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Tracing radiation through the Marshall Islands: Reflections from a Greenpeace nuclear specialist

Greenpeace, Shaun Burnie, 30 April 2025 

We’ve visited ground zero. Not once, but three times. But for generations, before these locations were designated as such, they were the ancestral home to the people of the Marshall Islands.  

As part of a team of Greenpeace scientists and specialists from the Radiation Protection Advisors team, we have embarked on a six-week tour on-board the Rainbow Warrior, sailing through one of the most disturbing chapters in human history: between 1946 and 1958, the United States detonated 67 nuclear bombs across the Marshall Islands — equivalent to 7,200 Hiroshima explosions. 

During this period, testing nuclear weapons at the expense of wonderful ocean nations like the Marshall Islands was considered an acceptable practice, or as the US put it, “for the good of mankind”. Instead, the radioactive fallout left a deep and complex legacy—one that is both scientific and profoundly human, with communities displaced for generations.

Between March and April, we traveled on the Greenpeace flagship vessel, the Rainbow Warrior, throughout the Marshall Islands, including to three northern atolls that bear the most severe scars of Cold War nuclear weapons testing: 

  • Enewetak atoll, where, on Runit Island, stands a massive leaking concrete dome beneath which lies plutonium-contaminated waste, a result of from a partial “clean-up” of some of the islands after the nuclear tests
  • Bikini atoll, a place so beautiful, yet rendered uninhabitable by some of the most powerful nuclear detonations ever conducted;
  • And Rongelap atoll, where residents were exposed to radiation fallout and later convinced to return to contaminated land, part of what is now known as Project 4.1, a U.S. medical experiment to test humans’  exposure to radiation.

This isn’t fiction, nor distant past. It’s a chapter of history still alive through the environment, the health of communities, and the data we’re collecting today. Each location we visit, each sample we take, adds to a clearer picture of some of the  long-term impacts of nuclear testing—and highlights the importance of continuing to document, investigate, and attempt to understand and share these findings.

These are our field notes from a journey through places that hold important lessons for science, justice, and global accountability……………………………………………………………………………………………………

Stop 1: Enewetak Atoll – the dome that shouldn’t exist

At the far western edge of the Marshall Islands is Enewetak. The name might not ring a bell for many, but this atoll was the site of 43 U.S. nuclear detonations. Today, it houses what may be one of the most radioactive places in the world: the Runit Dome

Once a tropical paradise thick with coconut palms, now Runit Island is capped by a massive concrete structure the size of a football field. Under this dome—cracked, weather-worn, and only 46 centimeters thick in some places—lies 85,000 cubic meters of radioactive waste. These substances are not only confined to the crater—they are also found across the island’s soil, rendering Runit Island uninhabitable for all time. The contrast between what it once was and what it has become is staggering. We took samples near the dome’s base, where rising sea levels now routinely flood the area.

We collected coconut from the island which will be processed and prepared in the Rainbow Warrior’s onboard laboratory. Crops such as coconut are a known vector for radioactive isotope transfer, and tracking levels in food sources is essential for understanding long-term environmental and health risks. The local consequences of this simple fact are deeply unjust. While some atolls in the Marshall Islands can harvest and sell coconut products, the people of Enewetak are prohibited from doing so because of radioactive contamination. They have lost not only their land and safety but also their ability to sustain themselves economically. The radioactive legacy has robbed them of income and opportunity.

One of the most alarming details about this dome is that there is no lining beneath the structure – it is in direct contact with the environment – while containing some of the most hazardous long lived substances ever to exist on planet earth. It was never built to withstand flooding, sea level rise, and climate change. The scientific questions are urgent: how much of this material is already leaking into the lagoon? What are the exposure risks to marine ecosystems and local communities? 

We are here to help answer questions with new, independent data, but still, being in the craters and walking on this ground where nuclear Armageddon was unleashed, is an emotional and surreal journey.

Stop 2: Bikini – a nuclear catastrophe, labeled “for the good of mankind”

Unlike Chernobyl or Fukushima, where communities were devastated by catastrophic accidents, Bikini tells a different story. This was not an accident. The nuclear destruction of Bikini was deliberate, calculated, and executed with full knowledge that entire ways of life were going to be destroyed.

Bikini atoll is incredibly beautiful and would look idyllic on any postcard. But we know what lies beneath: the site of 23 nuclear detonations, including Castle Bravo, the largest ever nuclear weapons test conducted by the United States.

Castle Bravo alone released more than 1,000 times the explosive yield of the Hiroshima bomb. The radioactive fallout massively contaminated nearby islands and their populations together with thousands of U.S. military personnel. Bikini’s former residents were forcibly relocated in 1946 before nuclear testing began, and with promises of a safe return. But the atoll is still uninhabited and most of the new generations of Bikinians have never seen their home island. As we stood deep in the forest next to a massive concrete blast bunker, reality hit hard – behind its narrow lead-glass viewing window, U.S. military personnel once watched the evaporation of Bikini lagoon.

On our visit we notice there’s a spectral quality to Bikini. The homes of the Bikini islanders are long gone. In its place now stand a scattering of buildings left by the U.S. Department of Energy: rusting canteens, rotting offices, sleeping quarters with peeling walls, and traces of the scientific experiments conducted here after the bombs fell.

On dusty desks we found radiation reports, notes detailing crop trials, and a notebook meticulously tracking the application of potassium to test plots of corn, alfalfa, lime, and native foods like coconut, pandanus, and banana. The potassium was intended to block the uptake of caesium-137, a radioactive isotope, by plant roots. The logic was simple: if these crops could be decontaminated, perhaps one day Bikini could be repopulated. 

We collected samples of coconuts and soil—key indicators of internal exposure risk if humans were to return. Bikini raises a stark question: what does “safe” mean, and who gets to decide? The U.S. declared parts of Bikini habitable in 1970, only to evacuate people again eight years later after resettled families suffered from radiation exposure. The science is not abstract here. It is personal. It is human. It has real consequences.  

Stop 3: Rongelap – setting for Project 4.1

The Rainbow Warrior arrived at the eastern side of Rongelap atoll anchoring one mile from the center of Rongelap Island, the church spire and roofs of “new” buildings reflecting the bright sun. In 1954, fallout from the Castle Bravo nuclear detonation on Bikini blanketed this atoll in radioactive ash—fine, white powder that children played in, thinking it was snow. The U.S. government waited three days to evacuate residents, despite knowing the risks. The U.S. government declared it safe to return to Rongelap in 1957 – but it was a severely contaminated environment. The very significant radiation exposure to the Rongelap population caused severe health impacts: thyroid cancers, birth defects such as “jellyfish babies”, miscarriages, and much more. 

In 1985, after a request to the US government to evacuate was dismissed, the Rongelap community asked Greenpeace to help relocate them from their ancestral lands. Using the first Rainbow Warrior, and over a period of 10 days and three trips, 350 residents collectively dismantled their homes bringing everything with them – including livestock, and 100 metric tons of building material – where they resettled on the islands of Mejatto and Ebeye on Kwajalein atoll. It is a part of history that lives on in the minds of the Marshallese people we meet in this ship voyage – in the gratitude they still express, the pride in keeping the fight for justice, and in the pain of still not having a permanent, safe home.

Now, once again, we are standing on their island of Rongelap, walking past abandoned buildings and rusting equipment, some of it dating from the 1980s and 1990s – a period when the U.S. Department of Energy launched a push to encourage resettlement declaring that the island was safe – a declaration that this time, the population welcomed with mistrust, not having access to independent scientific data and remembering the deceitful relocation of some decades before. 

Here, once again we sample soil and fruits that could become food if people came back. It is essential to understand ongoing risks—especially for communities considering whether and how to return.

This is not the end. It is just the beginning

Our scientific mission is to take measurements, collect samples, and document contamination. But that’s not all we’re bringing back.

We carry with us the voices of the Marshallese who survived these tests and are still living their consequences. We carry images of graves swallowed by tides near Runit Dome, stories of entire cultures displaced from their homelands, and measurements of radiation showing contamination still persists after many decades. There are 9,700 nuclear warheads still held by military powers around the world – mostly in the United States and Russian arsenals. The Marshall Islands was one of the first nations to suffer the consequences of nuclear weapons – and the legacy persists today.

