The Nuclear Juggernaut: Georgia and the Scheme to Revive Nuclear Power in the US

A great article from Karl Grossman delineating the history of the Westinghouse AP1000 and how public input has been all but scuttled.

"Last week’s granting by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission of combined construction and operating licenses for two nuclear plants to be built in Georgia—both Westinghouse AP1000s—is the culmination of a scheme developed by nuclear promoters 20 years ago.

If Americans are anxious about a disaster involving the AP1000—and want wind and solar and other safe, clean, renewable energy technologies which they can live with instead—well, under the new system, that’s too bad.  With the new nuclear licensing system—devised 20 years ago and now moving ahead despite Chernobyl and Fukushima and the availability of energy alternatives that render nuclear power unnecessary—the citizenry and what they want are to be excluded." Counterpunch

Beyond Nuclear responds to NRC safety downgrade of Palisades: "shut it down before it melts down"

Don't Waste Michigan has long called for Palisades' shut down. Here, DWM board members Michael Keegan, Alice Hirt, and Kevin Kamps speak out at the 2000 Nuclear-Free Great Lakes Action CampIn response to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) media release, "NRC CITES PALISADES FOR THREE VIOLATIONS; PUBLIC MEETING SCHEDULED," Beyond Nuclear has issued a media release of its own.

It begins: "While we welcome the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's long overdue acknowledgement that safety risks are unacceptable at Palisades, and the agency's plans for enhanced inspections, we know all too well that not only the reactor's owner, Entergy Nuclear, but even the regulatory agency itself, needs to be watched at every turn, to keep them honest. The grassroots environmental movement of the Great Lakes will do all it can to shine a spotlight on the grave risks at Palisades. Too much is at stake: Lake Michigan, headwaters of the drinking water supply for 40 million people downstream."

Read the full Beyond Nuclear media statement here. Palisades is located on the Lake Michigan shoreline, as shown by its steam rising next to the lake in the photo above. The united environmental movement of Michigan, and beyond, opposed Palisades' 20 year license extension, but NRC rubberstamped it anyway.

Update on February 15, 2012 by admin

Andrew Lersten covered this story in the St. Joe Herald-Palladium. He quoted Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps:

Kevin Kamps of the anti-nuclear organization Beyond Nuclear said that while he applauds the NRC's downgrading of the plant, much more is needed. The organization's goal is to shut down all nuclear power plants.

"We've long been worried about Palisades," Kamps said Tuesday.

"We need to shut down Palisades before it melts down.

"I think it's fair to say the NRC is willing to work with the company to give it the benefit of the doubt - again and again." Kamps said the plant's former owner, Consumer Energy, in 2006 "listed all the major repairs that were needed at Palisades," and said Entergy is "deferring maintenance. They're postponing repairs. That's Entergy's reputation around the country, to buy reactors cheap and then run them into the ground."

The Kalamazoo Gazette also reported on this story, including an update.

Update on February 21, 2012 by admin

NRC issued a media release, as well as a Final Significance Determination, about both the "yellow finding" as well as the "white finding" at Palisades.

March Against Nuclear Madness - new events!

Many new events listed. See attached calendar for details.

Anti-Davis-Besse coalition defends cracked shield building contentions against challenges from FirstEnergy and NRC staff

In mid-October 2011, revelations about severe cracking in the Davis-Besse shield building on the Lake Erie shore were first made publicToday the environmental coalition opposing the 20 year extension at the problem-plagued Davis-Besse atomic reactor near Toledo defended its contention about the recently revealed severe cracking in the concrete shield building against challenges by FirstEnergy nuclear utility, as well as the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff. Terry Lodge of Toledo serves as the coalition's attorney.

One revelation the coalition exposed today is that FirstEnergy, with NRC staff complicity, kept secret from the public, and even from FirstEnergy investors, cracking in the upper 20 feet of the structure for five weeks -- until pressure by U.S. Congressman Dennis Kucinich (Democrat-Ohio) forced NRC staff to admit the truth to his staff. Kucinich made the information public the very next day, and won NRC Chairman Gregory Jackzo's support for an NRC public meeting near Davis-Besse, where FirstEnergy was forced to admit publicly for the first time the expanded extent of the problem.

The environmental coalition intervening against Davis-Besse's license extension includes Beyond Nuclear, Citizens Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, Don't Waste Michigan, and the Green Party of Ohio. Davis-Besse has had a disproportionately large number of near-misses with disaster in its 35 years of operations, including a Three Mile Island precursor incident 18 months before the infamous meltdown, a very dicey direct hit by a tornado in 1998, and its own infamous "Hole-In-The-Head Fiasco" in 2002.

Update on February 14, 2012 by admin

The environmental coalition issued a media release about its defense of the cracked containment contention.

Environmental coalition defends Fermi 3 EIS contentions against challenges by NRC staff and DTE

NRC file photo of Fermi 2 on the Lake Erie shore, where Detroit Edison wants to build a giant new reactorOn Feb. 13, 2012, attorney Terry Lodge of Toledo, on behalf of an environmental coalition, filed a rebuttal to challenges by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff and Detroit Edison. The agency and utility were challenging contentions filed by the environmental coalition on Jan. 11, 2012 concerning NRC's Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) about the new Fermi 3 reactor, a proposed General Electric-Hitachi ESBWR (so-called "Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor"). The new contentions involve such issues as impacts on endangered and threatened plant and animal species, and their critical habitats, from the overall Fermi 3 proposal, as well as related sub-proposals, such as the contemplated transmission line corridor; radiological health impacts on the Monroe County community from Fermi 3, which has already suffered a half century of radiological and toxic chemical harm from the Fermi 1 and Fermi 2 reactors, as well as a number of giant coal burning power plants; and impacts on the Walpole Island First Nation, just 53 miles away across the U.S./Canadian border. The coalition includes Beyond Nuclear, Citizen Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination, Don't Waste Michigan, and the Sierra Club Michigan Chapter. Beyond Nuclear has compiled all the filings relating to the battle over the Fermi 3 Draft Environmental Impact Statement.

Update on February 14, 2012 by admin

The environmental coalition issued a media release about its defense of contentions against the NRC's Fermi 3 DEIS.