Nuclear waste reprocessing plan melting down?
Nuclear waste reprocessing plan melting down? Examiner.com Robyn Monaghan May 25,
The Obama administration may be melting down a program that would have shipped deadly radioactive wastes from around the world to a reprocessing facility eyed for Chicago’s Southwest suburbs.“The program has been terminated,” Department of Energy spokesman Brian Quirke told Chicago Page One Examiner last week about the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership.That happened in late March, when GNEP was chopped from the new budget, he said.The controversial Global Nuclear Energy Partnership [GNEP] was a pet project of the DOE during the Bush years. It called for transporting radioactive waste from the nation’s 104 nuclear reactors and from 25 foreign countries signed on as “GNEP Partners.”…………………..
……………………Slicing GNEP from the budget doesn’t mean the DOE is completely abandoning the idea of nuclear waste re-processing. The budget funnels $145 million for the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative, for conducting research on “proliferation-resistant” recycling and nuclear waste reduction technologies. The 2009 budget also includes $143 million for “defense nuclear waste disposal” activities, which some sources say means to developing Yucca Mountain………………………….It may technically correct to say GNEP is terminated, said David Kraft, with the Chicago-based Nuclear Energy and information Service. In fact, the new administration has simply renamed and re-budgeted it.‘You can dress up a pig in silk and marry it and call it your wife, but it’s still going to be a pig,” Kraft said.
Opponents say nuclear reprocessing nuclear waste has devastated local and regional environments wherever it’s done – in the UK, France, and Russia. They say France’s decision to reprocess reactor fuel has contaminated seas as far as the Arctic Circle and point to studies that radioactive discharges from La Hague in France contributed to elevated rates of leukemia among young people close to the site…………………………..Obama’s Energy Secretary Steven Chu is Nuclear is promoting nuclear as “clean” in global warming terms, despite “huge issues associated with the waste, in its transport, reprocessing emissions, and storage,” Headington said.
US nuclear accord with a Persian Gulf state raises concerns about proliferation
By Howard LaFranchi | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
US nuclear accord with a Persian Gulf state raises concerns about proliferationBackers says the agreement with the United Arab Emirates is a model for other countries in the region. But critics worry about the UAE’s ties with Iran.
from the May 23, 2009 edition
Washington – The Obama administration, anxious to demonstrate America’s willingness to deepen relations with reliable partners in the Muslim world before the president’s much-heralded speech to that community early next month, has signed a controversial nuclear cooperation agreement with the United Arab Emirates.
The nuclear accord, negotiated by the Bush administration but left for President Obama’s sign-off, is touted by the new administration – as it was by the former – as a model for future civilian nuclear cooperation with Arab countries……………………..opponents of the accord blast it as a short-sighted plan designed to secure lucrative contracts for US corporations that build nuclear reactors, yet one which may result in a string of plants producing nuclear fuel across a very volatile region.
“The US does not have a strategy to deal with this very real issue of proliferation, all they have is a sale,” says Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, an organization that promotes a nuclear-weapons-free world. “We shouldn’t be sprinkling the Middle East with nuclear power reactors until we figure out how to stop them from turning out nuclear bombs.”……………………………………Ploughshares’ Mr. Cirincione says….”What got these countries scrambling for nuclear technology was the summer of 2006, the war in Lebanon and Iran’s support for Hizbullah in that conflict.
US nuclear accord with a Persian Gulf state raises concerns about proliferation | csmonitor.com
US lawmakers reject nuclear in renewable power goal
US lawmakers reject nuclear in renewable power goal
Wed May 20, 2009 By Ayesha Rascoe
WASHINGTON, May 20 (Reuters) – U.S. lawmakers pushing to include greater recognition for existing nuclear power in a national renewable energy standard failed to win new breaks for the industry when a U.S. congressional panel on Wednesday voted down an amendment to a controversial climate change bill.
The sweeping bill, which seeks to cap greenhouse gas emissions, includes a renewable energy mandate that would require utilities to generate 15 percent of electricity from renewable sources such as wind and solar by 2020………………………………
Under the legislation sponsored by Democratic Representatives Henry Waxman and Edward Markey, utilities’ renewable mandate would be reduced in proportion to the portion of any electricity sales from new nuclear plants, but not existing nuclear plants…………
……..Waxman argued that the bill was not discriminating against nuclear power, but that nuclear was not renewable energy because it requires uranium, a limited resource. Also, he said the renewable standard was aimed at promoting new power sources and technology.
Obama lying about nuclear warhead
Barack Obama is lying about the Reliable Replacement Nuclear Warhead
Examiner.com by Ann Garrison May 20, 2009 Barack Obama is lying about the Reliable Replacement Nuclear Warhead (RRW). He says that it’s not in his budget.
