WASHINGTON – On Wednesday, the chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission pledged to review the seismic risks for California’s Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant as the NRC moves ahead with Pacific Gas & Electric’s request for a license renewal.
At a hearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) pressed NRC Chairman Christopher Hanson (1:44 in) about the threats that seismic activity pose to the aging nuclear plant.
Hanson brushed off any concerns he and the NRC had about seismic risks to Diablo Canyon, telling the committee, “We’ll take another look at that as part of the license renewal process.” Chairman Hanson noted the NRC will hold a public meeting at Diablo Canyon on May 3.
Padilla warned Hanson that the NRC staff who will attend the public meeting will likely get an earful about seismic risks to the facility.
“Chairman Hanson and the NRC’s general indifference over such a serious and potentially catastrophic disaster as an earthquake striking nearby Diablo Canyon is utterly shocking,” said Environmental Working Group President and California resident Ken Cook.
“But hardly a surprise, considering the NRC’s decision last month to cave to PG&E over the company’s request for a license exemption,” said Cook.
On March 2, ignoring long-standing precedents, statutes and regulations, the NRC gave PG&E the green light to operate the state’s last remaining nuclear plant for up to 20 more years without a safety review or license renewal.
In its decision, the NRC exempted PG&E from regulations that required a license renewal review by the NRC before the two Diablo Canyon reactors could operate beyond their operating license expiration dates in 2024 and 2025.
The decision is unprecedented. The NRC has never approved an exemption for a license renewal applicant that would allow it to operate a nuclear reactor past its 40-year legal limit without a comprehensive safety and environmental review.
The NRC’s own rules recognize that continued operation of a reactor past that limit poses safety risks that are different from the operational risks of a facility’s first 40 years in operation and require a separate review.
Major safety and environmental risks will only increase if Diablo Canyon’s twin reactors continue running past their expiration dates. The reactors are sited on a web of earthquake fault lines. A recent New York Times article detailed how similar the fault lines beneath Diablo are to those that caused the recent 7.8 earthquake that has killed roughly 50,000 people in Turkey and Syria combined.
EWG, along with San Luis Obispo-based Mothers for Peace and Friends of the Earth, strongly opposed the exemption, petitioning the NRC to reconsider its decision. The groups are now considering next steps, including federal court action over the NRC’s clearly unlawful and dangerous ruling to allow the plant to continue operating without a safety review.
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