Dear Readers,
Note: Due to suspected email delivery problems and to correct the
date of the original statute, this newsletter is being resent.
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News Item: Last Sunday (September 9th, 2007) California State
Assembly Republicans voted unanimously to support allowing the
building of new nuclear power plants in California, intending to
overturn a 31-year-old law (Chapters 194 and 196, California Statutes
of 1976) which prohibits such construction until a solution is found
for the problem of what to do with the nuclear waste.
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No solution has been found because the problem is
intractable. Nothing built of atoms (and everything in the universe
is made of atoms!) can withstand the bombardment of radioactive decay
-- it's a physical law of nature. Hence, no containment can EVER be
built which will guarantee the safe sequestering of nuclear
waste. And yet, we keep making more nuclear waste, AS IF a solution
is just around the corner. Instead, the coroner is just around the
corner. Cancer is on the rise. Specialists who have researched the
problem know why, but the nuclear industry won't let the public at
large know why.
When a meltdown or any serious nuclear accident actually occurs,
which one of these California Republicans is going to stand up in
front of a microphone and recommend to pregnant women in California
that they may want to choose to have an abortion, in order to prevent
the birth of a horribly deformed baby who otherwise will only suffer
terribly and then soon die? Especially those woman who are in their
first trimester -- those fetuses are especially likely to be
harmed. While surely neither God nor any caring human being prefers
abortions, just as surely, no one wants the unnecessary, man-made
suffering of the innocent.
At least the Russians had the courage (gumption?) to "suggest" that
woman around Chernobyl should consider abortions. Now, more than 20
years after Chernobyl, over 1000 square miles of prime agricultural
real estate around the plant is still uninhabitable, with no change
expected any time soon -- if ever. And in Kiev, there is now a
museum of deformities caused by Chernobyl. Spontaneous abortions of
babies without limbs or with arms coming out of their
foreheads. What California Republican has visited that museum?
What California Republican is willing to tell 30 million people in
the greater Los Angeles area that they have to leave their homes and
can never come back, if a plant near them melts down (such as San
Onofre or the new one in Irvine which the bill's sponsor, Chuck
Devore, surely wants built in HIS backyard)?
And what OTHER power plants are they planning to build for all the
offsite energy supplies that EVERY nuclear power plant MUST have
(it's a safety requirement)? Will THOSE be coal plants?
And what California Republican would DARE to take ANY test to PROVE
they actually understand how nuclear power works and what its dangers
are? Do they even know what a fuel assembly looks like?
And what California Republican believes Yucca Mountain, the nation's
proposed nuclear waste dump, will actually be built? The team that
studied Yucca Mountain was allowed to come up with a better plan if
they could think of it. They couldn't. Nevada will NEVER allow
Yucca Mountain, so Californians -- all of us, not just the
Republicans -- will be stuck with the waste. If there's another
solution to the waste problem, what California Republican can
describe it? Our four obsolete (but still operating) reactors
produce a NEW ton of high-level nuclear waste EVERY TWO
DAYS. Extremely dangerous stuff, with nowhere to put it.
What California Republican believes we have the billions of gallons
of water to spare to cool these new reactors? In reality, water is a
precious commodity here in the West, and nuclear reactors -- even
when operating properly -- poison the water with tritium (radioactive
hydrogen), radioactive krypton, radioactive cesium, radioactive
strontium, and a deadly rainbow of other radioactive elements.
What California Republican wants to give up the additional BILLIONS
of gallons of water to cool a stricken reactor? A reactor that will
have to be cooled for thousands of years.
What California Republican can assure the public that a Davis-Besse
or a Three Mile Island won't happen here? What California Republican
even knows what happened to the Davis-Besse plant in 2002, and how
close it came to a meltdown -- far closer even than Three Mile Island came?
What California Republican has read even one word by the late Dr.
John W. Gofman, whose impeccable research PROVED that so-called
low-level radiation is extremely dangerous -- far more dangerous than
is officially admitted (at least TWENTY TIMES more dangerous than the
pro-nukers falsely believe). Gofman was fired from the Atomic Energy
Commission (the forerunner of the DOE and the NRC), where he was
chief medical researcher, for his findings. Not because they were
wrong, but because they were offensive to the nuclear industry. What
California Republican knows any of this? Dr. Gofman ascribed 50% of
ALL cancers to ionizing radiation. FIFTY PERCENT! Three-quarters of
all breast cancers. "This is not a small problem" as Gofman
described it (Dr. Gofman passed away August 15th, 2007 at age 88).
What California Republican realizes that even the National Academy of
Sciences, in their BEIR VII report (Biological Effects of Ionizing
Radiation VII), concluded that there is NO MINIMUM THRESHOLD for
radiation damage? Even one nuclear breakdown can cause cancer, heart
disease, birth defects, or any of thousands of other ailments. What
California Republican knows this?
What California Republican knows that nuclear power is NEVER
democratic -- it's just the opposite: Secretive, closed-door, exclusive.
What California Republican cares about California? Cares that we are
the Golden State because we have so much sunshine, we could power all
our needs from it? Cares about REAL solutions to Global Warming, not
Al Gore's pro-nuke lies?
What California Republican has a mind of their own, rather than
walking lock-step with State Assemblyman Chuck Devore (R-Irvine)
who's knowledge about nuclear power is minimal, as shown by his own
comments at a public hearing in San Clemente last spring (2007)?
What California Republican can testify that no plane will ever be
hijacked again? The spent fuel pools, the control rooms, the backup
diesel generators, the intake coolant pipes, the discharge pipes, and
many more VITAL portions of every nuke are located OUTSIDE THE
CONTAINMENT DOMES. And what California Republican realizes that
aircraft engine turbine shafts can smash THROUGH the containment
domes anyway? And what California Republican realizes how many OTHER
ways there are to destroy a nuclear power plant? What California
Republican realizes that tomorrow's generation of nuclear power
plants are being designed WITHOUT containment domes, making them even
MORE vulnerable to terrorist attacks?
What California Republican remembers that we live in an
earthquake-prone area, and realizes how close Japan came to
"Genpatsu-Shinsai" (a nuclear meltdown spurred on by an earthquake)
just a few months ago?
What California Republican cares about his or her reputation? After
a meltdown or any serious accident (and an accident is INEVITABLE
over time) their reputations will be ruined, but that will hardly matter then.
What California Republican cares about the future of California? Nary a one.
Sincerely,
Ace