I was invited a few weeks ago to do a tour of Diablo Canyon Power Plant. Despite my unease with nuclear power, I decided to go—with an open mind. My negative thoughts about nuclear power were formed in the early days, around 1977, when I read a book called Energy Futures by Amory Lovins.
Mr. Lovins compared the development of nuclear power to the recent introduction of the large 747 airplane. What would have happened, he stated, if we built the 747 airplane before there were runways long enough for the plane to land on? Well, that certainly wouldn’t make sense. Nuclear power was being deployed with no plan for how to store the nuclear waste, which has a half-life of 24,000 years (plutonium-239).
Fifty years later, there is still no plan for how to store nuclear waste safely. During my tour, I saw a field of large metal drums filled with every pound of nuclear waste that has been generated at Diablo Canyon since it was fired up in 1985. There it sits in a football-field-sized area above the plant.
The tour was impressive. Two tour guides led us through the plant and the grounds. We saw the intake and outtake area where 2.5 million gallons of water per minute are sucked into the plant to keep the system cool. That water goes through a desalinization plant on-site so that pure water keeps the plant from melting down. While there are clearly safeguards to sucking in large aquatic life into the plant, and the temperature of the outflow of water is clearly not a danger, no mention was made of the microscopic plant and animal life that is killed as billions of gallons of water flows through the plant.
Security was amazing at the plant. Of the 1,250 employees, 350 are dedicated to security. It would be very difficult to break into Diablo Canyon by air, by sea, or by land. The entry into the turbine building took our group of 15 about 30 minutes as each of us went through a security system that makes airport security look like a joke. Clearly the guards holding machine guns on either side of the security entry area didn’t look like they would joke about anything. This was one month after we each had to supply our legal names to be run through a security check in advance.
The problem with nuclear power is that it requires perfection. Humans are imperfect creatures.
The turbine room was about 1.5 times the size of a football field. In that room, 10 percent of California’s electricity is produced. What they gloss over in that description is that some of the power produced is used specifically to run Diablo Canyon. Pumping and desalinizing 2.5 million gallons of water per minute uses a lot of energy. The turbine room has enormous air conditioner units pumping massive amounts of cool air into the room. Nevertheless, it was extremely hot in that room.
Our tour guides spent much of the day pointing out the duplicate and triplicate security systems in place. The plant is built to withstand an earthquake supposedly larger than what “should” happen along the four fault lines that are under or near the plant: Shoreline, Hosgri, San Luis Bay, and Los Osos faults. Most of the plant operations are higher above the ocean than any tsunami “should” reach. There is a pond above the plant that is filled with 5 million gallons of desalinized water that can flow through the plant by gravity if there is a power failure. There are large diesel generators that can provide backup power if needed. The final “triplicate” deterrence to a meltdown at the plant is a large stack of plastic pipes about a mile above Diablo Cove.
We were told that if everything else fails, as happened at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan after a large tsunami, these large pipes stacked much higher than I could reach, would be brought down to the water and hooked up to flow salt water through the plant, destroying the reactor, but preventing a meltdown. I looked at that big stack and thought of the long winding drive we had just made up the hill from the water’s edge. I asked the tour guides who would be moving those pipes and hook them up during this emergency.
Clearly if this triple backup was needed, there had been a larger than expected tsunami, or earthquake, or a successful terrorist or enemy government attack. “No problem,” the tour guides assured me. There are staff with pagers who would respond 24/7 if needed to do the work.
“They know,” I was told, “that they would lose their jobs if they did not respond.”
I thought about that for a while. If salt water were pumped through the plant, rendering it unusable, those staff members would lose their jobs anyway. Would they grab their loved ones and drive as far away from Diablo Canyon as possible, or would they travel to the center of the unfolding disaster and do the work?
The problem with nuclear power is that it requires perfection. Humans are imperfect creatures. Therefore, my stance against nuclear power stays the same as it was in 1977. Last year, 88 percent of new power generation in the U.S. was renewable energy: wind, solar and geothermal. We need increased output of safe renewable energy. I can’t wait until Diablo Canyon closes. Unfortunately, we will still have a football field of spent fuel that will have to be stored and guarded for hundreds of thousands of years. ∆
Rick Hirsch writes to New Times from San Luis Obispo. Send a response for publication to letters@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Health & Wellness 2026.