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| | | published Friday, February 03, 2012 | 102 Views :: 0 Comments |
The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, in collaboration with our allies at the Ploughshares Fund, the Arms Control Association, and the Union of Concerned Scientists present two new fact sheets on nuclear weapons funding.
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| | | published Tuesday, January 31, 2012 | 192 Views :: 0 Comments |
Press Conference Advisory: Thursday, February 2, 2012 at 9:15 am Rotunda, Roundhouse at the corner of Old Santa Fe Trail and Paseo de Peralta Topic: Map Documenting Community Water Concerns to be Released as Part of Legislative Day for People of Faith Concerned about Clean Air, Water and Earth Contact: Joan Brown, Partnership for Earth Spirituality 505-266-6966 (Albuquerque), joankansas@swcp.com Joni Arends, Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety 505-986-1973 (Santa Fe), jarends@nuclearactive.org A map documenting community and people of faith concerns for water will be released Thursday, February 2, 2012 at 9:15 in the Rotunda of the State Capitol. The document release is part of a Legislative Day for People of Faith Concerned for Water, Land, Air and People. The project was initiated by people of faith and communities concerned about water and funded by the Catholic Sisters of Mercy – Northeast Community.
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| | | published Tuesday, January 31, 2012 | 87 Views :: 0 Comments |
Jan 31, 2012 By John Fleck Albuquerque Journal Staff Writer
It seems to have been sometime during 2007 that the wheels started coming off of Los Alamos National Laboratory’s proposed new plutonium lab.
National Nuclear Security Administration officials were publicly telling congressional auditors they thought the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement project was under control. They said the $800 million price was based on “reliable cost estimates,” and the project was not in danger of heading down the agency’s well-worn path of cost overruns and schedule delays.
Internally, though, there were signs of trouble. The lab’s draft safety plan for the project was “substandard,” NNSA said. By February 2008, the cost estimate had more than doubled to $2 billion, and has continued to climb.
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| | | published Monday, January 23, 2012 | 276 Views :: 0 Comments |
January 20, 2012
By Todd Jacobson From the Nuclear Weapons & Materials Monitor
With less than a month remaining before the Obama Administration’s Fiscal Year 2013 budget release, Los Alamos National Laboratory officials are bracing for what is expected to be a massive cut to its biggest project: the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement-Nuclear Facility. The multi-billion-dollar project that will replace the lab’s aging Chemistry and Metallurgy Research facility has come under fire in recent months, both from Congress and from government watchdog groups like the Project on Government Oversight and the Los Alamos Study Group. Although lab and NNSA officials haven’t said anything publicly about the project, lab officials are privately expecting the worst when it comes to funding for the project, which is estimated to cost between $3.7 and $5.8 billion. “We’re not expecting funding for CMRR,” one official told NW&M Monitor. “Right now, we’re planning to go without.”
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| | | published Monday, January 23, 2012 | 188 Views :: 0 Comments |
The following article tracks changing plans for constructing the Mixed Oxide Plutonium Fuel (MOX) Plant at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The article quotes ANA's Nonproliferation Policy Director Tom Clements commenting on the projects ballooning budget.
January 22, 2012
By Rob Pavey
From the Augusta Chronicle
The government’s $4.8 billion quest to rid itself of tons of high-grade plutonium from old nuclear bombs is veering in new directions this year.
The broad plan is to build a mammoth mixed oxide, or “MOX” plant at Savannah River Site, where the material will be rendered forever unusable in weapons by blending it into commercial nuclear reactor fuel.
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| | | published Monday, January 23, 2012 | 192 Views :: 0 Comments |
The following infographic was developed by the Project on Government Oversight to illustrate how many nuclear weapons and plutonium pits (the nuclear core of atomic weapons) currently our government currently holds in reserve. With so many nuclear components sitting in storage - why do we need to invest billions in producing more?
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| | | published Thursday, January 12, 2012 | 721 Views :: 2 Comments |
Under Growing Financial Pressure, DOE Revises Plutonium Disposition Program
For Immediate Release: January 12, 2012
Contact: Tom Clements, Columbia, SC, 803-834-3084 KatherineFuchs, Washington, 202-544-0217 Washington, DC – Under growingbudgetary stress, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced that it is amendinga troubled program to dispose of surplus weapons plutonium[i]. DOE aims to eliminate a costly new facility fordisassembling plutonium cores (pits) from nuclear bombs and is considering processingthe pits in existing facilities at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in SouthCarolina and the Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico.
Facing a host of hurdles, DOE aims to turn the separated plutonium into controversial new mixed uranium-plutonium oxide fuel (MOX) for use in unnamed nuclear power reactors. Today’s notice reveals that DOE is widening its search for utilities willing to accept MOX and states that they “will analyze use of MOX fuel in a generic reactor in the United States to provide analysis for any additional future potential utility customers.”
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| | | published Thursday, January 12, 2012 | 297 Views :: 0 Comments |
The following article quotes ANA Director Susan Gordon as she analyses cleanup agreements made between Los Alamos National Laboratory and the State of New Mexico.
LANL’s new cleanup agreement: a bold step in the wrong direction?
Jan. 11, 2012
By Wren Abbott
From the Santa Fe Reporter
A new agreement between the state Environment Department and Los Alamos National Laboratory would accelerate shipments of radioactive waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad (pictured)—but would also leave more than half the waste on the hill indefinitely.
Los Alamos National Laboratory is trumpeting a new radioactive waste cleanup agreement that would allow it to leave half of its radioactive waste in place indefinitely—and defy federal environmental protection guidelines.
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| | | published Monday, January 09, 2012 | 379 Views :: 0 Comments |
The following article on Los Alamos National Laboratory's ever-changing cleanup schedule quotes ANA Director Susan Gordon and ANA member Scott Kovac giving their perspectives on Los Alamos' remediation plans.
January 6, 2012
By Mark Oswald and John Fleck
From the Albuquerque Journal
POJOAQUE — Los Alamos National Laboratory on Thursday committed to moving the equivalent of 17,000 drums of radioactive waste that have been stored above ground for decades off lab property by 2014.
But lab officials also said they can’t meet their commitment to clean up other lab hazardous waste by 2015.
Moving the waste drums — which caused consternation and gained international press attention during last summer’s Las Conchas Fire as flames headed toward Los Alamos — is a top state priority.
But the longer-term cleanup goal, established in a 2005 agreement known as a “consent order,” has been suspect for some time because of a shortfall in federal money for lab cleanup work.
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| | | published Thursday, January 05, 2012 | 257 Views :: 0 Comments |
The following article quotes ANA member Scott Kovac of Nuclear Watch New Mexico as he comments on the Department of Energy's opacity regarding contracting at national laboratories.
Jan 5, 2012
By John Fleck From the Albuquerque Journal
Federal officials this week awarded a Bechtel-University of California team $83.7 million for its management of Los Alamos National Laboratory in 2011, plus a one-year extension of its lab management contract as a bonus, but refused to release the performance evaluation report on which the decisions were based.
The one-year extension means the current team will be in charge at Los Alamos through 2017.
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