NIRS

For over 30 years, Michael Mariotte − President of the Nuclear Information & Resource (NIRS) in the US − has helped build the movement to stop nuclear power, end the creation of radioactive waste, and hasten our sustainable energy future. Over a dozen organizations in the US recently presented Michael with a Lifetime Achievement Award, with the highest praise for his work.

But now Michael needs our support. For two years, he has been fighting his way through an aggressive form of cancer. Despite his illness, it has actually helped keep him strong to continue working throughout − just see the safeenergy.org blog for his prolific activity and inimitable voice. In honor of his incredible dedication and service, NIRS is committed to providing Michael whatever support he needs, just as he has sustained the movement all these years.

Therefore, NIRS is raising funds to ensure Michael has the support he needs and that his work continues. The funds raised will serve three purposes: to ensure Michael receives his full salary and benefits, regardless of whether he is able to continue working; to ensure NIRS has the capacity to advance the mission to which he has dedicated his career; and, at Michael's specific request, to ramp up NIRS' work on nuclear power and climate.

If you can donate, please visit: http://legacyfund.nirs.org

Global nuclear power capacity increased slightly in 2014 according to the World Nuclear Association¹:

• Five new reactors (4.76 gigawatts (GW)) began supplying electricity (three in China, one each in Argentina and Russia), and three were permanently shut down (Vermont Yankee, USA; Fukushima Daiichi #5 and #6).
• There are now 437 'operable' reactors (377.7 GW) compared with 435 reactors (375.3 GW) a year ago. Thus the number of reactors increased by two (0.5%) and nuclear generating capacity increased by 2.4 GW (0.6%). (For comparison, around 100 GW of solar and wind power capacity were built in 2014, up from 74 GW in 2013.²)
• Construction started on just three reactors during 2014, one each in Belarus, the United Arab Emirates, and Argentina. A total of 70 reactors (74 GW) are under construction.

Thus a long-standing pattern of stagnation continues. Global nuclear power capacity grew by 10.6% in the two decades from 1995−2014, and just 2.6% in the decade from 2005−2014.³

The pattern of stagnation is likely to persist. Steve Kidd, a nuclear consultant who worked for the World Nuclear Association for 17 years, wrote in a May 2014 article: "Upper scenarios showing rapid nuclear growth in many countries including plants starting up in new countries now look very unlikely, certainly before the late 2020s. If there is to be a nuclear renaissance, it is now much more likely to happen later, and with a new generation of reactors. On the other hand, predictions that another major accident would shut down nuclear in lots of countries have been negated by the experience of Fukushima. Although there remain some uncertainties, the outlying upper and lower cases are much less credible than before."⁴

Despite 20 years of stagnation, the World Nuclear Association remains upbeat. Its latest report, The World Nuclear Supply Chain: Outlook 2030, envisages the start-up of 266 new reactors by 2030.⁵ The figure is implausible − it would require completion of the 70 reactors under construction, start-to-finish construction of another 196 reactors, and start-to-finish construction of dozens more reactors to replace those that are shut down ... all in the space of 15 years! If only the World Nuclear Association took bets on its ridiculous projections.

Nuclear Energy Insider is more sober and reflective in an end-of-year review published in December: "As we embark on a new year, there are distinct challenges and opportunities on the horizon for the nuclear power industry. Many industry experts believe that technology like Small Nuclear Reactors (SMR) represent a strong future for nuclear. Yet, rapidly growing renewable energy sources, a bountiful and inexpensive supply of natural gas and oil, and the aging population of existing nuclear power plants represent challenges that the industry must address moving forward."⁶

Steve Kidd is still more downbeat, arguing that nuclear advocates have not made much progress gaining public acceptance over the past few years.⁷ Kidd writes: "[W]e have seen no nuclear renaissance (instead, a notable number of reactor closures in some countries, combined with strong growth in China) ... Countries such as Germany and Switzerland that claim environmental credentials are moving strongly away from nuclear. Even with rapid nuclear growth in China, nuclear's share in world electricity is declining. The industry is doing little more than hoping that politicians and financiers eventually see sense and back huge nuclear building programmes. On current trends, this is looking more and more unlikely. The high and rising nuclear share in climate-friendly scenarios is false hope, with little in the real outlook giving them any substance. Far more likely is the situation posited in the World Nuclear Industry Status Report⁸ ... Although this report is produced by anti-nuclear activists, its picture of the current reactors gradually shutting down with numbers of new reactors failing to replace them has more than an element of truth given the recent trends."

Kidd's comments on renewables are also worth quoting: "The nuclear industry giving credence to climate change from fossil fuels has simply led to a stronger renewables industry. Nuclear seems to be "too difficult" and gets sidelined − as it has within the entire process since the original Kyoto accords. And now renewables, often thought of as useful complements to nuclear, begin to threaten it in power markets when there is abundant power from renewables when the wind blows and the sun shines."⁷

Kidd proposes reducing nuclear costs by simplifying and standardising current reactor designs. Meanwhile, as the International Energy Agency's World Economic Outlook 2014 report noted, nuclear growth will be "concentrated in markets where electricity is supplied at regulated prices, utilities have state backing or governments act to facilitate private investment." Conversely, "nuclear power faces major challenges in competitive markets where there are significant market and regulatory risks, and public acceptance remains a critical issue worldwide."⁹

Four countries supposedly driving a nuclear renaissance

Let's briefly consider countries where the number of power reactors might increase or decrease by 10 or more over the next 15−20 years. Generally, it is striking how much uncertainty there is about the nuclear programs in these countries.

China is one of the few exceptions. China has 22 operable reactors, 27 under construction and 64 planned. Significant, rapid growth can be expected unless China's nuclear program is derailed by a major accident or a serious act of sabotage or terrorism.¹⁰

In the other three countries supposedly driving a nuclear renaissance − Russia, South Korea and India − growth is likely to be modest and slow.

Russia has 34 operating reactors, nine under construction and 31 planned. Only three reactors have begun operation over the past decade, and the pattern of slow growth is likely to continue. As for Russia's ambitious nuclear export program, Steve Kidd noted in October 2014 that it "is reasonable to suggest that it is highly unlikely that Russia will succeed in carrying out even half of the projects in which it claims to be closely involved".¹¹

South Korea has 23 operating reactors, five under construction and eight planned. Earlier plans for rapid nuclear expansion have been derailed by the Fukushima disaster, a major scandal over forged safety documents, and a hacking attack on Korea Hydro's computer network.¹² Growth will be, at most, modest and slow.

India has 21 operating reactors, six under construction and 22 planned. But India's nuclear program is in a "deep freeze" according to a November 2014 article in the Hindustan Times.¹³ Likewise, India Today reported on January 8: "The Indian nuclear programme is on the brink of distress. For the past four years, no major tender has gone through − a period that was, ironically, supposed to mark the beginning of an Indian nuclear renaissance in the aftermath of the landmark India−US civil nuclear deal."¹⁴

India's energy minister Piyush Goyal said in November 2014 that the government remains "cautious" about developing nuclear power. He pointed to waning interest in the US and Europe: "This government would like to be cautious so that we are not saddled with something only under the garb of clean energy or alternate energy; something which the West has discarded and is sought to be brought to India."¹⁵

A November 2014 article in The Hindu newspaper notes that three factors have put a break on India's reactor-import plans: "the exorbitant price of French- and U.S.-origin reactors, the accident-liability issue, and grass-roots opposition to the planned multi-reactor complexes."¹⁶ In addition, unresolved disagreements regarding safeguards and non-proliferation assurances are delaying US and European investment in India's nuclear program.¹⁷

Saudi Arabia last year announced plans to build 16 reactors by 2032. Already, the timeline has been pushed back from 2032 to 2040.¹⁸ As with any country embarking on a nuclear power program for the first time, Saudi Arabia faces daunting logistical and workforce issues.¹⁹ Numerous nuclear supplier are lining up to supply Saudi Arabia's nuclear power program but political obstacles could easily emerge, not least because Saudi officials (and royalty) have repeatedly said that the Kingdom will build nuclear weapons if Iran's nuclear program is not constrained.²⁰

South Africa's on-again off-again nuclear power program is on again with plans for 9.6 GW of nuclear capacity in addition to the two operating reactors at Koeberg.²¹ In 2007, state energy utility Eskom approved a plan for 20 GW of new nuclear capacity. Areva's EPR and Westinghouse's AP1000 were short-listed and bids were submitted. But in 2008 Eskom announced that it would not proceed with either of the bids due to a lack of finance. Easy come, easy go.

Thus the latest plan for 9.6 GW of new nuclear capacity in South Africa is being treated with scepticism. Academic Prof. Steve Thomas noted in a July 2014 report: "Overall, a renewed call for tenders (or perhaps bilateral negotiations with a preferred bidder) is likely to produce the same result as 2008: a very high price for an unproven technology that will only be financeable if the South African public, either in the form of electricity consumers or as taxpayers, is prepared to give open ended guarantees."²²

Pro-nuclear commentator Dan Yurman is also sceptical: "Depending on who's pricing analysis you accept, the reactors alone will cost between [US]$5000 (Rosatom) and $6500/Kw (Eskom) or between $48 billion and $62.4 billion. Adding in balance of plant equipment and power line infrastructure, and the total price tag heads north to between $65 billion and $84 billion. Given that the intended power purchase firm is state-owned Eskom, which is perpetually broke due to government resistance to rate increases, the entire exercise seems implausible at this scale. ... Almost no one believes that as long as Zuma is in power that anything remotely resembling an orderly procurement process is likely to take place."²³

Iran has one operable power reactor. Last year, Russia and Iran signed a contract to build two power reactors, and they signed a protocol envisaging possible construction of an additional six reactors.²⁴

Plans for significant nuclear power expansion in one or two other countries − such as the Pakistani government's plan for 40 GW of nuclear capacity by 2050 − are implausible.²⁵

Nuclear negawatts

Now to briefly consider those countries where a significant decline of nuclear power is possible or likely over the next 15−20 years.

Patterns of stagnation or slow decline in north America and western Europe can safely be predicted. Steve Kidd wrote in May 2014 that uranium demand (and nuclear power capacity) "will almost certainly fall in the key markets in Western Europe and North America" in the period to 2030.⁴ In January 2014, the European Commission forecast that EU nuclear generating capacity of 131 GW in 2010 will decline to 97 GW in 2025.²⁶

The United States has 99 operable reactors. Five reactors are under construction, "with little prospect for more" according to Oilprice.com.²⁷ Decisions to shut down just as many reactors have been taken in the past few years. As the Financial Times noted last year, two decisions that really rattled the industry were the closures of Dominion Resources' Kewaunee plant in Wisconsin and Entergy's Vermont Yankee − both were operating and licensed to keep operating into the 2030s, but became uneconomic to keep in operation.²⁸

The US Energy Information Administration estimated in April 2014 that 10.8 GW of nuclear capacity − around 10% of total US nuclear capacity − could be shut down by the end of the decade.²⁹

The most that the US nuclear industry can hope for is stagnation underpinned by new legislative and regulatory measures favouring nuclear power along with multi-billion dollar government handouts. The situation is broadly similar in the UK − the nuclear power industry there is scrambling just to stand still.

France's lower house of Parliament voted in October 2014 to cut nuclear's share of electricity generation from 75% to 50% by 2025, to cap nuclear capacity at 63.2 GW, and to pursue a renewables target of 40% by 2030 with various new measures to promote the growth of renewables.^30,31 The Senate will vote on the legislation early this year.

However there will be many twists and turns in French energy policy. Energy Minister Segolene Royal said on January 13 that France should build a new generation of reactors, and she noted that the October 2014 energy transition bill did not include a 40-year age limit for power reactors as ecologists wanted.³²

Germany's government is systematically pursuing its policy of phasing out nuclear power by 2023. That said, nothing is certain: the nuclear phase-out policy of the social democrat / greens coalition government in the early 2000s was later overturned by a conservative government.

Japan's 48 operable reactors are all shut down. A reasonable estimate is that three-quarters (36/48) of the reactors will restart in the coming years. Before the Fukushima disaster, Tokyo planned to add another 15−20 reactors to the fleet of 55 giving a total of 70−75 reactors. Thus, Japan's nuclear power industry will be around half the size it might have been if not for the Fukushima disaster.

The elephant in the room − ageing reactors

The problem of ageing reactors came into focus in 2014 − and will remain in focus for decades to come with the average age of the world's power reactors now 29 years and steadily increasing.^33,34

Problems with ageing reactors include:

• the increased risk of accidents (and associated problems such as generally inadequate accident liability arrangements);
• an increased rate of unplanned reactors outages (at one point last year, less than half of the UK's nuclear capacity was available due to multiple outages³⁵);
• costly refurbishments;
• debates over appropriate safety standards for reactors designed decades ago; and
• the costs associated with reactor decommissioning and long-term nuclear waste management.

