Back in the 1950s, we only thouht about one thing when we designed a technological marvel. How it worked and how much it cost to build. We didn't consider:
1. Safety of the General Public.
2. Safety of the Operators.
3. The Envronmental.
4. Cost of Disposal.
In the past 50 years, we have learned a lot of hard lessons:
1. We really don't want to kill and maim our friends and neighbors.
2. If we poison the evironment, we eventually poison ourselves and our children.
3. We have to pay for getting rid of things, now: Burying it doesn't work any more.
So when we evaluate a power technology, we must consider the costs and evironmental impact of the entire life cycle, not just building the power generation technology. This includes both the life cycle of the generation technolocy and the fuel it consumes (if any). This includes all the operating costs, including insurance.
It also goes to say that when evaluating any technology, that any government subsidies for that technology are part of the cost (even if the person or organization building the power facility doesn't bear the costs).
Herbie Robinson, BSEE, Cornell, 1974.
Nuclear Power Is Contraindicated as a Solution to Global Warming Because of Nuclear Mutagenesis. Watch: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4397307903287515932
Nuclear Power Is Contraindicated as a Solution to Global Warming Because of Excessive Cost: "When it comes to nuclear power specifically, every dollar invested in new US nuclear electricity will save approximately 2-11 times less carbon, and will do so roughly 20-40 times slower, than investing in the same dollar in energy efficiency and "micropower" (cogeneration plus renewables minus big hydro dams). Buying new nuclear capacity instead of efficiency causes more carbon to be released than spending the same money on new coal plants!
"These conclusions and the empirical evidence supporting them are summarized in "Forget Nuclear," and fully documented in "The Nuclear Illusion," available for download here, which is to be published in early 2009 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences' journal Ambio. (courtesy of rmi.org)
Dan Becker, director of the Sierra Club's Global Warming Program has said, "Switching from coal to nukes is like giving up smoking and taking up crack."
Here is the Natural Resources Defense Council's position on Nuclear Power: http://nrdc.org/nuclear/power/power.pdf.
Make a small statement. Join our My.BarackObama.com group, Nuclear Power?, here:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/group/NuclearPower
Barack Obama is a man of integrity. Our belief is that when all the facts about nuclear power are presented to him clearly, that he will reject it as an option.
The large utilities eager to build nuclear power plants are now suddenly pressing Congress about global warming. Very convenient. But is nuclear power a solution for the problem of global warming? Hmmm, No.
1)Nuclear power plants are too expensive to build. The nuclear power industry refuses to accept responsibility for the unique risks of nuclear power and demands massive federal subsidies so that they can rake in profits on their suspect investments. To quote the Rocky Mountain Institute (rmi.org) position on nuclear power: "Contrary to an argument nuclear apologists have recently taken to making, nuclear power isn't a good way to curb climate change. The power they produce is so expensive that the same money invested in efficiency or even natural-gas-fired power plants would offset much more climate change." Quoting the Natural Resources Defense Council(NRDC): "Our national electricity needs could be met, while simultaneously reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 70 percent or more, through a combination of increased energy efficiency, wind power, solar power, advanced coal-fired plants with carbon capture and storage, and high-efficiency natural gas turbines."
2)Nuclear power is extremely unsafe. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has acknowledged in a reference document "that early containment failure cannot be ruled out with high confidence for any of the plants." Even with the most technologically advanced checks and safeties, eventually some critical part of everything man makes fails. If an explosion occurs at a gas-fired or coal-fired plant, this is not good. But if a nuclear reactor melts down and breaks through its containment vessel, we have at least a regional catastrophe. Large areas of necessary habitable land are rendered uninhabitable, and people die of radiation-caused cancer.
3)To again quote the Rocky Mountain Institute's position on nuclear power: "Nuclear power poses significant problems of radioactive waste disposal."
4)Quoting the NRDC: "Plutonium is a normal by-product of electricity production in conventional reactors. Thus, the same reactors and fuel-processing facilities that are used for energy production can also be used for the manufacture of weapons." "Perhaps the most serious of all the problems that would be exacerbated by dramatically increasing global nuclear capacity is the threat of nuclear proliferation."
Join our My.BarackObama.com group, Nuclear Power?, here: http://my.barackobama.com/page/group/NuclearPower
Nuclear Power is not a good option.
“A widely heralded view holds that nuclear power is experiencing a dramatic worldwide revival and vibrant growth, because it’s competitive, necessary, reliable, secure, and vital for fuel security and climate protection.
“That’s all false. In fact, nuclear power is continuing its decades-long collapse in the global marketplace because it’s grossly uncompetitive, unneeded, and obsolete—so hopelessly uneconomic that one needn’t debate whether it’s clean and safe; it weakens electric reliability and national security; and it worsens climate change compared with devoting the same money and time to more effective options.
“Yet the more decisively nuclear power is humbled by swifter and cheaper rivals, the more zealously its advocates claim it has to serious competitors. The web of old fictions ingeniously spun by a coordinated and intensive global campaign is spread by a credulous press” and boosted by the new nuclear enthusiasts.
http://rmi.org/images/PDFs/Energy/E08-01_AmbioNucIllusion.pdf
Global warming from the carbon in coal, all the other air pollution from coal burning, and the destruction of Montana, Wyoming and Appalachia are all a part of a steamroller bearing down on us, one that if we act and act now, we can dodge to a fair degree. But there will soon be a worse steamroller bearing down on us if you and I let it happen. A planet so poisoned with radioactivity that all life will be sickly.
Nuclear Power is a dinosaur. But not just any dinosaur. It is unsafe, and it is too expensive. And during the nuclear cycle, plutonium for nuclear weapons is produced.
Regardless of the steady propaganda recently pumped into the major media outlets by the nuclear power industry, nuclear power’s time is past. Come on over to our side. We currently are staring at 2 steamrollers, and nuclear power apologists would have their steamroller BIGGER??
