Now our resistance must move from the legislature to the courts… and the streets.
Despite the California vote to extend operating the dangerously old and unmaintained reactors at Diablo Canyon nuclear power station, we at EON are not giving up.
In the last weeks, as public awareness has increased around this issue, we have been encouraged by what we see as a rekindling and re-invigoration of California’s powerful, but recently dormant nuclear free movement.
We will persist in our efforts to educate and warn about the severe, long lasting risks this decision to extend Diablo means to our gorgeous state as well as to the entire planet.
We will continue to promote the truth about the various viable alternatives to this backwards turn of California energy policy. Decentralized, flexible energy sources on micro grids provide the answer for reliable energy in turbulent times.
We will also be releasing our documentary soon about the enormous problem of radioactive waste: The San Onofre Syndrome .
Senate final vote on Diablo extension
Assembly final vote on Diablo extension
Blackout Fear Porn Carries the Night
September 1, 2022 The fix was in. Just past midnight this morning, gormless legislators in both the state Senate and Assembly fell to their knees at the feet of a serial felon corporation, leaving no doubt as to who rules California, and confirming Gavin Newsom as PG&E’s Sock-puppet-in-Chief.
The scripted talking point on many legislators’ lips, “We have no choice,” is the familiar lament of compliant subjects in a totalitarian dictatorship. Nuclear power is the quintessential totalitarian technology, joined at the hip with nuclear weapons and radioactive waste.
Extending Diablo’s operation is dumb, dangerous and tragically irresponsible:
PG&E has not maintained inspections and repairs at Diablo for several years since shutdown has been scheduled
Its components are degraded and one reactor rated as the nation’s most embrittled
Its 2 reactors sit on multiple intersecting earthquake faults
An earthquake would likely exceed the aged plant’s seismic design limits
Diablo does not meet ‘once-through cooling’ legal requirements & is deadly to sea life
Diablo routinely releases radioactivity during normal operation into the ocean and air
The Diablo site has no space to store additional spent fuel from extended operation
The current method of storing the lethal radioactive waste onsite is totally inadequate
Producing tons more of intensely radioactive waste lasting millions of years is outrageously immoral
Reversing the shutdown process at this late date would be very high-risk and expensive
After decades of denial. Nuclear Revival Cultists are now admitting – actually as a selling point – that the commercial nuclear power infrastructure and its trained workforce are vital to preserving nuclear weapons production.
Remember
Pessimism without certainty
Optimism without denial
Cultivation of expectation of pleasant surprise
Onward…
James Heddle, Mary Beth Brangan – EON – the Ecological Options Network
Bruce Severance speaks at a Diablo Decommissioning Engagement Panel Meeting. Screen grab
A Voice of Reason
Bruce Severence is a member of the Diablo Decommissioning Engagement Panel.
He has recently spoken out in informed critiques of the push to extend the extension of Diablo’s operation in an article and a presentation to his colleagues:
My name is Bruce Severance. I’m one of the panel members. I want to summarize some of Senator Laird’s comments that were given on the August 12th California Energy Commission and Governor’s Office presentation as a number of the panelists felt that they were extremely relevant and concise. So following that, I’m going to give a few additional comments.
First from Laird’s comments, can we complete the deferred maintenance in time? These are quoted from his excerpts from his script. Bottom line is that we are now faced with a situation where everything that would have been done to renew Diablo Canyon’s operation beyond 2025 during the last six years is now being collapsed into a three-year window.
Item 2, safety requires experienced staff. This issue has been raised by Diablo Canyon Independent Safety Committee and requires full diligence by the state, including support for training and retention so the skilled workforce needed to deliver plant safety can be assured for years to come.
Item 3, who pays? The existing rate system puts major costs on rate payers in a manner that stresses lower and middle-income rate payers and who are already shouldering the cost of the state’s climate efforts. How will we know who pays and how much before we make a commitment to go forward on the extended life of the plant?
Item 4, spent nuclear fuel storage. The existing facility on site at Diablo Canyon where the spent nuclear fuel is stored is large enough to accommodate the waste generated by the plant until 2025. The capacity question must be answered now as there is today no other place that can accept Diablo’s radioactive waste.
Item 5, seismic concerns. Serious questions have been raised in the community about the completeness of existing seismic studies and their possible lack of full review by neutral third parties. We need to explore the state of existing seismic analyses and get answers as to where there may be gaps and whether retrofitting is required to reduce risk if the plant’s life is extended.
