The U.S. Department of Energy is attempting to use sound waves (ultrasound) to monitor wear and tear on canisters that store deadly radioactive spent nuclear fuel at the failed San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS). A full scale demonstration of the sound wave technology is expected to occur at the San Onofre Nuclear Waste Dump* sometime in 2027.
Now, two companies, Guided Wave, and Sensible Photonics, have been selected by the Department of Energy’s Center for Used Fuel Research at Idaho National Laboratory. The companies are claiming to specialize in a nondestructive “ultrasonic” testing of nuclear waste containers that could be used to detect problems at the facility.
In 2010, the beachfront San Onofre nuclear waste dump was one of America’s biggest nuclear power plants. The plant failed when it leaked deadly ionizing radiation into the atmosphere on January 31, 2012. The leak was from an “RSG” or Replacement Steam Generator that had an untested experimental design. Edison’s experimental design was not approved or licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. As a result, SONGS could not be safely restarted because of Edison’s failure to obey the law.
As a result of Edison’s greed and reckless engineering standards, more than 3.5 million pounds of stranded nuclear waste (“spent nuclear fuel”) is being stored 100 feet from the beach in thin-walled stainless steel canisters at San Onofre.
* The NRC prefers to refer to its Nuclear Waste Dumps as “Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installations” or “ISFSIs.” The use of this type of excessively complex nomenclature is designed to keep people like you from understanding what the NRC is actually talking about.