Greenpeace highlighted the problems associated with ageing reactors with the release of a detailed report last year³⁶, and emphasised the point by breaking into six ageing European nuclear plants on 5 March 2014.³⁷

The International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its World Energy Outlook 2014 report: "A wave of retirements of ageing nuclear reactors is approaching: almost 200 of the 434 reactors operating at the end of 2013 are retired in the period to 2040, with the vast majority in the European Union, the United States, Russia and Japan."⁹

IEA chief economist Fatih Birol said: "Worldwide, we do not have much experience and I am afraid we are not well-prepared in terms of policies and funds which are devoted to decommissioning. A major concern for all of us is how we are going to deal with this massive surge in retirements in nuclear power plants."³⁸

The World Energy Outlook 2014 report estimates the cost of decommissioning reactors to be more than US$100 billion (€89b) up to 2040, adding that "considerable uncertainties remain about these costs, reflecting the relatively limited experience to date in dismantling and decontaminating reactors and restoring sites for other uses."

The IEA's head of power generation analysis, Marco Baroni, said that even excluding waste disposal costs, the final cost could be as much as twice as high as the $100 billion estimate, and that decommissioning costs per reactor can vary by a factor of four.³⁴

Baroni said the issue was not the decommissioning cost per reactor but "whether enough funds have been set aside to provide for it." Evidence of inadequate decommissioning funds is mounting. To give just one example, Entergy estimates a cost of US$1.24 billion (€1.10b) to decommission Vermont Yankee, but the company's decommissioning trust fund for the plant − US$0.67 billion − is barely half that amount.³⁹

Michael Mariotte, President of the Nuclear Information & Resource Service, noted in a recent article: "Entergy, for example, has only about half the needed money in its decommissioning fund (and even so still found it cheaper to close the reactor than keep it running); repeat that across the country with multiple and larger reactors and the shortfalls could be stunning. Expect heated battles in the coming years as nuclear utilities try to push the costs of the decommissioning fund shortfalls onto ratepayers."⁴⁰

The nuclear industry has a simple solution to the problem of old reactors: new reactors. But the battles over ageing and decommissioned reactors − and the raiding of taxpayers' pockets to cover shortfalls − will make it that much more difficult to convince politicians and the public to support new reactors.

References

1. WNA Weekly Digest, 16 Jan 2015, 'Slight increase in nuclear capacity in 2014',
http://us1.campaign-archive2.com/?u=140c559a3b34d23ff7c6b48b9&id=4785fc1...
2. Tierney Smith, 9 Jan 2015, '5 Countries Leading the Way Toward 100% Renewable Energy', http://ecowatch.com/2015/01/09/countries-leading-way-renewable-energy/
3. www.iaea.org/PRIS/WorldStatistics/WorldTrendNuclearPowerCapacity.aspx
4. Steve Kidd, 6 May 2014, 'The future of uranium – higher prices to come?', www.neimagazine.com/opinion/opinionthe-future-of-uranium-higher-prices-t...
5. WNA, 2014, 'The World Nuclear Supply Chain: Outlook 2030, http://online-shop.world-nuclear.org/bfont-size18pxthe-world-nuclear-sup...
6. John Johnson, 5 Dec 2014, 'Nuclear power to change shape in 2015', http://analysis.nuclearenergyinsider.com/small-modular-reactors/nuclear-...
7. Steve Kidd, 21 Jan 2015, 'Is climate change the worst argument for nuclear?', www.neimagazine.com/opinion/opinionis-climate-change-the-worst-argument-...
8. http://worldnuclearreport.org
9. International Energy Agency, 2014, 'World Economic Outlook 2014', www.worldenergyoutlook.org
10. China's nuclear power plans: safety and security challenges, 19 Dec 2014, Nuclear Monitor #796, www.wiseinternational.org/nuclear-monitors
11. Steve Kidd, 6 Oct 2014, "The world nuclear industry – is it in terminal decline?", www.neimagazine.com/opinion/opinionthe-world-nuclear-industry-is-it-in-t...
12. Heesu Lee, 15 Jan 2015, 'Fukushima Meltdowns Pervade S. Korea Debate on Reactor Life', www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-14/fukushima-meltdowns-pervade-korea-deba...
13. Shishir Gupta and Jayanth Jacob, 30 Nov 2014, 'Govt plans N-revival, focuses on investor concerns', www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/govt-plans-n-revival-looks-for-answers...
14. Pranab Dhal Samanta, 8 Jan 2015, 'Splitting the liability atom', http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/obama-republic-day-visit-nuclear-powe...
15. 6 Nov 2014, 'Govt cautious about tapping nuclear energy for power generation', www.thehindu.com/news/national/govt-cautious-on-westdiscarded-nuclear-te...
16. Brahma Chellaney, 19 Nov 2014, 'False promise of nuclear power', www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/false-promise-of-nuclear-power/article6612...
17. Indrani Bagchi, 19 Nov 2014, 'American officials put up hurdles, try to scuttle India-US nuclear deal', http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/American-officials-put-up-hurdl...
18. Reuters, 19 Jan 2015, http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/01/19/saudi-nuclear-energy-idUKL6N0UY...
19. Dan Yurman, 24 Jan 2015, 'Saudi Arabia delays its nuclear plans', http://neutronbytes.com/2015/01/24/saudi-arabia-delays-its-nuclear-plans/
20. 18 Sept 2014, 'Saudi Arabia's nuclear power program and its weapons ambitions', Nuclear Monitor #791, www.wiseinternational.org/node/4195
21. 'South Africa's stop-start nuclear power program', Nuclear Monitor #792, 2 Oct 2014, www.wiseinternational.org/node/4193
22. Steve Thomas, July 2014, 'Nuclear technology options for South Africa', http://earthlife.org.za/www/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/nuclear-cost_repo...
23. Dan Yurman, 6 Dec 2014, 'China jumps into the action in South Africa', http://neutronbytes.com/2014/12/06/china-makes-haste-to-develop-its-nucl...
24. 5 Dec 2014, 'Russia to build more reactors in Iran', Nuclear Monitor #795, www.wiseinternational.org/nuclear-monitors
25. 20 Jan 2015, 'N-safeguards steps implemented: IAEA', www.dawn.com/news/1158113/n-safeguards-steps-implemented-iaea
26. WNN, 9 Jan 2014, 'Policies hold European nuclear steady', www.world-nuclear-news.org/EE-Politics-hold-European-nuclear-steady-0901...
27. Nick Cunningham, 9 Feb 2014, 'Wind and Gas Forcing Out Nuclear in Midwest', http://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Wind-and-Gas-Forcing-O...
28. Ed Crooks, 19 Feb 2014, 'Uneconomic US nuclear plants at risk of being shut down', www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/da2a6bc6-98fa-11e3-a32f-00144feab7de.html
29. Reuters, 29 Apr 2014, 'U.S. expects about 10 pct of nuclear capacity to shut by 2020', http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/04/28/utilities-nuclear-eia-idINL2N0N...
30. 10 Oct 2014, 'France to cut nuclear's share of power market to 50% by 2025', www.platts.com/latest-news/electric-power/london/france-to-cut-nuclears-...
31. Michel Rose, 15 Oct 2014, 'French energy transition law to cut red tape on renewables', http://planetark.org/enviro-news/item/72327
32. Reuters, 13 Jan 2015, 'French energy minister wants new nuclear reactors', www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/13/france-nuclear-idUSL6N0US1P320150113
33. Michael Mariotte, 3 April 2014, 'Nuclear reactors are getting old – and it's showing', www.wiseinternational.org/node/4056
34. Nina Chestney and Geert De Clercq, 19 Jan 2015, 'Global nuclear decommissioning cost seen underestimated, may spiral', www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/19/nuclear-decommissioning-idUSL6N0UV2BI...
35. Nuclear Free Local Authorities, 9 Dec 2014, 'NFLA concerns over the reliability of aging nuclear reactors in the UK', www.nuclearpolicy.info/docs/briefings/A241_%28NB127%29_Aging_nuclear_rea...
36. Greenpeace International, 2014, 'Lifetime extension of ageing nuclear power plants: Entering a new era of risk', www.greenpeace.nl/Global/nederland/2014/Documenten/Rapport%20Lifetime%20...
37. http://out-of-age.eu
38. WNN, 12 Nov 2014, 'Nuclear industry shares IEA concern', www.world-nuclear-news.org/NP-Nuclear-industry-shares-IEA-concern-121114...
39. Robert Audette, 19 Dec 2014, 'Vermont Yankee decommissioning plan submitted to NRC', www.reformer.com/localnews/ci_27171602/vermont-yankee-decommissioning-pl...
40. Michael Mariotte, 5 Jan 2015, 'Nuclear industry goes hysterically ballistic over Yankee shutdown', http://safeenergy.org/2015/01/05/nuclear-industry-goes-hysterical

The conventional wisdom scribes have been falling all over themselves since US Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid announced last month that he won't run for re-election to spout what is obvious to all of them: Reid's exit means Yucca Mountain will finally open.

After all, Super Harry has been single-handedly preventing Yucca from becoming the nation's single most lethal plot of land.

If you've never seen conventional wisdom in action, then you're in for a treat. Here it is, in all its shining glory, in The Hill: 'Reid's exit removes obstacle to Yucca nuclear waste site'.¹

Ignore the 880, mostly inane, comments to the piece and focus on the intro: Reid's retirement "is removing one of the biggest obstacles" to Yucca. Find an anonymous Hill staffer to quote, preferably a Republican:

"There's no question that people are looking around and saying, 'Yeah, this news is good for solving the nuclear stalemate and having Yucca be part of that solution,' a Senate GOP aide said of Reid's planned departure in 2017. There's no reason to oppose Yucca beyond a political calculation, and the math on that just changed."

And make sure to get a quote from Yucca's biggest booster, Illinois Republican Rep. John Shimkus and add the tantalizing possibility that some Democrats support Yucca Mountain (as a few always have).

Bury the actual facts late in the story, after the ads. Like, the fact that likely Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton also opposes Yucca Mountain. As does the state's other Senator Dean Heller, a Republican. And the Republican Governor, Brian Sandoval, as well. Oh, wait, the article does forget to mention that one.

Oh, and some environmental groups also oppose Yucca Mountain.

Actually, it's not just some; it's essentially all environmental and clean energy organizations across the country. When we tallied it up in 2002, more than 50 national organizations and 700+ regional, state and local organizations from across the nation had publicly stated their opposition to Yucca.²

So it's not just Nevadans either. And it's not like the number has gone down since 2002; if anything, the number has gone up.

Why is there such widespread opposition to Yucca? It's not because Harry Reid doesn't want the project. It's not blind support for President Obama, who began ending the project as soon as he came into office in 2009. It's because as one of the most studied places on Earth, it's the one place on Earth we know will leak if it becomes a radioactive waste dump − a fact NIRS and other environmental groups have been pointing out, with greater and greater scientific backing, for decades.

I mean no disrespect for Senator Reid here. He's done a terrific job on Yucca Mountain, on renewable energy and on a lot of other things. In fact, I have tremendous respect for Senator Reid.

But I remember when he was the junior senator from Nevada, and Senator Richard Bryan was the senior senator, and very effectively led the Congressional opposition to Yucca which culminated in the 2000 veto by President Clinton of a Yucca/Mobile Chernobyl bill − a veto that was sustained by one vote.

It was Bryan who spoke from the stage at our 1997 anti-Yucca concerts in Washington with Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, Indigo Girls and more. Not Reid.

During the debate on that 2000 legislation, I watched C-Span on my computer and fed Reid's office with information every few minutes to counter the pro-Yucca statements. Reid wasn't as ready then to effectively take on Yucca; Bryan, nearing the end of his political career, didn't need any help.

Indeed, it wasn't until after Bryan retired, and Reid and I had a private meeting in his office, that we became fully comfortable with him in his new role as the lead anti-Yucca spokesperson on the Hill. And he went on to far surpass all of our expectations.

But the opposition to Yucca isn't − despite the conventional wisdom − about Harry Reid. It's about the fundamental fact that putting the nation's lethal high-level radioactive waste in a highly seismically-active zone, where radioactive materials from weapons tests that went into the mountain in the 1950s have since leaked back out of the mountain, makes no sense.

