High Level Waste Disposal

As the global nuclear industry continues to struggle with technical issues in its aging fleet, and the cost overruns and delays in new construction, a renewed focus has turned to decommissioning and more importantly the disposal of high-level wastes.  Germany just appointed a new commission to examine their waste disposal solutions, something the US did a few years ago, and they will probably come up with the same conclusions:  There is no real solution to the spent fuel problem!  But we have to do something…so what do we do?

There are several courses of action we (and this is true of all the nuclear nations) can take.  The consensus is to eventually bury the canisters in a deep geologic repository.  Easier said than done.  We have spent 30 years and close to $15 billion culminating with Yucca Mountain, which we have scientifically deemed unsuitable for a variety of technical problems, which of course the politicos have reduced to just “plain politics.”  The truth is that the waste is highly radioactive, which means it releases heat…we cannot predict what the impact of that heat and radiation will have on the geology and hydrology of the site, and on the actual casks containing the waste.  This material must be isolated from the environment for a minimum of 10,000 years.  Lots of uncertainty.  So what do we do?

Most of the spent fuel rods are currently stored on site in pools at the power plants.  They are slowly being encased in huge dry casks, and placed on guarded pad facilities.  This is costly and spreads the waste over 40-50 sites in the US.  But it may be the best option until a central underground repository is built (if it ever is.) 

Another possibility is to move all these casks (they are about 20 ft tall, 8 ft wide, and can weigh up to 150 tons each) to a central retrievable location, where they will sit until a repository is open.  One such site is Skull Mountain on Native American reservation land in Utah.  Although this would relieve the utilities from responsibility of maintaining the casks, it would concentrate an enormous amount of highly radioactive material in one vulnerable place.  Current estimates of the wastes we would produce if we were to build no new reactors would fill some 6000 casks.  Handling and shipping this number of casks, storing them in one concentrated location, and maintaining them from weathering, corrosion, and most importantly from possible terrorist attack would not be easy or cheap.  The current casks are designed for a life 50-100 years, so they would have to be re-casked and moved again to a repository if it is built.  Lots of uncertainty!

Another option is the recycle/reprocessing route.  Although this sounds idealistic, it really not a solution, and would create an even bigger mess than we have now.  Best described by Edwin Lyman: “Reprocessing is the worst possible alternative to deep geological disposal because it greatly increases the cost, as well as the dangers, of waste management. Reprocessing increases the total volume of nuclear waste sevenfold over direct disposal; those multiple new waste streams present additional challenges for storage, transport and disposal. Even worse, reprocessing produces copious quantities of concentrated nuclear-weapon-usable materials, primarily plutonium. One large reprocessing plant can produce about 1,000 bombs' worth of plutonium each year. 

Adding insult to injury, this technological disaster costs a lot of money.”  Reprocessing has been a nightmare for England, France, and Russia, and even Ronald Reagan recognized this when he cancelled reprocessing in the US.

So, as the Nuclear Waste “Blue Ribbon Commission” reported a few years ago, “No currently available or reasonably foreseeable reactor and fuel cycle technology developments - including advances in reprocess and recycle technologies - have the potential to fundamentally alter the waste management challenge this nation confronts over at least the next several decades, if not longer."  We all just wind up kicking the can down the road.

A few references to the above:

Three “experts” opinions

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324789504578382722051659686.html

http://www.dw.de/nuclear-waste-to-find-a-new-home/a-16733434

I’m just about finished going through “Uncertainty Underground” edited by Allison MacFarland, the new head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.  Everything and more that you want to know about nuclear waste, geology, hydrology, thermohydrology, volcanism, colloidal transport…whew!  Articles written by the very well qualified scientists who studied Yucca Mountain, and come up with the conclusion: UNCERTAINTY!

Cheap nuclear electricity!

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Decommissioning Cost Update for Humboldt Bay

We had our quarterly meeting last night with PG&E on the nuclear decommissioning going on at Humboldt Bay.  As in past meetings, I continue to be stunned by the complexity and scope of work being done, and most vividly, by the number of dollars being spent on this back end of the nuclear cycle.

