I have blogged before about problems at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Station on the California Coast near San Luis Obispo. The two nuclear power reactors at the plant began operation in 1985 and 1986. The plant is owned and operated by Pacific Gas and Electric. Since the permanent shutdown of the San Onofre nuclear power plant near San Diego, the Diablo Canyon plant is the only operating nuclear power plant in California.
Diablo Canyon is located three miles from the Hosgri fault which was discovered during construction of the plant. What was not known until much later is that the location is also only one mile from the recently discovered Shoreline fault. When the new fault was discovered, the Diablo Canyon plant was upgraded to be able to withstand more severe earthquakes than the original design. Unfortunately, due to a failure to understand that the two reactors were mirror images, the upgrade to one reactor was a failure. Nonetheless, the NRC allowed the plant to continue to operate. It was later charged that the NRC colluded with PG&E to change the way in which seismic activity was measured in order for the plant to meet NRC regulations.
There has been intense pressure from labor and environmental group for the plant to be permanently closed. A joint agreement was just announced between the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1245, the Coalition of California Utility Employees, the National Resources Defense Council, Environment California, Friends of the Earth, the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility and PG&E for Diablo Canyon to be shut down after its current operating license from the NRC expires in 2025. This means that PG&E will not request a license extension from the NRC as is common practice in the nuclear industry. PG&E announced that it would replace the electricity currently generated by the plant with electricity from "investment in a greenhouse-gas-free portfolio of energy efficiency, renewables and energy storage."
PG&E says that the shuttering of the plant and the redirection of resources to renewable is more in line with the current energy policies of California. With greater reliance on intermittent energy sources, the full capacity of the Diablo Canyon plant will not be needed at all times. It is not possible to vary the generation of electricity at Diablo Canyon so it will be necessary to shut down renewable sources while the plant is still generating electricity.
Another reason for the closing of the plant involves actions by the California Water Board to require PG&E to construct cooling towers to replace the current system which takes cooling water from the ocean and discharges it back into the ocean after one pass through the cooling system. PG&E said in 2015 that it was not technically and economically feasible for it to build cooling towers.
PG&E will retrain workers who are currently at the plant and some of them will be employed to help decommission the plant after the shutdown in 2025. All employees will receive severance payments from PG&E when they leave. The joint agreement also requires PG&E to make almost fifty million dollars in payments to the county to make up for declining payment of property taxes through 2025.
Diablo Canyon Power Plant:
