The letter warned that the seriously damaged Unit 4 spent nuclear fuel pool contains Cesium-137 (Cs-137) that is equivalent to 10 times the amount released at the time of the Chernobyl nuclear accident. If an earthquake or other event were to cause this pool to drain, this could result in a catastrophic radiological fire.

The letter urged the United Nations to organize a Nuclear Security Summit to take up the crucial problem of the Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 spent nuclear fuel pool. The letter stated that the United Nations should establish an independent assessment team on Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 and coordinate international assistance in order to stabilize the unit’s spent nuclear fuel and prevent radiological consequences with potentially catastrophic consequences.

Letters were sent to both UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, the latter asking that Japan ask immediately for the UN’s help. Nearly all of the 10,893 spent fuel assemblies at the Fukushima Daiichi plant sit in pools vulnerable to future earthquakes, with roughly 85 times more long-lived radioactivity than released at Chernobyl.

Kaori Izumi of Shut Tomari stated, “Fukushima Daiichi is no longer a Japanese issue but is an international issue. It is imperative for the Japanese government and the international community to work together on this crisis before it becomes too late.”

Nuclear experts from the US and Japan such Arnie Gundersen, Robert Alvarez, Hiroaki Koide, Masashi Goto, and Mitsuhei Murata, a former Japanese ambassador to Switzerland, and, Akio Matsumura, a former UN diplomat have continually warned against the high risk of the Fukushima Unit 4 spent nuclear fuel pool.

Shut Tomari and Green Action are seeking endorsements from civil organizations abroad (deadline 20 May). More Japanese civil organizations are expected to sign on in addition to the seventy-two organizations. (Deadline for signatures: 20 May.)

For full text of letter/endorsements/signatories, see:

http://wp.me/p1FMPy-B6

Here is the footage of the Atlanta die-in at the state capitol.

While the NRC has granted a construction/operating license to these reactors, several environmental groups have filed suit in federal court charging that the granting of this license was illegal. Clearly, taxpayer loans must not be granted before the outcome of this suit is known.

The conditional loan guarantee was granted under the presumption that the reactors would be built on time and on budget. Today, even before real construction has begun, these reactors are already behind schedule and over budget, according to the Georgia Public Service Commission's own watchdog. The original Vogtle reactors were 1200% over budget when completed! The potential for taxpayer losses that would dwarf the Solyndra debacle is extraordinarily high. After all, this loan would be 15 times larger than the Solyndra loan, and is probably 50 times riskier.

At the time the conditional loan was granted, there was a belief that there might be a nuclear power "renaissance" in the U.S. After Fukushima, that is clearly not happening. Even Standard & Poor's last week found the prospects of such a "renaissance" to be "faint." The Georgia reactors have not been required to meet post-Fukushima regulatory guidelines, and will not inspire construction of other new reactors. There is simply no justification to continue with these loans.

Tell Secretary Chu to stop these loans now.

As usual, you can edit the sample letter - by clicking above- to reflect your own concerns. Support from our international friends is very welcome. Please help us organize and mobilize by using the icons on the top right. You too can be an organizer; it's easy. Our outreach only goes so far; by telling your friends about this action page, posting it on your Facebook/Twitter or other social network pages, you are helping expand our reach and making a real difference.

Senate Bill 41, sponsored by Senator Buddy Carter and others, is a bi-partisan backed bill that would allow third party suppliers to install, own, and maintain solar panels something currently allowed in 45 other states.

The bill encourages renewable energy expansion in Georgia and would give consumers more choice about who they purchase energy from and how that energy is produced.

Because of stalling, and strong opposition from Georgia Power and others, the provisions of SB 401 have now been attached to SB459, a bill that will be heard in the Regulated Industries and  Utilities Committee.

Please contact this committee to tell them you support solar power and consumer choice. Tell them you support SB 401 and the SB 401 provisions not attached to SB 459.

