Shut Diablo down now No, Mr. Henry, the increased maintenance activity at the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant is not a conspiracy by public officials and PG&E ( The year the music died, March 25). Unit 2 was offline 25 percent of the time during 2020 and has been offline most of 2021 so far because of problems with the stator. While a failed stator would not cause a radioactive release, it would pose dangers to plant workers, and no electricity can be produced without it. Recurring leaks of hydrogen gas caused shutdowns in July and October of 2020. The Dec. 2 closure was necessitated by excessive vibrations and lasted for several weeks. Unit 2 has only run a few days at a time in 2021, largely for purposes of testing whether PG&E has gotten the vibration problem under control.
Diablo is a marine life killer Diablo Canyon Power Plant s once-through cooling system (OTC) has finally been identified as a major killer of marine life by the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board ( What lurks beneath, Dec. 17). Before the Water Board gave PG&E a pass in 2015, San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace commissioned San Diego-based Powers Engineering to study the environmental damage caused by OTC. That study documented that Diablo Canyon s cooling system draws in 2.5 billion gallons of water per day and discharges that water back into the cove 20 degrees (F) hotter, devoid of any life. Each year of operation, the plant sucks in more than a billion fish in early life stages while killing vast amounts of plankton, the foundation of life in our oceans.