Texas residents affected by New Mexico nuclear tests – radioactive fallout ignores state lines
Nuclear fallout ignores state lines: Lon Burnam and Istra Fuhrmann, https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/opinion/2022/01/07/nuclear-fallout-ignores-state-lines-lon-burnam-and-istra-fuhrmann/9122752002/ Early in the morning of July 16, 1945, native El Pasoan Barbara Kent was thrown out of her bunk bed at dance camp.
Just 13 years of age, she had traveled to Ruidoso, New Mexico, to learn ballet, unwittingly only a short distance from the site of the first nuclear weapons test. After the explosion awakened her, she says the camp owner came running in to tell the young girls to head outside, where the sky had turned from dark to blindingly bright.
Barbara Kent describes playing in pleasantly warm snow improbably falling in July, grabbing it in her hands and rubbing it on her face. Decades later, she realized that this “snow” had been radioactive fallout from the atomic blast. Today, she is the only survivor from the camp – all the other girls passed away from cancers before the age of 30.
El Paso is less than 150 miles from the epicenter of the nuclear bomb detonation known as the Trinity Test. While Kent happened to be in New Mexico that day, she was not the only Texan exposed to dangerous radiation levels. According to U.S. Census data, between 100,000-130,000 people lived in El Paso during the blast. Nuclear fallout from the explosion settled over thousands of square miles and exposed locals to radiation levels 10,000 times higher than what is currently allowed.
Unfortunately, many of our state’s lawmakers in Congress do not see radiation exposure as a Texas issue. They have not treated the problem with the urgency it is due. It’s time to acknowledge this historical wrong and compensate Texans and New Mexicans suffering from life-threatening illnesses due to nuclear weapons activities.
Congress has united in compensating nuclear testing survivors in the past. In 1990, Utah Senator Orrin Hatch introduced the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), which received strong bipartisan support and was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush. Unless Congress acts, this compensation program is set to expire in July 2022. Making matters worse, Texas and New Mexico “downwinders” – locals exposed to nuclear fallout – have never been eligible.
Last month, communities affected by nuclear testing celebrated when the RECA Amendments Act of 2021 was overwhelmingly approved by the House Judiciary Committee. If passed into law, this bill will extend RECA by 19 years and allow New Mexican downwinders to claim compensation for the first time. Importantly, Texan downwinders just across the border are also pushing to be included.
Texas is currently covered in RECA as a uranium mining state that supplied material for America’s nuclear weapons arsenal. Uranium workers employed before 1971 who have developed radiation-related illnesses are eligible to receive a one-time RECA payment of $150,000. Many industry workers came from low-income Native and Hispanic communities and were never informed of deadly radiation exposure.
Greg Harman writes that “after 30 years of heavy [uranium] mining activity, cancer rates in Navajo Country began to shoot upward, doubling by the late ’90s.” RECA does not compensate post-1971 uranium miners, even though mining (and cancer cases) continued past this cutoff date. Texas contained the country’s third-largest uranium reserves and ranked second in the nation in drilling for uranium in 1971. As a result, many Texan uranium miners stand to benefit from the RECA extension, which expands eligibility to include workers in the industry post-1971.
We scored another victory when El Paso’s Congresswomen Veronica Escobar recently cosponsored the RECA Amendments Act. Now it’s time for Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz to cosponsor and endorse the Senate version. This bill ensures that compensation for Texan uranium miners will not expire this summer. Advocates from local groups like the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium ask legislators to amend the bill’s language to include El Paso County.
Nuclear fallout does not respect state lines or dates on the calendar. Perhaps, in this case, neither should Congress. It is long past time to compensate Texans, New Mexicans, and downwinders of the 1945 Trinity Tests.
Concerns in New Mexico, about taking in out-of-state nuclear waste, as Waste Isolation Pilot Plant has limited space.
Waste Isolation Pilot Plant criticized for accepting out-of-state nuclear waste, Adrian Hedden, Carlsbad Current-Argus, 8 Jan 22, About 200 shipments of nuclear waste were sent to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant repository near Carlsbad last year for disposal in an underground salt deposit, but New Mexico officials continued criticism that most of the shipments were coming from out of state.
