In San Francisco, federal prosecutors are laying the groundwork for a criminal trial of Pacific Gas & Electric that will begin in March. In preliminary filings, prosecutors paint a scathing picture of PG&E negligence leading to the 2010 explosion of natural gas pipelines in San Bruno, which killed eight and wiped out a neighborhood.

How is that bad for the PUC? Because implicit in the federal allegations that 28 felonies were committed by PG&E is that the utility was not facing serious regulation before the catastrophe in San Bruno, a suburb south of San Francisco. Here is part of the San Jose Mercury News’s recent coverage:

“The government intends to offer proof that PG&E’s willful decisions not to maintain records, conduct proper pipeline assessments, and otherwise comply with federal pipeline safety regulations were part of a corporate culture of prioritizing profits over safety,” federal prosecutors wrote in papers filed on Nov. 2 with the U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

 

“The prosecutors in the trial are being very aggressive,” said Peter Henning, a professor of law with Wayne State University in Detroit. …

 

“They are trying to frame this case for a jury, and the government is attempting to frame this around a single word: greed,” Henning said.

 

PG&E faces a fine of up to $1.13 billion if convicted on the federal criminal charges.

‘Edison was driving the bus’

Meanwhile, in Southern California, politicians and consumer advocates have grown increasingly critical of the PUC-orchestrated, already-approved plan to have ratepayers cover 70 percent of the $4.7 billion cost to close the San Onofre nuclear plant and safely shutter its two reactors, whose 2011 malfunctions led to the release of small amounts of radiation.

Since the plan was approved in fall 2014, it’s been revealed that Peevey had never-disclosed meetings with Southern California Edison executives over how to apportion San Onofre closing costs, including a 2013 meeting in a Warsaw hotel room between Peevey and an Edison official. Edison owns 80 percent of San Onofre and San Diego Gas & Electric owns 20 percent.

But other questions have emerged about the PUC’s stewardship that go beyond the propriety of these undisclosed meetings.

The Los Angeles Times delved into the expert testimony that the PUC reviewed before approving the settlement and reported that one expert blamed Edison’s poor management for the problems with leaking steam generators which are used to cool the nuclear reactors and keep them safe to operate. The expert questioned the utility’s insistence on blaming Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the branch of the Japanese conglomerate that made and installed the generators.

Arnie Gundersen, a nuclear engineer who served as an expert witness regarding the handling of San Onofre’s generators, said at a minimum both Edison and Mitsubishi are at fault.

 

“When I reviewed all the data it was clear to me that Southern California Edison was the one driving the bus,” Gundersen said.

 

“Mitsubishi wanted the contract and agreed to some very onerous terms in order to get it.”

 

Gundersen said the San Onofre case is similar to two incidents in Florida, where an agreement was reached over the closed Crystal River nuclear plant that led to billions in costs to consumers. In addition, he said, the St. Lucie nuclear plant had similar steam generator problems as San Onofre.

A KPBS report also alleged that Edison acted deceptively in its 2006 meeting with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, never telling NRC officials of concerns about the steam generators that let Edison to complain to Mitsubishi in both 2004 and 2005. It appears the PUC was unaware that the utility’s concerns about steam generator problems dated to 2004.

‘The same people always get paid’ by PUC

A San Diego Union-Tribune analysis also raised questions about the PUC negotiations that led to the agreement assigning most of the shutdown costs to ratepayers.

The biggest beneficiary of a state program aimed at leveling the playing field between utilities and their customers is a Bay Area consumer group that privately negotiated the deal assigning customers 70 percent of the costs for the failure of the San Onofre nuclear plant.

 

The Utility Reform Network, or TURN, collects millions of dollars a year in so-called intervenor compensation – almost half of all the money handed out by the California Public Utilities Commission since 2013. …

 

TURN receives as much as 90 percent of its operating income from commission awards, so it’s highly dependent on regulators for its livelihood. Whether consciously or not, the group might allow that dependency to shape its advocacy, critics say.

