Nuclear Energy…SOOO 20th Century!
You’d never know it from the multi-million dollar propaganda campaign being waged by the ‘Nuclear Renaissance’ flacks, but nuclear power is on the way out – a victim of greed, stupidity, public opposition and a terminal dose of market forces. Southern California Edison’s June 7 announcement that it is permanently decommissioning its two faulty nuclear reactors at San Onofre, CA comes on the heals of two similar announcements by other investor owned utilities (IOUs) around the U.S.. That’s a recent total of 4 reactors down out of the existing U.S. fleet of 104. In fact, the economic and environmental logic of shutting down aging, rickety reactors and cancellations of nuclear building projects is taking the form of a global trend.

According to Washington’s Blog, [ Nuclear Power Is Being Abandoned Worldwide ]The Economist reports:

The [nuclear] industry’s role in electricity production is continuing to decline, according to this year’s World Nuclear Industry Status Report, a compendium of analysis and data by the activist and expert Mycle Schneider. The number of reactors peaked in 2002 at 444, compared with 427 today. The share of electricity they produce is down 12% from its 2006 peak, largely because of post-Fukushima shutdowns in Japan. As a proportion of all electricity generated, nuclear peaked in 1993 at 17% and has now fallen to 10%. The average age of operating plants is increasing, with the number over 40 years old (currently 31 plants) set to grow quite rapidly.

Leading off this edition of our blog, Mothers for Peace Spokeswoman Linda Seeley explains the many risks posed to California by the continued operation of PG&E’s aged two-unit Diablo Canyon nuclear plant near San Luis Obispo, and why, like San Onofre, it should be shutdown permanently – like, NOW.

This is another in the ‘Preview Interview’ series Part One: the forthcoming EON documentary SHUTDOWN: The Case of San Onofre – “The Nuclear Free California Movement Rides Again.” [ More related links and info on this issue below the video viewer. ]

Linda Seeley has been walking her talk for three decades, as the following clip from David L. Brown’s historic 1986 documentary A QUESTION OF POWER shows. Linda was there at Diablo in the ’80s for the largest mass non-violent demonstrations against the building of a nuclear plant in history up to that point. Then Governor Jerry Brown was there then, too, on the side of the Nuclear Free California Movement. The NFC Movement’s still here. The risks are still there. Linda is still walking her talk. Where is Gov. Brown on this issue, now? You can ask him right here. To date, Jerry Brown has refrained from so much as a comment on the issue of San Onofre,

Public Opposition to Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant – Historic Clip

Urban planner Torgen Johnson and his team have produced the following map. Torgen writes:

Attached is the Diablo map my office just completed.

It is intended to illustrate the grossly inadequate emergency planning assumptions for Diablo Canyon, and to open up the public dialog about the relative risks and benefits of the DCNPP facility. The red shaded areas represent the radioactive footprint of the fallout in Fukushima in only the first 25 hours of the ongoing disaster superimposed over Diablo Canyon. The footprint shown is only 20% of the Fukushima disaster. The other 80% of fallout was blown out to sea.

In the case of a severe accident at Diablo Canyon nearly all the fallout would be blown inland by prevailing winds. This needs to be shared with land and business owners in Santa Barbara and Ventura as well. The source of the footprint is LLNL.

Please share this map widely. [ Download PDF here. ] It prints full size at about 36″ x 38″

And Fukushima’s not over:

You Won’t BELIEVE What’s Going On at Fukushima Right Now
Posted on August 1, 2013 by WashingtonsBlog
Tepco Has No Idea How to Stabilize the Reactors

You’ve heard bad news about Fukushima recently.
But it’s worse than you know.
The Wall Street Journal notes that radiation levels outside the plant are likely higher than inside the reactor: Read more…

“Scientists say that radiation on the West Coast of North America could end up being 10 times higher than in Japan.”

What ‘nuclear renaissance?’

As Mark Cooper, Senior Fellow For Economic Analysis Institute For Energy And The Environment at the Vermont Law School notes in his recently published study, RENAISSANCE IN REVERSE: Competition Pushes Aging U.S.Nuclear Reactors To The Brink Of Economic Abandonment:

Over the last decade, as nuclear advocates touted a “nuclear renaissance” they made extremely optimistic claims about nuclear reactor costs to convince policy-makers and regulators that new nuclear reactors would be cost competitive with other options for meeting the need for electricity. These economic analyses rested on two broad categories of claims about nuclear reactors.
New nuclear reactors could be built quickly and at relatively low cost.
New Nuclear reactors would run at very high levels of capacity for long periods of time with very low operating costs.

Both of those claims have been proven to be totally false.
[ Read more -PDF here. ]

See also:
Austria to go 100 percent nuclear-free
This month, Austria went ahead with its plans to ban imports of nuclear power to the country. Electricity is to be labeled to ensure that no power from nuclear reactors is purchased from abroad. The EU is not pleased about the move, which has gone practically unnoticed in reports in English.

Does nuclear power produce no CO2 ?
by Dave Kimble, originally published by www.peakoil.org.au | May 11, 2006
Proponents of nuclear power always say that one of the big benefits of nuclear power is that it produces no Carbon dioxide (CO2).
This is completely untrue, as a moment’s consideration will demonstrate that fossil fuels, especially oil in the form of gasoline and diesel, are essential to every stage of the nuclear cycle, and CO2 is given off whenever these are used. [ This fine photo essay of carbon dependency at all stages of the nuclear fuel cycle speaks for itself. ]

As Washington’s Blog sums it up: Nuclear Is NOT a Low-Carbon Source of Energy

“Alternet points out:

Mark Cooper, senior fellow for economic analysis at the Vermont Law School … found that the states that invested heavily in nuclear power had worse track records on efficiency and developing renewables than those that did not have large nuclear programs. In other words, investing in nuclear technology crowded out developing clean energy.

“BBC notes:

Building the [nuclear] power station produces a lot of CO2 ….

‘Greenpeace points out:

When it comes to nuclear power, the industry wants you to think of electricity generation in isolation ….. And yet the production of nuclear fuel is a hugely intensive process. Uranium must be mined, milled, converted, enriched, converted again and then manufactured into fuel. You’ll notice the [the nuclear industry] doesn’t mention the carbon footprint of all steps in the nuclear chain prior to electricity generation. Fossil fuels have to be used and that means CO2 emissions.

