www.montereycountyweekly.com february 9-15, 2023 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY 21 Tuesday, Jan. 24, the advocacy group Mothers for Peace—whose members have marched, spoken and picketed Diablo since 1973—marked a victory . They cheered the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff’s rejection of PG&E’s ask to continue renewing its license to operate Diablo, citing similar concerns over safety and environmental reviews that had not been made since 2016. But the utility says it’s got a backup plan in the works to keep Diablo’s two reactors humming past their 2024 and 2025 expiration dates. After a disaster like the Fukushima nuclear plant blowout or when the ground rolls beneath our feet during an earthquake, Californians remember that Diablo Canyon is still generating nuclear power, on the coast just about 130 miles south of Carmel. PG&E was set to close the 50-yearold facility by 2025, and long-term maintenance and capital projects were discontinued. But as California’s megadrought dried up the reservoirs that spin up electricity and also produced unrelenting waves of summer heat that strained the grid, Gov. Newsom persuaded the State Legislature last September to loan PG&E $1.4 billion to keep Diablo’s carbon-free energy flowing through 2030. It’s a hard road, even with a $1.4 billion inducement. Members of Mothers for Peace were joined in recent decades by the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability. The Alliance called the deal a financial “shell game,” and the Mothers said the safety issues were major: Functions like the control room, piping, and vibration detectors in cooling pumps had been babied along with spare parts or went uninspected in hard-to-reach spots, according to testimony before the Diablo Canyon Independent Safety Committee last May. PG&E had hoped to resume the license application it started in 2009 and withdrew in 2018, when it told the NRC that Diablo wasn’t needed “to meet California’s projected energy demand requirement” but cried poor in other circles. Though the utility said it could provide the safety and environmental documents by the end of 2023, the NRC staff observed the data was required with the license application now. But all is not lost. PG&E, which employs about 1,500 people at the Diablo Canyon plant, has a second license in the works, which Jim Jennings, a spokesperson for the utility, said they had been working on simultaneously and intended to file by the end of the year. As for safety, he said, “Diablo Canyon Power Plant continues to operate as a safe, reliable, and clean energy resource for California, and PG&E remains committed to complying with current legislative policy to ensure the state has the option to keep [the plant] online to ensure electrical reliability as California continues toward its clean energy future.” The legislative policy Jennings referenced is Senate Bill 846, which authorized the September loan along with a number of caveats: To repay the loan, the utility must qualify for a grant by March 1, 2023—a $1.1 billion Department of Energy carve-out in President Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill, part of a special provision of $6 billion for struggling nuclear power plants. SB 846 also states the plant’s life is to extend “no later than Nov. 1, 2029, for Unit 1, and no later than Nov. 1, 2030, for Unit 2.” This part of SB 846 has caused some confusion, as an NRC license comes in only one flavor—20 years—but PG&E seems ready to comply with the 2030 shutdown date. The NRC is not Diablo Canyon’s only regulatory agency: PG&E must also succeed with the California Energy Commission on whether it is “prudent” to extend Diablo, says Lisa Lien-Mager, a spokesperson for the state Natural Resources Agency. The flighty behavior by a utility corporation and the huge outlay by the Legislature, months before a $23 billion deficit was known, reflect Newsom’s intention to get California to carbon-free power by 2030. Though renewables are growing, there’s a gap between the power they’d produce by 2025, and Diablo’s steady production of 2.2 gigawatts. Many assume California would face Germany’s dilemma when it ended carbon-free nuclear power: a greater reliance on natural gas or, worse, coal. “Amid intensifying climate impacts in the West and across the country, California is focused on meeting our bold climate and clean energy goals while tackling the challenges of extreme weather that puts lives at risk and strains our grid,” says David Villasenor, a spokesperson for the Governor’s Office. “The governor remains committed to a limited-term extension of the Diablo Canyon Power Plant to support reliability statewide and provide an onramp for more clean energy projects to come online.” The question, of course, is whether and for how long nuclear power is needed to produce carbon-free energy while those other projects come online. One of those other projects is an offshore wind project bird-dogged by U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal, D-Santa Barbara, which is anticipated to produce 4.5 gigawatts of energy. He agreed with the plan to keep Diablo Canyon in operation, though it could interfere with hooking up the Morro Bay wind project to the transmission lines Diablo uses. For the nuclear power plant, safety was high on Carbajal’s list: “When it comes to extending the lifespan of Diablo Canyon Power Plant, nothing is more important to me than ensuring that our community’s safety is not compromised in pursuit of this extension. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s decision this week reflects the need for thorough review before approving additional years of operation beyond its current license,” Carbajal says. “This ruling affirms that corners cannot be cut when it comes to nuclear safety. As I have reiterated before to NRC leadership, I believe public engagement is key as we embark on this next phase, and I have urged our federal experts to keep the Central Coast directly in the loop when it comes to the next steps for renewing Diablo Canyon’s license.” The prospect of offshore wind power generation is moving along. In December, the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management held a two-day Down Images from a short video provided by PG&E show some of the roughly 1,500 staff at the Diablo Canyon power plant. It is the second-largest employer in San Luis Obispo County. Courtesy of PG&E Courtesy of PG&E
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjAzNjQ1NQ==