12.18 #StopPlantVogtle PACK THE PCS - No More Money For New Nukes in Georgia

#StopPlantVogtle

NO NEW NUKES!

PACK THE PCS Part II | Stop Plant Vogtle

facebook event: "Pack the PSC- Part 2!" 

The Public Service Commission is in charge of approving Southern Company's costs for Voglte 3 and 4, two nuclear reactors they're building in Burke County, Georgia.

At the last PSC meeting, Southern Companysaid that the project is behind schedule, and they have no limit on the nuclear tax (nuclear construction cost recovery fee) they charge us each month on our bills.

On December 18, the Public Service Commissioners will weigh in on the Voglte project.

Let's show them that we aren't just outraged, we're organized! We won't pay for dirty, dangerous energy with our money or our lives!

On November 27, we packed the PSC with 20 people speaking out against Plant Vogtle and the PSC's approval of Southern Company's costs on the project. Let's build on this momentum and increase our numbers! Join us at the meeting, where we'll show up in strong force and with a unified message in our public comments.

Planning Meeting:Tuesday, December 11, 7 pm, Georgia WAND office, 250 Georgia Ave. Suite 202

Public Comments Rehearsal: Monday, December 17, 7 pm, Georgia WAND office, 250 Georgia Ave. Suite 202

PSC Meeting: Tuesday December 18, 9:30 am, 244 Washington Street

TAKE ACTION Pack the PSC – Part 2! | Georgia WAND

facebook event: "Pack the PSC- Part 2!" 

12.15-16 TOKYO ★Nuclear Free Now 脱原発世界大行進２ Metropolitan Coalition Against Nukes

１２月１５日～１６日に東京・日比谷と郡山で同時参加型アクション「Nuclear Free Now」が開催されます。毎週金曜の首相官邸前抗議を呼びかけている「首都圏反原発連合」は日比谷公園出発のデモを担当します。また、デモ出発前に予定されている「さようなら原発一千万署名 市民の会」が担当する「Nuclear Free Now さようなら原発世界大集会」にも協力します。 1日も早い「原発0」を実現するために、声をあげていきましょう。どなたでもお気軽にご参加ください。首都圏にお住まいの方はもちろん、全国からの皆さんのご参集をお願いします。

MORE > ★Nuclear Free Now 脱原発世界大行進２ Metropolitan Coalition Against Nukes

12.11 SF PROTEST THE BURNING OF RADIOACTIVE RUBBLE IN SISTER CITY OSAKA | No Nukes Action Committee

[from Umi Hagitani]   No Nukes Action Committee and other groups and individuals against nukes will protest at the Japanese Consulate in downtown San Francisco on December 11th at 3pm… [50 Fremont Street, near Embarcadero BART].  For the past four months, we’ve focused on appealing to Japan’s Prime Minister Noda.  This time is different!  We will protest the City of Osaka’s decision to incinerate radioactive rubble at its Maishima  incineration facility …  The City has already burned debris as a test, on November 27th.   People in Osaka are expressing their concern and need our support.

[The Maishima Incineration Plant in Osaka, architectural design by Friedensreich Hundertwasser]

Many evacuees from the North East are now in Osaka due to fear of radiation.  For people in the North East and in Tokyo, food products from the less contaminated West Japan have been a life line. 

Moreover, the incinerator plant was designed by an anti-nuke architect, Friedensreich Hundertwasser.  In the downwind area of this facility sits Universal Studio Japan, where families and children from all over Japan visit.  We are urged to express our concern against this inhumane and undemocratic decision of Osaka city.  We do not need more contamination and exposure to radiation.  Niigata prefecture made a brave decision to keep rubble from Iwate concealed and returned it back to Iwate upon request.  So should Osaka.  Osaka is the capitol of great cuisine, culture and diversity.  As citizens of its sister city, San Francisco, we urge Osaka city to immediately stop the incineration of radioactive debris, and return it to whence it came in the safest way possible. 

