Atomic reactors? Electricity is but the fleeting byproduct; the actual product is forever deadly high-level radioactive waste!

At the first anti-nuclear power event Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps ever attended, in March 1993, Michael Keegan of Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Great Lakes and Don't Waste Michigan pointed out that "Electricity is but the fleeting byproduct from atomic reactors. The actual product is forever deadly radioactive waste."

An environmental coalition of nearly three dozen groups, including Beyond Nuclear and Don't Waste Michigan, has said just as much to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission regarding its "Nuclear Waste Confidence" Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement. So too has Beyond Nuclear directly itself.

A key conclusion of such public comments? The costs, liabilities, and risks of generating, storing, and "disposing of" high-level radioactive wastes mean that NRC approving license extensions at old reactors is a non-starter, as should have been revealed by the "hard look" required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) during NRC's court-ordered EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) undertaking.

The image to the left is the cover of the Beyond Nuclear pamphlet published for the Dec. 2, 2012 conference held at the U. of Chicago entitled "A Mountain of Radioactive Waste 70 Years High." Sponsored by Beyond Nuclear, FOE, and NEIS, it marked the 70th year, to the day, since Enrico Fermi fired up the first self-sustaining chain reaction in an atomic reactor, creating the world's first high-level radioactive waste, as part of the Manhattan Project's race to create atomic weapons, culminating in the annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan in August, 1945.

"Nuclear giant taps wind tax credit that it's trying to kill"

Greenwire has published an article by Hannah Northey, E&E reporter, exposing the hypocricy of Exelon for exploiting the very wind power subsidy that it has attacked as giving the wind power industry an unfair competition advantage.

The article reports: "Amy Grace, a North American wind analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, pegged Exelon's wind PTCs [Production Tax Credits] for 2013 at $75 million to $100 million based on the company's 1.3 gigawatts of wind projects."

The American Wind Energy Association expelled Exelon from its membership in 2012 for Exelon's lobbying to kill the wind power production tax credit.

The IL reactors Exelon has identified as at risk of closing due to being outcompeted by wind power are: Clinton, Byron 1 & 2, and Quad Cities 1 & 2.

Quad Cities twin units are identical in design to Fukushima Daiichi Units 1 to 4 -- GE BWR Mark Is.

The near-term risk of closure comes despite Quad Cities already receiving a 20-year operating license extension rubberstamp from NRC, and Byron 1 & 2 having applied for one as well.

Grassroots activism laid the groundwork for Vermont Yankee's announced demise

Bob Bady, a founding member of the Safe and Green Campaign, has penned an op-ed at the Vermont Digger entitled "What Killed the Beast?"

The beast to which he refers is Vermont Yankee (VY), a GE Mark I boiling water reactor, identical in design to the wrecked, leaking Fukushima Daiichi Units 1 to 4 in northeastern Japan. The day before the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe began on 3/11/11, the 5 member NRC Commission voted unanimously to rubber-stamped VY's proposed 20-year license extension, despite widespread opposition, including a Vermont State Senate vote of 26 to 4 of disapproval. Later that month, despite the clearly revealed radiological catastrophe at Fukushima, the NRC staff finalized the paperwork for VY's 20-year extension. NRC's dirty deed didn't deter the resistance to VY, however. To the contrary, the opposition re-doubled its efforts.

Bady writes: "...The ultimate goal of a large corporation such as Entergy is to make money. Its growth or demise is about profit. The backstory is actually what prevented Vermont Yankee from making enough profit to continue to operate for decades to come.

Certainly cheaper natural gas was a signficant factor, as was an old plant that would require significant maintenance in the coming years. Pending costly federally mandated safety improvements, precipitated by the Fukushima disaster, also loomed.

The tipping point, however, the thing that might have really sealed Vermont Yankee's fate, was grassroots activism...".

He concludes that "because the anti nuke environmental community in Vermont, southwestern New Hampshire and western Massachusetts worked hard, long and intelligently to rally public opinion, and educate the Vermont Legislature," state laws signed by Vermont's former, pro-nuclear Republican governor became a "big expensive problem" for Entergy.

Bady adds "Entergy's income was first impacted when, by late 2010 and early 2011, its reputation had become so damaged by its own misdeeds, brought to the spotlight by activists, that Vermont electric utilities played hardball in contract negotiations. As a result, no deal emerged between Vermont Yankee and Vermont utilities, and Entergy was left to sell its product on the "spot" market, where prices had dropped because of cheaper natural gas."

