Despite multiple earthquake faults surrounding the three California nuclear reactor coastal sites harboring huge amounts of radioactive waste in tsunami zones, with no plan to deal with the tons of waste, a bill has been introduced in the state legislature to increase nuclear use in our state. This also despite the devastating fires that occur regularly in California increasing the already staggering risks of nuclear reactors and the lethal long lived waste they produce.

Assemblymember Dr. Juaquin Arambula (D - Fresno) with main co-sponsors Assemblymember Diane Dixon (R - Orange) and Assemblymember Josh Hoover (R- Sacramento) introduced AB 305 . It would overturn California’s longstanding nuclear moratorium to allow for the construction of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs).

This is part of a national and international pattern. Recidivist nuclear revival forces have mounted coordinated national rollback efforts on state’s prohibitions on building new nuclear plants. Plans to decommission 7 nuclear plants in Spain, for instance, are also being rolled back. There activists are using our documentary SOS, The San Onofre Syndrome: Nuclear Power’s Legacy, in their efforts to ensure they are shut down and not given extended licenses, such as happened here in California with Diablo Canyon.

The underlying motivation is to attempt to rescue a failing nuclear power industry because it supports the infrastructure of research, education and labor force training for nuclear weapons production. A ‘dual-use’ motivation is to provide power for the immensely energy guzzling AI centers proliferating like weeds as key components in a planned social perception and population control grid.

Four states have already repealed moratoriums that had previously been in place:

1. Wisconsin (2016)

2. Kentucky (2017)

3. Montana (2021)

4. West Virginia (2022)

Activists in Oregon are mounting a huge fight to protect their moratorium.

We in California must join together to stop the insanity of producing more lethal radioactive waste lasting hundreds of thousands to many millions of years without any idea of how to keep it from ruining all life on earth.

The bill has just been scheduled for a hearing in the Assembly Natural Resources Committee on April 21; letters are due to the committee by close of business next Tuesday, April 15.

Please send letters to oppose AB 305!

Here is a Sample letter with links on how to submit to the California legislators:

The Honorable Isaac G. Bryan, Chair

Assembly Committee on Natural Resources

1020 N Street, Room 164

Sacramento, CA 95814

Re: AB 305 (Arambula) Oppose

Dear Chair Bryan,

I oppose AB 305 by Assemblymember Arambula. This bill would override California’s wise 1976 Nuclear Safeguards Act, which prohibits new nuclear power plants in California unless there is technology to permanently deal with the lethal and extremely long-lived radioactive waste produced by nuclear reactors.

However, over 80 years after beginning to accumulate this extraordinarily dangerous waste, there exists no technology to adequately deal with it and no permanent repository.

The bill would allow construction and operation of so-called ‘small’ modular nuclear reactors. These reactors, however, are not small and according to research from Stanford University, would produce even more waste per energy unit as current reactors and would be even harder to handle.1

Transporting this lethal waste is exceedingly dangerous and storing it onsite in communities is a huge risk, though this is necessary to eliminate the transportation risk. The waste is highly corrosive and irradiates everything it contacts. Currently used canisters are thin and last only a matter of a few decades before cracking while within them, the irradiated fuel continues to degrade and become more fragile and prone to accidents. Many of the fission products remain lethal for thousands and millions of years, yet must be sequestered from the environment.

Producing more of these radioactive substances, with no technology to protect the environment and population from it, is totally irresponsible. There are other ways to generate electricity far less harmful.

Please vote no on AB 305. Maintain our sensible Nuclear Safeguards Act.

Sincerely,

(your name)

1) “Our results show that most small modular reactor designs will actually increase the volume of nuclear waste in need of management and disposal, by factors of 2 to 30 for the reactors in our case study,” said study lead author Lindsay Krall, a former MacArthur Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC)

. “These findings stand in sharp contrast to the cost and waste reduction benefits that advocates have claimed for advanced nuclear technologies.”

https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2111833119

These links will direct you to how to submit your letter:

https://acom.assembly.ca.gov/letter-support-or-opposition-rules

https://calegislation.lc.ca.gov/Advocates/faces/index.xhtml

Authors:

Mary Beth Brangan and James Heddle co-direct EON, the Ecological Options Network.

The multi-award winning EON feature documentary SOS – The San Onofre Syndrome: Nuclear Power’s Legacy, was chosen as the opening film in the 13th annual Global Nonviolent Film Festival, where it also received the Organizers’ Award for ‘BEST ACTUALITY SUBJECT – Feature Documentary’.

SOS has won awards in several other international festivals, and is available for viewing worldwide. The film was produced by Mary Beth Brangan and directed by Brangan, Heddle, and Morgan Peterson, who also served as editor. SOS is a trans-generational family co-creation of two senior filmmakers and a millennial mom with two young daughters.