An environmental group on Tuesday sued to block Pacific Gas & Electric from seeking to extend the federal operating licenses for California’s last nuclear power plant.
A complaint filed in San Francisco Superior Court by Friends of the Earth asks the court to prohibit the utility from sidestepping its 2016 agreement with environmentalists and plant workers to close the twin-domed Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant by 2025.
The possibility of a longer operating run emerged last year after Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature opened the way for PG&E to seek an extended lifespan for the twin reactors. The company intends to apply to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by the end of the year to extend operations by as much as two decades.
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The operating license for the Unit 1 reactor expires next year and the Unit 2 license expires in 2025.
Hallie Templeton, legal director for Friends of the Earth, said in a statement that “PG&E has been acting as if our contract has disappeared.”
California is the birthplace of the modern environmental movement that for decades has had a fraught relationship with nuclear power, which doesn’t produce carbon pollution like fossil fuels but leaves behind waste that can remain dangerously radioactive for centuries. The Newsom administration is pushing to expand solar power and other clean energy, as the state aims to cut emissions by 40% below 1990 levels by 2030.
Newsom’s decision last year to support a longer operating run for Diablo Canyon shocked environmentalists and anti-nuclear advocates because he had once been a leading voice for closing the plant.
PG&E said in a statement it had not yet seen the lawsuit, but that as a regulated utility will follow state policy.
The lawsuit marks the latest development in a long-running fight over the operation and safety of the decades-old plant, which Newsom says should keep running beyond…
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