One of two on-site facilities storing spent fuel from a California nuclear power plant can keep operating for another decade or so, the Golden State’s coastal land regulator said last week.
The 12-member California Coastal Commission voted 9-0 Oct. 13 to approve a 13 year extension on state permits for the storage pad, located at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in Pendleton, Calif. The on-site spent fuel storage facility holds about half of the 123 canisters of spent fuel generated at the plant, which shut down in 2013.
With the extension, the storage facility can operate through November 2035. SONGS’s second spent fuel pad already has a similar permit. Plant operator Southern California Edison, which is also decommissioning the facility, applied for the extension in June.
Like most nuclear power plants in the U.S., San Onofre stores its spent fuel inventory on-site. There is currently no centralized facility to store such waste — the only congressionally-authorized repository site, Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, has been effectively mothballed since 2010 when the Barack Obama administration pulled the project’s funding.
In Washington, efforts are underway to break the spent fuel storage deadlock. The Department of Energy is currently giving out roughly $16 million in grants to communities potentially interested in hosting a federally-run interim storage facility. Such a site would hold spent fuel from all over the country for an unspecified period of time, until a permanent repository is open. Congress would need to change the law for DOE to build an interim storage facility.
Meanwhile, two companies are looking to build private interim storage facilities in New Mexico and Texas.
In Congress, Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.), whose district includes SONGS, is an outspoken advocate for spent fuel storage solutions. The congressman, up for reelection in November’s midterms, is a founding member of the Spent Nuclear Fuel Solutions Caucus, a congressional organization aimed at pressuring the feds into building a nuclear waste storage facility.
Levin in February also reintroduced a bill that would let SONGS jump to first in line to send its spent fuel to a DOE repository.
