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Tam Hunt: Is It Time for California to Phase Out Nuclear Power?
Italy recently became the fourth nation to pledge to phase out nuclear power since Japan’s Fukushima disaster. Italy accomplished this feat by a popular referendum, soon after Germany did the same in its legislature (Bundestag). Switzerland has also agreed to a phase out and Japan itself has agreed to phase out much of its nuclear capacity in favor of renewable energies and natural gas.
Should California do the same? Could it do the same?
California has effectively banned new nuclear plants in the state since the 1970s as a result of a law that requires that there be an effective federal nuclear waste disposal facility before any new plants are built in the state. And despite efforts to create a federal waste facility at Yucca Mountain, Nev., and other places, the United States is still far from completing any such facility.
There has not, however, been any widespread push to phase out California’s existing nuclear plants. We have three, two in California (Diablo Canyon near Avila Beach and San Onofre near San Clemente) and one in Arizona (Palo Verde) that serves California. These three plants provide about 5,000 megawatts of steady electricity to California and have never suffered any major accidents.
5,000 megawatts is a lot of baseload power and would require enormous amounts of new wind, solar and/or natural gas to replace these nuclear power plants.
But would we need to replace these plants? That is, if a decision were made to phase out the plants, would they need to be replaced?
No one has yet, to my knowledge, looked at this issue in detail. But the state’s grid operator, the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), has recently completed a detailed analysis for integration requirements to get to 33 percent renewables by 2020, as is now required by law since Gov. Jerry Brown signed SB 2. “Integration” refers generally to new natural gas power plants to provide power when variable renewables like wind power or solar power aren’t available because the wind doesn’t always blow and nor does the sun always shine.
CAISO examined four scenarios in its recent 33 percent renewables by 2020 analysis, some focusing on in-state renewables only, others including some out-of-state power, more wind, etc. The good news is that CAISO concluded, under its current set of assumptions, that California will need no new capacity to integrate the 33 percent renewables by 2020. The analysis found that only a small “load following down” capacity would be required, which could be met through curtailment of existing facilities, rather than building any new facilities. Why such a surprising finding? A number of factors are relevant, but the primary ones are an excess of existing natural gas generation; robust statewide energy efficiency and demand response programs; and a significant number of new cogeneration facilities coming online.
Not only did CAISO find no new power plants would be required to integrate the 33 percent renewables mandate by 2020, CAISO also found that by 2020 California would have about 14,000 megawatts of excess power available, even after meeting the 33 percent renewables mandate. This is over and above the “planning reserve margin” required by state law. The planning reserve margin is 15 percent to 17 percent above expected normal demand for each utility and it provides a buffer in cases where demand peaks are far higher than expected — during summer heat waves, for example. The nearby chart shows the key slide (slide 65) from a recent CAISO presentation on its analysis. The key figure is in the last column, third from the bottom (14,144 megawatts). Scroll down this page for the full presentation, which was affirmed on July 1, with CAISO’s finalized analysis submitted to the California Public Utilities Commission.

Comparing the 5,000 megawatts of nuclear power that serves California, it seems that the projected 14,144 megawatt surplus by 2020 may allow the phase out of these plants in the coming years without harming the ability of our grid to function reliably.
It is important, however, to recognize that this CAISO report did not explicitly examine a “nuclear phase-out” scenario. It would, thus, be irresponsible to conclude without further analysis by CAISO that we could immediately or painlessly phase out these nuclear plants. The responsible course of action would be for CAISO to include a nuclear phase-out scenario in a future iteration of this analysis and vet the results thoroughly with other agencies and stakeholders.
Moreover, the technical ability to serve California’s power demand without our existing nuclear power plants is not the only relevant factor. Another important factor relates to “stranded costs” of these power plants. Nuclear power plants cost billions of dollars to build, which is ultimately paid by ratepayers. Power plants must generally stay online long enough to allow revenue from power sales to pay for the investments. If they are forced offline, and contracts are broken, “stranded costs” must be paid by ratepayers. No one knows at this time what the stranded costs would be for our existing nuclear plants, but it may be a large amount.
Summing up, it seems, based on CAISO’s recent analysis, that California may indeed be able to phase out its nuclear power plants without great detriment to the state. But additional study is required, involving not only the ability to serve the electricity needs of Californians but also the stranded costs resulting from such a phase out.
— Tam Hunt is a renewable energy lawyer and policy advocate based in Santa Barbara. He owns Community Renewable Solutions LLC, which focuses on community-scale renewable energy consulting and project development.
California ISO Renewable Integration Study
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» on 12.04.11 @ 08:12 PM
Interesting possiblity. I’d like to see an audit of CAISO’s analysis by a reputable private engineering firm without any business or political connections to the California power industry.
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» on 12.05.11 @ 02:57 PM
Why Tam? Why should we phase them out? You state that with the renewable energy requirements we now have imposed on us by Brown, wouldn’t need them. But why should we get rid of any power source that adds no carbon to the environment? Why phase out an already proven reliable source of energy? What is the motivation behind that?