Regulated Industries and Utilities  Committee:

David Shafer, Chair:  (404) 656-0048,  david.shafer@senate.ga.gov

Renee Unterman, Vice-Chair:  (404) 463-1368,  Renee.Unterman@senate.ga.gov

Ed Harbison, Secretary, (404) 656-0074, ed.harbison@senate.ga.gov

Gloria S. Butler, (404) 656-0075, gloria.butler@senate.ga.gov

Buddy Carter, (404) 656-5109, bcarter331@aol.com

Frank Ginn, (404) 656-4700, frank.ginn@senate.ga.gov

Steve Henson(404) 656-0085, stevehenson@mindspring.com

Jack Hill, (404) 656-5038, jack.hill@senate.ga.gov

George Hooks, (404) 656-0065,  george.hooks@senate.ga.gov

Rick Jeffares, (404) 656-0503,  rick.jeffares@senate.ga.gov

This monitoring, which was cut in Georgia 2003, tests drinking water, rain, crops, fish, air and more near SRS in order to protect residents in poor and rural areas, where many people rely on water from private wells, home-grown crops and fish from the Savannah River.

Sign this petition TODAY to ask the Department of Energy to keep their promise to protect Georgia communities near nuclear sites - reinstate monitoring NOW

The area also houses Plant Voglte, a nuclear power plant that Georgia Power plans to expand, adding two additional nuclear reactors to the existing two. Residents in the area are being doubly impacted by toxic pollution from both SRS and Plant Vogtle.

The DOE’s obstruction to environmental monitoring in Georgia is a gross example of environmental injustice. The people living downwind and downstream of SRS deserve to know what’s in the water, air and food that they consume.

The most recent Georgia monitoring data (from 2002) released in 2004 by the Georgia Environmental Protection Division shows elevated levels of radioactive tritium, cesium, strontium, plutonium, cobalt and iodine in Georgia communities surrounding SRS. The report showed dangerously high levels of tritium in river water, drinking water, fish and leafy vegetation.

SRS is located near Aiken, South Carolina on the Savannah River, which serves as the border between Georgia and South Carolina. The DOE funds $1.5 million annually for monitoring in South Carolina, but said funding it in Georgia would be redundant, and that the money is not available. But Georgia citizens living near SRS are concerned about their safety.
“I’ve lost sisters, brothers, cousins and friends to cancer. Every family I know has lost somebody,” said local resident Annie Laura Stephens. “We’ve tried to have meetings to find out what’s going on in our area, we’re still in the dark. It seems that nobody is listening but Jesus.”

In 2010, then DOE Assistant Secretary, Dr. Ines Triay pledged that monitoring would be restored to Georgia with a 5-year contract independent of any restrictions from SRS. In February 2011, SRS and DOE reached a deal with the Georgia Environmental Protection Division for $700,000 annually with the agreement that the check would be delivered to Georgia within 30 days. The money was never sent and in July 2011, DOE reported they would only fund $300,000 annually, less than half of what the program received annually when the its funding was cut in 2003. Now, the offer is off the table.

The meeting, called by the Georgia Coalition for the People's Agenda and Georgia Women's Action for New Directions, began with a luncheon, and featured speakers the Reverend Dr. Joseph E. Lowery, Bobbie Paul, Georgia WAND Executive Director, Helen Butler, Southern Christian Leadership Conference Executive Director, Rita Jackson Samuels, lifelong civil rights activist, Annie Laura Stephens, Georgia WAND organizer, Reverend Willie Tomlin, Reverend Peter Parker, Reverend Charles Utley and Bettieanne Hart.

Shell Bluff residents also spoke out, telling their stories and expressing many worries about the condition of their land as well as health and safety of themselves and their neighbors. The safety of drinking water, outdated radios used for safety alerts from Plant Vogtle, the tough choice between a job at the plant or being sick, questions about why so many people are dying of cancer were among concerns raised.

Tuesday, December 20, 2011
American Friends Service Committee
60 Walton Street NW, 2nd Floor
7pm-9pm

Please join us to discuss next steps in organizing against these dirty, dangerous reactors in our state. We’ll  discuss next steps in organizing  against these nukes, which may include direct action and non-violent civil disobedience. Contact courtney@wand.org for more information or call 404.524.5999 www.gawand.org

Phone Bank to De-fund Nuclear Weapons

The Congressional super committee has been charged with cutting $1.5 trillion from the federal budget by November 23. Congress will vote on their proposal one month later, December 23. Now’s the time to let them know that nuclear weapons spending has got to go!

Help us reach out to the one Southeasterner on the super committee, South Carolina Representative Jim Clyburn. We’ll call Clyburn’s constituents to enlist their help to de-fund nuclear weapons and ask them to convince Clyburn to do the same!

