As the independent nonprofit Californians for Green Nuclear Power, Inc. (CGNP) has previously noted, a coalition will be required to successfully enact California legislation to extend Diablo Canyon Power Plant (DCPP) operations to 2045. On 2 April 2026, The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) extended DCPP’s operating license to 2045. There are long-lead-time items such as nuclear reactor fuel that need to be ordered in 2026 in order to have DCPP Unit 1 operate continuously. Per California SB 846 (Dodd, 2022) DCPP Unit 1 is currently scheduled to shut down in 2029. Thus, legislation to extend DCPP’s operations to 2045 needs to be passed this year. California’s regular legislative calendar ends in about four months.

As part of that coalition, CGNP has been working very hard to achieve this objective. We submitted draft California legislation to Legislative Counsel in late January, 2026. Unfortunately, that work hit a roadblock as a consequence of improper actions by the Office of Legislative Counsel and the inability of CGNP to raise the requisite funds to continue their initiative.

A CGNP representative was a panelist at a 14 January 2026 Hispanics in Energy (HiE)

https://www.hispanicsinenergy.com/

2026 California Energy Summit in Sacramento. The panel topic was the ongoing need for nuclear power in California. CGNP has been collaborating with HiE for several years.

Tom Jones of PG&E is shown at left, Gene Nelson, Ph.D. in the center, and John Kotek of the Nuclear Energy Institute are shown in this photograph of the HiE 2026 California Energy Summit. Not shown was the panel moderator Catherine Sandoval, Ph.D. Photo credit: Hispanics in Energy.

The 2 April 2026 U.S. NRC’s extension of DCPP’s operating license to 2045 contributed positive momentum to crafting California legislation to extend DCPP’s operation to 2045 instead of 2030. The CGNP article “On 2 April 2026 The NRC Granted Permission for DCPP to Run at Least Until 2045 A Day for Celebration”

https://greennuke.substack.com/p/on-2-april-2026-the-nrc-granted-permission provides additional details.

On 14 April 2026, CGNP attended the HiE Energy Legislative Summit in Washington, DC. The message delivered by several panelists was that the United States needs all of the nuclear power it can get. Extended nuclear power plant operation and restarts such as those underway at Palisades in Michigan are necessary. A Palisades progress report appears here: “Holtec hits milestones in Palisades restart, new reactor projects,” 2 April 2026, ANS Nuclear Newswire.

https://www.ans.org/news/2026-04-02/article-7901/holtec-hits-milestones-in-palisades-restart-new-reactor-projects/ This article does not identify a restart date. Crane Clean Energy Center (Formerly known as Three Mile Island Unit 1) in Pennsylvania is scheduled to restart in 2027, with all of its output being sold to Microsoft Corporation. Duane Arnold in Iowa has a planned restart date in early 2029. CGNP notes that the event that initiated the three reactor restart activities was the extension of DCPP operations to 2030 as a consequence of the 2 September 2022 enactment of California SB 846 (Dodd, 2022.) CGNP played a leadership role in the first-ever extension of operations of a nuclear power plant that was previously scheduled to shut down (in 2025.) CGNP also continued to work on corporate alliance-building at the HiE Energy Legislative Summit.

On 21 April 2026, CGNP was the opposition witness during the California Senate Energy Utilities and Communication Committee hearing regarding SB 931 (Laird, 2026.) In our comments, we clarified that the legislation was incomplete, with no mention of extended DCPP operations beyond 2030. This omission was akin to killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. The subsequent committee members discussion showed that California Senators support DCPP extended operations. See: https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/hearings/279368 at 23:23

....Doctor Gene Nelson, California(ns) Institute for Green Nuclear Power. While we support the idea of adding CIMP, we are unaware of any legislative effort to extend the life of the plant. There is none, period. And this is our concern is that we really need to not kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

The NRC has said go to 2045. The state of California, zip, Nada. And that needs to to be corrected, and I believe that this bill would be an excellent vehicle to actually correct that important missing piece.

Again, there is nothing out there. Now if we choose to close this plant down, we’re basically following the path of Spain on 04/28/2025. There was a massive blackout because they tried the experiment of running a modern industrial society on breezes and the sun.

It did not work. 11 people paid with their lives....

Following the hearing, CGNP visited several legislative offices. A discussion in a key California leadership office restarted CGNP’s work to develop legislative language for a DCPP extension to 2045.

I spent several additional days updating CGNP’s draft from January, 2026 reflecting the events during the subsequent three months. Here’s a one-paragraph summary of our proposed legislation from CGNP’s 4 May 2026 transmittal letter to that leader:

This California legislation authorizes Diablo Canyon powerplant operations at least until 2045. The principles of physics and the tragic events of the massive mid-day April 28, 2025 Iberian Peninsula Blackout establish that a modern industrial society will not run on a power grid supplied primarily by solar, wind, and batteries. As a result, passages alleging that solar, wind, and batteries will replace Diablo Canyon are counterfactual. Those passages have been deleted. Since Diablo Canyon is California’s largest generation plant, its beneficial attributes such as being an emission-free contributor to resource adequacy will be included in all grid planning processes to 2045. A funding mechanism based on “millage” - the mechanism employed to initially fund the Diablo Canyon Decommissioning Fund (now fully funded) for the three proposed state-administered funds (CIMF, TMF, and CNAF) established by this legislation is described at the bottom of page 6. Since the $1.4 billion loan from the State of California will be fully repaid by 2030, all of the applicable sections in the new legislation have been deleted. Consistent with established CPUC precedent, many indicated sections of the SB 846 legislation will not apply in the event that Diablo Canyon powerplant is sold to a new owner. The sections of SB 846 based on only a five year extension to 2030 are deleted, since this new legislation is based on the 2 April 2026 NRC extension of DCPP operations to 2045.

Copies of CGNP’s draft legislation (28 single-spaced pages with changes from SB 846 shown and 21 pages in clean form) are available upon emailed request.

Finally, CGNP joined the coalition named Diablo Canyon 2045

https://DiabloCanyon2045.com

advocating for the extension of DCPP operations to 2045. Here is a screen capture of the first few coalition members, shown in alphabetic order as of 04 May 2026:

Please visit https://diablocanyon2045.com/whoweare for the complete listing. We are on a roll!

Graphic courtesy of Substack.

We are grateful to all of our subscribers for this growth. There are a pair of relevant statistics also included in the graphic. CGNP believes that our information needs to be available to the widest possible audience. For that reason, 97.8% of our subscribers are using free subscriptions.

CGNP appreciates the commitment of the Substack platform to the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Sadly, many other social media platforms exercise significant content control, in accordance with the desires of their owners. Thus, Substack is one of the few places where the environmental and ratepayer benefits of nuclear power may be discussed.

CGNP learned as a consequence of technical reasons, Google has a difficult time including Substack posts in their databases. We’ve utilized the Google Search Console to attempt to overcome this shortcoming without much success. We have also placed the text of some of our important articles - such as our first article at the CGNP website https://CGNP.org so it could be properly indexed by Google.

Subsequent to our establishing this Substack, we learned that Substack’s algorithms favor the Substacks with the greatest number of paid subscribers. This makes sense for a profit-generating business.

All of the subscription revenue (less Substack’s commission) for the GreenNUKE Substack flows directly into the CGNP treasury. Thus, you as a paid subscriber will help CGNP achieve its objective of making California decision-makers aware of the necessity of keeping Diablo Canyon Power Plant (DCPP) running well into the future. We receive no funds from DCPP’s owner, Pacific Gas & Electric Corporation. If you wish to make a major gift to CGNP, please contact us via our email at

government [at] CGNP [dot] org to learn how to make a direct donation. Thanks.

Again, thank you for your support of CGNP’s advocacy. One of my fellow nuclear power advocates recently informed me that I’m doing God’s work. (She, like myself does not believe in God.) However, her phrase makes sense in my spiritual perspective. At age 74, I recognize that my advocacy is my legacy.

On 2 April 2026, Californians for Green Nuclear Power, Inc. (CGNP) sent a pair of articles and a brief message regarding the NRC license renewal to 2045 to our core supporters and a few journalists. Later that day, I and my wife met with about 100 other DCPP advocates, friends, and some key Diablo Canyon Power Plant (DCPP) managers and staff at a local country club. We enjoyed the celebration, meeting with fellow nuclear power advocates. We attended from start to finish. We were embargoed from sharing any information about this event until after it was over. I had to keep quiet about what I already knew from closely tracking the progress of the NRC license renewal process. Readers of the GreenNUKE Substack have received updates during the past two years. Prior to March 2024, updates were posted to the CGNP website at https://CGNP.org . We recently updated CGNP’s tagline to read, “California Needs DCPP’s 24/7 Reliable Power.”

I received the invitation shown above from plant owner PG&E on March 25, 2026. The text on the invitation read, “We are expecting to make an exciting announcement about the future of Diablo Canyon Power Plant on April 2nd and would like to thank you for your support over the years by inviting you and a guest to celebrate with us.”

During the past decade, I’ve experienced many emotional lows and a few highs as an advocate for DCPP extended operations. One of the particularly low days was the surprise announcement on June 21, 2016 that DCPP would be needlessly closed in 2025. I sat in the front row of the audience for a public meeting which included seeing one of the leaders of SLO Mothers for Peace on the dais gloating about her leadership in shutting the plant down. Later I learned of the process I characterize as blackmail by the California State Lands Commission (CASLC) to force PG&E to agree to close the plant in order to obtain a lease extension to 2025 of the intake and outfall structures. This improper process was an example of regulatory overreach, as the California Constitution limits the CASLC’s remit to assuring the people of the State of California receive a fair rate of return for any lands held in public trust.

Despite the above challenges (and many others,) we have been optimistic that we would eventually see the DCPP NRC license renewal to 2045. I’ve been laser-focused on this activity, spending over 30,000 hours including many “all nighters” in order to support DCPP extended operations. I’m grateful for the steadfast support of my wife Linda. The majority of my time was spent as an intervenor before the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC.) While I do not have a Juris Doctor (J.D.), during more than three decades I learned that I have a good legal mind. I received excellent mentoring from the Honorable Mike Gatto, who served four terms as a California Assemblyman. I appreciate my friendship with Attorney Gatto. My tenacious personality includes completing three marathons between 1981 and 2005 and completing the arduous process of earning my science Ph.D. in radiation biophysics in 1984 with the strong support of Carol Lewis, Ph.D. in the Biophysics Department at the University of Buffalo. I combined those aspects together to be the author of thousands of pages of written legal testimony before the CPUC advocating for DCPP extended operations.

Here’s one of the passages on page 167 that journalist Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow uses to portray me in her 2025 book Atomic Dreams - The New Nuclear Evangelists and the Fight for the Future of Energy

https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Dreams-Nuclear-Evangelists-Future/dp/1643753150

..... But what really set CGNP apart was that they were official intervenors with the California Public Utilities Commission. That meant that they could submit comments to the commission whenever a proceeding was underway.

In 2016, dozens of intervenors, including Mothers for Peace and Friends of the Earth, submitted comments about the plan to close Diablo Canyon. CGNP was the lone intervenor that argued for extending the plant’s life beyond 2025. The proposal’s “‘clean energy vision,’” CGNP wrote in their comments, using scare quotes, “is one at odds with science, with public health, environmental health, California ratepayers, and the health of the California economy.” They also wrote responses to the comments of the other intervenors. All of this added up to thousands of pages over the years. Heather and Kristin sometimes smirked at Gene’s idiosyncrasies, but they ultimately expressed deep gratitude that he and his associates were doing this grunt work......

Here’s a close up of a portion of my name badge for the 2 April 2026 PG&E celebration. I appreciate the message, “Proud to Power California - Diablo Canyon Power Plant.”

This 4 April 2026 article by Dan Yurman in his blog Neutron Bytes captures some of the challenges that DCPP advocates have faced for more than a decade.

Dcpp Nrc License Renewal Neutron Bytes 04 04 26

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Here are some photographs I took of friends and advocates at the 2 April 2026 celebration.

Left to right: My wife Linda Nelson, Heather Hoff, Jennifer Klay, Ph.D. and Ninah Hartley

San Luis Obispo County Supervisor Dawn Ortiz-Legg and Linda Nelson

Linda Nelson, Carl Wurtz, past-president of CGNP who drove from Burbank, California to attend the celebration, and Christina Talacko, CEO and co-founder of Glow Strategies. Christina is based in Australia.

Additional details are found in the attached articles I curated.

Our local newspaper of record, The San Luis Obispo Tribune, promptly published an online story at about noon on 2 April 2026. The above the fold headline of the 5 April 2026 print edition by reporter Stephanie Zappelli was titled “NRC: Diablo power plant can operate another 20 years.” The online article was updated on 3 April 2026 with some excellent photographs of the DCPP turbine deck.

On 2 April 2026, California Governor Gavin Newsom also applauded the NRC license renewal. “Governor Newsom welcomes approval of Diablo Canyon license renewals, delivering on California’s commitment to a clean and reliable grid.”

Both of these articles appear in one file:

Dcpp License Renewal To 2045 04 02 26

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From the American Nuclear Society’s Nuclear Newswire on 3 April 2026, “NRC approves Diablo Canyon license renewal, extension“

Nrc Approves Diablo Canyon License Renewal, Extension 04 03 26

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On 3 April 2026, Senior editor Darrell Proctor of Power Magazine was the author of, “ NRC Extends Operating License for California’s Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant.”

Nrc Extends Operating License For California’s Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant 04 03 26

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On 2 April 2026, KCLU Reporter Lance Orozco was the author of, “ The federal government approves the license renewal for the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant.”

The Federal Government Approves The License Renewal For Dcpp 04 02 26

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On 2 April 2026, KSBY TV-6 for San Luis Obispo, CA reporter Leslie Santibañez-Molina was the author of, “Nuclear Regulatory Commission approves 20-year extension for Diablo Canyon Power Plant to operate.”

Nrc Extends Dcpp Operations To 2045 Ksby 04 02 26

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On 2 April 2026, The San Diego Union-Tribune reporter Rob Nikolewski was the author of, “California’s last nuclear power plant gets a 20-year extension from federal regulators.”

