Said Damon Moglen, senior strategy advisor at Friends of the Earth: "Inspector Peck is the canary in the coal mine, warning us of a possible catastrophe at Diablo Canyon before it's too late. We agree with him that Diablo Canyon is vulnerable to earthquakes and must be shut down immediately."
Moglen said: "Given the overwhelming risk of earthquakes, federal and state authorities would never allow nuclear reactors on this site now. Are PG&E and the NRC putting the industry's profits before the health and safety of millions of Californians."
"Rather than the NRC keeping this a secret," Moglen went on, "there must be a thorough investigation with public hearings to determine whether these reactors can operate safely."
Peck is still with the NRC, a trainer at its Technical Training Center in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Michael Mariotte, president of the Nuclear Information & Resource Service, commented Monday that in "plain English" what Peck's report acknowledges is: "The NRC does not know whether Diablo Canyon could survive an earthquake, within the realm of the possible, at any of the faults around Diablo Canyon. And the reactors should shut down until the NRC does know one way or the other. Of course, if the reactors cannot survive a postulated earthquake, the obvious conclusion is that they must close permanently. The question is whether the NRC will ever act on Peck's recommendation or whether the agency will continue to sit on it until after the next earthquake."
Mariotte also says: "The irony is that this should have been the big news a year ago; Peck wrote his recommendation--in the form of a formal Differing Professional Opionion--in July 2013. And the NRC still hasn't taken action or even responded to it."
In his report Peck also states that the NRC is supposed to be committed to a "standard of safety" and "safety means avoiding undue risk or providing reasonable assurance of adequate protection for the public."
Meanwhile, PG&E has not only been insisting that its Diablo Canyon plants are safe, despite the earthquake threat, but has filed with the NRC to extend the 40 year licenses given for their operations another 20 years--to 2044 for Diablo Canyon 1 and to 2045 for Diablo Canyon 2.
An analysis done in 1982 by Sandia National Laboratories for the NRC, titled "Calculations for Reactor Accident Consequences 2," evaluated the impacts of a meltdown with "breach of containment" at every nuclear plant in the U.S.--what happened at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plants as a result of an earthquake. For the Diablo Canyon nuclear plants, it projected 10,000 "peak early fatalities" for each of the plants and $155 billion in property damages for Diablo Canyon 1 and $158 billion for Diablo Canyon 2--in 1980 dollars.
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Karl Grossman, professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury, is the author of Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power and host of the nationally-aired TV program "EnviroCloseup" (www.envirovideo.com)
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