Green World Blog
News, views & musings for our nuclear-free, carbon-free future
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Two new reports blast NRC over failure to implement Fukushima lessons and enforce safety rules
New York’s Indian Point reactors. Photo from wikipedia. Two new reports from major environmental groups take the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to task for failing to implement regulations to address lessons from the Fukushima disaster as well as inadequate enforcement of the regulations that are on its books. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) says that…
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Nuclear Newsreel, Thursday, March 6, 2014
Nuclear Power On Monday (Nuclear Newsreel, March 3, 2014) we admitted we had no idea how China could say that two new Westinghouse AP 1000 reactors it plans to build would cost only about $2.5 billion each; after all, current cost estimates for the two reactors of the same design being built at the Vogtle…
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All of the Above: The good DOE budget news is followed by the bad DOE budget news
Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz As we reported yesterday, the Obama Administration is seeking to end the expensive and dangerous MOX plutonium fuel program at South Carolina’s Savannah River Site. That’s the good news from the new federal budget the Administration released yesterday. Here’s the bad news: they’re continuing their silly and counterproductive insistence on an…
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Nuclear Newsreel, Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Nuclear Power A piece of metal from a broken impeller blade, 5 inches by 12 inches long, has become wedged inside the Palisades reactor’s pressure vessel and workers have been unable to remove it. Palisades’ owner Entergy Corp. says it wants to just leave the piece where it is, but the NRC says it is…
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Obama Administration calls for suspension of MOX program
Rep. Joe Wilson, R-SC President Obama’s new budget, released today, once again calls for putting the monstrously over-budget, completely unnecessary and stupidly-risky MOX plutonium fuel plant at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina in “cold standby,” which essentially means ending funding for the project–whose cost is now estimated at more than $30 Billion. Which…
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Sen. McCain says he won’t deal with climate bills unless they include a lot of nukes
A decade ago, Sen. John McCain was one of the Senate’s leaders on climate change–meaning that he actually co-sponsored (with former Sen. Joe Lieberman) a major bill to address climate that was to be the Senate’s vehicle on the issue. That bill never passed, of course; even it was too radical for the Senate then…
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Why we’re writing so much about the changing nature of the electricity business–everybody else is. Oh, and because it’s important.
If how much is written about a topic is an indication of how important or perhaps timely the topic is, then the issues of distributed generation, the changing nature of how Americans will obtain their electricity, and the effects of both on electric utilities, are of both extreme importance and timeliness. We have been reporting…
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Nuclear Newsreel, Friday, February 28, 2014
Nuclear Power The Virginia legislature has passed a bill to force ratepayers to help Dominion Resources build a new reactor at its North Anna site. That’s not exactly how the rather convoluted and obscure bill was presented to the legislature, but now that it’s passed that’s exactly how a Dominion official described it to the…
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Nuclear Newsreel, Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Nuclear Power As we have been reporting regularly, the nuclear industry’s top priority this year is an effort to rig the deregulated electricity markets to favor higher cost nuclear power over cheaper renewables and natural gas. But to do so, they’re going to have to win over at least some public opinion, and especially that…
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Nuclear Newsreel, Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Nuclear Power Yesterday’s revelations in the Tampa Bay Times about extensive degradation of steam generator tubes at Florida’s St. Lucie reactors have sparked calls for investigations and a new effort to repeal Florida’s early cost recovery law. In this article, the Times’ Ivan Penn follows up on yesterday’s story and quotes a former NRC official,…
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