Is time running out at nuclear plant?
Gov. Newsom reverses course on future closure
LOS ANGELES — A late-hour attempt to extend the life of California’s last nuclear power plant has run into a predicament that will be difficult to resolve: a shortage of time.
A state analysis Monday predicted it will take federal regulators until late 2026 to act on an application to extend the operating run of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant located on a seaside bluff midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The problem is that the plant is scheduled to shut down permanently by mid-2025.
The future of the state’s remaining reactors could hinge on operator Pacific Gas & Electric’s request to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for an unusual exemption that would allow the decades-old reactors to continue making electricity while the NRC reviews the application — not yet filed — to extend its licenses for as much as two decades.
One reactor is scheduled to close in November 2024, and its twin in August 2025.
On Monday, anti-nuclear activists and national environmental groups urged the federal agency to reject the request, saying in a petition that the exemption would amount to a dangerous shortcut that would expose the public to safety risks from reactors that began operating in the mid-1980s.
The dispute is the latest battlefront in a long-running fight over the reactors’ safety. Construction began in the 1960s, and critics say potential shaking from nearby earthquake faults, not recognized when the design was approved, could damage equipment and release radiation. PG&E and federal regulators have said the plant is seismically safe.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, who had supported closing the plant, did a turnaround last year, arguing it needed to keep running beyond the scheduled closure to prevent blackouts as the state moves to solar and other renewable sources. The Legislature dissolved a 2016 agreement among environmentalists, plant worker unions and the utility to close the plant by 2025, opening a pathway to keep it running longer.
PG&E officials have said they are eager for certainty about the plant’s future because of the difficulty of reversing course on a plant that was headed for permanent retirement but now needs to prepare for a potentially longer lifespan.
But the NRC rejected the idea of resuming consideration of the previous filing, leaving PG&E to deal with the time-consuming task of submitting a new application it expects to file by year’s end.
Such a review can take two or more years, prompting PG&E to ask the NRC to let the plant continue running beyond its authorized term.