‘An International Forum on Globalization report – written by environmental luminaries Ernest Callenbach, Gar Smith and Jerry Mander – have slammed nuclear power as catastrophic for the environment:

Nuclear energy is not the “clean” energy its backers proclaim. For more than 50 years, nuclear energy has been quietly polluting our air, land, water and bodies—while also contributing to Global Warming through the CO2 emissions from its construction, mining, and manufacturing operations. Every aspect of the nuclear fuel cycle—mining, milling, shipping, processing, power generation, waste disposal and storage—releases greenhouse gases, radioactive particles and toxic materials that poison the air, water and land. Nuclear power plants routinely expel low-level radionuclides into the air in the course of daily operations. While exposure to high levels of radiation can kill within a matter of days or weeks, exposure to low levels on a prolonged basis can damage bones and tissue and result in genetic damage, crippling long-term injuries, disease and death…. More…

The ‪Hiroshima‬ Myth. Unaccountable ‪War‬ Crimes and the Lies of US Military History
By Dr. Gary G. Kohls

This coming Tuesday, August 6, 2013, is the 68th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, the whole truth of which has been heavily censored and mythologized ever since war-weary Americans celebrated V-J Day 10 days later. Read more.

Science with a Skew: The Nuclear Power Industry After Chernobyl and Fukushima
Japanese translation is available.
Gayle Greene

It is one of the marvels of our time that the nuclear industry managed to resurrect itself from its ruins at the end of the last century, when it crumbled under its costs, inefficiencies, and mega-accidents. Chernobyl released hundreds of times the radioactivity of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs combined, contaminating more than 40% of Europe and the entire Northern Hemisphere.1 But along came the nuclear lobby to breathe new life into the industry, passing off as “clean” this energy source that polluted half the globe. The “fresh look at nuclear”—in the words of a New York Times makeover piece (May 13, 2006)2—paved the way to a “nuclear Renaissance” in the United States that Fukushima has by no means brought to a halt.

That mainstream media have been powerful advocates for nuclear power comes as no surprise. “The media are saturated with a skilled, intensive, and effective advocacy campaign by the nuclear industry, resulting in disinformation” and “wholly counterfactual accounts…widely believed by otherwise sensible people,” states the 2010-2011 World Nuclear Industry Status Report by Worldwatch Institute.3 What is less well understood is the nature of the “evidence” that gives the nuclear industry its mandate, Cold War science which, with its reassurances about low-dose radiation risk, is being used to quiet alarms about Fukushima and to stonewall new evidence that would call a halt to the industry.

Consider these damage control pieces from major media:

• The “miniscule quantities” of radiation in the radioactive plume spreading across the U.S. pose “no health hazard,” assures the Department of Energy (William Broad, “Radiation over U.S. is Harmless, Officials Say,” NYT, March 22, 2011).

• “The risk of cancer is quite low, lower than what the public might expect,” explains Evan Douple, head of the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF), which has studied the A-bomb survivors and found that “at very low doses, the risk was also very low” (Denise Grady, “Radiation is everywhere, but how to rate harm?” NYT, April 5, 2011).

• An NPR story a few days after the Daiichi reactors destabilized quotes this same Evan Douple saying that radiation levels around the plant “should be reassuring. At these levels so far I don’t think a study would be able to measure that there would be any health effects, even in the future.” (“Early radiation data from near plant ease health fears,” Richard Knox and Andrew Prince,” March 18, 2011) The NPR story, like Grady’s piece (above), stresses that the Radiation Effects Research Foundation has had six decades experience studying the health effects of radiation, so it ought to know.

• British journalist George Monbiot, environmentalist turned nuclear advocate, in a much publicized debate with Helen Caldicott on television and in the Guardian, refers to the RERF data as “scientific consensus,” citing, again, their reassurances that low dose radiation incurs low cancer risk.4

Everyone knows that radiation at high dose is harmful, but the Hiroshima studies reassure that risk diminishes as dose diminishes until it becomes negligible. This is a necessary belief if the nuclear industry is to exist, because reactors release radioactive emissions not only in accidents, but in their routine, day-to-day operations and in the waste they produce. If low-dose radiation is not negligible, workers in the industry are at risk, as are people who live in the vicinity of reactors or accidents—as is all life on this planet .
– See more

Nuclear Infant Zombies?

Nuclear Infant Zombies?
The San Onofre Plant Seems To Be Dead. But Nukes Have a Strange Knack For Revival.
BY PETER DYKSTRA | JULY 29, 2013

Perhaps the oddest thing about nuclear power’s journey through American history is that we can’t seem to decide whether nukes are dying, being reborn, or walking around as zombies.

On the one hand, nuclear plants have had a bad-news few years. In June, Southern California Edison announced that it would permanently shut its trouble-plagued reactors at San Onofre, which powered 1.4 million homes in the region. By September, the plant will have laid off nearly two-thirds of its 1,500 workers. (The plant was already doomed by a legacy of breakdowns and failed fixes when the Fukushima disaster in Japan persuaded many Californians it posed a threat to the 8.5 million people who live within 50 miles of it.)

This spring, Dominion Resources closed its Kewaunee nuclear plant south of Green Bay, Wisconsin. The plant was in good working order, but falling energy prices made Kewaunee not worth the trouble. (Ironically, Dominion had just received a hard-fought renewal of its operating license for the plant.)

One the other hand, nukes remain central to America’s electric grid, pumping out about 19 percent of our national juice, and die-hard supporters still see nuclear power as a carbon-free cure for climate change.

The industry’s origins date to the 1950s, when “too-cheap-to-meter” nuclear energy was touted as a sidekick to the H-bomb and a mascot for the Cold War. Thanks to quiet, steady growth in the ’60s and early ’70s, approximately 35 plants were in operation by 1977, and construction had begun on 30 more. By then, however, a growing environmental movement was also targeting nukes with mass demonstrations at sites like Seabrook, N.H. and star-studded benefits like the 1979 “No Nukes” concerts.

