USA’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission is beholden to the nuclear industry

Ninety percent of the NRC’s funding comes from the industry they regulate.

How can you make a container for something that can destroy its container? But the NRC doesn’t see that as insurmountable, even though it is.

The NRC is beholden to no one but the nuclear industry they regulate. Their motto — protecting people and the environment — is criminally hollow.

Nuclear Power is Clean — as Long as you Ignore ‘Safety’!, Ace Hoffman Salem-News.com, 27 Jan 12, Every American nuclear power plant could be closed down if Americans turned off extra lights and became energy efficient. (CARLSBAD,Calif.) – In the United States, radiation-related “safety” decisions regarding commercial nuclear power plants are handled very
undemocratically.

They are considered to be strictly the purview of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. State and federal courts, public utilities commissions, state energy commissions, water boards, air
boards, EPA, DOE, and everyone else whose regulatory authority touches on nuclear power will insist that you cannot talk to them about “safety.” You must go to the NRC.

And the folks at the NRC think they know everything because they’ve:
“watched a lot of valves get turned” as one NRC resident inspector
actually put it at a public hearing here last year.

Somehow that makes them “experts” regarding the economic costs of
genetic damage to embryos in the womb, but I’m not sure how.

Ninety percent of the NRC’s funding comes from the industry they
regulate. The five largest nuclear power corporations own nearly half
of the 104 commercial reactors in operation in the U.S.: Exelon (17),
Entergy (11), FPL (8), Duke and Dominion (7 each). Lobbyists from
these and other nuclear corporations hound our Congresspeople every
day.

There are about 4,000 people on the NRC’s staff. Usually two NRC
inspectors are on site at each location, which might have 1,500
employees (the number of workers varies with the work load, the
reactor design, the number of reactors on site, etc.). Overall, less
than 1/2 of 1% of the working public is employed by the nuclear
industry.

Radiation is supposed to be carefully contained on site. Assurances of
>99.999999% containment are given with straight faces. Yet for every
atom split for energy, at least two dangerous fission products are
created on average, which are the first in a long chain of perhaps
dozens of “radioactive decay products,” all of which are harmful to
humans. Every radioactive decay is capable of destroying DNA (the
genetic code of life), or any container the radioactive material is
stored in. Some of the radioactive products are noble gasses or
radioactive hydrogen, which are virtually impossible to contain. Yet
containment is always promised anyway (and always with a straight
face).

Although records are invariably poorly kept, 2011 was surely the
nuclear industry’s worst year for containment ever, because of
Fukushima. A million years worth of promised containment has already
left the containment buildings, and Fukushima is still spewing more
poisons daily. No matter how radiation escapes — willfully,
accidentally, noticed or unnoticed — it can give you cancer or make
you sick in all sorts of other ways……

America is the most energy-wasting nation on the planet. Every nuclear
power plant in America could be closed down if Americans would turn
off extra lights, change to LED and CFL bulbs from incandescents, buy
energy-efficient computers and other appliances, and make other small
but important lifestyle changes and conservation efforts. No matter
how frequently or how loudly the pro-nukers say it can’t be done, the
data clearly shows that it CAN be done (and dozens of other countries
are doing it).

Instead, the NRC plans to continue to allow on-site nuclear waste
storage in highly populated areas for the next 200 years because they
don’t know what else to do with the waste, even after 60 years and
tens of billions of dollars worth of research. Not that there’s
anything surprising there: How can you make a container for something
that can destroy its container? But the NRC doesn’t see that as
insurmountable, even though it is.

The NRC is beholden to no one but the nuclear industry they regulate.
Their motto — protecting people and the environment — is criminally
hollow.

The author, Ace Hoffman is a Concerned Citizen in Carlsbad,
California. He is computer programmer and educational software
developer. In 2008 he wrote The Code Killers, a pictorial expose of
the nuclear industry. The Code Killers is available online at his web
site: www.acehoffman.org .

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/january262012/nuclear-power-ah.php