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| | | published Thursday, April 12, 2007 | 0 Views :: 0 Comments |
Plutonium pits are the “triggers” for modern thermonuclear weapons. The U.S. manufactured pits at the Rocky Flats Plant near Denver until 1989, when he FBI raided the facility to investigate environmental crimes. That raid effectively ended industrial-scale plutonium
pit production in the United States.
Download PDF: Pu FS 2007.pdf
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| | | published Thursday, April 12, 2007 | 0 Views :: 0 Comments |
Yucca Mountain, Nevada, is the only site under consideration for disposal of the nation’s high-level nuclear waste. Congressional politics singled out Yucca Mountain in the 1987 amendments to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. The Department of Energy (DOE) is responsible for implementing the program, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets radiation exposure standards, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is responsible for licensing the repository.
Download PDF: Yucca FS 2007.pdf
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| | | published Thursday, April 12, 2007 | 0 Views :: 0 Comments |
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has asked Congress for $405 million in fiscal year 2008 for the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), a Bush Administration scheme to revive the dangerous practice of reprocessing spent nuclear fuel. If it goes forward, GNEP will endanger the environment across the globe, encourage nuclear bomb-making around the world, squander U.S. taxpayers’ money, and deepen the nuclear waste problem.
Download PDF: GNEP FS 2007.pdf
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| | | published Thursday, April 12, 2007 | 0 Views :: 0 Comments |
The Department of Energy (DOE) is pushing to transform the nuclear weapons complex to design nd build a new generation of nuclear weapons. “Complex 2030” ignores U.S. disarmament obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, threatens to derail diplomatic efforts with ran and North Korea, and creates serious environmental and health risks.
Download PDF: Complex 2030 FS 2007.pdf
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| | | published Thursday, April 12, 2007 | 0 Views :: 0 Comments |
In 2004 the House Appropriations Committee rejected what it called the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) “extreme nuclear weapons goals” of earth-penetrators and “mininukes.” It then redirected requested funding to create the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program "for improving the long-term safety, reliability, and security of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile.” The Committee substantially increased funding the next year, but cautioned, “Qualified endorsement of the RRW initiative is based on the assumption that a replacement weapon will be designed only as a reengineered and remanufactured warhead for an existing weapon system.” RRW was adopted in 2005 by Congress as a whole, with the stated aims of reducing any future need to resume nuclear weapons testing, facilitating deep cuts to the stockpile and enabling cost-saving, security-
enhancing consolidation of the nuclear weapons complex.
Download PDF: RRW FS 2007.pdf
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| | | published Thursday, April 12, 2007 | 0 Views :: 0 Comments |
Production of the massive U.S. Cold War nuclear arsenal has left dozens of Department of Energy (DOE) sites across the country polluted with radioactive and hazardous wastes. Most DOE sites are now on the Superfund list, and the contamination threatens millions of people living nearby or along waste transportation routes. Some of the nation’s most important water resources are also endangered.
Download PDF: Cleanup FS 2007.pdf
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| | | published Wednesday, April 12, 2006 | 0 Views :: 0 Comments |
Nearly 2,000 nuclear weapons tests have been conducted worldwide. The U.S. alone conducted 217 aboveground tests. About half of them were exploded at the Department of Energy’s Nevada Test Site from the early 1950s to the early 1960s. Atmospheric fallout from the aboveground tests, and the thirty underground tests known to have “vented” significant radiation contained harmful radionuclides and was carried thousands of miles from the Test Site. The government assured the public that testing was a safe and necessary part of protecting America.
In 1983 Congress directed the National Cancer Institute
(NCI) to study the health impacts of U.S.
nuclear testing fallout, in particular radioactive iodine,
I-131. After more than a decade and much pressure
from public interest groups and Congress, the
study was released in 1997.
Download PDF: Health2006.pdf
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| | | published Wednesday, April 12, 2006 | 0 Views :: 0 Comments |
Plutonium pits — carefully fabricated spheres of metal — and high explosives, are the “triggers” for modern thermonuclear weapons. Until 1989, the U.S. manufactured pits at the Rocky Flats Plant near Denver. That year, the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided the facility to investigate environmental crimes, effectively ending industrial-scale plutonium pit production in the United States.
Download PDF: PitProduction2006.pdf
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| | | published Wednesday, April 12, 2006 | 0 Views :: 0 Comments |
In 1992, the United States adopted the Nuclear Testing Moratorium Act. While that law represents a major advance for public health and the environment, it did not stop the nuclear weapons designers from continuing their deadly pursuits.
Download PDF: WeaponsComplex2006.pdf
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| | | published Wednesday, April 12, 2006 | 0 Views :: 0 Comments |
The Bush Administration has launched a major initiative it calls the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) that will increase the availability of weapons usable material and encourage the spread of nuclear weapons and technology. GNEP requires a major shift in U.S. nuclear energy and nonproliferation policy and depends on a number of advanced technologies still in their infancy.
Download PDF: Reprocessing FS 2006.pdf
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