Truth in Advertising? Just Say No to New California Nuke Initiative

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Gary A. Patton
Executive Director
Planning and Conservation League

At its meeting last week, the PCL Executive Committee took official action to oppose a proposed ballot initiative designed to allow more nuclear power plants in California. The measure would essentially repeal the Nuclear Safeguards Initiative, passed by California voters in 1976. Here’s what it would do:

• Repeal California's nuclear power plant safety protections and permit construction of nuclear power plants in seismically active areas.

• Allow nuclear generation plants in the Coastal Zone.

• Allow construction of nuclear power plants before facilities for permanent, long-term storage of radioactive materials are developed and licensed.

• Redefine permanent storage of high-level radioactive waste to "100 plus years of onsite storage at California's reactors" as the benchmark to be met for the state to lift its moratorium on the siting of new nuclear reactors.

The full text of the proposed measure is available on the Attorney General's website.

You likely haven't heard much about this dangerous initiative; it's not even in circulation yet. And the proponents, headed by Assembly Member Chuck DeVore from Orange County, would rather you didn't look too closely at the details. Their "spin" is that this is a great way to address our most pressing environmental problem. That's why they want to call the measure "The California Energy Independence and Zero Carbon Dioxide Emission Electrical Generation Act of 2008." Wow! That sounds like a one-stop solution to global warming, doesn't it?

In fact, nuclear power isn't even a zero carbon dioxide power source! Think about the heavy duty equipment that's needed to mine uranium and transport it to the power plant. And then there's the waste disposal – building massive storage facilities and shipping nuclear waste to them creates a sizeable carbon footprint. In fact, this initiative would just make it easier to build unsafe nuclear power plants, and these initiative proponents need to be required to provide a little "truth in advertising." Luckily, Attorney General Jerry Brown got it right. His official title for the measure tells it like it really is: "Nuclear Energy. Removal of Prohibitions on the Construction of Nuclear Power Plants."