Nuclear waste storage in New Mexico would be blocked if Senate, House bill pass Legislature
Nuclear waste storage in New Mexico would be blocked if Senate, House bill pass Legislature, Adrian Hedden, Carlsbad Current-Argus 27 Jan 22, High-level spent nuclear fuel would be prohibited from being stored in New Mexico if lawmakers pass a pair of bills introduced during this year’s legislative session.
The bicameral effort comes as Holtec International proposed to build and operate a facility in southeast New Mexico to temporarily hold spent nuclear fuel rods from generator sites across the U.S.
Sponsored by New Mexico Sen. Jeff Steinborn (D-36), a frequent critic of the Holtec project, Senate Bill 54 would prohibit the kind of waste Holtec planned to store in New Mexico. It’s twin bill, House Bill 127, was sponsored by Rep. Matthew McQueen (D-50).
The state does have a facility for low-level waste. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant is operated by the U.S. Department of Energy in the same region and permitted by the State of New Mexico
The Holtec site recently received approval from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which recommended Holtec be issued a license to build the facility and a final decision was expected this year.
Holtec would hold up to 100,000 metric tons of the waste in total on an interim basis until a permanent repository was available.
The U.S. does not presently have a permanent repository for the waste after such a project at Yucca Mountain, Nevada stalled amid opposition from leaders in that state.
In New Mexico, high-ranking state officials voiced their own opposition to the proposal with Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham calling the project “economic malpractice” as she worried it could risk nearby oil and gas and agriculture industries in the region.
Last year, New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas filed a lawsuit against the NRC arguing its license recommendation ignored the environmental and safety impacts the site could have if built and operated.
SB 54 was awaiting a hearing in the Senate Conservation Committee, while HB 127 was to be considered in the House Energy, Environment and Natural Resources Committee.
Both bills added language to New Mexico’s Radioactive and Hazardous Materials Act that “no one” will store high-level waste or spent nuclear fuel in New Mexico, adding to a clause that already required state consent before such a facility could be built.
The bill would also amend requirements of the state’s Radioactive Waste Consultation Task Force to include private nuclear facilities like Holtec’s in its purview for analysis and require the committee meet at least annually.
“No person shall store or dispose of radioactive materials or radioactive waste (or spent fuel) in a disposal facility until the state has concurred in the creation of the disposal facility, except as specifically preempted by federal law; provided that spent fuel and high-level waste shall not be stored or disposed of in the state; and provided further that the state or a political subdivision of the state shall not issue or certify a permit for the construction or operation of a disposal facility for spent fuel or high-level waste,” read the language of the bills.
Local leaders in southeast New Mexico opposed the bill, believing the Holtec project was a safe way to diversify the region’s economy and insulate it from future up and downswings in the oil and gas markets.
Carlsbad Mayor Dale Janway, Eddy County Commission Chairman Steven McCutcheon, along with Hobbs Mayor Sam Cobb and Lea County Commissioner Jonathan Sena signed letters to Lujan Grisham opposing each bill and asking that she not sign them into law if passed.
The cities of Carlsbad and Hobbs and Eddy and Lea counties formed the Eddy Lea Energy Alliance which sited the project and recruited Holtec………………. https://www.currentargus.com/story/news/local/2022/01/27/nuclear-waste-storage-new-mexico-would-blocked-if-bills-pass/6578755001/
”All options on the table” to punish Moscow -could bring about a nuclear conflict.
Repeated assertions that “all options are on the table” to punish Moscow should it reinvade Ukraine are seen as particularly troubling.
“In the nuclear age, ‘all options on the table’ in a conflict involving nuclear powers could be understood to mean the potential use of nuclear weapons, even if that wasn’t the intention in this instance,
Nuclear fears mount as Ukraine crisis deepens,
Officials and experts are warning that a Russian invasion could inadvertently trigger a nuclear exchange with the U.S. Politico By BRYAN BENDER, 01/27/2022, As Russian troops bear down on Ukraine and the United States prepares its own military buildup in Eastern Europe, concerns are growing across the ideological spectrum that the standoff could inadvertently escalate into the unthinkable: nuclear war.
President Joe Biden has insisted that he will not use American forces to directly defend Ukrainian territory against a possible Russian invasion. But that is no guarantee that the two sides won’t come to blows.
The world’s two largest nuclear powers could even stumble into nuclear confrontation if the situation spins out of control, current and former officials and experts on both sides of the Atlantic worry.
“At the point you unleash war in the modern environment, the one thing that is certain is the law of unintended consequences,” Des Browne, a member of the British Parliament and a former secretary of state for defense, told POLITICO. “If you are talking about a nuclear-armed environment, which is already fragile … then you are living in an environment [where] things could escalate quite quickly, by accident or miscalculation.”
“Nobody thinks any of these weapons are going to be used deliberately, but miscalculation is a significant chance,” added Browne, who chairs the Euro-Atlantic Security Leadership Group.
It’s a concern shared by current and former nuclear security officials who usually don’t agree on much — from disarmament advocates to nuclear hawks.