Nrc Extends Dcpp Operations To 2045 04 02 26

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On 2 April 2026, The Santa Maria Times reporter Jennifer Best was the author of, “Diablo Canyon gets federal licensing to extend operation through 2045.”

Diablo Canyon Gets Federal Licensing To Extend Operation Through 2045

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Regrettably, the editorial stance of The Los Angeles Times opposes DCPP. The headline of the 2 April 2026 article by Blanca Begert shows this bias, “Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant gets final go-ahead to run through 2030.”

Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant Gets Final Go Ahead To Run Through 2030 04 02 26

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In my opinion, DCPP owner PG&E authored a 2 April 2026 press release which fails to make a concise and clear statement of the environmental and ratepayer benefits of DCPP extended operations. The title is, “U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Approves License Renewal Application for Extended Operations of Diablo Canyon.”

U

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In upcoming articles, CGNP will be highlighting the obstacles to California legislation authorizing DCPP operations to 2045. We have concerns regarding the doctrinaire opposition to DCPP extended operations by local California Senator John Laird and local California Assembly Member Dawn Addis. Senator Laird seems to believe that California’s huge population and economy can be powered by sunlight and breezes, as advocated by the Sierra Club. CGNP would not be surprised if Berkshire Hathaway Energy subsidiary PacifiCorp continues to lobby for DCPP operations to cease to expand the business opportunities for the firm’s large fleet of coal-fired power plants in and around Wyoming. CGNP has already established the wholesale electric power sales of PacifiCorp to mostly California entities exceeds a billion dollars since November, 2014 via the innocuously-named Western Energy Imbalance Market (WEIM.) WEIM exploits a loophole in California SB 1368 (Perata, 2006) barring long-term power exports to California from polluting out-of-state coal-fired power plants. California legislators should review the 30 March 2026 letter from six New England governors in support of nuclear power generation, “Advancing Nuclear Energy for a 21st Century New England Electricity Grid.”

Six New England Governors Nuclear Statement (31 March 2026)

620KB ∙ PDF file

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As with the previous 50 articles, CGNP will update this article via the comment section. We invite you to disseminate this article to your friends and colleagues. Please comment as well. Thank you.

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Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed on Saturday, February 28, 2026. Since then, the geographic choke point of the Strait of Hormuz has loomed large in world awareness as Iranian military activity has essentially halted commercial traffic flowing through this strait. Iran’s territory lies to the north of the strait.

This Google satellite view shows the roughly 20 mile width of the Strait of Hormuz. The scale bar in the lower right corner shows 50 miles.

About 20% of the world’s crude oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) is transported by tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz. Those feedstocks supply energy for transportation and fertilizer manufacture, among other essential human needs. Disruption of this transportation route, which is now essentially closed, causes adverse worldwide consequences.

On January 15, 2026 during his speech, German Chancellor Merz acknowledged Germany’s strategic vulnerability in advance of the present Iranian conflict. If Germany had continued to use its well-maintained fleet of 37 nuclear power reactors instead of needlessly shutting them all down by April 2023, Germany’s economy would be much more resilient in response to supply shocks such as the present shut down of the Strait of Hormuz. Merz’s speech was summarized in a January 19, 2026 GreenNUKE [Californians for Green Nuclear Power - CGNP] Substack article.

The significant problem is that modern industrial societies require dispatchable (under human control) high-quality energy such as that provided by nuclear fission and fossil fuels - the latter both as a feedstock and as an energy supply. Unfortunately, Socialist “thought leadership” during the past quarter of a century has aggressively pushed for the industrial West to utilize low-quality intermittent electric power from solar, wind, and batteries instead of the above high-quality energy sources. This policy choice unilaterally disadvantages the West. However, the Socialist BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) are granted a pass via the same thought leadership. One of the ways to see this is the observation that the People’s Republic of China has been consuming more coal in recent years than the rest of the world combined. China is also a significant consumer of sanctioned Iranian crude petroleum, which it purchases at a discount. Any pollution reductions by the West are more than nullified by the increase in Chinese air and water pollution. CGNP characterizes these outcomes as, “Sheer hypocrisy.”

The January 19, 2026 GreenNUKE Substack article criticized Western media for under-reporting Chancellor Merz’s speech. Unfortunately, the pattern of under-reporting has been continued regarding E.U. head Ursula von der Leyen’s March 10, 2026 speech in Paris, France at the 2026 International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) Energy Summit. Europe’s (and in particular Germany’s) needless shutting down of nuclear power reactors was a “Strategic mistake” because it made Europe, with the exception of France, much more vulnerable to disruption of crude oil and LNG as energy inputs for electricity generation. France learned from the 1973 Arab oil embargo to use nuclear power for electricity generation. Currently about 65 - 70% of France’s electricity is supplied by nuclear fission, making France a world leader in low-cost reliable electricity generation with minimal pollution harming the environment.

CGNP remains optimistic that reporters could use the links to news stories below to create informative stories regarding E.U. head von der Leyen’s March 10, 2026 speech. The IAEA provided considerable detail at their website.

Group photo of the IAEA 2026 Nuclear Energy Summit courtesy of the IAEA. In two of the stories below, E.U. head von der Leyen was pictured wearing a blue blazer.

Global Leaders Convene in France for Nuclear Energy Summit

The Nuclear Energy Summit, hosted by France, took place today. President Macron opened the summit together with IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi, joined by global leaders and representatives of more than 60 countries.

10 March 2026

Monika Shifotoka, IAEA Office of Public Information and Communication

https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/global-leaders-convene-in-france-for-nuclear-energy-summit

IAEA Scientific Programme details

https://www.iaea.org/events/nuclear-energy-summit-2026/programme

This Deutsche Welle (German) news story provides details. Unfortunately, it focuses on some opposition by a few Greenpeace activists acting as bullies. There is also a sensationalist portrayal of the risks posed by ionizing radiation that are not supported by robust data sets such as the lack of injuries or deaths from ionizing radiation from U.S. commercial nuclear power since those operations began in 1957. There is a similar lack of injuries or deaths from ionizing radiation in the U.S. nuclear Navy. I believe there is a similar lack of injuries or deaths from ionizing radiation for German commercial nuclear power operations spanning more than four decades.

EU chief: Phasing out nuclear power was ‘strategic mistake’

Zac Crellin with AFP, Reuters

03/10/2026 March 10, 2026

https://amp.dw.com/en/europe-eu-nuclear-power-strategic-mistake/a-76289274

The Reuters news coverage is more balanced.

Reducing Europe’s nuclear energy sector was ‘strategic mistake’, EU chief says

By Forrest Crellin and Gianluca Lo Nostro

March 10, 2026 6:03 AM PDT Updated 23 hours ago

https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/reducing-nuclear-energy-strategic-mistake-eu-chief-says-2026-03-10/

Here is the Bloomberg Law coverage.

EU Made ‘Mistake’ in Phasing Out Nuclear, Von Der Leyen Says

March 10, 2026, 8:01 AM PDT

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-and-energy/eu-made-mistake-in-phasing-out-nuclear-von-der-leyen-says-2

John Ainger, Bloomberg News

Here’s a good background March 24, 2021 story from the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy.

Nuclear Power is the Most Reliable Energy Source and It’s Not Even Close

Nuclear energy has the highest capacity factor of any energy source.

By Mike Mueller, Former Senior Digital Content Strategist

https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/nuclear-power-most-reliable-energy-source-and-its-not-even-close

Here’s a November 12, 2025 World Nuclear News background article.

Nuclear power is making a comeback, says IEA

https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/nuclear-power-is-making-a-comeback-says-iea

Finally, here is a concise March 11, 2026 article critical of the widespread Western adoption of solar, wind, and batteries by Scott Grout, a new Substack author. Scott chronicles the economic waste of these trillion-dollar expenditures.

The Great Energy Detour

CGNP looks forward to your thoughts in the comments below.

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Independent nonprofit Californians for Green Nuclear Power, Inc. (CGNP) joined many other groups advocating for Diablo Canyon Power Plant (DCPP) extended operations in urging the Central Coast Water Board (CCWB) to decide to unanimously approve on February 26, 2026 the plant’s operations at least until 2030. This is the final California state regulatory action prior to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issuing a License Renewal to 2045 to the plant’s owner, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E.)

The author, Gene Nelson, Ph.D. being interviewed for the lead 6:00 PM news story on KSBY TV-6 on Friday, February 27, 2026. The location, north of Avila Beach, CA is opposite the entrance to DCPP.

First, here are CGNP’s presentation slides for their five-minute long presentation before the CCWB on Thursday, February 26, 2026:

Cgnp To Region 3 Waterboard 02 26 26

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Here are CGNP’s prepared comments for their CCWB presentation:

Cgnp To Swrcb Region 3 02 26 26

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Here’s Karson Wells’s KSBY TV-6 reporting of the CCWB decision on February 27, 2026:

Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board Unanimously Approves Permit For Diablo Canyon 02 27 26

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Nuclear power advocate Paris Ortiz-Wines reported on X shortly after the CCWB decision.

Diablo Canyon Is Awarded Its Final State Permit Paris Ortiz Wines 02 26 26

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The official CCWB February 26 news release appears here:

Central Coast Water Board Adopts New Water Quality Permits For Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant 02 26 26

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The February 26, 2026 Los Angeles Times article regarding the CCWB approval is here:

Diablo Canyon Clears Last California Permit Hurdle 02 26 26

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While the local NPR outlet KCBX usually shows its Left-leaning bias in its DCPP reporting, the headline carries important information:

Regulators Gave Diablo Canyon An Approval That Could Mean A New, 20 Year License 02 27 26

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Regrettably, plant owner PG&E’s website regarding DCPP still seems more focused on decommissioning instead of extended operations when CGNP reviewed it on March 1, 2026. Please review the website yourself at

https://www.pge.com/en/about/pge-systems/nuclear-power.html

While the February 26, 2026 CCWB approval of DCPP extended operations is a newsworthy event, there is no PG&E news release that CGNP could locate at the PG&E news releases website: https://www.pge.com/en/newsroom/press-releases.html

On the other hand, PG&E released an informative short video regarding the lack of biological harms of DCPP’s once-through-cooling (OTC) on February 25, 2026

https://x.com/DiabloCanyonCA/status/2026674251701563631

which contains an amusing disclaimer featuring PG&E’s Tom Jones eating some sea foam in the DCPP outfall cove:

San Luis Obispo, California’s newspaper of record is the San Luis Obispo Tribune. In the author’s view, this newspaper has exhibited mostly an opposition to the plant’s operation during its history stretching back almost sixty years. The CCWB approval of DCPP’s extended operations to 2030 is the headline, “Nuclear power plant takes steps toward 2030 extension” in the above the fold story by Stephanie Zappelli in the Sunday, March 1, 2026 print edition, which was printed in advance of the U.S. - Israeli mid-day attack on Tehran, Iran on February 27, 2026 which resulted in the death of supreme leader Ali Khamenei.

Dcpp Takes Big Step Toward Extending Life To 2030 02 27 26

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Finally, there was a story in Politico on February 25, the day before the CCWB meeting:

Big Diablo Energy Politico 02 25 26

371KB ∙ PDF file

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The next step will be the NRC’s issuance of the DCPP License Renewal. DCPP has already passed NRC’s in-depth safety review. According to PG&E’s Tom Jones’s comments at the CCWB meeting, the NRC approval will be granted during the second quarter of 2026.

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CGNP believes the NRC issuance date for the DCPP License Renewal could be as early as April 2, 2026. GreenNUKE will likely be one of the first to report this positive news.

Photo Credit: Bloomberg.com August 20, 2025

The above photograph shows the Diablo Canyon Unit 2 high pressure steam turbine. Presuming Governor Newsom promptly signs the extension legislation, the above deadlines show that there are only three years and two months from the bill enactment until Unit 1 is scheduled to close down per California SB 846 (Dodd, 2022.)

There are many long lead time items such as uranium fuel that must be ordered to insure that DCPP continues to produce its safe, abundant, reliable, cost-effective and zero-emissions power beyond October 31, 2029 until at least 2045. That is why PG&E’s Tom Jones informed CGNP on July 17, 2025 that our extension legislation must pass during the 2026 legislative year. Any delay beyond the 2026 legislative year means the long lead time items might not be available in time. DCPP got very close to that limit when SB 846 was enacted on September 2, 2022 to avoid Unit 1 closing in late 2024.

You may learn about the details of CGNP’s draft 2026 legislation here:

As of February 13, 2026, CGNP has been unable to obtain a sponsor in the California Assembly or California Senate for its draft legislation. CGNP’s draft legislation was referred to legislative counsel about three weeks ago.

California State Senator Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh (R-19th District) is apparently planning to introduce a DCPP extension bill by February 18. Like CGNP, the County of San Luis Obispo is advocating for legislation that provides for a means to compensate for the substantial loss of Unitary Tax from DCPP after fiscal year 2016-2017 and to extend DCPP operations at least until 2045. California Senator John Laird (D-17th District) has indicated he will be supporting legislation to compensate for the loss of Unitary Tax from DCPP only to 2030, but is not presently supporting extended operations beyond 2030. Based on the above deadlines, Senator Laird’s likely legislation implies a DCPP shutdown in 2029-2030. CPUC intervenor TURN may introduce legislation similar to Senator Laird’s. (TURN played a significant role in the CPUC decision to shut down San Onofre Nuclear Generation Stations [SONGS] at the end of January, 2012 instead of repairing that plant.) DCPP owner PG&E may propose extension legislation which aligns with their federal NRC license renewal application to 2045. Other than those from CGNP, no further legislative details are available.

CGNP’s Request

Some CGNP donors provided the funds so CGNP could introduce our legislation during February, 2026. In order for CGNP to continue advocating for DCPP extended operations to 2045, we require five thousand dollars per month, or fifty thousand dollars to the end of 2026 for the services of our Sacramento-based Consultant Chris Micheli. CGNP advocates for the ratepayer and environmental benefits of DCPP extended operations. CGNP is a nonprofit 501 [c] [3] educational organization EIN 47-3674913. Upon request, we can supply our bank’s routing number and checking account number to wire funds directly to CGNP without delays or a third party taking a commission. Please help keep Diablo Canyon running. Thank you.

