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| | | published Wednesday, May 16, 2012 | 71 Views :: 0 Comments |
For Immediate Release: May 16th, 2012 Contact: Katherine Fuchs , Alliance for Nuclear Accountability - kfuchs@ananuclear.org, 414-324-4228 Aaron Albright, Rep. George Miller’s office – aaron.albright@mail.house.gov, (202) 226-0853 This week, the full House will debate two important amendments to last week’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) related to nuclear safety: one offered by Representatives Miller (CA), Visclosky (IN), and Sanchez (CA) to strike NDAA provisions that would erode safety standards and weaken oversight, and another offered by Rep. Smith (WA) that would strike provisions removing nuclear weapons from the Secretary of Energy’s jurisdiction. The Miller et al. amendment would protect the “adequate protection standard” that has guided nuclear safety oversight for more than a quarter century, ensure that nuclear oversight agencies retain a “transactional” oversight model, and prevent new layers of bureaucracy from undermining technical experts. TheSmith amendment would preserve the authority of the Secretary of Energy over the National Nuclear Security Administration.
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| | | published Wednesday, May 16, 2012 | 82 Views :: 0 Comments |
In the following op-ed, ANA Director Susan Gordon argues that Rep. Martin Heinrich is not acting in New Mexico's best interest when advocating for funding a new plutonium facility at Los Alamos. Gordon states that what New Mexico really needs is funding to clean up Los Alamos' legacy of radioactive and toxic waste.
May 16, 2012
By Susan Gordon
From the Albuquerque Journal
More than a decade late and 10 times more expensive than originally forecast, the new Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement mega-building at the Los Alamos National Laboratory is a textbook example of how Congress misspends the taxpayers’ dollars.
The main mission for the facility originally would have been to support expanded production of plutonium pits – the fissile cores of nuclear weapons. Today, however, the National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the nuclear weapons complex, has determined that it does not need the new CMRR.
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| | | published Monday, May 14, 2012 | 62 Views :: 0 Comments |
The following article about a new uranium enrichment facility in North Carolina quotes ANA Nonproliferation Policy Director Tom Clements as he explains why commercializing the facility's laser-based enrichment technology could pose security threats.
May 11, 2012
By Jim Brumm From the Wilmington, NC StarNews
A public meeting on a proposal to build a laser-based uranium enrichment facility in Castle Hayne drew about two dozen residents to the University of North Carolina Wilmington on Thursday night.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission held the meeting to discuss its 2½-year review of Global Laser Enrichment's application for a license to build and operate an enrichment plant next to Global Nuclear Fuel-America's fuel fabrication plant on the sprawling campus shared by GE Aviation and GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy.
Specifically, the meeting was to discuss the federal agency's Safety Evaluation Report (SER) and Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that will be the basis for the commission's future consideration of an operating license for the facility.
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| | | published Friday, May 11, 2012 | 71 Views :: 0 Comments |
For Immediate Release Friday, May 11, 2012 Contact Courtney Hanson, Georgia WAND - 308.631.8543 (cell), 404.524.5999, courntey@wand.org Leslie Anderson Maloy - 703-276-3256, landerson@hastingsgroup.com We Told You So: Major Cost Overruns Latest Sign of Vogtle Woes, Including Construction Errors and Raft of Amendments to Federal License
WASHINGTON, D.C. – May 11, 2012 – Even though the Vogtle reactor project got its federal license just three months ago, the controversial nuclear reactors are already in trouble. The latest problem: A cost overrun of nearly $1 billion in 2011 dollars, according to groups, including Georgia Women's Action for New Directions, that warned in February that the Vogtle expansion effort is a boondoggle that could hurt ratepayers and (depending on the status of a pending Solyndra-style federal loan guarantee) U.S. taxpayers. Southern Co. publicly acknowledged its share of the cost overrun in a filing this week with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) at http://investor.southerncompany.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=92122-12-76&CIK=092122.
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| | | published Friday, May 11, 2012 | 115 Views :: 3 Comments |
The following piece from WWAY in Wilmington, NC quotes ANA Nonproliferation Policy Director Tom Clements commenting on the proliferation risks involved in commercializing new uranium enrichment techniques.
May 10, 2012
By Cacky Catlett From WWAY ABC 3, Wilmington
WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) -- The public got the chance Thursday night to hear more about a proposed uranium enrichment plant to be built at the GE Hitachi plant in Wilmington.
