California Clean Energy Committee

November 24, 2021

MIT News:  "The cost of desalinated water produced at Diablo Canyon would be lower than for a stand-alone plant because the cost of electricity would be significantly lower and you could take advantage of the existing infrastructure for the intake of seawater and the outfall of brine. Electricity would be cheaper because the location takes advantage of Diablo Canyon’s unique capability to provide low cost, zero-carbon baseload power."

"Depending on the scale at which the desalination plant is built, you could make a very significant impact on the water shortfalls of state and federal projects in the area. In fact, one of the numbers that came out of this study was that an intermediate-sized desalination plant there would produce more fresh water than the highest estimate of the net yield from the proposed Delta Conveyance Project on the Sacramento River. You could get that amount of water at Diablo Canyon for an investment cost less than half as large, and without the associated impacts that would come with the Delta Conveyance Project."

November 22, 2021

Washington Post: "In 2018, California’s leaders decided to close the state’s last nuclear power plant, at Diablo Canyon, by 2025. Several months later, they approved a bill obligating the state to be carbon-neutral by 2045. These acts of feel-good environmentalism were, in fact, contradictory. If the state is serious about achieving carbon neutrality over the next few decades — and it should be — it cannot start by shutting down a source of emissions-free energy that accounts for nearly 10 percent of its in-state electricity production."

"A new report from experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University has made that point clearly: Closing down Diablo Canyon would be the definition of climate incoherence. With only a few years left on the plant’s license, California should reverse course. Indeed, political leaders across the country should be trying to keep existing nuclear plants open for as long as possible, not closing them prematurely."

November 22, 2021

Union Tribune: "Regrettably, too many climate “environmentalists” are also anti-nuclear. But existing nuclear power plants are not unsafe, and new nuclear technology is both lower cost and safer."

November 22, 2021

DOE: "The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced $20 million in funding to demonstrate technology that will produce clean hydrogen energy from nuclear power. This innovative approach will allow clean hydrogen to serve as a source for zero-carbon electricity and represent an important economic product for nuclear plants beyond electricity. The project, based in Arizona, will make progress on DOE’s H2@Scale vision for clean hydrogen across multiple sectors and help meet the Department’s Hydrogen Shot goal of $1 per 1 kilogram in one decade."

November 15, 2021

CalMatters: "There is a serious risk that we will not be able meet our emission reduction targets while maintaining grid reliability without Diablo Canyon. Merely replacing the clean power we lose from the plant will require 90,000 acres of development of renewable resources, even as the siting of new renewable energy plants and associated transmission have proven slow to develop and face substantial opposition."

November 05, 2021

Wall Street Journal: "We need to stop wasting trillions of dollars on strategies that punish American citizens and businesses while China and India increase their greenhouse-gas emissions. The U.S. could set an example for the world with the ultimate infrastructure project: building and deploying advanced nuclear-power plants that painlessly accelerate our decarbonization. Sacrifice isn’t always the path to progress."

November 04, 2021

Bloomberg: "China has over the course of the year revealed the extensive scope of its plans for nuclear, an ambition with new resonance given the global energy crisis and the calls for action coming out of the COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow. The world’s biggest emitter, China’s planning at least 150 new reactors in the next 15 years, more than the rest of the world has built in the past 35. The effort could cost as much as $440 billion; as early as the middle of this decade, the country will surpass the U.S. as the world’s largest generator of nuclear power."

November 02, 2021

Power:  "Already remarkable for being the world’s second Westinghouse AP1000 reactor to be brought online, Shandong Nuclear Power Co.’s Haiyang nuclear power plant is pioneering two significant aspects of nuclear diversification in China: district heating and desalination."

November 01, 2021

Financial Times:  "Meanwhile, government officials have also signalled Macron could announce the go-ahead for at least six large reactors before the end of the year — previously the decision wasn’t expected until well after a presidential election next April."

October 29, 2021

Bloomberg: "Among the speakers was an activist from Finland, Tea Toermaenen. Her frustration was evident. 'It is infuriating to see other countries shutting down nuclear plants prematurely when we know that extending the life of existing plants is one of the most cost-effective things we can do for the climate,' she said. 'The people of Belgium deserve better leaders. You have been let down.'”