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- shining a light on the corruption and idiocy destroying the U.S. power grid

"GreenNUKE is a voice for  energy reason and common sense. Your in-depth articles shine a light on the corruption and idiocy destroying the US power system, along with what needs to be done to remedy that problem and move to a world of energy abundance with nuclear energy."

Shawn Connors, author of the novel Chain Reaction and founder of the Atomic Garage Movement

CGNP is grateful for Shawn's endorsement - and his choice to become a paid GreenNUKE subscriber. Those of you that have been following GreenNUKE are aware that we have uncovered and publicized likely political corruption by Berkshire Hathaway Energy (BHE) subsidiary PacifiCorp. (PacifiCorp operates a generation fleet dominated by coal-fired power plants in and near Wyoming. PacifiCorp and its allies  have been lobbying for a significant expansion of power transmission lines between Wyoming and California load centers. PacifiCorp's political corruption includes aggressive lobbying of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to facilitate the sale of more of its coal-fired power to environmentally-conscious California, hidden behind the California-specific legal euphemisms, "unspecified imports" or "unspecified sources." CGNP also believes that PacifiCorp aggressively  lobbied the CPUC to deny CGNP its proper intervenor compensation  in a CPUC Decision first published on December 8. 2023  You can help CGNP to fight this political corruption by upgrading your subscription to paid status, or joining GreenNUKE for the first time as a paid subscriber. All subscription payments flow directly to CGNP after Substack is paid a commission. (If you want your payment to 100% benefit CGNP, please use our CGNP donation information to mail CGNP a check.  Contact us for information to wire  CGNP payments.) 

CGNP was the in-person  voice of the public for California energy sanity during the entire June 20-21, 2024 meeting of the Diablo Canyon Independent Safety Committee  (DCISC,) counterbalancing anti-nuclear power organizations supported both by CPUC intervenor compensation and anonymous donations by entities that would benefit financially from the needless shutdown of Diablo Canyon Power Plant (DCPP.) 

The DCISC is unique among the mandated safety committees associated with each U.S. nuclear power plant. It's financial independence is assured by levying a very small fee (likely denominated in cents per year) for each  California electricity ratepayer to contribute to the modest  DCISC annual operating expenses. (For the other nuclear power plants, their safety committees are directly funded by plant operators, creating the perception of a possible conflict of interest.) (DCPP contributes to statewide electric reliability via triply-redundant short-length electric transmission lines to the state's 500 kiloVolt AC "backbone" that runs the length of the state.)  DCISC retains extremely well-qualified committee members and consultants to serve as an additional safety review advisory body to the State of California regarding DCPP's safe operation. CGNP members have been attending DCISC meetings since 2007. This extensive experience improves the credibility of CGNP's comments and suggestions during the three annual DCISC meetings each year.  CGNP gains important insights into DCPP operational details that we would otherwise not be aware of.  CGNP's prepared public comments become components of the DCISC record and annual report.

CGNP's June 20, 2024 Public comments to the DCISC

Here are CGNP's public comments to the DCISC:

Good morning, members  and staff of the Diablo Canyon Independent Safety Committee. My name is Dr. Gene Nelson. I serve as the Senior Legal Researcher and President of the independent nonprofit Californians for Green Nuclear Power or CGNP. I'm providing the Committee an overview of CGNP's outreach and research activities since we last met with you at the previous meeting.

CGNP continues to educate local, state, and federal decision-makers regarding the importance of clean and firm Diablo Canyon for maintaining a reliable California power grid. We also continue our public outreach as an educational  501 (c) (3).  We continue to operate a booth at the downtown San Luis Obispo Farmer's Market where we meet with members of the public to discuss the importance of Diablo Canyon to Californians on a biweekly basis. Our booth is well-lit after dark with LED lights. The booth is located near the site of the Mother's Tavern, now renamed Feral Kitchen. We continue to gather signatures on a petition supporting extended Diablo Canyon operations.

