Nuclear Reactors
The nuclear industry is more than 50 years old. Its history is replete with a colossal financial disaster and a multitude of near-misses and catastrophic accidents like Three Mile Island and Chornobyl. Beyond Nuclear works to expose the risks and dangers posed by an aging and deteriorating reactor industry and the unproven designs being proposed for new construction.
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"This video is a presentation Arnie and Maggie Gundersen gave at Clarkson University to a Business Ethics course on October 22, 2013. The Gundersens discuss their experience as whistleblowers in the nuclear industry and the importance of the internet in reporting malfeasance."
U.S. Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA)
U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA)On Nov. 21st, a group of ten Democratic U.S. Senators wrote U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Chairwoman Allison Macfarlane regarding their concerns about new agency policies restricting transparency, even to Members of Congress. (Actually, to set the record straight, Bernie Sanders is an Independent -- a Socialist, to be exact -- from Vermont. He caucuses with the Democrats.)
One of signatories, U.S. Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA, photo left), a press release, stating, that the new NRC policy restricts congressional oversight and undermines transparency.
“This change in policy is clearly inconsistent with your stated commitment, is contrary to principles of government accountability, and in conflict with Congress’s constitutionally-authorized oversight authorities,” the Senators wrote in the letter to NRC Chief Macfarlane.
The other nine signatories on the letter are: Senators Menendez (NJ), Leahy (VT), Wyden (OR), Sanders (VT), Warren (MA), Gillibrand (NY), Blumenthal (CT), Baldwin (WI) and Whitehouse (RI).
Separately, a tenth U.S. Senate Democrat, Barbara Boxer of California (photo, above left), the Chairwoman of the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, also wrote NRC Chairwoman Macfarlane. Boxer stated that "Any effort to obstruct or impede my oversight activities is unacceptable," and demanded NRC explain why certain documents concerning safety concerns at the San Onofre nuclear power plant were evidently removed prior to delivery of boxes to Chairwoman Boxer's committee staff. Boxer also issued a press release.
Reporting on an EPW oversight hearing on NRC that took place this week, a blog in The Hill entitled "Boxer slams nuke regulator's 'intimidation,'" reported:
Boxer said the policy was evidenced earlier this week when NRC personnel sought to restrict her staff’s review of records related to an ongoing probe of safety issues at the San Onofre plant in Southern California. Boxer’s staffers were told that they could be physically searched for stolen documents after they had finished reviewing them, she said.
“Let me be clear — no form of agency intimidation or obstruction will be tolerated in this committee’s investigation or its Constitutional oversight responsibilities,” Boxer said. “Action will be taken if you do not reverse your policy.”
The EPW website has information about the hearing of the Clean Air and Nuclear Safety Subcommittee, including a link to the archived webcast. However, the hearing included only opening statements by the full Committee, as well as the Subcommittee, Chairs and Ranking Members. After about a half hour, the Subcommittee hearing was interrupted by the Senate floor vote -- dubbed "the Nuclear Option," ironically enough -- on ending filibusters on confirmations of presidential judicial and agency appointments. The hearing has yet to be re-scheduled.
Greenwire has published an article by Hannah Northey, E&E reporter, exposing the hypocricy of Exelon for exploiting the very wind power subsidy that it has attacked as giving the wind power industry an unfair competition advantage.
The article reports: "Amy Grace, a North American wind analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, pegged Exelon's wind PTCs [Production Tax Credits] for 2013 at $75 million to $100 million based on the company's 1.3 gigawatts of wind projects."
The American Wind Energy Association expelled Exelon from its membership in 2012 for Exelon's lobbying to kill the wind power production tax credit.
The IL reactors Exelon has identified as at risk of closing due to being outcompeted by wind power are: Clinton, Byron 1 & 2, and Quad Cities 1 & 2.
Quad Cities twin units are identical in design to Fukushima Daiichi Units 1 to 4 -- GE BWR Mark Is.
