On Nuclear Waste Bill, Senators Look to Public for Help By MATTHEW L. WALD. NYT 29 June 13After the Obama administration abandoned plans in 2009 to bury nuclear waste at a repository in Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, a spot chosen by leading senators more than 20 years earlier, a study commission recommended that a new location be picked through “a consent-based process.”
On Thursday, a group of senators introduced a bill, the Nuclear Waste Administration Act, that would establish such a process, based in part on public comments solicited online by the bill’s sponsors — a practice generally reserved for rules proposed by federal agencies. Call it consent-based legislation.
“The Senate did something highly unusual,” said Per F. Peterson, a professor of nuclear engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and a public policy expert. He said the way the legislation was developed resembled the process used by the study commission, which held hearings around the country. Taking public comment “establishes a strong foundation for the legislation to be successful if passed by the Senate and then by the House,’’ he said…….
Under the new bill, a new federal agency would be empowered to cut a deal with a state and local governments, subject to approval by Congress.
It does not define the elements of such a deal, but the expectation is that the government would offer what amounted to a handsome dowry for an ugly bride: money for roads, universities or other goodies.
In the interim, the bill would allow above-ground storage of nuclear waste in a central location, a temporary resolution to a problem that has arisen asreactors retire and the waste is orphaned.
The bill was introduced by Senators Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California and chairwoman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development; Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the subcommittee’s ranking Republican; Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon and chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee; and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, the ranking Republican member.
A major earthquake hit eastern Japan on March 11, 2011. The Fukushima Daiichi NPP was critically damaged and has been emitting large amounts of radionuclides since that time. This earthquake-vulnerable country has nuclear power plants nationwide. A small but increasing number of municipalities are adopting antinuclear policies. Regarding the Ohma NPP project, however, politicians and local municipalities are clear about having no plan to give it up.
The town of Ohma, where the nuclear power plant is under construction, is situated at the northernmost tip of Honshu, the largest Japanese island. There are two large plots of land, about one hectare in total, in the middle of the planned NPP premises. Their former owner was the late Asako Kumagai, who opposed the NPP project and did not agree to sell the land to the Electric Power Development Company (J-Power), the would-be operator of the plant. Because of the disagreement with Ms. Kumagai, the company reviewed the construction plan and moved the reactor core position, which was originally very close to her land, about 200 meters. (The reactor core will still be only 300 meters away from the land, if completed.)
Atsuko Ogasawara is Asako Kumagai’s daughter. The mother and daughter together built a log house on one of the plots to show their resistance, but Asako passed away in 2006, before moving into the house. Atsuko Ogasawara has been guarding Asako House ever since.
Ms. Ogasawara, whose home is located in Hakodate, the city facing Ohma across the Tsugaru Strait, visits Asako House several times a week to take care of the house and the vegetables she raises there. The antinuclear action she is most committed to is to request people to write to her at Asako House. She always carries prepaid postcards on which the address of Asako House is printed. The one-kilometer pathway J-Power prepared to allow access to Asako House is unpaved and fenced in on both sides. If someone writes to her, a mail carrier must visit the house, treading the pathway. This whole routine implicitly tells the company, and the neighborhood that cannot see the house from the outside, that Asako House is there, and has not been abandoned.
When I visited Asako House in 2008 for the first time, soon after the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry granted a reactor construction license to J-Power, the movement against the Ohma project was rather small. Subsequently, however, geomorphologists have reported that it is highly possible that there are active faults in the areas near the planned NPP site, and in 2010 a group of Hakodate residents filed a lawsuit against the Japanese government and J-Power to suspend construction. Ogasawara joined the group and delivered a speech during the first oral proceedings.
While having a bright and cheerful character, Ogasawara is often filled with emotion and moved to tears when talking in public. I believe that at such a time she strongly wishes she could show the audience to her late mother. When the Ohma NPP project was announced, many local landowners were against it and refused to sell their land at first. However, one after another, they gave up and finally Asako became the only landowner to own major plots of land in the very center of the premises. In the town, where a great majority of the population was in favor of the project, Asako faced a very lonely struggle.
In late May 2011, a rock festival was held on Atsuko’s plots, surrounded by cranes and plant facilities under construction, including the bizarre containment vessel. The festival attracted many supporters and music lovers, and was covered by multiple media outlets. Atsuko, who took over her mother’s lone struggle, is no longer alone.
