I will not apologize for single-handedly saving California's last nuclear power plant

For over forty years, the prevailing wisdom in California's progressive circles was that nuclear power was a terrifying menace, a technological arrogance that threatened to poison our beautiful coastlines and imperil future generations. I know this was the prevailing wisdom because I personally helped enforce it.

In my 1998 column, which many in Sacramento still refer to as the definitive text on the subject, I argued that the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant was essentially a radioactive time bomb waiting to hurl the Central Coast into the Stone Age. I called for its immediate dismantling. I marched. I spoke on panels. I nodded gravely while folk singers performed acoustic ballads about uranium.

But yesterday, I decided it was time to let the state keep the plant open.

Intellectual growth is a painful process for the lesser minds of the electorate, but for a seasoned columnist, it is as effortless as ordering a second glass of Pinot Noir. The reality is that California needs clean energy to meet its aggressive climate goals, and I am finally brave enough to admit that the thing I spent my entire career trying to destroy is actually the only thing that can save us.

It was during a recent closed-door meeting in Sacramento—technically a corner booth at Ella Dining Room, though I did ask the waiter to stop interrupting us—that I broke the news to Governor Gavin Newsom. I took a sip of my sparkling water, leaned across the table, and fixed the Governor with a stare that has been known to alter state policy.

I told him that the wind does not always blow, the sun does not always shine, but the steady, humming decay of radioactive isotopes is forever. I explained that we needed to extend the life of Diablo Canyon, which was slated to close in 2025, and that we needed to start looking at building new reactors immediately.

The Governor was quiet for a long moment, likely stunned by my sheer ideological bravery. Shortly after I finished my sea bass, the state legislature miraculously advanced a plan to keep the twin reactors running, backed by a massive federal loan. I do not ask for gratitude from the administration for giving them the intellectual cover to do this, but a handwritten note would not have been entirely out of place.

Naturally, the professional activists are furious with me. They point to the Hosgri fault line, a seismically active fracture located entirely too close to the plant's aging 1970s infrastructure. They wave their little seismology reports and ask what happens if a massive earthquake strikes the facility.

To which I respond: what if it doesn't?

This is the problem with the modern environmental movement. It is utterly devoid of romance. Yes, there is a non-zero chance that a catastrophic tectonic event could rupture the containment domes and irradiate San Luis Obispo. But is that not the inherent thrill of human progress? Are we to be a society that cowers in fear of localized meltdowns, or are we a society that boldly splits the fundamental building blocks of the universe right on the edge of a continental shelf?

Dunlap gets it. We are synergizing our approach to the grid. We are moving past the tired, pedestrian solutions of the past decade.

Let us speak candidly about renewables for a moment. Solar power is inherently passive. The panels just sit there on your roof, begging the sun for scraps, getting covered in dust and bird droppings. Wind turbines are even worse—they are the needy dependents of the atmosphere, useless unless the barometric pressure happens to be in a cooperative mood. They ruin my view of the horizon when I am driving up to Carmel for the weekend.

Nuclear power, on the other hand, is active. It is muscular. It requires armed guards and concrete domes and guys with clipboards monitoring highly pressurized steam. It is cinematic. It says that California is back, and we are not afraid to boil water using the most complicated and expensive method ever devised by man.

People constantly ask me what we are supposed to do with the spent nuclear fuel. The environmental left loves to wring their hands over the fact that the waste will remain dangerously radioactive for tens of thousands of years, requiring heavily fortified lead and concrete casks to sit indefinitely on the California coast.

I have a very simple solution to this problem: we simply stop worrying about it.

During a panel I recently moderated at the Aspen Ideas Festival, I posited that future generations will actually thank us for leaving them these glowing puzzle boxes. We are not burdening our descendants with toxic waste; we are fostering future innovation. We are leaving them a tangible incentive to invent better radiation-shielding technology. It is an investment in the workforce of the year 12,000 AD.

Dr. Hayes is playing the typical bureaucratic game of managing expectations, but the seed has been planted. The optics of nuclear energy have shifted, and I am the one who shifted them.

The truth is, I have always been a pioneer. When it was trendy and socially advantageous to demand the closure of our nuclear facilities, I led that charge with unmatched ferocity. Now that contrarianism regarding nuclear power is yielding significantly higher engagement metrics and book-deal opportunities, my commitment to this new truth remains absolute.

We must begin construction on new reactors across the state immediately. Not in my neighborhood, obviously. I live in Marin County, and the local zoning board would absolutely have a fit if someone tried to build a cooling tower next to the artisanal cheese shop. The traffic during construction alone would be unconscionable.

But we should certainly build them somewhere. Perhaps Fresno. I have flown over Fresno many times, and it seems like the sort of place that would genuinely appreciate a massive concrete dome to break up the visual monotony of the almond orchards.

Say what you will about the inherent risks of extending the lifespan of a fifty-year-old nuclear facility perched on a web of geologic fractures, but it is undeniably bold. And at the end of the day, isn't bold leadership exactly what I have been providing to this state all along?