Item 6, once-through cooling. Diablo Canyon is permitted to use once-through cooling technology only until 2025. That technology either needs to be replaced or the right to continue using OTC would have to be extended. If an extension is in order, it needs to be done in a manner that adequately mitigates for the significant environmental impact of releasing warm water into the marine environment over an extended time.
Item 7, permitting. There would likely not be sufficient time to complete permitting before the plant life would be extended. Yet, the engagement process that involves stakeholder involvement and agreement on the previous decision to decommission would only happen around possible extension if environmental processes are completed. There’s a fine line between overriding processes and speeding them up.
Item 8, community transition funding. The state legislature passed SB 1090 shortly after the settlement agreement was completed which allowed $85 million for community funding to ease the transition away from Diablo Canyon’s revenue and labor base. Assurances are needed that those funds, much of which have already been spent, will not need to be returned to Sacramento, and further, that additional mitigation will be available in future years when the plant would close.
Item 9, Diablo Canyon lands. The community has fought hard for the conservation of and public access to the Diablo Canyon lands which were expected to be transferred away from PG&E upon Diablo Canyon’s closure in 2025. This process need not be delayed. It is not only good for the community, it implements the governor’s 30×30 Biodiversity Initiative in one of the richest ecological regions in the state.
Item 10, retirement date certainty. The uncertainties regarding Diablo Canyon’s future causes significant anxiety and interferes on many levels with sound planning in San Luis Obispo County. For this reason, I believe there must be a date certain on the final closure date if the life of the plant is to be extended.
Item 12, offshore wind. San Luis Obispo County will be opened to offshore wind development. One of the allures of this location is the existing transmission lines from Diablo Canyon. How do we ensure that an extension of the life of the nuclear power plant does not hinder the ability to onboard and transmit new, renewable power on the grid using local transmission?
That ends our summary of Senator Laird’s comments at the August 12th joint Energy Commission and Governor’s Office presentation. The following are additional concerns not raised by either Laird or the CEC CISO governor’s presentation.
Reactor vessel embrittlement. The reactor vessel of Unit 1 was found to be among the most embrittled in the nation in 2002. Although the NRC has allowed continued operation and waived further testing, embrittlement could inhibit rapid shutdown of the reactor in an emergency and should be evaluated by the Diablo Canyon Independent Safety Committee as well as other independent experts.
Second item, incomplete contamination and monitoring records. There was a historical site assessment published by PG&E which cites numerous likely contamination points at the plant that should be routinely checked for radioactive contamination, but PG&E did not make records available to fully complete the report with actual monitoring data. Any further discussion of an operations extension should be predicated upon access to these records and a properly completed historic site assessment. The public deserves to know.
Item 3, rate payer and taxpayer equity. Proposed legislation seeks to offer a $1.4 billion forgivable loan from the state’s general fund to PG&E to fund the cost of license extension and deferred maintenance and continued operations. Costs will also be transferred to community choice aggregators, also known as CCAs, statewide. This will affect both, place a disproportional burden on low-income families as well as undermine the efforts and financial solvency of CCAs that are the primary competition to investor-owned utilities and are run by local government agencies to speed the transition to 100% renewables on the grid. PG&E has suggested that CCAs should pay the additional operating costs through the PCIA. That is a power charge and difference assessment.
20-year license extension. PG&E has suggested, although not confirmed, that they may apply for a 20-year license extension. This is in direct conflict with the governor’s plan to extend the life of the plant for five to 10 years. There’s a very low probability that a five to 10-year life extension would make economic sense given the level of investment needed to operate the plant safely. There doesn’t seem to be a low capitalization alternative to allow continued operation for the few years between 2025 and 2029, during which the projected shortfall on the grid is anticipated. We’re stuck making a 20-year investment to solve a five-year problem.
Item 5, further discussion of the grid shortfall is needed. Senator Laird suggested that there should be further discussion about whether there will, in fact, be a periodic shortfall of power in the 2025 to 2030 time frame and that other options for meeting resource adequacy should be explored. I would suggest reexamination of Loretta Lynch’s study of the August 2020 blackouts which suggests that CISO had the capacity online but was contractually obligated to export it to other states. This would suggest that better modeling and projections and possibly a higher resource adequacy requirement may have solved the problem.
