ATTEND, COMMENT: Decommissioning meetings across the country

NRC announced 11 public meetings (this link also has details on past meetings) regarding establishment of local community advisory boards (CABs).

These meetings run from August through October, 2019 and are in places where reactors are already undergoing decommissioning, or are supposed to soon enter the decommissioning phase. 

NRC will accept written comments through mid-November 2019 if you cannot attend a meeting in person.

If you want to attend in person, the next group of meetings will be in the:

Midwest:

Sept. 24 (Kewaunee, WI)

Sept. 26 (Zion, IL)

Northeast:

Oct. 2 (Indian Point, NY)

Oct. 3 (Oyster Creek, NJ)

and Florida:

Oct. 10 (Crystal River, FL)

Click links for times and locations. Please spread word to folks you know in any of these locations.

COMMENT electronically using the questionnaire NRC has provided. You may also complete a paper copy of the questionnaire then scan and email to NRC at NEIMA108.Resource@nrc.gov, or mail a hardcopy of the questionnaire to Kim Conway, U.S. NRC, 11545 Rockville Pike, Mail Stop T-5 A10, Rockville, MD 20852. Deadline for written comments in mid-November, 2019.

More than 200 environmental organizations have endorsed Hardened On-Site Storage (HOSS), a highly radioactive irradiated nuclear fuel management interim alternative, during decommissioning. More

Update on September 19, 2019 by admin

Beyond Nuclear was honored and privileged to join with 95 other organizations to protest NRC's rubber-stamp of a highly controversial license transfer from Entergy Nuclear, to the scandal-ridden Holtec International, for decommissioning purposes at Pilgrim atomic reactor in Plymouth, MA. An NRC decommissioning community advisory board public comment meeting has already been held at Pilgrim.

Update on September 19, 2019 by admin

Here is a direct link to the letter, signed by 96 groups, to NRC re: Pilgrim's decommissioning.

The myth of nuclear deterrence -- fact sheet

New fact sheet -- adapated and expanded from our Myth of Deterrence pamphlet. This fact sheet has two additional points not included in the pamphlet. Feel free to download, print and distribute.

The concept of “deterrence” is that the possession of nuclear weapons by one country would “deter” another nuclear weapons country — or even non-nuclear weapons country — from attacking. This has led to countries justifying their production of nuclear weapons as a national security measure while claiming they would only be used if already attacked by another nuclear country.

On closer examination, this thinking quickly becomes convoluted and illogical. And in reality there are more realpolitik reasons for having nuclear weapons — to offset conventional imbalance, prevent regime change, retain a seat on the UN Security Council, and so forth.

Nevertheless, deterrence is the cornerstone of defense policy and spending among all the major super powers. An estimated $100 billion is spent globally each year on nuclear weapons. This amount could solve most, if not all, the problems — including climate change, famine, poverty and disease — that cause transboundary conflicts in the first place. The very existence of nuclear weapons results in their perpetual justification. Download fact sheet.

ISP moves to moot only contention admitted by NRC ASLB in WCS CISF licensing proceeding

As made clear by postings at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) website on September 5, 2019, Interim Storage Partners (ISP) has moved to moot the only contention admitted by NRC's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB), in the Waste Control Specialists (WCS) consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) licensing proceeding. Learn more at our Centralized Storage website section.

Strong drumbeat of opposition to Yucca Mountain dump continues

 

Ian Zabarte, secretary, NCAC, speaks at a press conference at UNLVAs reported by the Las Vegas Sun, a coalition of Nevadans -- from Western Shoshone Indians, to environmentalists, to local, state, and federal officials -- have come together yet again to express their adamant opposition to the scheme to dump 70,000 metric tons or more of highly radioactive wastes at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. This continues 32 years of resistance, ever since the 1987 "Screw Nevada" amendments to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 singled out Western Shoshone land as the only site in the country to be further considered for an irradiated nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste permanent geological repository. In that time, more than a thousand environmental, and environmental justice, organizations have fought the dump at every twist and turn (see 750 of them listed here). Native Community Action Council secretary Ian Zabarte has achieved hard won, official intervening party status in the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Yucca dump licensing proceeding, in his effort to defend Western Shoshone treaty rights. 

 

As the Nevada Current reported about the recent forum, calls are growing for Democratic candidates for president to be bold and clear in their opposition to the Yucca dump. Nevada has the first Western presidential campaign caucus, coming just after the earliest contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. The Current reports: "At least five current Democratic presidential candidates -- Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, and [Kamala] Harris -- have signed on to [U.S.] Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto's [Democrat-Nevada] bill to force the federal government to request Nevada's consent before storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. Julian Castro, Beto O'Rourke, and Pete Buttigieg have also expressed their opposition to the federal government's proposal, while Andrew Yang has said he supports it." The Trump administration is seeking to restart the Yucca Mountain dump project, which the Obama administration wisely cancelled as "unworkable" in 2010 (not to mention scientifically unsuitable, environmentally unjust, non-consent based, inter-generationally unjust, regionally inequitable, etc.!).

What can you do? Contact your U.S. Representative, and both your U.S. Senators, and urge they co-sponsor Nevada's Nuclear Waste Informed Consent Act! You can be patched through to your Members of Congress's D.C. offices via the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. Some good news in Congress is that for the first time in many years, neither the U.S. House nor Senate Energy and Water Appropriations bills have any proposed funding for the Yucca dump! (However, they do contain $25 million, or more, for consolidated interim storage -- see CIS entry below.) Learn more about this issue at our Yucca Mountain website section.

Japan's new enviro minister says nuclear must go

Japan's new environment minister, Shinjiro Koizumi, son of the former prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, says Japan should close down its nuclear power plants. At a news conference reported by Reuters, he said: "I would like to study how we scrap them, not how to retain them." This is a surprising position from someone inside Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's extremely pro-nuclear government. The elder Koizumi, alongside the prime minister at the time the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster began, Naoto Kan, are both outspoken opponents of the continue use of nuclear energy. Abe replaced 19 of his ministers in a cabinet re-shuffle on September 11, including Yoshiaki Harada, the former environment minister, who had made headlines earlier this week by re-iterating Japan's intention to dump radioactively contaminated water from the Fukushima nuclear site into the Pacific Oceean (see story below). Read the full article. (Picture by R2d2ki for Wikimedia Commons)