The Nuclear Regulatory Commission can allow California’s last nuclear power reactor to operate with an expired license, the plant’s owner wrote in a recent regulatory filing
Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) was rebuffing claims by a coalition of anti-nuclear groups who told the NRC the utility was asking the government to break the law in order to keep Diablo Canyon Power Plant online beyond 2025, when its license expires.
PG&E took on the enviros’ claims in a Jan. 10 filing published by NRC on Wednesday. The company wrote that its proposal to keep the Avila Beach, Calif., plant on its current license while the commission weighs a longer-term extension application is “plainly within the NRC’s discretion,” because federal law allows the agency to do so if such an application is filed in a “timely and sufficient” manner.
In their own January filing with NRC, the anti-nukers said such a license extension violated the Atomic Energy Act and National Environmental Policy Act — claims that PG&E, in the filing made public Wednesday, said are “extreme” and “not supported by any fact or law.”
PG&E is seeking an exemption to NRC’s license renewal guidelines as part of its gambit to keep Diablo Canyon online through 2030. If approved, NRC would allow the facility to keep running on its current license while a renewal is under review, so long as PG&E applies for the renewal by Dec. 31 of this year.
The anti-nuclear coalition claims that allowing Diablo Canyon to run on an expired license would violate the Atomic Energy Act, which they say requires nuclear plants to operate for a maximum of 40 years. PG&E argued that “long-standing federal timely renewal doctrine” in the Administrative Procedure Act allows for such an exemption.
Diablo Canyon has received a substantial state and federal bailout as part of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) climate agenda and President Joe Biden’s (D) civil nuclear credits program. In all, the plant stands to rake in around $2.5 billion, though it still has to deal with an expiring NRC license.
As of Wednesday, NRC had yet to decide whether to grant PG&E’s exemption request. During an interview with the Exchange Monitor Feb. 7, Commissioner Bradley Crowell declined to say which way the agency would rule, but said that there is regulatory precedent that “could be applicable.”