The near-term risk of closure comes despite Quad Cities already receiving a 20-year operating license extension rubberstamp from NRC, and Byron 1 & 2 having applied for one as well.
The beast to which he refers is Vermont Yankee, a GE Mark I boiling water reactor, identical in design to the wrecked, leaking Fukushima Daiichi Units 1 to 4 in northeastern Japan.
He writes: "...The ultimate goal of a large corporation such as Entergy is to make money. Its growth or demise is about profit. The backstory is actually what prevented Vermont Yankee from making enough profit to continue to operate for decades to come.
Certainly cheaper natural gas was a signficant factor, as was an old plant that would require significant maintenance in the coming years. Pending costly federally mandated safety improvements, precipitated by the Fukushima disaster, also loomed.
The tipping point, however, the thing that might have really sealed Vermont Yankee's fate, was grassroots activism...".
He concludes that "because the anti nuke environmental community in Vermont, southwestern New Hampshire and western Massachusetts worked hard, long and intelligently to rally public opinion, and educate the Vermont Legislature," state laws signed by Vermont's former, pro-nuclear Republican governor became a "big expensive problem" for Entergy.
Bady adds "Entergy's income was first impacted when, by late 2010 and early 2011, its reputation had become so damaged by its own misdeeds, brought to the spotlight by activists, that Vermont electric utilities played hardball in contract negotiations. As a result, no deal emerged between Vermont Yankee and Vermont utilities, and Entergy was left to sell its product on the "spot" market, where prices had dropped because of cheaper natural gas."
Author Richard Watts asked the same question: how could Vermont Yankee go from being seen as a good neighbor and mainstay of the Green Mountain State's economy by some, to being almost universally disdained, even by former supporters, as a pariah, with top elected officials referring to Entergy publicly as a "rogue corporation"? Watts' book, Public Meltdown: The Story of Vermont Yankee, shows that Entergy's cover ups and lies under oath to state officials -- such as the 2007 cooling tower collapse brought to light by whistleblowers (photo, above left), and Entergy executives' perjury regarding radioactivity leaks into groundwater -- combined with widespread grassroots activism, turned the tide.
Entergy's problem-plagued Palisades atomic reactor in Covert, MI, on the Lake Michigan shorelineJoseph Mangano, Executive Director of Radiation and Public Health Project, has published a report, commissioned and endorsed by Beyond Nuclear, Don't Waste Michigan, Michigan Safe Energy Future, and Nuclear Energy Information Service. Based on government data and documentation on radioactivity releases from Palisades, as well as area health statistics, the report's major findings raise serious questions about the connections between radioactivity releases and increased overall death and cancer mortality rates.
Full report: NUCLEAR CONTAMINATION AND HEALTH RISKS FROM THE ENTERGY PALISADES NUCLEAR REACTOR.
Beyond Nuclear pamphlet "Routine Radiation Releases from U.S. Atomic Reators: What Are The Dangers?" Note that the water discharge pathway photo was taken (by Gabriela Bulisova) at the Palisades atomic reactor, discharging into Lake Michigan. Although the atmospheric discharge pathway was photographed at the Callaway atomic reactor in Missouri, Palisades has a very similar vent attached to its containment building for aerial discharges of radioactive gases and vapors).
Beyond Nuclear report (published April 2010) by Reactor Oversight Project Director Paul Gunter, "Leak First, Fix Later," with a chapter on Palisades' tritium leaks into groundwater, first reported by Entergy Nuclear in 2007.
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WWMT TV 3 Kalamazoo reported on this story -- including a short summary at noon, and a longer story on the evening news -- as have WSBT TV-22 South Bend, Indiana and ABC57 News South Bend, as well as WKZO Radio Kalamazoo. The Detroit News and Holland Sentinel published articles, as has the Kalamazoo Gazette/MLive. WKZO Radio also interviewed Kevin on Lori Moore's morning show on Wed., Aug. 21st.
