Mothers for Nuclear: New group tries to keep Diablo Canyon open
Heather Matteson and Kristin Zaitz want to use motherhood and global warming to change the way Californians feel about nuclear power — before it’s too late. [...] both worry that the seaside plant, which is nearly surrounded by earthquake faults, could soon close, if environmentalists and some state officials get their way. [...] Matteson and Zaitz have formed a new group, Mothers for Nuclear, to convince Californians that Diablo is both safe and necessary. “If it’s coming from the utility, it’s not quite as credible as if it’s coming from two moms,” said Matteson, 36, a former operator in Diablo’s control room who now writes procedures for other operators. The intake and outflow chutes for Diablo’s cooling system lie on tidelands owned by the state and leased by PG&E, with the leases set to expire in 2018 and 2019. “If we were to take Diablo Canyon offline, we would lose a quarter of the state’s clean power right now, and we’d replace it with (natural) gas,” Zaitz said. Diablo supplies roughly 8 percent of all the electricity generated within the state, and it does so without pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The plant’s supporters — including another group that formed this year, Save Diablo Canyon — cast it as indispensable to California’s climate fight. [...] the large, unchanging amount of power Diablo places on the grid day and night, critics say, crowds out electricity from the state’s fast-growing collection of solar- and wind-power facilities. “We’re in favor of free speech, so this group has a right to exist and get their message out,” said Jane Swanson, a spokeswoman for the nonprofit Mothers for Peace, which has opposed Diablo Canyon since the early 1970s. In conversation, they take care to mention, repeatedly, that they’re speaking on their own and not as representatives of PG&E. The company, they say, has not contributed funding to Mothers for Nuclear, a point echoed by PG&E spokesman Blair Jones.