Anti-nuclear movement in California
Encyclopedia
The 1970s proved to be a pivotal period for the anti-nuclear movement in California. Opposition to nuclear power in California coincided with the growth of the country's environmental movement. Opposition to nuclear power increased when President Richard Nixon
called for the construction of 1000 nuclear plants by the year 2000.
The movement succeeded in blocking plans to build a large number of facilities in the state as well as closing operating power plants. The confrontation between nuclear power
advocates and environmentalists grew to include the use of non-violent civil disobedience
.
In 1976 the state of California placed a moratorium on new reactors until a solution to radioactive waste disposal
was in place. In September 1981, over 1,900 arrests took place during a ten day blockade at Diablo Canyon Power Plant
. As part of a national anti-nuclear weapons movement Californians passed a 1982 statewide initiative calling for the end of nuclear weapons. In 1984, the Davis City Council declared the city to be a nuclear free zone.
. This conflict began in 1958 and ended in 1964, with the forced abandonment of these plans. Subsequent plans to build a nuclear power plant in Malibu were also abandoned.
and Free Speech Movement
s that had inspired activists and had impacted the public consciousness. Californian's for Nuclear Safeguards would succeed at placing Proposition 15 on the June 1976 ballot which would ban new facilities and put additional safety requirements on operating reactors. The initiative failed to pass with millions of dollars spent by the nuclear industry to influence the outcome. However, as a result of the publicity which included the resignation of three General Electric nuclear engineers, the state legislature passed a moratorium on further nuclear development until a permanent solution to high level waste was in place.
Anti-nuclear groups campaigned to stop construction of several proposed plants in the seventies, especially those located on the coast and near fault lines.
These proposals included the Sundesert Nuclear Power Plant
, which was never built.
The discovery of a earthquake fault near General Electric
's Vallecitos Nuclear Center
near Pleasanton resulted in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
closing the facility down. The discovery of an earthquake fault line as well as Plutonium a short distance from a school in Humboldt California resulted in the closure of Pacific Gas & Electric's.
In 1977 Bechtel Corporation installed the reactor vessel backwards.
Over a two-week period in 1981, 1,900 activists were arrested at Diablo Canyon Power Plant
. It was the largest arrest in the history of the anti-nuclear movement in the United States
. Specific protests included:
During this period there were controversies within the Sierra Club
about how to lead the anti-nuclear movement, and this led to a split over the Diablo Canyon plant which ended in success for the utilities. The split led to the formation of Friends of the Earth
, led by David Brower.
In 1979, Abalone Alliance members held a 38-day sit-in in the Californian Governor Jerry Brown
's office to protest continued operation of Rancho Seco Nuclear Generating Station
, which was a duplicate of the Three Mile Island
facility. In 1989, Sacramento voters voted to shut down the Rancho Seco power plant. The salient issues were mostly economic; the plant kept breaking down, and it had been shut from late 1985 to early 1988 for repairs, forcing the district to buy electricity from neighbors.
On June 22, 1980, about 15,000 people attended a protest near San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station
.
California has banned the approval of new nuclear reactors since the late 1970s because of concerns over waste disposal.
published the draft Environmental Impact Statement
(DEIS) for the construction of a Low-level Nuclear waste repository to be located at Ward valley California. The company applying to construct and operate the repository was U.S. Ecology. An eight year struggle between government agencies and opponents of the nuclear waste dump ended with the dump being blocked.
On November 14, 1984 the Davis, California
City Council
declared the city to be a nuclear free zone. Another well-known nuclear-free community is Berkeley, California
, whose citizens passed the Nuclear Free Berkeley Act in 1986 which allows the city to levy fines for nuclear weapons-related activity and to boycott companies involved in the United States nuclear infrastructure.
. They are also concerned "about the seismic safety of the plant given the recent discovery of a new earthquake fault nearby".
In April 2011, there was demonstration of 300 people at Avila Beach calling for the closure of Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant and a halt to its relicensing application process. The event, organized by San Luis Obispo-based anti-nuclear group Mothers for Peace, was in response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
called for the construction of 1000 nuclear plants by the year 2000.
The movement succeeded in blocking plans to build a large number of facilities in the state as well as closing operating power plants. The confrontation between nuclear power
Nuclear power
Nuclear power is the use of sustained nuclear fission to generate heat and electricity. Nuclear power plants provide about 6% of the world's energy and 13–14% of the world's electricity, with the U.S., France, and Japan together accounting for about 50% of nuclear generated electricity...
advocates and environmentalists grew to include the use of non-violent civil disobedience
Civil disobedience
Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal to obey certain laws, demands, and commands of a government, or of an occupying international power. Civil disobedience is commonly, though not always, defined as being nonviolent resistance. It is one form of civil resistance...
