On Thursday, the California Public Utilities Commission voted to extend the operating license of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant and keep it running through 2030.
In 2016, PG&E had announced that it planned to shut down the plant beginning in 2024 due to its age and rising maintenance costs. The energy needs would be taken up by renewable sources.
The CPUC approved its application to close in 2018. But the state changed course following a 2021 report by the California Energy Commission warning that if the plant closed, the state could risk power shortages and summer blackouts. According to the plant, it supplies nearly 9 percent of the state's total electric supply.
As the state's only remaining nuclear plant, it is also the largest single power station, generating 18,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity annually with no greenhouse gas emissions. The massive 1,000-acre facility, which opened its first unit in 1985 amid anti-nuclear protests, may be a sleeping giant.
It sits near two fault lines, the Shoreline and Hosgri, and 10 miles from the city of San Luis Obispo. Following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan, where an earthquake resulted in a devastating meltdown, concerns about public safety at Diablo Canyon were raised in Congress.
In the last few months, the environmental group Friends of the Earth tried to stop the decision, with lawsuits and petitions.
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