Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
9/26/2014
Southern California Edison this week officially submitted its decommissioning documents for the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for review. SCE had completed a draft Post-Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report (PSDAR), cost estimate and used fuel management plan at the end of July, but it wanted community feedback before officially submitting the documents to the NRC. The decommissioning documents outline the estimated costs and planned timeline for the cleanup, with a price tag of approximately $4.4 billion and a start date for major decommissioning activities to begin in 2016. “These important regulatory submittals will guide us as we decommission San Onofre in a safe and timely manner while continuing to serve as good environmental and financial stewards on behalf of our customers and the public," said Tom Palmisano, SCE vice president and chief nuclear officer.
The NRC reviews the document, but their approval is not necessary for SCE to move forward with the decommissioning. The NRC also will hold a public meeting in the coming weeks on the documents in Southern California, according to NRC spokesman David McIntyre. “We will issue a [notice] asking for public comment, and then hold a public meeting in Southern California to discuss the decommissioning process and take comment on the PSDAR,” McIntyre said. “As for our input, the bottom line is, their plan and actions in decommissioning must meet our regulatory requirements, so if at any time we see those requirements aren’t being met, we’ll take enforcement action to bring SCE back into line.”
Major Work to Begin Next Summer
According to the plan, the major decommissioning activities are set to begin in 2016. That is when the project enters its Decon Period 3, titled Decommissioning Preps/Reactor Internals Segmentation. This will include “initial major decommissioning activities will focus on removal, packaging and disposal of piping and components,” the PSDAR says. “Following RV and cavity reflood and RV head removal and disposal; the reactor vessel internals will be removed from the reactor vessel and segmented as necessary to separate the GTCC waste which will be placed in storage canisters and modules on the ISFSI set aside for that purpose.”
The plan would then move toward Periods 4 and 5, which include plant systems and large component removal and building decontamination. Active Decom would conclude in Period 6, License Termination during Demolition, with an end date of Dec. 30, 2032. SCE anticipates moving all of the spent fuel to dry cask storage by 2019. The PSDAR includes an anticipated date of spent fuel pick up by the Department of Energy in 2050, but SCE has admitted that date is dependent on movement on DOE’s part.
With the decommissioning documents under-review by the NRC, the next step in the process would be to begin to define the role contractors could play in the cleanup, but SCE spokesperson Maureen Brown said that still has not been decided yet. “Based on questions from the CEP, we’ve also scheduled a special CEP meeting on Oct. 14 to hear presentations from the two vendors we’re considering for the project to expand on-site dry storage,” Brown said. “We’ve talked about the timetable to begin major dismantlement, but haven’t made a decision on the potential role of contractors or a prime contractor for that work.”
