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Press
Release
For
immediate release 8/19/02
Contact person: Klaus Schumann, (805) 238-4454 or jayklaus@msn.com
SLO
GREEN Party inflates "mock" radioactive waste cask at SLO Farmer's
Market, calls for a "phase-out" of Diablo.
The
SLO GREEN Party invites the public to visit our booth at the Farmer's
Market on August 22, 29 and Sept. 5th. The SLO GREENS and Mothers
for Peace will inflate (with solar power) a "mock" nuclear waste
cask and offer other visual displays to inform the public about
the growing radioactive waste pile-up in our county. Signatures
for a petition to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a full
public hearing will be collected.
Klaus
Schumann, chair of the SLO GREENS committee on Radioactive Waste
at Diablo and a member of the County's Nuclear Waste Management
Committee, calls for a halt to further production of highly radioactive
waste at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. "Now is the time
to phase Diablo out. Generating electricity by nuclear means is
essentially "cold war" technology. The cold war is over, nuclear
weapons are being scaled back. It' s time to do the same with
nuclear plants. They should be replaced with cost competitive
and risk free 21st century technologies such as wind, solar, biomass,
geothermal and others. As Ralph Nader says: 'Nuclear Power is
the only form of energy production which requires an evacuation
plan'. The accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl demonstrated
that health and safety of nearby populations can quickly become
compromised. At Diablo, there is the additional threat from earthquakes.
And 9/11 proved that the long standing worries about terrorism
or sabotage are quite realistic."
"We
were promised that the massive amounts of highly radioactive wastes,
which remain toxic for the next 12,000 human generations, would
prove to be no problem. In fact, even after half a century of
production, a 'solution' is still elusive. By 2006, the waste
at Diablo will have accumulated to five times the amount for which
the plant was originally licensed. By 2025, the end of the present
license, the amount of long-lived radioactivity at Diablo would
reach the staggering equivalent of more than 44,000 Hiroshima
bombs." "Transporting these deadly wastes to Yucca Mtn. is no
solution either. This would only contaminate new sites and spread
the dangers of catastrophic radiation release to the millions
of people who live along the transport route. Even if Yucca becomes
available as planned, a huge amount of highly radioactive waste
will continue to be stored at Diablo until at least 2030 or even
2060 (with re-licensing). There is only one solution to the waste:
STOP PRODUCING IT."
Arjun
Makhijani of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research
suggests that "the time at which a power plant runs out of storage
space for its high level wastes is an appropriate time to consider
alternatives, since building new storage requires new regulatory
and economic decisions." Schumann points out that the promise
of "power too cheap to meter" never materialized: "SLO County
residents still pay 50% more for their electricity than the national
average. A switch to increased efficiency and alternatives would
create far more local jobs and put the County on a more diversified
tax base. Diablo produces only 10% of California's electricity.
Last year, under the threat of the 'energy crisis,' Californians
cut their consumption by more than 15% simply by adopting a few
easy conservation measures. Clearly, there is no reason to expose
SLO residents to the risk of nuclear catastrophe."
Schumann
concludes, "The first step is to stop PG&E from piling up ever
more lethal wastes on our coast, just 10 miles from downtown SLO."
On September 10/11, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission will
hold a public hearing at The Cliffs Hotel in Shell Beach to decide
about accepting contentions filed by Mothers for Peace and many
other local organizations. Be there and express your concerns.
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