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If the governor and lawmakers provide funding to keep the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant open beyond its planned 2025 retirement, there will be far and wide safety ramifications, warned the plant’s independent safety committee. A pending trailer bill, AB 205/SB 122, would keep the controversial plant running beyond its agreed upon closure date, a coalition of conservation and environment equity groups said June 28.

“Current law requires PG&E to mitigate for its operation of Diablo Canyon yet this legislation could bailout PG&E by allowing the corporation to access millions in public dollars towards continuing operation while evading the laws that protect California’s coast.” The coalition includes the Sierra Club, EDF, Environment California, Environmental Voters, Food & Water Watch and others.

Proponents of keeping Diablo online say that running it to 2035 would save an estimated $2.6 billion in power system costs and avoid a 10% rise in carbon dioxide emissions from gas-fired plants compared to 2017 levels.

PG&E said on Tuesday that it will support state policies to continue Diablo’s operations beyond 2025 if “deemed necessary.” The utility will support ensuring “electric grid reliability for our customers and all Californians at the lowest possible cost,” added Lynsey Paulo, PG&E spokesperson.

The same day, PG&E asked the Department of Energy to extend by 75 days a July 5 deadline for applying for a subsidy for at-risk nuclear plants, Reuters reported .

Last week, the Diablo Canyon Independent Safety Committee discussed the safety impacts of keeping Diablo running beyond its 2025 closure under the 2018 multi-party settlement unanimously approved by the California Public Utilities Commission.

“It will be a lot of work” to get the plant inspection program back in place that is necessary for safe operations if there is an extension, Rick McWhorter, a committee consultant, said.

He told the committee that plant inspections were cut back on the assumption that the 2,220 MW plant’s two units would be online only another two to three years when its federal operating license expires. If they are kept online four to five years “a lot more inspections” are needed, he added.

Safety oversight issues include pipeline corrosion inspections, which are necessary because heavy corrosion can thin pipe walls and lead to a sudden explosion. A corroded pipe ruptured at the Surry Nuclear Plant in Virginia in the early 1980s and killed four people.

With the planned cessation of Diablo operations, “inspections wound down” because “they aren’t needed to show its good for another two to three years” beyond 2025, McWhorter noted.

But according to the independent safety committee, plant safety inspections are just one of “of a long list of things that will require attention,” said Committee Chair Robert Budnitz.

That includes replacing the control room “annunciator,” which reports on the safety performance of the plant, and not just addressing repairs with spare parts. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission calls an annunciator “a defense of paramount importance.”

If Diablo operations are extended, PG&E will have to spend capital on replacing the whole annunciator system, agreed David Weisman, Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility spokesperson. How much will that cost and how long will that take, he asked? “Those are the questions that state agencies and regulators should be asking.”

Notify state leaders of extension risks

Weisman urged the committee members to inform the governor and the California Energy Commission of the range of serious ramifications of extending the life of Diablo Canyon before taking a vote on the matter.

The governor and agency appointees on the independent safety committee are the “eyes and ears” of the stakeholders, ratepayers, and other Californians, Weisman told Current . They need to speak out on the “potential pitfalls, dangers, and roadblocks” of PG&E seeking a federal operating license extension.

In addition, the problematic Unit 2 vibration monitoring system, unlike in Unit 1, was not replaced because of the planned closure. It was deemed to be “more trouble than it was worth,” McWhorter said.

The 1,100 MW Unit 2 was forced offline four times over the last two years because of coolant issues in one of the two generating units, including during a summer heatwave.

Other top safety concerns include recruiting and training nuclear plant workers, said Committee member Per Peterson. Many workers are being transferred or are heading to retirement because of the 2025 closure plan.

SB 1090 by former senator Bill Monning in 2018 provided $430 million in compensation from all utility ratepayers to keep PG&E Diablo workers employed at the plant until 2025 for safety reasons and to help buffer San Luis Obispo County and the surrounding cities.

The second major safety issue is the reactor, according to Budnitz.

He pointed out that Pacific Gas & Electric is scheduled to transfer spent radioactive waste from the pools to storage casks in accordance with the closure settlement, which would also be upended “That is not even the reactor, which is the hard part,” and the “management of dangerous stuff,” Budnitz said.

McWhorter said that if the nuclear plant runs beyond mid-decade, the committee will have to “review all of our reports back to 2016” given the presumption of cessation in 2025.