Barack Obama is a man of integrity. Our belief is that when all the facts about nuclear power are presented to him clearly, that he will reject it as an option. The large utilities eager to build nuclear power plants are now suddenly pressing Congress about global warming. Very convenient. But is nuclear power a solution for the problem of global warming? Hmmm, No. 1)Nuclear power plants are too expensive to build. The nuclear power industry refuses to accept responsibility for the unique risks of nuclear power and demands massive federal subsidies so that they can rake in profits on their suspect investments. To quote the Rocky Mountain Institute (rmi.org) position on nuclear power: “Contrary to an argument nuclear apologists have recently taken to making, nuclear power isn't a good way to curb climate change. True, nukes don't produce carbon dioxide—but the power they produce is so expensive that the same money invested in efficiency or even natural-gas-fired power plants would offset much more climate change.” Quoting the Natural Resources Defense Council(NRDC): "Our national electricity needs could be met, while simultaneously reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 70 percent or more, through a combination of increased energy efficiency, wind power, solar power, advanced coal-fired plants with carbon capture and storage, and high-efficiency natural gas turbines." 2)Nuclear power is extremely unsafe. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has acknowledged in a reference document “that early containment failure cannot be ruled out with high confidence for any of the plants.” Even with the most technologically advanced checks and safeties, eventually some critical part of everything man makes fails. If an explosion occurs at a gas-fired or coal-fired plant, this is not good. But if a nuclear reactor melts down and breaks through its containment vessel, we have at least a regional catastrophe. Large areas of necessary habitable land are rendered uninhabitable, and people die of radiation-caused cancer. 3)To again quote the Rocky Mountain Institute's position on nuclear power: "Nuclear power poses significant problems of radioactive waste disposal." 4)Quoting the NRDC: "Plutonium is a normal by-product of electricity production in conventional reactors. Thus, the same reactors and fuel-processing facilities that are used for energy production can also be used for the manufacture of weapons." "Perhaps the most serious of all the problems that would be exacerbated by dramatically increasing global nuclear capacity is the threat of nuclear proliferation."
Dan Becker, director of the Sierra Club's Global Warming Program said, "Switching from coal to nukes is like giving up smoking and taking up crack."
Here is the NRDC's position on Nuclear Power: http://nrdc.org/nuclear/power/power.pdf.
Make a small statement. Join our My.BarackObama.comgroup, Nuclear Power?, here:
McCain's Nuclear Waste: How the Arizona senator doomed his own global warming legislation with billions in nuclear subsidies
On January 9, 2003—five years before he would become the Republican Party's presumptive presidential nominee—Senator John McCain strode to the Senate floor and began a speech by citing the National Academy of Sciences: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in the Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise." He then pointed to a host of scientific studies that had outlined the negative consequences of global warming. "The United States must do something," he proclaimed, announcing that he and Senator Joseph Lieberman were introducing legislation that day to establish mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions and set up a system for the trading of emissions credits.
Environmental groups endorsed the McCain-Lieberman bill, which compelled major industries to reduce greenhouse gases to 2000 levels by 2010. The League of Conservation Voters called it "a relatively modest reduction" but an "important first step" that would "send an important signal to the global community." It was indeed the first serious attempt in the Senate to impose a cap on global warming emissions.
Ten months later, the bill was defeated by a relatively close margin, 55 to 43. (Then-Senator John Edwards, who missed the vote, had indicated he supported the bill.) Environmental advocates in Washington considered this a decent start considering that six years earlier the Senate had voted unanimously for a nonbinding resolution that signaled opposition to the Kyoto global warming treaty. With this bill, McCain established himself as the undisputed Republican leader on climate change. Convinced that global warming had already led to more droughts and wildfires in his home state of Arizona, McCain vowed to keep fighting for the measure. But within a year and a half, McCain would lose ground and set back the effort to reduce emissions because of a profound political miscalculation, his own stubbornness, and, most of all, his deep attachment to nuclear power.
About a year after their bill was defeated, McCain and Lieberman began drafting a new version. It was close to the original, but with one significant addition: billions of dollars in tax subsidies for the nuclear energy industry.
McCain had long been an advocate of nuclear power. "He feels strongly that nuclear power will be one of the keys to reducing emissions," says Heather Wicke, who was his environmental legislative aide at the time. But environmentalists who had worked with McCain and Lieberman on the first bill were stunned. In one meeting, lobbyists for environmental groups attempted to persuade McCain not to attach nuclear subsidies to the legislation, arguing that doing so would weaken support for the bill. "He shook his finger at us and scolded us," says one participant at the meeting, who recalls McCain saying, "You're wrong and I'm right." Wicke, now the director of policy for the Piedmont Environmental Council, notes that McCain had already made up his mind and that the session was "testy."
In meetings with McCain's staff, environmental lobbyists argued the obvious points, according to Karen Wayland, legislative director of the Natural Resources Defense Council: what to do with nuclear waste, the need to prevent nuclear proliferation, the problem with security at nuclear facilities. They noted that legislation restricting greenhouse emissions in and of itself would create a competitive advantage for nuclear energy companies. They made no headway, so the enviros appealed to Lieberman and his staff. "Lieberman didn't seem to care for this provision," one of the green lobbyists remembers, "but he needed McCain, and McCain was pushing hard" for the nuclear subsidies.
Part of McCain's motivation was political. According to Wicke, he and his aides figured that these subsidies could attract several pro-nuclear Republicans, and they had their eyes on Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Senator Liddy Dole of North Carolina. Wicke was concerned at the time that the nuclear subsidies would cost the measure support and that a bill loaded with money for the nuclear energy industry would contradict McCain's high-profile opposition to subsidies—which was partly responsible for his reputation as a fiscal conservative and a maverick. In June 2003, McCain had joined 47 other senators to vote for an amendment stripping an energy bill of up to $16 billion in subsidies for the nuclear power industry. (The amendment lost by a two-vote margin.)
Wicke heard from staffers for several senators who had supported McCain and Lieberman's original bill that these senators might oppose the measure if the new version contained nuclear subsidies. "It made me nervous," she recalls. But McCain remained firm in his belief that the billions for nuclear power would draw in more Republicans.
