Regarding your cover story about Diablo Canyon (“Changed habitat,” Dec. 17), and without diminishing the marine impacts of once-through cooling, what is also being flushed “down the drain” by PG&E is nearly $100 million in ratepayer funds for their failed repair of Diablo’s Unit 2 main generator. As ratepayer advocates, the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility opposed this as too costly considering the barely five years of life left in the plant.
It took 60 days of down time for the initial work in the fourth quarter of 2019. In 2020, the rebuilt generator was shut down three times for hydrogen leaks—the same problem the costly repairs were supposed to remedy—and has been offline for 84 days (as of Dec. 21). If not restarted by year-end, it will have been down more than 90 days, a 75 percent operational rate for 2020. If Unit 2 were the 24/7 workhorse we pay for, it shouldn’t call in sick one day out of four. The California Public Utilities Commission approved reimbursement for the repairs earlier this month, ironically during a commission meeting the morning after the generator had once again failed.
SLO County needs to pay attention to this unsettling parallel with the scenario that shuttered San Onofre Nuclear Plant in 2013, well in advance of its license expiration: putting expensive new parts in an old plant but failing due to leakage within one year. PG&E’s electric rates are increasing again during financially stressful times, and regulators may have a hard time throwing more good money after bad. People should remember that no nuclear plant in California has ever operated to the end of its initial Nuclear Regulatory Commission license.
David Weisman
Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility
San Luis Obispo
This article appears in Year in Review December 2020.
CA’s huge renewables push is responsible for high power costs to a far greater degree than any expenses associated with Diablo Canyon. Continued nuclear plant operation is far cheaper than building and operating new renewable generation, especially after considering all the costs associated with their intermittentcy (storage and grid costs, etc…). Keeping existing nuclear plants open is the cheapest way to reduce emissions you’ll find. Also, despite all the promises we’ve all heard, Diablo will be at least partially replaced with fossil generation. The result being higher CO2 emissions, more air pollution and higher power costs.
Also, nuclear plants are far more reliable than intermittent sources. Nuclear plants are up (operating at full power) over 90% of the time, and most of the (< 10%) downtime, for maintenance, etc.., is pre-planned, and scheduled for periods of low power demand. Solar and wind generate power only ~25% to 33% of the time, and they often are not producing when we need power the most. That was a factor in CA's recent blackouts. Nuclear makes the grid more reliable, which having too much solar and wind tends to undermine grid reliability.
When we shutdown San Onofre, it was replaced mostly with gas – a greenhouse gas polluter. The same will happen if we shut down Diablo. In addition, it is likely that we do not have sufficient gas pipelines. Building new gas pipelines is not cheap nor popular.
Spreading the expense of spending $100M to repair a 1GWe power plant over five years amounts to all of 1/4 of a penny per kWhr about 1% of your electricity price. This amounts to just looking for something, anything to complain about.
I’m honestly tired of the same old voices complaining about Diablo Canyon. Regardless of current maintenance issues with one large piece of equipment, DCPP IS STILL a workhorse for clean energy, and is the single largest contributor of clean energy on the california grid, even with only one unit!