Dr. Ernest Sternglass, 91, Emeritus Professor of Radiological Physics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, passed away in Ithaca, NY on February 12, 2015. He was a prominent, published scientist and anti-nuclear activist, whose early w…
Continue readingCategory Archives: nuclear
NRC file photo of Fermi 2 on the Lake Erie shore. Fermi 3 would be built immediately adjacent to Fermi 2 — ironically enough, on the very spot where Fermi 1 had a partial core meltdown in 1966!U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) rulings regar…
Continue readingForbes magazine’s February 11, 1985 cover story headlined “Nuclear Follies.” The business investment journal wrote “The failure of the U.S. nuclear power program ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history, a d…
Continue readingBy Adam Justice / IBTimes.co.uk / February 9, 2015 / The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) team that will review Japan’s decommissioning work at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant this week, said on Monday (9 February) that contaminated water leakage remains a challenging issue. Since the devastating March 2011 earthquake that caused triple meltdowns at the Fukushima plant, operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) has struggled with … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia world-nuclear-news.org / February 10, 2015 / TEPCO said it is installing a muon detection system at the unit. The system comprises two measuring devices. The first was installed on the north side of the reactor building yesterday, while the second was scheduled to be put in place on the west side of the building today. Once the system is installed, it will be ready for testing, the company said. Muons are high-energy … Continue reading →
Continue readingAn aerial view of the known extent of the tritium contamination in soil and groundwater at the VY site, on the banks of the Connecticut River in southeastern Vermont.Entergy Nuclear is infamous for its arrogance. Now, reports the Associated Press…
Continue readingOPG’s proposed so-called Deep Geologic Repository for radioactive waste burial would be located less than a mile from the Great Lakes shoreline.Today, DuPage County, the second most populous in Illinois, announced the passage of a resolution in opposit…
Continue readingFirstEnergy’s dirty, dangerous, and uncompetitive Davis-Besse atomic reactor, with Lake Erie in the background.Harvey Wasserman explores this question on his “Solartopia, Green Power, and Wellness Hour” radio show of Feb. 10th. Here is his summary of t…
Continue readingPhoto credit: http://www.csisun.com/solar-installations/As reported by the The Joplin Globe, solar PV advocates including Renew Missouri (the Earth Island Institute) and the Great Rivers Environmental Law Center, and the Missouri Coalition for the E…
Continue readingAs shown on this graphic chart, Sr-90 seeks human bone tissue. Credit: Russell Hoffman.As reported by Susan Smallheer at the Rutland Herald, the State of Vermont has detected radioactive, hazardous Strontium-90 in groundwater monitoring wells at Enterg…
Continue readingThom Hartmann, host of “The Big Picture”Thom Hartmann (photo, left) invited Beyond Nuclear onto his television program “The Big Picture” to discuss the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) impending decision to rubberstamp the proposed new Fermi …
Continue readingAs shown in Jim Day’s political cartoon (be sure to count the toes) in the Las Vegas Review Journal, the President Obama zeroed out funding, and ordered his DOE to withdraw the license application, in 2010.U.S. Senator Harry Reid’s (D-NV) Communication…
Continue readingAs revealed by a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) “Event Notification Report” on Feb. 6th, Entergy Nuclear’s Pilgrim atomic reactor on Cape Cod Bay south of Boston, MA suffered “a major loss of emergency assessment capability,” during the sever…
Continue readingNRC file photo of Exelon’s Ginna atomic reactor on the Lake Ontario shore of upstate NY near RochesterAs reported by the Democrat and Chronicle, Exelon Nuclear’s Ginna atomic reactor — one of the oldest in the U.S. — is at risk of near-term shutdown….
Continue readingA Swiss-led European Union (EU) initiative to amend and strengthen international reactor safety standards in a post-Fukushima world was blunted by the United States delegation to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) Convention on Nucle…
Continue readingvia NHK World / February 3, 2014 / Japan’s nuclear regulator is set to compile next week its final assessment on 2 reactors at the Takahama power plant (pictured) in Fukui Prefecture, central Japan. The final document will certify that the reactors have passed the regulator’s scrutiny, which is a prerequisite for their restarts. The final assessment follows the Nuclear Regulation Authority’s approval of its draft in December. The draft … Continue reading →
Continue readingNRC file photo of VY. The HLRW storage pool is located in the lighter colored upper portion of the reactor building, some 50 feet or more in the air.As reported by Vermont Digger, a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Atomic Safety and Lic…
Continue readingThe 500+ ton stator crashed through the floor, on top of its heavy haul vehicle, causing extensive damage, killing one worker, and injuring several others.David Lochbaum, director, Nuclear Safety Project at the Union of Concerned Scientists, writes:
“O…
NRC file photo of Entergy’s Pilgrim atomic reactor, a Fukushima twin-designOn Jan. 26th, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) slapped Entergy Pilgrim (photo, left) with two “White Findings” in the aftermath of four unplanned shutdowns in 2013, …
Continue readingLogo from Public Citizens’ action alertPublic Citizen, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, PowerDC, and others have organized a rally in opposition to the proposed Exelon-Pepco merger, to be held in downtown Baltimore, MD at 10:30am on Thurs., Feb. 5th….
