July 16, 2025: The Water Cost of Electricity on the Susquehanna River

May 15, 2025: Data Centers and Nuclear Power on the Susquehanna River: More Questions than Answers

Sep 29, 2024: The case against restarting Three Mile Island’s Unit-1

Radioactive: The Women of Three Mile Island

Did you catch "The Meltdown: Three Mile Island" on Netflix?
TMI remains a danger and TMIA is working hard to ensure the safety of our communities and the surrounding areas.
Learn more on this site and support our efforts. Join TMIA. To contact the TMIA office, call 717-233-7897.

    

Holtec knew of problems with Palisades' steam generator tubes before $1.52B loan finalized

Holtec knew of problems with Palisades' steam generator tubes before $1.52B loan finalized

Tom Henry
The Blade
 
Oct 5, 2024
3:28 PM
 
Two days after the Biden Administration finalized a $1.52 billion federal loan to Holtec International in support of its historic effort to restart the mothballed Palisades nuclear plant, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission released a document that shows the company had conceded almost a month earlier that the number of cracks and flaws on the plant’s steam generator tubes “far exceeded estimates.”
 
The newly released document, made public by the NRC on Wednesday, is a summary of a Sept. 3 conference call between the federal regulator overseeing the nuclear plant and Holtec, the company that purchased it with hopes of making it the first in nuclear history to be put back into service after decommissioning had begun.
 
The document states that inspections to date have revealed some 1,417 indications of tiny cracks or flaws in the tubes. It states that 701 tubes in one steam generator and 248 in another are candidates for repairs or plugging.
 
Nick Culp, Holtec Palisades senior manager of government affairs and communications, told The Blade in a telephone interview Friday morning and in a follow-up email afterward that the company is committed to making all necessary repairs to ensure safety and that the latest information will not derail it from its timetable of getting Palisades back in operation by the fall of 2025.
 
Tubes that require maintenance “will get plugged or sleeved,” he said.
 
“Each one is unique,” Mr. Culp said of the flaws.
 
The company’s email emphasizes collaborations with “outside industry-leading partners” to ensure the most appropriate corrective actions are taken.
 
“We expected to find areas requiring additional maintenance activities during our proactive inspections and planned for this contingency,” the email states. “These findings are being addressed as part of our comprehensive restart maintenance strategy, which will require further inspections, testing, and repairs.”
 
But Alan Blind, who was the engineering director at Palisades from May of 2006 through February of 2013 when it was owned by Entergy, told The Blade he knows the NRC well enough to believe that the regulator won’t stand for an unlimited number of repairs.
 
 
At some point, Holtec will likely learn that its best path toward getting the NRC’s authorization for a restart would be by replacing the steam generators, a project that would cost as much as $500 million and delay restart efforts by about two years, Mr. Blind said.
 
He said he experienced the dilemma after he left Palisades and became a site vice president at the former Indian Point nuclear plant complex in New York. That facility eventually replaced its steam generators after trying to repair them for years.
 
“We’re not there yet,” Mr. Culp said when asked what it would take to make that kind of a decision at Palisades.
 
The NRC knows that the failure rate for steam generator tubes can increase exponentially in a short period of time, Mr. Blind said.
 
“It’s the rate of degradation,” he said. “You can’t prove it.”
 
The Sept. 3 call summary “provides a snapshot of Holtec’s findings at that time,” said Viktoria Mitlyng, NRC spokesman.
 
Regardless what action Holtec takes, the “stress corrosion crack indications must be appropriately addressed to maintain the generator’s pressure boundary,” she said.
 
“We expect to receive an analysis of the Holtec’s steam generator inspection results and a path forward to address the analyzed condition of the steam generators tubes,” Ms. Mitlyng said.
 
Palisades was shut down and put in its decommissioning phase in May, 2022, after more than 51 years of operation.
 
No plant has ever been put back into service after decommissioning began.
 
Holtec was hired by the plant’s previous owner, Entergy, to decommission it.
 
