The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved Pacific Gas & Electric’s request to withdraw its application to renew the licenses for its Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant reactors.
The utility in 2009 filed to renew the licenses for Units 1 and 2 at the San Luis Obispo County facility, which respectively began operations in 1985 and 1986. But PG&E in 2016 instead said it would shut down Unit 1 in 2024 and Unit 2 the next year.
It asked in March to withdraw the license extension, saying the power plant would not be “necessary to meet California’s projected energy demand requirements” beyond 2025. The NRC responded in the affirmative in a letter posted to the agency’s website last week.
“Pursuant to the requirements in part 2 of title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations, the Commission grants PG&E’s request to withdraw DCPP, Unit Nos. 1 and 2, license renewal application,” according to a notice dated April 23 in the Federal Register.
PG&E is now focused on developing its decommissioning plan for Diablo Canyon, spokesman Blair Jones said last week. He did not say whether the company has selected an approach for decommissioning.
In the latest Nuclear Decommissioning Cost Triennial Proceeding (NDCTP) filing with the state, PG&E cited two options for management of the facility after closure: move immediately into decommissioning, which was estimated to cost $3.8 billion; or put the plant into SAFSTOR mode, in which it could be maintained under monitoring for up to six decades prior to active decommissioning.
“For the next NDCTP filing, we are focused on preparing new cost estimates for both approaches, which will be further informed by a site-specific decommissioning plan that we are currently preparing,” Jones said in a statement. “The NDCTP will be filed in either late 2018 or early 2019.”
