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California governor declares state of emergency after earthquakes

California governor declares state of emergency after earthquakes

Earthquake-rattled Southern California braces for more aftershocks: ‘Like an atom bomb going off’   abc news, By EMILY SHAPIRO

Jul 6, 2019, Southern California is bracing for more aftershocks after a powerful 7.1 magnitude earthquake shook the region late Friday, one day after a 6.4 magnitude quake struck…….

Friday’s massive 7.1 magnitude quake hit at 8:19 p.m. local time near Ridgecrest and the Searles Valley, along the same fault line as the July Fourth quake, authorities said. …….

The 7.1 quake was the strongest in Southern California since one of the same magnitude hit Hector Mines in 1999, officials said.

It also became one of only 13 earthquakes in more than 60 years to measure over 7.0 magnitude…….
https://abcnews.go.com/US/powerful-aftershocks-shake-southern-california-massive-earthquake-panic/story?id=64147691

July 8, 2019 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

City councillors call for New York City to divest from companies involved in the production of nuclear weapons

Nuclear Weapons Money 27th June 2019 Move the Nuclear Weapons Money welcomes the initiative of New York CityCouncil members Daniel Dromm, Helen Rosenthal and Ben Kallos to call on New York City to divest from companies involved in the production of nuclear
weapons, and to reaffirm New York City as a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone.

On June 26, the city councillors introduced Resolution 976 calling on the City
Council to make such a policy decision, and Initiative 1621 under which the
City would establish an advisory committee to examine nuclear disarmament
and issues related to recognizing and reaffirming New York city as a
nuclear weapons-free zone.

The council declared New York to be a
Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in 1983 with the adoption of Resolution 364 which
prohibits the production, transport, placement or deployment of nuclear
weapons within the territorial limits of New York City, and the adoption of
Resolution 568 which declared that no ship be permitted to bring nuclear
missiles into the harbour of New York.

http://www.nuclearweaponsmoney.org/news/nycdivestment/

July 8, 2019 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, USA | 1 Comment

Back from the Brink platform, a Green New Deal for the nuclear threat.

Climate change isn’t our only existential threat,  https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/06/opinions/nuclear-war-climate-change-2020-opinion-helfand/index.html, By Ira Helfand, July 6, 2019    (CNN)America confronts a long list of critical problems and they all require urgent attention. But among them, two issues stand out: catastrophic climate change and nuclear war are unique in the threat they pose to the very survival of human civilization. The enormity and imminence of these twin existential threats cannot be overstated and how to confront them must be the central issue of any presidential campaign.