We didn’t come to speak for the Marshallese. We came to listen, to bear witness, and to support their demand for justice. We plan to return next year, to follow up on our research and to make results available to the people of the Marshall Islands. And we will keep telling these stories—until justice is more than just a word…….. https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/74328/tracing-radiation-through-the-marshall-islands-reflections-from-a-greenpeace-nuclear-specialist/


May 4, 2025 Posted by | environment, OCEANIA, Reference | Leave a comment

Niagara County New York Radiation Disaster -discovered in 2024

, https://thewaynefocus.blogspot.com/2024/09/niagara-county-new-york-radiation.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawKBMSNleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFDTTNHRFd0N0pwdkx2OTA0AR6FccTj8LP8Wpr9m0agp5nEln7TFC3Ld6AcVDU4Y4iWAAUTRe5z2YA7yZTtHQ_aem_xv_Ij8_zSCXoSMWjxV-mbw

Regarding the Niagara County, New York Radioactivity Contamination Disaster Discovered in 2024 as a result of surreptitious shipments of high, medium and low grade radioactive materials from Niagara County, New York to Van Buren Charter Township, Wayne County, Michigan Notes from September 19, 2024

Simplified Timeline of the Van Buren Charter Township Nuclear Waste Disaster Gleaned from newspaper reports, personal interviews, discussion and official remarks

1. Decision is made to create Fusion Atomic Bomb

2 For this timeline a bomb will be manufactured at the Hanford, Washington Nuclear Reservation a. This bomb will ultimately be delivered to Nagasaki for atmospheric explosion .

 3. The work commences at the Hanford Reservation creating enormous amounts of radioactive waste. The waste was likely composed of but not limited to : a. Radioactive Soil b. Radioactive Water c. Radioactive Powdered Chemicals d. Radioactive Liquid Chemicals e. Radioactive wood, metal, ceramic, cloth and other radioactive materials

4. The liquid waste was deposited regularly in gigantic storage tanks a. The liquid waste burned through the containing steel and contaminated large areas b. That issue is still being addressed c. The materials are making their way towards the Columbia River 

 5. The solid waste was collected in many instances into giant piles a. Eventually it was decided to bury most of the solid waste b. The groundwater flow picked up radiation and other toxic chemicals from the buried materials and began their own migration towards the Columbia River c. This contamination is still being dealt with.

6. It was decided either immediately following the end of World War 2 or in the 1950’s that getting rid of the radioactive materials left over from the frenetic activity surrounding the creation of the Nagasaki Atomic Weapon would be a good course of action a A series of steps to neutralize or prepare the material to be buried without it contaminating ground waters, the Earth or the air was put together b. A contract was let out and a contractor selected to deal with the materials c. Either by rapid truck transport, as is happening in the present situation between Lewiston, New York and the Charter Township of Van Buren, Michigan, or train shipments by a presently unknown carrier over a presently unknown route, the materials were taken from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State and transported 2,514 miles to a new site in Lewiston, New York d. The material was deposited on the ground in an unknown manner. Indications are that it was an open dump.

7. The contractor began preparations to treat the materials. Indications were that the intent was to reduce overall radioactivity in some manner, but primarily, the work would center on making the materials easier to handle and somewhat inert by suspending them in glass and other materials for burial. a. At some point, apparently a year after the deposition of the materials in Lewiston, NY, the Federal Government abruptly changed the manner in which the work was to be done. Because of the high levels of radioactivity in the materials special buildings had to be erected, special clothing had to be provided to workers, workers could only be exposed to the materials for specific amounts of time and specialized ventilation and atmospheric equipment and filters would need to be installed b. Upon receipt of these new requirements and having completed a brief study of the impact on profits to the enterprise the contractor left. The work was abandoned. c. The radioactive materials that had been transported to Lewiston, NY from the nuclear reservation at Hanford, WA were left to the elements for at least one year, maybe two and possibly longer d. A decision was made at some unspecified time to bury the materials at the place where they were deposited. e. Due to the arrangements of the materials they were either laid out in a large area and then bulldozed into piles or had been deposited in piles initially. They were apparently buried without any sort of underground barrier. f. From a crude visual observation of the present state of the materials it appears they were buried on the surface in gigantic piles. Some have settled into the earth while others appear to have retained their mounding shape.

 8. In 2016 after considerable wrangling and the realization that cancers and other dread diseases were spiking in the area and due to action by the Tuscarora nation and approximately 300 employees of the Environmental Protection Agency in New York or whatever organization had been caring for the materials for nearly a century, it was decided, after local public hearings, that the United States Army Corps of Engineers would remove all of the materials to another location.

9. One of the primary driving forces behind moving the materials, along with higher rates of cancer, other diseases, probable birth defects and possible birth mortality, was that the materials were burning their way to the Niagara River. 

10. At this point, due to ionization and the natural dispersal of these unnatural elements, an area many times larger than the original point of delivery now existed. The materials had exited the property lines and have contaminated an enormous area around where they had been dropped off. Parallel and Interesting Points of Interest in a Somewhat Linear Timeline of Events in Some Order These may or may not figure in the final Niagara County, New York Contamination Disaster of 2016 :

(1.)A landfill was built abutting the nuclear waste dump in Lewiston, NY. a. The landfill was used for depositing materials from across Niagara County and perhaps elsewhere

(2) A driver for a paving company in Canada rolled his truck over a. The driver was subsequently fired by his brothers b. The driver started his own paving company c. At one point someone said to him, ‘You know, we sure could use someone to carry away all this waste when were done with the work.’ d. The driver began a waste hauling service e. The driver’s waste hauling service was successful and the driver opened or took control of a dump f. The driver became a successful businessman and the dump expanded g. The driver’s company became well known in the area h. The company purchased or controlled several area dumps (landfills) and they expanded

(3) During the course of all this there was a separate issue with the Love Canal and another location where chemicals were deposited in an irresponsible and unprofessional manner leading to health impacts across that area. The Love Canal is also in Niagara County

(4)At this point the timeline is murky and breaks up but these facts occurred : a. Along with the materials being collected and removed from the Lewiston Nuclear Storage Site that are being moved now against common sense there were even more hazardous and radioactive materials moved to Van Buren Charter Township, MI without telling any of the residents. b. It is not clear if the Michigan Governor know this, but certainly, it would have been the business of the State of Michigan Department of the Environment, Great Lakes and Energy to be alerted or informed that the material was on the way. The words ‘alerted’ and ‘informed’ are used loosely here because according the processes of the State of Michigan Department of the Environment, Great Lakes and Energy moving or depositing or releasing into the atmosphere, into the Earth or into the waters of the Great Lakes water system it is a simple manner not only to gain approval but to continue dumping and polluting in amounts of many tens of thousands of tons for a small fee, which may be deferred or excused according to the sentiments of the Michigan Department of the Environment, Great Lakes and Energy employee assigned to the work. c. Niagara County and other agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the United States of Army Corps of Engineers, the New York State department of the environment, local elected officials, state elected officials and possibly federal elected officials became aware of a widespread problem involving radioactivity across Niagara County. d. Many, many miles of State, County and local roads apparently have been paved with radioactive materials. e. The radioactive materials used in the paving were used in various ways, sometimes as a substrate, sometimes as a binder and sometimes included in the surface paving materials. It is likely that in some cases it was used in all three preparations and/or other situations f. Radioactive materials have been encountered in commercial parking lots, residential driveways, aggregate placement under foundations for private homes and at least one large cemetery had been covered in it from a depth of two to more feet. g. In one case a large deposit of radioactive material that was discovered near a large commercial construction project was noted by authorities. They could not determine where it came from. In a wicked denouement, that actually has not been resolved, upon return to the site the material had been removed by unknown persons for unknown reasons. So – they found a large amount of highly radioactive material near to a construction site, recorded the fact, went back at some undetermined time and found that the material was gone. h. Finely grained black sand with very high radioactivity levels was removed from several private residential sites. 

