5 More U.S. Nukes to Close, Will Diablo Canyon Be Next?

[ErikJ]

Source: Ecowatch

A rising tsunami of U.S. nuke shut-downs may soon include California’s 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 California’s 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 California’s fragile coastline.

In 1969 and 1970 PG&E got state leases for tidewater acreage for Diablo’s 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/

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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 can’t 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 Ohio’s rapidly crumbling Davis-Besse reactor near Toledo.

[Pharaoh]

1. yay!!

right on California!!!

[OneCrazyDiamond]

2. The local school district wants it to stay open.

If they close the plant, they say it will be a major blow to their finances. They are projecting layoffs.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

3. if the reactors fail then it will be catastrophic

[OneCrazyDiamond]

4. I agree.

The place absolutely unique, and wonderful. The reactors should go, strictly because they weren't meant to last this long.

[passiveporcupine]

5. Take them out!

Never should have put Nukes there in the first place.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Good news. Rec. n/t

[jpak]

7. Some Renaissance

[hunter]

8. Anything we can do to save the festering fossil fuel industry.

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.

THE list of candidates for the most beleaguered part of Europe’s nuclear-power industry is long. But since last year Sweden, which generates about 40% of its electricity through nuclear energy, has been a strong contender. A tax increased to punitive levels in 2015 by the anti-nuclear Green Party hit its operators so hard that they threatened to close all ten of the country’s plants unless it was scrapped. On June 10th the government, including the Greens, caved in and threw them a lifeline. It has promised to phase out the tax from next year and will allowed operators to replace ageing reactors with new ones.

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.

[appalachiablue]

9. Glad to know this, thanks.