It's about the fundamental fact that even the Department of Energy admits that the mountain provides essentially none of the required prevention of leakage of the waste; the casks − which will rust and decay and the unbuilt and quite possibly unbuildable titanium shields the DOE now says are essential − provide 95% of that protection. If that's the case, and it is, then the waste could go anywhere. Like underneath any of the nuclear reactor sites in the country.

That would be a stupid idea, of course; but it's no less stupid at Yucca Mountain. If we're going to have a permanent waste repository, and we need one sooner or later − sooner if we can end radioactive waste generation sooner − it should at least offer some measure of protection. We know it won't at Yucca Mountain.

The opposition to Yucca Mountain is deep, broad and national. It also has proven its effectiveness over the years. And it's not going away. Senator Reid knows that. That's why he can confidently say, as he did the day after his announcement, that "Yucca Mountain is dead."

The Las Vegas Sun knows that too; that's why their front page article last month on the opposition didn't focus on Reid, it focused on the grassroots.³ By the way, the Sun also put a kind article about me and the NIRS' Legacy Fund as a sidebar on the front page too.⁴

Heck, even the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff know it. They won't even recommend that the project be pursued any longer.

The nuclear industry and its backers are persistent. That's why some battles have to be fought over and over again. But we're just as persistent. Yucca was named as the nation's only high-level radioactive waste site by an ignorant Congress in 1987, to be operational by 1998. It didn't happen, and it won't happen in 2018 or 2028 or any other date either.

We all owe Senator Harry Reid a lot for his efforts over the years. We owe each other a round of thanks too.

For some background on why Yucca Mountain is scientifically unsuitable as a high-level radioactive waste site, and a bit of history on the opposition, visit the NIRS Yucca Mountain page.⁵

References:
1. http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/237845-reids-exit-removes-o...
2. www.nirs.org/radwaste/yucca/yuccaopponentslist.htm
3. www.lasvegassun.com/news/2015/mar/06/preparing-renewed-battle-keep-yucca...
4. www.lasvegassun.com/news/2015/mar/06/yucca-opponents-fighting-old-friend...
5. www.nirs.org/radwaste/yucca/yuccahome.htm

The US Environmental Protection Agency's plan for 'clean power' are welcome, writes Tim Judson − except for its inclusion of nuclear, and economic distortions and serious omissions that favour the technology. This open letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy calls on the EPA to ditch the 'false and irrational assumptions' used to justify both new and existing nuclear power.

Dear Administrator Gina McCarthy,

We strongly support the EPA's goals in the Clean Power Plan draft regulation, and we are grateful for the agency's leadership in setting a critical policy for reducing emissions from the electricity generation sector. We also appreciate the fact that the Clean Power Plan's purpose is to create enforceable goals for states to reduce emissions, and a framework (the Best System of Emissions Reduction / BSER) for them to implement and comply with the targets.

Unfortunately, the treatment of nuclear energy in the draft rule is unsupported by meaningful analysis, and would make it possible for states to implement the rule in ways that are counterproductive to the Clean Power Plan's purpose of reducing emissions.

The role of nuclear power must be re-evaluated

We are, additionally, very concerned about industry proposals to expand provisions to encourage nuclear. We urge the EPA to conduct a thorough and fact-based analysis of nuclear, and to do the following:

• Remove the preservation of existing nuclear reactors from the BSER.
• Do not force Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee to finish building new reactors.
• Conduct a thorough and accurate analysis of the environmental impacts of nuclear power, from radioactive waste and uranium mining to reactor accidents and water use.
• Recognize and incorporate the much greater role renewable energy and efficiency can, will, and must play in reducing carbon emissions and replacing both fossil fuels and nuclear.

We recognize that the EPA has undertaken a monumental task in developing the Clean Power Plan − perhaps the most important single step in setting the U.S. on the path to reducing emissions enough to avert the worst of global warming and climate change.

It is essential that we begin making substantial reductions in emissions immediately, and that the institutional inertia and narrow self-interest of utilities and major power companies do not stand in the way of deploying the most cost-effective and environmentally sustainable energy solutions.

For that very reason, it is important the regulation ensures states do not get off on the wrong foot and implement the rule in ways that are counterproductive.

False and irrational assumptions

Unfortunately, the Clean Power Plan's treatment of nuclear incentivizes the preservation and expansion of a technology that is and has always been the most expensive, inflexible, and dangerous complement to fossil fuels.

The Clean Power Plan incorporates nuclear into the BSER in two ways:

• Assumes five new reactors will be completed and brought online in the states of Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee, and irrationally estimates the cost of doing so as $0. In fact, billions more remain to be spent on these reactors and there is a great deal of uncertainty about when, if ever, they will be completed, facing years of delays and billions in cost overruns. The cost assumption would force states to complete the reactors no matter the cost, rather than enabling them to choose better ways to meet their emissions goals. Even though renewables and efficiency could be deployed at lower cost than nuclear, the draft rule would make it look like they are much more expensive because of the zero-cost assumption about completing the reactors.
• Encourages states to 'preserve' reactors economically at-risk of being closed, equivalent to 6% of each state's existing nuclear generation. While it is true that about 6% of the nation's operating reactors may close for economic reasons, this provision encourages every state to subsidize existing reactors, greatly underestimates the cost of doing so, and overestimates their role in reducing emissions. Uneconomical reactors have high and rising operating costs, and cannot compete with renewables and efficiency.

The rule also says states may utilize two other ways of adding nuclear capacity as options for achieving the goals, even though they are not incorporated in the BSER:

• New reactors other than those currently in construction. EPA recognizes that new nuclear is too expensive to be included in the BSER, so it should not suggest states consider it as a way of meeting their emissions goals.
• Power uprate modifications to increase the generation capacity of existing reactors. Power uprates are capital-intensive and expensive, and several recent projects have been cancelled or suffered major cost overruns, in the case of Minnesota's Monticello reactor, at a total cost greater than most new reactors (US$10 million/megawatt).¹

Rather than suggesting states waste resources on nuclear generation too expensive and infeasible to be included in the BSER, EPA should include an analysis of these problems so that states can better evaluate their options and select lower-cost, more reliable means for reducing emissions, such as renewables and efficiency.

Serious nuclear concerns ignored

The Clean Power Plan also considers some non-air quality impacts of nuclear generation, as it is required to do under the Clean Air Act. However, the EPA's evaluation is both woefully incomplete and alarmingly inadequate. EPA dismisses concerns about radioactive waste and nuclear power's impact on water resources, simply characterizing them as equivalent to problems with fossil fuel generation.

In fact, radioactive waste is an intractable problem that threatens the environment for potentially hundreds of thousands of years. In addition, nuclear reactors' use of water is more intensive than fossil fuel technologies, and a majority of existing reactors utilize the most water-intensive once-through cooling systems.

Regardless, however, rather than only comparing them to fossil fuels, EPA should have compared these impacts to the full range of alternatives, including renewables and efficiency, which do not have such problems.

EPA leaves out a host of other environmental impacts unique to nuclear, including uranium mining and nuclear accidents. There are over 10,000 abandoned uranium mines throughout the US, which are subject to lax environmental standards, pose major groundwater and public health risks, present serious environmental justice concerns, and could entail billions in site cleanup and remediation costs.

The failure to consider the impacts of a nuclear accident is a glaring oversight, in the wake of the Fukushima disaster. EPA must consider both the environmental and economic impact of nuclear accidents.

Renewables can do the job!

In general, the Clean Power Plan's consideration of nuclear appears to be based on a dangerous fallacy: that closed reactors must be replaced with fossil fuel generation, presumably because other low- / zero-carbon resources could not make up the difference.

In fact, renewable energy growth has surpassed all other forms of new generation for going on three years, making up 48% of all new electricity generation brought online from 2011 to July 2014.²

The growth rate of wind energy alone (up to 12,000 MW per year) would be sufficient to replace all of the 'at-risk' nuclear capacity within two years, at lower cost than the market price of electricity,³ let alone at the subsidized rate for nuclear the draft rule suggests.

Assuming that closed reactors will be replaced with fossil fuel generation both encourages states to waste resources trying to 'preserve' (or even build) uneconomical reactors rather than on more cost-effective and productive investments in renewables and efficiency.

While states are free to develop their implementation plans without using the specific energy sources included in the BSER, the rule should not promote such foolishness.

No amount of spending or subsidies for nuclear has been effective at reducing the technology's costs nor overcoming lengthy construction times and delays, whereas spending on renewables and efficiency has had the effect of lowering their costs and increasing their rate of deployment.

The economic problems facing currently operating reactors merely underscore the point that nuclear is not a cost-effective way of reducing emissions.

We believe that correcting the problems with the way nuclear is considered in the draft rule, and increasing the role of renewables and efficiency, will make the Clean Power Plan much stronger and lead states to implement it more productively and cost-effectively.

References

1. Shaffer, David. 'Xcel management blamed for cost overruns at Monticello nuclear plant'. Minneapolis Star-Tribune, July 9, 2014, www.startribune.com/business/266353511.html
2. Sun Day Campaign. 'Renewables Provide 56 Percent of New US Electrical Generating Capacity in First Half of 2014'. July 21, 2014, www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2014/07/renewables-provide...
3. Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory. '2013 Wind Technologies Market Report'. US Department of Energy. August 18,2014,http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/08/f18/2013%20Wind%20Technologie...

Lifetime Achievement Award for Michael Mariotte

Michael Mariotte, President of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), was honoured on November 10 by 14 environmental organisations in recognition of his three decades of work to educate the public and lawmakers about the dangers of nuclear power. The award was presented by Ralph Nader.

Among his many achievements over 30 years, Michael led the successful fight to block the Calvert Cliffs-3 reactor project in Maryland. In the 1990s, he initiated a program to support fledgling anti-nuclear groups across Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union with tens of thousands of dollars in grants and visits by U.S. energy experts to Ukraine, Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Hungary. Drawing upon public awareness of the 1986 Chernobyl reactor disaster, Michael played a major role in the fight to defeat federal 'Mobile Chernobyl' legislation that would have permitted the mass transportation nationwide of nuclear fuel waste, with the outcome hinging on a one-vote margin of victory in the US Senate in 2000.

Michael influenced an entire generation of anti-nuclear activists by bringing the idea of "anti-nuclear action camps" from Europe to the US and helped organise six of them − three in New England and three in Midwest. The Vermont Yankee reactor shutdown announcement came 15 years to the day after the arrests of members of the first New England action camp.

The 14 groups supporting the award are Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, Beyond Nuclear, Center for Study of Responsive Law, Clean Water Action, Environment America, Friends of the Earth, The Guacamole Fund, Greenpeace, Independent Council for Safe Energy Fund, Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Public Citizen, Sierra Club and World Information Service on Energy.

Former NIRS board chair Paxus Calta said: "MM was a visionary with respect to Eastern Europe, which is how we met. He was one of the few people in the US who saw what was completely apparent in Czechoslovakia, that without orders for new reactors in the 1990s in the west, the newly liberated former communist countries were the place nuclear engineering infrastructure could be maintained. And just as Westinghouse and GE's focus moved to eastern Europe. MM designed (with me) and implemented the east European small grant program, he got money from Ted Turner and others, recognizing that relatively small contributions from the west could have tremendous impact in the east. We gave out 40 grants, funding everything from bike tours, to direct action camps, micro anti-nuclear university and east/west internships. Some of the most important reactors in the world in this fight were the pair of units affectionately called K2R4, which were in Khmelnitsky and Rivne in the Ukraine.

