Forbes
November 10, 2021
by Ken Silverstein
Some Californians and powerful scholars are trying to resurrect nuclear energy in the state from the dead. They want PG&E Corp. to keep its Diablo Canyon plant in operation past its planned closure for 2025. The reason: California cannot meet its climate change obligations without it.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University have raised new questions. In their just-released study [performed with LucidCatalyst], they conclude that extending Diablo Canyon through 2045 would save $21 billion — a number that would be compounded if the plant could be also used to produce hydrogen and desalinated water. If the plant stayed operational from 2025 to 2035, they say that CO2 levels would drop by 10% a year and displace natural gas use, saving customers $2.6 billion.
“We are seeing that current nuclear plants are under threat because of business models,” says Arjun Majumdar, with Stanford’s Precourt Institute for Energy and a former under-secretary at the Department of Energy during President Obama’s tenure, at a news conference. “It is difficult to sustain nuclear. But in the broader business context, it can be used to produce hydrogen at $2 a kilogram and to address fresh-water needs. The sunk costs are already there.”
...
Justin Aborn, a Senior Consultant at LucidCatalyst, LLC, performed the analysis in and wrote Chapters 3 and 4 of the report.