In May 2005, McCain and Lieberman reintroduced their climate change bill—with the subsidies. McCain acknowledged that "friends" in the environmental movement were opposed to the nuclear provision. He spoke at length in the Senate to defend this part of the bill: "The idea that nuclear power should play no role in our energy mix is an unsustainable position.... I, for one, believe it can and should play an even greater role, not because I have some inordinate love affair with splitting the atom, but for the very simple reason that we must support sustainable, zero-emission alternatives such as nuclear if we are serious about addressing the problem of global warming.... I am a green, and I entreat my friends in the movement to drop their wrongheaded objection to nuclear energy."
His friends were not persuaded. While the Environmental Defense Fund and the National Wildlife Federation continued to support McCain, the Natural Resource Defense Council, the Sierra Club, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, and others mounted a fierce campaign against the new bill. On June 22, 2005, it came up for a vote and was defeated 60 to 38. Several Democratic senators who had backed McCain's original legislation—Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Mark Dayton (D-Minn.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa)—defected, and McCain picked up no new Republicans. (Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both voted for it.) "The staff didn't fully appreciate how much opposition there would be to the nuclear provision," Wicke says, adding, "I could say it was a bit of miscalculation.... It did stymie this climate change legislation." After collecting 44 supporters for the first bill, McCain had lost ground.
Sometime after the vote, the NRDC's Wayland attended a meeting McCain held with representatives of environmental organizations. McCain was unapologetic about his decision to tie his climate change measure to nuclear power subsidies. "He said that environmentalists had lost power and influence because they did not support nuclear power," Wayland recalls, "and that renewables would never be more than 1 or 2 percent of the active energy supplies. I tried to argue with him and got nowhere. It was hard to a get a word in edgewise." After the meeting an upset Wayland, engaging in retail therapy, headed to a store and bought several pairs of shoes.
In January 2007, McCain and Lieberman again introduced their climate change bill, and the nuclear subsidies remained in the bill. (Public Citizen estimated the subsidies would run to at least $3.7 billion.) But in fall of 2007, the McCain-Lieberman bill was eclipsed by legislation introduced by Lieberman and Republican Senator John Warner. This bill called for deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions—though not as great as many scientists advocated—and it contained no special subsidies for nuclear power. The Lieberman-Warner measure immediately became the major piece of pending climate change legislation in the Senate. McCain and his bill were essentially out of the picture. He was, at the time, busy campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination.
"To his credit, he was a leader in the Republican Party on climate change," Wayland says. But by pushing breaks for nuclear power, McCain damaged a cause he had been passionately advocating for, leaving this particular battlefield with self-inflicted wounds.
http://motherjones.com/washington_dispatch/2008/03/john-mccain-nuclear-waste.html
Video: Al Gore's endorsement of Barack Obama (15:02) (short commercial at start)
Peace & One Love Dianne
My message has ended and I am sharing the City of East Point agenda item written by the City of East Point starts below.
CITY OF EAST POINT
CITY COUNCIL AGENDA ITEM
SUBJECT: CITY COUNCIL APPROVAL TO PARTICIPATE IN THE NEW PLANT VOGTLE
EXPANSION PROJECT
( X ) RECOMMENDATION ( ) POLICY / DISCUSSION ( ) STATUS REPORT
( ) ORDINANCE ( ) RESOLUTION ( ) OTHER
Date Submitted: 5/28/08 Date Work Session: N/A Date Council Meeting: 6/2/08
BUDGET IMPACT: $62.9 million amortized over 20 years ($4,143,000/year) beginning in 2036
ANNUAL:
CAPITAL:
FUNDING SOURCE: N/A
CITY COUNCIL ACTION REQUESTED ON: June 2, 2008
PURPOSE: To discuss and request the City Council approve the City of East Point’s participation in the new Plant Vogtle expansion project by purchasing 10MW of power.
HISTORY:
I previously communicated to the Council that staff and I had a change of position in terms of my recommendation on the City of East Point’s participation in the new Plant Vogtle Project. This change is based on the following two reasons:
As you can see in the heading of the attached graph, the MEAG Power Supply staff have recommended the following purchase of the Plant Vogtle Additional Units nuclear generation project for the City of East Point as follows:
1. Year 2016 - Commercial Operation of Units – 0.0 MW
2. Year 2036 - After selling to Third Parties for 20 Years – 9.6 MW
The 9.6MW purchase from the Plant Vogtle Additional Units Project is necessary in order to meet our growing base load requirements by the Year 2038. In order to participate in the project, the City Council must execute a Power Sales Contract for 9.6 MW (or the 10.0 recommended by staff) before June 15th. There will be no action required by the City Council if you choose not to participate in the project.
The MEAG recommendation of 9.6MW will be sold to a third party buyer for 20 years (beginning the Year 2016) to allow for East Point and other MEAG cities in this project to grow into this nuclear generation. The beginning life of the nuclear project will be an operating license from the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) for 40 years. Our Nuclear generating unit history tells us that this license might also be extended after the original 40 years for another 20 years to make the total life of the project an expected 60 years.
During the 20 years that the output will be sold to third parties on behalf of the City of East Point (Years 2016-2036), the City of East Point will have no payments to make for the project. The third parties under the 20-Year PPA (Purchase Power Agreement) will provide for :
1. Full Cost Recovery of Debt Service, Operation, Maintenance, Decommissioning Costs, etc;
2. An estimated "premium" for the 9.6MW portion of the PPA of $1.5M (NPV of the contract terms stated in Year 2008 dollars) - this premium will be maintained in an interest bearing reserve account on behalf of the City of East Point and provided to the City at the completion of the 20-Year contract to help mitigate future financial obligations when the output of the 9.6MW begins to be received by the City of East Point in the Year 2036.
FACTS AND ISSUES:
· The cost to purchase the recommended 10MW is $62,900,500 over a 20-year period ($4,143,000/year);
· The City can reinvest all or a portion of the $30 million in credits it will begin receiving over the next ten years to defray the future cost of purchasing the 10MW;
· The City can designate all or a portion of annual power sales revenue to an investment fund to defray the future cost of purchasing the 10MW;
· In May 2005, MEAG Power and the other co-owners of Plant Vogtle entered into a joint agreement authorizing the potential expansion of up to two additional nuclear units at Plant Vogtle, expected to come online in 2016 and 2017.
