I agree that getting all these 'types' together is
necessary.
I learned long ago, though, that coming forth with
'solutions' just doesn't work. I have shared my
sentiments many times to the Mothers For Peace,
Shundahai and Molly Johnson that coming forth with the
cask solution or the wet fuel storage solution or
whatever can really backfire. And Bruce Gagnon is just
king of the solution bearers with his remark in
space.com (thinks we should have surveillance
satellites in outer space to keep nuke weapons from
being built and to further deep exploration and use
solar cells for it all). SOmeone said that Dan Hirsh's
solution to the terrorism aspect was to put the
national guard at Diablo (I think they actually did
that).
All the above mentioned mentioned really want to shut
down nukes, but the industry has selective hearing. In
1995 when I spoke to the press as the spokesperson for
Nuclear Waste Information Committee, I emphasized that
the waste should be kept forever in monitored
retreivable onsite storage. Well, I moved to Fresno
for three years, and NuWIC kept up the campaign until
we got just what we asked for. Only problem with the
'solution' was that now DOE, PG&E and NRC could say
that activists wanted this method of 'safe' storage
and that more waste could be made for up to 100 years
(licensing). So all we did was to assure that Diablo
would plunk out waste for along time. Also these fine
casks were perfectly transportable to Yucca Mountain.
What they didn't hear was our cries to shut Diablo
Down. Oh, well.
Well, our voices should be one, and should contain the
same words-Shut 'em down! We should stop there, and
not be the 'experts'. No solutions, no answers, just
steady, pressure to get just this one thing we all
want.
-sheila

--- "Russell D. Hoffman"
<rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com> wrote:

<HR>
Thanks, Sheila! 

I feel that there is a moment coming soon, if we all complain together -- if we can, for just one day, get the Parfrey types, the Hirsch types, the Lochbaum types, and maybe even the Hunter types, Becker types, and Gagnon types (but I suppose that's asking way too much), all on one page, we could at least shut California's nukes, even if we can't shut down all of America's.

My other feeling is that there will be a great tragedy in our country, and all our work to stop it will be utterly in vain, because even that first nuclear catastrophe won't sway America away from the nuclear "demon hot atom".  It's so easy to cover up a random death in the community, and say it was caused by anything but radiation -- life-style, genetics, bad luck, smog -- anything that keeps the nuke plants open.

Thanks again!

Russell

At 11:51 AM 6/28/02 , you wrote:

like your spirit, Brother!

-sheila


--- "Russell D. Hoffman"
<rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com> wrote:

<HR>
To: letters@ocweekly.com
Date: June 27th, 2002

Re: "10 reasons we should say ‘so long’ to SONGS" (OC Weekly, June 21-27, 2002)

To The Editor,

Regarding your excellent article [shown below] by Nick Schou, "San Onofre Nightmare Generating Station", here are some additional points to consider regarding why we should shut the San Onofre Nuclear Waste Generating Station down immediately.  Please note that renewable energy could easily replace the power produced by these aging and embrittled behemoths:

1)  Besides those given in your article, another reason nuclear power plants are likely to be targets of terrorist attacks is that they are considered a legitimate target of war as defined by the United States Military.  We bombed power generation systems in Iraq, Kosovo, and Afghanistan.  Furthermore we used nuclear weapons (D.U.), and caused widespread environmental damage.  Lastly, every military scholar knows that the best way to cripple a force is to wound as many of the enemy as possible.  Destroying San Onofre would do that.  People would die, but slowly, and caregivers would be severely strained around the country from just ONE radiological catastrophe.

2)  The "toxic junk" referred to as being "highly radioactive for another 10,000 to 20,000 years" is in fact, highly radioactive for more like a million years.  The "10,000 years" figure probably comes from the Yucca Mountain project, which only projects results out that far.  At the end of that time, Yucca Mountain will be a boiling cauldron of absolutely hellish radioactive yecch, and still getting worse.

3)  When SCE is not trying to push radioactive waste onto Native America lands, they are grinding it up and pouring it into the ocean.  That's what "decommissioning" a nuclear power plant really means:  Grind up and wash out into the ocean everything you don't feel like carting away.

