"N.R.C. Nomination Shines Spotlight on Waste-Disposal Issue"

Dr. Allison Macfarlane, who served on President Obama's Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear FutureThe New York Times has reported that Wednesday's confirmation hearing on Dr. Allison Macfarlane, proposed by President Obama to chair the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), will likely focus on "waste, waste, and earthquakes." Coincidentally coming on the heels of a U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruling last Friday, vacating the NRC's "Nuclear Waste Confidence Decision," the already thorny high-level radioactive waste dilemma just got thornier. 

If confirmed, Dr. Macfarlane would represent "a new day and a new age and a new way of looking at things,” as the first geologist ever to chair the NRC. One of the many risks thrown into the national spotlight in the aftermath of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe is whether or not U.S. atomic reactors east of the Rockies were actually built well enough to withstand earthquakes, now known possible at places such as Entergy's Indian Point nuclear power plant near New York City. With the impossiblity of evacuating more than 20 million people within 50 miles in the event of an emergency, significant earthquake fault lines have come to light in the vicinity of Indian Point, decades after the construction of its two still-operating reactors just 25-30 miles from midtown Manhattan.

Dr. Macfarlane also literally "wrote the book" on why Yucca Mountain is unsuitable as a high-level radioactive waste dumpsite. She edited Uncertainty Underground, a 2006 technical look at Yucca's hydrologic, geologic, seismic, volcanic, and many other flaws.

U.S. Court of Appeals has no confidence in NRC's "Nuclear Waste Con Game"

Last Friday, in a major environmental victory, a U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit three-judge panel unanimously ruled against the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) "Nuclear Waste Confidence Decision." Plaintiffs, including the States of CT, NJ, NY, and VT -- as well as an environmental coalition comprised of BREDL (Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League), NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council), Riverkeeper, and SACE (Southern Alliance for Clean Energy), represented by NRDC's Geoff Fettus and Diane Curran of the law firm Harmon, Curran, Speilberg + Eisenberg, LLP -- successfully argued that NRC's environmental assessment of the safety and security risks of on-site storage of high-level radioactive waste at atomic reactors has been woefully inadequate for decades. Proposed new reactor licenses, and old reactor license extensions, could now face major delays, as NRC is forced, under court order, to carry out the long overdue environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

However, anti-nuclear watchdogs must re-double their vigilance, as the nuclear establishment in industry and government is already twisting this court victory into a call for "centralized interim storage" parking lot dumps. This would rush risky "Mobile Chernobyls" or "dirty bombs on wheels" onto the roads, rails, and waterways of most states, passing through major metropolitan areas where high-level radioactive waste is not currently located.

The Senate Energy and Water Appropriations bill (S. 2465; see Section 312, pages 58 to 62), sponsored by U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), has already passed her subcommittee, as well as the full U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee (ironically enough, on April 26th, the 26th annual commemoration of the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe). S. 2465 would establish and fund "pilot programs" in centralized interim storage, and must be stopped. Help block it by contacting your two U.S. Senators, as well as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). Urge that S. 2465 not be moved to the Senate floor, due to the risky radioactive waste shell game its Section 312 would launch. 

Beyond Nuclear has posted a link to the court ruling, as well as compiled plaintiffs' statements and media coverage.

"Not on our Great Lakes: anti-nuclear activist criticizes proposed Ontario waste site"

Jim Bloch of The Voice, serving northern Macomb and St. Clair Counties in eastern Michigan, has reported on the speaking tour of Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps across Michigan, which featured showings of the documentary film "Into Eternity" about the proposed geologic repository for high-level radioactive waste in Finland. The tour was organized by Kay Cumbow of Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination (CACC), to ring the alarm about the DGR ("Deep Geologic Repository," or DUD, as Greenpeace Canada's Dave Martin dubbed it, for Deep Underground Dump) targeted by the nuclear utility Ontario Power Generation (OPG) at the Bruce Nuclear Complex on the Ontario shoreline of Lake Huron, 50 miles from Michigan and upstream of such communities on the U.S. side as Alpena, Bay City, Port Huron, and Detroit.

Although supposedly "only" for so-called "low" and "intermediate" level radioactive wastes from 20 atomic reactors in Ontario, as Bloch reports, the DUD could easily morph into a catch-all for every category of radioactive waste, including high-level, from 22 operable and additional shutdown reactors across Canada. Concerned citizens and environmental groups are urged to express their opposition to Canadian decision makers by visiting the proposal's environmental assessment website. The Great Lakes (photo, above left), 20% of the world's surface fresh water, and drinking water supply for 40 million people in the U.S., Canada, and a large number of Native American/First Nations, would be put at radiological risk.