If you wish to send a postcard to Atsuko, please address it to:
The address: Ms. Atsuko Ogasawara Asako House 396 Aza-kookuto , Oma-machi Shimokita-gun , Aomori Pref. 039-4601, Japan
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大間原発反対に孤軍奮闘「あさこはうす」/Lonely Battle Against Ohma Nuclear Plant
Microbes can be used to generate natural gas from inaccessable coal beds , at pretty good cost effectiveness.
Or coal that has been mined can be crushed , add some moisture to it and get the right temperature in a reactor vat, and then use the microbes to generate methane for a methane power plant with turbines.
This is far more efficient and clean burning than a convential coal plant. And much cheaper without the super toxic waste going to the environment.
The output of the turbines, Co2, water vapour and nitrous oxides can go directly to a large greenhouse containing algae, which can absorb the Co2 and nitrous oxides in a beneficial way. older algae can be harvested to produce oil from pyrolysis reactions or it can be partly dried to create food for farm animals.
Nuclear power is not understood by the public, and there is a lot of fear, cost overruns, and problems turning it on or off, and dangers to the public that are not being disclosed openly. A lot of secrecy surrounds nuclear power, and still would even for thorium. After three mile island, the quake that caused a tsunami and wrecked the nuclear reactor in Japan, Chernobyl, and the threat of weaponization of nuclear materials and possible terror threats make nuclear power really a no go solution.
Walking in woodlands after a misty rainshower does wonders for ones health. It feels terrific. We need to get back to basic non-nuclear clean and safe electrical power that is decentralized and safe for the public. Listening to Yo Yo Ma’s bach cello concertos feels really good. Listen to ‘the essential yo yo ma’ for inspiration.
Super clean coal and methane meets these requirements, while nuclear does not. It is also far more economical.
Special care must be taken to manage safely the groundwater impact of any coal or methane based solution right from extraction from the ground all the way to disposing of the waste from the crushed coal microbe laden vat constituents once all the methane has been extracted from the crushed coal.
A citizen’s group 「子どもと一歩の会」 held a film event of “Nuclear Nation” at the Health and Culture center in Ohtsunashirozato-city in Chiba prefecture. About 180 people attended the event. Former Futaba Mayor, Mr. Idogawa was invited to make an speech in front of the audiences after the film was shown.
Mr. Idogawa commented that the Japanese Government and Tepco have been just thinking of how they can get away with their responsibilities of the nuclear accident and starving the evacuees into surrender by giving a small amount of money.
Mr. Idogawa is worried about the deal that the evacuees have been accepting: it’s been more than 2 years since they have been forced to live in the temporarily accommodation. They have been going ahead with receiving a small amount of compensation to end their life in the temporarily accommodation and being compelled to accept the whole thing. He condemned the deal as a negative precedent for the residents with cheaper compensation settlement over the nuclear accident, but with a long term suffering for their future.
Toshihide Tsuda, Professor at Okayama University Graduate School of Environmental Science who look into the situation from an epidemiological standpoint indicated that “this is nothing else but an (thyroid cancer) outbreak!”
Prof Tsuda said that if the correlation between thyroid cancer and radioactive exposure is not established, then claims for compensation will suffer. Professor Tsuda criticized the fact that things are being handled in such a way that policies change according to rumors. Also, he proposed that “decision-making be based upon documents and figures”.
Kazuo Shimizu, President of the Japan Thyroid Gland Association, who was the sole member of the panel to remain, asserted that the statistical investigation was “inadequate. I am going to appeal to the committee about this matter.”
The number of thyroid cancer cases is likely to be 45 to 270 times bigger than the figure predicted by the Fukushima Medical University
Ryuichi Kino was born in 1966. He became a freelance writer in 1995 after a carrier in production editing. He wrote the book “Kensho, Fukushima Genpatsu Jiko Kaiken, Toden/Seifu wa Nani wo Kakushita no ka (Iwanami Shoten)” (What Did TEPCO and the Government Conceal about the Fukushima Nuclear Accident?) Official Blog: “Kino Ryu ga Kaku”: http://kinoryu.cocolog-nifty.com/
On June 5 at 10:15 a.m., with a 15-min. delay, the Fukushima Prefecture panel investigating on the impact of radiation on residents’ health (with Hokuto Hoshi as Chairman) started its evaluation meeting. Discussions were focused on thyroid cancer screening results, despite a host of other issues on the agenda, i.e. the health examination conditions and the problematic Basic Survey whose response rates continue to show the stagnant figure of roughly 23%.