Waste disposed of at WIPP is known as transuranic (TRU) nuclear waste, made up of clothing materials and equipment irradiated during nuclear activities at U.S. Department of Energy facilities across the nation.
TRU waste is shipped from Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in northern New Mexico, but also from sites like Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho or Savannah River Site in North Carolina.
Of the 210 shipments recorded in 2021, per DOE records, 55 or 26 percent came from LANL. Another 21 came from Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, eight came from Savannah River, two came from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and one came from Waste Control Specialists in Andrews, Texas.
The other 123 shipments, or about 58 percent of WIPP shipments last year were from Idaho National Laboratory, where research is conducted on nuclear reactors.
In total, 74 percent or about three quarters of WIPP’s shipments last year came from out of state.
The State of Idaho entered into a settlement agreement with the DOE in 1995 to prioritize waste shipments from its national laboratory to an out-of-state location: the WIPP site in New Mexico.
But that prioritization is a problem for New Mexico Rep. Christine Chandler (D-43).
Her district represents Los Alamos County, home to LANL, and Chandler said because New Mexico accepts the risk of the waste, its facilities that generate nuclear waste should be given top priority for disposal.
“I feel very strongly that since the WIPP is in New Mexico, and New Mexico accepts the risk for operating that plant that NM waste should be prioritized,” Chandler said. “That would mostly mean from LANL.
“They have a settlement with Idaho and so shipments from there are prioritized to the detriment of actual active sites like LANL.”……………………………..
Chandler’s concerns were echoed in a recent letter from NMED Cabinet Secretary James Kenney to the Government Accountability Office calling for federal oversight of DOE decisions related to the shipment priorities.
The Idaho settlement, Kenney argued, was entered without public input from New Mexicans who he said would bear the risk of disposal.
“The practice of DOE (Office of Emergency Management) solely managing waste shipments to WIPP from around the U.S. without first discussing with New Mexico stakeholders – including NMED as its regulator – now merits immediate congressional oversight,” Kenney wrote.
Other than pressuring federal regulators, Chandler said the State of New Mexico and lawmakers have little recourse to reprioritize disposal at WIPP to benefit their state.
“Truthfully, there is very little we can do. Most of the issues at Los Alamos are driven by federal law. Mostly, it’s placing pressure on the DOE to do the right thing for the state of New Mexico,” Chandler said.
“They need to recognize that LANL is the leading lab and it needs the Department’s full support in all things including clean up.”
Realigning shipment priorities could be achieved through the pending 10-year renewal of WIPP’s operating permit with NMED, said Don Hancock at Albuquerque-based watchdog group Southwest Research and Information Center.
He said regardless of priority for wastes from specific facilities, there is not enough room at WIPP for all the DOE’s waste and the federal government should develop alternate repositories.
WIPP is presently the nation’s only deep-geological repository that can dispose of nuclear waste off-site from where it is generated.
“The State of New Mexico now needs to be pushing on other approved repository sites to be permitted,” Hancock said. “They need to enforce the capacity limits. The DOE and Congress are going to have to start looking at alternatives.”………… https://www.currentargus.com/story/news/local/2022/01/07/wipp-criticized-accepting-out-state-nuclear-waste/9078220002/
UK: Blackburn and Darwen Council approving and old nuclear dump site for commercial development ?
A CONTROVERSIAL development site which residents and politicians fear is
above buried nuclear waste has been kept in the latest version of a
borough’s planning blueprint.
Blackburn with Darwen Council included the 94
acres of countryside near the M65’s Junction 5 in its draft local plan
published last year as suitable for employment uses.
But residents and WestPennine Tory councillor Julie Slater fear nuclear waste was dumped down old
mineshafts in the 1950s. Now following a consultation a new version of the
blueprint has been published and the the green belt land between Belthorn
and Guide remains earmarked as ideal for commercial and job-creating
development.
Lancashire Telegraph 7th Jan 2022
Fault found in France’s Chooz 2 nuclear reactor – its outage shutdown now extended
Chooz 2 nuclear reactor outage extended after fault discovered
Reuters PARIS, Jan 6 (Reuters) – The outage of the 1.5 gigawatt (GW) No.2 reactor at the Chooz nuclear power plant in northern France has been extended after an inspection found the same fault as at the Civaux plant in the west of the country, operator EDF (EDF.PA) said on Thursday.
