$41 billion for Hanford high level nuclear waste clean-up. Fiasco of Pretreatment Facility
Hanford strategy for worst nuclear waste criticized. Plant estimates skyrocket to $41 billion, Tri City Herald BY ANNETTE CARY, MAY 13, 2020 The Department of Energy’s strategy for pretreating high-level waste at Hanford is “unclear” 20 years after construction of a massive glassification plant began, while costs continue to soar, says a new federal report.
The Government Accountability Office released a report to Congress this week focusing on the plant’s Pretreatment Facility, where construction stopped seven years ago because of technical issues.
The issues involved safety concerns to prevent a possible explosion or radioactive waste leak.
U.S. taxpayers have spent $11 billion on the Hanford glassification plant, but the Pretreatment Facility is unlikely to be finished on schedule or as designed, the report said.
Under one scenario being studied, some of the worst waste at Hanford could be shipped across the nation to South Carolina to be stabilized for disposal.
Since construction stopped in late 2012 on the pretreatment plant, $752 million has been spent, with construction not ready to restart anytime soon, the GAO report indicated.
DOE also has spent $428 million developing alternatives for some of the work expected to be done at the pretreatment plant.
There is no cost estimate for completing the Pretreatment Facility, the largest facility at the plant, the GAO report said.
Completing the entire vitrification plant could cost $19 billion to $30 billion more than the $11 billion already spent, the GAO said.
That would put the total cost at $30 billion to $41 billion.
The plant, named the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant, is being built to to glassify much of the 56 million gallons of radioactive waste in underground tanks, turning it into a stable form for disposal.
The waste is left from the past production of plutonium at Hanford in Eastern Washington for the nation’s nuclear weapons program from World War II through the Cold War.
2023 WASTE TREATMENT FOCUS
When Bechtel National was awarded a contract to build and start the plant in 2000, plans called for waste from the tanks to be sent first to the largest facility at the plant, the Pretreatment Facility
It stands about 12 stories high and covers an area larger than a football field.
There waste retrieved from underground tanks was to be separated into low activity radioactive waste and high level radioactive waste for glassification at separate facilities at the vitrification plant.
But after technical issues were raised in 2012 related to how well the pretreatment plant could handle the high level portion of the tank waste, DOE proposed a new plan.
It would first start vitrifying the low activity radioactive waste by developing other methods to separate that waste from tank waste.
A federal court judge agreed to the plan in 2016 but set a deadline for DOE to start vitrifying that waste by the end of 2023. The plant must be fully operational in 2036, the judge ordered.
DOE has since been focused on meeting the 2023 court-enforced deadline, including spending about $428 million developing those alternative pretreatment approaches, rather than on facilities that will handle high level waste, the GAO report said.
When construction stopped on the pretreatment plant it was about 40 percent complete.
WASTE ISSUES RESOLVED?
DOE has spent about $323 million to resolve technical issues at the facility since late 2012, with the rest of the $752 million spent on the plant during those years paying for overhead, project management, facility maintenance and DOE oversight………
Local DOE officials said they will not develop a cost for completing the Pretreatment Facility until there is a decision about the future of the facility and any updated design changes for it, according to the GAO report……
ECOLOGY’S PRETREATMENT CONCERNS
The issue is further complicated by concerns of the Washington state Department of Ecology, a Hanford regulator………. https://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/hanford/article242680951.html
USA’s record $3.7 trillion budget gap threatens Pentagon’s costly nuclear plans
Huge federal deficits may threaten Pentagon nuclear modernization program Market Watch May 12, 2020, By Associated PressThe deficit may lead to a lack of big defense spending on projects like rebuilding the nation’s nuclear arsenal. WASHINGTON (AP) — The government’s $3 trillion effort to rescue the economy from the coronavirus crisis is stirring worry at the Pentagon. Bulging federal deficits may force a reversal of years of big defense spending gains and threaten prized projects like the rebuilding of the nation’s arsenal of nuclear weapons.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper says the sudden burst of deficit spending to prop up a damaged economy is bringing the Pentagon closer to a point where it will have to shed older weapons faster and tighten its belt.