It began doing that, then switched gears and bought the plant with the intention of trying to put it back into service. Holtec applied to the U.S. Department of Energy a year ago this month for a loan to restart Palisades. It was notified last March that the Biden Administration was offering $1.52 billion and closed on the deal Monday.
 
Holtec has never operated a nuclear plant.
 
Palisades is along the Lake Michigan shoreline, about 200 miles from Toledo.
 
On Sept. 20, Constellation Energy Co. announced it has made a deal with Microsoft to attempt a restart of the mothballed Three Mile Island Unit 1 nuclear plant in eastern Pennsylvania. That project follows Palisades as the second effort to put a mothballed nuclear plant back into service.
 
In related news, the NRC staff has scheduled a 90-minute meeting for Oct. 24 with Holtec Decommissioning International to discuss resolution of an outstanding issue at Palisades. The public can view it online or in person at the NRC’s headquarters in Rockville, Md.
 
First Published October 5, 2024, 3:28 p.m.
By admin at Fri, 10/11/2024 - 14:03

NRC Seeks Comment on New Reactor Generic Environmental Impact Statement

Nuclear Regulatory Commission - News Release
No: 24-074 October 4, 2024
CONTACT: Scott Burnell, 301-415-8200

NRC Seeks Comment on New Reactor Generic Environmental Impact Statement

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is seeking comment on a proposed rule for a Generic Environmental Impact Statement for licensing new reactors. The generic impact statement uses a technology-neutral framework and plant/site parameters to identify environmental issues common to new reactors, and those issues needing project-specific analysis.
 
NRC staff members will conduct an in-person meeting and two webinars to discuss the proposed generic impact statement and accept comments from the public. The in-person meeting will be at NRC headquarters, 11555 Rockville Pike in Rockville, Maryland, on Nov. 7 from 1-4p.m. Eastern time. The webinars will be Nov. 13 from 1-4 p.m. Eastern time, and Nov. 14 from 6-9 p.m. Eastern time. Additional details for all three meetings will be available soon on the NRC’s website.
 
The meetings are one method to comment before the Dec. 18 deadline. Comments can also be submitted via regulations.gov under Docket ID NRC-2020-0101, via email to Rulemaking.Comments@nrc.gov, or by mail to Office of Administration, Mail Stop TWFN-7- A60M, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001.
 
By admin at Sat, 10/05/2024 - 11:08

[decomm_wkg] Helene floods reactor in Florida

https://files.constantcontact.com/abc65024401/7ee258bf-32c2-48a3-bbd6-c0cec7c545aa.jpg?rdr=true

Beyond Nuclear Bulletin
October 3, 2024

HELENE FLOODS FL REACTOR
12-ft surge at Crystal River

Duke Energy reported to the state of Florida that its decommissioning Crystal River nuclear power plant on Florida’s Gulf Coast was inundated by Hurricane Helene’s 12-foot storm surge.

Duke’s filing cites, “The whole site was flooded, including buildings, sumps, and lift stations. Industrial Wastewater Pond #5 was observed overflowing to the ground due to the surge.” Crystal River, south of Cedar Key and closed in 2013, is being decommissioned rather than operational. Had it been operational, even in “hot shutdown,” the hurricane force wind, flooding and power outage might have caused a nuclear accident with far reaching radioactive consequences on top of the natural disaster. Helene sends a warning ahead of an accelerating climate crisis to still vulnerable nuclear power plants.
Read More

FIGHTING CISFs
Resistance from US to Japan

The New Diplomacy Initiative (NDI) of Tokyo hosted a webinar focused on the fights against highly radioactive waste consolidated interim storage facilities (CISF) in Japan. NDI invited Beyond Nuclear's radioactive waste specialist, Kevin Kamps, to present about the many EJ victories against CISFs here, over decades, including at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, and a large number of targeted Indigenous Nations' reservations, including Skull Valley Goshutes, Utah. Another American panelist, Camilla Feibelman, director of the Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter, presented on the past decade of resistance in New Mexico and Texas to CISFs targeted there. Several Japanese speakers focused on struggles against CISFs targeted at the north and south ends of Japan's main island, as well against dirty, dangerous, and expensive reprocessing.

