Keep Diablo Canyon open, 79 scientists, academics and entrepreneurs tell Newsom
The pleas asking California Gov. Gavin Newsom to delay the closure of PG&E’s Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in San Luis Obispo County keep coming.
On Thursday, Dr. Steven Chu, former U.S. Secretary of Energy under the Obama administration and a Nobel laureate, and more than 75 scientists, academics and entrepreneurs sent a letter to Newsom urging him to find a way to keep the plant open because of the necessary carbon-free, clean electricity it provides to the state’s electricity grid.
Diablo Canyon currently provides about 18,000 gigawatt-hours of clean electricity annually, comprising of about 10% of the state’s electricity portfolio.
“The threat of climate change is too real and too pressing to leap before we look. Considering our climate crisis, closing the plant is not only irresponsible, the consequences could be catastrophic,” the letter reads. “We are in a rush to decarbonize and hopefully save our planet from the worsening effects of climate change. We categorically believe that shutting down Diablo Canyon in 2025 is at odds with this goal. It will increase greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution and make reaching the goal of 100% clean electricity by 2045 much harder and more expensive.”
The letter was sent by the nonprofit foundation Save Clean Energy, which was organized primarily to protest the closure of the nuclear power plant.
“Climate change is threatening our species, and we must respond to this crisis with the sense of urgency it deserves,” said Save Clean Energy Founder and Executive Director, Isabelle Boemeke, in a prepared statement. “We can’t afford to simply tread water, we have to cut emissions now to save our planet, and closing Diablo Canyon will torpedo California’s ability to meet its clean energy goals. We don’t honor a previous generation’s misgivings about nuclear power by ignoring the plight of the next generation.”
The letter details how Diablo Canyon is critical to the state’s clean energy goals, which the state is legally mandated to meet, and how it seems unlikely the state will be able to meet those goals with the plant’s current scheduled decommissioning beginning in November 2024, when the first of its two Nuclear Regulatory Licenses expires.
“Senate Bill 1090, authored by Sen. Bill Monning of San Luis Obispo County, amended the Public Utilities Code to mandate that the California Public Utilities Commission replace Diablo Canyon without increasing emissions,” the letter reads. “California will have to boost its total renewable energy production by an enormous 20% in just over two years to replace the clean energy being produced at Diablo Canyon. With hydroelectric generation in California falling 19% this year as a result of historic droughts (and with that resource likely to remain unpredictable due to climate effects), the prospect of meeting that goal is increasingly dim.”
The letter says climate-change inducing natural gas plants appear to be the “only functional alternative to immediately replace” Diablo Canyon. It used the closure of the San Onofre nuclear power plant located south of San Clemente to highlight how natural gas-fired energy generation increased to offset the lost nuclear generation.
“But even if California could replace Diablo Canyon with renewable energy in the near term, that is not the right goal. Mere replacement is not enough; replacement would merely freeze emissions at their currently dangerous level,” the letter reads. “The right goal is to reduce carbon emissions as fast as possible, and the right means to do that is to add renewables on top of Diablo Canyon’s carbon-free energy, not in place of that energy.”
The letter also addresses concerns over the nuclear power plant’s proximity to fault lines and the risk of a Fukushima Daiichi-like disaster, to which it says the plant has been found to “face no significant seismic or tsunami hazards,” according to PG&E.
The movement to keep Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant open has recently gained new traction after a Stanford and Massachusetts Institute of Technology report released in November claimed operating the plant for 10 years beyond its expected closure would significantly help the state meet its clean energy goals.
In a statement sent to The Tribune in December, a spokesperson for Newsom indicated the governor has no intention of delaying the closure of Diablo Canyon.
“California has the technology to achieve California’s clean energy goals without compromising our energy needs. The pathway is through diverse renewable energy sources, expanded energy storage and grid climate resiliency,” Newsom spokesperson Erin Mellon wrote in an email to The Tribune. “Our retail energy providers are already in the process of procuring new energy projects to replace the energy produced by Diablo Canyon.”
And PG&E has repeatedly said it does not plan to reverse course on decommissioning the plant.
“PG&E is committed to California’s clean energy future, and as a regulated utility, we are required to follow the energy policies of the state. At this time, the state has not indicated any change in position regarding the future of nuclear energy in California,” wrote PG&E spokesperson Suzanne Hosn in an email to The Tribune. “The plan to retire Diablo Canyon Power Plant was introduced in 2016 and was approved by the California Public Utilities Commission, the state legislature and Governor Brown in 2018. Our focus therefore remains on safely and reliably operating the plant until the end of its NRC licenses, which expire in 2024 and 2025.”
This story was originally published February 3, 2022 at 12:29 PM.