However, the RRW is in the $50 billion Pentagon “black budget,” and this is Commander-in-Chief Obama’s budget too.
- Obama and the rest of the Pentagon are free to use the black budget at will, because Congress would rather not know or take responsibility for it.
In January 2009, the London Guardian reported that the RRW is still being developed at Britain’s nuclear weapons laboratory, Aldermaston.
Neither President and Commander-in-Chief Obama, nor Energy Secretary Chu, nor any Pentagon spokesperson denied the report.
As Director of the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Weapons Laboratory, Energy Secretary Chu oversaw the development of the Reliable Replacement Nuclear Wahead from 2006 until 2008, when Congress finally defunded it, under pressure in an election year.
It is inconceivable that Energy Secretary Chu does not know that the RRW’s development proceeds at Aldermaston, but, Chu was at least telling the truth, in a very deceptive sense when, earlier this year, he said that it would not be in his Energy Department budget.
Barack Obama, however, is lying. He is President and Commander-in-Chief Obama, with Constitutional, and military executive authority over the Pentagon. The Pentagon’s $50 billion black budget is Obama’s budget, first and foremost. He is lyiing when he says that his budget does not include the Reliable Replacement Nuclear Warhead .
Clean green nuclear war machine
Clean green nuclear war machine
Examiner.com, by Ann Garrison 12 May 09
Most world class planet and people trashers, including Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, Peabody Coal, Dupont, Dow Chemical, Coca Cola, Barrick Gold, Monsanto, Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Eison, and, even Halliburton, have given their corporate images the new Green Brand.
And, most belong to the globally sociopathic World Business Council for Sustainable Development, and the Wildlife Habitat Council, a non-profit conglomerate devoted to “stewarding” large tracts of land for the corporations, after getting rid of the people in the name of the critters.
Even the Pentagon has developed a Green Brand, and its own Green Brand press clips, as has Lockheed Martin., on its Going Green web page. Lockheed-Martin manufactures nearly all the U.S. military’s jet fighter bombers, including the trillion $ fleet of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, wired to deliver a larger “payload,” meaning more bombs, conventional or nuclear, than the F-22 or other combat planes sent out to clear the air space ahead of it………………………
…………….. Wikipedia’s list of nuclear submarines at the bottom of the ocean, and other nuclear sub accidents, including one, in my hometown of origin, Bremerton, Washington, home of the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, in 1983, and, another in my current hometown, San Francisco, where the nuclear-powered U.S.S. Guitarro sank to the bottom of San Francisco Bay, off Mare Island, in 1969.
http://www.examiner.com/x-8257-SF-Energy-Policy-Examiner~y2009m5d12-Clean-green-war-machines
7 Reasons to Support Comprehensive Clean-Energy Legislation
7 Reasons to Support Comprehensive Clean-Energy Legislation
1. Clean-energy legislation will create jobs by spurring investment in renewables and efficiency.
The legislation would place a cap on global warming pollution that would give companies and utilities an incentive to invest in low-carbon and energy-efficient technologies in order to minimize their emissions. These kinds of investments increase demand for renewable electricity and fuels, helping grow entire new businesses, and create jobs in struggling sectors of the economy such as manufacturing and construction.
Clean-energy investments also create more jobs than investments in traditional energy sources.
2. Boosting investments in low-carbon energy will help the United States regain the lead in the manufacture and sale of clean-energy technologies.
3. Action on clean-energy legislation has critical industry support.
4. Global warming is harming our health and the physical environment.
5. Comprehensive clean-energy legislation can provide a host of economic benefits.
6. Clean-energy legislation requires that polluters pay.
7. Opponents of action would continue the status quo of doing nothing, which cost the average family a $1,000 increase in energy bills over past eight years.
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/05/clean_energy_reasons.html
Nuclear cleanup funds mismanaged
- Nuclear cleanup funds mismanaged New American by Steven J. DuBord Wednesday, 20 May 2009 As part of President Barack Obama’s stimulus package, “the Energy Department has begun releasing more than $6 billion in stimulus money to clean up 18 nuclear sites from New York to California, more than doubling the typical yearly funding for the program,” a May 18 Washington Post story recounts.
- The sites were involved in Cold War-era nuclear weapons production, and the cleanup will deal with radioactive and chemically hazardous waste. But it is another type of waste that is causing a concerned reaction and prompting “sharply worded warnings from some government officials and lawmakers who say the stimulus funding is ripe for abuse.”