The two plants were shut down in December after discovery of corrosion in a safety system at the Civaux plant. read more
The reactor outage was extended to Apr. 20 from the previous expected return date of Jan. 23.
| The repair solution is being investigated with the French nuclear safety authority ASN, EDF said, adding that inspections on the Chooz 1 reactor are still in progress…………French power grid operator RTE said in December that French nuclear capacity in January was expected to be at its lowest level ever for this time of year. read more ….Nuclear power accounts for about 70% of France’s electricity mix and the COVID-19 pandemic has delayed maintenance work on some nuclear reactors. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/chooz-2-nuclear-reactor-outage-extended-after-fault-discovered-2022-01-06/ |
Emissions fromthe five major economies set to cause a doubling of extremely hot years in many nations
The emissions of five major economies over a 40-year period look set to
double the number of nations that will experience “extreme hot years”, new
research warns. A new scientific paper published today (6 January) in
Communications Earth and Environment from scientists at ETH Zurich and
Climate Analytics has examined the impacts of the emissions of China, the
US, the EU, India and Russia.
The emissions from these five economies
account for around 53% of global emissions. According to the study, the
emissions that will be emitted from these economies between 1991-2030 look
set to double the number of nations that will be exposed to increasingly
hot years. Under current emissions reductions targets, 92% of all countries
are expected to experience extreme hot years every second year by 2030,
which is twice the number of countries compared to removing emissions from
those five economies.
Edie 6th Jan 2022
Scotland very nearly reached goal of 100% renewable energy over 2020
Final figures released by the Scottish government show that the country
just missed out on reaching its goal of 100% of its energy consumption
being from renewables by 2020. In the year, the equivalent of 98.6% of
gross electricity consumption in Scotland was from renewable sources in
2020, up on the provisional figure of 97.4% released in May 2021.
Current 6th Jan 2022
UK’s Heysham nuclear plant to shut down two years earlier than planned
The Heysham 2 nuclear power station in Lancashire is set to shut down for
good two years earlier than planned following a new assessment. The power
station, the fuel for which is made at the Springfields factory at Salwick,
will now stop generating power in 2028. In 2016, the site’s operational
life was extended by seven years to 2030 as no new power station projects
were in the pipeline and nuclear is needed to maintain a steady base load
for the electricity grid.
Blackpool Gazette 9th Jan 2022
A warning against fetishizing nuclear power so it’s part of every solution
the enthusiasm overlooks some ugly truths about nuclear power.
Many alternative reactor designs are pitched as if they’re novel. They’re not. A good example is the Natrium reactor
The drawbacks of sodium technology should resonate especially loudly for Californians.
The 1959 explosion of a sodium-cooled test reactor at the government’s secretive Santa Susana Field Laboratory outside Simi Valley remains the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history
Today’s younger environmental activists may be more inclined to accept these promises today because their thinking wasn’t forged in the anti-nuclear protests of the 1960s and 1970s, as was that of their older colleagues.
The danger is that they, and society, may have to learn the harsh lessons of nuclear power’s past all over again.
Nuclear energy backers say it’s vital for the fight against global warming. Don’t be so sure, Los Angeles Times, BY MICHAEL HILTZIKBUSINESS COLUMNIST , JAN. 6, 2022
No one would have believed this possible only a few years ago, but nuclear energy has been creeping up in public estimation, despite its long record of unfulfilled promise and cataclysmic missteps.
The impetus has come from government and big business, among other sources.
Billions of dollars in incentives to keep existing nuclear plants operating and to get new nuclear technologies off the drawing board were enacted as part of the $1.2-trillion infrastructure bill signed late last year by President Biden.
You don’t compromise safety to keep a nuclear plant open so you can meet a carbon target—you need to have minimum, stringent safety standards. – EDWIN LYMAN, UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS……………
Some celebrity entrepreneurs have weighed in, without demonstrating that they have given the issue the thorough consideration it deserves. Elon Musk last month tweeted that “unless susceptible to extreme natural disasters, nuclear power plants should not be shut down.”Musk didn’t, however, define “extreme natural disasters” or mention the myriad other reasons that a plant might need to be shuttered, such as advanced age, upside-down economics or dangers in its own design or operation……………..
the enthusiasm overlooks some ugly truths about nuclear power.
