The Nuclear Regulatory Commission last week declined to rule on a request by a group of environmentalists to shut down one of the Diablo Canyon Power Plant’s reactors.
Instead, commission staff will look at the request by a pair of perennial antinuclear groups. It is the outcome that both NRC staff and plant operator Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) asked for San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace and Friends of the Earth launched their latest attempt to end or curtail the operating life of the Avila Beach, Calif., nuclear plant.
In a six-page decision dated Oct. 4, and which did not touch on the merits of the environmental groups’ arguments, the NRC referred the issue to the commission’s executive director for operations.
San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace and Friends of the Earth have been fighting in multiple venues to either shut Diablo Canyon down or block PG&E from extending the plant’s life by five years: something that California law currently requires the utility to at least attempt.
The groups’ latest attempt relied on a study of PG&E data by a PhD researcher at the University of California, Berkeley. According to that study, Diablo Canyon’s Unit 1 reactor is “showing serious indications of an unacceptable degree of embrittlement.”
PG&E planned to apply for a license extension for Diablo Canyon by Dec. 31. The utility wants to operate the plant until 2030 or so, instead of 2025, when the operating license for the second of the plant’s two reactors is set to expire.