Six months ago, I was elated about the decision to do a complete cleanup, although it would have raised the total decommissioning cost from $600 million to $800 million.  The new estimate is now $1.081 billion on through 2025!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  A lot is going to happen in the next 6 years when the project is estimated to be completed, and the six years for spent fuel storage; and I humbly predict (my guesses have been right on since 1978 when I first got into this game) that the final cost may well be $1.5+ billion.  This is for a 63MW plant. The current $1.081billion makes the electricity this nuclear unit produced in its 14 year life cost 21 cents/kwh just for decommissioning…let alone the initial capital costs and O&M costs over the past 50 years.  YIKES!

This is real life…in the jaws of the dragon…and very different from the continued propaganda coming from the nuclear industry.  Just today, an article in Chemical & Engineering News cites a cost estimate of $400 million for decommissioning a typical plant. (http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/acs-aar040313.php )  An outright lie!

The current estimate for Diablo Canyon is $3 billion, and San Onofre is $4 billion…right…Humboldt was once $95 million.  Those costs may be 2-3x+?? higher down the road

There are 100+ US reactors that are just beginning to reach the end of their lives, and even with license extension, they will eventually have to be decommissioned.  We’re looking at half a trillion + dollars down the road…and that’s not even estimating what to do with the spent fuel, or what that would even cost. Guess who pays????

A non-nuclear accident at the plant in Arkansas the other day killed one worker and injured 8 others.  The stator on the generator was being removed when the crane failed, and the 500 ton equipment crashed through the floor, severely damaging the turbine building.  That plant will probably not be repaired (huge expense) and will have to be decommissioned.  The fate of Crystal River, Kewaunee. Vermont Yankee, San Onofre are just a few immediate sites of concern…nobody’s really talking about all the others.

Mark Cooper, an energy economist who has been right on in the past, is encouraging the state of Georgia to abandon the two Vogle plants now being constructed.  Writing off the $2 billion already spent will be a lot cheaper than finishing the plants at huge taxpayer subsidy, and then having to eventually fund decommissioning in the future.  The Western Public Power Supply System  did that in the early ‘80’s in the state of Washington, when they defaulted on the two partially build reactors in Clatsop.

And things are not boding well for the nuclear waste side either.  Major problems at Hanford with leaking tanks, and more recently the technical failure of the vitrification plant being built by Bechtel (half built, $12 billion spent, 12 years behind schedule), and now with huge technical problems, most likely will not be completed.  (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/03/science/earth/treatment-plant-for-waste-in-nuclear-cleanup-has-design-flaws-panel-says.html?_r=0 )  So much for reprocessing!

In the rest of the world, decommissioning costs, and waste costs and issues are beginning to come to light in England, France, and South Korea.  China forges ahead, but then, they are China and oblivious to reality...at least for the time being.

Meanwhile, we are very near the time when solar and other renewables are at grid parity…the same cost, if not cheaper, than coal and nuclear (even at its grossly underestimated cost.)

Let the sun shine and the wind blow.  My next piece will look at the state of the renewable industry, and its very rosy outlook for the future.

 

Fukushima Two Years Later

FUKUSHIMA  March 2013

Two years after the earthquake, tsunami, and catastrophic accident at the four reactors in Fukushima, things remain grim.  Here is a synopsis…

“Radioactive contamination levels on site remain extremely high, making the decommissioning of the plant a Herculean task for plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco). The conditions at reactors 1, 2 and 3 remain too severe for workers to enter.  After surveying inside the containment vessels of reactors 1 and 2, the company found radiation levels high enough to kill a human within one hour.”

"What we need to do is isolate, remove and store the damaged and broken nuclear fuel safely," said the 56-year-old plant manager Takeshi Takahashi. "This work will take 30 to 40 years to complete."  This is just to deal with the fuel.  The demolition of the remaining components, structures, and buildings will take many more years after that.

