"We're not ready" to prevent nuclear accident

Writing July 19 in the New York Times, columnist Bob Herbert details the country's unreadiness to deal with a nuclear accident on the scale of the Gulf oil disaster - or worse. He writes:

"Americans are not particularly good at learning even the most painful lessons. Denial is our default mode. But at the very least this tragedy in the gulf should push us to look much harder at the systems we need to prevent a catastrophic accident at a nuclear power plant, and for responding to such an event if it occurred.

"Right now, we’re not ready."

The column goes on to warn against a rush to nuclear expansion especially given the horrific consequences of a major nuclear accident.

"With nuclear plants, the worst-case scenarios are too horrible for most people to want to imagine. Denial takes over with policy makers and the public alike. Something approaching a worst-case accident at a nuclear plant, especially one in a highly populated area, would make the Deepwater Horizon disaster look like a walk in the park."

Read the full article.

3rd Annual Protect the Earth Great Lakes Gathering, Michigan's Upper Peninsula, July 30-August 1

Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps helped lead the nuclear power and uranium mining workshops at the 1st (2008) and 2nd (2009) annual "Protect the Earth" gatherings held at Northern Michigan University in Marquette, Michigan. These events were devoted to stopping metallic sulfide and uranium mining throughout Michigan's Upper Peninsula, particularly at the sacred Ojibwe "Eagle Rock" site on the Yellow Dog Plains near Lake Superior. Save the Wild U.P., one of the annual gathering's sponsors, has an excellent map showing the location of this Kennecot "Eagle Project," numerous other metallic sulfide mining proposals, and three known uranium mining proposals.

Uranium mining is unprecedented in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, although it has already devastated Ojibwe lands at Elliot Lake, Ontario to the east, as described in the book of Serpent River First Nation testimonials edited by Lorraine Rekmans and Anabel Dwyer, and as depicted in an iconic photo by Robert Del Tredichi showing a wall of uranium tailings, visible behind the trees -- radioactive waste from the Stanrock mill near Elliot Lake, Ontario. Serpent River First Nation environmental minister Keith Lewis reported in "This Is My Homeland that a "string of pearls" -- numerous atomic reactors -- had been proposed on the Canada side of Lake Superior at one point. But indigenous and other resistance beat the proposal back. However, he warned, those plans could easily be dusted back off.

At the June 2010 Midwest Renewable Energy Fair in Wisconsin, Kevin also met with Gabriel Caplett and Teresa Bertossi, editors of Headwaters: Citizen Journalism for the Great Lakes. Along with youth from the Keewenaw Bay Indian Community who had recently been arrested trying to defend Eagle Rock from bulldozers, Gabriel and Teresa gave an emergency presentation at Wisconsin's Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free networking caucus about the imminent mining threat at the sacred site. Hence the urgency of this year's 3rd annual Protect the Earth Great Lakes Community Gathering.

Check out this year's beautiful poster. This year's event will feature Ojibwe environmental justice activist Winona "No Nukes" LaDuke as keynote speaker, and renowned Native American musician Joanne Shenandoah. See the text of the email announcement just sent to Beyond Nuclear here.

65 years into the Atomic Age - July 16, 2010

Nuclear Age Peace Foundation president, David Krieger, reminds us how the Atomic Age began, 65 years ago on July 16, 1945 with the first Atomic Test - known as Trinity. The explosion prompted the memorable quote from Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, recalling lines from the Bhagavad Gita: 

If the radiance of a thousand suns
Were to burst at once into the sky,
That would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...
I am become Death,
The destroyer of Worlds.

And see this excerpt about Oppenheimer from the new film, Gobal Zero.

U.S. House Subcommittee on Energy & Water Appropriations approves $25 billion in additional nuclear loan guarantees

Thanks to everyone who acted on our alert and called your U.S. Representatives. Unfortunately, the U.S. House Subcommittee on Energy and Water Appropriations earlier today did approve $25 billion in additional nuclear loan guarantees on the Fiscal Year 2011 Energy and Water Appropriations bill. By the way, the bill also would provide $7 billion to the Dept. of Energy for maintaining and even expanding the nuclear weapons complex, and $1 billion for U.S. Navy nuclear reactors. Just over $5 billion would be appropriated for cleaning up the radioactive messes left over from manufacturing nuclear weapons in the first place. And another $824 million would go to the DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy, for research and development aimed at expanding atomic energy. Congressman Pastor (D-AZ), the chairman of the subcommittee, put out a statement breaking down these and other funding levels.

While the bill also approved $25 billion in loan guarantees for renewable and energy efficiency projects, there is already more money than the renewables and efficiency industries can use in the federal energy loan guarantee coffers. This is especially true, because the DOE has decided to charge such projects a 10% or higher application fee, while only charging the nuclear industry around a 3% application fee, even though the former are less financially risky, while nuclear is more financially risky. These "credit subsidy" fees are supposed to cover the cost of project defaults. But the Congressional Budget Office has predicted, based on the nuclear industry's past record, that well over 50% of new reactors will default on their loan repayments, leaving taxpayers holding the bag for 49% of the repayment on defaulted loans. A 10% or higher "credit subsidy" application fee for a loan guarantee is cost prohibitive to most renewable energy and energy efficiency projects. Just this week, the Government Accountability Office slammed DOE for its half-baked energy loan guarantee program, including for inappropriately favoring nuclear projects over and above renewables projects!

Friends of the Earth has appropriately asked "Did Democratic Leadership Try to Buy a House Seat with a $25 Billion Nuclear Bailout?" Regarding the July 1st House approval of nuclear loan guarantees, but rejection of safeguarding teachers' paychecks, FOE stated "Nuke Industry Bullies Students, Demands Lunch Money." We appreciate their insightful communications on these mind boggling nuclear power industry money grabs at taxpayers' pocket books, aided and abetted by the U.S. House of Representatives.

