Environment

Seismic shocks such as those devastating Turkey and Syria could be turning California into a radioactive wasteland as you read this.

They could shake the two decrepit atomic reactors at Diablo Canyon, near San Luis Obispo, into mega-lethal rubble. Their fallout’s incalculable health, ecological and economic devastation could render the region uninhabitable for centuries to come.

Diablo’s two outdated nukes are surrounded by seismic faults. In 2013 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s senior resident site inspector, Dr. Michael Peck, warned that some critical instrumentation might not survive potential shocks, leading to a major catastrophe. .

Peck’s warning was ignored. He was transferred to a training site in Tennessee and has since retired.

In February, 2019, more than 2500 Californians asked Gov. Gavin Newsom to back an independent study of the two Diablo Units, now nearly 40 years old. Jane Fonda, Martin Sheen, Lily Tomlin, Eric Roberts, Jodie Evans and Graham Nash were among the Hollywood signatories.

The California Energy Commission has made it clear that their reason for advocating keeping the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Station open an extra five years (or perhaps 20 extra years) has to do with rare, short-lived, peak load periods that can last from mere moments to perhaps a few hours and, very rarely, for a day or so.

The best solutions for these temporary fluctuations in power requirements are those solutions which can ramp up and down quickly. Nuclear power is not one of them.

"Baseload power refers to the minimum amount of electric power needed to be supplied to the electrical grid at any given time...Baseload power must be supplied by constant and reliable sources of electricity."
-- Source: https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Baseload_power

As I write this (late January, 2023), more than half of Pakistan is without electricity -- approximately 220 million people. It's the third time in as many years that a widespread blackout has hit that country.

The nuclear industry has been selling the world a story that nuclear power is a solution to climate change because it does not generate carbon dioxide (CO2), a major greenhouse gas. How this deceptive marketing has become understood as “fact” is astonishing in a free society. Operation of reactors takes plenty of energy even after they are built. The “front end” and “back end” of nuclear power are giant industries that generate almost as much CO2 as natural gas and leave a trail of endlessly dangerous radioactivity all along the way.

The Ohio Legislature must not pitch billions more taxpayer dollars down the atomic rat hole.

Instead—-without spending a single cent—-it can make the Buckeye State the hugely profitable world capital of wind power.

It can be done with the simple deletion of a single sentence in the Ohio code.  

It can quickly and simply, without public subsidies, open the door to billions in private investment, creating millions in revenues and thousands of new jobs for the entire nation, with Ohio at the Heart of it All.

Investment in nuclear power has a long, sorry history.  Throughout their existence, atomic reactor projects have come in years late and billions over budget, with delivered power costs far in excess of original promises.  

The latest case in point is the Vogtle Project in Georgia, two reactor construction efforts that wasted $12 billion in federal loans and are now scheduled to open years behind schedule, at a cost more than double original promises.  Under no circumstances will Vogtle ever compete with solar, wind, battery or efficiency technologies.

“Guinea Pig Nation: How the NRC's new licensing rules could turn communities into test beds for risky, experimental nuclear plants,” is what physicist Dr. Edwin Lyman, Director of Nuclear Power Safety with the Union of Concerned Scientists, titled his presentation last week.

The talk was about how the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is involved in a major change of its “rules” and “guidance” to reduce government regulations for what the nuclear industry calls “advanced” nuclear power plants.

Already, Lyman said, at a “Night with the Experts” online session organized by the Nuclear Energy Information Service, the NRC has moved to allow nuclear power plants to be built in thickly populated areas. This “change in policy” was approved in a vote by NRC commissioners in July.

For a more than a half-century, the NRC and its predecessor agency, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, sought to have nuclear power plants sited in areas of “low population density”—because of the threat of a major nuclear plant accident.

The fight to shut down the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) continues. Right now, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is assessing the environmental impact of this climate-busting pipeline, but they have kept key stakeholders in the dark about the true impacts of a potential oil spill.

We already know the pipeline poses a serious ongoing threat to the Missouri River, including the primary water source of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

Join frontline Indigenous water protectors calling for transparency on the risks of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Each day the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) continues to operate, it violates Indigenous sovereignty and treaty rights and poses a constant threat to the Missouri River — a crucial water source for the Standing Rock Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux Tribes as well as much of the United States.

It’s fascinating how “interests” interfere with survival. We prepare for — and, of course, wage — war with an overwhelming percentage of our resources (to the benefit of the profiteers), but we plead poverty when it comes to helping people or, you know, saving the planet.

Humanity! The species of global techno-dominance. We’re always at war with ourselves and, indeed, willing to annihilate the whole planet (only if necessary, of course) in order to maintain our security. That’s why we have to keep upgrading our nuclear arsenal. We . . . rather, “we,” by which I mean those in charge and those securely caged in the us-vs.-them illusion . . . live in half a world: the world subdued and defined by our dominance. We call it civilization. Even though this world appears to be nearing the end of its run — as the ice melts, as the storms intensify and the wildfires rage, as the ecosystem gasps — we keep on keeping on, doing what we do. It’s just who we are.

We start with TATANKA BRICCA talking to us about STEPHEN STILLS and his hearing loss.

We hear from RICHARD LANGWORTHY in London expressing deep concern about a fascist victory in the US this November.

CLIFFORD TASNER, President of the Los Angeles chapter of Americans for Democratic Action joins us.

So does DOROTHY REIK of the Progressive Democrats of the Santa Monica Mountains.

We do a deep dive on the horrendous uproar surrounding the progressive City Council member KEVIN DELEON that has put Los Angeles in turmoil.

PAUL SHERMAN and LEAH HERZBERG add in their opinions to the massive controversy.

LINDA HUTCHINS-KNOWLES the talks to us about her work on green transportation.

TATANKA BRICCA adds more critical information about the moves to EV and clean mobility.

WENDI LEDERMAN and RON LEONARD add critical details.

And then RAY LUTZ gives us the latest on the movement for election protection.
Part 2: https://youtu.be/Sdc6bVroJiI

The likelihood of such a disaster is now being actively promoted by Gov. Gavin Newsom, with legislation he wants rubber-stamped in less than two weeks. Concerned citizens must call California legislators to stop Newsom’s plan and prevent disaster.

Within five hours of the first explosions, southbound winds have blown lethal isotopes over all living things—human, plant, animal—coating them with radioactive emitters guaranteed to kill, wound, burn and mutate for countless generations.

Diablo’s twice-bankrupt owner, Pacific Gas & Electric, has twice pled guilty to federal manslaughter charges. In 2010 it incinerated a neighborhood in San Bruno, killing eight people. Later it sparked northern California fires that turned hundreds of square miles of forest—-plus the town of Paradise—-into deadly ash, slaughtering more than eighty humans.