San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station has been offline since January. An anti-nuke activist group would like the temporary shutdown of the facility's two reactors to be made permanent.
In a legal petition filed this month with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the so-called "Friends of the Earth" demanded not only a "license amendment proceeding," but also an "adjudicatory public hearing" before San Onofre is allowed to start producing electricity again.
The supposed purpose of the hearing ---- which really would amount to a show trial ---- is to determine beyond a reasonable doubt that it is perfectly safe for San Onofre to bring the two reactors back online.
If Friends of the Earth succeeds, it will come at the expense of consumers here in the Temecula Valley. That's because SoCal Ed is the electricity provider for the region's businesses and residences. And San Onofre generates 19 percent of the utility's electricity.
The anti-nuke activists argue that SoCal Ed can do without the electrons San Onofre generates. The evidence, they say, is that the utility's customers have experienced no disruption in service ---- no blackouts, nor brownouts ---- since the nuclear plant went down five months ago.
But SoCal Ed had contingencies in place in the event of a temporary shutdown at San Onofre. In the event of a long-term or, as Friends of the Earth prefers, permanent shutdown, residential electricity prices almost certainly will soar.
The anti-nuke activists suggest that San Onofre's 2,200-megawatt capacity can be easily replaced by renewable energy, like solar power. But that's not a realistic proposition here and now.
Indeed, it would take 18 square miles of solar panels to replace the amount of electricity San Onofre produces when its two reactors are online.
And even if, by some miracle, SoCal Ed was given the go-ahead to bring 18 square miles worth of solar panels online, the megawatts produced would be costlier than those currently generated by San Onofre.
In fact, the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that the levelized cost of solar power ---- the per kilowatt-hour cost (in real dollars) of building and operating a generating plant over an assumed financial life and duty cycle ---- is 40 percent higher than the cost of nuclear power.
With such a cost differential, the replacement of the electricity generated by San Onofre with electricity generated by solar power almost certainly would force SoCal Ed to raise its electricity rates.
Friends of the Earth doesn't find that prospect particularly troubling. It simply wants to shut down San Onofre, and it doesn't consider any price too high for SoCal Ed customers to pay.