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To save sea life, power plants face tough new rules
January 23rd, 2010, 8:00 am · 27 Comments · posted by Pat Brennan, science, environment editor
The massive cooling towers would rise like a row of silos along Intertate 5, the domes of the San Onofre nuclear plant facing them across eight lanes of traffic. 
At night, a dense fog generated by the towers would roll over passing cars.
That’s the nightmare scenario suggested by officials at Southern California Edison, the nuclear plant’s owners and operators, if they are forced by a state environmental agency to abandon the plant’s ocean-water cooling system. The system’s screened pipe can suck in two billion gallons of seawater a day to condense steam heated by the plant’s two nuclear reactors, though the seawater never makes contact with nuclear material.
The State Water Resources Control Board is expected to consider Feb. 16 whether to impose new rules on California’s 19 coastal power plants, two of them nuclear plants, that seek to reduce the ecological toll from their cooling systems.
The intake pipes for such systems suck in billions of marine eggs and larvae and millions of fish. Marine mammals, including sea lions, also sometimes get caught and killed in systems like San Onofre’s.
Because seawater passes through these systems a single time, they are known as “once-through” cooling systems.
“The idea is to eliminate the impacts from once-through cooling,” said Jonathan Bishop, chief deputy director at the State Water Board.
The power plants will likely be required to come up with technological fixes that reduce seawater intake by 90 percent or more. That could force some plant owners to abandon ocean-water cooling in favor of other systems, such as wet-cooling, which uses the same water repeatedly and requires cooling towers.
In some cases, owners of aging plants could choose to shut down rather than invest millions in cooling towers or other technology.
The two nuclear plants that are among the 19 coastal power plants affected – San Onofre and Diablo Canyon – have a longer timeline to change their systems. For San Onofre, the proposed regulations require that to happen by 2022.
Edison says the effects of San Onofre’s cooling system on ocean life are minimal, and that the economic effects of the proposed regulations could be highly damaging in their own way.
“Electrical reliability is extremely important, as well as advancing reliance on renewable energy,” said Stuart Hemphill, Edison’s senior vice president of power procurement. “Both of those are potentially at risk with the draft policy the State Water Board has crafted.”
Sunday in Green OC: Cooling towers aren’t feasible, Edison officials say. They hope to negotiate some other solution with the State Water Board.
(Artist’s rendering of what cooling towers would look like across the freeway from San Onofre, courtesy Southern California Edison.)
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It’s astonishing how fast California is crumbling due to leftism.
This is just some more unrealistic abuse by the State Water Board. At some point, it needs to be understood that regulation of this type is “killing” California.
I think there’s an answer – but definitely the Once Through pipe has had its day. There needs to be an answer that the two nuclear reactors in this state can do, without destroying our ecology.
Definitely, the other 17 electrical plants need to go green. I do like the recycling of water for the nuclear plants, without destroying the marine life. We all have fog lights, so I don’t see an issue – but, I don’t wish to lose San Onofre, either. Ergo, let’s find a compromise, that everyone can agree upon.
cooling towers require more energy to operate and have to be treated with chemicals and also have maintenance hour requirements. Don’t forget the costs of the structures and replacement parts. These units also are a breading ground for bacteria and molds when not treated with chemicals. This was the cause of the Legionella outbreak that occurred many years ago in New York City I believe. And in Northern California I believe it was or maybe Washington State cooling towers near a coastal highway caused a thick fog plume over the highway and a horrible car accident happened. I believe there were many deaths. This is a bad idea.
Julie A; you think we should shut down the power plants? You want to be be the first to volunteer at 40% reduction of your personal consumption of electricity?
It is kind of funny thinking about shutting down the nuke plants. Build some coal or gas fired plants and emit even more carbon into the air.
Two things…one they have tons of money and I mean tons, so they are going to be able to fix this if they wanted to. Secondly, the investment and sites they have are billions of dollars, so I doubt they are going to shut them down to not have to pay to change. They will make threats and hope that people will rally around them in the idea that they will be broke to do this, which is wholly untrue.
Should they do this…that I suppose is ultimately a personal view on what a person thinks is important. Can they do this, yes they can and it would probably create some jobs in the process – however the impact is probably minimal and doesn’t threaten endangered critters….just a nasty way to go out.
“They” only have “tons” of money because the utility is allowed to pass all costs to YOU.
YOU are the one who will pay for a power plant retrofit that is likely not needed.
