NRC staff said agency cut safety corners at MOX plant

Two scientists retained by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to oversee the construction of the mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel fabrication plant in South Carolina (pictured left) say the agency took safety shortcuts that seriously jeopardize the project. According to an expose by the news service, ProPublica,  first Alex Murray, the lead chemical process engineer on the NRC review team, and then his replacement, Dan Tedder, a chemical engineering professor from the Georgia Institute of Technology, called out safety problems but were either removed from the job (Murray) or resigned in frustration (Tedder).  The MOX plant is supposed to process left over plutonium pits from the U.S. atomic arsenal into commercial reactor fuel, although no U.S. reactors are designed to use MOX and the utility slated to use it - Duke - has withdrawn from the project.

According to the scientists, as reported by ProPublica: "Work on the facility was allowed to begin, they say, before some of the most essential questions were fully answered. They have been particularly concerned about the danger of chemical explosions, the adequacy of the ventilation and radioactive waste disposal systems and the way the plutonium will be tracked as it is processed."

According to Tedder, the NRC's "primary focus is staying on schedule and not doing anything to delay the applicant, rather than identifying dominant risks and safety issues.”

The NRC has a lamentable track record, called out by Beyond Nuclear staffers for years, of prioritizing industry profit motives over public safety. Needless to say, the NRC has denied the assertions of their former staffers.

"Unsafe at any dose" op-ed by Dr. Helen Caldicott

In a stellar op-ed in the May 1st edition of the New York Times, renowned pediatrician and anti-nuclear activist, Dr. Helen Caldicott, calls on doctors to act against nuclear power. As she writes: "There’s no group better prepared than doctors to stand up to the physicists of the nuclear industry." The article concludes: "Physicists had the knowledge to begin the nuclear age. Physicians have the knowledge, credibility and legitimacy to end it." Read the full article. Dr. Caldicott is the founding president of Beyond Nuclear and currently heads the Helen Caldicott Foundation for a Nuclear-Free Planet.

"No matter how much money we have, it will not be enough"

These are the words of Tsunehisa Katsumata, Chairman of Tokyo Electric Power Company, from a news conference in March. He was referring to the liabilities Tepco faces in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant catastrophe. He was quoted in a May 4th Wall Street Journal article entitled "Japan Confronts Liabilities for Crisis: Tokyo to Offer Plan for Victim Payouts, Financial Support for Plant's
Operator."

"Delusion is the solution to radioactive pollution" -- NOT!

Despite ongoing large-scale releases of hazardous radioactivity into the ocean and the atmosphere, U.S. federal agencies such as EPA, NOAA, and FDA, have announced that they have decided to not perform emergency radiological monitoring to guard against radioactive contamination caused by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power catastrophe in Japan. As if dilution into the environment means disappearance into nothingness. Completely ignored by this decision is the phenomenon of bio-accumulation and bio-concentration up the food chain, which reverses the dilution process. Deluding the public into complacency seems to be the aim.

Entergy Nuclear and NRC break safety promises at Palisades atomic reactor

Beyond Nuclear, in alliance with Don't Waste Michigan, has issued a media release accusing Entergy Nuclear of indefinitely postponing multiple, vital safety repairs -- and NRC of letting them get away with it. The 44 year old atomic reactor, which just began its NRC-approved 20 year license extension on March 24th, needs its reactor lid replaced, its steam generators replaced, its emergency sumps upgraded, and its fire protection regulations upgraded. In addition, Palisades' high-level radioactive waste dry cask storage -- just 100 yards from the water of Lake Michigan -- remains vulnerable to earthquakes; Palisades' indoor pool, storing many hundreds of tons of high-level radioactive waste, remains vulnerable to disruptions of the primary electric grid, as it lacks any backup power. Any one of these risks could lead to Chernobyl- or Fukushima-scale radioactivity releases in the heart of the Great Lakes, source of drinking water for 40 million people in the U.S., Canada, and many Native American First Nations.  (In the photo above, Mike Keegan, Alice Hirt, and Kevin Kamps of Don't Waste Michigan's board of director speak out against the reactor and radioactive waste risks at Palisades during the Aug. 2000 Nuclear-Free Great Lakes Action Camp; Palisades' cooling tower steam is visible in the background; the crosses bear the names of surrounding downwind communities that could be ruined in the event of a catastrophic radioactivity release).