If you feel like screaming...

JOIN THE BEYOND NUCLEAR "I HAVE A SCREAM" RALLY ON HALLOWE'EN!

Does the continued promotion of nuclear power by the Obama administration – even after Fukushima – make you want to scream? If so, you are not alone. Join like-minded activists at the Beyond Nuclear I Have A Scream rally on Hallowe’en at 12 noon, Monday, October 31 outside DOE headquarters (see flyer for details).

On October 31, an aptly chosen date, the US Energy Department’s Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future will finally close its supposedly open doors to any further public comment on its mandate to “solve” this country’s radioactive waste problem. Using millions of our taxpayer dollars, and after junkets to France and Finland, the commission has come up with nothing new at all! To wit: it recommends that a new search should be made for a geologic repository; reactor waste should be transported to centralized interim storage sites; and that research, development, and demonstration dollars from taxpayers should continue to be wasted on reprocessing.

Wear a costume, bring a sign and let your voices - and screams - be heard!

Rifkin: "I think nuclear's -- it's really over."

"I think Fukushima was just the last point of departure.

The problem is this. There's about 400 nuclear power plants in the world. They're very old. They only make up 6 percent of our energy mix, that's all. But our scientific community says to have a minimum impact on climate change, minimum, you'd have to have 20 percent nuclear in the mix of energy. That means you'd have to have 4,000 nuclear power plants. That means you have to replace the existing 400 and build three nuclear power plants every 30 days for the next 60 years. That's not going to happen.

we simply don't know how to get rid of the nuclear waste. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it, but we spent $8 billion to build that failsafe vault at Yuka Mountain to put the nuclear material in. We can't open it up because it's already leaking. Number three, uranium costs go up right now with the existing power plants. We could recycle the uranium to plutonium like the French want to do, but then we've got problems with security issues around the world.

We don't have the water. Forty percent of all the water consumed in France last year went to cooling nuclear reactors. And when it comes back, the water's heated and it's dehydrating eco systems for agriculture. So from a business point of view...I just don't think it's part of the equation." The Diane Rehm Show, NPR, Transcript. Radio show.

NRC: Full steam ahead with reactor license proceedings, despite Fukushima

As reported by the Newburyport News, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has decided to proceed "full steam ahead" with the Seabrook license extension proceeding, despite a legal intervention by Beyond Nuclear and environmental allies to suspend the proceeding in the wake of the Fukushima Nuclear Catastrophe.

In addition, Beyond Nuclear at the Fermi 3 new reactor proceeding, and the Davis-Besse license extension proceeding, and environmental allies at many additional old and new reactor proceedings, including new reactor design certification proceedings, have been rebuffed by the NRC Commissioners in a parallel call for license and design certification proceeding suspensions in the wake of Fukushima. At the time of the Three Mile Island meltdown in 1979, the NRC effectively suspended any and all license proceedings for a year and half. Not so this time, in the aftermath of the triple meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan.

Update on September 17, 2011 by admin

The Patriot Ledger has also reported this story, in the context of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant near Boston, Massachusetts. In this case, NRC rejected filings by not only an environmental watchdog, Pilgrim Watch, but even the State of Massachusetts Attorney General's office. A unique exception to NRC's full speed rubber stamp of 20 year license extensions, Mary "Pixie" Lampert at Pilgrim Watch has managed to keep the Pilgrim license extension proceeding tied up for going-on six years now, raising issues such as related to significantly flawed "severe accident mitigation alternatives" (SAMA) analyses. Mary has generously assisted Beyond Nuclear with similar contentions in its intervention against the Davis-Besse license extension in Ohio.

"Locals lambaste Seabrook"

The Seacoast Online quotes Beyond Nuclear's Paul Gunter, and other environmental opponents to a 20 year license extension at Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant in New Hampshire, during a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission environmental scoping meeting.

Coalition Against Nukes national rally in New York City, October 1st

Beyond Nuclear is honored to co-sponsor and field speakers to the national rally of Coalition Against Nukes in New York City on Saturday, October 1st. Beyond Nuclear's founding president, Helen Caldicott, will be the keynote presenter. Beyond Nuclear board member Karl Grossman, and Beyond Nuclear Radioactive Waste Watchdog Kevin Kamps, will also be featured speakers. Beyond Nuclear will also have an information table at the event.

Additional speakers include: Brent Blackwelder, President Emeritus, Friends of the Earth, and the most senior environmental lobbyist in Washington D.C.; former US Congressman John Hall, who represented NY's 19th District, including Indian Point, singer, songwriter and co-founder of Musicians United for Safe Energy--MUSE; Harvey Wasserman, anti-nuclear activist, author of SOLARTOPIA! Our Green-Powered Earth, A.D. 2030; and Alice Slater, Founder of Abolition 2000, NY Director of Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and its UN representative.

Rally co-sponsors include: Friends of the Earth, NYC Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Ralph Nader, New York Physicians for Social Responsibility, NYPIRG, Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Helen Caldicott Foundation, IPSEC, Beyond Nuclear, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Westchester Citizens Awareness Network, Shut Down Indian Point Now, Time’s Up, ECOFEST, Rock the Reactors, and more.

Rally info and updates are at http://www.coalitionagainstnukes.org/. To contribute, volunteer or get more info, email NYCRally@CoalitionAgainstNukes.org, call 631-377-1560, or write CAN, 51 Startop Dr., Montauk NY, 11954. Coalition Against Nukes has put out a press advisory about the event.