Controversy over Entergy’s quest for approval to extend Indian Point nuclear license
Entergy Sees Nuclear License Renewal for New York’s Indian Point Bloomberg, By Mark Chediak Dec 19, 2013 Entergy Corp. (ETR), the second biggest U.S. nuclear operator, expects federal approval to extend the operating life of its Indian Point reactors, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Leo Denault said.“It is our belief that we can get through the process and be successful,” Denault said in an telephone interview today. “We also think it’s going to take a while and we really don’t see it getting it resolved before 2018.”
State officials and environmental groups are fighting Entergy’s application with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a 20-year license renewal for Indian Point, a two-unit nuclear plant located about 24 miles (39 kilometers) north of New York City.
The NRC has said Entergy may continue to operate Indian Point’s 1,028-megawatt Unit 2 while it reviews the renewal request. The reactor’s license expired in September and the license for the 1,041-megawatt Unit 3 reactor expires in December 2015.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has said Indian Point should be closed because it isn’t feasible to evacuate the metropolitan area’s 20 million residents in the event of an accident. Entergy, based in New Orleans, has said the reactors are safe……
The company’s 838-megawatt James A. FitzPatrick reactor on New York’s southern shore of Lake Ontario is in a “more challenged market” and has a design similar to Vermont Yankee, which the company decided to shut earlier this year due to lower prices……http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-19/entergy-sees-nuclear-license-renewal-for-new-york-s-indian-point.html
Hearings on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s proposed Generic Environment Impact Statement (GEIS) for nuclear waste
San Clemente wants to get rid of San Onofre radioactive trssh
San Clemente Doesn’t Want San Onofre’s Nuclear Waste Sticking Around By David Wagner Http://Www.Kpbs.Org/News/2013/Dec/18/San-Clemente-Doesnt-Want-San-Onofres-Nuclear-Waste/ Without a national repository for nuclear waste, plants scattered throughout the country will have to keep waste on site for decades, possibly even centuries. Elected officials in San Clemente are expressing concern about how long waste will be stored in their own backyard. With San Onofre Nuclear Generating System just a few miles down the coast, nuclear waste sits close to home. The San Clemente City Council voted Tuesday to take a stronger stance on waste storage at the plant, which was permanently shut down earlier this year.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission believes waste could safely remain on site for as long as 300 years. Gary Headrick of the environmentalist group San Clemente Green thinks it’s a dangerous plan for Southern California.
“That is just absurd because we expect a huge earthquake anytime,” Headrick said. “We’re long overdue.”
In passing this resolution, the city is requesting more time for the public to weigh in on the future of San Onofre’s waste. The NRC’s period for public comment is scheduled to end on Friday.
Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMRs) raise saafety and security concerns
Potential fire and explosion hazards……
Potential flooding hazards:……
Limited access for conducting inspections of pressure vessels…
Safety and Security Concerns about Small Modular Reactors: NuScale’s Design http://allthingsnuclear.org/safety-and-security-concerns-about-small-modular-reactors-nuscales-design/ Ed Lyman, senior scientist December 17, 2013 Late last week the Department of Energy finally announced its decision to provide the small modular reactor (SMR) design NuScale with a matching grant of up to $226 million under its Licensing Technical Support program intended to speed the development of SMRs.
But the real news is not that DOE awarded a second grant under the program, but that it took so long to do so. NuScale, along with three other reactor vendors, originally applied for the funds in early 2012 with the expectation that two designs would receive grants. However, later that year DOE surprised many observers by only awarding a grant to one design, the Generation mPower.
Safety and Security Concerns
As discussed in detail in my September 2013 report “Small Isn’t Always Beautiful,” UCS has safety and security concerns about small modular reactors in general and about the NuScale design in particular
SMR vendors are pushing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to weaken its regulations regarding operator staffing, security staffing, and emergency planning, based on highly optimistic assertions that their reactors will be significantly safer than larger reactors. Continue reading
US Navymen lose federal case on Fukushima radiation
Judge dismisses sailor radiation case UTS San Diego Door open for follow-on lawsuit; attorney says he will refile with more plaintiffs
By Jeanette Steele.DEC. 17, 2013 A San Diego federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit alleging that U.S. sailors were exposed to dangerous radiation during the humanitarian response to the March 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami.
