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2009 Fact Sheet Nuclear Weapons Environmental Cleanup | |
| | published Monday, February 23, 2009 | 394 Views :: 0 Comments |
Six decades of U.S. nuclear weapons research, testing, and production activities have left dozens of Department of Energy (DOE) sites polluted with massive amounts of radioactive and hazardous wastes. Most DOE sites are now on the Superfund list of the nation’s most environmentally dangerous facilities. Their contamination threatens millions of people living near the sites or along major waste transportation routes. Some of the nation’s most important water resources are endangered.
Download 2009 Fact Sheet: Cleanup5.1 final.pdf
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2009 Fact Sheet Global Nuclear Energy Parnership: Environomental and Security Risks | |
| | published Monday, February 23, 2009 | 360 Views :: 0 Comments |
In 2003 the Bush Administration launched the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), which it also called the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative. GNEP is designed to revive the practice of reprocessing irradiated nuclear fuel to separate out the plutonium. At the same time, however, it would endanger the environment, encourage nuclear bomb-making, squander U.S. taxpayer and ratepayer dollars, and deepen the nuclear waste problem.
Download 2009 Fact Sheet: GNEP4 final.pdf
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2009 Fact Sheet Plutonium Dispoistion Remains in Disarray | |
| | published Monday, February 23, 2009 | 231 Views :: 0 Comments |
After a decade of work on its program to eliminate surplus weapons plutonium, not a single gram has been disposed by the Department of Energy (DOE). By any standard, the program is a failure. Left unchanged and without adequate oversight and budget scrutiny, it will continue to suffer from chronic bad management, escalating costs, and technical uncertainties. Congress and President Obama can put the disposition program onto the safer, less costly plutonium immobilization or “vitrification” track
Download 2009 Fact Sheet: MOX6 final.pdf
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2009 Fact Sheet New Reactors Too Expensive and Unnecessary | |
| | published Monday, February 23, 2009 | 286 Views :: 0 Comments |
Nuclear Power Will Not Solve Climate Crisis
In terms of both monetary cost and time, nuclear power is ineffective at solving the climate crisis. Dr. Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute, in his 2008 analysis The Nuclear Illusion, has shown that energy efficiency is seven to ten times more cost effective at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, while renewable sources such as wind are significantly faster and less expensive to deploy than nuclear power. In his 2007 book Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy, Dr. Arjun Makhijani of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER), has shown that both fossil fuels and nuclear power can be phased out of the American economy by mid-century and completely replaced with efficiency and renewables
Download 2009 Fact Sheet: Reactors5 final.pdf
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2009 Fact Sheet Radiation Standards | |
| | published Monday, February 23, 2009 | 135 Views :: 0 Comments |
Many federal regulations governing public and worker exposure to ionizing radiation fall short because they rely on Reference Man.
"Reference Man" is the hypothetical person on which many federal radiation protection standards are based. These standards affect many areas of people’s lives, including limits on radioactive contaminants in air and drinking water, clean-up of contaminated sites, and workplace exposures. Ionizing radiation is classified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a known human carcinogen.
Download Fact Sheet 2009 Radiation Standards: Healthy5 final.pdf
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| | | published Saturday, April 12, 2008 | 1 Views :: 0 Comments |
Plutonium pits— carefully fabricated spheres of metal— and high explosives are the “triggers” for modern thermonuclear weapons. The U.S. manufactured pits at the Rocky Flats Plant near Denver until 1989, when the FBI raided the facility to investigate environmental crimes, effectively ending industrial-scale plutonium pit production.
THE U.S. ALREADY HAS TOO MANY PITS
The U.S. presently has about 25,000 plutonium pits. Nearly 10,000 are in existing nuclear warheads. Five thousand are in “strategic reserve” and more than 10,000 “surplus” pits are stored at the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, TX. The May 2002 Moscow Treaty requires Russia and the U.S. to reduce their nuclear arsenals to 2,200 or fewer deployed strategic warheads each by December 31, 2012, but fails to mandate irreversible dismantlement. Even under this treaty, he U.S. will likely retain some 25,000 pits.
Download PDF: ANA Pits final.pdf
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| | | published Saturday, April 12, 2008 | 1 Views :: 0 Comments |
In the mid-1990’s the Department of Energy (DOE) embarked upon “Life Extension Programs”(LEPs) to refurbish and extend the “shelf life” of existing nuclear weapons. Under the LEPs, warheads in the current arsenal are disassembled, parts are refurbished or replaced with new components, and the warheads are reassembled and redeployed.
The purpose of the Life Extension Programs is to maintain an enduring nuclear arsenal. “Life Extension” adds at least 35-40 years to a warhead’s usable life, according to DOE (one official has been quoted at 100-120 years), and addresses aging issues of “limited life components.” LEP activities involve various parts of the warhead, from new or refurbished secondaries to the arming, fusing and firing mechanisms (LEPs do not involve new plutonium pit “triggers,” although “non-intrusive” work is done on existing pits).
Download PDF: ANA LEP final.pdf
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| | | published Saturday, April 12, 2008 | 1 Views :: 0 Comments |
WANTED: U.S. NUCLEAR WEAPONS POLICY THAT SUPPORTS
NON-PROLIFERATION & GLOBAL DISARMAMENT OBLIGATIONS
The nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) “entered into force” and became law in 1970. It is the most universal treaty of its kind in history, with 188 signatories. The NPT required the non-nuclear states that signed not to acquire nuclear weapons. In return, it obligated the states which already had nuclear weapons to negotiate the elimination of their arsenals. In May 2000, the U.S., along with other NPT signers, agreed to 13 steps to implement the Treaty’s disarmament obligations. These steps included “an unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear-weapons states to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals,” early ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, a fissile material cutoff treaty, and a diminishing role for nuclear weapons in security policies.
Download PDF: ANA disarm. final.pdf
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| | | published Saturday, April 12, 2008 | 1 Views :: 0 Comments |
In spite of a decade of work on its program to eliminate surplus weapons plutonium, not a single gram has been disposed by the Department of Energy (DOE). By any standard, the program is a failure. Left unchanged, it will continue to suffer from chronic bad management, escalating costs, and technical uncertainties. A better alternative is for Congress and a new administration to put the disposition program onto the safer and less costly vitrification track.
Download PDF: ANA MOX final.pdf
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| | | published Saturday, April 12, 2008 | 2 Views :: 0 Comments |
Yucca Mountain, Nevada, is the only U.S. site under consideration for disposal of the nation’s high-level nuclear waste. Congress 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: ANA Yucca final.pdf
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