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The Adobe Press: Diablo has major issues
In announcing its application to extend the life of Diablo Canyon nuclear reactors until 2045, PG&E emphasized the taxes it contributes to the local economy.
However, there is a long list of unresolved safety and security issues that were not acknowledged.
Storing radioactive waste next to two earthquake faults presents a permanent hazard. Neither the faults nor the waste will ever go away.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Homeland Security declare that all nuclear plants are targets of terrorists, and the San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace has a lawsuit pending in federal court regarding the vulnerability of the wastes stored at Diablo.
In addition, the NRC is currently investigating why and how Diablo operated for a full 18 months with a defect in the controls of the system designed to flood the Unit 2 reactor in the event of an accident or sabotage causing a loss of essential cooling water.
Diablo property taxes do not compensate for the safety hazards inherent in the nuclear reactors and waste storage.
New Times SLO | PG&E seeks to renew Diablo license
Utility giant Pacific Gas and Electric announced Nov. 24 that it has applied to renew its operating license for the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant.
PG&E chief nuclear officer John Conway did not reveal the price tag on the renewal process, but he said the renewal would cost millions of dollars, in accordance with California Public Utilities Commission regulations, which he did not detail.
The current license is set to expire in 2024 and 2025 for Units One and Two of the plant, respectively. The new license, should it be approved, would extend 20 years from those dates.
In the next step in the application process, according to PG&E Site Vice President Jim Becker, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will review PG&E’s application and make a decision on the further need for hearings.
“It’s fair to say this will be a multiyear process,” Becker said at a media conference.
PG&E to seek Calif. Diablo Canyon license renewal | Markets | Markets News | Reuters
PG&E Corp (PCG.N) said Tuesday it would seek to renew the licenses of the 2,240-megawatt Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in California for an additional 20 years.
The current 40-year operating licenses for Diablo Canyon's units expire in 2024 and 2025.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has said it usually takes about 22 months to make a decision on a license extension without a hearing or about 30 months with a hearing.
Extending the licenses is "important for the environmental and economic health of California," John Conway, PG&E senior vice president, energy supply and chie
New Times SLO | If Diablo melts down
Most of the residents of SLO County have received information about obtaining K1 tablets in case radiation is released from the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. We can all get two tablets per household member; keep them safe, know where they are. So far, so good: But please tell me, how are all the kids at school supposed to get the tablets in case of such a horrible emergency?
The tablets are supposed to be taken in “an appropriate and timely dosage.” What exactly is “timely”? There is no guarantee kids will be at home during such an emergency.
School kids might not take pills to school with them. If they need medication while at school, it is given to the school nurse for safe-
keeping. However, most schools no longer have school nurses on campus. Who would deal with this?
Will parents be able to leave K1 tablets clearly marked for their kids with somebody? Has any thought been given to this? The K1
tablets do not provide protection other than for the thyroid gland, but in children, I must assume that this is protection worthwhile
—while we scramble to get out of harm’s way!
Pills available for people downwind from Diablo - Local - SanLuisObispo.com
County public health officials are offering free doses of the radiation-blocking drug potassium iodide to people who live and work downwind of Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant.
The pills, also known by their chemical name KI, are available at six locations. They are only to be taken at the direction of public health officials in the event of a radiation leak at Diablo Canyon.
The county has enough doses to cover hundreds of thousands of people, said Michelle Shoresman, spokeswoman for the county public health department. They will be available as long as supplies last, which should be a year or so.
Feds Looking Into Safety Goof At Nuke Plant - Central Coast News Story - KSBW The Central Coast
Federal regulators are investigating a mistake at the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant that could have hampered safety measures during an emergency.
A spokeswoman for the Central Coast plant says two switches that allow operators to remotely open cooling water valves were improperly set. If the plant lost its water during an earthquake or terrorist attack, operators would have had to manually open the valves to restore it.
