Will California Ever Again Embrace Nuclear Energy?
California’s tech industry has long faced criticism for emphasizing vapid innovations that ultimately bring harm to society. In 2011, data scientist Jeff Hammerbacher observed, “The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads.” The ethos of this criticism can be applied to other California-centric industries, including the film industry, the music industry, and the weed industry. Even the energy industry in California has become increasingly vapid. The brightest minds in the energy sector — including Elon Musk — are focusing on wind and solar technology while gleefully abandoning nuclear energy, which is arguably the substantive answer to California’s energy problems.
California was an early proponent of nuclear energy, opening the first civilian nuclear plant in 1957. In the 1960s, the nuclear power industry expanded rapidly in the U.S., as power companies championed the new energy source as clean, safe, and economical. But then nuclear energy began to fall out of favor over the next few decades. The early designs weren’t great, and problems arose in several plants. California’s first plant, for example, suffered a partial meltdown and was ultimately shuttered in 1966. Today, California is on the brink of fully abandoning nuclear. The state’s final nuclear power plant, Diablo Canyon, is set to be decommissioned in 2025.
