North Wales Chronicle 31st Aug 2018 , Horizon Nuclear Power is seeking planning permission to carry out the 15
month long process that includes clearing field boundaries, demolishing
buildings and “relocating species”, covering an area the equivalent of
almost 500 football pitches. The plans, to be discussed by Anglesey
Council’s planning committee next week, also include building car parks
and offices at the site on the outskirts of Cemaes.
Recommended for approval by officers, Horizon has endeavoured to begin the work even before
the fate is known of the necessary Development Consent Order (DCO)
application for the nuclear plant itself. A process that could take at
least 18 months for the Planning Inspectorate to decide upon, the DCO will
also include a substantial public consultation period. http://www.northwaleschronicle.co.uk/news/16611204.740-acre-site-for-wylfa-newydd-recommended-for-approval/
French environment minister resigns https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2018/08/29/french-environment-minister-resigns/Update: A newly leaked report examines the possibility of France building six new EPR reactors starting in 2025, after a prolonged period of inactivity in the industry. The report was ironically commissioned by Hulot and economy minister, Bruno Lemaire, and concludes that France “cannot stop building” reactors in order to maintain industrial know how and provide jobs, according to the newspaper, Les Echos, which broke the story. The report’s finding may have contributed to Hulot’s decision to resign. However, the notion that France would build six more EPRs was met with derision by nuclear critics who pointed out that the French nuclear industry has been unable to complete even one EPR in either France of Finland, where both projects are years behind schedule and massively over-budget.
Is the departure of Nicolas Hulot significant?, By Linda Pentz Gunter, 30 Aug 18
Opinion in France is decidedly mixed about the sudden resignation of French environment minister, Nicolas Hulot. He made his announcement on a radio show, taking the government of centrist, Emmanuel Macron, by surprise.
Certainly, the ecological crown had sat uneasily on Hulot’s head throughout his tenure in government. He arrived there ostensibly from the activist ranks — he was also a journalist — and was thought to be strongly anti-nuclear. But when French gendarmes raided and destroyed an opposition encampment at the proposed high-level radioactive waste repository site in Bure last February, Hulot failed to come to the defense of the anti-nuclear activists, some of whom were arrested. Even when challenged in the French parliament for his silence, he bobbed and weaved, relying on evasive rhetoric.
Yet when he resigned on Tuesday, he claimed it was to stop “having to lie to myself” and told the radio program on which he made the announcement that nuclear power is “a useless folly.”
All smoke and mirrors, says long-time anti-nuclear activist and watchdog, Stéphane Lhomme of L’Observatoire du Nucléaire. “Nicolas Hulot has never taken any concrete action against the nuclear lobbies he pretends to fight,” Lhomme wrote on his blog.” He points out, as did Beyond Nuclear International in an earlier article, that Hulot’s foundation — Nature and Man — is funded by corporations, including EdF, the national nuclear utility.
Indeed, it could be EdF who will be doing the celebrating now that Hulot is gone, according to a Reuters article. The company’s share price rose by two percent on the announced resignation, and former EdF board member, Gerard Magnin, told Reuters that“Hulot was the last remaining obstacle to a strategy with nuclear as the sole option for security of supply and carbon-free energy.”
Macron and his “neither Left nor Right” party, known as Republic on the Move, has proven to be as malleable as his predecessor, the Socialist party’s Francois Hollande, at first announcing he would reduce France’s reliance on nuclear energy to 50 percent by 2025, down from the current 75 percent, as Hollande had vowed. But Macron quickly capitulated to the power of the nuclear lobby, and pushed the timeline back a decade at least. A new timeline will be announced next year.
The French anti-nuclear network, Sortir du nucléaire, took a surprisingly conciliatory tone toward Hulot’s decision, saying in a press release that they “applaud the honesty and the political courage implicit in this decision.” The network praised Hulot for “denouncing the crushing weight of the nuclear lobby,” and stated that in a democracy it should be the people, not lobbies or a single, powerful leader who should set the direction of the country and its future.
Lhomme is not so sure that lobbyists are breathing a sigh of relief with Hulot’s departure. He asserts they never had anything to fear from Hulot — even as they declared him “enemy number one” — because he is “someone who talks a lot and takes no action.”
