.png)
According to the study of SEOToolsKit.co. The Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in California has a checkered history. After more than a decade of protests and legal battles over the plant's construction, the two reactors began operation in 1985 and 1987, respectively. Since then, the plant has consistently provided about 9% of California's electricity, but its two reactors were scheduled to be decommissioned in 2024 and 2025, respectively. However, in 2022, the California state legislature passed a bill that would extend the plant's operation for up to 30 years. Regulatory authorities also approved this.
The postponement of the decommissioning of the Diablo Canyon power plant is a rare bright spot for the U.S. nuclear power industry by funkyadjunct, which has struggled in recent decades. Nuclear reactors operating across the United States are on average about 40 years old , and are rapidly aging. In recent years, economic pressures have led to the early closure of several nuclear power plants , and more are planned to shut down in the future.
Extending Diablo Canyon's operations makes sense from the perspective of ensuring a stable supply of electricity and reducing carbon emissions as mentioned in cavalerie.net. On the other hand, the plant's journey highlights the serious challenges facing the industry. This shows that the U.S. nuclear power industry is becoming an old-fashioned industry dominated by older people rather than a evolving and innovative field. In the United States, building new
nuclear power plants is extremely difficult and expensive. This is because regulators' attitudes toward radiation risks are holding the industry back. Regulators rely on the idea that exposure to even small doses of radiation increases the risk of cancer. As a result, exposure limits and safety requirements have become extremely strict. However, a growing body of evidence suggests that low doses of radiation are less harmful than commonly thought and may even have health benefits by stimulating cellular repair mechanisms. But outdated thinking persists among regulators, based on unscientific precautions rather than objective risk assessments .
This assumption of risk avoidance makes the construction of new nuclear power plants prohibitively expensive. That's why only two nuclear reactors have come online in the United States in recent decades . While the construction of new nuclear reactors is being blocked, existing reactors are becoming increasingly obsolete. For this reason, the Diablo Canyon Power Plant has been extended its lifespan after nearly 40 years of operation.
The problem is that under the current radiation-phobic regulatory framework, even decommissioning old reactors is a slow, expensive and difficult task. Decommissioning requires a series of work such as decontamination, dismantling, and waste disposal, and it is estimated that the Diablo Canyon power plant will take several decades to close and cost approximately $4 billion (approximately 610 billion yen). has been done. After decommissioning, some power plants must continue to store radioactive waste on-site indefinitely. Excessive fear of radiation has trapped the industry in a kind of prison, making it unnecessarily difficult to build new nuclear power plants and decommission old reactors. Nuclear power plants continue to operate far beyond their originally planned lifetimes. Even if an aging power plant is shut down, the site cannot be immediately reused. The result is severe rigidity. Environmental groups are currently suing to shut down the Diablo Canyon power plant immediately, arguing that the aging nuclear power plant poses an unacceptable risk. Although these groups may seem to be exaggerating the dangers, they are not completely wrong. That's because aging, outdated reactors make up the majority of nuclear power plants, which is not ideal. If the industry is healthy, aging power plants like Diablo Canyon will be steadily replaced by a new generation of safer, more efficient nuclear reactors. Of course, there are benefits to extending Diablo Canyon's operations. This will help maintain the stability of California's electricity supply and reduce carbon dioxide emissions during power generation. Best of all, it is easier to extend the life of an existing power plant than to build a new one from scratch. However, this is just a temporary stopgap measure that highlights the aging problem of nuclear power generation.
Ultimately, the nuclear industry needs regulatory laws based on accurate and modern radiation risk assessments. Unless the current situation changes, it is expected that situations like Diablo Canyon will increase. Since it is extremely difficult not only to construct new nuclear power plants but also to shut down existing ones, the only option is to extend the operation of aging power plants. To break out of this stagnation, we need to fundamentally change the dominant thinking.
Comments