· MEAG Power is entitled to a 22.7% co-ownership of the expansion, but, depending upon the level of interest of Participants, may reduce its level of participation or even totally withdraw from the project at any time prior to July 1, 2008. For this reason, Participant commitments are required by June 15, 2008.
· MEAG Power is currently working with the other co-owners to address permitting and licensing matters. On March 31, 2008, Southern Nuclear filed, on behalf of the co-owners, an application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for construction and operating licenses for the new units.
· On April 8, 2008, Georgia Power Company, on behalf of the co-owners, entered into an Engineering, Procurement and Construction agreement with a consortium consisting of Westinghouse and Stone & Webster, Inc. for two AP 1000 nuclear units with 1,100 megawatt capacity. MEAG Power's estimated costs, assuming it elects not to reduce its 22.7% share of the project, including financing expenses is approximately $3.1 billion.
· Each MEAG Power Participant has the option of participating in the proposed expansion project at Plant Vogtle and determining the level, if any, at which it chooses to participate subject to maximum individual levels if the project is over subscribed. Through Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) each Participant also has the option of laying off any portion of its commitment, until 2036, when additional power may be needed by the Participant.
· On May 12, 2008, MEAG Power entered into PPAs with two buyers to sell up to approximately 71% of MEAG Power's maximum share of output from the additional units for the first 20 years of operation. The contracts require the buyers to pay all operating costs, debt service costs on bonds to be issued, decommissioning costs and certain other payments for the term of the PPA. The amount, if any, to be sold will depend upon whether some or all of the Participants elect to commit all or any portion of their individual entitlements to the PPAs. The PPAs also require the purchasers to pay a premium (in addition to their cost obligation) which, together with the structure of the debt service payments and decommissioning payments, will result in an estimated present value benefit to the PPA Participants in excess of $400 million dollars.
· MEAG Power anticipates that it will establish a separate project to finance the costs associated with that portion, if any, of its interest in the additional units that is not committed to either PPA, and separate projects to finance the costs of each portion, if any, committed to a PPA.
OPTIONS:
1. City Council approval to enter into agreement to purchase 10MW of power in the Plant Vogtle expansion project via the PPA option.
2. City Council declines to participate in the Plant Vogtle expansion Project.
3. City Council defined action.
RECOMMENDED ACTION: Option 1
DEPARTMENT: Office of the City Manager
CONCURRENCE:
Crandall O. Jones, ICMA-CM Date
Interim City Manager
Please watch: Nuclear Madness - Interview with Dr. Helen Caldicott (YouTube video):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpAgzji9KnE
Greetings,
My name is Dianne Valentin and I would like to share information with you about a project that I am working on with Atlanta Women’s Action for New Directions (WAND). Prior to the end of the Cold War WAND’s acronym stood for Women’s Actions for Nuclear Disarmament. When the Cold War ended the organization thought it could take a new direction. We find ourselves still dealing with nuclear issues.
Atlanta WAND is a local grassroots organization and a chapter of the national WAND organization. Atlanta WAND’s mission is to empower women & men to work politically to reduce violence and militarism and redirect excess military spending towards unmet human & environmental needs.
I am working with Atlanta WAND on a community outreach project designed to increase the awareness of local communities and support their work on environmental and health issues around the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site (SRS) nuclear weapons facility and Plant Vogtle which is a nuclear power plant owned by Georgia Power Company and others.
We are working on this project in Georgia and South Carolina, both of which are adversely affected by SRS and Plant Vogtle. Our organizing and outreach efforts will be occurring in Georgia and South Carolina, particularly in the Georgia counties of Richmond, Burke, Screven, and Effingham, and the South Carolina counties of Barnwell, Allendale, and Aiken.
It is important that we engage in these communities and share with them our outreach capacity and organizing efforts to help minimize the adverse impacts of the nuclear industry on their health and environments in ways that we hope might enhance the work that they may be doing currently.
My specific request is that you share the information below with any community partners, organizations, or individuals that may be interested in participating in or submitting statements to the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board regarding blocking the issuance of a Combined Construction and Operating License (COL) to Southern Nuclear Company for two new reactors at Plant Vogtle. Plant Vogtle already has two reactors.
I am aware that some of your organizations are based in areas outside the southeast region of the United States, but we are all adversely affected by the activities and procedures that permit this type of thing to go on. The Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission impact the entire United States with their policies.
We must all be aware that this “early site permit” process secures approval and issuance of a license to build and operate a new nuclear power plant even though submitting the application and securing approval does not commit the application to build new units right away. The licensing process allows them to use it anytime for up to 20 years with any future application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
If the early site permits are issued, the public will not be able to raise concerns about water issues, land issues, public health issues, or safety issues at Plant Vogtle. EVER.
With the concerns that we currently face, no matter what we find out after the permit is issued, even critical data that may emerge moments after the license is issued, our hands are tied, our voices silenced.
In an Information Notice to new reactor license applicants dated April 7, 2008, the NRC informs us that counterfeit parts are being used by the nuclear power industry. Fortunately, the early site permit has not been granted for reactors #3 and #4 at Plant Vogtle, so we can still raise this type of issue on that project.
This type of thing affects all of us regardless of where we live, regardless of which nuclear facility or issue we have to deal with.
Please consider sharing the information provided below and if you know anyone or any organization that would consider participating in the action in Augusta on April 27th and/or April 28th please have them email me or call me at the Atlanta WAND office; 404.524.5999.
I appreciate your patience in reading through this rather long message and I thank you for all consideration given to my request for assistance with this outreach effort.
I bid you peace and blessings,
Dianne Valentin
diannevalentin@gmail.com
404.524.5999
Please read the call to action, critical logistical information, and background information below.
