Brown softens Diablo stance
Governor once a foe
As a young governor in the 1970s, Jerry Brown tried and failed to block the opening of the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, near San Luis Obispo.
Now the plant is nearing the end of its operating licenses, which need to be renewed in order to keep Diablo running past 2024. And if he wanted to, Brown could make renewal very difficult for the plant’s owner, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. But does he want to? Brown’s opposition to nuclear power appears to have softened since his original “Gov. Moonbeam” stint in office. With his current focus on fighting climate change, Brown has said that nuclear power deserves another look as a source of carbon-free electricity.
Diablo’s opponents once considered him an ally. Now they’re not sure where he stands.
“There’s no question that Brown — if he were the governor he was before — would want to see this closed,” said Daniel Hirsch, a lecturer in nuclear policy at UC Santa Cruz. “The question is, who is Jerry Brown?”
The decision over whether to renew Diablo’s licenses rests with the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, not the state. But several California agencies could have a big hand in the plant’s future, determining for example whether PG&E needs to build expensive cooling towers to keep it open.
Those agencies are stocked with Brown appointees. And like
“Nuclear’s got issues, but it’s good for greenhouse gases. ... I want to make stuff work.”
Gov. Jerry Brown, 2012
many governors, Brown doesn’t hesitate to tell his appointees what he wants.
He could go a long way toward smoothing PG&E’s path to license renewal, or blocking it. The governor’s press office declined to comment for this story.
“I’d be very happy to see the old Jerry Brown step in,” said Damon Moglen, senior strategic adviser for Friends of the Earth, an environmental group pushing to close Diablo. “I know he’s in there.”
Early opposition
On June 30, 1979, Brown addressed a crowd of more than 25,000 people trying to block Diablo Canyon and threw his weight behind their cause.
Just three months earlier, the Three Mile Island nuclear plant near Middletown, Pa., had experienced a partial meltdown. Diablo’s opening had been delayed for years by the discovery of an earthquake fault 3 miles away, spotted only after construction began. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission still hadn’t granted operating licenses to Diablo’s two reactors.
“I not only call upon the NRC to deny the license but serve notice that I personally intend to pursue every avenue of appeal if the NRC ignores the will of this community,” Brown told the roaring crowd, gathered in a field near San Luis Obispo.
But the commission did, in the end, grant Diablo’s licenses, despite Brown’s opposition. The plant opened in 1985 and now supplies 8.6 percent of all the electricity generated in the state.
Those licenses, one for each reactor, expire in 2024 and 2025. The commission is now weighing whether to renew them for 20 years. PG&E, however, has not fully committed to renewal, saying it still hasn’t decided to proceed at the state level.
While the commission has final say on the licenses, several state-level issues need to be resolved in order to keep the plant open.
Cooling system
The California State Water Resources Control Board must decide whether Diablo needs a new cooling system that would kill fewer fish than the current system. The decision, which could come in the first half of 2016, could force PG&E to install cooling towers, a project whose estimated cost ranges all the way from $1.6 billion to $14 billion.
If Diablo does need cooling towers, PG&E could pass the costs on to its 5.4 million customers, but only with the approval of the California Public Utilities Commission.
And regardless of what happens with the cooling system, PG&E will need the California Coastal Commission to certify that renewing Diablo’s licenses would comply with all of the state’s environmental laws. Federal regulators have already said they won’t renew the licenses without that certification.
Every voting member of the water board and the utilities commission was either appointed or reappointed by Brown. The governor also appointed four of the coastal commission’s 12 voting members. The rest were picked by the state Senate Rules Committee and the speaker of the Assembly.
So where does Brown stand now?
During an appearance at a conference sponsored by the Wall Street Journal in 2012, an interviewer asked Brown whether his attitude toward nuclear power had changed over the years.
‘Many paths’
“Nuclear’s got issues, but it’s good for greenhouse gases,” Brown responded. “It’s pretty reliable. So I’m open to it. I want to make stuff work. ... And you’ve got to try many paths, because a lot of them don’t work.”
Brown has made battling climate change a key focus of his second tour in the governor’s office. In October, he signed a law requiring half of the state’s electricity to come from renewable sources by the end of 2030.
Brown could, of course, let Diablo’s relicensing process play out without interfering. The plant’s foes would love to see him make good on his old anti-Diablo stance but say they have no idea if he will. They’d like him to do it soon. Although the plant’s first license won’t expire for nine years, figuring out the cheapest, cleanest ways to replace Diablo’s electricity would take time.
“If you’re serious about planning California’s energy mix, you need to do this now,” Hirsch said. “It’s not something you should defer.”