NRC rushing public comment on court-ordered environmental assessment of "Nuke Waste Con Game"

U.S. NRC Chairwoman Allison MacfarlaneThe U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has just announced a single in-person environmental scoping hearing (also viewable online), for November 14th, at its Rockville, Maryland headquarters, as well as two webinar-only scoping hearings (Dec. 5th & 6th), as it seeks to fulfill a court-ordered environmental assessment of its "Nuclear Waste Confidence Decision and Rule." NRC's current deadline for public comments on its environmental scoping is January 2nd, 2013, a remarkably short time period (just over two months long, including the upcoming elections, as well as the holidays). Obviously, NRC is trying to rush the process, and keep public involvement to a bare minimum.

Please contact NRC Chairwoman Allison Macfarlane (photo, left) and request that the environmental scoping period be extended. Also request that additional in-person hearings be held in communities living in the shadows of high-level radioactive waste storage pools and dry casks. Chairwoman Macfarlane can be emailed at Chairman@nrc.gov, phoned at (301) 415-1750, or written at U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Mail Stop O-16G4, Washington, DC 20555-0001.

For decades, NRC has used its "Nuclear Waste Confidence Decision and Rule" to block challenges in its atomic reactor licesning proceedings to the generation of high-level radioactive wastes, even though its is among the most hazardous substances ever created, and no safe, sound solution to its forever hazards has been found anywhere in the world for over half a century. Critics have long referred to this as NRC's "Nuke Waste Con Game."

On June 8, 2012, however, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said "Game Over!", ruling in favor of a coalition of environmentalists and states, that NRC must perform an environmental assessmet (EA) on the risks of long-term irradiated nuclear fuel storage in pools and dry casks at reactor sites. NRC has since acknowledged that the EA will take at least two years to complete, thus postponing any final approval of combined Construction and Operating License Applications (COLAs) -- as at Vogtle, Georgia and Summer, South Carolina -- for at least that long. The same holds true for any final approval of 20-year license extension applications at age-degraded, old reactors. However, NRC is allowing all licensing proceedings to continue, till just shy of the finalization point, at which point they will be suspended pending finalization of the EA.

Environmental groups have used the court ruling to challenge three dozen proposed new, and age-degraded old, reactors seeking licenses. For its part, Beyond Nuclear has cited the court ruling to challenge old reactor license extensions at Davis-Besse, Ohio and Grand Gulf 1, Mississippi, as well as to challenge proposed new reactors at Grand Gulf 2, Mississippi, and Fermi 3, Michigan.

Watch Beyond Nuclear's website for updates, and ideas on public comments you can make about NRC's "Nuke Waste Con Game" environmental scoping. Please spread the word on this important issue!

Acrobatics with high-level radioactive waste required to free up space in Indian Point Unit 3 storage pool

This NRC graph shows that in a few years, almost all high-level radioactive waste storage pools in the U.S. will be filled to capacity. Operating reactors will then have to install on-site dry cask storage to provide "overflow parking" for ever more high-level radioactive waste.As reported by LoHud.com, Indian Point Unit 3's crane is not strong enough to lift standard sized high-level radioactive waste transfer casks. Therefore a convoluted procedure is required, first placing IP-3's irradiated nuclear fuel into a small sized transfer cask that the crane can lift, then moving it into the IP-2 storage pool, then transferring the waste into a standard sized cask, which the stronger IP-2 crane can handle, before moving the cask to outdoor dry cask storage. All of this is required because there is not any more room in IP-3's pool for any more waste storage, so the oldest, most radioactively decayed and thermally cooled wastes must be removed in order to make more room to receive hotter, more radioactive wastes just generated by IP-3's atomic reactor. Newly discharged high-level radioactive waste must be stored underwater for a minimum of five years, before it can be transferred to dry cask storage.

Beyond Nuclear debates "thorium power" proponent at Sierra Club meeting

On October 10th, Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps debated Timothy Maloney, a proponent of so-called "thorium (nuclear) power," at a meeting of the Nepessing Group of the Sierra Club's Michigan Chapter, at Mott Community College's Regional Technical Center in Flint. The Nepessing Group of Michigan represents Sierra Club members in Genesee, Lapeer, and northern Oakland counties.

Kevin's research in preparation for the debate depended on: a Beyond Nuclear backgrounder compiled by Linda Gunter; "Thorium Fuel -- No Panacea for Nuclear Power," by Dr. Arjun Makhijani of Institute for Energy and Environmental Research and Michele Boyd of Physicians for Social Responsibility (2009); a Science Friday program entitled "Is Thorium a Magic Bullet for our Energy Problems?" featuring Dr. Makhijani (May 4, 2012); "Thinking about Thorium" by Dr. Gordon Edwards of Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility (Sept. 16, 2012); "Thorium Reactors: Back to the Dream Factory," by Dr. Edwards (July 13, 2011); and "What is the Thorium Cycle?" by Dr. Edwards (1978).

The Thorium-232/Uranium-233 nuclear fuel chain shares many similarities with the Uranium-235 and Plutonium-239 nuclear fuel chains, including the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation, the risk that reactors could unleash catastrophic amounts of radioactivity (particularly from intentional terrorist attacks or acts of warfare), the unsolved (unsolvable?!) radioactive waste problem, the astronomical expense of RDD (research, development, and demonstration) for "thorium reactors," and the environmental ruination downwind and downstream (as well as up the food chain and down the generations) from reprocessing facilities.

Great Lakes events in resistance to uranium fuel chain, atomic reactor & radioactive waste risks

The Great Lakes comprise 20% of the world's surface fresh water, providing drinking water to 40 million people in the U.S., Canada, and a large number of Native American First NationsFrom the "Nuclear Labyrinth" conference in Huron, OH Oct. 4-6, to an Oct. 11 "Entergy Nuclear Watch" presentation in Kalamazoo, Michigan (bridging resistance from Vermont Yankee to Palisades), to "A Mountain of Radioactive Waste 70 Years High" summit in Chicago Dec. 1-3, strong resistance to the uranium fuel chain in the Great Lakes is building! Beyond Nuclear is proud and honored to be a co-sponsor and active participant in all three events.

Deep Trouble -- Nuclear Waste Burial in the Great Lakes Basin

The Great Lakes comprise 20% of the world's surface fresh water, and supply 40 million people with drinking water across 8 U.S. states, 2 Canadian provinces,and a large number of Native American/First NationsBrennain Lloyd of Northwatch and John Jackson of Great Lakes United will speak at an event, Deep Trouble -- Nuclear Waste Burial in the Great Lakes Basin, sponsored by the St. Clair County Community College and the Blue Water Sierra Club on Sept. 30th in Port Huron, MI. 

The nuclear industry in Canada is currently pursuing approval of their plan to bury 200,000 cubic meters of radioactive waste below the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station on the eastern shore of Lake Huron, and is studying 21 different communities -- 15 of them in the Great Lakes basin -- as possible burial locations for all of Canada's high level nuclear fuel waste.

The presentation will include descriptions of the burial schemes, the hazards for the Great Lakes community, and possible transportation risks, and linkages to U.S. nuclear waste issues.

For more information, please contact Kay Cumbow, Blue Water Sierra Club, (810) 346-4513 or kcumbow@greatlakes.net.

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