Shinichi Suzuki, professor at Fukushima Medical University and a member of the prefectural panel reported that the number of persons with or suspected of developing thyroid cancer lumps has increased to a total of 28. He instructed that surgery be conducted on 13 cases. A post-surgery pathological examination has revealed that one person had only a benign tumor. The remaining 12 cases developed a papillary thyroid cancer. At the previous evaluation meeting, it was announced that only 10 people developed or were suspected of developing a malignant tumor. After surgery 3 were confirmed to have thyroid cancer.
Outline of Thyroid Cancer Screening Results by the Fukushima Health Management Survey Panel
Results reported at previous evaluation meetings have already received large media coverage. Thyroid cancer screening results drew diverse responses from the media. The national and the Fukushima editions of the Asahi Shimbun, for instance, projected different perspectives.
Radiation Effect Denied: 12 Cases of Thyroid Cancer Confirmed (Fukushima Minpo, June 6, 2013)
So far, Professor Suzuki has maintained that on average just one or two in a million of children contract thyroid cancer. On March 3, 2012, the online version of the Nagasaki Shimbun reported that Professor Suzuki indicated that ongoing serious medical examinations might lead to diagnoses of micro cancers regardless to the effect of radiation exposure, which is likely to increase the percentage of cancer cases.
1st Anniversary of the Great East Japan Catastrophe: Low-Level Radioactive Contamination/Infant Thyroid Cancer, Nagasaki University/Fukushima 2 (Nagasaki Shimbun, March 5, 2012)
In the document “Research Background and Purpose” submitted to the Ethical Committee of Fukushima Medical University, upon mentioning that “regardless to radiation exposure, on average 0.1~1% and plus respectively through ordinary palpation tests and ultrasound diagnoses, thyroid cancer might be detected”, Professor Suzuki’s team gave the following observations.
– However, only one or two children in a million contract thyroid cancer per year and the large number of cases are diagnosed with just benign lumps.
– For now as a basic child health control, we believe that information on the thyroid condition is going to appease concerns. Therefore, the purpose of this investigation is to gather basic information about infant health.
This means that Fukushima Medical University did not expect an increase in infant thyroid cancer after predicting a rise in the percentage of the overall thyroid cancer cases thanks to ultrasound diagnoses.
Infant Thyroid Cancer Screening as Part of the Prefectural Resident Health Survey
If a correspondence is established between cases of thyroid cancer reported at the evaluation meeting and a target population of 1 million, the number of both confirmed and suspected cases of thyroid cancer can be respectively estimated to a maximum of 269 and 91 for the years 2011 and 2012. The number of thyroid cancer cases is likely to be 45 to 270 times bigger than the figure predicted by the Fukushima Medical University (Since papillary thyroid cancer can almost perfectly be diagnosed via cytological examination, the number of thyroid cancer cases confirmed by the Fukushima Medical University is likely to turn out to be extremely thin. Fukushima Medical University doesn’t provide for details on the difference between “confirmed” and “suspected” cases of thyroid cancer).
The Japanese limits are based on the assumption that 50% of nationally distributed foods are contaminated….
[…]
There is no new scientific information that supports the need of a new risk assessment.
Saturday, June 29, 2013
At WTO, Japan Demands China, Hong Kong and Taiwan to Drop Their Food Import Bans after Fukushima Nuclear Accident Because “Any Contaminated Products Can Not Be Traded” in Japan
China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan continue to ban food import from Japan after the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident, and Japan doesn’t like it. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has pledged in his “growth strategy” that he wants to make Japanese agriculture “strong”. One of the clear gauges of this “strength” is apparently how much agricultural products Japan can export, particularly from the nuclear-disaster-affected Tohoku and Kanto. So his government used a committee at the World Trade Organization to demand these three countries drop the bans.
Country-specific restrictions should be based on science, Japan and WTO say.
In the meeting of the WTO’s Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) Committee that ended on June 28, the Japanese government demanded China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan to correct (revise) the import restrictions on Japanese agricultural products. The countries continue to place the import restrictions following the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident. The Japanese government had refrained from naming the countries, but used the opportunity to express strong concern as the import restrictions from these countries have been going on too long.
