We welcome our salp overlords. (photo: Lars Plougman via Wikipedia)

California has two nuclear power plants. San Onofre, between Los Angeles and San Diego, has been offline for months as everyone tries to find an excuse for the alarmingly rapid wear on new reactor tubing. (Being shut down, however, did not prevent a fire from breaking out this week when a pipe ruptured and released radioactive steam.)

But as of Thursday, Diablo Canyon, the nuclear plant to the north, is also offline–thanks to. . . uh, salp?

Yes, salp–those loveable, gelatinous, jellyfish-like, plankton-eating sea creatures that multiply like, well, salp–have swarmed Diablo Canyon’s water intake system. D-Can draws in tens of thousands of gallons of seawater every day to cool its reactors, and with all that salp clogging the intake pipes, the plant could no longer operate safely.

That may sound like a freak event, but it isn’t. San Onofre had to shut down in 2005 to clear out 11,000 pounds of anchovies that had the bad luck of swimming too close to that plant’s intake filters. . . and in 2004, it shut down, too, but that time it was due to 14,000 pounds of sardines.

And just last year, actual jellyfish (sorry, salps) brought down Florida Power & Light’s St. Lucie nuclear power station. Jellyfish have also previously crippled nuclear facilities in the UK, Israel and Japan.

But back to California, where without nuclear power, the state is heading for a disaster of biblical proportions–we’re talking human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!

Actually, no. What will happen is that Pacific Gas & Electric, the owner of Diablo Canyon, and Southern California Edison, San Onofre’s operator, will have to buy electricity (or continue to buy electricity) in order to deliver what they are obligated to deliver. That’s no fun for the big utilities, and maybe it looks biblical to the bean counters, but it is not an energy apocalypse.

Of course, instead of throwing millions after billions to buy surplus electricity elsewhere while also paying to staff, examine and repair its dormant, ancient nuclear facilities, power companies could try to invest more in 21st century renewable alternatives.

And maybe that would happen if the market were actually, you know, a market. But with tax breaks, loan guarantees, and liability caps, the industry has little motivation to make sound financial or environmental decisions.

But there’s no time like the present to start. And right now, in California, that present is nuclear-free.

A little bit pregnant?

On Thursday, NPR’s Richard Harris delivered a report that regurgitated the nuclear industry’s latest message morph–once “clean, safe, and too cheap to meter,” the 21st Century PR spin has nuclear as the climate-friendly energy option.

The radio piece is ostensibly about how the world’s industrialized nations are failing to meet their climate goals–and this is true (and this is a problem). But Harris does the world and the climate cause no favors when he lazily posits: “Nuclear power produces very little carbon dioxide. . . .”

What does Harris mean by “nuclear power produces very little carbon dioxide?” Is that supposed to be a hedge? If you are isolating the atomic pile generating heat to boil water inside a closed system, then you might as well say “no CO2,” but if you are honest and take into account the whole lifecycle of nuclear fuel–from mining and refining through transportation and storage–then nuclear power produces a prodigious amount of greenhouse gases. Which is it Richard?

Probably just an oversight

The Washington Post published self-serving letter to the editor supporting a recent pro-nuclear editorial, but neglected to include that the letter was written by the current vice president and president elect and sitting member of the board of directors of the unabashedly pro-nuclear American Nuclear Society.

If only Nixon had apologized!

Fukushima Governor Yuhei Sato apologized Wednesday for prefectural officials who deleted records on the spread of radioactive fallout immediately following the start of the Daiichi nuclear crisis in March of 2011. The data from the country’s System for Prediction of Environmental Emergency Dose Information (SPEEDI) could have better informed citizens on when and where to evacuate during the first days after the Tohoku quake and tsunami destroyed safety systems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, and could have also given those trying to piece together what happened inside the reactors important forensic evidence.

At a news conference, Sato said, “A big problem lies in the fact that we failed to fully share the information soon after the nuclear disaster broke out.”

Well, yeah, that–and that you erased it.

Not to worry though, the government “reprimanded” its supervising officials and also “issued strong warnings” to the two government employees that actually did the deleting. So, citizens of Northern Japan, we’re good?

“Let’s Eat Cesium Beef”

That is (as translated EXSKF) the name of an event in Iwate, Japan designed to encourage people to eat local beef known to be contaminated with radioactive cesium from Fukushima’s fallout.

No, this did not appear in a Japanese version of The Onion (Tamanegi?), this a real event as reported by Kyodo News in a series called “New Happiness in Japan.” Apparently, happiness is knowing you’re only poisoning your children a little bit. . . because there were kids at this thing.

The event was, uh, cooked up by the head of a meat-packing company to show a group of his regular customers–including young couples with kids–that beef containing radioactive cesium, but at levels lower than the provisional safety limits, still tasted OK.

According to the source of the translation, this story has people all over Japan shaking their heads wondering what this meat packer could have been thinking, but there have been several stories over the past year documenting even more official Japanese government efforts to get citizens to consume agricultural products from Fukushima and surrounding regions.

Imagine a nuclear-free Japan

Soon, you won’t have to imagine that, either. The last of Japan’s 50 commercial reactors still online will soon shut down.

Wait? Fifty? Wasn’t it 54? Well, earlier this month, Japan removed the four damaged reactors at Fukushima Daiichi from their official list of the country’s commercial reactors.

Probably wise.

Oh, and, notice, also no mass hysteria. The radiation that has contaminated air, water, and land might have many Japanese very worried, but the country has managed to handle the reduced electrical generating capacity remarkably well. They did this thing called “conservation.” Been doing it for over a year now. Think of all the dogs and cats that have been spared. . . not to mention the salp.