The future of the San Onofre nuclear plant

SAN DIEGO (KUSI) – The San Onofre Nuclear Plant is not supplying power anymore, but it is still fueling a lot of debate.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission held a public meeting Monday night to talk about the future of the plant.

60 years of work to a cost of $4.4 billion, the people who built the nuclear generating station, must now get rid of it.

It was built in 1968 and hailed as the future of energy in Southern California, but the San Onofre plant has been fraught with problems.

Sitting on the sea-shore at a risk of a tsunami, on a fault line at the risk of an earthquake, and on a major freeway at the risk of an act of terrorism, the plant was shut down in 2013 because of a crack a few inches long in a steam generator.

The Federal Government regulators stood in front of a few hundred people in a Carlsbad hotel convention center and an online audience and explained what its owners and operators, Southern California Edison and SDG&E, are going to do to get rid of every trace of San Onofre.

What seemed to be troubling to the public was the safety issue.

Many asked what would be done about the hundreds of spent radioactive fuel rods?

Storage canisters designed to house the radioactive rods on-site permanently will be used, but it’s a proposition that makes neighbors extremely nervous.

Commissioners insist they have the most advanced technology known to man available to protect the public.