, atomic energy would be too cheap to meter; that it would power the
world by the year 2000. But, for all that promise, there just wasn't a
solid plan for the waste. - [Rob Nikolewski] One could argue maybe we should have thought
about this as a nation before we started building
nuclear power plants, but by this time, the horse is already out of the barn. - [Rachel] That's Rob Nikolewski, a reporter at the San Diego Union Tribune, who's been following
the story at San Onofre for years. - [Rob] In short, the reason why the spent nuclear fuel stays at San Onofre is because the federal
government has dropped the ball. - [Rachel] For decades, the plan has been to bury the waste underground. The government was supposed to start accepting spent fuel in 1998, and the site it settled
on was Yucca Mountain, in Nevada. Nevada politicians hated that idea. - [Senator Harry Reid]
Beginning this year, the story takes a new, and yes, an ugly turn, which the press and
others tagged months ago: the "Screw Nevada Bill". - [Rachel] So the plan has been stuck in limbo for decades, and nuclear power companies
have been suing the government for missing that deadline. Meanwhile, nuclear plants keep operating. They produce about 20%
of America's electricity, and 2200 tons of waste each year. - [Ron] This is probably
not the ideal place to store spent nuclear fuel. We would all agree on that. But, while it's here, we will fulfill our obligation
to manage it safely. - [Rachel] There are a few
ways out of this situation. - [Rob] There's been
a movement in Congress to restart Yucca Mountain. The Trump Administration
is in favor of that. There's a bill that's in the House. Then there's this talk about consolidated interim storage. There are two sites
they've talked about there. - [Rachel] There's even talk about moving the waste to higher
ground near the plant, but farther from the sea. - [Rob] There's all these different permutations out there that are basically put everything up in the air. - [Rachel] But in the meantime, the waste is going to sit there, in that concrete fuel morgue on the coast. Again, it's safe in those blocks. We stood right next to them, and then even swept
ourselves for radiation, just to be sure. But, for people living near San Onofre, it's hard to forget about them entirely. - [Ron] They go on with their lives, you don't see people freaking out. But on the other hand, though, it's something that
hangs over their heads. - [Rachel] We wanted to see for ourselves, so we checked out the beach
that the plant sits on. We passed people fishing,
walking their dogs, surfing, hanging out, like you'd do on any other beach that isn't next to 1700
tons of spent nuclear fuel. I asked some of them how it feels to be living in this thing's shadow. They weren't wild about talking on camera, but they had a lot to say. There was a guy walking
his dog on the beach, and he actually said that nuclear power is this incredible thing. But storing the waste at the plant is a federal mistake. Another woman was there on
the beach with her family. She says she surfs here all the time, but it's still eerie when she
takes a wave back to shore and she sees those twin reactor domes staring back at her. (waves rolling) So during our tour, we weren't the only
visitors to the dry storage. There were a ton of seagulls, and the plant is doing their
best to keep them away. They've got plastic coyotes
patrolling the dry storage, but for as long as it's there, it's probably gonna be
covered in seagull poop.
So what we chose over nuclear fuel, whose waste is contained in a relatively small area, was fossil fuels which openly disperse millions of kilotons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere yearly. Good thing we dodged a bullet from that 2,200 tons of contained waste. That 1.2 kt of nuclear waste was what would have killed the planet.
So why can't we use the Yucca Mountain Project?
Make the storage for spent fuel in old salt mines, fewer problems and less viable space taken up by it, just keep it sealed and it’ll be fine, that was the only problem with the old salt mine storage solution before
Of course we have somewhere to put it, right next to the most proficient waste handlers and nuclear engineers in the country, on land that's been meticulously surveyed and vetted. But we just couldn't have casks near the city, because we only do that with deadly chemicals and explosives.
I recommend the documentary "Pandora's Promise" Has some interesting insights into nuclear power.
cant they turn it back into ore?
If it is still radioactive, why not further refine it and put it back in the reactor?
There is a place that has been designed to store it, but the hippies don’t want it there either.
https://youtu.be/ciStnd9Y2ak