California Golden Fleece® Award 2026 Goes to California’s Nuclear Power Ban

In California, the land of clean, green recycling, wind and solar, bicyclists, public transit, electric cars and banned plastic bags, every economic energy source should be used.

Instead, the largest hydroelectric dam removal project in U.S. history was completed last year in Northern California as four hydroelectric dams were removed from the 236-mile Klamath River.

Following the closure of San Onofre Nuclear power plant in 2013, PG&E placed Diablo Canyon on the chopping block. I asked how this helps sustainability? Or is it all about activism and eco-markets and cronyism? Nuclear and hydroelectric power are two of the cleanest forms of energy.

The California Golden Fleece® Award 2026 addresses nuclear power in California.

The envelope please… And the 17th California Golden Fleece® Award goes to…

But first, some context and history from the Independent Institute.

“An unreasonable prohibition on the development of new nuclear power plants in California has led the Independent Institute to award the California Energy Commission and the Warren–Alquist Act with its twentieth California Golden Fleece® Award. California legislators should remove the nuclear moratorium for the good of the state’s residents,” the Independent Institute reports.

“Nuclear power has contributed to the reliability of the American power grid for more than six decades. The industry has an impressive safety record, and reactors have only gotten safer since the industry’s inception. At the same time, nuclear power has fallen victim to fearmongering.”

In 2016, as California was facing the closure of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, the announcement from PG&E rudely came on the same day there were rolling blackouts in Los Angeles amidst sweltering temperatures. “With the likelihood of more blackouts all summer in California, why is the state facing the closure of a clean energy nuclear power plant? How can PG&E say with a straight face they will replace it with renewable energy?” Tom Tanton and I asked.

“In 2015, all wind energy in California only produced 12 billion kWhs,” scientist James Conca said in an interview. “The two Diablo Canyon nuclear reactors produce 17 billion kWhs every year, and will for the next 20 years if not prematurely closed for political reasons.”

Because not only would closure of Diablo Canyon drive direct increases in natural gas use in natural gas fired generation, it will be further increased due to the need for backup and balancing the volatile wind and solar output.

At the same time, Democrats and the environmental lobby were pushing then-Governor Jerry Brown to sign a bill to ban hydraulic fracturing for natural gas. But Brown wasn’t having it, perhaps realizing the mess he was facing and responsible for?

On Meet the Press in March 2015, Gov. Brown told Chuck Todd to pound sand when Todd said that enviromentalists weren’t happy with him because of fracking:

“First, fracking in California has been going on for more than 50 years and uses a fraction of the water of fracking on the east coast for gas particularly. This is vertical fracking for the most part. It is different. California imports 70 percent of our petroleum products; our cars drive over 330 billion miles mostly on petroleum. If we reduce our oil drilling on California, which a ban on fracking would do, we’ll import more oil by train or by boat, that doesn’t make a lot of sense. What we need to do is to move to electric cars, more efficient buildings and more renewable energy and in that respect, California is leading the country and some would say even the world and we’re going to continue moving down that path.”

California cannot rely on renewable energy without natural gas and oil.

How did California become the “No-Nukes” capitol?

The Independent Institute explains:

California’s nuclear power moratorium has persisted for nearly fifty years and serves as a de facto ban on new nuclear power in the state. The ban was enacted as part of a 1976 amendment to the 1974 Warren–Alquist Act, which established the state’s Energy Commission.[16] That first-in-the-nation body served to direct the demand side of the power generation market and established building and appliance standards that have influenced subsequent federal intervention in both areas.[17]

In 1976, then-Gov. Jerry Brown, whose goal was to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, created a monster that 41 years later he was forced to address. Under his first administration (1975-1983), he signed legislation bolstering wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass technologies, spurring early development of renewable capacity in California.

The Independent Institute continues:

As a result of the legislation, no nuclear power development has occurred in California in two generations.

Economic factors as well as the anti-nuclear movement made new reactors far less common, but the ban has precluded even the possibility of a new nuclear power plant. The moratorium ignores the benefits that nuclear power can deliver and has closed the state off from the largest source of carbon-free power generation in the United States.[21] A Breakthrough Institute report from 2022 found that California’s nuclear moratorium would cost the state $12 billion in capital investment between 2020 and 2040.[22]

Following San Onofre’s closure in 2013:

In 2016, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) and environmental and labor groups reached an agreement to prematurely close the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. Diablo Canyon’s two reactors were set to be closed in 2024 and 2025, respectively.[28] Following statewide power outages in 2020, and amid increasing demand projections, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 846, which required the California Public Utilities Commission to vote on five-year license extensions for the plant. Extensions were granted by the commission in 2023, and Unit 1’s license was extended until October 31, 2029, while Unit 2 was extended to October 31, 2030.[29] PG&E has also filed for a twenty-year license renewal from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which would allow it to operate until 2045.[30] While those processes are ongoing, climate groups are continuing to sue for the immediate closure of the plant.[31]

Flash forward to 2026, and we are now in need of data centers for artificial intelligence, which will drive significant demand for electricity in the coming years. The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory report projects that AI data centers could account for 6.7 to 12 percent of overall demand by 2028, the Independent Institute reports.

They explain the conundrum:

Yet, while electricity consumption is ballooning, many power plants are retiring. The types of power plants that are not weather-dependent—such as nuclear, natural gas, and coal plants—have faced significant closures in recent years; 104 GW of reliable power is projected to retire in the US by 2030.[41] Rising demand from AI and electrification, coupled with the retirement of existing reliable plants, is a red flag that significant new power generation will be needed in the near future to satisfy demand.

Rather than removing nuclear, hydroelectric, natural gas, and coal plants as Democrats have done, we could have just added renewable energy sources to complement energy production. Instead, the left demonized nuclear, hydroelectric, natural gas, and coal, leaving the country, and California, vulnerable at the very moment we need massive amounts of electricity.

The Independent Institute continues:

One of the clearest indications that nuclear power may be economically viable to build in the near future is the long line of technology companies that are signing deals to procure power from both advanced reactors and previously retired nuclear facilities that can be brought back online.

California has the most battery storage of any grid in the country, with nearly 17,000 MW on the grid, but despite that capacity, the vast majority of the state’s power must still be generated at the moment that it is needed.

The Independent Institute report is terrific, and a perfect treatise on energy and energy production. Their history, facts and data put to rest the energy deceit the left has perpetrated on the public for more than 50 years.