New proposal challenges Gavin Newsom’s $1.4 billion plan to keep Diablo Canyon open
There’s a new proposal to keep Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant on the path to close down its reactors in 2024 and 2025.
It comes in opposition to draft legislation floated by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office to keep the plant in San Luis Obispo County running another decade.
The latest proposal, which is unsigned and titled the “clean, diverse, safe and reliable energy proposal,” was authored by members of the California State Assembly and released on Aug. 19.
It would allocate $1.4 billion to boost renewable energy development, procurement and transmission to account for reliability gaps in the state’s electricity grid left by the closure of Diablo Canyon Power Plant and other power plants, as well as a reduction in hydropower production due to the drought.
That’s the same amount of money as Newsom’s proposal, released on Aug. 11, which would allocate up to $1.4 billion for a forgivable loan to PG&E to keep Diablo Canyon running another five to 10 years.
Beyond the $1.4 billion, the Aug. 19 draft proposes another $900 million to establish an electric ratepayer relief fund, and asks for the approval of $2.827 billion in pending budget appropriations to increase clean-energy incentives funding and programs.
Neither the draft bill or new proposal has been introduced and the legislative session ends on Aug. 31. Should one go through, it could be tacked on to the state’s budget as a trailer bill.
Diablo Canyon has been slated since 2016 to close down by 2025. It currently generates about 8.6% of the state’s total electricity supply and is the state’s last remaining nuclear power plant.
Since 2016, however, not enough renewable energy has been obtained to fully replace the plant and other energy sources that are retiring around the state.
“We are behind where we need to be in bringing our clean resources online to ensure that we can retire these resources,” Ana Matosantos, the governor’s cabinet secretary, said during an Aug. 13 California Energy Commission meeting.
She noted that the governor’s proposal to extend the life of Diablo Canyon is “a last resort.”
New proposal would add funding to boost clean energy
Out of the $1.4 billion, the Aug. 19 proposal would allocate $450 million for “load serving entities to get new, mid-term zero-carbon generation online faster than planned to fill California’s mid-term reliability needs,” according to the draft bill. “This would provide an incentive for developing new clean capacity (including storage).”
It would also accelerate transmission development by increasing funding to the state’s Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank and reducing policy barriers to building transmission for zero-emission resources.
Additionally, the proposal would establish a new grant program worth $200 million to incentivize and support local governments who “accelerate siting, increasing staff and other local resources” toward new solar, wind, geothermal and other zero-carbon energy generation and storage.
It would also allocate $10 million to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to address the “rapidly increasing number of pending permit and mitigation packages from new zero-emission energy generation projects.”
To help decrease electricity demand, the proposal suggests increasing the Demand Side Grid Support program by $100 million to $395 million in total funding. This program pays consumers to reduce their use of power during extreme grid conditions.
And it proposes allocating $240 million for incentives for low-income ratepayers for a California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) “community solar (and) storage program that will deploy new clean resources into communities underserved by existing programs.”
The proposal includes provisions for increasing accountability in the CPUC and entities to procure clean energy to aid the state’s electricity grid reliability.
Opposition, support for the draft legislation
Several groups including Environment California, Defenders of Wildlife, Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, Mothers for Peace and 350 Bay Area signed a letter advocating for adoption of the Aug. 19 proposal.
That letter was sent to the governor and speakers of the state senate and assembly on Aug. 22.
“These programs will move us into the 21st century,” the letter states. “They will bring new clean energy projects to California that are not dependent on an aging, inflexible resource like Diablo Canyon.”
In a comment to the Associated Press, Newsom spokesperson Anthony York decried the proposal.
He said it “feels like fantasy and fairy dust, and reflects a lack of vision and a lack of understanding about the scope of the climate problem.”
This story was originally published August 22, 2022 at 6:53 PM with the headline "New proposal challenges Gavin Newsom’s $1.4 billion plan to keep Diablo Canyon open."
