Ruling gives natural gas edge to replace nuclear energy in California

After the official retirement of California’s largest nuclear plant last June, many in the environmental community there were celebrating.

Now that the state’s public utility commissioners have said that the state’s utilities can use natural gas to replace a portion of that lost power, they are far less sanguine. The closure of Southern California Edison ’s San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in June 2013 opened up a whole other debate, which is how to supplant a carbon-free electricity source in a state that has caps on how much carbon pollution utilities can emit. As expected, natural gas will be the primary fuel to do so, given that it is abundant and relatively affordable — and it’s also a fuel that can run around-the-clock.

When natural gas is burned, though, it still emits carbon dioxide, albeit about half as much as coal. That’s why many in the environmental community are opposed to using it as a replacement to nuclear energy. Instead, they are insisting that green energy and energy efficiency methods can step up.

SONGS cranked out 2,200 megawatts of carbon-free electricity before it was retired, all because of persistent technical issues tied to uncommon vibrations and a small radiation leak. By 2022, the utilities that relied on that power — Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric — will need to procure 1,500 megawatts.

Of that, about 575 megawatts must come from “preferred sources” that include green energy, energy storage and energy efficiency — an amount to be proportioned based on how much nuclear energy each company had come to depend. The rest is likely to be generated from natural gas.

The proposal, released March 13, is now out for a 30-day comment period. At the end of that time, the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) will formalize its plan. Edison owns about 78 percent of the idled nuclear power unit while San Diego Gas Electric owns 20 percent. The city of Riverside owns less than 2 percent of it.

“This groundbreaking decision begins the process of acquiring new resources to replace the 2,200 megawatts that the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station would have supplied,” Commissioner Mike Florio said in a statement. “The CPUC and the utilities will work to ensure going forward that preferred resources can provide not just clean energy, but the essential reliability services that are needed to ensure a stable and reliable grid.”

California is on target to hit its goal of generating at least a third of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020. Most of that now comes from hydropower but the state expects solar power to increasingly gain ground. Altogether, green energy supplies the state with slightly more than 8,000 megawatts.

The state is rich with sustainable energies. But many of those resources are located in remote areas and cannot be easily transported to urban areas via the grid. Indeed, the CPUC is acutely aware that insufficient infrastructure as well as an array of essential environmental permits to build transmission could impede progress.

Moreover, “Because generation from sources may vary over time … it can cause difficulties for grid operators who must maintain a constant balance between generation supply and real-time customer demand…,” says the CPUC, which is to say that the wind and sun don’t blow or shine on demand.

As such, natural gas is the most plausible option to firm up wind and solar. More than enough of it exists with the recent discoveries of shale gas; the unconventional natural gas is extracted from rocks more than a mile beneath the ground using hydraulic fracturing. That withdrawal technique, though, is under fire from some community organizations that say it is polluting their drinking water and creating excessive methane emissions that is a potent greenhouse gas.

That’s why green groups want the CPUC to nix all fossil fuels and to rely exclusively on sustainable energy to make up for the loss of SONGS. “While the utilities will be required to replace at least some of the power with preferred renewable resources, the Commission has also authorized building more energy capacity than is necessary,” says Will Rostov, Earthjustice staff attorney, who represented Sierra Club in the proceeding.

For now, the SONG’s closure means more greenhouse gas emissions, reports the California Air Resources Board. Since the nuclear facility was originally idled in January 2012 — it officially closed in June 2013 — such releases are up by 35 percent. Before that, it said that those emissions had been declining.

California’s climate change and renewable energy goals are laudable. But environmentalists must realize that the loss of nuclear energy impedes climate progress and that replacing the fuel is challenging. More wind and solar are coming but so, too, is greater natural gas.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2014/03/20/ruling-gives-natural-gas-edge-to-replace-nuclear-energy-in-california/?ss=business:energy