Thomas Gardiner
The majority owner of the shuttered San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in California this fall plans official outreach to the potential new off-site home for its used reactor fuel, according to a senior executive.
Late last month, Southern California Edison (SCE) announced the settlement of a lawsuit challenging its current plan to place all the spent fuel from the San Diego County plant on an expanded dry storage pad near the Pacific Ocean. Currently, two-thirds of the roughly 3,500 fuel assemblies remain in wet storage.
Part of the agreement with lead plaintiff Citizens’ Oversight requires SCE to pursue a “Commercially Reasonable” alternative location for the fuel assemblies, with an official offer to move the waste to the Palo Verde nuclear plant in Arizona.
Southern California Edison will honor its commitment, Chief Nuclear Officer Tom Palmisano told the SONGS Community Engagement Panel last week. While the utility has not officially contacted Palo Verde majority owner Arizona Public Service about the waste transfer, Palmisano said he expected that to happen by late November. SCE is part owner of the Arizona plant.
“We will make a good faith effort to ask Palo Verde and other owners of Palo Verde to allow us to move our fuel,” Palmisano said.
Arizona Public Service has already said it would not take the used fuel from the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, noting it is not licensed to store waste from other nuclear plants.
In the interim, Southern California Edison is moving ahead with the storage pad expansion at SONGS, as allowed under the settlement deal, Palmisano said.
The San Onofre plant closed permanently in 2013 due to problems with steam generators installed into its two operational reactors. The California Coastal Commission in 2015 approved the facility operator’s request for a dry storage permit covering an expanded pad to open by 2019 on the SONGS property near the Pacific Ocean. The waste would remain there until the Energy Department meets its legal obligation to build and open interim or permanent repositories for all U.S. spent reactor fuel and high-level radioactive waste.
Southern California Edison has emphasized the safety of placing used fuel in steel canisters within concrete containers, but critics warned of the risks of leaving the waste atop a fault zone so close to the ocean. Citizens’ Oversight and local resident Patricia Borchmann sued in November 2015 to quash the state permit.
Citizens’ Oversight has said it considers the settlement agreement a victory. Along with seeking off-site disposal of SONGS’ waste, SCE agreed to establish an inspection and maintenance program for the approved SONGS storage pad by Oct. 6, 2020, along with a contingency plan should any of the fuel containers be damaged.
The new storage casks aren’t slated for a full inspection by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission until 2023. The casks must go through periodic inspections to ensure they are structurally sound and pose no risk to workers or the general public. But SONGS Engagement Panel member Pam Patterson asked Palmisano why SCE was waiting.
“If you’ve got the technology in place, why not move forward with the inspections?” she said.
Palmisano said he would consider that option. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said the casks are within their expected lifespan.
“Typically spent fuel storage systems were initially designed with a design life of 50 years. After the initial licensing period, NRC regulations require an aging management review and implementation,” an NRC spokesman said by email.
He said the agency reviews management activities of the plant operators to address the effects of aging on dry storage systems. Those systems that remain in service after the initial 50-year licensure can get a renewal for up to 40 years if safety-related functions are shown to be fully functional.
But with a maximum life of 90 years, aging storage facilities face a closing window without a federal waste repository. The NRC, however, said risk to the population nearby or to workers does not increase with time
“Dry cask storage has proven to be a safe technology over the 30 years it has been used. As of January 2017, more than 2,400 casks have been loaded and are safely storing 100,000 spent fuel assemblies,” the spokesman said.
