Diablo Canyon and What To Do About It

Rally for Diablo Canyon
Mothers for Nuclear,, Californians for Green Nuclear Power and others
June 17, 2016
San Luis Obispo
Photo from Californians for Green Nuclear Power

The Announcement and What To Do

Today, PG&E announced that it would not apply for a license renewal for Diablo Canyon, but would close the plant by 2025. The New York Times article this morning: California's Last Nuclear Power Plant Could Close.

 IF this agreement goes through, Diablo Canyon will stay open for another eight years before it closes.  Eight years is not tomorrow. This is not the time to despair and scuttle the ship.  Now is the time to take action! There are things we can do to help our nuclear plants survive.

Right now, we can do two things:  Sign a Petition and Make a Donation. I have done both.

Sign a Petition to the White House

A petition to the White House requests that the special benefits of nuclear power be recognized by federal government policy. The petition has 13,000 signatures, and needs 100,000 to get a response from the White House.  Sign it here to Keep America's Nuclear Power Plants Working for US!

Please sign it and circulate it!

Make A Donation to the March for Environmental Hope

California pro-nuclear groups are marching from San Francisco and Oakland to Sacramento,  in the March for Environmental Hope.  They will publicize the importance of nuclear power for California, and they will attend a meeting of the California Lands Commission. The Commission will be holding a crucial vote about Diablo Canyon.

The March is sponsored by Mothers for Nuclear, Save Diablo Canyon, and Environmental Progress.  Other groups will be marching with them: Californians for Green Nuclear Power and Thorium Energy Alliance.  

The marchers in California are doing this for all of us, for everyone who believes in nuclear energy as the safe, clean energy of the future.  Help them!  You can donate here, and help pay campground fees and so forth for the marchers.

 Commentary

Three excellent articles, worth reading:

Rod Adams at Forbes: NRDC Announces PG&E Has Agreed to Kill Diablo Canyon
James Conca at Forbes: Pro-Nuclear March In San Francisco to Protest Closing of Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant
Michael Shellenberger at Environmental Progress: Why Diablo Canyon Will Live--and Why the Corrupt PGE-IBEW-NRDC Proposal Will Fail

And, just for fun, to see some of the stakes in this particular case, from the San Diego Times Tribune yesterday: Heat wave raises worries about power outages. To quote the article:

Rotating outages result when utilities, largely due to gas issues, don't have enough supply to meet demand.
"We would tell the utilities to turn off the power to a substation...until.... we can go back to balancing supply and demand in real time," Greenlee (of California ISO) said.
Outages can last from 30 to 90 minutes.
But Greenlee said as of Monday afternoon, the system was holding up.

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In other words:

Sign!
Donate!

Pro-Nuclear March in California starts June 24

Worldwide Clean Energy Decline

Clean Energy on the decline

A new organization,  Environmental Progress,  calculates that the percentage of electricity generated by clean energy sources is on the decline world-wide.  Fossil plants are being built all over  the world.  Yes, fossil plants are being built in the United States, too.  Natural gas plants are being built here.  The United States natural gas industry has tried to convince everyone that burning natural gas is good for the environment, but gas plants are still fossil plants.

Meanwhile, due to political (mostly) and economic (some) forces, nuclear plants are closing.  More fossil plants are being built. Therefore, the percentage of electricity generated from clean energy sources--- is declining worldwide.

As nuclear closes down, wind turbines do not and cannot make up the loss.  Fossil plants are doing it.  In the Northeast: closing Vermont Yankee meant more gas was used, and this led to 5% more carbon dioxide emitted from the electricity sector in New England.  That is what happens when a nuclear plant is closed.

The Purpose of the March

In response to the clean energy decline, three organizations are sponsoring a multi-day march in California, starting on June 24.  As their website says:

March for Environmental Hope

Because the Stakes Couldn't Be Higher

The three sponsoring organizations are
Mothers for Nuclear
Save Diablo Canyon
Environmental Progress
Two other groups are marching with them:
Californians for Green Nuclear Power.
Thorium Energy Alliance

(It is wonderful to see several groups actively supporting nuclear energy.  I hope this is a trend. They say trends often start in California.)

From Mothers for Nuclear

The March itself

The march seems very well organized.  Scroll down here to see the full official schedule, camping arrangements, etc.

• The march starts in San Francisco, with a march to Greenpeace and Natural Resource Defense Council headquarters. 
• Then the march moves to East Bay, with camping near Lake Solano. 
• Then the bicycle-city of Davis California. 
• The march finishes at the State Capital,  Sacramento, at a Lands Commission Meeting.  

The State Lands Commission is considering whether to renew Diablo Canyon's permits for ocean intake and outfall pipes. The Land Commission permits expire six years before the NRC license would need to be renewed.

Donate

Not all of us can be in California, but we can all donate to the march. If you can attend, this is the signup sheet.  The organizers are asking marchers to donate $25 a day for camping fees and food.  Not all the marchers will be able to do this.  Click the donate button on this page and perhaps donate enough for one camper for one day (or enough for two campers for two days, or...well, you get the picture).

Support the March!