“It has accelerated this day of reckoning,” Esper said in an Associated Press interview.
It also sets up confrontations with Congress over how that reckoning will be achieved. Past efforts to eliminate older weapons and to make other cost-saving moves like closing under-used military bases met resistance. This being a presidential election year, much of this struggle may slip to 2021. If presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden wins, the pace of defense cuts could speed up, if he follows the traditional Democratic path to put less emphasis on defense buildups.
After Congress passed four programs to sustain the economy through the virus shock, the budget deficit — the gap between what the government spends and what it collects in taxes — will hit a record $3.7 trillion this year, according to the Congressional Budget Office. By the time the budget year ends in September, the government’s debt — its accumulated annual deficits — will equal 101% of the U.S. gross domestic product.
Rep. Ken Calvert of California, the ranking Republican on the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, says defense budgets were strained even before this year’s unplanned burst of deficit spending…….. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/huge-federal-deficits-may-threaten-pentagon-nuclear-modernization-program-2020-05-12
Judge Puts Hold on Move to Drop Flynn Case
“Judge Puts Hold on Move to Drop Flynn Case more https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/4410547/posts/2701189215
By VOA News
May 12, 2020 11:53 PM
There is another stunning development in the case of President Donald Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
The federal judge overseeing the case has put the Justice Department’s move to drop the criminal charges against Flynn on hold to give outside legal experts a chance to argue against the department’s decision.
Judge Emmet Sullivan said late Tuesday that “friends of the court” will be able to file briefs and that he will set up a time to hear those arguments “at the appropriate time.”
Sullivan could decide to call witnesses to testify and answer questions about the Justice Department’s extraordinary move last week to drop the charges against Flynn, and possibly reopen the entire case months before a presidential election.
Flynn pleaded guilty to charges of lying to the FBI about his talks with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. about easing U.S. sanctions during the transition period between the Obama and Trump administrations – a crime that carries a maximum five-year prison sentence.
The charges against Flynn were part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
Sullivan told Flynn at his 2018 sentencing that lying to the FBI was a “very serious offense.”
Flynn initially said he was guilty, that no one had talked him into admitting his crime and that he had no intention of taking back his plea.
But as his sentencing day approached, Flynn appealed to the court for a postponement, claiming that prosecutors set him up.
The Justice Department, led by Attorney General William Barr, shocked and angered the legal community last week when it said the case against Flynn should be dropped…
The decision opened the floodgates of criticism of Barr and the Justice Department that it is politically motivated and carrying out Trump’s wishes…
There has been no reaction to Sullivan’s decision so far from Barr or the White House. https://www.voanews.com/usa/us-politics/judge-puts-hold-move-drop-flynn-case http://archive.vn/7TiRw
A summary of Flynn’s Russia connections – showing why anyone who is sane would be suspicious of him.
https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2020/05/08/general-michael-flynn-fired-from-the-dia-summary-2/
South Carolina nuclear fuel plant treatment pool leaking, polluting groundwater?
Now, the lagoon liner is wearing out. And that’s a concern.
Recent research suggests radioactive pollution has seeped through the synthetic barrier that was supposed to protect soil and groundwater in the Congaree River flood plain. Soil below the liner is suspected of being polluted with waste from the east lagoon, according to a new report for the plant’s operator, Westinghouse Nuclear.
’“It is expected that some contamination will exist in the soil underlying the east lagoon liner, given the long operating history of the lagoon and the potential for a liner system leak,’’ the May 8 report for Westinghouse says.
If the soil below the lagoon is polluted, as Westinghouse suspects, it could indicate that groundwater flowing away from the property and toward the Congaree River has been contaminated.
