Closing Diablo Canyon: California Rolls the Dice with Renewables (and Natural Gas)

Uranium (Nuclear Minerals) / Nuclear Power - Economics, Design, & Industry

Date posted: 07/01/16

Revis W. James reports that California is on the verge of making a very risky bet, one that threatens CA prosperity and environment, and its contribution to global climate progress. Several groups joined with PG and E in an agreement to close Diablo Canyon in fewer than 10 years. The deal does not have much to do with global warming. Instead, it has everything to do with picking an energy mix that has a risky lack of diversity, and is going to be very complex, expensive, and unlikely to help our climate goals. Others should pay attention, because elimination of more than a quarter of CA carbon-free generation is unlikely to reduce carbon emissions, and may produce nasty consequences, like reduced reliability of the electric grid, and vulnerability to big swings in natural gas prices. What is truly distressing about the proposal is that the state goal of promoting renewable energy is pitting carbon-free sources of electricity against each other, and squandering tax dollars and ratepayer dollars to do it. (To be fair, some of these dollars come from California itself, but some come from federal taxpayers too.) This is not a good idea. All the wind, all the solar and all the nuclear energy we can reasonably hope for still may not be enough to get us to our carbon goals, so new carbon-free generation should be displacing fossil generation, not other zero-carbon generation. To comply with the CA renewable energy portfolio rule, every kilowatt-hour produced from wind or Sun must be used, regardless of the need. Otherwise, the wind or Sun would have to be curtailed, or not used. Giving first priority to power from wind and Sun can lead to consequences, since sometimes the generation they displace is also carbon-free, e.g. nuclear. A key goal of closing Diablo Canyon, according to the joint proposal, is to reduce the need for periodic curtailment of RPS resources. So closing Diablo Canyon is good for wind and solar owners, but for little else. .