“I think the Ukraine conflict is demonstrating that the nuclear escalation scenario we’re worried about is not out of sight,” said Patty-Jane Geller, an expert on nuclear strategy at the hawkish Heritage Foundation.
Last week, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists cited the Ukraine conflict as contributing to its decision to keep the “Doomsday Clock” at 100 seconds to midnight, an indication of how close it assesses that the human race is to potential self-annihilation.
“Ukraine remains a potential flashpoint, and Russian troop deployments to the Ukrainian border heighten day-to-day tension,” it noted in citing the threat of a nuclear conflict.
A primary concern, according to Geller and others, is Russia’s arsenal of thousands of battlefield nuclear weapons, which are central to its military strategy.
“The Russians have something like 4,000 [tactical nuclear weapons] and they have an ‘escalate to win’ nuclear doctrine, which says ‘we use nuclear weapons first if the conventional conflict starts to spin out of our favor,’” said a former senior GOP government official who still works on nuclear security issues.
One Russian diplomat last month went so far as to publicly threaten the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in the crisis.
The weapons have a lower “yield” than traditional atomic bombs and are designed to be used against conventional forces in battle. But they still have enormous explosive power and are considered particularly destabilizing to deterrent strategy.
The United States has reportedly been flying dedicated spy missions over in recent weeks to determine if Russia has deployed any of its tactical nuclear weapons along the border with Ukraine.
There’s also concern among Russian nuclear experts about the potential that the Ukraine crisis could escalate, according to former U.S. Ambassador Richard Burt, who negotiated arms control treaties with the Soviet Union…………
The situation is exacerbated by the growing number of U.S., NATO, and Russian military forces in close proximity, Burt said.
“One thing I think is useful to remember is people are not just putting their forces on alert in and around Ukraine, but you’ve got nuclear-capable naval forces in the Black Sea and in the Mediterranean,” he said. “In the Baltic Sea there also has been an intensification of activity as well. You have a lot more aircraft flying overflights.”………….
Others have taken issue with American rhetoric that they see as sowing unnecessary confusion about what military options might be under consideration to prevent a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Repeated assertions that “all options are on the table” to punish Moscow should it reinvade Ukraine are seen as particularly troubling.
“In the nuclear age, ‘all options on the table’ in a conflict involving nuclear powers could be understood to mean the potential use of nuclear weapons, even if that wasn’t the intention in this instance,” two leading arms control advocates wrote last week.…..https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/27/nuclear-fears-mount-ukraine-crisis-deepens-00003088
Elon Musk SpaceX rocket on collision course with moon.
Elon Musk SpaceX rocket on collision course with moon
By Georgina Rannard, BBC News, 28 Jan 22, A rocket launched by Elon Musk’s space exploration company is on course to crash into the Moon and explode.
The Falcon 9 booster was launched in 2015 but after completing its mission, it did not have enough fuel to return towards Earth and instead remained in space.
Astronomer Jonathan McDowell told BBC News it will be the first known uncontrolled rocket collision with the Moon……..
It was part of Mr Musk’s space exploration programme SpaceX, a commercial company that ultimately aims to get humans living on other planets.
Since 2015 the rocket has been pulled by different gravitational forces of the Earth, Moon and Sun, making its path somewhat “chaotic”, explains Prof McDowell from the US-based Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
“It’s been dead – just following the laws of gravity.”
It’s joined millions of other pieces of space junk – machinery discarded in space after completing missions without enough energy to return to Earth.
“Over the decades there have been maybe 50 large objects that we’ve totally lost track of. This may have happened a bunch of times before, we just didn’t notice. This would be the first confirmed case,” Prof McDowell says…………………. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60148543
Nuclear-Testing ‘Downwinders’ Speak about History and Fear
Nuclear-Testing ‘Downwinders’ Speak about History and Fear. An archival project aims to document the experiences of people who suffered from U.S. nuclear weapons testing, Scientific American , By Sarah Scoles on January 27, 2022 When Sandra Evans Walsh was growing up in Parowan, Utah, her class would sometimes trek outside to a row of trees. They were about to watch history in the making, the teacher would tell them. The kids would then stare as an orange shroud spread across the sky. “I remember the clouds coming over our town and writing our names in the dust,” she said in an interview with Justin Sorensen, a geographical information systems (GIS) specialist at the University of Utah’s J. Willard Marriott Library.
That dust had traveled around 200 miles, all the way from what is now called the Nevada National Security Site, where scientists once tested nuclear weapons. Between 1945 and 1962, U.S. researchers detonated around 200 bombs aboveground—100 of them in Nevada. Fallout from the nuclear tests—radioactive particles that were swept into the atmosphere and fell back down to the earth—found their way into crops and livestock, whose radioactivity humans took on when they consumed milk, meat and produce. Fallout takes many different chemical forms, one of which is iodine-131: an isotope, or version, of iodine that has the usual 53 protons but 78 neutrons instead of the standard 74. Inside the body, the thyroid gland will absorb iodine-131, which eventually decays to produce radiation that can cause thyroid cancer and other problems.
