The California Public Utilities Commission is scheduled on Dec. 14 to vote on the proposal for closure of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant within a decade.
Owner Pacific Gas & Electric in 2016 joined a number of labor and environmental groups in issuing a joint proposal under which the San Luis Obispo County facility’s reactor Unit 1 would close in 2024 and Unit 2 in 2025. The utility would replace the state’s last operational nuclear power plant with other forms of greenhouse-gas-free power.
In November, CPUC Administrative Law Judge Peter Allen issued a proposed decision that broadly supported the closure plan but recommended significant changes to its components. Notably, Allen only backed $171.8 million in rate increases for anticipated costs related to Diablo Canyon’s closure, much less than $1.76 billion sought by PG&E.
If approved, that would cut out $1.3 billion for new energy sources to cover for some of the plant’s power output and $85 million in community impact mitigation payments to offset the loss of jobs, tax revenue, and charitable donations upon Diablo Canyon’s closure. On the community funding, Allen wrote in his proposed decision that “Absent legislative authorization, utility rates should be used to provide utility services, not government services.”
PG&E has already weighed in against Allen’s recommendations, and a coalition of 10 regional economic development groups late last month expressed its own concerns in a letter to the Public Utilities Commission.
“If the ALJ’s Proposed Decision stands, it will exponentially increase the severity of the social, environmental and economic challenges we will inherit with Diablo Canyon’s closure,” according to the letter, which specifically cited the harm to local schools that receive a segment of $22 million in annual tax funding from Diablo Canyon and the danger of eliminating a planned one-time payment of $10 million intended to help diversify the local economy.
The CPUC voting meeting, which will be webcast, is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. local time in San Francisco.