(5) The waste disposal company (the dump and landfill operator) took over the collection business of Republic Waste in at least most of the areas in Niagara County, NY, if not all of them.

(6) Republic Waste has a dump located nearby the Niagara Nuclear Site in Lewiston, New York.

(7). The landfill owner died

(8). The company still exists and remains the largest and richest waste handling company in northwestern New York and eastern Ontario.

(9.) A decision was made unbeknownst to the local inhabitants in Michigan, to move the materials that have now placed the Columbia River and the Niagara River in jeopardy of further contamination by radioactive nuclear materials and other toxic waste to bury this material in the watershed of the Huron River and very close to Ford Lake and so, repeat the pattern of mismanagement of the materials and place even more Americans in peril while enriching private corporations. We also seen and are experiencing deflecting the responsibility from poorly run Federal and State organizations and departments ostensibly in place to protect the health and well being of Americans, but, which, instead, have seen to their own diverse interests and need. 

(10.) Federal Michigan Elected Representatives point to the State Michigan Elected Representatives as the core to the solution of these co-occurring disasters while State Michigan Elected Representatives point to the Federal Michigan Elected Representatives to solve the problem.

 (11. ) New York elected at all levels remain mute and do not remark nor comment on these disasters, the original one being clearly in there area of influence and duty in New York State. 

(12.) Both Governor Whitmer of Michigan and Governor Hochul of New have been silent on the issue. We see no comments either supporting the resolution of these two disasters or mitigating the destruction clearly raging in Niagara County, New York nor the current assault on the heavily populated area in southeastern Michigan where this poisonous, dangerous and poorly managed material is being dumped to the peril of individuals, seniors, families, children and businesses in the local area, county and region. Possible Conclusions or Inference, including Possible Actions to take regarding the Niagara County, New York Contamination Disaster so as not to exacerbate the Van Buren Charter Township Waste Disaster now occurring –  1. There seems to be a very dangerous situation that has occurred with the infrastructure in Niagara County, New York. The roads will need to be checked. 2. Wherever the substrate came from that supply line needs to be discontinued. 3. The company that supplied the radioactive material needs to be discovered and their area of activity made known. 4. Was nuclear material to be used for paving also transported to Ontario across national borders without notification or was it imported from Canada into New York where it was used to pave roads, parking lots, cover at least one cemetery and be used for foundation preparations for homes, business and driveways? 5. I feel that an inspection of the garbage trucks and paving trucks in the area would be in order to ensure that they are not contaminated with radioactivity 6. I feel that MICares in Michigan should be alerted to the fact that this material has been passing into our environment for at least the past two to three years if not longer. 7. I feel that medical monitoring for the affected people in Niagara County, New York is in order 8. I feel that a radioactive survey of all the roadways, building sites, homes, commercial sites that have been built in the area since at least the 1960’s should be performed in Niagara County. This should include a review of all cemeteries and any locations that the paving/dump company owner provided services to, whether for profit or charitable purposes – with special attention to churches, elementary schools, high schools, private and public parks, hospitals and other locations. Thank you for your time and attention.

May 4, 2025 Posted by | history, USA | Leave a comment

EDF seeks joint financing for UK projects

April 30, 2025, https://www.neimagazine.com/news/edf-seeks-joint-financing-for-uk-projects/?cf-view&cf-closed

DF is seeking to consolidate financing for the Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C NPPs under construction in the UK. French Energy Minister Marc Ferracci told the Financial Times that they should be treated as one financial venture in negotiations. He said he had discussed the issue with UK Energy Minister Ed Miliband on the sidelines of a conference in London.

“France and EDF are very committed to deliver the projects but we have to find a way to accelerate them, and we have to find a way to consolidate the financial schemes of both projects,” he said.

Both projects started out with equity stakes from Chinese state-owned nuclear development corporations but the UK government cancelled the arrangements because of “security issues”. The UK government partly replaced the funding and is seeking support from institutional investors.

Ferracci denied that the French government intended to use Sizewell as “leverage” against the financial troubles at Hinkley. “It is not a discussion about leverage, it is a discussion between friends and allies. . . So there is a way through, and I hope we will be able to find it in the next few months.”

He also called for a global solution that would result in a deal that benefitted EDF’s returns across both schemes. “It is a good approach to have a global approach to our relationship,” Ferracci said, adding more “grid connections between France and the UK” could come into the negotiations.

Meanwhile, workers at the Hinkley Point C NPP construction site are complaining about a significant rat infestation, raising health and safety concerns. In early April, the Unite and GMB trade unions at Hinkley Point C told EDF that the facility was overrun with rats. The unions said immediate action was needed as the rodents were “everywhere”. In recent months, workers have also complained about poor working conditions and low pay. In addition, hundreds of project staff went on strike in November over the inadequate security access to the site.

May 4, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, France, UK | Leave a comment

Updates on Palisades: Zombie reactor & “SMR” new builds

These so-called “Small Modular Reactors” are not small. At 300 Megawatts-electric each, their construction and operation would nearly double the zombie reactor’s 800 MW-e on the tiny site. They would each be 4.5 times larger than the 67 MW-e Fermi 1 reactor in southeastern Michigan, which on October 5, 1966 had a partial core meltdown, and “We Almost Lost Detroit,”

April 30, 2025, https://beyondnuclear.org/updates-on-palisades-zombie-reactor-smr-new-builds/

Holtec and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) zealous and reckless push for restart of the 60-year old zombie reactor, as well as “Small Modular Reactor” new builds, at the Palisades nuclear power plant in Covert, Michigan, has continued non-stop recently. So too has Beyond Nuclear’s resistance to the unprecedented, unneeded, very dangerous, and insanely costly schemes, alongside our environmental allies in the area.

On April 29, 2025, the five Commissioners of the NRC held an Affirmation Session, and unanimously approved Palisades’ license transfer from previous owner Entergy, to new owner Holtec. Beyond Nuclear, Don’t Waste Michigan, and Michigan Safe Energy Future (MSEF) had petitioned to intervene against it, and requested a hearing. The coalition has opposed Holtec’s takeover at Palisades from the get-go in 2020-2021. But NRC staff, the NRC Atomic Safety (sic) and Licensing Board (ASLB), and the NRC Commissioners, have blown us off at every twist and turn. And still we persist, with no intention to slow down or give up!

Quite to the contrary, we continue our watchdogging, speaking environmental truth to nuclear power (or greed-driven corruption, anyway), sometimes on an intense daily basis.

Also on April 29, several environmental watchdogs attended an NRC-Holtec technical meeting, the latest of countless such meetings related to the nuclear nightmare of the restart scheme, which began three years ago this month. Representatives from Beyond Nuclear, Don’t Waste Michigan,  and Nuclear Energy Information Service of Chicago spoke out strongly against safety shortcuts regarding the potential for loss of power to operate vital safety and cooling systems at Palisades, due to the risk of an “open phase” flaw in the electrical systems. This problem dates back decades and has yet to be resolved.

The day before, on April 28, representatives from Beyond Nuclear and Don’t Waste Michigan spoke out at yet another NRC-Holtec technical meeting, regarding environmental review of the company’s scheme to add two SMR-300s, frighteningly close to the Van Buren State Park campground.

Kraig Schultz of MSEF-Shoreline Chapter in Grand Haven, MI made an audio recording of the April 28 meeting. Listen to it here.

These so-called “Small Modular Reactors” are not small. At 300 Megawatts-electric each, their construction and operation would nearly double the zombie reactor’s 800 MW-e on the tiny site. They would each be 4.5 times larger than the 67 MW-e Fermi 1 reactor in southeastern Michigan, which on October 5, 1966 had a partial core meltdown, and “We Almost Lost Detroit,” in the words of John G. Fuller’s iconic 1975 book title, and Gil Scott-Heron’s 1977 song title. They would also be 4.5 times larger than the 67 MW-e Big Rock Point reactor in northwest Michigan, which despite supposedly not having had a disaster, nonetheless shockingly released more than three million Curies of hazardous radioactivity into the environment.

