Nuclear Free Future: Climate Change and the Hazards of Nuclear Waste Transport

Margaret Harrington, host of "Nuclear Free Future Conversation," at a Hiroshima/Nagasaki atomic bombing commemoration eventDescription

Kevin Kamps, Nuclear Waste Watchdog of Beyond Nuclear, talks with host Margaret Harrington [photo, left] about a more positive outlook in the future regarding the dangers of nuclear power and weapons. He urges Vermonters to continue input into the Vermont Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel [VNDCAP] and to contact our legislators.

Beyond Nuclear has been honored and privileged to appear as a regular guest on Margaret Harrington's show "Nuclear Free Future Conversation" on Channel 17 Town Hall Meeting Television in Burlington, Vermont for several years. Watch the half-hour recording of this latest episoide, here.

NEW YORK AG SUES NRC: Challenges Indian Point License Transfer

On January 22, the New York Attorney General, Letitia James (photo, above), filed suit at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, against the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, challenging the license transfer of Indian Point (IP) nuclear power plant near New York City, from Entergy to Holtec. James' appeal, which comes a year after she, and several local municipalities, unsuccessfully intervened at NRC against the license transfer and called for public hearings, also challenges NRC's approval of Holtec spending $630 million of the $2.1 billion IP decommissioning trust fund on irradiated fuel management, rather than radiological cleanup at the severely radioactively contaminated site. The lawsuit was announced 10 days after Beyond Nuclear wrote James, and other officials, on the matter. MORE.

BIDEN'S CABINET NOMINEES: Opposition to Yucca dump, transport risks

At a January 21 U.S. Senate confirmation hearing for President Biden's nominee to lead the Transportation Department, former South Bend, Indiana mayor and presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, Jacky Rosen (Democrat-Nevada) expressed strong opposition to the high-level radioactive waste dump targeted at Yucca Mountain (photo, above), including the risks to most states from irradiated nuclear fuel transportation. Buttigieg responded, "I share the concerns that you’ve raised, not just from the Nevada perspective but all across the route." At a January 27 hearing for Biden's Energy Secretary nominee, former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm, Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) elicited agreement that Yucca is not workable, and support for consent-based siting, which the state, and Western Shoshone, have never granted. MORE.

Update on March 17, 2021 by admin

See Karl Grossman and Harvey Wasserman's March 3rd article in Truthout, about other Biden Cabinet members' -- including Energy Secretary Granholm's -- unfortunate and inappropriate pro-nuclear advocacy.

Hitachi ditches British nuclear power plant

Horizon, the British subsidiary of Hitachi, Japan, has formally submitted its Withdrawal of Application for a planned two-reactor nuclear power plant in North Wales. In a letter dated January 27, Horizon chief, Duncan Hawthorne, whose company is being wound up, admitted that there was simply no viable interest from other parties in the site after Hitachi announced last September it was abandoning the nuclear $27 billion boondoggle.

"In that previous correspondence I referred to discussions with third parties that have expressed an interest in progressing with the development of new nuclear generation at the Wylfa Newydd site in Anglesey, Wales following the withdrawal of Hitachi Ltd. Whilst these discussions with multiple parties have been positive and encouraging with regards to developing a way forward, they have not, unfortunately, led to any definitive proposal that would have allowed the transfer of the sites to some new development entity willing to replace Hitachi Ltd," Hawthorne wrote. (Pictured is the existing, closed, Wylfa A reactor site.)

It's still 100 seconds to midnight

The hands of the Doomsday Clock did not move today as the Science and Security Board of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists made their annual announcement. In a call to leaders and citizens of the world entitled, "This is your COVID wake-up call: It is 100 seconds to midnight," the statement explaining no change in the position of the hands on the clock began:

"Humanity continues to suffer as the COVID-19 pandemic spreads around the world. In 2020 alone, this novel disease killed 1.7 million people and sickened at least 70 million more. The pandemic revealed just how unprepared and unwilling countries and the international system are to handle global emergencies properly. In this time of genuine crisis, governments too often abdicated responsibility, ignored scientific advice, did not cooperate or communicate effectively, and consequently failed to protect the health and welfare of their citizens.

"As a result, many hundreds of thousands of human beings died needlessly.

"Though lethal on a massive scale, this particular pandemic is not an existential threat. Its consequences are grave and will be lasting. But COVID-19 will not obliterate civilization, and we expect the disease to recede eventually. Still, the pandemic serves as a historic wake-up call, a vivid illustration that national governments and international organizations are unprepared to manage nuclear weapons and climate change, which currently pose existential threats to humanity, or the other dangers—including more virulent pandemics and next-generation warfare—that could threaten civilization in the near future." Read the full announcement.