Beyond Nuclear board member, Karl Grossman on The Age of Fission

Beyond Nuclear challenges DOE's targeting of First Nations for radwaste dumps

Beyond Nuclear staffers attended the Sep. 15 DOE public meeting on "Consent-Based Siting" of high-level radioactive waste parking lot dumps. Paul Gunter spoke out against DOE's dubious attempt to rebuild public trust, pointing out that DOE is an agency explicitly promoting nuclear power, while never having sought consent for the generation of radioactive waste in the first place. 

 

Kevin Kamps challenged the environmental injustice of DOE's longtime, and continuing, targeting of Native American reservations for radioactive waste dumps. This flies in the face of President Obama's own proclamation honoring Native American activist Grace Thorpe's remarkable work to protect her own reservation, and many others, against just such DOE parking lot dumps in the past. DOE's targeting of Native American reservations for radioactive waste dumps comes despite other Obama administration agencies (Interior, Army Corps of Engineers, and Justice) having acknowledged the need for a long overdue reset on relations with tribal nations, in light of the historic Standing Rock Sioux Tribe opposition to the Dakota Access crude oil pipeline, now supported by 280 other tribes, and many thousands of Native American land and water protectors on the front lines.

Learn more, and see what you can do to help the resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline, at Beyond Nuclear's Human Rights website section.

 

Beyond Nuclear strongly opposes these high-risk parking lot dumps (so-called centralized interim storage sites), which the DOE will continue to push for with the new Congress and President next January.  Proposed dumps include one targeted at Waste Control Specialists, LLC in Andrews County, west Texas (above the Ogallala Aquifer).

Still time to tell DOE "No!" on parking lot radioactive waste dumps!

Representatives from multiple environmental groups "just say no" to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's "Nuke Waste Con Game" at the agency's HQ in Rockville, MD in late 2013In an outrageous and flagrant disregard for the public input process, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) released the summary of public comments regarding DOE's so-called "Consent-Based Siting" plan a mere 19 hours before its September 15 DC meeting. Only then, was Beyond Nuclear was able to get a look at the agency's newly published draft report summary of public comments along with links to the 10,000 full public comments. 

 

Comments were mostly generated by the members of groups including Beyond Nuclear, NIRS, Public Citizen, Sierra Club Nuclear-Free Campaign, and more. Thank you to all who submitted comments!

 

There will be another round of public comments, from Sept. 15 to Oct. 30, on the current draft report. DOE has indicated it will incorporate this last round of public comments into its final draft report, to be published by the end of 2016. Watch for sample talking points to use for your own submissions, coming soon from Beyond Nuclear, along with instructions on how to submit comments once we receive the DOE guidelines.

 

DOE clearly plans to push - and even fast-track - these senseless high-risk parking lot dumps.

 

We must continue to let DOE know that we DO NOT CONSENT! (Use Beyond Nuclear's sample talking points to write your own comments for submission to DOE. See how to submit them, below.)

Update on September 22, 2016 by admin

DOE has instructed that public comments should be sent, between now and October 30th, to the following email address: consentbasedsiting@hq.doe.gov. See the "Next Steps" section, at the bottom of DOE's Consent-Based Siting website page.

We almost lost Detroit but we've still got Fermi 1

On October 5 it will be 50 years since the Fermi 1 prototype liquid metal fast breeder reactor, located near Monroe, MI, suffered a loss of coolant accident and partial meltdown that narrowly missed turning into a major catastrophe, as recounted in John Fuller's landlmark book, We Almost Lost Detroit.

But as a warning to those who think a shut down reactor then vanishes, the Fermi 1 reactor (pictured) still sits on site, essentially mothballed.

Beyond Nuclear will be participating in events next month in Detroit to mark the anniversary and expose the fact that emergency planning, while no longer virtually non-existent as it was 50 years ago, remains woefully inadequate and deeply flawed. People living and working within the Emergency Planning Zones of all reactors -- including the still operating Fermi 2 reactor at the same site and the same design as those that melted down at Fukushima Daiichi -- remain dangerously under-protected. Subscribe to the Beyond Nuclear Bulletin to hear more about the Detroit conference -- hosted by the Alliance to Halt Fermi 3 -- and the on-going challenge to close Fermi 2 and block licensing for the proposed Fermi 3 reactor.

Beyond Nuclear & Pilgrim Watch challenge Entergy attempt at evasion of federal law established by Fukushima Order

On September 7, 2016, Beyond Nuclear joined with Pilgrim Watch and six other Massachusetts safe energy groups to oppose an effort by the New Orleans-based Entergy Nuclear Corporation to quietly evade economic consequences and legal compliance with a critical Fukushima Lessons-Learned Order. The groups have filed a petition in request of a public hearing before the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Atomic Safety Licensing Board.

The Order was issued by the NRC on June 6, 2013 for the 30 remaining GE Mark I and Mark II boiing water reactor units still in operation in the US. Acknowledging the demonstrated gross containment failure of the three Fukushima reactors that were at power on March 11, 2011, the NRC Order modified the operating licenses of all operators of the U.S. Fukushima-style reactors, including Entergy’s GE Mark I boiling water reactor at Pilgrim in Plymouth, MA to require the installation of a reliable hardened containment vent capable of withstanding a severe accident. This includes where the reactor core has already been damaged and begun to melt down.

The Order explicitly mandates that the operator responses and actions be within the required time frames which in Pilgrim’s case the containment upgrade is scheduled for completion following its next refueling outage in Spring 2017. On June 24, 2016, over three years after the Order was issued, Entergy filed “A Request for Extension to Comply” with the NRC Order to postpone compliance until after Entergy’s announced early closure date of June 1, 2019. Entergy will then seek relief from the Order altogether.

The joint petition requests that the NRC deny Pilgrim an extension for many reasons.  First, an "extension" is disgenuous because Entergy blantanly has no intention of ever complying with the public safety Order. In fact, Energy intends to continue to profit from operations, avoid Fukushima's economic consequences for US reactor upgrades and hide from public disclosure the  significant public safety risks identified in the NRC Order that arise out of non-compliant operation. Entergy’s filed its request for an extension well after the Order’s own timeline required all licensees to notify the agency if there was going to be a compliance problem. Of more concern, there is the  central legal issue that Entergy’s request is really to attempt to evade the fact that its operating license was amended by the Order which requires Pilgrim to instead submit a license amendment request and the opportunity for full disclosure and review of the safety risks in an open public hearing under the NRC’s own rules and regulations.

If Entergy refuses to seek to legitimately change the Order's compliance requirements for Pilgrim to avoid disclosure and upgrade costs through the license amendment process by submitting to a public hearing as required by law, then the NRC must not  allow Pilgrim to refuel in 2017 and revoke it's operating license for failure to comply.

“Entergy's request for an 'extension to comply' with the NRC Order is a disingenuous attempt to evade Fukushima's economic consequences and the public's scrutiny of the risks of continued operation in violation of federal law from behind closed doors," said Paul Gunter, Director of the Reactor Oversight Project at Beyond Nuclear based in Takoma Park, Maryland in its press release.  "This simply has to be challenged in an open public hearing," he said.