The Washington Post points out that “contractors helped shape the stimulus package and are lined up to get the work, including many that have been cited for serious safety violations and costly mistakes.” The cleanup program “has long been plagued by cost overruns and delays and is designated by the Government Accountability Office as ‘at high risk for fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement.’ Over the past two years, estimated cleanup costs at all 22 sites have escalated from $180 billion to $240 billion, according to the Energy Department.”
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech-mainmenu-30/environment/1136
Herbert, Utah Leaders Urge Stop to Nuclear Waste Arrival
Herbert, Utah Leaders Urge Stop to Nuclear Waste Arrival
Fox13now David Wells Senior Web Producer
May 18, 2009 SALT LAKE CITY – A federal judge has removed a major roadlock for EnergySolutions in its quest to to import Italian nuclear waste. U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart has ruled that a compact of several states doesn’t have the authority to ban foreign imports. Many Utahns, including Gov. Jon Huntsman, Jr. and Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert, have spoken out against the company’s plan to bring 1,600 tons of Italian nuclear waste to its facility in Utah’s west desert.
Utah Representatives Jason Chaffetz (R) and Jim Matheson (D) are co-sponsors of a national bill that could block imports of nuclear waste. FOX 13’s Katy Carlyle has more. http://www.fox13now.com/news/kstu-judge-compact-of-states-cant-block-foreign,0,7394556.story
Conn. high court backs anti-nuke plant activist
Associated Press
Conn. high court backs anti-nuke plant activist
By DAVE COLLINS , 05.20.09 A Connecticut environmental activist on Wednesday scored a significant legal victory in her fight over how the Millstone nuclear power complex manages its wastewater.
The state Supreme Court unanimously decided to allow Nancy Burton to challenge the state process that led to a preliminary decision to allow Millstone to renew its wastewater discharge permit. The state Department of Environmental Protection released a draft decision in August 2006 to renew the permit
Burton claims Millstone’s water intake and discharge system has destroyed billions of fish and other marine life in Long Island Sound and alleges the permit renewal process that began in 1997 has been tainted by bias, state favoritism toward Millstone and a disregard for environmental laws.
The five justices overturned a lower court judge’s ruling that Burton had no standing under state law to challenge the permit process.
“We conclude that the plaintiff’s complaint adequately sets forth facts to support an inference that unreasonable pollution, impairment or destruction of a natural resource will probably result from Millstone’s operation,” Justice Richard N. Palmer wrote in the court’s decision………………………A federal appeals court ruled in 2007 that power plants, including nuclear facilities, must use the best technology available to avoid harming aquatic life…………
Extent of tritium leaks still unknown
Extent of tritium leaks still unknown APP.com By Todd B. Bates • ENVIRONMENTAL WRITER • May 17, 2009
A month after radioactive tritium was found in a concrete vault and then ground water at the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in Lacey, experts still are trying to define the scope of the contamination. Plant owner Exelon Corp. also is still investigating the cause of the contamination and whether there are other leaks, according to plant and federal officials. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission decided last month that Oyster Creek was “good for 20 years, and it didn’t last three weeks before something failed,” said Richard Webster, legal director at the Eastern Environmental Law Center in Newark………
…………. Five monitoring wells at the plant were contaminated with up to 265 times government limits for tritium in water, according to May 6 data provided by Sheehan. Tritium is a weak isotope of hydrogen that increases the risk of cancer.
Extent of tritium leaks still unknown | APP.com | Asbury Park Press
Constellation reduces Ginna reactor to half power
Constellation reduces Ginna reactor to half power May 18, 2009
NEW YORK, May 18 (Reuters) – Constellation Energy Group Inc (CEG.N) reduced the 498-megawatt Ginna nuclear power station in New York to about half power on Sunday due to irregularities in the circulating water system, a spokesman for the plant said Monday.
He could not say when the unit would return to full power since workers were still looking for the problem.
The circulating water system moves water to the two low pressure turbines.
The Ginna station, which entered service in 1970, is located in Ontario in Wayne County about 20 miles east of Rochester, New York. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) renewed the plant’s original 40-year operating license in 2004 for another 20 years until 2029.
Shaw Group spent $330K lobbying government in 1Q
Associated Press Shaw Group spent $330K lobbying government in 1Q Forbes.com Associated Press, 05.18.09,
The Shaw Group Inc., an engineering and construction company, spent $330,000 in the first quarter to lobby on federal stimulus spending, funding for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other issues, according to a recent disclosure report.
The Baton Rouge, La.-based company lobbied Congress and the Department of Energy on issues related to the federal budget, energy tax credits, and nuclear power plants and waste storage, according to the report filed April 17 with the House clerk’s office.
