California Governor Newsom offers hope for state’s last nuclear plant, but major hurdles remain

CNBC ^ | FRI, APR 29 20224:19 PM EDT | Catherine Clifford

[BenLurkin]

In a conversation with the LA Times’ editorial board on Thursday, Newsom said the state might pursue federal funding the Biden administration made available in its Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to keep uneconomic nuclear power plants open.

The power plant, located in San Luis Obispo County and operated by utility company PG&E, is slated to cease operations by August 2025.

PG&E said its priority was clean and reliable energy for California.

“The people of PG&E are proud of the role that Diablo Canyon Power Plant plays in our state,” Suzanne Hosn, spokesperson for PG&E told CNBC. “We are always open to considering all options to ensure continued safe, reliable, and clean energy delivery to our customers.”

To be eligible for any of the $6 billion in funding, a nuclear reactor has to prove it “at risk of ceasing operations due to economic factors,” according to a procedural document issued by the Department of Energy in February. PG&E is a public company and its most recent quarterly filing showed the company was profitable, but it did not break out finances for the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant.

[captain_jonas]

Newsom must be scared witless that he and his party are gonna be unable to be able to cheat again because way too many people are voting against them to make the cheat look realistic if he is now talking about nuclear plants and rounding up the homeless into rehab

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

California has the largest off-shore oil and natural gas reserves in the Western Hemisphere.

[FreedomPoster]

If Californians had any sense, they would be building a dozen nuclear plants with half of them being combined desalinization plants.

[bert]

Or, frack for the known gas to power the plants.

Most such desalinization plants in the GCC run on gas

California cuts off it’s nose to spite it’s ugly face

[Cobra64]

Yup. A few nuke plants would mitigate brown outs and be in a power delivery system to charge the inevitable millions of electric cars the state is obsessed with.

However, since politicians are incapable of critical thinking skills and common sense, new nukes will never happen.

[captain_jonas]

The cheating democrats won’t allow the people in the state to publicly vote on nuclear plants because they know it would pass

[bert]

Maybe Zorro will appear and kill them off

[MinorityRepublican]

Only one? Well, there’s a lot of earthquakes in California. Just saying.

[dsrtsage]

Just build more wind and solar. You can still see parts of the mojave and sonoran deserts and the costal ranges, so they need to finish covering them up

[bigbob]

Thank Jane Fonda and her GD movie for why that’s not happening.

[bigbob]

Thank Jane Fonda and her GD movie for why that’s not happening.

[SkyDancer]

Have to get rid of their last nuke plant as well as coal and gas; forget hydro since the dams have hardly any water. Oh, and, the desalinization plant was turned down. So who needs fresh water there anyway.

[kaktuskid]

Meanwhile California continues to buy excess power from the Palo Verde Nuclear Plant in Arizona.

[matt04]

Exactly. CA has plenty of coastline and access to cooling water to power the entire state with clean reliable and safe Nuclear plants.

[wjcsux]

“California has the largest off-shore oil and natural gas reserves in the Western Hemisphere.”
Several years ago, I met a retired oil exploration ship captain, the ship was operated by BJ Hughes if I remember correctly. He said that it would take years to map all of the oil off of the California coast.

[SunkenCiv]

...might pursue federal funding the Biden administration made available in its Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to keep uneconomic nuclear power plants open.