Nuke plant re-licensing under spotlight

Mar 20 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Paul Sisson North County Times, Escondido, Calif.

San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station's plan to extend its operating license to keep the plant running past 2022 could face new hurdles in light of the unfolding nuclear crisis in Japan.

To get the license extension, plant owner Southern California Edison needs approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, as well as various permits and approvals from state agencies such as the California Coastal Commission and Public Utilities Commission.

According to the NRC, nuclear plants must undergo a rigorous 22-month process, which includes new studies aimed at making sure the plant's materials and procedures are robust enough to continue operating for an additional 20 years.

Both of San Onofre's reactors started generating electricity in 1982.

There has been no decision to halt or modify the extension process, NRC spokeswoman Lara Uselding said Friday.

"Right now, the chairman has said we are continuing with these reviews," Uselding wrote in an e-mail response, referring to NRC chief Gregory Jaszko.

Meanwhile, some state and federal legislators are raising new questions about San Onofre, an indication that they might try to exert more influence over the license-renewal process.

Others are steadfast in their support of the seaside nuclear plant, which sits about 17 miles north of Oceanside.

California's U.S. senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, released a statement Wednesday asking the NRC a series of pointed questions about how the disaster at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plant could influence the operation of San Onofre and Diablo Canyon, a similar pair of reactors in Central California.

The Japanese plant has been crippled by a series of fires and explosions that have leaked radiation into the atmosphere and pushed some of the plant's six reactors to the brink of meltdown following a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami.

"How will the NRC consider information on ways to address risks posed by faults near these plants that is produced pursuant to state law or recommendations by state agencies during the NRC re-licensing process?" the senators' statement asks.

San Onofre and Diablo Canyon are near earthquake faults.

A bill passed in 2006 requires Edison and Pacific Gas and Electric, the Diablo Canyon owner, to conduct comprehensive analysis of all earthquake faults, using new technology, to come up with a new measure of a potential earthquake's severity.

A document published by the California Energy Commission in 2008 found that a fault five miles off the coast of San Onofre could potentially produce a larger earthquake than engineers estimated when San Onofre was being designed in the late 1960s and 1970s.

Local legislators were mixed in their views of whether the re-licensing process for a plant such as San Onofre should be put on hold.

Travis Considine, a spokesman for U.S. Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Solana Beach, said Thursday that it's premature to talk about the future of re-licensing while the reactors in Japan are still steaming.

"We don't know all the facts yet," Considine said. "I think speculation is premature because the congressman likes to rely on science to drive our energy policy."

Mike Zimmerman, chief of staff for state Assemblyman Martin Garrick, R-Carlsbad, said the legislator still believes that San Onofre deserves a license extension.

"Nuclear energy plays an important role in the supply and availability of power in our country," Zimmerman said. "San Onofre has an excellent safety record, and was built to withstand even the strongest earthquakes. Nuclear energy is also a vital part of our national security."

After Boxer and Feinstein's statement, Southern California Edison was quick to issue a statement welcoming Senate scrutiny.

The company has been mum on when it will submit a formal request to regulators to extend San Onofre's operating license.

However, Edison has asked the California Public Utilities Commission for permission to raise electricity rates to "continue the studies, analyses and preparation of the NRC License Renewal application."

The request was spotted by Members of the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility, an anti-nuclear energy group, in a voluminous document that outlines Edison's proposed rate hike.

Although the document doesn't say when Edison expects to file its renewal application, it says that "license renewal studies and analyses commenced in 2009."

The NRC is considering a request from Pacific Gas and Electric to extend the licenses for Diablo Canyon's two reactors, which expire in 2024 and 2025.

A spokesman in Boxer's office declined to comment this week on where Boxer or Feinstein might try to intervene in the re-licensing process for the California plants.