Generation Professionals Group
The Generation Professionals Group is for utility professionals who work in biomass, coal, gas/oil, hydro, natural gas, or nuclear power generation fields.
Publication
Destructive Restoration – Part 2, Nuclear
Many nuclear power plants in the U.S. are scheduled to be decommissioned, or they are in the decommissioning process. Thus the primary purpose of this paper is to review this process, and then review the proposed specific process for one of those reactors – PG&E’s Diablo Canyon. Decommissioning a reactor, especially fully decommissioning, without any site restrictions, is neither simple, inexpensive nor fast.
Discussions
" I support continued operation of existing nuclear power plants as long as this can be done safely and economically."
Then you support continued operation of Diablo Canyon, which generates carbon-free electricity for a marginal cost of $.026/kWh (according to PG&E's annual Form 1 filing). As of 2025 the plant's capital costs will be completely paid off, and it has never had a serious safety issue.
"The 'August 2020 blackouts... noted above were caused by an extremely rare weather event / sequence...
From your link:
"...although the convergence of the three events that created our storm (heat, humidity and the wind tunnel effect) are probably somewhat rare..."
Which was it, "extremely rare" or "somewhat rare"? Funny how justifying the shutdown of a nuclear plant can turn California's predictable late-summer heatwave into an "extremely rare weather event." Combined with the convergence of other factors - increasing demand, increasing reliance on unreliable renewables / energy imports, and the shutdown of San Onofre - the August blackouts were entirely predictable.
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), recognizing the problem will continue to worsen if Diablo Canyon is shut down, is planning to replace Diablo's lost generation not with clean energy, but with imports conveniently labeled "unspecified sources of power" - just like they did with San Onofre. As in 2012, the unspecified sources will almost certainly be be coal power imported from Wyoming.
Below, note the added 2.3 GW of coal imports in 2025-2026 coincide precisely with the shutdown of Diablo Canyon Units 1 & 2 in 2024-2025.
California's strategy for meeting its climate goals may be clever, but is ultimately worse than nothing: we're exporting our emissions to Wyoming. If only it were that easy.
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