Saugeen Ojibway Nation votes no on deep geologic repository at Bruce Power

From Gordon Edwards in Ontario:

The Saugeen Ojibway Nation (SON) has voted against Ontario Power Generation’s Deep Geological Disposal (DGR) project, planned to house all of Ontario’s Low and Intermediate Level Waste (LILW) at a site within a mile of the northwestern shore of Lake Huron.

However, the OPG project for LILW has no direct bearing on the other DGR project for High-Level Waste (HLW). The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) will continue to search for a willing host community to build a DGR to house all of Canada’s irradiated nuclear fuel — also called high level waste — including two candidate sites in the same area as the OPG DGR project that now been rejected by SON. More.

“Whoops”, take two, Washington State eyes Small Modular Reactors

U.S. NRCEnergy Northwest, Washington State’s public utility, has announced that it will conduct a $2 million feasibility study for the inclusion of Small Modular Reactors (SMR) into the State’s energy mix. Aside from the now-closed military production reactors and massively contaminated federal nuclear weapons production facility at Hanford Nuclear Reservation, the SMR project, if ever launched, would be the second time that the state public utility for 27 districts and municipalities has ventured in commercial nuclear power. Energy Northwest was formerly known as the Washington Public Power Supply System (WPPSS) and nicknamed “Whoops” after issuing billions of dollars of municipal bonds for the construction of five nuclear power plants in the 1970’s and 1980’s.  The projects were a bust resulting in the largest municipal debt default in history. Construction delays and cost overruns forecasted  that the cost-of-completion of the project would be more than $24 billion and resulted in the cancellation of all but one unit (WPPSS-2, aka Columbia) commissioned into operation in 1984.

Now, following the original failure of the industry to build large nuclear power plants based on the economies of scale, a renewed chase after the elusive atomic mirage pins its hopes on building a colossal factory assembly line to roll off and sell thousands of ready-built mini-nukes (60 megawatt units) more likely to  prove to be only more expensive. Northwest Energy is partnering with NuScale Power and Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems in the hopes of becoming one of the first industry experts for small modular reactor operation in the United States.

Whether or not the SMR power technology will be able to economically compete with renewable energy generation is at best questionable. Building an assembly line without a market for an exhorbidantly expensive is yet again a huge risk. The big difference between now and Whoops 1980’s leap of faith is the rapid global acceleration of the market choice for least cost solar and wind power coupled with storage technologies where innovation continues to lower cost.  

Doomsday Clock is 100 seconds to midnight, the symbolic hour of the apocalypse

As reported by the Washington Post.

"The clock is now set at 100 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been to symbolic doom and the first time the hands have been within the two-minute mark," reported NBC News.

See the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists statement, read the press release, and watch the news conference recording, here.

Lawmakers oppose Lake Huron high-level nuclear waste storage

As reported by MLive, a bipartisan, bicameral resolution opposing high-level radioactive waste dumping near the shoreline of the Great Lakes has been introduced in Congress. The initial sponsors include U.S. Senators Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters, both Democrats from Michigan, as well as U.S. Representatives Dan Kildee (Democrat-Flint Twp., MI) and (John Moolenar, Republican-Midland, MI).

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization, comprised of Canada's three nuclear power utilities, has narrowed the list to three remaining candidate sites for the national high-level radioactive waste dump: two neighboring communities, Huron-Kinloss and South Bruce, near the Lake Huron shore, not far (20-some miles) from Kincardine, Ontario, "home" of the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station's nine reactors, the biggest nuclear power plant on Earth.

Similarly, a growing bicameral, bipartisan "caucus" of congressional Great Lakes protectors -- also led by Stabenow and Kildee, mentioned above -- has for several long years, opposed a Canadian nuclear power industry proposal to bury so-called "low" and highly radioactive "intermediate" level radioactive wastes on the Lake Huron shoreline, at the BNGS itself. More.

Grand Canyon remains at risk from uranium mining

"Arizonans know that water is life; it is vital to us all and sustains our livelihoods. We cannot afford to let powerful industry interests sacrifice our water to pollution or depletion. We also cannot let those same interests destroy a landscape that supports an unparalleled regional economy and the livelihood of citizens who depend on it. But our water and our Grand Canyon is under attack by these very interests that see profit in the ground and downplay the risk of negative health impacts for generations to come."

These warnings form the opening of a powerful article by Patricia J. Kelly and Robert Arnberger. It reminds us that the Trump administration is eager to hand out uranium mining permits that would desecrate the Grand Canyon, "a dangerous practice that risks destruction of groundwater, seeps and springs, and could impact the Colorado River — the drinking water supply for nearly 40 million people." Read the full article.