A utility company and environmental groups have reached an agreement that will close California’s last nuclear power plant, ending the state’s nuclear power era. He added that nuclear power was “an important bridge strategy to help ensure that power remains affordable and reliable and that we do not increase the use of fossil fuels while supporting California’s vision for the future”.
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Under the proposal, the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in San Luis Obispo County would be retired by PG&E after its current Nuclear Regulatory Commission operating licenses expire in November 2024 and August 2025. The deal calls for the lost generating power to be replaced by a mix of renewable energy, grid-scale storage, and efficiency measures.
The agreement also is contingent upon approval by the state Public Utilities Commission of PG&E’s plans for replacing Diablo Canyon’s power with greenhouse gas-free resources.
The 30-year-old plant supplies 9 per cent of California’s annual power. Extensive efforts will be made to ensure fair treatment for the plant’s workers and the rural community in which it was sited more than three decades ago near San Luis Obispo, about 250 miles south of San Francisco, and the proposal has strong labor support, including the principal union for the plant’s workers.
Diablo Canyon is the nuclear plant that catalyzed the formation of Friends of the Earth in 1969. “The agreement provides funding necessary to ease the transition to a clean energy economy”.
The Joint Proposal, and recovery of associated costs, is supported by PG&E, Friends of the Earth, and NRDC. The plant was the first issue on the organization’s agenda and it has been fighting the plant ever since.
Combined, Diablo Canyon’s twin reactors produce approximately 2,300 megawatts of electricity, about 10 percent of all electricity generated in California, enough to serve more than 3 million people in Northern and Central California.
Environmentalists have been pressing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for years to close Diablo, given its proximity to numerous seismic faults in earthquake-prone California. One fault runs 650 yards from the plant’s reactors.
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The plant’s two reactors began operation in May 1985 and March 1986. Base load power resources like Diablo Canyon are becoming increasingly burdensome as renewable energy resources ramp up.
