Illinois votes to reverse ban on new reactors

With little debate, according to news reports, and even less press coverage, the Illinois State Senate voted to reverse a ban on building new nuclear power plants in the state. Illinois is already the state with the most reactors - 11 - in the country. There was a loan vote against the reversal from Sen. Jeff Schoenberg, D-Evanston. The condition of the original ban was that no new nuclear plants could be built "until such time as the federal government has an operational disposal facility for the dangerous and long-lived high-level radioactive wastes (HLRW) they would generate," according to Dave Kraft of Nuclear Energy Information Service. Kraft decried the vote, stating: "Beware the Ides of March – and the ignorance of the some Illinois legislators on nuclear matters."