 
Watch Video

NUKE RUST BUCKET!
Corrosion "far exceeds" expectations

A Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) summary of a conference call with Holtec, published October 2, reveals why NRC recently issued a rare Preliminary Notification of Occurrence at Palisades. NRC reports a recent inspection of tubes in Palisades' two steam generators (SG) revealed Stress Corrosion Cracking under Holtec “far exceeded” what occurred under previous owner, Entergy: 250 times more tubes were found to be damaged. Entergy operated Palisades from 2007-22; Holtec took over the reactor less than 2.5 years ago, under false pretenses to decommission it. Inspections uncovered “at least 700 additional tubes that must be plugged,” as many as had been plugged during the previous 20 years of operations. Palisades' unprecedented restart could be delayed years, despite massive bailouts.
 
 
 
 
 
Read More

WATCH SAN ONOFRE SYNDROME
Free online at film festival

SOS, The San Onofre Syndrome: Nuclear Power's Legacy, is one of only 28 films to be shown at the 13th Global Nonviolent Film Festival 2024, and one of only 9 films in the feature documentary category. The films are free to watch (no registration or credit cards needed) until October 13, along with daily video presentations and an awards’ show on October 7.
 
SOS is an empowering story of successful community action to shut down leaking reactors. But then they discover horrific amounts of high-level radioactive waste lethal for millions of years are being placed in thin canisters only 108 ft. from the rising sea. Also see a webinar featuring the film makers, and moderated by Beyond Nuclear’s Cindy Folkers.
 
Watch Here

Beyond Nuclear | 301.270.2209 | www.BeyondNuclear.org

Donate
By admin at Sat, 10/05/2024 - 11:06

[decomm_wkg] New NRC Report Highlights Dangerous Components at Palisades Nuclear Plant; Safety Groups Call for Complete Dismantlement of Atomic Reactor to Protect Great Lakes Residents

 NEWS FROM BEYOND NUCLEAR

  For immediate release 

  Contact: Kevin Kamps, radioactive waste specialist, Beyond Nuclear, Kalamazoo, MI, (240) 462-3216, kevin@beyondnuclear.org

  Michael Keegan, co-chair, board of directors, Don’t Waste Michigan, Monroe, MI, (734) 770-1441, mkeeganj@comcast.net

(Media reporters wishing to speak with Arnie Gundersen, chief engineer of Fairewinds, can do so by contacting Kevin Kamps, above.)

New NRC Report Highlights Dangerous Components at Palisades Nuclear Plant

Safety Groups Call for Complete Dismantlement of Atomic Reactor to Protect Great Lakes Residents

COVERT TOWNSHIP, MI and WASHINGTON, D.C., October 2, 2024--A new report issued today by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) identifies severe damage in the two massive steam generators (SGs) at Michigan’s Palisades Nuclear Power Plant. If the reactor were allowed to restart, it would put one of the oldest U.S. nuclear power plants at risk of a meltdown.  

Arnie Gundersen, chief engineer at Fairewinds, has prepared the following analysis of the new NRC report. Gundersen has been retained by an environmental coalition -- Beyond Nuclear, Don't Waste Michigan, and Michigan Safe Energy Future -- in their bid to block Palisades' unprecedented restart from closed for good status, because it is unneeded, insanely expensive for the public, and extremely high-risk for safety, health, and the environment, including these just revealed risks involving the steam generators.

Gundersen analysis:

Permanently shut down by Entergy Corp. in May 2022, the outdated Palisades reactor was sold to Holtec International as scrap to be entirely dismantled.  Holtec instead abruptly decided to attempt its reactivation and, in August 2024, began an inspection of the Palisades steam generators to achieve its restart goal.  Federal regulators from the NRC identified four key problem areas.  [NRC quotes in bold]:

  1. When Entergy sold Palisades for scrap, it did not place plant systems in “wet layup” -- stabilized storage, with appropriate chemicals to prevent corrosion.  “The site [Holtec] placed the SGs in wet layup once it was determined they would be attempting to recommence normal operation,” according to the NRC. It is still unclear whether wet layup was delayed by weeks, months, or longer, very likely resulting in accelerated corrosion of SG tubes.

