Antinuclear activists suing the U.S. government to stop a life extension for the Diablo Canyon Power Plant could present oral arguments to a federal court in Pasadena, Calif., in early 2024, a recent court filing shows.
In an order last week, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said it might order the parties to court during sittings in Pasadena from Jan. 8-2 or from Feb. 5-9.
Filed in April, the lawsuit, San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, et al. v. United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, et al., is one of several legal challenges anti-nuclear activists have mounted to California’s plant to keep Diablo Canyon’s two reactors online for five years longer than their current operating licenses allow.
San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace alleged that California’s 2022 decision to keep Diablo Canyon open, instead of shutting it down later this decade, would violate federal administrative and environmental laws.
California, in a recent friends-of-the-court brief, said the antinukers were mistaken, and that both Sacramento and the NRC would continue to enforce existing laws while plant operator Pacific Gas and Electric applies for a license extension from the commission: something the utility must do by Dec. 31 if it wants to avoid a scenario where its license to generate power runs out while NRC is reviewing the application.
Diablo Canyon’s Unit 1 reactor is licensed to operate until Nov. 2, 2024. Unit 2 is licensed to run until Aug. 26, 2025. The state of California and the Department of Energy in 2022 approved a combined $2.4 billion to keep the reactors running until 2030. California provided $1.4 billion of the total and, in the process, amended a 2018 state law that called for the plant to shut down when its licenses expired.
