BILL ANALYSIS
AB 42
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Date of Hearing: March 23, 2009
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON UTILITIES AND COMMERCE
Felipe Fuentes, Chair
AB 42 (Blakeslee) - As Amended: March 17, 2009
SUBJECT : Pacific Gas and Electric Company: Seismic Survey.
SUMMARY : Requires Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) to
use the California Energy Commission (CEC) to conduct an imaging
survey to map the fault characteristics in the vicinity of the
Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant (Diablo Canyon) that could
potentially disrupt the reliable operation of the electric
transmission grid.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Requires the CEC to adopt an Energy Report every two years
that includes an overview of major energy trends and issues,
including: supply, demand, pricing, reliability, efficiency,
impacts on public health and safety, the economy, resources,
and the environment. The Energy Report is required to include
policy recommendations based on an in-depth and integrated
analysis of the most current and pressing energy issues facing
the state.
2)Requires the CEC to include in the Energy Report an
electricity supply forecast that includes a compilation and
assessment of existing scientific studies to determine the
potential vulnerability to a major disruption due to aging or
a major seismic event of large baseload generation facilities,
of 1,700 megawatts or greater.
3)Requires the CEC to conduct an assessment of the vulnerability
of large baseload generation facilities to include an analysis
of the impact of a major disruption on system reliability,
public safety, and the economy, and adopt the assessment by
November 1, 2008.
4)Precludes the CEC from permitting nuclear powerplants until
the federal government has identified and approved the
construction and operation of nuclear fuel rod reprocessing
plants.
THIS BILL :
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1)Makes the following findings:
a) The California Public Utilities Commission (PUC)
authorized an expenditure of $16.8 million ratepayer funds
to explore the feasibility of relicensing Diablo Canyon,
and the PUC requested PG&E to defer the relicensing
feasibility study until after the CEC completes its seismic
vulnerability report and include the CEC 's findings and
recommendations in its own work.
b) The CEC made several findings and recommendations in its
seismic vulnerability report, in particular, that PG&E
should use three-dimensional geophysical seismic reflection
mapping and other advanced techniques to explore fault
zones near Diablo Canyon.
c) The July 2007 magnitude 6.8 Japan Sea earthquake located
16 kilometers (almost 10 miles) from Toyota Electric Power
Company's nuclear power plant shut down the facility at a
cost of some hundreds of million of dollars per month.
d) In November 2008, the United States Geological Survey
(USGS) identified a previously unidentified offshore fault
approximately one kilometer (a little more than half a
mile) west of Diablo Canyon with an estimated ability to
generate a magnitude 6.5 earthquake.
2)Requires PG&E to seek funding for seismic fault studies in
order to maintain reliable operation of the electrical grid
and reduce impacts to customer rates as a result of a seismic
event.
3)Requires the CEC to conduct a peer review of any studies
conducted pursuant to the seismic fault studies, and permits
the CEC to enter into agreements with academic and industry
groups of scientists with expertise to conduct the scientific
peer review.
4)Requires the CEC to include findings and recommendations of
the fault study and peer review in the integrated energy
policy report as updates.
5)Requires the PUC to allow PG&E to fully recover costs from all
of their electrical customers for investments in fault studies
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and seismic retrofits.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown.
COMMENTS : According to the author, the purpose of this bill is
to ensure that as PG&E explores the feasibility of relicensing
Diablo Canyon, both PG&E and the state understand the economic
and reliability risks of the plant's extended operation. The
CEC's recommendations from its seismic assessment will provide
the detailed information about the seismic setting around the
plant.
1) Background : The state's two operating nuclear plants,
PG&E-owned Diablo Canyon and Southern California Edison-owned
(SCE) San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), account for
12 percent of the state's electricity supply. Each plant faces
uncertain amount of damages due to earthquakes erupting directly
below the plants, or ground motion resulting from a nearby
earthquake rupture.
