Congress Needs to Start Over on San Onofre Nuclear Waste

• Times of San Diego - Opinion: Congress Needs to Start Over on San Onofre Nuclear Waste - By Geoffrey Fettus, Special for CALmatters

Near-Drop of 50-ton high-level radiaoctive waste Holtec inner canister at San Onofre results in $116,000 fine for Southern CA Edison/Edison International

As posted at the State of Nevada Agency for Nuclear Project's "What's News" website section:

Updated - Thursday, March 28, 2019 [the 40th annual commemoration of the Three Mile Island Unit 2 reactor meltdown]

• Surfer Magazine - Edison Fined $116,000 for "Near-Miss" at San Onofre Power Plant - By Todd Prodanovich
• The Orange County Register - Robots inspect nuclear waste canisters for damage at San Onofre - By Teri Sforza

[$116,000 is, of course, mere pocket change for a corporation like Southern California Edison/Edison International.]

March 25, 2019

• Courthouse News - Utility Fined $116K for Near-Drop of Nuclear Canister - Bianca Bruno
• OC Register - NRC stops short of clearing Edison to move radioactive nuclear waste - By Martin Wisckol

What does HOSS mean?

Graphic depiction of HOSS, or "robust storage," as included in Dr. Gordon Thompson's Jan. 2003 reportWhat does Hardened On-Site Storage mean?

See "HOSS it!" (IEER Nuclear Waste Management Plan), dated June 4, 2002.

See Dr. Gordon Thompson's Jan. 2003 report, "Robust Storage," to find out:

Executive Summary of “Robust Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel: A Neglected Issue of Homeland Security”, Institute for Resource and Security Studies (January 2003) focuses on the vulnerability of irradiated fuel stored at the nation’s nuclear power stations  to terrorism and what we can do about it.

Full report of “Robust Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel: A Neglected Issue of Homeland Security”, Institute for Resource and Security Studies (January 2003) focuses on the vulnerability of irradiated fuel stored at the nation’s nuclear power stations  to terrorism and what we can do about it.

Citizens Awareness Network of the Northeast commissioned Dr. Thompson's "Robust Storage" report. 

Also see the Statement of Principles for Safeguarding Nuclear Waste at Reactors, posted at the IEER (Institute for Energy and Environmental Research) website. Dr. Arjun Makhijani, President of IEER, coined the phrase "Hardened On-Site Storage (HOSS)," which he unveiled at a CAN event in April 2002 held at Wesleyan U. in CT. 

To see another artist's rendition of HOSS, in addition to the one above, click here.

After Indian Point: Leaving Waste High and Dry

As reported by Brian PJ Cronin in The Highlands Current. Beyond Nuclear is quoted throughout the article.

Beyond Nuclear letter to the editor in the L.A. Times

The following letter to the editor was published in the Los Angeles Times, written in response to a Sept. 11, 2017 L.A. Times editorial:

To the editor: For 15 years, hundreds of environmental groups have advocated for hardened on-site storage of irradiated nuclear fuel, as close and safely as possible, to the point of generation as a necessary interim measure.

Why ship highly radioactive waste a thousand miles to the east when it could be moved just a few miles? San Onofre’s wastes can be transferred out of the tsunami zone, away from the earthquake faults, across the 5 Freeway, further inland and to higher ground. By moving the dangerous nuclear fuel rods into the heart of Camp Pendleton, there would be the added bonus of many thousands of U.S. Marines to help guard it.

The push to turn the New Mexico-Texas borderlands into a nuclear wasteland is an environmental injustice. The large Hispanic population already suffers significant pollution from oil drilling, natural gas fracking, uranium enrichment and “low-level” radioactive waste disposal.

Kevin Kamps, Takoma Park, Md. 

The writer monitors radioactive waste for the group Beyond Nuclear.