Free Republic

Presidential hopeful Howard Dean (news - web sites), who accuses President Bush (news - web sites) of being weak on homeland security, was warned repeatedly as Vermont governor about security lapses at his state's nuclear power plant and was told the state was ill-prepared for a disaster at its most attractive terrorist target. ?The warnings, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press, began in 1991 when a group of students were brought into a secure area of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant without proper screening. On at least two occasions, a gun or mock terrorists passed undetected into the...

Iran - Nuclear Facilities -Map

The environment and the issues that surround it are never less than extremely important. In the case of environmental safety and health, we know that coal- and fossil-burning power plants in black and Latin communities have been held responsible for the high numbers of children who suffer from respiratory diseases. Given those facts, it seems odd that there is now a conflict between advocates for black communities and environmentalists over the presence of nuclear plants and the uses of nuclear energy right here in New York. One side tells us that the nuclear power plant in Indian Point should be...

STADE, Germany (Reuters) - Germany switched off the first of its 19 nuclear power stations on Friday, launching what it calls the world's fastest withdrawal from atomic energy but a policy that may still be reversed if the opposition takes power. Germany's center-left government struck a deal with industry in 2000 to close all nuclear power plants by about 2025, the Greens making a phase-out a condition for forming a coalition with Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats in 1998. However, it is still unclear if Germany can meet the deadline and how it will replace atomic power, which provides a...

BERLIN - Germany began phasing out nuclear power Friday when a 32-year-old power plant was switched off forever, the first step toward a historic shift in the energy supply of Europe's biggest economy. Eighteen remaining plants are to be closed over the next two decades under an accord between utilities and the government that bears the stamp of the environmentalist Greens party, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's junior partner. Germany's second-oldest nuclear plant at Stade in northern Germany, operated by the E.On Kernkraft utility, was powered down at about 8:30 a.m., the Lower Saxony state environment ministry said. Plans call for the...

Posted on Fri, Nov. 14, 2003 Report: Nearly 150 plant workers tested positive for drugs Associated Press YORK, Pa. - Nearly 150 workers and short-term contractors at two power plants tested positive for drugs and alcohol between July 1999 and December 2002, according to a published report.The majority of the 143 workers with positive drug tests at both Three Mile Island and the Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station were short-term contractors, the York Daily Record reported Friday, citing Fitness-for-Duty reports from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.The workers who tested positive showed traces in their systems of drugs including cocaine,...

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- The United States won support from key allies Wednesday to halt construction of two nuclear power plants in North Korea for at least a year because of the communist state's atomic weapons program. The executive board of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization - a U.S.-based consortium building the reactors in North Korea - met in New York on Monday and Tuesday and discussed suspending the $4.6 billion project for the impoverished nation. KEDO has been building two light-water reactors as part of a 1994 accord between Washington and Pyongyang in which North Korea promised...

WASHINGTON, D.C., Sept. 3, 2003—Last year was the fourth straight year that nuclear energy was the low-cost leader for baseload production of electricity. Production costs—which encompass fuel plus operations and maintenance at a plant—averaged 1.71 cents/per kilowatt-hour (kwh) at nuclear power plants in 31 states. Nuclear power production costs were lower than coal-fired power plants, 1.85 cents/kwh; natural gas plants, 4.06 cents/kwh; and oil-fired plants, 4.41 cents/kwh. Stable and competitive supplies of low-cost nuclear fuel and efficient power generation at nuclear power plants—a record 780 billion kilowatt-hours—resulted in low production costs in 2002. The average fuel cost for nuclear plants...

<p>WASHINGTON - Federal inspections and security exercises at commercial nuclear power plants often overstate the level of protection and reduce the likelihood of security improvements, according to congressional investigators.</p> <p>The report said that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's inspection reports were found to not include incidents such as a guard found sleeping or falsification of security logs as security violations.</p>

A bad week looms for T.O. Getting full power system back takes longer than expected By ROB GRANATSTEIN AND ANTONELLA ARTUSO, TORONTO SUN Toronto could be plunged into and out of darkness until the end of next week as the province struggles to bring its nuclear power plants, the heart of the generating system, back to life. Rolling power outages through Toronto and the entire province are expected as demand for power is still far greater than supply, and officials are begging both individuals and corporations to continue to conserve energy this weekend in order to prevent another massive blackout....