Regarding the food safety, in addition to the international sanitary and phytosanitary measures, countries are allowed to use their own judgment. In the latter case, the health risk evaluation based on scientific evidence would be necessary.
WTO members celebrated the 50th anniversary of 186-member Codex Alimentarius, which sets international standards for food safety, by calling, on 27–28 June 2013, for continued support for the body, and for trade measures to be based on science.
The calls came in a two-day meeting of the WTO’s Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) Committee, which consists of all 159 WTO members and deals with food safety and animal and plant health — measures having an increasing impact on trade.
They echoed a paper circulated by Brazil (document G/SPS/GEN/1253), which described food safety as an important contributor to food security, and said international standards and guidelines should be based on science, that confidence in Codex and other international standards-setting bodies should be strengthened, and that any measures that apply higher standards should also be justified by science.
“The increase in the number of SPS measures that are not based on international standards, guidelines and recommendations, or that lack scientific justification, is a point of concern that has often been raised by many members in the SPS Committee and other contexts,” Brazil observed.
A political body like WTO insisting on science. Fantastic.
So, if people in the world don’t want to eat food that contains more than normal amount of radioactive cesium, or don’t want to eat genetically-modified food, both of which are supposedly proven “safe”, what does WTO do? Force-feed them?
Import restrictions in response to Japan’s nuclear power plant accident.
Japan updated members on the latest situation and said radiation levels are generally within normal safety levels, and that any contaminated products could not be traded. Many trading partners have lifted their import restrictions, Japan said. However, restrictions remain in Hong Kong China and Chinese Taipei although Japan is starting to work with them on analysing the situation. China remains a major trading partner that still has import bans and Japan has not been able to discuss this bilaterally, Japan said. China said that only products from seriously polluted areas are affected.
Just by looking at the daily updates by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, and periodic updates from municipal governments, not to mention citizens’ groups, it is easy to note that food items being sold on the market in Japan continue to be found with radioactive cesium. The levels may be below 100 Bq/kg in most cases, but they are actively “traded”, contrary to the Japanese government’s claim.
I do not know what “normal safety levels” for the radiation levels in Japan at this point, but judging by the way the national government is trying to return the evacuees in the former “no-entry” evacuation zones, as long as the annual external radiation exposure is less than 20 millisieverts, it is safe. (More in later post.)
After the March 11, 2011 triple disaster, people in Taiwan collected and donated a large amount of money (second-largest, in fact, almost the same as the US, at 2.9 billion yen) to help people in the disaster affected Japan. China, in addition to monetary donation (920 million yen), offered the Putzmeister crane to be used at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant. Hong Kong gave 700 million yen to Japan.
And Japan turns around and use the WTO to force them to drop the food bans. Not a way to treat generous neighbors.
On 3/10/2013, the former head doctor of National Cancer Center radiation diagnosis department, Matsue had a speech in Fukushima collaborative clinic. (There were some political opinions about this clinic but Fukushima Diary stays away from any kinds of the discussion, only focuses on the medical facts newly found.)
Dr. Matsue is the chief of this clinic. He stated thyroids of Fukushima children have countless numbers of cysts to look like honeycomb. <Translate>
(In the thyroid test of Fukushima children) Shockingly about 30% of the children have thyroid cysts. It was also 35% from Fukushima prefectural government’s test. Prefectural government’s test probably misses small cysts of 1~2mm because their test is too quick, but the cysts rate was almost the same. However, <Translate>
Countless numbers of small cysts were found in the thyroids of about half of those 30% children, which is not reported in the prefectural government’s test. I thought it was like “honeycomb”, I have never seen such a thing.
Recently, a clinic in Kobe tested the thyroid of the children who evacuated from Fukushima..
