California Coastal Commission Votes 9-3 to Extend DCPP Operations to 2030

CGNP's Brief 12/11 Speech and Related Files -+ Gene will be speaking at a pair of events

This is a big deal. Over the years, the California Coastal Commission has not been a friend of Diablo Canyon Power Plant (DCPP.) Thus, this vote is significant after they tabled the DCPP motion last month. This was a huge team effort involving plant owner PG&E, nuclear power advocates, and concerned political leaders. Here’s my speech. I had to edit it on the fly as they changed the time limit from 3 minutes to 2 minutes just before we started our public comments. 56 people signed up to deliver public comments.

Chair Harmon and Members of the California Coastal Commission:

My name is Dr. Gene Nelson. I’m the president and senior legal researcher for CGNP. We generally support the staff recommendations regarding extending Diablo Canyon Power Plant’s operations at least until 2045.

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The plant is seismically rugged as demonstrated by its full-power operation during the nearby December 22, 2003 Magnitude 6.6 San Simeon earthquake. We’ve also documented that extended DCPP operations are extremely cost effective, at the high end of operating a hydroelectric dam.

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CGNP provided you with a copy of Dr. Seaver Wang’s December 3, 2025 Breakthrough Institute analysis showing the likely overestimation of harms in CCC’s claims.

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I recently toured DCPP, noting the abundant sea life including seabirds on Lion Rock. Prior to 2001, the cove was an extremely popular fishing location.

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CGNP employs sea lions as an indicator species. These carnivorous marine mammals consume between 15 and 40 pounds of fish and cephalopods each day.

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Here’s the variety of marine life sea lions consume.

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Lion Rock is the largest island in the DCPP outfall cove at about 4.1 acres. There are sea lions on the lion’s haunches. The white color is the dried sea lion waste products accumulated over the years after they consumed the abundant sea life.

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Here’s a close up of sea lions like we saw from the PG&E boat. [Next Slide]

Here’s a thriving sea lion colony with thousands of animals on Lion Rock with Diablo Canyon in the background. There were 1,383 sea lions in 1979. By May 2020, there were 7,595 sea lions, a more than five-fold increase during about 40 years.

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Great White Sharks now congregate offshore of Diablo Canyon to consume the abundant sea lions and their young. Surfers beware!

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Protect the cultural heritage of the ytt Northern Chumash in any plan to increase public access to the Diablo Canyon lands.

Keep Diablo Canyon running.

Here’s a PDF of the PowerPoint I showed:

Th8b 9a Nelson

425KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Here’s CGNP’s letter to the California Coastal Commisison

Cgnp To California Coastal Commission 12 07 25

659KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Here’s CalMatters reporting regarding the CCC vote today:

https://calmatters.org/politics/2025/12/california-diablo-canyon-permit-approved/

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BONUS:

I will be a panelist discussing nuclear power in California next Thursday, December 18 at 4:30 PM. The presenter is the California Arts and Sciences Institute (CASI) at the Barnyard in Carmel, California. Tickets are only $20.00 each

https://casicalifornia.org/event/casi-nuclear-power-live-panel/ I’ve been participating in CASI events for more than a year. The presentations I’ve attended were quite informative.

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BONUS 2:

I will be a panelist discussing nuclear power in California on Wednesday, January 14, 2026 at the Sutter Club in downtown Sacramento. The presenter is Hispanics in Energy (HiE). I’ve been attending HiE events for about five years. They have been very informative. This day-long discussion is titled the California Energy Summit. For details, please see:

https://www.hispanicsinenergy.com/

I look forward to seeing you at these events. Among other topics, I will be discussing CGNP’s proposed legislation to extend DCPP operations to 2045. This legislation must pass during the 2026 California legislative session.