Berkeley’s 37-year nuclear ban has limited everything from investments to post-it notes. Could it be changed?

Tattered signs along Berkeley’s city limits discreetly greet newcomers with three facts about the city: it sits on Ohlone territory, has a population of 112,580 people and is a “nuclear-free zone.”

Now that “Oppenheimer” has hit theaters, global film audiences know how the UC Berkeley physicist called the “Father of the Atomic Bomb” lived and worked in the East Bay for 14 years.

But the city’s “nuclear free” policy didn’t emerge until 1986, when voters approved an ordinance prohibiting investments in organizations with ties to nuclear energy, weapons and other infrastructure — including the federal government — within city limits. Passed amid uncertainty and fear surrounding the Cold War and Chernobyl disaster, the “nuclear free” designation was mocked by some critics who said city government should not be wading into national policy, but was also supported by local elected officials in Oakland, Marin County, Hayward, Davis and Santa Cruz.

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While activists previously helped propel the city’s decades of dissent around nuclear weapons, some are now working to strike a balance between acknowledging its frightening dangers while still exploring its potential as a peaceful technology.

Ryan Pickering is one of a handful of local activists working to change public perceptions about the future of nuclear energy.

His journey began at Diablo Canyon, where a campaign to save the largest nuclear power plant in California recently helped push Gov. Gavin Newsom to keep the reactors operating past the San Luis Obispo County facility’s long-planned 2025 shutdown date.

Pickering was previously against nuclear energy while working in the solar industry. But after researching the fossil fuels and economic barriers involved in “renewable” efforts, he changed his mind.

He has since joined a growing group of advocates lauding nuclear’s potential and proven capabilities, ranging from online influencers like Isabelle Boemeke to the Breakthrough Institute, an Oakland-based environmental think tank.

In addition to work with Stand Up for Nuclear and the Save Diablo Group, Pickering also helps lead the Nuclear is Clean Energy (NiCE) club at UC Berkeley. With assistance from the nuclear engineering department, NiCE has started a small, grassroots campaign to modernize the city’s “nuclear-free zone” policy — brainstorming symbols that don’t stoke fear and collecting signatures petitioning for a future ballot measure.

“A lot of people think nuclear power plants are like a nuclear bomb with extension cords plugged in, but nuclear energy is the opposite of nuclear weapons — it’s using uranium for peace,” Pickering said. “This technology may only be years away, but it’s all being birthed out of a place where many people hate it, which shows that we just haven’t reckoned with it.”

That ire was on display at a recent Berkeley City Council meeting, where the community was split on a resolution opposing the Japanese government’s decision to dump 1.28 million metric tons of wastewater from its Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the Pacific Ocean. The plan is widely controversial as the scientific community remains divided on the safety of diluted contaminants and mitigation measures.

While Pickering understands how the 1986 “nuclear-free” ordinance reflects decades of complex, philosophical questions about uses — and misuses — of the energy source, Pickering said the policy doesn’t fully align with the scientific knowledge now available in 2023, including assertions that chemicals found in Fukushima’s treated nuclear waste water are not harmful.

He also highlighted how the U.S. Department of Energy continues to support recent scientific victories, including the Lawrence Livermore Lab’s breakthrough “net energy gain” within nuclear fusion reactions last year.

“When Berkeley passed the ordinance, I think the city was feeling guilty about its role in the creation of nuclear weapons,” he said. “We are anti-nuclear weapons and don’t support nuclear weapons vendors coming into Berkeley, but we should not throw the baby out with the bathwater by sending anti-science sentiment against peaceful nuclear sciences.

“It’s a very small movement right now because there’s just not a lot of oxygen to be pro-nuclear, and it’s scary to people because they don’t know how to explain it, but we’re all still learning together.”

For now, Berkeley’s Peace and Justice Commission is responsible for monitoring compliance and approving exceptions to the ordinance as it was originally written.

While waivers are approved for requests ranging from city contracts with UC Berkeley researchers and nuclear medicine supplies for public health workers, the ordinance has upheld other bans of tech and products from companies connected to nuclear weapons.

In 2009, the Berkeley Library was forced to stop using 3M products like sticky notes and scanners to check out books because the international technology company based in Minnesota refused to sign a required nuclear-free disclosure form. Since 3M plastics are continually used in nuclear products, the Berkeley’s Peace and Justice Commission denied the library’s requests for a waiver.

Efforts to modify and even repeal the 1986 ordinance started percolating in 2011, when then-Councilmember Gordon Wozniak pushed to remove the city’s ban against investing in U.S. Treasury bonds, notes and bills. He argued that Berkeley’s finance department should have more flexibility in accessing those kinds of conservative investments, especially during economic downturns.