[NukeNet] Calif. Bill Would Allow New Nuclear Power Plants

[Diane Farsetta]

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/40635/story.htm

Calif. Bill Would Allow New Nuclear Power Plants
US: March 2, 2007


LOS ANGELES - A California ban on new nuclear power plants is being  
challenged by a bill introduced in the state legislature by an Orange  
County Republican who said Wednesday the state needs the plants if it  
wishes to cut greenhouse gases and keep electricity affordable.

California banned new nuclear power plant construction in 1976 until  
"there exists a demonstrated technology for the permanent disposal of  
spent fuel," according to the California Energy Commission.

Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, a Republican from Irvine, last week  
introduced the bill, which he says he will bring back each year if it  
proves unpopular, as expected, this session.

While his bill faces an uphill battle for passage, Devore says any  
realistic look at California's energy future -- if it is to meet the  
cuts in greenhouse gas emissions made law last year -- must include  
nuclear power.

"If we aim to reduce CO2 (carbon dioxide) without bankrupting the  
state and still have working class people afford power, the only way  
to have that done is modern nuclear power," DeVore said.

Nuclear power does not emit carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas linked  
to global warming.

California last year passed an ambitious law requiring the state to  
cut greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020, to levels not  
seen since 1990.

DeVore said his bill is not against the spirit of the 1976 ban. He  
said if a new plant were ordered immediately, it would be more than  
10 years before it created any waste, by when he expected a waste  
site would be established.

DeVore said he told the state's three big investor-owned utilities of  
his plans to introduce his bill.

"One of them asked me not to do it," DeVore said. "They said 'We're  
not ready for that fight yet.' I think the time is right. I don't see  
how we make our numbers without nuclear being a sizeable component."

California's big three investor-owned utilities are Pacific Gas &  
Electric Co., a subsidiary of PG&E Corp., Southern California Edison,  
a subsidiary of Edison International, and San Diego Gas & Electric  
Co., a subsidiary of Sempra Energy.

No US nuclear power plants have been ordered since 1978, the year  
before the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania.

There are now 103 working US reactors with the capacity to produce  
about 98,560 megawatts, enough to power about 75 million homes. That  
is 10 percent of US generating capacity.

"It's time that we consider allowing the construction of new nuclear  
power plants, especially given that the state of the art has improved  
so far since the last ones were built," DeVore said.

California has two nuclear power stations that, along with imported  
power from a nuclear power plant in Arizona, in 2005 provided 13  
percent of the electricity consumed in the state, according to a  
report by the California Energy Commission.

California's two plants -- the Diablo Canyon plant near San Luis  
Obispo operated by Pacific Gas & Electric, and Southern California  
Edison's San Onofre plant in San Clemente -- produce about 4,325  
megawatts of electricity, or enough to power about 3 million  
California homes.


Story by Bernie Woodall


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Diane Farsetta, PhD
Senior Researcher,
Center for Media & Democracy
520 University Avenue, Suite 227
Madison, WI 53703
phone: 608-260-9713
fax: 608-260-9714
email: diane at prwatch.org
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