Japan closing 5 reactors but U.S. still running its Fukushimas

The Japanese nuclear industry has announced it will permanently close five more of its remaining 48 "operable" nuclear reactors by March 2015, leaving the country with 43 reactors "operable" but still not actually "operating." Two of the plants to be decommissioned are the same GE Mark I boiling water reactors identical to Fukushima. Despite the political landscape in Japan still promoting nuclear power, the anti-nuclear movement there continues to campaign to keep all of Japan's reactors closed indefinitely.

Public, political and economic pressure in the U.S. contributed to the recent permanent shutdown of Vermont Yankee, a Mark I, but the U.S. continues to operate 22 more of these Fukushima-style reactors (and eight similar Mark IIs.) Beyond Nuclear campaigns for the prompt and permanent closure of all the world's "Fukushimas." More

Arnie Gundersen speaks out against Entergy and NRC for radiation over-exposures to 192 workers at Palisades

Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds was a regular expert commentator on CNN and other major news media nationally and globally after the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe began.On Jan. 13th, Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer of Fairewinds Associates, Inc. in Burlington, VT, published a prepared statement regarding the Feb. to March, 2014 control rod drive mechanism replacement project at Entergy's Palisades atomic reactor in Covert, MI. It is now known that 192 workers on the project implementation team were exposed to a whopping 2.8 Rem each, on average, during the short, month-long project.

Gundersen serves as an expert witness for Beyond Nuclear in its intervention against Palisades' unsafe operations.

Gundersen prepared the statement to read into the record of a regulatory conference between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and Entergy Palisades management. The regulatory conference took place on Jan. 13 at NRC Region 3 HQ in Lisle, IL. Gundersen attended by phone, as did many others. (Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps attended in person.)

After listening in to the 3.5 hour long regulatory conference (which was only scheduled to last 1.5 hours), Gundersen finally had his chance to read his statement. Only, NRC would not let him. NRC officials suddenly announced, at that moment, that only questions would be allowed, but no comments -- an arbritary rule that had not been communicated in the days and weeks leading up to this public meeting.

In fact, three years earlier, in Jan. 2012, at a very similar regulatory conference between NRC Region 3 and Entergy Palisades management held in the exact same room, members of the public had been allowed to make comments as well as ask questions. Despite such precedents, NRC blocked Arnie's testimony.

Arnie nonetheless formulated a sharp question on the spur of the moment given him to do so: why isn't NRC citing Entergy for a significantly higher level violation, given the severity of this incident?

Gundersen's statement reveals that the entire radiological over-exposures very likely had to do with Entergy's drive to return Palisades to full power operations as quickly as possible, worker health be damned. Gundersen holds NRC equally responsible for its complicity and collusion in this "profits over health and safety" mentality.

For its part, Entergy and NRC hold that 2.8 Rem doses, on average, to 192 workers, do not represent "over-expsorures," since NRC regulations allow workers to receive 5 Rem per year. Kevin asked how and why NRC allows such large doses to nuclear workers, when a country like Germany, for example, only allows 2 Rem per year to nuclear workers. NRC ignored and refused to answer such questions.

Update on February 23, 2015 by admin

On Feb. 23, 2015, NRC officially concluded that the Feb.-March, 2014 over-exposure of 192 workers at Palisades to an average dose of 2.8 Rem constituted a White Finding. See the NRC's Final Significance Determination, here.

Anti-nuclear activists who rallied on Sunday for Charlie Hebdo understood the connection

As many of our anti-nuclear colleagues rallied on Sunday to pay tribute to their fallen comdrades at Charlie Hebdo, their protest against the silencing of dissenting voices was brought close to home once again. The group Coordination Anti-nucléaire Sud-Est learned one day before the Hebdo assassinations that Areva was suing them for defamation. Areva objects to the group reporting on the infiltration of elected officials by the nuclear lobby. This comes on the heels of a similar law suit brought against the French anti-nuclear activist Stéphane Lhomme of l’Observatoire du Nucléaire, who revealed that Areva made a multi-million dollar payment to Niger (where the company mines uranium), part of which was used to buy the Niger president a jet. The verdict in the Lhomme case will be announced on January 21st. Both groups and the French anti-nuclear movement broadly, contend that the state will continue to protect Areva in the on-going colonial war to plunder uranium resources from Niger, Mali and elsewhere in Africa. The Coordination Anti-nucléaire Sud-Est also released a statement condemning the assassinations at Charlie Hebdo and making the connection between colonialism and the suppression of freedom of expression. Read a translation of their statement here. (Caption on the cartoon, by Tignous, one of those killed at the Charlie Hebdo offices, reads: "Everything is fine at the Arlit uranium mine. If Areva says so."

Davis-Besse: Economic powerhouse, or house of cards?

"Nuclear power burning money" image, created by Gene Case of Avenging Angels, was featured on the cover of The Nation magazine. Used with permission of the artist.As reported by FierceEnergy, First Energy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC) commissioned the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI, of which it is a leading member utility) to publish a report on the economic benefits brought by the problem-plagued Davis-Besse atomic reactor to the Ohio economy.

Apparently, unlike in Illinois, where Exelon pressured th state legislature to order state agencies to write the report, FENOC had to turn to its own trade association and lobbying arm to do it. So much for even the pretense of objectivity. (But even the IL state agency reports showed the sky would not fall if Exelon's five reactors closed!)

See what Tim Judson, Executive Director of NIRS, had to say about this FENOC/NEI report.

Beyond Nuclear on "Vermont Yankee: Post-Mortem," on Ch. 17/Town Meeting T.V. in Burlinton, VT

On Jan. 9th, Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps joined Fairewinds Energy Education's Chief Engineer, Arnie Gundersen, on the program "Nuclear Free Future" hosted by Margaret Harrington Tamulonis on Channel 17/Town Hall Meeting Television in Burlington, Vermont. The program was shown repeatedly throughout the month across Vermont.

The title for the installment is "Vermont Yankee: Post-Mortem," referring to the permanent shutdown of Entergy Nuclear's controversial Vermont Yankee atomic reactor at 12:12pm on Dec. 29, 2014.

Fairewinds Energy Education has posted the full video, as well as the audio-only, and the full transcript.

Channel 17/Town Hall TV has also posted the program.

The Vermont Yankee shutdown means the plant carcass must be safely decommissioned as quickly as possible. With full spent fuel pools, we hope Vermont Yankee rests in peace, not in pieces like Fukushima Daiichi. In this video, CCTV Nuclear Free Future Host Margaret Harrington discusses the economic, environmental, health and safety implications that the recent closing of Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant will have on New England with Beyond Nuclear’s Kevin Kamps and  Arnie Gundersen, chief engineer of Fairewinds Energy Education. - See more at: http://www.fairewinds.org/vermont-yankee-shutdown/#sthash.mHAU2bNH.dpuf

The discussion is wide ranging, with a focus on the upcoming challenges of decommissioning at Vermont Yankee, including clean-up of the radioactively contaminated site, as well as management of the forever deadly high-level radioactive waste stored there.