The history of nuclear power in America is one of rushed and slipshod engineering, unwarranted assurances of public safety, political influence and financial chicanery, inept and duplicitous regulators, and mismanagement on a grand scale.
Many of the problems originated in the government’s decision to place the technology in the hands of the utility industry, which was ill-equipped to handle anything so complicated.
This record accounts for the technology’s deplorable public reputation, which has made it almost impossible to build a new nuclear plant in the U.S. for decades. Forgetting the history threatens to stage the same drama over again.
The debate over the nuclear power future is really two separate debates.
First, there are the optimistic expectations raised by alternatives to the design of the 93 reactors currently in operation in the U.S. — reactors in which a radioactive core heats water, producing steam to drive electricity-generating turbines.
Then there’s the question of what to do with the existing reactors, many of which have lasted well beyond their design lives. Only 28 of these have remained “competitive” — that is, economically viable — according to energy expert Amory Lovins.
That existing fleet includes Diablo Canyon, whose owner, PG&E, said the plant was facing an unprofitable future when it made the decision to abandon plans to seek a permit renewal from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Many alternative reactor designs are pitched as if they’re novel. They’re not. A good example is the Natrium reactor, which is cooled not by water but liquid sodium and is being promoted by TerraPower, a firm founded by Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates.
Far from an advanced new technology, sodium-cooled reactors date from the very dawn of the nuclear power age. They were considered as an alternative to water-cooled reactors for submarine power plants, for example, by Adm. Hyman Rickover, the founder of America’s nuclear navy.
Rickover, whose rigorous standards for technology and crew training made the nuclear navy a success, ordered a prototype sodium reactor for the submarine Seawolf. Almost instantly, the technology demonstrated its flaws.
While the Seawolf was still at the dock, the reactor sprung a leak. “It took us three months, working 24 hours a day, to locate and correct” the leak, Rickover told a congressional committee in 1957.
Rickover abandoned any thought of using the reactors in his submarines, finding them “expensive to build, complex to operate, susceptible to prolonged shut down as a result of even minor malfunctions, and difficult and time-consuming to repair,” as he advised his Navy superiors and technical experts at the Atomic Energy Commission in late 1956 and early 1957.
The drawbacks of sodium technology should resonate especially loudly for Californians.
The 1959 explosion of a sodium-cooled test reactor at the government’s secretive Santa Susana Field Laboratory outside Simi Valley remains the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history, venting an immense amount of radioactivity into the air and creating what former California EPA Director Jared Blumenfeld called “one of the most toxic sites in the United States by any kind of definition.”
The three entities controlling portions of the site — Boeing Co., the U.S. Department of Energy and NASA — reached agreements with the state in 2007 and 2010 binding them to restore the site to “background” standards. Much of the work still hasn’t begun.
“There’s been a kind of cult that’s been trying to keep this technology alive for decades” despite persistent evidence of its inadequate reliability or sustainability, says Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists and the author of a report challenging safety and efficiency claims made for Natrium, among other alternative technologies.
“Pretty effective lobbyists” push the idea that “this is somehow a breakthrough technology that’s going to transform nuclear power,” Lyman said of sodium-cooled reactors.
“History tells us that it’s not a very reliable source of power and has a number of safety and security disadvantages that make one wonder why there’s such enthusiasm for it,” he said. None of the other alternatives, he adds, solve the most pressing problem of nuclear power: what to do with the radioactive waste produced by every plant.
………. TerraPower’s utility partner, PacifiCorp, a unit of Berkshire Hathaway (the conglomerate controlled by Warren Buffett), which is to take over the project once it’s operational, has no experience running a nuclear plant.
In any case, the Natrium reactor won’t become operational until 2028 at the earliest. That’s a deadline imposed by the government’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program, which is providing some of the funding…….
He cautions against “fetishizing nuclear power so it’s part of every solution.” His view is “you don’t compromise safety to keep a nuclear plant open so you can meet a carbon target — you need to have minimum, stringent safety standards.”
By that measure, there’s hardly any doubt that Diablo Canyon should be shut down, and the sooner the better.
The plant’s history makes that case…………………………………………….