The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission presented its report on the safety and economic impact. Representatives with the NRC say they used a critical process to evaluate everything from transportation to air quality impacts.
"Particulate matter, concentrations, mostly resulting from fugitive dust emissions are expected to exceed the standards but would be of short duration," NRC Project Manager Jennifer Davis said.
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| | | published Thursday, May 10, 2012 | 170 Views :: 0 Comments |
May 10, 2012
By Michael Coleman From the Albuquerque Journal WASHINGTON – Rep. Steve Pearce, a New Mexico Republican, and Rep. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, don’t agree on much, but they teamed up this week to try to block federal subsidies to a uranium enrichment plant in Kentucky.
The congressmen wrote a letter to House leaders negotiating details of a transportation bill and asked them to reject a Senate proposal to include in the legislation $150 million in federal subsidies to the United States Enrichment Corp. Pearce, who represents southern New Mexico, told the Journal that the subsidies would give USEC, based in Paducah, Ky., an unfair advantage over a similar firm in New Mexico.
Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican who ran as a champion of the fiscally conservative tea party, is among the biggest backers of the federal subsidy for USEC, arguing that about 1,400 jobs are at stake. Pearce called the Kentucky firm a “great big black hole where taxpayer dollars have been disappearing.”
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| | | published Thursday, May 10, 2012 | 81 Views :: 0 Comments |
May 10, 2012
Today, there will be a meeting in Wilmington, NC to hear public comments on General Electric's proposal to build a facility that would enrich uranium for nuclear power plants using a new laser technology. While this new technology could have a smaller impact on the environment (in terms of energy and water use) than traditional methods, it also presents new challenges. The smaller footprint for laser enrichment makes it harder to detect.
Because of our proliferation concerns about laser enrichment technology, ANA is opposed to GE's new facility. If the U.S. using this new technology makes it easier for weapons proliferators to adapt it, then we need to approach with extreme caution.
Click here to download ANA's comments to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission regarding laser enrichement.
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| | | published Tuesday, May 08, 2012 | 121 Views :: 0 Comments |
May 7, 2012
By Rob Pavey From the Augusta Chronicle
The schedule for disposing of plutonium at Savannah River Site’s mixed oxide fuel facility would be extended by two years under a new version of the 2013 National Defense Authorization Bill released Monday.
The markup released by House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard P. “Buck” McKeon would add two years to schedules that call for the National Nuclear Security Administration to provide detailed reports on the project’s cost and operations timetable, along with key production objectives.
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| | | published Tuesday, May 08, 2012 | 158 Views :: 0 Comments |
May 8, 2012
By Frank Munger From the Knoxville News Sentinal
 | Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance members Mary Dennis Lentsch, left, and Dennie Kelley sign a oversize letter to U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander Monday at the Howard H. Baker, Jr. Federal Courthouse. A dozen members of OREPA delivered the letter to ask that cost and safety issues be addressed at Y-12's proposed multibillion-dollar Uranium Processing Facility. (J. Miles Cary/News Sentinel)
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A peace activist group waged its growing campaign against the Uranium Processing Facility on two fronts Monday.
Members of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance hand-delivered a letter to Sen. Lamar Alexander's Knoxville office, asking the Republican senator to help slow work on the multibillion-dollar project until safety issues raised by a federal review board have been resolved. In a separate action, the group sent a letter to Gregory Friedman, the U.S. Department of Energy's inspector general, and urged Friedman to investigate the project's work to date, with more than $500 million spent designing the new production facility, for evidence of government waste and possibly fraud.
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| | | published Thursday, May 03, 2012 | 140 Views :: 0 Comments |
May 2, 2012
A waste management company has applied to the federal government for a license to import up to 500 tons of radioactive waste from Mexico to south-central Washington, where the waste will be incinerated and the resulting ash returned to Mexico.
By Shannon Dininny From the Associated Press
YAKIMA, Wash. —
A waste management company has applied to the federal government for a license to import up to 500 tons of radioactive waste from Mexico to south-central Washington, where the waste will be incinerated and the resulting ash returned to Mexico.
This isn't the first application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to import foreign radioactive waste, but it's among several recent proposals that have generated little opposition because the waste won't be permanently stored in the U.S.
In 2009, a proposal to import thousands of tons of radioactive waste from Italy, treat it and ultimately store the remnants in Utah was abandoned following public outcry.
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