Climate change and the danger of nuclear war are closely related. As climate change progresses over the coming decades, large areas of the planet will be unable to support their human population. As a result, there will likely be forced migrations on a scale unknown in human history, and an enormously increased risk of conflict, including nuclear conflict. Nuclear war, should it come, would cause further catastrophic climate disruption and widespread global famine.
Fortunately, there is a much greater focus on climate change in this election cycle than in 2016 when it received scant attention in the campaign despite the enormous differences in the policies espoused by the major candidates. This time around, the growing demand for action, especially by young people, and the daily reminders of the escalating damage to the planet, are forcing this issue to the fore where it rightly belongs.
Progressives in Congress have put forward a comprehensive plan to deal with this crisis in the form of the Green New Deal, and there is the real possibility that a post-Trump administration will embrace this plan or some variant on it. Unfortunately, there is much less attention at this point in the campaign to the growing danger of nuclear war. That must change.
Former Secretary of Defense William Perry has said that the danger of nuclear war is greater than it was during the Cold War, and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has set its iconic Doomsday Clock to 2 minutes to midnight, the closest it has been to a nuclear apocalypse since 1953, after the US tested the hydrogen bomb. Relations between the US and Russia are the worst they have been in three decades and the current tension is replete with nuclear saber-rattling from both sides. War between the nuclear superpowers is an ever-present threat.
Furthermore, research done over the last 15 years has shown that even a very “limited” nuclear war, involving less than 0.5% of the world’s nuclear weapons, would be enough to cause catastrophic global climate disruption and a worldwide famine, putting up to 2 billion people at risk. Such a war would not necessarily involve the great powers. A war between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan could easily produce this level of global climate disruption.
Even if none of the nine nuclear-armed states makes a deliberate decision to launch nuclear weapons, the possibility of an accidental war remains. There have been at least six episodes during the nuclear weapons era when either Moscow or Washington began the process of launching its nuclear weapons in the mistaken belief that it was already under attack. As Robert McNamara, President Kennedy’s defense secretary, famously stated, “We lucked out. It was luck that prevented nuclear war.” As long as they continue to maintain nuclear arsenals, the security “policy” of the nuclear-armed states is essentially a hope for continued good luck.
The last time the world was this close to nuclear annihilation, in the 1980s, the need to prevent nuclear war was front and center in the nation’s political discourse. A vast popular movement formed that demanded and won a freeze in the nuclear arms race.
The danger today demands a similar response, and this time the effort must focus on the complete elimination of nuclear weapons.
A campaign to focus national attention on this issue has begun to take shape around the Back from the Brink platform, a Green New Deal for the nuclear threat. Supported by more than 200 professional associations, faith communities, peace and environmental groups, it has been endorsed unanimously by the US Conference of Mayors, and by the municipalities of Baltimore, Los Angeles and DC, as well as being approved overwhelmingly by the California and Oregon legislatures and the New Jersey General Assembly.
In 2017, 122 nations voted to establish the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The US boycotted those negotiations and has not yet signed the treaty. The Back from the Brink campaign calls on the United States to embrace the treaty and lead an international effort to prevent nuclear war. It specifically urges the US to enter now into negotiations with the other nuclear-armed states for a verifiable, enforceable, timebound plan to eliminate their nuclear arsenals as the only way to guarantee that they are never used. We cannot know for sure that we will be able to eliminate nuclear weapons; we do know what is likely to happen if we don’t.
The United States cannot afford to elect a good president in 2020. It must elect a great president, and at this moment in time, greatness means the ability to deal successfully with the danger posed by climate change and nuclear weapons.
Ira Helfand, a medical doctor, is a member of the international steering group of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, the recipient of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize. He is also co-president of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, the founding partner organization of ICAN and itself the recipient of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize.

July 8, 2019 Posted by | election USA 2020 | Leave a comment

Ohio Lawmakers Miss Deadline to Save Two Nuclear Plants, Vow to Keep Trying

FirstEnergy says it will continue decommissioning plants outside Cleveland and Toledo but can wait a few weeks longer for state aid   By Kris Maher, July 7, 2019 

A plan to rescue nuclear energy in Ohio is moving forward as lawmakers said they would continue working past a deadline on a bill aimed at keeping the state’s two nuclear plants running.

The oil-and-gas industry, environmental groups and renewable energy companies have lined up to oppose the legislation, as Ohio becomes the latest state to wrestle with balancing a diverse energy portfolio with clean-energy goals and local economic interests….. (subscribers only) 

July 8, 2019 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

The Quake to Make Los Angeles a Radioactive Dead Zone

By Harvey Wasserman, Reader Supported News  06 July 19    Had Friday’s 7.1 earthquake and other ongoing seismic shocks hit less than 200 miles northwest of Ridgecrest/China Lake, ten million people in Los Angeles would now be under an apocalyptic cloud, their lives and those of the state and nation in radioactive ruin.

The likely human death toll would be in the millions. The likely property loss would be in the trillions. The forever damage to our species’ food supply, ecological support systems, and longterm economy would be very far beyond any meaningful calculation. The threat to the ability of the human race to survive on this planet would be extremely significant.

The two cracked, embrittled, under-maintained, unregulated, uninsured, and un-inspected atomic reactors at Diablo Canyon, near San Luis Obispo, would be a seething radioactive ruin.

Their cores would be melting into the ground. Hydrogen explosions would be blasting the site to deadly dust. One or both melted cores would have burned into the earth and hit ground or ocean water, causing massive steam explosions with physical impacts in the range of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The huge clouds would send murderous radioactive isotopes into the atmosphere that would permanently poison the land, the oceans, the air … and circle the globe again and again, and yet again, filling the lungs of billions of living things with the most potent poisons humans have ever created.