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DCPP in springtime. Photo Credit: Pacific Gas & Electric, 2016.

Hispanics in Energy

During the past month, I’ve participated in three meetings regarding DCPP. The first was a Hispanics in Energy California Energy Summit in Sacramento on January 14, 2026. I was a panelist in the session regarding the future of nuclear power in California.

The author (center) with Tom Jones of PG&E (Left) and John Kotek of the Nuclear Energy Institute (Right) at the Hispanics in Energy California Energy Summit. Not shown was the moderator Professor Catherine Sandoval. Photo Credit: Hispanics in Energy

Despite the efforts of Professor Caroline Sandoval (a former CPUC Commissioner) to dominate the session, the panelists were able to communicate the importance of nuclear power for California’s future to the audience of about 100 people which included Sacramento decision-makers. Tom Jones of DCPP owner Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) strongly made the case for DCPP extended operations beyond 2030 during the panel discussion. Speakers in other panels also endorsed DCPP extended operations at least until 2045.

City of San Luis Obispo

The next meeting was the City of San Luis Obispo (SLO) California City Council meeting on February 3, 2026. DCPP was on the agenda because the City avoided endorsement of the letter to the California legislature from The County of San Luis Obispo and the six other cities in San Luis Obispo County. The SLO County letter coupled the need to restore the DCPP unitary taxation to the levels circa 2017 with a endorsement of DCPP extended operations beyond 2030. (Unitary taxation is determined by the State of California Board of Equalization [BoE.] The BoE first totals the value of a public utility’s entire system within the state of California. Then the BoE apportions the property within each of California’s 58 counties using a combination of statute and procedure. Since 1985, a significant portion of the value of PG&E’s property was associated with DCPP.)

“San Luis Obispo holds back signature to extend Diablo Canyon operation,” Karson Wells, Updated 11:11 PM, Jan 28, 2026, KSBY TV-6. https://www.ksby.com/san-luis-obispo/san-luis-obispo-holds-back-signature-to-extend-diablo-canyon-operation

Given SLO City Council Member Jan Marx’s longstanding opposition to DCPP extended operations, she likely opposed endorsement of the County letter.

Here is the text of my prepared comments which I delivered during the public comment period on this agenda item:

“My name is Gene Nelson, Ph.D. I live in SLO. I was an engineering professor at Cal Poly and a physics professor at Cuesta College.

I’m the president and senior legal researcher at the independent nonprofit Californians for Green Nuclear Power. I’m available for questions from the public every alternate week at the SLO Downtown Farmer’s Market. CGNP’s booth is near Feral Kitchen.

I strive to base my decisions regarding Diablo Canyon on factual approaches instead of emotional appeals to fear. The record spanning more than 60 years shows that nuclear power is as safe as solar or wind on a deaths per kilowatt-hour basis.

The City of San Luis Obispo seems to want to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs in their lack of support of Diablo Canyon Extended Operations to 2045. The County made a very reasonable request to sign on to the County’s letter to the legislature. The other cities in the County agreed. SLO did not. When I examined the relevant correspondence, I noted that the discredited arguments of organizations doctrinally opposed to nuclear power were raised.

CGNP has submitted draft legislation to legislative counsel to extend DCPP operations to 2045. We propose an innovative method to restore funding to the County and Cities that was severely cut by the loss in Unitary Tax paid by PG&E starting in 2017. We also have a meeting scheduled with key staffers in the Board of Equalization on Thursday.

We respectfully request the City sign on to the County’s letter so there is a united front of support for DCPP extended operations.”

Council member Jan Marx complained about hearing from nuclear power advocates in connection with this agenda item when it was under consideration. Instead of endorsing the SLO County letter, the SLO City Council voted 5-0 to send a letter to the California legislature that did not mention the possibility of DCPP extended operations beyond 2030.

While PG&E’s Eric Daniels was in the audience, he chose not to make a public comment in support of DCPP extended operations. I was pleased to hear other members of the public making comments in support of DCPP, particularly California State Assembly District 30 Democrat Party candidate Susannah Brown. After this agenda item was decided, I went to the Council Chambers lobby with Senator John Laird’s District Director and Senior Policy Advisor Attorney Kara Woodruff. While neither of us raised our voices, we had a heated discussion regarding DCPP. Employing a variety of tactics, California Senator Laird has not supported DCPP extended operations.

California Board of Equalization

CGNP has been working on its draft legislation to extend DCPP operations to 2045 for some time. CGNP’s lead counsel Mike Gatto reviewed our draft legislation and wrote this summary for legislators:

“Extend Diablo Canyon to 2045:
The Clean Energy Decision California Cannot Afford to Get Wrong

Extending the operating life of Diablo Canyon Power Plant to 2045 is one of the most important climate, reliability, and affordability decisions before the California Legislature. The facts are clear: keeping Diablo Canyon online protects the environment, stabilizes the grid, and saves Californians money—without slowing the clean-energy transition.

CALIFORNIA’S LARGEST SOURCE OF ZERO-CARBON POWER
Diablo Canyon provides clean, emission-free electricity 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It generates roughly 18 terawatt-hours annually—the equivalent of five Hoover Dams every year—without air pollution, carbon emissions, or reliance on weather. Retiring it early would almost certainly require replacement with fossil fuel generation, increasing emissions precisely when California is trying to reduce them.

ONE OF THE LOWEST-COST POWER SOURCES IN THE STATE
Because Diablo Canyon has already been fully depreciated, its electricity is now exceptionally affordable. From 2024–2030, power costs are projected at approximately 6.7 cents per kilowatt-hour, competitive with or cheaper than natural gas. In some years, ratepayers may even receive rebates under existing law—welcome relief in a state with among the highest electricity prices in the nation.

INCOMPARABLE GRID RELIABILITY

Solar, wind, and batteries are essential—but they cannot independently provide grid stability. Diablo Canyon supplies synchronous grid inertia and reactive power—the “muscle” that keeps the grid stable and prevents cascading failures. Recent mid-day blackouts in Europe illustrate what happens when grids rely too heavily on intermittent renewables without enough nuclear or hydro support. California faces the same risk if Diablo Canyon is retired.

CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE DEPENDS ON THIS POWER
California’s water system relies on enormous electric motors to pump water nearly 2,000 feet uphill. These motors cannot operate reliably on solar or wind alone. Diablo Canyon provides the steady, high-quality power that keeps water delivery—and the economy—functioning.

A STRATEGIC ASSET—EVEN UNDER NEW OWNERSHIP
Diablo Canyon’s replacement value exceeds $16 billion. Selling the plant could significantly strengthen PG&E’s balance sheet while preserving clean power production under experienced ownership—benefiting ratepayers, reliability, and long-term climate goals.

Reduced GHG. Prevent blackouts. Protect ratepayers. Preserve CA climate leadership.

Keep Diablo running.”

I bolded the above paragraph for emphasis.

Here’s a copy of CGNP’s January 23, 2026 draft legislation:

Cgnp's Draft Legislation For Dcpp Operations To 2045 Final

379KB ∙ PDF file

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Since CGNP’s draft legislation involves the BoE, we had a remote meeting with a pair of BoE staffers on February 5, 2026. SLO County Supervisor Dawn Ortiz-Legg (who strongly supports DCPP extended operations) attended. SLO County Staffer Bill Lucia also attended. (PG&E was invited to attend the meeting but declined.) The statement, “CGNP received a frosty reception” would be an understatement.

Here’s the letter CGNP sent to the BoE staffers in advance of the meeting:

Cgnp To Board Of Equalization 02 04 26

231KB ∙ PDF file

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Legislative Counsel previously advised CGNP that the proposed legislation would likely constitute a (small) tax, it would likely need to pass with a 2/3 majority in both the California Assembly and California Senate.

About three decades ago in 1997, the City of San Luis Obispo strongly supported a California legislative remedy when PG&E implemented its first round of accelerated depreciation for DCPP. This remedy was applied after PG&E’s first bankruptcy was filed in 2001.

Pg&e Accelerated Depreciation Of Diablo Canyon Power Plant Adverse Local Tax Impacts City Of Slo 07 01 1997

1.58MB ∙ PDF file

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The Bottom Line

25% is my present estimate of CGNP’s success in sponsoring DCPP extension to 2045 during the 2026 legislative year. Our headwinds include the inability to identify as of February 9, 2026 a Democrat party sponsor with the California Assembly or California Senate. The Democrat party holds a supermajority of the California legislature. We have some likely Republicans in the Assembly and Senate who would cosponsor our legislation. We have until the legislative calendar deadline of February 20, 2026 to identify a Democrat party sponsor. CGNP also requires about $50,000.00 in additional funding to pay our Sacramento consultant for the remainder of 2026. CGNP’s treasury lacks those funds. The City of SLO and the BoE are examples of bureaucracies with ideological opposition to DCPP extended operations.

CGNP is unaware of any other groups that are planning on introducing DCPP extension legislation during 2026. We are disappointed that PG&E is apparently not planning on introducing such legislation. We appreciate the support of the County of San Luis Obispo. Perhaps the County of SLO will collaborate with CGNP regarding this important legislation. What about a large firm with a healthy balance sheet that is interested in purchasing DCPP from PG&E? Could they provide financial support for CGNP’s initiative? PG&E’s balance sheet has been in terrible shape since it was forced to pay billions in wildfire obligations circa 2020. PG&E showed about $58 billion in debts in 2020 - and has made scant progress towards reducing that debt, which still stands at about $58 billion in January, 2026. (As a consequence of these PG&E balance sheet challenges, I previously liquidated my modest PG&E stock holdings.)

In its previous GreenNUKE Substack articles, CGNP has criticized the conduct of PacifiCorp, a Berkshire Hathaway Energy subsidiary that operates a large fleet of mostly coal-fired generators in and around Wyoming. CGNP remains concerned with what appear to be PacifiCorp’s illegal actions influencing California decision-makers. CGNP possesses circumstantial information supporting the perspective that PacifiCorp is using its highly-polluting generation fleet to supply a large portion of the clean power previously supplied to southern California by the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) until the end of January, 2012. SONGS produced roughly the same amount of pollution-free electric power as DCPP in 2011.

Gratitude

While non-exhaustive, I’m expressing my appreciation to many supportive organizations and individuals. First is Hispanics in Energy. President and CEO José L. Pérez. We appreciate the donors to CGNP who enabled CGNP’s February, 2026 legislative initiative. We appreciate the anonymous donor whose generous gift enabled CGNP’s leadership in enacting SB 846 (Dodd, 2022.) That donor is becoming more public in his support for nuclear power in California. We appreciate fellow nuclear power advocacy organizations such as the American Nuclear Society, Mothers for Nuclear, Save Diablo Canyon, Generation Atomic, Thorium Energy Silicon Valley, Climate Coalition, and Fission Transition. Each organization has played a special role in supporting DCPP extended operations. We appreciate the background work that PG&E has done to support DCPP extended operations. (We still do not understand why PG&E can’t take a more public advocacy role.) We appreciate Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow, David Thielen, Ronald Stein, P.E. and Stu Turley’s work to elevate the public profile of CGNP. We appreciate the professional leadership of the Honorable Mike Gatto, Chris Micheli, and Supervisor Dawn Ortiz-Legg. The behind the scenes work of Matt Wilkinson has been invaluable. Scott Lathrop of the ytt Northern Chumash has been a steadfast supporter. He recently inaugurated Native Nuclear. Finally, I appreciate the patience and love of my wife and fellow CGNP Board member Linda. She has put up with me being upset too many times to count during the past two decades while I advocate for DCPP extended operations. I’m truly blessed to have Linda as my wife.

After you have read this article, I respectfully request you support CGNP in this challenging endeavor. We faced severe headwinds in 2016. Our alliance prevailed with the passage of SB 846 (Dodd, 2022) and subsequent actions. DCPP is now running at least until 2030.

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German Chancellor Friedrich Merz - Photo Credit: KRIB - Bulgaria

Tuco's Child Newsletter

German Nuclear Power Phase Out a "Huge Mistake" per Chancellor Merz

Above: German activist declaring victory over nuclear power 2023, Germany’s Energiewende…

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5 months ago · 23 likes · 55 comments · Tuco's Child and Gene Nelson, Ph.D.

My objective in this article is to provide additional background regarding this important under-reported story which has significant parallels to the challenges to extended operations of Diablo Canyon Power Plant (DCPP) in California. The common theme is that fossil fuel interests desire nuclear power plants to be shut down to serve their business objectives. In the case of Germany, it is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s objective to weaponize Russia’s abundant natural gas, particularly in furtherance of Russia’s goal to forcibly take over Ukraine while minimizing Germany’s ability to prevent the takeover. This theme has been explored in several GreenNUKE articles and in Californians for Green Nuclear Power’s (CGNP) filing in objection to the WWGPI before the WIEB-CREPC.

CGNP objects to PacifiCorp’s apparent goal of needlessly shutting down DCPP for commercial advantage.

CGNP remains optimistic that some of the journalists who read this article will report on the story. There has not been any coverage of Chancellor Merz’s January 15, 2026 speech in the Western mainstream media.

Here is Google’s summary as of January 19, 2026.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz recently called Germany’s nuclear power phase-out a “huge strategic mistake,” stating it has led to insufficient energy capacity, inflated costs, and an overly expensive energy transition reliant on subsidies and fossil fuels, contrasting Germany’s path with countries like France that leverage nuclear power for lower emissions. Merz’s comments, made at a German Chamber of Commerce event in January 2026, reignited debate over energy security, highlighting increased reliance on coal and gas, and pushing Germany to become the world’s most costly energy transformer.

Key Points from Merz’s Statements:

· “Serious strategic mistake”: He described the decision to phase out nuclear energy as a major strategic error.

