A disgusting article about Diablo Canyon in the LA Times today

To The Editor,

Below is an article from the LA Times today.

My guess is the [corporate] photo [of the turbines] was taken just after sanding, priming and repainting the turbines, to hide the rust spots.

And Noah Haggerty is a mass propagandist at The Times (I presume that's what "media fellow" means at the LAT).

This article is high class propaganda, written by an expert.

1) The last time solar and wind cost "10 times" the price of nuclear was...NEVER. Oh, but he means not including all the hidden costs of nuclear, like PAA, subsidies, and storing the waste (which PG&E is PAID TO DO by the US gov't). Or maybe he means 1943 or something, but even then they were ignoring the hidden costs of nuclear, which was so expensive we've still never seen a full accounting of the cost, since it was concurrent with bomb development.

2) Nuclear continues to GET IN THE WAY of wind and solar. Had we kept to the original schedule to close DCNPP, we could have had its equivalent in offshore wind power by now (available 24/7, with solar rooftops and battery backup). But Gavin Newsom blocked all that.

3) Haggerty claims nuclear now costs "double" what solar and wind costs -- but he's ignoring NUMEROUS costs for nuclear (the waste. Don't forget the waste). And catastrophic accidents are extremely costly. Ukraine has a huge swath of land permanently uninhabitable (except by Russian soldiers, who are now paying the consequences). Imagine the cost -- for a thousand generations or more -- of a loss like that -- or bigger -- in California. What part of our state isn't precious? Certainly the area area DCNPP is among our MOST precious!

4) Haggerty claims a "meltdown" from an earthquake is "the worst possible scenario" but it's not even close. A complete "rubbleization" (industry term) or worse: *vaporization* of the entire contents would be far, far worse. From an asteroid impact. Or a nuclear bomb attack. Or several other things -- a thousand different things, all of which are individually so unlikely that the NRC ignores them. But none of which are impossible, and most of which, over time, become inevitable. Earth WILL be hit by asteroids large and small. It always has been and always will be. And by airplane strikes, in case anyone's forgotten that a terrorist threatened to fly a plane into a nuclear reactor in 1972. LAT remembers -- or should (see their archives for "Tennessee Narrowly Dodged Bullet in Tense '72 Hijack...").

5) The domes at DCNPP are NOT strong enough to protect from a jumbo jet. Plain and simple. And it's under dozens of common air routes. And this has been KNOWN since the plant was built. And ignored.

6) Money wasted on increasing nuclear power cannot be used to solving the nuclear waste problem -- or any other problem.

7) COVID has made skilled worker shortages an acute problem in the nuclear industry, the health care industry, the education industry, the transportation industry, the food service industry...

8 through infinity) The waste problem in not solvable and we have to stop making more nuclear waste.

Ace Hoffman, Carlsbad, California USA

Below is the first part of the LAT article [Sorry, links to LAT not active -- Ace]

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By Ryan Fonseca
Why Diablo Canyon is a risky business

When you watch TV, run your AC or charge your phone overnight, a portion of the energy you’re using may have come from the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant.

The PG&E-run facility — perched on the edge of the Central California coast — runs around the clock, generating electricity thanks to massive copper coils spun rapidly by steam generated by nuclear fission.

The plant is central in an ongoing debate over California’s energy future, Noah Haggerty, a mass media fellow at The Times, explained this week. Key arguments center on the skyrocketing cost of nuclear energy and the risks of an earthquake leading to nuclear disaster.

“As Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration looks to the aging reactor to help ease the state’s transition to renewable energy, Diablo Canyon is drawing renewed criticism from those who say the facility is too expensive and too dangerous to continue operating,” he wrote.

Nuclear energy has become a costly power source.

It used to be that wind and solar power cost orders of magnitude more than producing electricity at a nuclear plant.

But the high demand for renewable energy spurred technological advances that have drastically reduced those costs. The state has been ramping up its power storage capacity, which cuts against one argument for nuclear power — that it’s needed to keep the lights on when there’s no sun or wind.

Nuclear energy now costs about double what those other sources do, Noah reported.

In recent years, nuclear plants have racked up costs because of more outages and equipment being replaced. MIT researchers in one study also pointed to higher costs from research and development. They also cited decreased worker productivity, possibly due to low morale.

Another reason for rising costs are safety requirements, many of which were put in place after the Fukushima disaster in Japan in 2011, when a powerful earthquake and tsunami led to a nuclear meltdown.

A silhouetted person points to a monitor.

Tom Jones, a senior director at PG&E, talks on Aug. 9 about how the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant operates. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Earthquakes remain the key risk for the plant.

They make up about 65% of the assessed risk for the worst possible meltdown, Noah noted, because of nearby fault lines.

If an earthquake were to occur and critically damage the plant before operators could shut down the nuclear fission happening inside, the unchecked reaction would create a meltdown.

If that were to happen, the clean energy source could essentially become a giant dirty bomb, spewing radioactive material into the atmosphere faster than nearby communities could evacuate.

If you’re one for probabilities, here are a couple for you:

“Every year, nearby residents have roughly the same chance of seeing a nuclear meltdown as dying in a car crash,” Noah wrote. “Also, in any given year, they’re about 50 times more likely to face a mass-casualty radioactive catastrophe than get struck by lightning.”

Officials at the PG&E plant point to their many earthquake precautions, including reinforced infrastructure designed to prevent collapses, plus immersive simulations to train operators for the worst-case scenario.

Critics have voiced concerns that regulators have overlooked and lowballed some of the seismic safety risks.

A giant generator inside a nuclear power plant.

A massive generator runs at Diablo Canyon, the only operational nuclear plant in California. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Diablo Canyon was slated to start closing this year. Then Gov. Gavin Newsom stepped in.

Back in 2016, PG&E agreed to close its plant when the operating licenses expire in November 2024 and August 2025.

But in some last-minute legislative maneuvering, Newsom struck a deal to keep the plant running until 2030, which federal regulators later approved.

Newsom argues that keeping Diablo Canyon running is vital to protect against blackouts in the state and “provide an onramp for more clean energy projects to come online.”

In recent years, Californians’ attitudes on nuclear power have shifted.

A 2022 poll from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, co-sponsored by The Times, found that 44% of state voters supported building more nuclear reactors in California, while 37% of those polled were opposed. Another 19% were undecided.

You can read Noah’s full story here.