San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station

San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station
The station as seen from the north.
Location in San Diego County
Country	United States
Location	San Diego County, California
Coordinates	33°22′8″N 117°33′18″W / 33.36889°N 117.55500°W / 33.36889; -117.55500
Status	In decommissioning [1]
Construction began	August 1964[2]
Commission date	Unit 1: January 1, 1968 Unit 2: August 8, 1983 Unit 3: April 1, 1984
Decommission date	Unit 1: November 30, 1992 Unit 2: Plan announced June 7, 2013 Unit 3: Plan announced June 7, 2013[1]
Construction cost	$8.968 billion (2007 USD, Units 2–3 only)[3] ($12.7 billion in 2023 dollars[4])
Owner(s)	Southern California Edison (78.2%) San Diego Gas & Electric (20%) City of Riverside Utilities Department (1.8%)[5]
Operator(s)	Southern California Edison
Nuclear power station
Reactor type	PWR
Reactor supplier	Westinghouse Electric Corporation (Unit 1) Combustion Engineering (Units 2 & 3)
Power generation
Units operational	2 × 1127 MW (permanent shutdown)
Units decommissioned	1 × 456 MW
Nameplate capacity	2,254 MW
External links
Website	songscommunity.com
Commons	Related media on Commons
[edit on Wikidata]

The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) is a permanently closed nuclear power plant located south of San Clemente, California, on the Pacific coast, in Nuclear Regulatory Commission Region IV. The plant was shut down in 2013 after defects were found in replacement steam generators; it is currently in the process of decommissioning. The 2.2 GW of electricity supply lost when the plant shut down was replaced with 1.8 GW of new natural-gas fired power plants and 250 MW of energy storage projects.^[6]

The plant is owned by Southern California Edison. Edison International, parent of SCE, holds 78.2% ownership in the plant; San Diego Gas & Electric Company, 20%; and the City of Riverside Utilities Department, 1.8%. When fully functional, it employed over 2,200 people.^[5] Located between the Pacific Ocean and the Surf Line, the station is a prominent landmark because of its twin hemispherical containment buildings, which were designed to contain any fission products in the event of an incident.

The plant's first unit, Unit 1, operated from 1968 to 1992.^[7] Unit 2 was started in 1983 and Unit 3 started in 1984. Upgrades designed to last 20 years were made to the reactor units in 2009 and 2010; however, both reactors were shut down in January 2012 after premature wear was found on more than 3,000 tubes in replacement steam generators that had been installed in 2010 and 2011. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission investigated the events that led to the closure. In May 2013, Senator Barbara Boxer, the then-chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said the modifications had proved to be "unsafe and posed a danger to the eight million people living within 50 miles of the plant," and she called for a criminal investigation.^[8]

In June 2013, Southern California Edison announced the permanent retirement of Unit 2 and Unit 3, citing "continuing uncertainty about when or if SONGS might return to service" and noting that ongoing regulatory and "administrative processes and appeals" would likely cause any tentative restart plans to be delayed for "more than a year". The company stated that "Full retirement of the units prior to decommissioning will take some years in accordance with customary practices. Actual decommissioning will take many years until completion."^[9] Controversy continues over Edison's plans for on-site dry cask storage of the considerable amount of nuclear waste created during the facility's decades of operation.^[10][11]