Ohio Sierra Club Nuclear Free Committee

January 2013

Pat Marida, chair

Radioactive Waste Coming to Your Home and Workplace?

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has released an environmental assessment (EA) for allowing radioactive waste metal

to be mixed with the nation’s scrap metal stream.

• Short deadline: Comments due Monday, Feb. 11!

• The EA contains no assessment of the impact of radioactivity on women or on children.

• No safe level of radioactivity.

• Who would benefit? No full economic analysis of how much government money would be saved. No analysis of the health costs incurred by the public.

• Completely unnecessary risk.

• Undercuts the Presidential orders on recycling by tainting and poisoning scrap metal, potentially increasing the demand for new metal mining.

The Piketon nuclear reservation is about 20 miles from the Ohio River.

The Piketon Nuclear Reservation covers 3,714 acres.Gaseous diffusion uranium enrichment buildings cover 93

acres.

What’s happening at Piketon?

• Massive cleanup of the old uranium enrichment plant is now underway. Is costing billions in public money.

• Radioactive steel there is driving DOE’s desire to “recycle” radioactive metal.

• USEC, Inc., has received hundreds of millions in public handouts to build a new uranium enrichment plant. Their technology does not work but they continue to get public handouts.

Davis-Besse “The Reactor with the Hole in the Head”

Davis-Besse at Oak Harbor on Lake Erie

All nuclear power plants have regular radioactive releases. All nuclear power plants leak tritium (heavy water).

Heat and heat intakes kill fish and their fry, and cause algae blooms.Note also the destruction of wetlands.

Reactor Containment VesselThis is what inspectors saw and ignored in 2002.

When a delayed inspection was finally done, this is what they found.

Boric acid had eaten through all but 1/8 inch of the reactor vessel.

Oct. 2011— 30-foot crack found in Davis-Besse shield building. Other cracks were later found. NRC allowed the plant to restart in December.

• FirstEnergy said the cracks were “architectural”. • NRC has allowed the plant to continue operation.

FirstEnergy is applying for a 20-year license extension for Davis-Besse.

• The Davis-Besse nuclear reactor has had more accidents and violations that any nuclear plant currently operating in the US.

• The reactor head was replaced twice due to cracks.• There are cracks in the shield building.

• The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board of the NRC has dismissed all public legal contentions to this license renewal.

• Only one remaining contention. The DC Court of Appeals has overturned NRC’s “waste confidence” ruling, which declared that NRC is confident that there will be a solution for storing radioactive nuclear waste, so citizens cannot object that lack of permanent storage for radioactive waste is a problem.

Perry Unit 1 came online in 1987.At $6 billion, one of most expensive US nukes.

License expires in 2026

• Perry Unit 1 had earthquake when under construction, found to be on fault. • Unit 2 was under construction from 1974-1984. Formally cancelled in 1994. • Has suffered accidents and fires. • Named by Reuters as the world’s most dangerous nuclear plant for workers. • In January 2013, NRC had to deviate from protocols to NOT degrade Perry's safety status further than it already is.

Fermi location near Monroe, MI

“We Almost Lost Detroit”

Fermi 1 was a fast breeder reactor cooled by sodium. Sodium catches fire if exposed to air.

Coming online in 1963, in 1966 the reactor suffered a meltdown. John G. Fuller wrote the book We Almost Lost Detroit about the event.

Restarted in 1969, the plant was decommissioned in 1972, as the core was approaching the burnup limit.

Fermi 2

• Came online in 1988

• accident plagued

• is GE Mark I reactor, same as Fukushima, but it’s the largest one in the world at 1122 megawatts

• In 2010 it was hit by a tornado, damaging the reactor’s building and shutting it down.

Fermi 3

• Detroit Energy has applied for a license to build a third reactor on the site.

• Five environmental groups have filed together to intervene.

• Remaining contentions: quality assurance, habitat/wetland destruction. Written comments due March 29, 2013. Attempting a new contention that the plant must have a proper cement base. Detroit Energy will submit engineering “verification” that their makeshift base will be adequate.

• Ned Ford, Ohio Sierra Club’s energy consultant, has given advice. There is not enough electric demand to warrant this plant, with the advent of efficiency and renewables and the decrease in demand. It is unlikely to be built, too expensive .

Other Nuclear Concerns

• NEWGreen Legacy Services• Located next to Perry • Refurbishes, repairs and “decontaminates” radioactive equipment. • Similar plants in Sweden and Tennessee are highly contaminated. • NEWGreen applied to take 200-ton steam generators from

Ontario. • Radioactive shipments on the Great Lakes (?)

• NASA’s Plum Brook Test Reactor in Sandusky• Operated from 1962-1973• In 2005 cesium-137 and cobalt-60 found in Plum Brook Run• The stream, on its five-mile journey to Lake Erie, crosses residential

areas, school-owned lands and a golf course.• Assessment completed in 2010, some cleanup started in 2012.

Budget request for 2013 Our volunteers have expenses in networking with Sierra Club.

National organizing with the No Nukes Core Team and the Nuclear Free Campaign

Great Lakes organizing with Michigan, PA., NY and Canadian activists

Front End organizing with Sierra and indigenous activists in CO, NM, UT, AZ and other western states.

• Conference fees and travel $500• Consultation with experts $500• Printing of national brochures $300 Total $1300

CHECK OUT OUR NEW FACT SHEETS!

Sierra Club Nuclear Free Campaign Booklet The Front End of Nuclear Power

No New Nukes Retire Old Nukes Low Level Waste High Level Waste

Join us!

• Ohio Sierra Club Nuclear Free Committee Listserv Listservs for both Fermi and Davis-Besse Email marida@wideopenwest.com , sign up or see Pat Marida to join.

• National Sierra Club Nuclear Free Working Groups Front End, No New Nukes, Retire Old Nukes, High Level Waste, Low Level Waste

---contact Pat with your interest

• Facebook “Friend” Nonuclear Ohiosierraclub Join the Facebook Open Group — No Nukes Team

• Sierra Club Activist Network — No Nukes Teamhttp://connect.sierraclub.org/ActivistNetwork/home