Environmental groups urge regulators to shut down California reactor over safety, testing concerns
Environmental groups are calling on federal regulators to immediately shut down one of two reactors at California’s last nuclear power plant
LOS ANGELES — Environmental groups called on federal regulators Thursday to immediately shut down one of two reactors at California’s last nuclear power plant until tests can be conducted on critical machinery they believe could fail and cause a catastrophe.
Friends of the Earth and Mothers for Peace said in a petition filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that tests and inspections have been delayed for nearly 20 years on the pressure vessel in the Unit 1 reactor at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Instead, the groups argue, operator Pacific Gas & Electric has relied on data from similar reactor vessels to justify continued operations at Diablo Canyon, while dismissing indications that the steel wall in Unit 1 might be deteriorating from sustained exposure to radiation and is becoming susceptible to cracking, a condition technically known as embrittlement.
“We will not sit idly by while PG&E cuts corners on Unit 1’s safety,” Hallie Templeton, legal director for Friends of the Earth, said in a statement.
The vessels are thick steel containers that hold nuclear fuel and cooling water in the reactors.
The statement from the anti-nuclear groups contended that PG&E “has repeatedly postponed essential metallurgical tests and ultrasound inspections over the past two decades” on the vessel.
PG&E spokesperson Suzanne Hosn said in a statement that the plant has an excellent safe operating record, and that the NRC's current assessment places it among the highest-performing plants in the nation.
“Analysis has demonstrated that the
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