19 Comments

CGNP's Letter to the Editor was published in the August 11, 2024 San Luis Obispo (California) Tribune print edition on page 10B.....

Regrettably, your August 7, 2024 editorial (on page 9B of the August 11, 2024 print edition) continues your pattern of amplifying the voices that oppose Diablo Canyon. What about giving a voice to plant advocates for a change?

Independent nonprofit Californians for Green Nuclear Power (CGNP) is providing testimony in the Diablo Canyon cost proceeding underway before the CPUC.

One of the important provisions of California SB 846 is that any market revenues in excess of the cost to run Diablo Canyon during extended operations will be refunded to ratepayers. CGNP analyzed the market revenues provided to DCPP's owners and their costs between 2021 to 2023. If the SB 846 rules were applied, California ratepayers would have been entitled to a rebate totaling $1.313 billion.

That's enough to make a very positive difference for ratepayers. Since the plant will be essentially ineligible for cost recovery during extended operations, costs should diminish.

Keep Diablo Canyon running.

Expand full comment

One of CGNP's technical consultants noted we are discussing Diablo Canyon Power Plant's (DCPP's) net cost. Thus, the article text has been corrected. CAISO recognizes the significant economic value of DCPP's reliable power. In 2022, when the California power grid was severely stressed, the economic value assigned to DCPP's delivered power of 17,645,318.25 MWh was $1.485 billion. That works out to an average 2022 value of $84.17 / MWh. Net cost equals generation cost less economic value.

Expand full comment

UPDATE: CGNP's July 30, 2024 Motion for Leave to Late-File was granted this morning by the CPUC Administrative Law Judge.

Expand full comment

Thanks again Gene for all your fine work. The undervalument of DCPP should definitely be stopped by all parties undercutting its value for sure! 🙏

Expand full comment

Thanks for your activism, keeping Diablo Canyon open is such an important cause. Solar is the only CO2 free electricity to have grown in California for the last 5 years. To generate the equivalent amount of annual power that DCNP can with solar will require about 58,489 acres of land (91 sq miles). But that’s for highly intermittent energy. To make solar truly reliable year round will require many times more than that unless some kind of affordable long term storage can be invented (hydrogen storage is not affordable). Think of all the wildlife that will starve by replacing nuclear with solar?

Any argument to shut down DCNP has to countered with “what is the cost of your dispatchable CO2 free alternative?” Solar plus 4 or even 18 hours of batteries isn’t even close. The LCOE for offshore wind power is well above 100 $/MWh even with generous subsidies. And it’s intermittent! I ran a simulation for California using the latest battery prices for 100% reliable solar power and Tesla megapacks: the results are 382 $/MWh. 90% reliable is 156.84 $/MWh. As you can see there is an exponential cost increase to get that last 10%. This does not include the transmission upgrades that will be required which will add considerably more cost.

The latest cost estimates for nth-of-kind AP1000s just came out: 66 $/MWh average for 80 years. This is derived by using MIT’s open source Nuclear Cost Estimation Tool (NCET). We need to start building these ASAP so we can get the price of nuclear down. This means we can decarbonize in the long term without driving up the cost of electricity and destroying wildlife habitat. Who could be against that?

https://web.mit.edu/kshirvan/www/research/ANP201%20TR%20CANES.pdf

Expand full comment

I appreciate your rational, fact-based response. I believe the real challenge is to develop a path beyond the vested special interests that want to shut down Diablo Canyon to serve their narrow commercial purposes. BHE subsidiary PacifiCorp wants to shut down Diablo Canyon to further grow their wholesale business of selling more coal-fired power to the lucrative California market. PacifiCorp increased their sales after SONGS was needlessly closed at the end of January, 2012. PacifiCorp hides their coal-fired electricity behind a California-specific euphemism, "unspecified sources." PacifiCorp has aggressively increased its lobbying at the state and federal level. CGNP has been one of the pioneers exposing PacifiCorp's hypocrisy.

Expand full comment

Excellent thread! I worked at DCPP for 36 years and can attest that this is a well run and operated plant. The depth and robustness of the seismic program is incredible. It has possibly has most thorough seismic analysis of anywhere on the planet, except possibly Japan.

It will safely shutdown after any earthquake that happens, especially now after all we learned from Fukushima. Every nuclear plant now has portable cooling equipment on site in case all plant systems fail. The operators are trained to use it and the mechanics maintain them in standby at all times.

This unfortunately comes at a cost, but still, DCPP operating costs are only about $60 per MW hour, per Gene Nelson’s analysis. It would be a crime to shutdown Diablo before it’s 60 year operational period, which is 2045.