At the end of the day, the fallout from Hulot’s resignation may change nothing, or it may further shake confidence in the Macron government. Jean-Luc Mélanchon, leader of the Leftist “Unbowed” party, who was a Macron opponent during the presidential elections, proclaimed in a tweet that the Hulot resignation marked the beginning of the “decomposition” of Macronism.
Whether Hulot was a champion of environmental causes stifled by a corporate-leaning government, or whether the ire of environmentalists finally reached his conscience, will play out in the coming months when we see what he does next.
Assemblies make moves to reject playing host to nuclear waste http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201808280029.html By CHIAKI OGIHARA/ Staff WriterAugust 28, 2018 More local assemblies are taking measures to send a strong message to the central government not to bother asking them to host storage facilities for nuclear waste.The moves, in the form of ordinances, were accelerated after the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in July 2017 released its Nationwide Map of Scientific Features for Geological Disposal that classified areas around Japan into four colors denoting their suitability as storage sites for nuclear waste.
Electric power companies are looking for land plots to construct an interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel. The central government is planning a final storage facility where high-level radioactive waste would be mixed with glass and vitrified before being buried more than 300 meters underground.
Twenty-two municipal assemblies now have ordinances that limit the entry of highly radioactive waste into their communities.
About half of the ordinances were adopted by 2005, followed by an extended period when concerns decreased about being chosen as a site for nuclear waste storage facilities.
But the release of the geological disposal map prompted five municipal assemblies to quickly adopt ordinances limiting the introduction of nuclear waste to their communities.
Dark green areas on the map show places deemed appropriate for hosting the final storage facility. They are all within 20 kilometers from the coast, have favorable geological features and are considered adequate for the transportation of waste.
About 900 municipalities fall into the dark green areas.
Light green areas on the map have favorable geological features but face problems in transporting the waste.
Orange areas are considered inappropriate from a geological standpoint, while silver areas are also deemed inappropriate because they have reserves of natural resources that could be mined in the future.
Between autumn 2017 and spring 2018, the village of Yamato and the towns of Higashi-Kushira and Kimotsuki–all in dark green areas in Kagoshima Prefecture–adopted ordinances to reject the acceptance of nuclear waste.
Two towns in Hokkaido passed similar ordinances. Biei, located in a light green area, took the action in April, while Urakawa, which lies mostly in a dark green area, adopted the ordinance in June.
Kagoshima Prefecture has the most municipalities–11–with such ordinances. In 2000 and 2001, six municipalities adopted the ordinances amid rising concerns that an interim spent fuel storage facility would be brought in. Between 2005 and 2015, four other municipalities followed suit.
The town of Yaku was among the first group, but its ordinance became invalid after it merged with Kami-Yaku to form the new town of Yakushima.
The Yakushima town assembly is now planning to submit an ordinance in its September session to reiterate its opposition to serving as a site for nuclear waste storage.
However, the law for nuclear waste storage would take legal precedence over any municipal ordinance, meaning that the local governments could still be asked to accept the nuclear waste.
The Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Japan (NUMO) is in charge of the final nuclear waste storage project, and it has held explanatory meetings around Japan about the geological disposal map.
At those meetings, NUMO officials have stressed that it would not force a locality to accept nuclear waste if the prefectural governor or municipal mayor was opposed.
Still, Kohei Katsuyama, chairman of the Yamato village assembly in Kagoshima Prefecture, said the ordinance serves as a strong sign of the municipality’s stance of rejecting any idea of serving as host of a nuclear waste storage facility.
Popular French environment minister quits in blow to Macron, Laurence Frost, Geert De Clercq, PARIS (Reuters) 28 Aug 18 – French Environment Minister Nicolas Hulot resigned on Tuesday in frustration over sluggish progress on climate goals and nuclear energy policy, dealing a major blow to President Emmanuel Macron’s already tarnished green credentials.
Hulot, a former TV presenter and green activist who consistently scored high in opinion polls, quit during a live radio interview following what he called an “accumulation of disappointments”.
“I don’t want to lie to myself any more, or create the illusion that we’re facing up to these challenges,” Hulot said on France Inter. “I have therefore decided to leave the government.”
