California’s last nuclear plant to close after unanimous vote by regulators - San Francisco Chronicle

Protest at the Civic Center against nuclear power and the Diablo Canyon plant in April 1979

California’s last nuclear power plant — Diablo Canyon, whose contentious birth helped shape the modern environmental movement — will close in 2025, state utility regulators decided Thursday.

…PG&E will, however, be able to shift onto its customers $241.2 million in costs related to shutting down the plant, including retaining its staff. PG&E estimated Thursday that customer bills would rise less than 0.5 percent on an annual basis as a result of the commission’s decision…

… “The decision undermines what should have been an inspiring model for the rest of the country and the world on best practices for planning for the closure of giant, expensive, and inflexible nuclear plants,” said Ralph Cavanagh, co-director of the energy program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the groups that negotiated the closure agreement with PG&E.

The commission, he said, did not seem to appreciate the amount of thought the negotiating partners, some of which had a long history of fighting PG&E, put into the details of their agreement.

“It was a joint proposal by numerous parties that have never agreed on anything,” Cavanagh said…

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