Item 6, peak demand is intermittent. Diablo is a constant source of power. There is an inherent mismatch in the strategy to solve a periodic peak demand problem with large continuous generation. Peak demand is driven by residential HVAC, and exceptional peak demand events are driven by heat waves that occur once in five years. There seems to be an obvious mismatch between the problem and the proposed solution. A further indication that continuation of DCPP operations cannot be more cost effective than other strategies that are suited to address the intermittent problem.
Item 7, study is needed. Economics, safety issues, and alternatives should be fully explored before this legislature elects to mandate life-extended operations at the plant. There are better technological solutions to provide grid stability. For example, electric vehicle batteries feeding into the grid during peak demand hours would have prevented the 2020 blackouts. Hydrogen peaker plant turbines with flexible fuel that can run on both natural gas and hydrogen are now commercially available and can facilitate gradual decarbonization of gas peaker plants. This would solve all long-term grid storage problems and harmonize renewables on the grid while avoiding all possible stranded asset scenarios that pose a much larger economic risk with continued Diablo Canyon operations.
Senator Laird calls for a Marshall Plan for California energy, and we feel that further steady is needed before Diablo Canyon extension is approved. If PG&E rushes headlong into applying for license extension, we may face consequences that will not serve a higher public good.
In reference to these other concerns, just for the House and also for the general public, it would be good to state where these other concerns came from or who they’re actually representing. I know there’s been a lot of discussion.
I said that they were my additional concerns that were added to Laird’s, but I did work on those in collaboration with some of the other [inaudible 00:11:39].
That’s a really good point. I meant to take “we” out, and I apologize if I left it in. I did take it out one other place. So I should correct that now for the record and say “I” instead.
Great. Good afternoon. Chairman and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name as you noted is Kim Delfino and I am here representing Defenders of Wildlife in the California Coastal Protection Network. I’ve been asked to speak on the issues relating to how the governor’s proposal for extending the operation of Diablo canyons, uh, Diablo canyon impacts environmental protections. Uh, let me do a quick summary, uh, before I get into the details of what the environmental and public health concerns are at issue here, as noted by the previous speaker Diabo canyon is an old nuclear power plant currently scheduled to go offline in two years. And therefore it does have a lot of deferred maintenance, uh, a very packed spent fuel pool and in brittle reactor and it exists close to four, uh, earthquake fall lines. In addition, according to the state water board every day, roughly two and a half billion gallons of sea water slosh through Diablo’s enormous intake tubes cooling the hot steam heated by nuclear reactors and the warmed water is then flushed back into the sea creating significant adverse impacts on the ocean resources and animals, including fish, sea lions, turtles, and other creatures, which are killed by the millions.
Make no mistake continuing to operate the Diablo Canyon. Beyond 2025 will have serious impacts on our environment. I wanna walk through how the governor’s proposal overrides existing environmental protections and state agency jurisdictions. One, the governor’s proposal contains multiple CEQA exemptions, including classifying the operations of Diablo canyon as a ministerial exemption and an exemption from seq for all permits leases, licenses, certifications, concurrence plans, decisions for applications to state agencies, and finally an exemption from the loan agreement between DWR and PG E from se a essentially nothing associated with Thete extension of Diablo canyon would be subject to se and its public review and oversight process two. The bill is written. Uh, the language that we’ve seen is written purposefully to limit the scope of public trust agencies, AEs and directs predetermined outcomes for permits and approvals through a combination of specific findings and statutory language that directs agencies to adopt the legislative findings, these legislative findings direct specific outcomes and determinations from agencies, removes agency discretion and override state and federal law.
The findings, when they’re coupled with the statutory directives to use the legislative filing constrains, what the agencies can consider as part of their review, and essentially dictates what should be a final decision. This would impact the state lands commission, the state water board, and the state coastal cons, uh, coastal commission three, the bill overrides the coastal act and the federal coastal zone management act, as well as coastal commission jurisdiction under the federal coastal zone management act, there must be federal consistency, D deter, uh, reviews of federal agency, federally permitted and federally funded activities. The review is then delegated to the coastal commission and the commission standard review is the enforceable policies found within chapter three of the coastal act, the governor’s proposal, amends chapter three of the coastal act and specifically orders the commission to permit the operations of Diablo canyon until January one 30, uh, 2031.