No one knows the extent of the contamination yet, but Westinghouse has a plan to dig radioactive sludge from the lagoon and haul it across the country for disposal in the Idaho desert.
Once the company has removed the mucky sludge and the lagoon’s 1980s era liner, it plans to test the soil below the waste pond to see how much contamination may be in the earth.
The new Westinghouse consulting report, released by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, says sludge in the east lagoon at Westinghouse is contaminated with low enriched uranium and technetium-99, nuclear materials generated as part of production of fuel rods at the 51-year-old factory.
Exposure to sufficient amounts of uranium can cause kidney damage in adults and children. Technetium 99, which concentrates in the thyroid and gastrointestinal tract, can increase a person’s chances of cancer if exposed to certain amounts………
For now, Westinghouse is moving forward with cleanup efforts. Although the company doesn’t plan to clean up some pollution until it closes the plant in future decades, Westinghouse has agreed to get rid of other contamination sooner. …….
The tainted material that would be shipped to Idaho, likely next year, includes 45,000 cubic feet of sludge, soil and debris from the east lagoon, a 160-foot long pond behind the plant on Bluff Road.
Radioactive pond sludge would be hauled away on railroad cars to a U.S. Ecology site in the Owyhee Desert near Grand View, Idaho, according to plans filed with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Contaminated cylinders and a polluted sludge pile also will be carted away from the site for disposal……. https://www.thestate.com/news/local/environment/article242667201.html
Corona and nuclear power
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Ann Darling: Corona and nuclear power, https://www.gazettenet.com/Darling-letter-34192441 13 May 20, Here’s a new twist on the pandemic. It has to do with nuclear power.That may seem an unlikely pairing, but nuclear reactors have workers, and they can get sick just like everyone else. Every day these essential workers are in facilities that, by their radioactive nature, can create great environmental and economic harm if they are not managed very carefully.
What is happening at nuclear reactors in the midst of the pandemic? Right now there are 30 nuclear power stations in a refueling phase in which the reactor is shut down, maintenance and safety inspections are completed, and new fuel is placed in the reactor. This requires bringing in hundreds of contract workers, who then travel on to the next refueling reactor. Yet, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is not requiring coronavirus screening or quarantining of workers prior to beginning work. Conditions in nuclear power plants make social distancing difficult, with large work crews, confined spaces, and frequent contact with equipment surfaces. At some sites, workers have complained about lack of social distancing, sanitation, PPE, and testing. Further, since March, the NRC has granted exemptions to nuclear power generating stations to increase limits on the number of hours employees can be required to work, and to postpone scheduled safety inspections and maintenance. Eighty-six organizations, organized by the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS, nirs.org), have sent a letter to Vice President Mike Pence, chair of the Coronavirus Task Force, and six federal agencies outlining the failure of the NRC to act responsibly in the fact of this pandemic. The groups call for an immediate, multi-agency, industrywide response to protect workers and reactor host communities, and to ensure nuclear safety is not compromised. We at the Citizens Awareness Network feel a responsibility to let you know what’s happening and what’s being done by active citizens to try to protect us here in the Pioneer Valley, where the Indian Point and Seabrook reactors are just 120 miles away, and Millstone only 75. Your federal tax dollars subsidize nuclear power, and we thought you’d want to know. |
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If You Like Covid-19, You’ll Love Nuclear War
Might this unsteady and unseemly American president soon become subject to still more serious forms of personal dissemblance and/or psychological debility? Leaving aside Trump’s largely unprecedented and breathtaking venality,[5] his open indifference to history and above all his continuing malfeasance and shameless dishonesty, should he still be allowed to decide whether we Americans should live or die?It also reveals his incapacity to feel even a scintilla of human empathy for other human beings.
What does all this really mean? In what specific policy directions should we Americans now be propelled? Continue reading
Alabama joins Kentucky, South Dakota and West Virginia to criminalize fossil fuel protests
In March, Kentucky, South Dakota and West Virginia passed laws restricting pipeline protests. Alabama is poised to become the fourth.