今まで、No Nukes Action Committeeは、原発を止める意思を同じくする人々とともに、毎月SF日本領事館前で抗議行動を行いました。過去四回は日本の野田首相に向けて署名やメッセージを提出してきました。今回は、大阪市の橋下徹市長に向けてメッセージを送りたいと考えています。大阪市は、11月29日から27時間にわたり、経済的復興などの目的も兼ねて、放射能以外の有毒物質も含む東北からのがれきの「試験」焼却を始めました。放射能を恐れ、東北から多くの人々が自主避難をし、大阪市の人々もがれき焼却に反対しているというのに、です。また、東北や関東地区の人々にとっては、西日本の汚染程度の低い食品が命綱であります。また、今回試験焼却をした焼却場は、かの反核美術・建築家であったフンデルトワッサー氏がデザインした舞州焼却場です。また、大阪をはじめ、全国の子どもや家族が利用する娯楽施設ユニヴァーサル・スタジオ・ジャパンは、この焼却場の風下に位置しています。私たちは、大阪市が下した、この非民主的な被ばくの拡大決定を大変憂います。私たちはこれ以上の被ばくを望みません。新潟では、住民の意思をくみ、岩手からのがれきを返却する英断をしました。大阪は食と文化、多様性と、笑いの都です。大阪の姉妹都市であるサンフランシスコ市の住民として、私たちは、大阪市に東北からのがれき焼却の即中止と、がれきの安全な密閉と返却を要求いたします。

Sign the Petition to Stop the Incineration of Radioactive Disaster Debris in Osaka!

December 11th 3 pm PROTEST THE BURNING OF RADIOACTIVE RUBBLE IN SF SISTER CITY OSAKA

No Nukes Action Committee | facebook

Closing Ceremony • Buddhist March, Fast and Vigil to Decommission San Onofre

12.7 SAN CLEMENTE

Closing Ceremony • Buddhist March, Fast and Vigil to Decommission San Onofre

9:30 a.m.

Join the Buddhist March, Fast and Vigil to Decommission San Onofre

via Gene Stone

We will have a closing Ceremony at 9:30 am to 10:30 am on Friday Dec 7 with our Buddhist guests on the beach just north of the San Clemente pier, please plan to attend.

Setting sun on the Buddhist monks, day six In San Clemente.

also:

Via Gary Headrick: "(Tuesday) was a mid-fast break to cleanse our mind, body and soul. Although I had permission to tape the ceremony, I didn't want to do any more than just capture the setting for you. After not eating anything for three days you would expect a feeding frenzy, but it was nothing like that at all. 

"Of course, anything would have tasted good at that point, but the food selection and preparation and prayers and ceremony added so much more than I expected. A small makeshift alter was arranged to bless our food. We began by drinking a bowl full of cold water. That was followed by 3 bowls of hot water that had a few pickled plums soaking in them. Then we had cabbage leaves and other vegetables with miso paste lightly spread on them. Next came the fruits with bananas, apples, and persimmons. We finished it all off with some black tea and honey and some plain vanilla cookies. Everything seemed like perfection. It is making me incredibly hungry just describing it to you. I look forward to having a similar experience again when my fasting ends tomorrow." 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=-ETKsbI6pGs

Join the Buddhist March, Fast and Vigil to Decommission San Onofre

see also: whats up: Join the Buddhist March, Fast and Vigil to Decommission San Onofre

A Simple Statement On Nuclear Power and Climate Change - NIRS

---

---

A Simple Statement On Nuclear Power and Climate Change - NIRS

We're getting a little tired hearing nuclear industry lobbyists and pro-nuclear politicians allege that environmentalists are now supporting nuclear power as a means of addressing the climate crisis. We know that's not true, and we're sure you do too. In fact, using nuclear power would be counterproductive at reducing carbon emissions. As Amory Lovins of Rocky Mountain Institute points out, "every dollar invested in nuclear expansion will worsen climate change by buying less solution per dollar..."

The simple statement below will be sent to the media and politicians whenever they misstate the facts. We hope you and your organization will join us and sign on in support here.

"We do not support construction of new nuclear reactors as a means of addressing the climate crisis. Available renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies are faster, cheaper, safer and cleaner strategies for reducing greenhouse emissions than nuclear power."

---

go sign it > A Simple Statement On Nuclear Power and Climate Change - NIRS

Nuclear Information and Resource Service - NIRS

via Bacon's Rebellion | Reinventing Virginia for the 21st Century -

The Curse of the Yellow Powder

Is it possible to restore a landscape damaged by uranium? Ask the Navajo in New Mexico.

by Rose Jenkins

This fall, near Teddy Nez’s house on the Navajo reservation near Gallup, N.M., men in earth-moving equipment were scraping away the topsoil, up to three feet deep, which had been contaminated by radioactivity from abandoned uranium mines. In earlier phases of this project, starting in 2007, crews had torn out 100-year-old junipers and piñon pines and had clawed earth away from the remaining trees, which weakened them, even after replacement soil was trucked in. The machines had flayed hillsides, whose cover of flowering shrubs and fragrant herbs has yet to grow back. “It looks like a B-52 hit it,” Nez told me, recalling an image from his service in Vietnam.