“Tepco is planning to move the undamaged fuel rods from the Reactor # 4 pool to a newly constructed common fuel pool in an operation that is expected to start in November and take a year to complete. The nuclear rods will remain in the common pool for four or five years before being placed in safer dry casks being built at a site further away from the sea front. The common pool, capacity 6,800, already holds 6,300 rods. Therefore Tepco is planning to move out some of these rods once the construction of the dry casks is finished to make space for the rods from the pool in reactor 4.”

“Tepco faces the unprecedented job of having to remove the melted nuclear fuel - including the highly toxic MOX fuel (a mix of plutonium and uranium) from reactor #3 - from the other three damaged reactors as part of the decommissioning. This work is expected to begin around 2022. The exact location inside the reactors of the melted fuel remains unclear, according to Asahi Shimbun. It is expected to be scattered within the pressure vessel, containment vessel and piping system of the reactors.”

“The process of keeping the fuel cool, both inside and outside of the reactors, is yielding roughly 440 tons of water every day, raising the issue of what to do with the contaminated liquid.  Over 700,000 tons are already stored in tanks, and slowly being treated.”  Also, there is approximately 400 metric tons of groundwater leaking into the reactor buildings, and they are building a bypass system to try to stop the groundwater flowing from high ground into the buildings.”  The concern, of course, is contamination of the ocean and fisheries.

This “cleanup” will cost many, many billions of dollars (yen), and as in Chernobyl and Hanford, will probably never really be completely cleaned up.  Add to that the toll to tens of thousands of people who have lost their homes and livelihood, and the impact on the environment, and one has to question the benefits of nuclear power. 

http://atimes.com/atimes/Japan/JAP-01-080313.html

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/08/17234000-rare-tour-of-fukushima-reveals-colossal-decontamination-efforts?lite=

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/08/us-fukushima-disaster-delays-idUSBRE9270A820130308?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&rpc=76

http://www.nirs.org/fukushima/crisis.htm

Nuclear Update

Things are not going so well with the “nuclear renaissance,” not only here in the US, but worldwide.  Again, politics, safety, and proliferation aside, the underlying issue is the economics of these large and complex plants.

Here close to home, the issues with the San Onofre plants are ongoing.  How much will it cost to repair the defective steam generators, and what is the replacement cost of electricity for Southern Cal Edison?  (1)

On the other side of the continent, Florida is in a massive state of confusion with the Crystal River plant.  Repairing it would cost more than what the utility could get out of it, and the whole fiasco is billed at about $3 billion, and that does not include decommissioning and waste disposal. (2)  Other nukes treading on unsound economic ground are Palisades, Pilgrim, Prairie Island, and of course, Vermont Yankee.

What is really happening is the 103 reactors in the US are quickly reaching then end of their useful lives.  Utilities have tried to extend their operating licenses by another 20 years; and some plants may be able to do that.  However the danger of banking on that scenario is not wise, since there is a greater likelihood of a serious malfunction in the future.  Repairs are very expensive, and in some cases, not worth the investment.  It’s sort of like having a 1980 Oldsmobile with 200,000 miles on it and wanting to continue keeping it running.

This all leaves a major problem the industry has been trying to avoid for a while, and that is decommissioning…the very long, complicated, and very expensive process of basically getting rid of the plant.  A lot of utilities do not have the necessary funds in place for the decom costs, which usually are way more than it cost to build the plant in the first place. (3) The other major caveat is that the industry is in total denial as to what the real costs will be, and literally keeps assuring the public that everything is fine.  To top tht off, we really haven’t begun to address the costs of long term waste storage. (4)

Around the world, big economic and technical issues are arising in power plant construction and in waste issues.  China aside, new plant orders are falling by the wayside.  In Finland, the “crown jewel” that Areva is building has proven to be almost a laughing matter in Europe. ”Commercial production at Finnish nuclear reactor Olkiluoto 3 is likely to be delayed until 2016…the reactor was originally scheduled to start operations in 2009, but has been hit by repeated delays and soaring costs.” (5)

The technical realities and costs of waste disposal are just beginning to come to light in Europe.  Sweden, which everyone praised for having “figured out” how to store waste underground in copper canisters, was delivered a recent blow.  These canisters “may not” hold up for 10,000+ years. (6) DUH!

