Already 37,573 signatories to Don't Nuke The Climate! Sign the petition!

December 12, 2009 is the international day of action to support the Don't Nuke The Climate campaign and send a strong message to our leaders in Copenhagen. Please join the 37,573 signatories and counting of the Don't Nuke the Climate Petition. And please participate in the "Don’t nuke the climate!" day, slated to take place on the same date as the World Climate Day, on Saturday, 12 December 2009. Organise special events (street events, film projections, open debates, etc.) in your city or region. Ask your members and activists to organise events to express the world’s refusal to consider nuclear energy as a solution to climate change. Join the campaign, and please sign the petition.

Beyond Nuclear letter to President Obama urges no more nuclear loan guarantees

A Nov. 16 environmental coalition letter to President Obama urges the administration not to expand the nuclear power loan guarantee program in its Fiscal Year 2011 budget request to Congress. Along similar lines, U.S. Representative Ed Markey (D-MA), chairman of the powerful Energy and Environmental Subcommittee in the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee, has urged Energy Secretary Chu to not rush nuclear loan guarantees to flawed new reactor designs.

New Senate bill would expand nuclear energy, advance reprocessing

A bill proposed by U.S. Senators Jim Webb (Democrat from Virginia) and Lamar Alexander (Republican from Tennessee) seeks to double nuclear power in the U.S. over the next 20 years, and relapse further into radioactive waste reprocessing, at taxpayer expense to the tune of $100 billion, not to mention radiological risk. But Environment America expressed immediate opposition, urging resources be directed to cleaner, safer, and cheaper energy efficiency and renewable sources of electricity.

Obama administration wrestling with financial risk of new reactors

The high financial risks for U.S. taxpayers of new reactor loan guarantees have led the Office of Management and Budget to take a more cautious approach than the nuclear power proponent, U.S. Department of Energy, ClimateWire reports. Such caution is wise, given the litany of new reactor cancellations, suspensions, skyrocketing cost overruns, and licensing/construction schedule delays, as documented by Physicians for Social Responsiblity in "Nuclear Power: The Renaissance That Wasn't."

"Nuclear Retreat" continues as new reactor designs shown to be unsafe

In the space of just a few weeks, the two leading new nuclear reactor designs currently on the international market have been revealed to have serious safety deficiencies by nuclear safety authorities in four countries. Both the U.S.-Japanese Westinghouse-Toshiba AP-1000 design and the French European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) have been shown to be potentially unsafe. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said last month that the AP-1000 containment design was structurally vulnerable to collapse from events like earthquake, tornadoes and severe storm damage. The NRC has already required the AP-1000 design to show it could withstand a major aircraft crash. The EPR, under construction in France and Finland, but also proposed for Britain, the U.S. and elsewhere, was found not to meet safety requirements for reactor control systems by the British, Finnish and French nuclear safety agencies. The U.S. and European agencies have demanded design modifications to both the AP-1000 and EPR reactors before declaring them “safe.” For more, read the Beyond Nuclear press release.