Assemblyman Chuck DeVore has been pushing the idea of building more nuclear power throughout the year. Here is a typical quote, “Modern nuclear power will allow us to add jobs while improving the environment. There are really no other options capable of generating the large amounts of power we need,” DeVore said.
Reuters reported on July 11, that “DeVore will try to put an initiative on the ballots in June 2008 for Californians to decide whether the state should allow construction of nuclear power plants, his office said on Wednesday.”
You have to wonder if the guy ever reads the paper or watches the news on T.V.
The world’s largest nuclear generating station – the Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear complex, in Japan, was damaged in a strong earthquake this Monday. Here are just a few excerpts I found in online news accounts:
- Tokyo Electric spokesman Akitsuka Kobayashi said today that the water was actually 50% more radioactive than they had initially calculated. The company apologized on its website for the error. (USA Today)
- A series of missteps has tainted the nuclear industry in Japan. Last year, a judge shut down Japan’s second-biggest nuclear plant, saying it was not prepared to withstand an earthquake. (USA Today)
- The company also said that tremors had tipped over 400 barrels of radioactive waste, not 100 as it reported Tuesday, and that the lids had opened on 40 of those barrels. (Globe and Mail)
- Earthquake damage to the world’s biggest nuclear power station has thrown Japan’s nuclear industry into crisis as seismologists recommended that up to a third of the country’s 55 atomic power stations be closed for inspection. (The Australian)
- Seismologists revealed yesterday that the Kashiwazaki nuclear power station stands directly above an active earthquake fault-line, which provoked an atomic spill this week. (The Australian)
The L.A. Times published a lengthy list of nuclear accidents that have previously occurred in Japan, including:
- Aug. 9, 2004: Five workers at Mihama Nuclear Power Plant in western Japan are killed and six are injured after a corroded pipe ruptured and sprayed plant workers with boiling water and steam.
- September 1999: Two workers are killed in a radiation leak at a fuel-reprocessing plant in Tokaimura when they try to save time by mixing excessive amounts of uranium in buckets instead of using special mechanized tanks. Hundreds are exposed to radiation, and thousands of residents evacuate. The government assigned the accident a level 4 rating on the International Nuclear Event Scale ranging from 1 to 7.
- March 1997: At least 37 workers are exposed to low doses of radiation at a March 11 fire and explosion at a nuclear reprocessing plant operated by Donen in Tokaimura, northeast of Tokyo.
Okay, so you might say, what do the nuclear plant problems have to do with us? For one thing, California is FULL of earthquake faults. For another, the plant in San Onofre has had a lot of problems, many of them recent. “The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is conducting the inspection following the June 20 manual reactor shutdown of one of two units at the plant due to a failed pipe connection in a compressed air system.” (Examiner)
Many experts are concerned. Here are just a few news items to consider:
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Critics such as the Natural Resource Defense Council’s Ralph Cavanagh, who has staunchly defended the California moratorium, said talk of a nuclear revival is “as predictable as the spring.” He said there are still concerns about waste disposal, the lingering threat of nuclear proliferation and the high costs of building plants. (Contra Costa Times)
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Nuclear power is hardly the safe panacea its supporters claim it to be,
All Southern California Residents:
Note that Southern California Edison that runs the San Onfre power generation plant has had a rather questionable record for safety. We all know Southern California Edison falsified their customer satisfaction surveys and have falsified past health and safety records.
You think the issue in Japan is a problem just wait for the problems San Onfre will present to all of us in the southland.
Bottom line is there will be problems at this facility and the Southern California Edison Management does nothing to assure your safety.
Jim Drake
Dana Point
I support Assemblyman Chuck DeVore and will help him with his efforts to promote approval of expanded nuclear power in our state.
Say what you will about France but they have 58 nuclear plants that provide “80 percent of its total electricity needs.” I doubt that with our huge beauracracy monitoring our nuclear facilities that we will experience another Three Mile Island in this country.
PS: We live within 15 miles of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station “that provides nearly 20 percent of power to more than 15 million people in southern California.”
Perhaps we should shut it down to see what impact it has on your community or your neighbors.
