CAN envisions a future of safety, prosperity, and good health for all where: • People generate electricity for their own homes and communities • Local energy production and conservation create new local jobs • Renewable energy is integrated into all of our homes and public buildings • It is easy for everyone to access sustainable and affordable energy • Clean, efficient energy use is standard practice • Family farms and locally owned businesses are the backbone of our communities
We are pleased to present a self-produced video explaining why atomic power is completely unsuitable as a “bridge” energy source to a sustainable future. This video features CAN organizers addressing five lies the industry promotes about nuclear power.
CAN Has Signed on in Solidarity
Groups—Stand in Solidarity with the Movement for Black Lives' Demands and Week of Action
As organizations striving for climate justice and environmental protection, we cannot be silent in the face of the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and countless others. This moment has laid bare the long and shameful history of institutional and systemic racism against Black and Brown people in this country. We demand action.
We stand in solidarity with the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) and endorse the following demands and the M4BL week of action.
We will advocate for these demands, and we will engage our supporters, members, and allies to take action to confront the police violence, inequality, and racism plaguing this country.
Guests Diane D’Arrigo of Nuclear Information and Resource Service and Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear talk with host Margaret Harrington about the hazards of transporting Vermont Yankee nuclear waste by Northstar to proposed centralized interim storage sites in Texas and New Mexico.
Click on the image below to watch the video
HOLTEC Draft Environmental Impact Statement Public Comment Period New Deadline: September 22, 2020
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has extended the deadline for public comments. We ask you to submit written comments or oral comments during the next public comment webinar or when in-person hearings are scheduled.
We prepared a sample letter for you to use in both English and Español. You can copy and paste into a new email, personalize with your own comments, and send to: Holtec-CISFEIS@nrc.gov with Subject Line: Docket ID NRC-2018-0052 Draft Environmental Impact Statement Comment before September 22.
Upcoming VY NDCAP Meeting
When: Monday, September 21, 2020, 6:00 – 9:00 PM. Where: Skype Webcast / Teleconference What: Meeting of the full panel. The Panel will hold its fourth meeting of this year. Further details, connectivity information, and a complete agenda for this meeting will be published on this website as they become available.
NUCLEAR FREE FUTURE: ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AND NUCLEAR WASTE Leona Morgan, Diane D'Arrigo, and Deb Katz talk with host Margaret Harrington, Town Meeting Television, CCTV Burlington, VT. (Click on the image above to watch the video)
Diane D’Arrigo, Leona Morgan, Deb Katz, Karen Hadden presented in Amesbury near Seabrook
MA State House, September 21, 2018 For more news and pictures from the waste tour, go to our blog
Thank You!
Putting this tour together is a lot of work! We are so thankful for the people and organizations who helped us to make this happen, from the rehab of the cask, to the people who'll give us food and a place to sleep on the tour, to the speakers who coming in from far and near, and the hosts for the events, our sponsors, and our supporters.
Special Thank You:
Replacing nuclear and fossil fuel one house at a time with Solar PV installations!
Oppose H.R. 3053 Bill!
Legislative Alert—H.R. 3053 Update
The Nuclear Waste Policy Act Amendments of 2017-2018 passed the US House of Representatives on May 10, 2018 by a vote of 340 to 72. The bill will now move to the Senate where a more vigorous fight is expected. Action in the Senate is expected to take place after the mid-term elections. It is essential that all New England Senators hear from their constituents. CAN opposes HR 3053. Yucca is a geologically unsuitable site for permanent storage of irradiated fuel and parking waste in Texas and New Mexico is unacceptable.
HR 3053 The Nuclear Waste Policy Act Amendments of 2017-2018 authored by Representative Shimkus R-IL is an industry backed bill to reopen the Yucca Mountain Repository for high level radioactive waste containment. The bill also gives the green light to establish so called parking lot dumps for “interim storage” of irradiated fuel rods. The nuclear industry is proposing two parking lot dumps, one in West Texas and the other in nearby New Mexico.