.
In 1976 the state of California placed a moratorium on new reactors until a solution to radioactive waste disposal
High-level radioactive waste management
High-level radioactive waste management concerns management and disposal of highly radioactive materials created during production of nuclear power and nuclear warheads. The technical issues in accomplishing this are daunting, due to the extremely long periods radioactive wastes remain deadly to...
was in place. In September 1981, over 1,900 arrests took place during a ten day blockade at Diablo Canyon Power Plant
Diablo Canyon Power Plant
Diablo Canyon Power Plant is an electricity-generating nuclear power plant at Avila Beach in San Luis Obispo County, California. The plant has two Westinghouse-designed 4-loop pressurized-water nuclear reactors operated by Pacific Gas & Electric. The facility is located on about in Avila Beach,...
. As part of a national anti-nuclear weapons movement Californians passed a 1982 statewide initiative calling for the end of nuclear weapons. In 1984, the Davis City Council declared the city to be a nuclear free zone.
Early conflicts
The birth of the anti-nuclear movement in California can be traced to controversy over Pacific Gas & Electric's attempt to build the nation's first commercially viable nuclear power plant in Bodega BayBodega Bay
Bodega Bay is a shallow, rocky inlet of the Pacific Ocean on the coast of northern California in the United States. It is approximately across and is located approximately northwest of San Francisco and west of Santa Rosa...
. This conflict began in 1958 and ended in 1964, with the forced abandonment of these plans. Subsequent plans to build a nuclear power plant in Malibu were also abandoned.
1970s and 1980s
The anti-nuclear movement grew in California between 1964 and 1974. It was during this period that some scientists and engineers began supporting the positions of the activists. They were influenced by the EcologyEcology
Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...
and Free Speech Movement
Free Speech Movement
The Free Speech Movement was a student protest which took place during the 1964–1965 academic year on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley under the informal leadership of students Mario Savio, Brian Turner, Bettina Aptheker, Steve Weissman, Art Goldberg, Jackie Goldberg, and...
s that had inspired activists and had impacted the public consciousness. Californian's for Nuclear Safeguards would succeed at placing Proposition 15 on the June 1976 ballot which would ban new facilities and put additional safety requirements on operating reactors. The initiative failed to pass with millions of dollars spent by the nuclear industry to influence the outcome. However, as a result of the publicity which included the resignation of three General Electric nuclear engineers, the state legislature passed a moratorium on further nuclear development until a permanent solution to high level waste was in place.
Anti-nuclear groups campaigned to stop construction of several proposed plants in the seventies, especially those located on the coast and near fault lines.
These proposals included the Sundesert Nuclear Power Plant
Sundesert Nuclear Power Plant
The Sundesert Nuclear Power Plant was proposed in the 1970s but never built. In 1977 the San Diego Gas & Electric Company submitted an application to the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission to construct two 974 MWe Westinghouse pressurized water reactors approximately 15 miles southwest of...
, which was never built.
The discovery of a earthquake fault near General Electric
General Electric
General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...
's Vallecitos Nuclear Center
Vallecitos Nuclear Center
The Vallecitos Nuclear Center is a nuclear research facility, and the site of a former electricity-generating nuclear power plant in unincorporated Alameda County, California, about 30 miles east of San Francisco, in NRC Region Four....
near Pleasanton resulted in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Nuclear Regulatory Commission
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is an independent agency of the United States government that was established by the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 from the United States Atomic Energy Commission, and was first opened January 19, 1975...
closing the facility down. The discovery of an earthquake fault line as well as Plutonium a short distance from a school in Humboldt California resulted in the closure of Pacific Gas & Electric's.
In 1977 Bechtel Corporation installed the reactor vessel backwards.
Over a two-week period in 1981, 1,900 activists were arrested at Diablo Canyon Power Plant
Diablo Canyon Power Plant
Diablo Canyon Power Plant is an electricity-generating nuclear power plant at Avila Beach in San Luis Obispo County, California. The plant has two Westinghouse-designed 4-loop pressurized-water nuclear reactors operated by Pacific Gas & Electric. The facility is located on about in Avila Beach,...
. It was the largest arrest in the history of the anti-nuclear movement in the United States
Anti-nuclear movement in the United States
The anti-nuclear movement in the United States consists of more than 80 anti-nuclear groups which have acted to oppose nuclear power or nuclear weapons, or both, in the United States. These groups include the Abalone Alliance, Clamshell Alliance, Institute for Energy and Environmental Research,...
