nuclear-news

Nevada sues over radiation standards
Pahrumo Valley Times By STEVE TETREAULT
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU 15 Oct 08

WASHINGTON — It was back to court for Nevada Friday when Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto filed a federal lawsuit asking judges to throw out new radiation limits for the Yucca Mountain project.

The radiation exposure standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency will fail to protect Nevadans “from cancer-causing radioactive contamination” if nuclear waste is buried at the site, Masto said……………………..The new EPA standard once again fails to protect the health and safety of Nevada citizens, and the environment,” said Masto. “EPA has obviously worked closely with DOE to adjust its radiation standard in an attempt to steamroll this project through licensing, but has failed to protect Nevadans from cancer-causing radioactive contamination.

“DOE’s own data shows that water infiltration will corrode nuclear waste packages and radioactivity will inevitably leak into Nevada’s groundwater, delivering lethal doses of radiation to the public and irreparably contaminating the groundwater.

“Instead of working to protect the health and safety of Nevadans and striving to find reasonable solutions to the nation’s nuclear waste problem, EPA and DOE are ignoring science in favor of a project which presents unacceptable risks to the public and presents American taxpayers with a $90 billion dollar liability they can ill afford,” she concluded…………………….The Nevada lawsuit challenges the EPA setting separate “near term” and “long term” radiation limits for people who may live near the repository site thousands of years into the future.

A president with an energy plan
Neither nuclear nor ‘clean coal’ will solve the crisis.
Los Angeles Times, Editorial 15 Oct 08 “,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,meeting our energy challenges will remain among the most important concerns of the next president.

That’s why it’s doubly disappointing that neither Barack Obama nor John McCain has a responsible energy plan. In pandering to voters in swing states, both have backed dangerous, dirty energy sources in contradiction of their own principles……………………………………there’s “safe nuclear,” a phrase as oxymoronic as “clean coal” that both candidates like to toss around. Nuclear waste remains toxic for millenniums, and no one has figured out a sufficiently permanent way of storing it. McCain’s plan to build 45 nuclear plants by 2030 is either disingenuous or naive. Because the nation’s existing plants are crumbling, they will have to be decommissioned as fast as new ones can be built, making it unlikely that there would be a net increase in nuclear power even if McCain’s goal could be met. Moreover, private investors have no interest in building nuclear plants unless they receive generous subsidies and taxpayer-backed loans, yet the Congressional Budget Office considers such loans so risky that “well above 50%” of them would default. Nuclear power isn’t just environmentally irresponsible, it’s fiscally irresponsible…………………………….Our power supply might never be completely clean, but we’ve barely scratched the surface of what could be done to improve energy efficiency and raise the share of renewable power. Clean power would create jobs for American workers and innovations that could be sold around the world, while greater efficiency would lower consumers’ energy bills by cutting demand………………………………Obama and McCain are both well informed about environmental matters, and either would be a vast improvement over Bush. But the next president needs to be more than knowledgeable. He needs to have the political courage to demand change — and possibly even sacrifice. Obama has shown little of this kind of courage so far, but McCain has shown still less.