An environmentalist nonprofit that seeks to cut carbon emissions and promote clean energy is suing to stop the Biden administration from funding a zero-emission power plant.
The Department of Energy announced in January that it had approved a $1.1 billion credit payment to the Diablo Canyon Power Plant, a nuclear facility on the Central California coast, to provide the plant with a path to avoid its planned shutdown in 2025.
Though nuclear power plants produce negligible carbon emissions, Friends of the Earth, a group seeking to reduce carbon emissions, filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to block the DOE’s funding, arguing that climate change could make the plant unsafe to operate due to flood risks and that earthquakes in the area could cause accidents.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, had initially supported closing the plant, siding with…