The danger is that claims for the future of nuclear energy — that it will be a cheap and efficient path to a carbon-free future — will be as illusory as those of the past, when nuclear power was also promoted as safe and “too cheap to meter.”
Today’s younger environmental activists may be more inclined to accept these promises today because their thinking wasn’t forged in the anti-nuclear protests of the 1960s and 1970s, as was that of their older colleagues. The danger is that they, and society, may have to learn the harsh lessons of nuclear power’s past all over again. https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-01-06/column-nuclear-energy-backers-say-its-vital-for-the-fight-against-global-warming-dont-believe-them?fbclid=IwAR015ej03ZDoUA2kcNoc_mAqJS3D2N8T
Extraditing Julian Assange Threatens Journalists Worldwide
In countries where the press faces restriction and persecution, US interference sets a dangerous precedent. The Nation, By Hasan Ali January 2022
On December 14, while addressing the Foreign Relations Committee of the United States Senate, the ambassador-designate to Pakistan, Donald Armin Blome, pledged that he would champion the press in his new post. “Pakistani journalists and members of civil society face kidnappings, assaults, intimidation and disappearances,” he said, promising to advocate for expanded protections and to hold the perpetrators of these actions to account.
As a Pakistani journalist myself, I ought to have been relieved. In spite of all the talk of its impending decline, the United States remains the world’s preeminent superpower, and you would think that an incoming ambassador throwing his weight behind the media would augur better days for our embattled fraternity. Instead, I cannot help but question his moral authority to lecture anyone in the world on the issue of press freedom. Three successive administrations of the country he represents have mercilessly gone after Julian Assange, the long-tortured founder and publisher of Wikileaks, whom the United States government is trying to place in the dock on trumped-up charges of incitement and espionage.
On December 10—just four days before Blome made his speech—a British court ruled that Assange could be extradited to the United States to stand trial, where he faces a maximum sentence of 175 years’ imprisonment.
We have already read in these pages about the impact such a prosecution would have on the First Amendment. Let us now widen the net and examine what it will do to those of us who work outside the glittering republic. In Pakistan, the perils of telling the truth have never been greater. Scores of journalists—a handful of them spoke to The Nation in August—have been targeted because the state did not approve of their work. Indeed, so brazen has been this policy of intimidation that in the same week that this magazine published its report, the brother of one of the journalists profiled was abducted in broad daylight from the streets of Lahore.
The story is not very different beyond Pakistan’s borders either. In our neighbor to the east, India, which is supposed to be the world’s largest democracy, journalists are routinely charged with sedition and incitement, or else beaten and tortured for writing the wrong tweet. In Afghanistan, ever since the Taliban took control, hundreds if not thousands of reporters have fled, with the Afghan Journalists Safety Committee estimating that some 70 percent of the country’s news outlets have ceased operations. Then there is Iran, our Western neighbor, where female journalists are banned for blowing the whistle on workplace harassment, locked up for publishing material that is deemed irreligious, and murdered for taking photographs of public protests. Finally, there is China, with whom we share a border to the northeast. It ranks 177 of the 180 on the World Press Freedom Index and has become even more repressive in the wake of Covid 19.
Which returns us to the case of Assange, who is being punished for publishing documents that prove that the United States committed war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. Daniel Bastard, Asia-Pacific director of Reporters Without Borders, says, “The way the US has been treating Julian Assange is clearly giving a blank cheque to authoritarian governments around the world to crack down on press freedom and force into silence journalists and information providers who displease them.” His view is shared by his colleague Rebecca Vincent, who argues that the persecution of Assange will undermine US efforts to promote the cause of press freedom internationally. “If the Biden administration is serious about its commitment to media freedom, they would lead by example and end this more than decade-long persecution now.”………….
Sadly, what we have witnessed in the first 11 months of Biden’s premiership is a continuation of the same policy positions that left critics of the previous administration convulsing with anger. The United States continues to sell arms to Saudi Arabia; leaders of countries with which it has important strategic partnerships—Abdel Fatah el-Sisi and Volodomyr Zelensky, to name a couple—are being allowed to punish those who would hold them to account; and the preeminent chronicler of American atrocity, Julian Assange, is being tormented for doing what any courageous reporter with access to the same information would have done in a heartbeat………..
