Wouldn’t you love to read that headline in the otherwise crap morning news? It’s time to take this nuclear angst on the road. Diablo Canyon is too close to all of us, we don’t need its power, it’s run by the same bumbling PG&E that can’t map a gas line or get a story straight, and it decides if our families get to survive an earthquake or not.

So can you slam a carpool of similarly worried people together and haul up to Sacramento the morning of April 14th? There’s a key Senate Energy Committee hearing titled “After Japan: Nuclear Power Plant Safety in California.” Timing is a little TBD, as it says it starts at the “adjournment of session.” 9:30 with a good book and a sack of snacks? Hearing will be in the Capitol Building Room 4203, public comments needed. Parking garages available at 10th & L, 11th & I.

THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2011
ENERGY, UTILITIES AND COMMUNICATIONS
PADILLA, Chair
Upon adjournment of Session
John L. Burton Hearing Room (4203)
“After Japan: Nuclear Power Plant Safety in California”

Meanwhile, did you know PG&E has so much surplus power capacity every year you could shut down at least FIVE Diablo Canyon nuclear plants? Yes. The two reactors at Diablo Canyon total 2200 megawatts of power, while PG&E’s own documents show them running an average surplus power capacity every single year of over 12,000 megawatts. Call me simple, but that math tells me you shut Diablo down tomorrow, replace it with surplus power immediately, and then retrain its 1405 employees to install and manage new efficiency resources and renewables all over the place. Because when’s the last time you heard of a massive solar panel catastrophe with global health implications for all time?