We use our booth to demonstrate to members of the public the folly of intermittent and unreliable solar and wind power - and the exorbitant cost of batteries. We also discuss the actions of Berkshire Hathaway Energy subsidiary PacifiCorp. PacifiCorp operates a large fleet of mostly coal-fired power plants with their associated air and water pollution in and near the state of Wyoming. See Section A identifying PacifiCorp as a mostly coal-fired electricity generator in  CGP's filing opposing the WWGPI. CGNP continues to gather information showing that PacifiCorp operates a lucrative business selling this dirty power to California ratepayers. According to data from the blandly-named Western Energy Imbalance Market or WEIM, PacifiCorp and another BHE subsidiary NV Energy since November, 2014   have sold over $1.2 billion in primarily fossil-fired wholesale power to many different entities - many of which are in California. In order to maintain this lucrative business, PacifiCorp has been aggressively lobbying California decision makers. During most quarters, the trade association Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) expends the most on lobbying California decision makers. When CGNP briefly met with the President and CEO of WSPA, Catherine H. Reheis-Boyd a few weeks ago at a energy conference in Sacramento, she seemed shocked to learn that PacifiCorp spent about $260K  more on California lobbying during the first quarter of 2024 than WSPA.

One of the unusual aspects of PacifiCorp's lobbying was their mandated quarterly Form 635 lobbying disclosure for the first quarter of 2024 filing with the California Secretary of State showed a misleading total of ZERO for their lobbying activities on a line on the summary page that is automatically posted to the Cal-Access website that reporters review when examining lobbying expenditures. CGNP promptly filed a complaint with the Secretary of State regarding PacifiCorp's deception. A few weeks later, PacifiCorp filed an amended Form 635 with the correct and lavish total. CGNP highlighted PacifiCorp's misleading conduct  on our new GreenNUKE Substack. (GreenNUKE's name is related to CGNP's name.)

At our GreenNUKE Substack, CGNP highlighted the importance of DCPP's synchronous grid inertia (SGI) to maintaining California's grid reliability despite the large penetrations of destabilizing solar and wind generators which contribute negligible SGI . DCISC members have first-hand experience with the pair of huge Diablo Canyon generators which together contribute about 10% of California's in-state dispatchable power. Per CAISO, at 7:00 AM this morning, Diablo Canyon contributed 2,275 MW to the California power grid. Diablo Canyon's contribution to the  CAISO daily  Supply Trend plot is easy to identify. It is the horizontal line, as expected for a large and necessary baseload generator.

Another GreenNUKE article, Lessons from Germany's Wind Power Disaster - A Decade Later summarizes a 2014 Swiss analysis of the costs of the German power grid prepared for the Edison Electric Institute. As the penetration of solar and wind increased, German power rates soared. (California's power rates have shown similar behavior since 2010.)  A reader may wonder why decision-makers would approve such a harmful policy. The 2014 words of BHE CEO Warren Buffett provide a likely explanation. "For example, on wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That's the only reason to build them. They do't make sense without the tax credit".) (Here's another solar-powered tax scam that involved Berkshire Hathaway.) Regrettably, the results of the 2014 Swiss analysis continue to be ignored by most California decision-makers. CGNP continues to criticize the parallels between Germany and California. Both power grids rely on dispatchable and polluting coal-fired power. CGNP is preparing an article showing that the clean firm power supplied by SONGS until the end of January, 2012 when that nuclear plant was needlessly closed, is now largely replaced by Wyoming coal-fired power. The Wyoming coal-fired power hides behind a California-specific legal euphemism, "Unspecified Imports."

CGNP will also be highlighting PG&E load growth forecasts that were discussed in their June 12, 2024 Investor Guidance The key takeaway is that the growth of both AI and transportation electrification will increase the need for reliable power in the PG&E service territory. Server farms or data centers create jobs and provide a "lifeline" service to all Californians in the form of a reliable internet. The loads are 24/7, just like Diablo Canyon's reliable power. Those trends show that Diablo Canyon's power is necessary, instead of being optional.

Finally, CGNP will be seeking information during this meeting regarding the pair of cost forecasts for DCPP's extended operations. DCPP is projected to supply the equivalent of about 27 1/2 times the typical annual output of Hoover Dam, or about 100 TWh, during the currently contemplated extended operations interval. We hope to learn more about the inputs to A4NR's widely-publicized claim of $11.8 billion dollars in comparison to PG&E's forecast of $8.3 billion. To put those figures in perspective, A4NR's claim works out to about 11.8 cents per kWh and PG&E's is 8.3 cents per kWh. Both estimates are well-below the typical retail cost, now in excess of 30 cents per kWh, and likely below PG&E's cost to generate power at its California natural gas-fired plants.

(Here's an informative June 21, 2024 article CGNP learned about after the DCISC meeting, available by supplying a non-personal email address, "U.S.: Cost to Extend Diablo Canyon Five Years Exceed $8 Billion." CGNP has requested a correction to one of the claims by DCPP opponents in the article. However, after more than a week, there has been no correction, nor any outreach from the reporter.)

