San Diego County has two of the state's four nuclear reactors, and it could get more if enough voters support a statewide petition that seeks to overturn California's prohibition on new plants.

The initiative, which needs more than 400,000 signatures to qualify for the November ballot, is championed by Orange County Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine, as a way of generating more electricity without producing more carbon dioxide, which scientists link to global warming.

California anti-nuclear groups are resisting the assemblyman's attempt to paint nuclear power as green technology. They have already defeated a similar bill that DeVore submitted to the state legislature and say they will do the same for his initiative.

"At best, this is irresponsible. At worst, it's an economic and safety nightmare," said Rochelle Becker, a founding member of the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility.

DeVore said he has met with Becker and said he did not find her arguments persuasive. He said he sees nuclear power as the only way California will be able to meet ambitious new greenhouse gas emission standards passed by the Legislature last year.

"I've got science and logic on my side rather than paranoia and superstition," DeVore said.

Green nukes

DeVore's argument hinges on the notion that nuclear power plants emit no carbon dioxide while generating electricity, and natural gas plants, especially coal plants, spew tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.

However, Becker and the anti-nuclear community reject DeVore's attempt to make nuclear energy seem green.

She cited a study which concludes that, while nuclear plants don't produce carbon dioxide, they disperse a significant amount of greenhouse gases during the intense mining, processing, transportation and disposal of nuclear fuel.

DeVore's effort to get the initiative approved for circulation is a far cry from getting the proposal on the ballot.

He said that though he already has volunteers collecting signatures for the initiative, it will take a much larger effort to gather the 433,971 signatures necessary to make the ballot for the November general election.

"We think it will cost about $1.5 million to collect that many signatures," DeVore said, adding that he hopes to use the money to hire paid signature collectors.

Speaking from his Orange County district office, the assemblyman said that he is conducting two statewide polls to prove to potential investors that the public will support new nukes in California.

"Nobody wants to spend good money on something that, if you qualify it for the ballot, will just get shot down," DeVore said.

Earthquakes

DeVore's initiative, which was recently approved for signature gathering by the California Attorney General's office, declares much of the California coast off limits for building nuclear plants because of the likelihood of severe earthquakes.

But most of the San Diego County coastline -- including Camp Pendleton where the two units of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station sit, and the coast near San Luis Obispo where the Diablo Canyon nuclear power station operates two units - is in the clear, according to earthquake safety limits listed in the initiative.

In a recent interview, DeVore said that he did not necessarily think that more nuclear plants should be built in any specific location. He said excluding some areas from nuclear development was simply his attempt to make sure the plants are safe.

"I think they should go in areas where the communities want them for economic and job-creation reasons," DeVore said.

So far, only the Fresno Nuclear Energy Group, a consortium of business leaders in Fresno, has detailed tentative plans to build nuclear plants in the Golden State.

Nuclear power plants split uranium atoms to generate electricity. But when nuclear fission takes place, it also generates highly radioactive and potentially dangerous isotopes such as plutonium and cesium. The isotopes left over from nuclear power production are dangerously radioactive and some take thousands of years to decay and reach safe levels of radiation.

In 1976, California legislators banned building nuclear plants pending a permanent place to store used nuclear fuel.

The federal government is making plans to store the nation's growing pile of highly radioactive waste in an underground vault deep beneath Yucca Mountain in Nevada, but that state's leadership and anti-nuclear groups have opposed the plan.

For now, spent nuclear fuel is stored in deep pools and heavy concrete bunkers at both of California's plant sites.

Reprocessing solution

DeVore's proposed initiative relies on reprocessing old nuclear fuel to solve the problem of permanent waste disposal.

Countries such as France use special facilities to separate plutonium from used uranium, then recombine it with new uranium to create more fuel.

DeVore said he sees reprocessing as the solution to the disposal problem.

Steve Fetter, dean of the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland and a co-author of a book that compares reprocessing and direct disposal of spent nuclear fuel, said the French solution does not completely solve the problem of long-term disposal.

"It is a type of recycling, but it doesn't save money, and it doesn't eliminate the need for deep geological long-term storage," Fetter said.

DeVore said he accepts that reprocessing is more expensive and that it is not perfect. But he said his initiative handles that problem by allowing plants to store their waste on the property in vaults for up to 100 years.

"Nobody, at least not anybody who is credible, doubts that it is a viable method of storage for 100 years," DeVore said. "The questions that we have now about reprocessing will all be answered by then."

Fetter, who holds a doctorate in energy and resources from UC Berkeley and a bachelor's degree in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said increased cost and the continuing need for deep storage space keep him from endorsing any reprocessing proposals.

Reprocessing "doesn't completely solve the problem of spent fuel," he said.

Energy equation

DeVore said his passion for building nuclear plants in California comes from his intense study of California's energy equation. He notes that a recent bill that stops the state from buying energy produced by burning coal leaves a gap in the state's energy portfolio that he says cannot be filled by renewable sources such as solar and wind energy.

"We need to have a mix and that includes renewables," DeVore said. "Frankly, I don't see how our system can survive without more nuclear power in the future."

Contact staff writer Paul Sisson at (760) 901-4087 or psisson@nctimes.com.