“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”
MAY 26, 2024
Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant near Avila Beach, California owned by PG&E
LLAW’s NUCLEAR ISSUES & COMMENTS, Sunday, (05/26/2024)
Partly due to my eye-awakening blog posts from yesterday and an older one from Post #442 on November 6th of last year concerning the misadventures of Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) that have prompted me to delay the scheduled Post of my in-progress Chapter 5 of the novel I am writing, which is being draft-serialized and extensively detail-edited for quicker reading on every other Sunday on this daily Post. I hope to have Chapter 5 ready for posting next Sunday, June 2nd or, at the latest June 9th.
This Post tonight as an explanation for the one-or-two week delay and why I have titled the fictional story “El Nuclear Diablo” together with the fact that PG&E has requested that the government allow them to continue to operate this dangerous, originally federally required for decommission and closing in 2025. The company has asked for another 20 years of operation, which is unheard of as nuclear plant life goes. This extension is without doubt the most ridiculous and underserved petition the U.S. government has ever received in its history.
The plant itself is named the Diablo Canyon Power Plant, which is from where I took the name “Diablo”, the Spanish word for ‘Devil”, and Nuclear is Nuclear in both English and Spanish. But either way “Diablo” is the most fitting name this nuclear power plant could possibly have because it is owned by PG&E, which is no doubt the most dangerous power utility on the planet, or at least in the United States. Even Annie Jacobsen in her new book “Nuclear War: A Scenario” singled out PG&E’s Diablo Canyon nuclear plant for a nuclear bomb attack from North Korea.
All of these recent developments have given me pause, including the fact that our federal and California governments have already extended the plant’s life for an additional five years and provided PG&E with nearly $10 billion to subsidize Diablo Canyon’s extended life, which is more than bad enough on its own.
All of this has caused me to somewhat revise my views and the ultimate plot of my in-progress novel. When I began to write the outline for the story none of this was a factor. However PG&E’s incredibly irresponsible history along with reckless and illegal activities over the years provided me with some my ideas for modifying into a disastrous fiction. So it is that I am in the process of adjusting the plot for the novel in a different way, which will cause some time delays and a bit of change of direction.
So, in recognition of all of this commotion and uncertainty, I have reposted the slovenly and dangerous (and deadly) history of PG&E’s operations from their entire devious history just below from my blog post #442 on November 6, 2023. It is not a pretty report, for sure, but everyone should know and understand that continuing to allow PG&E to operate the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant is like playing Deadman’s poker with the Devil himself . . . ~llaw
LAW’s ‘All Things Nuclear’ #442 (11/06/2023)
“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”
LLOYD ALBERT WILLIAMS-PENDERGRAFT
NOV 07, 2023
LLAW’s COMMENTARY:
The above image of the Diablo Canyon Power Plant may remain as my on and off masthead for quite sometime because it is very much like the proverbial “Canary in the Coal Mine”. I have been following PG&E’s merciless “accidental” terrorism on California’s human population throughout the State (living next door in Nevada) for several years, and this aging nuclear power plant may very well be PG&E’s last and most devastating accident of all. A nuclear accident at that! With PG&E running the ‘show’, what could possibly go wrong?
The Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant is old, dating back to the ‘1970s, and has leaked radiation recently because of cracked containment walls. The plant is scheduled for decommissioning, shutdown, and to be mothballed in 2025, but the State of California and the Federal Government has decided to extend the old plant’s life by providing several billion dollars to ‘ensure’ it’s safety and continued operation. To me, knowing the ownership’s history, this is obviously a huge mistake on the part of both the state and the federal government.
In later Posts I will have more to say about this particular power plant and selected others around the planet. They all need to be shut down, destroyed, and part by part and piece by piece put back in the same ground where their nuclear fuel (uranium) came from.
Considering their history of ‘accidents’, neglect, and incompetence, the future possibilities could be disastrous beyond belief. What has PG&E done wrong in the past to make such a prediction? Let me count just a few of the ways of many disasters caused by PG&E.
(Summarized, edited, and abbreviated from cited reports,)
PG&E Disasters:
1. Groundwater contamination in Hinkley, California
From 1952 to 1966, PG&E dumped “roughly 370 million gallons” of chromium 6-tainted wastewater into unlined wastewater spreading ponds around the town of Hinkley, California. PG&E used chromium “one of the cheapest and most efficient commercially available corrosion inhibitors” at their compressor station plants in their cooling towers along the natural gas transmission pipelines.
PG&E did not inform the local water board of the contamination until December 7, 1987, stalling action on a response to the contamination. The residents of Hinkley filed a successful lawsuit against PG&E in which the company paid $333 million— the largest settlement ever paid in a direct-action lawsuit in U.S. history. The legal case, dramatized in the 2000 film Erin Brockovich, became an international cause célèbre. By 2013, PG&E had cleaned up 54 acres, but it is estimated the remediation process will take another 40 years.
