Great Lakes Nuke Dump Decision Postponed; Critics Call for Dump's Cancellation

OPG's DUD would be built on a peninsula surrounded on three sides by water, just 3/4ths of a mile from the shoreline of the Great Lakes.The newly appointed Canadian Environment Minister, the Honorable Catherine McKenna, has postponed the deadline for deciding whether or not to approve Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) proposal to bury radioactive wastes on the Great Lakes shore at Bruce Nuclear Generating Station in Kincardine, Ontario. The deadline had been next Wednesday, December 2, 2015; she has postponed the decision until March 1, 2016.

Beyond Nuclear has issued a press release (see the Word version for live links to relevant documents). In it, Beyond Nuclear thanks a bipartisan U.S. congressional delegation of 32 Senators and Representatives for writing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and urging him to cancel the Deep Geologic Repository (DGR) outright, or at the very least, postpone the decision until they can meet with him in person to communicate the concerns and objections of tens of millions of U.S. citizens in eight Great Lakes states. Beyond Nuclear has expressed confidence that Minister McKenna's review of the 13 years of growing resistance to the DUD (short for Deep Underground Dump) will convince her to reject OPG’s proposal as unacceptably risky to the drinking water supply for 40 million people. See Beyond Nuclear's Canada website section for more information.

Nuclear Power Is No Fix for Climate

M.V. Ramana (pictured) is with the Nuclear Futures Laboratory and the Program on Science and Global Security at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University.  He is an Advisory Board member of Beyond Nuclear.  His recent column, Nuclear Power Is No Fix for Climate, debunks the myth that nuclear energy can, or will, contribute to climate change mitigation.  Ramana points out that the expansion needed for nuclear energy to make a meaningful impact in greenhouse gas reduction is unrealistic. He writes: "Several technical and economic challenges confront such a large and relatively rapid expansion of nuclear reactor construction; these challenges suggest that although nuclear power will remain part of electricity generation in several countries, its prospects for significant growth are limited. In addition, there are social problems; in particular, sustained public opposition in most countries around the world, a sentiment that was clearly apparent in 2011 after the multiple meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant." Read the full article.

Oyster Creek can operate in dangerous state until closure says NRC

BREAKING: docs show NJ #nuclear plant given a pass by nuclear regulator to keep operating without agency-ordered fix https://t.co/8xLraBGOvN

— Beyond Nuclear (@BeyondNuclear) November 24, 2015

Texas in the crosshairs for high-level radioactive waste

Beyond Nuclear’s Kevin Kamps spent two days monitoring the Division of Spent Fuel Management Regulator Conference hosted by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, November 18-19.   There, Beyond Nuclear learned that two radioactive waste behemoths -- Waste Control Specialists of Texas and EnergySolutions of Utah -- have merged.

“With two powerhouse radioactive waste companies pooling their resources, this puts Texas right in the cross-hairs as the top target for a de facto permanent parking lot dump for the country’s commercial high-level radioactive waste,” Kamps said.  

Waste Control Specialists already operates a so-called "low-level" radioactive waste burial dump at its West Texas site, putting the Ogallala Aquifer at risk of radioactive contamination.  The proposed “Consolidated Interim Storage” (CIS) program, supported by the White House and U.S. Department of Energy, would move high-level radioactive waste from all the country’s nuclear power plants to allegedly temporary parking lot dump sites.  

“Texas could find itself playing host to these deadly radioactive wastes permanently,” Kamps said.  “This merger makes the West Texas site that already houses Class A, B and C so-called “low-level” radioactive waste far more attractive to an industry that would like to bury its inconvenient radioactive waste problem, both literally and figuratively.”

State of Nevada refuses to be "screwed" by half-baked attempt to revive cancelled Yucca Mountain radioactive waste dump

Native Community Action Council bumper stickerRobert J. Halstead, the Executive Director of the State of Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects, serving under the Office of the Governor, Brian Sandoval, has submitted comments to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on the agency's Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SDEIS) on Yucca Mountain. The comments comprise powerful pushback against the half-baked attempt to revive the cancelled Yucca Mountain radioactive waste dump. The chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has called the entire NRC SDEIS proceeding "a useless act," a multi-million dollar waste of time, energy, and taxpayer resources, not to mention public involvement. More.