· Energy Capacity: Germany lacks sufficient domestic energy generation, necessitating government intervention to keep prices down.

· High Costs: The nuclear exit has complicated and significantly increased the cost of Germany’s energy transition, making it the “most expensive in the entire world,” according to Merz.

· Economic Impact: The move has forced greater reliance on fossil fuels like coal and imported gas, increasing emissions and dependence on foreign energy sources.

Context of the Debate:

· Germany accelerated its nuclear phase-out after the 2011 Fukushima disaster, closing its last reactors in 2023.

· Critics, including the IEA head and other analysts, have long warned of negative consequences for energy stability and climate goals, advocating for nuclear power as a reliable, low-carbon baseload.

· French President Macron is pursuing more nuclear power, while Germany faces challenges in balancing renewables with consistent energy supply.

Here is the January 17, 2026 Bulgarian KRIB news article that Google draws on:

Merz: Germany made a huge mistake by abandoning nuclear energy

https://www.publicnow.com/view/DFFDE1E7FC3EE6F1392E4811A225552758F1BB86

Original article at: https://www.krib.bg/en/%d0%bc%d0%b5%d1%80%d1%86-%d0%b3%d0%b5%d1%80%d0%bc%d0%b0%d0%bd%d0%b8%d1%8f-%d0%b4%d0%be%d0%bf%d1%83%d1%81%d0%bd%d0%b0-%

Here’s the above URL in Cyrillic:

The photo of German Chancellor Merz shown above is courtesy of KRIB.

KRIB - CONFEDERATION OF EMPLOYERS AND INDUSTRIALISTS IN BULGARIA

01/17/2026 | News release | Distributed by Public on 01/16/2026 21:35

The key quote from Chancellor Merz is:

"The abandonment of nuclear energy was a serious strategic mistake. At least they had left the last nuclear power plants in Germany in operation three years ago, so that we would have the electricity generation capacity that we had at that time. We are now making the most expensive energy transition in the entire world. (Emphasis added.) I don't know of any other country that is making this transition as difficult and expensive as Germany. We set ourselves a goal that we now have to adjust, but we simply don't have enough energy generation capacity,"

The KRIB article misleadingly claimed that restart of Germany’s nuclear power reactors is unfeasible.

Here’s a May, 2025 rebuttal to the KRIB claim from analysts at Radiant Energy Group.

https://tinyurl.com/Germany-Nuclear-Restart

Since I have taken coursework for German language comprehension and have traveled to Germany, I constructed a German language query to determine if there had been any mainstream German media coverage of Chancellor Merz’s January 15, 2026 speech. Here’s a query that should return relevant results:

“Großer Fehler” “ Friedrich Merz” “ Kernenergie” “Deutsche Industrie- und Handelskammer”

There has been no German coverage. Here’s a likely contributing factor from Germany: The counterfactual Socialist thought leadership that a modern Western industrial society may be powered by intermittent sunlight and randomly-occurring breezes named “Energiewende. (Energy Transition.) The German Green movement began in the 1970s.

The political advocacy of German Greens is partially funded via German taxpayers through the Heinrich Böll Foundation (hbs.) Here’s an anti-nuclear power example post: “Renewables replace nuclear and lower emissions simultaneously,” Craig Morris, 20 Nov 2019, Energy Transition - The Global Energiewende blog. https://energytransition.org/2019/11/renewables-replace-nuclear-and-lower-emissions-simultaneously/

An Initiative of the Heinrich Böll Foundation. © 2012 - 2024. The Heinrich Böll Foundation receives German taxpayer funded subsidies. The hbs has elegant offices in Berlin,Germany. The hbs also has offices in the West Bank of Palestine, Moscow, Russia, Beijing, China, and Washington, DC. Many of the policies of the hbs are Socialist policies.

The Socialist quest for geopolitical advantage also grants the socialist BRICS nations a pass regarding the generous use of fossil energy and nuclear power, which according to this thought leadership, the industrial West is supposed to avoid.

During the past quarter of a century, coal consumption in Communist China has significantly increased. Here’s an informative coal consumption chart from the International Energy Agency (IEA) publication regarding Coal 2025 which was published in December, 2025.

From page 13 of the IEA publication at https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/113a8274-500c-4684-951f-947d25bef3c9/Coal2025.pdf The units at the left are millions of metric tons.

For the past several years, China has consumed more coal that the rest of the world combined. In 2025, China consumed about 56% of the world’s consumption, at about 4,953 million metric tons. The annual emissions from China’s coal consumption dwarf any emission reductions accomplished by the industrial West.

There is also the mercantilist dimension to the push for entities such as California to adopt solar, wind, and batteries. The supply chains for all three technologies begin in China. China intensely lobbies the California government to install more solar, wind, and batteries. All the top-ranked wind generation firms by new installations are Chinese. In response to a pullback by the West in purchasing new wind turbines which started about 24 months ago, China is now installing these wind turbines in China. (This seems to be an echo of the Chinese central planner’s push to build large multistory apartments in China which collapsed a few years ago. A number of these developments now stand vacant.)

In summary, this Chinese environmental thought leadership is actually a hefty dose of hypocrisy accompanied by a desire to sell more solar, wind, and batteries. As CGNP has noted, the power from solar, wind, and batteries is parasitic power. There must be sufficient nuclear and fossil fired generation operating at all times on a power grid to provide sufficient reactive power and necessary synchronous grid inertia.

Here are some additional articles regarding Chancellor Merz’s January 15, 2026 speech:

https://brusselssignal.eu/2026/01/germanys-shut-down-of-nuclear-plants-a-huge-mistake-says-merz/

https://www.nucnet.org/news/germany-s-merz-says-nuclear-phaseout-was-huge-mistake-1-5-2026

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2026/01/16/german-chancellor-merz-admits-shutting-down-nuclear-energy-production-was-a-severe-strategic-mistake/

YouTube video on the German Nuclear Rethink:

Here’s a hat tip to fellow nuclear power advocate Mark H. He sent me this link on Sunday morning: https://www.webpronews.com/german-chancellor-merz-admits-nuclear-phase-out-was-huge-mistake/

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Please disseminate this information and comment below. Thank you.

Photo credit: The Associated Press - Michael A. Mariant via KPBS (December 11, 2024)

CGNP’s posts during December, 2025 highlighted victories before regulatory and oversight bodies including the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC)

and the California Coastal Commission (CCC)

CGNP has been a pioneer in raising awareness of the need for synchronous grid inertia (SGI) an essential grid reliability service. Inverter-based resources (IBRs) such as solar, wind, and almost all grid-scale battery installations lack the ability to contribute meaningful amounts of SGI. In California, the leading in-state generator that produces SGI is DCPP as is highlighted in CGNP’s inaugural March 4, 2024 article:

CGNP’s March 4, 2024 article underscores the impracticality of claims by solar, wind, and battery advocates that there can be a so-called “renewables transition.” The laws of physics and the realities of power system engineering show that despite the fervent wishes of solar, wind, and battery advocates, this transition will never occur. Solar and wind advocates pushed the Spanish electric grid system operator to maximize the use of solar and wind at mid-day on the Iberian Peninsula. As a result, the grid became unstable. The resultant grid collapse on Monday, April 28, 2025 at about 12:35 PM local time required about fifteen seconds. This grid collapse demonstrated the folly of dogmatic advocacy for ever-increasing percentages of solar and wind by decision-makers who lacked a sufficient science and engineering background. The penalty for this set of decisions was that at least eleven people that depended on reliable electric power died. The economic costs of lost productivity and damaged production equipment as a consequence of the Iberian Peninsula blackout are denominated in the equivalent of billions of U.S. dollars

In its plans for filings in 2026, CGNP will continue its push for DCPP operator PG&E to receive fair economic compensation for providing the greatest amount of SGI of any California generation plant. Currently, PG&E receives nothing for providing this essential grid reliability service.

CGNP’s August 15, 2025 article lays the foundations for our 2026 advocacy plans.

Based on CGNP’s research, we believe that DCPP’s SGI valuation of $100 million per year is a reasonable starting point. Many power grid operators worldwide with excess solar, wind, and battery generation are planning on adding parasitic (non-generating) assets at a total cost of multiple billions of dollars to maintain grid frequency stability.

“The Fix for Solar Blackouts is Already Here - Countries with the most renewables have become vulnerable to outages. Why are so few investing in grid-stabilizing tech?”

By Akshat Rathi and Laura Millan - Photography and video by Tom Skipp and Fabian Ritter, August 20, 2025 at 9:00 PM PDT, Bloomberg.

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2025-bottlenecks-blackouts-grid-stability-solar-wind/

A far more cost-effective approach is to diminish subsidies for solar, wind, and batteries while providing financial support to operators of nuclear power plants like PG&E. DCPP is a unique case because the plant underwent two rounds of accelerated depreciation. The first round began in the late 1990s. The second round occurred between 2017-2025. The result of these two rounds of accelerated depreciation is that the DCPP book value (the net of PG&E’s total plant investments less accumulated depreciation) is now close to zero.

However, the market value of DCPP is in the neighborhood of $10 billion, as the plant has been well-maintained and is an industry leader in technology updates. DCPP’s regulatory environment precludes cost recovery. Under the stipulations of California SB 846 (Dodd, 2022) DCPP’s ratepayer obligation is the net of DCPP’s annual operational costs less CAISO market revenues. Since DCPP typically generates the equivalent of five Hoover Dams of pollution-free electricity each year, the CAISO market revenues are substantial. When PG&E finally receives compensation for DCPP’s SGI, the plant’s annual operational costs will be reduced by that compensation. That beneficial change implies a greater likelihood of PG&E ratepayers receiving a significant rebate, which would be welcome in light of California’s retail residential electric power rates now typically being the most expensive in the continental U.S. CGNP previously established that if the SB 846 rules had applied between 2021 to 2023, the cumulative rebates would have been $1.331 billion. That would be a very large rebate!

Here’s a relevant December 27, 2025 Substack post regarding the lack of adequate SGI in California’s electric power grid:

oHmland

Beyond Inertia & Voltage - What Operational Impacts of IBRs Aren't We Talking About?

I typed the following prompt into ChatGPT…

Read more

5 months ago · 5 likes · 3 comments · oHmLand

Finally, here’s an aesthetically-pleasing and informative Fission Transition website by Carl Wurtz, who has been a strong backer of DCPP extended operations for about a decade. I appreciate the powerful message Carl’s website delivers in about one minute regarding President Jimmy Carter’s solar and wind power ambitions. Carl worked had to insure you could see California Governor Gavin Newsom’s September 8, 2022 comments regarding the need for DCPP.

https://fissiontransition.org/

Happy New Year wishes for 2026. I’m optimistic. How about you?

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Chair Harmon and Members of the California Coastal Commission:

My name is Dr. Gene Nelson. I’m the president and senior legal researcher for CGNP. We generally support the staff recommendations regarding extending Diablo Canyon Power Plant’s operations at least until 2045.

[Next Slide]

The plant is seismically rugged as demonstrated by its full-power operation during the nearby December 22, 2003 Magnitude 6.6 San Simeon earthquake. We’ve also documented that extended DCPP operations are extremely cost effective, at the high end of operating a hydroelectric dam.

[Next Slide]

CGNP provided you with a copy of Dr. Seaver Wang’s December 3, 2025 Breakthrough Institute analysis showing the likely overestimation of harms in CCC’s claims.

[Next Slide]

I recently toured DCPP, noting the abundant sea life including seabirds on Lion Rock. Prior to 2001, the cove was an extremely popular fishing location.

[Next Slide]

CGNP employs sea lions as an indicator species. These carnivorous marine mammals consume between 15 and 40 pounds of fish and cephalopods each day.

[Next Slide]

Here’s the variety of marine life sea lions consume.

[Next Slide]

Lion Rock is the largest island in the DCPP outfall cove at about 4.1 acres. There are sea lions on the lion’s haunches. The white color is the dried sea lion waste products accumulated over the years after they consumed the abundant sea life.

[Next Slide]

Here’s a close up of sea lions like we saw from the PG&E boat. [Next Slide]

Here’s a thriving sea lion colony with thousands of animals on Lion Rock with Diablo Canyon in the background. There were 1,383 sea lions in 1979. By May 2020, there were 7,595 sea lions, a more than five-fold increase during about 40 years.

[Next Slide]

Great White Sharks now congregate offshore of Diablo Canyon to consume the abundant sea lions and their young. Surfers beware!

[Next Slide]

Protect the cultural heritage of the ytt Northern Chumash in any plan to increase public access to the Diablo Canyon lands.

Keep Diablo Canyon running.

Here’s a PDF of the PowerPoint I showed:

Th8b 9a Nelson

425KB ∙ PDF file

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Here’s CGNP’s letter to the California Coastal Commisison

Cgnp To California Coastal Commission 12 07 25

659KB ∙ PDF file

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Here’s CalMatters reporting regarding the CCC vote today:

https://calmatters.org/politics/2025/12/california-diablo-canyon-permit-approved/

BONUS:

I will be a panelist discussing nuclear power in California next Thursday, December 18 at 4:30 PM. The presenter is the California Arts and Sciences Institute (CASI) at the Barnyard in Carmel, California. Tickets are only $20.00 each

https://casicalifornia.org/event/casi-nuclear-power-live-panel/ I’ve been participating in CASI events for more than a year. The presentations I’ve attended were quite informative.

BONUS 2:

I will be a panelist discussing nuclear power in California on Wednesday, January 14, 2026 at the Sutter Club in downtown Sacramento. The presenter is Hispanics in Energy (HiE). I’ve been attending HiE events for about five years. They have been very informative. This day-long discussion is titled the California Energy Summit. For details, please see:

https://www.hispanicsinenergy.com/

I look forward to seeing you at these events. Among other topics, I will be discussing CGNP’s proposed legislation to extend DCPP operations to 2045. This legislation must pass during the 2026 California legislative session.