"One of the most important interns to come to the micro anti-nuclear university was Tanya Murza also from Rivne. We stopped the western funding for the reactors at K2R4 and basically knocked the east European development bank (the EBRD) out of the business of paying western companies to complete 25 unfinished Russian reactors. And Tanya stayed and she an MM had two charming kids. MM has been a hero and inspiration to a whole bunch of people including me."

www.nirs.org/about/mmlifetimeachievementawardpr111014.pdf
http://funologist.org/2014/11/11/a-cardboard-hero-of-the-revolution-button/​
http://safeenergy.org/2014/11/12/on-awards-and-elections/

UK: Waste transport ship fire

A ship carrying intermediate-level radioactive waste from Dounreay to Belgium which caught fire and began drifting in the Moray Firth, near Scotland, has raised new concerns about plans to move waste and fuel from Dounreay to Sellafield by sea. The MV Parida was transporting a cargo of cemented radioactive waste when a fire broke out in a funnel. The blaze was extinguished, but 52 workers were taken from the Beatrice oil platform by helicopter as a precaution. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority said the platform was evacuated because the ship may have crashed into it, but not out of any concerns about radioactive contamination.(1)

Questions were asked about why this ship set out given the severe weather warnings. Highlands Against Nuclear Transport said the incident was a warning about transporting radioactive cargoes by sea, and called for proposals to move other nuclear waste from Dounreay to Sellafield by sea to be scrapped. Angus Campbell, the leader of the Western Isles Council, said the Parida incident highlighted the need for a second coastguard tug in the Minch. "A ship in similar circumstances on the west coast would be reliant on the Northern Isles-based ETV [emergency towing vessel] which would take a considerable amount of time to get to an incident in these waters."(2) Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment (CORE) say the contentious plans to ship some 26 tonnes of 'exotic' nuclear materials (irradiated and unirradiated plutonium and highly enriched uranium fuels) from Dounreay to Sellafield have moved a major step closer following recent sea and port trials in Scottish waters undertaken by the NDA's ship Oceanic Pintail which is based at Barrow-in-Furness.(3)

− Reprinted from nuClear news No.68, Nov 2014, www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/nuclearnews/NuClearNewsNo68.pdf

1. West Highland Free Press, 26 July 2014, www.whfp.com/2014/07/25/concern-over-nuclear-waste-shipments/
Stornoway Gazette, 3 Aug 2014, www.stornowaygazette.co.uk/news/local-headlines/concerns-raised-about-ra...
2. Herald, 30 July 2014, www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/plans-for-radioactive-waste-by-sea...
3. CORE, 8 Oct 2014, www.corecumbria.co.uk/newsapp/pressreleases/pressmain.asp?StrNewsID=346

UK: Leaked Sellafield photos reveal radioactive threat

The Ecologist has published a set of leaked images from an anonymous source showing decrepit nuclear waste storage facilities at the Sellafield nuclear plant. The images show the state of spent nuclear fuel storage ponds that were commissioned in 1952 and used until the mid-1970s to store spent fuel until it could be reprocessed. They were abandoned in the mid-1970s and have been left derelict for almost 40 years. The ponds are now undergoing decommissioning but the process is fraught with danger. Nuclear expert John Large warned that if the ponds drain, the Magnox fuel will ignite and that would lead to a massive release of radioactive material.

Oliver Tickell, 27 Oct 2014, 'Leaked Sellafield photos reveal 'massive radioactive release' threat', www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2611216/leaked_sellafield_photos...

143 states support UN call for DU clean-up assistance

143 states voted in favour of a fifth UN General Assembly First Committee resolution on DU weapons, which calls for states to provide assistance to countries affected by the weapons. Four states opposed the resolution, and 26 abstained (including Germany, which has previously supported similar resolutions). The resolution, which built on previous texts with the addition of a call for 'Member States in a position to do so to provide assistance to States affected by the use of arms and ammunition containing depleted uranium, in particular in identifying and managing contaminated sites and material' was submitted by Indonesia on behalf of the Non-Aligned Movement. The resolution also recognised the need for more research on DU in conflict situations. Predictably, the UK, US, France and Israel voted against the resolution. It has recently emerged that the US may again use DU in Iraq. International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons coordinator Doug Weir said: "The reasons given for abstaining have become increasingly feeble, and now seem to revolve around paradoxical arguments calling for more research while opposing a text that calls for exactly that. The people of Iraq and other affected states deserve far better."

www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/143-states-support-call-du-vote-at-un-1comm
www.counterpunch.org/2014/11/06/inside-the-un-resolution-on-depleted-ura...

Activists hold up uranium train in Hamburg

Anti-nuclear activists stopped a trainload of "yellow cake" uranium in Hamburg harbour, Germany, for more than seven hours earlier this month.¹ The train was taking 15 containers of the ore from Kazakhstan to Malvési in southern France for processing, a frequent run. While two activists suspended themselves over the railway track, eight were temporarily arrested on the ground. Activists have demanded that Mayor Olaf Scholz, a Social Democrat, close Hamburg harbour to nuclear shipments, as the city of Bremen has done. From November 28−30, an international meeting to oppose uranium transportation will be held in Münster, hosted by SOFA Münster (www.sofa-ms.de/home.html).

Meanwhile, an alliance of German environment activists plans to try to prevent the export of CASTOR containers with highly radioactive fuel pebbles to the USA from Jülich and Ahaus. When the supervisory board of the Jülich research centre met on November 19 to discuss what to do with the CASTORS there, activists mounted a protest outside. The catchcry of the anti-nuclear movement, "Nothing in, nothing out!" is the basic tenet of the new alliance, currently comprising 13 groups, with more likely to come on board.

1. http://nuclear-news.net/2014/11/12/activists-hold-up-uranium-train-in-ha...

German authorities stuff up nuclear exercise

A secret large-scale simulation of an atomic disaster at a German nuclear power plant in Lingen ended poorly on 17 September because crisis managers at national and state levels fought over responsibilities. The outcome was revealed by the investigative newspaper Taz in October, citing 1,000 pages of internal ministerial protocols and files. In a real situation a radioactive cloud would have moved southeast from Lingen across Osnabrück, Steinfurt, Warendorf, Gütersloh and Bielefeld before authorities had alerted people to the danger. Only because of the assumed wind direction, cities like Münster and Hamm were spared the first atomic cloud; had a different wind been assumed they, too, would have been hit by the fallout unprepared. Taz reported that despite this disaster the federal environment ministry had drawn no conclusions from the failure of the emergency exercise by time it published its story.

Willi Hesters of the Aktionsbündnis Münsterland gegen Atomanlagen (Münsterland Alliance Against Atomic Installations) said: "This exceeds the worst fears. It appears that in a real situation the German authorities appear to be unable to adequately inform and protect the population in case of a maximum credible accident. Why was this exercise kept secret? Why have no consequences been drawn yet? If the authorities are unable to protect the population in case of grave atomic accidents, the federal environment ministry must immediately close down all atomic installations." The simulated worst case scenario in Lingen, where there is also a nuclear fuel factory, is particularly controversial because earlier this year the precautionary areas for atomic accidents were drastically enlarged. Under the new rules, all areas within a 20 km radius of nuclear power stations would have to be evacuated within 24 hours; within a radius of 100 kilometres people would have to stay indoors and take iodine tablets. Matthias Eickhoff from the activist group SOFA (Immediate Atomic Shutdown Münster) said: "If communication doesn't work at the highest level between federal and state governments, how is it supposed to work at lower level between the states, counties and municipalities? A disaster beyond all expectations is unmanageable at administrative level."

www.taz.de/Geheime-Uebung-von-Bund-und-Laendern/!148295/
https://linksunten.indymedia.org/en/node/127362

NM790.4408 On August 26, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) approved its controversial replacement for its "waste confidence" rule that was slapped down in 2012 by a federal court and also approved a resumption of new reactor licensing and license renewal activities.

The new replacement rule essentially gives up on the notion of "confidence" that a permanent high-level radioactive waste repository will be built in any foreseeable time frame and instead expresses the agency's support for the concept that "continued storage" in the absence of a permanent repository − even for millenia − is OK with them. The votes on the two actions were both 4-0, although NRC Chair Allison Macfarlane dissented on part of the final version of the "continued storage" rule.

In 2012, a federal three-judge panel (DC appeals court) asserted that NRC had no basis for "confidence" since there is, in fact, no plan for how to manage or isolate the most concentrated radioactive wastes ever produced. Since 2012 NRC has fast-tracked an effort to recover its streamlined licensing authority by instituting a new "Waste Confidence" policy. Originally, NRC staff indicated it would take as much as seven years to truly evaluate the dangers of waste storage. A quicker way was found: use all the old assumptions, produce a generic analysis and allow the nuclear waste generators to skip any local, specific analysis of risks and impacts at nuclear power reactor sites. NRC has simply removed the word "confidence" and now writes about "continued storage" while insisting there is no significant environmental impact from this waste

In a statement on the vote, Nuclear Information and Resource Service Executive Director Tim Judson said "For two years we had hoped that logic would prevail: but no such luck. An irrational, industry-dominated NRC has affirmed carte blanche to dirty energy corporations: 'go ahead, produce as much highly radioactive waste as you want; tell us it is safe and we, the NRC, will believe you.' This decision makes it impossible for NRC to claim that it is independent. We agree with grassroots activists in nuclear power communities who have decided that this is a con job. NRC has done nothing to increase our confidence in its performance as a regulator of safety."

The NRC's "continued storage" rule almost certainly will be challenged in court on numerous grounds and by numerous parties. But in the meantime, the NRC has now lifted its moratorium on reactor licensing activities. In practical terms, there are no new reactor license applications that have been particularly inhibited by the moratorium, so unless some utility decides it really wants to press ahead with a new reactor, there will be little change there. The major license renewal case underway is that of Indian Point in New York, and the NRC is expected to resume activity on that case quickly. But the battle over Indian Point is being waged on several fronts and the NRC long has been expected to approve license renewal for those reactors. So it's not clear the NRC action will have a profound effect there either.

In her partial dissent, Macfarlane expressed concern about the failure of the Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS) underpinning the rule to address what would happen in the event institutional controls over long-term waste storage collapsed − a not unreasonable position given the eons that radioactive waste is lethal and must be strictly overseen. She noted that the NRC staff acknowledged that even a temporary loss of institutional control "would have impacts similar to spent fuel storage accidents" and that a permanent loss of control "would be 'a catastrophe to the environment.'"

But the staff decided not to analyze or effectively address these possibilities in the GEIS.

Macfarlane also said that the GEIS should be a living document − revised every 10 years to take into account changing circumstances. And Macfarlane pointed out that when waste is stored on-site, as the GEIS essentially presumes, the costs are borne by the utilities. The Nuclear Waste Fund, which currently is blocked from receiving more funds by the Department of Energy, goes for a permanent repository and is far short of anticipated costs in any event. Macfarlane wrote that while "funding near-term storage is not a crisis," the NRC, and the GEIS, should recognize the "genuine reality" that the federal government − i.e. taxpayers − will pay for the long-term storage of radioactive waste.

Every proposed permanent US dumpsite has been seriously flawed. The formerly proposed nuclear dump at Yucca Mountain would leak much faster than would meet even lax safety standards. Many have recently promoted the theoretical concept of expanding the mission for WIPP (the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant) nuclear weapons waste deep geological repository in New Mexico to take civilian highly radioactive wastes; this proposal is clearly technically flawed and, given the recent fire and leaks at site, make it questionable it can even continue for that waste let alone adding more.

NRC 'waste confidence' decision:

www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/commission/cvr/2014/2014-0072vtr.pdf

NRC order on resuming licensing activities:

www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/commission/orders/2014/2014-08cli...

NRC press release:

www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/news/2014/14-055.pdf

Nuclear Information and Resource Service statement:

www.nirs.org/radwaste/atreactorstorage/prvotewc82614.pdf

Killing the competition: US nuclear front groups exposed

A new report released by the Nuclear Information & Resource Service details US industry plans to subvert clean energy programs, rig energy markets and climate regulations to subsidize aging nuclear reactors.

A coalition of five organizations was joined by renowned energy economist Dr Mark Cooper to release the report, titled 'Killing the Competition: The Nuclear Power Agenda to Block Climate Action, Stop Renewable Energy, and Subsidize Old Reactors'.

The report details the industry's attacks on clean energy and climate solutions and the key battlegrounds in this new fight over the US's energy future. With large political war chests and armies of lobbyists, the power companies have opened up aggressive fights across the country this year:

* Blocking tax breaks for renewable energy in Congress.

* Killing renewable energy legislation in Illinois by threatening to close nuclear plants.

* Passing a resolution calling for nuclear subsidies and emissions-trading schemes in Illinois.

* Suspending renewable energy and efficiency standards in Ohio for two years.

* Ending energy efficiency programs in Indiana.

* Demanding above-market contracts for nuclear and coal plants in Ohio and New York.

Last year, the closure of several reactors highlighted the worsening economics of nuclear energy. Five reactor shutdowns were announced, and eight new reactors cancelled. The industry's rising costs − with new plants too expensive to build and old plants more and more costly to maintain − came head to head with a brewing energy revolution: low natural gas prices, rising energy efficiency, and affordable wind and solar power. As a result, Wall Street firms reassessed the industry, discovering an industry at risk and predicting more shuttered reactors in the coming years.

Energy economist Dr. Mark Cooper, of Vermont Law School's Institute for Energy and the Environment, published a paper outlining the factors contributing to nuclear energy's poor prospects and highlighting the vulnerability of dozens of reactors. Dr Cooper said: "Nuclear power simply cannot compete with efficiency and renewable resources and it does not fit in the emerging electricity system that uses intelligent management of supply and demand response to meet the need for electricity. Doubling down on nuclear power as the solution to climate change, as proposed by nuclear advocates, is a bad bet since nuclear power is one of the most expensive ways available to cut carbon emissions in the electricity sector. The nuclear war against clean energy is a last ditch effort to stop the transformation of the electricity sector and prevent nuclear power from becoming obsolete."

