INVITATION to CELEBRATE: The Nuclear Age in Quebec is Over! Gentilly-2 is SHUT DOWN!

"Rest in Peace, Gentilly-2". Image compliments of CentricoisES et mauricienNEs pour le déclassement nucléaireThis tremendous good news just came in from Dr. Gordon Edwards, chair of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, and co-chair of the Great Lakes United Nuclear-Free/Green Energy Task Force:

28 December: The Nuclear Age in Quebec is Over! 

Join us, in Montréal, at 1 o'clock in the afternoon

On this occasion, Sonomi and her two children-- refugees from Fukushima, Japan -- will be our special guests.

P.S. Québec will be truly out of the nuclear age only when we achieve a permanent moratorium on uranium mining, as has been done in two other provinces -- Nova Scotia and British Columbia!

(Nuclear utility Hydro-Quebec announced Gentilly-2's permanent shutdown, to occur tomorrow, last October. Gentilly-2 is a CANDU atomic reactor which has operated since 1982. The Quebec public will now avoid the wate, and risk, of billions in refurbishment costs, which Hydro-Quebec had hoped to foist upon them, in a bid to operate Gentilly-2 for 20 more years. However, decommissioning costs will now begin.)

Update on December 28, 2012 by admin

CBC has reported on this story. The article reports:

"...Environmental groups applauded the government's decision to shut down the plant...Michel Fugère, spokesman for the Mauricie's Green Movement, said the closure is a 'great gift' and represents 'a big day' for all Quebecers.

He pointed out that several polls suggested more than 60 per cent of the population in Quebec's Mauricie region supported the plant's closure..."

(Note that the article's report that dismantlement of the reactor would take place over the next 18 months is inaccurate. Only preliminary decommissioning activities will take place in the next year and a half; full dismantlement will take decades.)

Entergy Watch: NRC approves less frequent inspections on Vermont Yankee's troubled steam dryer

A Bathtub Curve (referring to the graph's shape) for Nuclear Accidents, by David Lochbaum at Union of Concerned ScientistsThe U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which is supposed to protect public health, safety, and the environment, instead often prioritizes nuclear utility profits.As reported by the Rutland Herald, NRC has now approved Entergy inspecting its troubled Vermont Yankee (VY) steam dryer not once every 1.5 years, but rather once ever 4.5 years. This, despite the fact that the steam dryer at VY has developed 65 cracks in the past 7 years alone, likely related to the 20% "power uprate" NRC has also rubberstamped there (this means that VY is being run at 120% hotter and harder than it was originally designed for, with consequently damaging vibrations). 

A decade ago at Exelon's Quad Cities nuclear power plant in Illinois, another NRC-approved power uprate's vibrations led to a steam dryer's failure, sending chunks of metal hurtling down steam lines -- some of which were never recovered, even though the reactor has been permitted to keep operating.

VY's steam dryer is not the only age-degraded system, structure, or component at the 41-year-old Fukushima Daiichi twin (a General Electric Mark I Boiling Water Reactor). Its condensor is also on its last legs, begging for replacement. Entergy seems in no hurry to pay the tens of millions of dollars for that repair, either -- and NRC is not requiring it of them.

In late October 2012, a Dominion Nuclear spokesman let slip that the "economic reasons" for the utility's announcement that it would close its Kewaunee atomic reactor on the Lake Michigan shoreline in Wisconsin was due to an inability to turn a profit due to the high cost of major safety repairs at the 40 year old reactor. 

The Bathtub Curve for Nuclear Accidents (above left) shows that age-degradation significantly increases "break down phase" reactor risks. NRC rubberstamped "power uprates" exacerbate those risks even worse.

25 years ago today, the "Screw Nevada Bill" was passed

Yucca Mountain, as viewed through the frame of a Western Shoshone ceremonial sweat lodge. Photo by Gabriela Bulisova.As reported by the Las Vegas Review Journal, in the wee hours of Dec. 22, 1987, 49 states ganged up on one, singling out Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the sole site in the country for further study as a potential national dump for high-level radioactive waste. Numerous targeted dumpsites in the East had been indefinitely postponed a year or two before, due to widespread public resistance. Deaf Smith County, TX and Hanford, WA were also being considered for the western dumpsite. But TX had 32 U.S. Representatives, WA had a dozen, and NV, just one. TX and WA Representatives also held the powerful House Speaker and Majority Leader slots. On the Senate side, NV had two rookie Senators, regarded at the time as easy to roll. The "raw, naked" political decision was made behind closed doors.

But the science -- Yucca's geological and hydrological unsuitability -- caught up to the proposal. So did Harry Reid's revenge, as he grew in power to become Senate Majority Leader. Led by Western Shoshone spiritual leader Corbin Harney, the Western Shoshone National Council maintained tireless opposition to the dump, joined, over time, by more than 1,000 environmental groups. Then, in 2009, President Obama and his Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, wisely cancelled the dangerous, controversial proposal.

Although $11 billion of ratepayer and taxpayer money had already been wasted, another $90 billion would have been wasted if the project had gone forward. If the dumpsite had opened, many thousands of high-level radioactive waste trucks, trains, and barges would have travelled through most states, past the homes of tens of millions of Americans, at risk of severe accidents or intentional attacks unleashing disastrous amounts of radioactivity into metro areas. And if wastes had been buried at Yucca, it would have eventually leaked into the environment (beginning within centuries or at most thousands of years), dooming the region downwind and downstream as a nuclear sacrifice area.

Dec. 21st marked the 30th anniversary of the passage of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. Such laws, transferring title and liability from the nuclear utilities which generated the wastes -- in order to make a profit -- onto ratepayers and taxpayers, represent an unprecedented, large-scale, and open-ended subsidy.

Update on December 23, 2012 by admin

Judy Treichel, executive director of the Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, has published an op-ed in the Las Vegas Sun entitled "Winning the Yucca battle -- 25 years later."