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Scramble to re-license aging nuclear plants

What’s the Hurry?  PG&E rushes to renew Diablo plant licenses far in advance of the due dates

The New times BY MATT FOUNTAIN  3 Dec 09 Critics accuse Pacific Gas and Electric Company of trying to bypass crucial state oversight by applying to renew the operating licenses for the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant many years in advance of the deadlines. Not only consumer and safety watchdog groups question the move but also the state’s main agency for energy policy.

PG&E top brass and county officials held a Nov. 24 press conference to announce the company had applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to renew the licenses for both Diablo Canyon reactors, whose current licenses will expire in 2024 and 2025. New licenses would extend their operation 20 years from those dates.

Between 2007 and 2009, the company spent $16.8 million on a feasibility study analyzing plant equipment and operation to determine whether to apply for the extension. The money came from PG&E’s operation and maintenance fund—in other words, customers. The study results have yet to see the light of day.

Neither the California Energy Commission (CEC), the state’s primary energy planning agency, nor the public have had access to the findings. There’re concerns the application to the NRC is premature and such issues as the potential for outages from earthquakes and the aging of the plant have not received adequate scrutiny…………..

Critics maintain the company is trying to shut out the public and state regulators by immediately submitting the application to the NRC, where citizen participation can be laborious and expensive, requiring a lawyer to file an intervention.

The consumer watchdog group Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility (ANR) in a 2007 report to the CPUC predicted that PG&E would use the feasibility study to seek license renewal without CPUC review. It reported the company has a history of underestimating future operating costs and overestimating the service life of plant components and systems. Therefore, the report said, the feasibility study has little value 15 years before the operating licenses would renew………………..“Extending the license is just illogical,” Swanson said. “You’ve got the earthquake fault combined with the accumulation of nuclear waste, and we see this as a major unresolved safety issue. And storing radioactive waste on a earthquake fault for another 20 years will add to that risk.”……http://www.newtimesslo.com/news/3673/whats-the-hurry/

December 4, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Legal, USA | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear secrecy, nuclear spin, nuclear wastes, radiation, radioactive