  2. The inspection uncovered "at least 700 additional tubes that must be plugged" due to metal corrosion.   These were as many tubes as had been plugged during the previous 20 years of operating the aged Palisades reactor, designed in 1965.

  3. Even worse, the NRC said, was that Stress Corrosion Cracking (SCC) under Holtec “far exceeded” what occurred under previous Palisades owner, Entergy.  250 times more tubes were found to be damaged.  Stress Corrosion Cracks (SCCs) in an atomic reactor are severe and cause significant damage to sensitive, vital safety equipment.  Because the system was not placed in a proper wet layup, extensive corrosion was discovered on the outside diameter of steam generator tubes.
  4. Avoiding Stress Corrosion Cracking is critical to prevent a reactor core meltdown at Palisades.  "The NRC staff notes that stress corrosion crack indications must be appropriately addressed to maintain the generator’s pressure boundary."  What happens when a steam generator pressure boundary is not maintained?  If a "cascading failure" impacts enough SG tubes, it could result in a catastrophic nuclear reactor core meltdown.

Gundersen published an essay in the aftermath of the March 2011 Fukushima Daiichi triple-meltdown in Japan, explaining why such a nuclear disaster on the shoreline of Lake Michigan would be even more catastrophic for those downstream.

-30-
By admin at Sat, 10/05/2024 - 10:58

Jane Fonda: Nuclear power at Three Mile Island is no climate solution

Jane Fonda: Nuclear power at Three Mile Island is no climate solution

Nuclear power is slow, expensive — and wildly dangerous, the actor and activist writes. Why would anyone tempt fate by restarting a reactor that suffered the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history?

The actor Jane Fonda writes that while some see a planned restart of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant as a tool to fight climate change, the risk of an accident outweighs any potential benefits.
The actor Jane Fonda writes that while some see a planned restart of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant as a tool to fight climate change, the risk of an accident outweighs any potential benefits.Clem Murray / Staff Photographerby Jane Fonda, For The Inquirer
Published Oct. 2, 2024, 10:06 a.m. ET

    The recent news about re-starting a nuclear reactor at the Three Mile Island power plant 75 miles west of Philadelphia hit me hard.

    My heart sank as I thought back to The China Syndrome, a nuclear disaster movie I starred in with Jack Lemmon and Michael Douglas in 1979. Why, I wondered, would anyone tempt fate by restarting a reactor that suffered the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history?

    The China Syndrome was about a nuclear power reactor potentially melting down and unleashing a cloud of deadly radioactivity across the surrounding region. Two weeks after the movie hit theaters, real life imitated art with a vengeance.

    One of the two reactors at Three Mile Island suffered what investigators termed “a partial meltdown.” As industry officials and federal regulators tried to determine the extent of the damage and whether to evacuate people, a terrifying drama played out on TV screens across Pennsylvania and around the world.

    The front page of the Inquirer on March 29, 1979 featuring reports about the accident at Three Mile Island.
    The front page of the Inquirer on March 29, 1979 featuring reports about the accident at Three Mile Island.Inquirer archives

    I realize that, today, some people regard nuclear power as a necessary tool in the fight against climate change. As someone who is devoting my life to that fight, I understand the temptation to embrace nuclear power. We absolutely need to phase out oil, gas, and coal — the fossil fuels overheating our planet — and fast. Any means of achieving that goal deserves consideration.

    The latest sign of our climate peril came last week as Hurricane Helene, amped by super-hot sea water, battered Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas. Helene’s destructiveness, however, is also a reminder that climate change can endanger nuclear power facilities.

    As the Perry World House at the University of Pennsylvania has noted, “As temperatures rise and climate hazards, such as drought, sea level rise, and extreme precipitation intensify, nuclear infrastructure is put at risk.”

    Earthquakes also imperil nuclear plants, as illustrated by the Fukushima accident in Japan in 2011. Terrorism is another risk. Last week, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky told the U.N. General Assembly that new intelligence indicates that Russia is contemplating an attack against Ukraine’s nuclear plants — a disaster, Zelensky said, “that must never come.”

    The Russian invasion of Ukraine has stoked fears of a radiation accident at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station.
    The Russian invasion of Ukraine has stoked fears of a radiation accident at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station.AP

    Sheer economics also argue against nuclear power.

    Nuclear power is the most expensive electricity in the world. Nuclear plants can only be operated because we, the public, subsidize them lavishly. A study by the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists concluded that decades of subsidies to nuclear power had “already resulted in hundreds of billions of dollars in costs paid by taxpayers and ratepayers.”

     

    In the case of the Three Mile Island facility, the CEO of Constellation Energy, which owns the plant, proudly told the Washington Post that Microsoft has guaranteed to buy all the electricity the plant will produce. If that sounds like the free market at work, read the fine print. The CEO admitted that the Microsoft deal was only possible because of federal subsidies.

    The CEO wouldn’t provide specific figures, so let me help him out. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 — the Biden administration’s signature climate legislation — authorized $6 billion in subsidies for nuclear power. The Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act of 2021 set aside an additional $6 billion.

    Nuclear power is the most expensive electricity in the world.

    That $12 billion is just the tip of the iceberg. The most outrageous subsidy is a law known as The Price-Anderson Act, which absolves nuclear companies from legal liability for the vast majority of the costs of a possible accident. Guess who gets to pay instead? We do.

    The nuclear industry’s business model has long been: Privatize the profits, socialize the costs. With the Three Mile Island accident, the people of Pennsylvania came dangerously close to having that business model literally blow up in their faces.
     

    Ironically enough, the main reason nuclear power is so expensive is also the main reason it isn’t much help against climate change. It’s simply too slow — no nuclear reactor of any kind has been built in less than 10 to 20 years. What’s more, that extra-long construction time translates into massive borrowing costs for the capital needed to finance the plants, boosting their eventual cost.

    And yes, that’s true even of the new generation of smaller, modular reactors that Bill Gates, Microsoft’s founder, is so fond of. Every time I speak in public about the climate crisis, someone asks if the modular reactors can’t be a solution. So I’ve spent time researching the issue, because I think when celebrities presume to speak about public issues, we have an obligation to know the facts.

    Jane Fonda writes that while it takes at least a decade to get a nuclear plant online, renewable energy sources can be up and running in a few years.
    Jane Fonda writes that while it takes at least a decade to get a nuclear plant online, renewable energy sources can be up and running in a few years.Angela Weiss / MCT

    With climate change, we don’t have the kind of time needed to get a nuclear plant licensed, built, and supplying power to the grid. Scientists are clear: humanity has to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (about 2 degrees Fahrenheit) above the pre-industrial level if we’re to avoid catastrophic destruction and human suffering.

    That means, scientists say, that emissions of heat-trapping pollution must fall by half over the next five years. So simply as a matter of timing, nuclear is not a good climate solution.
     

    By contrast, solar plants take about four years to get up and running. Wind turbines, about the same. And boosting energy efficiency — designing our buildings and vehicles so they use much less energy but deliver the same comfort and performance— is the fastest, most powerful tool of all for displacing fossil fuels.

    The nuclear industry’s business model has long been: Privatize the profits, socialize the costs.

    None of these renewable energy sources risk a nuclear meltdown. None guzzle billions of gallons of fresh water like nuclear plants do — water whose supply will become ever more uncertain as climate change unleashes deeper droughts in the years ahead. None burden our descendants with vast amounts of waste that remains dangerously radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years, with a $400 million annual bill for disposal that the public must pay.

    That radioactivity, by the way, is one reason why it’s simply inaccurate to call nuclear power “clean energy.” It may be non-carbon energy, but anything that stays fatally poisonous for millennia is not clean.

    Advertisement

    If people want to support genuine solutions to climate change, I invite them to help the Jane Fonda Climate PAC elect climate champions to local, state, and national offices in November.

    In Philadelphia, my political action committee has endorsed Nikil Saval in Pennsylvania Senate District 1 and Andre Carroll in Pennsylvania House of Delegates District 201. You’ll find a complete list of our candidates, in Pennsylvania and across the US, here: https://janepac.com/?home#endorsements.

    All of our candidates shun campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry. They work to accelerate deployment of solar, wind, and other genuinely clean energy sources. And they oppose nuclear.

    Like two people trying to get through a narrow doorway at the same time, there isn’t room for both nuclear and renewables in our energy future. It’s an obvious choice, no?

    Jane Fonda is a veteran political activist, two-time Academy Award-winning actor, and the principal of the Jane Fonda Climate PAC.

    JF
    Jane Fonda, For The Inquirer

    By admin at Thu, 10/03/2024 - 15:05

    The hottest trend in nuclear power: Reopening shuttered plants | Canary Media

    Despite this surge in support — and rising demand for new sources of firm, carbon-free electricity — the best the domestic nuclear industry can muster right now is not a cutting-edge new design or technological advancement. It’s a backward-looking effort to reanimate deteriorated old stock, abetted by billions in government subsidies.
     
    We’ll soon find out if nuclear vendors will overpromise and underdeliver on this new approach too. The clock is ticking on Holtec’s pledge of getting Palisades restored and connected to the grid by the end of next year. 
     
    By admin at Tue, 10/01/2024 - 14:21

    Here's a response to the nyt's article on nuke power & AI

    The New York Times
     
    Harvey Wasserman | LA

    The tragic arrogance & greed behind re-opening this 50-year-old nuke is beyond staggering. 

    See KILLING OUR OWN: THE DISASTER OF AMERICA'S EXPERIENCE WITH ATOMIC RADIATION to grasp nuke power's long-term threat to human existence. 

    I was at TMI in January, 1980, interviewing the victims. It was horrifying
     ( https://www.nytimes.com/1980/03/27/archives/ongoing-fallout-fear.html ) and will be again if this madness persists. 

    Today two very large reactor complexes in Russia/Ukraine could render all of Europe a radioactive wasteland. A seismic shock at Diablo Canyon, due any day now, could make Los Angeles a Pripyat dead zone. Dozens of downwind US cities are similarly vulnerable.

    None of the 94 nukes now licensed in the US have private insurance....for good reason. VC Summer in SC is a $9 billion tombstone for what Forbes once called the largest "managerial disaster" in business history.

    Wind, solar, geothermal & battery technologies can now provide all the electricity we need at a fraction of nuclear's cost, with no killing radiation, heat or carbon emissions. 

    Nuclear is far more expensive and dangerous now than when Hyman Rickover warned against its commercial use a half-century ago. 

    Silly Mythological Reactors are predictably soaring in price & delay. The AI/Crypto scam means to line private pockets at public expense. As at birth, nukes mean only mass death. 

    Solartopia is cheaper, safer, cleaner, more reliable & more job-producing. 

    Its time is now.
    By admin at Sun, 09/29/2024 - 15:47

    The case against restarting Three Mile Island’s Unit-1

    The proposed restart of Three Mile Island’s Unit 1 reactor seems to have been cooked up in the dark. It has been met with unabashed enthusiasm by Gov. Josh Shapiro and many members of the Pennsylvania Legislature.

    If it were to go through, the proposed restart of Three Mile Island would have only one client: Microsoft. The relationship would be exclusive and mostly benefit Microsoft’s data centers outside Pennsylvania. This sweetheart deal offered by Microsoft, although high on federal subsidies, is short on details.

    Articles: 
    TMI-1
    By admin at Sun, 09/29/2024 - 14:12

    No amount of money is worth turning Wyoming into a nuclear waste dump | Guest Column | wyomingnews.com

    Drake: No amount of money is worth turning Wyoming into a nuclear waste dump

    Kerry Drake
    Kerry Drake
    Wyoming columnist

    Wyoming really needs to clone Jeff Steinborn, a New Mexico state lawmaker, or elect someone just like him.

    Last year, Steinborn led a successful effort to ban the transportation and storage of high-level nuclear waste in his home state.

    Steinborn didn’t buy the claims of a private company that planned to build a temporary storage facility for spent nuclear fuel rods near Carlsbad, New Mexico. Backers had visions of billions of dollars dancing in their heads.

     

    It’s the same dream some Wyoming legislators have embraced — fortunately without success — since the early 1990s. Now the idea has reared its ugly head again.

    Rep. Donald Burkhart Jr., R-Rawlins, said he will bring a draft bill to October’s Joint Minerals, Business and Economic Development Committee to allow a private nuclear waste dump (my description, not his) to be built in Wyoming.

    Burkhart, who co-chairs the panel, said the state could reap more than $4 billion a year from nuclear waste storage “just to let us keep it here in Wyoming.” What a sweet deal!

    Except the prospect of that much revenue may be a tad overstated. It could be about $3.974 billion less than Burkhart suggested, so the trial balloon he floated won’t get off the ground.

    Wyoming legislators start touting nuclear waste storage whenever the state has a budget crunch.

    I naively thought whether to establish a temporary “Monitored Retrievable Storage,” as they used to be called, had long been settled in Wyoming.

    In 1992, then-Gov. Mike Sullivan rejected a proposed Fremont County project. A University of Wyoming survey in 1994 found 80% of respondents opposed a high-level nuclear waste facility.

    “It makes no sense to me as governor to put this state or its citizens through the agonizing and divisive study and decision-making process of further evaluating the risks of an MRS facility,” Sullivan wrote in a letter to Fremont County commissioners.

    In 2019, the Legislative Management Council narrowly decided — in a secret email vote — to authorize a Spent Fuel Rods Subcommittee to study the issue. Sen. Jim Anderson, R-Casper, said it could be an annual $1 billion bonanza.

    The subcommittee’s enthusiasm for the idea sank when it learned the feds were only going to pony up $10 million a year. That figure has since increased, but not by much.

     

    The Department of Energy announced in 2022 that it would make $16 million available to communities interested in learning more about “consent-based siting management of spent nuclear fuel.” Last year, the pot was sweetened to $26 million.

    Steinborn said there was no financial incentive at all for an interim site in his state. “New Mexico has not been offered anything in the deal,” he said. “And even if we had, I don’t think any amount of money would convince me that it’s the right thing.”

    Steinborn said the nation needs a permanent solution for storing spent nuclear fuel. “But New Mexico can’t just be the convenient sacrifice zone for the country’s contamination,” he said.

    And neither should Wyoming. Yes, the U.S. Department of Energy and Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates are backing a $4 billion Natrium nuclear power plant near Kemmerer. But Wyoming has no obligation to take other states’ nuclear trash.

    It’s increasingly unlikely a permanent site will ever be built. Yucca Mountain, Nevada, was chosen by Congress in 1987, but it’s been tangled up in a web of political and scientific controversies.

    There is a significant legal obstacle to siting a “temporary” waste site in Wyoming or anywhere else. Congress would have to amend the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which prohibits designating an interim storage site without a viable plan to establish a permanent deep-mined geologic repository — like the Yucca Mountain project, but one that could actually be approved and built.

    Victor Gilinsky, former consultant for the state of Nevada, investigated the Yucca Mountain project. He offered this observation: “I don’t think any state would ever trust the Energy Department to build and operate a nuclear waste repository.”

     

    Why in the world do Wyoming legislators who brag about their distrust of federal government see nothing wrong with a federal agency managing nuclear waste here? They’ve turned down an estimated $1.4 billion for Medicaid expansion since 2013, but they’re willing to take peanuts from the federal government to be a nuclear dumping ground.

    Jill Morrison, a retired landowner advocate who has lobbied against similar proposals since the 1990s, told WyoFile that lawmakers are trying to sneak in this one “and ram it through.”

    “It threatens public safety, and it’s really going to wreck Wyoming’s national reputation and image as a destination for tourism and recreation — a beautiful place to visit or live,” Morrison said.

    I’ve read suggestions on the internet that Wyoming could make a nuclear waste facility a tourist attraction.

    I reckon something that exciting could at least draw half of the 4.5 million Yellowstone visitors we get each year. Charge ‘em $1,088 each, the average price of a Taylor Swift concert ticket. That would bring in a cool $2.4 billion.

    That’s not as much as Burkhart said we’d reap, but it’s about as realistic.

    By admin at Sat, 09/28/2024 - 16:45

    New flaws found in Palisades Zombie nuke

    https://files.constantcontact.com/abc65024401/7ee258bf-32c2-48a3-bbd6-c0cec7c545aa.jpg?rdr=true

    Beyond Nuclear Bulletin
    September 26, 2024
     
    ZOMBIE NUKE?!
    Palisades SG tube flaws
     
    The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has issued a rare Preliminary Notification of Occurrence, concerning a "large number" of steam generator (SG) tube "indications" detected during an inspection related to the scheme to restart the Palisades zombie reactor on Lake Michigan in Covert, MI. NRC did not give an exact number of newly detected flaws. But a 2020 inspection on SG 'A' reported 666 plugged tubes out of 8,219, or 8.1%. It has been known since 2006 Palisades' SGs have needed replacement, for the second time. A small number of failed tubes can cause a release of hazardous radioactivity to the environment. Cascading failure of enough tubes during power operations can cause a catastrophic reactor core meltdown.
     
     
    UA/RU RISKS
    Threats to NPPs, of N weapons use
     
    Ukraine's (UA) president, Zelensky, warnedthe annual United Nations (UN) General Assembly of world leaders yesterday Russia (RU) is threatening to attack UA's nuclear power plants. This, while the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) in UA, long occupied by Russian troops, and the Kursk NPP in RU, are precariously near front line combat between the two countries' militaries. This has elicited recent warnings from the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency Director General, Grossi, on UA and RU. Meanwhile, the president of RU, Putin, announced Russian nuclear weapons policy has changed, allowing their use against a non-nuclear armed country, like UA, if its conventional attacks against RU are supported by a nuclear weapon-state, like France, the UK, or US.
     
     
    ATOMIC BAMBOOZLE
    LAST WEEKEND: film viewing and webinar
     
    The Nuclear Free Team of the Sierra Club's Grassroots Network is offering a free viewing of Atomic Bamboozle: The False Promise of a Nuclear Renaissance as part of their film series. Registration is open now for viewing through September. This film is a must see for everyone, but especially those who are tempted by the "bamboozle" that nuclear power is a harmless climate solution. On September 30 from 5-7 pm PT, Sierra Club will host a webinar with the filmmaker Jan Haaken, Associate Producer Cathy Sampson-Kruse, M.V. Ramana, Mark Z. Jacobson, and David Schlissel and moderator Mike Carberry, Co-Chair Nuclear Free Team. Register for this webinar. We encourage you to share this viewing opportunity widely.
     
     
    NUCLEAR MADNESS
    Let’s stop it
     
    Nuclear madness is everywhere. Our government is determined to promote new reactors and the continued use of dangerous old ones, as long as we pay for them. Executives and politicians have even been convicted of crimes to ensure this happens. The media laps up the rhetoric and parrots the lie that nuclear power is “carbon-free”. Yet, spending those same dollars on renewables would get us more carbon reductions faster and without all the deadly risks of nuclear power. That’s why we need your support now more than ever to block these dangerous proposals at every step including through legal action. If you agree that nuclear power is NOT the answer to the climate crisis, please donateto Beyond Nuclear today.
    
     

    Beyond Nuclear | 301.270.2209 | www.BeyondNuclear.org
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    By admin at Fri, 09/27/2024 - 12:04

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