England is also realizing that back end cost of their various nuclear programs are getting very, very expensive.

This does not bode well for the construction of new power plants.  Even the new generation of small modular reactors, which are many years away from actually being developed, tested, and licensed, will prove to be very expensive…especially compared to the decreasing cost of the various renewables. (7)  A very interesting statement came out of China the other day.  The magic number of 50 cents/watt has been the benchmark for the cost of solar cells to be competitive with fossil fuels and nuclear.  We are close to that today, and China says that they will get it down to 47 cents/watt within two years. (8)

Too bad, the US has lost its competitive edge, and will have to rely on imported Chinese “energy,” just as we have been dependent on Middle East oil. 

I’ll leave you with two little quips…the first a headline from the Christian Science Monitor:

 “Georgia nuclear power plant could be Solyndra redux.” (9)

Check out what the waste heat from a power plant can do:

Nuclear power plant causes freak snow storm in Pittsburgh

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2267718/Pittsburgh-nuclear-power-plant-caused-freak-snowfall-moist-air-crystallized-freezing-temperatures.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490

Here are a few sources of information:

(1)  http://articles.latimes.com/2013/feb/15/local/la-me-0215-san-onofre-20130215

(2)  http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/duke-energy-announces-closing-of-crystal-river-nuclear-power-plant/1273794

(3)  http://www.pottsmerc.com/article/20130203/NEWS01/130209867/nrc-exelon-execs-hid-1-billion-shortfall

(4)  http://washingtonexaminer.com/sacramento-utility-gets-35m-in-nuclear-waste-case/article/feed/2068631?custom_click=rss

(5)  http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/02/11/teollisuudenvoima-olkiluoto-idUKL5N0BB9RX20130211

(6)  http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/world/swedens-planned-nuclear-waste-storage-faces-problems-346787.html

(7)  http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/01/28-3

End of 2012 Summary

As 2012 draws to a close, here is my synopsis of the status of nuclear power and renewables.  At the suggestion of several of you, I am changing my format.  I will give you my opinion, and then footnote the appropriate references at the end.  Back to my old school days!

Overall, this has been a bad year for nuclear.  In the US, the “crown jewel” project of the twin reactors in Georgia has fallen behind schedule and over budget.  The new projects in South Carolina and in Florida are on hold; and construction has resumed in Tennessee on a reactor started over 20 years ago.  It will be at least 6 years before we see any of this unaffordable and subsidized electricity. (1)

In Japan, the news is equally grim.  In spite of the “conservative” element being recently elected to power, 50 out of the 52 available reactors are out of service, and will probably remain dormant for 3 or 4 more years…if ever they will come back on line.  The loss has had an impact on Japan’s economy, BUT they are not back “living in the cave” as some have predicted, and in the next few years other options, mainly renewables, will be developed for new electricity generation…maybe not cheap, but definitely cheaper than the nuclear option.

Fukushima remains a complete economic and technical mess, almost two years after the disaster.  They are nowhere close to just stabilizing  reactor #3, and the safe cleanup of the 4 reactor sites will take years…decades… and billions of dollars.  Just like Chernobyl, where a new huge dome is being constructed just so they can begin to slowly decontaminate and dismantle the failed reactor.  Again, billions of dollars and a lot of time. (2)

In Europe, the prize reactors in Flamanville and Olkiluoto are both in financial and timeline troubles.  Major reactor vendors are pushing their way with small non-free market countries to build reactors, and even though there is a lot of talk with Arab nations and Brazil, we’ll just have to wait the 5 or so years to see if any of this really happens.