By Alexander C. Kaufman 10 May 20 Alabama lawmakers this week advanced legislation to add new criminal penalties to nonviolent protests against pipelines and other fossil fuel projects, setting a course to become the fourth state to enact such measures amid the chaos of the coronavirus pandemic.
Kentucky, South Dakota and West Virginia enacted similar measures in March, just as states started implementing lockdowns to contain the outbreak of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the virus.
The Alabama Senate passed the bill on March 12, just befohe Alabama Senate passed the bill on March 12, just before state officials, alarmed at the spread of the virus, postponed legislative hearings for a month. When the capitol reopened in Montgomery on May 4, state Democrats remained in their home districts, but enough Republican lawmakers returned to restart work on the legislation. On Monday, the House version of the bill was introduced and referred to the committee that oversees utilities and infrastructure. Continue reading
$25 million settlement coming, over failed V.C. Summer nuclear project, with no SCANA admission of wrongdoing
Dominion Energy, which bought SCANA Corp. and South Carolina Electric & Gas in 2019, could soon reach a $25 million settlement with stock market regulators over the failed V.C. Summer nuclear project that the acquired businesses abandoned nearly three years ago.The proposed deal would allow Dominion to remove itself from a high-profile civil case that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed in February. That lawsuit alleges that SCANA, the majority owner of the two partially built reactors in Fairfield County, “repeatedly deceived” investors and furthered a “historic” case of securities fraud. Dominion Energy South Carolina, the successor of SCE&G, was named in the lawsuit. Richmond, Va.-based Dominion inherited the company’s legal liability, along with all of SCE&G’s ratepayers in South Carolina, when it sealed its takeover of SCANA early last year. When the SEC filed the case in February, Dominion called the lawsuit a “disappointing development.” Since then, the utility giant has worked behind the scenes to cut a deal with the federal agency. The company announced the potential settlement with the SEC as part of a quarterly earnings report this week. Dominion’s leaders said they struck the $25 million deal with officials at the agency’s Division of Enforcement in April. The company emphasized the settlement would still need to be finalized by the SEC and a federal judge in South Carolina. According to Dominion, the deal would allow the company to settle the case without admitting any wrongdoing by SCANA over the course of the failed V.C. Summer expansion project. |
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America’s very dangerous $multibillion plan for a nuclear-powered fighter plane
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America Really Wanted A Nuclear-Powered Fighter (Flying Chernobyl, Anyone?) Does great reward really come with great risk? National Interest, by Steve Weintz 10 May 20, Here’s What You Need To Remember: Looking back a half century to an era of greater faith in nuclear energy, it’s easy to shake one’s head in wonder. What were they thinking? Surely crashes, combat and carelessness were going to keep it all from ending well. Ah, the Atomic Age, when nuclear energy seemed the ticket to a future of limitless possibilities. For a generation after 1945 the United States explored all kinds of nuclear propulsion concepts. Some, like naval power plants for subs and ships, proved both revolutionary and effective. Others proved possible to develop but impractical to pursue.
Of these concepts the nuclear-powered aircraft now seems the most fanciful, but billions of dollars and years of top-flight research sunk into the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion (ANP) program chased the idea before its demise. Between the end of World War II and the dawn of Camelot American engineers figured out how to fit a reactor in an airplane and make it generate thrust without frying the crew. American leaders couldn’t figure out how to pay for it or why they needed it.
Today the ANP program is remembered as an Atomic Age boondoggle whose only remains consist of three-story-tall experimental units and giant hangars with six-foot-thick walls. ……. https://nationalinterest.org/blog/america-really-wanted-nuclear-powered-fighter-flying-chernobyl-anyone-152496 |
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South Africa’s financially difficult nuclear ambitions
South Africa to develop plan for new 2,500 MW nuclear plant, CAPE TOWN, May 7 (Reuters) – South Africa will soon start developing a plan for a new 2,500 megawatt (MW) nuclear power plant, the energy ministry told lawmakers on Thursday.
