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This was informative. I know CA energy policy is terrible, but I didn't realize the extent of chicanery toward nefarious ends. Now I'm wondering why the prospect of an out-of-state coal company being deep in the pocket of the CPUC is not worthy of prime-time news coverage. Or why environmental NGOs are not raising the alarm with their members--the ones which aren't on the anti-nuke agenda.

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Good questions. I just was a presenter at an energy conference in Carmel, California. Some of the audience seemed concerned.

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Gene, me personally I am a bit skeptical of the role of the various Community Choice Aggregation programs around the state in opposing nuclear energy. Interestingly enough with the 5 year life extension of Diablo Canyon there will now be another round of CCA's having to decide whether to accept allocations of Diablo Canyon energy. I think at the moment CCA's might be a more important factor than PacifiCorp.

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Unlikely. The head of CalCCA testified in favor of DCPP extension during oral arguments in CPUC Proceeding R.23-01-007 in San Francisco. Now that the CPUC is mandating that CCAs purchase Resource Adequacy (RA) instead of being "free riders" they are supporting DCPP. extended operations At the November 8, 2023 hearing, two Intervenors opposed to DCPP on ideological grounds were the only parties raising opposition to extended operations. Watch for GreenNUKE's next article opposing the Westwide Governance Pathways Initiative (WWGPI.) The Comments deadline is Wednesday, May 8, 2024.

https://www.westernenergyboard.org/wwgpi/ website

Comments@WestWidePathwaysInitiative.org email

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Interesting. I have been listening to some recent interviews with John Geesman and A4NR who I am sure you know and his representation of the anti nuclear position seems to be to pressure the corporate finance department at PG&E to reject nuclear. The problem as I see it from Geesman's ideology of opposing nuclear is Wall Street has been valuing nuclear quite highly since the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. Constellation Energy the largest nuclear operator in the country has seen it's stock quadruple in the past year. During a recent sale of a minority interest in South Texas Project a very comparable plant to Diablo Canyon, in age, size, and design the overall valuation of the plant was set at almost 4$ billion dollars. And remember Texas has almost as screwed up of an energy market as California.

Geesman would seem to have to convince Wall Street in it's entirety to change it's mind about nuclear or convince Wall Street that nuclear in California is so un-investable that you could take a 4 billion dollar asset elsewhere in the US and turn it into a net negative in California. Keep in mind too NRG's stock fell precipitously after selling that stake in South Texas Project given some on Wall Street thought that STP was worth even considerably more than 4 billion in the long run. Other companies like PSEG and Talen who have similar levels of nuclear production as PG&E have basically indicated there nuclear plants are either not for sale or only for sale at even higher prices than what South Texas sold for.

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Thanks. I've been closely following these developments. I'm pleased with Constellation's stock price appreciation. I think DCPP is worth considerably more than STP. It is the old real estate adage of Location, Location, Location. I admire Attorney John Geesman's creativity. However, just like A4NR's exaggerations regarding DCPP safety, my prediction is that his PG&E initiative will go nowhere.

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See the June 30, 2024 Wall Street Journal article, "Tech Industry Wants to Lock Up Nuclear Power for AI" https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/tech-industry-wants-to-lock-up-nuclear-power-for-ai-6cb75316 Constellation Energy is mentioned in this article.

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