Meanwhile, the renewables, IN SPITE of everything that is continuously being thrown at them, continue to thrive and grow.  The most startling announcement comes from the American Wind Energy Association which stated that they would like an extension of the Wind Energy Tax Credit, and phasing that credit out over 6 years.  In 6 years, wind energy will be more than cost competitive with any new electricity generation technology…it is very close to natural gas now! (3)

Two last bits of info.  There are many things that go into establishing the “COST” of electricity.  The first is the capital investment in constructing the generating facility; the second is the cost of fuel and operating and maintaining the facility; and then there are other costs…taxes, infrastructure, profits, decommissioning of facilities, etc.  For years, the nuclear industry has claimed (and they still do) that nuclear is the cheapest way to produce electricity…based on “production costs.”  Here is a recent quote from the Nuclear Energy Institute: “Nuclear power is the lowest-cost producer of baseload electricity. Nuclear production costs have remained steady for more than 10 years averaging 2.19 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2011. This includes the costs of operating and maintaining the plant, purchasing fuel, and paying for the management of used fuel.”  So what does this mean, and how does this relate to solar and wind energy?  First, the renewables have no cost of fuel…no uranium mining, enrichment, fabrication, transportation, and waste management ( the waste management fee cited for nuclear is way, way to little as we have seen with the failed Yucca Mountain project.)  Although wind does have O&M costs, most PV solar systems have minimal costs.  In 1989, my college and I visited two 1MW PV facilities in Southern California.  Each was operating at full power on a sunny day, and yet we could not find anyone to give us a tour or talk about what was going on…all we saw were locked gates, and arrays of panels slowly moving and following the sun.  This was over 20 years ago…things have gotten better. We just passed a wind farm in Yolo County on our way home from Christmas, and I didn’t even see a truck parked at any of the turbines.  The capital costs of building these facilities are way cheaper than constructing a nuclear power plant by a factor of 3x.  So, the only thing true in above claim is “baseload” electricity.  The sun does’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow…but our new technology can/will deal with these intermitencies in the new smart grid. (4)

One last bit of homework for you.  The US energy data for 2011 has been analyzed again by LLNL.  I always found this chart a huge fountain of information…at least it is good bathroom reading! (5)

Happy New Year, and may the sun shine and the wind blow…hope for fewer big storms…but then again, that’s a whole other topic!

(1)   Nukes

http://chronicle.augusta.com/news/metro/2012-12-04/vogtle-loan-guarantee-extension-sought?v=1354614875

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-24/eon-to-withdraw-from-finnish-fennovoima-nuclear-reactor-project.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-06/edf-france-reactor-cost-rise-may-pressure-u-k-power-price-talks.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/04/enel-edf-idUSL5E8N4DIJ20121204

http://www.foxbusiness.com/news/2012/12/13/areva-again-raises-estimate-cost-olkiluoto-reactor/

http://www.earth-policy.org/data_highlights/2012/highlights33

(2)   Japan

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201212180087

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/28/us-japan-nuclear-idUSBRE8BR02T20121228?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Reuters%2FworldNews+%28Reuters+World+News%29

(3)   Renewables

http://www.wptz.com/news/money/Wind-industry-OK-with-giving-up-tax-credit/-/8869718/17851060/-/nk1n7d/-/index.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-21/wind-power-generation-beating-natural-gas-in-u-s-in-2012.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/02/us-climate-qatar-solar-idUSBRE8B10AC20121202?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews

(4)   Nuclear Energy Institute

http://www.nei.org/Key-Issues/reliableandaffordableenergy/economicgrowth

(5)   Energy use chart

http://blog.opower.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Estimated-US-Energy-Use-in-2011-97-quads.png

Nuclear Power status at the end of 2012

With a lot going on to comment on, I’ll limit myself to a short update on the “nuclear renaissance.”  And again, the focus is on economics.

The big news is the delay of the completion of the only nuclear power plant under construction in the US.

http://www.romenews-tribune.com/view/full_story/20952933/article-Georgia-nuclear-plant-may-not-start-up-until-2017?instance=home_news_lead_story

First conceived in 2005 as part of a nuclear renewal of 100+, then 30, then 12, then 5 new plants, and now just this one, the prediction of huge budget overruns and delays continue to loom…again I say that if and when this one begins operation, it’s electricity will be so expensive that it won’t be able to compete on the open market without even more federal government subsidies.

