AVA Board of Directors,
I urge AVA to accept carbon-free power from Diablo Canyon, as part of its clean electricity portfolio.
Refusing Diablo’s power will increase AVA’s costs by tens of millions of dollars, and will also increase AVA’s carbon emissions, by requiring more fossil generation.
Thus, it would move AVA backwards in terms of its primary promises to its customers, i.e., lower power costs and lower emissions. It will also result in AVA having a higher carbon intensity than PG&E, thus breaking another one of its commitments.
Suffering these negative economic and environmental impacts makes no sense, as there is no reason to discriminate against nuclear. There is a strong consensus among the world’s formal scientific bodies that nuclear is clean, and that is as good as renewable sources like solar and wind, in terms of climate and public health and safety. The environmental impacts of both renewables and nuclear are tiny; orders of magnitude smaller than those of fossil power generation. Thus, reducing fossil fuel generation must be the priority.
The above scientific consensus is reflected in policy shifts towards tech-neutrality and treating nuclear the same as renewables. The European Union included nuclear in its taxonomy of clean energy sources. The US federal Inflation Reduction Act, which promotes clean energy development, gives nuclear and renewables similar support. Closer to home, California’s climate policy, SB100, includes all carbon-free sources, with respect to meeting the requirement of 100% clean power by 2045.
Recent polling shows that over 2/3 of Bay Area residents favor keeping Diablo Canyon running. Thus, it’s pretty clear that most of AVA’s customers also support Diablo, given the opt out policy. It is therefore very likely that most of AVA’s customers would not support paying more for power, and having a higher carbon footprint, just to arbitrarily exclude a large, clean, carbon-free power source.
James E. Hopf
Tracy, CA 95376