NIRS, 2014, "Killing the Competition: The Nuclear Power Agenda to Block Climate Action , Stop Renewable Energy, and Subsidize Old Reactors", www.nirs.org/neconomics/killingthecompetition914.pdf

Oldest Indian reactor will not restart

After 10 years in long-term outage, it was reported on September 6 that there will be no restart for the first unit of Rajasthan Atomic Power Station (RAPS-1), located at Rawatbata, 64 km southwest of Kota in the north-western Indian state of Rajasthan. The 100 MW Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor, which was supplied to India under a 1963 agreement with Canada, operated from 1972 to 2004, though with multiple extended shutdowns. Cooperation with Canada was suspended following India's 1974 nuclear weapons test; however design details for the reactor had already been transferred to India.

www.worldnuclearreport.org/Oldest-Indian-Reactor-Will-Not.html

www.deccanherald.com/content/429550/end-road-raps-1.html

Czech Republic: March against uranium in Brzkov

A march against planned uranium mining on September 7 was attended by approximately 200 people. The march was organised by the association 'Our Future Without Uranium', which expresses the disapproval of the Brzkov population with the government's intention to resume uranium mining. During the day citizens signed the petition by the civic association called "NO to Uranium Mining in the Highlands".

www.nuclear-heritage.net/index.php/March_against_uranium_in_Brzkov

What went wrong with small modular reactors?

Thomas W. Overton, associate editor of POWER magazine, writes: "At the graveyard wherein resides the "nuclear renaissance" of the 2000s, a new occupant appears to be moving in: the small modular reactor (SMR). ... Over the past year, the SMR industry has been bumping up against an uncomfortable and not-entirely-unpredictable problem: It appears that no one actually wants to buy one."

Overton notes that in 2013, MidAmerican Energy scuttled plans to build an SMR-based plant in Iowa. This year, Babcock & Wilcox scaled back much of its SMR program and sacked 100 workers in its SMR division. Westinghouse has abandoned its SMR program.

Overton explains: "The problem has really been lurking in the idea behind SMRs all along. The reason conventional nuclear plants are built so large is the economies of scale: Big plants can produce power less expensively per kilowatt-hour than smaller ones. The SMR concept disdains those economies of scale in favor of others: large-scale standardized manufacturing that will churn out dozens, if not hundreds, of identical plants, each of which would ultimately produce cheaper kilowatt-hours than large one-off designs. It's an attractive idea. But it's also one that depends on someone building that massive supply chain, since none of it currently exists. ... That money would presumably come from customer orders − if there were any. Unfortunately, the SMR "market" doesn't exist in a vacuum. SMRs must compete with cheap natural gas, renewables that continue to decline in cost, and storage options that are rapidly becoming competitive. Worse, those options are available for delivery now, not at the end of a long, uncertain process that still lacks NRC approval."

www.powermag.com/what-went-wrong-with-smrs/

India's new uranium enrichment plant in Karnataka

David Albright and Serena Kelleher-Vergantini write in an Institute for Science and International Security report: "India is in the early stages of building a large uranium enrichment centrifuge complex, the Special Material Enrichment Facility (SMEF), in Karnataka. This new facility will significantly increase India's ability to produce enriched uranium for both civil and military purposes, including nuclear weapons. India should announce that the SMEF will be subject to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards, committed only to peaceful uses, and built only after ensuring it is in compliance with environmental laws in a process that fully incorporates stakeholders. Other governments and suppliers of nuclear and nuclear-related dual use goods throughout the world must be vigilant to prevent efforts by Indian trading and manufacturing companies to acquire such goods for this new enrichment facility as well as for India's operational gas centrifuge plant, the Rare Materials Plant, near Mysore."

http://isis-online.org/isis-reports/detail/indias-new-uranium-enrichment...

Iran planning two more power reactors

The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) plans to build two new nuclear power reactors, Bushehr Governor General Mostafa Salari announced on September 7. The previous week, AEOI chief Ali Akbar Salehi said that Tehran would sign a contract with Russia in the near future to build the two reactors in Bushehr. The AEOI states that the agreement with Russia will also include the construction of two desalination units.¹

One Russian-supplied power reactor is already operating at Bushehr. Fuel is supplied by Russia until 2021 and perhaps beyond. Plans for new reactors may be used by Tehran to justify its enrichment program.

Meanwhile, construction licenses have been issued for the next two nuclear reactors in the United Arab Emirates by the country's Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation. Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation plans to begin construction of Barakah 3 and 4 in 2014 and 2015 respectively with all four of the site's reactors becoming operational by 2020.²

1. http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13930616001123

2. World Nuclear News, 15 Sept 2014

Depleted uranium as a carcinogen and genotoxin

The International Campaign to Ban Uranium Weapons has produced a new report outlining the growing weight of evidence relating to how depleted uranium (DU) can damage DNA, interfere with cellular processes and contribute to the development of cancer.¹ The report uses peer-reviewed studies, many of which have been published during the last decade and, wherever possible, has sought to simplify the scientific language to make it accessible to the lay reader.

The report concludes: "The users of DU have shown themselves unwilling to be bound by the consequences of their actions. The failure to disclose targeting data or follow their own targeting guidelines has placed civilians at unacceptable risk. The recommendations of international and expert agencies have been adopted selectively or ignored. At times, users have actively opposed or blocked efforts to evaluate the risks associated with contamination. History suggests it is unlikely that DU use will be stopped voluntarily: an international agreement banning the use of uranium in conventional weapons is therefore required."

A report released by Dutch peace organisation PAX in June found that the lack of obligations on Coalition Forces to help clean-up after using DU weapons in Iraq in 1991 and 2003 has resulted in civilians and workers continuing to be exposed to the radioactive and toxic heavy metal years after the war.² The health risk posed by the inadequate management of Iraq's DU contamination is unclear − neither Coalition Forces nor the Iraqi government have supported health research into civilian DU exposure. High risk groups include people living near, or working on, the dozens of scrap metal sites where the thousands of military vehicles destroyed in 1991 and 2003 are stored or processed. Waste sites often lack official oversight and in places it has taken more than a decade to clean-up heavily contaminated military wreckage from residential neighbourhoods. Hundreds of locations targeted by the weapons, many of which are in populated areas, remain undocumented and concern among Iraqi civilians over the potential health effects from exposure is widespread.

The Iraqi government has recently prepared a five year environment plan together with the World Health Organisation and UN Environment Programme but the PAX report finds that it is unclear how this will be accomplished without international assistance.

1. www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/malignant-effects

2. www.paxvoorvrede.nl/media/files/pax-rapport-iraq-final-lowres-spread.pdf

www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/no-solution-in-sight-for-iraqs-radioactive...

Clean-up of former Saskatchewan uranium mill

More than 50 years after the closure of the Lorado uranium mill in Saskatchewan, workers are cleaning up a massive pile of radioactive, acidic tailings that has poisoned a lake and threatened the health of wildlife and hunters for decades. The mill is near Uranium City, where uranium mining once supported a community of up to 5,000 people. Lorado only operated from 1957 to 1961, but during that time it produced about 227,000 cubic metres of tailings that were dumped beside Nero Lake. Windblown dust from the top of the tailings presents a gamma radiation and radon concern. Workers will cover the tailings with a layer of specially engineered sand to prevent water from running over them and into the lake. In addition, a lime mixture is to be added to the lake to counteract the acidity.

In 1982, the last of the mines near Uranium City closed, but tailings from the Lorado site and the Gunnar mine were left untouched. Uranium City has about 100 residents now.

Clean-up work also includes sealing off and cleaning up 35 mine exploration sites. Later, the Saskatchewan Research Council is to begin a cleanup of the Gunnar mine. That project is in the environmental assessment stage. Four million tonnes of tailings were produced at Gunnar during its operation from 1955 to 1963.

The clean-up project is controversial. The Prince Albert Grand Council, which represents a dozen First Nations in central and northern Saskatchewan, said in a written submission for the Lorado and Gunnar projects that many residents favour removal of the tailings rather than covering them up. The Saskatchewan Environmental Society says more investigation should have been done on the feasibility of removing the tailings. It questions how the covering will stand up as climate change delivers more severe weather, and whether government will continue to monitor the sites.

http://lethbridgeherald.com/news/national-news/2014/08/31/tough-conditio...

France: Greenpeace activists given suspended sentences

A French court has issued two-month suspended prison sentences to 55 Greenpeace activists involved in a break-in at France's Fessenheim nuclear power plant in March. Fessenheim is France's oldest nuclear plant. About 20 Greenpeace activists managed to climb on top of the dome of a reactor in Fessenheim. The activists, mostly from Germany but also from Italy, France, Turkey, Austria, Hungary, Australia and Israel, were all convicted of trespassing and causing wilful damage.

Greenpeace has identified Fessenheim's reactors as two of the most dangerous in Europe and argues that they should be shut down immediately. The area around the plant is vulnerable to earthquakes and flooding. Fessenheim lies in the heart of Europe, between France, Germany and Switzerland, with seven million people living with 100 kms of the reactors.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-29060086

www.english.rfi.fr/economy/20140905-greenpeace-activists-given-suspended...

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/nuclear-reaction/g...

USA: Missouri fire may be moving closer to radioactive waste

A new report suggests an underground fire at the Bridgeton Landfill may be moving closer to radioactive waste buried nearby. The information comes just days after it was announced construction of a barrier between the fire and the waste will be delayed 18 months. The South Quarry of the Bridgeton Landfill has been smouldering underground for three years. A number of gas interceptor wells are designed to keep the fire from moving north and reaching the radioactive waste buried at the West Lake Landfill. However the wells may have failed according to landfill consultant Todd Thalhamer, who is calling for more tests to determine exactly how far the fire is from the radioactive material.

www.ksdk.com/story/news/local/2014/09/05/report-landfill-fire-may-be-mov...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Lake_Landfill

Britain's nuclear clean-up cost explosion

The cost of cleaning up Britain's toxic nuclear sites has shot up by £6bn (US$9.7b, €7.5b), with the government and regulators accused of "incompetence" in their efforts to manage the country's legacy of radioactive waste. The estimated cost for decommissioning over the next century went up from a £63.8bn estimate in 2011−12 to £69.8bn in 2012−13, with more increases expected in the coming years. This increase is nearly all due to the troubled clean-up of the Sellafield nuclear facility in Cumbria.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/sellafield-nuclear-cleanup-bill-w...

Only eight months through, 2013 is already a remarkable year for the anti-nuclear power movement in the US. Where Germany is following a deliberate government-mandated path to phase out nuclear power entirely, in the US the atomic industry is simply collapsing on its own − aided by concerted and strategic grassroots organising campaigns and legal actions.

Entergy Corporation's August 27 announcement of the pending shutdown of the Vermont Yankee reactor at the end of its current fuel cycle was just the latest blow to the industry, which already has seen four other reactor shutdowns (the most in one year ever) and the abandonment of six proposed new reactors, not to mention cancellation of several power uprates. And more may be coming.

As economist Marc Cooper of the Vermont Law School's Institute for Energy and the Environment put it, "What we are seeing today is nothing less than the rapid-fire downsizing of nuclear power in the United States. It is important to recognize that the tough times the U.S. nuclear power industry faces today are only going to get worse."

And indeed, there are several − perhaps the word should be many − other reactors, both operating and proposed, that sit on the edge of the same intersection of cost and safety concerns that are bringing the industry down faster than anyone would have imagined just a year ago.

Conventional wisdom holds that it is the current abundance and dirt-cheap prices for natural gas brought about by the fracking boom that is undermining nuclear power, making it impossible for marginal ageing reactors to compete economically, much less for utilities to even consider extraordinarily expensive new reactors. When Duke Energy took a second look at its $24 billion Levy County, Florida project for example, it didn't take long for it to realise it could build the same amount of natural gas-fired capacity for a fraction of that amount.

Conventional wisdom isn't always wrong. And the availability of cheap natural gas is certainly taking its toll on the industry. There is no doubt that Wisconsin's Kewaunee reactor − by all accounts about as problem-free as an old reactor gets − would still be operating today if it could compete with low-cost gas. The UBS investment firm predicted Vermont Yankee's demise months ago, arguing that it couldn't compete in the regional marketplace.

Renewable energy

But over the long term, natural gas isn't what the nuclear industry should be most worried about. Clean alternatives to nuclear power, especially solar and wind, are growing at a frenetic pace as costs plunge. A rooftop photovoltaic system is now being installed in the US every four minutes, and that will become every 90 seconds by 2016.[1].

