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SLO County supports delaying closure of Diablo Canyon power plant

February 17, 2022

By KAREN VELIE

The San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors voted 3-1 on Tuesday to send a letter asking Governor Gavin Newsom to assist in an effort to delay the closure of Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant.

After 40 years in operation, Diablo Canyon Power Plant is set to be decommissioned in 2025. Diablo Canyon currently provides 10% of California’s electric power.

Late last year, Republican Assemblyman Jordan Cunningham and Democratic SLO County Supervisor Dawn Ortiz-Legg called for officials not to rush the closure of Diablo Canyon. Officials should reconsider whether the nuclear power plant remains open at least 10 years past its scheduled decommissioning in 2025, Cunningham and Ortiz-Legg stated.

Earlier this month, 79 scientists sent a letter to Newsom requesting the governor help delay closure of the plant.

Supervisor Debbie Arnold made the motion on Tuesday to send the letter. The board then voted 3-1 in favor of supporting the delay, with Supervisor Bruce Gibson dissenting and Ortiz-Legg recusing herself from the vote, after participating in the discussion. Gibson wants the plant to close, and the state to promote “truly renewable energy.”


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Closing the plant will be a disaster for our energy reliability and supply and people will not be able to afford the unreliable energy that will be left….


Memo to renewable energy advocates….You can’t force a square peg into a round hole no matter how hard you try…first you must make the hole fit the peg…and we haven’t achieved that yet….


15

In 2050 there may be a new type reactor to replace the old one. Don’t plan on any decommissioning until then. Just doing the math, no politics or emotions.


10

Serious environmentalists (who don’t rely on magical thinking) understand that nuclear energy plays a vital role in the strategy for generating reliable energy to meet America’s future electric power requirements while keeping carbon emissions to a minimum.


10

Bruce, please resign.


18

According to scientists, the likelihood of a magnitude 8.0 or greater earthquake in California in the next thirty years has increased from 4.7% to 7.0%. Diablo Canyon is rated to withstand a magnitude 7.5 earthquake. Diablo is near a convergence of several earthquake faults—San Andreas, Hosgri, Los Osos and Shoreline.


Close it down and retrofit it for desalinization. Build 10 more solar farms like the one at Stateline.


-31

I’f you mandated most of all buildings to have solar, some battery sub stations, you wouldn’t need a soon to be Fukushima. On a double fault, with a 40 mile evac zone here using antiquated tech and rods stored on sight with only a backup generator to cool the ponds on a hill it has to pump water up. We were to have a superfund sight for rods in 79 to my knowledge, do you see private business ponying up, nope I don’t. It’s a private plant, not public. Maybe if the public funded it, which it could with our local billionaires, maybe. This is political pandering by the BOS. And Bruce is still a snob. And this county is still crooked.


-33

yes Bruce, lets shut it down and push for all electric houses. makes perfect sense.


32

District 2 Supervisor Bruce Gibson voted against it. Remember that folks.


26

Another example of Bruce Gibson being out of touch with reality. All resources of “renewable energy” cannot at this time take the place of the energy sources we currently rely upon. Gibson and the left want to eliminate current energy sources without any plan as to what will take its place.


47