In 2010, badly maintained gas pipes run by Pacific Gas & Electric blew up a neighborhood in San Bruno, killing eight people. PG&E’s badly maintained power lines have helped torch much of northern California, killing 80 people and incinerating more than 10,000 structures.

Now in bankruptcy, with its third president in two years, PG&E is utterly unqualified to run two large, old, obsolete, crumbling atomic reactors which are surrounded by earthquake faults. At least a dozen faults have been identified within a small radius around the reactors. The reactor cores are less than fifty miles from the San Andreas fault, less than half the distance that Fukushima Daiichi was from the epicenter that destroyed four reactors there.

Diablo cannot withstand an earthquake of the magnitude now hitting less than 200 miles away. In 2014, the Associated Press reported that Dr. Michael Peck, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s site inspector at Diablo, had warned that the two reactors should be shut because they can’t withstand a seismic shock like the one that has just hit so close. The NRC tried to bury Peck’s report. They attacked his findings, then shipped him to Tennessee. He’s no longer with the Commission.

All major reactor disasters have come with early warnings. A 1978 accident at Ohio’s Davis-Besse reactor presaged the 1979 disaster at Three Mile Island. The realities were hidden, and TMI spewed radiation that killed local people and animals in droves.

Soviet officials knew the emergency shut-down mechanism at Chernobyl could cause an explosion — but kept it secret. Unit Four exploded the instant the rods meant to shut it down were deployed.

Decades before disaster struck at Fukushima Daiichi, millions of Japanese citizens marched to demand atomic reactors NOT be built in a zone riddled by fault lines, washed by tsunamis.

In California, ten thousand citizens were arrested demanding the same.  Diablo’s owners hid the existence of the Hosgri Fault just three miles from the site. A dozen more nearby fault lines have since been found, capable in tandem of delivering shocks like the ones shaking Ridgecrest. No significant structural improvements have been made to deal with the newfound fault lines.

The truly horrifying HBO series on Chernobyl currently topping all historic viewership charts shows just a small sample of the ghastly death and destruction that can be caused by official corruption and neglect.

Like Soviet apparatchiks, the state of California has refused to conduct independent investigations on the physical status of the two Diablo reactors. It has refused to hold public hearings on Dr. Peck’s warnings that they can’t withstand seismic shocks like the ones now being experienced so dangerously nearby. If there are realistic plans to evacuate Los Angeles and other downwind areas during reactor melt-downs/explosions, hearings on them have yet to be held.

In the wake of the 2011 explosions at Fukushima, the NRC staff compiled critical reforms for American reactors, including Diablo. But the Commission killed the proposed regulations. So nothing significant has been done to improve safety at two coastal reactors upwind of ten million people that are surrounded by earthquake faults in a tsunami zone like the one where the four Fukushima reactors have already exploded.

There are no excuses. These seismic shocks will never stop. Diablo is scheduled to shut in 2024 and 2025. But massive advances in wind, solar, batteries and efficiency have already rendered the nukes’ power unnecessary. A petition demanding Governor Newsom and the state independently investigate Diablo’s ability to operate safely is at www.solartopia.org.

That petition began circulating before these latest quakes. The continued operation of these two reactors has now gone to a whole new level of apocalyptic insanity.  Be afraid.  Be VERY afraid.

Harvey Wasserman’s Green Power & Wellness Show is podcast at prn.fm; California Solartopia is broadcast at KPFK-Pacifica, 90.7 fm, Los Angeles. His book The People’s Spiral of US History: From Deganawidah to Solartopia will soon be at www.solartopia.org.

July 6, 2019 Posted by | safety, USA | 1 Comment

Nuclear Weapons and the 2020 USA Presidential Candidates

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The Other Existential Threat: Nuclear Weapons & the 2020 Presidential Campaign https://blog.ucsusa.org/sean-meyer/nuclear-weapons-candidates-primaries

SEAN MEYER, | JULY 3, 2019   The 2020 presidential campaign kicked off in earnest with last week’s Miami debates, and many of the “high profile” topics were covered: climate change, immigration, gun control. One topic was a little more unexpected: nuclear weapons. On the first night, three of the ten candidates on stage said nuclear weapons or the threat of nuclear war is the biggest geopolitical threat facing the United States.