Around this time, Wall Street also noticed that nuclear plants were not the financial performers they were cracked up to be. After the near-disaster at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island, financial interests in new nukes went into cold shutdown.

As Forbes put it in 1985, “The failure of the U.S. nuclear power program ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale. … It is a defeat for the U.S. consumer and for the competitiveness of U.S. industry, for the utilities that undertook the program and for the private enterprise system that made it possible.”

Chernobyl’s actual disaster seven years later put an exclamation point on the nuclear retreat.

But things began to rumble in the first years of the 21st century. More…

‘Nature reported in 2008:

“You’re better off pursuing renewables like wind and solar if you want to get more bang for your buck.”’

===========
If you like EON’s work, you can support it, whatever your budget level, here.

[ Scroll down for video report on radiation monitoring in food – by Cindy Folkers. ]

The American Medical Association (AMA) recently passed a resolution asking the US FDA to monitor and fully report the radioactivity levels of edible Pacific Ocean species sold in the United States.

EON is a member of the Fukushima Fallout Awareness Network (FFAN). FFAN released a press statement applauding this recognition by the AMA that the US public has a right to know radioactivity levels in their Pacific seafood and the potential health risks posed.

FFAN now asks that the AMA support the FFAN official citizen petition effort to get the US FDA to lower the levels of radiation that are currently permitted in our overall food supply.

At this time, US ‘guidelines’ allow for 1200 bq./kg, one of the highest in the world. Japan’s limit is 100, so food too contaminated to be sold in Japan could be sold here in the U.S.

FFAN has also created a public petition which will go to the FDA, US Congress and President Obama.

PRESS RELEASE

Food Safety Group Applauds Recent American Medical Association Recommendation
to Test U.S. Seafood for Radiation

FFAN urges responsible, transparent testing guidelines and national database for seafood radiation. Wants results made public.

For Immediate Release
July 23, 2013 ~ Washington DC

Contact : Cindy Folkers, Radiation and Health Specialist at Beyond Nuclear ~ 240-354-4314
Sean Witzling, Esq. Swankin and Turner ~ 202-462-8800

Fukushima Fallout Awareness Network (FFAN) today applauded the recent American Medical Association (AMA) resolution that calls on the U.S. government to test all U.S. seafood for radiation and fully report the results to the public. The AMA joins FFAN in demanding the public’s ‘Right to Know’ regarding radiation levels in food. The California Medical Association (CMA) initiated the resolution.

In March of 2013, in response to the worst ongoing nuclear disaster in history at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station, FFAN coalition member groups Beyond Nuclear, Citizens for Health and Ecological Options Network filed a legal Citizen Petition through the official process of the United States Department of Health Services Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The FFAN Citizen Petition points out that the U.S. currently has the highest allowable limits for radioactive Cesium 134 and 137 in the world, 12 times higher in fact than Japan’s. “Food and beverages that are considered far too dangerous for consumption in Japan can be exported to U.S. citizens, including vulnerable children and pregnant women. This is an outrageous radioactive loophole that our lawmakers and FDA must address immediately,” states Kimberly Roberson, FFAN Director and author of “Silence Deafening, Fukushima Fallout.” Roberson continues, “We appreciate the AMA’s call for testing and encourage all to speak out for the additional steps required to protect our children as the current U.S. limits are still dangerously high.”

To that end, FFAN has petitioned the FDA to accept their petition into official process and lower the amount of man-made radiation currently allowed in U.S. food, nutritional supplements and pharmaceuticals.

After the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl exploded, children in Belarus were found to have heart and hormonal problems with approximately 1% of the current U.S. limit for radioactive Cesium in their bodies.

“We must demand our right to know what’s in our food, nutritional supplements and pharmaceutical products. The National Academy of Sciences has stated that there is no safe dose of radiation, therefore we reject the current FDA radiation in food policy. The limit the FDA has set will doom a certain number of people to unnecessary disease, particularly children who are much more vulnerable to radiation,” says Cindy Folkers of Beyond Nuclear.

On July 10, 2013, the Japan Times reported that rising radioactivity levels in seawater off the coast of Fukushima measured 90,000 times more than officially “safe” drinking water. This is in ocean water that migratory fish, such as bluefin tuna spawn and swim in before crossing the Pacific to U.S. coastal waters. Bluefin tuna caught off San Diego in an August 2012 study demonstrated elevated amounts of Cesium 134 and 137, which are considered characteristic isotopic markers for Fukushima radiation.

Both AMA and FFAN want a national database, and we invite others to join us in demanding that FDA reduces the amount of radiation permitted in our food.

Fukushima Fallout Awareness Network (FFAN) is a coalition of groups and concerned citizens working for safe food policy in the U.S. For more information please visit www.FFAN.us and www.silencedeafening.com

____________________________________30_______________________________

Food Monitoring After Fukushima
Cindy Folkers – Beyond Nuclear

Cindy Folkers, of BeyondNuclear.org, gave this informative presentation as part of the 2-day international symposium on ‘The Medical and Ecological Consequences of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident,’ held at the New York Academy of Medicine, NYC, March 11 & 12, 2013, co-sponsored by The Helen Caldicott Foundation and Physicians for Social Responsibility. Full program videos are viewable here.

===========
If you like our work, you can support it, whatever your budget level, here.

What Goes Around, Comes Around

Sign Petition here.

Hi Friends,

EON is a member of the Fukushima Fallout Awareness Network. We’re asking you to please help Fukushima Fallout Awareness Network (FFAN) reach beyond our immediate community in gathering comments for our FDA Citizen Petition. Fukushima is an on-going nuclear disaster with mounting risks to us all.

FFAN coalition members Ecological Options Network, Beyond Nuclear, and Citizens for Health recently filed this petition with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

This campaign connects many points of interest: safe energy, children’s health, holistic health, the scientific and medical communities, cancer survivors, early childhood education proponents, maternity, parenting, the environment, organic consumers, farmers, wineries, anti GMO, the slow food movement, and more ~ the list goes on and on.

We all have to eat, we all care about kids. We must call on FDA now to protect this and future generations from radioactive waste in our food supply.

Attached are three “ADs” designed by the talented activist and graphic design artist Laura Lynch. Please choose one or more to download and post to your websites today for social networking this coming week.

