Diablo Canyon needs to spend up to $12B to stay open

[FBaggins]

3. Which, of course, will never happen.

2024 is when the initial 40-year license runs out. In order to extend it, they would also need to perform some expensive maintenance (e.g., replace steam generators). $12 Billion plus those costs would be awfully close to the price of a pair of new reactors that would last for 60 years... so why would they even consider paying that amount for a mere 10-20 years?

Of course... even more likely is that they just agree on a far less costly alternative such as extending the pipes farther into the ocean and/or adding screens to the intakes. A few hundred million is cheap as part of a 20-year extension.