Nuclear Power – It’s time to stop NOW!

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When will we learn?

While proponents of nuclear see it as a low-carbon way to produce energy, once the carbon footprint of the extraction and processing of uranium are taken into account, that climate friendly image disappears quickly. It’s just another move in the corporate industrial shell game. Low-E lifestyles powered by wind, solar, and muscle are the only way to save our world.

This month, the Indian Point nuclear power plant in New York state sprung a tritium leak into the surrounding groundwater supply, with some of the plants wells reading a 65,000% increase in radiation. Supporters of nuclear energy claim the radiation from the tritium is well within the acceptable range determined by the NRC. We opponents of nuclear tech dispute that range, and many refute that there can be any acceptable amount of radioactive tritium released into the environment.

The NRC concedes that radioactive groundwater contamination has occurred at all nuclear plants in the US.
Not most. All.

The DOE is making a cozy deal with Canada to take shipments of liquid nuclear waste from Ontario to South Carolina.

Liquid nuclear waste - It's pretty much exactly what you would think
Liquid nuclear waste – It’s pretty much exactly what you would think

There is a massive underground fire in Missouri that is dangerously near a nuclear waste dump. The EPA apparently does not consider this an emergency.

In Japan, Fukushima is far from over, and  a recent volcanic eruption caused a close call of epic proportions with another nuclear plant.

As the aging global fleet of power plants decays into disrepair, industry seems only interested in building new plants. Belgium is currently facing the risk of an event of Chernobyl proportions.

And still, at home, we must fight against a nuclear waste dump that would be less than a mile from the shore of Lake Huron.

The Great Lakes are the drinking water source for over 30 million people. 20% of the Earth’s fresh surface water. Help us protect this precious bioregion. Take a stand against nuclear power, and join CACC today!

80 Groups Urge Canada: Reject Great Lakes Nuke Dump!

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CACC is proud to have signed this letter. We are dedicated to stopping nuclear power at every turn. The following was written by Kevin Kamps, Radioactive Waste Watchdog for Beyond Nuclear. 

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada and Washington, D.C. – Outlining the legal grounds for the Canadian federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change Catherine McKenna to reject Ontario Power Generation’s bid to bury radioactive wastes right beside Lake Huron, 80 public interest groups from Canada and the US have issued a joint letter as pressure mounts on McKenna to make the right call. McKenna is due to issue her decision on or before March 1, 2016.

Thanking McKenna for responding positively to the joint letter sent by NuclearWaste Watch in November by extending the timeline for issuing a decision statement on Ontario Power Generation’s proposal to bury up to half a million cubic metres of radioactive wastes beside Lake Huron, the February 8th correspondence restates that the Joint Review Panel (JRP) recommendation that Ontario Power Generation’s proposed Deep Geologic Repository for Low and Intermediate Level Radioactive Wastes be allowed to move to licensing was in error, and sets out several examples of how Ontario Power Generation failed to meet the requirements of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA 2012), the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) Guidelines, and the JRP Agreement, which are the three legal requirements.

Ontario Power Generation’s proposal was to bury 200,000 cubic metres of low and intermediate level radioactive wastes produced during reactor operations deep underground in a series of underground caverns carved out of limestone. Weeks before the federal hearing began in September 2013, OPG publicly acknowledged its intention to double that amount by adding decommissioning wastes – including radioactive reactor components and contaminated building materials and rubble – through a license amendment after approval based on the initial proposal has been issued.

The proposal faces large and growing public opposition. 184 municipalitiesrepresenting more than 22 million people have passed resolutions opposing OPG’sproposed waste repository. On November 5, 2015, a bipartisan group of six U.S. Senators and 26 U.S. Representatives from a number of Great Lakes states wrote to Prime Minister Trudeau urging him to block the deep geological repository.

“Momentum continues to build against this burial scheme,” said Kevin Kamps, a radioactive waste specialist with Takoma Park, Maryland, U.S.A.-based organization Beyond Nuclear, a national and international watchdog on the nuclear power industry.

“McKenna made a good call in November, extending the deadline for the decision statement on the Joint Panel Report, which allowed her and her staff more time to get to know this file,” commented Brennain Lloyd, a spokesperson with Northwatch.

“Now comes the bigger test: rejecting Ontario Power Generation’s nuclear waste burial scheme.”

The Feb. 8th letter to Canadian Environment Minister McKenna is posted online HERE

The Supreme Court just burned us on climate change

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Tuesday, Republican Supreme Court Justices used their majority to derail what stands to be the most meaningful climate action ever taken by the US

While Supreme Court Justices are supposedly non-partisan actors, the US Supreme Court is clearly divided along party lines, with five Republicans and four Democrats.

While the Democrats voted to allow the rules to take effect, the majority Republican group opposed that vote, and issued orders:
“the Environmental Protection Agency’s ‘Carbon Pollution Emission Guidelines for Existing Stationary Sources: Electric Utility Generating Units,’ is stayed pending disposition of the applicants’ petitions for review in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and disposition of the applicants’ petition for a writ of certiorari, if such writ is sought.”
Because of the Supreme Court’s schedule and the complex nature of this case, Tuesday evening’s order could delay the rules until after President Obama leaves office. In fact the rules may never go into effect because they are now dependent on the outcome of this year’s presidential election.