California is the fourth-largest electricity producer in the nation, generating about 5% of the country’s energy, according to the Energy Information Administration.
A large part of that energy comes from the state’s last operating nuclear power plant — Diablo Canyon.
“We safely generate power for about three million Californians," said PG&E spokesperson Suzanne Hosn.
And after years of uncertainty about its future, Diablo Canyon is still powering on.
In 2016, PG&E announced plans to decommission the plant. But in 2022, amid increasing calls to keep it running as the state transitions to more renewable energy sources, Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 846.
The bill allows the plant to operate beyond its original decommissioning dates in 2024 and 2025, at least until 2030.
It was a controversial decision, with some concerned about the plant’s lifespan and long-term storage of nuclear waste.
This November, PG&E submitted a 3,000-page license renewal application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The current license for Unit 1 was set to expire earlier this month.
"If you add Unit 2 next year, it would be tremendous of taking about 10% of California energy," said Maureen Zawalick, Diablo Canyon Power Plant Vice President.
The NRC has allowed the plant to continue operating while they review the renewal application. If approved, the plant could continue generating power for another 20 years or however many years the state would allow.
“Around here, we say that we earn the right to continue operating every day," Hosn said. "And we do that through safety and reliability and affordability, and so it's important to us that we continue to earn that ability to operate every day.”
Now, Diablo Canyon is taking its operations a step further, using artificial intelligence to support its workers. PG&E says this is a first for nuclear power plants.
“What that will allow our nuclear professionals and qualified workers to do is spend more time on problem-solving and decision-making and less time searching for or analyzing data," Zawalick said.
PG&E says the technology won’t replace employees but will instead streamline access to billions of pages of technical documentation, completing searches that used to take hours in just minutes.
NRC PUBLIC MEETING
The NRC is holding a meeting on Wednesday, Nov. 20, to provide the results of its staff review of the license renewal environmental report for Diablo Canyon Power Plant. The meeting will take place from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Courtyard Marriott located at 1605 Calle Joaquin in San Luis Obispo. There will be opportunity for public comment.