Dr. Peter Montague, Executive Director of the Environmental Research Foundation and author of the renown Rachels Environment and Health Weekly will be featured on an upcoming AD for FFAN with this to say: “Fukushima Fallout Awareness Network (FFAN) is the only group that is paying close attention to the drift of radioactivity from Fukushima into the world’s food supply. This is a big, serious problem that’s only going to grow worse as time goes on. Thanks to FFAN for doing this nitty-gritty work to protect children everywhere!”

We need your help or FDA may remove the petition from Regulations.gov without accepting it and its supporting documentation into their process. We must not let that happen, and with your help it won’t.

Thanks for helping us with our campaign to give our children a future!

Mary Beth and Jim for the EON Team

AD #1 PDF here:
INDEPENDENCEdayADflagStar_FFAN

Ad #2 PDF here:
INDEPENDENCEdayAD3robbins

Ad#3 PDF here:
INDEPENDENCEdayAD2_OCA
===========
If you like EON’s work, you can support it, whatever your budget level, here.

De-Briefing – Shutdown Lessons From San Onofre – The Significance Should Not Be Misunderestimated
UPDATED
In this edition we bring you video reports relating to San Onofre’s closing, a brief commentary on what’s to be learned from that successful California campaign, and an update on the status of our forthcoming documentary, SHUTDOWN: The Case of San Onofre.

[ UPDATE NOTE: The first version of this blog edition was published before we noticed that Devils Tango author Cecile Pineda had alerted us that some SoCal activists had posted their own debriefing observations on a FaceBook membership page (Coalition Against Nukes). Scroll down for a re-posting of their wise views at the end of this edition.]

First, excerpts of a celebratory news conference held outside Southern California Edison’s San Onofre nuclear power plant Fri., June 7, 2013, following the company’s announcement that the faulty plant will be permanently shutdown. FoE consultant Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds calls it ‘A seismic event for the nuclear industry.’ Gene Stone of ROSE cautions its just Step One in a long process. Interviews with Gary Headrick of San Clemente Green and Ray Lutz of CitizensOversight.org celebrate the accomplishment, while stressing that the long-term work for a safe decommissioning process and the secure onsite storage of hundreds of tons of radioactive fuel rods in an earthquake and tsunami zone is just beginning. Thanks to EON producers Morgan Peterson and Laurent Malaquais for this report. [ Scroll down for their coverage of the recent public forum ‘Fukushima Lessons for California.’ ]

The One-Two Punch – Informed Public Opposition PLUS “A Terminal Overdose of Market Forces”
Energy guru Amory Lovins has been saying for decades now that nuclear power reactors will eventually go as extinct as the Dodo – not from nuke free activism, but – just from what he has called “a terminal overdose of market forces.”

It has taken a while, but recent events are beginning to suggest Mr. Lovins may have been at least partly right all along. Now even finance magus Warren Buffett appears to agree. According to the industry website PowerEnineering, Buffett’s company “MidAmerican Energy won’t be building a nuclear unit in Iowa anytime soon and will be refunding much of the public money collected to help it finance a nuclear feasibility study in the state.” Buffett reportedly chose instead to invest in solar and wind.

Meanwhile, in addition to the announced closing of the last two faulty reactors at Southern California Edison’s San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), there are cascading reports of other financing-motivated closures across the country. Writing on SmartPlanet.com, Chris Nelder suggests that nuke plants are ‘falling like dominoes,’ pointing out that, “SONGS, with its 2,200 megawatt (MW) generating capacity, is the fourth nuclear plant to be closed this year due to economics.”

In addition, Exelon’s Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in New Jersey; Duke Energy’s Crystal River plant in Florida; and Dominion Resources’ Kewaunee plant in Wisconsin have all recently bitten the dust.

And, as Nelder points out:

Even new plants still under construction are coming under fire. Southern Co.’s new reactors at Vogtle in Georgia reportedly are running over budget and recovering costs long before the plants are to begin operation, arousing the ire of locals. SCANA Corp.’s new Summer Nuclear Station in South Carolina is running over budget and incurring delays. The Tennessee Valley Authority’s new 1,200 MW Watts Bar 2 plant, on which construction was halted in 1988, is soon to be completed at a cost of $4.5 billion, 80 percent over its initial budget, the utility says.

Budget overruns and delays are the norm for nuclear plants. As a 2009 study by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) shows, the actual cost of nuclear plants has routinely come in at three times their initial estimates. Cost overruns, canceled plants and stranded costs total more than $300 billion in 2009 dollars, the study said. At a final construction cost of $4.5 billion in 1984 (equivalent to $10 billion in 2013 dollars), SONGS was finished at 10 times its original estimate.

Plans for new nuclear plants in Texas and Maryland have also been scrapped as costs continue to rise.

Economic and technical considerations have also dampened enthusiasm for nuclear proponents’ fond fantasy of a new generation of so-called small nuclear reactors (SNRs). [ You can find out why at CleanEnergy.org . ]

“This industry is on its final trajectory downward,” said Friends of the Earth president Erich Pica at a news conference following SoCal Edison’s shutdown announcement. Recommending that the NRC be renamed the Nuclear Retirement Commission, Pica said that, “The people of California now have the opportunity to move away from the failed promise of dirty and dangerous nuclear power and replace it with safe and clean energy provided by the sun and wind.”

Former Tennessee Valley Authority head S. David Freeman, who, subsequently as head of other utilities, lays claim to having shut down more nuclear power reactors than any other administrator, said at the joint news conference with Pica, said it was a “step in the right direction and another move toward the renewable revolution that’s underway in California.”

Should all this be a cause for celebration and encouragement for nuke free activists across the country and around the world? Yes. Can we sit back, relax and simply let ‘market forces’ administer capital punishment to the nuclear industry? The case of San Onofre suggests otherwise.

What or Who Killed San Onofre?
And can those Whats and Whos succeed in closing the remaining U.S. fleet of aging nuclear reactors, many of which also face strong local opposition and growing demands that they be shut down? These are the questions circulating in the nuke free community around the country. No doubt the nuclear industry is thinking hard about them, too.

