I offer these thoughts because I’m told by many that people, especially young folks, have little to no memory or knowledge of these essential learnings from Chernobyl and Fukushima. Understanding these hard lessons allows us to see through the demonic joke of ‘clean and green’ nuclear power supposedly saving us from climate change.

Plutonium is the stuff out of which atomic bombs are made. Every commercial nuclear reactor produces plutonium as a byproduct, and it is all nuclear weapons-usable. Proponents of peaceful nuclear power have often stated, incorrectly, that plutonium produced in a nuclear power reactor is not usable for nuclear weapons. In fact all plutonium is suitable for making very powerful nuclear explosive devices.

Many residents of Orange and San Diego counties were relieved when the nuclear power plant at San Onofre was permanently shut down in 2013. This naïve thinking, that the plant posed risks to people and property only while the reactors were operational, was challenged in the Register’s March 31 article by lead reporter Terri Sforza in which two nuclear experts weighed in on the dangers of storing 3.6 million pounds of nuclear waste onsite at San Onofre.