5 More U.S. Nukes to Close, Will Diablo Canyon Be Next?
Source: Ecowatch
A rising tsunami of U.S. nuke shut-downs may soon include Californias infamous Diablo Canyon double reactors. But it depends on citizen action, including a statewide petition.
Five U.S. reactor closures have been announced within the past month. A green regulatory decision on Californias environmental standards could push the number to seven.
The focus is now on a critical June 28 California State Lands Commission meeting. Set for Sacramento, the hearing could help make the Golden State totally nuke free, ending the catastrophic radioactive and global warming impacts caused by these failing plants. A public simulcast of the Sacramento meeting is expected to gather a large crowd at the Morro Bay Community Center near the reactor site. The meeting starts at 10 a.m., but environmental groups will rally outside the community center starting at 9 a.m.
The three State Lands Commissioners will decide whether to require a legally-mandated Environmental Impact Report under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). If ordered, a public scoping process will begin, allowing interested groups and individuals to weigh in on the environmental impacts of operation of two nuclear reactors on Californias fragile coastline.
In 1969 and 1970 PG&E got state leases for tidewater acreage for Diablos cooling system. These leases are set to expire in 2018 and 2019. If the State Lands Commission does not renew them, both reactors will be forced to shut down.
Read more: https://ecowatch.com/2016/06/17/diablo-canyon-meeting/
some diablo factoids from the article.;
Diablo dumps daily some 2.5 billion gallons of super-heated water into the ocean, killing vast quantities of marine life and worsening the global climate crisis.
Diablo is surrounded by a dozen earthquake faults.
Because they cant evenly compete with renewable energy or gas, a tsunami of shut-downs has swept away a dozen U.S. reactors since October, 2012. Dozens more teeter at the brink, including two at Indian Point, just north of Manhattan, and Ohios rapidly crumbling Davis-Besse reactor near Toledo.
right on California!!!
OneCrazyDiamond
(2,032 posts)If they close the plant, they say it will be a major blow to their finances. They are projecting layoffs.
Rosa Luxemburg
(28,627 posts)OneCrazyDiamond
(2,032 posts)The place absolutely unique, and wonderful. The reactors should go, strictly because they weren't meant to last this long.
passiveporcupine
(8,175 posts)Never should have put Nukes there in the first place.
Judi Lynn
(160,621 posts)jpak
(41,759 posts)hunter
(38,326 posts)You know what's worse than nuclear power?
Fracking gas plants with a window dressing of grotesquely intermittant and expensive solar and wind power.
Sweden just decided that abandoning nuclear power was a bad idea. The German experience pretty much confirmed it. Germany dumped all of it's solar and wind expense on residential users and small business, but protected their heavy industry using cheap, dirty coal power.
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21700678-swedens-tax-cut-provides-rare-bit-cheer-nuclear-industry-keeping-northern
I hardened my position on this. Most anti-nuclear activism is just another flavor of climate change denial.
Personally, I'm some kind of Luddite. High energy industrial society is destroying the planet. We need to say "good-bye" to our automobiles and big box stores and drive-through hamburger places. We need to eliminate automobile commuting from our cities and more densely populated suburbs. We need to aggressively shut down fossil fueled power plants.
That's apparently not going to happen, so instead we'll keep burning filthy fossil fuels until then natural environment is so degraded it can no longer support us.