The Senate has not taken up this $25 billion in nuclear loan guarantees, nor the $9 billion in nuclear loan guarantees passed on the House floor on July 1st as part of the emergency war funding bill. Thus, calls to U.S. Senators urging they block any new nuclear loan guarantees would be valuable right now. The Capitol Switchboard can patch you through: (202) 224-3121.

Also, the full House Appropriations Committee, and the full House of Representatives, have not yet approved the $25 billion in new nuclear loan guarantees -- so now is the time to continue calling your U.S. Representative at the number above, and urge that they strip the nuclear loan guarantees out of the Fiscal Year 2011 appropriations act! 

Urgent alert: act now to block $25 billion MORE in nuclear loan guarantees on FY2011 Energy and Water Appropriations bill!

Call your U.S. Representative as soon as possible via the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. Urge them to do all they can to block $25 billion in additional nuclear power loan guarantees scheduled to be voted on by the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water tomorrow, Thursday, July 15th at 2pm.

Thanks to everyone who, over the past several weeks, responded to our numerous action alerts and contacted their U.S. Representative to "declare independence from a nuclear industry bailout" by urging opposition to the $9 billion in new nuclear loan guarantees snuck onto the Fiscal Year 2010 emergency supplemental spending bill (a bill primarily intended to provide additional funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as disaster relief). Unfortunately, the House passed the measure late at night on Thursday, July 1st -- ironically, at the 11th hour, as they were rushing to leave town for the 4th of July congressional recess! This happened despite an outcry from national environmental as well as taxpayer groups, and opposition expressed by nine Members of the House -- led by U.S. Representative Donna Edwards (D-MD) -- to the nuclear power industry money grab. This $9 billion represents an "advance" into FY2010 of a part of the $34 billion increase in the nuclear power loan guarantee funding requested by the Obama administration earlier this year. The U.S. Senate has yet to act on the $9 billion "advance" proposal (so call both your U.S. Senators via the Capitol Switchboard and urge that they block it!).

The big stink we raised about that $9 billion "advance" may have led House Appropriations Committee leaders to decide not to include the additional $25 billion in nuclear loan guarantees requested by the Obama administration in the FY2011 Energy and Water Appropriations bill unveiled in late June. But pro-nuclear power Democrats on the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee -- namely Chet Edwards (D-TX), Chaka Fatta (D-PA), and Marion Berry (D-AR) -- made a stink of their own, leading to the postponement of the bill's mark up session in late June. A coalition of environmental groups urged House Appropriators at that time to strip the $25 billion in nuclear loan guarantees from the bill. (Luminant has proposed building new reactors in Edwards' district; Fattah represents Philadelphia, a hometown to Exelon, the largest nuclear utility in the U.S., which hopes to build new reactors; Berry is from the host state to the "Arkansas Nuclear One" twin reactors, owned by Entergy, the second biggest nuclear utility in the U.S., which hopes to build numerous new reactors in the Southeast).

But now the FY2011 Energy and Water Appropriations bill is back on the front burner, and unfortunately does contain the $25 billion in nuclear loan guarantees. The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water is scheduled to meet on Thursday, July 14 at 2pm Eastern time to vote on the FY2011 spending bill, including this major increase in nuclear loan guarantees. A dozen national environmental groups wrote House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey (D-WI) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) today, urging the $25 billion in nuclear loan guarantees be removed from the bill.

Please call your U.S. Representative right away via the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. Urge them to block this pre-emptive bailout to the already heavily subsidized and filthy rich nuclear power industry. If your Member serves on this subcommittee, it is especially vital that you call them. If your Member serves on the full House Appropriations Committee, urge them to weigh in with their colleagues on the subcommittee. And if your Member does not sit on the Appropriations Committee, urge them to protect the American taxpayer by weighing in with their colleagues who do serve on the committee.

You can also track down your House Member's DC fax number to fax in a handwritten letter, or their website to submit a webform or email, via the Library of Congress website. But be sure to act right away!

In February, President Obama himself announced the awarding of $8.3 billion in nuclear loan guarantees for new reactors at the Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia. This leaves another $10.2 billion in new reactor loan guarantee funding at the Dept. of Energy, likely poised to be awarded to the new French Areva "Evolutionary Power Reactor" proposed at Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant in Maryland. In addition, in May the Energy Secretary awarded $2 billion in loan guarantees for a new Areva uranium enrichment facility targeted at Idaho. DOE has committed another $2 billion towards a new uranium enrichment facility proposed by U.S. Enrichment Corp. in Portsmouth, Ohio. This initial $22.5 billion in nuclear loan guarantees was originally appropriated at the end of 2007.

The additional $9 billion approved by the House two weeks ago would likely go towards new reactors at the South Texas Project. The added $25 billion now proposed could go towards yet more new reactors targeted at Summer nuclear power plant in South Carolina -- new reactors that Friends of the Earths' South Carolina organizer Tom Clements has helped lead opposition against. None of these new reactor designs have yet received final design certification from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, nor construction and operating licenses. In fact, numerous serious design flaws have been documented with the new reactor proposals, as the price tags continue to skyrocket. The Congressional Budget Office has put the financial risk of a default on loan repayment, leaving taxpayers holding the bag, at over 50%. Just two days ago, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported that the Dept. of Energy loan guarantee program is still flawed, and has inappropriately supported nuclear power over renewables and efficiency. The risks of large-scale radiological releases remain to be seen.