Rancho Seco Manager Proposes That Nuclear Power Plant Be Closed Down

Seeking an escape from the financial burden of one of the nation’s most troubled nuclear power plants, the general manager of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District on Thursday recommended closing the Rancho Seco generating facility.

If accepted by the district’s board of directors March 3, General Manager Richard K. Byrne’s plan would mark the first time a utility chose to mothball an operational nuclear power plant before the end of its useful life.

The board, which had until now steadfastly supported continued operation of the plant, may try to undercut local opposition by proposing to temporarily mothball the plant until some other agency can be found to buy or operate it.

Local opponents of “The Ranch,” as the facility is known here, have put a measure on the June ballot that would force the publicly owned utility to shut down the plant. The utility has until March 11 to submit its own ballot measure opposing this.

In a 15-page summary of analysts’ conclusions, Byrne said the utility should replace Rancho Seco’s generating capacity with wholesale power purchases from two large investor-owned utilities, Southern California Edison of Rosemead and Pacific Gas & Electric of San Francisco.

Wholesale purchases have helped keep the district afloat during the long periods in which Rancho Seco has been unable to operate because of equipment failures and malfunctions.

These problems and the 185% average rate hike they have caused since the plant opened helped local residents gather the 50,000 signatures needed to put their initiative on the ballot.

At a press conference, Byrne said the recommendation does not reflect widespread difficulties in the hard-pressed nuclear industry. “It is strictly an economic decision based on what is best financially for the district,” he said.

Bob Dobkin of the Council for Energy Awareness, a nuclear industry group, agreed. He said the closure is an “anomaly” caused by “a management problem of this particular utility.” Low wages have resulted in poor maintenance and thus operational failures, he said.

However, the high cost of operating the plant safely affirms the critics of nuclear energy who long have contended that safety concerns and the complexity of modern plants threaten to make nuclear energy uncompetitively expensive.

“The industry obviously has had problems for many years,” said Michael Paparian of the Sierra Club. “We haven’t seen any new plants ordered in many years, and we won’t ever again, I don’t think.”

The internal economic study that led to the closure suggestion at Rancho Seco, he said, “opens the door for the same sort of sober economic analysis . . . to go on elsewhere.”

Rancho Seco, which became operational in 1974, was designed to operate for 25 years, Byrne said. But the plant, 25 miles from the Capitol, had to close down on opening day because of valve problems in its steam turbines.

Indeed, Rancho Seco, a cousin of the Three Mile Island plant that in 1979 was the site of the nation’s worst civilian nuclear systems failure, was shut down for 13 of its first 18 months. During its entire 13-year life, equipment failures and operator error have prevented the plant from operating about 60% of the time.

Rancho Seco’s steam turbines have not spun out a single kilowatt since late 1985 when it accidentally released radioactive steam into the atmosphere. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission shut down the plant and ordered the utility district to repair and modify its cooling system and to show that the plant can be run safely.

$400 Million Spent

Since then, more than $400 million has been spent on the plant--more than double its original construction costs--but resumption of service repeatedly has been delayed by a series of accidents and failures, most recently a Feb. 8 electrical fire in an auxiliary building.

Last September, investor-owned Pacific Gas & Electric offered to take over the publicly owned Sacramento district, shut down Rancho Seco and provide the capital with power from PG&E;’s Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in San Luis Obispo County. The Sacramento utility rejected the offer as an unwise giveaway of its assets to a private enterprise.

The 913 megawatts promised by Rancho Seco when it was built represent more than half of the district’s peak demand, and the plant’s frequent problems have posed serious problems for the district, both in meeting customer demands and winning the confidence of the financial community.

Byrne said he talked with financial analysts Thursday morning about the proposal to shutter Rancho Seco. He said they told him the move likely would improve the district’s ability to borrow money and operate efficiently.

The district, founded in 1923, serves 914,000 people spread over 890 square miles around the state capital.