The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said this week it identified no safety violations during three unannounced inspections in the first three months of 2020 of used fuel operations at the retired San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in California.
The findings were presented in an April 28 letter from Greg Warnick, chief of the agency’s Reactor Inspection Branch, to Doug Bauder, vice president and chief nuclear officer for SONGS majority owner Southern California Edison (SCE). “Within the scope of the inspection, no violations were identified and a response to this letter is not required,” according to Warnick.
Southern California Edison permanently shut down the plant’s two remaining operating reactors, Units 2 and 3, in 2013 after faulty steam generators were installed in each. The next year it hired energy technology company Holtec International to move the reactors’ spent fuel from cooling pools to dry storage.
The utility has faced increased federal scrutiny since an August 2018 incident in which one canister of used-fuel rods was left at risk of a nearly 20-foot drop into its storage slot on the power plant property in San Diego County. It took personnel about an hour to identify and address the problem, in which the canister became lodged on a shield ring for the below-ground storage space.
Following a special inspection, the NRC ultimately fined SCE $116,000 for violations of federal nuclear safety rules. The fuel offload resumed last July, after what Southern California Edison said was a set of improvements to training, procedures, and oversight of the operation. As of this week, Holtec had transferred the 60th of 73 canisters of fuel rods from Units 2 and 3. The project is scheduled for completion in late July or early August.
The unannounced on-site inspections were conducted on Jan. 16-18, Feb. 5-6, and March 9-12. They were timed for monitoring of “risk-significant activities” in the used-fuel operation– specifically, loading, relocation, and placement into storage of one canister each time. The inspectors also reviewed paperwork related to the fuel job.
“The inspectors noted that the corrective actions taken in response to the August 2018 incident remained effective. The licensee continues to implement successful programs related to training, procedures, equipment maintenance, and oversight to ensure safe and compliant downloading operations,” the NRC inspection report says. “The inspectors observed that the status of the canisters during downloading operations were constantly monitored and properly handled to avoid possible misalignment issues. No findings were identified during the inspection period.”
The inspectors did note one incident on Jan. 16 in which personnel were unable to place a Holtec multipurpose canister into its storage “vault” within the prescribed four attempts. During that operation, there were four successive alarms from underload systems on the rigging gear used to put the canister into place, the report says. The alarms were added to the gear following the 2018 incident to alert personnel when the crane used in loading is not supporting the full 100,000-pound weight of the canister.
Work stopped so Southern California Edison could identify the issue causing the alarms, with the canister removed from the vault and secured within the cask used for the transfer from the cooling pool. It was ultimately determined the bottom of the canister was hitting a gusset on the shield ring of the storage slot, much as in the 2018 mishap. The cask transporter was repositioned and the canister placed into storage on Jan. 18.
There were no similar issues during the February and March inspections, the NRC report says.
“Southern California Edison is encouraged by the progress we are making on fuel transfer operations at the San Onofre nuclear plant,” Southern California Edison spokesman John Dobken said by email. “The latest Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspection report reaffirms the improvements made to the program were effective. Our focus remains on utilizing the additional technology and training we incorporated to safely and successfully complete FTO later this summer.”
One longtime critic of SCE’s management of the plant questioned the absence of photographs in the report of any potential damage to the storage vault during the download. The NRC’s latest findings show “once again that the entire Holtec ISFSI system is deeply flawed,” Charles Langley, executive director of San Diego-based Public Watchdogs, said by email Thursday. “It demonstrates that the problem can’t be fixed because Holtec cannot offer Southern California Edison a safe precision downloading system. In our opinion, this event was a failure of components important to safety because Edison has still not resolved the problem with ‘incidental contact’ during downloads.”
When Holtec’s work is done, about 3.5 million pounds of spent fuel rods from all three of SONGS’ reactors, including the Unit 1 that shut down in 1992, will be on the dry-storage pad.
Local advocacy groups and some residents have warned of the dangers of keeping radioactive waste near the ocean in a seismically active, densely populated area. Southern California Edison says the storage systems being used are designed and built specifically to withstand earthquakes and tsunamis without any release of radiation. But the August 2018 event exacerbated existing concerns about scratching of the canisters as they are placed into storage and an earlier finding of small broken parts in several vessels.
To settle a lawsuit over its on-site storage plan, SCE in 2017 committed to taking “commercially reasonable” steps to find an off-site location to take the used fuel. Toward that, the utility has established an advisory panel of experts and hired contractor North Wind to prepare a strategic plan for relocation. The document is expected by the end of 2020.
That has not stopped Public Watchdogs and other local groups from petitioning the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and federal courts to halt the spent-fuel offload and decommissioning at SONGS. To date, they have not been successful.
On April 20, an NRC petition review board said it had issued an initial finding against accepting for review a new request from the Public Watchdogs for an order for immediate suspension of decommissioning at SONGS. The panel said the safety issues cited in the petition have largely already been considered by agency staff.
Public Watchdogs can still request a public meeting to “clarify or supplement the petition,” according to the NRC. Langley said he intends to request a meeting.
Meanwhile, the $4.4 billion decommissioning of Units 2 and 3 under contractor SONGS Decommissioning Solutions continues, though at a reduced level during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The contractor, a joint venture of AECOM and EnergySolutions, is preparing to ship the reactor pressure vessel from the mostly decommissioned Unit 1 to permanent disposal in Utah. The timing and means of transport are not being released, Dobken said.
Full decommissioning is scheduled for completion by 2028.
First-Quarter Earnings
Separately, SCE parent company Edison International on Thursday reported a nearly $100 million drop in net income for the first quarter of 2020. Net income landed at $183 million, $0.50 per share, down form $278 million, or $0.85 per share, for the same period of 2019. On an adjusted basis, though, core earnings rose year over year to $228 million, $0.63 per share, from $206 million, $0.63 per share.
Southern California Edison’s first-quarter 2020 net income dropped to $219 million, $0.60 per share, from $293 million, $0.90 per share, in 2019.
“SCE’s higher non-core loss per share was mainly attributable to the absence of $69 million, or $0.21 per share, of income tax benefits recorded in the first quarter 2019 related to changes in the allocation of deferred tax re-measurement between customers and shareholders as a result of a [California Public Utilities Commission] resolution, and an after-tax expense recorded in 2020 of $60 million, or $0.17 per share, from the amortization of SCE’s contributions to the Wildfire Insurance Fund,” according to a press release. “These were partially offset by an income tax benefit of $18 million, or $0.05 per share, recorded in 2020 due to re-measurement of uncertain tax positions related to the 2010-2012 California state tax filings currently under audit.”
Edison also updated its earnings guidance for the year. The range for basic earnings per share as of Feb. 27 was $4.32 to $4.62, but that dropped to $4.19 to $4.49 by Thursday. However, core earnings per share guidance remained constant at $4.32 to $4.62.
Edison executives did not discuss SONGS during their earnings conference call Thursday with financial analysts.
