Beyond Nuclear on Thom Hartmann's "The Big Picture" regarding Fermi 1, 2, and 3

Thom Hartmann, host of "The Big Picture"Thom Hartmann (photo, left) invited Beyond Nuclear onto his television program "The Big Picture" to discuss the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) impending decision to rubberstamp the proposed new Fermi 3 atomic reactor's license in southeast Michigan -- to be constructed on the very spot where the "We Almost Lost Detroit" Fermi 1 reactor had a partial core meltdown in 1966. The environmental coalition that has been intervening against Fermi 3's license for six and a half years, represented by Toledo attorney Terry Lodge, has vowed to appeal NRC's decision to federal court, if need be.

Thom also asked about the risks at Fermi 2 -- identical in design to Fukushima Daiichi Units 1 to 4 -- and the liabilities associated with U.S., Japanese, and other nuclear firms building dangerous new reactors in places like India and China.

Many have tried, all have failed // Washington Examiner: GOP must overcome Reid to get to Yucca nuclear storage

U.S. Senator Harry Reid's (D-NV) Communications Director, Adam Jentleson, put it concisely with that Tweet above, in response to a Washington Examiner article.

Even as Minority Leader in a Republican majority Senate, Reid can be counted on to block any attempt to resurrect the long-canceled high-level radioactive waste dump targeted at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, as he has done for decades, ever since the "Screw Nevada bill" was passed into law in 1987.

In 2010, President Obama zeroed out funding for the Yucca Mountain Project, and ordered the U.S. Department of Energy to withdraw the construction and operating license application.

Entergy's Pilgrim suffered "a major loss of emergency assessment capability" during severe winter storm "Juno"

Pilgrim's bad week is turning into a bad month. As revealed by a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) "Event Notification Report" on Feb. 6th, Entergy Nuclear's Pilgrim atomic reactor on Cape Cod Bay south of Boston, MA suffered "a major loss of emergency assessment capability," during the severe winter storm nicknamed "Juno" on Jan. 27th. The report did not explain why it took ten days to report the incident.

The report, titled "LOSS OF SEA WATER INTAKE BAY LEVEL INSTRUMENTATION DUE TO LOSS OF INSTRUMENT AIR," states:

"On January 27, 2015, during winter storm JUNO, there was a loss of instrument air at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station (PNPS). Follow-up evaluations of the plant events that occurred on that day revealed that the loss of instrument air resulted in a loss of water level indicators in the seawater intake bays. The affected instruments, LI-3831 A/B, are utilized in assessing conditions for entry into the Emergency Action Levels. PNPS Emergency Plan Implementing Procedure (EPIP) EP-IP-100.1 specified a compensatory action of 'visual inspection required' should these instruments be unavailable. However, there was not a clear linkage between the EPIP compensatory actions and the operations procedure for loss of instrument air. Neither the EPIP nor operations procedure identified the specific actions necessary to perform the local monitoring action. Based on the above, we have concluded that this event was reportable pursuant to 10CFR50.72(b)(3)(xiii), Any event that results in a major loss of emergency assessment capability." (emphasis added)

Watchdogs called for Pilgrim's shutdown as a safety precaution before "Juno" hit, but Entergy and NRC ignored the request. But "Juno's" ferocity forced Pilgrim's shutdown. Pilgrim Watch and the Town of Duxbury nuclear committee then fired off a letter to NRC, demanding answers to a long list of hard-hitting questions about the risks at Pilgrim before, during and after the storm. For its part, NRC has kept Pilgrim on its short list of reactors nationwide with "degraded performance," and dispatched a "Special Inspection Team" in the aftermath of the "Juno" "unplanned shutdown."

Exelon's Ginna atomic reactor in upstate NY also at risk of near-term shutdown

NRC file photo of Exelon's Ginna atomic reactor on the Lake Ontario shore of upstate NY near RochesterAs reported by the Democrat and Chronicle, Exelon Nuclear's Ginna atomic reactor -- one of the oldest in the U.S. -- is at risk of near-term shutdown. Dr. Mark Cooper of Vermont Law School, in his July 2013 report Renaissance in Reverse, identified Ginna as one of a dozen atomic reactors across the U.S. most at risk of near-term, permanent shutdown, for a variety of safety, financial, and societal reasons.

The 45-year-old Ginna reactor is located in Ontario, NY, near Rochester, on the shoreline of Lake Ontario (photo, left).

It joins five of Exelon's atomic reactors in the utility's home state of IL at risk of permanent closure due to economic uncompetitiveness. Just yesterday, Public Citizen, Maryland PIRG, and others protested at Exelon's Baltimore HQ against the utility's attempt to plunder Mid-Atlantic ratepayers to prop up its failing reactors across the country.

Exelon is also trying to stick it to IL ratepayers, but is not alone in the attempted gouging of its own customers: FirstEnergy has sought permission to overcharge Ohio ratepayers to the tune of billions, to prop up its problem-plagued Davis-Besse atomic reactor near Toledo on the Lake Erie shore, as well as a dirty coal plant on the Ohio River. See Beyond Nuclear's "Nuclear Costs" website section for more news on these and related issues.

State of Vermont resists Entergy's attempts to eliminate emergency preparedness for high-level radioactive waste storage pool fire

NRC file photo of VY. The HLRW storage pool is located in the lighter colored upper portion of the reactor building, some 50 feet or more in the air.As reported by Vermont Digger, a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) panel has just denied a petition by the State of Vermont demanding NRC require Entergy Nuclear to maintain emergency monitoring data systems on its high-level radioactive waste (HLRW) storage pool at the recently permanently shutdown Vermont Yankee (VY) atomic reactor. VY's pool currently holds nearly 3,000 highly radioactive, thermally hot irradiated nuclear fuel assemblies.

As also reported three months ago by Vermont Digger, Entergy also wants to do away with emergency response planning by April 2016, even though HLRW will remain in the storage pool for several years beyond that. The State of Vermont wants emergency preparedness kept in place as long as HLRW is stored in the pool.

Whether due to a fast breaking drain down (as from the drop of a heavy load, natural disaster, insider sabotage, or terrorist attack), or a slower motion boil down (as from loss of offsite electricity to run circulation pumps), the loss of the cooling water in the storage pool would lead, within hours, to the ignition of the zirconium metal cladding on the fuel rods. A catastrophic radioactivity release over a wide region would follow, as the pool is located outside of robust containment structures.

Before later becoming NRC Chairman, Dr. Allison Macfarlane, et al., warned in a Jan. 2003 report about the catastrophic risks of pool fires. Robert Alvarez of Institute for Policy Studies, one of her co-authors, documented shortly after the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe began that VY's pool holds around 100 million curies of hazardous, radioactive Cesium-137. As cited in the 2003 Macfarlane et al. study, NRC has admitted that up to 100% of the volatile Cs-137 could escape into the environment in a pool fire.