Diablo disaster

When the California legislature voted on August 31, 2022 to keep the Diablo Canyon nuclear facility open for a minimum of another 5 years, this setback wasn’t for lack of evidence as to why this was a bad idea. Activists from around the state, with national support, put forth compelling talking points, created petitions, made thousands of calls and emails to legislators to vote against bill 846 . The San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace held an online press conference in one final concerted effort to wake up  legislators and the media, and get out the talking points as to why Diablo needed to close on schedule, as planned since 2016. This weeks’ Nuclear Hotseat features five of the speakers:

• Cathy Iwane is co-founder of the Coalition for Nuclear Safety.
• Donna Gilmore used to live in southern California within five miles of the San Onofre nuclear reactors and founded San Onofre Safety.
• Daniel Hirsch is the retired director of the Program on Environmental and Nuclear Policy at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and president of Committee to Bridge the Gap, a non-profit nuclear policy organization focusing on issues of nuclear safety, waste disposal, proliferation, and disarmament..
• Arnie Gundersen is a licensed nuclear reactor operator with more than 50-years of nuclear power engineering experience. Now, as Chief Engineer for Fairewinds Energy Education, he testifies on behalf of states, municipalities, NGOs, and environmental organizations regarding the hazards and violations at nuclear reactors and atomic waste sites.
• Harvey Wasserman is is a journalist, author, democracy activist, and advocate for renewable energy. The founder of Solartopia, he has been a strategist and organizer in the anti-nuclear movement in the United States for more than 50 years.

And Beyond Nuclear’s Linda Pentz Gunter argues on the Hot Story that the debate about who is attacking the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant diverts our attention on the potential dire consequences. Our energies should be devoted toward getting all nuclear power plants shut down, not playing the blame game.

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Photo of exposed Diablo Canyon radioactive waste dry casks by US NRC.