Oh my God, “At night, a dense fog generated by the towers would roll over passing cars.” Like anyone has never seen or driven through fog. Give me a break. It’s funny how people twist and misconstrue facts to sound so ominous. People, it’s fog, moisture in the air, you know, like in nature! They want the once-through cooling gone, yet also don’t want the “ugliness” of what cooling tower plumes would be like. Anyways, yes, impact is minimal on marine life. People complain about powerplants and “not in my back yard” yet they complain about electricity rate hikes. Hey, ever TRULY thought of what is would cost to shut down the powerplants and have that power imported, most people really do take electricity for granted! It’s like dirty-work to most people, they want all this electricity for their house, electronics, etc. yet don’t care or want to know where it’s coming from, as long as it’s “not in their neighborhood”. Hopefully, this battle doesn’t rage on too much longer and we can come to a solution on what’s best for EVERYONE and not certain peoples’ special interests. Good comments everyone.
“billions of marine eggs and larvae and millions of fish.” How many of these would have survived to full adulthood? If you know the ocean at all, you realize that marine wildlife have been decimated in the last 50 years. These plants are a big part of the problem. Corporate leaders are great at crying wolf and saying that they can’t afford change…but they always somehow seem to manage to keep making massive profits. Remember the smog we used to have? The power plants said they couldn’t afford to reduce air pollution. Seat belts? The auto companies said they couldn’t afford to install them.
All other industries have to clean up their mess, there’s no free lunch. San Onofre needs to quit using and destroying our public resources for profit. Fix the plant.
Joe,
Do you have any idea of the true impact of the water intake of San O? Have you ever been fishing there? Do you know that locally the population of many species is increasing rapidly?
This is another stupid reason that the state of CA is broke.
If this requirement goes forward, the high costs for compliance will be passed along to California electric customers in the form of higher electric rates. Coastal plants that choose to close, rather than comply, will need to be replaced with new construction somewhere else on the grid. New generating stations tend to be much more efficient with lower carbon emissions, however they are expensive, again raising rates for California electric customers.
Costs of compliance need to be justified by significant improvements in the environment. If environmental improvements do not out weigh the compliance cost this proposal should not proceed.
Generating plant operators and California electric rate payers need to have some stability. Once a generating station is approved, the conditions on its construction permit should apply for the life of the plant. If the plant operator applys for a major modification or expansion, the permit conditions should be modified to meet current environmental regulations.
a MUCH cheaper and more effective approach would be to improve the in take water structure protection and screening. By the way HUGE amounts of fresh water are required for the cooling towers–the evoporation loss isn’t truly “reused over and over” its made up of water from wells, which btw likely would INCREASE salt water intersion into coastal aquifers.
2 billion gallons of water per day sounds like a lot but we are talking about the Pacific Ocean here. Its about the same , in relative terms, as taking one drop of water out of Lake Tahoe.
I am always “astonished” when I see that people still view the ocean as just an infinate resource for humans to be used and abused. It is a living, breathing organism subject to extinction, as we know it, from over use. When you have the acid content of the oceans increasing rapidly, not to mention floating garbage dumps the size of Texas, our own excesses will turn this cradle of our existance into a coffin. We COULD do something about it, but it would cost multimillion (billion)dollar firms to spend some of that money on their source of power and retool their plants and brush up on best technology available for their processes. I would mandate it, not request it.
All y’all need to sit down and take an oceanography course just once in your life to understand the staggering impact humans have on the ocean. “Popcorn” claims the state is crumbling due to leftism – no, it is crumbling due to uneducated, ignorant folks like you who refuse to listen to science and logic and instead blindly believe in whatever your government tells you is right. God forbid we should use LESS electricity, oh no! We’re Americans and we’re too important to give up our power, damnit! The issue, though, of the cooling plants is a huge one, and it DOES affect the ocean in a thousand different ways. First of all, every creature that lives in that specific area of the Pacific Ocean lives there because they are acclimated to the stable temperature of the ocean there. Returning water to the sea some 10 degrees warmer (or even 2, for that matter) means that these organisms cannot survive. This is a simple food chain – if plankton cannot survive, the rest of the food chain which completely relies on them will also not survive. And, yes, it’s true that millions of eggs, larvae, and microscopic creatures are destroyed every day at this plant, along with the occasional larger marine creature. By the way, if you don’t believe any of this is happening, try going for a swim down at San Onofre beach, see just how much giant kelp is left off the coast there…
Enough with the uninformed knee-jerk right wing reponses! Julie A. is right. We need to separate the nuclear plants out and focus on cleaning up the the other power plants that use outdated and destructive once through cooling processes. We are being subjected to scare tactics by the power industry and their partisan allies. There are cost effective solutions. Let’s not trade environmental damage and inefficient generation for higher profits and an abdication of responsibility.
Is it any wonder than “snoozepapers” are dying?? They can’t even frame the issue of stupid, obsolete power plants in a rational fashion. Did they note that San Onofre was supposed to be removed after 50 years?? These plants have a lifetime; quoting the liars at SCE about how it’s “impossible” reminds me of one SCE manager at San Onofre, when I pointed out that they were wasting $160/month leasing programmable-graphics terminals when no one used 3279 xgi capabilities, they just say, “DON’T THINK TWICE, WE JUST CHARGE IT TO THE RATEPAYERS!!!” Blatant waste, and it’s just the tip of the huge waste, fraud and abuse that is called “nuke plants”.
