The Leader in the Fight to Stop Yucca Mountain, Heller Demands Information on the Proposed Reclassification of High-Level Radioactive Waste

5 Oct 18, WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Dean Heller (R-NV) is today demanding additional information from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) regarding any potential changes to the classification of “high-level radioactive waste” so as to ensure that the reclassification will not warrant storage of any type of nuclear waste in the State of Nevada. On Thursday of this week, DOE announced that it had opened a 60-day comment period in an effort to interpret the term “high-level radioactive waste,” which, at this time, encapsulates all waste that has been created as a byproduct of used nuclear fuel.

“As Nevada’s senior Senator and the person whose leadership has stopped Yucca Mountain from getting the green light, it is important that I ensure your Department’s proposed redefinition of high-level nuclear waste is not part of a larger ploy to defeat the will of Congress and the clear and consistent opposition of the State of Nevada,” wrote Heller. “As someone who has worked repeatedly with the Senate Appropriations Committee, the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Senate leadership to ensure that not a single dollar goes toward funding the failed Yucca Mountain project, I am troubled by any action, such as the reclassification of high-level nuclear waste, that could potentially be undertaken to disrupt or circumvent the restrictions on Yucca Mountain that I marshaled into law.

The full text of the letter can be found HERE or below:……….https://www.heller.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=2A0F1C28-88A2-470C-BD01-3F9EEEB981C9

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Another glossy new nuclear film advertisement – “The New Fire”

Film review: ‘The New Fire’ and the old Gen IV rhetoric Author: Jim Green ‒ Nuclear Monitor editor NM866.4751, October 2018 The New Fire is a pro-nuclear propaganda film directed and produced by musician and film-maker David Schumacher.It’s similar in some respects to the 2013 film Pandora’s Promise.1,2 The New Fire premiere was held in October 2017 and it can be streamed online from 18 October 2018…..

The film includes interviews with around 30 people (an overwhelming majority of them male) interspersed with footage of interviewees walking into buildings, and interviewees smiling. The musical underlay is a tedious drone ‒ a disappointment given Schumacher’s musical background……..Interviewees are mostly aging but the film’s main message is that young entrepreneurs may save the planet and its inhabitants with their Generation IV reactor projects……..

These climate heroes are contrasted with anti-nuclear environmentalists. One interviewee says that “people of our generation are the first ones that have the opportunity to look at nuclear power without all the emotional baggage that previous generations have felt…..

Another interviewee attributes opposition to nuclear power to an “irrational fear of the unknown” (which surely poses a problem for the exotic Generation IV concepts promoted in the film) and another says that “once people sort of understand what’s going on withnuclear, they are much more open to it”.

The film trots out the usual anti-renewables tropes and falsehoods: 100% renewables is “just a fantasy”, renewables can contribute up to 20% of power supply and the remainder must be baseload: fossil fuels or nuclear power………

Accidents such as those at Fukushima and Chernobyl get in the news because they are “so unusual” according to interviewee Ken Caldeira. And they get in the news, he might have added, because of the estimated death tolls (in the thousands for Fukushima5, ranging to tens of thousands for Chernobyl6), the costs (around US$700 billion for Chernobyl7, and US$192 billion (and counting) for Fukushima8), the evacuation of 160,000 people after the Fukushima disaster and the permanent relocation of over 350,000 people after the Chernobyl disaster…….

Transatomic Power’s molten salt reactor concept The film spends most of its time promoting Generation IV reactor projects including Transatomic Power’s molten salt reactor (MSR) concept. [Ed note. recently failed and abandoned] .

Scott Nolan from venture capital firm Founders Fund says that Transatomic satisfies his four concerns about nuclear power: safety, waste, cost, proliferation. And he’s right ‒ Transatomic’s MSRs are faultless on all four counts, because they don’t exist. It’s doubtful whether they would satisfy any of the four criteria if they did actually exist……. https://nuclear-news.net/2018/10/01/another-nuclear-film-advertisement-the-new-fire/

EVENTS

November-December 2018 International Uranium Film Festival – U.S. Southwest tour

November 29th and 30th and December 1st, Navajo Nation Museum, Hwy 264 & Post Office Loop, Window Rock, Navajo Nation, AZ

December 2nd, Flagstaff, AZ

December 6th, Guild Cinema, 3405 Central Ave, Albuquerque, NM

December 7th, Grants, NM

December 9th, Jean Cocteau Cinema, 418 Montezuma Ave, Santa Fe, NM

PETITIONS

Tell Congress: Stop Trump from ordering a nuclear first strike without a Congressional declaration of war.

PREVENT UNNECESSARY RADIOACTIVE RISKS ACROSS THE USA NATION

Protect Idaho’s water. Stop nuclear waste.

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