The juxtaposition of the restarted zombie reactor, and the “SMR” new builds, would represent both extremes on the risk spectrum: breakdown phase risks, and break-in phase risks. Chornobyl Unit 4 in Ukraine in 1986, Three Mile Island Unit 2 in Pennsylvania in 1979, and Fermi Unit 1 in Michigan in 1966 are examples of break-in phase reactor disasters and catastrophes.

In addition to the decades-long electrical risks at Palisades mentioned above, there are multiple pathways to reactor core meltdown related to vital safety systems already pushed to the brink of breakdown. Palisades’ original owner, Consumers Energy (previously Consumers Power), listed them in a presentation to the Michigan Public Service Commission in spring 2006: “Reactor vessel head replacement; Steam generator replacement; Reactor vessel embrittlement concerns; …Containment coatings and sump strainers.”

None of these vital safety repairs or replacements have ever been performed, not by Consumers Energy in 2006, Palisades’ next owner Entergy from 2007 to 2022, nor by Holtec since 2022. Why not? Because the complicit NRC has not required it.

The Japanese Parliament concluded in 2012 that the root cause of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe, which began on March 11, 2011, was collusion, between the company (Tokyo Electric), the safety regulatory agency, and government officials. Such collusion exists in spades at Palisades. And thus people and other living things live in deepening peril, downwind, downstream, up the food chain, and down the generations.

Regarding the needed “Steam generator replacement,” Holtec has no intention of doing so, despite giving the $510 million job some lip service in a secretive, smoking gun 2022 document Beyond Nuclear obtained from the State of Michigan via a Freedom of Information Act request.

Holtec’s rookie error (it has never operated a reactor) of neglecting steam generator maintenance from 2022 to 2024 has led to accelerated corrosion and degradation of exceedingly thin steam generator tubes in shockingly high numbers. It did not implement a chemically-preservative wet lay up, as repeatedly and publicly recommended by our coalition’s expert witness, Arnie Gundersen. The company has applied to NRC for a License Amendment Request (LAR) that represents mere BAND-AID fixes on the steam generator tubes. Our environmental coalition — Beyond Nuclear, Don’t Waste Michigan, Michigan Safe Energy Future, Nuclear Energy Information Service of Chicago, and Three Mile Island Alert of Pennsylvania — has every intention of petitioning to intervene, and requesting a hearing, in opposition to the LAR, by the fast-approaching deadline in June.

Speaking of LARs, our coalition has challenged four others. The NRC staff opposed our challenges, as did Holtec. The ASLB ruled against all of our contentions, in rapid fire fashion. We have appealed those rulings to the NRC Commissioners. If and when the Commissioners reject our contentions as well, we will appeal to the federal courts.

We still have a number of live new and amended contentions regarding NRC’s Environmental Assessment and Finding of No Significant Impact. The ASLB has ordered another round of oral argument pre-hearings, scheduled for May 15, regarding them. As on Feb. 12, 2025, at our first round of oral argument pre-hearings on the four LARs mentioned above, our coalition’s legal counsel, Terry Lodge of Toledo, Ohio, and Wally Taylor of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, will represent us before the ASLB yet again on May 15.

Yet another of numerous NRC public meetings regarding Palisades’ restart status was held in Benton Harbor, MI on April 23, 2025. Watchdogs attended and spoke out.

And, following the money, as reported by producer Chrystal Blair at Public News Service on April 25 (the eve of the annual commemoration of the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear catastrophe), the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded Holtec the third installment of loan guarantees, this time for $47 million.

The second installment, awarded on March 17, was for $57 million.

The first installment, in early 2025, was for $38 million.

DOE announced on September 30, 2024 the final approval for $1.52 billion in loan guarantees for Holtec toward the zombie reactor restart. Holtec need not pay the money back. If Holtec defaults on repaying the loans, U.S. taxpayers will be left holding the bag.

See Beyond Nuclear radioactive waste specialist Kevin Kamps’ breakdown of bailouts at Palisades.

Blair quoted Kamps:

“A recent analysis by Dave Lochbaum, who is retired from the Nuclear Safety Program at Union of Concerned Scientists, placed Palisades at something like 84th out of 105 reactors in the country,” Kamps pointed out. “His analysis was they’re more like in the bottom rung of the industry, actually.”

[Palisades is ranked 81st out of 106 reactors, actually.]

Here is that Lochbaum analysis, as well as his chronicle of events (including mishaps) at Palisades, some quite serious, over six decades.

Lochbaum also authored a backgrounder in 2010, about Palisades’ problem-plagued Control Rod Drive Mechanism (CRDM) seal leaks, the worst in industry. CRDM seal leaks are yet another potential pathway to reactor core meltdown.

Blair also reported:

Punkin Shananaquet, a member of Michigan’s Indigenous community, emphasized for many Native people, the issue is not just about public safety, it is about honoring the sacredness of the land and water and educating the next generation about protecting the earth.

“We just can’t be pushed through the corporate world because they have no spirit,” Shananaquet contended. “We have spirit. We are the ones with the feelings for this place.”

Shananaquet, and her family, graced and honored the World Tree Peace Center in Kalamazoo, Michigan at its grand opening, on Indigenous Peoples Day (October 12, formerly Columbus Day), 1996. Kamps co-founded the World Tree, and co-directed it till 1999, when he began a new job, at Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), in Washington, DC, as nuclear waste specialist there for eight years, before joining Beyond Nuclear. The World Tree focused on watch-dogging Palisades, as well as the Donald C. Cook nuclear power plant 30 miles south of Palisades, and various undertakings for the Chornobyl Children’s Project.

And regarding the very significant safety problem of “Containment coatings and sump strainers” mentioned above, NRC and Holtec held a related meeting last week. Don’t Waste MI attended and spoke out. In an emergency, containment coatings could dissolve into a viscous sludge with the consistency of Elmer’s Glue, clogging sump strainers. This could block coolant flow needed to prevent a reactor core meltdown. This pathway to meltdown at Palisades has been known about for a quarter-century, yet nothing meaningful has been done to address it — just NRC allowing Palisades’ three owners during those 25 years to kick the can down the road.

Last but not least, on April 12, 2025, the St. Joe-Benton Harbor Herald-Palladium reported that Holtec had transferred highly radioactive irradiated nuclear fuel, from the indoor wet storage pool at Palisades, into outdoor dry cask storage.

Although such transfers ultimately represent an increase in safety — pools are vulnerable to mega-catastrophic fires, that could release unthinkable amounts of hazardous radioactivity into the environment — such transfers must be done very carefully, including with emergency preparedness measures in place. (It should be kept in mind, however, that the widespread quality assurance violations associated with Holtec’s dry cask storage containers’ fabrication call into question their structural integrity, even in on-site storage; see a summary of whistleblower allegations about this, here.)

Such emergency preparedness was not in place when Holtec undertook these irradiated nuclear fuel transfers. Palisades’ previous owner, Entergy, requested a waiver and exemption from emergency preparedness, as it permanently shutdown the reactor several years ago, and entered it into the decommissioning status phase.

Although Holtec has requested that NRC approve re-establishing emergency preparedness and planning, in order to restart the reactor and operate Palisades again, such NRC approval is not yet finalized.

The danger comes from moving such heavy loads as loaded highly radioactive waste containers over the vulnerable pool. The inadvertent drop of such a heavy load could damage the pool, and drain away vital cooling water.

Palisades had a near miss under its original owner, Consumers Energy, in October 2005, with just such a heavy load drop scenario.

See the April, 2006 NIRS backgrounder on this incident, prepared by Kevin Kamps, here.

See the related March, 2006 environmental coalition press release, here.

See the March, 2006 front page, above the fold Detroit Free Press coverage of the serious near-miss, here.

Holtec’s scheming, and NRC’s complicity, have continued apace for three years. So too has our resistance. It will only intensify in the days, weeks, and months ahead. Holtec has stood by its schedule to restart the Palisades zombie reactor by October 2025, and to fire up its proposed “SMR”-300s by 2030. We will resist these schemes at every opportunity, to the best of our ability.