But Judge Janis L. Sammartino left the door open for a follow-on lawsuit, and the attorney representing several sailors from the San Diego-based aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan said he intends to refile. The judge dismissed the case Nov. 26 on jurisdictional grounds, saying that it was beyond her authority to determine whether the Japanese government had perpetrated a fraud on its American counterpart.
The defendant in the December 2012 case was Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
The lawsuit argued that power company officials lied about the amount of leakage from the damaged plant, in concert with the government of Japan. It says the Navy used those reports in its own calculations about the safety of U.S. sailors in the relief effort, called Operation Tomodachi……http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/dec/17/reagan-radiation-lawsuit-dismissed-tomodachi
Shock revelations about US sailors exposed to Fukushima radiation
5 1 Sailors from USS Ronald Reagan Suffering Thyroid Cancer, Leukemia, Brain Tumors After Participating in Fukushima Nuclear Rescue Efforts
Thursday, 12 December 2013 – Crew members in their mid-20’s from the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan are coming down with all sorts of radiation-related illnesses after being deployed less than 3 years ago to assist with earthquake rescue operations off the coast of Japan in 2011. It looks as though the onboard desalinization systems that take salt out of seawater to make it drinkable, were taking-in radioactive water from the ocean for the crew to drink, cook with and bath-in, before anyone realized there was a massive radiation spill into the ocean.
Charles Bonner, attorney representing sailors from the USS Ronald Reagan said “the crew members were not only going to the rescue by jumping into the water and rescuing people out of the water, but they were drinking desalinated sea water, bathing in it, until finally the captain of the USS Ronald Reagan alarmed people that they were encountering high levels of radiation.”
Bonner says that as a result of this exposure, the 51 sailors have come down with a host of medical problems, “They have testicular cancer, they have thyroid cancers, they have leukemias, they have rectal and gynecological bleeding, a host of problems that they did not have before … people are going blind, pilots who had perfect eyesight but now have tumors on the brain. And it’s only been 3 years since they went in.” Bonner pointed out that these service men and women are young people, ages 21, 22, 23 years old and no one in their family had ever suffered any of these kinds of illnesses before.
At present, 51 sailors from the USS Ronald Reagan are named as Plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and Bonner says he anticipates adding twenty additional Sailors soon, bringing the total to 70 to 75 because “The Japanese government is in a major conspiracy with TEPCO to hide and conceal the true facts.”
In an utterly shocking admission at a meeting of the Japan Press Club on December 12, 2013, the former Prime Minister of Japan, Naoto Kan, who was in-office when the Fukushima disaster took place, told assembled journalists “[People think it was March 12th but] the first meltdown occurred 5 hours after the earthquake.” This means that the government of Japan KNEW there was horrific radiation being released, but did not tell the U.S. Navy which had deployed the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan to assist with rescue efforts. Our story covering this new aspect of the Fukushima incident is available…..http ://www.turnerradionetwork.com/news/99-pat
Huffington Post, CNN pal up with Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Gov’t Report: CNN, Huffington Post listed as ‘external stakeholders’ in NRC, alongside nuclear industry and pro-nuclear blogs — Both outlets help NRC to increase online influence, as CNN produces pro-nuclear infomercial http://enenews.com/govt-report-cnn-huffington-post-listed-external-stakeholders-nrc-alongside-nuclear-industry-pro-nuclear-blogs-both-news-outlets-give-tips-nrc-increase-online-influence
Independent Evaluation of NRC’s Use and Security of Social Media, Office of the Inspector General, Jan. 2013:
Internal Stakeholders (NRC staff) […]
External Stakeholders (Press) Energy Editor, AOL, Huffington Post — Nuclear Writer, Huffington Post — Producer, CNN News
External Stakeholders (Digital Influencers) Blogger, Atomic Power Review — Blogger, Idaho Samizdat: Nuke Notes — Blogger, Yes Vermont Yankee
External Stakeholders (Nuclear Industry) […] Senior Manager for Social — Media, Nuclear Energy Institute […]
External Stakeholders (US Government and US Senate Staff) US-CERT Representative, United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team — Policy Director, US Senate
Excerpts from the evaluation:
As part of the press, I have to be able to quickly communicate a lot of technical information into something our readers will grasp. But it helps if NRC had strong info graphics or a section that provided a breakdown of technical info so I can understand the translation from its source. — Huffington Post
NRC‘s materials are very basic and not very viral. Other agencies do a better job of including information graphics, photos, even clickable links. There‘s no extra. It‘s not influential. — Managing Editor, Huffington Post
One producer from Cable News Network (CNN) suggested that what was currently offered on Flickr does not compel him to return and urged NRC to provide more content that did not involve people in a conference room or of the chairperson speaking from a podium.
