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The post–nuclear-energy future?
By ARNOLD SCHUCHTER, St. James Faith Lab Tech Editor
The complexities of transitioning to clean energy and speeding up the commercialization of renewables are vividly illustrated by the challenges faced by California’s Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) in shutting down California’s largest power source: the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in San Luis Obispo County. This plant sits near several seismic fault lines, triggering fears since its initial construction that an earthquake could cause a radiation leak. On the other hand, Diablo Canyon doesn’t produce any greenhouse gases or other air pollutants, and is able to reliably produce electricity around the clock regardless of weather.
California’s Diablo Canyon dilemma illustrates the question of the future of nuclear power nationally. The U.S. has 93 nuclear reactors in 28 states generating one-fifth of the country’s electricity. Without saying so, President Biden’s goal of 100% clean energy by 2035 depends on nuclear plants continuing to operate even as their operators struggle to compete with increasingly cheap electricity from alternative energy sources. Ironically, nuclear reactors, the current leading national source of clean energy, are jeopardized by national electrification initiatives to drastically increase other forms of clean energy production and consumption.
With the Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichi disasters in mind, nuclear energy is opposed by environmentalists, even as they strongly advocate clean energy. In response, the Biden administration wants existing nuclear plants with low safety risks to keep running, and has even proposed subsidies for economically struggling reactors. How serious is the prospect of closing Diablo Canyon without a plan to replace it with clean energy? Just a few months ago the Union of Concerned Scientists released a report that analyzes what might happen if Diablo Canyon closes without a plan to replace its output. The group estimated California would emit an additional 15.5 million metric tons of CO₂ over the next decade — roughly equivalent to keeping 300,000 gasoline-powered cars over that same time period!
Nevertheless, the indisputable reality is that operating Diablo Canyon past 2025 would require billions of dollars of maintenance and upgrades to comply with environmental and earthquake-safety rules. While nuclear advocates continue to make advances with smaller, cheaper, and safer reactors that take advantage of advanced technology, these will not be ready to be deployed by 2025. In response to political realities, some pro-nuclear groups have even urged focusing nuclear R&D on “environmental justice” — ensuring cleaner air, water and soil in disadvantaged communities and neighborhoods suffering the most from current pollution. At the present time, however, these proposals have no trust to build on among environmental justice organizations, to say nothing of the persistent aversion to nuclear energy among the public. Irrespective of the amount and intensity of debate about the pros and cons of nuclear energy, come 2025 the state’s last nuclear power plant will almost certainly go offline.
At the moment, however, there is virtually no plan to replace Diablo Canyon’s power output without increasing greenhouse gas emissions. The one possible exception is the recent announcement by the U.S. Interior Department that commercial offshore wind farms will be allowed in Morro Bay and off the coast of Humboldt County. As many as 300 wind turbines could generate enough electricity to power 1.6 million homes, making the California coast one of the world’s largest generators of wind power. Predictably, technical and political issues abound for such a project. Wind farm platforms will have to float because of the depth of the Pacific floor in the roughly 400 square miles offshore. Fishermen also oppose losing their fishing grounds to floating turbines and the associated disruptions to marine life.
And thus the debate about replacing Diablo Canyon’s clean energy output continues without resolution within the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC, or PUC). This doesn’t seem to bother the Commission’s leadership, which seems optimistic about sufficient solar and wind farms coming online every year that will pick up the slack. Although the PUC has apparently been discussing construction of new power plants to replace Diablo Canyon, the conversation has lacked a sense of urgency, in spite of last year’s rolling blackouts. One way or another, Diablo Canyon’s 2,300 megawatts of power will have to be replaced along with—seemingly forgotten in the controversy—thousands of additional megawatts from several coastal gas plants that were supposed to shut down last year and didn’t.
Worryingly, the figures CPUC officials have been discussing are on the conservative side: 7,500 megawatts by 2026. The California Independent System Operator (CISO), which runs the power grid for most of the state and initiated its rolling blackouts last year, says 10,000 additional megawatts are needed. Advocacy for new clean power supplies by the California Environmental Justice Alliance and the Sierra Club surpass those of the PUC and CISO, urging another 20,000 megawatts of new clean power supplies by 2026—one-quarter of the state’s entire generating capacity today.
This lofty goal would include achieving targeted health goals for communities with large percentages of low-income people and people of color. These goals are highly relevant considering the prevalence of smoggy air in the Los Angeles Basin and the San Joaquin Valley. If anyone had any doubts about the importance of such health goals, a recent Harvard study estimated that gas burned at power plants and other industrial facilities caused more than 1,000 premature deaths in California in 2017.
One additional focus of future debates in California about the potentially catastrophic consequences of climate change must continue to be PG&E’s bailout in the aftermath of the state’s historic wildfires. Environmental advocacy organizations like the Reclaim Our Power Utility Justice Campaign argue that PG&E was bailed out at taxpayer expense without any advances to a safe, reliable, renewable, and equitable energy system. To the contrary, risks of wildfires and utility power shutoffs have only increased. Although the Reclaim Our Power Campaign’s efforts to persuade the CPUC were not successful, they did succeed in bringing public attention to the dire need for a transformed state utility system designed for near- and long-term energy reliability and security—whether on not this system includes a role for nuclear power.
Environmental advocacy organizations should feel somewhat encouraged by President Biden’s announcements that he is doubling the amount of money the U.S. government will spend helping communities prepare for extreme weather events and that NASA will collect much better climate data, which is long overdue. Unfortunately, however, the proposed $1 billion in funding is only a fraction of what communities in the US spend each year on climate-related disasters. Will these actions by the White House make climate issues more real and relevant to the American public? Let’s hope so!
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Renewable energy has a long history of derision and scorn from proponents of more traditional generation methods. Already in the 1970s Arab oil embargo, gasoline companies aired TV ads showing windmills that slowed to a stop as the wind died down. The ads asked: “But what do you do when the wind stops?” Even 15 years ago, the U.S. Energy Department echoed claims that renewables were too uncertain and unpredictable to meet the nation’s energy needs. However, the potential effectiveness of renewable energy in building a much cleaner world and heading off the worst effects of climate change is backed by a growing body of international research. And the best news from researchers is that it’s both feasible and affordable, thanks to innovation and mass-production capabilities that have already made wind and solar power installations cheaper than most fossil-fueled power plants.