If the United States were to free Assange, it would send a powerful message to the political establishment of repressive regimes around the world that the US has ceased to believe that journalism is a crime.
Otherwise, things will carry on as they are. My colleagues will continue to be abducted in broad daylight; many will return to tell the tale to police officers who won’t register their complaints out of fear; some, like Mudassar Naaru, will disappear altogether. Others, like Saleem Shahzad, will be found dead in a ditch.
And all the while, the likes of Donald Blome will find themselves in drawing rooms with unscrupulous leaders who will earnestly nod their heads while listening to sermons on press freedom, without ever really feeling under pressure to change their ways. https://www.thenation.com/article/society/assange-extradition-journalism/witter
Going nuclear: Should nations unilaterally decide?
Going nuclear: Should nations unilaterally decide? DW, 6 Jan 22,
As nations like France extend the life of ageing nuclear energy infrastructure, bordering countries that could suffer most from a meltdown have little say.
The 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster that spread radioactive waste across Europe — some of which remains present 35 years later — sparked a reevaluation of the cross-border impacts of nuclear energy. Some plant projects in border regions were abandoned, while existing reactors were subject to more stringent safety regimes.
Twenty-five years later, the fallout from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster caused the likes of Germany to commit to phasing out atomic fuel by 2022. Belgium also just confirmed it will be nuclear-free by 2025.
But a decade on from Japan’s tsunami-induced meltdown, countries from China to France and the United States continue to rely on power generated by nuclear reactors, many of which were constructed in the 1960s and ’70s.
France, the world’s most nuclear-energy dependent country that generates 70% of its electricity from atomic power, confirmed last February that it would extend the life of its 32 oldest nuclear reactors for another 10 years.
Due in part to increasing safety risks with ageing facilities, some are asking if such nations still have the right to make this decision on their own.
When France shut a reactor in February 2020 at its oldest nuclear plant at Fessenheim on the German border due to reported cracks in a reactor cover and other faults, then-German Environment Minister Svenja Schulze affirmed Germany’s wish to influence nuclear policy across the Rhine.
“We won’t let up in our efforts to campaign for a move away from nuclear power in our neighboring countries,” she said, adding thatthe”nuclear phaseout in Germany is rock solid.”
Who has the power to decide on nuclear?
Though a raft of treaties and agreements lay out minimum consultation requirements between states, there is no framework to specifically consult with local communities across borders that could be most affected by a nuclear accident, noted Behnam Taebi, co-editor of The Ethics of Nuclear Power and professor of energy and climate ethics at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.
The 1991 Espoo Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context obliges contracting parties to prevent, reduce and control “adverse” impacts across borders, while the 1998 Aarhus convention applies Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration that states “environmental matters are best handled with the participation of all concerned citizens.”
But according to Taebi, these conventions are about transferring risks between states, and they do not say anything about local communities at the borders of neighboring counties, or whether and how they should be consulted. There is no binding transboundary procedure relating to nuclear energy development, and no framework in place that could, for instance, force France to communicate and consult with towns and cities across the border. ………………………………..
in 2018, referring to Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium, the Dutch Safety Board — which independently investigates the causes of incidents or accidents — concluded that cross-border “cooperation has partly been arranged on paper, but that it probably will not run smoothly if a nuclear accident were to occur in reality.”
For 10 years, Austria opposed the Czech Republic’s Temelin nuclear plant that opened in 2000 near its border, with some politicians threatening to block Czech entry into the EU until the latter agreed to tightened safety measures.
While the European Commission stepped in to help resolve that conflict, Kirchner noted that under current agreements, neighboring countries have no power to veto unwanted developments.
https://www.dw.com/en/going-nuclear-should-nations-unilaterally-decide/a-60312955
Including nuclear power as ”sustainable” completely undermines the European taxonomy’s original aim of the Green Deal
The published proposal is an incredible greenwashing of long outdated and dangerous technologies. It undermines the taxonomy’s original goal of providing investments for an ecological restructuring of society – the Green Deal.
Instead, the proposal keeps the nuclear technology, which has long since failed in reality, alive and tempts to rely on fossil gas for too long. Every euro that flows into nuclear and gas based on this
classification is missing for real sustainability and effective climate protection.