EON has been covering the San Onofre shutdown process almost from the beginning, and has to date posted over 40 videos relating to the issue, netting at least nine thousand views from our over 2,000 YouTube subscribers and beyond. We also published dozens of blog editions on the issue. We’re now working to complete our documentary-in-progress, SHUTDOWN: The Case of San Onofre, aimed at answering those questions and more. Working with our longtime friend and No Nukes/Solartopia activist/journalist Harvey Wasserman as our Editorial Consultant, we aim to produce a filmic antidote to the currently circulating, shamelessly misleading, well-funded, industry propaganda piece Pandora’s Promise. [For a critique of the pseudo-doc, see Beyond Nuclear’s ‘Pandora’s False Promises.’]

There is clearly no one-strategy-fits-all template that can be applied to unique local circumstances. But the lessons of the San Onofre shutdown victory point to several key components that CAN be applied to a variety of local situations:

Coordination and cooperation between local, national and international civil society groups (NGOs).
Coordination and cooperation and ‘turf-sharing’ among local organizations and groups.
Independent, alternative media coverage in blogs and video posts.
Mainstream media coverage generated by cultivating local, regional, national and international news organizations and reporters.
Outreach to and involvement of regional elected bodies, labor and civic groups and public officials.
Invocation and activation of all possible legal and legislative remedies.
Active citizen organizational interventions and public letter and petition campaigns with all existing relevant public agencies at local, state and national levels – in this case the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC); the California Energy Commission; the California Coastal Commission; the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC); the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB); state and national legislative representatives.
Pubic outreach and education campaigns.
Participation in agency-sponsored public fora as well as organizing of such fora by activist organizations themselves.
Oh, and I almost forgot, earn and honor the trust of whistleblowers.

A ‘Full Court Press’
All these options, remedies, interventions and organizing strategies were employed in the case of San Onofre, and it’s impossible to assess which ones were the deciding factors. Together they established a public climate, a political and economic context of forces, all of which no doubt impacted SoCal Edison’s ultimate decision to pull the plug. When reporters asked, in a telephone news conference with Edison spokes people, if ‘political’ considerations had entered into the decision, the Edison representatives consistently dodged the questions, saying they would only address economic factors. They clearly wished to avoid acknowledging the impact of civil society organizing and citizen mobilization that created the context in which the ultimate decision was made. Nor did they credit the fact that Senator Boxer and Congressman Markey had weighed in with several important interventions and ongoing pressure to release crucial documents. [ Note: A telephone replay of the news conference is available for 30 days from June 7 at the following numbers: 1-888-568-0503 — for callers in the United States; 1-203-369-3476 — for international callers; Passcode: 5241 ]

They referred to the Atomic Safety Licensing Board’s (ASLB’s) decision in response to a Friends of the Earth petition that called for a public re-licensing hearing. That would have potentially added months to the process with no assured outcome, thus adding to the company’s financial losses. In a recent analysis, Glenn Pascall, Chair of the San Onofre Task Force, Sierra Club Angeles Chapter notes:

On May 15 the Sierra Club wrote the NRC endorsing the Friends of the Earth petition and arguing that even though the Commission could spurn an ASLB decision, to do so in this case would cause deep damage to NRC’s public credibility. In the same time period, Senator Barbara Boxer and U.S. Representative Ed Markey urged the Commission to consider the growing body of evidence that San Onofre’s steam generator system faced an alarming level of technical uncertainty.

The game was clear: Could citizen groups and elected officials checkmate a staff recommendation and convince the Commission to back the Safety Board?

Environmental groups turned up the temperature. At the Sierra Club, we shared our letter to the NRC with all of you on our website. No less than 3,537 Angeles Chapter members and friends wrote their own personal version of this letter and sent it to the NRC – a record level of response for the Angeles Chapter on any issue.

By the same process, another 2,713 personal letters went to the California Public Utilities Commission from Sierra Club members and friends urging the PUC to stop subsidizing Edison with almost $60 million a month in ratepayer dollars – a flow of cash that insulated the utility from making hard decisions about the future of the plant.

And, in their phone news conference, Edison representatives studiously avoided giving any credit to the informed public opinion climate created by such events as the ‘Fukushima Lessons for California’ public forum which had occurred just days before.

The forum, held June 4, 2013 in the San Diego County Board Chambers with the sponsorship of San Diego County Supervisor Dave Roberts, was organized by Torgen Johnson and Junko Abe with the help of the Samuel Lawrence Foundation, Gary and Laurie Headrick of San Clemente Green, Sandra Bartsch, and Olive PR Solutions. Co-sponsorship was from Friends of the Earth(FoE) and Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR). Months in the planning, the event featured presentations from former Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, former NRC Chair Gregory Jazcko, Fairewinds nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen, former NRC Commissioner Peter Bradford and Friends of the Earth nuclear expert Kendra Ulrich.

Watching the presentations presented below, it is hard to imagine that this event didn’t also impact Edison’s shutdown decision.

What CA Can Learn from Fukushima – Pt. 1 – Naoto Kan
This is Pt. 1 of EON’s direct coverage of the public forum. [ Note: We previously posted excerpts of the av4b.com webcast of this event. The footage presented here was shot and edited by EON’s Southern California Team, Morgan Peterson and Laurent Malaquais. ]

In this segment, former Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan relates his experiences and conclusions regarding the on-going Fukushima disaster, and shares his views on the dangers of nuclear power.

What CA Can Learn from Fukushima – Pt. 2 – Gregory Jaczko
In this segment, Gregory Jaczko, Former Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, shares his views on nuclear safety issues in the U.S. in the light of the on-going Fukushima disaster.

What CA Can Learn from Fukushima – Pt.3 – Arnie Gundersen
In this segment, Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer, Fairewinds Associates, gives his analysis of the lessons learned from Fukushima applied to San Onofre.

What CA Can Learn from Fukushima – Pt. 4 – Peter Bradford
In this segment, Peter Bradford, who was an NRC Commissioner at the time of 3-Mile Island, shares his perspective on the future of nuclear energy – the ‘nuclear renaissance’ is dead.

