"Fighting the Legacy of Enrico Fermi"

NRC file photo of Fermi 2Michael Leonardi of Occupy Toledo has published an essay in Counterpunch, re-run at Ecowatch, about the resistance to the Fermi nuclear power plant on the Lake Erie shoreline near Monroe, MI. Leonardi links to Beyond Nuclear's involvement in "Freeze Our Fukushimas" efforts to shutdown Fermi 2 (see photo, left), the largest Fukushima Daiichi twin GE Mark I reactor in the world, with around 550 tons of high-level radioactive waste stuck in its storage pool, more than Fukushima Daiichi Units 1 to 4 put together.

Leonardi also mentions the struggle to nip the proposed new "Fermi 3" reactor, a GE-Hitachi "Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor" (ESBWR), in the bud. Beyond Nuclear's website hosts the compiled submissions by the the environmental coalition resisting Fermi 3, submitted in response to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Draft Environmental Impact Statement. Beyond Nuclear, along with Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination, Citizens Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario (CEA), Don't Waste Michigan, and the Sierra Club Michigan Chapter -- represented by Toledo attorney Terry Lodge -- continue to officially intervene against Fermi 3 in the NRC's Atomic Safety (sic) and Licensing Board proceeding.

The Fermi nuclear power plant represents an international risk, as reflected by CEA's involvement: Ontario is a short 8 miles away from Fermi, across Lake Erie. In addition, the Walpole Island First Nation is only 50 miles away

Toledo Blade editorializes in support of consideration of renewables as alternative to Davis-Besse license extension

The Toledo Blade, which in the past has often taken pro-nuclear editorial positions, has nonetheless come out in support of a binational environmental coalition's contention that renewables, such as wind and solar power, should be considered as an alternative to a 20 year license extension at the problem-plagued Davis-Besse atomic reactor, with its cracked containment. Beyond Nuclear authored a wind power contention in Dec., 2010 that won admission from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) for a hearing on the merits; the ASLB likewise admitted a solar photovoltaic (PV) contention authored by the environmental coalition's expert witness, Dr. Al Compaan, an emeritus professor and former chair of the University of Toledo physics dept., a PV inventer. However, the full five member NRC Commission recently sided with FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company's appeal of the ASLB rulings, and overrode them, rejecting any consideration of renewable alternatives. The NRC Commission did the same thing at Seabrook, NH, where Beyond Nuclear authored a contention that offshore wind power in the Gulf of Maine could replace that atomic reactor's electrical output. Terry Lodge of Toledo is the attorney representing the environmental coalitions in both proceedings.

Citizens Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario is a member of the environmental coalition opposing the Davis-Besse license extension, just as it is opposing the Fermi 3 new reactor proposal in southeast Michigan. Both the Davis-Besse and Fermi nuclear power plants are located on the Lake Erie shore, not far from the Canadian border.