Africa’s most industrialised economy, which operates the continent’s only nuclear power plant near Cape Town, said last year that it was considering adding more nuclear capacity in the long term, after abandoning in 2018 a massive nuclear expansion championed by former president Jacob Zuma.
Analysts had expressed serious concern about Zuma’s project for a fleet of nuclear plants totalling 9,600 MW because it would have put massive additional strain on public finances at a time of credit rating downgrades. …..
The presentation showed South Africa wanted to complete the procurement of the new nuclear plant by 2024 but gave no indication as to when it wanted construction of the plant to start or for when the plant would come online……
financing those nuclear ambitions could be difficult at a time that the country’s recession-hit economy is being hammered by the coronavirus pandemic, with this year’s budget deficit expected to stretch into double digits.
Answering questions, Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe said on Thursday that the government would first “test the market” and hear what potential investors or consortia had to say about building the new nuclear facility…… https://af.reuters.com/article/southAfricaNews/idAFL8N2CP8M8
Pandemic may force USA to cut back on bloated spending on nuclear weapons
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Pandemic spending will force US defense budget cuts—some of which should come from nuclear weapons programs https://thebulletin.org/2020/05/pandemic-spending-will-force-us-defense-budget-cuts-some-of-which-should-come-in-nuclear-weapons-programs/#
By Lawrence J. Korb, May 8, 2020 Even supporters of increased US defense budgets expect that, because the US government will likely spend trillions of dollars trying to rescue the economy from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, military spending in the United States is likely to decline significantly over the next couple of years. Those predicting such a decline include experts at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the Center for Strategic and International Studies, (CSIS), American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Analysis, the RAND Corporation, and retired generals like David Barno and Hawk Carlisle. According to SIPRI’s latest report, global defense spending has grown for five straight years and in 2019 amounted to almost $2 trillion. US defense spending has also grown significantly over this period. Since President Trump took office, the annual defense budget—which, at $740 billion, consumes more than half of federal discretionary spending—has increased by almost $100 billion compared to Obama’s last budget, and during the Trump presidency, total US defense spending has amounted to almost $3 trillion. As a result, the US alone now accounts for about 40 percent of the world’s total military expenditures and spends more than the next 10 highest defense spenders combined (seven of whom are our allies). In real terms—that is, taking inflation into account—the US defense budget is higher than it was during the Reagan military buildup or the wars in Korea and Vietnam. In 2019, the combined budget of our two primary strategic competitors, Russia and China, was $326 billion—less than half of the Pentagon’s annual spending. Continue reading |
“Get the Hell Off”: The Indigenous Fight to Stop a Uranium Mine in the Black Hills
An unidentified member of AIM Native American woman sits with her rifle at ready on steps of building in Wounded Knee, South Dakota, March 2, 1973. Indians still have control of town having seized it on Tuesday. Eleven hostages they had taken were finally released. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)
Get the Hell Off”: The Indigenous Fight to Stop a Uranium Mine in the Black Hills
Can the Lakota win a “paper war” to save their sacred sites?
Mother Jones, BY DELILAH FRIEDLER; PHOTOS BY DANNY WILCOX FRAZIER, MARCH/APRIL 2020 ISSUE, Regina Brave remembers the moment the first viral picture of her was taken. It was 1973, and 32-year-old Brave had taken up arms in a standoff between federal marshals and militant Indigenous activists in Wounded Knee, South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Brave had been assigned to guard a bunker on the front lines and was holding a rifle when a reporter leaped from a car to snap her photo. She remembers thinking that an image of an armed woman would never make the papers—“It was a man’s world,” she says—but the bespectacled Brave, in a peacoat with hair pulled back, was on front pages across the country the following Sunday……..
