JAMES HEDDLE – In the US, as more and more energy reactors are being shut down and are entering the decommissioning process, the overriding question is becoming unavoidable at reactor communities across the country: What do we do with all these decades of tons of accumulated radwaste now being stored on-site? Each canister contains a Chernobyl’s-worth of cesium; each cooling pool, hundreds more.
Tag: Yucca Mountain
Tunnel Collapse at Hanford Nuclear Dump-Harbinger of the Collapse of the Entire Industry?
HARVEY WASSERMAN – The collapse of a tunnel at the massive nuclear waste dump at Hanford, Washington, 200 miles east of Seattle, has sent shock waves through a nuclear power industry already in the process of a global collapse.
Keep Your Eye on Trump’s Main Agenda
PETER BERGEL – Not so fast, fellow progressives! We’ve underestimated Donald Trump a couple of times now. Let’s not do it again. He may be all the things we think he is – racist, xenophobic, narcissistic, homophobic, anti-Muslim, power-mad. At the same time, though, he’s also getting away with a deadly distraction game – one which threatens life on this planet. If you think he’s dumb, think again.
The Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Dump, a Political Hot Potato, is Back
TOM DICHRISTOPHER – The White House’s budget blueprint released Thursday seeks to revive spending for a hotly contested facility in Nevada that would store the nation’s nuclear waste.
Will Nuclear Power Continue to Hobble Along Despite Its Radioactive Achilles’ Heel?
ALLISON FISHER – Radioactive waste has often been referred to as the Achilles heel of nuclear power. It should be. It poses a threat to human health and our environment for hundreds of thousands of years. To date, a safe and viable way to permanently isolate it has not been identified. However, this dilemma has not kept nuclear out of the U.S. energy portfolio or dampened the zeal for a new generation of nuclear reactors by the industry and its congressional allies. A recent court decision, the termination of the Yucca Mountain geological repository and lessons from the Japan nuclear crisis present new arguments for why radioactive waste should be a chief reason we abandon nuclear power once and for all, but it is still might not be enough.
Uranium Mining Begins Near Grand Canyon
KLEE BENALLY: In defiance of legal challenges and a U.S. government moratorium, Canadian company Denison Mines has started mining uranium on the north rim of the Grand Canyon. According to the Arizona Daily Sun the mine has been operating since December 2009.
Breif-ings
BRIEF INSIGHTS ON: 1) Yucca Mountain eyed for nuclear reprocessing; 2) PBS to cancel “NOW” and retire Bill Moyers’ “Journal”, 3) Be more persuasive; and 4) 2 out of 3 Americans ready to drop “don’t ask, don’t tell.
Nuclear Industry May Not Give Up on Yucca Mountain
STEVE TETREAULT: The nuclear industry’s trade group is signaling it might not go along with the Obama administration’s plan to withdraw from Yucca Mountain and make it difficult, if not impossible, to revive the proposed nuclear waste repository ever again.
Native Council Wins Right to Intervene in Yucca Mountain License Application
IAN ZABARTE: NCAC raised three “contentions” in opposition to the licensing of the facility. First, NCAC demonstrated that the lands on which the facility is proposed to be built, remain Shoshone lands. The judges agreed that this is a “viable” legal claim, and this contention is admitted. Decision, page 130. (The judges accepted our argument that the Shoshone claim to the lands is a “cloud” on the United States assertion of title. They did not accept the argument that the Shoshone title is reserved by the Treaty of Ruby Valley. We will continue, therefore, to fight about this with legal arguments.)