Fuel oil tanks at Morro Bay power plant to be removed

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• Viewpoint: Exhaustion of our oil supply is inevitable

  Viewpoint: Exhaustion of our oil supply is inevitable

  For Mr. Charles Krauthammer to suggest in his commentary (“Seaweed in your gas tank,” March 16) that the current gasoline cost hikes should be attributed to President Obama’s energy policies of the last four years is nothing short of ridiculous. The American consumer has been battling this beast since we parked in blocklong lines to fill our tanks more than 40 years ago.

  Each of our presidents during those years has attempted his own vision of an energy policy and the dominant spoiler has always been oil. The EU nations have some of the highest gasoline prices ($8 to $10 per gallon) in the world and over the past few years, our own costs have see-sawed between high and higher. Yet the oil companies and executives continuously post increasing year-end profits and never miss a beat sending lobbyists to Washington to keep their current subsidies.

  Has everyone forgotten (maybe while pumping their expensive fuel) about their outrage over the BP spill, the jobs lost, the untold livelihoods ruined? Please don

• Viewpoint: Time to shutter Diablo

  Viewpoint: Time to shutter Diablo

  Edward L. Quinn, past president of the American Nuclear Society, ignores the grim reality of what happened at Fukushima in March in his Viewpoint of Nov. 11. The catastrophic release of radiation into the air, sea and soil from three nuclear meltdowns continues to this day. The Japanese Atomic Energy Commission said on Nov. 2 that it will take more than 30 years to dismantle the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

  The magnitude of the catastrophe at Fukushima is recognized by Gregory B. Jaczko, Nuclear Regulatory Committee chairman. On Nov. 10, he stated, “... there are a number of nuclear power plants that have experienced significant safety challenges. Right now, there are two plants that are shut down due to safety concerns, three plants that are showing declining performance, and there are 19 plants that have been singled out for special inspections — more than at any point in memory.”

  These are the words of the NRC chairman, not those of anti-nuclear activists.

• Pro/con on Huasna oil project

  Pro/con on Huasna oil project

  We need domestic oil for our independence

  By Rock Zierman

  Last weekend, Japan shut down the last of its 50 nuclear power plants that had provided power to the island nation since 1966. As a result, they will be at the mercy of energy imports from other countries.

• Viewpoint: PG&E reaffirms commitment to safety at Diablo Canyon

  Viewpoint: PG&E reaffirms commitment to safety at Diablo Canyon

  After the Fukushima accident, the Diablo Canyon Power Plant staff conducted extensive reviews of procedures, and both process and physical upgrades were made.

  With the one-year anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan and the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, questions understandably continue to emerge about the safety of all nuclear facilities.

  While officials at PG&E want to assure the public that its Diablo Canyon Power Plant is safe and secure, they also insist that much was learned from what happened at Fukushima on March 11, 2011, and afterward. There always has been — and will continue to be — an ongoing effort to maximize and improve safety at the plant in San Luis Obispo County.

• Bouquets and Brickbats: Expedite permit for flood control

  Bouquets and Brickbats: Expedite permit for flood control

  You’ve gotta love our wacky regulatory system. To prevent the flooding of homes in Oceano, the county Board of Supervisors has OK’ed a plan to deliberately breach the Arroyo Grande Creek levee in such a way that valuable farmland would be inundated instead.

  That would happen only in an emergency, though county staff is pessimistically predicting that it’s bound to occur at some point, given current conditions. Among other problems, athree-mile-long flood control channel has become so choked with sediment that it has lost an estimated 85 percent of its capacity, according to a 1999 study.

  The county is trying to get a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that would allow removal of some of that sediment, but it could be spring before the permit is issued. And in the meantime, valuable farms are sitting ducks.