People, such as Walsh, who lived “downwind” of nuclear development and open-air explosions are now called “downwinders.” Mary Dickson, another downwinder, told Sorensen and one of his colleagues that she thought the attitude toward those in Utah who were affected by nuclear testing was, “you know, ‘They were Mormons and cowboys and Indians—who cares?’ In general, she added, “they test where they think there are populations that don’t matter.”
Sorensen and his team spoke to both women and dozens of other people for a project called the Downwinders of Utah Archive. Hosted by the J. Willard Marriott Library, the archive is an attempt to qualify, quantify and make accessible people’s experiences of, and effects from, the American legacy of nuclear weapons testing. In 2011 the Senate unanimously designated January 27 as the National Day of Remembrance for Downwinders. “The downwinders paid a high price for the development of a nuclear weapons program for the benefit of the United States,” stated the resolution establishing the designation.
But when the tests were conducted, no one had done the research necessary to truly calculate what that price would be. Wanting to understand the potential link between regional health issues and fallout from nuclear tests, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) undertook a study on Americans exposed to iodine-131 from the Nevada tests. The results were released in 1997 in a report entitled “Estimated Exposures and Thyroid Doses Received by the American People from Iodine-131 in Fallout following Nevada Atmospheric Nuclear Bomb Tests.” It was this document that first led Sorensen to the archival project. “We were just kind of wondering, originally, ‘What does this data look like if you put it on a map?’” he says, “because a spreadsheet doesn’t really tell you a lot.” Sorensen’s background is in GIS and cartography, so he took the NCI’s fallout data and overlaid them onto his home state. “It just really grew from there,” he says. “We started seeing there’s a story to be told.”……………………..
Although no single illness can be conclusively tied to a test-site cause, investigations by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation and the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, among others, have established links between radiation exposure and cancer occurrence. In the early 2000s a report by NCI and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that fallout could have led to around 11,000 excess deaths. The NCI has also created a calculator that allows users to calculate their thyroid dose and risk of developing thyroid cancer from fallout. “We can’t know any individual’s cancer was caused by radioactivity,” explains Scott Williams, former executive director of HEAL Utah, a nonprofit advocacy group focused on the environment and public health, “but we do know that some people’s cancer risk was increased by radioactivity.”
Since 1990 the federal government has offered some recompense to downwinders and others affected by nuclear testing through the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA). Set to expire this summer unless a bill is passed to renew (and expand) it, RECA pays downwinders, test participants and uranium workers between $50,000 and $100,000—if they have specific ailments and can prove (with decades-old evidence that is sometimes hard to come by) they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. “We left a burden on unwitting citizens across the country without ever informing them,” Williams says. “We need to do the honorable thing and own the problem and not create these problems again.”
The Downwinders of Utah Archive is always expanding, and though Sorensen paused interviews during the pandemic, he plans to light the fuse again soon. He also hopes to expand the project to other Western states to preserve their history, too.
Making sure that information remains accessible is part of the point of the Downwinders of Utah Archive. The day of remembrance is, in its own way, an isotope of that openness. “Those kind of markers are really important…,” Dickson told Sorensen and his colleague. “Otherwise, you know, time marches on, and it’s like dipping a big spoon in the water. The rest of the water just fills in, and it’s like it was never there.”
This reporting was supported by the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Howard G Buffett Fund for Women Journalists. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nuclear-testing-downwinders-speak-about-history-and-fear/
NB Power and New Brunswick government gamble on untested, non existent ”small” nuclear reactors (SMRs)
While the world is turning overwhelmingly toward renewable sources of
energy, currently about four times cheaper than new nuclear plants and with
an established track record, NB Power and the New Brunswick government
insist on gambling on two new unproven nuclear plants, misleadingly termed
“small modular nuclear reactors” (SMNRs or SMRs).
SMRs do not exist at all in Canada except on paper or as computerized plans. There is no
guarantee these new untested reactors will ever succeed in producing
electricity in Canada in a safe and affordable manner.
But public utilities across the country are being pressured to generate power without emitting
greenhouse gases during operation. Instead of investing big bucks in
negawatts (energy efficiency) or renewables, four provinces are promoting
new nuclear plants – SMRs – as their best strategy for combatting
climate change. Since these plants are not likely to materialize for more
than a decade, if ever, the nuclear strategy is another way of “kicking
the can down the road.”
NB Media Co-op 27th Jan 2022
Lawsuit looks to force nuclear regulator to turn over records from San Onofre ‘near-miss’ incident
Lawsuit looks to force nuclear regulator to turn over records from San Onofre ‘near-miss’ incident, August 2018 “near-miss” saw a 50-ton canister of nuclear waste left suspended for 45 minutes. San Diego Union TribuneBY ROB NIKOLEWSKIJAN. 24, 2022 A lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court seeks to force the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to hand over unredacted documents regarding an incident in August 2018 when a 50-ton canister filled with nuclear waste from the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station was left suspended for about 45 minutes.
“The information sought will show the extent to which the NRC has colluded with the utilities it is supposed to regulate so as to prevent the disclosure of on-going safety violations and whether the NRC failed to take the necessary steps to enforce safety regulations at the nuclear site,” said the complaint filed by San Diego attorney Michael Aguirre.
An NRC spokesman said the agency does not comment on pending legalmatters.