John Wellinghoff, the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said in August 2013 that "Solar is growing so fast it is going to overtake everything." If a single drop of water on the pitcher's mound at Dodger Stadium is doubled every minute, Wellinghoff said, a person chained to the highest seat would be in danger of drowning in an hour. "That's what is happening in solar. It could double every two years," he said.[2]

The goal of a nuclear-free, carbon-free energy system by mid-century suddenly seems quite attainable. According to the Energy Information Administration, for the first five months of 2013, renewable energy sources (including hydropower) provided 18.48% more energy to the US than nuclear power. Solar grew by 32.26% from a year ago while wind grew by 20.99%, continuing a trend of the past few years. And this actually underestimates solar power: non-utility and small-scale (residential and commercial rooftop) photovoltaic systems don't show up as electric generation since to the utilities that provide generation statistics they represent only a reduction in demand.

Indeed, no one seems to know just how much rooftop solar power there is in the US, but with a new installation every four minutes, the amount is growing rapidly.

This movement toward small-scale distributed generation is turning the traditional utility model on its head and in the process scaring the pants off of utility officials. David Crane is CEO of NRG Energy, itself a major utility and operator of the two existing South Texas nuclear reactors. But after Fukushima, NRG dropped out of a project to build two new reactors there and is now betting heavily on solar power. Crane recently predicted to Business Week that "in about the time it has taken cell phones to supplant land lines in most U.S. homes, the grid will become increasingly irrelevant as customers move toward decentralized homegrown green energy."[3]

This coming change in the fundamental structure of electric utilities bodes poorly for large baseload power plants of any kind − especially nuclear power which cannot be powered up and down quickly − and has become another reason utilities are scrapping marginal power plants, both nuclear and coal.

Still, dinosaurs thrashing their tails didn't always go down easily, and neither do nuclear reactors. They have to be helped along by effective grassroots opposition.

Grassroots opposition

No one can doubt that Southern California Edison would still be trying to run the San Onofre reactors, even after their botched steam generator repair job, if it weren't for the sustained and stunningly-effective opposition mounted by Friends of the Earth and numerous grassroots groups in southern California, aided by the Nuclear Free California network formed in August 2011.

At Vermont Yankee, the history of protest and opposition dates back to the 1970s. While Clamshell Alliance protests at Seabrook were larger and got more attention, Vermont Yankee was a Clamshell target as well. The New England Coalition has been filing legal challenges in every venue possible for just about as long.

After having successfully closed the Yankee Rowe reactor in nearby western Massachusetts, the Citizens Awareness Network turned its attention to Vermont Yankee and the first Nuclear Free New England action camp was held there in 1998. Twenty-one people were arrested at the plant gates at the culmination of that camp on August 27, 1998. The reactor closed 15 years later to the day.

During those 15 years, CAN, the New England Coalition, VPIRG and more protested, lobbied, filed legal briefs, and never let up. New groups were formed, like the Shut It Down affinity group − composed entirely of women over 70 − which held monthly protests for more than eight years and often were arrested and the Sage Alliance, an umbrella group which brought together perhaps the largest Vermont Yankee protest ever in March 2012, more than 1,000 people in Brattleboro (which has a population of about 12,000), resulting in more than 130 arrests.

By the end, just about the entire state of Vermont was united against the reactor. The State Senate had voted 26-4 to close the reactor. The Governor wanted it shut, so did the entire Congressional delegation. Entergy had fought vigorously against all these efforts, and in early August had pretty much won a court victory that determined the state could not close the reactor on safety grounds, and that it was safety issues that had dominated the Senate's vote (though the decision left open the door for some different state actions that might have closed the reactor).

Some believe that Entergy closed the reactor now to keep that court victory as a precedent and prevent other state action that might also be viewed as precedent − Entergy also owns the much larger Indian Point reactors near New York City, where another major grassroots campaign, supported by Governor Andrew Cuomo, is underway to prevent relicensing and close them permanently.

The nuclear "renaissance" in the US began in the summer of 2007, when the first license application in more than 30 years was filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, for the Calvert Cliffs-3 reactor in Maryland. On March 11, 2013 − the second anniversary of the Fukushima disaster − the NRC Commissioners upheld the denial of a license for that reactor, the first in this year's remarkable sequence of shutdowns, cancellations and abandonments. All that's left are two reactors under construction in Georgia (which state officials now admit they might not have approved in today's climate), two in South Carolina, and one old TVA reactor that's been under construction for three decades.

Instead of a renaissance, the nuclear industry is being routed. Its ageing reactors face safety issues, big repair bills and growing public opposition. Its new reactors are too expensive to build. And, scariest of all for nuclear utilities, their entire business model of large, inflexible baseload power plants is being challenged not by off-the-grid hippies, but by other utility executives who see the writing on the wall.

The 2013 collapse of the U.S. nuclear power industry may seem astounding today. Over the next few years, it's more likely to seem routine.

[1] www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/america-installs-a-solar-system-eve...
[2] www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/ferc-chair-wellinghoff-sees-a-solar...
[3] www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-08-22/homegrown-green-energy-is-makin...

Against the backdrop of this year's unprecedented spate of reactor shutdowns and cancellations, attention in the US is turning this Fall to the complete breakdown of radioactive waste policy.

Featured will be 12 public meetings across the country over the next 45 days to discuss the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's "waste confidence" policy, and likely action in the Senate on legislation that might − or might not − set a new path on radioactive waste.

Last summer, a federal court threw out the NRC's "waste confidence" policy, which forced the agency to institute a moratorium on licensing new reactors and relicensing old ones. The policy was established in the 1980s, after Congress decided that the federal government would be responsible for disposal of high-level nuclear waste.

At the time, Congress also decided that the government would begin accepting the waste for disposal in 1998 and directed the Department of Energy to sign contracts to do so. So much for bad ideas and poor prognostication. More than 25 years since the legislation was passed, the government has been unable to make good on any of those contracts − and is therefore being sued by nuclear utilities − and is also no closer to a radioactive waste solution than it was in the 1980s.

At the core of the "waste confidence" policy was the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) assertion that it was confident high-level radioactive waste would always be stored or disposed of safely, no matter where it was and that, in any case, a permanent waste disposal site was just around the corner. This assertion allowed the NRC to license and relicense reactors which otherwise would have been prohibited (as it is today).

But the court ruled that the utter lack of progress toward establishing a permanent site and the Obama Administration's efforts to end the Yucca Mountain, Nevada project meant there is no reason to assume a permanent site ever will be established. Further, the court said the NRC had provided no technical basis whatsoever to assume that waste would, or even could, be stored indefinitely onsite. Thus, the "waste confidence" policy was merely an assertion without foundation.

The NRC vowed to provide a basis for its waste confidence policy and resume licensing within two years − even though the agency's own experts said doing the job properly likely would take seven years. The result is a new proposed rule that asserts that radioactive waste can be stored indefinitely − as in essentially forever − in dry casks and even in fuel pools even without a permanent disposal site. The rule is backed by a 600-page "Generic Draft Environment Impact Statement" (DEIS) that conveniently understates, downplays and just plain ignores most of the possible, some would say likely, pitfalls and problems posed by long-term storage at both casks and pools.

For example, the DEIS determined that the risks of a fuel pool fire are "inconsequential". That's not because a fuel pool fire itself would be inconsequential − in fact, it would be calamitous. But the NRC says the odds of such a fire are so low the agency doesn't have to worry about it. The NRC put the odds at 1 in 60,000 per reactor year. Multiply that by 99 reactors over the next hundred or so years, and the odds grow scarily close to inevitable. And before March 11, 2011, most experts would have put the odds of three simultaneous meltdowns and four endangered fuel pools at well below 1 in 60,000.

Nor does the DEIS attempt to determine the relative value of dry cask versus fuel pool storage, apparently assuming both are equally safe − a view not shared by most outside experts. And while dry casks are the preferred technology for most concerned with nuclear safety issues at this time, few believe they are a permanent solution and the DEIS fails to consider any of the potential dangers they might pose in the future. For example, the NRC believes dry casks should last 100 years; then the fuel would have to be transferred to new dry casks − but unloading a cask full of extraordinarily radioactive fuel roads and re-loading them into a new cask is a job that never has been done. The potential effects of climate change-related sea-level and other water-level rise on dry casks also has been sloughed off, among other issues.

On October 1, the NRC will hold a public meeting (although industry and anti-nuclear groups already have been briefed by the agency) at its Rockville, Maryland headquarters to begin trying to sell its DEIS and proposed rule to the public. The next week it takes its show on the road, starting with a meeting in Denver, Colorado on October 3 and ending back in Rockville on November 14. In between, there will be meetings in California, Ohio, Minnesota, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina and Florida.

Activists across the country have vowed to pack the meetings to challenge both the technical details of the DEIS as well as to protest the very notion that new radioactive waste should be generated at all. The Nuclear Information and Resource Service has a new webpage with location and schedule information, talking points, and more: www.nirs.org/radwaste/wasteconfidence.htm

Note, however, that Tea Party interests seem intent on forcing a government shutdown over President Obama's attempt to ensure that most Americans are able to obtain some sort of health care. If a shutdown occurs, some or all of the meeting dates may be changed.

New independent agency?
Meanwhile, in the Senate momentum seems to have slipped from Energy Committee efforts to pass a bill (S.1240) to establish a new independent agency to take over the Department of Energy's (DOE) radioactive waste program. That bill, which is based on the recommendations of the DOE's Blue Ribbon Commission on waste (brc.gov), would also set up a new consent-based process for finding a permanent waste disposal site. In addition, it would allow creation of one or more new "consolidated interim storage" sites − a gift to the nuclear industry so that it could begin shipping high-level waste off its property and let the federal government take responsibility for it.

But the bill hasn't received the kind of support its backers had hoped. Environmentalists oppose it because the idea of "interim" storage would lead to massive transport of high-level waste across the country ("Mobile Chernobyl") to an unsuitable site from where it would have to be transported again. The Nuclear Information and Resource Service has collected about 40,000 signatures on petitions opposing the bill for that reason.

The program also would take a lot of the impetus away from the search for a scientifically-defensible permanent site since the industry's only real interest is in getting the stuff off its property and into government hands. Moreover, the bill fails to ensure that fuel pools would be emptied as quickly as feasible into dry casks, which environmentalists believe are much safer than the overcrowded pools.

And some Republicans don't want to see the establishment of a new federal agency of any kind for any reason, and don't really care that a new agency might be able to begin making up for the myriad of mistakes the DOE has made on waste policy over the years; thus they are at best lukewarm toward that idea. What they really want − especially in the House of Representatives, which would also have to approve radioactive waste legislation for it to become law − is a return to the discredited and failed Yucca Mountain project.

Republicans have seized on a recent federal court decision that ruled the NRC improperly ended its licensing review of Yucca Mountain; the NRC has said it will comply with the decision and is now working on how to restart its review. In the US, the DOE currently is responsible for finding a permanent disposal site and submitting an application for it to the NRC, which has final approval to license the site. But the NRC only has about $11 million left in its fund for the license review, and it will cost about half that just to re-establish the computer system to provide access to the literally millions of pages of documents involved in the licensing process.

As long as Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is Senate Majority Leader, Congress won't approve any more money for the NRC to complete the process (nor will it approve any legislation to mandate Yucca Mountain), so it's unlikely that either the court decision or legislative efforts to bolster the Yucca site will have any actual practical effect.

But despite the relatively poor outlook for radioactive waste legislation, sources indicate that S.1240's sponsors in the Senate Energy Committee are still hoping to hold a mark-up session and committee vote on the bill in mid-October. Whether any changes to the bill, one way or the other, will be sufficient to move it beyond the Committee level remains to be seen.

Author: Michael Mariotte − Executive Director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service.
Web: www.nirs.org
Email: nirsnet[@]nirs.org

It is an environmental and economic success story that (non-radioactive) metal and other materials are recycled and reused to prevent unnecessary mining and extraction of new materials from the Earth. The nuclear power and weapons industries, their government promoters and so-called “regulators” and the international radiation establishment are threatening this success by sending radioactive metal and other materials into the mix.

The nuclear industry is shifting its waste liability to the steel industry, the most successful recycling industry in the world. The Steel Manufacturers Association said in its 2009-2010 Policy Statement (*1)

“SMA opposes policies or rulemaking activities that sanction the free release of radioactively contaminated scrap metals from nuclear power plants or DOE facilities, without any additional regulatory controls. The US steel industry cannot be the dumping ground for the discards of the global nuclear age.”

