Sep 29, 2024: The case against restarting Three Mile Island’s Unit-1

From EarthTimes:

It was front-page news across America this February when the Vermont Senate voted to shut down the troubled Vermont Yankee reactor in 2012.  But what most Americans don't know is that the nuclear industry also lost all of its seven other major state legislative pushes this year  going 0-8 and putting yet another nail in the coffin of the myth of the "nuclear renaissance" in the United States, according to an analysis by the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS).

Even as some in Congress would lavish tens of billions of dollars ? and even unlimited ? loan guarantees on the embattled nuclear power industry, state lawmakers in Arizona, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Vermont and West Virginia and Wisconsin said a firm "no" this year to more nuclear power.  The legislative issues ranged from attempts by nuclear industry lobbyists to overturn bans on new reactors to "construction work in progress" (CWIP) assessments to pay for new reactors to reclassifying nuclear power as a "renewable resource."    

How bad is the nuclear power industry doing in state legislatures?  In 2009, the industry went 0-5 with reactor moratorium overturn efforts in Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Minnesota, and West Virginia. Even after stepping up its on-the-ground efforts in 2010 with paid lobbyists and extensive public relations efforts in states like Wisconsin, the industry again came up with nothing.

Read more

The Clean and Safe Energy Coaltion (CASEnergy) is a public relations campaign for new reactors launched in 2006, funded by the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) industry group, and headed by former Bush Environmental Protection Agency administrator Christine Todd Whitman and former Greenpeace activist Patrick Moore (who left that group in 1986). CASEnergy was launched on April 24, 2006. On its website, the PR firm Hill & Knowlton boasted that the group is "a national grassroots organization that advocates the benefits of nuclear energy. The CASEnergy Coalition is a Hill & Knowlton campaign run out of the Washington, DC office."

Read more 

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Loyola University, Lakeshore Campus Chicago, IL

Workshops and Speakers on various aspects of the radioactive waste crisis

1:00 to 1:30pm – Introductory session (plenary)

Why Chicago? Why now? What the grassroots anti-nuclear movement needs to do to protect people and the environment from radioactive waste.

1:30 to 2:00 – Plenary on First Set of Workshop Topics: Parking Lot Dumps, Reprocessing, and HOSS (workshop leaders will present short summaries of their particular break out session, so participants can choose which workshop most interests them)

2:00 to 3:15 -- First Set of Workshops (break out sessions) 1. Reprocessing and plutonium policy

2. Hardened on-site Storage (HOSS) as opposed to current on-site outdoor dry cask and indoor pool storage

3. So-called commercial “low-level” waste generation, processing, storage, disposal, “recycling” and “release”

4. Radioactive waste transport Issues and away-from-reactor commercial high-level radioactive waste storage (centralized interim storage, monitored retrievable storage, or parking lot dumps)

3:15 to 3:45 Rest Break

3:45 to 4:15 – Plenary on Second Set of Workshop Topics: Yucca, WIPP, and Health (again, workshop leaders will present short summaries of their particular break out session, so participants can choose which workshop most interests them)

4:15 to 5:30 Second Set of Workshops (break out sessions) 1. Prevention is the best medicine: stopping new uranium mines and reactors 2. Yucca Mountain and other targeted repositories/disposal sites 3. Military waste sources and current policy challenges (WIPP and other DOE sites) 4. Radioactivity’s hazards to health, now and in the future

EVENING PROGRAM beginning at 7pm:

Keynote speaker(s) to be announced, as well as musical entertainment, including singer/songwriter Victor McManemy of Traverse City, Michigan.

Greetings fellow walkers and hosts,

The International Peace Walk for a Nuclear Free Future finally completed it's journey as we walked into New York City last Saturday, joining with the other three walks that had arrived and the thousands of others who were converging for the NPT Review Conference.  Receiving this letter means you touched the walk in some way, either as a walker, hosting us, bringing us food, or helping out in some other way; one way or the other your email got into our records.  We are so grateful for all the tremendous efforts everybody made as we passed through so many communities and met so many wonderful people.  You have inspired and energized us to keep working to end the nuclear madness that threatens us all.

