Pro-nuclear US Senator Murkowski defeated in Alaska Republican primary?

Although it won't be known for sure until next month, Alaska's Republican U.S. Senator, Lisa Murkowski, may have just lost to "Tea Party" insurgent candidate Joe Miller in yesterday's primary elections. Murkowski, and her father and predecessor in the same U.S. Senate seat, Frank Murkowski, have been top pro-nuclear power champions from their perch atop the Senate's Energy and Natural Resources Committee dating back over a decade. (The elder Murkowski, in fact, was strongly criticized for nepotism when he, just elected Governor of Alaska, tapped his own daughter to fill his own just vacated U.S. Senate seat!) But Tea Party candidates, including kingmaker Sarah Palin herself, are very pro-nuclear power in their own right. For example, Tea Party candidate Sharon Angle in Nevada, challenging Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, has advocated reprocessing at Yucca Mountain in lieu of radioactive waste disposal there -- an activity that wouldn't require underground containers to eventually fail and leak over time, but would rather spew large amounts of harmful radioactivity directly into the environment in real time! And Palin herself, whose endorsement of Miller may have put him over the top in his campaign against Murkowski, has lambasted Reid and President Obama for their opposition to the Yucca dump in Nevada. So a Murkowski ouster may not signal any let up in pro-nuclear efforts to expand nuclear power and open radioactive waste dumps in the U.S. Senate, by any means, if they are simply replaced by equally pro-nuclear power Tea Party candidates! How Tea Party candidates can support taxpayer subsidies for new atomic reactors, and exorbitantly expensive government programs such as the Yucca Mountain dump or reprocessing facilities, given their supposed fiscal conservatism and concern for protecting taxpayers, is difficult to reconcile! Similar questions have been asked of currently serving supposedly "fiscal conseratives" in the U.S. Senate who also support massive taxpayer subsidies for new reactors in the form of risky federal loan guarantees.

Seabrook reactor goes for license renewal 20 years in advance

Owners of the Seabrook nuclear power plant in New Hampshire have announced plans to request an operating license renewal 20 years before the expiration of the current license. At a press conference on August 19, a newly-formed coalition of local, regional and national groups filed a formal petition to the NRC to change its rule to require that the license extension process begin no more than 10 years before the expiration date. The petition further calls on NRC to suspend its current review of Seabrook owners, NextEra’s (aka Florida Power & Light) license extension application for the historically controversial Seabrook nuclear power station. Seabrook was the site of huge protests and sit-ins in the mid-1970s during construction. The second planned reactor was dismantled and four companies went bankrupt before the current Seabrook reactor became operational. (Photo Eric A. Roth, May 1977 courtesy of Harold Marcuse Web site).

How "dirty, dangerous and expensive" is nuclear energy?

In this compelling new 30-minute television interview, Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear explodes the myths now being promulgated by those promoting nuclear power. He tells of the insoluble problems of nuclear waste, how nuclear power plants routinely emit radioactive poisons, how catastrophic accidents can happen, how nuclear power plants are pre-deployed weapons of mass destruction for terrorists, and the enormously high costs of nuclear power. He exposes the falsehood that the French nuclear program has been a success and that nuclear power does not contribute to global warming. Using the eponymous title of the landmark Beyond Nuclear pamphlet,  Dirty, Dangerous and Expensive, the Enviro Close-Up show, hosted by Beyond Nuclear board member, Karl Grossman, can be seen widely this weekend on Free Speech TV Saturday, August 7 at 11:30 a.m. ET, and at 6:30 p.m. ET. On the satellite Dish Network it will be airing on Channel 9415 and on DirectTV on Channel 348.

Fallout from Russia's fires: the ashes of Chernobyl?

A deputy for the regional parliament in Bryansk, Lyudmila Komogortseva, found that radiation levels in the burning forests were six to 12 times higher than they were before the fires began. But just as Moscow kept many of Chernobyl's victims in the dark for days about the dangers they faced — volunteer cleanup crews worked in the wreckage with their bare hands, unaware that they were being exposed to lethal doses of radiation — Russia's leaders again tried to pretend nothing was wrong. Time.

Speaking tour of Japan challenges MOX fuel use and financing for new U.S. reactors

Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps toured Japan from August 2nd to 12th, visiting Tokyo, Fukushima, Fukui, Kansai and Kyushu. Highlights included meeting with officials from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation and the Nippon Export and Investment Insurance agency, where a letter signed by 75 U.S. national and grassroots groups was delivered, urging no Japanese financing for risky new reactors in the U.S. A backgrounder spelled out these risks in detail. Most proposed new U.S. atomic reactors have designs owned by Japanese companies -- either Toshiba (Westinghouse), Hitachi (General Electric), or Mitsubishi. At South Texas Project, Toshiba and Tokyo Electric Power Company are even partners in the venture. In addition, Japan Steel Works would be the primary supplier of large nuclear components, such as reactor pressure vessels and steam generators. The Japanese news media were alerted to the letter and meeting.

Local anti-nuclear groups also asked Kevin to address the risks of long-term storage of Mixed (plutonium-uranium) Oxide (MOX) irradiated nuclear fuel in pools, given the leaks of radioactive water that have occurred at five U.S. nuclear facilities, including Indian Point, Salem, Connecticut Yankee, Brookhaven National Lab, and Babcock & Wilcox, Virginia. Several reactors in Japan are recklessly moving to load MOX fuel, even though there is no final disposition plan for the irradiated fuel that would be generated. There is a vague promise to someday build a special reprocessing facility in Japan, but that is unlikely, and would actually only make matters even worse! This means the radioactive wastes will remain in storage pools on-site for decades. Kevin also presented a power point about the many risks of storing irradiated nuclear fuel in pools.

One last highlight -- Paul Gunter's Leak First, Fix Later report was translated into Japanese!