To Whom It May Concern, Southern California Edison Community Engagement Panel:
I'm tired of the lies of the nuclear industry, and few lies are worse than the lie that the nuclear waste problem is solvable.
Not only have we been told for 80 years it's solvable, but that it can be solved quickly, efficiently, a dozen different ways, at a reasonable cost, and we can start right away, and Finland is already doing this, and France is already doing that, and everybody has a plan...
None of that is realistic in any way.
So why are YOU hosting a discussion about something that's impossible? And why pretend you're here to help us, or enlist our help in solving a problem we didn't make and didn't want? We have already been promised solutions a million times, and all you've got to offer us this time is moving the waste elsewhere and making it someone else's problem.
Where it's going to go isn't our problem. After all, we were PROMISED the waste would be removed as soon as it had cooled enough to be moved — about five years, we were told. So why are we — the local public — being tasked with figuring out how YOU are going to get rid of it? That's YOUR job, not ours! Go find a place to put the waste, if you won't neutralize it first (see below for a link to a description of the (patented) neutralization process, and its many advantages (along with its various disadvantages, similar to every other nuclear waste "solution")).
But of course, you're here because you can't find ANY place to take the waste. No one wants what you're selling. Despite the average American having only a sixth-grade reading level, no one's left on earth who is that ignorant.
But that's your problem, not ours: Go present your case to whoever you want to take the waste! Offer them a deal. Then a better deal. Find out how much nuclear waste they'll take, and under what conditions they'll accept it. Study their claim that they have a "safe" place for it, ask how it will all be safely transported. Make sure the destination location knows A LOT about how dangerous this "waste" they're accepting is, what a "criticality event" is, what a zirconium fire is and what might start one. Be sure they know how long the spent fuel will be toxic for. Let them know about the proliferation risks if it's ever stolen.
Remind them that Yucca Mountain wasn't ever going to be large enough to take all the nation's waste because we KEEP MAKING MORE and we've long passed it's planned capacity.
And if we don't stop making more, the whole process of finding a "safe" location will have to be repeated ad nauseam.
If you want to SOLVE the waste problem, you'll need to do two things, at a minimum:
First, spend a lot more money: On more proper containment, more proper transport systems, and of course, a final resting place for this mess. This is never going to be cheap, but it's never going to get any cheaper.
Second, to actually SOLVE the waste problem in any meaningful way, the industry has to stop making the problem worse! It must stop making more spent fuel! Because there's no way ANY nuclear power plant can profitably pay for its own waste storage for the centuries (MINIMUM) that the waste will exist on earth, in spent fuel pools, then in canisters, out in the open, before we permanently store it somewhere, or "burn" it (a misnomer for the filthy and expensive process of extracting fissile material for future use), and/or banish it forever to a tunnel deep in the earth. And hope for the best.
As if we — humans — have ever been able to do any thing that will last forever! Certainly a pyramid or dome-shaped structure around **each** dry canister is a real option for temporary, guarded, far safer storage — but it won't be cheap because slavery (as was used in Egypt to build the Pyramids) was abolished in America long ago, and wage slavery should be, and the only solutions the nuclear industry will accept MUST be cheap, or it will be clear to everyone what a Faustian Bargain we've made with the nuclear industry.
The entire nuclear industry should be admitting the truth, instead of bringing in "experts" who can't transport the waste safely: The standards do not require protection from bridge or tunnel collapses (fall distances and/or crush strengths could easily be exceeded in real-world accidents); the Baltimore Tunnel Fire far exceeded canister protection requirements (time and temperature), but fortunately spent nuclear fuel wasn't being transported that day.
And let's not talk about sabotage or terrorism or war, even though those are all real possibilities. Even though — oh look — another reactor in Ukraine has been attacked... and America itself is in the midst of an illegal and undeclared war... but we're supposed to believe it can't happen here? It won't come to our shores? Never in a million years? Have we all forgotten 9-11? We are ignoring drone swarms now, too!
