California Is Reconsidering Nuclear Energy After 50-Year Ban

Amid a worldwide resurgence of interest in nuclear energy, cracks are showing in California’s 50-year-old moratorium on the technology as artificial intelligence spikes electricity demand and the state struggles to meet its climate goals.

New state legislation introduced last month would allow California to approve the deployment of next-generation nuclear technologies that have been licensed by the federal government since 2005.

“With California having energy goals such as having 90% clean electricity by 2035, and 100% clean energy by 2045, nuclear energy is a source that must be considered,” Democratic state Assemblymember Lisa Calderon, who introduced the bill with Republican support, said in a statement.

Bills recently proposed in three other states would also ease limits on nuclear power, according to the Good Energy Collective, a pro-nuclear research organization. The legislation comes as the Trump administration has aggressively promoted nuclear power, committing $80 billion to the industry. Investors, meanwhile, have poured billions into companies developing small, modular reactors on the promise they can be built more cheaply and faster than conventional nuclear. But it could be at least a decade or more before costly nuclear technologies are deployed at any scale.

Over the past decade, five US states have lifted prohibitions on new reactors imposed in the wake of the 1979 disaster at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, while 11 states continue to restrict the technology.

Charles Oppenheimer, founder of the Oppenheimer Project, a San Francisco nonprofit that promotes nuclear energy to address the climate crisis, said the legislative move in the US’s largest and one of its most anti-nuclear states sends a signal that atomic power is needed to lower carbon emissions.

“California’s late to the party but symbols count and as California goes, so goes the world,” said Oppenheimer, the grandson of the father of the atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer.

The state first imposed its ban in 1976 as the environmental movement was emerging as a potent political force in a region that prided itself for its natural beauty. The law prohibited approval of new nuclear power plants until technology to dispose of radioactive waste had been deployed, which has not yet happened.

But some of the anti-nuke forces in recent years have been shifting their stance as efforts to decarbonize butt up against the hard realities that intermittent renewables aren’t able to deliver enough electricity around the clock to meet surging demand for power.

PG&E Corp., California’s largest utility, agreed in 2016 to close the state’s last nuclear reactors at its Diablo Canyon Power Plant. But California Governor Gavin Newsom delayed the closure in 2022 after heat waves triggered a series of blackouts and it remains in operation. A spokesperson for Newsom said the governor’s office had no comment on Calderon’s legislation.

Proponents of the bill, including labor unions representing construction workers, say modern nuclear technology is safer and produces less waste than the power plants of the 1970s and 1980s that triggered widespread protests in the state.

“You’re seeing that these blanket moratoria are starting to die away,” said, said Erik Funkhouser, executive director of Good Energy Collective.

Plus, many of the companies developing new reactor designs are based in the state. Advanced nuclear technology has strong ties to the technology industry, and California is becoming a market leader for a technology that it can’t use.

“They’re asking, ‘Is this the look we want? We’re gobbling up all this investment and we can’t deploy it in our state,’ ” Funkhouser said. “That’s creating some pressure.”

But opposition to nuclear remains. “We can meet our environmental goals without any new nuclear plants but I think there are certain people that need the power for their AI projections and their data centers,” said Rochelle Becker, board president for the California advocacy group Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility.

Lifting California’s moratorium doesn’t necessarily mean new nuclear plants will be built in the state, said Ralph Cavanagh, who helped negotiate the original agreement to close Diablo Canyon as a director of environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council’s clean energy program.

“No California utility or independent power producer has had the slightest interest in deploying more of a technology with that level of cost and operational inflexibility,” he said in an email. “This almost certainly won’t change.”

California’s three biggest utilities, though, appear to be hedging their bets. Spokespeople for PG&E and San Diego Gas & Electric said the companies are still analyzing the potential impacts of the legislation.

Jeff Monford, a spokesperson for Southern California Edison, which closed the state’s other nuclear power plant in 2013, said the utility has not yet taken a position on the legislation. “As California works to meet its climate goals while maintaining a reliable and affordable electric system, we believe all options should remain on the table,” he said.

Top photo: The Pacific Gas and Electric Co. Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in Avila Beach, California. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg.