Postponing Diablo Canyon’s closure could make sense — but the devil is in the details

This could change everything.

After previously indicating that he would not intervene to keep the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant open, Gov. Gavin Newsom now says he plans to seek some of the $6 billion in federal bail-out funding for nuclear power plants threatened with closure.

PG&E, Diablo Canyon’s owner, also seems to be doing an about-face.

For years, the utility has insisted it intends to shutter the plant in 2024-25. Just a couple of weeks ago, Maureen Zawalick, PG&E vice president of decommissioning and technical services, reiterated that.

“Diablo Canyon is not closing because of financial reasons, or financial challenges like other plants in the United States are ... and that $6 billion is focused on those (financial) reasons,” she said at a meeting of the Decommissioning Engagement Panel. “We are closing, as most of you know, because of the California energy policies. .... We do what the state tells us to.”

So is the state now signaling that it wants PG&E to keep California’s last nuclear power plant running?

If that’s the case, now PG&E appears amenable — at least that’s what its carefully vetted statement seems to say:

“We are always open to considering all options to ensure continued safe, reliable, and clean energy delivery to our customers,” PG&E spokeswoman Suzanne Hosn told The Tribune on Friday.

We haven’t opposed the closure because, absent PG&E’s willingness to keep the plant open and the governor’s lack of interest in intervening, there appeared to be no viable way to keep Diablo Canyon in business.

We believed it made more sense to concentrate on replacing that power with clean sources of energy, including wind, solar and battery storage, than to keep chasing after a lost cause.

We still believe that alternative green energy must be the top priority because ultimately, Diablo Canyon will have to close. We must be prepared for that.

But it’s looking more and more like we need additional time to transition. If we don’t have enough clean power online to replace Diablo Canyon — and PG&E, regulatory agencies and the state are all willing to consider a change of course — then it is worth revisiting whether it’s possible to postpone the plant’s retirement.

By continuing to operate it even for a limited period of time — say three to five years — California would have the opportunity to transition to other forms of energy.

Keeping the plant open also would forestall the economic hit the community will take when the plant closes.

On the other hand, it raises the question of whether the financial aid that county agencies received as compensation for property tax losses would have to be returned to ratepayers. (Maybe that’s where the federal funding could come in?)

Certainly, the idea of extending the life of the plant will not sit well with anti-nuclear advocates who have reason to be concerned about having a nuclear power plant sited in a fault zone. On top of that, there is still no permanent repository for spent fuel, which makes it highly likely that Diablo Canyon will remain a nuclear waste storage site for decades to come.

Yet the threat posed by climate change is looming larger than ever. If we don’t act quickly to cut greenhouse gas emissions, it will be too late to avoid dire consequences, including catastrophic sea level rise, worsening drought and forced migrations, both of animals and people.

According to an October 2021 article in Scientific American, we have 11 years to “fix” the climate.

“Aggressive policies, enacted now, can create more time and more hope for preventing catastrophe,” the article says.

Keeping Diablo Canyon open, at least for a limited time, would be an aggressive policy, but the benefits appear to outweigh the risks — provided the plant can be operated safely.

The deadline for applying for federal funds is May 19.

Stay tuned for the details.