Pacific Gas and Electric Co. will announce Tuesday it will close California’s last nuclear plant, Diablo Canyon, in 2025, ending atomic energy’s more than a half-century history in the state.
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“It sets a date for the certain end of nuclear power in California and assures replacement with clean, safe, cost-competitive, renewable energy, energy efficiency and energy storage”.
PG&E officials said a major factor in making the decision to shutter Diablo Canyon was California’s changing energy landscape and a state policy requiring utilities to increase renewable energies to 50 percent by 2030.
The Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant is located in Avila Beach along California’s central coast.
Multiple quake faults lie within several miles of the nuclear plant.
Other organizations participating in the agreement include Environment California, the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1245, and the Coalition of California Utility Employees.
Seeking to seize control of its future, PG&E has made a clear-eyed decision to shutter the massive Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant and is wisely promising to replace it without adding to greenhouse gas emissions.
“For years”, she continued, “some have claimed that we can’t fight climate change without nuclear power, because shutting down nuclear plants would mean burning more fossil fuels to generate replacement electricity”. After unsafe levels of radiation spilled out of the earthquake-damaged reactors in Japan, lawmakers in the USA called for greater scrutiny of the potential risks posed by Diablo Canyon. “The news that nuclear power will be replaced by renewables is heartening”. Nuclear power provided about 8.5 percent of California’s power mix in 2014. Specifically, SB 350 passed a year ago raised the state’s minimum energy needed to come from renewables to 50 percent.
This proves energy efficiency and renewable energy can replace aging nuclear plants – the key is taking the time to plan ahead, says Rhea Suh, President of NRDC.
But for some environmental groups across the country, concerns about a resulting rise in greenhouse gas emissions following the closing of nuclear power plants, which produce nearly no carbon emissions, has led to a shift away from aggressively campaigning for their closure. Advocates of closing the plants are hoping the changeover could spur even further investment in renewable energy. In addition, PG&E said it will provide incentives to retain employees during the plant’s remaining operating years. But under a state law passed previous year, half of the electricity provided by all state power utilities must come from renewable energy sources by 2030. Some regard nuclear power as too risky, especially given the damage done by the meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan in 2011, after an quake and tsunami disabled the reactors’ power supplies and cooling mechanisms.
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The San Luis Coastal Unified School District receives more than $10 million, or about 16 percent of its operating budget, from PG&E taxes, according to a recent estimate released by State Sen.
