The GreenNUKE Story So Far.....

72 posts with 45 from CGNP

Slightly less than two years ago, independent nonprofit Californians for Green Nuclear Power (CGNP) started its GreenNUKE Substack. Within the past almost 22 months, there were a total of 72 posts, with 45 of those posts created by CGNP. Those statistics underscore an important theme of advocating for the extended operations of Diablo Canyon Power Plant (DCPP,) a coastal nuclear power plant near San Luis Obispo, California that produces about 1/10 of California’s in-state dispatchable power (under human control.) The advocacy team is comprised of the plant owner Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) and a number of individuals and organizations that appreciate the environmental and ratepayer benefits of nuclear power.

Photo credit: The Associated Press - Michael A. Mariant via KPBS (December 11, 2024)

CGNP’s posts during December, 2025 highlighted victories before regulatory and oversight bodies including the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC)

and the California Coastal Commission (CCC)

CGNP has been a pioneer in raising awareness of the need for synchronous grid inertia (SGI) an essential grid reliability service. Inverter-based resources (IBRs) such as solar, wind, and almost all grid-scale battery installations lack the ability to contribute meaningful amounts of SGI. In California, the leading in-state generator that produces SGI is DCPP as is highlighted in CGNP’s inaugural March 4, 2024 article:

CGNP’s March 4, 2024 article underscores the impracticality of claims by solar, wind, and battery advocates that there can be a so-called “renewables transition.” The laws of physics and the realities of power system engineering show that despite the fervent wishes of solar, wind, and battery advocates, this transition will never occur. Solar and wind advocates pushed the Spanish electric grid system operator to maximize the use of solar and wind at mid-day on the Iberian Peninsula. As a result, the grid became unstable. The resultant grid collapse on Monday, April 28, 2025 at about 12:35 PM local time required about fifteen seconds. This grid collapse demonstrated the folly of dogmatic advocacy for ever-increasing percentages of solar and wind by decision-makers who lacked a sufficient science and engineering background. The penalty for this set of decisions was that at least eleven people that depended on reliable electric power died. The economic costs of lost productivity and damaged production equipment as a consequence of the Iberian Peninsula blackout are denominated in the equivalent of billions of U.S. dollars

In its plans for filings in 2026, CGNP will continue its push for DCPP operator PG&E to receive fair economic compensation for providing the greatest amount of SGI of any California generation plant. Currently, PG&E receives nothing for providing this essential grid reliability service.

CGNP’s August 15, 2025 article lays the foundations for our 2026 advocacy plans.

Based on CGNP’s research, we believe that DCPP’s SGI valuation of $100 million per year is a reasonable starting point. Many power grid operators worldwide with excess solar, wind, and battery generation are planning on adding parasitic (non-generating) assets at a total cost of multiple billions of dollars to maintain grid frequency stability.

“The Fix for Solar Blackouts is Already Here - Countries with the most renewables have become vulnerable to outages. Why are so few investing in grid-stabilizing tech?”

By Akshat Rathi and Laura Millan - Photography and video by Tom Skipp and Fabian Ritter, August 20, 2025 at 9:00 PM PDT, Bloomberg.

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2025-bottlenecks-blackouts-grid-stability-solar-wind/

A far more cost-effective approach is to diminish subsidies for solar, wind, and batteries while providing financial support to operators of nuclear power plants like PG&E. DCPP is a unique case because the plant underwent two rounds of accelerated depreciation. The first round began in the late 1990s. The second round occurred between 2017-2025. The result of these two rounds of accelerated depreciation is that the DCPP book value (the net of PG&E’s total plant investments less accumulated depreciation) is now close to zero.

However, the market value of DCPP is in the neighborhood of $10 billion, as the plant has been well-maintained and is an industry leader in technology updates. DCPP’s regulatory environment precludes cost recovery. Under the stipulations of California SB 846 (Dodd, 2022) DCPP’s ratepayer obligation is the net of DCPP’s annual operational costs less CAISO market revenues. Since DCPP typically generates the equivalent of five Hoover Dams of pollution-free electricity each year, the CAISO market revenues are substantial. When PG&E finally receives compensation for DCPP’s SGI, the plant’s annual operational costs will be reduced by that compensation. That beneficial change implies a greater likelihood of PG&E ratepayers receiving a significant rebate, which would be welcome in light of California’s retail residential electric power rates now typically being the most expensive in the continental U.S. CGNP previously established that if the SB 846 rules had applied between 2021 to 2023, the cumulative rebates would have been $1.331 billion. That would be a very large rebate!

Here’s a relevant December 27, 2025 Substack post regarding the lack of adequate SGI in California’s electric power grid:

Beyond Inertia & Voltage - What Operational Impacts of IBRs Aren't We Talking About?

Finally, here’s an aesthetically-pleasing and informative Fission Transition website by Carl Wurtz, who has been a strong backer of DCPP extended operations for about a decade. I appreciate the powerful message Carl’s website delivers in about one minute regarding President Jimmy Carter’s solar and wind power ambitions. Carl worked had to insure you could see California Governor Gavin Newsom’s September 8, 2022 comments regarding the need for DCPP.

https://fissiontransition.org/

Happy New Year wishes for 2026. I’m optimistic. How about you?