Train carrying most radioactive cargo ever about to leave France for Germany

On November 5 and 6, a train carrying vitrified radioative waste from the La Hague reprocessing facility in France will begin its Germany to Gorleben, Germany, constituting the most radioactive train cargo to date. Eleven CASTOR casks will travel to Germany's temporary waste site, the scene of numerous protests. The transport risks exposures to citizens along the route as well as posing a serious security target. The French anti-nuclear network, Sortir du Nucleaire, has published the cask transport timetable and has expressed grave concerns at the risks posed by the transport. The network also points out that it is reprocessing that has necessitated the dangerous transport of this highly radioactive waste in the first place.

Update on November 3, 2010 by admin

Great new logo to go with the protest.

2,000 German activists form human chain around parliament as government approves reactor license extensions

The German Bundestag (parliament) voted on Thursday to extend the lifespan of the country's 17 nuclear power plants, overturning a decision made 10 years ago by the then ruling Social Democrat-Green Party. The decision has infuriated the opposition as well as hundreds of thousands of activists who have already taken to the streets on several occasions in huge numbers to protest relicensing. As the decision was made, 2,000 protesters formed a human chain around the Bundestag. The Social Democrats and Greens have decried the decision and promise to reverse it should they regain leadership of the country. They also object to the government's apparent by-passing of the lower house, or Bundesrat, where Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats do not enjoy a majority. During the protest against the vote, Greenpeace climbers scaled the roof of the CDU party headquarters and unfurled a banner showing Merkel celebrating with a leader of one of the major nuclear companies.

Serious corrosion and a hole found in Turkey Point reactor containment

Workers at the Turkey Point nuclear power plant in South Florida have discovered a rusty quarter-sized hole in the steel liner of  the containment of one of the two reactors there along with a 30-inch section of corrosion. The hole and corrosion were found during a refueling shutdown. Turkey Point is now the fourth reactor to have discovered a containment liner hole in the last two years but the problem is feared to be widespread within the aging U.S. reactor fleet. According to Arnie Gundersen, a Vermont-based nuclear engineer and consultant who produced a report detailing holes and cracks at half a dozen U.S. reactors, a hole such as that found at Turkey Point could allow enough radiation to escape to threaten public safety.

No new partner for EDF at Calvert Cliffs as Constellation does exit deal

Constellation officially dropped its demand to sell its former partner, Electricite De France, a large portfolio of conventional power-generating stations but exited its partnership with the French utility to build a French reactor at Calvert Cliffs, Maryland. Constellation departed with a $140 million buyout and will get back 3.5 million Constellation shares bought by EDF in December 2008. However, as a foreign corporation, EDF cannot move forward with the Maryland reactor project without a majority U.S. partner. To date, no new candidates have stepped forward. Constellation withdrew due to financial concerns after the U.S. Energy Department asked for a fee of $880 million to compensate taxpayers for the risk they would take on a loan guarantee of about $7.6 billion, a fee Constellation said would doom the project.

World's largest solar energy project destined for California

The U.S. Department of the Interior has announced approval of what would become the world's largest solar energy project, to be built in Blythe, Southern California. The four massive plants costing $1 billion each would, when completed, generate up to 1,000 megawatts of energy, enough electricity to power up to 750,000 average American homes. The 1,000 megawatt output is equivalent to one nuclear power plant but at a considerably cheaper construction price tag with single nuclear reactor units potentially costing between $9 billion and $12 billion each at minimum.