Transportation

NRC seeks to allay fear of transport

Testing shows casks of spent nuclear fuel surviving tunnel fire

Old Nuclear Parts Heading Down the River

Two major components of a nuclear reactor making their way down the Apalachicola River are also making a few people nervous.

Fatal truck accident involves radioactive waste materials

It could be quite some time before traffic flows smoothly along the only interstate highway that crosses northern Arizona. All eastbound traffic on I-40 has been diverted to Old Route 66 between Seligman and Ash Fork following a fatal accident involving a truck carrying radioactive materials.

Radioactive water from San Onofre leaks from tanker

A radioactive waste-disposal tanker transporting 4,500 gallons of wastewater from the San Onofre Power Plant leaked in Utah while en route to a disposal site.

Proposed rail routes for high-level waste to Yucca Mtn

The DOE is proposing rail routes that bring 40% of the high-level radioactive waste going to Yucca Mtn. from nuclear power plants all over the US through California - right up the Central Valley.

Group raises nuclear waste worries - Environmentalists claim hauling radioactive materials poses threat; Duke Energy disagrees

That truck in the next lane on Interstate 77 could be carrying radioactive nuclear waste, and if a new government program gets funded, more trucks with more waste could travel local highways, local environmental groups warned this week.

MORE THAN A TAD - A Study of the Problems With the Transport and Reprocessing of Nuclear Waste in the Carolinas

This report quotes the Department of Energy’s statement on the proposed Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) and questions if the aims of the project can be achieved with the currently available technology. The statement that nuclear power generation has less impact on global warming than fossil fuel plants is also challenged. As part of the GNEP program, eleven sites have been nominated for study as locations for nuclear fuel reprocessing plants and fast neutron reactors. Two of these sites, the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRS) and Barnwell, are adjacent to each other in South Carolina. If either or both these sites are selected, large quantities of high-level radioactive waste will have to be transported through communities in the Carolinas. Assuming that technology will be developed to make the reprocessing and “burning” of nuclear waste economically feasible, the report looks at the disposition of the waste at nuclear reactor sites and the routes that may be used to transport it to SRS and Barnwell.

Shearon Harris: Train derailed at plant

Rail cars on a train carrying spent radioactive nuclear fuel derailed at the Shearon Harris nuclear plant in Wake County Thursday at 6:57 p.m. But the nuclear waste sustained no damage and there were no injuries, according to Progress Energy.

(Nuclear) Waste (transportation) plan questioned

A proposal to ship as much as 20,000 tons of nuclear waste from Italy through the Port of Charleston and Port of New Orleans for eventual disposal in Utah is raising questions among members of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Committee.

Nuclear waste could travel through SLO

The latest plans for transporting highly radioactive waste from Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant to a proposed underground disposal site in Nevada allow for the possibility that the waste could be shipped by truck over local roads to San Luis Obispo to be loaded onto trains. However, officials with the federal Department of Energy say the exact method of transport will be made on a case-by-case basis for each nuclear power plant. This leaves open the possibility that Diablo’s waste could be taken by barge from the plant to Port Hueneme, where it could be loaded directly onto trains, thereby bypassing local roads.

Questions for the DOE at the Lone Pine Public Yucca Mountain Mtg

The Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility is a statewide organization acting under the premise that the state of California has jurisdictional rights over the “cost and reliability of electrical generation.” What we pay for electricity is a concern to citizens and ratepayers, and we have a right to know those costs. As authorized by the California Legislature, AB 1632 (Blakeslee-R-San Luis Obipso) requires the California Energy Commission to conduct a complete, cradle-to-grave full cost/benefit/risk analysis of nuclear power in determining whether it is in the state’s fiscal interest to continue generation electricity by nuclear means. Clearly, these costs must include those involving the high level radioactive waste produced by nuclear fission. To help us ascertain these costs, we ask the following questions:

Comments of the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility on the draft Repository Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement and draft Nevada Rail Corridor/Alignment Environmental Impact Statement

A4NR attended the November 29, 2007 Department of Energy (DOE) hearing in the remote area of Lone Pine and presented a list of questions for which we have yet to receive any responses from the DOE. We therefore begin our comments by requesting a 60 day extension on the comment period until these questions of great relevance to our state have been answered (attachment A). In addition, according to the Las Vegas Review Journal dated 1/08/08, the Yucca project is under funded and stalled and therefore a rush to force comments cannot be seen as in the public interest.

Sample letter to Sen. Boxer re: EIS on DOE's transportation routes to Yucca Mtn.

You can either use the attached letter as a template for your own or just print it out, sign it and put in your information at the bottom. Please note that mail sent to Congressional offices in Washington, DC must go through a very lengthy screening process. Letters are not only irradiated but are also vacuumed for possible contaminated substances. Because this process often delays letters for weeks, you may prefer to write to one of our California offices to ensure that your letter is delivered in a timely fashion. Here is the URL for the website with all of the addresses listed: http://boxer.senate.gov/contact/offices/index.cfm

Sample letter to Sen. Feinstein re: EIS on DOE's transportation routes to Yucca Mtn.

You can either use the attached letter as a template for your own or just print it out, sign it and put in your information at the bottom. Please note that mail sent to Congressional offices in Washington, DC must go through a very lengthy screening process. Letters are not only irradiated but are also vacuumed for possible contaminated substances. Because this process often delays letters for weeks, you may prefer to write to one of our California offices to ensure that your letter is delivered in a timely fashion. Here is the URL for the website with all of the addresses listed: http://feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactUs.StateOffices

Counties Potentially Affected by Shipments to Yucca Mt. Nevada

On June 16th 2008, the Department of Energy (DOE) released the Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for a Geologic Repository for the Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste at Yucca Mountain, Nye County, Nevada (SEIS). The SEIS identified and evaluated what DOE called “representative routes” that “it could use” for rail and highway shipments of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste to the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. DOE included state maps showing these representative routes, and tables estimating the number of rail and highway shipments through each state, in Appendix G of the SEIS. In order to assess the potential impacts on counties, the author of this report converted the representative routes into a format used by the Maptitude Geographic Information System software developed by Caliper Corporation. County data was downloaded from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) National Transportation Atlas Database http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_atlas_database/2007/ on 6/24/2008. The routes were overlaid onto the Counties and those districts that are traversed by SEIS routes were selected. Those areas that are traversed by the SEIS rail and/or highway routes are identified in this report. The total 2005 Census estimated population of the counties affected by these shipments is: 161,016,352 persons. This report was prepared for the State of Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.