nuclear-news

So-called “CLEAN” nuclear energy

Ohio Governor, Duke Power, UniStar, USEC, and France merge to build “clean energy park” at DOE site

Beyond Nuclear 20 June 09 Background: An alliance involving Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, Duke Power company, United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC), UniStar Nuclear Energy, and France’s troubled nuclear power giant AREVA is being forged to build a new 1600 megawatt Evolutionary Power Reactor (EPR) at the now closed atomic bomb and nuclear fuel enrichment factory site in Piketon, Ohio. The proposed site is at the U.S. Department of Energy’s old Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant which was leased to USEC for the enrichment of uranium. USEC ceased operations in May 2001. The Piketon site is also the USEC pilot project for new uranium enrichment technology with the construction of the American Centrifuge Demonstration Facility.

Our View: There is nothing “clean” about this proposed first-of-a-kind nuclear energy park for the enrichment of nuclear fuel alongside a new nuclear power plant including the secret dumping of radioactive contamination from the Cold War Piketon bomb factory. The Piketon facility is still the focus of more than $100 million in long overdue cleanup money from industrial contamination dating back to the bomb factory’s opening in 1952. The construction of a new uranium enrichment and now a new power reactor will likely result in widening contamination and divert vital resources from truly clean renewable energy resources and energy efficiency.

June 20, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | spinbuster, USA | antinuclear, AREVA, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear wastes, radioactive