Now here’s some good news that deserves attention. PG&E recently announced that they will (finally!) close Diablo Canyon, California’s last nuclear power plant still in operation, when its operating license expires in 2025. The increasing availability of clean energy sources, including the rising use of solar power, is credited for making this possible.
As the LA Times reported: “The power produced by Diablo Canyon’s two nuclear reactors would be replaced with investment in a greenhouse-gas-free portfolio of energy efficiency, renewables and energy storage, PG&E said.”
As a Press Democrat editorial opined: “PG&E’s decision to close Diablo Canyon by 2025 is likely to mark the end of the nuclear power era in California.”
In the words of the editorial board of the New York Times “..this is an event of potentially great significance for the future of energy generation in this country and for the health of the earth itself..”
The New York Times editorial continued: “As one negotiator put it, the deal is further evidence that “the age of renewables has arrived” — at least in California, which has long led the nation in energy innovation and last year passed a law requiring state-regulated utilities to get half their electricity from renewable sources by 2030.”
We recall a time when solar was seen as less then effective and nuclear power was hailed as the future, regardless of the huge risks (especially for this power plant, located in ‘earthquake country’). In the words of Bob Dylan “the times they are a’ changing.”
