Beyond Nuclear calls for NRC to name reactors with potentially defective parts

Beyond Nuclear is calling for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to name the U.S. reactors that might be operating with defective parts imported from France. While potentially affected French reactors have closed down as a safety precaution, the U.S. NRC has refused to even name the affected reactors let alone mandate precautionary closures until the parts are checked. Beyond Nuclear is filing an emergency enforcement 2.206 petition and a Freedom of Information Act Request to demand that the NRC release the full list of reactors with flawed parts; inform the affected reactor communities of the risks; and require the shutdown of reactors with potentially defective reactor components.

As Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps stated in our press release:“Every one of those potentially defective parts are safety-significant and could lead to meltdown if they fail.” 

A Greenpeace France report indentified 19 U.S. reactors at 11 sites that could be operating with defective safety-essential components from Areva's Le Creusot forge in France. They are:

Prairie Island in Minnesota; North Anna and Surry in Virginia; Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania; Arkansas One in Arkansas; Turkey Point and St Lucie in Florida; DC Cook in Michigan; Salem in New Jersey; Callaway in Missouri; and Millstone in Connecticut. The Crystal River reactor in Florida was also listed but is now permanently closed.

Read the full press release.

World War Three, by Mistake

Harsh political rhetoric, combined with the vulnerability of the nuclear command-and-control system, has made the risk of global catastrophe greater than ever. By Eric Scholosser, in the New Yorker.

Environmental coalition defends its legal appeal, seeks to block Fermi 3 proposed new reactor in Michigan

Terry Lodge, legal counsel for the environmental coalition resisting Fermi 3

An environmental coalition, including Beyond Nuclear, is entering its 10th year of resistance (2008-2017) against Detroit Edison's proposed new Fermi Unit 3 reactor in southeast Michigan on the Great Lakes shoreline.

On Dec. 23rd, Toledo-based attorney Terry Lodge filed a Reply Brief, in defense of a legal appeal originally filed in October, at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the second highest court in the land, just below the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Reply rebuts challenges to the appeal brought by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and Detroit Edison (DTE).

The appeal challenges NRC's exclusion of the transmission line corridor from the Environmental Impact Statement, a violation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The appeal also challenges DTE's violations of NRC's quality assurance (QA) regulations (Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Associates, Inc. serves as the coalition's QA expert).

More.

UN General Assembly approves historic resolution seeking to abolish nuclear weapons

The International Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons has reported on this story.

Physicians for Social Responsibility has put out a press release lauding the vote.

Putin & Trump call for strenthening and expansion of nuclear weapons arsenals

A quarter-century after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President-elect Donald J. Trump have, in remarkably similar language, called for the strengthening and expansion of their countries' respective nuclear weapons arsenals.

Politico reprinted Putin's words: "We need to strengthen the military potential of strategic nuclear forces, especially with missile complexes that can reliably penetrate any existing and prospective missile defense systems," he said, according to multiple news reports.

The BBC has reprinted the full text from Trump's Tweet this morning: "The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its sense regarding nukes".

For some hopeful and welcome relief from Putin's and Trump's fearful and fearsome proposals, check out this moving Counterpunch article by John LaForge of Nukewatch Wisconsin, "In Sentencing Radical Pacifists, Judge Miles Lord Assailed 'Worship of the Bomb.'"

More.

Update on December 23, 2016 by admin

Trump doubled down on his Tweet. As reported by Democracy Now!, Trump was quoted on MSNBC's "Morning Joe":

Joe Scarborough: "Mika asked the president-elect, while we had the opportunity, what his position was on—trying to clarify the tweet yesterday regarding the nuclear arsenal. And the president-elect told you what?"

Mika Brzezinski: "Let it be an arms race. We will outmatch them at every pass."

Joe Scarborough: "And outlast them all."

Mika Brzezinski: "And outlast them all."

[Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman, in an interview with Greenpeace USA executive director Annie Leonard about Trump's Strangelovian Tweet, pointed out "And, yes, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski were sitting in their pajamas in front of a fire as they spoke." CommonDreams coverage added "...and slippers," complete with a photo.]