LOS ANGELES— The Center for Biological Diversity sued the city of Los Angeles and the L.A. Department of Water and Power today for approving a power plant conversion project that will run by combusting a hydrogen-methane gas blend. The Scattergood project in Playa del Rey proposes to burn 70% methane and 30% hydrogen, locking in climate and air pollution for decades.

Los Angeles pledged to run entirely on clean energy by 2035, but this project will make that impossible.

“This is a monster polluter in the guise of green energy,” said David Pettit, an attorney at the Center’s Climate Law Institute. “This project is classic greenwashing that ignores the huge amounts of water and dirty energy it’d need to run. Locking in more fossil-fueled electricity and sucking up much-needed water is not what climate leadership looks like.”

In today’s lawsuit, the Center says the project’s approval ignores significant environmental harms and violates the California Environmental Quality Act. The suit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Hydrogen is a highly combustible, hazardous substance that can increase emissions of smog-producing nitrogen oxides when burned, significantly worsening local air pollution.

While almost all hydrogen is produced from methane, it can also be made from renewables and called “green hydrogen.” However, even using a methane-hydrogen blend with green hydrogen, as the project proposes, would require a huge amount of energy and water. There’s also no existing green hydrogen stock, and all hydrogen is difficult to transport and store.

The city has not stated how it will purchase and import green hydrogen for the plant, and the project doesn’t require the use of green hydrogen, or any hydrogen at all.

“This project will be obsolete the day it opens, but ratepayers will foot the bill for decades,” said Pettit. “A fossil-fueled plant makes no sense when we have clean alternatives like solar, wind and battery power. The last thing Angelenos need is to resurrect another damaging power plant to pollute our air and take our water.”

The Center’s lawsuit follows one filed by Communities for a Better Environment and Los Angeles Waterkeeper in December.