Read the report here (pdf) See also: Paper: CNN’s nuclear propaganda film “is dishonest to its core” — It’s “actually an infomercial”
Virginia Uranium dumps its Coles Hill project
Amid fierce political opposition, US uranium miner suspends mine plans Mining.com, Ana Komnenic | December 15, 2013 A uranium miner has given up on mining one of the world’s largest known uranium deposits in Virginia – for now.
Virginia Uranium has plans to develop the Coles Hill deposit in Pittsylvania County.According to the Associated Press, the site contains an estimated 119-million-pounds of uranium.
But Virginia has a decades-long ban on uranium mining and the Gov.-elect Terry McAuliffe has fiercely opposed attempts to change this legislation and said he would veto any pro-uranium bills.Faced with this major political hurdle, Virginia Uranium told the Associated Press on Saturday that it would “not back the introduction of uranium mining legislation in the 2014 session of the General Assembly.”
The company cited the Governor-Elect’s opposition as a “significant challenge” to the project……
Environmental group Sierra Club has applauded McAuliffe for his opposition, publishing an article this week thanking the Governor.
Earlier this year McAuliffe stated that he was “not comfortable” enough with the science to say that he believed his community would be safe.
“I’m afraid it would get into the drinking water,” he said……http://www.mining.com/amid-fierce-political-opposition-us-uranium-miner-gives-up-on-one-of-the-worlds-largest-uranium-deposits-66417/
Renewable energy will outpace all other US energy in future
US Solar And Wind Growth Will Blow Away All Other Energy Sources In The Coming Decades http://www.businessinsider.com.au/renewable-energy-growth-to-2040-2013-12 ROB WILE RENEWABLE ENERGY PRODUCTION WILL GROW FASTER THAN ANY OTHER POWER SOURCE THROUGH 2040, ACCORDING TO THE EIA.
In its new annual energy outlook, the agency forecasts that from 2012 to 2040, solar, wind and geothermal production will have nearly doubled over the next 25 years. The next closest is natural gas, which will have grown 56%.
Strangely, EIA does not break down renewables into solar and wind. That may be because, despite its surging growth rate, renewables will still comprise just 3.8% of total energy production in 2040, compared with 38% for natgas. (graph)
Bankruptcy looms for uranium company USEC
Uranium company USEC says expects to file for bankruptcy Dec 16, 2013 Dec 16 (Reuters) – USEC Inc, a supplier of enriched uranium for commercialnuclear power plants, said it expected to file for bankruptcyprotection as part of a deal with its bondholders, sending the company’s shares down as much as 52 percent.
USEC, which has been struggling to fund projects and has posted losses for the past four quarters, said it expected to file a prearranged Chapter 11 petition in the first quarter…….
The company
said in November that government funding for its $350 million American Centrifuge Project in Ohio would end in January.
The project, which is 80 percent funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), is designed to produce low-enriched uranium used to make nuclear fuel. It was scheduled to be completed this month.
USEC wound down operations at another uranium enrichment plant earlier this year. The company is in the process of handing over the plant in Paducah, Kentucky to owner DOE.
