Radioactive Waste Poses a Serious Threat to California
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According to a recent LA Times headline, the “Yucca Mountain safety plan is doomed.” If Yucca Mountain is “doomed,” what does this mean for the hundreds of tons of highly radioactive waste located on California’s fragile coast?
An earthquake is the reason cited for Yucca’s doom, therefore, storing this lethal material at Diablo Canyon--two and one-half miles from an active fault capable of a 7.5 magnitude earthquake-- deserves the state’s attention. Los Angeles lies two hundred miles south and less than one hundred miles north of California’s aging nuclear reactors. The San Onofre nuclear reactors south of LA, also are located within 5 miles of an active fault.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) licensed the storage casks to hold highly radioactive fuel assemblies at both facilities for twenty years, yet recent statements by NRC Commissioners suggest that radioactive waste will likely remain at reactors sites for up to a hundred years or longer. In 1982, Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Confidence Act to remove radioactive material from reactor sites – and we are still awaiting that removal.
Both SCE and PG&E have requested funding for license renewal studies even though their current operating licenses do not expire for fourteen to seventeen years. In 1976 California adopted legislation that prohibits siting new reactors in our state until a demonstrated solution for the permanent storage of highly radioactive waste is in place and approved by our legislature. In hindsight, this prohibition has saved us from stockpiles of radioactive waste throughout our state. Perhaps it is time to amend this legislation to prohibit license renewals at aging reactors for the same reason.
Enough is enough! By 2022-2025, hundreds of casks will be located on California’s seismically active coast. Assuming that a permanent waste repository opens someday, this lethal waste will be transported through Los Angeles County by rail and/or train to get to its new home. Train and truck accidents make our headlines weekly and securing radioactive transport routes will be a nuclear nightmare. Now is the time to investigate options to end this daily production of radioactive waste in our state.
The state legislature mandated a California Energy Commission (CEC) cradle-to-grave analysis of the full costs, benefits and risks of our dependence on aging nuclear reactors on our coast. Unfortunately the state budget only allowed one-fifth of the funding the utilities had requested for their in-house studies of license renewal. It is important to let the CEC and your legislators know this lopsided allocation is not in the state’s best interest.
Now is the time to begin a paradigm shift in our energy plans. Innovative technology and incentives for efficiency programs are not only the most cost-effective source of reducing demand, but could create thousand of new jobs, infrastructure and economic benefits. Renewable, affordable and independent energy sources will create exciting new jobs for the next generation while reducing the poisons created by existing old technologies such as oil, coal and nuclear.
The Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility invites Californians to join our mission to limit the production of highly radioactive waste on our irreplaceable coast to the currently licensed terms. Our children should not be left with the burden of safely securing, storing and paying for radioactive waste that will be left behind long after the last kilowatt is generated. Please join us in demanding a nuclear-free future for California.
Posted by: Rochelle.Becker on Wednesday, June 11, 2008 - 08:40 AM
