Radioactive Waste 295 - Disposition Of Spent Nuclear Fuel From Closed San Onofre Reactors Is Still Uncertain - Part 2 of 2 parts
Part 2 of 2 (Please read Part 1 first)
There are also discussions within the Trump administration about moving the spent fuel to the proposed nuclear storage facility at Yucca Mountain, NV. if the project can be revived and completed. Other facilities in other states have also been suggested.
SCE is committed to putting together a team of experts to come up with a plan for the relocation of the spent fuel. Experts in engineering, radiation detection and nuclear waste siting and transportation will be part of the team. SCE promised to develop a more efficient and timely program for inspecting the spent fuel currently stored in fifty dry casks behind a seawall at the SONGS site. They will also need to create a contingency plan for dealing with any problems that may be found with the existing storage canisters. SCE must spend up to four million dollars to carry out the terms of the settlement.
The president of SCE said, “SCE is proud to take a leadership role in what we expect will become an industry-wide effort over many years to work with the federal government and other key stakeholders to achieve off-site storage.” One of the plaintiffs suing the CCC is Citizens Oversight (CO) which is a San Diego-based watchdog group that has been opposed for years to the plan for onsite storage of spent fuel at SONGS. The national coordinator for CO said, “This [settlement] is about the best we can do, and I think it’s pretty good. It’s a prudent step in the right direction and a step [Edison] wouldn’t take at all if it weren’t for the lawsuit that we filed.”
The settlement sets up a timetable with a series of deadlines for finding a new location for the SONGS spent fuel and putting together the required team of experts. The search for qualified experts must begin within sixty days. The panel of experts has ninety days to hire qualified experts who apply.
The settlement plan still faces some significant problems. For one thing, even if SCE carries out all of its agreed upon actions and does identify a new location for the spent fuel and a plan for transfer, no transfer can take place unless approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). While the waste is currently the responsibility of SCE, that responsibility will eventually have to handed over to the Department of Energy which will have to approve the handover. The Department of Transportation will have to approve any plan for transporting the spent fuel to a new location. All of the proceedings from these federal agencies will take time to carry out and new problems that may delay the plan may emerge from these proceedings.
One quote from the settlement stands out. SCE is committing to spending “commercially reasonable” funds to locate a new site for the spent fuel and develop a detailed plan for the transportation of the spent fuel to that site. A number of four million dollars is mentioned in connection with the settlement. It is not clear whether or not SCE is off the hook for moving the spent fuel if they spend four million dollars and still don’t have a site and/or a viable plan. Ultimately, the court did not say that they have to move the spent nuclear fuel. But, as the CO president said, this settlement is about the best they could hope for.
San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station:
