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| | | published Thursday, February 02, 2012 | 188 Views :: 0 Comments |
for immediate release: Thursday, January 26, 2012
for further information, contact: Bob Schaeffer: 239-395-6773 Katherine Fuchs: 202-544-0217, ext. 2503 local contacts listed at end of advisory
The Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future report released today received mixed reviews from groups that monitor sites where large quantities of radioactive waste are stored. The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA) said major flaws in the report include the Commission’s “failure to advocate prompt removal of commercial spent fuel from reactor cooling pools with placement in hardened On-Site Storage (HOSS) to safeguard commercial spent fuel at nuclear power plants.” ANA and hundreds of community groups had told the Commission that HOSS could protect the heavily reactive material for the decades needed to develop a scientifically sound and publicly acceptable waste disposal program.
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| | | published Tuesday, January 31, 2012 | 174 Views :: 0 Comments |
For immediate release: January 27, 2012
For further information, contact: Dr. Arjun Makhijani (301) 270-5500, cell (301) 509-6843
Commission Recognizes French Style Reprocessing Will Increase Proliferation Risks Without Solving Waste Problem
Progress on Consent-Based Approach to Geologic Repository Siting
Takoma Park, Maryland -- Arjun Makhijani, Ph.D., President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, today commented on some of the recommendations of the final report of the Presidential Blue Ribbon Commission (BRC) on America’s Nuclear Future, released yesterday. The commission was created to address U.S. nuclear waste issues after the Obama administration cancelled the Yucca Mountain program.
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| | | published Tuesday, January 31, 2012 | 211 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 Thursday, January 12, 2012 | 736 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 Monday, December 05, 2011 | 1048 Views :: 0 Comments |
December 1, 2011
PRESS STATEMENT
Contact:Tom Carpenter, 206-419-5829, tomc@hanfordchallenge.org
Seattle, WA: Hanford Challenge today sharply criticized a report from a team of contractorselected experts that it says downplayed the seriousness of safety culture problems at the Hanford nuclear site.
“The report is a veiled attack on safety-culture oversight. It failed to acknowledge some of the most explicit indicators of the vit plant’s flawed safety culture. There was no mention of disclosures from three important safety experts on the Waste Treatment Plant who have gone public and filed concerns about suppression of technical and safety issues and putting schedule and cost before safety,” said Tom Carpenter, Executive Director of Hanford Challenge. Carpenter noted that this includes the Manager of Nuclear and Environmental Safety, DOE’s top scientist on the project, and the former Manager for Research and Technology.
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| | | published Tuesday, November 22, 2011 | 1337 Views :: 0 Comments |
Region’s Leading Hanford Cleanup Watchdog Group Will Ask for Federal Court to Order Action to Empty Leaky High-Level Nuclear Waste Tanks to Prevent Safety and Environmental Disaster
For Immediate Release Nov. 21, 2011 Contact: Gerry Pollet, JD; Executive Director (206)382-1014 / cell: (206)819-9015 The US Department of Energy (USDOE) informed Washington State today that it is not able to meet the court approved schedule it agreed to in October, 2010 for building the massive plant to turn liquid High-Level Nuclear Waste in leaky tanks at Hanford into a glass, referred to as the Vitrification Plant. Heart of America Northwest, the region’s leading Hanford Clean-Up watchdog group had objected to the highly publicized court settlement in 2010 between the USDOE and State, under which the USDOE was allowed to take an extra 22 years – to the year 2040 - to empty massive leaky, decades old, Single Shell Tanks of High Level Nuclear Waste in exchange for what USDOE and Washington State said would be a court enforceable schedule to build the Vitrification Plant.
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| | | published Monday, November 14, 2011 | 1109 Views :: 2 Comments |
November 14, 2011 Contact: Rachel M. MacNair, Ph.D., Petition Coordinator (816)753-2057 or Ann Suellentrop(913)271-7925 Having once again collected in the range of 5,000 signatures from Kansas City Missouri residents, this time on two separate initiative petitions, KC Peace Planters turn in both sets of petitions to the City Clerk at 10 am on Monday, November 14, 2011.
Below is a short summary of each initiative, and below that is the precise legal language. We listened carefully to objections raised by councilmembers in our previous effort, and we believe these are strengthened and will more clearly stand up in litigation if necessary.
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| | | published Friday, October 07, 2011 | 1737 Views :: 1 Comments |
The following National Nuclear Security Agency press release announces completion of the first step in making Mixed Oxide Plutonium Fuel (MOX). ANA is against this project which intends to turn surplus weapons grade plutonium into commercial nuclear reactor fuel. Plutonium oxide powder is extremely carcinogenic when inhaled. We should not be creating more of this substance or shipping it around the country for commercial use. Instead of MOX, ANA recommends disposing of plutonium through immobilization in vitrified (glass) high level waste.
For Immediate Release: October 6, 2011 Contact: NNSA Public Affairs, (202) 586-7371
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced this week that it had successfully disassembled nuclear weapons “pits” and converted them into more than 240 kg of plutonium oxide, an initial step in permanent plutonium disposition. The certified oxide is an initial source of feed for NNSA’s Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility, which is currently under construction at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The disassembly, conversion and certification, which were completed at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), is a significant accomplishment in an ongoing effort to safely dispose of surplus weapon-grade plutonium.
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| | | published Thursday, September 29, 2011 | 1898 Views :: 0 Comments |
For Immediate Release Thursday, September 29, 2011 Contact:
Courtney Hanson What: Georgia WAND will host a press conference exposing the Department of Energy’s (DOE) failure to stand behind their agreement to implement environmental testing and monitoring in Georgia, specifically in rural, poor counties near Savannah River Site (SRS). A US nuclear weapons site, known by local residents as ‘the bomb plant’, SRS is currently tasked with Cold War legacy waste management, waste clean-up after reprocessing, plutonium disposition, and tritium production for nuclear weapons.
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| | | published Monday, August 29, 2011 | 2024 Views :: 0 Comments |
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 26, 2011
Contact: Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch NM, 505.989.7342, c. 505.920.7118, jay[at]nukewatch[dot]org Santa Fe, NM - Without public notice this late Friday afternoon the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has posted online its Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) for the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Project (CMRR)-Nuclear Facility. While providing materials characterization and analytical chemistry for “special nuclear materials” the Nuclear Facility will be the keystone to an expanded plutonium pit production complex at Los Alamos, quadrupling the Lab’s manufacturing capability from 20 radioactive nuclear weapons cores per year to 80. The Nuclear Facility is also slated to have a vault that can hold up to six metric tons of plutonium that it will share via underground tunnels with the Lab’s plutonium pit production plant. As expected, NNSA changed little in the Final CMRR-Nuclear Facility SEIS from the draft, whose required public review period expired in July 2011. NNSA refused to revisit its 2004 decision to build the Nuclear Facility, claiming that nothing relevant had changed since then. This is despite much public comment pointing out the U.S.’ adoption of a future nuclear weapons-free world as a long-term national security goal, and repeated congressional rejections of new-design nuclear weapons and directly related expanded plutonium pit production.
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