As the first Democrat presidential debate finally approaches (on Oct. 13), America's nuke power industry is in accelerated collapse.

The few remaining construction projects in the U.S. and Europe are engineering and economic disasters.

Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders may address this in broad terms.

But as a nation we must now focus on the 99 dying U.S. reactors that threaten us all every day. In terms of our national survival, this is what Sanders and Clinton really must discuss.

At very powerful hearings in San Luis Obispo, testimony was submitted by Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne & Graham Nash. David Crosby testified in person, and his testimony was cited in the San Luis Obispo Tribune:

 

Musician David Crosby among speakers at Diablo Canyon hearing

BY DAVID SNEED
[email protected] 5, 2015

 

Ok. So we don't expect much from these mega-blockbuster disaster films.

But maybe just a hint about reality could spice things up. At least maybe a passing acknowledgement that the actual San Andreas could turn the Diablo Canyon nukes into a seething heap of radioactive rubble and permanently irradiate all of California?

Is that too much to ask, even of Hollywood?

Apparently so.

 

For the third time in a decade, a major fire/explosion has ripped apart a transformer at the Indian Point reactor complex.

News reports have taken great care to emphasize that the accident happened in the "non nuclear" segment of the plant.

Ironically, the disaster spewed oil into the Hudson River, infecting it with a toxic sheen that carried downstream for miles. Entergy, the nuke's owner, denies there were PCBs in this transformer.

What if a huge tsunami -- like the one at Fukushima --
hit Diablo Canyon's Nuclear Reactors,
just 160 miles north of Malibu?

It could happen . . .
And we're downwind so the consequences would affect us all

Randy Hayes is a great green lifer.

Decades ago he founded the Rainforest Action Network, still one of the major players in the save-the-Earth infrastructure. Now he runs Foundation Earth.

Never one to comprise, Randy has gone beyond his fair share of assorted jail stints and come out more dedicated than ever.

"We need to double the world's forests," he told me last week over smoothies in the nation's capital. "It's a major part of solving the climate crisis."

 

Back in early 2010 Ohio stood at the cusp of a modern 21st century technological revolution.

It had won a new federal-funded rail line to finally re-join Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati.

Tesla electric sales networks were moving into the state, bringing full player status in the spread of the world's most advanced automobiles.

And we had adopted a forward-looking green energy package poised to bring billions of new investments along with thousands of new jobs.

Then the 19th century re-took control.

The lies that killed people at Three Mile Island 36 years ago on March 28, 1979 are still being told at Chernobyl, Fukushima, Diablo Canyon, Davis-Besse ... and at TMI itself.

 

As the first major reactor accident that was made known to the public is sadly commemorated, and as the global nuclear industry collapses, let's count just 36 tip-of-the iceberg ways the nuclear industry's radioactive legacy continues to fester:

Four years after the multiple explosions and melt-downs at Fukushima, it seems the scary stories have only just begun to surface. 

Given that Japan's authoritarian regime of Shinzo Abe has cracked down on the information flow from Fukushima with a repressive state secrets act, we cannot know for certain what's happening at the site.

The catastrophe that began at Fukushima four years ago today is worse than ever. 

But the good news can ultimately transcend the bad-if we make it so.

An angry grassroots movement has kept shut all 54 reactors that once operated in Japan. It's the largest on-going nuke closure in history. Big industrial windmills installed off the Fukushima coast are now thriving.

Five American nukes have shut since 3/11/11.  The US reactor fleet has dropped under 100 for the first time in decades.