At issue are 13 pages of records concerning what happened on Aug. 3, 2018, at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, known as SONGS for short, operated by Southern California Edison……………………………..ore https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/story/2022-01-24/lawsuit-looks-to-force-nuclear-regulator-to-turn-over-redactions-from-san-onofre-incident#:~:text=A%20lawsuit%20filed%20in%20U.S
Explanation of near-miss at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS).
NEAR-MISS AT NUCLEAR SITE AT SAN ONOFRE EXPLAINED https://www.surfer.com/environmental-news/nuclear-san-onofre-near-miss-explained/
SONGS ALMOST SUFFERED A SERIOUS ACCIDENT IN AUGUST, NEW DETAILS EMERGE, NOVEMBER 9, 2018 BY JUSTIN HOUSMAN Back in August, workers at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), were lowering a 50-ton spent nuclear fuel canister into a holding tank at the controversial nuclear storage site, not far from Old Man’s. While the workers thought they’d lowered it all the way, the massive canister containing deadly amounts of nuclear waste, was resting–barely–on a metal ring at the top of the tank, never intended to support the weight of the canister.
Canada’s state broadcaster CBC peddles lies and slanders about jailed journalist Julian Assange
Canada’s state broadcaster CBC peddles lies and slanders about jailed journalist Julian Assange, WSW, J.D. Palmer, 24 January 2022 J.D. Palmer, a freelance journalist and fiction writer from Montreal. Palmer recently submitted a formal complaint to Canada’s state broadcaster, CBC, over its coverage of last month’s UK court ruling against the acclaimed journalist Julian Assange,
Following the calamitous ruling on December 10, 2021 by a British court to extradite Julian Assange to face espionage charges in the US, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) aired two reports, densely packed with hideous deceptions that lend support to Washington’s efforts to persecute and silence the award-winning journalist.
I filed a complaint with the CBC Ombudsman on December 18, wondering how Canada’s public broadcaster could possibly justify its malevolent reportage.
Having laid bare the US empire as a never-ceasing conveyor belt of war crimes, Assange exposed Washington’s lies of “nation building” in Afghanistan and Iraq as a vast “money laundering” operation.
And yet, as his legal case progressed, it was clear that the Wikileaks founder’s heroism was resulting in his slow murder via multi-state judicial corruption. In response to this remarkable case, in one of many examples of journalistic malfeasance, Chris Brown, in his report for the CBC’s flagship news program “The National,” falsely asserts that Assange “leaked” the cables that contained the infamous Collateral Murder video. Brown, a long-time CBC correspondent, can presumably distinguish between publishing and leaking. Determined to confuse the viewer, Brown fails to mention the role of whistleblower Chelsea Manning (Assange’s source) and through conflation taints the journalistic credentials of the man who exposed torture at Guantanamo.
Brown knows quite well that publishing leaks is the backbone of national security journalism with the quotidian apparatus of “legacy” newspapers like the New York Times, providing potential whistleblowers with technical instructions on their websites for evading detection. That’s why, as CBC fails to inform the viewer, the Obama administration chose not to prosecute Assange (a decision later reversed by Trump’s Department of Justice or DOJ). Due to what it deemed the “ New York Times problem,” such a precedent, Obama’s DOJ concluded, could be used against fellow elites.
Now in the hands of Biden’s DOJ, this clear case of selective prosecution by the US and its colluding vassal state, the UK, has been denounced by legal experts, a swath of trade unions and activists. And while one can reliably count on Canada’s public broadcaster to ignore grassroots campaigns, what’s remarkable is that the CBC’s reporting on this historic case sinks below even the corporate media’s degraded standards.
Both CBC reports dodged press freedom groups, humanitarian organizations, politicians and the sorts of celebrity activists that would normally be made the unabashed focal point of any press coverage of a humanitarian cause. Brown’s segment, as well as Tessa Arcilla’s segment for the CBC morning news, made reference only to Assange’s partner, Stella Moris, and “supporters,” aiming to paint protestors as merely fringe and familial.
When I contacted Moris about my intention to file a complaint with the CBC’s Ombudsman, she wondered why CBC had not, at the very least, “… provided equal length to the defence arguments or arguments from press freedom groups and Amnesty [International]?”
By December 10, Nils Melzer, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, was just one of many impartial legal and humanitarian experts seeking the attention of any media organization that would listen. Melzer, along with a medical team, had adjudicated Assange as a victim of torture, after finding him in a degraded and frail state in Belmarsh Prison, “Britain’s Guantanamo Bay.”
While other networks provided at least some time for humanitarian lawyers, such as Reporters Without Borders’ Rebecca Vincent, to refute the US’s case, no legitimate expert found their way onto the screens of CBC’s viewers. Instead, viewers were presented with camouflaged shills………………….
While CBC’s upper management vociferously decries “misinformation” in self-congratulatory, tone-deaf blogs, presenting itself as brave gate-keepers “battling the growing scourge of disinformation,” their history of covering the Assange case provides a window into just how depraved its journalistic culture has become.
