The California State Water Board will hold a public hearing Tuesday afternoon to present studies regarding Diablo Canyon's cooling process. The hearing is informational in nature.
The state's only operating nuclear power plant currently uses a system known as once-through cooling (OTC).
PG&E is required under the Federal Clean Water Act to study alternative methods of cooling that would have less of an impact on marine life.
The studies being presented this week were done by construction giant Bechtel, and will primarily be focused on an alternative method that uses cooling towers. PG&E spokesperson Blair Jones says screen technologies will be discussed too. The studies will detail the costs and difficulties estimated for each.
Jones says the estimates run as high as $14 billion.
Bill Walker with the group Friends of the Earth (FOE) says the report "wildly overestimates" the costs and difficulties of building cooling towers.
"It claims they would have to level a mountain north of the existing plant," said Walker in an email to KCBX. "In our opinion this is a ploy by PG&E to claim that an alternative to the present cooling system is not practical."
Walker says a report commissioned by FOE puts the cost at just a fraction of that estimated by Bechtel.
A decision by the State Water Board won't be made until next year.