Sara Rubin here, flipping the light switch and considering the remarkable infrastructure it takes to immediately power on. It’s something that is easy to forget about, but the power grid, bringing electricity all the way from power plants to my kitchen, is truly a marvel of engineering.
Where that energy comes from is a varied list. Central Coast Community Energy, my energy provider, buys wholesale power only from sources its board has defined as green—meaning sources like wind, solar and hydro, no fossil fuels—and then sells that power to PG&E to transmit through the power lines it owns. But PG&E relies on a different composition of power. That includes nuclear, which is omitted from 3CE’s portfolio, but accounts for roughly 10 percent of California’s power supply.
While the state is moving toward a greener, nuclear-free future, that reliance prompted a shifting politics around nuclear energy in recent years. While the state’s sole remaining nuclear power provider—the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant in San Luis Obispo County—was set to close by 2025, the governor and lawmakers hustled on a bill last year to extend its life at least until 2030. (The urgency comes from the fact that decommissioning a nuclear power plant is a lengthy and costly undertaking, one that plant owner/operator PG&E needs to plan for. The company’s estimate is that decommissioning costs $4.8 billion.)
But that extension, spelled out in Senate Bill 846, is just one piece of the puzzle. Nuclear power plants are regulated not just by state agencies but also the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which on Jan. 24 delivered a blow to PG&E, when it rejected the company’s request to continue renewing its operating license.
This network of regulators, and the big picture about California's renewable energy supply future, is the subject of the cover story in this week’s print edition of the Weekly. It’s written by Jean Yamamura from the Santa Barbara Independent. While Santa Barbara County might seem far away, it’s also part of 3CE, and it’s also relatively near Diablo Canyon—a reminder that we are all connected through the power grid. We’ll all be watching to see what happens with the decommissioning process as we get closer to the new 2030 deadline to take California to a nuclear-free future.
(0) comments
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Don't Threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be Truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism that is degrading to another person.
Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitness accounts, the history behind an article.