The question
What adverse and beneficial economic effects would San Luis Obispo County and the surrounding region see from closing and decommissioning Diablo Canyon, including the SB 1090 mitigation funds?
What BEAR found
Closure alone would reduce San Luis Obispo County’s economic activity by about $801 million a year and roughly 2,908 full-time jobs. Decommissioning spending would add about $724 million and 4,938 jobs a year for ten years, and SB 1090 funds about $40 million a year before closure.
Netting these, the study estimates a loss of roughly $77 million a year, about 0.58 percent of gross regional product, far below earlier estimates near $1 billion. The study also includes a housing profile of the county and event studies of home prices and municipal bond pricing.
Method
Regional input-output modeling of three shocks (SB 1090 funding, closure and decommissioning), nine stakeholder consultations, a randomized online survey of county enterprises and institutions, and real estate and municipal bond event studies.
Team
David Roland-Holst, Drew Behnke, Samuel Evans, Liam Frölund and Annie Yi-Chen, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
Public record
- Prospective Closure of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant: Economic Impact Assessment (PDF)CPUC, August 29, 2019
- Report as hosted by BEAR (PDF)bearecon.com
- Presentation (PDF)bearecon.com
How to cite
Roland-Holst, D. W., Behnke, D., Evans, S., Frölund, L., and Yi-Chen, A. (2019). Prospective Closure of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant: Economic Impact Assessment. Prepared for the Energy Division, California Public Utilities Commission. August 29, 2019.