The state’s largest utility, Pacific Gas & Electric Co., and the groups said Tuesday that the Diablo Canyon plant will close by 2025.
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The Joint Proposal would replace power produced by two nuclear reactors at the Diablo Canyon Power Plant with a cost-effective, greenhouse gas free portfolio of energy efficiency, renewables and energy storage, according to the utility, which has committed to a 55 percent renewable energy target in 2031.
California’s biggest electric utility announced a plan on Tuesday to shut down the state’s last remaining nuclear power plant within the next decade.
The plan signals the first time a US utility has committed to replace one of its nuclear plants entirely with zero-carbon energy sources, environmental advocates say. “Importantly, the proposal recognizes the value of GHG-free nuclear power as an important bridge strategy to help ensure that power remains affordable and reliable and that we do not increase the use of fossil fuels while supporting California’s vision of the future”.
According to a press release, under the terms of this joint proposal, PG&E will close Diablo Canyon at the end of its current Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) operating licenses. After risky 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.
Nuclear power accounts for about 60 percent of the country’s carbon-free power.
Nuclear power plants are fairly rigid in how they operate, running for a year or two at a stretch without varying output by much, Mr. Schmitt said.
Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth, a party to the deal, called it a historic agreement.
At the same time, the CPUC let both utilities add hundreds more megawatts of natural gas-fired power to replace SONGS, a move that angered environmental and green energy groups that had pushed for more zero-carbon alternatives.
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.
Diablo Canyon is California’s last nuclear plant. For instance, a state policy requires utilities to increase the amount of power from renewable sources they sell to 50 percent by 2030.
“To have those people gone from us, that’s a sad story because we have a lot of very regular customers”, says businesswoman Ceci Timmermans who owns the Woodstone Market in Avila Village, a favorite stop for many of Diablo Canyon’s 1,500 workers.
Under the Joint Proposal, PG&E will withdraw its request to extend the nuclear plant’s license fo another 20 years.
That’s Southern California Edison’s San Onofre Nuclear Generation Station (SONGS), which was taken offline in 2012 and shuttered for good in 2013. On the other hand, the nuclear plant’s closure “may have impacts on system ramping and the need for additional energy storage”.
The latest twist writes a beginning of the end of the nuclear plant at Diablo Canyon, whose development in the late 1970s and early 1980s inspired an award-winning motion picture, “The China Syndrome”, and an entrenched collection of anti-nuclear citizens’ action groups in San Luis Obispo County.
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Voicing his support for the plan, California lieutenant governor Gavin Newsom, said: “The idea that the economics- from PG&E’s perspective-work for renewables is a pretty profound moment in energy policy”.