On our way to his house, Nez pointed out a notch in a bank of yellow grassland at the head of an arroyo. That’s where the Church Rock uranium mill tailings dam broke in 1979, releasing over 1,000 tons of radioactive wastes and millions of gallons of highly acidic water into the Puerco River, an intermittent stream that flows toward the Colorado River. The Church Rock dam failure was the largest radioactive release in U.S. history, by volume — larger than the Three Mile Island disaster the same year.

Nez’s house was upstream of the breached dam but the ground around it was contaminated by dust drifting off of the mountainous piles of waste rock from two nearby uranium mines, which have been out of production for almost 30 years. Nez believes that the continuous exposure has made him and his family sick. His whole family suffers from respiratory problems, he says — himself, his five children, and his seven grandchildren.

For years, he and his neighbors fought for a clean-up, he says, but nothing happened. Finally, in 2007, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) informed them that their situation was an emergency. Radiation levels at Nez’s home measured up to ten times higher than normal background levels for the area.

Nez recounts, “The U.S. EPA says due to the human risk factor, get the people out. And they tell us, we’re going to move you out permanently, relocate you permanently. We say no. And the reason we’re saying no is… our culture, tradition. Our grandma and grandpa, they were here. So we don’t want to leave that land...”

 > MORE: Uranium cleanup

‎12.5 ROCKVILL MD #SanOnofre License Amendment Intervention

‎
12.5 ROCKVILL MD: NRC San Onofre License Amendment Intervention

SAN DIEGO PRESS CONFERENCE 9 AM

Pre-hearing proceeding on San Onofre License Amendment Intervention by Citizens Oversight (COPS) before the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel in its Rockville Hearing Room, located on the third floor of Two White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland. Ray Lutz, representing COPS, will be participating by teleconference at an NRC-scheduled room in downtown San Diego. Hearing length less than three hours. 

PRESS CONFERENCE by Ray Lutz at 9:00 a.m., with 10:00 a.m. Webcast Viewing available, at the World Resources SimCenter near San Diego City Hall (1088 3rd Avenue @ C). Ray will also be available after the hearing for questions at the WRSC (allowing for transit time from the teleconference room in Little Italy).http://www.wrsc.org/ 
(NOTE: free parking at Horton Plaza w/ validation begins at 9:30a, if you enter before 9:30a you get only 30 minutes free parking and it doesn't require validation.) 

If you can't make it to the Press Conference and/or Webcast Viewing Location, PLEASE show your support for holding the NRC and Edison accountable by tuning into the Webcast at: http://www.visualwebcaster.com/event.asp?id=91000 
They DO track the number of viewers, so it's kind of like a "poll" on facilitating public participation in government decision-making. 

Raymond Lutz, Electrical Engineer and Founder of Citizens Oversight, prepared the petition to intervene based on a review of the proposed changes to the operating license of San Onofre. The proposed changes to the license do not directly reflect on the recent emergency shutdown on January 31, 2012, and furthermore, is not in response to the proposal by SCE to operate San Onofre Unit 2 at a lower power level despite massive and severe damage to the steam generator tubes due to excessive vibration.

Instead, the proposed license amendment makes a large number of changes throughout the technical specifications of the operating license. Most of these changes are quite similar in nature: they remove explicit requirements for inspections from the operating license and move these to a separate document which is no longer under the control of the NRC, but is under the control of the licensee, and therefore, it can be changed "at will" by SCE without any notice to the public, opportunity to intervene or request a hearing.

Citizens Oversight believes these changes unnecessarily obfuscate the specification and puts inappropriate trust in the licensee to keep the inspections at a safe level. They rely on the Surveillance Frequency Control Program (SFCP) which utilizes Probability Risk Assessment (PRA) calculations using a set of preconceived failure modes. Such analyses are subject to well understood knowledge-based failure mechanisms of "overconfidence" and limited failure scenarios known to underestimate the variety of failure mechanisms.