There has been widespread opposition to releasing nuclear waste into commons since it was first attempted publicly in 1981. The US public has stopped every known effort to legalize dispersing radioactive waste unregulated and out of control. Euratom, as a force in the European Union representing the nuclear industry, not the general population, has succeeding in forcing member states (even those that oppose nuclear power) to adopt regulations allowing nuclear waste to get into commerce. Before the Fukushima Daiichi reactors and irradiated fuel pools started melting down and releasing untold amounts of radioactivity to the world, Japan had been moving to release nuclear waste from control. Since the disaster allowable contamination levels have been raised to unconscionable levels and radioactive rubble is being deliberately dispersed (and incinerated) across the country thus around the world. Canada adopted “clearance” rules without any public knowledge or input in 2008 according the Canadian Nuclear Safety Council.

Although it did not apply to commercial nuclear power reactors, the public and the metal industry breathed a sigh of relief in January and July of 2000 when US Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Bill Richardson banned the release of metal from any and all radioactive areas of the US weapons complex into commercial metal recycling. In September of 2011, US Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu signed off on reversing the bans. We don’t know how soon potentially contaminated metal from US nuclear bomb factories might enter the metal market in the US, but we do have a chance to stop it…again. In the near future we can expect an Environmental Assessment with a brief public comment period. Unless public outrage is expressed and acted upon by decision makers, DOE will proceed to overturn both the “moratorium” and the “suspension” from the year 2000. DOE and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) refuse to provide details of the reversal in public protection, but this is not the first time DOE site managers have tried to overturn them. Radioactive Exchange Monitor reports that buildup of metal at the Piketon/Portsmouth Ohio nuclear weapons site pushed hard for the change. DOE had secretly adopted internal orders (Chapters 2 and 4 of Order 5400.5) in 1990 allowing radioactive materials to be released or cleared from controls to go to landfills, incinerators and reuse/recycling. In 2011 DOE replaced it with a new one (Order 458.1) which, according to the Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU), requires property “release” and “clearance.”

Nuclear Monitor readers are well aware that every facility in the nuclear fuel chain, from uranium mining to irradiated fuel and waste management, releases radioactivity into the air and water and generates various amounts of radioactive solid, liquid and/or gaseous waste. The buildings themselves become radioactively contaminated. Metal pipes and components exposed to neutrons in the core of nuclear reactors become “activated,” meaning that the originally-stable metal atoms are transformed into radioactive elements such as Nickel-59 and Niobium-94 with half lives of 76,000 years and 20,300 years, respectively. Radioactive Cobalt-60 with a 5 year half life thus 50 to 100 year hazardous life also forms.  Some of the radioactivity lasts for such long periods of time that for practical purposes, it requires permanent isolation from our environment and living systems. In other parts of the reactor and the fuel chain, metal can get contaminated on the surface with radionuclides.

In Canada, the Bruce nuclear power reactors were refurbished. Eight radioactively contaminated steam generators were removed with the intent to ship them to Studsvik in Sweden to be melted and most of the metal released into the commercial metal recycling market. It is not possible to remove all of the radioactive contamination, thus Canada’s nuclear power waste would make its way via Sweden into everyday household and personal use items sold around the world. Opposition from over 50 US and Canadian organizations, nearly 30 Canadian local governments, and governments of First Nations along the Great Lakes and St Lawrence Seaway have slowed the shipments. Over 20 European nongovernmental organizations have passed resolutions opposing the shipments and the release of nuclear waste into metal recycling. The immediate concern is about the dangers and precedent for transporting the enormous nuclear power components on the world’s largest fresh water body, the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway through treacherous waters of the North Atlantic, through the narrow straits of Denmark into the Baltic Sea to Nykoping, Sweden where Studsvik would melt and release the majority of the metal.

As the value of metals (and other materials) in the marketplace varies, the incentive to sell contaminated metal fluctuates. Regardless, selling it into the “recycling” supply makes money (for the waste generator putting the public at non-consensual, secret but real risk), whereas efforts to “dispose” of it cost money. Disposal as regular trash is cheaper than in a licensed nuclear waste site. There is now another option that has evolved since the late 1980s-- sending nuclear waste to a “processor” (most of which are located in Tennessee, USA), paying a fee to treat and dispose or “recycle,” and sometimes transfer title and liability to the processer. If you were the manager of a nuclear decommissioning project, would you throw it into the “recycle” bin or the radioactive waste bin?

*1- quoted in http://www.ccnr.org/SMA_Radioactive_Scrap.pdf )

Read more: Nuclear Free Local Authorities briefing paper July 2011: http://nfznsc.gn.apc.org/docs/briefings/A199_(NB85)_Canadian_waste_shipments.pdf
Source and contact: Diane D'Arrigo, NIRS Washington
Email: dianed[at]nirs.org

Two new reactor designs were forecast (at least in Europe and North-America) make the nuclear renaissance happen: the Westinghouse AP1000 and Areva’s EPR. The EPR-design, is as we all know, under heavy fire, and now also from the French nuclear regulator (see next article). But in the U.S., the AP1000-design is also running into all kind of problems with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

In a highly unusual move, on 15 October 2009, the U.S. nuclear regulator sent a key component of the Westinghouse AP1000 (not-yet-licensed) “standardized design” back to the drawing board. The NRC staff is quoted in a press release stating that the AP1000 “Safety Shield Building,” the outer structure surrounding the AP1000 containment, does not meet “fundamental engineering standards” with respect to design basis loads, as well as several other concerns not disclosed to the public.

The press release indicates, and a review of NRC documents confirms, that NRC had been raising issues with Westinghouse for more than a year. This move impacts 14 out of 26 currently proposed new reactor licenses in the US and throws the review schedule for reactor into the air.

The NRC October 15, press release states that NRC have been talking to Westinghouse regularly about the shield building since October 2008, and "we’ve consistently laid out our questions to the company,” according to Michael Johnson, director of the NRC’s Office of New Reactors. “This is a situation where fundamental engineering standards will have to be met before we can begin determining whether the shield building meets the agency’s requirements.”

The “Safety Shield Building” which surrounds the containment has several functions, among these to hold a large tank of water over containment so that in the event of an accident the water is dribbled over the surface of the steel containment dome (the so-called gravity-fed cooling). The AP1000 containment is a separate, inner structure made of 1 inch (2.54 cm) thick steel. This “passive” convection cooling of the containment surface is projected to lower pressure inside containment, in the event of a major core disaster. Given the weight of water, in two storage tanks of 70 cubic meters each, design basis loading is a serious concern.

The Safety Shield Building is three feet (91.4 cm) thick reinforced concrete, and is intended to protect the reactor from severe weather including tornado- hurled projectiles, hurricanes, earthquakes and air crashes. A somewhat more eerie function is to add shielding in the event of a severe accident; the new 1 inch steel containment does not provide sufficient mass to absorb gamma ray emissions after a major accident. In effect, the Safety Shield Building is a pre-installed “sarcophagus” (like at Chernobyl) which would provide some protection for emergency workers called to the site in the event of a meltdown. The structure, far from containment, also functions as a cooling tower for the melting core, sporting an air-circulation hole at the top.

Given how the US NRC embraced its mandate from industry and Congress to streamline the new reactor licensing process, rejection of a major component of a reactor that was previously certified as “standard” is a substantial departure from this regime. In an apparent attempt at cost-cutting, the new AP1000 version features modular construction – bringing prefab components to the site, rather than construction of the Safety Shield Building on-site from the ground-up. The difference in integrity between pouring concrete on the site and erecting “building blocks” is apparently substantial.

The NRC notified Westinghouse on 15 October in a letter, linked in the NRC news release, that ‘either a confirmation test or a validated (or benchmarked) analysis method” must be used to demonstrate that the “shield building” can survive design basis events. The letters state that the “NRC considers its review of the shield building, as proposed, to be complete” but affirms that a review of other parts of review, now in Revision 17, will continue and that a new review schedule for the “design certification amendment” had yet to be established.

Westinghouse, which is owned by Toshiba, has four AP1000s planned for China. Two nuclear utilities in the U.S. which are pursuing AP1000s are on the U.S. Department of Energy’s short list to receive federal loan guarantees to back private loans for construction. Given the news from the NRC about the design flaws in the AP1000 design, a number of U.S. public interest groups wrote to the DOE on 19 October, calling on a halt to the imminent issuance of “conditional” loan guarantees for the projects. They stated: "Given that the action by the NRC is so serious in nature, it is imperative that the Department of Energy immediately halt the issuance of any conditional loan guarantees to any utilities which are basing their plans on the AP1000 reactor design. Issuance of DOE loan guarantees at this time to companies which are considering a reactor which may well have serious design problems would not only heighten public concern about DOE’s regard of oversight of nuclear reactor safety but would also further call into question the methodology applied by the DOE’s Loan Guarantee Program (LPG) as it considers which reactor applications garner a loan guarantee subsidy.

That the LGP has been considering issuing loan guarantees to reactors that do not have final certification and also do not have construction and operating licenses is now clearly revealed to be an extremely risky approach. As we now see that it is far from certain if reactors or combined licenses will win regulatory approval, any move to now issue conditional loan guarantees is premature and opens DOE to justified criticism."

Given the serious issued now raised by the reactor regulatory agency itself, the public interest groups call on DOE to "immediately halt issuance of conditional loan guarantees and take action to publicly assure the public that this is the case."

Source: Tom Clements (FOE U.S.A.) and Mary Olson (NIRS Southeast)
Contact: Mary Olson, Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), Southeast Office. PO Box 7586, Asheville, North Carolina 28802, USA.
Tel: +1 828-252-8409
Email: maryo@nirs.org
Web: www.nirs.org

In the first step toward permanently ending the controversial proposed Yucca Mountain, Nevada high-level radioactive waste dump, President Barack Obama’s first budget ends nearly all funding for the project -- fulfilling an Obama campaign promise.

Yes, elections do matter.

The decision to end nearly all funding for Yucca Mountain was announced quietly, tucked away at the very end of Obama’s initial FY 2010 budget statement for the Department of Energy: “The Yucca Mountain program will be scaled back to those costs necessary to answer inquiries from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, while the Administration devises a new strategy toward nuclear waste disposal.”

Full budget documents have not yet been released, so how much those “costs necessary…” will amount to isn’t yet known. But administration officials, including Energy Secretary Steven Chu, have made it clear that the Yucca Mountain project is finished. Under intense questioning from pro-nuclear Senators, Secretary Chu told the Senate Budget Committee March 11 that the Energy Department will set up a high-level panel to review U.S. radioactive waste policy and submit recommendations by the end of the year.

Some of the senators, such as New Hampshire Republican Judd Gregg, were less upset about the end of the Yucca Mountain project than at the signal ending the project says about the future of nuclear power. They were also concerned that in his quasi-State of the Union speech in February, Obama listed several energy technologies his administration will support; nuclear power was not among them.

Chu told the senators that nuclear power is “an essential part of our energy mix” and promised to accelerate the existing $18.5 Billion (14 Billion Euro) loan guarantee program for new reactor construction. But Chu didn’t promise to seek or support more loan guarantees. And it’s unclear how the existing program could be accelerated in practical terms, since no new reactors are even close to obtaining licenses from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), Yucca Mountain’s strongest opponent in Congress, introduced a bill on March 12 to establish an independent commission to re-evaluate U.S. radioactive waste policy. Reid’s bill, which at Monitor press time did not yet have a number, would set up a 9-person commission of which four members would be appointed by Democratic leadership, four by Republican leadership, with a chairman appointed jointly by Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). No member of the commission could currently work on the DOE’s high-level waste program, nor be employed by the government at any level —federal, state or local.

The commission would be required to issue a final report within 2 years on feasibility, cost, risks, legal, public health and environmental impacts of alternatives to Yucca Mountain and their impacts on local communities, including:

• Transferring responsibility for managing nuclear waste to a government corporation
• Cost sharing options between the Federal government and private industry for developing nuclear fuel management technologies
• Centralized interim storage facilities in communities willing to host them
• Research and development for advanced fuel cycle technologies
• Federal government taking title to nuclear waste
• Secure on-site storage of nuclear waste
• Permanent deep geologic storage for civilian and defense wastes
• Other management and technological approaches as the Commission may see fit

The idea for such a commission first surfaced in the early 1990s, by then-Senator Richard Bryan of Nevada and hundreds of environmental groups, which were already working to stop the Yucca Mountain project and expose its inability to meet waste disposal regulations.

Yucca Mountain was chosen as the only site being examined for a high-level waste dump by Congress in 1987. Even then, it was widely perceived as a political, rather than scientific decision. At the time, three sites were under consideration: Yucca, and sites in Texas and Washington state. But the huge Texas congressional delegation teamed up with the then-Speaker of the House, who was from Washington, and forced Yucca Mountain as the only possible site in what became known as the “screw Nevada” bill.

