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"The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board handling the Diablo Canyon nuclear reactor license renewal proceeding will hear oral argument May 26 on the request by the San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace (SLOMFP) for an evidentiary hearing. The Board is an independent quasi-judicial arm of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that decides legal challenges to applications and proposed licensing actions by the NRC. The oral argument will be presented by the lawyers representing SLOMFP, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), and NRC staff. The session will begin at 8:30 a.m. PDT and may extend into the evening, if necessary, on Wednesday, May 26, in the San Luis Obispo County Board Chambers of the County Government Center, 1055 Monterey St. in San Luis Obispo. Although the oral argument will be limited to the lawyers for the litigants, the session is open to the public for observation. Early arrival is suggested to allow for security screening for all members of the public interested in attending. NRC policy prohibits signs, banners, posters or displays in the hearing room. PG&E submitted a license renewal application on Nov. 24, 2009, seeking a 20-year renewal of the operating licenses for Diablo Canyon Power Plant Units 1 and 2. The units are located approximately 12 miles southwest of San Luis Obispo. The Atomic Safety & Licensing Board is considering whether SLOMFP should be granted intervenor status in the proceeding. SLOMFP has submitted contentions challenging five aspects of PG&E's application, along with a request to waive two NRC regulations so as to allow the admission of two of the contentions. All parties have filed extensive legal briefs on these issues. On May 26th the Board will listen to the lawyers' arguments and ask them questions concerning the proposed contentions and waiver requests. Documents related to the Diablo Canyon license renewal application are available on the NRC Web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/applications/diabl

In announcing its application to extend the life of Diablo Canyon nuclear reactors until 2045, PG&E emphasized the taxes it contributes to the local economy. However, there is a long list of unresolved safety and security issues that were not acknowledged. Storing radioactive waste next to two earthquake faults presents a permanent hazard. Neither the faults nor the waste will ever go away. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Homeland Security declare that all nuclear plants are targets of terrorists, and the San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace has a lawsuit pending in federal court regarding the vulnerability of the wastes stored at Diablo. In addition, the NRC is currently investigating why and how Diablo operated for a full 18 months with a defect in the controls of the system designed to flood the Unit 2 reactor in the event of an accident or sabotage causing a loss of essential cooling water. Diablo property taxes do not compensate for the safety hazards inherent in the nuclear reactors and waste storage.

In announcing its application to extend the life of Diablo Canyon nuclear reactors until 2045, PG&E emphasized the taxes it contributes to the local economy. However, there is a long list of unresolved safety and security issues that were not acknowledged. Storing radioactive waste next to two earthquake faults presents a permanent hazard. Neither the faults nor the waste will ever go away. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Homeland Security declare that all nuclear plants are targets of terrorists, and the San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace has a lawsuit pending in federal court regarding the vulnerability of the wastes stored at Diablo. In addition, the NRC is currently investigating why and how Diablo operated for a full 18 months with a defect in the controls of the system designed to flood the Unit 2 reactor in the event of an accident or sabotage causing a loss of essential cooling water. Diablo property taxes do not compensate for the safety hazards inherent in the nuclear reactors and waste storage.

I was appalled at the NRC chairman Jaczko's press briefing yesterday when asked point blank how many nuclear reactors in the US were near faults… Instead of answering the question he said that all reactors near faults designed withstand both quakes and tsunami events. There was no follow-up question as to whether or not this country's evacuation plans would do any better than Japans.

"Judges from the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, the independent trial-level adjudicatory body of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, heard arguments from attorneys of San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace (SLOMFP) and Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) regarding the pros and cons of license renewal for Diablo Canyon power plant on May 26. SLOMFP attorney Diane Curran opened the hearing with a summary of the positions of the watchdog group, arguing that recent inspection reports show a pattern of inefficiency related to safe operation and aging of the plant. PG&E argued that many issues raised by Curran weren't relevant to relicensing issues. The current operating licenses for the two reactors at Diablo Canyon are set to expire in 2024 and 2025, respectively. PG&E has applied to continue operating the two reactors through 2045. "It doesn't take 11 years to do a license application," SLO Mothers for Peace spokeswoman Jane Swanson told New Times. "

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) will hold two public meetings Wednesday, July 2, to discuss issues regarding the Diablo Canyon Power Plant near Avila Beach. Regulatory Commission staff will meet with Pacific Gas & Electric Co. officials at 2:30 p.m. to discuss the NRC's annual assessment of safety performance at the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant during 2007, then hold a town hall-style meeting beginning at 6:30 p.m.

The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission has concluded the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant would withstand the effects of a potential new fault line off the California coast. Pacific Gas & Electric, which operates the plant 12 miles southwest of San Luis Obispo, California, notified the NRC in November 2008 about the potential Shoreline Fault, approximately 15 kilometers in length located one kilometer (.6 mile) offshore from the Diablo Canyon power plant. PG&E provided the commission with data from the company's collaboration with the U.S. Geological Survey regarding the potential fault.

