Professor Yang Yang and his team of student researchers develop plastic solar cells in the hopes of using the technology in many practical applications

Inside the Yang laboratories, one student places a solar cell under a sunlight simulator, a device that reproduces natural sunlight.

Nuclear meltdown in California’s two nuclear plants unlikely because of safeguards

In the wake of a partial meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, debate has emerged about whether California’s nuclear reactors put the earthquake-prone state similarly at risk.

California has two nuclear reactors in San Luis Obispo and near San Clemente that together produced 15.5 percent of the state’s energy in 2009, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute.

A request to extend the lifetime of the Diablo Canyon reactor by 20 years has been postponed because of the events in Japan.

Both Sen.