Meanwhile, the industry remains locked in its ignorance and greed.

In Florida, the utility continues to charge consumers for future nuke plants that will never be built.  Sounds like a tax hike to me!

http://www.romenews-tribune.com/view/full_story/20952933/article-Georgia-nuclear-plant-may-not-start-up-until-2017?instance=home_news_lead_story

The old nukes are running out of steam…nobody wants to buy them at their “cheap” sale price, and license extension is now on hold.

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20121110/ISSUE01/311109984/constellation-energy-takeover-not-working-out-as-planned-for-exelon  &

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/24/business/energy-environment/economics-forcing-some-nuclear-plants-into-retirement.html?_r=1&  &

http://www.victoriaadvocate.com/news/2012/aug/28/am_exelon_082912_186492/?business&breaking-news

Decommissioning costs are now beginning to become obvious not only here but in the rest of the world.  (Our Humboldt Bay nuke is now up to $800m+, with seven more years of work to go.)  Nuclear wastes are piling up everywhere around the world, and the costs of storing them is just starting to be understood.  Cleanup work in Fukushima and Chernobyl is running into countless billions of dollars, with no end in site.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/aging-nuke-plants-add-europes-economic-woes-17747229#.ULevgGdApEF  &

http://nz.sports.yahoo.com/news/tepco-says-fukushima-clean-compensation-065801297.html

The new small modular reactors will probably never be deployed due to economics, as well as nuclear materials concerns; and the next big accident will really put a halt to all this nonsense.

Meanwhile, in spite of everything and all the money the anti-renewable folks have put forth to stop wind, solar, and biofuels, those industries are doing fairly well.  It is amazing to understand the potential renewables has in terms of energy supply and security, job creation and wealth, and environmental benefits, and see the ignorance and greed by the 1%ers who control our energy policy.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-02/u-s-solar-job-growth-outshines-rest-of-economy-non-profit-says.html  &

http://www.examiner.com/article/koch-brothers-affiliate-is-out-to-kill-wind-tax-credit?cid=rss  &

http://bangordailynews.com/2012/11/25/politics/climate-skeptics-target-state-energy-laws-including-maines/

A very interesting summary of where we are, and where we can go is available from Bloomberg.

http://about.bnef.com/2012/05/24/re-imagining-us-solar-financing-a-report-commissioned-by-reznick-group/ &

http://about.bnef.com/2012/11/01/wind-farm-operation-and-maintenance-costs-plummet/

It all boils down to money…and policy (which usually is controlled by money.)  But, the times they are a-changing!

The Early History of Humboldt Bay Nuclear Power Plant

Here are two historical articles on the Humboldt Bay Nuclear Power Plant.

#1 from the the local Eureka Humboldt Standard,  Feb 21, 1958

PG&E Head Reveals Huge Project Cost

The atomic power-plant which Pacific Gas & Electric Company plans to build near Eureka will cost 28 million dollars to build and operate for four years, according to PG&E President Norman R.Sutherland.. 

He said the 60,000 kilowatt plant, which will produce economical nuclear electricity, will be built by BechteI Corp  for 20 million dollars. This compares with 11 million dollars for a conventional steam plant.

Uranium to run the plant for 3 ½ to 4 ½ years will be rented from the government for five million dollars, Sutherland told a press conference Thursday.  It will cost another  Three million dollars to fabricate the uranium into pellets for the core of the boiling-water type reactor furnace.

Cheaper Than Oil

He said the eight million dollar cost for fuel is about-half that of oil used in steam plants, therefore, costs of building and operating the nuclear plant would begin to balance out with the costs of conventional plants with the second core or batch of uranium fuel.