Although power companies are building five reactors in southeastern United States, nuclear power generation is expected to decline. This will lower demand for uranium…
Moreover, uranium prices are yet to recover after they plummeted following the March 2011 meltdown at Japan‘s Fukushima Daiichi atomic power plant…..http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/12/16/usec-bankruptcy-idUKL3N0JV2CI20131216
Higher radiation levels detected in 2 Utah cities
RADIATION ALERTS HIT U.S. CITIES Fukishima cited as suspected source of increasing threat http://www.wnd.com/2013/12/radiation-alerts-hit-u-s-cities/#AiR6tmt9ZPCUCUBG.99WND Bob Unruh, 16 Dec 13, A private organization that monitors radiation data from network points across the United States issued email alerts today for two Western U.S. cities, Reno, Nev., and St. George, Utah.
The alerts came from the the Nuclear Emergency Tracking Center, which explains its mission is to provide radiation monitoring information from hundreds of sites in Japan and the U.S., including those run by the Environmental Protection Agency.
The warning pinpointed an area “of concern” in St. George, Utah, where background radiation levels more than doubled today from the typical reading.
In Reno, “the current background radiation level has increased suddenly by more than 200 points from the typical average.”……http://www.wnd.com/2013/12/radiation-alerts-hit-u-s-cities/
Closing Hanford Nuclear Plan would save money
Big Bucks Saved If Aging Hanford Nuclear Plant Closes TriplePundit By Bill DiBenedetto | December 16th, 2013 Ratepayers in Washington State could save a cool $1.7 billion over 17 years if the Columbia Generating Station (CGS) nuclear power plant at Hanford is closed.
A 212-page economic analysis released last week by McCullough Research of Portland, OR notes that the CGS on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation is the only nuclear facility that was actually completed out of the five plants begun there during the long and tangled history of Hanford. In addition, it contains a General Electric boiling water reactor that’s similar to those that were destroyed during the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan….http://www.triplepundit.com/2013/12/big-bucks-saved-aging-hanford-nuclear-plant-closes/
Controversial entombment of Illinois nuclear power plant
state regulators will not have authority to question how the dismantling is performed or EnergySolutions’ spending decisions.
A group of local citizens has filed suit over the financial handling of the project, claiming there are no safeguards to ensure that EnergySolutions isn’t wasting ratepayer money.
How Zion’s nuclear waste will be entombed on site http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-1215-zion-fuel-20131215,0,7912496.story Third-party EnergySolutions to embark on unprecedented, yearlong process By Julie Wernau, Chicago Tribune reporter December 15, 2013
In January, EnergySolutions will begin the most crucial part of its 10-year dismantling of the shuttered Zion nuclear power plant: Safely removing its radioactive fuel rods.
The project is the largest in the history of the U.S. nuclear power industry and the first in which a plant’s owner has turned over its license to a third party for the purpose of dismantling it. Utah-based EnergySolutions is staking its future on the project. How it handles the most expensive and risky phase of the project will be crucial to it winning other such work going forward.
The Zion plant, owned by Chicago-based Exelon Corp., the parent of Commonwealth Edison, generated electricity on the shores of Lake Michigan for close to a quarter of a century. By the time the project is complete, it will have taken nearly as long to destroy it. Continue reading
Big push for Small Modular Nuclear Reactors grinds to a halt
Ameren/Westinghouse passed over again for small modular reactor funding By JACOB BARKER December 13, 2013 Ameren Missouri and Westinghouse Electric again were passed over by the U.S. Department of Energy, which announced Thursday that its final funding award under a small modular nuclear reactor program would go to NuScale Power of Portland, Ore.
The announcement was the second disappointment for a coalition built around Westinghouse’s nuclear reactor design and St. Louis-based Ameren, which had indicated it would build a new reactor near its existing nuclear power plant in Callaway County if it could secure a federal investment….. the department said it would enter into a five-year cost-share agreement with NuScale and invest as much as half of the total project cost. The department did not release the final amount it would put up for the project, saying that sum would be negotiated with NuScale and come from a $452 million fund established for the SMR program.
…….[In 2012] DOE said then it would open future funding opportunities, but this time, it isn’t planning any more…..
