September 10th, 2007
Dear Readers,
Note: Due to suspected email delivery problems and to correct the date of the original statute, this newsletter is being resent.
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News Item: Last Sunday (September 9th, 2007) California State Assembly Republicans voted unanimously to support allowing the building of new nuclear power plants in California, intending to overturn a 31-year-old law (Chapters 194 and 196, California Statutes of 1976) which prohibits such construction until a solution is found for the problem of what to do with the nuclear waste.
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No solution has been found because the problem is intractable. Nothing built of atoms (and everything in the universe is made of atoms!) can withstand the bombardment of radioactive decay -- it's a physical law of nature. Hence, no containment can EVER be built which will guarantee the safe sequestering of nuclear waste. And yet, we keep making more nuclear waste, AS IF a solution is just around the corner. Instead, the coroner is just around the corner. Cancer is on the rise. Specialists who have researched the problem know why, but the nuclear industry won't let the public at large know why.
When a meltdown or any serious nuclear accident actually occurs, which one of these California Republicans is going to stand up in front of a microphone and recommend to pregnant women in California that they may want to choose to have an abortion, in order to prevent the birth of a horribly deformed baby who otherwise will only suffer terribly and then soon die? Especially those woman who are in their first trimester -- those fetuses are especially likely to be harmed. While surely neither God nor any caring human being prefers abortions, just as surely, no one wants the unnecessary, man-made suffering of the innocent.
At least the Russians had the courage (gumption?) to "suggest" that woman around Chernobyl should consider abortions. Now, more than 20 years after Chernobyl, over 1000 square miles of prime agricultural real estate around the plant is still uninhabitable, with no change expected any time soon -- if ever. And in Kiev, there is now a museum of deformities caused by Chernobyl. Spontaneous abortions of babies without limbs or with arms coming out of their foreheads. What California Republican has visited that museum?
What California Republican is willing to tell 30 million people in the greater Los Angeles area that they have to leave their homes and can never come back, if a plant near them melts down (such as San Onofre or the new one in Irvine which the bill's sponsor, Chuck Devore, surely wants built in HIS backyard)?
And what OTHER power plants are they planning to build for all the offsite energy supplies that EVERY nuclear power plant MUST have (it's a safety requirement)? Will THOSE be coal plants?
And what California Republican would DARE to take ANY test to PROVE they actually understand how nuclear power works and what its dangers are? Do they even know what a fuel assembly looks like?
And what California Republican believes Yucca Mountain, the nation's proposed nuclear waste dump, will actually be built? The team that studied Yucca Mountain was allowed to come up with a better plan if they could think of it. They couldn't. Nevada will NEVER allow Yucca Mountain, so Californians -- all of us, not just the Republicans -- will be stuck with the waste. If there's another solution to the waste problem, what California Republican can describe it? Our four obsolete (but still operating) reactors produce a NEW ton of high-level nuclear waste EVERY TWO DAYS. Extremely dangerous stuff, with nowhere to put it.
What California Republican believes we have the billions of gallons of water to spare to cool these new reactors? In reality, water is a precious commodity here in the West, and nuclear reactors -- even when operating properly -- poison the water with tritium (radioactive hydrogen), radioactive krypton, radioactive cesium, radioactive strontium, and a deadly rainbow of other radioactive elements.
What California Republican wants to give up the additional BILLIONS of gallons of water to cool a stricken reactor? A reactor that will have to be cooled for thousands of years.
What California Republican can assure the public that a Davis-Besse or a Three Mile Island won't happen here? What California Republican even knows what happened to the Davis-Besse plant in 2002, and how close it came to a meltdown -- far closer even than Three Mile Island came?
What California Republican has read even one word by the late Dr. John W. Gofman, whose impeccable research PROVED that so-called low-level radiation is extremely dangerous -- far more dangerous than is officially admitted (at least TWENTY TIMES more dangerous than the pro-nukers falsely believe). Gofman was fired from the Atomic Energy Commission (the forerunner of the DOE and the NRC), where he was chief medical researcher, for his findings. Not because they were wrong, but because they were offensive to the nuclear industry. What California Republican knows any of this? Dr. Gofman ascribed 50% of ALL cancers to ionizing radiation. FIFTY PERCENT! Three-quarters of all breast cancers. "This is not a small problem" as Gofman described it (Dr. Gofman passed away August 15th, 2007 at age 88).
What California Republican realizes that even the National Academy of Sciences, in their BEIR VII report (Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation VII), concluded that there is NO MINIMUM THRESHOLD for radiation damage? Even one nuclear breakdown can cause cancer, heart disease, birth defects, or any of thousands of other ailments. What California Republican knows this?
What California Republican knows that nuclear power is NEVER democratic -- it's just the opposite: Secretive, closed-door, exclusive.
What California Republican cares about California? Cares that we are the Golden State because we have so much sunshine, we could power all our needs from it? Cares about REAL solutions to Global Warming, not Al Gore's pro-nuke lies?
What California Republican has a mind of their own, rather than walking lock-step with State Assemblyman Chuck Devore (R-Irvine) who's knowledge about nuclear power is minimal, as shown by his own comments at a public hearing in San Clemente last spring (2007)?
What California Republican can testify that no plane will ever be hijacked again? The spent fuel pools, the control rooms, the backup diesel generators, the intake coolant pipes, the discharge pipes, and many more VITAL portions of every nuke are located OUTSIDE THE CONTAINMENT DOMES. And what California Republican realizes that aircraft engine turbine shafts can smash THROUGH the containment domes anyway? And what California Republican realizes how many OTHER ways there are to destroy a nuclear power plant? What California Republican realizes that tomorrow's generation of nuclear power plants are being designed WITHOUT containment domes, making them even MORE vulnerable to terrorist attacks?
What California Republican remembers that we live in an earthquake-prone area, and realizes how close Japan came to "Genpatsu-Shinsai" (a nuclear meltdown spurred on by an earthquake) just a few months ago?
What California Republican cares about his or her reputation? After a meltdown or any serious accident (and an accident is INEVITABLE over time) their reputations will be ruined, but that will hardly matter then.
What California Republican cares about the future of California? Nary a one.
Sincerely,
Ace