4)  77,000 is the number of tons of waste Yucca Mountain is supposed to receive, not the number of shipments.  (That's said to be nearly 100,000.)  And it's not during "the next 15 to 30 years" because it won't start for at least 10 to 15 years. The point being that it may not start at all, but nobody in Government really cares, as long as debating Yucca Mountain keeps the plants OPEN.   Which it does nicely as long as we let the "debate" continue.  And one spill can kill 10s of thousands, not just dozens or hundreds.  The government "worst case scenario" figures which indicate "dozens or hundreds" always assume that only a tiny fraction of the radioactive waste in a shipment will be released.  That assumption has no scientific validity.

5)  SCE's weak excuses for why it is not culpable for deaths from radiation, either off site or on site, should be thrown out with the theory that cigarette smoke is harmless.

6)  The reason you give for why the government hesitated for many decades before handing out KI pills is only part of the answer.  A more complete answer is that by handing out the pills, they are admitting that what they have said was impossible (a release of massive quantities of radiation) is actually possible.  They have been reluctant to admit that, thus far.

7)  The government's willingness to re-authorize the Price-Anderson act shows that it is a government bought and paid for by the nuclear industry.  An accident at San Onofre would bankrupt SCE, of course, but the other nuclear utilities would NOT be -- and THAT's what they really like about Price-Anderson.  Limited liability.  The industry would survive, unlike its victims.

8)  Nuclear power is a rip-off, indeed.  Renewable energy is possible, but it needs a fair chance.  The energy nuclear produces is expensive, the plants are unreliable, and the costs are unfairly borne by cancer patients, leukemia patients, and people with birth defects around the world, and by ratepayers who are being stuck with the used reactor cores (aka "spent fuel") and other debris from America's nuclear nightmare.

9)  San Onofre was NOT designed to be operated safely for "just 20 to 30 years".  It was a crap-shoot from the beginning.  For example the tsunami wall between the plant and the ocean is just 35 feet high, but tsunamis hundreds or even thousands of feet high are possible.  Tornados, earthquakes, asteroids, airplanes, and suicidal terrorists are all threats for which San Onofre is not adequately protected and cannot be.  Furthermore, the plants are embrittled not just from radiation but from "Time at Temperature", from vibration, from a harsh chemical environment (made worse by all that salty air), and from other factors, including poor welding metals which are prone to embrittlement in the first place (notice the space shuttles are all grounded right now for embrittlement, and those are the best metals we've got!).

10)  The environmental-impact report saying a major release could kill 130,000 immediately, cause 300,000 latent cancers, and 600,000 genetic effects is a minimization.  It could be much, much worse.  That report probably is referring only to the loss of a single reactor.  It does not address the loss of the spent fuel pools, both reactors, or dozens of dry storage casks (which the plant will have soon, if no one stops it).

Thank you for publishing your article.  Please don't drop the ball now.

Sincerely,

Russell D. Hoffman
Concerned Citizen
Carlsbad, CA

Note that in the item below, I've edited out two words and replaced them with "grossly mistreated".  Those passing this on can replace the original text if they feel like it (starts with f, ends with "over").  It's still a free country, last time I looked carefully (which was just before the Patriot Act was passed).

=====================================================
FROM:
http://www.ocweekly.com/ink/02/42/news-schou.php

June 21 - 27, 2002

San Onofre Nightmare Generating Station

10 reasons we should say ‘so long’ to SONGS

by Nick Schou

Ever since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, it has been an open secret that if the hijackers had crashed two jumbo jets into a nuclear reactor, tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of Americans might have died. Of all U.S. nuclear plants, none has the potential to kill more people than the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), which straddles the Orange County-San Diego border. In recent weeks, top Bush administration officials have announced that future terrorist attacks on U.S. soil aren’t just likely but inevitable—and that a terrorist-related nuclear disaster is the No. 1 danger facing America. Hold that thought while you consider 10 other reasons why SONGS should be shut down for good.

1. The U.S. government’s antiterrorist security drills for nuclear plants are outdated to the point of absurdity. While SONGS is seemingly the least vulnerable of our nation’s nuclear plants—located next door to Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base—it has been incredibly reluctant to improve security over the years. "Nuclear reactors are a very attractive target for two reasons," says Dan Hirsch of the Committee to Bridge the Gap, a Los Angeles-based anti-nuclear group. "Successful destruction of a plant can cause immense casualties, and the security is way below that necessary to repel a Sept. 11-size attack."