In October, Brave spoke at Magpie Buffalo Organizing’s inaugural “No Uranium in Treaty Territory” summit, which offered a crash course on tribal sovereignty. The activists are closely tracking the various Keystone XL permits, which the Rosebud Sioux Tribe is challenging in court as a treaty violation. As the threat of both uranium and gold mining looms, there’s talk of occupying land in the Black Hills, as the American Indian Movement did in 1981.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission plans a dangerous deregulation of radioactive waste
Critics alarmed by US nuclear agency’s bid to relax rules on radioactive waste https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/07/nuclear-regulatory-commission-radioactive-waste
Nuclear Regulatory Commission keen to allow material to be disposed of by ‘land burial’ – with potentially damaging effects Daniel Ross 8 May 2020 The federal agency providing oversight of the commercial nuclear sector is attempting to push through a rule change critics say could allow dangerous amounts of radioactive material to be disposed of in places like municipal landfills, with potentially serious consequences to human health and the environment.
Currently, low-level radioactive waste is primarily disposed of in highly regulated sites in Texas, Washington, South Carolina and Utah. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) also provides exemptions allowing “low-level waste” to be dumped in unlicensed disposal sites, but these exemptions are given only rarely, and are conducted with strict case-by-case protocols in place.
The proposed “interpretive” rule change relaxes the rules surrounding how radioactive materials would be disposed of in unlicensed disposal sites “significantly”, said Hirsch.
“If you dump radioactive waste in places that aren’t designed to deal with it, it comes back to haunt you. It’s in the air you breathe, the food that you eat, the water you drink,” he added.
In an email, David McIntyre, an NRC spokesperson, explained that the rule would apply only to a “small subset” of very low-level waste, and that the agency would not allow such disposals “if we felt public health and safety and the environment would not be protected”.
But major sticking point, say experts, concerns how the term “very low-level waste” is not defined by statute or in the NRC’s own regulations.
The NRC describes low-level wastes as contaminated materials like clothing, tools, and medical equipment. According to McIntyre, the radioactivity of “very low-level waste” is just above background. “The radioactivity level of very low-level waste is so low that it may be safely disposed of in hazardous or municipal solid waste landfills,” he wrote.
Nevertheless, “background doesn’t mean it’s safe,” said Diane D’Arrigo, radioactive waste project director for the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, who added that the interpretive rule’s loose language “opens the floodgates” for nuclear waste to be disposed of “as if not radioactive”.
The proposal caps the maximum annual “cumulative dose” to a person from the radioactive wastes dumped into unlicensed sites to 25 millirems – the same limit the NRC uses for highly regulated waste disposal sites. That measurement, said D’Arrigo, is a “projected” amount that can be manipulated through modeling.
Experts point out that the nuclear industry has long sought cheaper ways to dispose of its wastes. As the nation’s fleet of nuclear power plants continues to age, and as more of them approach retirement, some of the decommissioning funds set up to safely dismantle the reactors are proving inadequate.
“The NRC regulations are in effect a cost-benefit analysis,” explained Rodney Ewing, a professor of nuclear security at Stanford University. “It’s been a common trend to look for waste streams that, if separated out, they could be disposed of in less expensive ways.”
Some environmentalists fear the rule change will also disproportionately impact low-income, marginalized communities who are more likely than their wealthier neighbors to be situated near solid waste landfills.
According to Caroline Reiser, nuclear energy legal fellow with the Natural Resources Defense Council, if the proposal is successfully passed, then the issue could end up in court.
“Once it starts getting implemented, that’s when the real fights end up happening,” she said.
Close to 100 USA Environmental Rules now removed by Trump govt: here’s the list
The Trump Administration Is Reversing Nearly 100 Environmental Rules. Here’s the Full List. NYT, By NADJA POPOVICH, LIVIA ALBECK-RIPKA and KENDRA PIERRE-LOUIS May 6, 2020
After three years in office, the Trump administration has dismantled most of the major climate and environmental policies the president promised to undo.