<Translate>
The doctor in Kobe also reported about the “honeycomb looking thyroids”. What the world is that ? It’s no less than the half of the thyroids. The half-life of I-131 is 8 days, but it’s not strange if it causes any thyroid abnormality. Rationally thinking, it has something to do with radiation. <Translate>
Work to remove melted fuel from the three crippled reactors at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant could start in 2020, the government and Tepco optimistically said Thursday, based on a revised, albeit vague, plan to decommission the stricken complex, a process expected to take decades. […]
The second phase of the decommissioning, based on the revised plan, will entail the removal of the melted fuel from crippled reactors 1 and 2 starting in fiscal 2020 if possible, followed by work to start removing the melted fuel inside reactor 3 in the latter half of fiscal 2021 at the earliest. Reactor 3′s fuel is the highly lethal mixed uranium-plutonium oxide (MOX) fuel. […]
The extractions may be delayed if proper equipment isn’t available to deal with the three stricken reactors, whose levels of damage and radiation differ. […]
Finally (as Beyond Nuclear and other watchdog groups have noted), relying on nuclear power to mitigate CO2-driven climate change is unaffordable and impractical since it would require putting a new reactor online every two weeks……
Ultimately, Pandora’s Promise comes across as a well-executed but disingenuous exercise in special pleading. Instead of devoting 89 minutes to honestly and fully assessing the pros and cons of renewable technologies alongside the risks and benefits of new, untried nuclear power systems,Pandora’s Promise promotes a narrow agenda. As a result, the film winds up as little more than a tunnel-vision exercise in “plutonium Pollyannaism.”
Another Take on Pandora’s Promise EARTH ISLAND JOURNAL BY GAR SMITH – JUNE 28, 2013 Pro-nuclear power film obscures as much as it reveals You’ve got to give the producers of Pandora’s Promise credit for gumption. It takes a lot of chutzpah to release a pro-nuclear polemic in the wake of the triple meltdown in Fukushima, Japan. The film also suffered the ignominy of opening the same week that the owners of California’s troubled San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station announced the permanent shutdown of the facility’s two crippled reactors. Even the film’s title takes a bit of nerve; it was Pandora’s Box, after all, that unleashed a host of once-contained evils into the world.
So, given the extensive history of nuclear mishaps and near-catastrophes, how do the producers of Pandora’s Promise manage to spin their counter-narrative of a “safe, green” nuclear future? Basically by: (1) at first accepting the criticisms of traditional nuclear power and then (2) arguing that the solution lies in “new, improved” nuclear reactors. Like a smart defense attorney, director Robert Stone begins by admitting all of the defendant’s worst foibles up front, thereby depriving the prosecution of an opportunity to score points by revealing these issues later…….
The filmmakers pronounce the radioactive contamination “infinitesimal” and proclaim there has been “no evidence of medical consequences.” No citations are offered to support this positive conclusion. The fact that 40 percent of Fukushima’s evacuated children have subsequently developed thyroid abnormalities goes unmentioned. Continue reading →
What to do with nuclear waste? DW 28 June 13 Fifty years after Germany began using nuclear power, the country is once again looking for a suitable nuclear waste storage facility. Search priorities include transparency, safety and scientific criteria.
The German government, together with the opposition, hopes to approve a so-called depository site law for nuclear waste ahead of federal elections in September. The Bundestag, Germany’s lower house of parliament, on Friday (June 28) will vote on the planned legislation.
After a nearly 35-year controversy over the suitability of a salt mine in Gorleben in northern Germany as a potential site for storing high-level nuclear waste, the search for a storage site will begin again. The bipartisan compromise is considered historic. Continue reading →
IEA: Renewables To Exceed Natural Gas, Nuclear Energy By 2016, Energy Collective 26 June 13 Natural gas is widely considered the bridge to take us from fossil fuel dependence to a clean energy future – but that bridge may be a lot shorter than anyone could have predicted. The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts power generation from renewable sources will exceed natural gas and be twice the contribution from nuclear energy globally by 2016 – just three short years from now.
IEA’s second-annual Medium-Term Renewable Energy Market Report(MTRMR) forecasts renewable generation will grow 40% in the next five years despite difficult economic conditions.
Wind And Solar Power The Renewables Charge
Renewable energy is now the fastest-growing sector of the global power market, and will represent 25% of all energy generation worldwide by 2018, up from 20% in 2011. In addition, renewable electricity generation is expected to reach 6,850 terawatt-hours (TWh) and total installed renewable capacity should hit 2,350 gigawatts (GW), both by 2018.
Wind and solar photovoltaic generation is powering this jump, and non-hydro renewable power will double from 4% of gross generation in 2011 to 8% in 2018. IEA cites two main drivers for their incredible outlook: accelerating investment and deployment, and growing cost competitiveness versus fossil fuels.
