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Still Time to Stop It

Updates and statements of position on the Early Site Permit for the North Anna Nuclear Power Station

• Plant Information Overview
  Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program

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• Draft Sierra Club Virginia Chapter Statement
  

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• New Nukes for Virginia? Not over our radioactive bodies!
  
  From the Old Dominion Sierran, January/February 2005

  Dominion Power seeking first new US license since Three Mile Island
   
  By GLEN BESA, SIERRA CLUB, APPALACHIAN REGIONAL DIRECTOR
   
  Accidents happen! People make mistakes! Most of the time accidents are minor; sometimes they're not and people die. So why "on earth" would any idiot build a device to boil water for generating electricity that could kill thousands people and contaminate the surrounding landscape for thousands of years in the event of an accident? Nuclear power is pure folly and a testament to one trait that distinguishes humans from beasts-arrogance!
   
  The Bush Administration and the Congress are ready to spend billions of our tax dollars to subsidize a nuclear power industry that is inherently dangerous and uneconomical. While proponents suggest that nuclear power is the answer to global warming we need to recognize that there are other solutions. Going down the nuclear path forestalls investment real alternatives like efficiency, conservation, solar and wind.
   
  If we are going to stop the construction of new nuclear power plants, the battleground will be in Virginia where Dominion Power is seeking the very first site permit for a new nuclear power plant in the US since the Three Mile Island disaster in 1979. Dominion is currently seeking an early site permit for up to two new reactors at the site of the existing North Anna Nuclear Plant in Mineral, Virginia.
   
  The Sierra Club, Public Citizen, the Nuclear Information and Resource Service and local citizens who organized the People's Alliance for Clean Energy are organizing opposition to Dominion's efforts to build this new nuke on the shores of Lake Anna. Please plan to attend OUT rally on January 19 and send written comments before March 1. See side bar for details.
   
  
  Speak Out Today: No New Nukes!
  
  
  Please send your written comments to:
  
  Chief, Rules and Directives Branch, Division of Administrative Services, Office of Administration, Mailstop T-6D59, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, or by e-mail (sent no later than March 1, 2005) to North Anna ESP@nrc.gov
  
  Make sure you send copies of your comments to:
  
  
  

  Nils J. Diaz, Chairman U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, DC 20555-0001	Thomas E. Capps, CEO Dominion Resources 120 Tredegar Street Richmond, VA 23219
  The Honorable (Senator’s Name) United States Senate Washington, DC 20510	The Honorable (Representative’s Name) House of Representatives Washington, DC 20515
  Resources: http://www.northanna.org/ http:/www.citizen.org/cmep/esp/northanna/ http://www.nirs.org

  
  
  For more information, contact:
  
  John Cruickshank, Sierra Club           434-973-0373
  Abhaya Thiele, People's Alliance for Clean Energy, mabhayathiele@yahoo.com        434 409-6392
  Glen Besa, Sierra Club         804-565-4950 mglen.besa@sierraclub.org
   
  
• Rally on February 17 at 6:00PM, the day of the Public Hearing for the (Draft) Environmental Impact Statement for Dominion's Proposed New Nuclear Reactors

Dr. Strangelove Rides Again: Nuclear Power Permeates Bush's 2006 DOE Budget

From the Nuclear Information and Resource Service

Amidst record budget deficits and proposed deep funding cuts to schools, low income housing, veterans' health benefits, the Environmental Protection Agency, and numerous other domestic social programs, the Bush Administration has found even more money for the "Nuclear Power Relapse" than in the past.

George W. Bush's new Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary, Sam Bodman, unveiled DOE's 2006 budget request on February 7. The overall DOE budget is going down by 2% com pared to Fiscal Year 2005 (FY05). But much of the $475 million decrease is coming out of environmental clean up of DOE’s numerous radioactively contaminated sites (see "Budget Battles" at www.ananuclear.org), as well as out of such crucial programs as energy efficiency/ renewable energy. While climate crisis culprits "Fossil Energy" would receive $760 million--a whopping 18% in- crease over 2005 levels--subsidies for nuclear power would also increase significantly if Congress endorses Bush's proposals.

EFFICIENCY/RENEWABLES CUT

The proposed "Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy» budget is $48 million less than last year, a decrease of nearly 4%. Ken Bossong, coordinator of the Sustainable Energy Coalition, bemoans this "bleeding" of core, proven efficiency and renewable energy programs that "can address the needs of the nation much more quickly" than other Bush energy proposals, such as nuclear-generated hydrogen (see below).

LIGHTS OUT

Incredibly, despite Secretary Bodman stating that repair and maintenance of the electricity transmission infrastructure would be high on his personal agenda, "Electric Transmission and Distribution" would suffer a 19.4% budget decrease, losing $23 million from 2005 funding levels. This is despite the Aug. 2003 Northeast/Midwest power outage, the biggest in U.S. history, which forced the shutdown of numerous nuclear reactors due to loss of electricity to run safety systems. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, with oversight on transmission and the infamous power outage, would also suffer a 13% budget decrease over last year.

