Endnotes

1. Assuming the alternative is combined cycle nat gas at 400 grams carbon dioxide per kwh; with 17 TWh per year of electricity, that’s 6.8 million tons carbon dioxide avoided per year by Diablo Canyon. Those numbers are slight underestimates, so 7 million tons of avoided carbon dioxide is a good ballpark estimate, times 50 years is 350 million tons.

2. http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/electricity/electric_generation_capacity.html To utility-scale solar production, I added my estimate of 3.4 TWh from 2.29 GW of rooftop solar panels (US DOE Energy Information Agency) assuming a 17 percent capacity factor http://www.energy.ca.gov/2013publications/CEC-400-2013-005/CEC-400-2013-005-D.pdf.

3. http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/electricity/electric_generation_capacity.html My estimate of 3.4 TWh from 2.29 GW of rooftop solar panels (US DOE Energy Information Agency) assumes a 17 percent capacity factor http://www.energy.ca.gov/2013publications/CEC-400-2013-005/CEC-400-2013-005-D.pdf.