. Specific protests included:
- August 6, 1977: The Abalone AllianceAbalone allianceThe Abalone Alliance was a nonviolent civil disobedience group formed to shut down the Pacific Gas and Electric Company's Diablo Canyon Power Plant near San Luis Obispo on the central California coast in the United States...
held the first blockade at Diablo Canyon Power Plant, and 47 people were arrested. - August 1978: almost 500 people were arrested for protesting at Diablo Canyon.
- April 8, 1979: 30,000 people marched in San Francisco to support shutting down the Diablo Canyon Power Plant.
- June 30, 1979: about 40,000 people attended a protest rally at Diablo Canyon.
- September 1981: more than 1900 protesters were arrested at Diablo Canyon.
- May 1984: about 130 demonstrators showed up for start-up day at Diablo Canyon, and five were arrested.
During this period there were controversies within the Sierra Club
Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is the oldest, largest, and most influential grassroots environmental organization in the United States. It was founded on May 28, 1892, in San Francisco, California, by the conservationist and preservationist John Muir, who became its first president...
about how to lead the anti-nuclear movement, and this led to a split over the Diablo Canyon plant which ended in success for the utilities. The split led to the formation of Friends of the Earth
Friends of the Earth
Friends of the Earth International is an international network of environmental organizations in 76 countries.FOEI is assisted by a small secretariat which provides support for the network and its agreed major campaigns...
, led by David Brower.
In 1979, Abalone Alliance members held a 38-day sit-in in the Californian Governor Jerry Brown
Jerry Brown
Edmund Gerald "Jerry" Brown, Jr. is an American politician. Brown served as the 34th Governor of California , and is currently serving as the 39th California Governor...
's office to protest continued operation of Rancho Seco Nuclear Generating Station
Rancho Seco Nuclear Generating Station
The Rancho Seco Nuclear Generating Station is a decommissioned nuclear power plant built by the Sacramento Municipal Utility District in Herald, California.-History:...
, which was a duplicate of the Three Mile Island
Three Mile Island accident
The Three Mile Island accident was a core meltdown in Unit 2 of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania near Harrisburg, United States in 1979....
facility. In 1989, Sacramento voters voted to shut down the Rancho Seco power plant. The salient issues were mostly economic; the plant kept breaking down, and it had been shut from late 1985 to early 1988 for repairs, forcing the district to buy electricity from neighbors.
On June 22, 1980, about 15,000 people attended a protest near San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station
San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station
The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station is a nuclear power plant located on the Pacific coast of California. The site is in the northwestern corner of San Diego County, south of San Clemente, and surrounded by the San Onofre State Park and next to the I-5 Highway.Unit 1 is no longer in service...
.
California has banned the approval of new nuclear reactors since the late 1970s because of concerns over waste disposal.
1990s
On June 15, 1990 the Bureau of Land ManagementBureau of Land Management
The Bureau of Land Management is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior which administers America's public lands, totaling approximately , or one-eighth of the landmass of the country. The BLM also manages of subsurface mineral estate underlying federal, state and private...
published the draft Environmental Impact Statement
Environmental impact statement
An environmental impact statement , under United States environmental law, is a document required by the National Environmental Policy Act for certain actions "significantly affecting the quality of the human environment". An EIS is a tool for decision making...
(DEIS) for the construction of a Low-level Nuclear waste repository to be located at Ward valley California. The company applying to construct and operate the repository was U.S. Ecology. An eight year struggle between government agencies and opponents of the nuclear waste dump ended with the dump being blocked.
Nuclear-free communities
Davis, California
Davis is a city in Yolo County, California, United States. It is part of the Sacramento–Arden-Arcade–Roseville Metropolitan Statistical Area...
City Council
City council
A city council or town council is the legislative body that governs a city, town, municipality or local government area.-Australia & NZ:Because of the differences in legislation between the States, the exact definition of a City Council varies...
declared the city to be a nuclear free zone. Another well-known nuclear-free community is Berkeley, California
Berkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...
, whose citizens passed the Nuclear Free Berkeley Act in 1986 which allows the city to levy fines for nuclear weapons-related activity and to boycott companies involved in the United States nuclear infrastructure.
Recent developments
PG&E announced its decision to pursue license renewal for Diablo Canyon in November 2009, and local officials "came out in support because of the economic importance of the plant and its 1,200 employees and $25 million in annual property taxes". However, local anti-nuclear activists oppose renewal and want PG&E to focus more on renewable energyRenewable energy
Renewable energy is energy which comes from natural resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, and geothermal heat, which are renewable . About 16% of global final energy consumption comes from renewables, with 10% coming from traditional biomass, which is mainly used for heating, and 3.4% from...