2. Metcalf sniper attack
(Included here for evidence of PG&E’s extended reputation of illegalites)
On April 16, 2013, a team of gunmen opened fire on the Metcalf transmission substation in Coyote, California. The attack damaged 17 high-voltage transformers, causing more than $15 million in damage. The team also cut a fiber-optic telecommunications cable owned by AT&T. PG&E and AT&T offered a $250,000 reward for anyone who had information leading to the arrest of the culprits, however, they were never found. The Federal Bureau of Investigation found that it was not domestic terrorism and The Department of Homeland Security claimed they had evidence that it may have been an ‘inside job’.
3. Wildfires
PG&E equipment has often been the cause of wildfires in California. PG&E has been found guilty of criminal negligence in many cases involving fires. These include the 1994 Trauner Fire a substation fire in San Francisco in 1996, the 1999 Pendola Fire, a San Francisco substation fire in 2003, the Sims Fire and Fred’s Fire in 2004 an explosion and electrical fire in San Francisco in 2005, the 2008 Rancho Cordova Gas Explosion,[ the 2010 San Bruno pipeline explosion, 2014 Carmel Gas Explosion,[ 2015 Butte Fire, 2018 Camp Fire, among others.[
Approximately 40 of the 315 wildfires in PG&E’s service area in 2017 and 2018 were allegedly caused by PG&E equipment.
PG&E was on probation after being found criminally liable in the 2010 San Bruno fire. Following that fire, a federally appointed monitor initially focused on gas operations, but his scope expanded to include electricity distribution equipment following the fires in October 2017. A separate case involved allegations the utility falsified gas pipeline records between 2012 and 2017, and as of January 2019 was still being considered.
4. Wildfire Liability
State law follows a principle of “inverse condemnation” for wildfire liability, which means that utilities are held responsible for damages resulting from any fire caused by their equipment, even if their maintenance on equipment and surrounding vegetation was done to standards. This policy resulted in $30B of liability for PG&E from the 2017 & 2018 fires and drove it to bankruptcy proceedings. In July 2019, a new $21 billion wildfire trust fund was created to pay for damages from future wildfires, started with a 50-50 balance of utility and customer monies and also reduced the liability threshold for utilities to where customers must prove negligence before companies are held liable.
5. Sierra blaze
On June 19, 1997, a Nevada County jury in Nevada City found PG&E guilty of “a pattern of tree-trimming violations that sparked a devastating 1994 wildfire in the Sierra”. “PG&E was convicted of 739 counts of criminal negligence for failing to trim trees near its power lines—the biggest criminal conviction ever against the state’s largest utility.
6. San Bruno, California explosion
On the evening of September 9, 2010, a suburb of San Francisco, San Bruno, California, was damaged when one of PG&E’s natural-gas pipelines that was “at least 54 years old, 30 inches (76.2 centimeters) in diameter and located under a street intersection in a residential area “…exploded sending a “28-foot section of pipe weighing 3,000 pounds flying through the air, fueled by blowing natural gas”.[235] The blast created a crater at the epicenter and “killed eight people and injured nearly five dozen more while destroying about 100 homes” The USGS reported that the shock wave was similar to a 1.1 magnitude earthquake. Following the event, the company was heavily criticized for ignoring the warnings of a state inspector in 2009 and for failing to provide adequate safety procedures. The incident then came under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). On August 30, 2011, the NTSB released its findings, which placed fault for the blast on PG&E. The report stated that the pipeline that exploded, installed in 1956, did not even meet standards of that time. Even in the years following the disaster, PG&E failed to implement legally mandated safety procedures aimed at preventing similar disasters.
7. Butte Fire
In September 2015, the deadly and destructive Butte Fire ignited in Amador and Calaveras counties. It killed two people and destroyed hundreds of structures. An investigation found PG&E responsible for the fire after a gray pine tree came in contact with one of their powerlines.
8. October 2017 Northern California wildfires
In October 2017, PG&E was responsible for their own lines and poles starting 13 separate fires of the 250 that devastated Northern California. These fires were caused by “electric power and distribution lines, conductors and the failure of power poles”. Pending further investigation, the following fires have been confirmed by CAL FIRE investigators to have been started by PG&E equipment:
- Redwood Fire, Mendocino County
- Sulphur Fire in Lake County
- Cherokee Fire, Butte County
- 37 Fire, Sonoma County
- Blue Fire, Humboldt County
- Pocket Fire, Sonoma County,
- Atlas Fire, Napa County
- Norrbom, Adobe, Partrick, Pythian and Nuns fires of Sonoma and Napa County
- Cascade Fire, Yuba County
8. Ghost Ship fire
On December 2, 2016, in Fruitvale, Oakland, California a fire broke out in a former warehouse that had been illegally converted into an artist collective with living spaces known as Ghost Ship. 80-100 people were at an event in the space and 36 were killed. The plaintiffs claim that the fire was caused by an electrical malfunction. A civil case was put forward against PG&E, alleging blame.
In August 2020, PG&E settled a civil lawsuit for 32 of the victims, out of the 36 who perished in the fire.] The amount of the settlement was undisclosed, but it was limited to the amount available under PG&E’s insurance coverage for the year 2016.