NUCLEAR POWER SUBSIDIES

DOE's "Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology" division would have $511 million with which to work in FY06, a 5.2% ($25 million) increase over last year. $191 million of this would go toward "Nuclear Energy Supply" R&D programs, an increase of $20 million (or nearly 12% over last year). Several nuclear power promotional programs would receive increased funding.

$70 million (a $2.5 million, or nearly 4%, increase over FY05 funding levels) would go for the "Advanced fuel cycle initiative" to promote reprocessing of high-level radioactive waste. This is a pet project of Senate Energy Committee Chairman Pete Domenici (R-NM). Reprocessing results in large-scale liquid and gaseous radioactivity releases to air, water, and soil. It also risks nuclear weapons proliferation, which is why it has been banned in the U.S. since the Ford and Carter Administrations.

$56 million (a $6.4 million, or 13%, increase over FY05) would go for "Nuclear Power 2010" to grease the skids for site permits and construction/operating licenses for the first new reactors in three decades (the last order for a reactor that was actually completed in the U.S. was placed in Oct., 1973). "Nuclear Power 2010" was launched on Valentine's Day 2002 (perhaps to show love for the industry?), the very same day the Bush Administration recommended that Yucca Mountain was "suitable" for a national high-level radioactive waste dump, despite overwhelming scientific evidence and Western Shoshone Indian treaty rights to the contrary. NIRS is intervening against the Early Site Permits for the new reactors proposed for Clinton, IL, Port Gibson, MS, and North Anna, VA which "Nuclear Power 2010" seeks to support.

$45 million (a $5.3 million, or 13.4%, increase) would go for the Generation IV nuclear energy systems initiative --research and development of an "advanced" or "next-generation" nuclear reactor which the nuclear establishment hopes to build at the above mentioned sites.

$24 million ($190,000 or nearly 1 % more than FYO5) would go for "university reactor infrastructure and education assistance," or outreach to 35 V.S. universities in order to assure the next generation of nuclear engineers, in the face of having as few as 130 nuclear engineering graduate students enrolled in the late 1990's due to the stagnation of the industry.

$20 million (an $11 million, or whopping 124% increase) would go for the "nuclear hydrogen initiative," related to the $1.1 billion hydrogen-generating reactor that was proposed in last year's energy bill. The reactor would be built at DOE's Idaho National Engineering Lab, completely at tax- payer expense, a pork barrel project for pro-nuclear Idaho Republican Senator Larry Craig, next in line to chair the Senate Energy Committee. See NIRS fact sheet "Hydrogen Production by Nuclear Power," at http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/hydrogenbynuclear.pdf

YUCCA MOUNTAIN

DOE's proposed Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM) Yucca Mountain Project budget for 2006 is very revealing. Although bragging that Yucca would receive $79 million more than last year (a 14% increase), what Bodman did not share is that this is half the amount the Bush Administration had hoped for. As recently as a year ago, Bush had proposed $1.3 billion (with a B!) for the FY06 Yucca budget. But the Yucca juggernaut has hit some major roadblocks, including adverse rulings from the federal courts and the V.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission that have monkey-wrenched DOE's schedule for seeking permission to build and open the national dump. Asking for only half the previously forecast budget is a tacit admission by the Bush Administration that its Yucca Mountain Project is in serious trouble right now.

Over $85 million of the FY06 Yucca budget would go towards preparations for transporting high-level atomic waste, including $33 million for issuing a design/ build contract for the proposed Caliente, Nevada to Yucca Mountain rail line. This 319 mile long railway would cost a billion dollars to build.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS &
CONTAMINATION:
CLEAN UP, DON'T BUILD UP!

The Bush Administration proposes to spend $4 million on research into the controversial "bunker buster" nuclear weapon, an initiative blocked by bipartisan opposition in both houses of Congress last year. It also proposes increasing funding towards preparing the Nevada Test Site so that full-scale nuclear weapons blasts could begin in as little as 18 months.

While "advancing" the nuclear arsenal, Bush's DOE proposes to decrease funding to "Environmental Management" (clean up at nuclear weapons complex sites contaminated during the Cold War) by nearly 8%, a loss of nearly $550 million. DOE also proposes decreasing funding to "Environment, Safety, and Health" (the program meant to assist nuclear weapons complex workers with health care) by a whopping 24%, a loss of $34 million. Again, see "Budget Battles" at www.ananuclear.org for more information on these nuclear weapons production complex issues. --Kevin Kamps, Feb. 9, 2005.

Nuclear Information and Resource Service,
1424 16th Street NW, #404, Washington, DC 20036
202-328-0002; f:202-462-2183
nlrsnet@nlrs.org
www.nirs.org

Nuclear Information and Resource Service/World Information Service on Energy-Amsterdam
Main offices: Washington. DC and Amsterdam, Netherlands
Affiliate offices: Asheville, NC; Rosario. Argentina; Linz, Austria; Brno. Czech Republic;
Hiroshima, Japan; Kaliningrad. Russia; Bratislava, Slovakia; Capetown, South Africa;
Stockholm. Sweden; Rivne, Ukraine; WISE-Uranium: Arnsdorf. Germany