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Beyond Nuclear Bulletin
June 13, 2024
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MONTICELLO SEEKS RENEWAL
Nuke leak reaches MS river
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is extending its comment period from June 10, 2024 to June 25, 2024 for the Monticello nuclear power station’s license renewal application for a second 20-year period in Minnesota. Xcel Energy is seeking the approval of a Site-Specific Environmental Impact Statement. Monticello’s current operating license expires September 8, 2030. The nuclear plant will then be 60 years old. This extension seeks to increase its operating license from 60 to 80 years. Monticello’s design is a General Electric Mark I Boiling Water Reactor (BWR), identical to the Japanese reactors that melted down after the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami knocked out all electrical power to keep the reactor cores cool. Email comments to NRC.
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ISP CISF
Dump appeals to SCOTUS
Interim Storage Partners, LLC, the dump company striving to construct and operate a 40,000 metric ton highly radioactive waste consolidated interim storage facility in Andrews County, Texas, has appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States. In March, by a 9 to 7 vote, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans sustained a three-judge panel's earlier ruling which vacated the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission license for ISP's CISF.
Beyond Nuclear and our environmental coalition partners are reviewing this latest appeal to ascertain our potential role in it, while we also await a ruling by a three-judge panel at the D.C. Circuit, regarding our federal appeals against Holtec's CISF in New Mexico.
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HOPE FOR RECA?
Law ends, now what?
The Radiation Exposure Compensation Actthat provided financial compensation for atomic test downwinders in three states and pre-1971 uranium miners, expired on June 10 after attempts to extend as well as expand the bill to include more states and affected communities were killed by the Republican House leadership. Despite passing the Senate with bi-partisan support, House Speaker Mike Johnson refused to offer the expanded version of RECA by the June 7 deadline after pulling an extension-only version of the bill. There is a small chance a separate RECA expansion amendment could be introduced although Republicans are likely to kill it as before. Proponents of RECA expansion described the Republican inaction as an “egregious injustice” and “a travesty”.
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ENVIRO CLOSE-UP
The New Nuclear Push, Part 2
Karl Grossman, long-serving host of "Enviro Close-Up" and a founding board of directors member of Beyond Nuclear, has interviewed our radioactive waste specialist for Part 2 of "The New Nuclear Push." Part 1 was published in mid-May. Part 2 focuses on environmental justice impacts related to highly radioactive waste dump fights, including on Western Shoshone land at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, as well as Indigenous and Latinx communities in the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico, targeted for consolidated interim storage facilities (see related entry). Part 2 also discusses other pie in the sky schemes, including thorium power, a nuclear weapons proliferation risk, as well as nuclear fusion power, closely related to thermonuclear weapons technology/development facilities.
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