To learn more about the past three years of this nuclear nightmare, and our resistance to it, see our chronicle of web posts (arranged backwards, newest posts at the top).

May 4, 2025 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, USA | Leave a comment

NUKE WASTE DUMP: Ojibwe Country once again targeted

May 1, 2025, Beyond Nuclear

JUST SAY NO TO NUCLEAR WASTE DUMPING IN NORTHWESTERN ONTARIO!

Beyond Nuclear’s radioactive waste specialist, Kevin Kamps, presented “Water Is Life, Nuclear Waste Is Toxic” at the annual meeting of Environment North, in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, on the north shore of Lake Superior, April 23, 2025.

Environment North is the lead local grassroots organization resisting the Canadian federal Nuclear Waste Management Organization’s (NWMO, dominated by the nuclear industry, such as Ontario Power Generation) designation of the Ignace-Wabigoon Lake Ojibway First Nation area as the national radioactive waste dump.

A number of Ojibway First Nation Bands have also passed resolutions opposing the scheme, which would require long-distance, high-risk transportation of highly radioactive waste, from some two-dozen reactors to the east in Canada, on the Great Lakes, Saint Lawrence, and Atlantic.

See local coverage on April 22, 2025, quoting Kamps, by the Chronicle-Journal newspaper, here.

Watch a video recording of Kamps’ April 23, 2025 presentation, here. (Note that you can turn on the subtitles under Settings, to complement the audio.)

See Kevin’s slideshow presentation, here.

Listen to the audio recording, here, of Kamps being interviewed by host Scot Kyle, on the podcast “Wiley Koyote” on April 24, 2025. It was broadcast live on CILU Radio, 102.7 FM, as part of the Paradigm Shift Cafe, from the campus of Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Environment North’s Graham Saunders was also interviewed.

See Environment North’s press release about Kevin’s presentation, here.

See Environment North’s flier for Kevin’s presentation, here…………………………………………………………………………… https://beyondnuclear.org/nuke-waste-dump-ojibwe-country-once-again-targeted/

May 4, 2025 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, USA | Leave a comment

India and Pakistan: The nuclear standoff that we really should all be worried about

As tensions between the two countries escalate following a
terrorist attack in Kashmir, Ashis Ray looks at how a conflict could
involve China and America in a war over sovereignty and security.

 Independent 30th April 2025 https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/india/india-pakistan-kashmir-attack-terrorism-nuclear-b2741719.html

May 4, 2025 Posted by | India, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Kingston Fossil Plant and Oakridge Nuclear Facility – an unholy alliance of radioactive pollution,

While no one was killed by the 2008 coal ash spill itself, dozens of workers have died from illnesses that emerged during or after the cleanup. Hundreds of other workers are sick from respiratory, cardiac, neurological, and blood disorders, as well as cancers.

The apparent mixing of fossil fuel and nuclear waste streams underscores the long relationship between the Kingston and Oak Ridge facilities.

Between the 1950s and 1980s, so much cesium-137 and mercury was released into the Clinch from Oak Ridge that the Department of Energy, or DOE, said that the river and its feeder stream “served as pipelines for contaminants.” Yet TVA and its contractors, with the blessing of both state and federal regulators, classified all 4 million tons of material they recovered from the Emory as “non-hazardous.”

A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency analysis confirms that the ash that was left in the river was “found to be commingled with contamination from the Department of Energy (DOE) Oak Ridge Reservation site.

For nearly a century, both Oak Ridge and TVA treated their waste with less care than most families treat household garbage. It was often dumped into unlined, and sometimes unmarked, pits that continue to leak into waterways. For decades, Oak Ridge served as the Southeast’s burial ground for nuclear waste. It was stored within watersheds and floodplains that fed the Clinch River. But exactly where and how this waste was buried has been notoriously hard to track.

A Legacy of Contamination, How the Kingston coal ash spill unearthed a nuclear nightmare, Grist By Austyn Gaffney on Dec 15, 2020  This story was published in partnership with the Daily Yonder.

In 2009, App Thacker was hired to run a dredge along the Emory River in eastern Tennessee. Picture anindustrialized fleet modeled after Huck Finn’s raft: Nicknamed Adelyn, Kylee, and Shirley, the blue, flat-bottomed boats used mechanical arms called cutterheads to dig up riverbeds and siphon the excavated sediment into shoreline canals. The largest dredge, a two-story behemoth called the Sandpiper, had pipes wide enough to swallow a push lawnmower. Smaller dredges like Thacker’s scuttled behind it, scooping up excess muck like fish skimming a whale’s corpse. They all had the same directive: Remove the thick grey sludge that clogged the Emory.

The sludge was coal ash, the waste leftover when coal is burned to generate electricity. Twelve years ago this month, more than a billion gallons of wet ash burst from a holding pond monitored by the region’s major utility, the Tennessee Valley Authority, or TVA. Thacker, a heavy machinery operator with Knoxville’s 917 union, became one of hundreds of people that TVA contractors hired to clean up the spill. For about four years, Thacker spent every afternoon driving 35 miles from his home to arrive in time for his 5 p.m. shift, just as the makeshift overhead lights illuminating the canals of ash flicked on.

Dredging at night was hard work. The pump inside the dredge clogged repeatedly, so Thacker took off his shirt and entered water up to his armpits to remove rocks, tree limbs, tires, and other debris, sometimes in below-freezing temperatures. Soon, ringworm-like sores crested along his arms, interwoven with his fading red and blue tattoos. Thacker’s supervisors gave him a cream for the skin lesions, and he began wearing long black cow-birthing gloves while he unclogged pumps. While Thacker knew that the water was contaminated — that was the point of the dredging — he felt relatively safe. After all, TVA was one of the oldest and most respected employers in the state, with a sterling reputation for worker safety.

Then, one night, the dredging stopped.

Sometime between December 2009 and January 2010, roughly halfway through the final, 500-foot-wide section of the Emory designated for cleanup, operators turned off the pumps that sucked the ash from the river. For a multi-billion dollar remediation project, this order was unprecedented. The dredges had been operating 24/7 in an effort to clean up the disaster area as quickly as possible, removing roughly 3,000 cubic yards of material — almost enough to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool — each day. But official reports from TVA show that the dredging of the Emory encountered unusually high levels of contamination: Sediment samples showed that mercury levels were three times higher in the river than they were in coal ash from the holding pond that caused the disaster.

Then there was the nuclear waste. Continue reading →

May 3, 2025 Posted by | employment, environment, history, legal, PERSONAL STORIES, politics, Reference, safety, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

May Day – How Hot is Too Hot for a Ferociously Hot Nuclear Dump Under the Irish Sea-Bed?

The Developer, Nuclear Waste Services is a Government body and also a limited liability company.

Marianne Birkby, May 01, 2025

Received this today – it is not at all reassuring and underlines why we must RESIST THE NUCLEAR DUMP PLANS.

Nuclear Waste Services (The Developer) says the seabed will have “no significant temperature rise” once atomic wastes are placed in the geology beneath. What Nuclear Waste Services mean by “significant” is not stated. Any temperature rise AT ALL on the seabed would be hugely damaging.

Regarding uplift of the sea-bed from radioactive gases and thermal heating the reply is: “GDF design and other controls on management of the thermal output of waste, as noted above, will prevent disruptive uplift of the seabed from the heat output of waste.”

These inevitable impacts due to the thermal heating of abandoned atomic wastes (currently cooled by freshwater at Sellafield) are not mentioned by Nuclear Waste Services in their propaganda literature. The already vulnerable seabed and ocean gets no say in the matter of a deep sub-sea nuclear dump. Propaganda of “safe, permanent disposal” is aimed at the deliberately narrowed down “Areas of Focus” for the above ground mine shafts and nuclear sprawl facilitating a “geological disposal facility. ” Nuclear Waste Services are ignoring/playing down all impacts in their public disinformation campaign, including the thermal impacts of A GDF/deep hot nuclear dump up to the size of Bermuda in the geology beneath the Irish Sea-bed. From their point of view why would they bring to people’s attention the ferocious heat of the atomic wastes or the likely impacts on the sea-bed and ocean?