Community Action is Needed
This is a Request for Your Support
Tell the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board that you have concerns about the proposed expansion of Plant Vogtle from two nuclear reactors to four. Tell the Board that you are concerned about water use, accident risks, security, nuclear waste, and health impacts.
The Action: Email or fax the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board by noon, April 25th to register* to speak at the public hearing being held at the DoubleTree Hotel in Augusta on Sunday, April 27th or Monday, April 28th.
Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel,
Mail Stop: T-3F23,
U.S. NRC,
Washington, DC 20555-0001
*Registration is encouraged if you wish to make sure that you have an opportunity to speak, it is not required.
Statements in Person:
Come to the DoubleTree Hotel and Convention Center located at 2651 Perimeter Parkway, Augusta, Georgia on
(Speakers will have five minutes.)
If you can’t be there, Submit Written Statements** and make sure that you reference “Vogtle ESP comments” Submit written statements by:
Statements by Postal Mail:
Office of the Secretary,
Attn: Rulemaking and Adjudications Staff,
Mail Stop: O-16C1,
Statements by Email: hearingdocket@nrc.gov or
Statements by Fax: (301) 415-1101
**You must submit a copy of your written statement to:
Administrative Judge G. Paul Bollwerk, III,
Important Note:
Members of the public who pre-register will receive priority consideration to speak at the meetings. Written pre-registration requests must be e-mailed to the ASLB by noon EDT on Friday, April 25. Each request must specify the session (Sunday or Monday) at which the requester wishes to make an oral statement. The Board reserves the right to conclude a session ahead of the scheduled ending time if all speakers present have made a presentation.
The Atomic Safety Licensing Board (ASLB) strongly advises those attending the pre-hearing conference or comment sessions to arrive early to allow time for security screening. The Board also requests attendees avoid bringing unnecessary hand‑carried items, such as packages, briefcases, backpacks, or other items that might need individual examination. Attendees will not be able to store such items outside the rooms, and items requiring inspection could delay a person’s admission to a session. Items that could readily be used as weapons are banned from the room where these sessions will be held. The ASLB’s rules limit signs to 18 square inches, and signs may not be attached to sticks, held above one’s head, or moved about in the room. Attempting to disrupt the pre-hearing conference or the sessions will not be tolerated.
The first step Georgia utilities are taking to try to get federal approval to build new nuclear reactors along the Savannah River is to apply for an “early site permit.” If the permit is issued, concerns such as water, land, public health, and safety cannot be brought up again even if we learn new information. For example, the new reactors will require tens of millions of gallons of water above and beyond the tens of millions Vogtle is already pulling from the Savannah River—this issue cannot be revisited again if the “early site permit” is granted. If approved, this permit essentially allows the Southern Company and its utility partners in Georgia to use the permit at any time for up to 20 years in any future applications with the NRC. Together, Atlanta WAND, Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, Center for a Sustainable Coast, Savannah Riverkeeper, and Southern Alliance for Clean Energy legally challenged the permit.
Please feel free to use this background information in your comments:
Water Use & Supply:
-Vogtle’s 2 existing reactors require huge amounts of water with only 1/3 of what was withdrawn being returned to the Savannah River [~64 million gallons per day (mgd) withdrawal with consumption of ~43 mgd]. That’s more water than many towns and cities in Georgia use!
-Doubling the number of reactors on site will only make this worse. This excess use of water threatens municipalities, industries, agriculture, recreation, and aquatic species. If there is an extended drought—even a drought 20 or 40 years from now, severe consequences could occur.
Water Quality
-The water discharged from nuclear Plant Vogtle is already hotter than what is withdrawn; more reactors will only make this situation worse. Temperature changes negatively affect the fish, plant, and animal life that depend on the river.
-The water intake systems at nuclear power plants can kill fish and fish larvae, among other organisms; having more reactors on site will only make this worse.
Nuclear Waste
-High-level radioactive waste created (used nuclear fuel) has no place to be stored or disposed, nor is it likely that a ‘solution’ will be found in our lifetimes; building more nuclear reactors will only make this situation worse.
-Existing and future projected waste will remain onsite at Plant Vogtle for generations and generations, threatening indefinitely the health of nearby communities and the environment. Yet the NRC in previous cases has refused to even address or consider this very important issue!
-Nuclear plants are vulnerable to terrorist attack and sabotage; building more nuclear reactors will only make this situation worse by providing more targets.
-Plant Vogtle is also very close to the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site, which stores a large portion of the nation’s weapons grade plutonium and other dangerous materials. If an accident or successful terrorist attack occurred, the full impacts to human health and the environment in this region would be immense.
Human Health
-A 1982 Congressional report estimated that if a meltdown occurred at just one of Vogtle’s reactors it could cause 39,000 peak* early injuries, 4000 peak cancer deaths, and 200 peak early fatalities with costs over $60 billion; building more reactors will only worsen these terrible impacts and put more people’s lives and health at risk. These communities are already heavily burdened by pollution in the area. (*Peak means highest calculated value from the study – it does not necessarily mean worst case.)
For more information on nuclear power, see
http://www.cleanenergy.org/programs/programs.cfm?ID=4.
For the NRC’s information on the Vogtle application process, see
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-licensing/esp/vogtle.html
***Background information provided by Sara Barczak and Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, www.cleanenergy.org.
The nuclear power fuel cycle is a producer of carbon dioxide. I will reference a section of Code Red Alert: Confronting Nuclear Power in Georgia (published by Southern Alliance for Clean Energy May 2004). I have included the end notes for the section on the uranium fuel cycle that I am posting here. I have placed the section that references the CO2 emissions from two plants in bold, (It is the fifth paragraph under the conversion & enrichment section).
In addition to all of its waste and pollution, please note that the nuclear power industry engages in environmental racism as well. If you think that you are someone who can tolerate the CO2 emissions, are you someone who can tolerate the environmental racism? Please read the next section entitled The Uranium Fuel Chain from Code Red Alert: Confronting Nuclear Power in Georgia in its entirety. The complete document can be downloaded for free on the internet.