This should not be surprising: recent polling shows that in key primary states, including New Hampshire and Iowa, over 80% of respondents want to know what candidates think about nuclear weapons. We also know from recent national polling that more than 80% of people support arms control treaties with Russia.

Unfortunately, current US policies put the public at danger from nuclear use. Today, the United States retains the right to use nuclear weapons first in a crisis and maintains hundreds of land-based missiles on hair trigger alert. New, more usable nuclear weapons are being developed as part of a trillion-dollar plan to re-build and maintain the entire nuclear arsenal (a proposal mind you that dates to the Obama administration). For its part, the Trump administration has pulled out of crucial nuclear agreements that have kept us safe, including the Iran nuclear deal and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, and seems poised to walk away from the New START Treaty as well.

These kinds of policies should be a major topic of discussion among candidates in the 2020 election, and candidates are already being asked about their positions on the campaign trail. Their responses and comments show a range of thought and understanding on the topic. You can see videos of the conversations with the presidential candidates about nuclear weapons on our YouTube channel.We’ll keep adding videos to this channel as members of the public and activists around the country continue to have these conversations with the candidates in the months ahead.

Indeed, voters have a critical role to play by raising the profile of these discussions and helping to elevate this important conversation and debate—both within our communities and online.

Nuclear weapons and climate change are the two existential threats facing humanity. They are serious. They are growing. They are urgent.  And our country and leaders must act—before it’s too late.

So that’s where “we the people” come in. Let’s educate others. Let’s raise our voices. Let’s insist that those who wish to lead our country do just that—lead us on a path that reduces the risks these horrible weapons pose.

The Union of Concerned Scientists aims to increase public discussion about the use of nuclear weapons; we are posting these videos to highlight such discussion by candidates for president. As a 501c3 nonpartisan organization, UCS does not support or oppose any candidate for election.

July 4, 2019 Posted by | election USA 2020 | Leave a comment

Dark money and the planned nuclear power bailout in Ohio

Who paid all that money to buy all those nuclear bailout ads raining on Ohio? https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2019/07/02/who-paid-all-money-buy-all-those-nuclear-bailout-ads-ohio-house-bill-6/1443145001/

Josh Goad, Cincinnati Enquirer  July 3, 2019 If you’re an Ohioan with a TV or radio, you’ve probably heard about a nuclear power bailout bill that lawmakers are considering in Columbus. But what you can’t find out is exactly how much money is being spent on those ads – or who originally gave the money for them.


House Bill 6 seeks to tax Ohioans 80 cents a month through their utility bill to bailout First Energy Solutions’ nuclear power plants in Northern Ohio. Critics say the bill, which also will boost costs for commercial and industrial customers, will discourage the use of renewable energy for businesses across the state. Proponents say the bill will help Ohio stay energy independent and keep badly needed jobs in the communities around the plants.

The bill, which has the backing of powerful House Speaker Larry Householder, triggered up to $8.3 million in ads and other campaign spending, published estimates show. For comparison, a record $45 million was spent in the 2018 Ohio gubernatorial race.

Yet an Enquirer analysis of ad purchases for and against House Bill 6 and reported to the Federal Communications Commission shows just $2.7 million in sales. The Cincinnati market, the state’s third largest, was the leader in ads on the bailout bill.

Why the gap between the $2.7 million hard figure and the $8.3 million estimate? Some broadcasters, including Cincinnati’s WCPO-TV, are choosing not to post billings for the ads – and under FCC rules, they don’t have to do so.

The big money behind the bill hasn’t been reserved for ads this year. Groups allied with Householder put $800,000 into ads for Ohio’s 2018 campaigns, boosting candidates who put Householder into the speaker’s seat. A couple of the winning candidates also are key sponsors of House Bill 6.

But donors behind the campaign money, and for many of the ads you’ve seen about the bill, can’t be pinpointed.