Email received today -1st May

OFFICIAL

…………………. The reports and summary below provide information on the specification, evolution and illustrative disposal concepts for heat generating wastes:

High Heat Generating Waste (HHGW) Specifications – GOV.UK
Technical Background to the generic Disposal System Safety Case
NDA Report no DSSC/451/01 – Geological Disposal – Waste Package Evolution Status Report
https://midcopeland.workinginpartnership.org.uk/news-from-nws-high-heat-generating-waste-qa

1. How hot would be too hot?

The design of the Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) will take account of the thermal output of heat generating waste such that it does not adversely impact the engineered barriers (backfill, plugs, seals) and containment function of the host geology (its ability to limit the migration of radioactivity). This is achieved by passive means, for example, by appropriate design of the container, disposal tunnels or vaults, and spacing of containers. Nuclear Waste Services will set a limit on the peak temperature of the GDF system and waste packages to assure the integrity of the waste, waste container, engineered barriers and host rock. The limits adopted by international programmes are typically in the range of 100oC – 200oC. Heat generating waste, such as spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste glass, will have been cooled over several decades during interim storage, so as to meet the temperature limit set for acceptance to a GDF. This storage practice is already underway at Sellafield.

2. How long would it take for thermal heating to reach the seabed

At the depth of GDF construction (200 – 1000 m) heat will diffuse slowly into the engineered barriers and host rock. Peak temperatures will occur in the centuries immediately following closure as the GDF system equilibrates. However, the thermal output and temperature of waste packages decreases slowly and predictably with time. Combined with the approach described above, there will be no significant temperature rise at the seabed.

3. How long would it take for uplift of the seabed due to thermal heating/gas pressure?

The GDF will be designed to prevent over pressurisation by gas leading to uplift of the seabed by enabling very slow diffusion of gas through plugs and seals. GDF design and other controls on management of the thermal output of waste, as noted above, will prevent disruptive uplift of the seabed from the heat output of waste.

May 3, 2025 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

TONY BLAIR: STILL A NUCLEAR NUTTER!

 https://jonathonporritt.com/tony-blair-nuclear-energy-failure/ 6 Dec 24

Earlier in the week, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change brought out a new report grandiloquently titled: “Revitalising Nuclear: The UK Can Power AI And Leave The Clean Energy Transition”.

In essence, it’s little more than a re-run of today’s standard nuclear propaganda – plus two things:

First, a highly flaky retrospective looking back to 1986 to calculate what would have happened to the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions if anti-nuclear campaigners’ “inaccurate post-Chernobyl narrative” hadn’t reduced us to a nation of nuclear sceptics; second, an even more flaky look ahead to the ‘new nuclear age’ that is now so desperately needed to provide the electricity to “power AI”.

It’s total tosh – and, as such, I really do urge you to read it!For me, however, reading it was a weird experience, transporting me back 20 years to Tony Blair’s premiership and his evangelical conversion to the cause of nuclear energy in 2005. Before that, he’d more or less gone along with his own Government’s Energy White Paper of 2003, which was distinctly nuclear-sceptic – interpreted widely at the time as “kicking nuclear into the long grass”.

During those two years, however, the “deep nuclear state” duly “put him right” (on military as much as on energy grounds), and although the Sustainable Development Commission (of which I was then the Chair) and many other think tanks and expert advisers were assiduously reinforcing the 2003 White Paper’s non-nuclear priorities, Tony Blair duly announced that he obviously knew better than everybody else, and that “nuclear was back on the agenda with a vengeance”.

The consequences of that decision are obviously not as severe as Tony Blair’s ineffable arrogance in enthusiastically backing George Bush’s insane decision to invade Iraq in 2003 – which he still argues was the “right thing to do”, despite more than 20 years of consequential mayhem in the Middle East.

It can be argued, however, that his nuclear fantasies at that time have screwed up energy policy in the UK ever since. That nuclear baton was passed on to Gordon Brown and on and on through to Kier Starmer, with all Prime Ministers in between espousing a fantastical faith in the future of nuclear power and the contribution it will make to our low-carbon energy future.

Quick reality check: by way of electrons from NEW nuclear power stations feeding into the grid, the UK’s vengeance-driven nuclear industry has delivered NOT ONE throughout those 20 years. NOT ONE! And it will still be not NOT ONE until 2030 at the earliest.

(EDF’s PWR at Sizewell B came online in 1995). The only new power station under construction (at Hinkley Point C in Somerset) will not come online until 2030 at the earliest.

According to the Tony Blair Institute, this is all the fault of the UK’s mind-blowingly powerful anti-nuclear movement, with all its incredibly well-funded campaigns (only joking!), persuading otherwise intelligent people that even to talk about nuclear power will cause severe radiation sickness (still only joking!). What are Blair’s wonks on? How can otherwise intelligent people just wish away 20 years of chronic incompetence, financial mismanagement and engineering inadequacies on the part of the nuclear industry itself?

I jest, but only because it’s so serious. One can only speculate how much further down the road to a Net Zero future we’d be if we hadn’t had this nuclear cloud hanging over us all this time – in terms of accelerated investments in energy efficiency (particularly housing retrofits), renewables, storage (both short-term and long-term) and reconfigured grids. The Institute’s report claims (straight off the back of its very big envelope) that the UK’s emissions would be 6% lower if we’d just listened to Tony Blair at the time. I do hope someone will do a counterfactual analysis of how much lower they’d be if we’d just gone down that alternative route.

But the dysfunctionality just goes on and on. GBNF (Great British Nuclear Fiasco) now presides over one costly decision after another. Because Hinkley Point C won’t be coming online until after 2030, EDF has had to persuade the Office For Nuclear Regulation (ONR) to extend the lifetime of its remaining fleet of AGRs – which I’m not necessarily opposed to, by the way, as long as the safety case for so doing is as robust as ONR/EDF would have us believe.Rather more problematically, the ONR has also agreed to extend the operating lifetime of Sizewell B to 60 years – through to 2055. That’s a bit different.

What people don’t realise is that when you extend the lifetime of a nuclear reactor you’re also extending the lifetime of all the waste it’s produced in operation being stored on site for decades after it comes offline. Let’s just say, with Sizewell B, through to the end of the century.

Which brings me on to Sizewell C.

On Tuesday (3rd December), I was sitting there in Court 46 in the Royal Courts of Justice in London listening to what at first hearing sounded like a very geeky legal argument about how to interpret a particular clause in the 1965 Nuclear Installation Act: does the ONR, or does it not, have an obligation, in its issuing of a licence for a new reactor, to impose conditions at the time of issuing the licence on the operator (i.e. EDF) covering material safety risks that should be taken into consideration?

“Yes it does”, in the opinion of Stop Sizewell C, bringing the challenge to ONR’s decision not to attach specific conditions to its licence for Sizewell C. The material safety risk at the heart of this challenge relates to the sea defences that will be required to protect Sizewell C into the future, about which there is nothing explicit in the license.

A bit of maths: IF Sizewell C ever gets a Final Investment Decision from the Government (mid-2025 at the earliest), and IF EDF hasn’t run out of money by then, construction could start in 2027/2028. Allow ten years for construction (I’m being kind). So, Sizewell C comes online in 2037, with a projected lifetime of 60 years – as with Sizewell B – through to 2097.

Set that against the latest projections from the (super-conservative) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that we should be anticipating a minimum of a one metre sea level rise by 2100.

And then try and imagine the scale of sea defences that will be required to ‘defend’ Sizewell C through to the end of the century from at least a metre higher sea levels, plus storm surges and so on – let alone to whatever time will be required to store the nuclear waste arising from its operations. A ‘material risk’? I think so.

But that was not the opinion of Mrs Justice Lieven, the Judge hearing Stop Sizewell C’s challenge. She obviously ‘knew her stuff’ ( as she should, having worked previously as a lawyer for Hinkley Point C!), but her perfunctory dismissal of the challenge was quite astonishing.

