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
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
