Important San Onofre Nuke Waste Information For 2012

“These reactors produce 50 years of electricity and half a million years of waste. It’s not a particularly good deal.” Danial Hirsch

On Oct. 11, 2011 a forum on the issue of San Onofre Nuclear Generation Station (SONGS) running past it's decommission date of 2013 was held here in San Clemente. Our town is closest to SONGS, which is operated by Southern California Edison. The final speaker was Danial Hirsch of CommitteeToBridgeTheGap.org, a professor at UCLA.

He makes it very clear that "What happend at Fukushima, can happen here in San Clemente." We were just lucky that it did not happen in 2011.

Here is to a lucky 2012

Regulators Allow Radioactive Dumping At San Onofre Too...

Is the Japanese government and the IAEA protecting the nuclear industry and not the people of Japan by claiming that Fukushima is stable when it is not? Fairewinds’ chief engineer Arnie Gundersen outlines major inconsistencies and double-speak by the IAEA, Japanese Government, and TEPCO claiming that the Fukushima accident is over. Dynamic versus static equilibrium, escalated dose exposures to the Japanese children and nuclear workers, and the blending of radioactive materials with non-contaminated material and spreading this contaminated ash throughout Japan are only a small part of this ongoing nuclear tragedy.

Radioactive Waste: The San Onofre File

San Onofre’s liquid radwastes flow out of the plants through “outflows” pipes and empty into the Pacific. According to the plant’s 2007 Radioactive Effluent Release Report to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, there were 202 liquid effluent “batch” releases that year. These releases lasted a total of 489 hours, or over 20 days. The longest was 7.6 hours in duration. The releases averaged 2.4 hours.

The releases contained many dangerous radioactive chemicals, including cesium 137, cobalt 60, iodine 131 and strontium 90. Cesium 137 has a radioactive life of over 300 years, cobalt 60′s over 50 years, and strontium 90′s almost 300. Iodine 131′s radioactive life is only a few months, but during that time it is intensely radioactive. I-131 mimics regular iodine, and concentrates in the thyroid gland if it enters our bodies. I-131 caused high rates of thyroid cancer.. read more

Total Cost of Fukushima Arnie Gundersen and Warren Pollock

Arnie Gundersen of Fairwinds Associates (a leading nuclear expert) and Warren Pollock (http://www.wepollock.com) redefine the Fukushima nuclear incidents (meltdowns and explosions) in terms of human and total cost. Its easy to look at the details of a highly complex speciality, but it has been hard to quantify the cost and risk of nuclear power up to now! We talk about the rate of failure of nuclear being so high that were that rate applied to aviation there would be no air travel. Nuclear is different in that you have no choice in trading risk for travel, or in this case risk for energy. During 9-11 human value in the western world was quantified in an actuarial model which put each person at a value of $1.8 million dollars. Gundersen explains that up to 1 Million people will be damaged by this incident which puts the total damage well into the trillions of dollars. The full cost of nuclear power has to consider human cost and costs of contamination to the environment. We clarify some important issues regarding radiation and particulate matter.

Cancer Epidemic in San Clemente

Is cancer an epidemic in America? by Ace Hoffman

A friend and I were looking back at 2011. She remarked about all the cancer she's seen this year. Last month she lost a close friend -- a woman in her 30s. Another friend, 40, has bladder cancer for the second time.

My step-mother recently made a similar remark about cancer in my own family. She lives on the other side of the country and the family is scattered all over the globe. One brother-in-law has stomach cancer which has metastasized, and many of us are cancer survivors (including me (bladder, 2007)). And on my own newsletter list I know of a number of ongoing cancer cases as well.

It feels like an epidemic, but of course, the epidemiologists who work for the state or the federal government would undoubtedly tell us they can't discern anything "statistically significant" (they love that phrase!) from our "data" -- it's just a few random points, it doesn't show a trend. That's true of course -- but we're talking about real lives of our friends and families, not raw, impersonal numbers. We're looking for answers.

