The Nuclear Regulatory Commission started an environmental review of Pacific Gas & Electric Co.’s plan to keep California’s last nuclear power plant open until 2030, the agency announced Wednesday.
The commission plans an online public meeting about the proposed review on Feb. 1 and an in-person meeting at the Embassy Suites Hotel in San Luis Obispo, Calif., on Feb. 8, according to a Federal Register notice.
After a reversal of a state law intended to end nuclear generation in California, plus billions of dollars in state and federal bailout money, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) in November filed a license renewal application with the NRC for the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant Unit 1 and Unit reactors.
Without an extension, the reactors would shut down in 2024 and 2025, respectively, when their current NRC licenses expire.
However, because PG&E met an NRC deadline to file for a license extension by Dec. 31, 2023, the commission will let the utility keep the reactors online for at least as long as it takes agency staff to review the license application.
The review could take longer than the reactors have left on their existing licenses, the NRC has said. Environmentalists who object to keeping the plant open have sued the commission in federal court, claiming this grace period is illegal.
The sides argued their claims Jan. 10 in the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, where the lead judge in the case probed the NRC about whether ruling for the environmentalists could unleash a tide of new lawsuits against the federal government.
PG&E has filed for 20-year NRC license extensions, but the California Public Utilities Commission, the state’s power regulator, has so far authorized Diablo Canyon’s reactors to operate only five years after the expiration dates of their current federal licenses.
Editor’s note, Jan. 09, 2024. The story was updated to show that PG&E applied for a 20-year NRC license extension.