CGNP Board Member Michael “Marty” Marinak, Ph.D. edited CGNP’s Oral Arguments and delivered them to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) during an in-person hearing at the CPUC’’s headquarters in San Francisco, California. The unanimous CPUC Decision approving 2026 DCPP operations occurred on Thursday, December 4, 2025

Cpuc Agenda 3573 Dcpp Is Item 12 On The Consent Calendar Approved 12 04 25

109KB ∙ PDF file

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The text of CGNP’s oral arguments follows.

Since our founding in 2013, Independent nonprofit Californians for Green Nuclear Power (CGNP) has advocated for extended operations of PG&E’s Diablo Canyon Power Plant (DCPP.) We are one of many groups advocating for the safe, abundant, reliable, cost-effective, and zero-emissions Diablo Canyon. CGNP’s October 20, 2025 Comments established that based on PG&E’s Fall Update, Diablo Canyon’s 2026 NET revenue requirement was projected to be $382 million. CGNP calculated DCPP’s 2026 incremental cost to be a modest $21.3 per megawatt-hour , or 2.13 cents per kilowatt-hour. With is modest investment ratepayers will continue to benefit from DCPP’s safe, abundant, reliable, non-polluting power equal to the output of five Hoover dams.

As a consequence of two rounds of accelerated depreciation, the book value of DCPP is now close to zero, effectively barring Diablo Canyon cost recovery by owner PG&E. Despite DCPP having a multi-billion dollar market value, SB 846 reduces ratepayer burdens via the prevention of PG&E cost recovery of the plant’s capital assets. The plain language of SB 846 establishes the Diablo Canyon ratepayer obligation is the net of the plant’s operational costs less CAISO market revenues. CGNP supports the initial ordering paragraph of the Proposed Decision (PD) which affirms this plain language. There are three key messages in CGNP’s oral arguments. 1. DCPP is safe and reliable. 2. DCPP is cost-effective. and 3. DCPP produces essential synchronous grid inertia (SGI) which helps maintain stability of California’s grid.

I. DCPP is Safe and Reliable

Since our first filing in A.16-08-006 in January, 2017, CGNP has established DCPP is a reliable and nonpolluting generator. The safety engineered in depth into Diablo was once again demonstrated on November 18, 2025, at 9:54 AM PST when there was a magnitude 4.1 earthquake north of the plant, five miles west of Templeton. The epicenter was closer to DCPP than the 2003 San Simeon Magnitude 6.6 earthquake that killed two in Paso Robles. Plant operations were unaffected. The CAISO November 18, 2025 supply plot shows DCPP’s ruler-straight output at about 2,260 MW during the entire 24 hour interval. DCPP does not produce air or water pollution. While the word “safety” appears 19 times in the PD, none of the instances appear to address the fact that DCPP has maintained an examplary safely record, as recognized by the NRC, for four decades. The word “pollution” does not appear. None of the three instances of “emission” mention the zero-emission characteristic of DCPP.

In contrast, Berkshire Hathaway Energy’s (BHE’s) coal-fired fleet is one of the most polluting in the nation according to the Clean Air Task Force, causing hundreds of premature deaths annually. BHE hides the exports of its primarily coal-fired electricity to California behind the legal euphemism “unspecified power.” CGNP previously established that over $1 billion of Berkshire Hathaway (PacifiCorp) generation has been sold at wholesale to mostly California entities since November, 2014 via the Western Energy Imbalance Market. “Hypocrisy” is CGNP’s ongoing characterization of the Commission’s role in facilitating BHE’s air and water pollution and advocating for DCPP’s unnecessary closure in their 2018 Decision in A.16-08-006, contrary to the Commission’s charter and California statute.

II. DCPP is Cost-Effective

As noted in the introduction, DCPP is cost effective. Unreliable solar and wind and batteries have much higher unsubsidized costs. Lazard’s LCOE+ metric shows the grid integration costs of intermittent solar and wind are quite substantial. Solar and wind’s costs per MWh including grid integration are far in excess of the cost of extended operation of a nuclear power plant, which entirely avoids grid integration costs. The taxpayer funded subsidies of solar and wind are large. For example, BHE uses the taxpayer-funded subsidies of its wind generation fleet to offset taxation on the profits from its large coal-fired generation fleet. Investments in Diablo Canyon have paid the aforementioned dividends to ratepayers for decades. In contrast, California’s largest battery storage facility, the Vistra facility at Moss Landing, suffered a catastrophic fire early this year, which burned uncontrollably for several days. Toxic smoke caused over 1000 people to be evacuated. This fire destroyed three quarters of the facility, resulting in a loss of $400 million, which is a large fraction of the total investment.

III. DCPP produces the greatest amount of synchronous grid inertia (SGI) of any California generator

CGNP’s written testimony in A.25-03-015 established that providing Synchronous Grid Inertial (SGI) is an essential grid reliability service. Inadequate mid-day SGI was the cause of the enormous, widespread Iberian Peninsula Blackout on Monday, April 28, 2025 which killed at least eleven people who needed reliable electricity.

Subsequent analysis showed there was too much intermittent solar and wind power, with its negligible SGI, resulting in insufficient SGI across the grid at the time of the blackout. The lost productivity and cost of damaged production equipment from the April 28 blackout is denominated in the equivalent of billions of U.S. dollars. Had Spain kept all of its available nuclear reactors running, this calamitous grid failure would have been avoided.

Even though synchronous grid inertia is a critcial component of electrical grid reliability, the word does not appear anywhere in the PD. The Commission may consider this omission to be non-significant. But the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) both consider SGI to be essential for grid frequency stability, per standards most recently issued during the Biden administration. CGNP has noted that DCPP’s huge quantity of synchronous grid inertia (SGI) stabilizes the California power grid against generation and load step-changes that could cause cascading blackouts. See the GreenNUKE Substack article, “Why is Grid Inertia Important?” March 4, 2024

Each of DCPP’s twin generators has about a million pounds of rotating turbines and generation components. Diablo Canyon provides the largest source of SGI of any generator in California. Both of DCPP’s generators include Power System Stabilizer (PSS) systems. Per page 35 of PG&E’s March 29, 2024 workpapers in A.2403018, upgrade work on the DCPP PSS systems began in January, 2025 and will be complete in 2027. CGNP will have more to say regarding these important upgrades and SGI in the 2027 DCPP cost proceeding. With the state’s ongoing focus on increasing unreliable solar, wind, and batteries, California is on track to emulate Spain’s example.

There are plans to build new nuclear plants around the country, and to restart existing ones, as their abundant, reliable, round the clock electricity output is an excellent match for new large scale AI computer centers, which require prodigious amount of reliable, round the clock power. These immense AI computer centers are increasingly important engines of growth for the 21^st century economy. It is instructive to consider a Grid Strategies, Inc. report issued on November 20, 2025 which shows the striking and troubling contrast between ERCOT and CAISO in projected load growth, and hence economic growth, to 2030 associated with these new data centers. ERCOT will be able to increase generation substantially. California’s electricity production, hence economic growth, will remain constrained as a consequence of harmful and counterfactual state energy policies and California natural gas transmission line capacity limitations.

For all the reasons we have listed, keep Diablo Canyon running.

CGNP declined to initially comment during the rebuttal portion of the hearing. However, the TURN representative opposed CGNP’s calculation of the net ratepayer obligation for DCPP at the economical value of $21.30 per megawatt-hour, or 2.13 cents per kilowatt-hour. (TURN has a long history of opposing California nuclear power.) Dr. Marinak requested and was granted an opportunity to rebut the claims of TURN’s representative. He succinctly rebutted TURN’s misdirection during his rebuttal comments.

CPUC Oral Arguments, December 1, 2025 San Francisco, California

Setback to Gene’s Pro-DCPP Advocacy

I’m still working on resolving a setback in conjunction with my DCPP advocacy. At 8:35 PM, I was returning from the above Monday, December 1, 2025 CPUC meeting regarding Diablo Canyon Power Plant in San Francisco.

Independent nonprofit intervenor Californians for Green Nuclear Power, Inc. (CGNP) has long championed the importance of synchronous grid inertia to maintain grid frequency stability for the California electric power grid. See: “Why is Grid Inertia Important? Without sufficient synchronous grid inertia, the grid becomes unstable and a blackout occurs,” By Gene Nelson, Ph.D., March 4, 2024, GreenNUKE Substack. https://greennuke.substack.com/p/why-is-grid-inertia-important

See also: “The Spanish Version of the ‘Duck Curve’ is a real killer. This curve underscores the problem of insufficient synchronous grid inertia in Spain on April 28, 2025,” July 8, 2025, GreenNUKE Substack.

https://greennuke.substack.com/p/the-spanish-version-of-the-duck-curve

When CGNP learned about the “alt-energy” advocacy of the administrative law judge (ALJ) Jack Chang, Ph.D. in the 2025 Diablo Canyon Power Plant (DCPP) cost proceeding A.25-03-015, we became concerned. We had already observed a pattern of denying CGNP’s Motions in the proceeding. On July 17, 2025, I bore the brunt of his lack of judicial temperament in front of four other witnesses. We believe that ALJ Chang’s personal beliefs created a bias against CGNP’s pro-DCPP advocacy. On November 3, 2025, we filed a Motion for Disqualification of ALJ Chang.

A2503015 Cgnp Motion For Disqualification Of Alj For Cause Accepted 11 04 25

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This motion required an in-depth understanding of the subtleties of the section of CPUC’s Rules of Practice and Procedure regarding disqualification of Administrative Law Judges. These rules appear to be designed to make it difficult to disqualify ALJs. Specifically, there are very short time constraints for a Party to raise objections when they discover problematic facts or conduct.

The CPUC’s Prompt Response

The paraphrase of the line, “We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!” came from the 1948 film, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Actor Alfonso Bedoya, pictured above, said the line. (Image courtesy of Wikimedia.)

CGNP’s Lead Counsel advised us that Motions to Disqualify CPUC ALJs are rarely granted. It does not matter what the facts are. In its motion, CGNP referenced the April 28, 2025 Iberian Peninsula blackout that killed at least eleven. This blackout was caused by the Spanish government’s unique tax on reliable nuclear power to partially subsidize the high cost of unreliable solar and wind power. As a consequence of this tax, two perfectly serviceable Spanish nuclear power reactors were offline on the morning of Monday, April 28, 2025. (The principle of lowest-cost dispatch was applied.) At mid-day, when there was an extremely high percentage of solar and wind power dispatched for Spain and Portugal. As a consequence, there was insufficient synchronous grid inertia. The two reactors could not be brought online after grid frequency oscillations were observed mid-morning. As a result, the grid frequency became unstable and the Iberian Peninsula electric power grid collapsed in about 15 seconds.

Cooke Ruling Denying Cgnp Motion For Disqualification 11 10 25

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Here is the CPUC’s Decision denying CGNP’s Motion to Disqualify the ALJ. This Decision was issued on November 10, 2025.

CGNP provided documentation showing the CPUC’s preference for solar and wind generation in California is imperiling California’s grid frequency stability. The CPUC was one of the state agencies pushing for the plans they approved in 2018 to needlessly shut down Diablo Canyon in 2025. CGNP was one of the organizations that tenaciously fought that plan.

There are structural problems with the CPUC that CGNP highlighted in their Motion to Disqualify. Despite the gargantuan size of the CPUC bureaucracy, there is no Inspector General to investigate waste, fraud, and abuse. There is no guaranteed appellate pathway for an aggrieved party to a CPUC Decision.

Please take the time to read CGNP’s Motion and the CPUC rejection. We are interested in your conclusions. Please share them in the comments section.

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Photo Credit: PG&E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nn_fUFdNLU

How Diablo Canyon Generates Electricity

Here are the first three sections of CGNP’s October 1, 2025 filing before the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC.) The entire filing is available via an attached PDF near the end of the article.

I. Introduction and Summary

Californians for Green Nuclear Power, Inc’s. (CGNP’s) supports the perspective that the extended operations of Diablo Canyon Power Plant (DCPP) are extremely cost-effective. The current revenue requirement is projected to be $410 million. DCPP’s $22.78 cost per megawatt-hour (MWh) [slightly more than two cents per kilowatt-hour] during 2026 extended operation is at the upper range of operating a hydroelectric generation facility. The revenue requirement projection is based on the netting of DCPP’s projected CAISO revenues and DCPP’s cost of operations, as established by SB 846 (Dodd, 2022.) Based on previous experience, during 2026 DCPP is projected to safely produce about 18 TWh, on the order of five times the annual production of Hoover Dam. (1 TWh - a terawatt-hour is a billion kilowatt-hours.) Both generating facilities will not produce air or water pollution during operations. Unlike Hoover Dam which only runs about a quarter of the time at full power, DCPP is 24/7/365 reliable with a capacity factor in excess of 90% - also far greater than the annual capacity factors of solar, wind, or batteries.

This high availability is a vital characteristic in our engineered world that requires around-the-clock electric power for many vital functions. As an example of critical loads, CGNP reminds the Commission about the State Water Project (SWP) annual pumping load, which is typically about half of DCPP’s production. Furthermore, the load represented by the Edmonston Pumping Station which pumps life-sustaining SWP water about 2,000 feet uphill into southern California is 40% of that demand. (About half of California’s population depends on this water in conjunction with water pumped uphill from the Colorado River.)

II. Additional DCPP Benefits

Without getting deep into math and engineering, DCPP provides “muscle” to its electric power since it provides the largest quantities of synchronous grid inertia (SGI) to stabilize the California power grid. [1], [2], [3] In 2024 CGNP learned that despite SGI being an essential grid reliability service, the State of California chooses not to provide economic benefits for providing SGI. CGNP will continue to advocate for fair economic compensation of DCPP’s abundant SGI. Our initial determination is that DCPP’s SGI should be valued on the order of $100 million per year. Our valuation is based on the harms caused by the large April 28, 2025 Iberian Peninsula blackout. The cause of that blackout was inadequate mid-day SGI. The economic costs associated with lost productivity and damaged production equipment of that blackout are equal to billions of U.S. dollars. Furthermore, at least eleven people lost their lives as a consequence of the blackout. California remains very vulnerable to this kind of mid-day blackout in the spring and fall, particularly when DCPP is undergoing a scheduled refueling and maintenance outage. [4]

Most of the loads on the California power grid are large electric motors requiring a power factor of about 0.8 . These motors work best on a power grid with adequate SGI, not one powered primarily by solar and wind. Note also that DCPP is well-maintained, undergoing constant upgrade cycles and will likely last at least another sixty years.