Yucca Mountain, located in Nevada, was defunded and the project halted in 2010. The site is prone to severe earthquakes and the mountain is porous. Two of the most important site criteria for storing irradiated fuel rods are keeping the canisters dry and stable geology. Yucca Mountain does not meet these crucial requirements. We need to be using sound scientific methodology not politics to solve our waste problem.
Parking lot dumps are a way to kick the can down the road. To move thousands of shipments to Texas or New Mexico only to have to move them again is dangerous. To say we will find a permanent repository in the future is quite possibly disingenuous. Once parked the waste may never move again.
We Need Renewable Energy, Not Nuclear Power! The nuclear industry is back at it again: promoting dirty, dangerous, expensive reactors at the public’s expense. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is reviewing an “Early Site Permit” application for up to a dozen reactors in Tennessee—with potentially no evacuation plans. This would be a dangerous precedent.
Late on Friday afternoon, Rep. Frank Smizik, Chair of the Committee on Global Warming and Climate Change and a long-time friend of the solar industry in Massachusetts, sent out a request to his colleagues asking them to sign a letter calling for the House to take quick action on several clean energy bills.
The House leadership needs to hear from you that there is strong grassroots support for taking decisive action to support our solar industry and accelerate the Commonwealth's transition to 100% renewable energy.
Please call—and also ask your friends and family to call—the State representatives to ask them to sign on to Rep. Smizik's clean energy letter. Do it now. The main number for the House is 617-722-2000. https://malegislature.gov/Search/FindMyLegislator We can't afford to wait another two years for action on these crucial topics.
Thank you for your support, Nukebusters! With your help we can get our mock high-level waste cask back on the road. By driving our mock cask throughout New England, we’ll be educating and engaging people, and bring awareness of the Department of Energy’s plan to transport thousands of shipments of irradiated nuclear fuel from New England to temporary parking lot dumps in Nevada, Texas, and New Mexico. There is no scientifically sound, environmentally just solution to the monstrous problem of nuclear waste disposal.
No Escape from the Cape
Chicago Summit Summary
The national grassroots high level waste summit in Chicago brought organizers from throughout the country March 16-18, 2018. It was a great networking event. there was a focus on environmental justice, onsite storage at reactor sites, decommissioning and strategic planning on these issues and others.
More young people participated in this summit and there is continued outreach to engage more young people in the movement.
At the last summit, committees formed to address issues related to high level waste—HOSS (hardening of high level waste at reactor sites to protect the fuel from acts of malice), Yucca Mountain and the targeting of the Southwest for a "parking lot" there. These committees will continue and a fourth committee on decommissioning was formed. With NorthStar committed with WCS to create a parking lot in west Texas and Holtec's focus on a parking lot in New Mexico, organizers came away committed to oppose these short term solutions and the targeting of Hispanic communities.
If you're interested in more information or help stop targeting these communities, contact CAN: 413-339 4374 or can@nukebusters.org.
Legislative Alert
HR 3053—the Nuclear Waste Policy Act Amendments of 2017-2018 authored by Representative Shimkus R-IL is an industry backed proposal to reopen the Yucca Mountain Repository for high level radioactive waste containment. The bill also gives the green light to establish so called parking lot dumps for “interim storage” of irradiated fuel rods. The nuclear industry is proposing two parking lot dumps, one in West Texas and the other in nearby New Mexico. CAN opposes the legislation and asks our members to call their members of Congress.
Yucca Mountain, located in Nevada, was defunded and the project halted in 2010. The site is prone to severe earthquakes and the mountain is porous. Two of the most important site criteria for storing irradiated fuel rods are keeping the canisters dry and stable geology. Yucca Mountain does not meet these crucial requirements. We need to be using sound scientific methodology not politics to solve our waste problem.
