California To Close Two-Unit Nuclear Site At Diablo Canyon By 2024/2025 -- June 21, 2016

Updates

August 14, 2016: Dr Hansen sends urgent letter to Governor Moonbeam -- "don't close the nuclear plants." My advice: ask Bill Nye, "the science guy."


Later, 8:00 p.m. Central Time: this is so extremely cool. From Forbes:

Word came today that PG&E PCG +0.10%, the big California electric utility, has reached a deal to mothball its Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in San Luis Obispo by 2025. 

The environmental fundamentalists at the Natural Resources Defense Council hailed this as a victory for renewable energy, stating that Diablo Canyon’s 2,200 megawatts of baseload power generation would be replaced by “energy efficiency and clean renewable energy from the wind and sun.”

This is preposterous.

As Forbes contributor Rod Adams points out today, the output from Diablo Canyon alone is equal to the electricity generated by about 75% of all the windmills and solar panels in California. What’s more, closing Diablo Canyon will deal a major setback to California’s efforts to reduce carbon dioxide. During the years it takes for the state to build solar and wind capacity to replace the nuke plant, California will have no choice but to rely on more generation from natural gas — which means accepting carbon emissions equivalent to about 1 million cars.

The announcement only gives more urgency to an unusual protest  coming up this Friday, when a bunch of self-described progressive environmentalists promise to march from San Francisco to Sacramento.

The event is called the March for Environmental Hope and it will start at the S.F. headquarters of the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Greenpeace. Organizer Michael Shellenberger, the president of a group called Environmental Progress, says he and his fellow marchers (including a group called Mothers For Nuclear) will be protesting those green groups for the work that they’ve been doing to shut down nuclear power plants. They’ll be carrying posters saying: Save Diablo Canyon.

ROTFLMAO. 


Later, 3:19 p.m. Central Time: when I look at the EIA California energy data, it appears that the loss of nuclear power for California will be a non-problem. I suppose it could be a regional issue, but overall nuclear energy contributes relatively little to California's energy base. See EIA California energy analysis here; and, EIA California energy data here. 

It will be interesting to watch this play out because the Forbes writer suggests that there is no way renewable energy can replace the lost nuclear energy.


Later, 11:17 a.m. Central Time: as reported by The Los Angeles Time.

The proposal is contingent on a number of regulatory actions, including approvals from the California Public Utilities Commission.

The Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, built against a seaside cliff near Avila Beach, provides electricity for Central and Northern California. It produces about 2,160 megawatts — enough to power some 1.7 million homes.

Tuesday’s announcement comes after a long debate over the fate of the plant, which sits near several earthquake fault lines. The Hosgri Fault, located three miles from Diablo Canyon, was discovered in 1971, three years after construction of the plant began.

I bet the California PUC refuses to let PG&E close it. If not allowed to close it, PG&E is going to have a white elephant on its hands. [After looking at the data, it appears I am wrong. See additional comments, above, under updates.]

The San Onofre plant was shut down for good in 2013 as a result of faulty equipment that led to a small release of radioactive steam and a heated regulatory battle over the plant's license.

The same year, a former inspector called for Diablo Canyon to be closed until risks posed by potential earthquakes there could be evaluated. In documents submitted to the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission as recently as last year, PG&E said Diablo Canyon can safely withstand earthquakes, tsunamis and flooding. Officials said the safety testing also took into consideration the effect a quake on one fault would have on the other three fault lines in the area.

Solar and wind energy advocates say solar/wind energy is often taken off the grid because Diablo Canyon produces too much electricity. So there you have it. It's what we call a "first world" problem: too much electricity, and it's too cheap.

Original Post

 
Link here.

During the week that California is reporting blackouts due to lack of enough energy to power facilities to produce electricity, we have a press release that says PG&E will not extend Diablo Canyon after license expiration for one unit in 2024, and the other unit in 2025.

Incredibly, the state says that the loss of nuclear energy will be made up through wind, solar, and "energy efficiency."

Good luck.

I won't repeat the entire Forbes article, but it's a good read. This pretty much sums it up:

Even if enough wind, solar and energy efficiency projects are started and come on line in California before 2025 to produce an additional 17-18 billion kilowatt-hours per year over what is already in place and planned, any logical, disinterested observer should wonder why the huge sums and enormous physical effort that would be invested in those new projects will end up being devoted to treading water in terms of CO2 emissions.

But look at the numbers, the reality:

If there is the potential to add that much capacity, why not use it to close dirtier facilities? As of 2014, 45% of California’s electricity came from either burning natural gas in state or from importing coal fired electricity from out of state.

It’s worth noting that as of 2014, all of the wind and solar infrastructure that has been erected in California since the 1970s managed to produce a total of 23 billion kilowatt-hours, which is only 30% more than what the single Diablo Canyon power plant produced during the same year.

This, by the way, explains, exactly what is going on in Germany:

"Giant baseload nuclear power plants like Diablo Canyon cannot easily be taken offline or ramped up and down as system needs change, which obstructs the integration of renewable resources with variable output into the electricity grid. This worsening problem is forcing the California grid operator to shut down low-cost renewable generation that could otherwise be used productively.”

For newbies:

• wind / solar is not dispatchable; it cannot be called up when needed; it's either there or it isn't
• when wind / solar is not there, it is not predictable; it occurs randomly
• when wind / solar is not there, something else needs to come on line
• it takes too long to bring up a nuclear reactor when wind/solar goes off-line without notice
• power plants that are faster than nuclear reactors are also dirtier: coal and natural gas

Bottom line: great, great news for natural gas producers. You know we aren't going back to coal. And this is another nail in the coffin of nuclear reactors. And wind / solar numbers are fantasy.

What's SRE doing today? Oh, up 1%, hitting a new high. Interesting, huh?

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By the way, all that hand-wringing over the net neutrality law that was just passed or ruled upon or whatever, with suggestions that it would hurt ATT and other telecoms. Maybe, maybe not, but ATT is up today and will hit new highs.

What other issues are hitting new highs? Altria; XOM; Oneok; TransCanada. New 52-week highs, 74; new lows, 10.