Community members and other stakeholders gathered at a rally on the West Coast this weekend to show their support for California’s last nuclear power plant, slated to close in the coming years.
Flying a small blimp with the phrase ‘save clean energy’ emblazoned on the side, demonstrators marched through San Luis Obispo, Calif., on Saturday to protest the planned closure of Diablo Canyon Power Plant. The nuclear professional association American Nuclear Society (ANS) was on the ground at the rally, according to a series of Tweets from the group Saturday.
#SaveCleanEnergy Rally kicking off soon in San Luis Obispo, in support of keeping California’s Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant online past 2024-25: pic.twitter.com/KajySM2kmd
— American Nuclear Society (@ANS_org) December 4, 2021
Saturday’s protest is part of pressure from government and stakeholders to keep Diablo Canyon open — the plant’s operator Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) has said that it would take the site’s two reactors offline in 2024 and 2025, respectively. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm suggested last week that California could “take a look at” keeping Diablo Canyon open, adding that DOE officials would be open to talking with Sacramento if they want to reconsider. ANS also penned an op-ed Nov. 24 saying that the plant’s shutdown would “inflict grave harm” on the Golden State.
Further, a university report published in early November concluded keeping Diablo Canyon open could save California billions of dollars in operating costs if the plant’s life expectancy was extended to 2045.
Meanwhile, a PG&E director of strategic initiatives Thomas Jones said Nov. 1 that more information about Diablo Canyon’s decommissioning would become available in coming months. The company should provide information this quarter about whether it will handle the decommissioning work itself or contract out to a third party, the official said.
Diablo Canyon, located on the California coast about midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, is the state’s last operating nuclear power plant. The San Onofre, Rancho Seco, and Humboldt Bay plants are all fully decommissioned or actively being dismantled.
