http://www.beyondnuclear.org/home/2019/1/29/nrc-commissioners-in-partisan-vote-slash-agency-rulemaking-o.html
[In the name of public safety, the regulator could make decisions based
on experience, expertise, evidence, data and considered study. Or they
could do this. What could possibly go wrong?
links in online article]
NRC Commissioners in partisan vote slash agency rulemaking on severe
accident upgrades for US reactors
On January 24, 2019, a majority of five voting members of the U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) rolled back more than seven years of
the agency’s technical study on the hazards and lessons learned for US
reactors from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear catastrophe. In a vote along
party lines, the three appointed Republican Commissioners voted against
incorporating years of new science and management strategies to safely
contain a severe nuclear accident following extreme earthquakes and
flooding. The Commission vote drastically undercut a requirement to
industry operators to make safety upgrades at U.S. nuclear power
stations that were built decades ago. Instead of requiring operators to
upgrade, the Commission reduced the rule to allowing industry voluntary
compliance, effectively stripping the agency of enforcement action.
Nuclear power stations will now only pay but a small fraction of the
cost for implementing Fukushima upgrades determined as necessary by
agency staff and independent nuclear safety experts.
The Commission majority voted to allow licensees to ignore modern
methods and science to quantify and qualify the hazards from extreme
natural events including earthquake and flooding on nuclear safety as
demonstrated in the Fukushima catastrophe. Instead, operators will be
allowed to rely upon the outdated hazard analysis that the original
reactor design was licensed under, also known as “design basis accidents.”
As Fukushima's GE Mark I boiling water reactors were not designed and
constructed to withstand the extreme flooding of the 50-foot tsunami
generated by a 9-magnitude earthquake, the nuclear power plant site
experience three severe accidents that led to multiple reactor core
meltdowns and breaches of containment. US reactors are similarly not
adequately prepared for extreme but real world events such as
unprecedented flooding created from climate change and “beyond design
basis accidents” earthquakes.
“This outcome is a complete U-turn for NRC,” said appointed Democrat
Commissioner Jeff Baran in his notated vote sheet for the protection of
the public safety from nuclear accidents. Baran charged his Republican
members of the Commission as gutting the rule of key Fukushima lessons
learned and actions needed to address critical safety vulnerabilities in
US reactors. Commissioner went on to say, “The changes to the final rule
supported by the majority will, in my view, significantly weaken what
will be the agency's most enduring action as a result of lessons learned
from the Fukushima Daiichi accident. In doing so, the Commission will
have systematically and inexplicably unraveled a framework for
addressing beyond-design-basis external events carefully crafted as a
collaborative effort between the NRC staff and our external stakeholders
over the past seven and a half years.”
NRC Commissioner Stephen Burns, who was equally disturbed by the
Commission vote, and quoted from the official report of the National
Diet of Japan's Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation
Commission, where Chairman Kiyoshi Kurokawa said, “The earthquake and
tsunami of March 11, 2011 were natural disasters of a magnitude that
shocked the entire world. Although triggered by these cataclysmic
events, the subsequent accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power
Plant cannot be regarded as a natural disaster. It was a profoundly
manmade disaster that could and should have been foreseen and prevented.
And its effects could have been mitigated by a more effective human
response.”
Voting to ignore some of the most important lessons of Fukushima, strip
the agency of enforcement capability and shield an already financially
beleaguered U.S. nuclear power from the cost of staff recommended
actions and upgrades were Chairwoman Kristine Svenicki, Commissioner
Annie Caputo and Commissioner David Wright.
===================================================================
http://www.beyondnuclear.org/yucca-mountain/2019/1/31/trump-administration-secretly-shipped-radioactive-plutonium.html
[Rule of law and the rights of citizens, clearly that's what the current
U.S. administration is about.
links in online article]
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION SECRETLY SHIPPED RADIOACTIVE PLUTONIUM TO NEVADA
DESPITE STATE'S OPPOSITION
As posted at the State of Nevada Agency for Nuclear Project's "What's
News?" page:
Updated - Thursday, January 31, 2019
Fox News - Weapons-grade plutonium was secretly shipped from South
Carolina to Nevada, Department of Energy says - By Frank Miles, Fox News
Updated - Wednesday, January 30, 2019
KTVN - Sisolak, Ford Respond to Secret Plutonium Shipment - By
Chris Buckley
Las Vegas Review Journal - Weapons-grade plutonium secretly sent to
facility north of Las Vegas - By Gary Martin, Las Vegas Review-Journal
The Nevada Independent - Federal government discloses it already
shipped plutonium to Nevada, without state's knowledge or consent - By
Michelle Rindels & Humberto Sanchez
KTNV Las Vegas - Nevada lawmakers outraged by secret plutonium
shipment - By: Joyce Lupiani & Jordan Gartner
The Hill - Trump administration secretly shipped plutonium to
Nevada - By Timothy Cama
Newsweek - TRUMP ADMINISTRATION SECRETLY SHIPPED RADIOACTIVE
PLUTONIUM TO NEVADA DESPITE STATE'S OPPOSITION - By Christina Zhao
New York Post - Department of Energy secretly sent nuclear waste to
Nevada - By Bob Fredericks
See links to NV's lawsuit against the weapons-grade Pu shipments, here.
The sprawling Nevada National Security Site (formerly known as the
Nevada Test Site, where full-scale nuclear weapons test explosions had
been conducted from 1951 to 1992 -- and still are, in terms of
sub-critical blasts involving Pu and conventional explosives) abuts
Yucca Mountain, Nevada, on Western Shoshone Indian Nation land.]
Update on January 31, 2019 by Registered Commenteradmin
KOLO TV has also reported on this story.
Update on January 31, 2019 by Registered Commenteradmin
The U.S. Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration
has issued a statement regarding the secretive weapons-grade plutonium
shipment(s) to Nevada.