Hulot was among Macron’s first ministerial appointments following his May 2017 election victory. His inclusion helped to sustain a green image France had earned 18 months earlier by brokering the Paris Agreement to combat global greenhouse emissions.
But the centrist president has watered down a series of campaign pledges on the environment, including a commitment to cut the share of nuclear power in French electricity to 50 percent by 2025 and boost renewable energy.
Those policy shifts have been a repeated source of frustration for Hulot. Since a post-election honeymoon period, they have been accompanied by a sharp slide in Macron’s ratings, which touched new lows after his bodyguard was filmed assaulting demonstrators last month.
if all other countries were to follow Australia’s current policy settings, warming could reach over 3°C and up to 4°C.
Climate Change Policy Toppled Australia’s Leader. Here’s What It Means for Others, New York Times, By Somini Sengupta Aug. 24, 2018
Climate change policy toppled the government in Australia on Friday.
How much does that really matter?
It is certain to keep Australia from meeting its emissions targets under the Paris climate agreement.
It’s also a glimpse into what a potent political issue climate change and energy policy can be in a handful of countries with powerful fossil fuel lobbies, namely Australia, Canada and the United States.
In Australia, the world’s largest exporter of coal, climate and energy policy have infused politics for a decade, helping to bring down both liberal and conservative lawmakers.
It could be a bellwether for next year’s Canadian elections, expected in October, in which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau faces a powerful challenge from politicians aligned with the country’s oil industry. Conservatives have pledged to undo Mr. Trudeau’s plans to put a price on carbon nationwide if they take power. At the provincial level, conservatives won a majority in Ontario after campaigning against the province’s newly enacted cap-and-trade program.
The Australian parallels with the United States are striking. The Trump administration has promised to revive the coal industry, rolled back fuel emissions standards and announced the country’s exit from the Paris pact altogether. Climate change is not a driving issue in the United States midterm election campaign, though it is for liberal Democrats, a recent study by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication has shown.
Environmental policy and global warming are top priorities for those who describe themselves as liberal Democrats, the study found, after health care and gun control.
……… Robert C. Orr, dean of the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, pointed to another parallel: In both Australia and the United States, local leaders have embraced renewable energy even as national politicians promote fossil fuels.
“Australia is a lot like the U.S.,” said Dr. Orr, who is also the special adviser on climate change to the United Nations secretary general. “Climate policy has really been driven from below, from the state, local and business level. That is not going to change.”
Most Australian states have renewable energy targets, and Australians are powering their houses with solar energy at one of the highest rates in the world. But Australia’s emissions have continued to rise.
Australia is among several industrialized nations that are not on track to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to keep global warming below two degrees Celsius as the Paris accord promises, according to independent analyses.
Climate Action Tracker, an alliance of European think tanks that tracks countries’ climate pledges under the agreement, concluded recently that “if all other countries were to follow Australia’s current policy settings, warming could reach over 3°C and up to 4°C.” Those are levels that climate scientists consider “highly insufficient” to stop the worst effects of climate change. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/24/climate/australia-climate-change.html
Managing Pakistan’s Bomb: Learning on the job, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientisrs, By Pervez Hoodbhoy, Zia Mian, August 17, 2018 “…….the biggest and most important challenge Imran Khan will confront as prime minister is something he did not mention at all in his speech—how to manage the Bomb. The lives and well-being of Pakistan’s 200 million citizens and countless millions in India and elsewhere depend on how well he deals with the doomsday machine Pakistan’s Army and nuclear complex have worked so hard to build.
To be fair, it is not clear that Imran Khan will have much choice regarding nuclear policy. For Pakistani politicians, the options largely come down to either support the Bomb, or keep quiet about it. Like other prime ministers before him, Imran Khan may go and have his picture taken with the missiles that will carry nuclear warheads and pose with the scientists and engineers that make them and the military units that plan and train to fire them.
Imran Khan’s two-decade-long political career overlaps with the creation of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, but he has had very little to say about the Bomb. When he has spoken, it has been as a Bomb supporter…….