If it doesn’t bother those of us who live here than it should not bother those of you who live twice as far away. If nuclear power was a safety risk than please explain governmental approval of the thousands of new homes being built in Ladera Ranch, San Clemente or the future 14,000 new homes to be built along Ortega Highway?
Well, not to be the spoilsport, but there are some definite hazards to consider when you have nuclear power plants:
http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/news/homepage/article_1246083.php
SAN ONOFRE – Radiation levels 16 times higher than allowed in drinking water were discovered last week in groundwater beneath Unit 1 of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, which last operated in 1992.
As part of Unit 1’s decommissioning, workers tested the water below and found radioactive tritium at levels high enough to cause concern, plant spokesman Ray Golden said.
………Dricks said that 10 other nuclear power plants have reported radioactive water beneath their containment structures.
He said the conditions are a concern to Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials but to date none has amounted to a threat to public health.
San Clemente Councilman Steve Knoblock said he’s uncertain of the extent of the contamination.
And from the comments section on that Register story: If you drink radioactive water it has a much greater effect. Your skin protects you a bit from alpha and beta radiation. Gamma will pass through your body with out a thick piece of lead or concrete. Back to the skin. Inside of your body has NO protection whatsoever. If you drink radioactive water it would be many times more dangerous relative to it affecting just your surface skin. A great analogy. Bleech will burn your skin on the top, but drink it and it will destroy your insides. Radation has the same effect.
Art:
Your post is just run-of–the-mill anti-nuke scaremongering. You toss out scare numbers without providing any context whatsoever: “50% more radioactive than they had initially calculated.” What does that even mean? Is that even a dangerous level?
This kind of anti-nuke hysteria makes it near-impossible to have a rational discussion about the pros-and-cons of nuclear power.
Jubal,
I am not anti-nuclear. But I do think that there are a lot of issues that need to be resolved before we start building such plants again.
I also think that DeVore and his GOP peers in the State Senate are insane to be pushing this in the wake of the problems in Japan and in San Onofre. Talk about bad timing! They need to drop this ASAP and let these other issues resolve themselves first.
Art, you need to find and talk to a really good engineer that you trust. You are spending too much time listening to folks who are too far removed from the technology.
DeVore is right, in this instance. All things taken into account, power generation via nuclear fission is our best present choice for generating electricity.
You have to weigh nuclear power against your other choices. Your other choices are to burn gas, oil, or (mainly) coal. We don’t exactly have a surplus of gas or oil – so that’s not a good choice. That leaves us with coal. We have lots of coal! On the other hand, burning megatons of coal puts megatons of carbon dioxide into the air – plus a little something extra. Coal is not a pure substance. Burn coal and you put a lot of other gunk into the air, including bits radioactive material. Burn a lot of coal and those bits add up.
Sure, there are folks who want to sell you fifty year old reactor designs. No reason to buy an Edsel, as there are better choices.
Yes, storing nuclear waste in a barrel in your backyard is a bad idea (no matter who you are). Find a good geologist you trust. Ask him to find some rock formations that will be stable while those half-lives expire. In geologic time, radioactivity fades pretty fast.
In terms of environmental impact, when you total everything up a well-built and well-run nuclear reactor is squeaky-clean compared our other choices.
Sadly, it was and is pretty fashionable to be “anti-nuclear”. Outside fashion concerns, nuclear power has always made sense.
Art,
Seems like your more concerned in making controversy that in factual analysis. (Ratings?) I think as others have pointed out when you weigh the cost of alternatives it balances out that nukes are a real bargain. The biggest problem is irrational hysteria that biased “experts” seem to put forth for public consumption for the media and are quoted regularly, that have little other expertise than being good at crafting cleaver sound bites that hit peoples emotions.
The science and engineering are sound, and have been proved the world over. Funny thing, even considering all the bad designs that have been attempted (graphite reactors) the overall safety records have been better than most other methods of power production. In no way do I want to minimize the need for better designs and safe operators, but the actual safety records are pretty good.
