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Latest Updates
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Congressional Budget Office report on government’s loan guarantee program for new reactor construction. Concludes that government is understating risks to taxpayers.
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– Motion to Admit New Contention (13) and Reconsider Contention 5 Regarding the Safety and Environmental Implications of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Task Force Report on the Fukushima Dai-ichi Accident. – Contention 13 Regarding NEPA Requirement to Address Safety and Environmental Implications of the Fukushima Task Force Report. – Rulemaking Petition to Rescind Prohibition Against Consideration of Environmental Impacts of Severe Reactor and Spent Fuel Pool Accidents and Request to Suspend Licensing Decision – Contention 5 on Severe Accident Impact on Multiple Sites – Submitted for Reconsideration by the Ecology Party of Florida, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, and the Green Party of Florida – Declaration of Dr. Arjun Makhijani Regarding Safety and Environmental Significance of NRC Task Force Report Regarding Lessons Learned from Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station Accident.
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UPDATE, Tepco reported today the highest radiation levels yet measured at Fukushima Daiichi—1,000 Rems/hour (10 Sieverts/hour)—a lethal dose. The measurements were taken at the base of the ventilation stack for Units 1 and 2 (the stack that did not work during the accident). The actual levels may have been more than measured, since the monitoring equipment could not measure more than 10 Sieverts/hour. Workers sent to the area to confirm the measurements, which were first picked up by a gamma measuring camera, received doses of about 400 millirems in just a few minutes.
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New report for Greenpeace finds that Areva’s EPR reactor design is vulnerable to a prolonged blackout such as occurred at Fukushima. Design assumes power would be restored within 24 hours; Fukushima’s blackout lasted 11 days. Copy of full report. Summary of report. CV of report author, Austrian nuclear expert Helmut Hirsch.
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UPDATE, Tuesday, It has now been more than four months since the accident began at Fukushima Daiichi and unfortunately no end is yet in sight. Much like last year’s BP oil spill, which spewed oil into the Gulf of Mexico for months yet vanished from the major media within weeks, so has much of the major media moved on from Fukushima. But the accident continues, radiation continues to be released (though much lower amounts, of course, than initially), and the risk of new problems remains.
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UPDATE, Thursday, Japan admitted this week that not only did three reactors melt down (Unit 4 had no fuel in its core, otherwise it would have melted too), but that the fuel melted through the containments. Not really news: the U.S. NRC had made that assessment in the first week of April (see April 6 and 7 below).
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NIRS statement of solidarity with Italian anti-nuclear movement and support for June 12-13 referendum to prevent new nuclear reactor construction.
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