We in Footprints for Peace hope we can all keep in touch.  The best way for you to find out what we are doing is to go to our website and sign up for our newsletter, and you can become a friend of Footprints for Peace on Facebook.  We are planning a couple of events this summer you might be interested in:

• Run for Freedom, June 12 and 13 we will run for Leonard Peltier
• Bikes Not Bombs, July 29 to August 6 we will bike from Portsmouth, OH to Oak Ridge, TN for the Names and Remembrance Ceremony on Hiroshima day at Y-12

There is information about both of these events on our website.  We also support and/or will participate in the following events:

• Flower Festival at the Great Smoky Mountains Peace Pagoda, May 15 (atlantadojo.tripod.com)
• Mountain Justice Summer training camp, May 27 to June 6, on Pine Mountain, KY (www.mountainjustice.org)
• Resistance for a Nuclear Free Future, July 4th weekend, Maryville College and Y-12, Oak Ridge, TN (nukewatch.com/30th/index.htm)
• Scotland International Peace Walk for a Nuclear Free Future, July 31 to August 29 (information on our website)

As we continue to replenish our souls in anticipation of a busy summer, we remember that the Women's Walk for Peace from Brisbane to Canberra in Australia is still going strong.  Information about that walk is also on our website. We send them our love and support.

in peace and solidarity,
Jon Blickenstaff
FootPrints for Peace
www.footprintsforpeace.net

[img_assist|nid=528|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=640|height=476]

From CNN:

As oil began approaching the coast of the United States, environmental scientists said the effects of the spill in the Gulf of Mexico could have ecological and biological consequences for years, if not decades.

The intricate ecosystem is a major source of seafood for the United States and hundreds of species of animals and plants are at risk, experts said.

Some areas in the path of the slick are particularly sensitive to problems because unlike the rocky coast of Alaska hit by oil from the Exxon Valdez disaster, much of the coastline that will be hit by the BP spill consists of marshy areas where the water is calmer and more difficult to clean.

The marshes are in extreme danger, said a biologist with the University of Houston who studies coastal wetlands.

Read more

From Reuters:

The radiation-related death of a scrap metal worker has raised concerns over nuclear safety in India, at a time when the Asian power is wooing foreign players to its $150 billion civilian nuclear market.

Authorities have launched a probe into the unauthorized disposal of a disused machine from the chemistry department of Delhi University, which contained the radioactive material cobalt-60 and ended up in a scrap metal hub in the capital.

A man died in hospital from exposure last week, in a case a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was quoted as saying was the most serious worldwide since 2006.

Read more

From BusinessWeek:

Pennsylvania officials and activists say they are glad the federal government is taking another look at whether people who live near nuclear plants have a higher risk of getting cancer.

The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced last month that it was asking the National Academy of Sciences to do a "state-of-the-art study" on cancer risk for populations surrounding nuclear power facilities.

The academy is being asked to update a 1990 study released by the National Cancer Institute that found no increased risk of cancer deaths in counties surrounding 62 nuclear facilities, "including all of the nuclear power reactors operational before 1982," the commission said.

NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said the question of possible health effects comes up frequently from the public.

Read more

From the Brattleboro Reformer:

The New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution will have a chance to argue its case that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's oversight of management and maintenance at Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant is lacking.

On May 5, the NRC's petition review board will hear arguments from the NEC in support of its contention.

NEC filed the petition requesting the NRC undertake enforcement actions in response to Entergy's "failure" to understand Yankee's design basis and "the obvious inadequacy of Entergy VY's underground piping aging management plan ..."

NEC requested that the NRC conduct a diagnostic evaluation to assess both NRC and VY performance since Entergy assumed management of "the besieged and troubled facility."

Read more