Beyond Nuclear blasts billion dollar Davis-Besse bailout as "Faustian fission" due to cracked containment risks
"Burning money" graphic by Gene Case of Avenging Angels.Beyond Nuclear has published a media release in response to FirstEnergy and the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) Staff announcing a settlement agreement for an eight-year, nearly $4 billion ratepayer bailout to prop up the utility's uncompetitive Davis-Besse atomic reactor, as well as a number of coal burning power plants. (See the Word version of Beyond Nuclear's media release, for live links.)
Davis-Besse had dodged more radioactive bullets over the past 40 years than any other single reactor in the U.S. But will it be so lucky for another 20-years of radioactive Russian roulette on the Great Lakes shore?
In this high-stakes, big money "game" of "Faustian fission," Mephistopheles could return in the form of a meltdown.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is poised to rubber-stamp the 2017-2037 license extension. Beyond Nuclear has helped lead the grassroots resistance against that, for the past five years.
Davis-Besse has the concrete containment fatal fracturing of a Crystal River, FL; the risky, experimental steam generator replacement of a San Onofre, CA; and the inability to compete of a Kewaunee, WI, Pilgrim, MA, and FitzPatrick, NY. So why is it still operating?! Opponents hope to accomplish "a Vermont Yankee," and "a Gentilly, Quebec," and force Davis-Besse's shutdown, before it melts down.
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RTO Insider, Columbus Business First, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer have reported on the PUCO Staff/FirstEnergy settlement agreement on the bailout proposal, as well as others' vehement opposition, and vow to fight on.
Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps got a letter to the editor published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, opposing the Davis-Besse bailout and calling for the reactor's shutdown.