(From the article) > Last year the Biden administration announced it would give PG&E a $1.1 billion grant to help keep the plant open.
One idea:
$1.1 billion dollars will buy around that many watts of installed solar, at today's prices. Vastly more in another decade.
They've named it the duck curve: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve
The nuclear plant produces 2.2GW. Solar costs $1/W. So $1.1 billion will get you 1.1GW.
The plant thus has twice the return on investment of solar - and is already here right now and doesn't need to be constructed.
It makes more sense to shut the plant once no more coal or gas is being burned, rather than waste all that energy right now.
So actually getting a continuous 2.2GW from the nuclear plant will cost a lot more than $1.1 billion.
Operational expenses of properly built & operated nuclear plants are very low, which is the whole point. If there's a billion dollars required to keep it running, despite high energy prices in the state, something is very wrong.
I know nothing of the california plant, but I suspect its in a similar situation.
If so, the 1.1 billion is not running costs, but capital spent to renew parts of the plant, replace some parts and so on. The plants of the 70s were typically built with a projected 50 year life span, so extending it another 50% is not cheap, although cheaper than building a new one.
Your point about solar is well made. But solar is not 27x7 so its not comparing an equivalent thing. Solar and wind are enormously useful, and I'm a fan, but they're not enough by themselves, and won't be until we figure out how to store gw of power.
Running a nuclear plant in an earthquake zone is not ideal, but its hard to see any better alternatives at the moment.
That would explain it. Thanks for the data point.
> Your point about solar is well made.
That's actually somebody else's point, not mine. :)
As for night time, sure, spend half the $1.1 billion on solar panels and the other half on batteries.