2 Big Takeaways from a State Senator’s Climate Change Exchange with France

State Sen. Bill Dodd (D-Napa) and a delegation of other California leaders are shaking off jet lag after returning from a privately funded trip to France, where they swapped ideas on addressing the climate crisis with French officials and industry leaders.

Dodd said California could draw lessons from France’s high-speed rail system and the interest its leaders are showing in nuclear energy.

A legacy of high-speed rail

Delegates zipped from city to city on high-speed rail and visited train manufacturers, some of whom touted hydrogen fuel-cell-powered trains as the future of clean transportation.

Earlier this year, France banned domestic short-haul flights if the same trip can be made by train in under two-and-a-half hours. The goal is to cut the substantial carbon emissions from air travel.

Still, the tour of France on its train system reinforced one of Dodd’s goals: finishing California’s high-speed train from Los Angeles through the Central Valley and on to San Francisco.

“I’m still a zealot for finishing high-speed rail in California,” Dodd said.

“We have 40 million people in this state,” Dodd said. “We’re not going to be able to environmentally site any more international airports. This is something that I think is important for us to do in the future.”

Nuclear in the toolbox

Dodd was also intrigued by how eager the French government was to deploy more nuclear energy. “They just believe we are not going to hit our climate goals without nuclear energy,” he said.

Dodd said French officials plan to reconstruct nuclear plants at the end of their useful life and that the next phase of French nuclear technology lies in small modular reactors, as opposed to larger facilities like California’s Diablo Canyon.

Diablo Canyon is the state’s last working nuclear power plant, supplying 9% of the state’s total electricity. It’s located on the coast of San Luis Obispo County, partway between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

The power plant was slated to close in 2025, but Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state would need the electricity the plant produces to prevent blackouts as the state transitions to renewable energy sources. State lawmakers approved a $1.4 billion loan to the plant’s operator, Pacific Gas & Electric, to keep the plant open until 2030.

PG&E is seeking permission from the federal government to keep the plant operating for up to 20 additional years.

Meanwhile, environmentalists have sued, so far unsuccessfully, to force the power plants’ immediate closure. Opponents of the plant say Diablo Canyon is a safety and security risk for those living nearby should there be an accident and caution that the plant produces a lot of radioactive waste, which is currently stored on-site.

There are potential benefits to the smaller reactors touted by French officials, such as lower upfront costs, greater scalability and more flexibility in where to put them. Some are small enough to fit into a backyard.

These small reactors are not without drawbacks, according to Edwin Lyman, who heads the nuclear power safety program for the Union of Concerned Scientists. He said the energy they create is more expensive than that produced by a large reactor.

The union doesn’t take a position on nuclear power programs, “but we do think that it has to meet very high standards of safety and security in order to be a viable technology,” Lyman said.

“Nuclear may have a role in the climate transition, but you can’t ignore the safety, security, cost and waste problems that it brings to the table,” Lyman said, and “the fact that it is a more dangerous source of energy than renewables.”

Small reactors, like large ones, also produce highly radioactive nuclear waste, which makes their construction a nonstarter in California. A 1976 state law bars the construction of new nuclear power plants in the state if there is no way to dispose of the resulting high-level nuclear waste, which there is not.

“That was true in the 1970s, and it’s still true in the U.S. today. There is no solution,” Lyman said.

Dodd said he’d like “to look at getting that policy changed, to allow our agencies to at least be able to explore, discuss, investigate and hold hearings and have our state agencies make those determinations.”

Dodd said that California should be open to having conversations about new nuclear ideas, including considering smaller reactors.

“What are we going to do in the future to reduce 40% of the energy that we have online now, which is natural gas?”

Dodd said he understands people are concerned about nuclear safety and that they should be. At the same time, “We’re not talking about a weapons-grade type of nuclear. We are talking about nuclear for a clean energy future.”

To address climate change, Dodd said California needs a “toolbox that includes everything” if the state is going to reduce emissions based on its ambitious climate change targets.

Sponsored trips are not without controversy

Dodd was one of 10 state legislators on the trip, paid for by the San Francisco-based nonprofit the California Foundation on the Environment and the Economy. The trip also included people representing the California state government, labor unions, environmental groups, and oil and gas companies.

Government transparency groups criticize these kinds of trips, arguing that the travel is unofficial lobbying. They disagree with lawmakers taking free trips during which industry and business groups have exclusive access to them. Legislation has resulted from this type of travel in the past.

But Senator Dodd said that was not what the travel was about. “This trip was a great opportunity for lawmakers to learn about important innovations and government policies that could help California,” Dodd said. “There is a real value in looking beyond our borders for best practices, which is why I went, and I certainly didn’t get lobbied on this trip.”

People attending the trips come from various sectors, including representatives from environmental groups and the oil and gas industry. Dodd said it’s important for lawmakers to talk with stakeholders, even those in the fossil fuel industry.

“There are people out there that do not want oil companies, anybody having to deal with the internal combustion engine cars or anything to be involved in our clean energy future. I think that might be short-sighted,” Dodd said. “I think that we should use their engineering prowess and their money to help get us to where we need to be.”

“Finding ways to communicate, finding ways to work together towards our energy future is going to be more productive than continuing to fight.”