After the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi plant disaster in Japan, earthquake retrofitting recommendations and regulations were developed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to help mitigate a similar disaster in the United States.
The Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power plant sits on a beautiful location along the California coastline. The plant continues to operate. However, owners will need to comply with the new NRC seismic retrofit requirements as part of the next license renewal process due in ten years.
Currently, Diablo Canyon supervisors are evaluating if it is cost effective to meet the new requirements or simply shut down power generating operations. The later decision would have profound economic consequences. A study by PG&E and Cal Poly concluded that the plant contributes $919.8 million dollars annually to the economy of the San Luis Obispo County and northern Santa Barbara County, providing high-paying jobs that average $136,561 per year for workers at the plant. Altogether, Diablo Canyon adds 1,543 direct jobs and 3,358 indirect jobs to the local economy, and is assessed 25 million in property taxes annually. (All figures U.S. dollars)
If a retrofit of Diablo Canyon is not completed or completed under relaxed requirements due to some type of hardship decision by the NRC, an earthquake or tsunami event could have even more profound impacts to the region should the next major earthquake occur. Best cost estimates for the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster hover around $250 billion over the next 10 years. The estimate includes $54 billion to buy all land within 20 kilometers of the plant, $8 billion for compensation payments to local residents, and $9 to $188 billion to scrap the plant’s reactors.
These costs do not factor in the long term impact to the Pacific Ocean due to contamination. A recent study, “Pacific bluefin tuna transport Fukushima-derived radionuclides from Japan to California”, indicates that Pacific Blue Fin tuna carry contamination from one side of the Pacific to the other after spending only one month off the Japanese coast.
This is shaping up to be a classic pay-me-now or pay-me-later scenario. Should we accept an expected $1 billion a year short-term cost with the loss of the plant as a regional economic driver or risk the long term cost to the nation of $100 billion to recover from an environmental disaster? Which way do you vote?
Scrap it now. Nuclear power is dangerous because of the risks of Fukushima-style disasters, yes. But it is also dangerous under normal operations, spewing carcinogenic isotopes into the air on a regular basis.
This article presents an important choice: pay a relatively small cost now to prevent a nightmarish disaster in the future. However, this choice does not have to be a zero-sum game for the region. If PG&E decided to invest the money it spends to operate and retrofit Diablo Canyon on renewable energy technologies like wind and solar, the people of the SLO community could retain the economic benefits of being a power-producing community without the risk of nuclear catastrophe and everyday risk of elevated cancer rates from normal operations of a nuclear power plant.
If you have time, read this article (http://www.nukefree.org/news/20YearsAfterSacramentoVotedtoShutRanchoSeco,SMUDHasDiversifiedEnergySources") about the important history of Sacramento Municipal Utility District after the closing of the Rancho Seco nuclear power plant by voter initiative in 1989.
The article contains this important quotation:
“People should be proud that the citizens did this,” said Ed Smeloff,
a SMUD board member at the time of the public vote, who now lives in
Richmond and works in the solar power industry.
“I think it saved the utility and it allowed people to be creative and
pursue a much more sustainable course of activities,” Smeloff said. “Nuclear
is very expensive. There is a legitimate argument that it is carbon-free
technology, but it’s not a pollution-free or cheap technology.”