Why Louisiana’s Electric Grid Failed in Hurricane Ida

Much of the state, including New Orleans, lost power for days because many of Entergy’s electrical poles and towers were not built to withstand a major hurricane, energy experts said.

As reported by the New York Times.

The Washington Post has previously reported similar stories.

New Orleans-based Entergy owns and operates several nuclear power plants across multiple Southern states.

It used to own merchant atomic reactors in Vermont, Massachusetts, and New York, but closed them and sold the contaminated sites, and highly radioactive wastes stored on those sites, off to decommissioning companies (namely, NorthStar and Holtec).

Entergy still owns and operates the Palisades atomic reactor in southwest Michigan, but has applied, along with Holtec, to transfer away the license, after closing the reactor by May 31, 2022. The long-closed Big Rock Point nuclear power plant site in the northwest Lower Peninsula of MI would also be transferred from Entergy to Holtec, if NRC approves the scheme. Along with its environmental coalition partners, as well as the Office of the State of Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, Beyond Nuclear has intervened against the license transfer.

Update on September 24, 2021 by admin

"Lights Out: Living without Power in the Wake of Hurricane Ida," as reported by the Washington Post.

U.S. Rep. Kildee Introduces Bipartisan Resolution Opposing Proposed Canadian Permanent Nuclear Storage Site Near Great Lakes

U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee (Democrat-Flint Township, Michigan)Resolution Asks Biden Administration to Work with Canada to Prevent New Permanent Storage of Nuclear Waste in the Great Lakes Basin

See U.S. Rep. Kildee's press release, here.

Beyond Nuclear has endorsed U.S. Rep. Kildee's resolution.

Update on September 18, 2021 by admin

Media coverage: Newsradio WSGW; WJRT ABC12 TV; NBC25 News; ExchangeMonitor (article is behind a paywall); Holland Sentinel.

WATER IS LIFE: Standing in solidarity with Indigenous Water Protectors

Beyond Nuclear's radioactive waste specialist, Kevin Kamps, took part in the September 4th "Float Out" at the Mackinac Bridge, between the Lower and Upper Peninsulas of Michigan. Dozens of kayakers joined a traditional Indigenous long boat to raise banners on the Straits of Mackinac, between Lakes Michigan and Huron, protesting Enbridge's Line 5 Canadian tar sands crude oil pipeline nearby. (Kamps hails from Kalamazoo, MI, where in July 2010 Enbridge Line 6 leaked 1.4 million gallons of diluted bitumen into the river, the largest inland oil spill in U.S. history.) Kamps also staffed an anti-nuclear information table at the Water Is Life Festival in Mackinaw City. The events, held in traditional Odawa and Ojibwe territory, were Anishinaabe led.

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NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION: Protesting nuke power bailouts in Chicago

Photo by Dave Kraft, Director, NEIS of ChicagoOn September 13, Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps, and fellow Don't Waste Michigan board member Michael Keegan, traveled to Chicago. They stood with Nuclear Energy Information Service director Dave Kraft, NEIS board members and supporters, as part of the National Day of Opposition Against Nuclear Bailouts. (Kamps and Keegan are holding the yellow "Nuclear Power? No Thanks!" flags in the photo, taken in front of a Marc Chagall mosaic mural outside Exelon Nuclear HQ in downtown Chicago.) Participants wore placards and handed out pamphlets protesting the around $25 billion Exelon would receive as part of $58 billion in federal infrastructure bill nuclear subsidies currently proposed. Ironically, later that day, a $694 million Illinois bailout for dangerously age-degraded Exelon reactors was approved.

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NRC LICENSES ISP: Opponents redouble resistance to CISF

Texans protest against high-level radioactive waste dumping in the Lone Star State at its Capitol earlier this month.On September 13, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) announced it had approved licensing for Interim Storage Partners' (ISP) controversial consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) in Andrews County, West Texas, on the New Mexico border. The CISF would "temporarily store" up to 40,000 metric tons of highly radioactive waste, from atomic reactors across the U.S. But without a permanent geologic repository in sight for decades, "interim" risks becoming permanent surface storage, a parking lot dump. The long expected NRC approval notwithstanding, a new Texas law, and environmental coalition federal court challenges, including ours, will hopefully block ISP. See our press release, and widespread media coverage. We have opposed this dump since it was first proposed, and won't stop now!

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