SLO County elected officials sign open letter saying Cal Poly should take lead on Diablo Canyon’s future
SAN LUIS OBISPO COUNTY, Calif. – Nearly 20 San Luis Obispo County elected officials, business leaders, and community group leaders have signed an open letter in support of Cal Poly taking the lead on the future of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant.
The letter, which the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to sign on Tuesday, states that the Diablo Canyon site can be a future hub of clean energy innovation where "industry and academia can hatch and collaborate on emerging renewable technologies."
Diablo Canyon Power Plant near Avila Beach is set to be decommissioned in 2025, but a coalition of scientists, academics, and clean energy advocates are fighting to keep it operational. It generated about 6% of the state's power last year, delivering clean energy across the state.
Gov. Gavin Newsom was recently quoted in the LA Times inferring that the state may attempt to delay the closure of the power plant.
Now, a group of local and federal government officials, high education officials, and labor and business officials have signed onto a letter asking that Cal Poly take the lead on the future of the plant.
"The conversations sparked by the governor’s comments last week don’t change the long-term need for our community to prepare for a future without Diablo Canyon," said Sally Taylor, spokeswoman for REACH Central Coast.
"The outcome of any attempt to extend the plant’s operation is far from certain, and the governor acknowledges that any efforts to keep Diablo Canyon open would be short-term only."
A coalition of stakeholders came together one year ago to begin discussing a shared vision for the 585-acre industrial area that is Diablo Canyon, and the letter goes into what that shared vision looks like.
"We see an expansion of existing desalination capabilities, a harbor for blue economy activity, a community center for Chumash heritage education and celebration, and a critical platform for enabling California to harness the wind energy right o our coast," the letter states.
"From our collective due diligence through the last year, we firmly believe that Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, with support from public-private partnerships and investments, can be the catalyst for this vision."
The letter states that Cal Poly's "extensive" history of capital project execution, stewardship, and partnerships with PG&E, make it "ideally poised as the logical successor entity to usher in an extraordinary new era for Diablo Canyon and the Central Coast."
Central Coast Congressman Salud Carbajal, State Senator John Laird, State Assemblyman Jordan Cunningham, Cal Poly President Jeffrey Armstrong, and Board of Supervisors Chair Bruce Gibson are just some of the 17 people who signed the letter.
