Salty Shorts: Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant
Maggie Jones, Saltwater Studios Salty Shorts →
Alarm about radioactive leak at most contaminated site in U.S. — “We’ve got a problem, this is big” (VIDEO)
ENENews / Shannon Dininny and Mike Baker, Associated Press Article source →
“You couldn’t find a more perfect radioactive storm … I am alarmed about this on many levels. This raises concerns, not only about the existing leak … but also concerning the integrity of the other single shell tanks of this age.”Gov. Jay Inslee
The long-delayed cleanup of the nation’s most contaminated nuclear site became the subject of more bad news Friday, when Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced that a radioactive waste tank there is leaking.
On Friday, the U.S. Department of Energy said liquid levels are decreasing in one of 177 underground tanks at the site.
[...] Inslee said the tank is the first to have been documented to be losing liquids since all Hanford tanks were stabilized in 2005. His staff said the federal government is working to assess other tanks. [...]
“We’re out of time, obviously. These tanks are starting to fail now,” said Tom Carpenter of the Hanford watchdog group Hanford Challenge. “We’ve got a problem. This is big.” [...]
TV: Nuclear facilities near where meteor fragments landed in Russia — Radiation testing to continue throughout day — Location of third worst nuke accident ever (VIDEO)
ENENews / Russia Today News Source →
Transcript at 3:30 in:
Host: What else do they say regarding mobile phone communications and radiation levels at the moment? [...]
Reporter: This is the zinc plant I was talking about. You will see in just a second that there’s a humungous hole in the middle of that building.
This is another thing we should keep in mind is that Chelyabinsk has been a closed region for a very long time. During the soviet era, it was essentially the center of the nuclear research. Top secret facilities are all over the place there. There is one nuclear storage facility called Mayak*.
A lot of people are saying this is really in the best graces that none of the asteroids, and there were at least 5 fragments of the asteroid, that it’s really fortunate that none of the asteroid had landed into that facility. Because that obviously, we would be talking about nuclear disaster there.
Again the minister of emergencies is saying all nuclear facilities in the region are working top notch, nothing out of the extraordinary happening there.
*Wikipedia: The Kyshtym disaster was a radiation contamination incident that occurred on 29 September 1957 at Mayak [Chelyabinsk-40], a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in the Soviet Union. It measured as a Level 6 disaster on the International Nuclear Event Scale, making it the third most serious nuclear accident ever recorded (after the Chernobyl disaster, and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, both Level 7 on the INES).
AFP: The Chelyabinsk region is Russia’s industrial heartland, filled with smoke-chugging factories and other huge facilities that include a nuclear power plant and the massive Mayak atomic waste storage and treatment centre.[...] “All Rosatom enterprises located in the Urals region — including the Mayak complex — are working as normal,” an unnamed Rosatom spokesman told Interfax.
Update from RT: “Officials did do preliminary testing of radiation levels in the area. They say that that is ok. But of course tests are going to continue throughout the day. [...] Radiation levels are ok at the moment but of course we’ll have to bring you up to date as the developments come in.”
Bills being introduced in the Massachusetts Statehouse 2013
Representative James Cantwell
An Act increasing nuclear power plant protections to a twenty mile radius. PDF
Amend Section 5K(E) of Chapter 111 to assess power companies $400,000 per reactor (Pilgrim, VY & Seabrook) to fund DPH radiation control program. PDF
Representative Sarah Peake & Ann-Margaret Ferrante
An Act increasing nuclear power plant protections to a twenty mile radius. PDF
MEMA to assess the present preparedness in Barnstable and Essex Counties and to determine the need for, and appropriateness of, any additional specific steps for a radiological accident at Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station and Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant. PDF
Senator Dan Wolf
Increase Protections to 20 Miles (and including cities and towns located in Barnstable, Dukes and Nantucket counties, as well as in the area known as Cape Ann in Essex county. PDF
Opponent of Pilgrim’s license renewal talks about denied contention, vote by NRC commissioner
- Opponent of Pilgrim’s license renewal talks about denied contention, vote by NRC commissioner
WATD-FM interview: Pine duBois, JRWA Source →
On Thursday, the Atomic Safety Licensing Board denied a contention filed by the Jones River Watershed Association. The contention related to environmental effects on Atlantic Sturgeon and herring that call the Jones River home, was denied by the panel for failing to satisfy the criteria for reopening a closed record, and failing to satisfy ‘the (late-filed) contention admissibility criteria.’
Video: Are U.S. Nuclear Plants Ready for a Fukushima-Like Meltdown?
PBS: Are U.S. Nuclear Plants Ready for a Fukushima-Like Meltdown? PBS NewsHour →
When Chairman Gregory Jaczko resigned from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission this week, reports suggested it was linked to battles within the commission over safety requirements. In the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Miles O’Brien reports on how government regulators in the U.S. set the safety bar for nuclear plants.
Audio: “Sounds of Dissent” (WZBC) with Pilgrim Coalition & Beyond Nuclear
- Audio: “Sounds of Dissent” (WZBC) with Pilgrim Coalition & Beyond Nuclear
Pilgrim Nuclear Power Fight Heats Up in Massachusetts Source →
Political fallout from the Fukushima nuclear disaster is fueling local opposition to the Pilgrim Nuclear Reactor in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The aging facility’s operating license expires on June 8, 2012, and its owners want a 20-year extension. It looked like it had a green light from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which recommended an approval vote. But out of nowhere, local opposition to the license grew and spread from town to town, stiffening the backs of state and Congressional representatives, the state Attorney General, and the Governor, who urged the NRC to deny the vote until outstanding public safety and environmental concerns can be resolved. The organizers of that remarkable effort join us for this interview. With South Shore activists Anna Baker and Pine Dubois of the Pilgrim Coalition, and Paul Gunter of the DC-based group, Beyond Nuclear. Live radio interview by Amy Grunder, first aired on “Sounds of Dissent” on WZBC 90.3 FM Boston on May 12, 2012.
Danger Zone: Aging nuclear reactors
Danger Zone: Aging nuclear reactors Center for Investigative Reporting →
Despite the Fukushima catastrophe in Japan last March, nuclear power is experiencing a rebirth in the United States. Billions of dollars in federal funding has been allocated to develop nuclear capacity; applications are under consideration to build more than a dozen new reactors; and last month, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced approval for the construction of the first new nuclear reactors in more than three decades.
But what about the nation’s existing fleet of aging reactors? Licensed to operate for 40 years, many of these plants are steadily, if quietly, getting extensions from the NRC. Seventy-one of the nation’s 104 plants already have won approval for 20-year extensions. This video takes a closer look into surprising problems in the NRC’s oversight of aging nuclear plants.
Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Volume 1181, Published in 2009
Alexey V. Yablokov, Vassily B. Nesterenko, Alexy V. Nesterenko, Janette D. Sherman-Nevinger (Consulting Editor) http://www.strahlentelex.de/Yablokov Chernobyl book.pdf