The potential source is the two decrepit, uninsured reactors at Diablo Canyon, surrounded by earthquake faults on the Pacific Coast at Avila Beach, nine miles west of San Luis Obispo.
Fifteen years ago this week, millions of Tokyo residents shuddered in terror from four “impossible” March 11 explosions at the Fukushima atomic power plant, about four hours north of the city.
Today, in the wake of the Iran War, millions of Angelenos must share a similar terror.
The potential death toll from a radioactive cloud pouring into our city could begin any moment the Iran war rages.
The potential source is the two decrepit, uninsured reactors at Diablo Canyon, surrounded by earthquake faults on the Pacific Coast at Avila Beach, nine miles west of San Luis Obispo.
The FBI warning lit up the LATimes on the anniversary of the 2011 Fukushima explosions. The terrifying message was that Iranian drone strikes could soon hit California.
Those two Diablo reactors cannot be defended. A single drone, costing a few hundred dollars, could turn them to radioactive rubble. The mega-lethal fallout would reach LA within five hours.
There’s no definitive defense . The life of every Angelino would hang in the balance. There’s no credible evacuation plan. Every insurance policy here exempts compensation for radioactive fallout from a commercial reactor.
There‘s just thing to be done: shut them down. NOW.
The ability of a single drone to destroy a huge atomic reactor is now on terrifying display in Ukraine. The infamous Chernobyl Unit Four still seethes from its catastrophic 1986 explosion. Europe spent more than $2 billion for a giant sarcophagus to cover it
But on February 14, 2025, a single drone rendered it useless.
Three more reactors lie dead at Chernobyl. Fifteen are scattered at 4 other sites around Ukraine. Six at Zaporizhya lie wounded and under fire.
Russian drones have killed half Ukraine’s nuke output. In September, 2025, they nearly took out three reactors, where a UN expert warned:“Next time we may not be so lucky.” https://kyivindependent.com/iaea-reports-drone-explosion-near-south-ukr…
Trump won’t condemn Putin’s attacks on Ukrainian reactors. But his own murderous madness leaves little doubt that Iran’s demand for revenge will show no restraint.
In 1976 I marched in Tokyo with thousands of Japanese demanding that Fukushima not open. We were falsely told even a tsunami and earthquake could not bring it down. But those reactors spewed far more radioactive cesium and other deadly isotopes than did the Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Naoto Kan, Japan’s Prime Minister in 2011, says only a wind shift (towards California!) stopped him from evacuating more than ten million Tokyo residents. A river of radiation still pours from Fukushima into the Pacific. Once pro-nuke, Kan came here to help shut the reactors at San Onofre.
In 2018 Governor Jerry Brown won a master plan to phase out the Diablo reactors by 2024-5, and to phase in 100% renewables, with battery backup. Approved by Diablo’s owner (PG&E), unions, CPUC, state legislature, local governments, ecologists, by then-Lieutenant-Governor Gavin Newsom, and far more, the transition surged ahead of schedule and under budget, ending any danger of future blackouts.
But in 2022, now-Governor Newsom unconscionably yanked it, costing California thousands of jobs, billions of dollars and any semblance of energy or other security.
Today those reactors could be ground zero for any Iranian drone. Sited in the middle of the west coast, upwind of the entire North American continent, our nation would never recover.
Amidst an insane war, this nuclear drone nightmare puts us all in desperate danger.
It’s far past time for California to finish that green transition...and to shut those reactors immediately and forever.
Harvey “Sunny” Wasserman wrote Solartopia! Our Green-Powered Earth & Killing Our Own: The Disaster of America’s Experience with Atomic Radiation. He co-hosts KPFK/Pacifica’s “California Solartopia,” and the Green Grassroots Election Protection Zoom (GREEP), which meets most Mondays 2-4pm PT via www.grassrootsep.org.
This original version of this piece was first published at LAProgressive.com https://www.laprogressive.com/the-environment/diablo-canyon-threatened This version is slightly edited.