Continue readingCooper atomic reactor is shown here during a historic flood in the 1990s.As reported by Joe Jordan at Nebraska Watchdog, security protocols have changed little, if at all, at the Cooper nuclear power plant (photo, left) in Nebraska, a full year after a…
Continue readingvia Asahi Shimbun / February 1, 2015 / A 24-hour convenience store has reopened in this small town, even though the former residents are still not allowed to stay overnight due to concerns over radioactive contamination. FamilyMart’s Kamishigeoka outlet servicing the community of Naraha resumed operation on Jan. 30. The store was forced to close on March 12, 2011, as the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant … Continue reading →
Continue readingPolitical cartoon by Jim Day of the Las Vegas Review Journal (be sure to count the toes!). President Obama and his DOE defunded and walked away from the Yucca Mountain dump project in 2009-2010, declaring it “unworkable.”As reported by Steve Tetrault a…
Continue readingNRC file photo of Entergy’s Pilgrim atomic reactor, located south of Boston on Cape Cod Bay. Plymouth, MA bore the brunt of winter storm “Juno,” but Pilgrim was one of the only electric grid casualites.As reported by Wicked Local Plymouth, despite bear…
Continue readingIronically enough, NEI left this Tweet up for days after Pilgrim was shut down by snow storm “Juno”!As reported by the Boston Globe, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission will send a 4-5 person Special Inspection Team to Entergy Nuclear’s Pilgrim atom…
Continue readingNRC file photo of Entergy’s Pilgrim atomic reactor, on Cape Cod Bay south of Boston. Pilgrim bore the brunt of Nor’easter “Juno.” NRC’s website reports that Pilgrim is still at 0% power, as of 9pm Eastern ThursdayAs reported by the Pulitzer-Prize winni…
Continue readingIrradiated nuclear fuel being moved in a high-level radioactive waste storage pools. The courts ruled in 2012 that NRC’s days (well, many decades!) of lawlessness regarding nuclear waste generation, storage, and disposal are over.In a legal filing toda…
Continue readingvia NHK World / January 27, 2015 / Japanese fishers have demanded that the operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant gain their understanding before releasing decontaminated water into the sea. The head of a national federation of fisheries cooperatives, Hiroshi Kishi, submitted the request to industry minister Yoichi Miyazawa on Tuesday. The Nuclear Regulation Authority last week released a plan to discharge decontaminated water below government standards into … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia phys.org / January 28, 2015 / A Virginia Tech professor is part of a team of scientists from Japan and the United States that may have discovered a way to remove radioactive cesium from the millions of gallons of contaminated water being held at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant following the 2011 disaster. “Radioactive cesium is the major radioactive component from the reactor,” said Barry Goodell, professor of sustainable … Continue reading →
Continue readingCarol Browner, a paid spokesman for industry PR front group “Nuclear Matters,” is but the latest in a long line of nuclear power snake oil salesman, seeking to gouge ratepayers and taxpayers”Nuclear Matters,” a high-priced front group featuring paid, p…
Continue readingNRC file photo of Davis-Besse on the Lake Erie shoreline east of ToledoAs reported by Tom Henry of The Toledo Blade, the Jan. 15 Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) hearing in Toledo revealed a growing coalition of environmental, public interest…
Continue reading“Burning money” image by Gene Case, Avenging AngelsOn Jan. 27, the City Club of Chicago is sponsoring a luncheon under the innocent-sounding heading of, “Illinois’ Energy Future: A Policy Discussion.” However, two of the main …
Continue readingNRC file photo of Entergy Nuclear’s Pilgrim atomic reactor on Cape Cod Bay near BostonAs reported by The Enterprise, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has kept Entergy Nuclear’s Pilgrim atomic reactor (photo, left), near Boston, on its “degr…
Continue readingORGANIZE!As reported by David Roberts at Grist, Exelon Nuclear proposed takeover of Pepco represents a “Big, nuke-heavy utility looking for new ratepayers to fleece.” It is part and parcel of Exelon’s desperate bid to keep its dirty, dangerous, uncompe…
Continue readingTransCanada Pipelines, infamous for its Keystone XL tar sands pipeline scheme, is also a nuclear power utility and generator of radioactive wastes.