Join us at the Georgia WAND office November 10 or November 15 6pm-8pm pm at the Georgia WAND office, 250 Georgia Avenue, Suite 202, Atlanta, GA 30316. We'll provide pizza and a script. We'll also have some phones available, but please bring your cell phone and charger is you are able. If you’d prefer to call from home, let us know! We’ll send you your own list and a script just email Carolyn@wand.org for more details.

Sign the “Co-petition to prevent Fukushima in the US.”

Beyond Nuclear has petitioned the NRC to suspend the operations of 23 Fukushima-style reactors in the US. Co-petition with us by sending a letter to the NRC. Click here to sign.

Petition the Obama Administration to end taxpayer subsidies for new nuclear reactors

With federally implemented taxpayer subsidies for new nuclear reactors, and Georgia Power's nuclear construction cost recovery fee already on our power bills, Georgians are forced to pay twice for dirty, dangerous nuclear reactors that we do not want in our state.

Georgia is scheduled to build the first new nuclear reactors in the U.S. in 30 years. Please sign the petition below to let the White House know that we won't pay for new nuclear reactors!

Click here to sign. If you don't already have an account with whitehouse.gov, you will first need to set one up by entering your name, email address and zip code.

Oppose Radioactive Spent Fuel Storage and Reprocessing at the Savannah River Site—sign the letter to Governor Nathan Deal!

Tell Governor Deal that we don’t want the Southeast to become a dumping ground for nuclear waste. Download the letter to Gov Deal here, print and send in or email it using this form.

Fight Against Nuclear Loans

Call:

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (202) 224-3521 (Washington D.C.)

Sen. Johnny Isakson (202) 224-3643 (Washington D.C.)

Your REP. via the Congressional Switchboard: (202) 224-3121

Ask them to OPPOSE any increase to the TITLE 17 NUCLEAR LOAN PROGRAM, and instead to push for the PROGRAM TO BE ENDED AND ALL UNSPENT MONEY RESCINDED. (Previously approved: %18.5 billion for new reactors and $4 billion for uranium enrichment plants)

The Commission is tasked with  conducting a comprehensive review of policies for managing the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle, including all alternatives for storage, processing and disposal of civilian and defense used nuclear fuel, high level waste and other materials derived from nuclear activities and is offering this rare and important opportunity for public discourse on these issues.

Georgia WAND Executive Director has been asked to address the Blue Ribbon Commission at 11:45 on Tuesday. Please support Bobbie and come with your own comments!

Blue Ribbon Commission
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Bobbie Paul speaks, 11:45 am, Public Comments begin at 3pm
Marriott Marquis, 265 Peachtree Center Avenue, Atlanta, GA

The Commission needs to hear from ALL GEORGIANS concerned about nuclear power, what it does to our environment, our health and our bank accounts! Please speak up and speak out during the public comments portion of the meeting, 3pm to 5pm. Click here for an entire schedule for the day.

 Recognizing the environmental, health and safety hazards suffered by  those living in the shadow of nuclear weapons facilities and commercial nuclear power reactors, Georgia WAND advocates for the restoration of environmental monitoring to the state of Georgia (through Georgia’s Environmental Protection Division) This important monitoring would expose radioactive impacts on vegetation, rainfall,  well water, the Savannah River, livestock, peanuts and other crops and the air, specifically in Georgia’s Burke and Screven counties.

Scroll down for more important nuclear issues that the BRC needs to hear. These can be used as supplemental information, or as a guide for your public comments.

Nuclear Power
It is irresponsible to recommend continued American reliance on nuclear power. The first step to solving the nuclear waste crisis is to stop making more waste. The BRC should recommend decommissioning U.S. reactors as they reach the end of their original licenses.

Interim On-Site Storage
Page 49 of the BRC draft report states that “interim storage of substantial quantities of spent fuel at operating reactor sites can be expected to continue for some time”. Therefore cooling pool density needs to be addressed. The BRC should recommend that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) take action to get spent fuel out of cooling pools and into Hardened On-Site Storage (HOSS). HOSS needs improved regulation and the BRC should recommend this course of action to the NRC. HOSS is not just about preventing terrorism, as mentioned in the draft BRC report; it would also prevent much of the radioactive release in a catastrophe such as Fukushima. Let’s move to HOSS now, before an accident occurs at a US cooling pool.

