Nearly 200 more used reactor fuel assemblies were moved from wet to dry storage from April 20 to May 20 at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in San Diego County, Calif., primary owner Southern California Edison said Friday.
A total of 444 fuel assemblies from SONGS reactor Units 2 and 3 had been placed on the retired nuclear power plant’s independent spent fuel storage installation as of May 20, according to the utility’s latest update on transfer operations. That was up from 259 reported one month earlier. The assemblies were held in 12 storage canisters, up from seven in the prior report.
Another 2,150 assemblies remained in SONGS’ spent fuel pool on May 20, compared to 2,372 at that time a month earlier. The new June 1 report shows 74 assemblies in two canisters in transit on May 20.
SONGS was permanently retired in 2013 due to faulty steam generators in its two remaining operational reactors. Under the settlement to a lawsuit filed by a local watchdog group, Southern California Edison is allowed to move all spent fuel onto an expanded storage pad even as it pursue “commercially reasonable” opportunities to ship the waste off-site. There was no immediate update on that process Friday.
The utility expects to complete the spent fuel transfer by mid-2019. Presuming approval from the state, major decommissioning operations could then begin. An AECOM-EnergySolutions team won a $1 billion contract to oversee what is expected to be a $4.4 billion cleanup job.
