Edison’s White Elephant

Southern California Edison’s fumbled plan to move a decommissioned nuclear reactor from San Onofre to a nuclear waste burial site in South Carolina does the Keystone Kops proud.

So far the script includes environmentalists threatening legal action to keep Edison from trucking the huge unit along the beach to an awaiting barge; Panama ruling the 950-ton device too heavy to pass through its canal; a risk-averse railroad refusing to carry the nuclear corpse; and, in an age of terrorist attacks, a port that has long welcomed nuclear-powered U.S. Navy ships closing its doors to the radioactive shipment. Edison already missed one legal window for towing the unit up the beach; a lot of issues need settling before the next window in November.

The 450-ton reactor, shrouded in hundreds more tons of concrete, continues to sit in San Onofre. There’s no immediate health threat, and even harsh critics of nuclear power acknowledge that the device’s relatively low level of radiation makes it an unlikely target for terrorists. But this isn’t what Southern Californians had in mind more than two decades ago when plant owners Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric won state approval to collect monthly fees from customers to pay for the reactor’s eventual disposal. The two utilities now have $600 million in customer funds to pay for the promised cleanup.

Edison operates the plant and maintains that it eventually will -- safely and within budget -- transport the huge block of mildly radioactive metal and concrete to Barnwell, S.C., the only dump licensed to accept this type of waste. If it ever gets aboard a ship, it could go around South America’s stormy Cape Horn. But the Port of Charleston’s refusal to accept the reactor could force Edison to barge the massive unit up the Savannah River -- if a drought doesn’t make the river unnavigable.

This herky-jerky tale may foretell the fate of other large nuclear reactors nationwide. It also raises tougher questions about the more difficult task of safely disposing of spent nuclear fuel rods and other highly radioactive material being stockpiled at the nation’s nuclear plants.

The 950-ton reactor corpse brings to mind the infamous garbage barge that left New York in 1987, only to spend months at sea as six states and two countries refused to accept its freight. That episode fueled national trash recycling efforts.

Perhaps the white elephant sitting in San Onofre will stir policymakers to grapple seriously with nuclear waste disposal. No one should hope for a quick resolution, since the issue has been a public policy punching-bag for decades. But Edison certainly will need an answer before the decommissioning of San Onofre’s remaining two units -- in 20 years.