Repeal of WI ban on new reactors could return state to DOE's target list for national radioactive waste dump

The Wolf River Batholith in n. WI, shown here, could be back on DOE's target list for a high-level radioactive waste dump.EcoWatch has published an article by Beyond Nuclear entitled  "The Great Lakes and a High-Level Radioactive Nuke Waste Dump Don't Mix." Canada's proposed DGR isn't the only such risk. The Wisconsin State Assembly's recent passage of a bill, to repeal the state's 33-year-old new atomic reactor moratorium, risks putting Wisconsin's northern granite geology back at the top of the U.S. Department of Energy's target list for a high-level radioactive waste dump, as it was in the 1980s. The Wisconsin State Senate hasn't voted to repeal the ban yet, and may be the last chance to preserve it. The targeted granite geology could include areas located within the Great Lakes Basin watershed, raising the specter of leakage into the drinking water supply for 40 million people in two countries. More

Video documentary on the Challenger shuttle and its plutonium

Karl Grossman's (journalism professor and Beyond Nuclear board member) investigation into how the next mission of the ill-fated Challenger shuttle involved lofting a plutonium-fueled space probe, is featured in a documentary broadcast on the Dutch Public Broadcasting System tonight. The program is underpinned by then President Ronald Reagan's speech following the disaster. Others in the documentary include Jello Biafra, the musician, spoken word artist and environmental activist, and Reagan's son Ron. Grossman criticize the U.S. media in the documentary for being a booster rather than a watchdog of the space program -- then and now. And he relates how he learned of the Challenger plutonium shot and pursued it.

SNL: "Palisades plant critics vow to continue fight over 'thermal shock' issue" (risks extend to Pt. Beach, Indian Pt., Diablo, & Beaver Valley)

Entergy's Palisades atomic reactor, located on the Lake Michigan shoreline in southwest Michigan.SNL Financial has published an in-depth investigative article by Matthew Bandyk, "Palisades nuclear plant critics vow to continue fight over 'thermal shock' issue."

The article revealed that Palisades' previous owner, Consumers Energy, had planned to attempt to repair the severely neutron radiation embrittled reactor pressure vessel (RPV), by undertaking experimental, expensive annealing (super-heating the metal in an attempt to restore ductility) in the late 1990s, but decided not to, for fear of public backlash and/or legal intervention against the needed License Amendment Request. More.