On the other hand, BESS systems work best with resistive loads with a power factor of 1.0 . BESS systems do not provide significant quantities of SGI. Even though California has installed over 13,000 MW of BESS, [5] DCPP produces more SGI than all of those BESS units. Furthermore, BESS units have typical design lives between 10 and 15 years. As lithium batteries age, they become more vulnerable to developing internal shorts. The problem is the energy stored in a lithium battery make extinguishing a battery fire almost impossible until the battery is consumed, particularly when the battery is fully charged. The large battery fire at Moss Landing Power Station which began on January 16, 2025 illustrates the reliability problem of BESS plants. [6], [7]

III. DCPP Protects California Ratepayers from Energy Supply Disruptions

The public NP 15 LMP data shows that the California power grid is vulnerable to electricity supply disruptions that can increase the wholesale cost of power for extended periods. Causes include the disruptions of natural gas pipelines as a consequence of explosions of large-diameter natural gas transmission pipelines. Repairs after such explosions typically require multiple years. Natural gas transmission impairments force the cost of electric power higher as a consequence of the economic law of supply and demand. California uses natural gas as the dominant energy source for its dispatchable (under human control) electric power generation. Furthermore, since California imports the greatest amount of electric power of any state (roughly 100 TWh per year with total annual consumption just under 300 TWh per year,) it is vulnerable to electric transmission impairments caused by wildfires such as the 2021 Bootleg Fire at the Oregon-California border. This wildfire threatened the 5,000 MW capacity Path 66 AC Intertie.

Despite these 21 months lacking any long-term challenges, California electricity price spikes continue. Paraphrasing veteran energy analyst Meredith Angwin, these price spikes are a feature, not a bug in so-called competitive electricity markets. CAISO = California Independent System Operator.

DCPP’s cost-effective operation is not typically affected by either natural gas or electric transmission impairments, which is another rationale for DCPP extended operations which benefits ratepayers.

CGNP downloaded the public NP 15 (North of path 15) monthly locational marginal price (LMP) data for 2023-2024 from the CAISO OASIS website. The monthly maxima are far greater than DCPP’s $22.78 / MWh projected for 2026.

III.A. Overview of DCPP’s net ratepayer benefits if SB 846 had applied to the years 2021, 2022, and 2023.

A2503015 Cgnp Openinmg Brief Accepted 10 02 25

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[1] “Why is Grid Inertia Important? Without sufficient synchronous grid inertia, the grid becomes unstable and a blackout occurs.,” March 4, 2024, GreenNUKE Substack. (See Appendix 3.) https://greennuke.substack.com/p/why-is-grid-inertia-important

[2] “Gene Nelson Interview - Why California needs Nuclear Energy,” February 6, 2025 1340 video podcast, Liberal and Loving It Substack. (Transcript available.)

https://liberalandlovingit.substack.com/cp/156625622

[3] “Keep It Simple: How California’s Power Grid Needlessly Increases Electricity Costs,” REACT-Alliance Monthly meeting 48:46 video Podcast, (Transcript available.)

[4] “The Spanish Version of the ‘Duck Curve’ is a real killer. This curve underscores the problem of insufficient synchronous grid inertia in Spain on April 28, 2025,” July 8, 2025, GreenNUKE Substack. https://greennuke.substack.com/p/the-spanish-version-of-the-duck-curve

[5] “California Energy Storage System Survey,” September 11, 2024, California Energy Commission, Sacramento, CA.

https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/california-electricity-data/california-energy-storage-system-survey

[6] “A Net-Zero Chernobyl: California Battery Fire Releases Tons of Carcinogenic Metals and Toxic Gases - Toxic materials blanket communities, farms, and a sensitive estuary,” February 8, 2025, Tuco’s Child Substack. https://tucoschild.substack.com/cp/156758772

[7] “California’s grid batteries have turned out to be a risky and toxic business,” February 11, 2025, Stephen Heims Substack.

https://stephenheins.substack.com/p/californias-grid-batteries-have-tumed

CGNP’s GreenNUKE Substack was launched on March 4, 2024, about a year and seven months ago. We recently achieved the milestone of 900 subscribers, including a number of paid subscribers. We are grateful for your support. Please encourage your friends and colleagues to subscribe.

Subscribe now

The current version serves to commercially advantage Berkshire Hathaway Energy subsidiary PacifiCorp while unnecessarily placing important California environmental legislation at risk. Please contact CGNP for additional details via the means shown at the end of CGNP’s Objection letter.

Cgnp's Ab 825 Objections Sponsor Message 09 12 25

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Warren Buffett and Hillary Clinton at a 2016 event. Photo Credit, The Desert Sun. "Who will profit from the grid of the future?" by Sammy Roth, February 1, 2017. The Desert Sun https://tinyurl.com/Buffett-020117 This eight-year-old article serves as an excellent introduction to the controversies centering around CAISO grid regionalization.

Sneaky tactics to jam through controversial legislation

PacifiCorp is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Energy which is in turn a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway. Warren Buffett, pictured above, is Berkshire Hathaway’s CEO. Since 2016, Californians for Green Nuclear Power (CGNP) believes that PacifiCorp has attempted six times to enact California legislation that would result in CAISO grid regionalization - which would be very profitable for the firm.. In February, 2025 PacifiCorp helped to introduce the latest version, SB 540 (Becker, 2025.)

CGNP traveled to Sacramento (each twelve hour round trip requiring an overnight stay) a total of five times since them to give opposition testimony and educate legislative staff and legislators about the ratepayer and environmental harms of SB 540. CGNP checked the status of the hearing before the Assembly Utilities and Energy (U&E) Committee hearing just before leaving San Luis Obispo on July 16, 2025. It was still on the calendar. However, when I checked it at 2:00 AM in Sacramento on July 17, it had been taken off the calendar by Senator Becker as a consequence of opposition.

CGNP opposes this legislation because it could provide PacifiCorp a pathway to nullifying a piece of California legislation we worked hard to advance, namely SB 846 (Dodd, 2022.) SB 846 preserved the option of Diablo Canyon Power Plant (DCPP) operation at least until 2030. SB 846 advantages a California generator, DCPP. In 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously decided in Hughes v Talen Energy that if a state was part of a multistate ISO, RTO, or RO that it could not advantage an in-state generator. CGNP believes if CAISO grid regionalization is enacted via AB 825, SB 846 could be successfully challenged by PacifiCorp in federal court. We do not want to take that chance.

There has been no Assembly U&E hearing. Since then, I’ve been monitoring the bill on a daily basis. Finally, early on Wednesday, September 10, I learned that there was movement on the bill during the final California legislative week in 2025. I checked in with one of my colleagues in the fight against SB 540 and learned that The infamous California “gut and amend” process had been used to remove the contents of a piece of energy legislation (AB 825) sponsored by the Chair of the Assembly U&E Committee, Cottie Petrie-Norris. Effectively, SB 540 was renumbered as AB 825!

Now, SB 540, stripped of some amendments (that PacifiCorp likely opposed) which were adopted to win strong support by California Senators. Those amendments protected significant California interests regarding ratepayers and the environment. Those amendments are gone now. But wait, it gets worse! CGNP believes that Senator Becker waited until what was likely the last possible moment to release the gutted and amended legislation, so there would be no hearing before the Assembly U&E Committee. Perhaps this would serve to create the impression for overworked legislators that this CAISO grid regionalization bill was noncontroversial. Legislators are taking action on hundreds of bills during the final legislative week. AB 825 will likely be voted on during the very early morning hours of Saturday, September 13 by exhausted legislators. The groups that are fighting CAISO grid regionalization have a “David versus Goliath” battle against cunning adversaries with dwindling hours until the consequential vote.

Summary Opposition Statements

The four links below provide additional supporting details

OPPOSE: AB 825 (Petrie-Norris, Rivas, and Senator Becker)

https://www.turn.org/oppose-ab-825

OPPOSE AB 825

Creates a pathway for California to participate in a regional energy market entity, but gives the Federal government too much power, which could result in a roll back of clean energy in California and could increase the use of coal and other dirty energy. Also, it makes it very difficult for California to exit the regional entity.

Gut and Amended Western Grid Electricity Deregulation Bill Jettisons Guardrails Put In By Senate And Exposes CA To Price Gouging And Coal Power

PUBLISHED ON SEPTEMBER 10, 2025

BY JAMIE COURT

https://consumerwatchdog.org/energy/grid-electricity-deregulation-bill-jettisons-senate-guardrails-and-exposes-ca-to-price-gouging/

BY GENE NELSON POSTED August 28, 2025

https://capitolweekly.net/passing-sb-540-means-more-coal-in-california/

The ghost of energy dereg haunts effort to tie CA grid to other states

BY BRIAN JOSEPH POSTED september 3, 2025

https://capitolweekly.net/the-ghost-of-energy-dereg-haunts-effort-to-tie-ca-grid-to-other-states/

...“Now is not the time – now is not the time – for California to surrender our authority and our independence to the Trump FERC,” (Former CPUC President Loretta) Lynch said in February during a presentation by the California Alliance for Community Energy. “And now is never the time to tie the hands of the next California governor.....

How you can help….

With less than 48 hours until the vote, phone calls opposing AB 825 (Petrie-Norris, Rivas, and Senator Becker) to California state legislative offices in Sacramento will be the best action. During that call, you give your name, perhaps your ZIP code, and your opposition statement to the staffer on the phone. (Very busy offices may send you to voicemail, but that should work as well.)

Iff you do not know it, here’s the State of California web address that provides the name of your Assembly member and Senator based on your address:

https://findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov/

Here’s a list of Sacramento office phone numbers of California Assembly members:

Ca Assembly 09 11 25

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Here’s a list of Sacramento office phone numbers of California Senate members:

California Senators 09 11 25

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Please make the important pair of phone calls. Please forward this important message to your friends and colleagues so they can take action as well.

Thank you!

The California Senate Energy Utilities and Communications (SEUC) annual Oversight Hearing, "Reliability of the Power Grid and an Update on Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant's Extended Operations" on August 19, 2025 ran from 9:00 AM to noon at hearing room 1200 at 1021 O Street in the California Capitol complex, then continued at 1:54 PM and ran for about a half hour longer.

The agenda is found at

https://seuc.senate.ca.gov/system/files/2025-08/08-19-25-agenda.pdf

I was able to speak directly with California Senator Josh Becker at the conclusion of the hearing. He chaired the hearing. My discussion focused on California legislative extension of Diablo Canyon Power Plant's operations to 2045. Based on our conversation, I believe he is supportive of this proposed legislation.

I appreciated California Senator Shannon Grove's comments in support of Diablo Canyon Power Plant's extended operation during her questions and comments. I also spoke to her after the hearing and thanked her for her Diablo Canyon support.

After her presentation, I thanked PG&E Vice President Maureen Zawalick for her presentation regarding the environmental and ratepayer benefits of Diablo Canyon extended operations.

The 3:11:06 video of the hearing is at

https://www.senate.ca.gov/media/senate-energy-utilities-and-communications-committee-20250819

For ease of precise finding, downloading the 4.3 GB file yields the best results. CGNP's speech runs from 2:55:08 to 2:57:10

Here are my two minute public comments. I was the first commenter.

Hello, Senator Becker and SEUC Committee Members:

My name is Dr. Gene Nelson. I'm with Californians for Green Nuclear Power (CGNP.)

Based on the experience in the Iberian Peninsula on Monday, April 28, 2025, CGNP believes that California very nearly had an Iberian Peninsula type blackout on Sunday, May 4, 2025 as a consequence of very low synchronous grid inertia (SGI) for the California grid. CGNP carefully compared the California grid conditions on May 4 at solar noon to the supply reported by the Spanish grid operator , Red Eléctrica at 12:30 PM on April 28, 2025. California had considerably less SGI in the grid mix than Spain. Not all electricity is created equal. We explain the significance of this in our article "The Spanish Version of the 'Duck Curve' is a real killer. This curve underscores the problem of insufficient synchronous grid inertia in Spain on April 28, 2025," July 8, 2025, GreenNUKE Substack. https://greennuke.substack.com/p/the-spanish-version-of-the-duck-curve and

Here's a PDF of our updated PowerPoint. (All remaining Gifford Fire evacuation orders in San Luis Obispo County, California were lifted at 6:16 PM PDT on Sunday, August 24, 2025.)

https://cgnp.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Californias-Near-Miss-for-an-Iberian-Peninsula-Type-Blackout-05-04-25-Rev-B.pdf

In 2011, the eminent scientists and engineers of the California Council on Science and Technology (CCST) recommended building about 30 Diablo Canyon Power Plants, not reactors, for California's electricity supply.

Just like Spain needs to keep its seven nuclear reactors running long into the future, California needs to keep Diablo Canyon running for grid reliability.

BONUS Number 1 from The Wall Street Journal:

Nuclear Power Is Having a Pop Culture Moment

Atomic energy has attracted influencers, spawned merch and even made a cameo on ESPN’s ‘College GameDay’

By Jennifer Hiller

Aug. 13, 2025 11:00 am ET

No-cost download link for the entire article:

https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/nuclear-power-is-having-a-pop-culture-moment-7a92f762?st=QzTuPW&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

(I was behind the camera looking at several people I know when this photograph was taken.)

BONUS Number 2: Isabelle Boemeke's just-released book endorsing nuclear power, with a focus on Diablo Canyon Power Plant:

Rad Future: The Untold Story of Nuclear Electricity and How It Will Save the World

by Isabelle Boemeke (Author) Format: Kindle Edition ($15.99) https://www.amazon.com/Rad-Future-Untold-Nuclear-Electricity-ebook/dp/B0DFLG7RXW/

5.0 out of 5 stars (11)

#1 New Release in Physics of Energy (08/24/2025)

We’re running out of time. Fossil fuels are choking the planet and renewable energy isn’t cutting it. The solution has been hiding in plain sight all along…..

