Please contact your state legislators today to ask to KEEP NUCLEAR POWER OUT OF THE DEFINITION OF “CLEAN ENERGY”
in any climate legislation they craft.
Background: In the climate legislation that did not pass during the formal legislative session just ended, the Senate and House co-chairs of the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy, included nuclear fission and fusion in the definition of “clean energy.” This would qualify nuclear power as a way to reach the state’s climate goals. Further, they included language that specifically allowed 30-year contracts with Seabrook (NH) and Millstone (CT). When Connecticut opted to subsidize Millstone, whose owners said it would close for financial reasons, electric rates in that state went up substantially.
Our ask: We are asking that you contact your Representative and Senator to: 1) ask them where they stand on this, and 2) let them know you don’t want nuclear to ever be mentioned in the same sentence as “clean.” CAN has contacted the legislators, of course, but hearing from their constituents is a necessary and powerful part of driving the point home. We also ask that you let me know that you’ve made contact, and especially when you hear back from the legislators.
Not a driver? Ask us about upcoming events where you can help us handing out flyers.
We are also looking to revamp our website and are looking for a volunteer to help us with some of this work.
2023, Brattleboro Fourth of July Parade, Photo by Ann Darling
We're Taking the Cask on the Road.
If you’re interested in seeing our mock nuclear waste cask up close and having us talk at your event about why "Nuclear Power is Not the Answer to Climate Change" please contact us at info@nukebusters.org.
The cask at The Science Fair 2023, UMASS Amherst, Photo by Ilan Bryant
Nuclear Spent Fuel & Homeland Security—The Case for Robust Storage
This presentation was completed in 2006. Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station continued operating, and creating more high level nuclear waste (HLNW), for another 9 years—to 2014. Now, the spent fuel pool is being emptied of its inventory and the dry casks receiving the spent fuel are just as vulnerable as depicted in this presentation.
Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant continues to operate 17 years after this presentation was completed. Its HLNW inventory has more than doubled in size since then. Seabrook's spent fuel pool inventory is also being transferred to dry cask storage—arguably in just as vulnerable a configuration.
In association with C-10 Foundation, voiceover by Chris Nord
Rep. Whipps Withdrew Her Support for HD.3705! Thank You to all who contacted her!
Please contact Rep. Whipps to thank her for withdrawing her support for legislation that would undermine public participation and democracy in the decommissioning of Pilgrim reactor. Please contact her office to let her know that you appreciate her saying NO to Bill HD.3705.
REP. WHIPPS’ CONTACT INFORMATION Telephone in Boston: (617) 722-2090 Email: Susannah.Whipps@mahouse.gov
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.
Where do the Vermont Congressional Candidates Stand on Vermont Yankee's Radioactive Waste?
Vermont Yankee shuttered in 2014, but problems remain. Over 40 years Vermont Yankee created a serious amount of atomic waste. Now, 1,600 tons of the most highly radioactive waste sits in 58 casks out in the open near the banks of the Connecticut River. Neither Vermont nor the federal government knows what to do with it. Yet release of the radiation from these casks would leave our region uninhabitable for decades. Vermont isn’t alone with this problem; it’s the same at all reactor sites around the country. The nuclear industry and politicians in Congress are pushing to send this waste to “temporary” Consolidated Interim Storage (CIS) sites in working poor, Hispanic, and Indigenous communities in the Southwest, an area that already carries a heavy burden of nuclear contamination. The folks there don’t believe the move will be temporary and don’t want the waste there. CIS is environmental racism, pure and simple.
We all want the waste from Vermont Yankee gone, but we need to think about where it would go. Do we want “our” waste to contaminate someone else’s home?
Recently, the Vermont legislature passed The Environmental Justice Act (Act 154) requiring State agencies to incorporate environmental justice (EJ) into their work, rules, and procedures as they affect Vermonters. Act 154 says that Vermont will no longer allow the Vermonters the most burdened by pollution—rural, Indigenous, people of color—to be unjustly treated. It sets out a principled, ethical standard for our state to follow. Does this standard of environmental justice end at the border?! We need to let our House candidates know that plans for Consolidated Interim Storage are unjust and contrary to Vermont’s values.
ASK THE CANDIDATES WHERE THEY STAND!
Are they aware of Consolidated Interim Storage plans? What do they think about them? Will they stand for environmental justice in Congress?
