Illinois votes to reverse ban on new reactors

With little debate, according to news reports, and even less press coverage, the Illinois State Senate voted to reverse a ban on building new nuclear power plants in the state. Illinois is already the state with the most reactors - 11 - in the country. There was a loan vote against the reversal fromSen. Jeff Schoenberg, D-Evanston. The condition of the original ban was that no new nuclear plants could be built " until such time as the federal government has an operational disposal facility for the dangerous and long-lived high-level radioactive wastes (HLRW) they would generate," according to Dave Kraft of Nuclear Energy Information Service. Kraft decried the vote, stating: "Beware the Ides of March – and the ignorance of the some Illinois legislators on nuclear matters."