Decommissioning contractors for the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) are readying for removal of large components from the plant’s two reactors, according to an update last week.
SONGS majority owner Southern California Edison (SCE) laid out its decommissioning schedule during a meeting Thursday of the site’s Community Engagement Panel.
Right now, SCE and its contractors are enlarging the openings to the containment domes of reactor Units 2 and 3 to allow huge pieces of equipment to go through them, said Doug Bauder, the utility’s vice president for decommissioning and chief nuclear officer at SONGS.
Workers are also removing asbestos from inside the domes, collecting and studying data on radiation, and delivering containers for tools and wastes.
The preparations to move and the actual removal of major pieces of equipment from the domes will last from now through 2024, said Vince Bilovsky, SCE’s deputy decommissioning officer. Smaller electrical and mechanical components are set to be handled in 2025. Components from the turbine buildings will be removed from 2021 to 2024.
The final surveys for radioactivity before declaring the decommissioning is complete are scheduled for 2027.
The projected $4.4 billion decommissioning began in earnest in February, managed by SONGS Decommissioning Solutions, a joint venture of Los Angeles-based infrastructure specialist AECOM and Salt Lake City-based nuclear services firm EnergySolutions. AECOM plans to sell its stake in the contractor, but stakeholders have remained mum regarding the potential buyer.
Decommissioning is expected to produce roughly 285,000 tons of Class A low-level radioactive waste, to be shipped by rail to EnergySolutions’ disposal facility in Clive, Utah. Roughly 35 tons of Class B and C low-level wastes are expected to be shipping by truck to the Waste Control Specialists disposal operation in Andrews County, Texas. Another 125 tons of wastes expected to be classified as Greater-Than-Class C level will be stored at SONGS until an off-site facility is available.