The need for use of the federal disposal/storage facility needs to be sped up as well. We need to get this stuff out of long term local storage and get it into stable long term care. That in turn should help the local operators better there onsite safety as well. The physics have not changed, but the clever designs certainly have gotten much better, as has the Geo sciences gained knowledge, in where to place them. It’s past time that we move forward, with continued use of fission. Of course we could wait for the Europeans to perfect fusion at CERN, since we lack the will to embrace the future here in the US. And fusion is the power for the future like it or not.
California wont allow offshore drilling, pipelines, refineries, docking facilities for ships, eyc….(nimby’s), but they want their AC and lights blazing away. How do you want to push the electrons that feed this blog? Cover the desert with solar panels? Dream on, I want a Ferrari too, but it isn’t going to happen.
Carl,
I fully support opening up our waters to more offshore oil drilling. We lose thousands of gallons of crude every year as it seeps into the ocean off our central coast, because of the ban on drilling.
I also support the concept of more nuclear power, but not until we resolve the waste issue. The French apparently recycle their waste. Why not try that too?
I am told that their plants are also far better than anything U.S. engineers have on the table. For once we need to get the French involved if we are going to go down the nuclear road.
As for DeVore and the Senate Reeps, they just look stupid for pushing this at the same time that Japan is having their problems, and without recognizing the fact that San Onofre has had major problems.
I do understand these issues by the way. I spent several years working in local refineries. I know what refinery ops entail, and nuclear power plants have similar protocols, except that they are even more stringent.
Bottom line – we need to get our ducks in a row before we jump on board the nuclear train. DeVore and company appear to be smoking that hemp he keeps talking about. 🙂
Email response from Assemblyman Chuck DeVore follows:
“Thanks, I just posted this reply:
Art, I
Assemblyman DeVore,
Thank you for your responses. Please feel free to post them here directly as you do at Red County/OC Blog and at Liberal OC.
The rush to nuclear power reminds me of the government rush to use hybrid cars. Have we learned nothing from Schwarzenegger’s screw-up with the state fleet?
Before we start planning these plants we need to spend a lot of time figuring out what sort of plants these will be. The devil as they say is in the details.
I am inclined to go with the French model. Recycling the radioactive waste makes a lot of sense.
As for other options, nano technology could be the answer. There are plans underway to coat buildings with nano materials that will collect solar power and insulate said buildings.
We could also save a lot of energy by going to a part time legislature. That would mean less plane trips by legislators to Sacramento. In fact, why not let them vote via video conferencing from their district offices? That would result in even less travel!
How about not letting legislators use cars that have more than four cylinders? Never mind hybrids, put them all in mini compact cars.
Legislators need to set the example when it comes to saving our planet and using our resources wisely.
Also, one thing Senate Republicans could do is press the Democrats to allow more offshore oil drilling. This is an issue of national security! We need that oil more than Barbara Streisand needs a nice view.
Art,
Just so you know Bechtel (and others) was a design/construction consultant for most of the European Power plants. I personally know one of them on the design teams. They have newer designs because they continued to innovate and build while we listen to FOE and the fear mongers in the media, we let emotions rather than facts dictate our future they didn’t. So most of their systems are newer, hence better designs. Don’t dis our engineers, they for the most part are the guys who designed or collaborated on the systems you taught. Additionally Fast-Breeder reactors, first designed and built HERE, built and operated in Idaho (been there) are a little more problematic than standard units. One reason is because they produce weapons grade materials. While I have always felt it was the way to go, it garnered a great deal of political fear mongering, making it a public pariah.
Thanks, Art, I tried to respond directly, but the response never went up. Comment moderation was enabled, it makes it a little less easy to verify my comment has taken hold.
All the best,
Chuck DeVore
State Assemblyman, 70th District
http://www.ChuckDeVore.com
Assemblyman DeVore,
Thanks for your feedback. Sorry about the moderation. We have had problems with a local kook who tries to post the F word on our site on a regular basis. The moderation allows us to delete his insane comments.
It will be interesting to see where this issue goes. I am hopeful that the conversation regarding our future energy needs will include other options in addition to nuclear power.
Mr. Devore,
Please tell us where you intend to have these facilities built?
The cost of land in most of California is high, the majority of California is prone to either flood/fire or earthquake issues and or is located on rivers or the coast. Where do you intend to build these? On farmland? Where our food is grown? Where our hemp could be grown?
just asking?