The vertical steel tendons that strengthened the iconic twin domes so they could withstand the extraordinary pressure of a reactor accident? They’re gone.

The four-story office building with employee cafeteria, storage space and unparalleled views of the Pacific? That’s gone, too.

The demineralizers in the turbine building? They look like a string of giant snowballs with holes gnawed in their sides so their innards can be cleaned. Once, they removed chemicals from steam that helped generate nearly one-fifth of the region’s electricity. Now, they’re slated to be scrap sometime next year.

The teardown of the retired San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station has continued apace through the pandemic, with more than two dozen structures clawed to dust by giant excavators, 60 million pounds of debris hauled away by rail, and mountains of highly engineered metal components reduced to scrap by blowtorches, destined for recycling overseas.

“It’s really a matter of hammers, chisels and torches,” said John Dobken, a spokesman for operator Southern California Edison. “It’s pretty much brute force.”

It can be a bit melancholy, seeing all that complex technology reduced to piles of rubble, and remembering the thousands of people who worked the site for decades.

But the teardown — technically termed “decommissioning” — will return the bluff over the blue Pacific to the U.S. Navy in as close to pristine condition as possible after some 50 years of nuclear energy production. Doing that well is a point of pride, Dobken said.

It’s not cheap, however.

A $5 billion demolition

While the reactors were operating, money was set aside into decommissioning funds. It was invested, and grew, and appears well able to cover costs. But there are some wild cards:

After the reactors shut down in 2013, the total teardown price tag was pegged at $4.4 billion. Those numbers have been updated into 2020 dollars, and the cost of decommissioning San Onofre is now pegged at about $5.1 billion, according to documents filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
A good chunk of cash has already gone out the door. From 2013, when the plant closed, through the end of last year, Edison spent about $2.1 billion on the teardown, the documents say. Another $325 million was spent this year.
A great deal of work remains — about $3.2 billion worth. There’s some $3.96 billion remaining in the decommissioning funds, so that shouldn’t be an issue. If there’s money left over when the job is done, it goes back to customers.
A worker cuts up a rotor that has been removed from the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in Camp Pendleton, CA, on Thursday, December 16, 2021. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Perhaps the biggest wild card is the assumption that the U.S. Department of Energy will start fulfilling its contractual obligation to start removing San Onofre’s nuclear waste in 2028 for eventual disposal in a permanent repository. That’s just six-plus years away.

Ron Pontes, Edison’s decommissioning environmental strategy manager, stood this week on a bluff above the controversial dry storage area, where 3.6 million pounds of waste sits, encased in steel and concrete, while the DOE figures that part out. Asked if the 2028 assumption was, perhaps, optimistic, Pontes paused.

“It’s safe here, and that’s the problem,” Pontes said. “There’s not a sense of urgency to do anything about this.”

Congress must act to find a home for the tons of radioactive waste piling up all over the nation, the U.S. Government Accountability Office recently said, and the DOE has begun a new push for permanent storage through consent-based siting. That’s encouraging, but it has happened before, only to be scrapped when a new administration came in and tried to resurrect the moribund Yucca Mountain project.

New nuclear technology really should be part of the nation’s clean energy future, Pontes said. “It has a place. But for it to be adopted, this problem has to be solved,” he said.

About $1.4 billion is anticipated for radioactive waste management, and includes the costs of the dry storage systems that wouldn’t be needed if the DOE had fulfilled its obligations on time, as well as the cost of security, aging management and the like. The fund is drawn down and then reimbursed by the federal government. The money is returned to customers,  Dobken said.

Next up — and down

Hallways in one of the remaining buildings burst to life with workers in hard hats and brightly colored vests during lunch break. About 350 are on site each day.

Rotors that have been cut up and sit in a pile at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in Camp Pendleton, CA, on Thursday, December 16, 2021. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Crews are dismantling the intake structures located between the reactor Unit 2 and Unit 3 turbine buildings. The plant sucked in ocean water for cooling, and water still glistened in their depths.

Workers are taking the turbine buildings apart from the top down. A monstrous rotor and lift beam weighing 352,000 pounds was lowered to the ground in agonizingly slow motion on Thursday, Dec. 16, with the reactor dome as a dramatic backdrop. Subcontractors grabbed the tremendous rotor by hand and pushed it into place before it settled onto the ground. It will be cut to pieces and recycled.

Construction of rail lines continues apace. They’ll be used to haul 1 billion pounds of debris to Utah and Arizona, and more than 5,000 rail cars will be employed for the job. Rail is more environmentally friendly than trucks, Edison said: One rail car equals six truckloads.

The control building, once the brain of the plant, is slated to come down in 2023.

Work inside the iconic twin domes continues, and the domes themselves are expected to come down in 2025. Tenting will go up beside them, with negative ventilation, filters and radiation monitors to keep dust and other material from escaping. The domes will be attacked from the bottom, bit by bit, growing shorter and shorter until what’s left collapses.

When decommissioning is done toward the end of this decade, all that remains will be the switch yard connecting San Diego Gas & Electric’s system to Edison’s, the seawall and public walkway along the beach, and the dry storage systems for nuclear waste.

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