#1 Sign this petition to Governor Newsom!
San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace has long been anticipating the closure of Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant scheduled for 2024 and 2025. Now we are facing a well-organized and well-funded campaign linking nuclear energy to a climate solution. Governor Gavin Newsom has turned his back on the legally binding Joint Proposal to close the plant which was approved by the California Public Utilities Commission. Newsom is interested in keeping Diablo Canyon open for an undisclosed number of years beyond its safe operating lifetime. We are outraged!It is vital that we all speak up!
Sign the petition, call, send a snail mail letter or email to Governor Newsom:
https://govapps.gov.ca.gov/gov40mail/
Send letters to the editor:
New Times: letters@newtimesslo.comTribune: letters@thetribunenews.comSanta Barbara Independent: letters@independent.com
#2 Sign this message to Secretary of Energy Granholm and Governor Newsom!
Tell Governor Newsom and Secretary of Energy Granholm to protect Diablo’s just transition and to CLOSE DIABLO CANYON as planned! Diablo Canyon is dangerous, dirty, and expensive. It must retire as planned in 2024 and 2025. Let’s invest our funds in clean and safe energy resources, conservation, and efficiency. Sign this message to Secretary of Energy Granholm!
#3 Sign onto this organizational letter. (expired)
The letter was sent on May 17, signed by 67 organizations! Read it here.
Background information
Nuclear Energy is Not a Climate Solution Fact Sheet
Diablo Canyon is old. It was designed in the 1960s with construction completed in the 1980s. The Unit 1 reactor vessel was manufactured in 1967, and it is embrittled, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Piping has been found to have leaks. Emergency doors have been inoperable.
Anticipating imminent closure, maintenance has been deferred, waivers granted, and key employees gone. Operations are becoming increasingly more dangerous.
The plant was built on the premise that there were no earthquake faults within 20 miles, but subsequently many have been found, the Shoreline Fault coming within 1/3 of a mile of the plant.
Each Diablo Canyon reactor contains 1,000 times the long-lived radioactivity of the Hiroshima bomb. A release of even a portion of that radioactivity—by a meltdown caused by an earthquake, failure of the aging equipment, or terrorism—could devastate a large portion of California for generations.
High level radioactive waste must be sequestered from the environment for hundreds of thousands of years, impacting our descendants long into the future. Allowing Diablo to run beyond its license period increases this amount, and there is still no safe long-term storage solution.
On site, there is enough space on the current dry cask storage pad to accommodate exactly the amount of highly radioactive spent fuel that will be generated through 2025. If the plant is allowed to run past its scheduled shutdown date, an additional pad would have to be built, costing hundreds of millions of dollars and causing environmental harm.
The unlawful once-through cooling system circulates 2.5 billion gallons of water through the plant every 24 hours. When the water is discharged back into the ocean, it is 19 degrees warmer than the intake water. Marine life in the area is destroyed. This has caused incalculable harm to the ocean.
The federal program offering $6 billion dollars to qualified plants (and Diablo is not qualified…) would likely not cover the amount of money required for Diablo to apply for license renewal – NRC proceedings, lawsuits, construction of cooling towers, environmental reports, repairs and updates of equipment. That money would be better spent invested in clean, renewable energy.
SIGN OUR PETITION!
SEND YOUR LETTERS! WRITE EMAILS! WRITE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR!
WE CANNOT ALLOW DIABLO CANYON TO STAY OPEN BEYOND ITS PLANNED SHUTDOWN DATE!