News

Press Release 15-074: NRC Seeks Public Comment on Proposed Rule for Mitigating Severe Reactor Accidents

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Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station, Units 2 and 3 - Safety Evaluation of Relief Request I4R-56 Associated with the Common Emergency Service Water System (CAC Nos. MF6551 and MF6552)

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A three-judge Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) will conduct an evidentiary hearing starting Monday, Nov. 16, regarding three safety-related challenges to the Indian Point nuclear power plant’s license renewal application. Entergy, which owns and operates the Buchanan (Westchester County), N.Y., plant, is seeking 20-year extensions of the operating licenses for Indian Point Units 2 and 3.

The hearing will take place at the DoubleTree Hotel, at 455 South Broadway in Tarrytown, N.Y. It will begin at noon on Nov. 16, with the start time for the subsequent days to be announced at the hearing.

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On October 13th, Entergy made the announcement we have all been longing to hear - that Pilgrim will be closing. The excitement lasted for a brief minute until they mentioned a closing date by June 2019.

Entergy Corporation cited poor market conditions, reduced revenues and increased operational costs are the cause for their decision to close Pilgrim.

According to Entergy, the exact timing of the shutdown will depend on several factors, including further discussion with ISO-New England, and will be decided in the first half of 2016.

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Harrisburg PA – Nearly 3,000 high level nuclear waste shipments from 28 nuclear reactors, one quarter of the nations power reactors, would cross through Pennsylvaniaon their way to temporary waste storage sites. Today, Three Mile Island Alert released maps of the likely routes which would be used, joining dozens of environmental and clean energy groups across the country. The groups want state residents to weigh in with Congress and State Legislators about the dangers and deficiencies of the radioactive casks and the plans to move them.
 

[Please share this invitation with colleagues who teach courses about climate change, climate policy, environmental policy, environmental science, energy policy and/or economic development]

Dear Colleagues,

If you are teaching a course in spring 2016 that includes content on climate change, climate policy, environmental policy and/or energy policy, you and your students are invited to participate in the PA Power Dialog in Harrisburg on April 4, 2016. The PA Power Dialog, which is being organized by the Pennsylvania Environmental Resource Consortium (PERC), will engage Pennsylvania college and university students in meaningful dialog with state regulators, legislators and peers about the Clean Power Plan and its implementation in Pennsylvania.

Please contact Neil Leary (learyn@dickinson.edu) for more information or to reserve places for you and your students.

The program for the Dialog is still being developed (draft appended at end of this email), but will include a keynote talk by DEP Secretary John Quigley (confirmed), student panels in which students will share their work and viewpoints, small group roundtable discussions and opportunities for dialog. Topics for student panels will be decided in consultation with participating faculty.

We will also provide opportunity for student organizations to participate and will provide more information about this option in coming days.

The PA Power Dialog is one of a number of state-level dialogs that are being organized across the country by the Bard Center for Environmental Policy. Bard CEP is developing and sharing resources for teaching about the Clean Power Plan. PERC will assemble complementary resources that are Pennsylvania specific, which we will make available for your use.

We are working to make the conference free of charge. But there may be a small registration fee to pay for the venue and possibly food depending on whether we decide to provide lunch or have everyone get lunch on their own.
 
Draft Program:

9:30 – 9:45                Welcome & Overview
9:45 – 10:30              Student Panel 1
10:30 – 11:15            Student Panel 2
11:15 – 12:00            Student Panel 3
 
12:00 – 1:30              Lunch and keynote talk from DEP Secretary John Quigley

1:30 – 2:15                Implementation of the Clean Power Plan in PA: Status, Opportunities and Challenges
                                  ·      Invited DEP official
                                  ·      Invited Republican legislator
                                  ·      Invited Democratic legislator

2:15 – 3:00                Open Q&A
3:00 – 3:45                Student Roundtables – small group discussions on selected topics
3:45 – 4:00                Closing Session

Susquehanna Steam Electric Station, Units 1 and 2 - Issuance of Amendments Re: Revisions to Technical Specification 3.4.10, "Reactor Coolant System Pressure and Temperature (P/T) Limits" (TAC Nos. MF4597 and MF4598)

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Nukewatch Plans Truck Watch to Alert Public to Radioactive Transport Dangers

This fall, Nukewatch staffers will hit the road with our Geiger counter and begin tracking private contractors hauling low-level waste, checking for radiation leaking near our public highways. Nukewatch will use the results of their research to alert the public and inform a campaign against upcoming consolidated waste storage proposals that would require a massive increase in the cross-country transport of decades’ worth of waste or “spent” reactor fuel rods.

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The Nuclear Regulatory Commission today announced senior personnel changes that help streamline agency management and broaden the scope and diversity of its leadership at the top as the agency works to reduce its size in the coming years.

The most senior changes – which required Commission approval and will occur in early November – include:

Deputy Executive Director for Material, Waste, Research, State, Tribal and Compliance Programs Mike Weber will become director of the Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research;

Jennifer Uhle, currently deputy director for engineering in the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, will become director of the Office of New Reactors;

Director of Nuclear Materials Safety and Safeguards Catherine Haney will become the
Region II regional administrator in January, succeeding Victor McCree, who just assumed the agency’s most senior career position, Executive Director for Operations (EDO).

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Giselle Barry (Markey) 202-224-2742

Markey: Filtered Vent Vote Adds to Litany of NRC Post-Fukushima Safety Failures

Boston (August 21, 2015) – The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) yesterday announced by a vote of 3-1 that it will not even put out for public comment the question of whether to upgrade America’s Fukushima-style reactors with a commonsense safety measure to prevent radiation exposure when vents are used to prevent hydrogen explosions during a meltdown. Commissioner Jeff Baran was the dissenting vote. In 2013, then-Rep. Markey and a group of House committee leaders called on the NRC to require that all U.S. nuclear reactors of the same design as the ones that melted down at the Japanese Fukushima nuclear facility install such vents in order to reduce exposure to radiation when the vents are used. Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant in Massachusetts has a reactor design that would utilize a filtered vent.

Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, released the following statement:

“Yet again, the NRC has missed another opportunity to take the lessons learned from the Fukushima disaster and upgrade America’s nuclear fleet to make it safer in the face of a severe nuclear accident. The NRC has yet to require the nuclear industry complete implementation of a single Fukushima Task Force recommendation. It’s irresponsible, inexplicable and an abdication of NRC’s duty to protect public safety. Instead of following its top experts’ safety recommendations, the NRC chose to do nothing, leaving the people who live around these vulnerable nuclear facilities without an important protection. ”