You seem to assume that people reading your article just naturally don’t want these things for some rational reason, but you don’t state the reason and your assumption is erroneous. Please clarify then we can argue the merits of your articles title.
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» on 12.05.11 @ 05:12 PM
AN50, I thought it was obvious enough to not state. How about Fukushima? How about terrorism concerns? How about waste issues?
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» on 12.07.11 @ 01:18 PM
You’re joking right? I mean really you’re going to use the Fukushima plant melt down as an example of why we should eliminate a relevant power source? How many people died as a result of Japan’s inept handling of Fukushima? Hmmmm, no one. Ok, let’s go domestic. How many people died as a result of TMI? Hmmmm, no one again.
Come on Tam you know better than that. Get serious, what is the real reason and don’t give me this dopy anti nuke hysteria you lawyer types love to foist on the unwashed masses. As a renewable guy you should be all over the nuke band wagon. Lots of power, little carbon foot print and a way to divert what wealth we are shipping off to countries that hate us into NRE for your favorite green crap, which I happen to support as well.
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» on 12.08.11 @ 10:44 AM
AN50, I’m glad you’re a supporter of green energy nowadays - we can agree on that.
As for nuclear, mortality isn’t the only measure of harm, surely you’d agree? How much economic harm was wrought by Fukushima? Environmental harm? Keep in mind it’s STILL not fixed as a problem. They’re still working to contain the leak.
Don’t forget Chernobyl.
But the key point of Fukushima is that a highly advanced nation like Japan could fail to plan for what did in fact happen. It’s a reminder to not let hubris rule when it comes to playing with forces as powerful as nuclear fission. What happened in Japan could happen here in California, under some as yet unforeseen scenario. And it could be a lot worse. Don’t forget the screwy history of Diablo Canyon, built backwards, built on a fault, with a new fault discovered after construction, yada yada yada.
This is why each nuclear accident (Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima) has such a chilling effect on nuclear policy: it highlights how little we know and how impossible it is to plan for every contingency.
A key benefit of renewables like wind and solar is that they are modular. They’re relatively small in terms of each unit so the worst damage a single turbine could do would result from it falling over (which has never harmed anyone yet) or a blade flying off (which I think in the early days did harm some people but not in recent years). And solar panels never hurt anyone.
I’m not anti-nuclear in principle. I just don’t feel that it’s ready for primetime yet because of the huge risk associated with such huge power plants and the track record of major accidents.
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» on 12.08.11 @ 06:41 PM
I agree with most of what you say, except we are not Japan or the former Soviet Union. Socialist and communist run countries have a very bad track record on environmental and safety matters. Neither country has the open media we have and both have very authoritarian governments. Our country is so damned nit picky and absurdly paranoid that one dopy liberal movie comes out and our whole nuclear power industry is tanked and you’re worried? Radiological effects are not nearly as serious as they have been portrayed. Most of the fear over nuclear is hyped and lacks any credible science to back it up, pretty much like the damned AGW scare.
To say we are not ready for a technology developed in the mid 1940’s is absurd. We are far more ready now than ever before and the technological gains we have made in the last two decades while we have stalled nuclear are tremendous. Its time we stop lagging and acting like dopy ignorance driven paranoids and get nukes developed. We had one accident in this country and the other two major ones occurred in two other countries. How does that compare with other industrial accidents and the death and destruction involved? You talk about the risks, for crying out loud Tam you hop in your car every day and never consider it’s the most deadly thing you do.
At this point you have not made a compelling argument against nuclear power accept to bring up three serious accidents at three plants out of hundreds operating for decades. Buddy we should all have automobiles with that kind of risk factor.
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» on 12.12.11 @ 04:42 PM
AN50, you’re missing a key component in risk calculations and comparisons: the severity of the potential harm. Calculating the risk of accidents is like judging diving. There are two components in calculating risk: 1) the chance of accidents happening; 2) the severity of the harm.
Driving a car is indeed far more likely to result in harm to an individual than is getting power from nuclear plants. But obviously the potential harm from nuclear plants is astronomically higher than driving a car.
Fukushima showed us that advanced nations can make unlucky mistakes and that all contingencies can never be planned for. This is what I mean when I say that nuclear is not ready for primetime: each accident shows this to be true. And don’t forget that there are numerous leaks of radioactive material announced all the time from US plants, and small accidents that don’t get much attention. So it’s not just the big accidents that need concern us.
When we throw in the enormous cost of nuclear power (far higher than the alternatives, including many forms of renewable energy), stopping any new nukes becomes a no-brainer. Whether or not we should shut down existing nukes is a different debate with a less clear answer.
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» on 12.19.11 @ 05:20 PM
Still not seeing your fear Tam. You still fail to make your case. Look, I don’t know why a bright engineer turned lawyer would take such a hostile stance toward a power source that is the top in engineering and intellectual requirements. You are almost saying that we humans are too stupid to handle the job. That same attitude pretty much grounded our interplanetary exploration program at NASA and, if we let you, wipe out a tremendous source of non carbon based power.
