Nuclear Crisis Fuels Duel at Diablo

The Wall Street Journal: Nuclear Crisis Fuels Duel at Diablo
Japan's unfolding reactor crisis is fueling a battle over nuclear power across the Pacific, in earthquake-prone California.

Pacific Gas & Electric Co., the big California utility, is seeking a 20-year license extension for its two reactors at Diablo Canyon, a nuclear power plant near San Luis Obispo, on the state's central coast.

That application, controversial even before an earthquake and tsunami crippled Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plant last month, is now shaping up as a major test of Americans' tolerance of nuclear power, especially in areas at high risk for natural disasters.

Local politicians are lining up to fight the license extension, arguing that the process should be put on hold while PG&E studies the area's earthquake risk.

"The tragedy in Japan underscores the importance and critical evidence of the need for a pause in relicensing," said Rep. Lois Capps (D., Calif.), who last month asked regulators to delay renewing Diablo's license.

National anti-nuclear groups, too, are making the Diablo case a focal point of their broader fight against nuclear power. "Diablo Canyon is just a striking and scary example of playing with some seriously explosive fire," said Sean Garren of the activist group Environment America.

Dozens of nuclear reactors operate in earthquake-prone regions around the world. Among them, least 34 are in high-hazard areas. See a map and database of all of them.
Opponents may have trouble making much headway with the federal agency that oversees nuclear relicensing, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NRC sets strict limits on what issues can be considered in the relicensing, and has consistently rebuffed efforts to use the process to conduct broad-based reviews of plants' operations.

PG&E says Diablo Canyon is safe and was built to withstand earthquakes. James Becker, PG&E's vice president in charge of the plant, says the company is studying its ability to withstand bigger-than-expected quakes following the Japanese disaster.

"We're not done learning from the Japanese situation," Mr. Becker said. "We will apply the lessons learned wherever they fall."

Like the Daiichi plant, the Diablo plant sits on the coast and in a high-risk seismic area, but the reactors are not the same type.

Diablo Canyon has received the NRC's highest possible safety rating in each of the past ten years. Last year, however, the commission raised concerns about how workers evaluate problems at the plant, and in a letter last month it said PG&E's efforts to address the issue, "have not yet proven effective."

PG&E said it was "committed to working with NRC inspectors to resolve any existing concerns and to enhance the way we identify matters at the plant and track them to completion."

Many of those applications will be controversial, especially after the Fukushima crisis raised new questions about the safety of aging reactors.

But Diablo is drawing particular scrutiny because of its location in one of the country's most seismically active areas and its long, troubled history of trying to deal with the risk of a major quake.

In the early 1970s, while the plant was under construction, scientists discovered a new offshore fault less than three miles away, forcing a major redesign and pushing the project billions of dollars over budget. A construction error on key seismic supports led to another costly retrofit. And in 2008, scientists discovered yet another fault, this one less than a mile from the plant.

Even before the recent Japanese quake, local leaders, led by geophysicist-turned-Republican State Senator Sam Blakeslee, were demanding new studies of the plant's earthquake risk using modern seismic-imaging technology.

PG&E agreed to do the study, but rejected calls to put the relicensing process on hold until it is completed. Some question whether the company wants to get its license, originally issued in the 1980s, renewed before the studies reveal any problems. The existing 40-year licenses for the plant's two reactors don't expire until 2024 and 2025.

"It's almost a rush to judgment to submit their application for relicensing," said James Boyd, vice chairman of the California Energy Commission, a state agency. PG&E says the early application is simply prudent planning.

"If the plant wasn't going to be extended, we'd want to know well ahead of time so we can make plans for other resources," said PG&E's Mr. Becker.

The license-renewal process takes at least two years, and often longer in controversial cases. But the scope of the process is quite narrow. The NRC says it looks only at two issues in license renewal: the environmental impact of keeping the plant running, and the plant's management of aging equipment.

Non-age-related safety issues, such as earthquake risk, aren't considered in the renewal process. The commission says it constantly reviews those issues and orders plants to make changes when problems come to light.

Commission spokesman Scott Burnell said if the seismic studies reveal the need for changes at the plant, PG&E will have to make those changes immediately.

But some critics, including Rep. Capps, are pressuring the Commission to halt re-licensing until the seismic studies are complete.

Some plant critics are trying to do an end-run around the NRC by going to the California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates the state's power market. PG&E has asked the agency for permission to spend $80 million on the license-renewal process and to pass those costs on to its customers. Local groups are asking the commission to reject the request until the seismic studies are complete.