New plan could lead to disposal of nuclear waste at San Onofre

S1: Welcome in San Diego. It's Jade Hindman. On today's show , we're talking about a new proposal for the nuclear waste at San Onofre. This is KPBS Midday Edition. Connecting our communities through conversation. The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station has been shut down for more than 20 years , but the nuclear waste is still there , right next to the ocean , because there's nowhere for the nuclear waste to go. But all of that could be changing. Joining me with the latest is Rob Nikolsky. He's energy reporter for the San Diego Union-Tribune. Rob , welcome back to the show.

S2: Good to see you again , Shane.

S1: Good to see you , too. So remind our listeners , why are millions of pounds of nuclear waste still at San Onofre?

S2: Yeah , the precise number is £3.55 million of nuclear waste , what they also call spent nuclear fuel. Kind of one and the same. And it's been sitting there and it's been collecting because when the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station was producing electricity , that's what was left over. And the power plant has been shut down since about 2012. And the the spent fuel , the waste has been put in canisters , about 120 of them there on the north end of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. And one thing that's important for people to understand is that the nuclear waste is not unique to San Onofre. It's not what they also called the the the nuclear power plant. There is also called songs for short. It's not unique. Every nuclear power plant in the country , commercial nuclear power plant has has left over spent fuel and it basically sits at the respective nuclear power plants across the country. And the reason why , and this is the whole reason why we're having this discussion , is because the federal government has not come up with a nuclear repository , a place to put the spent fuel for all the places all across the country. So that's why it's sitting at San Onofre. Huh?

S1: Huh? Well , I could I could take an educated guess here , but please tell us , why is San Onofre in particular not a good place for the nuclear waste?

S2: Well , it's kind of a combination of a number of things. First of all , San Onofre is right next to the ocean. And so the nuclear waste is in these canisters , these stainless steel canisters right next to the ocean. And also Southern California is in an earthquake area. So that combination and on top of that , it's right next to the Interstate five. It's everyone , I'm sure , in our listening area knows when you drive by you see those big domes. So that combination of things makes it less than perfect. And another reason why I think in the ten years I've been covering this , um , uh , something that I think a lot of people need to understand is that why is why is the waste that nuclear at San Onofre? Or why was the power plant in the first place built next to a notion? That's because so many nuclear power plants have to be near a large source of water. That's why you see a lot of nuclear power plants in the Great Lakes areas. And at the Diablo Canyon nuclear facility , up and up in the around San Luis Obispo has to be near water , a water source , since that's a big reason why. Interesting.

S1: Interesting. Um , what proposed solutions have failed up until this point?

S2: Well , the biggest one is a $15 billion. For all intents and purposes , hole in the ground in Nevada. That's called the Yucca mountain nuclear repository. That's where the nuclear waste for all of the United States nuclear power plants , including the ones that at San Onofre were supposed to go , they the federal government built it. But then in 2010 , the Obama administration cut off funding for it. And that was after a very long , drawn out , um , complaint or series of complaints from lawmakers in Nevada. They didn't want Yucca mountain. That's kind of an interesting backstory. I'll tell you real quickly. Yeah. Back in 1987 , Congress decided , okay , we've got to find a place to put the nuclear waste. And Congress decided to put it in Nevada in Yucca mountain , which is about 90 miles , I believe it's to the northeast of Las Vegas , in the middle of pretty much nowhere. Um , so in a way , it was a good place to put it , because it was in a small , uh , sparsely populated area , and you could put it all in one site. But was the sticking point for the people in the silver State. Nevada has always been that this was directed at them. They were not. Nevada did not have a say in this. In fact , the bill that eventually led the way for the construction of Yucca mountain was called the screw Nevada bill from the people that lived in Nevada because they law , in large part they were against it. Although the people in Nye County were the where Yucca mountain was built , they were in generally in support of it because they wanted they liked the fact that it was going to bring jobs. But generally speaking , when you talk to people in Nevada , they don't like it.

S1: Why were they so against it?

S2: Well , because first of all , they didn't have a say in the matter. And secondly , you're talking about highly radioactive waste. That's going to be that's going to last for a long , long time.

S1: Oh , well , all of this really brings us to your latest reporting. Five states are being considered for these nuclear campuses. What does that mean , exactly?

S2: Uh , well , we're going to have Idaho , Utah , Oklahoma , Tennessee and Louisiana all figuratively raised their hands and said that they will take part or they've been selected by the Department of Energy , the US Department of Energy to hold these , um , nuclear campuses. And that would take , uh , pretty much the entire , what they call it , the life cycle of nuclear , uh , nuclear power. That would include looking at fabricating , building potential nuclear power plants , mostly small modular plants. But also included in that would be the exploring the possibility of reprocessing nuclear fuel that's already there , spent nuclear fuel. Because in the United States we don't we do not recycle or reprocess nuclear fuel. And in addition to that is the idea that they will explore. And I have to be very careful to use these qualifiers that they would , that those five states would be willing to explore possibly being a site , at least one site for each respective state , for a place to put the nuclear power. And I'm sorry to put the nuclear waste. So that's a big question whether or not when the rubber meets the road , so to speak , if these states would be willing to take the nuclear fuel and most importantly , how long they would take it , would it be a permanent repository? Would it just be an interim repository for a number of years? That's still to be determined.

S1: It seems like , you know , on the surface , there is definitely a benefit there if there's a way to reuse this , this nuclear waste , talk more about like , you know , what's in it for these five states? I mean , why would they want to have the waste in their states? Does does that possibility outweigh the risks?