Sutherland said Eureka was picked for the site of the new plant because it has moderately high fuel costs.   “Oil for steam ‘plants must be barged in and it is remote from our general transmission system,” he said. “Two 100,000 volt lines’ are brought ‘in 110 miles over the Trinity Mountains f r o m Lockwood, and standby facilities must be maintained.”

Negotiating for Land

Sutherland said PG&E is negotiating to buy land on the coast near San Francisco for future construction of a nuclear plant. He said studies are continuing, although so far surveys have indicated that such a plant would be competitive with steam and hydro electric plants.  Asked if he believed the’ Eureka plant indicated the coming obsolescence of steam am hydroelectric plants, Sutherland replied: “Emphatically no.”  “It may do so. In the Eureka area,” he said, “but not in our general system. In fact, we now have five hydroelectric and three steam-plants under construction.”

Eureka Humboldt Standard

Feb 21, 1958   p9

**************************************************************

#2 From the Sierra Club Magazine, 1984

The Short, Sad Life and

                      Long, Slow Death of Humboldt Bay

NUCLEAR ENERGY made its California debut in 1958, when Pacific Gas & Electric announced that the state's first atomic-power plant would be built on the remote north coast. Two years later surveyors mapped out a site a few miles south of Eureka, and in September 1963 Humboldt Bay became the seventh nuclear-power plant in the country to go on-line.

In what was to prove an inauspicious beginning, Humboldt underwent two sudden emergency shutdowns within its first two months of operation. For ten weeks during 1965, faulty fuel rods released uncontrolled radiation. A near-meltdown occurred in July 1970, the year that Humboldt, which led all the nation's reactors in radioactive emissions, was labeled the country's "dirtiest" nuke by Science magazine.

The beginning of the end for Humboldt came in 1976, when a Forest Service geologist documented the existence of two active earthquake faults in the vicinity, one only 56 feet from the reactor. The plant was closed for refueling at the time, and ­following a petition by citizen intervenors to keep it shut down permanently-the Nuclear Regulatory Commission ruled that Humboldt should not be reopened.

The plant was removed from PG&E's rate base in 1979. In July 1983 the utility announced that it did not plan to operate the plant ever again and that the decommissioning process would begin.

Because the shutdown of the plant in 1976 had not eliminated the earthquake danger, citizen activists had begun their own decommissioning process years before PG&E's 1983 announcement. They sponsored conferences on decommissioning in 1979 and 1981 to focus community attention on the technical and financial problems facing Humboldt. No one had any clear idea how the decommissioning process was going to work, and PG&E had used the money collected from ratepayers for decommissioning to pay the utility's day-to-day operating expenses.

In 1983 the PUC ruled that all state utilities must establish an "external sinking fund," a separate fund for decommissioning that would be outside the utilities' control. The ruling did not settle the financial controversy over Humboldt.  PG&E now claims that, because it was fulfilling its responsibility to provide eco­nomical energy to its customers, the ratepayers should be responsible for the full costs of decommissioning; the utility has requested a $130-million rate hike for this purpose. Others argue that the majority of the burden should be borne by PG&E stockholders, because Humboldt failed to operate for even half its expected lifetime. The PUC has yet to determine who should pay how much for how long.

Technical questions remain as well. P&E has not made a formal announcement concerning its decommissioning plans, but it apparently intends to delay dismantle­ment of the Humboldt Bay facility until 2015. Meanwhile, it has already embarked on a modified version of safe storage: The fuel rods have been removed from the reactor core and placed in an on-site storage pool. Critics are concerned about the safety of the storage plan: The pool is below sea level and only 100 yards from the ocean-and the earthquake faults that were there in 1976 have not disappeared.

As an intervenor since 1978 in the NRC proceedings regarding Humboldt, the Sierra Club is asking for a full environmental impact statement on PG&E's decommis­sioning plans. The Club contends that decommissioning is a matter of great public interest and that approval of a plan would constitute "major federal action signifi­cantly affecting the quality of the human environment."

Humboldt Bay operated for a mere 13 years. Its afterlife could indeed be an eternity. -Annie Stine / Sierra #69, 1984