Resistance to "Fermi 3" proposed new ESBWR targeted at Monroe, Michigan continues

An environmental coalition issued a media release on January 12, 2012, announcing numerous filings in response to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for Fermi 3. The environmental coalition has opposed Detroit Edison's proposal to build a General Electric-Hitachi so-called "Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor" (ESBWR) since the nuclear utility's combined Construction and Operations License Application (COLA) to NRC in 2008. In 2009, the coalition, comprised of Beyond Nuclear, Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination (CACC), Citizens Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, Don't Waste Michigan, and the Sierra Club Michigan Chapter, intervened and won standing, as well as the admission of several contentions, before an NRC Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB). One of those contentions concerns thermal and toxic chemical discharges from Fermi 3 which would worsen harmful algae blooms already running rampant in Lake Erie's shallow, fragile, and biologically productive Western Basin (see photo above left).

Environmental group filings included: the environmental coalition's comments and contentions; comments by CACC; comments by the Council of the Three Fires, representing the Walpole Island First Nation; comments by Lake Erie Waterkeeper; comments by Beyond Nuclear Launch Partner Keith Gunter; comments by the Environmental Law and Policy Center and Michigan Environmental Council; comments and an addendum by Jessie Collins; and comments by expert witness Joe Mangano of the Radiation and Public Health Project.

In addition, the U.S. Department of the Interior Fish and Wildlife Service, as well as the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, also filed comments.

(A comprehenisive, running list of comments, media coverage, and nuclear utility and NRC responses is now posted on Beyond Nuclear's website.)

"Another one bites the dust!": Progress Energy may cancel two new AP1000s targeted at Levy, Florida

 Graphic courtesy of Fairewinds AssociatesAs reported by the Tampa Bay Times, Progess Energy has announced an indefinite suspension of the construction plans for two Toshiba-Westinghouse so-called "Advanced Passive 1000" (AP1000) atomic reactors targeted at the greenfield (no old reactors already there) site at Levy, Florida. That's the good news. The bad news is that Florida ratepayers are nonetheless locked into paying "advance" charges for the new reactors on their electricity bills month after month for years to come, even though the reactors may never get built. Such "Construction Work in Progress" charges are illegal in most states, although have been made legal in such states as Florida, South Carolina, and Georgia in an effort to grease the skids for new atomic reactor proposals, at ratepayer expense.

By the end of last year, Progress Energy's 1.6 million Florida ratepayers had already made $545 million in "advance" payments on their electricity bills toward the Levy new reactors, or an average of about $340 per person. Progress Energy fully intends to extract yet another $555 million from its ratepayers in the years ahead, or another $350 per person, whether or not the reactors actually get built and fired up.

The Levy new reactors have been a case study in cost overruns. As the article reports, Progress Energy first estimated in 2006 that a single AP1000 would cost as little as $4 billion. The very next year, the projected price tag had jumped to $10 billion per reactor. A year after that, Progress added a second new reactor to the proposal, and estimated the cost at a total of $17 billion. But last year, the price projection had reached $22 billion for the twin AP1000s.

The project has also been a case study in schedule delays. In 2006, Progress said its new reactor would fire up in 2016. By 2009, Progress admitted the opening date had slipped two years into the future, to 2018. By 2010, the opening date had retreated yet further, to 2021. Progress is now admitting that the project won't open till 2027, if at all.

Arnie Gundersen, a nuclear engineer at Fairewinds Associates in Vermont and expert witness for an environmental coalition opposed to new AP1000s targeted throughout the Southeast, was quoted as saying "It's a dramatic strategy change (by Progress)...Now, it looks like they're retreating." Gundersen has identified a major safety flaw in the AP1000's supposedly "advanced, passive" design, which could actively pump hazardous radioactivity into the environment during an accident (see graphic, above).

National Day of Remembrance for Downwinders on 61st anniversary of first nuclear weapons blast at Nevada Test Site

As reported in the Salt Lake Tribune, January 27th, 2012 marked the 61st anniversary of the first nuclear weapons detonation at the Nevada Test Site in 1951. 928 full-scale nuclear weapons tests were eventually carried out in Nevada alone, including more than 100 above-ground (certain underground tests also discharged radioactivity to the atmosphere, and "sub-critical" blasts continue today). 

This commemoration was marked by a U.S. Senate resolution, sponsored by Idaho Republicans Mike Crapo and Jim Risch, and co-sponsored by Democrats from Colorado (Mark Udall and Michael Bennett) and New Mexico (Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall), designateing January 27, 2012, as a "national day of remembrance for Americans who, during the Cold War, worked and lived downwind from nuclear testing sites and were adversely affected by the radiation exposure generated by the above ground nuclear weapons testing."

