Shutting Down Rancho Seco

By Frank Trippett

In all the decades of the nation's fuming debate over nuclear power, opponents had never spoken with such indubitable authority as Sacramento voters did last week. They became the first ever to vote, by a solid 53.4%, to shut down a functioning nuclear power plant. The decision, in a special referendum, put an end to the operations of the 15-year-old Rancho Seco facility owned by the Sacramento Municipal Utility District. Within twelve hours after the polls closed, SMUD directors, who had pledged in advance to abide by the decision, had started shutting down the plant 25 miles southeast of California's capital city.

Even faster than that, news of the vote by 40% of Sacramento's electorate spread fresh hope among the opponents of nuclear power all over the U.S. The development countered a bleak mood stirred up among antinukers recently by two Nuclear Regulatory Commission actions. In the first, the NRC issued an operating permit to New York's Shoreham nuclear power plant, though its owner, the Long Island Lighting Co., had agreed to dismantle it. Then the NRC decided to permit a limited go-ahead for the controversial Seabrook, N.H., nuclear power plant. Thousands of activists demonstrated against the start of Seabrook's low-power tests (734 were arrested) on the very weekend before the Sacramento vote. By its effectiveness alone, the referendum became the most potent demonstration ever against nuclear power. What made it more potent still was the unusual nature of the campaign against Rancho Seco.

In previous tests -- 14 referendums in ten states in the past 13 years -- debate turned primarily on purported threats to the safety of both people and the environment. Rancho Seco opponents, however, directly attacked the idea that has helped the nuclear industry win all earlier elections: the proposition that nuclear power is cheaper than conventional power. The Sacramento plant produced only 40% as much electricity as expected, and its output cost twice as much as that bought on the conventional market. One result was a doubling of electricity rates. Said Bob Mulholland, who headed the campaign to close Rancho Seco: "It's the first time the debate over a nuclear plant has focused on economics rather than safety. It doesn't mean that others will vote to close plants, but it does mean the nation will take notice."

How much notice would have to be taken? To Scott Peters, spokesman for the pro-nuclear power U.S. Council on Energy Awareness in Washington, it seemed Sacramento voters were not "against nuclear power per se" but "against a plant that had a bad operating record." Peters concluded, "We don't think this interrupts our progress." The contrary view was expressed by Scott Denman, executive director of the Safe Energy Communications Council in Washington. The vote was a "proverbial shot heard round the world," he said, adding, "This is an unprecedented breakthrough for advocates of economical and safe energy and a severe blow to the hopes of reviving the troubled nuclear energy industry."

With reporting by Robert W. Hollis/San Francisco