California Legislators Vote To Save Diablo Canyon

California's legislature, by nearly unanimous votes in both the Assembly and the Senate, agreed with Governor Gavin Newsom, to extend the operating life of Diablo Canyon. This was the result of multiple converging factors, the most important of which was that the closure would have worsened the already fragile state of the California energy grid, maing black-outs far more likely. But, behind this looming awareness were many other factors influencing public opinion and political pressure, which include pronuclear advocacy, scientific concerns about climate change, shifting political winds in the face of Russia's invastion of Ukraine and leadership from the Biden Administration. There will be many efforts to understand what tipped the political weights in favor of saving Diablo Canyon, and not all will be correct, but the good news for is that rationality prevailed in California, despite concerted anti-nuclear pressures.

Climate change and Russia's invasion of the Ukraine are looming backdrops to this stunning victory. Yet, most directly, the basis of the success comes down to the fact that Governor Newsom himself became convinced that delaying the closure of Diablo Canyon was both the right thing to do and was politically feasible. It isn't clear exactly how he arrived at this conclusion but it is certain that his political weight made it happen. What caused the politics to shift? Possibly, Newsom found sufficient political cover and acceptable polling data from the fact that Illinois Governor Pritzker and Michigan Governor Whitmer, both Democrats, took action to protect their nuclear power.

Nevertheless, coming out in favor of extending the life of Diablo Canyon, was enormously risky and difficult for Governor Newsom, as it involved making a 180 degree shift from his prior position of working to ensure that Diablo got closed. Yet, with state policy experts warning that the closure would cause blackouts and likely deaths as a result, Governor Newsom bit the bullet and did the right thing.

There were a multitude of pronuclear individuals and groups providing support and political cover for this decision. As far back as 2015, Michael Shellenberger and his organizations, The Breakthrough Institute and Environmental Progress, argued on behalf of nuclear power. Shellenberger split out of TBI, a think tank, in order to engage in more active pronuclear advocacy. He and a group of younger activists organized and held the first pronuclear rally, a three day protest and parade against the closure of Diablo Canyon. From there, numerous groups were formed which contributed advocacy towards the support of nuclear power: Californians for Green Nuclear Power, Generation Atomic, Mothers for Nuclear, Climate Coalition, Rethink Nuclear, Nuclear New York, Protect Nuclear NOW and many others.

Meanwhile, filmmakers Robert Stone and Dave Schumacher produced luscious documentaries that challenged the status quo attitudes about nuclear power. Their films, Pandora's Promise and The New Fire respectively brought new insights into our understanding of both the facts about nuclear power and the reality about the concerted and often nefarious efforts to besmirch nuclear's reputation. These films had surprising reach and helped soften widespread knee-jerk antinuclear reactions. Then, the academics from Stanford and MIT played their parts and issued a report providing evidence that closing Diablo Canyon would cost the state $21 billion.

While, no single person or group can take sole credit for this victory, there was little discernable action until the joining of Isabelle Boemeke to the campaign. Representing the younger generation and signing up to support Diablo Canyon as the first "nuclear influencer," Isabelle served as the spark to ignite public attention to the support that Diablo Canyon had as our largest source of clean energy, and helped turn the tide in favor of saving it. Under the handle "Isodope," she adroitly leverage social media tech platforms, including Instagram, TicTok and Twitter, to send highly stylized, informative and compellingly snarky videos to a broad spectrum of followers. She also acted on the momentum garnered by the Stanford/MIT report to organize an in-person rally in San Luis Obispo, complete with support from local politicians and residents. That turned to be very successful and she then parlayed that success to corral scientific experts to weigh in with a direct letter appeal to Governor Newsom.

Finally, with the introduction of the Biden Administration's Civil Nuclear Credit program and its offer of up to $6 billion in support of saving aging plants, Governor Newsom could no longer afford to ignore the reality that saving Diablo Canyon could help him avoid energy embarrassment and liability from the rash of civil lawsuits that would have followed black-out related deaths.

There are now many articles coming out with their assessments of the factors that enabled this success. None capture the whole picture, which spans much more engagement, work and adroit advocacy in California, across the US and even internationally, that contributed to making ignoring reality of nuclear impossible for Gov. Newsom.

Read the Forbes article, In Big Win For Nuclear, California Legislators Vote To Save Diablo Canyon, by Robert Bryce, September 1, 2022 here. There are many other articles reporting on this significant achievement but we can't list them all here.