Ausgestrahlt 5th Jan 2022
https://www.ausgestrahlt.de/blog/2022/01/05/eu-taxonomie-analysiert-yellow-deal-statt-klimaschutz/
Dangerous Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, and incompetent Pacific Gas and Electric Co.
Nuclear energy backers say it’s vital for the fight against global warming. Don’t be so sure, Los Angeles Times, BY MICHAEL HILTZIKBUSINESS COLUMNIST , JAN. 6, 2022
”……………………………………. Diablo Canyon, which is on the Pacific shoreline about 250 miles south of San Francisco and 190 miles north of Los Angeles, was the third location chosen by Pacific Gas & Electric Co. for a nuclear generating plant starting in the early 1960s.
The previous choices were abandoned because they were judged too close to active earthquake faults — even though PG&E initially asserted in both cases that no faults were nearby. The company then turned to Diablo Canyon, again asserting that there were no active faults within about 20 miles of the site.
As it eventually emerged, there are at least four major active faults within that range, prompting David Brower, the first executive director of the Sierra Club and the founder of Friends of the Earth, to jokingly describe nuclear reactors as “complex technological devices for locating earthquake faults.” (It was the Sierra Club’s endorsement of Diablo Canyon that prompted Brower to resign and form Friends of the Earth.)
With every discovery of a new fault in Diablo Canyon’s vicinity, PG&E minimized the threat and persuaded the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the federal regulator responsible for licensing nuclear plants, to go along.
The NRC’s decision in 1981 to allow construction to proceed after a fault discovery without reexamining the plant’s seismic engineering provoked two commissioners, Peter A. Bradford and Victor Gilinsky, to issue a blistering dissent.
They described the confidence of two NRC advisory boards in the utility’s reassurances as “almost mystical,” and charged that the boards’ rationales for accepting PG&E’s arguments as evidence that neither board “had any idea what it was talking about.”
Then there’s PG&E’s atrocious safety record, which should curdle the blood at the thought of leaving the plant under its control. The company’s consistent failures include the 2010 pipeline explosion that killed eight and leveled an entire residential neighborhood in San Bruno.
PG&E’s equipment sparked more than 1,500 fires from 2014 through 2017, according to state records. In 2020, it pleaded guilty to 84 counts of criminal manslaughter related to the 2018 wildfire that all but destroyed the town of Paradise and ranks as the deadliest blaze in California history.
In September, the company was charged with 11 felonies and 20 misdemeanor counts related to what Shasta County Dist. Atty. Stephanie Bridgett called its “reckless and criminally negligent” operations, resulting in the deaths of four people. (“My co-workers are not criminals,” PG&E Chief Executive Patti Poppe said after the charges were unveiled. “We welcome our day in court so people can learn just that.”)
As recently as Tuesday, California state investigators concluded that a PG&E power line sparked last year’s massive Dixie fire, which burned more than 960,000 acres in five Northern California counties. The investigators referred the case to local criminal prosecutors.
“PG&E seems to be incapable of operating safely,” says Daniel O. Hirsch, a former environmental faculty member at UC Santa Cruz and president of the Committee to Bridge the Gap, an anti-nuclear group. “You’re mixing an incompetent utility with an unforgiving technology.”…………………….. https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-01-06/column-nuclear-energy-backers-say-its-vital-for-the-fight-against-global-warming-dont-believe-them?fbclid=IwAR015ej03ZDoUA2kcNoc_mAqJS3D2N8T
Government Wants YOU to Pay for New Nuclear
Thanks to CND for this information: The government is trying to force through controversial new legislation which will make consumers bankroll the nuclear power industry, whilst giving them no protection from spiralling costs. This will force thousands more families into fuel poverty. The electricity generated from nuclear power is double the costs of renewables. Nuclear […]
Government Want YOU to Pay for New Nuclear — RADIATION FREE LAKELAND (UK) ON BY MARIANNEWILDART
The government is trying to force through controversial new legislation which will make consumers bankroll the nuclear power industry, whilst giving them no protection from spiralling costs. This will force thousands more families into fuel poverty. The electricity generated from nuclear power is double the costs of renewables. Nuclear is hampered by generic design flaws, long delays and safety risks. It’s dangerous to people and planet. To meet Britain’s 2050 net zero goals, instead of forcing consumers to bankroll a failed industry, the government should be investing more in renewables.