What CA Can Learn from Fukushima – Pt. 5 – Kendra Ulrich & Comments
In this segment, Friends of the Earth nuclear expert Kendra Ulrich succinctly lays out the issues and current state of play on the issue of restarting San Onofre – an experiment by Southern California Edison with 8.7 million Southern California residents as experimental animals. She is followed by comments from the panel and questions from the audience.

From Cecile Pineda: Here are some comments from a few of the folks that worked on the SHUTDOWN OF SAN ONOFRE NUKE PLANT.

Comments by Gene
1. Educate the public and the press on any & all problems with nukes
2. Raise the voice of the people and bring them in the streets and to events
3. Put pressure on NRC to do their job more effectively
4. Take a seat at the table of all points of power
5. Involve government agencies, city, county, state, and local school
boards
6. All the above actions come down to one thing, delay delay, delay all
actions by Nuke plants & gov’t to move forward to restart nukes
7. Stay strong and always keep the pressure on
8. And maybe the most important of all, remember that spiritual importance of this work
9. Build coalitions in all directions
10. Make and understand long term goals (we never did this, but wanted to)
https://residentsorganizedforasafeenvironment.wordpress.com/

Comments by Gary
I’d say Edison deserves a lot of credit, but when they gave us an opportunity, we made the most of it. Agility matters and is something big corporations are lacking. We were responsive and well connected through social media (but we could do a lot better in that regard too).

Some of this may have been luck, but I’d say the harder we worked, the luckier we got. So be prepared to work hard and make sacrifices, because it is worth it and it is the right thing to do.

I think attitude and appearance makes a difference too. People listened to our opinions because we knew what we were talking about and we said it with conviction and dignity, and for the most part, we played by the rules and kept things orderly, (we’ll I may have slipped up on that last one a few times, but you know how it goes.)
https://www.sanclementegreen.org/

Comments by Carol
Develop agreed upon core messages as needed for specific hearings, calls to action, press releases, demonstrations, eyc.

Develop media contacts; provide them with a steady stream of information

Be flexible in your tactics and ready to respond appropriately to rapidly changing circumstances over which you have little control

Recognize and respond to unique situations, i.e., shutdown by Sano due to tube problems; jump on them

Recognize that post-Fukushima we have a tragic, but realistic scenario of how bad things can be; exploit theme of lack of control over nature. Nuclear industry talks about their safety procedures…Fukushima demonstrates the weakness of that argument

Delay tactics worked in our situation because it increased economic costs, gave us more time to develop more allies and more time to educate public

Use nuke industry’s weaknesses against them; exploit any and all negative information against them; for example, more info kept coming out about Sano and we were able to use that info

Comments by Cathy Iwani
1) local “think tanks” evolve naturally, organically by way of coffees, BBQ’s. Set aside social time to freely discuss with like-minded members of your community. Ours in Solana Beach/Del Mar/San Diego/ San Clemente includes: an environmental lawyer, surfers, elected politicians, educators, alternative media reporters, astute and capable community organizers including one who worked for the California Public Utility Commission (very important to deal with cost/basis and not only safety issues….because cost is what will shut them down), die-hard activists, a toxicologist, political “fixers” RN nurse and specialist in Emergency response/Homeland Security, evacuees from Japan able to translate and speak publicly, artists, organic farmers, Peace Center leaders, members in the Occupy movement, musicians, Mothers. Assess the talents in the group. Everyone has a role to play.

2) From local think tanks, put out feelers to “biggie” scientists, medical doctors once/now respected in the industry, in academia. i.e. Arnie G., Dan Hirsch (UC Santa Cruz Nuclear Policy Professor), Physicians for Social Responsibility, Big players from Friends Of the Earth.

2a) Keep the reports of success/defeat going out to national organizations which support/thrive/learn learn your local actions

3) Create liaisons with regulatory agencies which afford behind the scenes conversations with citizens and local electeds. Ex: ex-NRC chairman Jazsco, Chairman MacFarlane, member of County Office of Emergency Services, Commissioner on Public Utilites Commission. Open a dialogue with them. Hold them accountable. Occupy them in a public, respectful manner.

4) Utilize and nurture whistle-blowers.

5) Outreach campaign: speak at schools, city council meetings, School Boards of Educations, faith based groups welcome the moral imperative argument on leaving our progeny with the dangerous nuclear waste, Boards of realtors, Geologists Association meetings, write/email Senators, congressional reps, NRC Commissioners, Public Utility commissioners, Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom, Mom’s Holistic Groups

6) local media- alert them immediately on whistle blower info, hold press conferences at important events, always have press releases written by coalition for events.

7) Co-opt with ALL arms of environmental movement. Symbiotic relationships are beneficial for ALL in growing the movement. Ex: our coalition will set up a table at tomorrow’s San Diego Monsanto March for outreach on keeping SanO shut down. There, I’ll promote our FDA petition through FFAN. Please see https://ffan.us/?page_id=24

Create something new, rendering the current system/blockade obsolete. i.e. promoting sustainable energy projects. Or turn up the volume of the peoples’ voice by bypassing mainstream media/establishment gov’t entirely with powerful twitter campaigns. Make use of social media. Change starts at the bottom. It always has. Grassroots has the power to create policy makers’/electeds’ agendas and they know it. It’s a matter of creating the right conditions.

9) Have at least one respected, scientifically accurate, excellently sourced website where coalition members go for educational handouts, calls to action, suggestions to get involved. Likehttps://sanonofresafety.org/

9) Never give up.

===========
If you like EON’s work, you can support it, whatever your budget level, here.

EON sends CONGRATULATIONS TO SAN CLEMENTE GREEN, SANONOFRESAFETY.ORG, ROSE, FRIENDS OF THE EARTH, FAIREWINDS, WOMENS ENERGY MATTERS, AND ALL WHO HAVE WORKED SO LONG AND HARD FOR THIS DAY! What a great team we’ve all been!
[ Scroll down for news coverage links ]

It’s Official!!!
Southern California Utility Says It Will Close Troubled San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant

Activists held a celebratory news conference Fri. June 7, 2013, at the nuclear power plant.

“It has great national implications and is a real strong message that this nation does not need nuclear power,” said Shaun Burnie, of Friends of the Earth.