THE URANIUM FUEL CHAIN
The production of uranium fuel is highly energy and waste intensive, requiring uranium mining, milling, conversion, enrichment and fabrication. In fact, uranium enrichment has been the largest contributor of wastes to the DOE’s materials inventory.287 Though these fuel operations do not occur in Georgia, several facilities in the southeast do engage in these activities (see Radioactive Southeast Map).
Uranium fuel production impacts broad geographic areas of the nation—negatively impacting states such as Utah that do not even have nuclear power plants. The production of energy at the nuclear reactor generates dangerous, highly radioactive, long-lived waste. This “spent” nuclear fuel is a dangerous residue that threatens local communities. Types of waste created by a one-year operation of a typical 1000 MW nuclear reactor—of comparable size to the nuclear power plants in Georgia— include 179,728 tons of uranium mill tailings, .2 metric tons of plutonium waste, 159 tons of reactor fuels as well as weapons grade plutonium. 288
Mining of Uranium
Uranium ore has to be mined, like coal, to be used as a fuel source. Uranium is both radioactive and a chemical toxin. Additionally, numerous heavy metals present in uranium ore can have adverse health effects. Many uranium mines in the United States are on Native American lands. Nearly one third of these mines are located within the Navajo nation.289 The mines have had a negative effect on the quality of life of Native Americans living near the mines.290 Even though lung cancer was considered rare in Navajo Indians, a report by Dr. Gerald Buker stated, “the risk of lung cancer had increased by a factor of at least 85 percent among Navajo uranium miners.”291
Uranium mines are found around the globe and both the mining and milling processes disproportionately affect indigenous populations. Africa has long served as a source of uranium for the nuclear industry. Describing an observation during a visit to a French-run uranium mine in the early 1980s, a BBC commentary described the injustice and abuse perpetrated at mines as, “Some of the poorest people on earth labor in one of the deadliest environments to power the electric train sets and fuel the bombs of the world’s richest nations.”292
Milling of Uranium
Milling consists of chemically separating uranium from other ore components. A thousand tons of ore must be processed to get just 2 tons of uranium.293 The waste produced is known as “mill tailings,” which are often left near the land surrounding the mine, creating another dangerous legacy of the mining process. For typical uranium concentrations, the tailings contain 85 percent of the radioactivity in the original ore along with toxic chemicals and heavy metals. Furthermore, the volume of mill tailings is enormous and the majority of the radioactive components are extremely long-lived. Unfortunately, a large portion of mill tailings in the United States were “grandfathered” when more protective standards began to be implemented in the late 1970s, leaving behind more than 100 million tons of uranium waste with limited regulatory oversight.294
The mill tailings can infiltrate surrounding waterways. In 1979, near Churchrock, New Mexico, a United Nuclear uranium mill tailings dam broke, dumping nearly 100 million gallons of liquid radioactive tailings and 1000 tons of solid tailings into a surrounding area, spreading nearly 60 miles from the facility. The Rio Puerco River was contaminated and the local Native Americantribe was devastated since their water source was forever rendered toxic by the tailings.295
Conversion & Enrichment
After the uranium ore is milled, it is converted to uranium hexafluoride at Honeywell International, Inc. (formerly Allied Signal, Inc.296) in Metropolis, Illinois.297 It is then further enriched at Paducah, Kentucky through a chemical process known as gaseous diffusion. Enrichment is required to increase the percentage of Uranium-235, the isotope of uranium needed for nuclear power or nuclear weapons. In natural uranium, U-235 concentration is too low, even after milling and conversion. The end results of gaseous diffusion are called a) the “product,” in which the percentage of U-235 has been increased and b) the “tails,” which is predominantly U-238, also known as depleted uranium, in which the percentage of U-235 has been decreased.298 Uranium enrichment has been the largest contributor of wastes to the DOE’s materials inventory.299
Union Carbide operated two of the three U.S. conversion and uranium enrichment plants, at Paducah, Kentucky and at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The Goodyear Atomic Corporation, a subsidiary of the Bechtel Company, originally ran the third plant, at the Portsmouth facility in Ohio.300 In the early 1990s, the U.S. Enrichment Corporation (USEC), a wholly owned government company, was formed to operate the nation’s enrichment plants. On July 28, 1998, USEC, Inc. was privatized, resulting in one of the largest privatizations of a federal government enterprise in American history and making the company the leading global marketer and producer of uranium enrichment services.301
Different end uses require different degrees of enrichment. Some enriched uranium can be used for commercial nuclear power plants while some nuclear weapons needs, or naval and research reactors, require further enrichment. Several by products are created. Depleted uranium (DU), for example, which is produced at a larger ratio than the desired enriched uranium, is a heavy metalpoison and is radioactive.302 Depleted uranium is frequently used in armor piercing munitions.
Gaseous diffusion plants, such as Paducah, require an enormous amount of electricity produced largely from coal-fired power plants in the areas surrounding the plant along with large amounts of cooling water for the processing equipment.303 In order to support the United States’ defense effort, the Atomic Energy Commission needed to construct a uranium enrichment plant. Since the Portsmouth plant required electricity amounts that were not available so the Ohio Valley Electric Corporation (OVEC) and its subsidiary, Indiana Kentucky Electric Corporation (IKEC), were organized in 1952 by fifteen investor-owned utilities in the region. In 1955 two coal-fired powerplants, Kyger Creek in Ohio (OVEC’s) and Clifty Creek in Madison, Indiana (IKEC’s) were built and began supplying electricity to the Portsmouth plant.304
In 1998, energy sold to the Department of Energy for use by USEC was 9.2 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) with costs of over $180 million.305 These two old coal plants were also extremely polluting. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, in 1998 Clifty Creek emitted over 9 million tons of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas associated with global warming.306 Additionally, in 1999 both plants rated in the top 100 for coal plants emitting hazardous air pollutants such as mercury, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur dioxides.307
During the gaseous diffusion process, though the uranium hexafluoride gas produced is highly corrosive and radioactive, the safety precautions around these facilities were questionable at best. Drums full of trichloroethylenecontaminated uranium along with large amounts of other uranium wastes were buried on site at Paducah, with most of the drum contents having leaked away by 1984, and large releases of uranium to surface waters also occurred.308 Portsmouth originally produced highly enriched uranium for naval nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons and now provides enrichment only for commercial nuclear power. It is also a federal Superfund site as the aquifer beneath it is contaminated. Department of Energy estimates for clean up were approximately $163 million.309
Eventually, the resulting enriched uranium is converted into a metallic form and then made into tiny pellets. This is done at seven uranium fuel fabrication facilities in the country, with six located in the Southeast, such as Nuclear Fuel Services, Inc. in Erwin, TN, Westinghouse Electric Company, LLC (formerly a Division of CBS) in Columbia, SC, and Global Nuclear Fuel Americas, LLC (formerly GE Company Nuclear Energy Production) in Wilmington, NC.310 These pellets are stacked end-to-end like tiny poker chips and encased with a zirconium/aluminum cladding known as Zircalloy in approximately twelvefoot long fuel rods that look like very long pencils. These fuel rods are thenshipped to reactors and inserted into the reactor core in groups known as “assemblies” or “bundles,” approximately 60 per assembly. The reactor cores contain thousands of fuel rods in a large nuclear reactor.311