I blame both Tony Blair – a critical part of the whole deep nuclear state working away behind the scenes – as well as the UK’s astonishingly gullible media which just goes along with all this nuclear crap, year after year after year.

May 3, 2025 Posted by | spinbuster, UK | Leave a comment

Ohio EPA slams DOE’s sloppy radiation sampling plan for Piketon plant demolition

Investigative Team April 30, 2025 , https://appareport.com/2025/04/30/ohio-epa-slams-does-sloppy-radiation-sampling-plan-for-piketon-plant-demolition/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=jetpack_social&fbclid=IwY2xjawKA6SFleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFISGV5ZEdSZW16a2ZnQzh3AR53xTzNJzPFjzVPspqmkVKeF7uYVgoFo-3JyRvLAWnkr4ofz6UTULG0jmZ6Bw_aem_Pf0iP9VXjHpnvVMH91GcuQ

The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency has raised serious concerns about the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) plans to demolish a key structure at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, flagging gaps in how contaminants and radiation will be tested before the teardown begins.

In a letter dated April 29, the Ohio EPA responded to the DOE’s proposed Materials of Construction Sampling and Analysis Plan for the X-330 Process Building—a massive uranium enrichment facility used during the Cold War. The building is scheduled for demolition as part of the long-term decontamination and decommissioning (D&D) of the Piketon site, but state regulators say the current plan lacks clarity and thoroughness.

One of the EPA’s primary concerns is DOE’s proposal to use composite samples to test for volatile organic compounds (VOCs), metals, PCBs, hexavalent chromium, and asbestos. Regulators questioned why composite samples—where multiple samples are blended into one—would be acceptable for VOC testing, since that can dilute concentrations and mask localized contamination.

n another comment, EPA noted that roof samples are currently clustered in the center of the building, suggesting that such grouping could fail to capture the full range of possible contaminants across the massive structure’s roof.

Most notably, Ohio EPA is demanding more transparency about future radiological sampling, which has not yet been fully described. According to DOE’s plan, further testing is needed to define the “radiological source term”—essentially, the type and amount of radioactive materials that could end up in the demolition debris. EPA officials asked whether a separate radiological sampling and analysis plan will be submitted, and emphasized the importance of establishing the building as “criticality incredible,” meaning it poses no risk of a nuclear chain reaction.

The letter was issued under the authority of a legally binding 2010 agreement between the state and DOE, known as the Director’s Final Findings and Orders, which governs how the contaminated site must be cleaned up.

The exchange highlights ongoing tensions between state regulators and federal agencies over how to safely dismantle one of the most contaminated Cold War legacy sites in the country. Local residents and activists have long raised concerns about cancer clusters, radioactive leaks, and environmental mismanagement at the Piketon plant.

The DOE has not yet publicly responded to the EPA’s letter.

May 3, 2025 Posted by | environment, USA | Leave a comment

LANL Plans to Begin Venting Large Quantities of Radioactive Tritium On or After June 2nd

May 1st, 2025, https://nuclearactive.org/ 

During the early days of the pandemic, on March 10, 2020, LANL mailed a notice to people on the facility mailing list about the proposed venting of radioactive tritium into the air from four metal containers stored at Area G. LANL’s request provided information about its plan to seek temporary authorization to vent from the New Mexico Environment Department, specifically from the Hazardous Waste Bureau. UTF-820200310 Resubmit Temp Authorization FTWC Venting LA-UR-20-22103

Use of the facility mailing list is a notification process for people who want to know about the LANL plans.  The public may sign up on the Hazardous Bureau’s website in order to receive a mailed written notice. https://www.env.nm.gov/hazardous-waste/lanl-permit/ , scroll down to LANL Hazardous Waste Facility Permit Mailing List and follow the instructions.

OR

Please notify Siona Briley by email at siona.briley@env.nm.gov , or by postal mail at Siona Briley, New Mexico Environment Department-Hazardous Waste Bureau, 2905 Rodeo Park East, Bldg. 1, Santa Fe, NM 87505. Please include your name, email (preferred communication method to save resources) or postal mailing address, and organization, if any.

Five years later, on April 9th, 2025, the public received email notification from LANL’s Electronic Public Reading Room that the proposed venting would be done on or after June 2, 2025.

Importantly, the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and the New Mexico Hazardous Waste Act provide regulatory distinctions between a mailing to those on facility mailing list and those who receive an email through the Electronic Public Reading Room.

CCNS is on both notice lists.  We received both the March 10th, 2020 Facility Mailing List notice and the April 9th, 2025 Electronic Public Reading Room notice.

The Environment Department is reviewing the request to determine whether to grant or deny it.  Once the decision is made, people on the Facility Mailing List will receive notice through the mail.  Parties will then have thirty days to appeal the decision to the New Mexico Environmental Improvement Board.  https://www.env.nm.gov/opf/environmental-improvement-board/

CCNS and the Communities for Clean Water < https://www.ccwnewmexico.org/general-2 > urge the Environment Department to require LANL to host hybrid public meetings now in frontline communities before making a decision for the following reasons:

it has been five years since the first notice;

many aspects of the proposal have changed, including the significant reduction in the amount of tritium from 100,000 curies five years ago to 30,000 curies today;

LANL has not publicly provided the technical reasons for the change;

LANL provided a list of 53 alternatives to the Environmental Protection Agency. Despite multiple requests from Tewa Women United, neither federal agency has provided the alternatives list; and

five years is typically a regulatory time period for review of proposed or on-going activities.

It is time for action!

Please communicate with your family and friends and encourage them to sign the Action Network on-line petition directed to Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham and the Environment Department Secretary James Kenney requesting denial of LANL’s request.

Online Petition: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/petition-to-deny-lanls-request-to-release-radioactive-tritium-into-the-air
Nuclear Watch New Mexico Fact Sheet: https://nukewatch.org/why-nmed-should-deny-lanls-request-for-tritium-releases

May 3, 2025 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, USA | Leave a comment

Campaigner hits out at ‘PR trick’ nuclear energy poll of SNP members


By Laura Pollock, Multimedia Journalist, 1 May 25, https://www.thenational.scot/news/25131226.campaigner-hits-pr-trick-nuclear-energy-poll-snp-members/

A LEADING independence activist has hit out at a recent poll suggesting roughly half of the SNP’s voters believe nuclear power should be part of Scotland’s mix of clean energy generation.

Robin McAlpine, founder of pro-independence think tank Common Weal, has branded the polling a “PR trick based on deliberately withholding crucial information”, claiming people who responded were not given “the basic facts”.

Polling for the campaign group Britain Remade, founded by a former energy adviser to Boris Johnson, found 52% of those who voted for the party in 2021 believe nuclear power should be included in Scotland’s energy mix to meet the 2045 net zero target.

Meanwhile, 57% of those who voted for the party in last year’s general election felt the same way, the poll found. A total of 56% of Scots thought nuclear power should be part of Scotland’s clean energy mix to meet the targets, while 23% disagreed, and 21% said they did not know.

Opinium surveyed 1000 Scottish adults between April 22 and 25.

However, McAlpine argues those quizzed on the topic were not aware of key points as laid out in a blog post for pro-independence Common Weal Common Weal.

He highlights the price of hydrogen electricity being cheaper than nuclear, as well as the hidden costs of building and decommissioning nuclear infrastructure.

“Would SNP voters back nuclear if it was explained that it will cost them three times as much as renewables and then also cost nearly £5000 per household just to clean them up?” McAlpine told The National.

He further questioned: “Do people know that it is much cheaper to run a renewable system with battery storage for short-term load balancing and hydrogen storage for long term battery storage? Are they aware that you can’t turn nuclear power on and off and that it has to run at full power all the time? So it can’t balance renewables when the wind isn’t blowing, it can only displace renewables from the grid.

“The only conceivable purpose of nuclear in Britain is to power the south of England. Look at Fukushima, look at the power stations in Ukraine, how much risk do you want to take when you have absolutely no need to do it? 

“If people are told ‘more expensive, much more dangerous, can’t be switched up or down or turned off, costs an absolute fortune to decommission at the end’, I think you’ll find they answer differently.”

Britain Remade has been approached for comment.