Blighting what an international panel of jurists at the UN adjudicated as Assange’s “arbitrary detention” in the Ecuadorian embassy, CBC Radio, from 2018 to 2019, aired a series of smear pieces in the guise of lifestyle segments, comedy and news. Often aimed at the Wikileaks founder’s alleged hygiene failures, these dehumanizing broadcasts trotted out sketch comedians, UK diplomats and other Assange enemies (such as discredited filmmaker Alex Gibney, and co-fabricator of the debunked Manafort-Assange conspiracy theory, Dan Collyns) as neutral experts. In one sickening case, CBC (in a painfully long segment) offered up a “master butler” to smugly chasten Assange, “If that’s the type of service you want, you need to go to a hotel.”
None of CBC’s hacks seemed to care that they might be willing pawns in a disinformation campaign launched by vicious technocrats, something proven years later when senior members of the UK government were revealed to have conspired to violate Assange’s asylum rights…………..
Absent any whiff of a moral ballast, the CBC fails to grasp the irony of imprisoning a journalist for publishing evidence of war crimes and not the criminals who committed them. As the US led global shop of horrors comes nearer to its goal of criminalizing substantive journalism, the CBC and its gutless class of information dilettantes can rest safely knowing they pose no threat. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/01/25/cbca-j25.html?pk_campaign=assange-newsletter&pk_kwd=wsws
Democrats urge Biden to keep pledge to limit nuclear weapons
Democrats urge Biden to keep pledge to limit nuclear weapons, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/26/biden-democrats-white-house-nuclear-weapons Julian Borger in WashingtonThu 27 Jan 2022
Letter by 55 senators and members of Congress comes amid reports Biden will make only minor changes to nuclear posture review
Leading Democrats have written to Joe Biden appealing to him to stick to his promise to reduce the US reliance on nuclear weapons for its defence and to revive arms control.
The letter, signed by 55 senators and representatives, was sent on Wednesday while the White House was making final decisions on the US nuclear posture review (NPR), amid reports that Biden will make only minor adjustments to the vast nuclear modernisation plans inherited from his predecessors.
“Your NPR represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to ensure that US nuclear doctrine reflects your recognition that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” the letter said
During the election campaign, Biden said the US “does not need new nuclear weapons” and pledged that his administration would “work to maintain a strong, credible deterrent while reducing our reliance and excessive expenditure on nuclear weapons”.
The campaign also said it would make deterring and responding to a nuclear attack the sole purpose of the US nuclear arsenal. The current nuclear posture envisages its potential use against a range of threats, including an overwhelming cyber-attack.
Despite Biden’s campaign rhetoric, an advocate for restraint in nuclear weapon modernisation and arms control was removed last year from her Pentagon post overseeing the drafting of the NPR, after a campaign against her by hawks in the defence department and in Congress.
The draft NPR produced by the Pentagon is believed to be a conservative document, endorsing the existing modernisation plans, expected to cost well over $1tn.
Meanwhile, allies led by France have lobbied the Biden administration not to introduce a “sole purpose” policy, concerned about the global pressure it would bring on them to change their own doctrines. The White House insists that the president will have the last word in shaping the policy.
The Democrats behind the letter urged Biden to make the “sole purpose” policy part of the NPR and to scrap two new weapon variants introduced by Trump: a low-yield warhead for Trident missiles, and a planned nuclear sea-launched cruise missile, saying the moves “would further signal that the United States believes that deterrence, not war-fighting, is the sole purpose of nuclear weapons”.
Your forthcoming NPR should reflect your administration’s views, not embrace President Trump’s nuclear weapons programs,” the letter said. It was written by the two leading voices in the Senate for arms control, Ed Markey and Jeff Merkley, and their co-chairs of the Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group from the House, Donald Beyer and John Garamendi.
Failure to change the status quo would fuel a cold war-style arms race with Russia and China, the letter warned, arguing: “A clean break with President Trump’s policies can send a strong signal to Russia and China that the United States believes restraint and nuclear arms reduction are measures of a country’s great power status, not nuclear weapons overkill.”
Chief Hugh Akagi will present the case against having a CANDU-6 nuclear reactor on Peskotomuhkati land
Canada’s nuclear regulator starts hearings on Lepreau, h
Chief Hugh Akagi says he’ll listen today and speak his mind this spring
Rachel Cave · CBC News · Jan 26, 2022 Chief Hugh Akagi says his 15 minutes is coming in May.
That will be his time to tell Canada’s Nuclear Safety Commission that he objects to having a CANDU-6 reactor on traditional Peskotomuhkati land.
“If anything goes wrong,” said Akagi, his voice trailing away as he contemplated the possibility of a nuclear accident. “Nuclear is being touted as green energy and I just do not feel that there is any compatibility there at all.”
Akagi will be speaking for the Passamaquoddy Recognition Group.
The organization has been granted $45,000 in federal funding to research and prepare a presentation that will take place this spring.
That’s part two of the licensing hearings that start today, as NB Power seeks approval to operate Lepreau for another 25 years.
N.B. Power will try to make the case that Lepreau has an outstanding record for safety and reliability.
There’s never been an industrial accident on site since it started operating in 1983.
However, the off-site emergency plan does raise the spectre of some devastating possibilities.