Food Fight Ingredients  (Author's photograph.)

CGNP's June 21, 2024 Public comments to the DCISC

As a Diablo Canyon advocate, I had the unfortunate role of attempting to be part of  a balanced and fair discussion regarding the question of adopting Consultant Mark Kirk, Ph.D.'s  previously-accepted conclusions regarding the safety of the Unit 1 Reactor Pressure Vessel last evening.  I request that Dr. Kirk arrange his schedule so he is available to the Committee when this issue is scheduled for discussion at the next meeting.

I've been attending DCISC meetings since 2007. In my view, this was the worst-managed discussion regarding a question before the DCISC in the 17 years I've attended. DCPP opponents such as Digby MacDonald, Ph.D. were permitted multiple times to interrupt speakers he did not agree with.  I will not be surprised if Dr. MacDonald submits his poorly-organized and voluminous "revised findings" as restatements of his previous communications in opposition to continuing DCPP Unit 1 operations just prior to the next meeting, like he has done previously. While Dr. MacDonald had an impressive background based on the information shown at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California at Berkeley websites, he presented himself as a crotchety old man who was not above creating a trend line first, then expanding error bars to accommodate his desired trend line.

Bruce Severance continued his practice of rudely running long over his allotted time while stating the same points. I received the suggestion from one attendee that I should have raised a point of order instead of expressing my frustration with Bruce Severance by coughing loudly after silently giving the "time" signal several times to Dr. Lam from the front row of the audience. Given what I observed yesterday, I doubt this more diplomatic approach would have been successful.

Attorney John Geesman was permitted to attempt character assassination of Committee member Per Peterson,  Ph.D. during his comments. 

My sense was Committee Member and Chair Peter Lam, Ph.D. made up his mind before the meeting that he would not adopt Dr. Kirk's report. The arguments of plant advocates seemed to be unpersuasive. Dr. Lam's lack of enforcing decorum was consistent with my hypothesis.  I respectfully request that plant advocates and plant opponents be treated with equal respect and the next Chair run the meeting with far more impartiality than the meeting ran by Dr. Lam last evening. Enforcing the rules of timekeeping and meeting structure ensures the proceedings are fair for all involved. Sadly, this was not the impression given last evening.

Gene Nelson, Ph.D.   June 21, 2024

(In my subsequent discussions with one of the eyewitnesses in the room for this session, he characterized it as a "food fight.")

Later, I sent a copy of my prepared comments to Dr. MacDonald's email address at the University of California at Berkeley, among other recipients. I gave Attorney Geesman a copy of my prepared comments at the meeting. 

_______________

In my opinion, the DCISC's most significant action at this meeting was to endorse the findings of Committee member Robert Budnitz, Ph.D. that there was no credible new information challenging the seismic adequacy of DCPP. (The DCISC is open to new credible information regarding this topic.) There were three members of the Independent Peer Review Panel (IPRP) in attendance. Two members were from the California Geologic Survey (Gordon Seitz, Ph.D. and Tim Dawson, Ph.D.) and Phil Johnson, Ph.D., a geologist with the California Coastal Commission. They made short presentations and responded to questions from DCISC Committee members and consultants. Unconvincing opposing arguments were raised by Peter Bird, Ph.D. of UCLA representing DCPP opponent SLO Mothers for Peace  and Sam Blakeslee, Ph.D.  In contrast with the June 20, 2024  evening session regarding Dr. Mark  Kirk's findings, the session was conducted in a respectful and businesslike manner.  The meeting included the DCISC's recognition of Dr. Lam's more than 16 years of service to the Committee. Dr. Lam's term ends on June 30, 2024.  

There is a second NRC hearing following the hearing on May 22, 2024 regarding the contentions of three groups opposed to DCPP extended operations. July 17, 2024 DCPP Hearing Details  While the NRC seems to "bend over backwards" to make it easy  for nuclear plant opponents to raise contentions via such avenues as 10 CFR § 2.206, I was unable to locate a means for plant advocates to file comments in favor of operation of a particular nuclear power plant. This is an area where the NRC should make improvements. NRC's Reactor Oversight Process doesn't include input from nuclear power advocates. In the event the NRC opens a Proceeding regarding the above DCPP opponent's contentions, CGNP will file for intervenor status under the provisions of  10 CFR § 2.309.

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