NRC reports that 63 sites already have dry cask storage installed

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has published a map, dated November 2010, showing that 63 nuclear power plant sites in 33 states -- both operating and permanently closed plants included -- already have dry cask storage installed for high-level radioactive waste. Another 10 sites have applied for permission to install dry cask storage. Only 11 sites in the entire country, storing high-level radioactive waste in indoor pools, have yet to apply to NRC for permission to construct an "independent spent fuel storage installation" or ISFSI -- dry cask storage. As shown in the NRC graph at the left, almost all pools in the U.S. will be full to capacity by 2015, requiring dry cask storage if those reactors are to continue generating high-level radioactive waste.

"Homeland Security warns about threats against utilities"

Although this story by CNN does not mention nuclear power plants explicitly, it does feature a photograph of one! As the anti-nuclear movement has warned since even long before the 9/11 attacks, but especially so since, nuclear power plants and radioactive waste storage facilities are potentially catastrophic targets for terrorist attack, dirty bombs in our backyard of immense size.

For this reason, nearly 200 environmental groups, representing all 50 states, have urged for nearly a decade now that high-level radioactive waste be put in "hardened on-site storage," rather than kept in indoor pools and outdoor dry casks vulnerable to attacks.

Update on July 21, 2011 by admin

ABC News was explicit about nuclear power plants in its coverage of this story, reporting:

"U.S. officials were stunned last year in Yemen with the arrest of an alleged American recruit to al Qaeda, Sharif Mobley, of New Jersey, who had been employed as five different U.S. nuclear power plants in and around Pennsylvania after successfully passing federal background checks."

Defending Western Shoshone treaty rights against Yucca dump

CNN Money has quoted Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps, defending Western Shoshone Indian Nation treaty rights against the Yucca Mountain high-level radioactive waste dump proposal:

"...Yucca was originally Shoshone land, taken by the federal government in 1951 for weapons testing, said Kevin Kamps, a nuclear waste specialist at Beyond Nuclear.

And Nevada was chosen not because it was a good site, but because it had the fewest representatives in Washington of any state under consideration, critics say.

"The most common name for that legislation was the 'Screw Nevada Bill,' " said Kamps. "It never should have been targeted to begin with."..."

The U.S. government signed the "peace and friendship" Treaty of Ruby Valley with the Western Shoshone Indian Nation in 1863; it recognized Western Shoshone sovereignty at Yucca Mountain, throughout most of what is now the State of Nevada, as well as portions of California and Idaho.

The "Screw Nevada Bill," enacted into law in 1987, singled out Yucca Mountain as the only targeted site in the country to undergo further study as a potential high-level radioactive waste repository. The States of Washington and Texas, also on the target list, joined forces, and in coalition with eastern states also on the dumpsite target list, ganged up on Nevada. Texas and Washington had 32 and 12 Representatives in the U.S. House, respectively, whereas Nevada had but one. Texas and Washington also split between them the powerful positions of Speaker of the House and House Majority Leader at that time. Even Nevada's U.S. Senate delegation consisted of two low ranking first-term Senators. But one of those rookies was Harry Reid, who has since devoted his political career to stopping the Yucca dump, and now serves as Senate Majority Leader.

U.S., Japanese, Mongolian nuclear establishments conspire to dump high-level radioactive waste in Mongolia

Reuters cites a Mainichi Daily report that such U.S.-Japanese nuclear industry corporate players as General Electric-Hitachi and Toshiba-Westinghouse, in cahoots with Japanese federal ministries and the Mongolian government's uranium mining and nuclear development arm, were close to finalizing a deal on turning Mongolia into an international dumpsite for irradiated nuclear fuel, until the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe derailed the schedule. Undeterred by that, the partners in crime (or, at least it should be a crime) are still pursuing the plan.

Yet another nail in Yucca dump's coffin

2004 photo by Gabriela Bulisova showing frame of sacred ceremonial Western Shoshone sweat lodge with Yucca's west face in background.As reported by the Las Vegas Review Journal, U.S. Senator Harry Reid (Democrat-Nevada), Majority Leader, called today's decision by the Federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit regarding the Yucca Mountain, Nevada high-level radioactive waste dump "an important win in the long battle to put the ill-conceived Yucca Mountain project permanently to rest." The three-judge federal appeals panel ruled against a lawsuit filed by the States of Washington and South Carolina, Aiken County (South Carolina), and three private (nuclear industry affiliated) businessmen in Washington State seeking to block the Obama administration's cancellation of the Yucca dump.

July seems to be the month for major Yucca decisions. On July 9, 2002, the U.S. Senate voted 60 to 39 to allow the U.S. Department of Energy to proceed with a construction and operations license application to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which George W. Bush signed into law two weeks later. Then, on July 9, 2004, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals (although comprised of a different three judge panel) ruled in favor of the State of Nevada and an environmental coalition, ordering the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency back to the drawing board on its Yucca regulations (EPA had wanted to cut off regulations at 10,000 years, long before Yucca's worst radiation releases downstream; under court order, EPA acknowledged in 2008 that high-level radioactive waste at Yucca would remain hazardous for a million years!).

Although a major battle victory, today's ruling does not end this 25+ year long war over the Yucca dump. Under law, the NRC has until later this year (with the possibility for a one year extension) to issue a final "yea or nay" on DOE's 2008 Yucca application. In March 2010, Obama Energy Secretary Steven Chu moved to withdraw the application, but in late June 2010 a panel of three administrative law judges at NRC (the Atomic Safety (sic) and Licensing Board, or ASLB) rejected the motion. The five NRC Commissioners have yet to sustain or overrule the ASLB ruling.

Reflecting the national significance of this court ruling is the widespread media coverage: Associated Press; The Hill (times two!); Hanford News and Tri-City Herald (Washington State); Augusta Chronicle (Georgia). The coverage is likely to expand as word spreads.