Democratic US Senator Barbara Boxer said she was “greatly relieved that the San Onofre nuclear plant will be closed permanently… This nuclear plant had a defective redesign and could no longer operate as intended.”

“This is very much a self-inflicted wound (by Southern California Edison),” said Arnie Gunderson, a nuclear engineer who has worked closely with Friends of the Earth over the last year to push for the closure. “Continuing to operate this plant was just not safe, and I think Edison realized that and decided to throw in the towel. This is a seismic decision for the nuclear power industry in this country and worldwide.”

Carol Jahnkow of San Diego’s Peace Resource Center called the closure a direct result of activists’ work “This is a real victory for people power, and don’t anybody forget that,” she said. Anti-SONGS Activists Overjoyed by Shutdown News
EYE ON SC, News Headlines | June 7, 2013 by Staff
By Jim Shilander

For anti-nuclear advocates, Friday morning’s news that Southern California Edison would close San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station meant the end of a long fight for the many prominent activists who came together for a celebratory press conference in front of SONGS, the mood was jubilant.

Gary Headrick, the leader of San Clemente Green, which has been fighting the effort to restart the plant, was ecstatic by the news.

“It’s a huge relief and very emotional,” Headrick said. “The only thing I can compare would be the days my children were born and there’s all that anxiety and stress, you want it to come out right. And then comes the moment where the reality is they’re healthy and they’re happy. It’s the same with this nuclear power plant. It’s incredible to think what was at stake and how incredibly important today is, not just for San Onofre, but Diablo Canyon and other nuclear power plants around the world that have this old technology.”More…

Jun 7, 2013
San Onofre is Dead & So is Nuclear Power
Harvey Wasserman – NukeFree.org

From his California beach house at San Clemente, Richard Nixon once watched three reactors rise at nearby San Onofre. As of June 7, 2013, all three are permanently shut.

It’s a monumental victory for grassroots activism. it marks an epic transition in how we get our energy….

… As of early this year, Southern California Edison’s path to a re-start at San Onofre seemed as clear as any to be expected by a traditional atomic tyrannosaur.

But with help from Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Senator-to-be Ed Markey (D-MA), a powerful citizen uprising stopped it dead.

So did the terrifying incompetence and greed that has defined the nuclear industry from the days of Nixon and before. More…

Activists praise San Onofre closure, but 1,100 layoffs expected
By Abby Sewell – LA Times – June 7, 2013, 9:02 a.m.

Anti-nuclear activists and Sen. Barbara Boxer celebrated Southern California Edison’s announcement Friday that the troubled San Onofre nuclear plant will be permanently retired. More...

Calif. utility to close troubled nuclear plant
By MICHAEL R. BLOOD, Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — In a jolt to the nation’s nuclear power industry, the owners of Southern California’s San Onofre plant announced Friday they are shutting it down for good after the discovery of damaged equipment led critics to charge it could never operate safely again.

…Environmentalists celebrated outside the front gates of the beachfront plant, and a pack of bicyclists shouted, “Shut it down!” as they went past.
Gary Headrick of San Clemente Green likened the news to births of his children: “The joy and the relief is comparable to something that big in my life, to know that 8 million people will be safe now from this supposed restart.”

…It will take months, and possibly years, to complete the closing of the reactors, known as decommissioning. It will involve removing all fuel from the reactor cores.

Edison’s stock price was up slightly in midday trading.

Friends of the Earth, an advocacy group critical that was waging a battle to block the restart, praised the decision to close it.

“We have long said that these reactors are too dangerous to operate and now Edison has agreed. The people of California now have the opportunity to move away from the failed promise of dirty and dangerous nuclear power and replace it with the safe and clean energy provided by the sun and the wind,” the group’s president, Erich Pica, said in a statement.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said she, too, was relieved.

“This nuclear plant had a defective redesign and could no longer operate as intended. Modifications to the San Onofre nuclear plant were unsafe and posed a danger to the 8 million people living within 50 miles of the plant,” she said. More…

Published on Friday, June 7, 2013 by Common Dreams
Win!: California’s San Onofre Nuclear Plant to Close Permanently
“The people of California now have the opportunity to move away from the failed promise of dirty and dangerous nuclear power and replace it with the safe and clean energy provided by the sun and the wind”
– Andrea Germanos, staff writer

In a victory for anti-nuclear activists, the trouble-stricken San Onofre nuclear plant is set to close permanently.

The plant’s operator, Southern California Edison, made the announcement on Friday.
The closing of San Onofre “is very good news for the people of Southern California,” said Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth (FOE). More…

California glitch-ridden nuclear plant shut down for good
By Agence France-Presse
…Southern California Edison (SCE) has been trying to fix problems which came to light last year after a minor leak in one reactor at the San Onofre plant, north of San Diego in southern California.

But SCE parent company Edison International’s chairman Ted Craver said experts had finally concluded that they cannot resolve the problems quickly or comprehensively enough.

“We have concluded that the continuing uncertainty about when or if (San Onofre) might return to service was not good for our customers, our investors, or the need to plan for our region’s long-term electricity needs,” he said.

The shutdown will mean the loss of some 1,100 jobs, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Anti-nuclear activists hailed the announcement. “It has great national implications and is a real strong message that this nation does not need nuclear power,” Shaun Burnie, of Friends of the Earth, told the newspaper.

Democratic US Senator Barbara Boxer said she was “greatly relieved that the San Onofre nuclear plant will be closed permanently… This nuclear plant had a defective redesign and could no longer operate as intended.” More…

Timeline of San Onofre plant’s operations
By U-T San Diego 1:21 p.m.June 7, 2013

Workers, surfers, pols react to San Onofre
By Mark Walker10:47 a.m.June 7, 2013

Workers at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station said they were taken by surprise with Southern California Edison’s early Friday announcement that it is closing the plant.
So too were many of the environmentalists that have lobbied to close the plant. About a dozen shutdown advocates gathered in front of the seaside generation facility by mid-morning to celebrate its shuttering.

“This is very much a self-inflicted wound (by Southern California Edison),” said Arnie Gunderson, a nuclear engineer who has worked closely with Friends of the Earth over the last year to push for the closure. “Continuing to operate this plant was just not safe, and I think Edison realized that and decided to throw in the towel. This is a seismic decision for the nuclear power industry in this country and worldwide.”