Expand full comment

Great article. The long lifetime of nuclear power is the key that is so often overlooked by those who only look at short term scenarios. Comparing wind and solar, with their 15-25 year lifetimes, to nuclear is ridiculous. There is no comparison. 100 year runs are perfectly possible for nuclear, and as you've said, once they're amortized, they're the cheapest [and most reliable] source of electricity.

Expand full comment

Yes. Long-term economics for well-maintained nuclear power plants such as Diablo Canyon are unbelievably positive. Thus, the recent needless shutdown of nuclear power plants such as Indian Point and SONGS is tragic. Thankfully, the unnecessary closure of Palisades Nuclear Plant in Michigan is likely to be reversed. "NRC launches environmental review of plan to restart Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan," July 11, 2024, Carol Thompson, The Detroit News. https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2024/07/11/nrc-launches-environmental-assessment-palisades-restart-michigan/74371769007/

Expand full comment

I’m all for extending DCPP operations another 20 years, but “design lifetime of a century“ is not accurate. It was originally licensed for 40 years until 2025. Many plants in the US have gotten license extensions for another 20, and some another 20 years. So the longest any nuclear plant in the US is currently licensed is 80 years. We’re looking at 60 years for Diablo.

Expand full comment

Thank you. 20 years is the near-term request in PG&E's current license renewal application before the NRC. DCPP is very conservatively designed. Essentially anything that wears out and needs to be replaced can be. Several nuclear power plants are already undergoing their second license renewal to 80 years.

Expand full comment

It is Turkey Point nuclear plant in Homestead, Florida that recently received approval for a license extension from 60 years to 80 years. With maintenance and upgrades there is no technological reason they can’t operate 100 years. Amortized over those time frames and nuclear energy matches hydro, but unlike hydro can operate anywhere. This was a great article on Diablo Nuclear Plant’s cost of electricity. Great work!

Expand full comment

I appreciate your comments. Please publicize the article. I like your comment, "Unlike hydro, nuclear can operate anywhere." Palo Verde is in the middle of a desert. It uses reclaimed water from Phoenix for cooling. Palo Verde is America's largest nuclear power plant.

Expand full comment

Not anymore, Vogtle is now the largest US nuclear plant in the country.

Expand full comment

My point was, US nuclear plants are originally designed and licensed for only 40 years. Anything after that is gravy. Peach Bottom 2 and 3 also have approved for 80 years of operation. As Emmet Penny likes to say, nuclear plants are like modern day cathedrals.

Expand full comment

Thanks for your note and correction regarding the 4-unit Plant Vogtle facility. The 40 year relicensing interval initially chosen by the NRC was based on the generation industry's experience with coal-fired, natural gas-fired, and oil-fired power plants.. After the U.S. had nuclear power plant design experience, they chose very conservative design approaches.

This paid off when as a consequence of inadequate operator training, one of the almost-new power plants at Three Mile Island melted down in 1979. The modern design approaches protected the public from the release of any significant amount of ionizing radiation. See Lewis, Mark M. 1997. “In Re TMI: Junk Science Meltdown.” Thomas Jefferson Law Review 19(2): 305–28. This is an informative 1997 legal review of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant meltdown. It was written by a radiation protection specialist that decided later to become an attorney. This article essentially served as his J.D. thesis.

I agree with Emmet Penny that nuclear power plants are modern day cathedrals. I've fought very hard against the forces that want to shut down Diablo Canyon Power Plant (DCPP). I received a presidential citation from the American Nuclear Society in 2022 for my pro-DCPP advocacy. I estimate I've spent about 30,000 hours on the project. As a graduate student earning my Ph.D. in radiation biophysics at the University of Buffalo, I marched against nuclear power.

Expand full comment

Yes, “Industrial Cathedrals” is how Penny refers to them. It’s a great way to think of a nuclear plant.

Expand full comment

Excellent point. Hydro is great - I'm one who benefits from proximity to the Bonneville dam on the mighty Columbia - but nuclear is much better. As you implied, not everyone has something like the Columbia River in their backyard, plus nuclear is steady whereas hydro is vulnerable to droughts and subsequent low water.

Expand full comment

Actually, very few are in proximity to a river like the Columbia that has a significant slope, making large hydroelectric dams economically practical. For example, compare the Columbia River with the southern portion of the Mississippi River. In drought-parched California, the long-term annual capacity factor of our state's large dams is about a modest 25%. Lake Mead impounded by Hoover Dam was at record-low levels a few years back as a consequence of the regional drought across the Colorado River watershed.

Expand full comment