The California State Lands Commission on Tuesday unanimously approved a lease update request from Pacific Gas & Electric as part of the utility’s plans to shut down the Diablo Canyon Power Plant.
The staff-recommended update terminates two leases covering facility infrastructure on state lands that are due to expire in 2018 and 2019. They are replaced by a single lease beginning Wednesday and good through Aug. 26, 2025, covering ongoing use by PG&E of an existing cooling water discharge channel, water intake structure, equipment storage space, and other infrastructure.
The new lease would correspond with the schedule to close Units 1 and 2 at Diablo Canyon in 2024 and 2025, in line with the expiration of the reactors’ licenses with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The lease would expire on Aug. 27, 2018, if PG&E by that date has not withdrawn its application, or has submitted a new application, for NRC operating licenses. A new lease would also be required when plant decommissioning begins.
PG&E has previously said decommissioning Diablo Canyon is expected to cost about $3.8 billion. Spent fuel from the facility will be kept on-site in pools and then in dry cask storage until the federal government establishes a long-term repository for the nuclear waste, PG&E President Geisha Williams told the commission.
In announcing the closure plan last week, PG&E said it would work with a number of environmental and labor groups to replace Diablo Canyon’s nuclear energy with greenhouse-gas-free sources.
Stakeholders in PG&E’s energy plan and local officials in the San Luis Obispo County area during the meeting backed the the lease request, particularly noting the long lead time to plant closure, which they said should allow time to address matters such as workforce transition and safety of the decommissioning process. They specifically compared that against the complications from the unexpected permanent shutdown of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station near San Diego in 2013.
But a larger number of speakers called for the commission to require an environmental impact report on the lease, and to take steps to close the power facility earlier than scheduled to reduce environmental and health dangers posed by the plant, including the possibility of a devastating earthquake.