It's interesting that OPG chose to cut off its consideration of earthquakes in the area at just 180 years ago: 200 years ago, the New Madrid quakes of 1811 and 1812 -- the largest in North American recorded history -- were powerful enough to impact the Great Lakes region, even though they were epicentered in Missouri. Native American oral history in Michigan, for example, speaks of tsunami-like waves on the Great Lakes. The DUD's entrance tunnel mouth would be located about a half-mile from the Lake Huron shore, as would its surface facilities for handling and storing radioactive wastes.

Fears continue over potential collapse of Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 high-level radioactive waste storage pool

Common Dreams has reported on May 28th in an article entitled "Growing Fear Over Fukushima Fuel Pool 4 as Wall Bulge Detected".

The article is based largely on New York Times reporting in an article entitled "Concerns Grow About Spent Fuel Rods at Fukushima Daiichi," by Hiroko Tabuchi and Matthew L. Wald on May 26, 2012.

The New York Times reported that Goshi Hosono, Japan's environment and nuclear minister, inspected "the No. 4 reactor building at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, Saturday, May 26, 2012. The visit by Hosono, apparently aimed at demonstrating the safety of the facility, came amid renewed concerns about conditions at the plant's No. 4 reactor after its operator reported a bulging of the building's wall. (Toshiaki Shimizu, Japan Pool) [Yellow reactor containment dome at center background.]" (see photo, left; note that the high-level radioactive waste pool is located beneath the white plastic tarp just beside Hosono on his left).

The New York Times also quotes Hiroaki Koide, an assistant professor at Kyoto University’s Research Reactor Institute and one of the experts raising concerns: “The No. 4 reactor is visibly damaged and in a fragile state, down to the floor that holds the spent fuel pool. Any radioactive release could be huge and go directly into the environment.”

(Koide spoke on May 5th at the University of Chicago. Beyond Nuclear partner Nuclear Energy Information Service (NEIS) information tabled at the event, while Beyond Nuclear covered the Chicago Green Festival.)

The New York Times also quoted Tadahiro Katsuta, an associate professor of nuclear science at Tokyo’s Meiji University: “Japan did not want to admit that the nuclear fuel cycle might be a failed policy, and did not think seriously about a safer, more permanent way to store spent fuel.”

(In August 2010, Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps was introduced to Dr. Katsuta in Tokyo, not long after Kevin had visited Fukushima Daiichi. In September 2010, Dr. Katsuta requested that Kevin help him arrange meetings in Washington, D.C. Dr. Katsuta was working in collaboration with Dr. Frank Von Hippel at Princeton University on a study regarding alternatives to reprocessing irradiated nuclear fuel in Japan. While the Nuclear Energy Institute's Steve Kraft, and the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future's Allison Macfarlane, gladly accepted Dr. Katsuta's invitation to meet, not one office at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission accepted the request. This despite initially positive responses from a number of NRC Commissioners' offices, as well as NRC's Spent Fuel Project Office, its international relations office, etc. Apparently, the kabosh was put on any meetings taking place at NRC once the Office of Public Affairs found out. NRC's OPA is headed by Elliot Brenner, who previously headed communications for Dick Cheney.)

Update on May 31, 2012 by admin

On May 30th, Thom Hartmann, host of The Big Picture, interviewed Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear about the latest news on Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4's high-level radioactive waste storage pool (this discussion begins at minute 7:30 -- prior to that, Thom and Kevin discuss the breaking news of Fukushima radioactively contaminated bluefin tuna documented on the California coast).

Update on May 31, 2012 by admin

Urge your two U.S. Senators and your U.S. Representative to support U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden's (D-OR) call for the U.S. government to offer assistance to the Japanese government to accelerate removal of the irradiated fuel from the precarious pool. Phone your Congress Members via the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. Also contact the White House with the same urgent request.

"Fukushima Daiichi: It May Be Too Late Unless the Military Steps In"

Workers in white radiation suits beside the surface of the elevated high-level radioactive waste storage pool at Fukushima DaiichiJapanese diplomat Akio Matsumura has posted a new blog proposing that military intervention be deployed to prevent the worst from happening at Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 (see photo, left). He proposes that the Japan Self-Defense Forces be deployed to Unit 4 to offload high-level radioactive waste, before another, almost inevitable earthquake topples the building and its irradiated nuclear fuel catches fire. Unit 4's pool holds 8 times the radioactive Cesium-137 released by Chernobyl. But a fire in Unit 4's pool would very likely lead to the evacuation of the entire site, risking 85 times Chernobyl's hazardous Cesium-137 escaping if all 7 of Fukushima Daiichi's pools are allowed to boil dry and catch fire (not to mention what more would happen if its three melted down reactor cores are no longer cooled either).