BONUS Number 3: Bloomberg News offers a surprisingly upbeat article regarding Diablo Canyon Power Plant's nuclear power.

California’s Last Nuclear Plant Is Poised to Stave Off Extinction

Diablo Canyon is nearing the end of a long relicensing process as the need for round-the-clock power grows.

By Michelle Ma

August 20, 2025 at 7:23 AM PDT Updated on

August 20, 2025 at 4:49 PM PDT

No-cost download link https://tinyurl.com/Bloomberg-08020-2025

Unit 2’s turbine generator at PG&E’s Diablo Canyon power plant.

Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Here's a relevant August 24, 2025 Quiver Quant post regarding PCG stock movement in connection with the anticipated Diablo Canyon NRC license renewal in August, 2025:

https://www.quiverquant.com/news/Pacific+Gas+%26+Electric+Co.+Stock+%28PCG%29+Opinions+on+Diablo+Canyon+Renewal+Decision

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At the end of the first part of this article, I was discussing the Gifford Fire. During the intervening week, the fire has grown considerably. The northwest tongue of the fire is now less than 14 miles from my home in San Luis Obispo. There have already been days of obvious smoke from the fire. I presently feel some irritation in the back of my throat from the fire and my eyes are red from the smoke. The Gifford Fire is by far the largest fire in California. The fire is 132,761.5 acres (207.44 square miles.) The fire is 41% contained. Part of the eastern edge of the Gifford Fire is the burn scar from the Madre Fire, which burned about 80,000 acres in eastern San Luis Obispo County in July, 2025. (Thus, this pair of fires have burned over 210,000 acres.) The Gifford Fire is burning through portions of the Garcia Wilderness within the Los Padres National Forest in San Luis Obispo County. This part of the Garcia Wilderness has not burned during recorded history, so the Gifford Fire is a unique and unusual event.

As a consequence of its gargantuan size, San Luis Obispo County will likely experience adverse fire effects for the next month or two. If there is high rainfall over the burn scars during the winter months, there could be serious mudslides like there were after the Thomas Fire burned the slopes above Montecito, California. The mudslides there on January 9, 2018 killed at least 23. The insurance claims exceeded $423 million dollars. Highway 101, a major highway through the California central coast was closed for some time after the mudslides. Repairs and rebuilding in Montecito are ongoing, over seven years later.

I live in San Luis Obispo, California, approximately between the "s" and "p" in the legend "San Luis Obispo." Note the 3 mile scale bar at the lower right-hand corner of the map.

The Gifford Fire is curtailing the output of Diablo Canyon

"Diablo Canyon reduces power as Gifford Fire rages," by Chloe Jones, August 6, 2025, front page of the print edition, San Luis Obispo Tribune. This article includes a color photograph of the smoke rising in a tall column from the fire.

....Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant has also reduced power on one of its units to 46% due to the fire and its proximity to transmission lines in San Luis Obispo County, PG&E spokesperson Carina Corral told The Tribune in an email....

The California Independent System Operator (CAISO) shows Diablo Canyon's output has remained steady at about 1,595 megawatts since it was curtailed as a consequence of the Gifford Fire. At 1:00 PM PDT on Sunday, August 3, 2025, CAISO showed Diablo Canyon was producing 2,274 MW before any curtailment. By Tuesday, August 5 at 1:00 PM PDT, Diablo Canyon was curtailed to 1,593 MW. The likely reason that Diablo Canyon remains on line is because the plant produces so much essential synchronous grid inertia (SGI) which stabilizes the California grid. Even while Diablo Canyon is presently curtailed, it is still producing more SGI and more power than any other California power plant.

The unique problem in California at mid-day because California has so much solar and wind generation

California has 21, 240 MW of solar and 8,375 MW of wind. In addition to not producing significant amounts of SGI, solar and wind are non-dispatchable (i.e. not under human control.) So, when the sun is overhead at solar noon, for most of the year, there is now too much solar and wind relative to the needs of the grid at mid-day. Thus, as noted in the beginning of part 1[1], California ratepayers must pay adjoining states to take California's excess power as supplied by the mid-day grid mix.

While California has many connections to adjoining states, those connections are configured to export the excess power to those states during times of excess solar and wind generation. The grid between adjoining states cannot be instantaneously reconfigured to import power during those intervals when California is exporting power. The cascading blackout that enveloped most of Spain and Portugal on April 28, 2025 required less than a minute for the Iberian Peninsula power grid to collapse. Thus, a unique new systemic problem at mid-day for the California power grid is imposed as a consequence of California building so much solar and wind generation.

The state must generate sufficient SGI to maintain grid stability solely within the state at mid-day when California is exporting power.

Think of the mid-day exports as a giant STOP sign for power imports to California. SGI can be considered to be the "heartbeat" of the electricity grid. DCPP is the biggest mid-day contributor. Combined-cycle natural gas turbine (CCGT) plants are the second largest contributor. Hydroelectricity produces a tiny amount of SGI at mid-day. Solar, wind, and batteries all produce negligible amounts of essential SGI. This leads to the concern CGNP identified in the next section.

California came perilously close to a mid-day cascading blackout on Sunday, May 4, 2025

The charts below show stacked bars only on days when California was exporting power at solar noon, preventing the import of SGI from out of state. The color code is green for Diablo Canyon's power. Red shows natural gas. The simplifying assumption is that at mid-day all of the natural gas power is from CCGT plants. When California is importing power, SGI is available from out-of-state generators.

The danger criterion CGNP used was a SGI-capable supply stack less than 2,000 MW at solar noon on export days, which occurred on May 3, 2025 and May 4, 2025 (note blue arrow) during the DCPP spring, 2025 routine refueling and service outage. A mere 1,643 MW of SGI-capable power was provided at solar noon on May 4, 2025, while power was being exported to adjacent states.

On April 11, 2025, the SGI-capable supply stack was less than 2,000 MW (1,862 MW). However, this date occurred before the April 28, 2025 Iberian Peninsula blackout. Thus, CAISO may not have been aware of the danger of inadequate SGI on export days.

During the August, 2025 DCPP curtailments caused by the Gifford Fire, CAISO has been much more conservative on days California was exporting power at solar noon. The curtailments started on August 4, 2025. The minimum SGI-capable supply stack was on August 4, 2025 at 5,132 MW, far in excess of the 1,643 MW value observed on May 4, 2025. The value for other export days have been higher. CGNP anticipates this dispatch pattern will continue on export days during the remainder of the days the Gifford Fire causes DCPP curtailments.

The 1:00 PM May 4, 2025 California grid mix

This is a simplified view of California's grid mix on May 4, 2025 at 1:00 PM.

The grid mix was 89% renewables at 22,180 MW. In addition, the state was exporting 4,509 MW of power and charging batteries at 4,979 MW. Just like solar and wind, these categories fail to contribute to California's SGI. Even though large hydro was 4% of the grid mix, the large generator turbines spin much slower than the generator turbines for nuclear and natural gas. SGI is proportional to the square of the rotational speed of a turbine. CGNP performed a detailed examination for the CPUC of the roughly million-pound rotors at the Helms Pumped Storage facility for the CPUC. The Helms rotors spin at only 360 RPM, 1/5 of the speed of DCPP at 1,800 RPM. To a first order approximation, each turbine-generator at DCPP produces twenty-five times as much SGI as each Helms generator. CGNP considers Helms to be representative of all California large hydro generators. Additional details regarding SGI are found in CGNP's March 4, 2024 article. [2]

Spain's Mid Day Grid Mix on April 28, 2025

Red Eléctrica (REE,) Spain's national grid operator is analogous to CAISO in California. Their website provides similar grid performance information.

Here is the Spanish generation by source at 12:30 PM on April 28, 2025 and some later dates.

REE's data has more categories. However, on April 28, 2025, Spain's wind plus solar PV totals 21,145 MW, slightly less than the 22,180 MW for California on May 4, 2025. Spain was exporting power, just like California. Spain had more nuclear at 3,387 MW versus California's 1,135 MW. Spain had more gas, coal, solar thermal, renewable thermal and cogeneration at 4,442 MW than California's 508 MW. But Spain's grid collapsed less than five minutes later!

These comparative statistics underscore the precarious power situation in California on May 4, 2025.

Just like CAISO's subsequent actions to insure adequate mid-day SGI, Spain has taken actions to insure there is adequate SGI, as is shown in the table above. Electricity Maps data shows that Spain typically runs all seven of its nuclear power reactors at mid-day.

Just like Spain, California has been having frequent power outages. There were oscillations in grid frequency in Spain on the morning of April 28, 2025 and on previous dates.

CGNP believes that a detailed inquiry of CAISO performance data will show oscillations in grid frequency during mid-day on the days with deficient SGI supply stacks highlighted above. CGNP calls for an investigation of this issue.

[1] "Taxation Without Representation - Part 1 - California electricity prices are a private-sector tax on a necessary of life," August 7, 2025, GreenNUKE Substack. https://greennuke.substack.com/publish/post/170371078

[2] "Why is Grid Inertia Important? Without sufficient synchronous grid inertia, the grid becomes unstable and a blackout occurs," By Gene Nelson, Ph.D., March 4, 2024, GreenNUKE Substack. https://greennuke.substack.com/p/why-is-grid-inertia-important

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A Pragmatic Approach To Energy

Desperate Response For the Losing Transition - Part 3: California’s Solar and Import

In a July 9, 2025, New Yorker article titled “4.6 Billion Years On, the Sun Is Having a Moment,” environmentalist Bill McKibben praises California’s solar and battery storage advancements as a model for renewable energy. He frames renewables as poised to dominate, even as Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) subsidies are set to expire on December 31, 2025, po…

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10 months ago · 5 likes · 2 comments · Kerry Clapp

The CAISO Supply Trend for Sunday, May 25, 2025 that Bill McKibben is excited about shows many problems for ratepayers and the environment.

California's power rates are now typically the most expensive in the continental U.S. In March, 2025 California's average retail rate was 30.62 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh,) almost twice the national average of 16.22 cents/ kWh. https://poweroutage.us/electricity-rates (Kerry cites 31.82 cents / kWh for California average residential rates. ) Per the U.S. EIA California’s total 2023 energy expenditures were $195 billion, the greatest of any state.

I believe one of the reasons for California’s electric power rates being the most expensive in the continental US is the forced adoption of the largest quantity of solar generation and grid-scale batteries of any U.S. state. (Texas has much more installed wind generation.) None of these technologies can reliably supply electric power 24/7, 365 days a year. Many power consumers, particularly businesses, require this high level of reliability. Also, none of these means of supplying electricity can supply meaningful amounts of an essential grid reliability service, synchronous grid inertia (SGI.) Here are the capacity statistics as of July 9, 2025 from the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) https://www.caiso.com/documents/key-statistics-jun-2025.pdf

• Solar 21,240 MW

• Wind 8,375 MW

• Batteries 13,250 MW (as of June 30, 2025.)

Furthermore, a likely reason for this counterfactual adoption of these technologies, which represent a California ratepayer burden of tens of billions of dollars since 2010 is aggressive lobbying by special interests that benefit financially from those choices. One such special interest is Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary, PacifiCorp. Until May, 2025, likely in response to a now-denied complaint originally submitted in May, 2025 by Californians for Green Nuclear Power (CGNP,) to the California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC,) PacifiCorp’s California lobbying expenditures were

• Number 3 in 2034

• Number 5 in 2023.

However, in May, 2025 PacifiCorp declared under penalty of perjury that those expenditures which in their original Form 635 Lobbying Disclosures totaled over $17 million dollars were amended to a mere $204,000.00

Here is the summary of PacifiCorp’s original Form 635 filings for 2023-2024.

CGNP is skeptical of PacifiCorp’s amendments. Late on August 5, 2025 CGNP filed a new 38-page Sworn FPPC Complaint COM-08062025-02463

Warren Buffett cynically declared Berkshire Hathaway’s rationale for wind generation with a 2014 quote in U.S. News and World Report at https://tinyurl.com/Buffett-Wind-Scam

"For example, on wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That's the only reason to build them. They don't make sense without the tax credit."

Apparently, Berkshire Hathaway has built a lot of wind farms.

Some physical principles related to California solar generation

1. On a cloudless day, the electricity output of a solar PV generator is greatest when the Sun is directly overhead. This was the time selected by CGNP. During Pacific Daylight Saving Time (PDT,) this time is close to 1:00 PM. During Pacific Standard Time (PST,) this time corresponds to noon. This specific time was selected for CGNP’s daily analysis of CAISO generation by source for the period from late October, 2024 through August 6, 2025.

2. The Sun’s position is highest on the first day of summer, approximately June 21, 2025. The summer position at 1:00 PM PDT on a cloudless day corresponds to the greatest output of a solar generator. On the other hand, the Sun’s position is about 47 degrees lower with respect to the horizon on the first day of winter, approximately December 21, 2024. The maximum output is at 12 noon, PST. Review of the daily California power exports at 1:00 PM PDT the almost three months between May 16, 2025 and August 6, 2025 shows significant exports caused by excess solar and wind generation above California’s needs on all days but two. On nine of those days, over 5,000 MW were being exported at 1:00 PM PDT. However, for the roughly two months between January 11, 2025 and November 10, 2024, there were no California power exports at 12 noon, PST. This seasonal variation is a consequence of the changed position of the Sun between summer and winter and the increased cloud cover during the winter months, which decreases solar power output.

3. The output of a solar PV generator is similar to a cosine squared curve with the maximum value at solar noon. By geometry, that implies on cloudless days that most of the power generated will occur between about 10:30 AM PDT and 3:30 PM PDT. As a consequence of “must take” provisions that are a component of renewable portfolio standard (RPS) legislation, the substantial intermittencies that are characteristic of solar and wind generation are filled in via fast-acting natural gas fired generation. See: "Turns out wind and solar have a secret friend: Natural gas," by Chris Mooney, August 11, 2016, The Washington Post, http://tinyurl.com/Natural-Gas-Secret Thus, California’s solar and wind generation requires a huge fleet of over 29,000 MW of associated natural gas-fired generation. No wonder natural gas interests are big fans of solar and wind!

