Nuclear power

October 13, 2009, WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Bart Gordon said he was pleased the U.S. Department of Energy revised its decision to send radioactive waste from New York to Tennessee for disposal in municipal landfills. The decision comes after DOE held a conference call and was met with strong opposition to the plan from interested stakeholders, including Congressman Bart Gordon, Tennessee environmentalists and government watchdog groups.

“This decision is a victory for Tennessee,” said Congressman Gordon. “This contaminated waste is radioactive and should be disposed of in a landfill that is officially certified to handle this kind of waste. There is no reason for New York’s radioactive waste to be dumped in any of Tennessee’s municipal landfills.”    » read more »

WASHINGTON (September 16, 2009) – The Natural Resources Defense Council has announced its support of a bill introduced today by Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) that would assist developing countries with meeting their energy needs with alternatives to both proliferation-prone nuclear energy and costly and polluting imported petroleum-based fuels.

Akaka’s bill, the Energy Development Program Implementation Act of 2009, directs the Secretary of Energy, the Secretary of State and the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development to present Congress with a plan for working with developing countries to develop sustainable energy policies.    » read more »

June 22nd, 2009 - WASHINGTON - U.S. Senators Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) on Friday introduced legislation that would ensure that compensation for the families of sick former nuclear workers won’t be taken away in cases where sick workers or their eligible survivors die before their claims are processed.    » read more »

GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy Encourages Congress to Support Development of Recycling Technology to Turn Used Nuclear Fuel into an Asset

WILMINGTON, N.C.--18 June 2009-- As the White House and U.S. Congress create a new national strategy for managing used nuclear fuel, GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) is encouraging lawmakers to support the research and development necessary for recycling nuclear fuel.

Testifying before the U.S. House of Representatives’ Science & Technology Committee on Wednesday, Lisa Price, a GEH senior vice president, briefed lawmakers on GEH’s proposed Advanced Recycling Center (ARC). The concept offers a timely solution to the industry’s most significant public policy and environmental challenges by turning used nuclear fuel into an asset.    » read more »

Recognized for Nuclear Fuel Recycling Technology Leadership

WILMINGTON, N.C.—June 16, 2009—GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) announced today that the American Nuclear Society (ANS) has honored engineer Charles Boardman with the prestigious Cisler Medal for his decades of leadership in the development of GEH’s “Generation IV” PRISM reactor technology.

The PRISM reactor is a cornerstone of GEH’s proposed Advanced Recycling Center (ARC) for recycling spent fuel from nuclear power plants. The technology offers a timely solution to one of the industry’s most significant public policy and environmental challenges, turning spent nuclear fuel into an asset.    » read more »

June 14, 2009 -- PARK CITY, UTAH -- The Western Governors’ Association and U.S. Department of Energy signed a Memorandum of Agreement today that will enhance the safety and security of transporting nuclear waste from sites within and outside the Western region to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico.

The agreement was signed during the WGA’s Annual Meeting here by Gov. Brian Schweitzer, WGA’s new chairman; C.L. “Butch” Otter, incoming Vice Chairman; and Steven Chu, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy. It expands upon current efforts aimed at ensuring the safe and uneventful transportation of nuclear materials.    » read more »

May 29, 2009 -- OLYMPIA – Washington Governor Chris Gregoire today announced that the U. S. Department of Energy has awarded more than $2.2 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds for Washington State energy recovery. Most of the investment will accelerate clean up efforts at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Richland.

“This is great news for the state of Washington,” said Gregoire. “This investment will support and create hundreds of jobs, it accelerates the cleanup of the most dangerous contaminated site in the nation, and it moves us toward a clean-energy economy for the 21st century.”

The funding will benefit the following areas:    » read more »

Agreement with Larsen & Toubro Strengthens GEH’s Local Supplier Network for Future, Multi-Unit Reactor Project to Help Meet Energy and Climate Goals

WILMINGTON, N.C.--19 May 2009-- GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) today announced it has signed a nuclear power plant development agreement with India's top engineering and construction company, Larsen & Toubro Ltd. (L&T).    » read more »

April 23, 2009 -- Washington, D.C.—It didn’t take long before the defenders of dirty energy started sounding like a broken record during yesterday’s action-packed day of hearings on the Waxman-Markey clean energy jobs plan. They trotted out all the canards, smears, and discredited attacks that have become so familiar—and then they came up with a few a new ones.

The clean energy champions on the committee and the Obama administration officials who appeared yesterday—EPA Administrator Jackson, Energy Secretary Chu, and Transportation Secretary LaHood—all deserve major kudos for turning in strong performances yesterday.    » read more »

Advancement has applications in many areas involving remote sensing

ARGONNE, Ill. (March 24, 2009) — Radio frequency identification (RFID) devices have been widely used for tracking for years; recently, scientists from U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have developed a unique tracking technology that also monitors the environmental and physical conditions of containers of nuclear materials in storage and transportation.    » read more »

Bailout estimates for failed projects could range from hundreds of billions to more than a trillion

March 4, 2009 -- The nuclear power industry is pressuring Congress to dramatically expand federal loan guarantees for building new plants, which would put taxpayers and ratepayers at significant financial risk, according to a report released today by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).    » read more »

Congress urged to put dollars toward renewables, energy efficiency

February 4, 2009 -- The Senate Appropriations Committee has added an additional $50 billion in loan guarantees to the American Recovery and Investment Act of 2009 to support a range of energy technologies authorized under the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) sent a letter yesterday to the Senate warning that, absent strong guidance from Congress and the administration, the vast majority of this authorization could go to such technologies as nuclear power, liquid coal and coal-gasification power plants.    » read more »

Push Ban To Keep Dangerous Materials Out Of Terrorists' Hands

August 12, 2008 -- Today Representative Peter King (R-NY), Ranking Member on the House Homeland Security Committee and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo warned that current restrictions on access to highly enriched uranium (HEU) are too lax and could potentially lead to terrorists acquiring the potentially lethal material. There are seven civilian facilities across the country that continue to use HEU even though safer alternative materials exist.    » read more »

McCain Touts Plan at Nuke Plant That Partially Melted Down, Gave Rise to Term "China Syndrome" & Caught Fire Just This Past May

August, 2008 -- Washington, D.C.--As John McCain is paying a visit today to the Enrico Fermi nuclear generating station in Monroe, Michigan he can be expected to tout his costly plan to build 45 new nuclear plants by 2030 and 55 more after that. This plan would effectively double the number of nuclear reactors and the amount of dangerous high-level nuclear waste that would need to be transported across the country.    » read more »

August, 2008 -- Solomons Island, MD - A coalition of safe energy advocates warned today that the third reactor proposed at the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant is not in the public’s best interest and likely will become an extremely costly and dangerous mistake for the region’s energy policy. The advocates were scheduled to testify at Maryland Public Service Commission’s first public meeting Monday night on the proposal to build a new atomic reactor on the Chesapeake Bay.

UniStar, a consortium of Baltimore-based Constellation Energy and the French electricity operator EDF, has selected the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power station in Lusby, Maryland, for the construction of the first 1,600-megawatt Evolutionary Power Reactor (EPR) proposed for the United States.    » read more »