They include an active attacker on site, a hostile takeover of the control room, a potential aircraft impact, a credible bomb threat and the accidental release of radioactive material.
Akagi says he’s disturbed by the idea of having radioactive waste stored on site, and so close to the Bay of Fundy.
“This is one of the most productive ecosystems in the world,” said Akagi. .
“The damage… if anybody could imagine the damage. You’re sacrificing all the fish, the clams… everything would be gone.”
At 75, Akagi says he’s been before the CNSA at least three times before.
Most recently, he presented to the Commissioners in 2017, when the regulator agreed to a five-year renewal of Lepreau. ……………. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/nuclear-regulator-hearings-lepreau-1.6327509
Canada’s nuclear waste body ousted liaison officer for being ‘too much on the side of the community,’ lawsuit claims
Paul Austin, 62, was NWMO’s relationship manager in South Bruce, Ont., for 9 years, Colin Butler · CBC News ·: Jan 24, 2022 A former employee of the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) is suing the Canadian agency for $320,000, claiming he was “publicly humiliated” when he was constructively dismissed for being “too much on the side of the community.”
The NWMO is a non-profit agency funded by the nuclear industry. Its goal is to find a willing host community for the country’s growing stockpile of nuclear waste.
Currently, the agency is considering the Ontario communities of Ignace and South Bruce for a proposed deep geological repository, a sprawling $23-billion catacomb that would one day act as the tomb for Canada’s 3.3 million bundles of spent nuclear fuel that are currently in interim storage.
In South Bruce, the agency has been accused by a citizens’ group of using its financial might to groom the declining farm community into becoming a willing host for a nuclear waste storage site. The NWMO has told CBC News it only wants to leave “a positive legacy” in the community to make South Bruce a better place, regardless of its decision.
Now, in a lawsuit filed in a Toronto court in August, Paul Austin alleges he was constructively dismissed by the NWMO for being “too much on the side of the community.”
None of the allegations have been tested in court.
Agency became ‘overinvolved,’ doc says
Austin, 62, was a relationship manager for the NWMO in South Bruce from May 2012 until he considered himself to be constructively dismissed in August 2021, according to court filings.
His job, says the statement of claim, was to be the “primary contact’ with the NWMO in South Bruce, acting as a “trusted adviser, co-ordinator of resources” and “guide” to local town and band council officials “through the siting process.”
Court filings for the plaintiff said senior leaders within the NWMO started to become “overly involved” on a local level in the summer of 2020, undermining Austin’s work.
When community leaders in South Bruce complained, one executive told Austin he was “too much on the side of the community,” that its leadership “lacked the capacity to understand” the nuclear waste site selection process and “were damaging their chances at being selected as host for the project,” according to the lawsuit.
At one point, the statement of claim says, Austin was told by a senior executive that “if community leaders didn’t change their ways, he would stop defending South Bruce to the NWMO president and other vice-presidents, and ‘let the project go to Ignace.'”
Austin could ‘simply quit if he wanted to’
In the fall of 2020, the court documents claim, Austin started to lose many of his key responsibilities, and leadership started ignoring his advice and excluding him from phone calls with community leaders in South Bruce.
The NWMO also created a position for a new “site director” who would “basically be the face of the NWMO in the community” and would take over many of the responsibilities of a relationship manager, according to the statement of claim.
The agency further eroded Austin’s responsibilities in the spring of 2021, the court documents allege, overriding and rejecting some of his decisions when it came to community engagement.
When Austin complained to his boss and human resources about the change in his role and responsibilities in July 2021, court documents said he was told by the NWMO that it felt no changes had occurred and he could “simply quit if he wanted to.”
Austin claims dismissal ‘publicly humiliated’ him
At the same time, community leaders in South Bruce began asking questions about why Austin had been sidelined from his roles and responsibilities in the community, court documents said.
When Austin reported the community feedback to his bosses, Austin was accused of being “arbitrary, discourteous and inaccurate in his accounting of the facts,” the claim says.
In August 2021, Austin advised the NWMO through his lawyer “he considered himself constructively dismissed” effective Aug. 17 that year.
Austin claims the NWMO’s actions were “harsh, vindictive, reprehensible and malicious,” and the organization’s actions have caused him to be “publicly humiliated” and and suffer “mental distress.”
Court documents say Austin is asking for wrongful dismissal damages of $270,000, with another $50,000 in punitive and moral damages. ………………….. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/nwmo-lawsuit-1.6320277
Unease in Ontario about planned nuclear waste dump (nobody suggests that they stop making this trash?)
The Plan to Bury All of Canada’s Nuclear Waste in One Northwest Ontario Town
This kind of dump for high-level nuclear waste has not yet been built anywhere in the world.
JANUARY 24, 2022 ON THE MONDAY SHOW BY CANADALAND Since Canada began using nuclear energy in the 1960s, the only solutions for the waste produced have been temporary. It’s now being stored onsite at nuclear plants, in containers that last a century at most.But nuclear waste takes thousands — or tens of thousands — of years to decay.
So in 2002, the federal government created the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) and tasked it with finding a location to dispose of all of Canada’s high-grade nuclear waste.
