Californians! Contact your representatives to oppose AB-305 which would allow dozens of NEW nuclear reactors in the state

Dear Readers,

A committee of the California State Assembly is currently considering a bill (AB-305) that would reverse a state moratorium on new commercial nuclear reactors that has been in affect since 1976.

As of 4/12/2025 the bill was "in committee" and the hearing has been "postponed." It is important to oppose it anyway, as it may be revived at any moment (like DCNPP's sudden extended life).

You may not live in California but many other states have similar regulations opposing new nuclear build "until a solution to the waste problem has been found." So other states will be facing pressure to allow "SMRs" (Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, but the "N" is silent, and they are not small). SMRs are supposed to be cheaper, but cheaper than what? With enough subsidies, their owners might make a profit, but the waste they create will have to be dealt with by the public -- for thousands of generations. And no one will build any SMR anywhere unless their insurance liability is severely limited -- capped so low that they can get private insurance to cover the rest. Every SMR manufacturer (if one ever comes to fruition) will absolutely insist that the reactor be covered under the Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act -- which was recently extended for no good reason for another 20 years, which means if your local nuclear power plant has an accident, you'll be very lucky to get a penny on the dollar for your loss -- or your survivors will be lucky to get that, if there are any.

We've written a more extensive review of AB-305 and posted it online here:

https://acehoffman.blogspot.com/2025/04/comments-on-california-ab-305.html

Additional recent postings include several book reviews and a "conversation" with an AI bot called Qwen. Since Diablo Canyon is currently using AI to search for NRC records in order to follow regulations, this one might be especially interesting to consider.

The AI bot may have had heavily censored data, hence its opening statement. Generally, baked-in censorship within an AI model WILL make it very difficult for the AI model to give correct answers, just as much as intentional lies fed to it will do.

By the end, I had "convinced" the AI bot that nuclear power was not a good alternative. But I have not been back to see if it still feels that way, let alone gone in as a different person, from a different computer in a different location, and seen what sort of answers it gives.

Probably the same old pabulum it started out giving me!

I say this because as far as I can tell, most AI bots just want to be your friend. Just as most people would rather be polite than get in an argument, I suppose. But the idea that AI should be powered by nuclear energy is so ludicrous, it's hard to believe anyone ever came up with the idea -- or that any AI would want to be powered by dirty energy! But that's personifying the thing. It doesn't know right from wrong, good government from bad, peace from war.

I strongly suggest extreme caution when using AI, and deplore Diablo Canyon thinking it's a good idea for them to go anywhere near it.

Ace Hoffman, Carlsbad, California USA

Link to find your California state representatives (AB-305 is an Assembly bill, but I think we should let both Assembly and Senate representatives know we are against it):

https://findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov/

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Additional recently posted items:

The Day We Lost Southern California: A Future History:
https://acehoffman.blogspot.com/2025/04/book-review-day-we-lost-southern.html

Under the Cloud: The Decades of Nuclear Testing:
https://acehoffman.blogspot.com/2025/02/book-review-under-cloud-decades-of.html

A Conversation about Nuclear Power Between Qwen and Ace Hoffman:
https://acehoffman.blogspot.com/2025/01/a-conversation-about-nuclear-power.html

Half-Life of a Secret: Reckoning with a Hidden History:
https://acehoffman.blogspot.com/2025/01/book-review-half-life-of-secret.html

Nuclear Is Not The Solution: The Folly of Atomic Power in the Age of Climate Change:
https://acehoffman.blogspot.com/2024/12/book-review-nuclear-is-not-solution.html

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Comments on California AB-305 proposition to allow new reactors

California bill AB-305 is a blatant attempt to reverse rules that have been in place since 1976. With a few specific exceptions, the California Public Resources Code prohibits the use of land in California for any facility that generates nuclear waste. The prohibition is supposed to remain in effect until a solution for nuclear waste is implemented. But of course, that has not happened and isn't about to happen, if it ever does.

AB-305 is an attempt to exempt ANY nuclear reactor with an electrical generating capacity of up to 300 megawatts per unit from the existing rules. Of course, no reason is given for such an exemption because it doesn’t make any sense.

When it comes to nuclear waste, “Small Modular Nuclear Reactors” (SMNRs) do nothing to address the criteria specified by the Public Resource Code. These mythical machines (no commercial SMNR has ever been built), would produce a somewhat different -- and in many ways MORE toxic mix per pound or per kilowatt of power produced -- of radioactive hazards than existing reactors (such as Diablo Canyon). But like the toxic waste from DCNPP, the waste from any SMNRs would also need to be contained for 100s of thousands of years.

From a nuclear waste perspective, MORE waste would be generated by four 300 megawatt reactors versus one 1,200 megawatt reactor. And with many plans to have clusters of SMNRs in one location, a catastrophic accident at the SMNR site could be larger than at a current large reactor site.

In addition, AB-305 directs the Public Utilities Commission to “... adopt a plan to increase the procurement of electricity generated from nuclear facilities …”. Why? The purported reason for all of this new reactor nonsense is to combat climate change.

But nuclear power is far from "carbon-free". The carbon footprint of mining, milling, enriching, manufacturing, and transporting nuclear fuel is immense. Building and decommissioning nuclear plants requires even more carbon, and the carbon footprint of operating a reactor is also significant, from upkeep, parts replacement, downtime energy replacement, and the hundreds of employees needed during fuel replacement and during operation.