End Notes
287 U.S. DOE, Linking Legacies, p. 143.288 Dr. Rosalie Bertell, No Immediate Danger, p. 112.
289 Makhijani & Saleska, The Nuclear Power Deception, p. 219.
290 M. Annette Jaimes, Ed., The State of Native America: Genocide, colonization, and resistance, (Boston, MA: South End Press, 1992), pp. 248, 249, 264, 265.
291 Dr. Rosalie Bertell, No Immediate Danger, p. 84. From a monograph entitled “Uranium Mining and Lung Cancer Among Navajo Indians.”
292 Makhijani, Hu, & Yih, Nuclear Wastelands, p. 106.
293 Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, “The Uranium Burden,” Science for Democratic Action, vol. 8, no. 4, Sept. 2000.
294 Dr. Rosalie Bertell, No Immediate Danger, p. 86.
295 Makhijani & Saleska, The Nuclear Power Deception, p. 219; IEER, “The Uranium Burden.”
296 U.S. NRC, Information Digest 2000, NUREG-1350, vol. 12, p.62.
297 Honeywell International, Inc. is the only uranium hexafluoride production facility in the nation, U.S. NRC, Information Digest 2002, pp. 64, 67.
298 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, Public Health Assessment for PaducahGaseous Diffusion Plant [USDOE] Paducah, McCracken County, KY EPA Facility ID: KY8890008982, May 21, 2002, p.1.
299 U.S. DOE, Linking Legacies, p. 143.
300 Taylor G. Moore, III, “The fateful choice in uranium enrichment,” Time Bomb: A Nuclear Reader from The Progressive, (Madison, WI: The Progressive, Inc., 1980),pp. 23-26. This article also discusses the complicated issue of the Separative Work Unit (SWU), which is the unit of measurement for determining the cost of theend product, the amount of energy required to boost a kilogram of natural uranium from U-235 content of 0.7 percent to 3 percent U-235.
301 U.S. Enrichment Corporation, Inc., 1998 Annual Report, pp. 1, 29; Schwartz, Atomic Audit, p. 346.
302 Makhijani & Saleska, The Nuclear Power Deception, pp. 215-220.
303 U.S NRC, NUREG-1437, vol. 1, May 1996, pp. 6-24, 6-25.
304 Ohio Valley Electric Corporation, 2000 Ohio Valley Electric Corporation and Subsidiary Corporation Annual Report, http://www.ovec.com/AnnualReport.pdfConfirmed in conversation with Ohio Public Service Commissioner Leon Wingjet on June 13, 2000 that Kyger and Clifty Creek plants power U.S. EnrichmentCorporation’s Portsmouth facility.
305 OVEC, Annual Report 2000, p. 18.
306 U.S. EPA, “Plant Summary CO2 Emissions Data by Unit,” 1998. www.epa.gov/acidrain/emission/in/983_co2.htm
307 Clear the Air, “Lethal Legacy,” April 2000, pp. 21, 26, 30.
308 Makhijani, Hu, & Yih, Nuclear Wastelands, pp. 206.
309 Ibid.
310 U.S. NRC, Information Digest 2002, p. 64; Information Digest 2000, pp. 62.
311 Daniel Ford, Meltdown: The Secret Papers of the Atomic Energy Commission, pp. 95-96.
Below is an article that was posted on the Tennesseean.com website on November 22nd. We are not paying attention while this type of thing is happening.
I often speak at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's hearings when they take public comment on nuclear related issues. They need to hear from more people in order for us to protect ourselves from this type of situation.
Please require that your member of Congress demand that this insanity ends. None of us are safe with this type of thing going on. Demand that no new licenses be issued until the waste that we already have in this country is dealt with. We have not disposed of the very first nuclear waste that we generated over 50 years ago and we are going to give out licenses so that we can accept it from other countries????
Write and call the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, any Congressional Committee dealing with nuclear issues, energy, waste, transportation, our ports, health & safety, your local, state, and federal representatives and be very clear that we will not accept this. Fill their phone lines and inboxes with your concerns about the licensing of this process. Don't let this precedent be set.
Dick Cheney and his secret deals and secret meetings with his energy industry friends is selling us down the river in a canoe with no ores, headed directly toward a barge carrying foreign nuclear waste.
We can't let them do this to us without our voices being heard. They may have more money, but we have more people, more voices. Make your voice heard on this issue. Remember in Dr. Suisse's Horton Hears a Who it took that one extra voice, that one small voice to proclaim; "We Are Here, We Are Here!". We must exercise and exert our collective will.
Please read the article below and get on the phone and on email to those listed above.
Peace,
Dianne
Thursday, 11/22/07
Firm wants to process overseas nuke waste in Tennessee
Associated Press
CHARLESTON, S.C. — A company that disposes of radioactive nuclear waste by burying it wants to ship 20,000 tons of the material from overseas through ports in Charleston and New Orleans, raising fears because of the large amount.
