The utility announced a joint proposal with labor and leading environmental organizations that would increase its investment in energy efficiency, renewables, and storage beyond current state mandates while phasing out its production of nuclear power in California by 2025.
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Diablo Canyon’s reactors will close in 2024 and 2025 when their licenses expire, according to a proposal by PG&E’s Pacific Gas and Electric utility, environmental groups including the Natural Resources Defense Council and unions.
However, it noted, the proposal is contingent on a number of regulatory actions, including approval of a lease extension from the State Lands Commission.
Pacific Gas and Electric announced today their plans to close the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in 2025.
Multiple quake faults lie within several miles of the nuclear plant.
“I applaud PG&E and Friends of the Earth for reaching agreement on a proposal governing the closure of Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant at the expiration of its current operating licenses”. But the utility is making the right decision by extricating itself and California from reliance on nuclear power. But under a state law passed past year, half of the electricity provided by all state power utilities must come from renewable energy sources by 2030. “Nuclear power versus fossil fuels is a false choice based on yesterday’s options”, says NRDC President Rhea Suh. Fitch Ratings does not expect the planned retirement of PG&E’s DC nuclear facility to affect the utility’s creditworthiness or that of its corporate parent, PG&E Corporation.
The agreement commits PG&E to using renewables for 55 percent of its total retail sales by 2031.
The environmental group Friends of the Earth was created in 1969 with opposition to the construction of Diablo Canyon as its first campaign.
“California’s energy landscape is changing dramatically with energy efficiency, renewables and storage being central to the state’s energy policy”. Exelon Corp., the largest US generator of power from nuclear energy, said earlier this month it will close two money-losing IL plants. In the Diablo Canyon agreement, PG&E plans to exceed that mark by another 5 percentage points.
For now, PG&E’s decision should engender goodwill, and that is significant for a company that has stumbled many times in recent years.
“Nuclear energy is a vital part of a balanced energy portfolio”, Marvin Fertel, president and CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry’s trade group, said in a statement. The parties will jointly propose and support the orderly replacement of Diablo Canyon with green house gas free resources.
According to an Aliso Canyon impact report released in April, “there are 14 days this coming summer during which gas curtailments could be high enough to cause electricity service interruptions to millions of utility customers”.
Diablo Canyon’s security concerns are less acute than those at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) about 250 miles to the south bordering the coastal city of San Clemente.
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A driver for the agreement comes from a new state law (SB 350) requiring the CPUC to “identify a diverse and balanced portfolio of resources” needed to provide reliable power supplies for the state while integrating more renewables onto the grid “in a cost-effective manner”.
