California's Last Nuclear Plant Makes Way for Zero-Carbon Options

California’s last operational nuclear power plant will close by 2025, and Governor Jerry Brown has signed a bill ensuring the lost energy is replaced by zero-carbon alternatives.

The first of two pressurized-water nuclear reactors began operation at the Diablo Canyon Power Plant on May 7, 1985. In 2016, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), which operates the plant, announced they wouldn’t be renewing the operating licenses for Diablo Canyon Units 1 and 2 when they expire in 2024 and 2025.

Blame the fallout from Fukushima and general anti-nuclear sentiment.

Meanwhile, Governor Brown recently signed SB 1090, which will replace the electricity generated at Diablo with zero-carbon and renewable energy. And as Peter Miller from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) notes in a blog post, The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) must fully fund the worker retention and community transition provisions reached in negotiations between PG&E and NRDC, Friends of the Earth, labor groups, and others.

According to the NRDC, the worker retention payments and Community Impact Mitigation mandated in SB 1090 will cost up to $174 million, which is more than offset by the alleged $1 billion in savings from not having to refurbish the Diablo Plant.

“The package of policies included in SB 1090 offers a model for the phaseout of aging power plants with clean, increasingly less-expensive energy while providing a just transition for workers and communities affected by the shutdown,” says Miller.

Read more about this development here: https://www.nrdc.org/experts/peter-miller/diablo-canyon-legislation-signed-law-governor-brown