An argument will be made by SCE attorneys that the specifications of surveillance frequencies have not changed, since the values of maximum time period between inspections will initially be the same. But under the proposed changes, the licensee can vary these periods without any review by NRC or the public thereafter, and there are no "not-to-exceed" values specified in the specification. Furthermore, moving these values to another document obfuscates actions required by the licensee and may induce operator error as workers search for the correct value in multiple documents.

COPS also objects to many other changes proposed, including allowed leakage from the steam generators into the atmosphere, the fact that the isolation area around the plant is not enforceable, and numerous specification mistakes.

To the knowledge of COPS, no other organization is actively objecting to the license amendment request. 

COPS requested that the event be held near San Onofre, but they refused to hold it so that local residents can attend, although the proceeding will be open to the public in Maryland, and SCE attorneys and NRC staff will be attending in person. COPS representatives will be attending the hearing using a video-conferencing link, and although the NRC is not accommodating participation by the public, COPS is grateful to the World Resources SimCenter for working with us to set up a viewing room nearby, as well as hosting the Press Conference before, and Q&A after. https://www.facebook.com/WorldResourcesSimCenter 

For More Info: Martha at 858/945-6273 or marthasullivan@mac.com

https://www.facebook.com/events/170107793134642/170628453082576/

Why Nuclear Power Doesn't Make Sense

Nuclear Facts - Nuclear - Sierra Club: Why Nuclear Power Doesn't Make Sense

As the disasters at Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima have shown, nuclear power can cause catastrophic damage to land, human health, and our food supply. We should pursue our cleanest, quickest, safest, and cheapest energy options first: Nuclear power comes out last in every one of those categories.

In the long-term, nuclear power is also unnecessary: With an intensive effort to exploit our clean energy resources, we can power our society, create good jobs, and keep our environment healthy with renewable energy such as solar and wind. With the right policies and investments, we can achieve 100 percent renewable energy in our lifetimes -- without nuclear power.

It's Prohibitively Expensive

• Construction of nuclear reactors is very complex and can take up to seven years and up to $10 billion in capital costs.



• Long construction timeframes and large capital costs mean that the payback on the initial investment in a nuclear plant often takes 40 years or more.


• Due to terrorism risks, governments must maintain costly security programs to protect nuclear plants that increase the cost of production -- a factor not included in official costs for plant operation but paid for by society.

It's Propped Up by Subsidies

• Nuclear power is not viable without subsidies (estimated to be at least 0.7 ¢/kWh, or 13 percent to 80 percent of production costs), and those subsidies often exceed the value of the energy produced.
• These subsidies hide the true cost of nuclear power, making it seem more cost-effective than it actually is.

It Endangers Workers

• Uranium miners are at risk of exposure to radioactivity on their clothes, skin, and in the air they breathe. Miners and nearby populations are exposed to radon gases. When accidents happen, as in Fukushima, workers are subject to extremely unsafe levels of radiation.

It Hurts the Land

• Uranium ore comprises only a small fraction of the total material that is mined, leaving behind tons of rock along the landscape in the form of radioactive tailings.
• Hundreds of millions of tons of long-lived mining and milling wastes have been generated in the U.S.
• Nuclear power is the largest water consumer among all energy technologies. Heat waves and droughts have often forced the temporary shut down of U.S. nuclear plants.

It's Unsafe

• There is no long-term disposal method for nuclear waste, and it lasts for thousands of years.
• Radioactive fuel rods are stored in pools around reactors across the country, many of which are too full to be safe.
• Yucca Mountain -- the proposed nuclear repository located just 100 miles from Las Vegas -- cannot guarantee safe storage of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste for 10,000 years, the time it takes for the fuel to become safe. Contamination of soil and groundwater is a real threat. Dozens of earthquakes have struck the area around Yucca Mountain since the federal government first considered it as a potential waste site.
• Transporting nuclear waste to a centralized site poses a risk for people who live near the railway lines. An estimated 22,000 rail trips would be required. It would cost billions of dollars. And it would be a potential target for terrorists.

Terrorism

• Unlike wind and solar plants, nuclear reactors, if targeted by terrorists, could endanger millions of people.
• Though nuclear fuel cannot be used to make nuclear weapons, "reprocessed" nuclear fuel can -- posing a security risk.

Nuclear Facts - Nuclear - Sierra Club