Redirecting Trump’s Coal and Nuclear Bailout to Fund Economic Redevelopment
Bailout money could be better used to cover gaps in tax revenue, help workers retrain for new jobs, and fuel economic development in affected communities. GreenTe4cyhMedia, SONIA AGGARWALAUGUST 23, 2018Coal and nuclear facilities are facing a tough economic reality in the United States. Competitive power markets are oversupplied, while natural gas and renewable energy are undercutting coal and nuclear on cost…..
Last year, the Department of Energy proposed a federal bailout for power plants that could prove they had a 90-day supply of fuel on site, suggesting that imminent coal and nuclear retirements would constitute a national emergency. But the five members of the bipartisan Federal Energy Regulatory Commission unanimously rejected DOE’s proposed market intervention in January 2018, citing a lack of evidence that retiring coal and nuclear facilities would cause reliability or grid resilience concerns out of the normal course of business for the nation’s power grid.
However, a DOE memo made public earlier this summer suggests the agency is still considering exercising emergency authority to require electric consumers to pay above-market rates to ensure certain coal and nuclear plants stay online, despite mounting evidence from grid operators that these power plants are not needed.
An analysis of the original bailout proposal, conducted by Energy Innovation and the Climate Policy Initiative last year, suggested that keeping uncompetitive coal and nuclear facilities in the black could cost consumers up to $12 billion per year. A new analysis finds that that money could go a long way toward helping workers and communities transition to a new energy future.
FirstEnergy: A case for a proactive transition plan
FirstEnergy has been among the loudest voices clamoring for a coal and nuclear plant financial rescue, and it’s no wonder why — new economic realities are hitting the company hard. Its competitive subsidiary filed for bankruptcy last spring after filing a deactivationnotice for three of its uncompetitive nuclear power plants, and last week it filed worker retraining plans for these plants with federal regulators.
FirstEnergy’s market-exposed power plants would need about $1 billion per year to keep running profitably. Assuming the two-year price support referenced in DOE’s memo from earlier this summer, that would imply subsidies of about $2 billion over two years to keep six of FirstEnergy’s uneconomic plants operating.
Giving $2 billion over two years to one company is a shocking amount of money to squander in the face of underlying economic trends that show no signs of reversal. So, assuming the price supports went forward, it’s quite reasonable to think that the same retirements would be imminent for FirstEnergy at the end of the period. And the affected communities would still face the same tough economic and employment questions in two years.
But what if funds were instead directed to help impacted workers and the communities that host the power plants that can no longer compete in power markets? What if funds went directly to communities to support the inevitable transition, diversifying local economies and setting the stage for longer-lasting solutions?
n the case of FirstEnergy, if the same $2 billion were to be directed toward locally led solutions in each of their six affected communities, instead of keeping these uneconomic power plants running for two more years, it would provide more than $300 million per community.
The idea may seem far-fetched, but it’s already been implemented in New York………
The wave of coal and nuclear closures is building
………A transition plan becomes vital in this context, and we still have time to be proactive. Other states may be able to follow the Tonawanda model, and in some cases coal generation sites may be suitable for redevelopment (there is promising work underway to convert brownfields to brightfields, for example) to can help moderate economic damage.
Another model is emerging, as well: leveraging utility balance sheets to transition from fossil to clean energy. In vertically integrated markets like the territory of Public Service Company of Colorado, uneconomic coal power plants are being retired, with utility funds reinvested in clean energy located in the same communities, like the plan to retire a coal plant in Pueblo County and replace it with local solar and wind power plants.
In Arizona, where the Navajo Generating Station retirement threatens to devastate two Native American tribes’ economies, the future is less clear. Solar and wind resource potential on Navajo lands holds promise for longer-lasting benefits that can similarly be contrasted with proposals to prop up coal plants temporarily.