I am not an environmental engineer; I left that field when it became apparent that motives in the environmental community were economic, social and political rather than environmental. I too was as anti nuclear as anyone until I took up studying the engineering behind it. The fear evaporated and was replaced with healthy respect.
When I studied the disaster at TMI I was astounded at how inept we were at training for emergencies. Much of that was corrected though as a result of a PWR suffering a partial meltdown. The reactor disaster at Chernobyl was a wake up call to the world on proper nuclear power handling, the very reason we should all be on the no nukes for Iran bandwagon. As for Japan, it is clearly a cultural matter as they are every bit as sophisticated as we are in engineering. Their recapture regulatory system is the biggest fault in their country’s nuclear program and is more dangerous than any seismic fault as Fukushima illustrates.
But Tam, just because the Japanese are embarrassed to report problems and just because Russia is caviler about its nuke operations why do we have to be as stupidly over reacting as the Europeans? We started the nuclear power generation industry, we own more reactors than any other country and even though the French get 75% of their power from nukes we generate 40% more from our program than theirs.
We Tam, are the big kahuna, the masters, the fathers, the experts and the leaders. Its time to stop being a bunch of whiney crybaby European types and realize the rest of the world depends on us showing the way. Your way is retreat, capitulate and regress and I’m afraid as an engineer, a citizen and an intellectual that is unacceptable. And I really don’t care if it makes renewable energy less palatable or not.
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» on 12.21.11 @ 12:57 PM
AN50, for the record I don’t have an engineering background, but I do have a biology and science background.
Re nuclear power not being ready for primetime, it just seems pretty clear to me that the spate of accidents, large and small, over the decades demonstrate this truth.
If you’re still not convinced, you might find this recent report from the Japanese government convincing: it finds that it will take 40 YEARS to decommission the three Fukushima nuclear power plants. 40 years. That’s pretty much QED from my point of view.
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» on 01.05.12 @ 10:19 AM
That is a shamelessly flimsy excuse Tam. No other industry has the record of safety the nuclear industry has in this country. There are plumes of chemicals tainting water in this country from industrial dumping decades ago that are expected to take more than a hundred years to clean up. Concentrate your ire and lawyer driven obstructionism to those projects instead of wasting our future killing off a very real and viable energy source to replace oil. My God how you obstructionists sleep at night is beyond me.
Ok so you are not and engineer, that explains a lot. Science is good but engineers make it work. And the engineering field made nuclear fission work and work better than anything else. It is the pinnacle of achievement in the engineering world requiring all fields of scientific study and engineering and to back down in this country while the rest of the world, particularly the part of the world with the least engineering skills, goes ahead, is to forfeit our country’s place at the top of that pinnacle. Don’t screw our country, out of your own petty fears, while leaving the job to lesser countries. Is that what you greenies want, Iran, North Korea, China and Venezuela to be the nuclear power leaders, while you sit back and acquiesce your science and engineering skills, quivering in irrational fear?
I want your alternatives to succeed Tam, but unlike you, I am not being an elitist exclusive. I want all alternatives to succeed and so do the other 5 billion human lives that depend on our developing them. When you “only our alternatives count” green weenies get off your high horse and realize there is more at stake then your small minded world view you might see the light.
Alright, I may be a little rough here. You have to understand Tam, my generation grew up under the umbrella of mutually assured destruction. We saw nukes popping off. We saw the horror of real nuclear war. We lived in real fear of real mass annihilation by massive thermonuclear bombs. There was no escape as the name implied. The only reason we weren’t annihilated before your generation was born was pure damned luck and a lot of teeth gnashing, nail biting brushes with the end of humanity. From that perspective your AGW religion and fear of nuclear power generation seems weak and pathetic. It just doesn’t register on the apocalypse scale. We have been there already, so we know. Get a grip and quit looking for something to fear or you just might get it.
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» on 01.05.12 @ 10:51 AM
I hate to break it to you but you are the one who is being irrational AN50. 40 years to clean up Fukushima, and, we now know, $250 BILLION on the back of Tokyo Electric. How does that single incident (forget all the other nuclear incidents over the decades) not disqualify nuclear power from serious consideration as a power source?
Again, you seem to be entirely ignoring the magnitude of the risk.
But, frankly, it doesn’t matter what you or I think. See this recent piece describing how the alleged nuclear renaissance is over - not because of “obstructionists” like me. No, because of obstructionists known as insurers. They simply won’t insure nuclear plants because of the massive risks involved ($250 billion, anyone anyone?):
http://www.utilityproducts.com/news/2011/12/1573004112/experts-us-nuclear-initiative-waning.html
Price-Anderson has attempted to socialize risk insurance for nuclear plants in the US, but in the wake of Fukushima apparently even this socialization of risk isn’t enough to entire the private insurers.
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