What dome should I put up today? How about a nuclear dome? Here are the two containment domes at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, taken on a hazy late afternoon. It's a funny thing: San Onofre was shut down a decade ago, but all the high-tension lines coming from the station are still up even though they no longer have any electricity to carry. I wonder when they're going to get rid of them?
Just as soon as somebody realizes they're no longer "live" and tears them down to sell for the copper. Maybe somebody could put up a sign.
It would actually be aluminum.
I don't know enough about the site, but it could be that the wires carry electricity *to* the plant. I presume that there are needs for electricity there as part of the decommisioning process.
Yep. Not nearly as much juice as used to come from the plant.
Might also be keeping them if they put say several metric tons of batteries on site for load leveling and such.
Good idea.
"Everywhere I look, something reminds me of her..."
Could be the start of a really great kaiju.
You should look up Madonna's bra in Baltimore.
To this day the power lines to Trojan Nuclear remain, long after fuel had been removed, the cooling towers imploded, and all adjacent buildings removed. Therefore, I'm thinking NEVER?
My theory is, the deconstruction and decontamination requirements of the NRC did not include the explicit removal of power lines, and as such, PGE decided it was not worth the expense.
Alternatively, PGE could simply be waiting for a future, better nuclear (whether fusion or fission) power design which makes the site usable for power generation once again.
I didn't know that beach was topless!
I guess you have used a picture of those domes before because I had the same impure thoughts before that several people have already alluded to this time…
Those power lines won't come down any time soon, because I guarantee the substation at San Onofre is still energized. The plant no longer generates, but power still goes through there.
Also, incidentally, I was for years part of a cycling club that rode by there occasionally, and we always referred to those two domes as The Tits.
This is the answer. The generating facility may be retired, but the switchyard infrastructure is still used for distribution.
Has the reactor been decomissioned or just shut down? If it still has nuclear fuel or even just residual radioactivity, a whole variety of equipment needs electricity to keep running. That includes pumps, sensors and so on. I remember when Seabrook was in limbo. It was ready to run, but protesters were holding approval. I visited REMVEC, and the plant was drawing close to a megawatt just holding still.
Decommissioning is a decade-long process. The plant is shut down, but the decommissioning process will go on for years to come.
I don't know the status of the spent nuclear fuel. That's an unsolved problem everywhere.
As far as I know, and I haven’t worked in nuclear for decades*, high-level waste including spent fuel, is still stored on-site, because there has never been an agreement on a long-term storage site. Yucca Mountain came close, but is as yet unused. See the Wikipedia article on that topic.
Spent-fuel pools need constant circulation of deionized, demineralized water; all that takes power. So shutdown plants need power from offsite, plus onsite backup (diesel generators).
*I do occasionally read up on developments.