TransCanada is a major partner in Bruce Nuclear, which leases and operates Ontario Power Generation’s B…
Entergy’s Palisades atomic reactor is located on the Lake Michigan shoreline in Covert, MI. The Great Lakes serve as drinking water for 40 million North Americans in 8 U.S. states, 2 Canadian provinces, and a large number of Native American First Natio…
Continue readingvia ubergizmo.com / January 18, 2014 / Robots are wonderful workers for a few reasons – they do not get tired, they do not complain and neither will they congregate around a water cooler to gossip about their superior and his or her flaws. Not only that, robots do not have a union, and will be unable to go on strike – not to mention in a more practical manner, … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia theguardian.co.uk / Januray 20, 2015 / A worker at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has died after falling into an empty water storage tank, in the latest of a series of accidents at the site of the worst nuclear disaster for a quarter of a century. The death was the second at Fukushima Daiichi in less than a year, but the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia world-nuclear-news.org / January 13, 2015 / Work began on the Naraha Remote Technology Development Centre, which is being built by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA), in September 2014. The centre at Nahara-Minami industrial park is due to begin full operations in the 2016 fiscal year. The complex will house a mock-up of the lower part of a reactor containment vessel, representing the interior of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear … Continue reading →
Continue readingThe Japanese nuclear industry has announced it will permanently close five more of its remaining 48 “operable” nuclear reactors by March 2015, leaving the country with 43 reactors “operable” but still not actually “operating.” Two of the plants to be d…
Continue readingAs many of our anti-nuclear colleagues rallied on Sunday to pay tribute to their fallen comdrades at Charlie Hebdo, their protest against the silencing of dissenting voices was brought close to home once again. The group Coordination Anti-nucléa…
Continue readingvia pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca / A paper published in December 2014 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) details the arrival and concentration of radioactive isotopes from the Fukushima nuclear reactor in the North Pacific Ocean. This paper, by Fisheries and Oceans scientist Dr. John Smith, documents the first and only systematic study of its kind validating ocean circulation models while tracking the eastward movement of radioactive isotopes. On … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia scmp.com / January 9, 2015 / South Korean experts will visit Japan next week for further investigation before deciding whether to lift an import ban on Japanese marine products imposed following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear crisis, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said on Friday. During the four-day investigation from Tuesday, the second of its kind since December, a team consisting of South Korean researchers and consumer group representatives will visit … Continue reading →
Continue readingBy Scott Dunn / thedigitalfirehouse.fr / January 8, 2015 / When most people think of nuclear power, they think of thousands of barrels of waste that no one can touch or do anything about. They look for ways to keep the waste out of their backyards. They think of crusty old domes near their homes or freeways that could go off any day now. As mentioned before in several articles … Continue reading →
Continue reading“Nuclear power burning money” image, created by Gene Case of Avenging Angels, was featured on the cover of The Nation magazine. Used with permission of the artist.As reported by FierceEnergy, First Energy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC) commissio…
Continue readingWorkers pictured at Palisades last spring doing repair work on top of the reactor vessel head. Entergy provided this and other photos of the work to the NRC.As reported by Lindsey Smith at Michigan Radio, around 185 workers at Entergy’s Palisades a…
Continue readingA map of Nuclear Illinois, prepared by NEISAs reported by Kari Lydersen of Midwest Energy News in an article entitled “Illinois report says Exelon nuclear straits not so dire,” a massive bailout of $580 million per year at ratepayer expense may not b…
Continue readingWe pause today to remember those slain at the French satirical news magazine Charlie Hebdo. Several of the cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo were close allies of the French anti-nuclear movement, even providing cartoons to the French anti-nuclear network, “…
Continue readingvia RT.com / January 5, 2015 / For the first time since the 2011 disaster, all of the rice harvested in Fukushima Prefecture this year has passed radiation tests and now can be deemed safe for consumption, according to local officials. Virtually all of the rice harvested in Fukushima in 2014 – or some 360,000 tonnes – has been checked for radiation and met the national standards of less than … Continue reading →
Continue readingToday, thanks to decades of citizen organizing and protest; the wise backing of the elected officials of the State of Vermont; the attempted deception of Vermont Yankee owners, Entergy, whose representatives even lied under oath; and the hopeless econo…
Continue reading