Last month, the Omni Design team traveled from San Luis Obispo out to Diablo Canyon Power Plant for a day we won't forget anytime soon. The visit was organized by the SLO Chamber of Commerce as part of their Insight Studio series, which pulls back the curtain on the industries and infrastructure that keep our region running.

And Diablo Canyon is about as big as infrastructure gets.

We started at the marina, learning about the plant's cooling system, then moved into the control room simulator to watch operators run through live scenarios — the kind of precision training you'd expect for a facility responsible for keeping the lights on for millions of people. From there, we got access to the protected area to stand next to the turbines themselves, massive machines that convert steam into a huge share of the electricity flowing through California's grid every single day.

A few numbers stuck with us:

• Diablo Canyon supplies roughly 11% of California's electricity — and it does it as a single source, without wind or sunlight, running around the clock.