Biden gives PG&E $1 billion to keep the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant open—for now
The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity is trying to force PG&E to give them $1 billion in a “revenue sharing” deal. A coalition of community and labor groups is also seeking “a fair rate of return on the investment of public money” from the power company. However, the PG&E ratepayer advocates have already been warned by the utility that if they try to get the ratepayer to contribute, they must first get that company to accept their proposal to close Diablo Canyon Nuclear Generating Station to prevent another accident. (The utility has given the state and a host of environmental groups permission to spend up to $25 billion to prevent another accident, should a natural disaster or terrorist attack cause its reactors to fail. They also have the state’s permission to spend up to $11 billion to rebuild Diablo Canyon should the utility cease operations. As of September 2013, an ongoing lawsuit seeking to stop PG&E’s plan to close Diablo Canyon is pending before a California federal court.)
What happens next?
So:
The state Department of Water Resources is going to “make a determination on the request for a refund,” said Rick Cole
The PG&E board will “study the proposal and request for a refund” on its Nov 3 decision to close Diablo Canyon
The state Department of Water Resources will either approve the PG&E decision to close Diablo Canyon or reject it
The end result of any of these outcomes for the community of Porter Ranch will be nothing in the near term. There is no indication of when any of these three options will be resolved. The California Public Utilities Commission did approve a “refund” request from PG&E on January 9 for $1 billion. The utility told the commission it would not agree to the refund unless the company would first agree to a rate of return on its investment in Diablo Canyon of at least 10 percent. That “reasonable rate of return” is a standard that has been in place for more than four decades.
