O.C. Watchdog: Could there be an ‘early’ nuclear cleanup at San Onofre? Orange County Register, By TERI SFORZA / March 23, 2016 Federal efforts to speed up the removal of spent radioactive fuel from power plants like the mothballed San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station are gaining momentum and inspiring guarded optimism among local officials.
Critics, however, remain deeply skeptical.
In January, the U.S. Department of Energy launched a new push to create temporary nuclear waste storage sites in regions eager for the business, currently in West Texas and New Mexico.
Several such sites could be up and running while the prickly question of finding a location for a permanent repository – the root of the present paralysis in nuclear waste disposal – is hashed out.
“That could mean moving the fuel from San Onofre a decade earlier than is envisioned now, maybe more,” said David Victor, who chairs the San Onofre Community Engagement Panel. The volunteer group of academic, industry, environmental and local government representatives advises the plant’s owner, Southern California Edison.
“I am cautiously optimistic,” he said. Victor, director of the Laboratory on International Law and Regulation at UC San Diego, met with officials in Washington this month to convey populous Southern California’s eagerness to solve the nuclear waste storage problem. An update on those efforts, as well as the latest on plans to dismantle the shuttered twin reactors, will be presented at 6 p.m. today at the San Onofre Community Engagement Panel’s quarterly meeting in Oceanside.
Decommissioning the plant south of San Clemente is expected to cost $4.1 billion and be mostly completed by 2030. But spent nuclear fuel is expected to remain on the beachside bluff much longer………… http://www.ocregister.com/articles/fuel-709466-nuclear-san.html
