Pacific Gas and Electric said Thursday it will need an additional $1.6 billion from ratepayers to fund the anticipated $4.8 billion price tag for decommissioning its Diablo Canyon Power Plant.
The California utility plans to shut down the San Luis Obispo County nuclear facility’s two reactors on the dates their Nuclear Regulatory Commission licenses expire: Unit 1 on Nov. 2, 2024, and Unit 2 on Aug. 26, 2025.
The plan would be to move quickly into decommissioning, PG&E said in its 2018 Nuclear Decommissioning Cost Triennial Proceeding to the California Public Utilities Commission. However, the $3.2 billion currently in the Diablo Canyon nuclear decommissioning trust will not get the job done, the report says: “PG&E … needs approximately $1.6 billion (2017$) more from customers to fully fund decommissioning activities.”
PG&E is asking the state commission for authorization to increase ratepayer charges from 2020 to 2025 to provide that amount. That would largely equate to a $1.98 increase on residential bills, the San Luis Obispo Tribune reported.
“This will ensure that those customers who benefit from the clean, reliable and affordable energy produced by DCPP will be responsible for supporting its decommissioning,” the company said. “It will also ensure compliance with California and federal laws requiring the reasonable costs of decommissioning be funded prior to the closure of a nuclear power plant.”
The decommissioning cost estimate has spiked by $720 million since PG&E submitted the 2015 version of the document. That increase is connected to three specific issues, the document says: higher waste, transportation, and material management costs, driven by an over-twofold increase in waste disposal expenses “as a result of an increase in both volumes and waste disposal rates”; program management, oversight, and fees, with higher costs in areas including permitting and water management; and newly identified site infrastructure needs.
The $4.8 billion would be spread across three projects: just over $2.9 billion for termination of the NRC licenses for the two reactors, encompassing the majority of site decontaminatoin and dismantlement; nearly $1.2 billion for spent fuel management; and $701 million for site restoration.
The utility plans to spend the next six years on decommissioning planning so it can go straight to cleanup when Diablo Canyon closes. That work, ranging from permitting to radiological characterization to employee training, is expected to cost $187.8 million but will reduce the expense of actual decommissioning, PG&E said.
The new report posits a 12-year, nine-month time frame from retirement of reactor Unit 2 to license termination, not including the spent fuel storage pad.
The plant’s spent fuel would all be transferred into dry storage over six years following closure. It would remain there until the Department of Energy meets its legal requirement to remove the radioactive material for off-site storage or permanent disposal.
Among the anticipated milestones: spent fuel will be fully placed on the independent spent fuel storage installation by June 2032; building demolition, not including the breakwaters, would wrap up in June 2035; the Energy Department would be ready to take the spent fuel by June 2038; and site restoration would finish in December 2038.
Pacific Gas and Electric in June 2016 first announced its plan to retire the Diablo Canyon reactors as their licenses expired. The California Public Utilities Commission in January approved much of the closure plan laid out by the utility and a coalition of labor, environmental, and community groups. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission in April approved PG&E’s request to withdraw its license renewal application for the reactors.
In line with PG&E’s earlier explanations for the upcoming plant closure, James Welsch, PG&E chief nuclear officer and vice president for nuclear generation, wrote in a Nov. 27 letter to the NRC that “PG&E’s decision to withdraw the LRA was based on the determination that the continued baseload operation of the two DCPP units beyond the currently approved operating periods is not necessary to meet PG&’s projected energy demand requirements. This decision was also in support of the state policy to meet California future electricity needs with renewable generation sources.”
There was no word this week from PG&E and the Public Utilities Commission regarding the process and schedule for reviewing the utility rate increase.