Author Richard Watts asked the same question: how could Vermont Yankee go from being seen as a good neighbor and mainstay of the Green Mountain State's economy by some, to being almost universally disdained, even by former supporters, as a pariah, with top elected officials referring to Entergy publicly as a "rogue corporation"? Watts' book, Public Meltdown: The Story of Vermont Yankee, shows that Entergy's cover ups and lies under oath to state officials -- such as the 2007 cooling tower collapse brought to light by whistleblowers (photo, above left), and Entergy executives' perjury regarding radioactivity leaks into groundwater -- combined with widespread grassroots activism, turned the tide.

With VY shutdown announcement, will Entergy "circle the wagons" at Indian Point?

As reported by Reuters, now that Entergy has announced it will permanently shutdown its Vermont Yankee atomic reactor by the end of next year, the focus is shifting to the struggle between the nuclear utility and the State of New York, and a broad coalition of environmental groups and area residents concerned about the safety, health, and security risks for 21 million people within 50 miles of the twin Indian Point Unit 2 and 3 reactors in Westchester County near New York City (photo, left).

As reported by USA Today, Entergy says it has no plans to shutdown Indian Point Units 2 & 3, despite their 40-year operating license expirations in Sept., 2013 and 2015, respectively. However, as reported, groups like Riverkeeper -- which has intervened against the license extensions, raising numerous contentions -- beg to differ.

Roger Witherspoon has reported in The Huffington Post that Indian Point 2 will be the first atomic reactor to operate with an expired license, compliments of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which has rubber-stamped an exemption.

During his final press conference as NRC Chairman in summer 2012, Greg Jaczko, in response to a reporter's question, said there is plenty of wiggle room in NRC regulations for Indian Point 2 to continue operating despite its license expiration. Such a mockery of rule of law and regulation flies in the face of something Jaczko told a coalition of concerned local residents and environmental group representatives, including from Beyond Nuclear, during a May 25, 2012 meeting near the problem-plagued Palisades atomic reactor in southwest MI (also owned by Entergy, by the way). Jaczko said once a 40-year license or a 20-year license extension is granted to a nuclear utility for constructing and/or operating an atomic reactor, there is little to nothing NRC can do to force its premature shutdown. Which is exactly why watchdogs were so upset with him for joining with 5 to 0 NRC Commission votes to extend the operating licenses by 20 years at Palisades, as well as Entergy's Vermont Yankee, as but two examples.

Joseph Mangano/RPHP report on radioactivity releases from Palisades and increased death rates in the surrounding area

Entergy's problem-plagued Palisades atomic reactor in Covert, MI, on the Lake Michigan shorelineJoseph Mangano, Executive Director of Radiation and Public Health Project, has published a report, commissioned and endorsed by Beyond Nuclear, Don't Waste Michigan, Michigan Safe Energy Future, and Nuclear Energy Information Service. Based on government data and documentation on radioactivity releases from Palisades, as well as area health statistics, the report's major findings raise serious questions about the connections between radioactivity releases and increased overall death and cancer mortality rates.

Palisades received a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) rubber-stamp for 20 extended years of operations -- out to 2031 -- back in 2007, despite hard-fought resistance that sought to block it.

Press release

Full report: NUCLEAR CONTAMINATION AND HEALTH RISKS FROM THE ENTERGY PALISADES NUCLEAR REACTOR.

Beyond Nuclear pamphlet "Routine Radiation Releases from U.S. Atomic Reators: What Are The Dangers?" Note that the water discharge pathway photo was taken (by Gabriela Bulisova) at the Palisades atomic reactor, discharging into Lake Michigan. Although the atmospheric discharge pathway was photographed at the Callaway atomic reactor in Missouri, Palisades has a very similar vent attached to its containment building for aerial discharges of radioactive gases and vapors).

Beyond Nuclear report (published April 2010) by Reactor Oversight Project Director Paul Gunter, "Leak First, Fix Later," with a chapter on Palisades' tritium leaks into groundwater, first reported by Entergy Nuclear in 2007.

Update on August 21, 2013 by admin

WWMT TV 3 Kalamazoo reported on this story -- including a short summary at noon, and a longer story on the evening news -- as have WSBT TV-22 South Bend, Indiana and ABC57 News South Bend, as well as WKZO Radio Kalamazoo. The Detroit News and Holland Sentinel published articles, as has the Kalamazoo Gazette/MLive. WKZO Radio also interviewed Kevin on Lori Moore's morning show on Wed., Aug. 21st.