The California State Lands Commission on Tuesday unanimously approved a lease update request from Pacific Gas & Electric as part of the utility’s plans to shut down the Diablo Canyon Power Plant.
The staff-recommended update terminates two leases covering facility infrastructure on state lands that are due to expire in 2018 and 2019. They are replaced by a single lease beginning Wednesday and good through Aug. 26, 2025, covering ongoing use by PG&E of an existing cooling water discharge channel, water intake structure, equipment storage space, and other infrastructure for the two-reactor facility.
The new lease would correspond with the schedule to close Units 1 and 2 at Diablo Canyon in 2024 and 2025, in line with the expiration of the reactors’ licenses with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The 31-year-old facility is the last operating nuclear power plant in California.
The state lease would expire on Aug. 27, 2018, if PG&E by that date has not withdrawn its application, or has submitted a new application, for NRC operating licenses for the plant. A new lease would also be required when plant decommissioning begins.
“We thank the commissioners for their leadership and their support, without which this historic proposal could not move forward. While there is much more work to do, today’s vote was a critical first step,” said PG&E Electric President Geisha Williams said in a press release following the decision.
The company last week formally requested that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission halt work on the license renewal application submitted in 2009 for Diablo Canyon, according to a letter posted Wednesday on the NRC website.
PG&E has previously said decommissioning Diablo Canyon is expected to cost about $3.8 billion. Spent fuel from the facility will be kept on-site in pools and then in dry-cask storage until the federal government establishes a long-term repository for the nuclear waste, Williams told the commission during the hearing.
In announcing the closure plan last week, PG&E announced an agreement to work with a number of environmental and labor groups to replace Diablo Canyon’s nuclear energy with greenhouse-gas-free sources. The utility is aiming for a 55-percent renewable energy target in 2031.
The application for the “Joint Proposal” will require approval from the California Public Utilities Commission, which PG&E hopes to secure by Dec. 31, 2017.
Stakeholders in PG&E’s energy plan and local officials in the San Luis Obispo County area during Wednesday’s meeting backed the lease request, particularly noting the long lead time to plant closure, which they said should allow time to address matters such as workforce transition and safety of the decommissioning process. They specifically compared that against the complications from the unexpected permanent shutdown of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station near San Diego in 2013.
But a larger number of speakers called for the commission to require an environmental impact report on the lease, per the California Environmental Quality Act, and for closing the power facility earlier than scheduled to reduce environmental and health dangers posed by the plant, including the possibility of a devastating earthquake.
Commission staff recommended that the panel make the lease exempt from CEQA requirements, including the environmental impact report.
The three-person State Lands Commission consists of state Controller Betty Yee, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, and Finance Department Director Michael Cohen.
