1. San Onofre-Who is officially to blame?

2. San Onofre is closed forever
San Onofre is closed forever. There are three levels for assigning blame. The first level is a determination by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The second level will be fought out in civil court between San Onofre owned by Edison and Mitsubishi which provided the replacement steam generators. The third level will be who pays for the 60-year projected closure costs and for the long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel.

3. The Nuclear Regulatory Finding
From The Los Angeles Times, September 3, 2013 “Federal regulators said Southern California Edison Co. and a contractor were responsible for design flaws that led to the permanent shutdown of San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in June.”

4. To the frustration of critics, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Monday proposed safety citations — but no fines — against Edison and its contractor, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, for defective steam generators at the plant near San Clemente.

5. Edison said the proposed citation by the NRC came as no surprise
Edison said the proposed citation by the NRC came as no surprise. The utility described itself as an unhappy customer that bought a lemon, designed and built by Mitsubishi.

6. But critics questioned whether the NRC's action was a slap on the wrist for closing Southern California's largest single source of electricity and leaving ratepayers on the hook for a big chunk of the estimated $4.1-billion cost of decommissioning the 30-year-old plant.

7. "It's proof that the NRC is a lap dog and not a watchdog," said Damon Moglen, an energy specialist with the Friends of the Earth, a Washington environmental group.

8. Commission spokesman Victor Dricks rejected the criticism from Moglen and other anti-nuclear-power activists. "We're taking appropriate action here in view of the low-to-moderate safety circumstances of the violation," he said.
The leak was caught early, he said, and further radiation releases were prevented with the powering down of San Onofre Units 2 and 3 in January 2012.

9. But a commission critic, Dan Hirsch, who teaches nuclear policy at UC Santa Cruz, said he's skeptical that either probe would come up with much.
"Mitsubishi screwed up the steam generator design, and Edison failed to catch it," said Hirsch, president of the anti-nuclear group Committee to Bridge the Gap. "And, now, the NRC belatedly is issuing notices of violation to Edison for the failures."