A California-based environmental group wants Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) to fight the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s recent decisions to forgo additional seismic risk evaluation at the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in California.
Diablo Canyon is a two-unit nuclear plant in San Obispo, Calif. and operated by Pacific Gas and Electric. The company submitted a license renewal application for the plant to the NRC in November 2023.
The NRC is moving ahead with license renewal steps for the plant although local critics say a major earthquake in Russia points to the need for more seismic study for Diablo Canyon. NRC is expected to make a decision on the application this month according to its website.
San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, an environmental group, challenged Diablo Canyon’s license renewal application over seismic risk. The group said former NRC Chair Christopher Hanson committed to consider evaluating seismic risk as a part of its license renewal process.
In light of the recent 8.8 magnitude earthquake in eastern Russia, Mothers for Peace sent a letter to Padilla on July 31 to urge the senator to fight again for the NRC to take into consideration seismic risk in the Diablo Canyon application.
Mothers for Peace Board President Jane Swanson argued in the letter that the recent NRC decisions are a byproduct of the Trump administration’s “takeover of the formerly independent NRC” by the Department of Government Efficiency and recent executive orders, she said.
Mothers for Peace pointed to statements Hanson made to Padilla during a 2023 Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing.
But in a July 15 license renewal decision, weeks after President Donald Trump fired Hanson, the NRC decided to move ahead with the license renewal process.
The commission said in its decision that NRC staff do not consider seismic risk independently as a part of the license renewal process but considers how seismic hazards impact aging structures, systems and components
Mothers for Peace, along with Friends of the Earth and the Environmental Working Group, challenged Pacific Gas and Electric’s license renewal application in March 2024 and submitted an enforcement petition asking NRC to immediately cease operations at Diablo Canyon.
NRC’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) denied the petitioners’ request for a hearing and terminated the proceeding on July 3, 2024. The petitioners appealed the decision on July 29, 2024.
Hanson’s statement to Padilla did not bind the agency “to a course of action that overrides the plain language of the NRC’s regulations and the established scope of the license renewal review,” according to NRC’s July 15 memorandum and order. The NRC affirmed the denial of Mother for Peace’s challenge in that same memorandum and order.
“Finally, we note that although Contention 1 is not admissible within the narrow scope of this adjudicatory proceeding, petitioners’ concerns about seismic risk have not been ignored,” the NRC went on to say in its order.
The petitioners request that Diablo Canyon be shut immediately due to seismic risk was referred to the NRC executive director of operations “After considering all of the information submitted to the petition review board, the staff determined that it did not have a basis to grant the requested action of ordering the shutdown of Diablo Canyon,”
Diablo Canyon reactors’ licenses were to expire in 2024 and 2025, respectively, but Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) passed legislation in 2022 to extend the plant’s lifespan to 2029 for unit 1 and 2030 for unit 2.
The license renewal application would enable Diablo Canyon to operate for another 20 years.
“We urge you to insist that the NRC adhere to the commitments that it has made to the state of California and to you,” Mothers for Peace wrote to Padilla.