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Thursday said nine nuclear reactors in four U.S. states were shut following a massive blackout that hit the Northeast United States and Canada. "At this point, we have nine reactors that are offline. And there is no timeline as to when these will return to service," NRC spokesman Scott Burnell said. Burnell said the reactors are in New York, New Jersey, Ohio and Michigan.

A private security force "successfully protected" the Indian Point nuclear plants against mock intruders during last month's secretive drills, according to the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. In a letter to several New York officials, dated Aug. 7 and made public yesterday, Chairman Nils Diaz said he was satisfied after watching two days of a "force-on-force" exercise. "The licensee has a strong defensive strategy and capability," Diaz wrote. "The Indian Point security force personnel successfully protected the plant from repeated mock-adversary attacks." Entergy Nuclear Northeast, owner of the twin nuclear plants 35 miles north of midtown Manhattan, said the...

TEHRAN -- Russia's First Deputy Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Trubnikov said here on Saturday that his country is ready to receive and accept new proposals to build new nuclear power plants in Iran. Trubnikov told reporters after talks with Deputy Iranian Foreign Minister Mohsen Aminzadeh that Russia is always ready to continue peaceful cooperation with Iran and other countries. He stressed that cooperation between Iran and Russia in the construction of Bushehr Atomic Power Plant does not violate international accords and is not against the interests of other countries. Asked on Moscow's agreement with the U.S. for monitoring Tehran-Moscow nuclear cooperation,...

KARACHI: In an effort to augment its nuclear power capacity, Pakistan is set to add two more units to its existing nuclear power plants. Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) is working on a plan to set up one unit each at its nuclear power plants at Karachi and Mianwali in Punjab, commission's chairman Pervez Butt said on Thursday. "In order to keep up with the global trend of using nuclear power and to increase the country's power generating capacity, the PAEC is working on a plan to establish a second unit at site of Chashma Nuclear Power Plan (CHASNUPP) in...

<p>What did the FBI know of possible terrorist attacks before September 11? The CIA? The White House? President Bush's dog Spot? The media and Congress are demanding answers, and not without reason if the purpose is to try to ensure terrible mistakes aren't repeated.</p>

MSNBC is just reporting a story that has come out this afternoon that less than 1/3rd of our nuclear power plants are being secured by armed guards. The power plants that are being guarded by National Guardsmen are not even using "live" rounds in their weapons. It seems that local state laws prohibit them from doing so as well as private companies paid to secure the plants from carrying live ammunition on site.

<p>New Jersey counter-terrorism officials are denying a state lawmaker's claim that detailed plans of the Salem/Hope Creek nuclear power complex - situated across the Delaware River from Augustine Beach - were found in a cave in Afghanistan.</p> <p>Following a tour of the complex Tuesday, Assemblyman Gary Guear announced that a National Guard member had told legislators the plans had been found in a cave used by al-Qaida members.</p>

<p>San Francisco, April 3 (Bloomberg) -- California regulators plan to vote tomorrow on the revenue that PG&E Corp., Edison International and Sempra Energy utilities will receive this year from nuclear power plants and other generating stations they own.</p> <p>Under the plan proposed by a California Public Utilities Commission administrative law judge, PG&E's Pacific Gas & Electric, the state's largest utility, will receive $2.88 billion, Edison's Southern California Edison will get $3.79 billion and Sempra's San Diego Gas & Electric will receive $466 million.</p>

Unbelievable! Download the bullet points of the Markey Nuclear Reactor Security Report...includes: The Report Indicates: 1.) The NRC does not know how many foreign nationals are employed at nuclear reactors... 2.) 21 US nuclear reactors are located within 5 miles of an airport, but 96% of all US reactors were designed without regard for the potential for impact from even a small aircraft 3.) Spent nuclear fuel in significant quantities exists at reactors all across the US and is stored in buildings that are not hardened structures, some of which reportedly have sheet metal roofs 4.) It took the NRC...

WASHINGTON - The nation's nuclear plants fail to screen workers for terrorist ties, making the facilities vulnerable to deadly attacks, U.S. Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Malden) charged in a scathing report released today.<!ENDSUMM!> Warning of ``troubling black holes in homeland security,'' Markey said al-Qaeda or other terrorist operatives could be secretly working in some of the country's 86 most sensitive nuke facilities, waiting to strike. ``Terrorists may now be employed at nuclear reactors in the United States just as terrorists enrolled in flight schools in the U.S.,'' Markey said in his report: ``Security Gap: A Hard Look at Soft Spots...