Why isn’t there more government and industry investment in developing a permanent waste solution?
With its waste problem, why is nuclear promoted as a “green” solution to climate change?
MAKE SURE THEY KNOW YOU’RE CONCERNED AND WATCHING! And let us know what you learn.
The Progressive candidate for the US House of Representatives from Vermont is: • Barbara Nolfi
The independent candidate for the US House of Representatives from Vermont is: • Liam Madden (https://rebirthdemocracy.com)
Nuclear Power—Myth, Lure, Danger and Reality, a Climate Solution or a Dangerous Detour
with speakers M.V. Ramana (Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security), Diane Turco (Executive Director of Cape Downwinders), Deb Katz (Executive Director of Citizens Awareness Network), and David A. Kraft (Co-founder and current director of Nuclear Energy Information Service), hosted by Massachusetts Peace Action.
Speak Out! Tell Congress: No Backdoor Authorization of Illegal Nuclear Waste Dumps
A provision (Section 308) of the pending FY 2022 Energy and Water appropriations bill would authorize and direct the opening of supposedly temporary nuclear waste dumps.
The Section 308 provision would trigger a dangerous, unnecessary, decades-long, massive high-level nuclear power waste transport campaign through most Congressional districts in the continental US, including through densely populated cities and productive farmland.
Congress must not undo protections in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act with an obscure provision buried in the appropriations package. Shipping irradiated “spent” fuel and storing it at supposedly interim sites is dangerous and violates consent-based siting, environmental justice principles, and federal law.
Citizens Awareness Network is asking our supporters to call, write or email their Senators ASAP and tell them to remove Section 308 from S 2605 today!
New England Delegation on Senate Appropriations Committee:
I am writing today because I am concerned about Section 308 of S.2605. Section 308 authorizes the DOE to create a pilot project for Centralized Interim Storage of spent nuclear fuel. We should not be moving fuel until we have figured out where it is ultimately going to be disposed of. Section 308 also allows for the use of the Nuclear Waste Fund. The fund is ratepayer money to be used for disposal of the waste. We should not allow the fund to be tapped for a parking lot dump with no permanent disposal site as yet determined.
Similar proposals have been stricken from previous appropriation bills and this proposal deserves the same fate. We need to get moving on a scientifically sound, environmentally just solution. We don’t need to waste ratepayer dollars kicking the can down the road.
Sincerely, [your name]
Time is of the essence! Please write today. Thank you so much!
Nuclear energy is NOT a climate solution
Greg Jaczko: Funding Nuclear Energy Is A WASTE of
Government Resources, The Industry Is DYING
Call your Reps & Senators!
Say No to Parking Lot Dumps & Bailouts
Citizens Awareness Network has been part of nationwide effort to create a national coalition to bring grassroots pressure to the ongoing policy debate concerning High-Level Radioactive Waste. This summer the National Radioactive Waste Coalition will officially kick-off a national campaign to advocate for several key policies.
Stop the Yucca Mountain Repository.
Prevent Centralized Interim Storage (CIS) of commercial irradiated fuel.
Implement Hardened Onsite Storage (HOSS) of commercial irradiated fuel at current locations until a permanent facility is established.
Expensive and risky schemes to move spent fuel across the country to temporary parking lot dumps in the Southwest are irresponsible and short sighted. The United States has tens of thousands of tons of long lived waste that must be permanently sequestered from the biotic world. The National Radioactive Waste Coalition will work from coast to coast to see to it that policymakers hear from the citizenry and not just from an industry that has not acted in good faith to deal with the waste problem it has created.
Please contact your Senators and your Representative and let them know that Centralized Interim Storage is not an acceptable plan for dealing with power plant waste.
Also, this summer, as Congress debates a massive infrastructure bill, the nuclear industry has been calling for huge subsidies for old nuclear units around the country. Congress should be working the to strengthen Clean Energy Standards instead of bailing out dirty nuclear plants. The money for the bailouts would come from funds intended to mitigate climate change through investments in renewable energy generation, energy storage technology, and energy efficiency. In our view this is misguided and stupid.
Say NO to Parking Lot Dumps and Bailouts. Please contact your Senators and your Representatives now.
Please let us know if you get a response from your legislator: info@nukebusters.org
The Hazards of Transporting VY Nuclear Waste
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
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
State senate passes clean energy bill
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 info@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.
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.)
