California’s last operating nuclear power plant, slated for closure until recently, produced nearly a tenth of California’s total electricity supply last year, the government’s independent energy auditor said this week.
Diablo Canyon Power Plant generated more than 16,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity, around 8%, of California’s 2021 electricity reserves, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in a report published Monday.
That news comes as efforts are underway to prevent the Diablo Canyon, the Golden State’s last nuclear plant, from shutting down in the next couple of years.
Plant operator Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) Sep. 2 applied with the Department of Energy for a chunk of its roughly $6 billion civil nuclear credits program, aimed at bailing out facilities slated for closure due to economic reasons. PG&E had, until recently, planned to shutter Diablo Canyon’s two reactors in 2024 and 2025, respectively.
Meanwhile in Sacramento, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) Sep. 2 signed into law a sweeping climate bill that, among other things, gave the California Department of Water Resources the authority to loan PG&E up to $1.4 billion to keep Diablo Canyon online.
According to the law, the utility has around six months to apply for a plant license extension with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. A license renewal would be required to keep Diablo Canyon online — PG&E in 2009 asked NRC for such an extension, but withdrew that request in 2018 after it decided to shutter the plant.
Coupled with imports from Washington’s Columbia Generating Station and Arizona’s Palo Verde plant, nuclear power made up around 10% of California’s energy supply last year, EIA said. Natural gas supplied around half of the Golden State’s electricity in 2021.
California’s three other nuclear facilities, San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, Rancho Seco Nuclear Generating Station and Humboldt Bay Power Plant, are all being decommissioned or have already been dismantled.
