California’s largest utility and environmental groups announced a deal Tuesday to shutter the last nuclear power plant in the state.
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PG&E announced on June 20, 2016 a joint proposal with several parties to permanently close units 1 and 2 at its Diablo Canyon nuclear facility at the expiry of the units’ current operating licenses in 2024 and 2025, respectively. In a regulatory filing Tuesday, PG&E estimated the cost to decommission Diablo Canyon at almost $3.8 billion, adding that the plant’s nuclear decommissioning trust accounts held around $2.8 billion as of March 31.
In addition, PG&E was looking at stiff opposition from the Public Utilities Commission – not to mention the State Lands Commission and the California Coastal Commission – for rate increases over the next three years needed to keep the plant operating.
A plan to shutter the last remaining nuclear power plant in California and replace it with renewable energy is being heralded widely as “a clear blueprint for fighting climate change”, which environmentalists hope will serve as “a model” for the nation.
“Each of Diablo Canyon’s nuclear reactors contains 1,000 times the radioactivity of the Hiroshima bomb”, said Robert Dodge MD, president of Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles (PSR-LA).
Pica continues, “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”. When the plant closes within 9 years, it will be replaced completely by energy efficiency measures, demand response and solar and wind, backed by energy storage.
Rooftop solar panels and churning wind turbines are hastening the demise of US nuclear power plants and the safety fears and high operating costs they bring. That left Diablo Canyon as the only operational plant in the state.
History is being made in California where, for the first time, an agreement has been signed to replace a nuclear plant with zero emissions energy, rather than turning to fossil fuels.
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Four nuclear power plants shut down in recent years. “Nuclear is just a huge part of moving towards a cleaner electrical system”, says Michael Shellenberger, co-founder of The Breakthrough Institute which does research on energy and the environment. Controversy has shrouded the nuclear power plant in the past; the reactors are only 650 yards away from one fault line, and others lie nearby. PG&E will negotiate with the unions to provide an employee severance program and retraining for those employees involved in the decommissioning process, and compensate San Luis Obispo County for losses of property taxes through the transition period. The same year, Duke Energy announced it would close the Crystal River Nuclear Plant in Florida after a botched fix job left it facing potentially billions of dollars in additional work. The cost of renewables has fallen dramatically in recent years, while the cost of maintaining nuclear power infrastructure has risen.
