Intro: "A US Court of Appeals ruling saying that spent nuclear fuel stored at nuclear power plants 'poses a dangerous, long-term health and environmental risk' has prompted the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to halt all pending licensing decisions."
Relicensing of reactors 2 and 3 at Indian Point nuclear power plant are among those put on hold by the NRC. (photo: Librado Romero/NYT)
US Freezes 19 Nuclear Power Plant Licensing Decisions
10 August 12
US Court of Appeals ruling saying that spent nuclear fuel stored at nuclear power plants "poses a dangerous, long-term health and environmental risk" has prompted the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to halt all pending licensing decisions, ENS reports.
Affected are 9 construction and operating licenses, 8 license renewals, 1 operating license, and 1 early site permit.
The NRC order says:
We are now considering all available options for resolving the waste confidence issue, which could include generic or site-specific NRC actions or some combination of both. We have not yet determined a course of action. [...] This determination extends just to final license issuance; all licensing reviews and proceedings should continue to move forward.
The court ruling that brought a halt to US licensing decisions for nuclear power plants stems from an action brought about the New York State Attorney General over the relicensing of the Indian Point nuclear power plant, 38 miles north of New York City and up for relicensing in 2013. One of the three reactors at Indian Point is already permanently shut down, with the remaining two reaching the end of their initial 40-year operating licenses.
Analysis of the impact of an accident at Indian Point shows that if an event on the scale of the Fukushima disaster were to occur, it would be 10-100 times more costly than the $60 billion estimated price tag for that nuclear disaster, in addition to forcing the evacuation of millions of people in the most densely populated part of the United States.
The same analysis shows that should Indian Point be shut down the region would not need to bring extra electricity generation online to replace it until 2020, due to surplus power capacity in surrounding regions.
|
THE NEW STREAMLINED RSN LOGIN PROCESS: Register once, then login and you are ready to comment. All you need is a Username and a Password of your choosing and you are free to comment whenever you like! Welcome to the Reader Supported News community. |
 15 June 2013
|
 14 June 2013
|
 14 June 2013
|
 15 June 2013
|
 15 June 2013
|
 16 June 2013
|
 16 June 2013
|
 16 June 2013
|
 14 June 2013
|
Comments
We are concerned about a recent drift towards vitriol in the RSN Reader comments section. There is a fine line between moderation and censorship. No one likes a harsh or confrontational forum atmosphere. At the same time everyone wants to be able to express themselves freely. We'll start by encouraging good judgment. If that doesn't work we'll have to ramp up the moderation.
General guidelines: Avoid personal attacks on other forum members; Avoid remarks that are ethnically derogatory; Do not advocate violence, or any illegal activity.
Remember that making the world better begins with responsible action.
- The RSN Team
Searching the internet, 100,000 years is the time "spent" nuclear fuel would have to be safely stored before it no longer posed a danger to humans or the environment. Given that we consider events that happened 2,000 years ago "ancient history," it is ludicrous to think any human alive today could be responsible for the safe storage of radioactive materials for 100,000 (that's one thousand centuries, folks)years into the future.
AYFKM?!?!
If they didn't nuclear would be going full blast no matter what we the people had to say. Either way the cold way these people do business means that a sickened planet or a sickened and dying citizenry is just the "cost of doing business".
Right?
Nature help me - I loath these so called people and quietly hope they will begin to drop like flies.
RSS feed for comments to this post