"Prefab Nuclear Plants Prove Just as Expensive"

"Burning money" graphic by Gene Case, Avenging AngelsRebecca Smith has reported in the Wall Street Journal that the "[m]odular method has run into costly delays and concerns about who will bear the brunt of the expense."

The Vogtle 3 & 4, GA, and Summer 2 & 3, SC Westinghouse-Toshiba AP1000 construction sites are featured. At the former, federal taxpayers would be left holding the bag for $8.3 billion in nuclear loan guarantees, if the project defaults. At the latter, ratepayers have been gouged, repeatedly, for many years, to finance the troubled construction.

These cost overruns and schedule delays were to be expected, however, based on the previous history of nuclear power in the U.S. and overseas.

More.

Cora Henry: "70 Years After Bomb, Hiroshima Activists Defy Nuclear Energy Industry"

Kosei Mito, showing Elisabeth Fernandes, of Osaka, and her niece his research on nuclear power. They are on the banks of the Motoyasu River, in front of the Atom Dome. Mr. Mito's guide badge, with an anti-nuclear weapons symbol, reads “IN-UTERO SURVIVOR.” Photo taken March 12, 2015 by Cora Henry in Hiroshima, Japan.Cora Henry, a journalism student at Indiana University, has published an article entitled "70 Years After Bomb, Hiroshima Activists Defy Nuclear Energy Industry."

Henry's article explores the history of the evolving position of Hiroshima's Hibakusha, literally “radiation-affected people,” towards nuclear power. She interviewed survivors of the bombing at the iconic remains of the Hiroshima Prefectural Industry Promotion Building, known as the Atomic-Bomb Dome.

In the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, an anti-nuclear power consensus has emerged in both major Hibakusha organizations, with some members now very active in the ongoing campaign to resist atomic reactor restarts across Japan.

Update on August 5, 2015 by admin

Lauren McCauley has published an article along similar lines at CommonDreams. In "As Anniversary Nears, Atomic Bomb Survivors Speak Out Against Nuclear Power," McCauley interviews Japanese Hibakusha from Fukushima City to Brazil who are outspoken opponents to nuclear power, and the impending restart of atomic reactors -- namely, at Sendai nuclear power plant -- in Japan under the Prime Minister Abe administration.

One correction to the article: there have been very limited atomic reactor restarts in Japan, even after the beginning of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe. For example, two reactors at Ohi nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture operated for a number of months in 2012. However, for the most part, almost all of the 48 operable atomic reactors in Japan have remained shut down since 3/11/11. Six reactors were rendered inoperable by the Fukushima Daiichi catastrophe: the operating Units 1, 2, and 3 melted down; Unit 4, although not operating that day, nonetheless exploded; Units 5 and 6, not operating that day, have nonetheless been retired, due to the hazardous radioactive contamination of the entire area. Japanese nuclear utilities have also announced the permanent shutdown of numerous additional reactors in the past four years, although a number remain operable.

Calvert Cliffs 3 EPR in MD officially cancelled!

As reported by World Nuclear News, Unistar (wholly owned by Electricité de France) has requested, and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has agreed, to withdraw the COLA (combined Construction and Operating License Application) for the Calvert Cliffs 3 proposed new atomic reactor. This officially cancels what was the flagship EPR in North America.

Areva of France's "Evolutionary Power Reactor" was targeted at seven sites in the U.S., and was also under consideration in Ontario. But the Calvert Cliffs 3 project was suspended in October 2010 when its American partner, Constellation Energy of Baltimore, balked at the Obama administration's 11% credit subsidy fee on its offered $7.5 billion federal nuclear loan guarantee to finance the project. That would have meant $880 million of Constellation's own skin in the game, so the company abandoned the project, and got out of the new reactor biz. Since, all other EPR proposals in the U.S. have been suspended or outright cancelled, and Ontario Power Generation also decided against EPRs.

"Downstream," by Arnie Gundersen, Fairewinds Energy Education

The Great Lakes -- around 85% of North America's surface fresh water, and over 20% of the world's -- provide drinking water for 40 million people in 8 U.S. states, 2 Canadian provinces, and a large number of Native American First Nations.Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer at Fairewinds Energy Education, has posted a blog entitled "Downstream," about the radioactive risks to the Great Lakes from dozens of atomic reactors located on their shorelines, in both the U.S. and Canada.

Gundersen has served as expert witness for Beyond Nuclear et al. in numerous challenges to continued operations at risky reactors on the Great Lakes, including Palisades and Fermi 3 in Michigan, as well as Davis-Besse in Ohio.

(Beyond Nuclear's pamphlet, "Routine Radioactive Releases from U.S. Nuclear Power Plants," also shows it doesn't take an accident to cause contamination of surface fresh water supplies, nor coastal oceanic fisheries for that matter. A map is included, indicating which watersheds are impacted by each operating reactor in the U.S.)

Resistance commemorates dark Atomic Age anniversaries in New Mexico

July 16th marks two dark Atomic Age anniversaries in New Mexico of national and even global significance. It's 70 years since "Trinity," the world's first atom bomb explosion, at Alamogordo, NM -- the Manhattan Project "test" for Nagasaki to follow three weeks later. And it's 36 years since one of the worst (and least known) radioactivity disasters in U.S. history, the massive uranium tailings dam release at Church Rock, NM. Ninety million gallons of liquid radioactive waste, and eleven hundred tons of solid mill wastes, spilled into the Rio Puerco River, vital source of drinking and livestock grazing water for Navajo communities downstream.

But resistance to nuclear weapons and nuclear power remains strong in the "Land of Enchantment," despite decades of ongoing radioactive abuses. This includes a joint "Radiation Monitoring Project" fundraiser by Diné No Nukes, S.A.N.S., and NEIS to provide detectors in uranium mining and milling contaminated areas of Navajo country, as well as the decades-long watchdogging work of Beyond Nuclear's Alliance for Nuclear Accountability coalition partners CCNS, Nuke Watch NM, and SRIC. More.