The money backing the bill primarily started with a 501(c)(4) or “dark money” organization called Generation Now that doesn’t have to list donors. Generation Now then gave to a political action committee, which must disclose donors. So while it’s clear which candidates got the “dark money” boosting the nuke plant bailout went, it’s uncertain who originally contributed it or the money that bought airtime.

Who runs Generation Now and is on its board isn’t clear. But the Columbus address of a longtime Householder adviser, Jeff Longstreth, is listed as the principal office in documents filed to the Ohio Secretary of State. So far, the 501(c)(4) hasn’t filed paperwork with the IRS – a step that such nonprofits seeking to stay in existence take. Paperwork that’s normally filed with broadcasters, listing the board members of groups airing political ads also is missing.

How much is being spent?

Generation Now has spent over $1.9 million on ads supporting House Bill 6, documents filed with the FCC show. This is out of around $2.7 million reported being spent on ads across Ohio on the proposal.

First Energy, which owns the plants being bailed out, backs the Ohio Clean Energy Jobs Alliance. The alliance has spent around $275,000 on ads in support of the bill and has stuck to Facebook for distribution.

The opposition to House Bill 6 has put $400,000 into its ads. The total from Ohio Consumers Power Alliance, American Energy Action and Ohioans Against Nuke Bailout compares to the roughly $1.3 million Generation Now has spent in Cincinnati alone.

Why isn’t all the spending being reported?

The FCC requires stations to make ad spending records available for the public record, but only if the ads are focused on a specific candidate or a national issue. State and local issues are not on the short list of requirements. 

Some stations choose to file everything for the sake of transparency. Others don’t.

FCC public inspection files show 41 stations in markets across Ohio – Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus, Cleveland-Akron, Toledo, Zanesville and Wheeling-Steubenville – were contacted by Generation Now or other interested parties because they are required to file such contracts by FCC rules.

But 13 stations, including every commercial TV broadcaster in Dayton, did not report how much Generation Now and other organizations spent on ads.

Where did the money come from?

‘Dark money’ is inherently difficult to track. While we don’t know the source, the money can be followed when it changes hands. 

Other than the money Generation Now spent in 2019 on ads, the nonprofit also donated over $1 million to the Growth & Opportunity PAC in 2018. The political action committee is based in Lexington, Kentucky, but operates throughout the Midwest.

According to documents filed with the FEC, the PAC only raised around $1.1 million in 2018. Almost all of that money would go on to pay for ads for Ohio Republican candidates during the midterm elections. Though Generation Now did not directly pay for those ads, it did provide the majority of funds necessary through three sizable donations to the PAC.

When the donations were made last year, Generation Now and the PAC had something in common: A treasurer from Dinsmore Agent Co, a subsidiary of Cincinnati-based law firm Dinsmore and Shohl.

Eric Lycan, the treasurer and former lawyer at Dinsmore’s Lexington office, would have overseen the donation. He still serves as the treasurer for both the organization and the PAC, and several documents filed to the FEC include his Dinsmore email address. 

The only Ohio-based organization that is easily traceable is Ohio Citizen Action, founded in Cleveland in 1976. Through its education fund, Ohio Citizen Action created the Ohio Consumers Power Alliance, who has paid for $8,000 in anti-House Bill 6 ads.

As nonprofits, Ohio Citizens Action and its education fund report their annual revenues to the IRS but not their donors. The last available filing for the education fund was for 2017, which was posted in January 2019. 

Where did the ‘dark money’ go?

Reps. Jamie Callender, R-Concord, and Shane Wilkin, R-Hillsboro, both primary sponsors of House Bill 6, directly benefited from the ads purchased by the Growth & Opportunity PAC.

Of the 22 Republican candidates that received either mail or radio ads, 19 would go on to win a seat in the House. Callender received more in ad spending than any other winning candidate, with $93,000 spent on seven different ad buys.

Householder also had nearly $50,000 worth of ads paid for by the PAC during his election to his Southeast Ohio seat. Another $25,000 was donated directly to Householder by FirstEnergy’s PAC.

Karen Kasler, of public radio’s Statehouse News Bureau, asked Householder earlier this year if House Bill 6 was a priority to him because of his connections to Eric Lycan and the Growth & Opportunity PAC.