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November 16, 2021

The costs of closing nuclear plants during a climate battle

Following the release on Nov. 8, 2021 by Stanford University and MIT experts of an independently funded assessment of the costs to California of the 2018 decision to prematurely close Diablo Canyon—which was followed only a few months later by the passage of SB 100, "The 100 Percent Clean Energy Act of 2018" obligating the state to use "eligible renewable energy resources and zero-carbon resources" to supply 100% of retail sales of electricity in California by 2045—there has been a renewed effort to get the state to reconsider this ill-conceived, wasteful and expensive plan. The following are a listing of some of the published responses that we've seen emerge from experts weighing in about this matter.

(Click to see the Report.)

NOV. 10

The Economist: Will the climate crisis force America to reconsider nuclear power? Reaching net-zero targets will be much harder without it.

"The Golden State’s only remaining nuclear plant provides nearly 9% of its electricity generation, and accounts for 15% of its clean-electricity production. Yet despite California’s aggressive climate goals and a national push to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, Diablo Canyon is set to close down by 2025. A new report from researchers at Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) reveals just how detrimental that would be.

NOV. 11

CalMatters Guest Commentary by Assemblymember Jordan Cunningham (R) and Supervisor Dawn Ortiz-Legg (D): Keep Diablo Canyon open to help meet emissions reduction goals.

"What if everything California and the nation is doing to slow climate change just isn’t enough?

To reach our zero-carbon goals while maintaining system reliability and avoiding debilitating blackouts, we need a mix of clean energy sources – renewables like solar and wind power. We need aggressive investment in energy storage projects. And we need to revisit whether Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant should continue to operate another 10 years past its scheduled 2025 decommissioning."

"There is a serious risk that we will not be able meet our emission reduction targets while maintaining grid reliability without Diablo Canyon. Merely replacing the clean power we lose from the plant will require 90,000 acres of development of renewable resources, even as the siting of new renewable energy plants and associated transmission have proven slow to develop and face substantial opposition. Keeping Diablo Canyon online would guard against these risks, and, if additional renewables are brought online, dramatically accelerate carbon reductions."

NOV. 16

Washington Post Editorial Board Opinion: Closing California's last nuclear power plant would be a mistake.

"If the state is serious about achieving carbon neutrality over the next few decades — and it should be — it cannot start by shutting down a source of emissions-free energy that accounts for nearly 10 percent of its in-state electricity production."

NOV. 16

San Luis Obispo Tribune, by Kaytlyn Leslie: There’s a new push to keep Diablo Canyon open. Here are 5 things you need to know.

"According to the study, the benefits of keeping Diablo Canyon open even just 10 years past its closure date in 2025 include:

- A 10% annual reduction of California’s power sector carbon emission;
- A reduction in the state’s reliance on natural gas;
- The potential for new clean energy sources such as hydrogen fuel production;
- A source of desalinated water in a time of drought, and
- Helping the state avoid more rolling power outages such as the ones that hit in 2020.
- Additionally, the power plant would save ratepayers a total of $2.6 billion if kept open another 10 years, and an estimated $21 billion if kept open 20 additional years, researchers said.

NOV. 18

Engineering News-Record, by Mary B. Powers: Delay Close of Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant, MIT-Stanford Study Says.

"Scientists and engineers from Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology claim in a new report that delaying retirement of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in San Luis Obispo County, Calif., by a decade until 2035 would reduce carbon emissions from state utilities by more than 10% and save $2.6 billion in power costs.

With accelerating effects of climate change, issues facing California “compel a reassessment” of the closure plan, researchers say. The 2,240-MW two-unit plant, which began operating in the mid 1980s, can remain economic for the foreseeable future, they said.

Using it for desalination also could also increase fresh water in the state for a significantly lower cost than other methods, the academics said. Extending the plant operating license to 2045 would reduce the need for 18 GW of solar power to meet state requirements and spare 90,000 acres of land needed for its production, the researchers said. Approval to build desalination and hydrogen production plants would be needed. "

NOV. 21

Los Angeles Times OpEd by Drs. Steven Chu and Ernest Moniz: California needs to keep the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant open to meet its climate goals.

"Researchers at MIT and Stanford University . . . found that an inclusive strategy that preserves the clean electricity from Diablo Canyon will augment new energy generation from renewables and other sources of clean power. We need to increase renewables at a massive scale, but that will take decades, so any zero-carbon source we retire today will set us back years on the zero-carbon journey.