Ignace, in Northwestern Ontario, was among the communities that volunteered to host a deep geological repository (DGR), and is now one of two sites under consideration. (The other is South Bruce, in the southern part of the province.) To create the DGR, used-up nuclear reactor cores would be placed inside canisters that would then be encased in a special clay that’s been shown to protect from water and cushion from seismic activity. The canisters would then be buried inside a rock 500 metres below ground.The NWMO is confident that the project — valued at $26 billion over the next 150 years — would pose virtually no risk to the local water supply, environment, or people. But a DGR for high-level nuclear waste has not yet been built anywhere in the world.
On this week’s CANADALAND, senior producer Sarah Lawrynuik travels to the area where she grew up, to learn about the divided reaction to the nuclear-waste project and whether the anxieties are justified:The following are edited excerpts from Sarah’s conversations with some of the residents and experts she spoke to…Our water is the most precious thing, I believe, in this country right now. Because so much in the world is polluted. Just so much. And we can’t afford to take that risk. Because no matter what they do to try to make it safe, nuclear waste is not safe and will never be safe.”
— Sylvia Green-Guenette, who lives on the shore of Wabigoon Lake in Dryden. Despite being roughly as close to the proposed site as Ignace, Dryden won’t get a say in whether the project goes ahead………………..
“I think the people who are totally for it are just looking at it through one lens. They’re looking at it through the business lens.…They’re promising a certain amount of jobs — not only for the community, but specifically for Indigenous folk as well. And I think a lot of people can see through that.”
— Maya Oversby, a Métis university student who started attending community meetings about the repository in 2015, when she was 14…………………… https://www.canadaland.com/nuclear-waste-ignace-ontario/
Call to stop the unfair Vogtle nuclear construction surcharge
Now they want US to pay for THEIR mistakes, botched work & do-overs, delays, and retesting. NO…THEY SHOULD PAY!
REPEAL THE UNFAIR VOGTLE CONSTRUCTION SURCHARGE
5 Repeal Reasons Below
It is simply wrong and disgraceful for the state of Georgia to continue to have
elderly, schools, food banks, mom & pop restaurants, churches, tire stores, car repair shops, households, gas stations, doctors offices, renters, dentists, synagogues, beauty parlors, dry cleaners, shoe stores, insurance offices, meals-on-wheels, homeless shelters, colleges and universities, Salvation Army stores, drug stores, police stations, nursing homes, car washes, pet stores, fast-food restaurants, veterinarian offices, county governments, small manufacturing businesses, hospitals, recycling centers, animal shelters, hardware stores, grocery stores, YMCA & YWCA, bookstores, healthfood stores, consignment stores, rehab centers, phone stores, barbershops, grocery stores, warehouses, franchise businesses, clothing stores…
all paying month after month an extra surcharge amount on their Georgia Power electric bill to finance, without compensation, someone else’s years overdue for-profit venture.
The nuclear finance surcharge law was for construction, not for costly, continuing re-dos, re-testing, and delays after delays.
The surcharge is clearly failing to benefit customers, as the 2009 legislature was led to believe.
STOP The Surcharge Fee On Georgia Power Customers’ Electric Bills
Repeal the Unfair 2009 Nuclear Energy Finance Act
1. The original controversial nuclear finance act of 2009 anticipated that Georgians would pay a surcharge for five years. However, Georgia Power has collected the nuclear tax for SIX YEARS LONGER than anticipated with no end in sight.
2. The original finance act DID NOT anticipate making people pay for expensive construction mistakes, costly delays, and expensive do-overs.
3. The company testifies that construction is 99% complete. Most of the current work is fixing mistakes and do-over work. Customers should not keep paying surcharges if the project is so near completion as claimed, yet so late.
4. Extensive ITAAC testing (Nuclear Regulatory Commission: Inspections, Tests, Analyses, and Acceptance Criteria) is far from complete. Numerous problems found by testing will push startup much later than the present startup claim of late 2022, and thus continue the surcharges even longer. Note: NRC reports that, of the 399 tests, about 150, or 38% remain to be done. All tests must be complete before fuel is loaded.
5. The surcharge unfairly burdens the small and medium size residential and commercial customers, including schools, elderly, non-profit services, while it unfairly gives a pass to very large customers. These very large customers get to use rates that avoid much of the surcharge. (See Reference 1)
Surcharges started on Georgia Power bills in 2011
In 2019, they hit a high of 10.76 %
In 2020, they were 9.46 % (The NCCR-10 rate)
In 2021, they are 9.46 %
In January, 2022, they will be 3.81 % (The NCCR-11)
Background For Repealing the 2009 Georgia Nuclear Energy Financing Act:
The nuclear surcharge finances the new power plant Vogtle “Vortex” 3 & 4 nuclear reactors. The surcharge is money given to a private for-profit endeavor.
The surcharge takes money from Georgia electric power customers, and there is nothing in return.
The average Georgia residential customer has already paid over $ 850.00 in Vogtle surcharges. So far, Georgia Power has collected over $ 3.6 Billion from Georgians via this nuclear tax!
