California’s senior senator announced in an op-ed this week that she had changed her mind about the closure of the state’s last operating nuclear power plant and now supports keeping the facility online as a source of carbon-free power.
With climate change and worsening drought conditions threatening California’s electricity supply, “Pacific Gas and Electric Co. [PG&E] should reconsider its decision to close Diablo Canyon by 2025,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) in an op-ed published Wednesday by the Sacramento Bee.
Instead of closing Diablo Canyon as planned, PG&E should re-license the plant with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and keep it online until California can replace its energy supply with “clean power sources,” Feinstein said.
Wednesday’s op-ed marks a departure from Feinstein’s previous stance on the San Luis Obispo, Calif., plant’s closure. When PG&E in 2016 announced its plans to shutter Diablo Canyon, Feinstein said it was “welcome news” and added that she was “fully supportive” of the plant to shut the plant down by 2025.
Feinstein addressed the flip Wednesday.
“I remain concerned about the lack of long-term storage for spent nuclear fuel and am working to develop better solutions,” Feinstein said, “But at this point, keeping Diablo Canyon open and producing carbon-free energy is more important.”
To support her change of heart, Feinstein pointed to a November report from a Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology research team which concluded that keeping Diablo Canyon online past 2025 could save California billions of dollars in power system expenses.
“If California is to lead the clean energy transition, as state law mandates, Diablo must keep operating, at least for the time being,” Feinstein said.
Proponents of keeping Diablo Canyon online have looked to the first funding round of the Department of Energy’s roughly $6 billion civil nuclear credits program, for which the agency is currently accepting bids, as a possible off-ramp for the plant’s impending closure.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom May 23 asked DOE to alter the program’s guidelines to make Diablo Canyon eligible for the first round of bailouts. The agency has said that it’s currently reviewing that request, but hasn’t said whether it would consider changing the rules.
Even if DOE decides to make Diablo Canyon eligible for a bailout, Newsom can’t submit a bid himself. PG&E, as the plant operator, would have to apply.
So far, the utility has not bowed to mounting pressure to roll back its plans to dismantle the plant — PG&E vice president Maureen Zawalick said at Exchange Monitor’s Decommissioning Strategy Forum last week that the company was still “full steam ahead” on decommissioning.