“As a result of the DOE’s decision, we are stepping back and considering our alternatives as we continue to focus on maintaining all generation options for a cleaner energy portfolio to meet Missouri’s energy needs in the future,” Ameren said in its statement. ……
The Missouri Coalition for the Environment responded to the decision with a news release saying Missouri should focus on “clean renewable energy,” excluding nuclear power, in line with a 2008 statewide vote requiring utilities to generate more power from renewable sources. http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/local/ameren-westinghouse-passed-over-again-for-small-modular-reactor-funding/article_8141670c-637c-11e3-8c67-001a4bcf6878.html?comments=focus
USA’s great nuclear weapons stockpile belies its talk about disarmament
Limiting nuclear weapons: Diplomacy and dialogue The Hill, By Catherine Thomasson, M.D. 13 Dec 13, As diplomats seek a negotiated solution to Iran’s nuclear program, another crucial dialogue has escaped notice. The need remains for further dialogue in the U.S. to limit the stockpiling of nuclear weapons at home. Twenty years after the Cold War, the United States maintains a nuclear arsenal that far exceeds any strategic requirement.
The U.S. still has 8,000 nuclear weapons while only 300 warheads would annihilate our entire population. With changing global realities, it’s time the United States eliminated the nuclear stockpiles that cost billions, do nothing to address 21st Century security challenges, and instead only pose a great security risk to U.S. citizens.Nuclear weapons cause more damage than can be imagined and kill indiscriminately. A twenty megaton bomb vaporizes all living things within a two mile radius with temperatures higher than the surface of the sun; the explosive force in a four mile radius flattens everything in sight including underground structures, and causes spontaneous fires from flammable materials for a 16 mile radius. There is no “acceptable” level of nuclear weapons that is consistent with the ultimate survival of civilization.
Under agreements such as the Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968 and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty of 1996, many countries have agreed to limit the testing and detonation of nuclear weapons with the goal of achieving total nuclear disarmament. The UN provides a necessary forum for multilateral diplomacy and cooperation – but progress isn’t being made fast enough…….
The conversation about reducing the U.S. nuclear stockpile must happen now. This is an urgent threat, a threat that cannot be ignored while we attempt to eliminate other proliferation risks. As former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry, former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and former Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) recently wrote “The continuing risk posed by nuclear weapons remains an overarching strategic problem, but the pace of work doesn’t now match the urgency of the threat.”…..
As long as there are arsenals of nuclear weapons, we are living on borrowed time. We owe it to ourselves and future generations to eliminate from the world weapons that destroy not only those we consider the enemy, but also ourselves . Thomasson, M.D. is executive director of Physicians for Social Responsibility.http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/homeland-security/192844-limiting-nuclear-weapons-diplomacy-and-dialogue
1 This Month
23-25 October – on Zoom – World BEYOND War’s annual global conferenc
Shut down the radiation-damaged Heysham nuclear reactors now
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
-
Archives
- October 2026 (180)
- September 2026 (339)
- August 2026 (330)
- July 2026 (355)
- June 2026 (287)
- May 2026 (306)
- April 2026 (356)
- March 2026 (251)
- February 2026 (267)
- January 2026 (308)
- December 2025 (358)
- November 2025 (359)
-
Categories
- 1
- 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES
- business and costs
- climate change
- culture and arts
- ENERGY
- environment
- health
- history
- indigenous issues
- Legal
- marketing of nuclear
- media
- opposition to nuclear
- PERSONAL STORIES
- politics
- politics international
- Religion and ethics
- safety
- secrets,lies and civil liberties
- spinbuster
- technology
- Uranium
- wastes
- weapons and war
- Women
- 2 WORLD
- ACTION
- AFRICA
- Atrocities
- AUSTRALIA
- Christina's notes
- Christina's themes
- culture and arts
- Events
- Fuk 2022
- Fuk 2023
- Fukushima 2017
- Fukushima 2018
- fukushima 2019
- Fukushima 2020
- Fukushima 2021
- general
- global warming
- Humour (God we need it)
- Nuclear
- RARE EARTHS
- Reference
- resources – print
- Resources -audiovicual
- Weekly Newsletter
- World
- World Nuclear
- YouTube
-
RSS
Entries RSS
Comments RSS