As Obama targets climate change, Westinghouse bangs the nuclear drumSHAWN MCCARTHY TORONTO — The Globe and Mail , Jun. 28 2013, “……For a generation, it has been the nuclear industry’s calling card – that only large-scale reactors can provide steady, base-load power that does not emit greenhouse gases. And with U.S. President Barack Obama’s pledge this week to heighten the battle against climate change and reduce the U.S.’s reliance on carbon-intensive, coal-fired power, Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse Electric Co. sees an opportunity to restart a renaissance that was promised a decade ago but has fizzled……
With the 2011 meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima plant still in the public’s mind, and the issue of how to permanently dispose of highly radioactive waste still unresolved, the industry faces the twin challenge of persuading the public that nuclear power is both safe and economical…….
In the United States, the much-hyped renaissance has stalled. The federal regulator has received applications for 24 new reactors, but few are currently proceeding. Duke Energy recently scrapped plans for two of the six reactors while NRG Energy cancelled two reactors in Texas in 2011, saying they couldn’t compete with gas. California recently announced it will not refurbish its aging San Onofre plant, near San Diego….. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/banging-the-nuclear-drum/article12891014/
Make proposed nuclear bids public: NDP http://www.oyetimes.com/news/canada/45664-make-proposed-nuclear-bids-public-ndpOye! News from Canada, 28 June 2013 by Justin Stayshyn NDP Energy critic Peter Tabuns urged the Liberal government to make public the full costs of two bids to build new nuclear reactors, including information about whether taxpayers will be on the hook for cost overruns.
Bids to build two new nuclear reactors next to the existing Darlington nuclear plans were submitted to the government today by Westinghouse and CANDU/SNC Lavalin. “The government must be open and transparent about the full costs and risks of building new nuclear reactors so that there can be an informed public discussion about whether the government’s nuclear-first energy plan is cost-effective,” said Tabuns, MPP for Toronto-Danforth.
A 2008 proposal to build a new nuclear plant at Darlington was said to total about $26 billion, and hence was abandoned by the McGuintygovernment.
“The government argues that nuclear power is affordable even though nuclear costs have soared since the Fukishima disaster and every nuclear project in Ontario has gone over budget by millions if not billions of dollars,” said Tabuns. “Ontarians need to know the full costs and terms of the two bids, including who will pay the inevitable cost overruns, so that potentially lower cost alternatives like importing hydro power from Quebec are considered before the government signs another misguided private energy deal.”
Smart Savings in the Nuclear Budget | Commentary Roll Call, By Terri Lodge June 28, 2013, As appropriations bills move through Congress, protecting important programs and eliminating wasteful spending is on everyone’s mind. When it comes to smart budget cuts, look no further than nuclear weapons programs.
The B61 nuclear bombs deployed in Europe are a particularly glaring example of a program that drains billions of dollars from the defense budget but does nothing to advance our security.
Nuclear weapons in Europe are an oddity, a footprint of the Cold War. But from a national security perspective, their usefulness disappeared with the Berlin Wall. We can’t afford to spend billions of defense dollars on programs that don’t defend us against today’s threats. Instead of supporting Cold War relics, we should be investing in tools to address 21st-century security challenges.
These challenges are very real and very different from those we faced 20 years ago. Today, we think less about the risk of major nuclear conflict between the United States and Russia. But we think more about the risk of nuclear terrorism. We don’t talk about communist spies infiltrating Congress. But we do talk about climate change, cyberattacks and other unconventional challenges to our security. We don’t do “duck and cover” any more. So why are we investing billions of dollars to keep nuclear bombs in Europe?
Cold War thinking and budget inertia have combined for the worst possible scenario: As the broad defense budget declines, the nuclear budget is about to explode. The United States is on track to spend more than half a trillion dollars on nuclear weapons and related programs over the next 10 years.
Expensive, unnecessary nuclear programs such as the B61 are threatening to squeeze critical defense programs out of the budget. We’re planning to spend more than $10 billion dollars on the B61, while underinvesting in important programs such as nuclear terrorism prevention and next-generation biofuels to reduce our dependence on oil.
What to do with nuclear waste? DW 28 June 3“……..Who pays? The forum Ecological-Social Market Economy has evaluated the Swiss study and, based on its findings, estimated the future costs for storing nuclear waste from Germany’s eight deactivated and nine active nuclear power plants. According to conservative calculations by the researchers, Germany can reckon with storage costs of about 18 billion euros in the future.
The German Atom Forum, comprised of all German nuclear power plant operators, intends to pay as little as possible for storage and rejected shouldering costs for the new site search. In their opinion´”there is no legal basis” for them to pay and all costs should be “financed by taxpayers.”
nuclear-news 