Solar is so much more sensible: but you don’t see the OCR talking sense!!
The downside of wind power, is maybe someone gets bonked in the head, while the downside of San Onofre is a fiery lake of burning wormwood, deadly for millions of years.
Yet on SCE goofball said, “we need power plants, because solar is so unreliable”. Just plain lies, and unexposed by the drips and wimps at OCR.
There is a 4 square mile solar array being held up in the desert by the Sierra Club because it may affect the desert turtle. So what is the answer?;
Is it any wonder than “snoozepapers” like the OCR are dying??
They can’t even frame the issue of stupid, obsolete power plants in a rational fashion. Did they note that San Onofre was supposed to be removed after 50 years??
These plants have a lifetime; quoting the liars at SCE about how it’s “impossible” reminds me of one SCE manager at San Onofre, when I pointed out that they were wasting $160/month leasing programmable-graphics terminals when no one used 3279 xgi capabilities, they just said, “DON’T THINK TWICE, WE JUST CHARGE IT TO THE RATEPAYERS!!!” Blatant waste, and it’s just the tip of the huge waste, fraud and abuse that is called “nuke plants”.
But the Ratepayers don’t even know they’re being scammed, because of the “snoozepapers” like the OCR, completely empty of content. So we see vapid comments and jingoistic drivel, like the “dittoheads” who get all their thoughts from radio talking-heads.
Solar is so much more sensible: but you don’t see the OCR talking sense!!
The downside of wind power is maybe someone gets bonked in the head, while the downside of San Onofre is a fiery lake of burning wormwood, deadly for millions of years.
Yet one SCE goofball said, “we need power plants, because solar is so unreliable”. Just plain lies, and unexposed by the drips and wimps at OCR.
Why not tell the truth, for once? Instead of pandering to your advertizers and the powerful?? Guess you’re afraid of Standard Oil, GM and the Western States Petroleum Assn, as well as SCE and the nuke lobby. Shameful.
Once through cooling is incredibly destructive because it kills plankton, which is everything in the ocean in its larvael stage. Also, what is the electricity being used for anyway? Blow drying your hair?
And as for nuke plants, they not only destroy far more larae than conventional plants, they MAKE PLUTONIUM THAT LASTS 500 THOUSAND YEARS.
Finally, whoever said 2 billion gallons a day is a drop in the oceans bucket should remember the passenger pigeon was the most numerous bird on the planet, and now there are 0.
Maybe if San Diego Surfrider, Sierra Club and Coastkeeper weren’t being run by crooks, the environmentalists would have more credibility. See: San Diego 301h waiver at Point Loma.
http://www.stopthewaiver.com http://www.earthsourcemedia.com
Joey Racano
If someone wants to protect the ocean…they’re on the left. If another person wants cheap energy…they’re on the right. This is ridiculous. What does wanting to protect the ocean have to do with political views? Where is the common ground people? Why do we have to be so divided? Why don’t the people of Southern California want it both ways? The Water Board and Edison need to COMPROMISE.
2 billions gallons from the Pacific equivalent to a drop in Tahoe you say? Well, all I know is the seawater SONGS uses each day would cover 37 square miles, 2 ft. deep. That is A LOT of seawater.
Forget about the water, and recognize that nuclear power plants are the result of cold-war era scientists feeling guilty about building devices that kill humans on a mind-bobbling scale. After they saw what they had done in Japan, they tried to come up with a way to use fission for good. So they came up with using the heat to boil water and turn turbines to create electricity. We now know that wind, tides and the sun are way better at generating electricity. All the taxpayer money spent to build these plants could’ve been better spent. If our country wasn’t so f–d up we would shutdown all of these dangerous mistakes and spend money building tidal, solar, etc. Of course, this will never happen because Edison fools all the morons who fill its baseball stadium and Obama is no different than any other politician. There is no “left wing” in this country, just the same old business-bought talking heads on TV. Don’t even bother voting, they’re all the same.
So in all this weeping for the fish and larvae, what about all of the field mice and bugs whose habitat will be destroyed by the cooling towers? And all of the wasted water lost to evaporation. It’s been rainy this week, but I’m pretty sure we still live in a desert. It’s easy being green–all that bullsh!t makes great fertilizer!
if sea creatures would die from the pipes, why not create a barrier surrounding the power plant so sea creatures cant get near the pipes?
What a Joke! I grew up at San Onofre and the life there is better than the rest of the coast.
The water companies are just worried the Nuclear Generating Stations will start producing clean pure water from the reaction method the subs use.
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