The CEP panel should be admitting the truth, instead of bringing in "experts" who can't store the spent fuel safely in an earthquake zone a few dozen yards from the Pacific Ocean, where it's susceptible to huge tsunami's from nearby undersea canyon collapses — the canisters are required to withstand submersion only to about 50 feet, though sometimes I've heard 70 or 80 feet, which is still not nearly enough. And the requirement doesn't include protection from the added weight of debris or ship hulls crushing the canisters and making them unreachable at the same time.
You should be admitting the truth, instead of bringing in "experts" who can't admit that the cost of "proper" canisters would exceed the cost of all the gold on earth — because it just so happens that stainless steel isn't that good a containment, and surrounding it in copper is only somewhat better, but surrounding it in multiple layers of each, with additional layers of gold would actually be even better, because the canisters would last longer.
Too expensive? Of course it is! And an even bigger problem is that there is far more nuclear waste in the USA than all the gold ever extracted (by volume, or by weight). Iridium might be even better for containment, but there's even less of that — and it's far more expensive than gold.
And that's really a major problem: The nuclear industry CANNOT operate at a cost-effective rate, and so it has to be given a break on insurance if anything goes wrong — Price-Anderson — and has needed TRILLIONS in federal funding and tax breaks just to come close to the price of carbon-based fuel sources, but even that can't TOUCH the low price of true green energy: Wind, solar, wave, tide, battery storage, hot sand energy storage, lifted weight energy storage...
And the biggest gift to the nuclear industry was that the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT would take the waste. They won't because they can't. So America needs to stop making more.
Done properly, household electrical energy should be FREE most of the day, every day (as it is already in some parts of the world, due to the use of solar power).
Nuclear can never compete on safety, security, cost, environment... nothing. It's lousy "baseload" too because it sometimes just goes down for no good reason, for long lengths of time. Real baseload comes from multiple small sources. Everyone knows that except the nuclear industry!
So why can't the CEP throw up its arms (if it has a spine) and recommend to Diablo Canyon's operators (PG&E) to shut down? Why is SoCalEd still invested in Palo Verde? And since they ARE a part owner, why can't our waste can be shipped there? Why not this very day?
Why aren't these so-called "experts" doing their song-and-dance around Phoenix and Tucson, telling them how great it would be, and how safe it would be, if they would add San Onofre's waste to Palo Verde's existing waste (and to all the waste Palo Verde will make in the future if they don't shut down those reactors)?
PVNPP probably would have only one guard (or maybe just a robot) for all the waste, so it will save everybody money, right? So why aren't you, the CEP, pushing SCE to do that, so we, here, can be done with this mess, this risk, this liability?
Is it because doing so would admit failure? Or is it because SCE wants to put SM[N]Rs at San Onofre?
Or is it because it would be very unpopular in Arizona? (I have relatives in Arizona; I can assure you not everyone will like the idea.) But you assure US it's safe, so why not consolidate it? That's the IDEA of "CIS" so why not start by moving SanO's waste to PVNPP? Prove to the nation it can be done! Prove it's safe! Prove all the communities along the way will be happy to have 123 canisters of highly toxic crud pass near their homes, under heavy guard, in highly obvious vehicles, at any hour of the day and night, for several years.
Why come here and bother us? We've already agreed you should get rid of it, AS PROMISED. Allison Macfarlane had her chance to call for universal closure of nuclear reactors because of any of thousands of unsolvable problems. She has nothing to offer local San Onofre residents but more empty promises.
Ace Hoffman, Carlsbad, California USA
Four related essays:
Spent fuel neutralization: What it is and why it's the best solution:
https://acehoffman.blogspot.com/2017/11/what-is-spent-nuclear-fuel.html
Nuclear waste mismanagement: The view thought the years:
https://acehoffman.blogspot.com/2017/10/nuclear-waste-management-view-through.html
We will haunt humanity forever with the nuclear waste we produce today:
https://acehoffman.blogspot.com/2026/03/we-will-haunt-humanity-forever-with.html
42 Reasons you can't disentangle nuclear reactors, nuclear weapons, and nuclear waste:
https://acehoffman.blogspot.com/2025/11/42-reasons-you-cant-disentangle-nuclear.html
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Contact information for the author of this newsletter:
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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