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| | | published Monday, November 17, 2008 | 812 Views :: 0 Comments | |  |
On October 17th, DOE released the Draft PEIS for a new round of public comments, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Though the its legal mandate is to analyze environmental and socio-economic impacts of reprocessing, the report has already faced serious criticism due to its failure to provide any cost analysis, fully address environmental and security concerns, failure to select a specific site for a reprocessing complex, and unsubstantiated claims that reprocessing reduces the need for a geologic repository. Hearings on this DOE report from the will happen in Pasco, Washington on November 17th, 7:00 pm and Hood River on November 18th, 7:00 pm.
The report does not specify a US site where this program could take place, but our Hanford site is on the short list of possibilities. This could mean more extensive delays for our community’s clean up, more nuclear waste being transported on our highways near our homes and farms, more exposure to radiation, damaging our health and our environment and more of our tax dollars wasted on inefficient, dangerous, programs.
Reprocessing, incorrectly referred to in the report as ―recycling,‖ is the extraction of weapons-useable plutonium from nuclear waste. GNEP has already faced stiff public opposition due to its disastrous environmental impacts, employment of technology that encourages nuclear proliferation, and bailout-sized $700 billion estimated price tag.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, there is 50 percent chance that any new nuclear reactor project will fail. That’s worse than anything A.I.G. ever insured, and worse than Lehman Brothers on its worst day. If it were a stock, it would be criminal. But since nuclear reactors aren’t remotely affordable without huge public loan guarantees, companies want taxpayers to take the risk — to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. In the middle of an imploding economy, the last thing we need to do is take on billions more in bad debt. Michele Boyd, Safe Energy Program, Physicians for Social Responsibility.
Since 2006, the Bush administration has promoted GNEP as a way to solve the nuclear waste problem in the United States and support the expansion of nuclear power. However, recent studies by the National Academy of Sciences, Government Accountability Office, the International Panel on Fissile Materials, and a nuclear industry-sponsored report by the Keystone Center have refuted these claims and expressed further concerns regarding dangerous pollution, nuclear proliferation, and exorbitant cost. In 2007, as part of a legally-required public comment period, approximately 2,500 people attended regional hearings resulting in 550 oral comments, and more than 14,000 – the second highest number in the history of DOE public comments – submitted written comments primarily in opposition to GNEP. Please join us to repeat our opposition to this frightening program. Contact the Oregon PSR office for details at the number above.
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