Central Coast Water Board Approves DCPP Operations At Least Until 2030
This is the final state regulatory action prior to the NRC Issuance of a License Renewal to 2045
Independent nonprofit Californians for Green Nuclear Power, Inc. (CGNP) joined many other groups advocating for Diablo Canyon Power Plant (DCPP) extended operations in urging the Central Coast Water Board (CCWB) to decide to unanimously approve on February 26, 2026 the plant’s operations at least until 2030. This is the final California state regulatory action prior to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issuing a License Renewal to 2045 to the plant’s owner, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E.)
The author, Gene Nelson, Ph.D. being interviewed for the lead 6:00 PM news story on KSBY TV-6 on Friday, February 27, 2026. The location, north of Avila Beach, CA is opposite the entrance to DCPP.
First, here are CGNP’s presentation slides for their five-minute long presentation before the CCWB on Thursday, February 26, 2026:
Here are CGNP’s prepared comments for their CCWB presentation:
Here’s Karson Wells’s KSBY TV-6 reporting of the CCWB decision on February 27, 2026:
Nuclear power advocate Paris Ortiz-Wines reported on X shortly after the CCWB decision.
The official CCWB February 26 news release appears here:
The February 26, 2026 Los Angeles Times article regarding the CCWB approval is here:
While the local NPR outlet KCBX usually shows its Left-leaning bias in its DCPP reporting, the headline carries important information:
Regrettably, plant owner PG&E’s website regarding DCPP still seems more focused on decommissioning instead of extended operations when CGNP reviewed it on March 1, 2026. Please review the website yourself at
https://www.pge.com/en/about/pge-systems/nuclear-power.html
While the February 26, 2026 CCWB approval of DCPP extended operations is a newsworthy event, there is no PG&E news release that CGNP could locate at the PG&E news releases website: https://www.pge.com/en/newsroom/press-releases.html
On the other hand, PG&E released an informative short video regarding the lack of biological harms of DCPP’s once-through-cooling (OTC) on February 25, 2026
https://x.com/DiabloCanyonCA/status/2026674251701563631
which contains an amusing disclaimer featuring PG&E’s Tom Jones eating some sea foam in the DCPP outfall cove:
San Luis Obispo, California’s newspaper of record is the San Luis Obispo Tribune. In the author’s view, this newspaper has exhibited mostly an opposition to the plant’s operation during its history stretching back almost sixty years. The CCWB approval of DCPP’s extended operations to 2030 is the headline, “Nuclear power plant takes steps toward 2030 extension” in the above the fold story by Stephanie Zappelli in the Sunday, March 1, 2026 print edition, which was printed in advance of the U.S. - Israeli mid-day attack on Tehran, Iran on February 27, 2026 which resulted in the death of supreme leader Ali Khamenei.
Finally, there was a story in Politico on February 25, the day before the CCWB meeting:
The next step will be the NRC’s issuance of the DCPP License Renewal. DCPP has already passed NRC’s in-depth safety review. According to PG&E’s Tom Jones’s comments at the CCWB meeting, the NRC approval will be granted during the second quarter of 2026.
CGNP believes the NRC issuance date for the DCPP License Renewal could be as early as April 2, 2026. GreenNUKE will likely be one of the first to report this positive news.
When E. Musk owns the plant he will have a team looking at ways to use AI and robots to clean those tunnels out.
Thanks for the Entergy Corp. v. Riverkeeper, Inc. (2009) reference.