Furthermore, nuclear power is too expensive and takes too long to build to help California reach any climate protection milestones, and harms the environment throughout its entire cycle, even without a catastrophic accident such as Fukushima or Chernobyl, Santa Susana, Three Mile Island, Fermi 1 etc..

Even a study that touts the benefits of nuclear power (https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/energy-research/articles/10.3389/fenrg.2023.1147016/full) admits that the emissions from operating reactors: “… are underestimated …” and that: “… input data for carbon accounting … are difficult to obtain and analyze …”.

For a comprehensive analysis of how ridiculous it is to propose nuclear power as a way to resolve the climate crisis, consider the analysis in M.V. Ramana’s excellent 2024 book, “Nuclear Is Not the Solution: The Folly of Atomic Power in the Age of Climate Change”. M.V. Ramana is a physicist who has carefully compared the available options...and nuclear is not a viable option.

Every sensible Californian should be against AB-305.

Diablo Canyon should be shut down immediately, and all the funds and transmission lines that are currently devoted to creating more nuclear waste should be reallocated to actual renewables ranging from rooftop solar to offshore wind. It will be cheaper, faster, and far less damaging to the environment than continuing the status quo, or worse yet passing AB-305.

As far as the existing waste is concerned, the best we can hope is that future generations will find a way to repeatedly repackage nuclear waste, as suggested by Gordon Edwards (http://www.ccnr.org/Rolling_Stewardship.pdf).

The less waste we leave for future generations, the better -- including the immediate ones alive now but too young to know what we are "gifting" them, and those 10,000 generations hence, who will STILL be grappling with OUR waste.

Ace Hoffman, Carlsbad, California USA

Fine your California representative with this link: https://findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov/

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Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, California USA
Author, The Code Killers:
An Expose of the Nuclear Industry
Free download: acehoffman.org
Blog: acehoffman.blogspot.com
YouTube: youtube.com/user/AceHoffman
Email: ace [at] acehoffman.org
Founder & Owner, The Animated Software Company

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Book Review: The Day We Lost Southern California: A Future History

by Roger Gloss

Book review by Sharon and Ace Hoffman, April 2025

The Day We Lost Southern California: A Future History paints a picture of the inevitable results of continuing to produce nuclear waste. The “future history” outlined in this brief novel is bleak and, unfortunately, probably very accurate regarding what could happen. As the author explains, the specific triggering event that causes widespread radioactive contamination to Southern California could be many things, but in all cases the potential for loss of life, property, livelihood, culture, and happiness is the same.

As Gloss points out, many people have warned against nuclear power and specifically about storing nuclear waste in a highly-populated area that is subject to earthquakes and flooding. The vulnerability of the San Onofre site and the thin-walled casks stored there are plain to see. Gloss cites many actual past failures at the site, while acknowledging that the difference between San Onofre and other locations is only a matter of degree: There is no 100% guaranteed safe place to store nuclear waste, yet this fact is ignored by most people and by nearly all government officials and elected representatives.

The book touches on factors that increase the possibility of disaster, such as known damage to existing casks, aging effects on the stainless steel casks, the impact of climate change and so on. Many of the examples Gloss uses to illustrate these dangers are specific to San Onofre, but similar potential for disaster exists at every location with nuclear reactors or even "very old" spent nuclear fuel.

San Onofre is at increased likelihood of flooding due to climate change. In other parts of the United States, climate change increases the risk from tornadoes. The mechanisms are different, but the increased potential for dispersing nuclear waste due to climate change exists everywhere (along with many other risks).

The idea that other communities will be willing to accept nuclear waste is essentially ludicrous. This has always been true, but in the wake of any non-fictional release of waste at San Onofre or anywhere else, this truth will become even more obvious.

Similarly, nobody really believes that Southern California (or any major metropolitan area) can be evacuated. As the book explains: “The entire population – millions of people – needed to be evacuated immediately, but of course this was impossible, and local police, sheriff, and emergency services had no plan to do so.” No plan. That's the reality.

Without being judgemental, Gloss describes many people who abandon work and civic responsibilities to take care of their families. The book's fictional narrator acknowledges that he is one of the lucky ones and that people without money or family outside the evacuation zone did things to survive that were -- technically, at least -- illegal. For example he describes people staying in their homes (or the homes of those who had permanently evacuated) in defiance of evacuation orders. Worse, they would then take abandoned, radioactively contaminated guns and ammunition, and sell contaminated valuables on the black market in order to purchase essential supplies -- often also contaminated.

After the fictional disaster, the federal government explicitly limits the evacuation zone based mostly on a lack of adequate resources even for the too-small area they designate as officially contaminated.

Stark and terrifying as it is, the timeline of the book stops within a few months after the disaster. The problems of future cancers and other diseases, contaminated food, spreading danger zones, etc. are discussed, but only briefly. And maybe that's a good thing: What Gloss does present is sobering enough.

If you suppose nuclear power can serve man -- so-called "Small" Modular Nuclear Reactors, current reactors, future versions, whatever -- give this book a read and explain why anyone would choose risking this versus cheaper renewables.

Sharon and Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, California USA

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