NRC's Nuke Waste Confidence EIS will delay reactor licenses for at least two years!

Cover of Beyond Nuclear's pamphlet "A Mountain of Radioactive Waste 70 Years High"The five Commissioners who direct the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) have just ordered NRC Staff to carry out an expedited, two-year long Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) process to revise the agency's Nuclear Waste Confidence Decision (NWCD) and Rule. Critics have charged the NWCD is a confidence game, which for decades has prevented environmental opponents of new reactor construction/operation licenses, as well as old reactor license extensions, from raising high-level radioactive waste generation/storage concerns during NRC licensing proceedings, or even in the federal courts. This EIS process and NWCD revision will thus delay any final NRC approval for new reactor construction/operation licenses, or old reactor license extensions, for at least two years.

The Court's ruling mandated that NRC give a "hard look" at the safety, security, and environmental risks and impacts of extended (not years or decades, but centuries or even permanent) storage of high-level radioactive waste at reactors sites, in pools and/or dry casks.

The "Mountain of Radioactive Waste 70 Years High" conference in Chicago Dec. 1-3 will serve as a launch pad for generating public comments to NRC on this EIS, as well as to push back against the nuclear establishment's backlash proposals to begin "Mobile Chernobyl" irradiated nuclear fuel shipments by road, rail, and waterway to "consolidated interim storage." See Beyond Nuclear's pamphlet on high-level radioactive waste (cover reproduced at left). More.

"Cyber war" threatens nuclear facilities

Public Radio International's The World has reported that the U.S. military now recognizes "cyber war" as the "new fifth domain of war between states, after air, land, sea and outer space." It reported "the humanitarian consequences of a cyber attack could include damage to infrastructure like power grids and toxic waste facilities," which could, of course, include atomic reactors and high-level radioactive waste storage pools. Bennett Ramberg warned more than 25 years ago that reactors and radioactive waste could be targeted during war, in his book Nuclear Power Plants as Weapons for the Enemy: An Unrecognized Military Peril. The Stuxnet computer worm, targeted at the Iranian uranium enrichment facilities, is rumored to have been launched by the U.S. and/or Israeli militaries, although no radioactivity releases to the environment from the resulting damage were reported.

Beyond Nuclear questions security claims made by industry, NRC

In a Cleveland Plain Dealer article entitled "Federal security concerns since 9/11 have turned U.S. nuclear power plants into armed fortresses," Beyond Nuclear's Paul Gunter questioned claims by the nuclear power industry and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that security at atomic reactors is strong. The article concluded:

"None of the proposed preparations to cope with a natural disaster or a terrorist attack are adequate, said Paul Gunter, director of the reactor oversight project for Beyond Nuclear, an anti-nuclear group.

'The fundamental issue is how can you make something that is inherently dangerous safe,' he challenged. 'This is all spin. The vulnerability of nuclear power plants to the loss of offsite power remains an issue coming out of Fukushima as well as 9-11.' "

Potential catastrophic consequences that could be unleashed by a terrorist attack at Indian Point

As the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks draws near, it is sobering and enlightening to remember a 2004 report written by Dr. Ed Lyman at Union of Concerned Scientists. Entitled "Chernobyl on the Hudson? The Health and Economic Impacts of a Terrorist Attack at the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant," the report concludes that despite a successful evacuation, up to 44,000 early fatalities would still be possible due to catastrophic radioactivity releases. Similarly, "over 500,000 latent cancer fatalities could occur under certain meteorological conditions." In addition, "The economic impact and disruption for New York City residents resulting from a terrorist attack on Indian Point could be immense, involving damages from hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars, and the permanent displacement of millions of individuals. This would dwarf the impacts of the September 11 attacks." Although Riverkeeper, the Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition, and even New York Governor Cuomo continue to oppose Indian Point's 20 year license extension, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission appears poised to approve it, as it has more than 70 other license extensions at atomic reactors across the U.S. 

"Homeland Security warns about potential threats against utilities"

Although this story by CNN does not mention nuclear power plants explicitly, it does feature a photograph of one! As the anti-nuclear movement has warned since even long before the 9/11 attacks, but especially so since, nuclear power plants and radioactive waste storage facilities are potentially catastrophic targets for terrorist attack, dirty bombs in our backyard of immense size.

Update on July 21, 2011 by admin

ABC News was explicit about nuclear power plants in its coverage of this story, reporting:

"U.S. officials were stunned last year in Yemen with the arrest of an alleged American recruit to al Qaeda, Sharif Mobley, of New Jersey, who had been employed as five different U.S. nuclear power plants in and around Pennsylvania after successfully passing federal background checks."