“It’s a priority bill for me because I’ve always cared about the energy in the state of Ohio,” said Householder. “I’ll tell you who’s paying for these ads: it’s working men and women from Ohio, who want to save their jobs and it’s Ohio corporations, headquartered in Ohio, that want to stay here. That’s who’s paying for it.”

Why is ‘dark money’ hard to track?

It can be as simple as Generation Now, and other dark money groups, not filing the appropriate paperwork to the IRS.  If a tax-exempt organization doesn’t file for three consecutive years, it loses its status. Since Generation Now was incorporated in January 2017, the three-year deadline is approaching. 

Though Householder says that hardworking men and women donated money to the organization, Generation Now doesn’t have a donation portal on its website.

While reaching out to Generation Now for comment, Curt Steiner, CEO of Columbus-based Steiner Public Relations, answered instead. He said that he represents Generation Now and that he couldn’t speak on why there is no donation portal. 

Why have the ads run recently?

Many of the ads about House Bill 6 played on Ohio’s airwaves talked about getting the bill passed before the end of June.

Some of the ads feature an ominous voice talking about what Ohio’s future might look like under the bill, others showcase somebody who talks about their life and what FirstEnergy has done for them.

So why the deadline for passage? FirstEnergy Solutions needed to know whether to place an order for $52 million worth of fuel for one of its nuclear power plants. It takes months for such an order to be filled.

Action on FirstEnergy Solutions restructuring plan, filed through the Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Ohio, has been posted four times, moves that a FirstEnergy spokeswoman described as “not unusual.” 

Senate President Larry Obhof, R-Medina, told Statehouse reporters on Saturday he isn’t worried about the delayed fuel purchase.

“I’ve had a number of conversations with (FirstEnergy) going back several months about what the timeline was and there’s always been a little bit of flexibility,” Obhof said.

Meanwhile, House Bill 6 is still awaiting a vote in the Ohio Senate.

July 4, 2019 Posted by | politics, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Oyster Creek Generating Station is now in the hands of Holtec

Oyster Creek nuclear plant sale to Holtec is complete, App.com, Amanda Oglesby, Asbury Park Press,  July 2, 2019, LACEY Oyster Creek Generating Station is now in the hands of Holtec – International, which completed the purchase of the now-defunct nuclear facility on Monday.

Oyster Creek, before it shut down in September, was one of the nation’s oldest nuclear power plants. Camden-based Holtec plans to decommission this half-century-old facility and profit off the reactor’s nearly $1 billion decommissioning trust fund, money set aside for dismantling the reactor.

Under the agreement, Holtec subsidiaries Oyster Creek Environmental Protection International LLC will serve as owner and Holtec Decommissioning International will oversee decommissioning.

Holtec purchased the power plant for an undisclosed amount from Exelon Generation of Chicago.

Exelon had originally planned to take the plant down slowly over the course of 60 years in a process that would have allowed some of the facility’s dangerous radioactivity to degrade to safer levels. But Holtec’s proposal seeks to complete the decommissioning within a mere 10 years. The company says its new spent fuel storage systems enable hot, radioactive fuel to be removed from the plant’s cooling pool and placed into storage casks years earlier than originally planned.

Holtec is also applying to build an fuel storage facility in New Mexico, but is waiting on approvals. In the meantime, the spent fuel will be stored in steel and concrete canisters on the plant’s property in Lacey…….

Holtec has also applied to purchase other nuclear plants at Indian Point in New York, Palisades in Michigan, and Pilgrim in Massachusetts from Entergy Nuclear. Each has massive decommissioning trust funds that would be transferred to Holtecupon completion of the sales. …..this is Holtec’s first major expansion into the business of decommissioning.

Currently, Holtec is also developing small modular nuclear reactors….

Inside the cask

Casks hold dangerous radioactive elements like Cesium-137, Strontium-90 and Plutonium-239, fuel bi-products created inside reactors, which remain dangerous for generations.

Here’s what they do to people.

