Coastal Alliance on Plant Expansion

The Coastal Alliance on Plant Expansion (CAPE), a nonprofit community group that has participated in the regulatory review of Duke Energy’s plans to build a new plant in Morro Bay for six years, believes that the announced pending sale of the existing plant presents a great opportunity to consider other options for use of the 107-acre plant site. And that opportunity should pursued by community leaders.

On Tuesday, Sept. 13, Duke said it would sell its four California plants, including the 50-year-old Morro Bay plant, which is all but shut down, as well as other gas-fired plants outside of the Midwest. It blamed the decision to sell on failure to make money from Duke Energy North America, the arm that includes merchant plants in California and elsewhere. But other factors may have been at work.

CAPE is celebrating the departure of Duke from Morro Bay because the corporation had steadfastly refused to agree to plan for alternative technologies to cool a new plant that would not harm the environment. Instead, Duke insisted on pursuing regulatory authority to use water from the Morro Bay National Estuary, despite the fact that Duke’s own marine consultants concluded that a new plant using this process, called once-through cooling, would kill between 17% and 33% of the larvae sampled in their year-long study of predicted impacts from a new plant’s cooling system, not including numerous other species for which the sampled larvae stood as proxies. CAPE advocates what is called dry-cooling, which recycles fresh water to cool the plant and has no negative marine impact. That process was also supported by the California Energy Commission staff, the California Coastal Commission, the California Department of Fish and Game and the National Marine Fisheries Service.

CAPE has never opposed building the plant itself because Duke owns the property, a plant exists there, it is zoned industrial and state law allows its replacement–under certain conditions. But there is no justification for killing marine life when dry cooling and other closed-cycle cooling techologies are used by power plants elsewhere in California, the nation and throughout the world. Duke had argued that dry cooling would be infeasible at the plant site and too costly, but documented evidence was presented to the Energy Commission by the Commission staff and its consultants that it would be feasible and the cost would be reasonable.

The Commission approved the building of a new Morro Bay plant using once-through cooling but did not finalize the decision. The Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board still must issue a new discharge permit to allow a replacement plant to be built. A hearing on the permit had been planned for next Dec. 2 but Duke declined to go forward, according to Board staff, and no new date is under consideration.

With plans for a new plant–and for the existing plant as well–so up in the air, CAPE calls on community leaders to begin a discussion with the public about what other alternative uses would be preferable at this prime location at the edge of the Estuary and on the ocean front. Since the broad community is affected by the environmental impacts of a power plant, including the long-term degradation of the Estuary and its economic value to Morro Bay and the county, exploration of alternatives seems particularly appropriate now that Duke plans to sell. The circumstances present the possibility of an exciting future for the community, which has never had an opportunity to express its wishes about what should be on the site to benefit residents.

Leaders could look to Redondo Beach where the community there has launched an effort to explore public acquisition of the old A.E.S. power plant and conversion of that site into open space and parkland. An advisory ballot initiative was approved by Redondo Beach voters last March, which directs the City Council to develop plans for converting the plant site to open space and park land.

Although Duke stated that losing money on the plants was the reason for deciding to sell them, the decision also may have been affected by two pending court decisions that could prohibit or restrict the use of once-through cooling by replacement plants, possible new state policies against the use of ocean water for cooling and an initiative on the state ballot in November that would re-regulate the energy market in California, making it less attractive for merchant plant owners like Duke. #