EnergySolutions Inc. wants to ship about 200,000 cubic feet of waste into the United States, process it in Tennessee before burying it at a site in Clive, Utah, where the company is based.
"That's a lot of waste," said Arjun Makhijani, executive director of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, a nuclear watchdog group.
"As far as I know, it's unprecedented for such a large amount to come to this country for disposal."
In a statement Tuesday, EnergySolutions argued that licenses had been grantedto companies that import radioactive items from France and the Czech Republic.
The company also said it is a leader in safe handling and disposal of radioactive materials.
However, two congressmen wrote in a letter to federal regulators who will ultimately decide if the material can be shipped to the U.S. that EnergySolutions had not said exactly where the waste would come from, other than "reactors, fuel cycle facilities, research facilities, and material licenses or facilities equivalent to U.S. Superfund sites."
Limits may be exceeded
Reps. Joe Barton, R-Texas, and Ed Whitfield, R-Kentucky, also argued that some of the waste could exceed federal radiation limits, meaning it would not be allowed to enter the country and would have to be shipped back to Italy.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman David McIntyre said the agency will begin taking public comments on EnergySolutions' application soon.
The approval process typically takes six months.
EnergySolutions, which handles radioactive waste for hospitals, universities and companies, has operated a nuclear waste landfill site in South Carolina since 1971.
But under legislation passed earlier this year, that landfill will close to all but three states next year — South Carolina, New Jersey and Connecticut.
If EnergySolutions gets approval, it's not clear where the materials would be unloaded in Charleston.
"We don't handle any radioactive materials," said Byron Miller, spokesman for the State Ports Authority.
We have to face that we are being led down a path that is false from it beginning. It is fantastic that Barack Obama has spoken out regarding nuclear weapons, but nuclear is the issue. We are still dealing with the prospect that our future President Obama is ill informed about nuclear energy being an alternative that will help us curb global warming. Nuclear energy is one of the most egregious emitters of CO2 and we have to stop being led by the nuclear industry to believe that this is clean energy.
Time to wake up and act like we know the facts.
I have to admit to being unfaithful, not to my wife of course, but to Barack.
When John Edwards came out clearly and forcefully for nuclear abolition I made a couple of donations to his campaign. John may be a bit inclined to polarize, but the issue of nuclear weapons is so important that I was overjoyed that one of the top three Democratic candidates had embraced global elimination.
Then Obama spoke at DePaul and he addressed directly the criticism I leveled at him in my first blog. Recall that he had praised Kissinger and company but had ducked the central point of their January 2007 Wall Street Journal article: the need to reassert the vision of a nuclear weapon free world. This time he came out loud and clear:
"Here's what I'll say as President: America seeks a world in which there are no nuclear weapons."
So now two of the three are for abolition! I am not holding my breath for the third.
But I am in a quandry. Do I forsake John for Barack? I think I will just be a bigamist for awhile!
So my next donation will go to Obama to even him up with Edwards. But in the longrun, what I will be looking for is which candidate makes achieving a nuclear-weapon-free world a regular feature of his campaign pitch. This is critical, just look at how all this was report:
"Edwards’s campaign also blasted Obama for parroting the former senator in a foreign policy speech he gave Tuesday in which he said he wanted to work towards ending nuclear proliferation."
You do not have to be a policy wonk to know there is a world of difference between 'nonproliferation' and 'disarmament'; one is what the other guy is supposed to do, the other is what you are supposed to do also. The trouble is the press is stuck in old think; if candidates are going to get their ideas about nuclear disarmament heard by the voters (who are very receptive to it) they are going to have to hammer at it. So let's see who hammers hardest: Edwards or Obama?
At this point I would give the edge to Edwards, he said:
"And I will lead an international effort to rid the world of nuclear weapons"
In my book leading beat seeking any day. The world is ready to go.
So stay tuned.
PS:
Anyone one who has Ted Sorensen's respect has mine. I had the privilege of working with him to achieve a ban on nuclear test explosions. He is examplary.
AT
I want to introduce myself: My name is Aaron Tovish; I live in Vienna, Austria, vote in NYC. I have worked on nuclear disarmament issues for over 30 years. This issue intersects strongly with peace and justice issues and energy and environment issues.
I am the International Manager of the 2020 Vision Campaign of Mayors for Peace. M4P is headquartered in Hiroshima, Japan, so I work for its Mayor, Tadatoshi Akiba. M4P and the Mayor have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize this year.
You can find out more about the organization and the campaign at our websites:
www.mayorsfropeace.org and www.2020visioncampaign.org
I have a blog (under my name) about nuclear weapons policy, which I encourage you to read and comment upon.
I am not entirely happy with the position Senator Obama has taken on nuclear weapons; it would, in my opinion, benefit from being more farsighted. We have found that our vision of a nuclear-weapon-free world by the year 2020 really inspires people. In the three and a half years of the 2020 Vision Campaign, the membership of M4P has more than tripled, it now stands at 1700 cities in 121 countries and growing fast.
We are all busy, but I will try to do my best to keep up with the group's discussions.
"For starters, enormous amounts of fossil fuel are burned during the nuclear energy process, and nuclear reactors use and pollute vast amounts of water. Radioactive emissions do escape and are released from nuclear facilities, and man-made radioactive elements regularly enter the food chain and our bodies to deleterious effect. Nuclear power plants are vulnerable to natural disasters and to terrorists; all nuclear plants generate plutonium, seeding the proliferation of nuclear weapons; and we have yet to discover a safe place or method for storing waste that remains deadly for millennia. Add to that the scandalously corrupt and hypocritical economics and politics of nuclear power. So numerous and so severe are the problems Caldicott precisely records and clearly interprets that, as it stands today, nuclear power is a costly, dangerous, even ludicrous technology."
Please view our new mybarackobama group and then make a small statement by joining at Link
If you haven't already watched this speech, please do. We must make sure that Barack Obama is the next President of the United States. (Click on the following youtube Link. If necessary, wait for downloading.)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=siSe8Qb91wQ