Only after the 1993 World Trade Center truck bombing did SONGS agree to install concrete barriers that could prevent a similar attack at the plant. Meanwhile, the plant’s safety drills only envision a terrorist attack by three ambulatory attackers armed with automatic weapons and aided by a conspirator inside the reactor area. Jonathan Parfrey, executive director of the LA chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) says it’s irresponsible for the government to allow nuclear plants to continue operating after Sept. 11 with such outdated security standards. "We simply can’t afford to have these potential nuclear bombs in our community," he argued.

2. There’s no safe way to store radioactive waste at a nuclear plant. Like many U.S. nuclear reactors, SONGS stores a large amount of radioactive waste on site in cooling ponds, which are essentially dirty bombs waiting to be detonated. The cooling ponds have been there since 1983 and are less protected than the reactor itself—officials at Southern California Edison (SCE), the plant’s majority owner, admit it’s unsafe to keep the waste there forever. The toxic junk in those pools will be highly radioactive for another 10,000 to 20,000 years, about the same length of time it took for Homo sapiens to go from living in caves to landing on the moon.

3. Edison has no respect for Native Americans. For years, SCE backed a plan to dump radioactive waste at Ward Valley on sacred Native American land near Needles, a few miles uphill from the Colorado River aqueduct. While environmental concerns have all but killed that plan, SCE still wants to dump its nuclear waste in traditional Shoshone Indian land near Yucca Mountain, Nevada, in direct violation of the Ruby Valley Treaty of 1863. In the treaty, the Shoshone nation gave the U.S. right of passage through their land—but there was no mention of the right to perform bomb testing or bury radioactive waste there. Yucca Mountain is just one example of how Native Americans are routinely [grossly mistreated] by the nuclear industry. As a backup plan, SCE is trying to open another dumpsite at the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation in Utah.

4. Before it desecrates Native American soil or leaks into the Colorado River, San Onofre’s toxic waste has to make it to the desert dumpsite without spilling en route. This is the so-called Mobile Chernobyl scenario. Recent estimates say that once it opens, Yucca Mountain would receive 77,000 shipments of waste during the next 15 to 30 years. A lot of that traffic would flow through California to Nevada by way of railroad, along the infamous Cajon Pass, which is the most dangerous train route in California. Just one spill could cause dozens or hundreds of deaths. "Depending on how concentrated the radioactive plume is, people could die from acute radiation exposure," said anti-nuclear activist Helen Caldicott. "The people handling the accident would be irradiated. They’d be sacrificial lambs."

5. SONGS may be slowly killing its own workers. Five families of San Onofre workers who have died of rare forms of cancer have sued SCE for failing to disclose radiation leaks at the plant. SCE doesn’t deny that such leaks have occurred, or even that radiation may have "migrated" off-site, but insists that 20 percent of Americans die of cancer and therefore the company isn’t responsible for a similar rate of the disease among its workers. According to James Warf, one of the scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project, there’s another danger inherent in working at nuclear facilities like SONGS: radiation that doesn’t kill you but causes birth defects in your kids. "One regulation that might be considered is that only people beyond childbearing years can be hired to work at nuclear plants," he said.

6. The U.S. government is now distributing anti-radiation pills to people who live in the area surrounding SONGS and other nuclear reactors. The pills, which contain potassium iodide, will prevent thyroid cancer if taken one or two minutes after you breathe air that has been contaminated by a radiation leak. All nuclear plant workers carry the pills, as do emergency response teams, but only now are the pills being made available to the public. The reason for the government’s hesitation? The pills only protect against radioactive iodine, one of several deadly compounds that might be released during a radiation leak and may lull locals into a false sense of security. Their best advice for what to do if there’s an "event" at San Onofre is to stay indoors with the windows shut or run for the hills.

7. In case SONGS blows up, leaks, or otherwise causes massive death and destruction, SCE doesn’t want to pay any hefty fines. So far, there hasn’t been any Chernobyl-style "worst-case scenario" disaster at any U.S. nuclear reactor, but the government estimates that one such incident could occur every 30 years—so we’re overdue. Which may help explain why SCE and other utilities support an effort by the Bush administration to reauthorize the 45-year-old Price-Anderson Act, which says that the operator of a nuclear plant that leaks, blows up or otherwise experiences a catastrophic incident should only be liable for $10 billion in cleanup expenses. The rest of the money would be paid by taxpayers.

