Nuclear powerWith Diablo Canyon’s future unclear, California’s nuclear age may come to an end

California’s nuclear power age may be coming to an end, as the company which owns the last operating nuclear power plant in the state said it would seek to extend the aging plant’s operational license.

Pacific Gas and Electric Company regarded the Diablo Canyon plant as a key to the state’s green energy future, with the plant continuing to produce its carbon-free power to mid-century. The country’s nuclear power sector has been facing mounting cost and safety challenges in the last three decades, with the rapid development of fracking pushing many nuclear power operations to the brink of insolvency.

PG&E is now evaluating whether the much more demanding environment for nuclear power operations makes the extension of the plant’s operational license worth pursuing.

If PG&E fails to obtain the required extension, California’s nuclear power age will come to an end — A remarkable prospect considering three decades ago that nuclear power was seen as the lynchpin of the state’s energy future. Indeed, it was estimated that California’s growing energy needs would require building a nuclear power plant every fifty miles along its coast.

ABC News reports that Diablo Canyon is a victim to three developments. The first is the growth of other energy sources — solar, wind, and fracking-produced natural gas. Nuclear power is no longer cost-competitive with alternative energy sources, and other energy sources can now make claim to producing carbon-free or low-carbon power.

The second development is the post-Fukushima awareness of nuclear power plants sitting on or near geological fault lines. PG&E’s claims that Diablo Canyon, which sits 650 yards from an active fault, can withstand powerful tremors have been challenged by scientists who claim that PG&E provided the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) with misleading information about the plant’s sturdiness. The NRC has been at least partially persuaded by the criticism of PG&E’s presentations, and may condition the extension of the plant’s operational license on the structural strengthening on some sections of the facility.

The powerful California Coastal Commission is also making life difficult for PG&E. In a letter to the company, the commission raised the possibility that additional seismic studies could require PG&E to modify the plant’s foundations or add support structures, and that a longer operating life would require more space to store highly radioactive used fuel — expensive projects which could fall under the commission’s authority.

The state’s Independent Peer Review Panel, an arm of the California Public Utilities Commission, has also questioned the company’s research on the physical properties and structure of rock below the plant, an important factor in how hard the earth could shake during an earthquake.

Third, state regulators may require PG&E to invest billions to modify or replace the plant’s cooling system, which sucks up 2.5 billions of gallons of ocean water a day, and has been blamed for killing fish and other marine life.

“We continue to evaluate feedback on the seismic research and steps needed to obtain state approvals,” PG&E spokesman Blair Jones said.

Extending the license for the plant’s operation thus looks like an uphill struggle for the company.