nuclear-news

30 years ago, voters forced shutdown of Rancho Seco nuclear plant in Sacramento County, Sacramento Bee,  Mila Jasper.June 6 is the 75th anniversary of D-Day, but in Sacramento, the date has another important meaning.Thursday is the 30th anniversary of the vote that permanently closed down the Rancho Seco nuclear power plant in southern Sacramento County. With the defeat of Measure K, Sacramento became the first community in the world to close a nuclear plant by public vote.

Phil Angelides, the former state treasurer, was a local businessman in Sacramento at the time, and he was involved in the movement to close Rancho Seco.

“The plant was an enormous liability for Sacramento,” Angelides said. “It was first generation plant technology, it just didn’t function.”

Angelides said Rancho Seco was preventing Sacramento from developing a diversified, forward-looking energy portfolio capable of sustaining the region’s growth because of how costly and inefficient the plant was.

The Sacramento Municipal Utility District opened the Rancho Seco power plant, about a 30-minute drive from downtown Sacramento, for commercial operation in 1975, but for years it was plagued by a series of outages.

In 1985, operators lost control of the plant during an “overcooling” event, which forced an automatic shutdown. The resulting 27-month outage cost SMUD $400 million, according to a report from the Union of Concerned Scientists.

SMUD also paid $745,000 in federal fines for various violations related to the facility through 1989, The Sacramento Bee reported.

Outcry against Rancho Seco unfolded when the safety of nuclear energy was in question. In 1979, the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Harrisburg, Pa. suffered a partial meltdown, and in 1986, the accident at Chernobyl became the worst nuclear disaster in human history……..

Just days after the Three Mile Island disaster, people climbed over the fence at Rancho Seco during a protest demonstration.

More than 100 other demonstrators cheered with cries of “shut down now, no meltdown later” as 13 protestors climbed the main gate of the plant. The 13 people were arrested for trespassing, and some demonstrators vowed to go on a hunger strike until the 13 were released from jail………

After the plant shut down, SMUD diversified its energy supply and increased investment in energy efficiency programs that have resulted in customer savings of more than $600 million, SMUD officials said.

While the plant was still running, SMUD built one of the first utility-scale solar plants at Rancho Seco, which was decommissioned and replaced in 2016. The solar array powers downtown buildings like the state Capitol and the Golden 1 Center.

SMUD is now constructing the Rancho Seco Solar 2 project, a second array of solar panels that will be the largest facility in the county when it comes online. Construction is scheduled to start in August……..

Still, the shutdown process for the plant was long and arduous. It took 20 years for the plant to be fully decommissioned by the federal government, costing ratepayers $500 million, The Bee reported.

Disposal of the radioactive waste at the plant hasn’t yet been settled, either. SMUD spends $5 million per year to provide security and oversee proper storage of spent uranium.

The materials have been in dry storage at Rancho Seco since decommission and will remain there until the federal government can come up with a solution, according to SMUD.

Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Sacramento, on Thursday introduced a bill that would initiate a program for both decommissioned plants like Rancho Seco and active plants to store spent nuclear fuel in a consolidated program at the Department of Energy. https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article231253743.html