S2: Well , that's again , it's just part of that. Uh , by taking part in this , these nuclear campuses , they would also be open to the idea of having small nuclear power plants being built in their area. They would also take part in fabricating of , of nuclear , um , infrastructure and part of that , and also reprocessing , possibly recycling that and that. One last part about possibly being a site where you could put the spent nuclear waste for an indeterminate amount of time. Hmm.

S1: Hmm. Well , how does this effort fit into a federal push to boost nuclear energy , while we're also seeing the rise of AI in data centers?

S2: Yeah , that's a big part of this , is that there's greater electricity demand across the country. And it's really the big driver behind this , uh , Anticipated push for a greater electricity demand is the rise of artificial intelligence. The rise of data centers to help , to help , I guess , bolster that demand. So in fact , a very good example of this. And this is not something that's just a pie in the sky. It's actually happening. Free Mile Island that people always remember so much from that nuclear meltdown back in the late 1970s. Three Mile Island , there's a reactor there , unit one that Microsoft has recently purchased , and they plan to reopen and relicensed unit one. That and at Three Mile Island , it's been rebranded as the Crane Energy Center. And the idea is that that reactor , the electricity generated from that reactor would go to Microsoft , that the Microsoft would use to help generate their to drive and generate their data centers , their electricity from data centers. And that's something that is it's in the process of going forward. It's in the process of getting relicensed and other , um , big AI and uh , uh , tech companies are thinking about doing that as well , having a , a source , an energy source of electricity source that could be devoted to them , using that for , for , for datacenter purposes. And that would be attractive because there's so much concern now that data center is going to be using so much electricity that it's going to end up driving up electricity costs and that everyone's bills are going to be reflected. And yeah , on a monthly basis.

S1: Well , the word you used there was that it would be devoted to are they paying for this. Are they going to.

S2: Yes Microsoft is. Yes. For for this energy center. Yes. Okay. Yeah. And there's also a lot of because politicians on both sides of the aisle are very sensitive about this because especially in California , you've got electric electricity bills that are so high , they want to make sure that , okay , if you are going to have data centers to drive this artificial intelligence , we want to make sure that that electricity is not going to be is going to going to be tied directly to those tech companies , that it's not going to end up footing the bill. Yeah.

S1: Yeah. It would not be dispersed among the great payers. Um , how have local lawmakers reacted to the news that there could be somewhere to move San Onofre nuclear waste? Yeah.

S2: Yeah. Well , so far , Mike Levin , who's a representative , a Democrat from San Juan Capistrano , he's in favor of this. He applauded this when this when this was announced last week by the Department of Energy. Um , but at the same time , he and many other people are saying we still. This is just the first step. And there's such a history of the Department of Energy and the federal government not being able to follow through on this decades long Gordian knot , so to speak , to try to find a way to put spent nuclear. Where to find? Excuse me? Where to find a place to put spent nuclear fuel , not just in San Onofre , but across the country.

S1: Well , what open questions have yet to be answered with this proposed energy plan?

S2: Well , the biggest one is going to be what , as we mentioned earlier , if if part of this is going to be trying to find a place to send this nuclear fuel , spent nuclear fuel , this waste , how long if of those five states that we mentioned Idaho , Utah , Oklahoma , Tennessee and Louisiana , they're going to have to decide along with the federal government. Okay. If if storing this fuel is going to be part of this discussion. How long are we in these respective states going to be stuck with this fuel? And another big part of it is are we going to get paid or we are. Those are those states going to get paid. And that's a very big thing. And that was and it's funny because back I'm dating myself. But back in the late 80s and early 90s I lived in Reno , Nevada , and I remember listening to this discussion and I always thought then and I still do to this day , that I think one of the things the federal government really I really missed , missed opportunity they had was if they had gone to the people of Nevada back in the late 80s and said , okay , we know a lot of people aren't crazy about having this Yucca mountain repository , but we're willing to pay the state of Nevada , and that could possibly lead to every resident in Nevada and every adult in Nevada getting a check very similar to what you saw when they had the Alaska pipeline back in the 1970s. To this day. People in Alaska get a check from the federal government every year. So I think that could have been , you know.

S1: An incentive.

S2: Exactly for people to do. But now that you know , that horse is out of the barn. But I think that probably will come up among these five states , they're going to say , in fact , there was a in my article in the Union Tribune , I quoted a snippet from the Idaho Statesman Idaho Statesman newspaper , which was the daily paper in Boise. They quoted an official at the state of Idaho saying , okay , we're interested in this in these nuclear campuses , but if you're going to talk to us , I'm paraphrasing here , but if you're going to talk to us here in Idaho about having a place to store the nuclear fuel that's been accumulated in other states , that even the Idaho , to my knowledge , does not have a nuclear power plant. But if you're going to put have a have a ask us to in the in Idaho to hold this nuclear fuel and store it. You've got to pay us. Yeah.

S1: Yeah.

S2: Well that's a big that's a big thing.

S1: It'll be interesting to see what happens with that. What's the timeline here?

S2: That's another good question. Um , the Department of Energy is kind of is going to come back probably in the next month or two and give more specifics about that. And we will eagerly wait and see what those specifics say.

S1: All right. Well , I've been speaking with Rob Nikolsky. He's energy reporter for the San Diego Union-Tribune. Very interesting conversation. Rob , thank you so much.

S2: Thank you. Jade.