Oyster Creek: ten more years to "strain the Bay," with no cooling towers

Oyster Creek atomic reactor withdraws 1.4 billion gallons of water per day from Barnegat Bay's watershedThe Associated Press has reported that Oyster Creek nuclear power plant owner, Exelon of Chicago, has reached an agreement with the State of New Jersey to permanently shutdown its 41 year old reactor, in exchange for not having to install cooling towers. Oyster Creek's withdrawal of 1.4 billion gallons of water per day from Barnegat Bay kills billions of aquatic creatures each year. Oyster Creek entered its Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved 20 year license extension in April 2009, after a prolonged challenge co-led by Beyond Nuclear's Paul Gunter, who had initially pinpointed a key technical issue -- the corrosion of the dry well liner radiological barrier. This agreement would mean the reactor, first fired up in 1969, can now continue to "strain the Bay," passing the entire volume of Barnegat Bay through its innards for cooling purposes once every six weeks, a "license to kill" billions of marine organisms annually for another decade. Jeff Tittel, director of New Jersey's Sierra Club chapter, summed it up, scoffing that Exelon "gets to operate the plant for 10 years, then walk away with a pile of cash at the expense of the bay."

Signs of the Apocalypse...nuclear-powered oil tankers

The latest folly in a world already gone mad is the prospect of nuclear-powered oil tankers. The technology is under serious review as tankers seek to comply with emissions laws. But the prospect of an oceanic environmental double-catastrophe never appears to enter the discussion among the profiteers who bear the same mentality as those who want to plunder the now melting Arctic. In 2009, a nuclear-powered ice-breaker collided with an oil tanker (pictured). The tanker got a 9.5 meter long crack on the main deck from the impact but was fortunately only carrying ballast at the time.

"US has lost control of key parts of the nuclear fuel chain"

Boasts of a nuclear "renaissance" in the U.S. ring even more hollow when one recognizes that almost any new nuclear activities in the US are of foreign origin. Although the deal appears to have almost completely fallen apart, the new reactor frontrunners were French as is the threatened new uranium enrichment plant. Now comes news that proposed new uranium mines in Wyoming will be majority owned by Russia in a 51%-49% partnership with a Canadian firm. About 80% of all uranium used in the U.S. is imported. The mine deal - between Uranium One of Canada and ARMZ of Russia - was described by the Financial Times in a December 6, 2010 article as "the latest sign of how, after a three-decade hiatus in new reactor projects, the US has lost control of key parts of the nuclear fuel chain."

Defending an endangered species against a proposed new atomic reactor

The "Mad Hatter" Tea Party isn't the only one that gets to use symbols from the American Revolution!Beyond Nuclear and a coalition of environmental groups (including Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination, Citizens Environmental Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, Don't Waste Michigan, and the Sierra Club Michigan Chapter), represented by attorney Terry Lodge of Toledo, has just filed our defense in opposition to DTE/Detroit Edison's motion to dispose of "Contention 8" against the Fermi 3 new reactor proposal in Monroe, Michigan. Contention 8 alleges that the nuclear utility has not properly mitigated the effects from construction and operation of Fermi 3 on the state-endangered Eastern Fox Snake.  This also has implications for protection of the fragile wetlands habitat along the Lake Erie shoreline favored as habitat by the snake, threatened by the 1,560 megawatt-electric GE-Hitachi "Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor" (ESBWR).

A single armed guard was all that protected Libyan weapons-usable highly enriched uranium

AP has reported that leaked U.S. diplomatic memos have revealed that in late 2009, 11.5 pounds of highly enriched uranium (HEU) at a nuclear facility in Libya were guarded by only a single armed guard for about a month. The critical mass for 85% HEU is about 110 pounds, meaning that the Libyan HEU would have provided 10% of the HEU needed for a nuclear weapon. In addition to the inadequate security, the U.S. diplomatic memos fretted about a loading crane that could have been used to steal the casks containing the HEU, and warned that the HEU could leak out of its containers within a few months.