PG&E updates SLO County on 'two-track' approach to Diablo 

The ship nearly sailed on Diablo Canyon Power Plant, a senior PG&E official told San Luis Obispo County supervisors on Sept. 27.

With one of the Diablo reactors set to shutter as soon as 2024, California had to act this year if it wanted to successfully reverse course on a 2016 PG&E decision to close the last nuclear power plant in the state.

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• File Photo By Steve E. Miller
• LOOKING TO RELICENSE Diablo Canyon Power Plant is on a path to relicensing after state legislators decided last month that the nuclear plant's continued operation is critical to avoiding energy shortfalls.

Lawmakers in Sacramento did just that this summer and passed a law that sends up to $1.4 billion in loans to PG&E to extend Diablo's life for another five years. That's since kick-started a push to relicense the plant, said Tom Jones, PG&E senior director of regulatory, environmental, and repurposing.

"If this legislation didn't occur this year, [the] Unit 1 [reactor] would not have the opportunity to run after 2024. That's just the hard, fast reality," Jones told the Board of Supervisors in a scheduled presentation about Diablo Canyon. "If you think about things at a nuclear facility, like fuel assemblies, they take us about two years to contract, have the uranium procured, enriched, and fabricated—we were out of time."

Jones said that since Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 846 about a month ago, PG&E has applied for federal aid that would backfill the state's loan and reassembled its relicensing team. He said the company already has about 80 to 90 percent of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) relicensing application for Diablo done thanks to previous work that occurred before PG&E opted not to seek relicensing.

"In the last week, we moved about 40 personnel around in our regulatory departments and we're hiring some contractors," Jones said. "We have a good number of professionals that were on the license renewal team the first time. Now we're getting the band back together. We're in good shape."

Because of the many hurdles that still lie ahead for relicensing, PG&E is proceeding down "two tracks": one that assumes Diablo Canyon will be relicensed and another that assumes it won't and will need to be decommissioned as planned in 2024-25.

"Because it's not a done deal, we're instructed to concurrently maintain our planning for decommissioning and retirement," he said.

As part of the state legislation, PG&E is required to complete a new seismic safety study for the plant and preserve oversight committees like the Diablo Canyon Independent Safety Committee (which met on Sept. 28 after New Times press time) and the Diablo Canyon Decommissioning Panel.

Jones said that PG&E's main objective over the next year and half is to "satisfy a timely and sufficient application" for license renewal with the NRC, which he said would allow the plant to continue to operate while the NRC reviews the application.

He acknowledged that this type of expedited review process for a nuclear power plant is uncharted territory.

"The change in state policy has put us in a position where no regulator has an off-the-shelf program for us. The NRC, for instance, they require you to apply five years before your license expires. Well, on Unit 2, we're on two years," Jones said. "The good news is the NRC understands the importance of this to the state of California—this is a major change in energy policy in the most populous state. It's not a licensee that on a whim decided to go for license renewal. They understand the gravity of the situation and California's energy needs." Δ