With the future of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant extended for at least a few years, the owners continue to plan for the plant’s eventual closure, and what to do with the roughly 12,000-acres of coastal lands surrounding the plant.
Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) is taking applications to sit on the so-called, “Diablo Canyon Decommissioning Engagement Panel,” a group of citizens charged with taking public input on the plant property’s future uses.
PG&E, reads a news release from company spokesman, Neil Hebert, “is pursuing the steps to continue operating Diablo Canyon Power Plant (DCPP) up to 2030 as directed by the State, PG&E will continue to provide opportunities for community input regarding future decommissioning plans and potential future uses of the Diablo Canyon site.”
Hebert continued, “New members are sought to join this local, non-regulatory stakeholder group who have been providing community input to PG&E since 2018 regarding ongoing decommissioning planning activities.
“There are several positions subject for appointment or reappointment consistent with the Panel’s Charter. The 30-day application period ends March 4.”
If readers are interested in applying to the Decommissioning panel, go online to: pge.com/engagementpanel for information.
New panelists will be selected by the incumbent panel members plus a company representative and someone from the California Public Utilities Commission or CPUC, which oversees regulated utilities in California.
According to Hebert, the panel wants members, “who broadly reflect the diverse stakeholder viewpoints in proximity to DCPP.”
The panel holds regular public meetings discussing a wide variety of issues surrounding the plant, which has vast oak woodlands and Coastal Terraces and bluffs, offshore rocks and even cattle grazing lands. The actual power plant site takes up only a small portion of this impressive property.
A parallel path forward is also being looked at for the actual power plant site, including as a potential offshore wind energy maintenance port and landing site for the energy the offshore windmills would produce.
The plant was planned to close by the end of this year, when its original license to operate runs out. But a few years ago, with the State facing rolling blackouts due to energy supply shortages, the State reversed track and has asked the company to keep Diablo running until 2030.
That’s when the State is betting that it will have the whole sustainable-green-carbon-free energy grid it’s trying to create fully able to handle the actual demand.
But the Federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) threw a change up and refused to simply extend the plant’s two licenses, nor would it allow PG&E to take up a previous licensing effort that was dropped with the agreement to close the plant down.
The NRC required PG&E to start over, and re-apply for a new 20-year license. So the enigma of Diablo canyon is while PG&E plans for the future closure, it’s actively trying for a new license.
The rub is that neither option is a lock. There are no guarantees the license will be granted; or that the plant will continue to operate for another 20 years; or that the 2,200 megawatts of power generation — nearly 10% of the total power grid — will no longer be needed in 2030.
The panel’s charter says that elected officials and current PG&E employees and their immediate family members “will not be considered eligible for community membership on the Panel.”
