Environmental, Civic Groups Join Together in Support of Diablo Canyon
MAY 9, 2026 – A coalition of environmental, civic, business, and other groups launched today with the goal of convincing legislators to support continued operation of Diablo Canyon (Nuclear) Power Plant, the source of 9% of California’s electricity and 20% of its clean electricity.
The plant, originally scheduled to close in 2025, was granted an extension to 2030 when government officials determined it was necessary to maintain the stability of California’s grid. As spokeswoman Brei Thompson explains, “we are a broad coalition of clean energy, environmental, business, labor, and other organizations that support extending Diablo Canyon Power Plant operations to 2045 to ensure California’s clean energy transition meets the need for reliable, affordable, carbon-free energy as electricity demand grows.
“Diablo Canyon has already proven vital to California’s reliable clean energy future, and with growing energy demand and extreme weather events, we will need every available stable, zero-emission, carbon-free energy available to us beyond 2030,” she says.
Fission Transition is working to:
• Extend to nuclear plant owners the same economic incentives offered to wind and solar farms for their clean power.
• Create a level playing field for clean energy by ending CAISO’s wholesale market trading rule which assigns to wind and solar resources a preferential place in its “loading order”.
• Eliminate the awarding of tradeable Renewable Energy Credits (RECs), which can be sold to fossil fuel generators to evade responsibility for the CO2 impacts of their energy.
• Promote funding for Gen-4 (fourth generation) reactor development in California to help the state regain its lead in clean energy.
• Inform legislators and the public of the many benefits of nuclear energy: its safety, its cost-competitiveness, and small land-use and wildlife impacts.
• Work with local communities with municipal power (Sacramento, Alameda, Burbank, Glendale, others) to investigate the possibilities of de-carbonizing with small-modular or microreactors.
WATCH: CA Gov. Gavin Newsom minces no words when asked what could have happened during a record 2022 heat wave if Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant had not been online
Can offshore wind farms replace the reliable electricity generated by Diablo Canyon Power Plant?
Though advocates claim offshore wind farms are capable of replacing the carbon-free, reliable power provided by nuclear plants, practical experience shows fossil fuel plants must step in to supplement their output, or even substitute for them, during periods of extended calm.
Opposition is also increasing from seaside residents, many of whom view the turbines as an intrusion of their ocean view. Moreover, the farms bring a host of construction- and maintenance-related ship traffic, which is blamed for increasing impacts on whales and other sea life.
Recently we sat down with Nicole Dorfman of REACT Alliance, a group which seeks to stop development of 3 separate wind farms occupying a 370–square mile area off the seaside community of Avila Beach, where many of its REACT’s members live.
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