 

“The public really doesn’t have anyone at the commission looking out for them,” said San Diego lawyer Michael Aguirre, who is suing to overturn the San Onofre settlement as an undue burden on utility customers. “They are being charged for advocacy that really is not being performed. The same people always get paid.”

Peevey is facing criminal investigations by both the state and federal government. His home in La Cañada Flintridge, a Los Angeles suburb, was searched by investigators in January.

By Joseph Perkins

Southern California Edison meets today with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It hopes to persuade the feds to approve its proposed license amendment for San Onofre nuclear plant, which has been offline since January 2012 because of certain wear and tear on its two reactors.

SoCal Ed, the plant’s majority owner, proposes to restart one of San Onofre’s two reactors, which is less damaged than the other. And the utility proposes to run the reactor at only 70 percent of maximum generating capacity for five months, before shutting it down again for inspections.

That’s not good enough for California’s noisome anti-nuke activists. They will be satisfied with nothing short of permanent shutdown of San Onofre, one of the Golden State’s two remaining nuclear plants (along with Diablo Canyon Power Plant in San Luis Obsipo County).

The anti-nukesters suggest that SoCal Ed’s proposed license amendment is a nefarious way to get San Onofre back online without the public having a say so. They have previously called for an “adjudicatory public hearing,” a show trial at which SoCal Ed would have to plead for the nuclear plant’s continued operation.

So bent on keeping San Onofre idle indefinitely (if not permanently), anti-nuke activists have trotted out the kind of alarmist rhetoric usually reserved for global warming.

Indeed, the radical environmentalist group Friends of the Earth warns that the nuclear plant’s two reactors “pose a unique threat to eight million Californians living within 50 miles” of the plant.

We’re talking a nuclear catastrophe of Fukishima or Chernobyl or Three Mile Island proportion.

But that’s just so much scary nonsense.

Safe

The fact is, in more than 40 years of operation, San Onofre has never been shut down for a safety violation.

Moreover, the doomsday scenario laid out by anti-nuke activists has been discounted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, most recently in 2010 when it calculated the odds of catastrophic failure to U.S. nuclear plants.

NRC estimated the risk of core damage to one of San Onofre’s reactors — not during routine operation, but in the event of a major earthquake — at 1 in 58,824. There’s a better chance of striking it rich on Antiques Roadshow (look it up).

Now here’s what matters in the NRC’s consideration of SoCal Ed’s proposal to restart one of San Onofre’s two reactors: Plant operators have conducted more than 170,000 inspections, bringing in nuclear experts from around the world.

If those experts vouch for the safe restart of the one of San Onofre’s two reactors, then a decision by the NRC to reject SoCal Ed’s proposed license amendment will be driven by politics rather than science.

Yes, shutdown of San Onofre would be exceedingly costly to SoCal Ed. But the cost ultimately would be borne by the utility’s 14 million customers in the form of higher electricity rates.

Indeed, at full capacity, San Onofre’s two nuclear reactors generate nearly 2,200 megawatts, which accounts for nearly a fifth of the utility’s overall electricity production.

While SoCal Ed has managed to get by, temporarily, without San Onofre’s atoms, in the long run the nuclear plant’s output would not be easily — or inexpensively — replaced.

Certainly not by such renewable energy sources as solar or wind, which are favored by anti-nuke activists.

While SoCal Ed heavily invests in renewable energy, as mandated under California law, it is under no illusion that it is at this point a viable alternative to nuclear energy.

Not when it would take 64,000 acres of solar panels, or 59,000 acres of wind turbines, to replace the 2,200 megawatts of electricity San Onofre generates on its 84-acre site.

Maybe someday in the future, solar power, wind energy, cold fusion of some other renewable energy will be a viable alternative to nuclear energy. But until that day comes, it would be felony dumb to permanently shutter San Onofre.