Democrats and Activists Demand Blackouts over Nuclear Power in California

T hree major environmental groups filed a lawsuit to stop California from extending the life of its last nuclear-power plant.

The lawsuit from San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, Friends of the Earth, and the Environmental Working Group argues that the Diablo Canyon nuclear reactors, which generate 10 percent of California’s energy supply, are unnecessary and environmentally harmful.

Yet Diablo Canyon’s pair of nuclear reactors annually prevent roughly 7 million tons of greenhouse gasses from being emitted, the environmental equivalent of taking 1.5 million cars off the road. Even if the reactors were magically replaced by the wind and solar power environmentalists favor, carbon-dioxide emissions would still sharply rise. These anti-nuclear environmental groups, along with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), had previously made a deal with California power company PG&E to shut down the Diablo Canyon plant as early as 2024. But federal regulators accepted a license renewal in December 2023.

Despite nuclear power’s environmental benefits, such as lowered CO₂ emissions, many environmentalists continue to lobby vehemently against it. Major green groups like the Sierra Club have blocked “the licensing, construction and operation” of nuclear reactors for almost 50 years because they believe nuclear energy leads to “energy over-use and unnecessary economic growth.”

“There’s going to be a lot of money to be made helping rich Californians become as insulated as possible from the effects of their own policy choices while moralizing to poor Californians that maybe they can’t just expect electricity in a time of climate crisis,” Mark Nelson, a nuclear engineer, told the Huffington Post of the recent events.

Studies show replacing nuclear with wind and solar power roughly doubles emissions as the green-favored sources make the electrical grid unreliable. This must be compensated for by overbuilding power plants, thus generating more emissions. When California closed the two-reactor San Onofre nuclear plant in 2012, state CO₂ emissions rose by 9 million metric tons, which is equivalent to putting another 2 million cars onto the road.

Despite the obvious benefits of nuclear plants, many so-called environmentalist groups seemingly care more about closing them than they do about reducing emissions. They regularly warn about the potential dangers of global warming while waging lawfare against the largest source of carbon-free electricity.

The power of anti-nuclear environmental groups is such that all three major Democrats vying to be California’s next U.S. senator promised during the last televised debate before the state’s jungle primary that they’d close the state’s last nuclear-power station.

Representative Adam Schiff, who came in first in the primary to replace the late Dianne Feinstein, said he supports nuclear energy generally . . . but opposes it in California and wants to see the Diablo Canyon Power Plant closed by the end of the decade.

“I support the governor’s plan to decommission the plant,” Schiff stated in the debate. “We’re going to need to move to renewable energy. We’re going to need to move to wind and solar.”

Schiff’s general-election opponent, Republican Steve Garvey, supports the plant.

He’s not irrational to do so. The Diablo Canyon reactors have provided California’s only nuclear power since 2013, when the state shuttered the San Onofre plant, causing the state’s electricity costs to skyrocket. California’s electricity rates come in at almost 30 cents per kilowatt-hour, roughly double the national average. They are exceeded only by those in Hawaii, which has the excuse of being an inherently more expensive island.

Following a 2022 wave of blackouts attributable to reliance on solar and wind, California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, signed legislation keeping Diablo Canyon open until 2030.

Prior to this extension, California aggressively shut down reliable nuclear, coal, and natural-gas power plants to artificially boost demand for solar and wind farms at the behest of extremist environmentalists. It did so against the advice of scientists, who begged for the plants to remain online.

The shutdowns created a series of major problems, as power grids require demand to match supply exactly. But variable wind and solar power naturally stops working later in the day, just as electricity demand tends to peak, or during certain times of the year. This caused tremendous damage to California’s electrical grid, forcing it into a series of both rolling and unplanned blackouts to reduce demand and causing Newsom to declare a state of emergency. Naturally, he blamed global warming rather than his own party’s policy failures.

A U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) investigation found that there is a “significant risk” of electricity in the United States becoming unreliable because wind and solar simply aren’t reliable. Power demand is relatively predictable, and conventional power plants, such as nuclear and natural-gas plants, can adjust output accordingly, as they put out a steady and predictable supply of electricity.

It remains to be seen if environmental activists get their way on Diablo Canyon. But their intention is clear: They will keep fundamentally undermining the reliability of the state’s electrical grid until it’s literally lights out.