Consolidated Storage
Interim storage need not be consolidated. Shipping nuclear waste around the country is extremely expensive and creates unnecessary environmental and human health risks. Nuclear waste should not be moved unless it is bound for a permanent disposal site. HOSS can provide safe and secure interim storage without transportation risks and expenses. Operating reactors already have the level of security that HOSS would require; therefore it is not clear why consolidating storage might be more cost effective.

Permanent Storage and Public Involvement
Public involvement is key to siting and safely operating nuclear waste storage facilities. Nuclear waste storage should be a “science based” enterprise, but public acceptance is critical to a facility’s success. Public involvement should not end with siting – transparency and public oversight should be important aspects of the “new organization” that the BRC recommends take responsibility for long term nuclear waste storage/disposal in the U.S.

Reprocessing
Reprocessing is not a solution to the challenge of nuclear waste and should not be re-started in the U.S. We applaud the Commission for not recommending that the U.S. pursue reprocessing, but push you to reject it more explicitly. Reprocessing is dirty; many of the world’s most contaminated sites are reprocessing plants (Hanford, West Valley, the Savannah River Site, and Chelyabinsk). Reprocessing is not recycling. Reprocessing creates new toxic waste streams and does not eliminate the long-term need for nuclear waste storage. Additionally, reprocessing is not a good economic choice. Reprocessing facilities around the world are closing (Sellafield, UK), relying on huge government subsidies (France), or failing to open at all (Rokkasho, Japan). Private investors are not interested in this technology and US taxpayers cannot afford to subsidize it.

By BRYAN RAHIJA

Bob Alvarez, a Senior Scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) who with support from POGO authored a recent report on the dangers associated with how the majority of nuclear spent fuel is stored in the U.S., just sent the following in an email regarding this afternoon's earthquake felt across the East Coast:

An earthquake measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale just occurred less than a hour ago. It's epicenter was in Mineral, VA—approximately 10 miles from two nuclear power reactors at the North Anna site. According to a representative of Dominion Power, the two reactors were designed to withstand a  5.9-6.1 quake. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) ranked the North Anna Reactors as being 7th in the nation in terms of earthquake risks.

Control rods are automatically inserted to halt a reactor, if it is impacted by an earthquake. However, the reactor core still has a large amount of decay heat that requires power to remove it if there is a loss of offsite power to prevent a melt down. It is reported that the North Anna reactors were shut down and is operating with back-up diesel generators. The failure to remove reactor decay heat is what led to severe accidents at the Fukusima nuclear site on Japan. It is not clear, at this time, what damage might have been sustained at the nuclear site.

The North Anna reactors are of the Westinghouse Pressurized Water design and went on line in 1979 and 1980 respectively. Since then the reactors have generated approximately 1,200 metric tons of nuclear spent fuel containing about 228,000 curies of highly radioactive materials—among the largest concentrations of radioactivity in the United States.

Nearly 40 percent of the radioactivity in the North Anna spent fuel pools is cesium-137—a long-lived radioisotope that gives off potentially dangerous penetrating radiation and also accumulates in food over a period of centuries. The North Anna Pools hold about 15-30 times more Cs-137 than was released by the Chernobyl accident in 1986. In 2003, IPS helped lead a study warning that drainage of a pool might cause a catastrophic radiation fire, which could render an area uninhabitable greater than that created by the Chernobyl accident.

The spent fuel pools at North Anna contain 4-5 times more than their original designs intended. As in Japan, all U.S. power nuclear power plant spent fuel pools do not have steel lined, concrete barriers that cover reactor vessels to prevent the escape of radioactivity. They are not required to have back-up generators to keep used fuel rods cool, if offsite power is lost. Even though they contain these very large amount of radioactivity, spent reactor fuel pools in the U.S. are mostly contained in ordinary industrial structures designed to protect them against the elements.

Update: Bloomberg reports that the North Anna power plant has lost power.

Dominion Resources Inc. lost all offsite power at its North Anna nuclear power plant in Virginia and began using backup diesel generators after a 5.9-magnitude earthquake struck nearby.

One of the four diesel generators stopped working after startup, David McIntyre, a spokesman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said in an e-mail today. There were no reports of damage at the plant, he said.

Bryan Rahija edits POGO's blog.

For further reading about North Anna Nuclear Plant please see this informative blog from The Intel Hub:

Media Silent On Fate Of North Anna Nuclear Plant At Epicenter Of 5.9 Mineral Virginia Earthquake