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Cunningham wants to keep Diablo Canyon open, use revenue to pay fire victims

October 15, 2019

Assemblyman Jordan Cunningham

By JOSH FRIEDMAN

Central Coast Assemblyman Jordan Cunningham has announced his intention to introduce a bill aimed at keeping Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant operational, which is currently slated to shut down by 2025.

Cunningham’s plan also includes a proposal that PG&E sell the nuclear plant and give $1 billion of the proceeds to wildfire victims. Another $300 million of proceeds from a potential sale of Diablo Canyon would go to wildfire prevention through hardening of the electrical grid, under Cunningham’s proposal.

In January, Cunningham will introduce a bill that would classify nuclear power as renewable under the states Renewable Portfolio Standard, the assemblyman said.

Cunningham has previously attempted to achieve the reclassification of nuclear power through a constitutional amendment. Earlier this year, Cunningham introduced a proposed constitutional amendment that would include nuclear and large-scale hydropower in the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard.

The assemblyman’s new proposal would mandate the California Public Utility Commission (PUC) not approve a PG&E bankruptcy or settlement plan that does not include an initiative to continue the operation of the nuclear power plant. Additionally, the bill would require at least $1 billion and $300 million of the proceeds from a potential sale of the plant go to fire victims and wildfire prevention respectively.

“Californians deserve an all-of-the-above approach to fighting climate change. Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, an emission-free source of electricity that supplies the state with 9 percent of its power, needs to be a part of the answer,” Cunningham said in a statement. “PG&E and the bankruptcy court should be looking at creative ways to raise the type of capital necessary to pay fire victims. There’s no reason for a bankrupt utility with billions of dollars in liabilities to shut down a perfectly safe and profitable source of emission-free electricity.”


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It’s no longer cost effective, only under educated and over propagandized CONservatives want to throw more money at a investor owned utility.


Lets dump all of the self serving republicans in California 2020.


-15

Amen!


-3

WRONG, here’s a Calcoastnews article countering your feelings. And this is not about political ideology. It’s about science and reality.


https://calcoastnews.com/2014/03/high-cancer-rates-near-diablo-canyon-nuclear-plant/


-17

maybe not

maybe not

says:

03/08/2014 at 9:09 pm


By the way, I grew up near San Onofre and am aware of similar events there. I’m not questioning your story, only the inappropriate use of the term “Theory.” A “Theory” in science if well founded, has not ever been proved wrong. To many people think that it means “in my opinion.”


Like or Dislike: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0


-1

A fact, then, discussed at Cal Poly and Cuesta College in regard to Nuclear Science: from the time Diablo Canyon was installed, children’s teeth born after the installation within a 40 mile radius had radioactive isotopes from Diablo Canyons fuel rods in their teeth collected at Sierra Vista. An opinion and fact; are their odds including mine to have mutated DNA and aquire devastating cancer increased due to this bad example of nuclear energy?Yes. There is safe nuclear energy, but America, Japan and Russia do not have it. China is working on it with Bill the Creep Gates. Bitch at that global imperial 1% job exporting capitalist to bring jobs and clean energy HERE!, not China and India!


-6

“A “Theory” in science if well founded, has not ever been proved wrong. ”

I love how you use “well founded” which is about as subjective as it comes. Anyway, you’re wrong…

Einstein’s Static Universe Theory, Plum Pudding Model Theory, Balance of Nature Theory, Abiogenic Petroleum Origin Theory, Catastrophism Theory, Expanding Earth Theory, Haarman’s Oscillation Theory, and I could go on, have all been proven wrong.

The fact of the matter is a theory is as relevant to knowledge as knowledge is to time, get it? As we progress in time we progress in knowledge which in some cases makes theories obsolete/wrong. Example; Newtonian Physics now being challenged by Relativistic Physics and Quantum Physics.

But!!! The harm that radioactive material(s) cause is no theory, it’s fact! And as time goers on, and our knowledge expands, we discover it is more harmful then we previously thought.