The SNP have argued nuclear power projects remain too expensive to be a viable alternative to renewable power.

Responding to the polling, SNP MSP Bill Kidd said: “Our focus is delivering a just transition that supports communities and creates long-term economic opportunities to build a truly sustainable future.

“Nuclear remains one of the most costly forms of energy with projects like Hinkley Point C running billions over budget and years behind schedule.

“In contrast, Scotland’s net zero transition is already delivering thousands of green jobs across energy, construction, innovation, and engineering. This number will continue to grow.

“Simply, renewables are cheaper to produce and develop, create more jobs, and are safer than nuclear as they don’t leave behind radioactive waste that will be deadly for generations.

“While Labour funnels billions into slow, centralised projects, the SNP is focused on creating real, sustainable jobs in Scotland now.”

May 3, 2025 Posted by | spinbuster, UK | Leave a comment

Sellafield plan for new building to store radioactive waste

Federica Bedendo, BBC News, North East and Cumbria, 2 May 25, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg724n91gp4o?fbclid=IwY2xjawKA7DdleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFISGV5ZEdSZW16a2ZnQzh3AR5Wx_HKBbiK0umY8fOSOzw2Hzv5_AeeAjFPGDgbc4VxAi7joZ7-0jA4qr0Bzg_aem_nd6f3waC2WX_bFb_0pWkhw

Work to build a storage facility to keep radioactive waste for up to 100 years is set to take a step forward.

Sellafield, in Cumbria, wants to build the second of four new units to store intermediate level waste, as the company works to decommission ageing buildings at its Seascale plant.

The site manages more radioactive waste in one place than any other nuclear facility in the world, according to planning documents.

The project was approved in 2023 and an application has now been submitted to the Environment Agency (EA) seeking permission to abstract water from the site.

The water would have to be extracted as the ground is dug up to build the new facility, a Sellafield spokesman said.

It was needed as part of the building phase, they said, adding there were no risks of contamination from radioactive waste.

Documents show the building storing the nuclear waste would be about the size of a football pitch and as tall as about six double-decker buses.

The walls of the store which has already been built are about 5ft (1.5m) thick, with a 6.5ft (2m) thick floor.

Sellafield said it planned to start building work this year, with the second store becoming operational in 2032.

The waste would be kept there for up to 100 years, papers show, and then moved to a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) – an underground storage facility which could be built in Cumbria.

A consultation on the plans to abstract water from the Sellafield site by the EA closes on 2 May.

May 3, 2025 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

Six in 10 Americans Support US Participation in a Nuclear Agreement with Iran.

Chicago Council on Global Affairs, 30 Apr 25

Majorities of Democrats and Independents support a potential deal similar to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, but only a minority of Republicans agree.

For the first time since the United States withdrew from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), American and Iranian officials held direct talks to negotiate a new nuclear deal. These talks come amid reports of Iran’s rapid production of enriched uranium and acceleration of its nuclear weapons program. 

A recent Chicago Council on Global Affairs-Ipsos survey, fielded April 18–20, 2025, finds a majority of Americans consider a nuclearized Iran unacceptable and believe the United States should negotiate a deal with Tehran to limit its development. While Democrats and Independents support a deal that would trade sanctions relief for limitations on Iranian nuclear enrichment, Republicans oppose such a tradeoff. However, they may end up following US President Donald Trump’s lead if current negotiations bear fruit. 

Key Findings 

  • Eight in 10 Americans oppose Iran obtaining nuclear weapons (79%) and favor taking diplomatic steps (83%) or tightening economic sanctions (80%) to limit further nuclear enrichment.
  • A smaller majority of Americans believe the United States should participate in an agreement that lifts some international economic sanctions against Iran in exchange for strict limits on its nuclear program (61%).  
  • Partisan differences on a nuclear agreement are striking: 78 percent of Democrats and 62 percent of Independents support US participation in a deal with Iran compared to just 40 percent of Republicans.
  • If diplomacy or economic sanctions fail, many Americans are willing to take more forceful approaches: Six in 10 support the United States conducting cyberattacks against Iranian computer systems (59%), and half support conducting airstrikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities (48%).
  • A majority oppose sending US troops to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities (60%). 

Americans Favor Diplomatic Approach to Iranian Nuclear Development 

The 2015 JCPOA, or the Iran Deal, was a landmark agreement reached between Iran and the P5+1 (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany) that limited Iranian nuclear enrichment in exchange for sanctions relief and other provisions. While it was initially successful in limiting Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium, the United States withdrew from the deal in 2018, as the first Trump administration considered it insufficient in curbing Iran’s ballistic missile program and protecting American regional interests. Upon the US withdrawal from the agreement, Iran promptly lifted the cap on its stockpile of uranium and increased its enrichment activities; it has since reached weapons-grade levels of enriched uranium. 

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Conclusion 

Although US President Donald Trump has not ruled out using military action to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, he said he favors a diplomatic agreement to address this issue. Recently, Trump administration officials have given contradictory remarks about current talks, and they have yet to specify how renewed negotiations will produce an agreement more stringent and impactful than its predecessor. 

The pressure is on American diplomats to secure a deal that would limit Tehran’s nuclear enrichment without providing the sanctions relief that could potentially fund Iran’s efforts to further destabilize the Middle East or threaten the United States’ regional allies, including Israel. While the outcome of these negotiations remains to be seen, the public continues to express a preference for using diplomatic or economic coercion than direct military action. https://globalaffairs.org/research/public-opinion-survey/six-10-americans-support-us-participation-nuclear-agreement-iran?fbclid=IwY2xjawKA64xleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFISGV5ZEdSZW16a2ZnQzh3AR7iwwVkEnczI_DJHzOGHWvNWeSlg2xdd9YJCsBz0_OiQmJcM48Ujd0ZNX8ZNQ_aem_5kroZ8t3KQ5RgYf4EfYdDA

May 3, 2025 Posted by | Iran, public opinion, USA | Leave a comment

Republicans Unveil Bill To Bring 2025 Military Budget to Over $1 Trillion

House Republicans unveiled a bill this week that would bring the 2025 US military budget to over $1 trillion.

The legislation would add $150 billion to the budget and includes $25 billion for President Trump’s ‘Iron Dome for America’

by Dave DeCamp,  April 29, 2025 , https://news.antiwar.com/2025/04/29/republicans-unveil-bill-to-bring-2025-military-budget-to-over-1-trillion/

House Republicans unveiled a bill this week that would bring the 2025 US military budget to over $1 trillion.

The 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) totaled about $885 billion, and the new supplemental bill drafted by the House and Senate’s armed services committees would add $150 billion, bringing the 2025 military budget to a record-breaking $1.035 trillion.

The bill includes $25 billion for President Trump’s vision to create a new missile defense system for the United States, which he has called the “Iron Dome for America” or the “Golden Dome.” The project would be a boondoggle for US weapons makers and would likely kick off a new global arms race.

According to The Hill, the bill also includes $33.7 billion for shipbuilding, $20.4 billion for munitions, $13.5 billion for “innovation,” $12.9 billion for nuclear deterrence, $11.5 billion for military readiness, $11.1 billion for building up in the Pacific, $7.2 billion for aircraft, $5 billion for the border, $4.5 billion for the B-21 bomber, $2 billion for military intelligence, and $380 million for the Pentagon’s annual audit.

Republicans in the House initially proposed a budget plan to boost military spending by $100 billion, while Senate Republicans pushed for the $150 billion increase.

President Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have already said they will seek a more than $1 trillion military budget for 2026, and the White House is expected to make the request for the 2026 NDAA in May.

The US has never officially had a $1 trillion military budget, but the actual cost of US military spending has exceeded $1 trillion for years. According to veteran defense analyst Winslow Wheeler, based on the $895 billion NDAA, US national security spending for 2025 was expected to reach about $1.77 trillion.

Wheeler’s estimate accounts for military-related spending from other government agencies not funded by the NDAA, such as the Department of Veteran Affairs and Homeland Security. It also includes the national security share of the interest accrued on the US debt and other factors.

May 2, 2025 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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