Nuclear Regulatory Commission Saves California’s Diablo Canyon Plant

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has saved Diablo Canyon, California’s last nuclear plant, by granting it an exemption from permitting requirements and allowing it to survive past a 2025 expiration date.

The plant was scheduled to close in 2025 before Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) pushed the Democrat-dominated legislature to extend the deadline by five years last fall — in the midst of a statewide electricity shortage.

However, as Breitbart News reported in January, the plant’s permits meant that it might have to close anyway:

On Tuesday, the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) rejected an effort by the Pacific Gas & Electric Company [PG&E] to reinstate permit applications that it had withdrawn. Its current permits expire in 2024 and 2025 for each of the two reactors in the plant, and new applications could take months.

…

Environmental groups were elated by the NRC’s decision, with Environmental Working Group (EWG) attorney Caroline Leary declaring in a statement: ““It’s not too late for the California Legislature to re-direct the billion dollars slated for revival of these unsafe and uneconomical reactors to the support of safe and renewable alternative energy sources such as solar and wind power, energy efficiency and load management.”

On Thursday, the NRC allowed PG&E to reapply:

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has granted an exemption to Pacific Gas & Electric
Co. that would allow the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant to continue operating while the
agency considers its license renewal application.

After evaluating the company’s exemption request, the NRC staff determined that the
exemption is authorized by law, will not present undue risk to the public health and safety, and is
consistent with the common defense and security. In addition, the staff determined Diablo
Canyon’s continued operation is in the public interest because of serious challenges to the
reliability of California’s electricity grid.

The current operating licenses for the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, Units 1 and 2,
expire on Nov. 2, 2024, and Aug. 26, 2025, respectively. The exemption granted today will allow
those licenses to remain in effect provided PG&E submits a sufficient license renewal
application for the reactors by Dec. 31, 2023. The NRC will continue its normal inspection and
oversight of the facility throughout the review to ensure continued safe operation. If granted, the
license renewal would authorize continued operation for up to 20 years.

Though environmentalists remain opposed to nuclear power, it is finding increasing support among climate change activists because it does not produce carbon emissions and new technological solutions have emerged to handle nuclear waste.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.