The resolution, along with companion legislation, seeks to significantly expand compensation for nuclear weapons test site Downwinders, as well as uranium miners and mill workers. Qualifications for radiation exposure compensation would be broadened, post year 1971 uranium workers would be covered, and the recognized downwind nuclear testing area of impact would be widened to include seven states, and one U.S. territory: Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and Utah for the Nevada Test Site; New Mexico for the Trinity Test Site; and Guam for Pacific tests.

Downwinders such as J. Preston Truman and Eve Mary Verde called for an end to nuclear weapons testing and a world free of nuclear weapons, as well as health studies, health care, and compensation for Downwinders. Groups such as Idaho's Snake River Alliance marked the commemoration.

March Against Nuclear Madness!

March 2012 is “March Against Nuclear Madness” and Beyond Nuclear has created a new March Against Nuclear Madness Facebook page. We will be helping to coordinate, organize and promote events around the country throughout the month of March to commemorate the March 11, 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe in Japan. We encourage you to post your events and ideas on this page.

We are inspired by the opposition to nuclear power in Japan where today only four of the country’s 54 nuclear power plants are still operating. As nuclear power plants there shut down for routine refueling, local government and citizen opposition are refusing to allow them to restart.

We are further inspired by the principled democratic action being taken in Vermont. Here in the United States, the nuclear industry and the federal government look to pre-empt a state’s right to self determination for an energy future in the public good. In Vermont, where the Fukushima-style Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant should have closed by a state legislative vote when its operating license expires on March 21, 2012, a lower court federal judge has ruled that Entergy can extend its nuclear madness by another 20 years – for now.

We invite you to take action in solidarity with the State and the people of Vermont and participate – in person – in any of their events listed below (additional events will be added soon). Or consider hosting your own event to oppose nuclear power as part of the call for a March Against Nuclear Madness.

In the coming weeks, Beyond Nuclear will be promoting and posting other events around the country at March Against Nuclear Madness, a part of the Beyond Nuclear nationwide Freeze our Fukushimas campaign to close down the country’s dangerous GE Mark I Boiling Water Reactors and phase out of nuclear power.

The Vermont Actions

March 11. Fukushima mock evacuation march. Contact: Safe & Green.

March 21. Vermont Yankee retirement party at the statehouse in Montpelier. Contact: Chris Williams with the Vermont Yankee Decommissioning Alliance.

March 22. Non-violent civil disobedience and direct action at the Vermont Yankee reactor site by affinity groups. [CORRECTION: THE MARCH 22 DATE FOR NON-VIOLENT DIRECT ACTIONS IS FIRM. HOWEVER THE SPECIFIC LOCATION(S) OF THE ACTION(S) BY AFFINITY GROUPS HAVE NOT BEEN FINALIZED.        Contact: The Sage Alliance 

Lake Michigan surrounded by radioactive risks

As shown by the map in Beyond Nuclear's "Routine Radioactive Releases from Nuclear Power Plants in the United States: What Are the Dangers?", as well as by Nuclear Awareness Project's "Great Lakes Nuclear Hot Spots" map, Lake Michigan is surrounded by risky atomic reactors on its shores.

In Wisconsin, one reactor operates at Kewaunee, while two operate at Point Beach. Some years ago, Kewaunee alone had a majority of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) "yellow findings" (second highest level of safety violation) of the entire 103 (at the time) operating reactors in the entire U.S. fleet; Point Beach had a majority -- 3 of 5 -- of the "red findings" (highest level of safety violation) in the entire country. In Michigan, two reactors operate at Cook nuclear power plant, with one operating at Palisades. Cook was shut down for major safety violations from 1997 to 2000; Palisades suffered 5 un-planned shutdowns of varying severity in 2011 alone.  In addition, the largest decommissioning in U.S. history is underway at Zion -- at least a billion dollar price tag for dismantling two 1,000 megawatt-electric reactors -- just 30 miles north of Chicago. At Big Rock Point in Michigan, despite spending $366 million on decommissioning a tiny, experimental reactor, plutonium and other radioactive hazards were left behind in the soil, groundwater, and sediments of Lake Michigan.

Rory Keane at the Medill Journalism School of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois has just published an article entitled "Nuclear Worries Abound in Great Lakes Region,"  about such radioactive risks to Lake Michigan as tritium leaks from aging atomic reactors, as well as high-level radioactive wastes stored in indoor pools and outdoor dry casks that have nowhere to go. The article quotes Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps regarding the reactor and radioactive waste risks, as well as tritium leaks: “Lake Michigan alone faces some of the major safety violations in the country...the opinion of the NRC and company was…‘dilution is the solution.’ We call that delusional.”