The nuclear finance surcharge goes on and on, month after month, years longer than proposed. This was not intended by legislators, more than half of whom have retired, when they enacted the 2009 Georgia Nuclear Energy Financing law.
The surcharge began when Vogtle nuclear construction started in 2011 and went to a high of 10.76% in 2019. Under the current law, the nuclear surcharge will stay on Georgians’ power bills until the reactor is operating and selling electricity. Ongoing massive construction delays and cost overruns make that date uncertain………… http://stopvogtlesurcharge.org/
Militarized Dolphins Protect Almost a Quarter of the US Nuclear Stockpile
Militarized Dolphins Protect Almost a Quarter of the US Nuclear Stockpile, Military.com | By Blake Stilwell 24 Jan 22,
Situated just 20 miles from Seattle, Naval Base Kitsap houses America’s most powerful and secret deterrents, a weapon that is the first line of defense for U.S. national security: U.S. Navy dolphins.
Since 1967, the Navy has been training dolphins and sea lions (and probably other marine life) for military applications such as mine clearing, force protection and recovery missions. The U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program deployed military dolphins as early as the Vietnam War and as recently as the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
When protecting harbors and ships from mines, as they do at Naval Base Kitsap, the dolphins use their extraordinary biological sonar to detect hazards beneath the surface, whether tethered to the sea floor or buried beneath sediment.
If a mine or other weapon is detected, the dolphin returns to its handler, who gives the animal a buoy to mark the location of the device on the surface. Passing ships know to avoid these markers while Navy explosives ordnance disposal divers neutralize the threat below.
For protection against enemy divers, dolphins will swim up to the infiltrator, bump into them and place a buoy device on their back or a limb using their mouth. The buoy then drags the outed diver to the surface for easy capture. When trained sea lions perform the same maneuver, they use a kind of handcuff with their mouths to attach the buoy………………. https://www.military.com/history/militarized-dolphins-protect-almost-quarter-of-us-nuclear-stockpile.html
Another case of the nuclear industry bribing a university
the University is pushing to have this facility on campus because the Department of Energy is paying them a lot of money to get a new reactor up and running to revive the nuclear power industry.
I don’t believe we need to take the chance of being the first ones to see if this reactor is safe and works,” Hannon said. “We don’t have to do that and there’s no mandate saying we have to. The university is acting like an experimental guinea pig and they’re effectively taking a bribe from the DOE to put it here.
West Urbana residents criticize safety, impact of University’s plans to install novel nuclear reactor system
Rachel Gardner / For CU-CitizenAccess The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s proposal for deploying a micro nuclear reactor in west Urbana has sparked concern among local residents, who are worried about how safe it is to have the reactor near their neighborhood.
“This project is really frustrating on several levels,” David Dorman, resident of West Urbana and one of the moderators for the neighborhood association’s listserv, said. “There’s a lot of unknowns because this is a brand new design and the reactor is untested. Anybody who has already made claims about its safety is just simply speculating.”
The residents said they also are concerned about environmental and economic impacts.
If approved, the new micro modular reactor (known as MMR) would be the first of its kind to be installed and running on a college campus by 2025, according to the University of Illinois.
The proposed location for the facility is near Abbott Power Plant on 1117 S. Oak Street in Champaign, about 0.3 miles, or a few blocks, away from the undergraduate dormitory Nugent Hall in Ikenberry Commons. The University expects to spend around $22 million to revise the facilities near Abbott Power Plant to accommodate the microreactor.
Dorman also said that residents on the listserv who are against the proposal are uncertain on how to oppose it effectively to the project leaders.
“The community has no voice in all of this,” Dorman said. “The University clearly wants to do it, the government wants to fund it, and it’s up to the trustees to make a final decision.”……………………..
There is no set date yet for residents for the comments or hearing.
University of Illinois Professor Emeritus of Geography Bruce Hannon said he believes that even though the facility might be beneficial for research purposes, it needs to be in a more remote location that isn’t home to over 200,000 people.
“I have suggested several different locations for the facility, but a key one is the Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, Illinois,” Hannon said. “One of the missions of the Department of Energy (DOE) is to keep the national labs funded. There’s a bunch of them around the country but the closest one to UIUC is Argonne, which is only about 130 miles away. That’s a great location for it as far as I’m concerned.”
Hannon also said the University is pushing to have this facility on campus because the Department of Energy is paying them a lot of money to get a new reactor up and running to revive the nuclear power industry.
“I don’t believe we need to take the chance of being the first ones to see if this reactor is safe and works,” Hannon said. “We don’t have to do that and there’s no mandate saying we have to. The university is acting like an experimental guinea pig and they’re effectively taking a bribe from the DOE to put it here……………. https://www.cu-citizenaccess.org/2022/01/west-urbana-residents-criticize-safety-impact-of-universitys-plans-to-install-novel-nuclear-reactor-system/
1 This Month
4 May -West Suburban Peace Coalition to discuss Iran war at May Educational Forum
Monday, May 4, 7:00 – 8:00 PM Central Standard Time
Title: : How Trump’s Narrative Tries to Shape the Reality of the War on Iran.
Contact Walt Zlotow, zlotow@hotmail.com 630 442 3045 for further information
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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