Progress Towards Diablo Canyon Extended Operations to 2045

May the 4th be with us!

May 05, 2026

As the independent nonprofit Californians for Green Nuclear Power, Inc. (CGNP) has previously noted, a coalition will be required to successfully enact California legislation to extend Diablo Canyon Power Plant (DCPP) operations to 2045. On 2 April 2026, The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) extended DCPP’s operating license to 2045. There are long-lead-time items such as nuclear reactor fuel that need to be ordered in 2026 in order to have DCPP Unit 1 operate continuously. Per California SB 846 (Dodd, 2022) DCPP Unit 1 is currently scheduled to shut down in 2029. Thus, legislation to extend DCPP’s operations to 2045 needs to be passed this year. California’s regular legislative calendar ends in about four months.

As part of that coalition, CGNP has been working very hard to achieve this objective. We submitted draft California legislation to Legislative Counsel in late January, 2026. Unfortunately, that work hit a roadblock as a consequence of improper actions by the Office of Legislative Counsel and the inability of CGNP to raise the requisite funds to continue their initiative.

A CGNP representative was a panelist at a 14 January 2026 Hispanics in Energy (HiE)

https://www.hispanicsinenergy.com/

2026 California Energy Summit in Sacramento. The panel topic was the ongoing need for nuclear power in California. CGNP has been collaborating with HiE for several years.

Tom Jones of PG&E is shown at left, Gene Nelson, Ph.D. in the center, and John Kotek of the Nuclear Energy Institute are shown in this photograph of the HiE 2026 California Energy Summit. Not shown was the panel moderator Catherine Sandoval, Ph.D. Photo credit: Hispanics in Energy.

The 2 April 2026 U.S. NRC’s extension of DCPP’s operating license to 2045 contributed positive momentum to crafting California legislation to extend DCPP’s operation to 2045 instead of 2030. The CGNP article “On 2 April 2026 The NRC Granted Permission for DCPP to Run at Least Until 2045 A Day for Celebration”

https://greennuke.substack.com/p/on-2-april-2026-the-nrc-granted-permission provides additional details.

On 14 April 2026, CGNP attended the HiE Energy Legislative Summit in Washington, DC. The message delivered by several panelists was that the United States needs all of the nuclear power it can get. Extended nuclear power plant operation and restarts such as those underway at Palisades in Michigan are necessary. A Palisades progress report appears here: “Holtec hits milestones in Palisades restart, new reactor projects,” 2 April 2026, ANS Nuclear Newswire.

https://www.ans.org/news/2026-04-02/article-7901/holtec-hits-milestones-in-palisades-restart-new-reactor-projects/ This article does not identify a restart date. Crane Clean Energy Center (Formerly known as Three Mile Island Unit 1) in Pennsylvania is scheduled to restart in 2027, with all of its output being sold to Microsoft Corporation. Duane Arnold in Iowa has a planned restart date in early 2029. CGNP notes that the event that initiated the three reactor restart activities was the extension of DCPP operations to 2030 as a consequence of the 2 September 2022 enactment of California SB 846 (Dodd, 2022.) CGNP played a leadership role in the first-ever extension of operations of a nuclear power plant that was previously scheduled to shut down (in 2025.) CGNP also continued to work on corporate alliance-building at the HiE Energy Legislative Summit.

On 21 April 2026, CGNP was the opposition witness during the California Senate Energy Utilities and Communication Committee hearing regarding SB 931 (Laird, 2026.) In our comments, we clarified that the legislation was incomplete, with no mention of extended DCPP operations beyond 2030. This omission was akin to killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. The subsequent committee members discussion showed that California Senators support DCPP extended operations. See: https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/hearings/279368 at 23:23

....Doctor Gene Nelson, California(ns) ~~Institute~~ for Green Nuclear Power. While we support the idea of adding CIMP, we are unaware of any legislative effort to extend the life of the plant. There is none, period. And this is our concern is that we really need to not kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

The NRC has said go to 2045. The state of California, zip, Nada. And that needs to to be corrected, and I believe that this bill would be an excellent vehicle to actually correct that important missing piece.

Again, there is nothing out there. Now if we choose to close this plant down, we’re basically following the path of Spain on 04/28/2025. There was a massive blackout because they tried the experiment of running a modern industrial society on breezes and the sun.

It did not work. 11 people paid with their lives....

Following the hearing, CGNP visited several legislative offices. A discussion in a key California leadership office restarted CGNP’s work to develop legislative language for a DCPP extension to 2045.

I spent several additional days updating CGNP’s draft from January, 2026 reflecting the events during the subsequent three months. Here’s a one-paragraph summary of our proposed legislation from CGNP’s 4 May 2026 transmittal letter to that leader:

This California legislation authorizes Diablo Canyon powerplant operations at least until 2045. The principles of physics and the tragic events of the massive mid-day April 28, 2025 Iberian Peninsula Blackout establish that a modern industrial society will not run on a power grid supplied primarily by solar, wind, and batteries. As a result, passages alleging that solar, wind, and batteries will replace Diablo Canyon are counterfactual. Those passages have been deleted. Since Diablo Canyon is California’s largest generation plant, its beneficial attributes such as being an emission-free contributor to resource adequacy will be included in all grid planning processes to 2045. A funding mechanism based on “millage” - the mechanism employed to initially fund the Diablo Canyon Decommissioning Fund (now fully funded) for the three proposed state-administered funds (CIMF, TMF, and CNAF) established by this legislation is described at the bottom of page 6. Since the $1.4 billion loan from the State of California will be fully repaid by 2030, all of the applicable sections in the new legislation have been deleted. Consistent with established CPUC precedent, many indicated sections of the SB 846 legislation will not apply in the event that Diablo Canyon powerplant is sold to a new owner. The sections of SB 846 based on only a five year extension to 2030 are deleted, since this new legislation is based on the 2 April 2026 NRC extension of DCPP operations to 2045.

Copies of CGNP’s draft legislation (28 single-spaced pages with changes from SB 846 shown and 21 pages in clean form) are available upon emailed request.

Finally, CGNP joined the coalition named Diablo Canyon 2045

https://DiabloCanyon2045.com

advocating for the extension of DCPP operations to 2045. Here is a screen capture of the first few coalition members, shown in alphabetic order as of 04 May 2026: