What concerns you most about the nuclear industry?
WE CAN'T DO THIS ALONE - DONATE NOW
A Message from Rochelle
What concerns you most about the nuclear industry?
What frightens you most about growing stockpiles of highly radioactive waste on California's coast? Is it the fear that, long after the last kilowatt of power has been generated, our seismic coastline will remain the final resting place for hundreds of casks of high-level radioactive waste? This includes the tons of deadly materials already created, and also the prospect of adding all the waste to be generated if the plant is relicensed for another 20 years of operation.
The Alliance is setting its goals for 2008 and believes it is vital to understand your interest in our mission to stop the production of high-level radioactive waste on our fragile coast. Our mission is to limit this production to current licenses. Issues abound and we would like to know what concerns you most.
UPDATES…
Security:
On November 2, 2007 a contract worker entered the Palo Verde Nuclear Plant in Arizona with explosives. Though the utility detained the worker and the NRC declared that there was “no danger to the public”, the question remains how did this worker get hired in an era where we have been told the industry is doing all it can to protect the public? http://a4nr.org/library/security/11.02.2007-ap/ This follows on the heels of a breaking news story that revealed undercover video of nuclear reactor security guards sleeping while on duty in their “ready room.” http://a4nr.org/library/security/11.02.2007-abcnews
In late October, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ruled that before a license renewal can be granted at the Indian Point Nuclear Plant (north of New York City) the Nuclear Regulatory Commission must perform, among other considerations:
- A management plan for the spent fuel pools and other means of storage of spent fuel that will span the relicensing period.
- An evaluation of the leaks from the spent fuel pools, including the possible impacts to groundwater, and future actions to ensure that the leakage is stopped.
- An analysis of the impacts of intentional destructive acts (e.g., terrorism). The requirement to consider such acts is based on the Ninth District Court's decision in San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace v. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (June 2006).
- The inclusion and analysis of all new seismological data on the project area gathered since the Indian Point Generating Station was constructed.
The Alliance forwarded the examples above to California's Attorney General and asked that our state's highest legal officer become involved in insuring our state is involved in concrete solutions before expanding nuclear power beyond current licenses for Diablo Canyon and San Onofre.
Economics:
Though it appears that an initiative to overturn California's nuclear safety laws will not qualify for the ballot in 2008, the assemblyman behind this initiative has now introduced a bill to require that the state issue licenses for new nuclear plants if 20% of the generation is used for desalination. Every dollar used towards this effort will delay California's unprecedented efforts to provide a truly renewable energy future for its citizens. Though the initiative is doomed, this Assemblyman is receiving positive press coverage and is chipping away at the safety laws that have prevented new nuclear plants in our state until there is a permanent solution for the safe storage of radioactive waste. www.powerforcalifornia.net
A host of musicians have joined our efforts to remove over $50 billion dollars in 100% loan guarantees for new reactors in the United States. Our country is facing an economic downturn and taxpayer dollars should not be used to prop up an aging nuclear industry which is after fifty years is still unable to deal with the stockpiles of its deadly byproduct now sitting on our nation’s waterways and oceans. If you have not already signed the petition, please go to: www.nukefree.org
Waste:
Hundreds of tons of high-level radioactive waste are now stored on our coast and the Department of Energy announced in October that nation's only proposed nuclear waste facility is facing major budget shortfalls. The Yucca Mountain project, which began in 1983, now requires up to three times it current funding levels to be completed and the opening date of 2017 will again have to be delayed. http://a4nr.org/library/waste/waste.yuccamtn/
According to the McClatchy news service report, at a congressional hearing held on Halloween, “New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama on Wednesday declared themselves flatly opposed to building a nuclear waste repository in Nevada, a clear indication that the 2008 presidential election could end a 25-year effort to build the controversial dump. Clinton delivered her opposition in person and Obama by letter as the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held its first hearing on Yucca Mountain since Democrats took over Congress in January.” http://a4nr.org/library/waste/waste.yuccamtn/10.31.2007-redorbit/
There are a host of other issues such as: degradation to marine life from billions of gallons of cooling water flowing through reactors each day, failure of aging components, increasing retirements of experienced personal at reactors across the country, threats of earthquakes and coastal erosion at California's reactors.
In order to ensure all these issues are addressed at a state and national level the Alliance needs your commitment to help. We have operated since our inception on a shoestring budget, but in order to achieve our mission of limiting high-level radioactive waste on our coast and preventing the gutting of California's nuclear safety laws we need to expand. Volunteers are needed for research, canvassing, educational events, but most of all we need your financial support. A legacy of inadequately protected radioactive waste cannot be what this generation leaves to the future. Please send what you can today and help the Alliance to speak to your concerns before our state legislature and the federal government.
WE CAN'T DO THIS ALONE - DONATE NOW
In Peace
Rochelle
Rochelle Becker, Executive Director Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility
www.a4nr.org
(858) 337 2703
Breaking News
Here's the latest news
-
LA Times Letter to the Editor
Read more -
FRANCE'S NUCLEAR CONUNDRUM - Atomic World Champ on the Ropes
France is proud of having the world's most developed nuclear energy infrastructure, but a series of incidents at the Tricastin nuclear power plant has shaken its self-confidence. Is public sentiment about nuclear power about to shift? The winegrowers have already made their move. No longer will they label their product Côteaux du Tricastin. Why? Because the name Tricastin is slowly beginning to stand for something far removed from fine wine.
Read more -
Efficiency, renewable energy are much cheaper than nukes
When Arjun Makhijani talks about generating electricity with nuclear power, he knows of what he speaks. His Ph.D. is from UC-Berkeley in nuclear engineering, and he has authored numerous books on energy, including the first evaluation conducted of energy efficiency potential in the U.S. economy. His most recent tome, “Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free,” is a no-nonsense policy guide for ending our dependence on fossil fuels without incurring massive debt — and courting potential disaster — by expanding our nuclear-generation capacity.
Read more -
The Misconception of Nuclear Power
Read more -
WATER WORRIES GROW
On a hazy summer day, a pair of anglers fish on a man-made lake in PPL’s Susquehanna Riverlands wildlife habitat. Above them, the massive cooling towers of the Susquehanna nuclear plant billow white plumes of vapor, the byproduct of millions of gallons of water the two reactors consume daily from the river to cool the intense heat generated by nuclear fission
Read more -
42-Square-Mile Federal Uranium Program Challenged: Threatens Contamination of Public Land, Wildlife Habitat Communities, and Precious Western Water
A coalition of conservation groups filed suit in federal court today, challenging the Department of Energy’s decision to vastly expand its uranium mining program on 42 square miles of public land near the spectacular Dolores River Canyon, a tributary to the Colorado River in southwest Colorado.
Read more -
ACCIDENTS MAKE NUCLEAR QUESTIONS LOOM LARGE
The recent proliferation of accidents at nuclear power plants in France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Slovenia and elsewhere in Europe has made calls for greater reliance on nuclear energy questionable, experts say.
Read more -
'Major discovery' from MIT primed to unleash solar revolution
Scientists mimic essence of plants' energy storage system
Read more -
Don’t Drink the Nuclear Kool-Aid
We can't let the nuclear power industry use global warming as an opportunity to sell its insanely expensive and dangerous power plants.
Read more -
France: Nuclear Leak Announced
French nuclear safety authorities and the nuclear giant Areva said that a leak had occurred at one of Areva’s nuclear fuel plants, the second leak at an Areva nuclear power plant in two weeks.
Read more -
NUCLEAR POWER, FRANCE HALTS TRICASTIN POWER STATION
The French nuclear safety agencies have asked the company owned by the Areva Socatri group to temporarily stop operations at the treatment plant for the Tricastin power station is the south of France. On Monday it was discovered that the plants were leaking water which contained Uranium and which was running off into the surrounding rivers.
Read more -
River use banned after French uranium leak
Residents in the Vaucluse, a popular southern French tourist destination, were banned yesterday from drinking well-water or swimming or fishing in two rivers after a uranium leak from one of France's nuclear power plants.
Read more -
Nuclear Recycling Fails the Test
Over the past few years, attention to the recycling of nuclear power spent fuel has grown. Fears of global warming due to fossil fuel burning have given nuclear energy a boost; over the next 15 years dozens of new power reactors are planned world-wide. To promote nuclear energy, the Bush administration is seeking to establish international spent nuclear fuel recycling centers that are supposed to reduce wastes, recycle uranium, and convert nuclear explosive materials, such as plutonium to less troublesome elements in advanced power reactors.
Read more -
NRC Found Lax in Oversight of Fire Safety Regulations at Reactors
A new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that reviewed the performance of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in regulating federally-mandated fire protection standards at U.S. nuclear reactors was released this week. The report confirmed that the NRC has for three decades consistently mishandled fire protection violations at the country’s nuclear power plants.
Read more -
Radioactive Waste Poses a Serious Threat to California
According to a recent LA Times headline, the “Yucca Mountain safety plan is doomed.” If Yucca Mountain is “doomed,” what does this mean for the hundreds of tons of highly radioactive waste located on California’s fragile coast?
Read more -
Can American be carbon-free and nuclear-free?
Think what a burden would be lifted from the collective American psyche if we no longer had to depend on foreign countries for the oil that is the lifeblood of our economy and our way of life. In a new book, "Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy," electrical engineer Arjun Makhijani contends that its possible to achieve that goal without turning to nuclear generation. The Citizen-Times interviewed Makhijani when he visited Asheville recently. This is an edited transcript of that interview.
Read more -
Five Myths About Nuclear Energy
Atomic energy is among the most impractical and risky of available fuel sources. Private financiers are reluctant to invest in it, and both experts and the public have questions about the likelihood of safely storing lethal radioactive wastes for the required million years. Reactors also provide irresistible targets for terrorists seeking to inflict deep and lasting damage on the United States. The government’s own data show that U.S. nuclear reactors have more than a one-in-five lifetime probability of core melt, and a nuclear accident could kill 140,000 people, contaminate an area the size of Pennsylvania, and destroy our homes and health.
Read more -
Video: “Dr. Frank von Hippel discusses nuclear fuel reprocessing with Ben Moore of the Coastal Conservation League” (South Carolina)
On May 29, Dr. Frank von Hippel of Princeton University gave two talks on reprocessing (Global Nuclear Energy Partnership) at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, SC. His evening talk to around 100 people kicked off a national nuclear waste summit that activists around the US attended.
Read more -
Yucca Mountain safety plan is 'doomed,' nuclear company says
In an earthquake, casks of radioactive waste could bounce and roll in a 'chaotic melee,' Holtec International says of the Energy Department proposal.
Read more -
SCE&G requests 37 percent rate increase - Customers would see monthly bills rise over 11 years to pay for two nuclear reactors
SCE&G ratepayers’ bills would rise 37 percent by 2019 if the state approves the Columbia utility’s plan to start paying costs upfront for two large nuclear reactors it would build 25 miles northwest of Columbia.
Read more
Recent Articles
Recent articles of interest posted on the ANR website
-
Uranium Mining, Enrichment & Waste
Read more -
ALERT - ALERT - ALERT - ALERT - ALERT
(This is used on the home page as part of a content panel)
Read more -
Sign Petition to NRC to Block Yucca Mountain Dump
Background: In early June, the U.S. Dept. of Energy filed a license application with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, seeking permission to construct and operate the still pending high-level radioactive waste dump at Yucca Mountain , Nevada . The NRC will now review and then docket this application, allowing only a small window for any remaining public intervention. Although the DOE application is more than 8,000 pages long with 30 million pages of supporting documents, the NRC contends it will docket the application in three months. Once docketed, a three- to four-year licensing proceeding would commence, ending around 2012, most likely with NRC approval. The culmination of this review comprises the biggest NRC licensing proceeding in history. Our View: NRC is rushing its docketing review in order to launch the Yucca licensing proceeding before George W. Bush and his pro-Yucca Mountain administration exit the White House. But despite its huge size and cost – more than $11 billion to date that will likely balloon to at least $70 billion if the dump is built and operated – the DOE application and document collection is missing the most important pieces. These include: a final repository design; final national transport plan; final design for the "Transport, Aging, and Disposal" canister in which the waste would be “permanently” sealed; final EPA regulations on radiation releases; and meaningful treatment of Western Shoshone Indian land rights at Yucca under the "peace and friendship" Treaty of Ruby Valley signed by the U.S. government in 1863. Consequently, the NRC should not docket the application and should halt the Yucca licensing proceeding. What You Can Do: Follow the link where you will find U.S. Senator Harry Reid's "Petition to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to Reject the License Application for a Nuclear Waste Dump at Yucca Mountain ." Please sign it, and circulate it to others for signatures.
Read more -
Executive Summary: Special issue of Science for Democractic Action
Executive Summary: Special issue of Science for Democractic Action [PDF 2.43MB]
Read more -
Sign on to the Statement of Principles to Achieve a Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free U.S. Energy System by 2050
Read more -
PURCHASE THE PAPERBACK
Purchase the paperback ($19.95, or $27.95 to addresses outside US/Canada/Mexico)
Read more
LA Times Letter to the Editor