Does the CPUC listen to most California ratepayers? Nope.

Since 2016, CGNP has been an intervenor in the public interest before the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC.) CGNP employs arguments based on the principles of science, engineering, and economics. We have been vigorous participants in numerous hearings. We have filed thousands of pages of written testimony. The intervention process requires precise completion of numerous steps within rigid schedules. There are many unique elements to practicing before the CPUC. Our lead counsel is uniquely qualified as a former four-term California Assembly member. During his final term, he served as Chair of the Assembly Utilities and Energy Committee.

A keen legal mind is a necessary condition to be a successful CPUC practitioner. CGNP was required to fight the CPUC aggressively in conjunction with other nuclear advocates to obtain a mere five year extension to Diablo Canyon Power Plant (DCPP) operations. CGNP was the lone Party of fifty-five that advocated for DCPP extended operations in the CPUC Proceeding that ran from 2016 through early 2024. Even though the CPUC is responsible for a reliable California power grid, per a key statute in the California Public Utility Code, the CPUC has been avid supporters of intermittent, unreliable solar and wind generation. The CPUC appears to give significant weight to the opponents of nuclear power, which is consistent with the political Left’s perspective regarding nuclear power. CGNP believes that the objective of a safe, reliable, abundant and cost-effective electric power system which minimizes air and water pollution should be embraced by both political conservatives and political liberals.

On page 167 in Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow’s 2025 book, Atomic Dreams - The New Nuclear Evangelists and the Fight for the future of Energy https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Dreams-Nuclear-Evangelists-Future/dp/1643753150 she notes, “They (CGNP) wrote responses to the comments of other intervenors. All this added up to thousands of pages over the years. Heather (Hoff) and Kristin (Zaitz) sometimes smirked at Gene (Nelson’s) idiosyncrasies, but they ultimately expressed deep gratitude that he and his associates were doing the grunt work.”

Since the record shows that PacifiCorp has spent significant sums over the years directly lobbying the CPUC, the firm’s views likely find a receptive audience within the CPUC staff.

More to come in Part 2…

Supporting files are now available at the CGNP website. See:

https://cgnp.org/supporting-files-for-taxation-without-representation-08-07-25/

There is a detailed spreadsheet and six monthly SGI-capable supply stack charts showing natural gas-fired generation and generation from DCPP at solar noon for the months of March through August, 2025, inclusive. Part two will provide additional relevant background. CGNP will be focusing on the dangerously-low SGI-capable supply stacks at solar noon on May 3, 2025 and May 4, 2025. DCPP Unit 1 was undergoing a planned refueling and service outage at the time. On both days, each of the total SGI-capable supply stacks for the entire CAISO area were less than 2,000 MW. Shades of the Iberian Peninsula on the morning of Monday, April 28, 2025! CAISO seems to be much more conservative regarding the state’s SGI-capable supply stacks at solar noon during the ongoing DCPP curtailment associated with the almost 100,000 acre Gifford Fire, now the largest wildfire in the state with only 15% containment. This large fire straddles San Luis Obispo County and and Santa Barbara County.

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First, a “hat tip” to nuclear power advocate Shawn Dixon for alerting me to this excellent hour-long webinar documenting the value of nuclear power for the state of Texas. GreenNUKE recommends this webinar highly, particularly for government decision-makers at the state and federal level. Nuclear advocates will also appreciate the webinar. The American Nuclear Society (ANS) deserves a big, “Thank you!” for making this presentation available. Many important current topics in nuclear power are covered.

My wife and I lived in Texas from 1993-2006. After we left, ERCOT in Texas aggressively embraced solar and wind generation, to the detriment of dispatchable and reliable generation. This ANS presentation suggests that the Texas government is now recognizing the dangers associated with a glut of solar and wind generation. As is shown in two of the Vistra slides below, neither solar nor wind were available when their power is really needed.

This lack of availability of solar and wind generation was clearly illustrated in Texas during winter storm Uri in mid-February, 2021. The adverse consequences included the deaths of about 1,000 Texans who succumbed to cold temperatures - mostly the very young and very old.. Electric power prices spiked at the thousands of dollars per megawatt-hour level, illustrating the failure of market mechanisms to provide reliable electricity in states with ISOs, RTOs, or ROs. (On the other hand, the vertically-integrated utility model subject to state regulatory oversight tends to provide economically-priced reliable power.)

Here’s a summary of the presentation:

The Future of Nuclear in Texas

The American Nuclear Society (ANS) had an archived hour-long webinar focusing on "The Future of Nuclear in Texas" on July 14, 2025, at 1:00 PM CDT. The event will be available to all users and will explore the state's efforts to expand nuclear energy, including public support, new projects, and legislative actions. Panelists included representatives from Vistra Corp, Texas Nuclear Alliance, Aalo Atomics, and the Office of Texas Governor Abbott.

This webinar is part of a series examining state-led initiatives to advance nuclear energy. It will highlight Texas's unique approach and its collaborations with federal, private, and other partners. The ANS has been actively covering various state-level efforts to support nuclear energy, including legislation in Texas, Iowa, Indiana, and Illinois. On the other hand, California plans to shut down safe, reliable, abundant, cost-effective and zero-emissions Diablo Canyon Power Plant (DCPP) in 2030. GreenNUKE is one of the advocates for DCPP extended operations beyond 2030.

Recent developments in Texas include a proposed $2 billion incentive fund to attract new nuclear projects. This includes House Bill 14, which aims to establish the Texas Advanced Nuclear Deployment Office and a coordinator to assist with permitting processes. The bill also proposes funding for reactor development and research, as well as training programs to address workforce gaps.

Several companies are also exploring nuclear projects in Texas. Dow Chemical and X-energy are partnering to deploy small modular reactors (SMRs) at Dow's Seadrift manufacturing site. Natura Resources plans to install a molten salt research reactor at Abilene Christian University's NEXT Lab. Texas A&M University is also considering bringing up to four new SMRs to its campus.

The ANS Link includes video and photos of presenters - https://www.ans.org/webinars/view-nucleartx2025/

YouTube Link - with many commercials:

Panelists

Roland Backhaus

Nuclear Energy Regulatory and Transactional Attorney, Vistra

Reed Clay

President, Texas Nuclear Alliance

Jon Guidroz

Senior Vice President of Commercialization and Strategy, Aalo Atomics

Jarred Shaffer

Budget and Policy Advisor, Office of Texas Governor Greg Abbott

Moderator: Craig Piercy

Executive Director/CEO, American Nuclear Society

Key slides below are from the Vistra July, 2025 investor presentation. Some of these slides are shown during the ANS webinar. Vistra, headquartered in the Dallas, Texas suburb of Irving is a “merchant power provider” in many states, including California. There is considerable relevant information for your review in Vistra’s informative investor presentation. Some fine details are only visible on Vistra’s slide deck.

Vistra Slide Deck Source: https://tinyurl.com/Vistra-July-2025

Page 10 US Electricity Demand and Real (Inflation-corrected) GDP Growth:

Page 14 Higher ERCOT Renewable Capacity May not be Available - Renewables growth has been strong in Texas but performs significantly below headline capacity

Page 15 Dispatchable Assets are Essential for Reliability. Gas plants fill the reliabilty gap even in markets with high renewables penetration like ERCOT

California’s decision makers in particular need to watch this ANS Webinar for a fact-based path forward.

The underlying cause of the April 28, 2025 Iberian Peninsula blackout is a problem with what Meredith Angwin calls the “policy grid” in her landmark 2020 book, Shorting the Grid: The Hidden Fragility of Our Electric Grid https://www.amazon.com/Shorting-Grid-Hidden-Fragility-Electric/dp/1735358002/

The policy grid in the case of Spain is the government’s clearly stated goal of powering a modern European industrial society primarily with solar and wind power at mid-day. This coalition government, which has a narrow political majority, goes by the name PSOE or “Partido Socialista Obrero Español.” https://pes.eu/member/partido-socialista-obrero-espanol-spanish-socialist-workers-party/

The power engineering problem introduced by such an aspiration is the lack of synchronous grid inertia (SGI) that maintains grid frequency stability when the electric power grid is inevitably perturbed. For background, see the March 4, 2024 GreenNUKE article, “Why is Grid Inertia Important? Without sufficient synchronous grid inertia, the grid becomes unstable and a blackout occurs.”

One of the attributes of nuclear power plants is they 24-7 reliably contribute typically the largest amounts of required SGI of any power plant on the grid. (On the other hand, solar, wind, and batteries contribute negligible SGI.) CGNP has previously noted that a pair of perfectly good Spanish nuclear power reactors were offline on the morning of April 28, 2025. They were Almaraz I (1,011 MW) and Cofrentes (1,064 MW.) In addition, Trillo (1,003 MW) was offline for refueling. Thus, as a consequence of the policy grid, there were only four Spanish nuclear power reactors Almaraz II, Ascó I and II, and Vandellós II operating in Spain on the morning of April 28, 2025.

Spanish Nuclear Taxes over 45% of Total Costs

Around 2010, the PSOE recognized the high level of taxpayer-funded subsidies for solar and wind generation were unsustainable. Likely as a result of this reality, they created a unique system of Spanish taxes on safe, abundant, reliable, non-polluting, and reasonably-priced Spanish nuclear power to subsidize the low-quality intermittent and unreliable power from solar and wind. These taxes (impuestos) are substantial. The taxes transformed Spanish nuclear power into relatively expensive electric power.

The Spanish nuclear taxes have risen to the level of threatening the economic viability of Spanish nuclear power plants. According to this March 24, 2025 World Nuclear Association article, “The Trillo Nuclear Power Plant, for instance, has highlighted the financial strain imposed by high taxation, with annual taxes amounting to over 45% of its total costs.” https://world-nuclear.org/news-and-media/association-news/world-nuclear-association-highlights-concerns-over-spains-energy-future Note the PSOE plan calls for all seven Spanish nuclear reactors to be shut down by 2035, with the first closure set for 2027.

The Spanish Day-Ahead market

In Spain, the principle of lowest-cost dispatch is applied to generators bidding into the market to supply the next day’s power. The day-ahead market operator in Spain goes by the acronym OMIE (Operador del Mercado Ibérico de Energía.) In a simplified form, generators supply bids for each of the 24 hours of the upcoming day. OMIE receives the bids for each hour and orders them based on cost. The associated generation capacity of each bid is also tabulated. OMIE also has a model for the anticipated demand for each hour. Conceptually, OMIE stacks the bids from low cost to high cost for each hour and determine a set of generators sufficient to supply the projected electric power demand. Once they have a stack of bids sufficiently high to meet the projected demand, the highest cost acceptable bid is what all accepted generators receive for that hour. The remaining higher-cost generators do not receive any compensation for that hour.

There are two significant problems with OMIE’s approach.

1. All power generators are deemed to be equally capable of powering the grid, regardless of their ability to supply SGI. Thus, solar and wind generators are deemed by Spanish government policy to be equivalent to nuclear power generators.

2. The partial subsidies to Spanish solar and Spanish wind tend to place those power generation technologies at the preferred position at the bottom of the cost stack. Any taxes, such as the Spanish nuclear tax unfairly burden nuclear power. Spanish nuclear power plant bids tend to be too high to be accepted at mid-day when there is abundant subsidized solar and wind power.

OMIE’s ‘Duck Curve’ for April 28, 2025

Here is OMIE’s day-ahead hourly market price curve for Spain for Monday, April 28, 2025:

Source: https://www.omie.es/en/market-results/daily/daily-market/day-ahead-price?scope=daily&date=2025-04-28

Here are the detailed hour-by hour accepted bids in Euros for the hours from 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM. The hour is the first row, the bids in Euros are in the second row. Bids were negative from 12 noon until 6:00 PM. That means generators paid the grid operator to generate power! Since solar and wind are subsidized, those generator operators still make money.

The Iberian Peninsula grid failed in about 15 seconds at about 12:35 PM on April 28, 2025

To reiterate, two perfectly good Spanish nuclear reactors were off line at noon on April 28, 2025. This pair of reactors could have stabilized the frequency of the Spanish power grid. However, the two nuclear power reactors could not be brought on line rapidly once the Spanish grid operator Red Eléctrica (REE) recognized there were harmful grid frequency oscillations detected during the morning. (All six of Spain’s nuclear power plants were likely scheduled to operate during the late evening load peak starting at 8:00 PM when solar is unavailable.) Additional details are found in this informative July 6, 2025 article at KiloVAR’s Substack:

The Iberian Blackout -The Reports

Kilovar’s Substack

The Iberian Blackout -The Reports

Hello everyone, well the official reports are out, several of them, and some surprising conclusions have been reached. The Renewable Community has been doing a victory dance (in error) claiming that renewables had nothing to do with what happened, and they are the way forward. It’s true that there is a collection of issues that got Red Electra in troubl…

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a year ago · 40 likes · 14 comments · Kilovar 1959

GreenNUKE made comments regarding this relevant article.

The PSOE has not been transparent regarding the role of the unique Spanish tax on nuclear power as a root cause of the blackout. Instead, the PSOE has placed a veil of secrecy over some important reports. The goal of this GreenNUKE Substack article is to shine some light on these PSOE policy errors. (Searching for “PSOE” reveals that the Party has other scandals unfolding on July 8, 2025. The Spanish political opposition [PP] is calling for the resignation of the Spanish Prime Minister. )

The cost of the preventable Iberian Peninsula Blackout

At least nine Spaniards died as a consequence of the blackout. The economic cost of the blackout is lost productivity and damaged production equipment, likely denominated in the billions of US dollars.

California’s CAISO has emulated Spain’s policies via application of renewable portfolio standards (RPS) that achieve the same result at the unique Spanish taxes on nuclear power. Unless California reverses course, the outcome will eventually match the Iberian Peninsula blackout of April 28, 2025. Watch for more details soon.