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Rumblings about extending the life of Pacific Gas & Electric’s aging Diablo Nuclear Power Plant past the date its federal operating licenses expire grew louder with Gov. Gavin Newsom doing an about-face and stating it should be among the options for ensuring air conditioners keep running during summer heatwaves. But keeping the 2,200 MW plant on the Central Coast fueling the grid past 2025 would have significant financial, legal and social ramifications.

Extending plant operations would violate the 2018 multiparty closure settlement approved by state regulators and “be socially and medically irresponsible,” former Senator Bill Monning, who represented the San Luis Obispo region, told Current. He pointed to the additional earthquake faults that were discovered after Diablo was first licensed, and the worrisome amount of onsite radioactive waste, including spent fuel rods. He also noted that PG&E stated the plant was uneconomic during the settlement proceedings and that an extension may put at risk the hundreds of millions of ratepayer dollars given to the region to mitigate the loss of income from the closure as part of the settlement.

“I find the governor’s willingness to explore keeping Diablo open troubling,” Monning said. He authored SB 1090 , a successful bill that provided $430 million in compensation from all utility ratepayers to keep PG&E Diablo workers employed at the plant until 2025 for safety reasons and to help buffer San Luis Obispo County and the surrounding cities.

Newsom now supports “keeping all options on the table to ensure we have a reliable grid” including “considering an extension to Diablo Canyon,” heading into the summer and working to decarbonize the system, his press office told Current in a May 2 email. Erin Mellon, the governor’s communications director, acknowledged that only PG&E can decide whether to apply for a license renewal from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The company also is the only entity that can apply for part of several billion in DOE funding to keep the plant's two nuclear units online if PG&E decides to try to extend Diablo’s life.

The state grid operator also said all resource options should be weighed in the face of climate exacerbated weather and grid reliability concerns.

The California Independent System Operator is “technology agnostic” and has no “position on specific generation,” spokesperson Anne Gonzales said, but added it too backs “exploring all options.” She warned Monday of possible power shortages of between 1,500-2,000 MW beginning this year because of climate extremes, supply chain constraints and solar panel shortages. The shortage, however, is based on weather and other factors that typically occur only once every ten years and considered an under-estimate by some.

But of greater significance is that PG&E Corp. CEO Patti Poppe told financial analysts during an earnings call last week that the utility was “very comfortable” with its resources for this summer, adding the company was not impacted by supply chain constraints. She also pointed to the potential of PG&E’s 6,600 MW of battery storage that can support the grid from its vehicle fleet if retooled to have bidirectional capabilities. She added that the market “will figure out” the supply chain demand issues, making no mention of extending the life of the half-century-old nuclear plant in Morro Bay.

There have been calls earlier to keep Diablo running beyond 2025 to help keep climate pollution from the grid under control, including during a February Congressional hearing and in a letter from former Energy Secretary Steven Chu together with more than 70 scientists to Newsom.

A recent poll by the Los Angeles Times revealed that the majority of Californians want Diablo kept online, according to reporter Sammy Roth. Last Thursday, Roth reported that Newsom told the Times that he thought a short-term extension should be considered. Later, Roth tried to get Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm to say if she and the Biden Administration favored keeping Diablo open, setting off some alarm bells. She told him, “I would not substitute my judgment for the folks at the local level.” That is notable because the Department of Energy is providing a total $6 billion to keep economically struggling nuclear plants in the U.S. online, though Diablo is protected financially by regulators.

Nuclear power is shrinking

Nuclear generation across the country has been falling and as of last year, renewable generation beat it out. Excluding rooftop solar and other small renewables serving mainly onsite demand, there were 795 million megawatt hours of renewable generation in the U.S. in 2021, compared to 775 million MWh of nuclear power, the Energy Administration Information reported last week.

Solar, wind and other alternative power resources are expected to continue climbing while nuclear power heads the opposite direction because it does not pencil out economically.

Any attempt by PG&E to relicense the facility would be fraught with trouble because it is required to apply for a 20-year operating term from the NRC. In addition, a relicensing application must be submitted at least five years before the current license terminates, a deadline the utility has missed.

“If any plant seeks renewal with less than five years remaining on its license, it would very likely have to lay out a legal and technical justification to apply ‘timely renewal’ to help ensure there would be enough time for a proper application, NRC review and decision,” said Victor Dricks, Commission senior spokesperson.

PG&E withdrew its previous relicensing application in 2018 pursuant to the settlement to close the plant when the second of its two federal licenses expires in 2025. The operating license for the other unit ends in 2024. Signing onto the agreement were PG&E, the workforce, nuclear watchdogs, environmental groups and local officials.

Years ago, when PG&E began the process of seeking to relicense Diablo, it asked the California Public Utilities Commission to approve $85 million in ratepayer funds to pay for its NRC application. In 2011, while its request was being challenged by the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility (A4NR), there was a huge radioactive leak from the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan following a powerful earthquake and tidal wave, causing the evacuation of more than 150,000 people. That put an end to the CPUC proceeding on the Diablo relicensing.

“If there ever was a planned well thought out decommissioning, this is it,” Monning said of Diablo.

His SB 1090 codifies the CPUC settlement and provides mitigation funds from all the utility ratepayers, amounting to a 20-25 cent increase in monthly utility bills. The senator also pointed out the lease for the land where Diablo is housed was extended by the State Lands Commission in accordance with the closure agreement, not for another 20 years. At that time, Newsom sat on the Commission as lieutenant governor and approved terminating the lease when the operating licenses expire.

The nuclear plant is the second largest employer in San Luis Obispo. In 2016, PG&E decided to close the two-unit plant because of challenges to its federal relicensing attempt and because much of the energy it produced is not needed. The closure terms, including the cost and who pays, were hammered out during the CPUC settlement process.

“Extending the operation of this plant may trigger a clawback of $430 million of ratepayer funds” under SB 1090, warned David Weisman, A4NR spokesperson.

Monning agreed, saying ratepayers who funded the mitigation could sue to get their money back.

“Millions of dollars of taxpayer and ratepayer money have already been spent to support an orderly shutdown process,” added Mothers for Peace Spokeswoman Jane Swanson.

Still, eyes are on the DOE deadline late this month to apply for some of the $6 billion that will be spread out over four years.

But to qualify for the funds, a nuclear plant must be about to close because of economic troubles in a competitive market, which is not the case for PG&E’s Diablo. The utility “operates as a regulated monopoly, and the preponderance of its revenue is not in a competitive market,” Swanson said.

Monning supports using federal money to foster offshore wind development off Morro Bay’s central coast and other suitable areas, not an extension of Diablo’s operations.

In related news, CAISO’s grid supply outlook showed that for a short time on April 30, renewable power supplied 100% of the grid’s resources.

“California has shown that, for one brief and shining moment, we could do it,” said Environment California State Director Laura Deehan. “Now we need to get our state running on 100% clean energy for the whole day, the whole week, and the whole year.”