Shaw Engineering Group also lobbied Congress in the January-March period in support of an agreement between the U.S. and United Arab Emirates on the cooperative use of nuclear energy.
Shaw Group spent $330K lobbying government in 1Q – Forbes.com
Lawsuit targets risks of nuclear waste
Lawuit targets risks of nuclear waste Coakley seeks debate on Pilgrim license renewal The Boston Globe By Robert Knox 17 may 09 State Attorney General Martha Coakley is asking a federal court to force nuclear energy regulators to consider risks to public safety caused by storing nuclear waste at the Pilgrim nuclear power plant before deciding whether to extend the facility’s license for 20 years.
Coakley joined with officials from New York and Connecticut to file suit in a federal appeals court in New York. The lawsuit asks the court to force the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to open debate on license extensions for plants such as Pilgrim to the potential threat posed by terrorists and accidents to used nuclear fuel stored inside the plants.
“The risk of a spent-fuel pool catching on fire by accident or due to intentional sabotage is neither remote nor speculative,” the lawsuit, filed May 6, states.
Relicensing Oyster Creek nuclear plant was a mistake
Relicensing Oyster Creek nuclear plant was a mistake
TriTown News 14 May 09 Paula Gotsch Grandmothers, Mothers and More for Energy Safety
It has been a crisis month for Exelon since federal regulators jumped the gun and relicensed the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in Lacey until 2029.
Failure of a main transformer led to the shutdown of the reactor. That followed the recent discovery of high levels of radioactive tritium contamination at the site.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff have tracked the tritium leak to two burst pipes, a concrete vault and a monitoring well. Concentrations of radioactive tritium are 300 times the allowable levels in four test wells at the site.
This raises alarm about the plant’s aging management program, which was the basis of the relicensing that is supposed to prevent this sort of dangerous mishap.
Despite assurances from Oyster Creek spokespeople that tritium has not traveled off company grounds, it has entered the water table. Water flows, and at Oyster Creek it will eventually empty into Barnegat Bay, where the state announced this week a huge reseeding program of the oyster beds…………………
…………………Tritium leaks at Oyster Creek are a serious issue for the public. Contrary to reassuring words, tritium, though low energy, is highly radioactive and has a half-life of over 12 years. Low-energy beta particles, like those emitted by tritium, can cause considerable harm.
Tritiated water is handled by the body like regular water, becoming part of the cells. It easily crosses the placental barrier, with risk of spontaneous abortion, stillbirth, congenital malformation and childhood diseases.
Exelon’s record for handling tritium leaks in the past at its other nuclear power stations is horrible. At the Braidwood plant in Illinois, tritium leaked from the site for nine years and state officials were not notified until a citizen noticed and tested a pool of water in his backyard. The test came back positive for tritium, and the state of Illinois subsequently sued Exelon.
………………………..Each day Oyster Creek operates, the public is exposed to continuous doses of low-level radiation. Of all nuclear plants nationwide, Oyster Creek’s airborne emissions for strontium 90 are highest, and they are the second highest for airborne strontium 89. The plant also emits the second highest airborne levels of barium 140. All are radioactive.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says these discharges are just a normal part of routine nuclear operation, and are below acceptable levels for public health. This claim is dead wrong.
The Bier VII report issued by the NationalAcademy of Sciences stated there are no safe levels of exposure to continuous levels of low-level radiation. Also, the socalled allowable standards are set for the most robust: a healthy 35-year-old male.
The “allowable” doses do not protect the most vulnerable: women, children, infants and the developing fetus……………………… http://tritown.gmnews.com/news/2009/0514/letters/009.html
Tritium leaks at Oyster Creek not easily contained
Tritium leaks at Oyster Creek not easily contained APP.com By PETER HIBBARD • May 12, 2009The recent reports of tritium being found in monitoring wells at the Oyster Creek nuclear plant in Lacey are deeply disturbing. Once a contaminant gets into the aquifer, it is nearly impossible to remove it. Water in the aquifer moves slowly, but it moves……….
…………..Oyster Creek is the oldest nuclear plant of its type in the nation. It has one of the highest leak rates in the country. Project Tooth Fairy measured Strontium 90 in children by examining baby teeth, and estimated the leakage has been going on for many years. Growing teeth can be checked for age of exposure, like rings on a tree.
Tritium leaks at Oyster Creek not easily contained | APP.com | Asbury Park Press
1 This Month
19 November – Webinar – The Reality of Reprocessing
Time: 11:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada) / 2:00 PM Eastern / 7:00 PM UK / 8:00 PM CET
Register for the Zoom Event Here
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
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