The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station has about three more years before the retired site is fully demolished. But what's likely to remain: its radioactive waste, stored with no plan for removal.
San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond, whose District 5 includes the plant, wants the spent nuclear fuel removed and recycled. On Tuesday, his board colleagues unanimously approved his proposal to start researching possible ways and their costs.
“There’s 1,400 tons in over 100 canisters sitting at the San Onofre site of spent nuclear fuel right now,” said Desmond. “I'd like to be able to explore utilizing spent nuclear fuel to strengthen and diversify our grid, maybe even lowering energy costs for our working families.”
County leaders have dealt with the question of what to do with nuclear waste at the San Onofre plant, or SONGS for short, many times in the past. In 2015, the then-board asked the federal government to get rid of the fuel.
“Should an earthquake, terrorist attack, or other calamity damage the storage units at SONGS, there is a potential significant impact to the health and safety of this region,” the board said in a letter to the U.S. Department of Energy. “This radioactive material needs to be removed from San Diego County and disposed of safely away from population centers.”
But a formal push for reprocessing it is new. Tuesday’s move marks the first step in years that the board has taken to influence the waste’s future, which could now include recycling.
Southern California Edison owns the plant and manages storage of the fuel. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission oversees safe storage.
An Edison spokesperson told KPBS that the company welcomes “thoughtful consideration of all reasonable, secure options for clearing San Onofre of spent fuel” but that any solution “should hold the federal government accountable to its obligations related to spent fuel storage and disposal.” The NRC did not respond to a request for comment.
One big problem: the federal government has no permanent storage facility to send nuclear waste anywhere in the U.S.
Yucca Mountain in Nevada was eyed as the long-term site to store all of the country’s spent fuel, but the federal government withdrew plans in 2010 following political resistance. That has left more than 90,000 metric tons of the radioactive fuel sitting in canisters outside power plants that are online or decommissioned.
But new technological opportunities are on the rise and the county must seize them, Desmond said.
In his proposal, the supervisor names companies like Oklo, which is trying to build a spent fuel recycling facility in Tennessee. In September, the Santa Clara-based company announced plans to spend $1.7 billion on an “advanced fuel center” capable of reprocessing the used nuclear waste into fuel for fast reactors. Desmond also mentions national laboratories, like the Idaho National Laboratory, “pursuing research into advanced nuclear fuels.” The Idaho laboratory stores small amounts of spent nuclear fuel for research.
The supervisors’ vote means the county will try to partner with a national laboratory to understand options for safely reprocessing San Onofre’s waste. That could include moving it to an off-site facility where the research would happen.
The county will also advocate for state and federal policies that support relocating the stored fuel at SONGS. Supervisor Paloma Aguirre suggested one of those policies be Rep. Mike Levin’s, D-49, proposed Nuclear Waste Administration Act, which would establish an independent federal agency to manage the nation’s nuclear waste. The agency would work to ultimately develop a permanent repository.
Removing the spent fuel after the plant is demolished would mean a fully decommissioned coastal area, said Mehdi Sarram, a Carlsbad resident and retired nuclear engineer. That could eliminate one of the biggest environmental safety concerns in the region.
Environmental organizations like Surfrider Foundation and nearby communities have strongly opposed long-term storage of the waste at SONGS because of its proximity to the coastline — it’s currently buried about 100 feet from the shoreline — and to seismic zones, as well as the risk of sea-level rise and aging of the casks holding the spent nuclear waste.
But removing and recycling the waste faces numerous challenges: it's complex and expensive, including transporting it, and “public opposition probably will be there,” Sarram said.
Until there is “political will,” he added, and funding for long-term storage, the used fuel is safe in the canisters, which Southern California Edison officials have long argued.
SONGS operated from 1968 to 2013. It ceased operations after a small leak of radioactive steam led to its closure.
The board is expected to receive a report on findings in 90 days.