Communities where these plants are located — not the federal government and power plant owners — should be in charge of deciding how any available funds can best be spent to support them in this economic transition. If state or federal policymakers want to put workers first and support communities facing power plant closures, they could generate a more positive impact by giving any available funds to the affected communities to use however they want. They should support a just transition that diversifies local economies for long-term success. https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/redirecting-trumps-coal-and-nuclear-bailout-to-fund-economic-transition#gs.YLYGSAw
The government of Japan is clearly intending that the 2020 Olympics will function as a public relations win in which the image of Japan, and especially of Northern Japan and Fukushima are cleansed of images of radiological contamination. Even as the Fukushima Daiichi site itself, and the traces where the plumes of its explosions deposited fallout throughout the area remain un-remediated, the public perceptions will be remediated. This is typical of the behavior of governments in the developed world that suffer radiological disasters. The disasters themselves are so difficult to clean up, and take decades to even begin the clean up, that money is allocated for extensive public relations efforts. These become tasks that CAN be completed and CAN be considered successful. They function both to advance the public image agenda of the governments, and also deliver a sense of agency when the overall tone of nuclear disaster remediation is one of lacking effective agency.
Towards that end, the Japanese government is planning to integrate Fukushima sites and perceptions into the upcoming Olympics media fest. The journey of the Olympic torch through every prefecture of Japan will begin in Fukushima, a symbolic rebirth intended to facilitate the repopulating of the local communities that were evacuated, many of which have had few returnees since the government has declared them “safe” and cut public funds to those forcibly evacuated.
The government is also planning to hold multiple Olympic events in Fukushima prefecture including baseball and softball events. “Tokyo 2020 is a showcase for the recovery and reconstruction of Japan from the disaster of March 2011, so in many ways we would like to give encouragement to the people, especially in the affected area,”said Tokyo 2020 president Yoshiro Mori last March.
This active rebranding of Fukushima as safe involves removing physical reminders of ongoing risk. The central government has recently announced that it will be removing 80% of public radiation monitors from the region. An argument can be made that the presence of these monitors is theatrical in that they only measure external gamma radiation levels, which are not the primary risk to residents (this comes from internalizing radioactive particles that blanketed the region in the fallout of the plumes of the explosions of March 2011), and that positioning these gamma detectors in midair produces low readings since the particles are primarily on the ground. However, they are a tangible, embodied reminder that risk remains.
While there is a clearly an active campaign to rehabilitate the image of the region leading up to the 2020 Olympics, an effort that will no doubt intensify as the event draws near, there is also pushback and resistance in the local and national communities. A recent sculpture unveiled at the JR train station in prefectural capital Fukushima City (about 80km from the Daiichi nuclear site) has been stirring up controversy. A Guardianarticle explained:
“The statue, by Kenji Yanobe, depicts a child dressed in a yellow Hazmat-style suit, with a helmet in one hand and an artistic representation of the sun in the other.
Yanobe said his Sun Child, which was installed by the municipal government after appearing at art exhibitions in Japan and overseas, was intended to express his desire for a nuclear-free world.
The artist said he did not mean to give the impression that local children needed to protect themselves from radiation more than seven years after the Fukushima Daiichi plant became the scene of the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.
He pointed out that the child was not wearing the helmet and that a monitor on its chest showed radiation levels at ‘000’.”
While some, including the mayor of Fukushima City, have praised the statue for emphasizing a hopeful future for local children, others have criticized the statue for suggesting that there is any danger to local children.
Regardless of how one interprets the sculpture, it does confront people with the fact that things are far from normal in the region. This, in spite of the central government’s strong efforts to implore people not to pay any attention to what is happening behind the curtains it has been raising.
S. Korean gov’t committed to nuclear phase-out policy goal, 2018/08/18 SEOUL, Aug. 18 (Yonhap)— The South Korean government is firmly committed to reducing the country’s dependence on nuclear power and will expand the use of renewable power sources…..
President Moon Jae-in is currently seeking to scrap the building of new reactors and phase out those already in operation.
During a meeting with ruling and opposition parties on Thursday, Moon was quoted by the Democratic Party as saying that the government is carrying out the phase-out drive “step by step,” expressing confidence that the present energy policy will not weigh down the national economy.
……. Seoul has emphasized that the course to denuclearize can lead to new business opportunities as there can be a lucrative market for safety dismantling nuclear reactors. It, moreover, said that the government will continue to support efforts by South Korean companies to win nuclear plant construction orders abroad.
The Government have issued a clear commitment to developing the UK’s capacity to produce nuclear energy in 2018.