Carbon-free power is also essential for system reliability and resilience because, beyond the short-term variability, there are weeks and months when wind and solar power are low and storage technologies are of inadequate duration. This is not an either/or situation: California needs both Diablo Canyon and renewables to significantly reduce emissions over the next two decades.

Revisiting the decision to close Diablo Canyon will involve many stakeholders, including federal regulators needed to permit restart of the license extension process. But that dialogue needs to happen because the stakes are so high.

Reimagining Diablo Canyon’s role in California’s energy future is an opportunity we cannot afford to ignore."

DEC. 4

Rally to Save Clean Energy planned by Climate Activists: A coalition of climate and pronuclear groups have organized a rally in San Luis Obispo on Saturday, Dec. 4, 2021. To learn more about the event and to register to attend, go to SaveCleanEnergy.com.

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October 8, 2021

Anti-Nuclear Chickens Coming Home to Roost

Ted Nordhaus is a highly respected expert who, as executive director of the Breakthrough Institute, has been on the bleeding edge of those pushing more effective solutions to our energy and environmental woes for decades. His opinion piece, "In Global Energy Crisis, Anti-Nuclear Chickens Come Home to Roost," he provides a bold assessment of how badly the progressive agenda for climate has performed. Wherever "green" policies hold sway and nuclear power plants have been closed, clean electricity has been replaced with dirty power.

Contrary to what many people think, the rapid growth of renewable energy has led largely to increases in emissions, sky-high electricity prices and the loss of some of our most critical clean energy assets, which have caused power shortages and life-threatening energy crises. Germany, which persists in closing its nuclear power plants, has been reduced to decimating ancient forests and villages in its desperate pursuit of new coal resources for the resulting surge in demand for coal power.

California has been forced to build new gas plants and to demand that utilities with backup diesel generators, operate them non-stop when demand is high and renewable generation is down—not the outcome that those who support renewables want to see. In particular, the planned closure of Diablo Canyon, which was approved with the hope that its generation would be replaced by renewables, is nowhere near on track to do so. As a result, the CPUC is both bending and breaking rules to enable coal and gas to replace the clean generation provided by Diablo, while planned geothermal and battery storage are taking longer than had been assumed. Nordhaus calls out the "Pollyannish assumptions" and unrealistic plans that find California in the position of prematurely shuttering its largest single source of clean energy, only to add back more fossil power, to the delight of the fossil fuel industry.

Nordhaus doesn't explicitly ask "How's them chickens?" but you can almost hear him pose that question to those who read this assessment and care to adddress climate change with smart, effective solutions.

Read Foreign Policy's In Global Energy Crisis, Anti-Nuclear Chickens Come Home to Roost, by Ted Nordhaus, published October 8, 2021.

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March 10, 2021

Examining Anti-Nuclear Bullshit

Ted Nordhaus bravely calls out the deceptive tactics used by anti-nuclear activists—some operating as academics with cover from similarly duplicitious "peer reviewers," to promote what are ideologic viewpoints unsupported by science. This is not an easy area to write about—with the ever increasing threat of lawsuits—but the evidence is mounting that much of what has passed as academic studies falsely showing negative or no benefit from nuclear power, has been "peer reviewed" by people with ideologic aims.

Increasingly, these reports advocating for 100% renewables have been widely debunked by real scientists using the same data. Such academic "fights" have even poured out into the courts, as in the case of the devastating take-down of Mark Jacobson's almost entirely bogus 100% renewable study which was published by the National Academy of Science and received an award as one of the best studies of the year, but whose glaring flaws were broadly debunked by a rather serious and impressive cadre of some thirty other scientists.

Jacobson, hurting from the smack-down, chose to employ the courts in his behalf, having ample funding from renewable and fossil fuel supporters—all of whom benefit from the failed RPS policy approach that he advocates—but found, instead, that the courts sided with those calling "bullshit" on him and he was forced to pay for both his own failed litigation as well as the legal expenses of the scientists he has attempted to intimidate into silence.

While it is tempting and appealing to think that we can address climate change with the aesthetically appealing technologies of just wind and solar, in fact, the data increasingly shows that such a plan isn't even remotely feasible. Yet, there remain many for whom that vision is their brand.

Many of these ideologues continue to rail against the use of nuclear energy, and Nordhaus reports on the most recent publication of a new paper by Harrison Fell, Alex Gilbert, Jesse Jenkins and Matteo Mildenberger with the take-down of the a study published last fall in Nature Energy by Benjamin Sovacool and others at the University of Sussex Energy Group.