Click here to read more 

Sign the Petition for the California Nuclear Initiative

“If the NRC does not do its job, the American people will demand the ultimate protection – the shutdown of old nuclear power plants…”, says Senator Barbara Boxer to NRC Commissioners on 12/15/2011.

The California Nuclear Initiative proposes to do just that.

We need your help to effectively shut down the two dangerous nuclear power plants in California — San Onofre in San Clemente and Diablo Canyon in San Luis Obispo. Our safety and financial future are at stake.

Please sign the petition and help circulate petitions so the California Nuclear Initiative can get on the ballot for the November 2012 election.

The people in California still have the right to vote to make change happen. However, the system only works if you participate.

Go to the California Nuclear Initiative website to download petitions, to learn more about this initiative and about how you can help make a difference.

For more information about the safety issues at San Onofre go to SanOnofreSafety.org.

We only have until April 2012 to get 504,760 valid voter signatures, so please do it now! This is an all volunteer grassroots campaign, so we need your help to make this happen.

Thank you.

NRC COMMISSIONERS PLAYING GAMES WITH OUR HEALTH & SAFETY

OUTRAGED EXPRESS THAT FOUR NRC COMMISSIONERS ARE PLAYING POLITICAL GAMES WITH THE HEALTH AND SAFETY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.

1. We believe it is outrageous that the NRC commissioners are playing political games with health and safety of the American public.

2. Four NRC Commissioners are trying to delay and weaken new safety regulations deemed necessary for U.S. nuclear power plants in a post-Fukushima environment.Instead these commissioners are trying to divert attention from their responsibilities to the public by a public fight with the NRC chair. The issue is what is NRC doing to improve safety, not who gets along with whom.

            3. Nuclear accidents are forever; radiation released by a single event can create cancer,                                    genetic mutations and birth defects, and would bankrupt California.

4. Our lives and the life all future generations depend on this federal agency acting on behalf of the people, not the nuclear industry as these four commissioners are positioning themselves to do.

5. This is yet another example of the history of the NRC and is why there is a California Ballot Initiative to shut down San Onofre and Diablo Canyon gatherings signatures right now for the November 2012 election, available at: Californianuclearinitiative.com

6. At a hearing held by Senator Boxer on December 15 she says to the NRC commissioners, “Let me tell you what happens when people lose confidence in the NRC and the nuclear industry. Right now, there is a petition being circulated for a ballot initiative that would effectively shut down the two nuclear power plants in California. I believe we will see more of that across the country if America doesn't have confidence in the NRC.”

Residents Organized for a Safe Environment (ROSE), San Clemente Green;

SONGS was designed to be decommissioned in 2013.

At the mention of nuclear meltdown, and its cataclysmic results (hello Fukushima), the nuke industry's chorus erupts in unified denial, "It can't happen!" But it does happen. In Japan and Russia, nukes' tragic opera has no end. Reality, televises the unimaginable horrors of nuclear gone haywire, beginning with the end of WWII. Chernobyl does too. Now Fukushima is worse even. Facts is Facts: "San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station" SONGS was designed to be decommissioned in 2013. Today, SONGS is an old piece of machinery, sitting on sand, over earthquake faults, at water's edge, housing 4,000 tons of nuclear waste. The same overheated poision rendering Fukushima deadly forever after. It doesn't take a nuclear engineer to grasp the everlasting impacts of nuclear meltdown. But apparently, it takes a nuclear engineer to deny it. Shutting SONGS by 2013 was the promise. Its creators knew full well its safe life span. Super heated metals only last so long. 2013 was SONGS drop-dead date. But Edison wants to push the envelope. Move the goal posts. Is SONGS' measly 6.5% electrical output worth it? Is San Clemente worth it? Deniers will always deny. Maybe it's their job. Maybe they're trying to convince themselves. Whichever. It doesn't change SONGS' scary reality. Imagine SONGS gone. Doesn't that feel better? It does to me. Sorry meltdown deniers. We can live happily ever after without SONGS. But there are no guarantees, we can live with it. 2013 was the promise, for good reason. jerry collamer San Clemente Ca - 92672