9. Tubbs Fire
The Tubbs Fire was a wildfire in Northern California during October 2017. At the time, the Tubbs Fire was the most destructive wildfire in California history, burning parts of Napa, Sonoma, and Lake counties, inflicting its greatest losses in the city of Santa Rosa. Suspicion for the cause of the fire fell on PG&E, but the company seemed to be cleared of responsibility in this incident after Cal Fire released the results of its investigation on January 24, 2019, upon which news the company’s stock price jumped dramatically. On August 16, 2019, the judge ruled that the trial can proceed “on a parallel track” because “it advances the goals of this bankruptcy.” After the judge’s ruling, the company’s stock price sank by 25%.
10. Camp Fire (The worst of them all)
In November 2018, PG&E and its parent company were sued in the San Francisco County Superior Court by multiple victims of the Camp Fire – the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history. The Camp Fire destroyed more than 18,000 buildings, including 14,000 homes, being particularly devastating to poorer residents. Approximately 90% of the population of the town of Paradise, California as of June 2020 remains dispersed in other parts of the state and the country. The lawsuit accused PG&E of failure to properly maintain its infrastructure and equipment.
The cause of the fire, as indicated by PG&E’s “electric incident report” submitted to the California Public Utilities Commission, was a power failure on a transmission line on November 8, just 15 minutes before the fire was first reported near the same location. Later investigation revealed that a “broken hook may have allowed a piece of electrically charged equipment to swing free and come close enough to the tower to arc, providing the spark that ignited the blaze.
. . . and the heat goes on . . .
11. Dixie Fire
On January 4, 2022, CalFire determined that “the Dixie Fire was caused by a tree contacting electrical distribution lines owned and operated by Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) located west of Cresta Dam.” CalFire forwarded the investigative report to the Butte County District Attorney’s office, the same federal office that prosecuted PG&E in 2018 following the Camp Fire.
ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:
There are 6 categories, including a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives, as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links in each category about the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
- All Things Nuclear
- Nuclear Power
- Nuclear Power Emergencies
- Nuclear War
- Nuclear War Threats
- Yellowstone Caldera (Note: There are no Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available in tonight’s Post.)
Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.
A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.
TODAY’S NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS, Sunday, (05/26/2024)
All Things Nuclear
NEWS
Under pressure from all sides, Brown backtracks, says Yucca ‘should not be revived’
Nevada Current
Under pressure from all sides, Brown backtracks, says Yucca ‘should not be revived’ … nuclear waste project should not be considered. … things I’m …Data centers’ nuclear option – Morning Brew
Morning Brew
As AI turns data centers into gigawatt gluttons, split atoms might soon be a staple of their energy diet. Data center operators and their customers …
Coalition’s brave nuke world a much harder sell after new CSIRO report – The Guardian
The Guardian
What’s new on nuclear costs? CSIRO’s GenCost report says a 1,000 megawatt nuclear plant would cost about $8.6bn to build, but that comes with some …
Nuclear Power
NEWS
Nuclear Power Has to Work – The Atlantic
The Atlantic
The United States used to build nuclear–power plants affordably. To meet our climate goals, we’ll need to learn how to do it again.
Nuclear – Cipher News – Cipher News
Data centers’ nuclear option – Morning Brew
Morning Brew
… nuclear power plant operator Constellation Energy. Searching for breakthroughs. On top of old-school reactors that split atoms (fission), the data …
A way to play the global nuclear power renaissance from Morgan Stanley – CNBC
CNBC
Morgan Stanley says the much touted nuclear renaissance may actually be real this time, and Curtiss-Wright is poised to benefit.
CNBC on X: “A way to play the global nuclear power renaissance from Morgan Stanley https://t.co … – twitter.com
Nuclear War
NEWS
Polish foreign minister calls for long-term rearmament of Europe | Poland – The Guardian
The Guardian
He said: “We have allowed all those production facilities to be closed down after the end of the cold war. … nuclear, and presumably they don’t want …
Ukrainian strike on Russian nuclear radar system causes alarm in West – The Telegraph
The Telegraph
Analysts warned that Ukraine should avoid striking nuclear infrastructure, after it carried out another attack in Russian territory.
Nuclear deterrence – Newspaper – DAWN.COM
Dawn
Nuclear weapons are political weapons, ideally not intended for war-fighting. … nuclear warfare. An agreement was reached on advance notification of …
Nuclear War Threats
NEWS
Israeli atomic threats to shift security equation in region – Mehr News Agency
Mehr News Agency
Israeli officials’ threats to use nuclear … Araghchi argued that the Israeli regime had not ruled out possessing nuclear … war on Gaza broke out. He …
Nuclear deterrence – Newspaper – DAWN.COM
Dawn
Nuclear weapons are political weapons, ideally not intended for war-fighting. … war, primarily due to nuclear deterrence. … Given the dangers of a …
Is Russia planning a tactical nuclear strike? – Vox News Albania
Vox News Albania
Representatives of Western countries have criticized Moscow’s leadership because of atomic threats. Although President Putin has not openly threatened …