But some MPs are reticent and believe the UK is being taken down the wrong path in its pursuit of a robust sustainable energy mix, writes Dods Monitoring’s Josh White. SNP MPs such as Drew Hendry and Alan Brown have encapsulated this sentiment in the Commons, often taking the Government to task on its decision to prioritise new nuclear over alternatives such as oil and gas and offshore wind.
In July, Hendry accused the Government of locking consumers into paying £20 to £40 more per megawatt-hour and called on it to end to its “obsession with outdated, expensive and risky nuclear”.
Does Hendry have a point? – At face value, there’s no denying that a higher strike price represents a poorer public investment, however, new nuclear stakeholders have argued that the reliability of nuclear energy sets it apart from other cheaper forms of low carbon energy production.
Whilst it is evident that the Government seeks to establish new nuclear as the core of the future UK energy mix, the success of the project will be contingent on finding a solution to the pressing issue of what to do with nuclear waste – a problem unique to nuclear energy.
Currently, the solution on thetable is to store radioactive waste in geological disposal facilities (GDFs) that would be built with community consent, bringing jobs and skills to affected localities whilst also providing a long-term solution to the legacy of higher-activity waste.
The scheme failed to gain traction in 2008 when it was launched as part of the Managing Radioactive Disposal white paper, however, with the need to transition towards a sustainable energy mix greater than ever, the Government is hoping the initiative will attract
more support and uptake this time around.
A community vote on the proposed nuclear waste dump on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula has been delayed after an Aboriginal group won a court injunction.
Key points:
The Federal Government has shortlisted Kimba for Australia’s future nuclear waste dump
The Barngarla Aboriginal people have won an injunction to halt a community vote
The Supreme Court will hear the case next Thursday
The Barngarla people, the traditional owners of much of the Eyre Peninsula, applied for an injunction to halt the vote in South Australia’s Supreme Court, arguing it contravened the Racial Discrimination Act 1975.
Lawyers for the Aboriginal group argued the District Council of Kimba did not have the power to conduct the postal ballot, which was due to begin on Monday.
The Federal Government has shortlisted two sites near Kimba as possible locations for a low-level radioactive waste storage facility, along with four other sites around Australia
The lawyer representing the Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation, Daniel O’Gorman SC, told the court his clients had no issue with the vote going ahead, they just wanted to be included in it.
“That’s all they want, they just want to be included, they don’t want to be treated any differently because their rights are Aboriginal rights,” he said.
The court heard the majority of the 211 native title holders lived outside the boundary of the Kimba District Council and that excluding them from the vote had the effect “of nullifying or impairing their rights”.
But Michael Burnett, representing the District Council of Kimba, told the court its power to conduct the postal vote came from the Local Government Act.
He said the council wanted to conduct the vote in a fair manner and decided the fairest manner was to comply with “the statutory procedure that applies in the case of elections”.
“It’s not a vote that has direct consequences … it’s part of a range of consultations that will be taken into account,” he said.
Mr Burnett said there were direct consultations taking place with native title holders about the proposed sites, a claim which Mr O’Gorman rejected.
“They’re getting two bites of the cherry and therein lies the exclusion, [the native title holders are] only getting one,” Mr O’Gorman said.
Mr Burnett questioned why the Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation had waited until August to seek an injunction when they had known about the vote since May.
But Mr O’Gorman said the corporation had written to the District Council of Kimba on six occasions seeking to be included in the postal vote and council had only made its final decision on July 27.
The vote of around 800 residents who live in Kimba will be delayed until after a full court hearing next Thursday.
State lawmakers maintained they will have a say in a proposed facility to store high-level nuclear waste near Carlsbad and Hobbs, despite an opinion issued by New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas suggesting New Mexico will have a limited role in licensing the project.
New Mexico Sen. Jeff Steinborn (D-36), who chairs the New Mexico Radioactive and Hazardous Waste Committee said Balderas’ opinion was informative but did not preclude lawmakers from preventing the facility from operating.
The committee convened in May to study the project proposed by New Jersey-based Holtec International, and held its third meeting on Wednesday at University of New Mexico-Los Alamos.