Spokeswoman Emily Christensen Archer said the mistake was discovered late last week during a maintenance shutdown of the reactor, and the switches were reset.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is investigating.
Sam Blakeslee's bill to map Diablo quake faults dies by veto - Local - San Luis Obispo
Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee lambasted Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s veto of a bill that would have required three-dimensional mapping to explore earthquake fault zones near Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant.
Blakeslee submitted the bill last December, a month after the so-called Shoreline Fault was discovered less than a mile offshore from Diablo.
The bill would have ordered Diablo Canyon’s owner, Pacific Gas and Electric Co., to use the latest high-definition technologies to map the fault, including a technique called three-dimensional geophysical reflection mapping. The state was then to use that information to make recommendations on whether seismic strengthening was needed at the plant.
No meeting halfway on nuke licensing rules - Local - San Luis Obispo
After protests, NRC agrees to reschedule hearing slated for point equidistant — and far — from Diablo Canyon and San Onofre plants
Bowing to local pressure, the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission has agreed to reschedule a hearing to take public comment on generic rules governing the renewal of nuclear power plant licenses.
The meeting had been set for Tuesday evening in Westlake Village, a Los Angeles County town near Thousand Oaks.
However, local elected officials and activists argued that San Luis Obispo County residents were unlikely to attend a meeting held about 160 miles away.
The agency has agreed to postpone the hearing to an undetermined later date and location, said Roger Hannah, NRC spokesman.
PG&E to replace Calif. Diablo reactor vessel heads | Markets | Markets News | Reuters
PG&E Corp plans to replace the reactor vessel heads at both reactors at the 2,240-megawatt Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in California during the next refueling outages, a company spokeswoman said Tuesday.
PG&E plans to shut Diablo Unit 2 for refueling in the autumn of 2009 and Unit 1 during the autumn of 2010.
The PG&E spokeswoman could not discuss the cost of the replacements or say how long the project would take. A usual refuel lasts about a month.
New Times SLO | Seeking fusion NRC investigations, disgruntled employees, and protests plague Diablo Canyon
WHAT DO WE WANT?
Last December, PG&E employees at the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant were asked to fill out a survey. It was of the “are you happy with your job?” variety. The results overall: many aren’t. And the survey is just a hint at a growing rift between employees and management.
A copy obtained by New Times shows Diablo Canyon employees were less content than the rest of the PG&E family. The questions were weighted based on the number of favorable responses against the number of unfavorable ones and given a percentage. Companywide, the survey results were 67 percent in the positive on average. At Diablo Canyon it was 57 percent.
Of the questions, the one that scored the best with 96 percent favorable was “I am committed to the success of PG&E.” Similar questions scored much the same, generally around 70 to 80 percent.
Spent fuel moving above ground at Diablo Canyon - San Jose Mercury News
Spent nuclear fuel is being moved from a storage pool at the twin-reactor Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant to a new above-ground storage facility at the Central Coast facility.
Pacific Gas and Electric, operator of the coastal San Luis Obispo County plant, says loading of the used nuclear fuel began Monday night.
Eight containers of fuel in a storage pool will be moved during several months to the new interim facility, where they will be anchored to a 7 1/2-foot-thick concrete pad.
New Times SLO |On safeguarding Diablo Canyon radioactive waste
It would be logical to assume that when the second highest court in the nation rules that a federal agency must comply with specific federal laws, that would decide the matter once and for all. Case closed. But in San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace v. the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the reality is much different.
Since 2002, the San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace (MFP) has pursued the legal avenues available to force the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to protect the public from potential terrorist attacks on the new dry-cask storage facility at Diablo Canyon. But ironically, even though the NRC and the Department of Homeland Security specify that all nuclear facilities are targets of terrorists, the NRC has repeatedly refused to produce studies of the environmental impacts of an attack on the dry casks.
Realignment planned for nuclear reactor control rod at Diablo Canyon - Local - San Luis Obispo
Operators at Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant will soon realign a control rod that is hanging too low in one of the plant’s two reactors.