Chart

Cesium 137
Can burn skin, cause radiation sickness and damage tissue. In high doses, it can cause cancer.
Strontium-90
Is absorbed like calcium within the body and can lead to bone cancer, bone marrow cancer, and cancer in the tissues near bones.
Plutonium 239 and 240
Both remain dangerously radioactive for thousands of years. If inhaled, plutonium particles can scar the lungs, damage bones, liver and spleen and cause cancer.

A local residents group, the Concerned Citizens for Lacey Coalition, is demanding more answers from the company about its plans to quickly demolish Oyster Creek. Coalition member Paul Dressler worries about Lacey being a “guinea pig” for the relatively new and evolving process.

“We want to see transparency,” he said during a meeting with Press staff last week.

Dressler and coalition Chairman Ron Martyn, who live about five miles from the plant, want assurances that Holtec won’t abandon the project if money runs out before completion. They also want to see the regulatory agency that oversees plant decommissioning, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, come up with more stringent rules and best practices for this emerging practice.

“There are too many unanswered questions to go forward, and no one is stepping up to answer the basic business questions,” said Martyn. “It’s not fair to the community, it’s not fair to the state, to operate in such a vacuum.”………   https://www.app.com/story/money/business/2019/07/02/oyster-creek-nuclear-plant-sale-to-holtec-is-complete/1622164001/

July 4, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, politics, USA | Leave a comment

Delay in decision on Ohio nuclear bailout

Deadline is blown, but Ohio nuclear plant operators say there’s still time for bailout,  By Marty Schladen The Columbus Dispatch  Jul 1, 2019 

The proprietors of two struggling nuclear power plants in Ohio say they’re continuing with plans to shut down their Lake Erie facilities, but add that they can switch gears to keep them operating if the state legislature passes a bailout bill quickly.

Meanwhile, an opponent of the bailout is continuing his efforts to keep that from happening, and he says it’s a battle that could affect negotiations over Ohio’s belated budget.

Rep. Mark Romanchuk, R-Ontario, said the Davis-Besse plant east of Toledo and the Perry Nuclear Power Plant northeast of Cleveland have received $10.2 billion in state subsidies since 1999.

“I think that’s enough,” he said.

Both plants are operated by Akron-based FirstEnergy Solutions, which asked for the state bailout. FirstEnergy Solutions had said that Sunday was a hard deadline because it requires months of lead time to order and then process $52 million in fuel for the Davis-Besse reactor. But after the Ohio Senate Energy and Public Utilities Committee adjourned Sunday having considered just two of 57 amendments to the controversial legislation, House Bill 6, the company on Monday issued a statement that left some wiggle room.

“While FES is optimistic about the outcome for HB6, the company remains unable to purchase the fuel required for Davis-Besse’s next refueling cycle without the certainty of critical legislative support,” the company said in a statement. “We remain on path for a safe deactivation and decommissioning. Should we receive the long-term certainty that comes with an affirmative vote within this time frame, we will immediately reevaluate our options.”

FirstEnergy Solutions, which is working to emerge from bankruptcy, says it needs $150 million a year from Ohio ratepayers for six years to operate its plants, for a total of $900 million.

Also included in the bailout proposal are two coal-fired power plants, one in Ohio and one in Indiana, that are owned by a group of utilities that includes Columbus-based American Electric Power.

And while HB6 initially was sold as a “clean” energy bill, the latest version would eliminate subsidies for energy efficiency, make it harder to develop wind farms and eliminate a requirement that Ohio’s power companies get 12.5% of their electricity from renewable sources by 2027. ……..

Romanchuk said just the subsidies for the nuclear plants should be enough to reject House Bill 6.

“I’m opposed because 20 years ago we deregulated,” he said Monday. “We don’t need to be giving them subsidies any longer. They’re supposed to be able to compete.”

Over the weekend, as work stalled on HB6, lawmakers failed to pass a two-year budget by the midnight-Sunday deadline, forcing them to pass a 17-day extension. Conflicts over taxes, education and other matters could be sticking points, but Romanchuk suspects the real hangup was HB6.