Opposed to the project, Steinborn said state lawmakers owe their constituents a full review of the proposal.
More: Who is Holtec? International company touts experience in nuclear storage
“I think it’s kind of a troubling deficiency in the government if the state doesn’t have to give consent to have something like this foisted upon it,” he said. “The State of New Mexico owes it to the people to look at every aspect of it.”
In Balderas’ response to multiple questions asked by Steinborn, he cited numerous past cases that Balderas said created a precedent that state governments have almost no role in federal licensing for nuclear facilities.
More: Attorney general: New Mexico has little say in Holtec proposal
He said the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has the sole authority to license the facility, and the state’s authority would likely begin once it went into operation, providing some recourse if something goes wrong.
“While it is abundantly clear that the state cannot license or otherwise directly regulate interim storage facilities, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that state tort law can provide a remedy for injuries suffered as a result of nuclear plant operation,” Balderas wrote.
But Steinborn said he and the committee intended to make their voices heard well before the plant could go into operation.
He said even if the federal NRC does issue Holtec the needed license, the state could fight back by blocking utilities and infrastructure such as water and transportation access – cutting off the facility’s ability to operate. Continue reading →
Citing ‘potential mismanagement,’ state senator asks for study of JEA’s nuclear power costs Jacksonville.com By Nate Monroe , 16 Aug 18
Central Florida state Sen. Debbie Mayfield has asked the Legislature’s auditing and accountability office to study JEA’s involvement in a faltering and increasingly expensive nuclear power project, citing it as an “alarming example” of “potential mismanagement” at the city-owned electric, water and sewer utility.
JEA’s involvement in the Plant Vogtle nuclear expansion project has largely simmered in the background this year as City Hall was embroiled in a contentious debate over whether it should sell the utility to a private operator. But the costs associated with JEA’s share of Vogtle — which could total $4 billion over 20 years — have concerned city and utility officials and credit-rating analysts.
JEA has told the Plant Vogtle co-owners it wants the project canceled, and utility officials are actively searching for ways to get out of the contract it has with the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia, one of the co-owners
Mayfield, who represents a state Senate district that includes Brevard and Indian River counties about 150 miles south of Jacksonville, wants the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability Office to complete an in-depth study of JEA’s contract with MEAG, and to submit a report to the House and Senate leadership by Feb. 1.
“Citizens from the community have expressed concern over recent events and published reports that suggest serious issues surrounding the spending and operation decisions of the JEA,” Mayfield wrote in a Wednesday letter to the legislative auditors.
…….. JEA signed the Plant Vogtle nuclear power agreement in 2008, when industry analysts considered nuclear power to be on the upswing
…….In recent years, however, the fortunes of nuclear power have nose dived, stemming in large part from the availability and low cost of natural gas.The Plant Vogtle expansion is the only remaining active project of its kind in the nation and has experienced explosive cost overruns and delays in the completion dates. Zahn said JEA’s decision to invest made sense in 2008 but that the structure of the contract has left JEA in a bad spot, especially as the cost has skyrocketed. ……..
Glick ‘at a loss’ over FERC role in Trump coal and nuclear bailout, The Democrat commissioner said he has no knowledge of FERC’s efforts to assist the Trump administration in supporting money-losing coal and nuclear plants. Utility Dive, Gavin Bade@GavinBade 16 Aug 18
Federal Energy Regulatory Commissioner Richard Glick said Wednesday he has no knowledge of efforts at his agency to assist the Trump administration in bailing out money-losing coal and nuclear plants.
“I would like to know what they’re doing,” Glick said, referring to the FERC staff. “I think Commissioner [Neil] Chatterjee would like to know what they’re doing and so would Commissioner [Cheryl] LaFleur, so I just thought I’m kind of at a loss right now trying to figure out what they are doing.”
FERC later said that it was only providing technical assistance to ensure critical electricity infrastructure is protected, but Glick said even that role had not been communicated to him and other commissioners.
“The commission does provide technical assistance and has been doing that for a long time,” he said on the sidelines of the Midcontinent ISO Market Symposium in Indianapolis. “Maybe that’s what [Pugliese is] doing. I honestly just don’t know.”