0

Thank you for the quantum perspective, I didn’t dare to dive deeply. String theory, 0 point energy….whaaaaat! Tesla!?!


-1

What a dumb idea. Guess Jordan’s forgotten why PG&E wants to close it: it costs too much to run, the electricity it produces is economically uncompetitive, and they don’t need the electricity. Now who ‘s going to buy it with all that in the sales brochure? Maybe North Korea?


-19

They should be building more nuclear power plants, oh course keep it open. You can’t reply on green energy and especially if the United States ever goes into a major war again, you need nuclear.


With so many things going electric you’re gonna have the need for more energy in the years to come, the progressive liberal democrat idea of only solar energy, wind etc method isn’t completely sustainable. Imagine 300 million electric cars in 30 years and a US population of 650 million people, you can’t do it with all solar etc, you need constant energy so we need nuclear, period.


23

I thought Diablo is severely outdated (1960’s design?). I don’t think I would support keeping it running as is past the shutdown date… but today there are MUCH better methods for building nuclear power plants. Bill Gates even has a company doing it, http://www.terrapower.com .


-17

Diablo is only evil becuz capitalism. Once the government owns it will be clean, green and safe.


Right?


26

No, it is evil because it is a 50+ year old design no matter who owns or runs it. Are we flying in planes that are 50 years old or launching satellites with 50 year old designed rockets? No, and those are magnitudes less dangerous to humanity if a major malfunction happens, so why are we even talking about keeping a nuclear power plant operating that was designed in the 60’s and built in the 70’s and has many known design flaws that are corrected in newer technology but not suitable for retrofitting into old technology. Bulldoze the place and build a new one if society is ok with it (doubtful), but to keep it running as-is past its planned lifespan is just begging for something bad to happen. Sad thing is, tides are renewable/cheap energy that will be constant as long as we have a moon, Australia has embraced it and coupled it with desalination so they get clean energy and clean water from the tides. California would never consider it, yet they push solar and wind which are not as stable as tidal for renewable energy.


-19

Retrofit Diablo as a Thorium reactor and I would be all for it.


Thorium reactors can product energy for 1 penny per Kilowatt. The radio active half life is 300 years, not thousands. All the spent fuel currently being housed in Diablo would be reprocessed into Medical Grade Nuclear materials, and the by-product waste would be smaller in size and far less radioactive.


The technology is proven out. Salt plug – “walk away” reactors.


If ever built; the High Speed Rail system will consume a ton of energy. It would make sense for the state to underwrite the electrical supply system required to sustain it. A billion dollar retro fit of Diablo would pay for itself when compared to a rail system without a power supply system integrated into it. The grid already moves the Diablo power to the valley.


Let’s build the high speed rail power supply first, then add the railroad.


-3

Agreed. More stable and less dangerous. Safe Nuclear is so possible.


12

Woah, careful, stating facts like that here is going to piss off some people’s “feelings”, reality stings to some ostriches with their head in holes here.


4

Because it is, and they store spent rods in an open pool on a hill. Google Earth that toxic Dino plant on a double fault line on the Ring Of Fking Fire called tectonics. They modified the plant by just slamming more insane rods a while back too, old unstable tech. Naughty Bill Gates is working on smaller sized, less dangerous plants as some one said. Chernobyl and Fukashima, next is Avila; bye bye million dollar mansions!


-11

Currently there are no nuclear power plant designs that are cost effective, they are obsolete.


-10

Yea sure Rep. Cunningham, just like there’s “clean coal”…

Nuclear power, created from uranium, is non-renewable, period! Just like fossil fuels uranium is a finite material and it’s creation takes millions, maybe billions, of years. If in fact it is renewable why are there uranium shortages in this industry? And just like fossil fuels it does create toxic waste (both toxic to humans and all forms of life on this planet) with one large exception; it takes tens of thousands of years to for this waste to become non-toxic. Also, nuclear power is toxic at every stage, from its mining of the materials to the radioactive waste products that last tens of thousand of years.