Carol Jahnkow of San Diego’s Peace Resource Center called the closure a direct result of activists’ work “This is a real victory for people power, and don’t anybody forget that,” she said. More…

What went wrong at San Onofre
Vibrations caused premature wear in the tubes carrying heated water

Graphic shows what went wrong at San Onofre

7 things to know about San Onofre
Why California’s first large commercial nuclear reactor is closing, what happens next
By U-T San Diego 10 a.m.June 7, 2013

Years of cleanup
Decommissioning a nuclear power plant is a tightly regulated process with a 50-year time frame. It requires removing and disposing of radioactive components such as the reactor and associated piping and cleaning up radioactive or hazardous contamination in the buildings and on the site. The costs are enormous.

The Cost Of Power Post-San Onofre
Friday, June 7, 2013
By Hailey Persinger
How much will it cost to power your home now that San Onofre is offline for good? Short answer: possibly more. More…

AP/ June 7, 2013, 10:02 AM
Calif. utility to retire troubled San Onofre nuclear power plant
LOS ANGELES The troubled San Onofre nuclear power plant in Southern California is closing, after an epic 16-month battle over whether the twin reactors could be safely returned to service, officials announced Friday. More…

Calif. utility will close troubled nuclear plant
By MICHAEL R. BLOOD; Associated Press
The troubled San Onofre nuclear power plant on the California coast is closing after an epic 16-month battle over whether the twin reactors could be safely restarted with millions of people living nearby, officials announced Friday. More…

SCE Press Release:
Edison International : Southern California Edison Announces Plans to Retire San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station

Company Will Continue Its Work with State Agencies on Electric Grid Reliability
Southern California Edison (SCE) has decided to permanently retire Units 2 and 3 of its San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS).

“SONGS has served this region for over 40 years,” said Ted Craver, Chairman and CEO of Edison International, parent company of SCE, “but we have concluded that the continuing uncertainty about when or if SONGS might return to service was not good for our customers, our investors, or the need to plan for our region’s long-term electricity needs.”

Both SONGS units have been shut down safely since January 2012. Unit 2 was taken out of service January 9, 2012, for a planned routine outage. Unit 3 was safely taken offline January 31, 2012, after station operators detected a small leak in a tube inside a steam generator manufactured by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI). Two steam generators manufactured by MHI were installed in Unit 2 in 2009 and two more were installed in Unit 3 in 2010, one of which developed the leak.

In connection with the decision, SCE estimates that it will record a charge in the second quarter of between $450 million and $650 million before taxes ($300 million – $425 million after tax), in accordance with accounting requirements.

After months of analysis and tests, SCE submitted a restart plan to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in October 2012. SCE proposed to safely restart Unit 2 at a reduced power level (70 %) for an initial period of approximately five months. That plan was based on work done by engineering groups from three independent firms with expertise in steam generator design and manufacturing.

The NRC has been reviewing SCE’s plans for restart of Unit 2 for the last eight months, during which several public meetings have been held. A recent ruling by an adjudicatory arm of the NRC, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, creates further uncertainty regarding when a final decision might be made on restarting Unit 2. Additional administrative processes and appeals could result in delay of more than a year. During this period, the costs of maintaining SONGS in a state of readiness to restart and the costs to replace the power SONGS previously provided would continue. Moreover, it is uneconomic for SCE and its customers to bear the long-term repair costs for returning SONGS to full power operation without restart of Unit 2. SCE has concluded that efforts are better focused on planning for the replacement generation and transmission resources which will be required for grid reliability.

“Looking ahead,” said Ron Litzinger, SCE’s President, “we think that our decision to retire the units will eliminate uncertainty and facilitate orderly planning for California’s energy future.”
Litzinger noted that the company has worked with the California Independent System Operator, the California Energy Commission and the California Public Utilities Commission in planning for Southern California’s energy needs and will continue to do so.

“The company is already well into a summer reliability program and has completed numerous transmission upgrades in addition to those completed last year,” Litzinger said. “Thanks to consumer conservation, energy efficiency programs and a moderate summer, the region was able to get through last summer without electricity shortages. We hope for the same positive result again this year,” Litzinger added, “although generation outages, soaring temperatures or wildfires impacting transmission lines would test the system.”

In connection with the retirement of Units 2 and 3, San Onofre anticipates reducing staff over the next year from approximately 1,500 to approximately 400 employees, subject to applicable regulatory approvals. The majority of such reductions are expected to occur in 2013.

“This situation is very unfortunate,” said Pete Dietrich, SCE’s Chief Nuclear Officer, noting that “this is an extraordinary team of men and women. We will treat them fairly.” SCE will work to ensure a fair process for this transition, and will work with the Utility Workers Union of America (UWUA) and the International Brotherhood of Electric Workers (IBEW) on transition plans for the employees they represent.
SCE also recognizes its continuing safety responsibilities as it moves toward decommissioning of the units. SCE’s top priority will be to ensure a safe, orderly, and compliant retirement of these units. Full retirement of the units prior to decommissioning will take some years in accordance with customary practices. Actual decommissioning will take many years until completion. Such activities will remain subject to the continued oversight of the NRC.

SCE intends to pursue recovery of damages from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the supplier of the replacement steam generators, as well as recovery of amounts under applicable insurance policies.
For updates, please visitwww.SONGScommunity.com, or follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/SCE_SONGS and on www.facebook.com/SCE.

San Onofre is jointly owned by SCE (78.21 percent), San Diego Gas & Electric (20 percent) and the city of Riverside (1.79 percent).

About Southern California Edison
An Edison International (NYSE:EIX) company, Southern California Edison is one of the nation’s largest electric utilities, serving a population of nearly 14 million via 4.9 million customer accounts in a 50,000-square-mile service area within Central, Coastal and Southern California.

Southern California Edison
Media Contact:
Media Relations
626-302-2255
or
Investor Relations Contact:
Scott Cunningham
626-302-2540

James P. Avery
Senior Vice President
San Diego Gas & Electric
858-650-6102

===========
If you like EON’s work, you can support it, whatever your budget level, here.