If $10 billion sounds like a lot of money, consider this: the estimated cost of a nuclear accident, according to 1982 estimates, would be as high as $590 billion per reactor. "The proposed law says contractors are not liable for one extra cent of any damages they cause, even if they are found to be negligent in the accident," said Diane D’Arrigo, radioactive-waste project director at the Washington, D.C.-based Nuclear Information and Resource Service.

8. Nuclear power is a rip-off. When all its reactors are up and running, SONGS produces only about 20 percent of SCE’s energy, but every penny of SONGS’ $4.3 billion construction cost has been paid for by California taxpayers, thanks to a unique deal with the California Public Utilities Commission. But that’s only half the story: the public is also paying every cent of the cost of "decommissioning" the plants, which basically involves classifying each part of the reactor by radioactivity, breaking up the plant into pieces, and burying them on some Indian reservation. SCE has already started taking apart SONGS’ Unit 1 reactor, but it won’t be finished until 2008, and remember, there are still two more reactors to go. Because there’s still no place to safely bury all this waste—see No. 3 above—the cost of decommissioning is still unknown but definitely measurable in the billions of dollars.

9. Although SONGS was designed to be operated safely for just 20 to 30 years, SCE has already extended its license to operate the plant until 2022. As the concrete-lined reactor walls get older, their ability to contain the pressure involved in containing a nuclear accident gets weaker. Think of the aging passenger jet that lost its roof 24,000 feet over Hawaii a few years back. "When the chain reaction that creates nuclear energy takes place, it embrittles the containment vessel," said PSR’s Parfrey. "Then, if you ever have to cool the rods in an emergency, you will have a structure that will not be able to contain the pressure."

10. Even without the threat of terrorism, the damn thing is just too dangerous. San Onofre’s environmental-impact report estimates that if a major release of radiation occurs at SONGS, here’s what we can expect: 130,000 immediate fatalities, 300,000 latent cancers and 600,000 genetic effects passed on to Southern California residents and their children. Have a nice day!

###

====================================================

SHUT SAN ONOFRE NOW!   Let's get real.  Not another day.  Not another death.

CONTACT GOVERNOR DAVIS TODAY.  Tell him to immediately send security forces to all four operating nuclear power plants in California and force them to SHUT DOWN FOREVER:

"Governor Gray Davis" <graydavis@governor.ca.gov>

also, "cc" Senator Barbara Boxer (Feinstein doesn't have an email address -- you have to go to her web site to leave a message, and her fax line seem to always be busy):

"Barbara Boxer, Senator (CA, D)" <senator@boxer.senate.gov>

IF CALIFORNIA TURNS TO RENEWABLES, THE REST OF THE COUNTRY WILL SOON FOLLOW IN OUR FOOTSTEPS.

If it doesn't, there will be a nuclear catastrophe somewhere, sooner or later, that will be so HORRIFIC that it cannot be covered up like the scattered deaths of tens of thousands has been covered up JUST SO THE NUCLEAR FAT-CATS CAN MAKE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS.

THIS CRIME MAKES ENRON, WORLDCOM, ETC. ALL SMALL POTATOES.  CAN YOU EVEN REMEMBER ALL THE CROOKS' NAMES, THESE DAYS?  BUT IF AN AMERICAN NUKE PLANT MELTS DOWN, THE WORLD WILL REMEMBER ITS NAME FOR CENTURIES TO COME.

THE CORPORATE NUCLEAR ATTACK ON AMERICA IS THE BIGGEST CRIME IN HISTORY.

It will take the efforts of millions of people to stop it.

If you would like to subscribe to my newsletter, please send your request to:
rhoffman_at_animatedsoftware.com

=====================================================

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** THE ANIMATED SOFTWARE COMPANY
** Russell D. Hoffman, Owner and Chief Programmer
** Visit the world's most eclectic web site:
** http://www.animatedsoftware.com
*************************************************

IF YOU RECEIVED THIS EMAIL IN ERROR AND/OR DO NOT WISH TO RECEIVE ANY MORE EMAILS FROM US FOR ANY REASON, PLEASE CONTACT RUSSELL HOFFMAN AT:

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