Contact your MP, urging them to vote against the Bill on Monday 10th January. See briefing CND is sending to MPs.
We are writing now to urge you to vote against the Nuclear Energy (Finance) Bill which has its final reading in the House of Commons on Monday 10 January.
This controversial new legislation will force consumers to bankroll the nuclear power industry, whilst giving them no protection from spiralling costs. This will force thousands more families into fuel poverty.
The Bill will enable energy companies to charge consumers to construct and operate new nuclear power plants under a regulated asset base (RAB) funding model. Evidence shows that under such models, costs for nuclear power stations abandoned during construction as well as cost over-runs of $2.1 billion are all being passed on to consumers. Richard Hall, Chief Energy Economist at Citizens Advice, who gave evidence to the parliamentary Committee examining the Bill, argues ‘…consumers do not have any control over the risk. Essentially, they are the passive recipient of the risks.’
The electricity generated from nuclear power is twice the price of renewables. Nuclear is hampered by generic design flaws, long delays and safety risks. It’s dangerous to people and planet. To meet Britain’s 2050 net zero goals, instead of forcing consumers to bankroll this costly, inefficient and dangerous form of power generation, the government should be investing in renewables and making homes energy-efficient to reduce carbon emissions as well as energy bills.
As you know there is no “away” for nuclear wastes and the government are presently spending eyewatering amounts of money on public relations largely in Cumbria to try and persuade the County to bury heat generating nuclear wastes under our precious and irreplacable land and sea. The reason? Not for safety’s sake but in order to clear the decks for more nuclear crapola for which we all must pay time and time again in every way possible?
We urge you to vote against this Bill.
with many thanks
Marianne Birkby on behalf of
Radiation Free Lakeland
Safety concerns: NRC was right to deny OKLO’s plan for small nuclear reactors
“The company asserted that its reactor was so small and so safe that it didn’t need to play by the same rules as those used to license larger reactors,” Lyman said. “But the fact remains that even a very small reactor contains enough highly radioactive material to cause significant radiological contamination in the event of an accident or a terrorist attack.”..
NRC denies Oklo Power’s plan to construct 1.5 MW advanced nuclear reactor in Idaho
Utility Dive Jan. 7, 2022 Robert Walton, Reporter
Dive Brief:
- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Thursday announced it denied without prejudice an application by Oklo Power to construct the United States’ first advanced nuclear reactor, in Idaho. The small design, dubbed “Aurora,” would be capable of producing 1.5 MW of electric power.
- The NRC cited “significant information gaps” in the company’s application, including details on potential accidents and its classification of safety systems and components. However, the company can resubmit its application and regulators said they are “prepared to re-engage” the company.
- Oklo is reviewing the decision, but in a statement said it was “eager to continue moving forward” on the Idaho reactor as well as others. Opponents of the project say a failure to provide safety information could put the public at significant risk in the event of an accident or attack.
………………………. according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, NRC was right to reject the application.
“Oklo simply refused to give the NRC the basic information that the agency needs to assess compliance with its regulations and its legal mandate to protect public health, safety, and the environment,” UCS Director of Nuclear Power Safety Edwin Lyman said in an email………
“The company asserted that its reactor was so small and so safe that it didn’t need to play by the same rules as those used to license larger reactors,” Lyman said. “But the fact remains that even a very small reactor contains enough highly radioactive material to cause significant radiological contamination in the event of an accident or a terrorist attack.”………. https://www.utilitydive.com/news/nrc-denies-oklo-powers-plan-to-construct-15-mw-advanced-nuclear-reactor-i/616807/
France – a serious anomaly detected in several EDF nuclear reactors
Nuclear: a serious anomaly detected in several EDF reactors. While several
nuclear production units are not running due to ten-yearly inspection
visits, EDF announced on Thursday that it would extend the shutdown of a
reactor at Chooz by three months, after having detected a fault there
similar to that of another plant. stopped. While this has so far only been
identified in reactors of the same generation, it questions the safety of
the fleet, on which France depends to produce its electricity. In the
Tribune, Karine Herviou, Deputy Director General of the Institute for
Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) reports a serious anomaly.
La Tribune 6th Jan 2022
Les Echos 6th Jan 2022
Reuters 6th Jan 2022
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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