Basically this is a legislative override of the coastal commission’s obligations under the federal coastal zone management act. And if this is enacted a, this kind of UN, uh, override is unprecedented in nature, four, the governor’s proposal overrides and delays compliance with the state water boards once through cooling policy until 2030, and it limits mitigation fees and directly prohibits the state water board from imposing, um, cooling towers as a potential mitigation measure, this kind of prohibition on what the state board can or cannot consider as mitigation is also unprecedented. Finally, the newest version of the governor’s proposal inexplicably puts the California PUC and not the coastal commission in charge of determining what will be the future use of Diablo canyon land after the power plant closes and provides really no guidelines, other than a vague directive that the PC must determine what’s in the best interest of a variety of parties.
This doesn’t make any sense to hand over this kind of decision making of the future of an important part of the coastal Don to an agency that has no natural resource public trust, uh, requirements or responsibilities. Now that I’ve walked through the various exemptions, overrides and efforts to restrict environmental standards. Let me explain why this is unnecessary and should be rejected. First. There is no legitimate reason to prevent any of this relevant state agencies from doing their jobs in carrying out and administering our state and federal environmental laws. There’s no requirement that all state permits and approvals must be secured before an application for relicensing is filed to the nuclear regulatory commission, nor is there a requirement that all permits and approvals must be secured before filing an application with the department of energy for a grant. Instead, all you need is a pathway for permitting, and there is a pathway here.
The pathway is to let the agencies spend the next two years doing their jobs, which leads me to my second point as to why it’s unnecessary to constrain agency discretion or undermine environmental standards. As I said, the agencies have more than two years before 2025. This has plenty of time for them to do their jobs. For example, the coastal commission has issued dozens of coastal development permits for California’s three coastal nuclear plant plants over the last 40 years without leveraging closure or interrupting power generation. Finally, and I cannot emphasize consuming enough unnecessarily overriding our bedrock environmental laws and the jurisdiction of the coastal commission, state water board, and state lands commission. That’s a terrible precedent. These agencies and laws are in place to ensure that decisions are made to protect people and natural resources. And frankly, I cannot think of a better example of when we need to use these laws than in granting an extension of the operating life of an aging nuclear power plant. Our environmental laws are not a nice to have kind of measure. They are a must have kind of measure. And therefore I would urge that if the legislature chooses to move forward with any kind of legislation pertaining to the canyon, not that I think this is a prudent thing to do that
Oh, well I, the punchline, um, I would urge that if you do choose to move forward with legislation that you do so in a way that does not undermine bedrock state and federal environmental laws or override agency jurisdiction or discretion, thank you.
I have to leave for some important climate package related discussions. But I just wanted to to state before I left Mr. Chair, that, that you know, along with Mr, Mr. Wood and, and, and some of my colleagues in the assembly, umwe had an opportunity to visit Fukushima right before the pandemic. And we visited the community surrounding the Daichi nuclear power plant, and it is a wasteland. It communities that once thrived around the, the nuclear power plant were abandoned, you can see the cars and the homes parked were, the weeds are, you know, overtaking the community that was once thriving. And I, you know, I, I, I’m not trying to fear monger here, but I want to make sure that we are as several witnesses here, here today stated to put safety first and foremost, you know, it’s my understanding that there, there have been reviews of what happened in and, and Fukushima.
And there were basically two fundamental problems that happened that led to the Fukushima nuclear disaster. One is that the nuclear plant was allowed to be designed licensed and constructed to only withstand an earthquake and tsunami far smaller than what actually occurred.
And so, you know, I, I know that we’ve heard many assurances today about how the NRC is charged with ensuring the safety and the protection of the local residents of San Luis Obispo county. But again, you know, we can never plan enough for what nature mother nature can unleash.
Second, the Fukushima disaster was in large part caused by the ineffective oversight of, and the cozy too cozy relationship between the nuclear utility and the regulator that allowed what, obviously in hindsight ended up to be inadequate safety requirements.
