Nuclear waste

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 »

August, 2008 -- The Department of Energy's (DOE) plan to turn 34 metric tons of surplus nuclear weapons plutonium into "mixed oxide" (MOX) fuel for irradiation in nuclear power reactors has stumbled into yet another serious roadblock. Duke Energy has prematurely terminated a multiyear test of four experimental MOX fuel assemblies in its Catawba 1 reactor in South Carolina because of a potentially serious defect in the fuel design.    » read more »

Nuclear Power Plant Proposed for Victoria Puts Region at Risk

May 8, 2008 -- AUSTIN, Texas – While an environmental consultant brought to Victoria to tout nuclear energy is quick to claim that a new reactor proposed for the area would be “clean and safe,” he is less likely to discuss today at a private gathering of business and community leaders his ties to the industry, which is sponsoring his speaking tour.

Nuclear plant: Photo by Gabriel (CC)    » read more »

May 6, 2008 -- WASHINGTON, D.C. – The French-based AREVA company has notified Idaho’s Senator Larry Craig, Governor Butch Otter, Senator Mike Crapo and Congressman Mike Simpson that it has selected Bonneville County, Idaho, as the site of its $2 billion first U.S. uranium enrichment plant.    » read more »

Salt Lake City - Utah Governor Jon Huntsman decided Tuesday to direct Bill Sinclair, who represents Utah on the Northwest Interstate Low-Level Waste Compact, to vote against any proposals for foreign nuclear waste to come in to Utah. The issue is on the Compact's May 8 agenda.

Skull Valley, Utah: Photo by Rylan S L (CC)    » read more »

April 16, 2008 -- Nevada Senator Harry Reid called on the Department of Energy (DOE) this week to recuse the law firm – Morgan Lewis & Bockius – from any additional work on Yucca Mountain because of conflicts of interest recently acknowledged by the DOE’s Inspector General. “The Department set aside the Competition in Contracting Act to give Morgan Lewis this contract, potentially worth over $100 million, in a closed no-bid process that only involved two other law firms.

Yucca Mountain: Photo courtesy DOE    » read more »

Adding New Plants to Aging Fleet Will Increase Risk Without Safety Reform, Science Group Says

WASHINGTON (March 27, 2008) — The partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant began on March 28, 1979. Since the accident, not a single new nuclear power plant has been ordered in the United States. Indeed, 74 plants under construction at the time of the accident were cancelled.

The Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, which suffered a partial meltdown in 1979: The reactors are in the smaller domes with rounded tops (the large smokestacks are cooling towers).    » read more »

March 18, 2008 -- WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today released an Engineering and Technology Roadmap (Roadmap), which details initiatives aimed at reducing the technical risks and uncertainties associated with cleaning up Cold War era nuclear waste over the next ten years. The Roadmap also outlines strategies to minimize such risks and proposes how these strategies would be implemented, furthering the Department’s goal of protecting the environment by providing a responsible resolution to the environmental legacy of nuclear weapons production.

DOE Savannah River site workers carefully maneuver a spent nuclear fuel cask, October, 2005: DOE Photo    » read more »

Public opposition is growing to a private company's proposal to ship radioactive waste from Italy to burn, "process," "recycle," transport and dump throughout the US.

February 28, 2008 -- Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) and more than 40 national and local organizations* are calling on the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission to give the public more time to exercise democracy--to learn about, respond, intervene and request hearings on a plan that could open the US borders to nuclear power waste from around the world.    » read more »

Bill attempts to remove all safety standards to accelerate licensing process

January 24, 2008 -- Washington, DC — Nevada Senators Harry Reid and John Ensign released the following statements about a bill being introduced in the Senate to speed up the licensing process to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. This irresponsible bill calls for nuclear waste to be shipped to Nevada and stored in Yucca Mountain for 300 years before any radiation standard whatsoever is applied to the dump.    » read more »

DOE to Miss Important Deadline

January 14, 2008 -- Las Vegas, NV -- Nevada Senator Harry Reid issued the following statement after news that the Energy Department expects to miss its deadline to file a license application for the proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. For months the DOE has said the dump would be dead if it didn't file its license application by this summer. Today the agency announced it probably won't meet its own deadline because of budget cuts Reid engineered in the Senate.    » read more »

Letter sent to the Environment and Public Works Committee

January 11, 2008 -- WASHINGTON, DC- Senators Bob Casey (D-PA) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) today sent a letter to the Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW) requesting the committee hold a field hearing in Pennsylvania to examine the security lapses at Peach Bottom Atomic Power station in York County.

“We respectfully request that you hold a field hearing in Pennsylvania so that the Senate can better understand what happened at Peach Bottom and the lessons to be learned,” the members wrote.    » read more »

December 19, 2007 -- Washington, DC — U.S. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada commended the passage of the omnibus appropriations bill, which included millions of dollars in funding for Nevada priorities. In addition to funding key projects, the omnibus cuts funding to the proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain by more than $108 million, a 22 percent reduction.    » read more »

December 17, 2007 -- More than 500 organizations from every corner of the U.S. and across the world have signed a statement explicitly rejecting the use of nuclear power as a means of addressing the climate crisis.    » read more »