Read Ted Nordhaus' exquisite examination of the difference between bullshit and lying in "On Anti-Nuclear Bullshit," published at The Breakthrough Institute.

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July 27, 2020

Apocalypse Maybe: Thoughts from MIT’s Kerry Emanuel

National Academy of Sciences member Kerry Emanuel of MIT felt compelled to explain his views on climate change, risk assessments and the debates rekindled by climate deniers and nuclear deniers following the publication of Michael Shellenberger's Apocalypse Never, which bore a review blurb from Emanuel.

Just as it is difficult to have a rational discussion about reducing Covid-19 risks for the broader community when some people are shouting about their right to not wear a mask, the climate debate has been greatly hampered by noisy extremists. Rather than finding any value in the debates about the uncertainties, debates about impacts, or debates about best solutions, Emanuel urges us to "step out of the fray" and take a hard look at the risks. It is worthwhile to invest in mitigating the risks to avert the worst case scenarios and improve on other metrics of health and happiness, just as rational people do with every other type of serious risk they are exposed to.

Read Kerry Emanuel's thought provoking statement published with a foreward by Editor, Bud Ward, at Yale Climate Connections: "Apocalypse Maybe," by Dr. Kerry Emanuel.

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July 4, 2020

What if nuclear had taken off in the 1970s?

Part of the "What if?" series from the Economist exploring a wide array of alternative histories, this essay explores the question of how the world might look today if more countries had adopted nuclear power after the 1973 oil crisis? A look back on an alternative history from a rather different 2020, where the growth of nuclear power prevented climate change from going off the rails.

This essay explores the notion that we might have entirely avoided climate change, had things gone a little differently in the mid-1970s and 80s. Read more at The Economist: What if nuclear power had taken off in the 1970s?

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June 20, 2017

Fisticuffs Over the Route to a Clean-Energy Future

Democrats in the United States Senate and in the California Assembly have proposed legislation calling for a full transition to renewable energy. In doing so, they are relying on scholarly analysis by a prominent Stanford University professor, Mark Z. Jacobson, who published a paper in 2015 asserting that it would be feasible to power the American economy by midcentury almost entirely with energy from the wind, the sun and water, cheaper than fossil fuels. Then a group of 21 prominent scholars, including physicists and engineers, climate scientists and sociologists, dismantled the Jacobson paper and its conclusions bit by bit, in a long-awaited study published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences — the same journal in which Professor Jacobson’s manifesto appeared.

Read more of this analysis by Eduardo Porter at the New York Times: "Fisticuffs Over the Route to a Clean-Energy Future."

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December 13, 2013

Rise of the Nuclear Greens

Robert Bryce, a highly respected author and now film producer, who recently released the film "Juice: How Electricity Explains the World," attempted to tackle the counter-intuitive phenomena that was being noticed at that time—approximately two years after the devastating disaster at Fukushima—wherein prominent environmentalists who were anti-nuclear before the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant became pro-nuclear after the accident.

Bryce reports on the emergence of what he calls "pronuclear Greens," and the bifurcation that they represented in the environmental movement. These leading environmental thinkers, it turns out, realized that despite how horrific the earthquake-induced tsunami was, and its ability to eliminate power to the nuclear plant for enough time to cause the meltdown of three of the four reactors at the Daiichi plant, that nevertheless, the actual loss of life from that accident was so negligible, it was almost something to celebrate.

Of course, the tsunami swept away some 15,000 souls. In the lead-up to the meltdown, the fear created by the threat of what would happen, caused unbelievable panic, that hundreds of people died from accidents, heart attacks, the failure to give proper medical treatment, and many other causes. Estimates put the number of deaths related to the ordered evaculation at about 1,000. But the number of people who died from the meltdowns themselves as well as from the amount of escaping radiation? Zero.

Yes, there was a catastrophic failure at a nuclear power plant but, the more you learn about it, the more you realize that lives would have been saved had there not been the evacuation order in the first place. That the damage done was limited primarily to the physical plant and none spilled out to the surrounding community. What radiation did escape was relatively minor and impacts from that would have been highly treatable with iodine and routine check-ups. In fact, the fear of nuclear was more dangerous than the meltdown.

Read Robert Bryce's prescient article "Rise of the Nuclear Greens," published at The Breakthrough Institute.

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