Gavin Newsom sneaks in visit to Diablo Canyon on eve of big federal license decision

California Gov. Gavin Newsom visited Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant on the eve of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission announcing its decision to allow PG&E to operate the plant past its scheduled closure dates.

It doesn’t appear any news outlets were informed of the governor’s visit to the power plant near Avila Beach. Newsom’s office typically sends out notices to news agencies when the governor plans to visit an area for a specific reason, such as natural disaster response tours or announcing certain political actions such as new funding initiatives.

Newsom’s Wednesday visit to the plant came amid a push to keep the plant running past 2025.

“As we experienced during the record heat wave last September, climate change-driven extreme events are causing unprecedented stress on our power grid — the Diablo Canyon Power Plant is important to support energy reliability as we accelerate progress towards achieving our clean energy and climate goals,” Newsom said in a prepared statement sent to media on Thursday afternoon.

“I look forward to our continued work with the Biden-Harris Administration and the Legislature to build a reliable and resilient clean electric system,” his statement continued.

The NRC on Thursday morning notified PG&E that Diablo Canyon can continue operating past the expiration dates of its license for the twin reactors, 2024 and 2025. The utility company must submit a sufficient license renewal application to the NRC by Dec. 31.

It was expected that the state could procure enough clean energy to replace the 2,200-megawatt power plant by the time it was scheduled to fully close in 2025.

However, the state was unable to meet that goal, and the nuclear power plant still produces about 9% of the state’s total electricity.