She added: “We’re a small community, under 11,000 people. How are we going to sustain what we’ve been doing without that money?”

California is known for both its thirst for power and its celebration of the environment, and here these two passions have shared a small stage. When the plant, which began burning coal and was later converted to burn natural gas, closed, its owner, Dynegy, cited declining demand. Company officials said they were considering transforming it into a wave park, turning the energy from the ocean into electricity, or perhaps selling it. They said they had no plans to tear down the smokestacks.

City officials are hoping that it might instead be turned into a convention center, a hotel, or an aquarium — just as long as it is not left abandoned. But Mr. Irons said he had heard nothing from the company about what it might do.

“We are not in a process; it takes two willing participants,” he said.

The plant sprawls over 107 acres of prime real estate in the middle of town. The empty parking lot, a reminder of the loss of a plant that once employed 100 people, can be seen through padlocked gates. Signs warn of potential contamination by cancer-causing chemicals.

The relationship of this community to the Morro Bay Power Plant is complicated, with competition for icon status divided between its two fixtures on each side of the bay. Morro Bay is often referred to as Three Stacks and a Rock, a somewhat affectionate nickname. Local stores display T-shirts that with depictions of the rock — as well as T-shirts with depictions of the stacks.

“For me, honestly — other people are definitely going to say different things — when I am driving in from San Luis Obispo and I see at night the red little lights off of it, that means I’m home,” said Ms. Edwards, the owner of a skin care salon. “If they were gone, you would look at the rock, and it would look ancient. Totally different. The juxtaposition for me — this ancient rock, millions of years old, and the stacks, which are completely industrial — doesn’t bother me.”