Twenty-two years and billions of dollars later, it appears as though Nevada may be getting the last laugh.

The largest concern for environmental groups now is who will make up the composition of the DOE panel and the independent commission —should Reid’s legislation be enacted— and what future radioactive waste policy for the U.S. may look like. A focus on reprocessing, for example, would be certain to arouse strong opposition from the environmental community, but it is increasingly common to hear nuclear industry spokespeople support reprocessing as their preferred option.

Source and contact: Michael Mariotte at Nuclear Information & Recourse Service (NIRS)
6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 340,
Takoma Park, MD 20912. USA
E-mail: nirsnet@nirs.org
Web: www.nirs.org

(May 7, 2004) Despite four years of public participation, expressions of opposition to and concern with the proposals by US agencies to "harmonize" with international transport recommendations, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and Department of Transportation (DOT) adopted new regulations for radioactive transport in January 2004. NIRS and numerous other public interest, environmental and religious groups and individuals across the US are challenging a portion of the rule that reduces public protections by allowing more radioactivity to move on roads, rails, planes and waterways without regulatory control.

(609.5605) NIRS - Among other provisions that weaken public and worker protection from nuclear materials in transit, the regulations exempt various amounts of every radionuclide (radioactive forms of each element) from placarding, manifesting and tracking. A whole new category of exempt quantities "per consignment," which did not exist in previous regulations, is being adopted. In addition, the previously allowed exempt concentration level (70 bequerels per gram or approximately 2 nanoCuries per gram of any one or combination of radionuclides) is being replaced with different levels for each radionuclide. For more than half of the radionuclides, the exempt concentrations will increase, thus increasing the amount of unregulated nuclear material being shipped without any notice or regulatory control.

"At a time of heightened alert and concern about dirty bombs, the federal government is dramatically increasing the amount of nuclear material that can be transported routinely into and through the US without any labeling or controls. This is the exact wrong time for US agencies to let go of nuclear materials and wastes," stated Diane D'Arrigo, Radioactive Waste Project Director at Nuclear Information and Resource Service. "It will make it harder to watch for and detect dirty bombs because there will be more false positives in everyday transport."

"Workers and the public will be exposed to radiation without their knowledge or consent. It is forced radiation exposure," charged David Ritter, Policy Analyst at Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program.

Transport workers in both the rail and trucking industries and those involved in cleaning up accidents could be routinely exposed to radiation. First responders, customs agents and those who load and unload shipments will also come into contact with unlabeled nuclear materials. Since the materials could go to municipal and industrial landfills, incinerators and scrap recycling centers, workers at those sites could be regularly exposed to more radiation.

"NRC and DOT's generic exemptions will facilitate the deregulation of nuclear waste and use of contaminated materials to make household items and building supplies. That is the real motivation," said Dr. Judith Johnsrud of the Sierra Club, "to make it easier for other federal and even state nuclear agencies to treat nuclear waste as if it is not radioactive."

Neither NRC nor DOT can provide any meaningful justification for the exemptions for relaxing restrictions on nuclear materials. The exempt amounts are the same as those proposed by international nuclear advocacy organizations (IAEA and Euratom) to allow nuclear waste to be deregulated or "cleared." Once "cleared" from nuclear controls, the radioactive material can enter the marketplace as regular trash or be sold to recyclers to make consumer goods like cars and toys and to build civil engineering projects like roads, playgrounds or parking lots.

"It is not a coincidence. It's a deliberate attempt to by the Bush Administration agencies to bypass the American public's opposition to nuclear waste deregulation and get it into US law," said Michael Welch of the Redwood Alliance. "DOT and NRC are teaming up with the global nuclear power and weapons industry to make it cheaper to run and decommission nuclear reactors and support facilities."

The Environmental Protection Agency, Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Department of Energy are all in the various stages of deregulating nuclear wastes over which they have jurisdiction.

"Removing existing requirements for labeling in transit will make it easier for those agencies to let nuclear wastes to get out into commerce. The public will be exposed both during transport and then again from the products and buildings made from contaminated materials," explained Dan Hirsch, President of the Committee to Bridge the Gap.

Since both US agencies share responsibility for radioactive transport in the US, they coordinated adoption of the same exemption regulations. NIRS et al are challenging the rules of both agencies. The DOT is expected to respond to the challenge by May 25, 2004. The case against the NRC is on hold in the 9^th Circuit of US Federal Court until the DOT responds.

Source and contact: dianed@nirs.org

North Korea had three nuclear bombs.

(April 16, 2004) The New York Times has reported that A Q Khan, the disgraced father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programs, has revealed to investigators that he saw three nuclear bombs in North Korea five years ago. Pakistan's government is said to have released details of Khan's visit to an underground weapons facility one hour from Pyongyang 3-4 weeks ago as a warning to states within its missile range. The leaking of such sensitive information in Washington appears linked to US Vice-President Dick Cheney's visit to Beijing where he hopes to persuade China to take a tougher stance on North Korea. The Bush administration had previously been frustrated by Beijing's reluctance to apply more pressure on its former ally. Cheney has presented the Chinese with its 'new evidence' but has insisted that the US is still committed to six-party talks but would soon be seeking "real results". (See also WISE/NIRS Nuclear Monitor 602.5572 "North Korea welcomes US delegation")

There are suggestions that Washington may also be seeking to influence the 15 April parliamentary elections in South Korea that are expected to decide the fate of President Roh Moo-hyun, who is mistrusted by the US for his soft line on Pyongyang. Khan's report will be difficult to verify given that Pakistani authorities have refused to allow questioning by the international community. It is also unclear if Khan, who is not a trained nuclear scientist, has the expertise to recognize an actual nuclear weapon as opposed to a mock-up.
The New York Times, 13 & 14 April 2004; The Guardian, 14 April 2004

NIRS & Public Citizen petition NRC.

(April 16, 2004) NIRS and Public Citizen have jointly petitioned the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to participate in the forthcoming licensing procedure for the proposed uranium enrichment plant in New Mexico. The groups are representing their members living near the site of the proposed facility who are concerned with the inconsistencies, misrepresentations and unlawful aspects of the application, including the lack of a strategy to dispose of hazardous and radioactive wastes. NIRS and Public Citizen also cited problems with the application in its treatment of water resources, national security and nuclear proliferation, the need for the facility and the cost of decommissioning the plant once it ceases operating. This is the third attempt by Louisiana Energy Services (LES) at securing a site for its nuclear plant - earlier attempts were withdrawn following intense public opposition.
Joint NIRS, Public Citizen & Southwest Research Information Center News Release, 6 April 2004

French PM pro new nukes.

(April 16, 2004) Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin confirmed his support for the construction of new nuclear power plants on 5 April. He told parliament that France should build the experimental 1600 MWe European Pressurized Water Reactor (EPR), claiming it was 'our responsibility to ensure the future of the nuclear option' and that he would request a parliamentary debate on the issue 'within the coming weeks'.
WNA News Briefing, 7-13 April 2004

Russian researcher sentenced.

(April 16, 2004) A weapons specialist for the prestigious USA-Canada Institute has been sentenced to 15 years imprisonment for espionage in a closed trial in Moscow. Igor Sutyagin was convicted of supplying an UK firm, allegedly used as a front for the CIA, with information on submarines and missile warning systems. Sutyagin's defense argued that the researcher's work had been based on publicly available sources and that he had had no indication that the company was as intelligence cover. Human rights activists in Russia and around the world have condemned the verdict and there are reports suggesting irregularities during the trial and political motivation for the trial and conviction. The trail judge is said to have given the jury incorrect instruction by asking them to determine whether Sutyagin had passed on information, which he did not deny, rather than whether he had passed on state secrets.
AP, 5 April 2004; BBC News 7 April 2004

Fund for sick nuclear worker not paying out.

(April 16, 2004) Four years after the US Congress passed a law to aid sick nuclear plant workers, the compensation fund has only managed to process the claim of one worker who was sent a check for US$ 15,000 despite the government earmarking US$74 million for the program. The Energy Department, responsible for the program, claimed during a hearing before the Senate Energy Committee that it would require more time and money to do a better job. Approximately 22,000 eligible workers filed for assistance yet only 372 have received feedback on their applications. Robert Card, the department's undersecretary said the agency needed an another US$ 33 million, in addition to the US$ 26 million already spent on the program this year to speed up the programs pace. Card and his assistant Beverly Cook have since resigned from their posts. Some lawmakers have recommended moving the program to the Labor Department, which already runs a program for compensating workers affected by radiation exposure.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 30 March & 2 April 2004

UK government advisers consider waste disposal options.

(April 16, 2004) Last year the Blair government appointed a committee on radioactive waste management to re-examine all possibilities to find an acceptable solution to the nuclear waste problem. The 14 options considered range from firing nuclear waste into the sun, placing it in Antarctic ice sheets so it sinks by its own heat to the bedrock, putting it under the Earth's crust so it is sucked to the molten core and burying under the seabed. The government estimates that its stockpile of high-level nuclear waste will soon reach 500,000 tons. The committee of Homer Simpson wannabes is apparently still considering all 14 options and has requested an extension of its deadline from end 2005 to mid 2006. We look forward to reading its final report.
The Guardian, 14 April 2004

Nuclear industry looks to Asia for survival.

(April 16, 2004) 18 of the 31 nuclear power units currently under construction worldwide are located in Asia making the continent a haven for predatory European, North American and Russian suppliers. Following accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, the number of new nuclear projects under development in the West was drastically reduced leaving the industry in peril. Now, the vultures are circling around Asia seeking new ground on an energy-poor continent. China is expected to build four 1,000 MW plants at a cost of US$ 6 billion as part of its drive to quadruple its nuclear capacity by 2020. The export of such sensitive technologies is prohibited in most nuclear supply countries but given the lack of business elsewhere, governments are re-evaluating their policies in order to secure lucrative contracts for their supplies. Even the U.S. is expected to ease its controls on China at this year and Germany is already considering selling China its Hanau plant.
AP, 10 April 2004; Reuters, 13 April 2004

(September 15, 2000) On 12 September, WISE-Amsterdam and the US based Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) agreed that the two groups will formally affiliate. The affiliation is the result of a year's worth of discussion and negotiation and was approved unanimously by both the boards of WISE-Amsterdam and NIRS.

WISE-Amsterdam, with a dozen relay offices across the globe, and NIRS, with some 6,000 grassroots members, were both founded in 1978 and have followed parallel tracks over the years, often working closely together on selected issues and events.

The affiliation means that WISE-Amsterdam's and NIRS's activities will be coordinated internationally, which we believe will result in a stronger, more cohesive and effective message.

Over the past years, there has been a wave of mergers and consolidations in the nuclear power industry. The nuclear industry, in many ways a symbol of globalization gone amok, no longer answers to any nation or regulator. The future of the nuclear industry is increasingly being determined at the international level, through treaties, agreements and behind-the-scenes pacts.

The affiliation of WISE-Amsterdam/NIRS means that we will be able to effectively challenge the power of the nuclear industry and be more effective on the international level. By being able to concentrate our resources as needed, we will be more helpful to national groups as well. We think that the affiliation will exceed the sum of the parts.

WISE-Amsterdam currently has a dozen relay offices. WISE-Amsterdam/NIRS has made full funding for these offices a major priority. WISE-Paris, which operates separately from the other WISE offices, does consulting, research and other work on energy and plutonium, and will not be part of the affiliation, although it is highly regarded by us.

The first joint project we are working on is the opposition to the proposed inclusion of nuclear energy as a "Clean Development Mechanism" (CDM) in current international negotiations on the Kyoto climate change Protocol. This climate campaign will reach a head in November in The Hague, Netherlands, where WISE-Amsterdam/NIRS will organize activities. WISE-Amsterdam/NIRS will work on the gamut of nuclear-related issues currently plaguing the globe: from the use of MOX fuel to radioactive "recycling" of low-level waste to nuclear transport issues.

We will use a variety of tactics, ranging from research, legal actions, public education, campaigns, to non-violent civil disobedience, to attain our goals.

WISE-Amsterdam
P.O. Box 59636
1040 LC Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Tel: +31-20-6126368
Fax: +31-20-6892179
Email: wiseamster@antenna.nl
Internet: www.antenna.nl/wise

NIRS
1424 16th Street NW, #4
Washington, DC 20036
USA
Tel: +1-202-328-0002
Fax: +1-202-462-2183
Email: nirsnet@nirs.org
Internet: www.nirs.org