The California Public Utilities Commission is scheduled on Dec. 14 to vote on the proposal for closure of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant within a decade.
Owner Pacific Gas & Electric in 2016 joined a number of labor and environmental groups in issuing a joint proposal under which the San Luis Obispo County facility’s reactor Unit 1 would close in 2024 and Unit 2 in 2025. The utility would replace the state’s last operational nuclear power plant with other forms of greenhouse-gas free power.
In November, CPUC Administrative Law Judge Peter Allen issued a proposed decision that broadly supported the closure plan but recommended significant changes to its components. Notably, Allen only backed $171.8 million in rate increases for anticipated costs related to Diablo Canyon’s closure, much less than $1.76 billion sought by PG&E.
If approved, that would cut out $1.3 billion for new energy sources to cover for some of the plant’s power output and $85 million in community impact mitigation payments to offset the loss of jobs, tax revenue, and charitable donations upon Diablo Canyon’s closure. On the community funding, Allen wrote in his proposed decision that “Absent legislative authorization, utility rates should be used to provide utility services, not government services.”
PG&E has already weighed in against Allen’s recommendations, and a coalition of 10 regional economic development groups late last month expressed its own concerns in a letter to the Public Utilities Commission.
“If the ALJ’s Proposed Decision stands, it will exponentially increase the severity of the social, environmental and economic challenges we will inherit with Diablo Canyon’s closure,” according to the letter, which specifically cited the harm to local schools that receive a segment of $22 million in annual tax funding from Diablo Canyon and the danger of eliminating a planned one-time payment of $10 million intended to help diversify the local economy.
The CPUC voting meeting, which will be webcast, is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. local time in San Francisco.
Canada’s Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) said Thursday it is no longer considering the region of Ontario around the municipalities of Blind River and Elliot Lake as a potential location for its deep geologic repository for spent nuclear reactor fuel.
“Technical studies and engagement with people in the area identified a number of factors that would pose challenges in siting a repository,” the agency said in a prepared statement. “These include complexities associated with the geology, limited access and rugged terrain, and low potential to develop the breadth of partnerships needed to implement the project.”
The NWMO did not respond by deadline to a request for additional details on the challenges found in the Blind River-Elliot Lake area.
Of the 22 communities that were considered when the selection process began in 2010, five remain: Ignace, Manitouwadge, Hornepayne, South Bruce, and Huron-Kinloss, all in Ontario.
The Nuclear Waste Management Organization is due by 2023 to select a site to build the repository 500 meters underground for storage of up to 5.4 million spent fuel bundles from over 50 years and counting of nuclear power operations in Canada. The facility is due to become operational at some point from 2040 to 2045.
Last month, the NWMO announced that it had begun collecting core samples from a location about 22 miles west of Ignace.
From The Wires
From the San Diego Union-Tribune: California Public Utilities Commission revises the number of emails it says should not be made public regarding the settlement over closure of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.