"For the past two years, operators at Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant have had trouble identifying and resolving low-level safety problems. That is one of the key findings that will be discussed at a town hall-style meeting of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission on June 29 in San Luis Obispo. The public will have two opportunities that day to learn about and comment on the agency's assessment of the plant's safety performance in 2009.

Allegations of retaliation against workers for reporting safety concerns and violations at Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant has prompted a complaint being filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Longtime Diablo watchdog group San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace sent a letter to the NRC's regional office in Texas last week urging an investigation into the allegations

"Comments at commission's meetings about power plant center on earthquake danger, fuel storage and timing of application for new license Earthquake danger, spent fuel storage and the perceived early timing of the renewal application are poised to be major public concerns as federal regulators process an application to extend Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant's two operating licenses by 20 years. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission kicked off the license renewal process with two public information meetings attended by about 50 people Tuesday in San Luis Obispo. The process is expected to take more than two years to complete. During an extended question and answer session in the afternoon, NRC officials addressed many familiar safety issues regarding operation of the nuclear plant. If the agency grants Pacific Gas and Electric Co.'s request, the lives of the two reactors will be extended from 2024 and 2025 to 2044 and 2045. Public concern centered on three main issues:"

Federal regulators are investigating a mistake at the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant that could have hampered safety measures during an emergency. A spokeswoman for the Central Coast plant says two switches that allow operators to remotely open cooling water valves were improperly set. If the plant lost its water during an earthquake or terrorist attack, operators would have had to manually open the valves to restore it. Spokeswoman Emily Christensen Archer said the mistake was discovered late last week during a maintenance shutdown of the reactor, and the switches were reset. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is investigating.

Federal regulators are investigating a mistake at the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant that could have hampered safety measures during an emergency. A spokeswoman for the Central Coast plant says two switches that allow operators to remotely open cooling water valves were improperly set. If the plant lost its water during an earthquake or terrorist attack, operators would have had to manually open the valves to restore it. Spokeswoman Emily Christensen Archer said the mistake was discovered late last week during a maintenance shutdown of the reactor, and the switches were reset. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is investigating.

"Diablo Canyon, home to Pacific Gas & Electric Co.'s lone nuclear power plant, is thousands of kilometers away from Japan's Fukushima disaster, but the vast Pacific isn't vast enough to prevent technology critics from insisting that these two sites share ominous traits. The Diablo Canyon Power Plant sits on a bluff just above the Pacific Ocean, not far from San Luis Obispo in central California, a few miles from the offshore Hosgri Fault and only a mile from the recently discovered Shoreline Fault. Operational since 1985 and contributing 20 percent of PG&E's total electricity output, the Diablo plant seemed a sure bet to gain a license renewal from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)-until Fukushima. In the wake of an unprecedented and unimagined tsunami on 11 March, which sent waves above Fukushima's seawall, Diablo Canyon has received its fiercest criticism since 1981, when opponents of nuclear power and the plant's peculiar location nearly succeeded in closing it down."

SACRAMENTO - A top regional official of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission told a legislative committee Thursday that the agency intends to proceed with its safety and environmental analysis for extending the license of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, despite a request from the plant's operator that the agency take no final action until after more thorough seismic studies are completed. The federal licensing agency hopes to proceed as scheduled with its review, said Troy Pruett, deputy regional director of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's division of reactor projects. "Staff has invested many thousands of hours in environmental and safety review," Pruett told members of the Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee. "Our desire now is to publish that." The senator, whose district includes the site of the nuclear plant, assailed the federal agency for what he called its decision to look at Diablo Canyon seismic issues "through rose-colored glasses" despite the damage to nuclear reactors in Japan resulting from last month's earthquake and tsunami.

A nuclear watchdog group has filed a complaint with the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission alleging that workers at Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant face possible retaliation if they raise safety concerns.

"As the world's attention remains focused on the nuclear calamity unfolding in Japan, American nuclear regulators and industry lobbyists have been offering assurances that plants in the United States are designed to withstand major earthquakes. But the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, which sits less than a mile from an offshore fault line, was not required to include earthquakes in its emergency response plan as a condition of being granted its license more than a quarter of a century ago. Though experts warned from the beginning that the plant would be vulnerable to an earthquake, asserting 25 years ago that it required an emergency plan as a condition of its license, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission fought against making such a provision mandatory as it allowed the facility to be built. Officials at Pacific Gas and Electric Company, the utility that operates Diablo Canyon, did not respond to calls seeking comment before the story was published. After publication, a spokesman for the company said the plant does have an earthquake procedure that had been implemented during a 2003 earthquake near the facility, and that staff are trained to respond. The company did not provide further details upon request. As Americans absorb the spectacle of a potential nuclear meltdown in Japan -- one of the world's most proficient engineering powers -- the regulatory review that ultimately enabled Diablo Canyon to be built without an earthquake response plan amplifies a gnawing question: Could the tragedy in Japan happen at home?"