Have any of you read what Japan has decided to do with 920,000 TONS of waste from Fukushima? No? They’ve decided tp poor it into the Pacific as they can longer contain it. Yea, we wanna get on-board with that type of irresponsible bullshit [strong as hell sarcasm implied and intended)….


-29

Boy, I’m weary of going rock cod fishing now after looking at the tidal flow of isotopes from Japan. Anyone know Slo county cancer rates went up after diablo SIGNIFICANTLY, and Babies teeth contain Isotopes from Diablo. The international nuclear watch commission gathered teeth from Sierra Vista and analyzed them molecularly, Rod material from Diablo, the devil, some pun intended. . Oh, facts are so cancerous. Was my dad’s cancer and death related, who knows, he suffered, it sucked.


-12

Facts to deniers isn’t relative, not one frickin’ bit! They would rather have a proven expensive, unreliable, non-sustainable and often deadly product over a clean, renewable, cost effective harmless product any day of the weak. Why? Because, in my opinion, they see it as political movement put on by a bunch of radicals, or Greenies (a derogatory term), and will do anything that will discredit their validity.

Here’s what the Japanese scientific community said about one of the biggest myths surrounding nuclear energy, “Safe” nuclear energy:

“Despite the continuing disaster at Fukushima No. 1, there remains one final myth regarding nuclear power plants in Japan: Namely, that in the absence of a major accident, a normally operating nuclear power plant is safe. However, the now-verifiable reality is that it is not, at least not for residents living in the vicinity of the plant.” – “Health studies explode the myth of the ‘safe’ nuclear power plant.”, The Japan Times – June 14, 2014

They also sighted CCN in that same article:

“On March 4, the Cal Coast News reported on a recent study conducted by the nonprofit World Business Academy business think tank concerning the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant in San Luis Obispo County, California. The study found that those living within a 25-km radius of the plant had a significantly increased incidence of various cancers, including thyroid, breast and melanoma.”

“Further, since the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant opened in the mid-1980s, San Luis Obispo County changed from a relatively low-incidence county in terms of cancer to a high-incidence county, translating to an additional 738 people diagnosed with cancer between 2001 and 2010.”

“Cancer incidence in San Luis Obispo County rose from 0.4 percent below the California average to 6.9 percent above that figure, giving it the highest cancer rate of all 20 counties in Southern California. After Diablo Canyon began operating, the incidence of thyroid and female breast cancer also showed a significant increase.”

“Perhaps most disturbingly, after Diablo Canyon began operating, both infant mortality and child/adolescent cancer mortality rose significantly. The incidence of melanoma soared from 3.6 percent above to 130.2 percent above the state incidence rate. It now has the highest rate of all the counties in California.”

There is nothing safe about the current Diablo Canyon plant, nothing! To retrofit it doesn’t address the fact that it is dangerous by just being there without any type of incident.


-4

here’s a great idea for power hungry politicians to foist on a gullible, logic-incapable electorate:


Take a business that created nothing but one massive environmental crisis and threat after another—-remember all the protests?—and let the CA state government control it!


Once the state owns it, it will no longer be a threat to the environment! Why? Because there won’t be any reporting on non-existent protests. That makes it clean energy…..the good stuff.


Right now, it’s evil. See how that works?


Of course, I also agree that we need Diablo Canyon….especially for the green madness that is coming ourt way. I just marvel at the idea that the government can run it better than PGE.


Rates are going to go higher than anyone could imagine…..


24

Wow. This just might redeem Cunningham from his disastrous cap and trade vote.


-8

With the onslaught of Teslas we can’t close Diablo anyway. The greenies claim to want less energy but in reality they drive and fly everywhere to complain about waste. Without the hardworking people that enable these wasteful greenies, they’d drown in their own filth. Go Assemblyman Cunningham, save Diablo for the next generation to improve but NEVER LET PG&E sever this liability.


13

Let’s see how Mother’s for Peace handle this:


“Save Diablo Canyon for our children!” will replace “Close Diablo Canyon for our children!”


19

Oh because people wanting clean air and water is bad?


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