Musician Grimes wants Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant to stay open. ‘This is crisis mode’


Kaytlyn Leslie
Mon, December 6, 2021

Who had “Canadian electro-pop musician rallies to save nuclear power plant” on their 2021 bingo cards?

In a video shared by local clean energy advocates over the weekend, musician Grimes — known for tracks like “Visions” and “Oblivion” — voiced her support for keeping Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant open.

“California is in an energy and climate crisis, and closing Diablo Canyon will make us reliant on fossil fuels,” Grimes said in the quirky video, which also features a person sitting in the background reading a large red book and wearing dark sunglasses who never speaks. “This will push the state backwards instead of forwards in its goal to be 100% reliant on clean energy.”

It’s not as strange as one might think for the musician to weigh in on an environmental issue.

Grimes has previously said she wants “to make climate change fun” and in 2020 released a concept album loosely themed around an “anthropomorphic goddess of climate change.”

In her Diablo Canyon video, Grimes added that pushing the closure back by a decade, as was recommended in a recent Stanford and Massachusetts Institute of Technology study, would “help the state decarbonize faster, and make the transition to clean energy faster and cheaper.”

“This is crisis mode, and we should be using all the tools we have — especially the ones sitting right here in front of us,” she said before making something between a chef’s kiss and a mind blown gesture for the camera.

The video was shared with media outlets by a group of local clean energy advocates who held a rally in downtown San Luis Obispo on Saturday to keep the nuclear power plant open.

A “Save Clean Energy” rally held on Saturday, Dec. 4, 2021, in San Luis Obispo called for keeping Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant open. Group members walked a miniature blimp down Monterey Street.

More than 100 people gathered in front of the SLO County courthouse, under the banner of a “Save Clean Energy” rally.

Speakers at the event included Supervisor Dawn Ortiz-Legg — whose district includes Diablo Canyon. In the wake of the Stanford and MIT report, Ortiz-Legg partnered with fellow legislator Assemblyman Jordan Cunningham to explore ways to keep the plant open.

PG&E announced its plans to shutter the power plant back in 2016, saying it did not plan to renew its nuclear reactor licenses once they expired in 2024 and 2025.

The California Public Utilities Commission approved the joint proposal to close the plant in 2018, and PG&E has since begun preparing for decommissioning.

The company has repeatedly said it does not plan to reverse course on closing the plant, in spite of the recent revival in interest to keep it open, saying that California has been clear on its desire to transition away from nuclear energy across the state.

“As a regulated utility we’re required to follow the energy policies of the state of California. We are committed to California’s clean energy future,” PG&E spokeswoman Suzanne Hosn told The Sacramento Bee on Thursday. “That is our unwavering position.”