LOS ANGELES — A late-hour effort to extend the life of California’s last nuclear power plant has run into a situation that will be challenging to dealwith: a lack of time.
A state analysis Monday anticipated it will take federal regulators upuntil late 2026 to act on an application to extend the operating run of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. The issue is that the plant is arranged to shut down completely by mid-2025.
The future of the state’s staying reactors might hinge on operator Pacific Gas & Electric’s demand to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for an uncommon exemption that would permit the decades-old reactors to continue making electricalenergy while the NRC evaluates the application – not yet submitted — to extend its licenses for as much as 2 years.
One reactor is arranged to close in November 2024, and its twin in August2025 The plant is situated on a beach bluff, midway inbetween Los Angeles and San Francisco.
On Monday, anti-nuclear activists and nationwide ecological groups advised the federal company to decline the demand, stating in a petition that the exemption would quantity to a hazardous, extraordinary fasterway that would expose the public to security dangers from reactors that started operating in the mid-1980s.
“There is definitely no precedent for the exemption askedfor by PG&E. The NRC has neverever enabled a reactor to run past its license expiration dates without completely evaluating the security and ecological threats,” Diane Curran, an lawyer for the anti-nuclear advocacy group Mothers for Peace, stated in a declaration.
The conflict over the possible exemption is the newest battlefront in a long-running battle over the security of the reactors. Construction of the Diablo Canyon plant started i