nuclear-news

Energy efficiency and renewables come with none of the downsides of nuclear power. There is no radioactive waste that must be stored for literally thousands of years, there is no terrorist target, there is no ticking time bomb waiting for an earthquake to trigger it. There is a much larger footprint for renewables like solar and wind, but many countries around the world are demonstrating now that these resources can reach high penetration levels without spoiling views, impacting wildlife overly much, or taking up too much land.

Another benefit of shutting down Diablo that PG&E highlights in the joint application is the ability to better absorb increasing amounts of renewable energy. Diablo is a very large non-flexible “baseload” resource. It can’t be turned up or down to accommodate variable renewable resources — it’s either on or off. And as we push toward the current goal of 50 percent renewables by 2030, which is now mandated by law (SB 350), we need more flexible resources to accommodate an ever-increasing share of renewables.

Moreover, having such large, inflexible resources on the grid requires its own share of backup power, because if Diablo experiences a scheduled or unscheduled outage, such an outage will generally require replacement resources to make up for this loss. Renewables like wind and solar get a lot of negative attention for being variable and needing some grid backup, but this problem is actually far worse with very large inflexible generation assets like Diablo. By shutting down Diablo at the end of its current license, system-reserve requirements will actually be reduced.

How to avoid further nuclear boondoggles

The recent shutdown of San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in Southern California turned into an extremely contentious battle over a number of issues, but primarily over who should bear the cost of this extremely expensive power plant.

PG&E’s joint application may entail some similar issues, as it requests a full reimbursement of all costs for the plant to date, without specifying exactly what those costs will be. As described above, the net cost of replacing Diablo with preferred resources will be about one-third less than the equivalent cost of relicensing Diablo.

That said, PG&E will need to present more information about the full costs of the shutdown, including the costs of decommissioning. With respect to SONGS, the total shutdown and decommissioning costs became a major issue. To avoid a similar fate, PG&E should be as transparent as possible as early as possible……http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/how-a-major-utility-came-to-see-renewables-as-a-better-deal-than-nuclear