Parking lot dumps are a way to kick the can down the road. To move thousands of shipments to Texas or New Mexico only to have to move them again is dangerous. To say we will find a permanent repository in the future is quite possibly disingenuous. Once parked, the waste may never move again.
Save Residential Solar Systems in Eversource territory
We need 100% renewable energy by 2050. One necessary step to get there is with distributed solar PV generation on every viable rooftop, house and business. The Dept of Public Utilities (DPU) and utilities think otherwise.  The DPU (in Docket 17-05) ruled that the Eversource’s rate case can add Minimum Monthly Reliability Charges (MMRC) consisting of 1) Increased Fixed monthly charge, 2) Demand charges, and 3) Reduced net metering credits (NMC) for all new residential solar installations starting in Jan 2019.
HD 4413—An Act Increasing Nuclear Power Plant Protections to a Fifty Mile Radius
HD 4413-increasing nuclear power plant protections to a fifty mile radius. This bill was formerly H. 2031 and passed the Joint Committee on Public Safety last session (2015/16), the first time a bill was introduced for a 50 mile expansion. In lieu of refiling this legislative year, Rep. Peake filed H. 2472 so Boston Downwinders approached Rep. Balser to late-file this bill.
Cape Downwinders completed a successful ballot question campaign to move fuel out of the pool at Pilgrim to dry cask storage. All 15 towns supported the measure. This was a good opportunity to discuss the reality that Plymouth is a nuclear waste dump and citizens should have some say about it.
We are now encouraging other towns to take up this measure. For information on how to get started—and it is easy—email capedownwindersinfo@gmail.com.
Cape Downwinders have testified at the MA State House on bills related to emergency planning, radiation monitoring, and decommissioning funds. For links to the bills, go to: http://bit.ly/2Afx4hr
We are at a tipping point in insuring that our children have a safe and clean future. Don’t let the Trump administration undermine all the good work that we have done.
Trump refuses to spend any money to support climate action, but he can’t wait to give mountains of our hard-earned cash to dirty energy executives for more global warming and nuclear waste. We need to stop him, and move toward 100% renewable energy now.
Nuclear power produces highly radioactive nuclear waste with no place to go because, guess what—there is no safe place to store it! Moving highly radioactive nuclear waste is INCREDIBLY DANGEROUS!
Or contact your U.S. Representative directly, look up their phone number here.
In June, a group letter went to Shimkus and his Co-Chair OPPOSING THE BILL, signed by 49 organizations. The letter is a great source of talking points. You can also send the letter itself if you email your US Representative.
Does your Rep have nuclear waste transport routes in his/her congressional district? Find out here.
Stop the Nuclear Tax Bailout!
Last month, we told you about a bailout the nuclear industry is trying to push through Congress. Despite a multi-billion-dollar price tag, they are still at it. And if they can’t win a vote on the bill (HR 1551), they may resort to sneaky tricks, like adding the tax breaks to the budget bill or another energy bill. If we can stop them, it could stop new reactors and end the so-called “Nuclear Renaissance” (what we call a "Relapse"), once and for all.
. . . The world no longer needs to build nuclear power plants to avoid climate change and certainly not to save money. If you have any doubt about that fact please read the World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2017.
To the Village Square: From Montague, Massachusetts to Fukushima, Japan 1975-2014
A book by Lionel Delevingne, Photographer
"Along the way Lionel Delevingne has been the 'family photographer' of an amazing body of people and actions that, against all odds, have created a way for the human race to survive. Our time together has been joyous, demanding, pathbreaking, exciting, astounding and so much more. All captured on film by the brilliant, loving lens of Lionel Delevingne, and in the beautiful words of Anna Gyorgy’s introduction. 'To the Village Square' is the essential passport to four decades of peaceful passion. Don’t miss it!"
—Harvey “No Nukes” Wasserman
“To the Village Square is AMAZING and important and moving”
—William C. Newman (Director ACLU, Western Mass Regional Office.)