The repair will take place in the middle of this month, when the reactor will be running at reduced power to perform other previously planned maintenance, said Bill Guldemond, the plant’s director of site services.
Diablo Canyon Deemed Safe From New Earthquake Fault
The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission has concluded the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant would withstand the effects of a potential new fault line off the California coast.
Pacific Gas & Electric, which operates the plant 12 miles southwest of San Luis Obispo, California, notified the NRC in November 2008 about the potential Shoreline Fault, approximately 15 kilometers in length located one kilometer (.6 mile) offshore from the Diablo Canyon power plant.
PG&E provided the commission with data from the company’s collaboration with the U.S. Geological Survey regarding the potential fault.
With No Long-Term Solution, Nuclear Pallbearers Bury Waste in America's Backyard
This summer, dozens of workers at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant in central California will carry out an interment. They'll carefully begin moving 133 tons of spent fuel from temporary cooling ponds into a nuclear necropolis of eight cement-and-steel tombs in a field adjacent to the plant. If all goes according to plan, they won't have to worry about the radioactive detritus for another 100 years.
If all goes according to plan.
The Diablo Canyon storage casks, each weighing about 180 tons and costing more than $1 million each, were authorized by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in its ongoing struggle to deal with the 50,000 metric tons of toxic nuclear waste that's already been produced by the nation's nuclear plants. Structures like these, measuring about 18 feet high, will soon dot the landscape at almost all the nation's more than 104 active and shuttered nuclear reactors — near neighborhoods, streams and oceans in 38 states.
KSBY 6 Action News Santa Maria, San Luis Obispo, Paso Robles-Diablo Canyon Power Plant announces date for controversial radioactive transfer
Crews at Diablo Canyon Power Plant will start transferring radioactive material into dry casks on June 1.
The casks are used to store spent reactor fuel. Eights casks will be filled and stored above-ground in a concrete storage pad. Another eight casks will be loaded in the spring of 2010.
Diablo Canyon set to start loading dry casks in June - San Luis Obispo
PG&E’s decision to begin moving its spent fuel to above-ground canisters sparked a legal battle
Operators at Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant will begin loading the first dry cask with highly radioactive used reactor fuel on June 1.
The decision by plant owners Pacific Gas and Electric Co. to begin transferring its spent fuel to above-ground canisters touched off a groundbreaking legal battle with local antinuclear activists in 2002 — and it continues to this day.
San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace wants federal regulators to require that PG&E take additional steps to protect the storage facility from terrorist attacks.
The Associated Press: Mothers for Peace take on nuclear waste storage
At the western edge of a largely dormant anti-nuke movement, three generations of mothers are tilting at nuclear reactors. But their mission is less quixotic than it might appear.
Wielding a novel argument about the potential impact of a terrorist attack on nuclear facilities, San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace is aiming to set legal precedent requiring tougher environmental reviews for nuclear power plants and radioactive waste storage nationwide.
It's the latest chapter in a long-running battle that pits the all-volunteer group of aging hippies, activists and teachers against the federal government, Pacific Gas and Electric Co., and PG&E's Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, nestled on a gorgeous stretch of coastline nearby.
KSBY 6: PG&E workers picket outside Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant
Employees at Diablo Canyon picket outside the nuclear power plant. They are trying to call attention to what they say are unsafe working conditions.
Nuclear engineers claim the plant is putting profits before safety. They say that employees are not paid enough and because of that, it makes retaining qualified workers difficult.
Activists to appeal nuke waste storage approval
An activist group has decided to appeal federal regulators' approval of a radioactive waste storage plan at the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant near San Luis Obispo.
Mothers for Peace suffered a setback in October when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission rejected their argument that there hadn't been sufficient study of whether planned storage casks for used nuclear fuel rods could survive a terrorist attack at the PG&E plant.
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