According to the CEC, a major disruption of California's
operating nuclear plants could result in a shutdown of plant
operations for several months to more than a year or even cause
the retirement of one or more of the plants' reactors. Because
these plants contribute a significant portion of the state's
electricity supply, AB 1632 (Blakeslee), Chapter 722, Statutes
of 2006, directed the CEC to determine the potential
vulnerability of the state's largest generating plants due to
aging or a major seismic event, assess the impacts that such a
disruption would have on system reliability, public safety, and
the economy, and evaluate other major issues related to the
future role of these plants in the state's energy portfolio in
order to be ready should a disruption occur. The CEC included
this assessment in the 2008 Integrated Energy Policy Report
Update.
On November 21, 2008, PG&E announced that they had discovered an
additional earthquake fault several miles offshore from their
Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. The nature of the fault is
unknown, as is its relationship with the Hosgri fault, which is
also located just about a half a mile offshore from Diablo
Canyon. The discovery of the second fault raises new questions
about the seismic risks of Diablo Canyon; in particular the
plant's vulnerability to a major disruption in electricity
generation due to an earthquake, which could impact the
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reliability of the state's energy supply and greatly increase
costs to ratepayers.
2) The Japan experience : In July 2007, a magnitude 6.8
earthquake in Japan rocked the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power
Plant (KKNPP), the largest nuclear plant in the world. The
plant experienced ground motion nearly twice the shaking that
was considered when the plant was designed, resulting in minor
radioactive leaks into the Sea of Japan and into the atmosphere.
The unexpected severity of the ground motion, in addition to
minor radioactive leaks, forced local officials to shut the
plant down.
As a result of the plant's closure the Tokyo Electric Power
Company (TEPCO), owners and operators of KKNPP, has been forced
to rely on fossil fuel generation to replace the 8,200 MW
previously generated by the nuclear facility. This cost TEPCO an
additional $4.1 billion in replacement fossil fuel for FY 2007
alone.
3) Whose fault is it anyway : There are numerous active fault
lines in and offshore California. Since 1900, almost 90 damaging
earthquakes with a magnitude over 6.0 have occurred within the
state resulting in billions of dollars of property damage and
thousands of deaths and injuries. Just last year, the USGS
identified a previously unknown earthquake fault just a little
over a half a mile from Diablo Canyon with the potential to
generate an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.5.
4) To relicense, or not to relicense : Diablo Canyon and SONGS
have been operating for roughly half of their 40-year initial
license periods. PG&E sought $16.8 million in ratepayer funds
(which included $5 million for legal and technical staff to
counter public intervention against extending the operating
license) to explore the feasibility of extending its licenses
for another 20 years until the early to mid-2040s. (Diablo
Canyon's operating licenses expire in 2024 and 2025, while SONGS
operating licenses expire in 2022.)
These plants produce significant quantities of radioactive waste
in the form of spent fuel and other radioactively contaminated
materials. The waste is stored on site in pools and in dry
casks as a temporary plan until the federal government completes
Yucca Mountain as a permanent deep geologic repository. The
federal waste disposal program has been gradually defunded and
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may never materialize. As such, California's utilities will
likely be forced to retain spent fuel in storage facilities at
currently operating reactor sites for an indefinite period of
time. The CEC has recommended a state evaluation of the
long-term implications associated with the continuing
accumulation of spent fuel at California's operating plants.
The Clean Water Act may also affect the nuclear plants'
relicensing feasibility. Both Diablo Canyon and SONGS use a
once-through cooling process to cool the power plant generators.
To implement the federal Clean Water Act, the State Water
Resources Control Board issued a "scoping document," which
requires Diablo Canyon and SONGS to implement measures to reduce
environmental damage due to once-through cooling structures by
January 1, 2021. The Water Board may provide an exemption if
compliance would result in a conflict with the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission safety requirements. However, the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission defers to states with regard to issuing
the permits to discharge.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
The Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility
Opposition
Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) (unless amended)
Analysis Prepared by : Gina Adams / U. & C. / (916) 319-2083