And so it raises all the more, my deep concern about how we are not only rushing this through, but that we are as PO the, the proposal was calling for a sequel exemption for the bypassing of state agency oversight. It sounds like a recipe for disaster. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
And I will, uh, go, we’ll hear from Ralph Kavanaugh, he’s the energy program. Co-director with the natural resources defense council, uh, Mr. Kavanaugh, we see you
Chair Hoso senators. I’m Ralph Ralph Cavanaugh representing the natural resources defense council. More than six years ago, I was honored to be among the strikingly diverse group that announced the joint proposal to retire and replace the Ablo canyon. A hunter has just discussed that proposal, national and local environmental groups, representatives of plants’ workers and owner. And we were joined soon after the announcement by the leadership of the plant’s host communities. Now a few critical features of that agreement. First, it was a life extension agreement for Diablo canyon. It extended a critical state permit by seven years. That agreement is the reason why Diablo canyon will be around this summer and next summer and the summer after that, and for unit two, August of 2025, uh, helping to make sure that California has reliable and affordable power, but the joint proposal also rested on an analysis showing that costs for Diablo canyon would rise significantly after 2025.
And that the plant would be an increasingly poor fit with a rapidly evolving California electricity grid. So we provided, as hunter said, for replacement of the plant with a portfolio of zero carbon resources, which would reduce cost and improve reliability. And we provided for and recommended compensation for the workers to retain them on the job for the communities to help them with the transition. And as I think my friend hunter stern will acknowledge all of those promises have been kept in part because you senators ratified that agreement almost unanimously in Senate bill 10 90, authored by then majority we or bill Monning and Republican assemblyman Jordan Cunningham. So the question for us today is what has changed that matters that would cause you to repudiate an agreement you ratified almost unanimously four years ago, and what is missing from the very thorough background report that was submitted in advance of this hearing and from commissioner, Douglas’s very thorough and admirable remarks.
And I venerate her and this is not, there’s no attack on her, but something was missing from all of that. Wasn’t missing because of their, it was their fault. It was missing because it doesn’t exist. And what doesn’t exist is a published report by any of the state’s energy regulatory agencies recommending a Diablo canyon life extension, or comparing it with the cost and availability of alternatives. What is missing is any assessment by Diablo Canyon’s owner, whom you’ve just heard from, or any other California utility or community choice aggregator, providing a rationale for life extension, what commissioner Douglas showed you is a need for. And what hunter testified to is a need to acquire additional resources during some hours of the day in September of 2025 and afterward. And the obvious question is, well, what are our alternatives and what are our best choices? And normally in California, we answer that question by conducting a comp a competitive test, we go out for proposals.
We can look for resources all over a gigantic Western grid. That’s seven times the size of Texas that extends well beyond San Louis Obispo, a marvelous place, but we’re not doing any of that. Instead you are being asked in the final days of this session to declare a very expensive winner in a competition that your electricity regulators haven’t organized, or even analyzed, you don’t know how much this will cost or who will pay. Although mark, Tony will have plenty to say about both in a moment, and you have been told there may be federal subsidies, giant federal subsidies. But what wasn’t mentioned was a submission to the us department of energy by NRDC and numerous other parties, including friends of the earth, showing that Diablo canyon doesn’t qualify for those federal subsidies, which are only available. The nuclear plants exposed to competitive markets who are, who can document op operating losses and DBU canyon is neither.
You have been given no remotely adequate reason here in the final days of this session to repudiate a retirement and replacement agreement that you ratified almost unanimously four years ago, you have been shown graphs indicating that we may need 1800 megawatts during certain hours in 2025, where might you get 1800 megawatts? Well, in 2000 and 2001, when we had a statewide electricity crisis, that many of you remember, well, the governor’s office organized energy efficiency and demand response campaigns that cut our electricity use during peak hours by 4,800 megawatts, more than double the capacity of at DLO canyon in a matter of months. And we are looking out today at three years. And if I were asked for the perfect person to lead a similar campaign, uh, for governor Newsome, I’d pick Karen Douglas senators. One last thing I want you to know that not many people know about the joint proposal or retire and replaced the ALO canyon, the instigator, the man who started the effort and was critical to its success was a longtime skeptic and adversary of PG and E by the name of S David Freeman.
And many of you knew him, the negotiations, which he catalyzed began on his 90th birthday and PG and E basically graciously gave him a birthday cake. And I know what Dave Freeman would have to say about this proposal to effectively repudiate his extraordinary achievement, which he shared with many others, not any of it would be remotely printable. So I’m not going to try to voice him. I’m simply going to close by asking you to honor his legacy and the magnificent precedent that he inspired in that joint proposal with the workers, with the communities with so many who have worked so long on the ALO canyon. And I’m asking you to decline the invitations to repudiate that legacy, that precedent. Thank you.