“My take is that a budget isn’t getting passed until HB6 is resolved,” he said. …..https://www.dispatch.com/news/20190701/deadline-is-blown-but-ohio-nuclear-plant-operators-say-theres-still-time-for-bailout

July 4, 2019 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Oswego County happy with bribes from Exelon nuclear company

Oswego County reaches tax agreement with nuclear plants, WRVO, By PAYNE HORNING  3 July 19, Exelon, the company that owns and operates the nuclear power plants in Oswego County, has reached an agreement with the county on a $69 million tax agreement.

The Payment In Lieu Of Taxes (PILOT) agreement will provide a steady stream of revenue to the county through 2023. Each year, the Mexico Central School District will get $9 million, the county will get $4 million, and the Town of Scriba will get $500,000. That’s about $2 million more per year than under the previous PILOT agreement……

Oswego County Administrator Phil Church says the increase in payments is a victory for the county because the value of the nuclear plants go go down as they age……https://www.wrvo.org/post/oswego-county-reaches-tax-agreement-nuclear-plants

July 4, 2019 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Washington State setting its own deadlines for cleaning up Hanford wastes

State sets own deadlines for cleaning up Hanford wastes   https://www.columbian.com/news/2019/jul/02/state-sets-own-deadlines-for-cleaning-up-hanford-wastes/  By Associated Press, July 2, 2019, RICHLAND — The state of Washington is setting new deadlines to clean up a former plutonium production site that contains a massive quantity of radioactive waste.

Such deadlines are usually set through negotiations among the Washington Department of Ecology, the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

But the Tri-City Herald reports that the state has become frustrated with a lack of legally-binding deadlines related to the 56 million gallons of radioactive waste in underground storage tanks on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.

The Energy Department had not negotiated the deadlines as required by 2015.

Among other things, the state is requiring the Energy Department to design new underground storage tanks by 2023.

DOE has long objected to building new tanks.

Hanford for decades made plutonium for nuclear weapons.

July 4, 2019 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

12,500th Shipment Of Nuclear Waste to USA’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

WIPP Facility Receives 12,500 Shipment Of Nuclear Waste  https://www.krwg.org/post/wipp-facility-receives-12500-shipment-nuclear-waste  By KRWG NEWS AND PARTNERS CARLSBAD, N.M. (AP) 3 July 19, — The federal government’s underground nuclear waste repository in New Mexico has received its 12,500th shipment since operations began two decades ago.

The U.S. Energy Department made the announcement Tuesday, saying the shipment arrived at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant just before midnight on June 27.

The shipment originated at Idaho National Laboratory.

The repository is licensed to take Cold War-era waste generated by decades of bomb-making and defense-related nuclear research. The waste includes gloves, clothing, tools and other materials contaminated with radioactive elements.

In all, more than 178,500 containers have been trucked over 14.9 million miles to the repository from sites around the country since 1999. The waste is entombed in disposal rooms carved out of an ancient salt formation about half a mile down.

July 4, 2019 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Settlement Talks Collapse in $200-Million Lawsuit over Savannah River Plutonium

BY DAN LEONE,  3 May 19, After settlement talks collapsed, a federal judge this week cleared the way for a long-awaited decision in a $200-million lawsuit between South Carolina and the Department of Energy over the federal government’s failure to remove plutonium from the state. The… (subscribers only)  https://www.exchangemonitor.com/settlement-talks-collapse-200-million-lawsuit-savannah-river-plutonium-2/

July 4, 2019 Posted by | - plutonium, Legal, USA | Leave a comment

Violent Reaction’ Blew Open Furnace Containing Uranium at Y-12 Analytical Chemistry Building

BY EXCHANGEMONITOR, 3 July 19,   The site operations contractor for the Y-12 National Security Complex is finishing decontamination in Building 9995 after a furnace there blew open and spewed uranium in late May. The muffle furnace in Y-12’s Analytical Chemistry Facility partially exploded…(subscribers only)  https://www.exchangemonitor.com/violent-reaction-blew-open-furnace-containing-uranium-y-12-analytical-chemistry-building-2/

July 4, 2019 Posted by | incidents, USA | Leave a comment

USA Security Adviser John Bolton denies report of ‘nuclear freeze’ agreement with North Korea

July 2, 2019 Posted by | North Korea, politics international, USA | 1 Comment

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