Calling the rules unnecessary and burdensome to the fossil fuel industry and other businesses, his administration has weakened Obama-era limits on planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and from cars and trucks, and rolled back many more rules governing clean air, water and toxic chemicals. Several major reversals have been finalized in recent weeks as the country has struggled to contain the spread of the new coronavirus.
In all, a New York Times analysis, based on research from Harvard Law School, Columbia Law School and other sources, counts more than 60 environmental rules and regulations officially reversed, revoked or otherwise rolled back under Mr. Trump. An additional 34 rollbacks are still in progress.
With elections looming, the administration has sought to wrap up some of its biggest regulatory priorities quickly, said Hana V. Vizcarra, a staff attorney at Harvard Law School’s Environmental and Energy Law Program. Further delays could leave the new rules vulnerable to reversal under the Congressional Review Act if Democrats are able to retake Congress and the White House in November, she said.
The bulk of the rollbacks identified by the Times have been carried out by the Environmental Protection Agency, which repealed and replaced the Obama-era emissions rules for power plants and vehicles; weakened protections for more than half the nation’s wetlands; and withdrew the legal justification for restricting mercury emissions from power plants.
At the same time, the Interior Department has worked to open up more land for oil and gas leasing by cutting back protected areas and limiting wildlife protections……
All told, the Trump administration’s environmental rollbacks could significantly increase greenhouse gas emissions and lead to thousands of extra deaths from poor air quality each year, according to energy and legal analysts.
Below, [on original] we have summarized each rule that has been targeted for reversal over the past three years.
Are there rollbacks we missed? Email climateteam@nytimes.com or tweet @nytclimate. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/climate/trump-environment-rollbacks.html
“Stand-down” of activities at Michigan nuclear reactor, due to certain number of COVID-19 workers
Pandemic concerns interrupt Michigan nuclear plant outage, S and P Global Platts, Author Michael McAuliffe EditorKeiron Greenhalgh CommodityElectric Power 8 May 20 Washington — Some work has resumed after a coronavirus pandemic-caused “stand-down” of activities at DTE Energy’s Fermi-2 nuclear reactor in Newport, Michigan, that interrupted a refueling and maintenance outage, company spokesman Stephen Tait said Thursday. The “stand-down,” in which contractor work was suspended, would add to the duration to the outage, which began March 21, but the company does “not provide estimates of outage or individual project durations,” Tait said.
DTE previously confirmed it had employees test positive for the novel coronavirus, but Tait said: “As a company, we are not releasing numbers of positive cases.”
The 1,205-MW plant is located in Monroe County, Michigan, and Kim Comerzan, health officer/director of the Monroe County Health Department, said in an interview Thursday the department is working with DTE Energy to determine the number of regular employees and contractors who have tested positive for the virus.
The stand-down began May 1, with some work resuming Monday. Normal crews that maintain the plant remained on the job over the weekend to ensure plant safety, according to Tait.
During refueling outages, hundreds of contract workers are brought in to supplement permanent staff and complete fuel replacement as well as a variety of maintenance tasks and inspections that can only been done with the reactor shut……..
Many nuclear units in the US and overseas have reduced the scope of outages to limit the number of on-site workers and are employing distancing measures to reduce the chance of spreading the novel coronavirus.
While some outages have been completed in shorter-than-normal times as a result, some have been extended both for health reasons and, in some European countries that are heavily reliant on nuclear power, because of a sharp drop in demand for power due to lockdowns related to the pandemic. https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/podcasts/focus/050620-lng-market-disruption-new-projects
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15 October. Joint Appeal for Nuclear Abolition Day -presentation to the UN on October 15 will be live on UNWebTV
Endorse the Nuclear Abolition Day Appeal
23-25 October – on Zoom – World BEYOND War’s annual global conference
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