Donald Trump says nuking LA & San Diego would be “a small price to pay” for the Iran War.
Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant: Tracey Adams, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
But it’s Gavin Newsom who most tangibly threatens California with atomic extinction.
His ultimate “weapons of mass destruction” are the two uninsured, unregulated reactors at Diablo Canyon.
They’re 42 years old.
They’re dangerously embrittled, badly maintained, laden with waste, and surrounded by seismic faults, including the San Andreas, just 40 miles away. They operate at 550 degrees F, violate state and federal water protection acts by super-heating the ocean at Avila Beach, emit radioactive carbon 14 along with innumerable other toxic and radioactive poisons. They can’t get significant get private liability insurance.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been DOGEd by Elon Musk, shedding some 500 workers, about a quarter of its work force, which once served as a reservoir for reactor safety expertise. Regular safety inspections have been slashed by half. Diablo’s site inspector Dr. Michale Peck, who dared to warn it cannot withstand a credible earthquake, is long gone.
Trump’s US Supreme Court says he can fire without cause any NRC expert who might threaten his personal atomic investments.
A single drone could turn either Diablo reactor into radioactive rubble.
Chernobyl and other Ukrainian reactors and waste dumps are under constant attack from Putin’s drones and mortars. Diablo’s cooling system and waste fuel facilities cannot be protected from drones or land-based terror attack.
Diablo’s hyper-costly “base load” power feeds the data centers, utility executives and billionaires who buy politicians like Trump and Newsom, forcing cheaper renewables off the grid.
Keeping Diablo running costs ratepayers at least an extra $1+ billion/year. Newsom says various rate districts must pay for Diablo while it supplies them with zero electricity.
Without excess crypto-AI-data center demand, California’s available renewable/battery capacity can power our basic needs for years to come. Shutting Diablo now would radically lower both our danger levels and our electric rates.
But Newsom now wants legislative approval to re-fuel and run Diablo into the 2030s and beyond, extending the dangers to San Diego and Los Angeles for which he just mocked Trump.
Diablo’s owner, Pacific Gas & Electric, has already scammed the state and federal governments for hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid loans and unmet financial obligations.
It also operates in violation of numerous state and federal environmental laws.
Diablo is unregulated, uninsured and cannot be defended from drone and other potential attacks perpetrated by Iran, Hegseth or any other country or terrorist group.
Newsom has rightly mocked Donald Trump for his cavalier talk about destroying Los Angeles and San Diego.
But were it not for him, the Diablo Canyon nukes would have shut long ago. Our electric rates would be far lower, our future far more secure.
It’s thus Newsom, rather than Trump, who poses the realest tangible threat to the health, safety and natural ecology of our state and cities.
Co-host of the California Solartopia Show on the Pacifica Radio Network (kprk.org) and of the Monday GREEP Zoom (www.grassrootsep.org) Harvey “Sunny” Wasserman was arrested at Diablo in 1984.