. They are also concerned "about the seismic safety of the plant given the recent discovery of a new earthquake fault nearby".
In April 2011, there was demonstration of 300 people at Avila Beach calling for the closure of Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant and a halt to its relicensing application process. The event, organized by San Luis Obispo-based anti-nuclear group Mothers for Peace, was in response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.
See also
- California electricity crisisCalifornia electricity crisisThe California electricity crisis, also known as the Western U.S. Energy Crisis of 2000 and 2001 was a situation in which California had a shortage of electricity caused by market manipulations and illegal shutdowns of pipelines by Texas energy consortiums...
- J. Samuel WalkerJ. Samuel WalkerJ. Samuel Walker is an American historian and book author based in Maryland. Although not the subject of any widely known biography, he is notable for his widely recognized contribution to the enduring historical record in his specific field of study. His particular focus is on the nuclear age,...
- List of anti-nuclear protests in the United States
- List of anti-nuclear groups in the United States
- Nuclear power debateNuclear power debateThe nuclear power debate is about the controversy which has surrounded the deployment and use of nuclear fission reactors to generate electricity from nuclear fuel for civilian purposes...
- Nuclear free zone
- Renewable energy in the United StatesRenewable energy in the United StatesRenewable energy accounted for 14.3 percent of the domestically produced electricity in the United States in the first six months of 2011. Hydroelectricity is the largest producer of renewable power in the United States. In 2009, the U.S...
- California Solar InitiativeCalifornia Solar InitiativeCalifornia Solar Initiative is a renewable energy program in the United States.As part of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's Million Solar Roofs Program, California has set a goal to create 3,000 megawatts of new, solar-produced electricity by 2016 — moving the state toward a cleaner energy future...
Further reading
- Brown, Jerry and Rinaldo Brutoco (1997). Profiles in Power: The Anti-nuclear Movement and the Dawn of the Solar Age, Twayne Publishers.
- Lovins, Amory B.Amory LovinsAmory Bloch Lovins is an American environmental scientist and writer, Chairman and Chief Scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute. He has worked in the field of energy policy and related areas for four decades...
and Price, John H. (1975). Non-Nuclear Futures: The Case for an Ethical Energy StrategyNon-Nuclear Futures: The Case for an Ethical Energy StrategyNon-Nuclear Futures: The Case for an Ethical Energy Strategy is a 1975 book by Amory B. Lovins and John H. Price. The main theme of the book is that the most important parts of the nuclear power debate are not technical disputes but relate to personal values, and are the legitimate province of...
, Ballinger Publishing Company, 1975, ISBN 0884106020 - Natti, Susanna and Acker, Bonnie (1979). No Nukes: Everyone's Guide to Nuclear Power, South End Press.
- Ondaatje, Elizabeth H. (c1988). Trends in Antinuclear Protests in the United States, 1984-1987, Rand Corporation.
- Price, Jerome (1982). The Antinuclear Movement, Twayne Publishers.
- Smith, Jennifer (Editor), (2002). The Antinuclear Movement, Cengage Gale.
- Walker, J. SamuelJ. Samuel WalkerJ. Samuel Walker is an American historian and book author based in Maryland. Although not the subject of any widely known biography, he is notable for his widely recognized contribution to the enduring historical record in his specific field of study. His particular focus is on the nuclear age,...
(2004). Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical PerspectiveThree Mile Island (book)Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective is a scholarly history of the Three Mile Island accident, written by J. Samuel Walker and published in 2004...
, University of California Press. - Wellock, Thomas R.Thomas WellockThomas Wellock is the historian for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Trained as both an engineer and a historian, he writes scholarly histories of the regulation of commercial nuclear energy....
(1998). Critical Masses: Opposition to Nuclear Power in California, 1958-1978Critical Masses: Opposition to Nuclear Power in California, 1958-1978Critical Masses: Opposition to Nuclear Power in California, 1958-1978 is the first detailed history of the anti-nuclear movement in the United States, written by Thomas Wellock. It is also the first state-level research on the subject with a focus on California...
, The University of Wisconsin Press, ISBN 0299158500 - Wills, John (2006). Conservation Fallout: Nuclear Protest at Diablo CanyonConservation Fallout: Nuclear Protest at Diablo CanyonConservation Fallout: Nuclear Protest at Diablo Canyon is a 2006 book by John Wills.Widespread public opposition accompanied the rise of the U.S. nuclear industry during the 1960s and 1970s...
, University of Nevada Press.