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not learning what is spewed in their backyard is support for the Chem Industry.
Hell, many chemical companies due to lack of supervision can explode on their own without any help from terrorists.
And take a gander at this:
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TRIASSIC PARK/GNEP
RADIOACTIVE WASTE REPROCESSING AND NUCLEAR REACTOR
PLANS
TRIASSIC PARK-WHAT IS IT?: Triassic Park, located 40 miles east of Roswell, is a 480–acre
operating hazardous waste dump owned by Gandy Marley, Inc. (GMI). GMI, in partnership with
EnergySolutions, Inc. (ESI) a firm out of Utah, has submitted a proposal to the U.S. Department
of Energy (DOE) to put a nuclear spent fuel reprocessing plant and an experimental nuclear reactor
at Triassic Park.
GLOBAL NUCLEAR ENERGY PROGRAM (GNEP)--WHAT IS THAT?: The current administration,
through the Department of Energy (DOE), has decided to spend many billions of taxpayer
dollars to promote the fatally flawed nuclear energy industry. This publicly–funded scam
would sell nuclear power plants––subsidized by American taxpayers––to developing nations
around the world. Since nuclear plant spent fuel is a source of plutonium which can be used to
make nuclear weapons, this plan for overseas reactor sales has a built–in flaw––unstable governments
might use that fuel to make nuclear weapons.
In order to counteract that weapons proliferation danger, the DOE has created a complicated
plan––GNEP––to take radioactive spent fuel back from the foreign nuclear reactors and shipping
it to the U.S. for reprocessing. This reprocessed fuel can be used in existing U.S. reactors only
once. After one cycle, the fuel has too high a level of what are known as “transuranics,” the man–
made elements which do not work properly in light–water reactors, the kind used almost exclusively
in the United States. The only reactors which can use this fuel are known as “fast neutron reactors.”
The GNEP plan proposes to build a new generation of these sodium–cooled fast–neutron
nuclear reactors to consume this high–transuranic reprocessed fuel.
WHY IS THIS PLAN A BAD IDEA?:
>>> There's still radioactive waste. While the DOE describes this plan as “recycling,” it is
properly called reprocessing. It does not neutralize or make safe radioactive waste. Rather, it divides
the spent fuel into several streams chemically. Some of those streams can be reused, but
some cannot, and must still be stored above–ground for two or three hundred years, until they radioactively
decay enough to be buried in a permanent repository such as Yucca Mountain.
>>> The economics stink. Only one nuclear fuel reprocessing plant has been built and operated
in this country. This was the Nuclear Fuel Services plant in West Valley, New York. The plant
operated from 1966–1972, and after a number of fires, workers’ exposure to radiation, and a rate
of production that was one–sixth of what was anticipated, the owners ceased operation in 1972
and officially closed the plant in 1976. In current dollars and uranium equivalents, the plant produced
about $20 million worth of fuel in six years, but its clean–up and decommissioning have cost
the taxpayers roughly $6 billion. After 31 years, the clean–up is still ongoing.
>>> You're paying for it. This will be taxpayer–funded, and the DOE won’t even say what the
long–term costs will be. The DOE gave Congress an estimate of $280 billion over the life cycle
of 117 years, but later withdrew that cost estimate, and won’t say why. You’ll be paying for it, but
someone else will get the electricity, and you’ll then pay to bring the radioactive waste back to this
country and pay for its reprocessing and eventual disposal in the United States.
>>> It can make nuclear weapons proliferation worse. President Ford stopped reprocessing
in the US in 1974, and President Carter affirmed that order, and no reprocessing has occurred
since. Their reasons were simple––reprocessing inevitably means stockpiling some plutonium,
and that makes theft or terrorist attack more likely. The DOE scheme also means that more
plutonium will be moving around the planet as MOx (mixed–oxide fuel). While the DOE says their
plan will prevent such from happening, plutonium can be removed from such reprocessed fuels
by chemical processes that are sixty years old and well–known. The French reprocessing plant
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operated by COGEMA now has about 250 metric tons (550,000 lbs) of plutonium stockpiled because
the amount removed from spent fuel is about two–thirds more than they have been able
to sell as MOx fuel. Only about twenty pounds of plutonium is necessary to make a weapon similar
to that used on Nagasaki in 1945.
>>> You might end up with the radioactive waste, and no jobs. Even if the plans
are not completely funded by future Congresses, the terms for the grant application between the
DOE and GMI/ESI required them to assure the government that the host community (that’s you)
would not object to the storage of radioactive spent fuel waste for an indeterminate amount of time.
There were no public meetings to ask the community before the grant application was made and
the initial DSR (detailed site review) grant was awarded.
>>> Fool me once.... DOE promised the citizens of New Mexico that only low–level nuclear
waste would ever be shipped to WIPP in Carlsbad. High–level waste is currently being shipped
to WIPP. Corporate officers of Gandy Marley, Inc, swore under oath––during public hearings on
a hazardous waste permit they sought––that they had no current or future plans to expand to include
nuclear waste, even though documentation existed to the contrary. They also sold Triassic
Park to the community then and now based on the fact that they are local people and not an outside
company. Their partner, ESI, a Utah company, received their permit for a radioactive waste site
in Utah from Utah’s Division of Radiation Control, whose director was later convicted of bribery
charges for accepting bribes from Envirocare, a company ESI absorbed. ESI’s approach is to dole
out thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to political leaders in the region to aid them in
permitting their facilities. How much have they doled out in New Mexico?
>>> Do guinea pigs glow in the dark? You may get the chance to find out. DOE admits
that their new UREX+ reprocessing technologies have only been demonstrated on laboratory
benches, and are completely unproven on a large commercial scale. The new generation of fast–
neutron reactors proposed by the DOE to run this reprocessed fuel are actually variations on older
designs which have been troublesome and sometimes dangerous in operation. The earliest example
in this country, the Fermi 1 plant operated by Detroit Edison, suffered a partial core meltdown
in 1966, a major fire in 1970, and was refused relicensing in 1972. The new plant proposed
by the DOE is to be cooled by liquid sodium. Sodium explodes upon contact with water and burns
spontaneously in air, making sodium fires extremely difficult to extinguish. Moreover, neither the
proposed reactor nor reprocessing plant designs are certified for licensing by the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission at this time.
>>> Misery loves company. Proven time and time again, the placement of waste sites in an
area attracts more waste industries. Once a community allows one, they are much more likely to
allow more. Poor, uneducated, ethnic minority communities are even more susceptible. Waste
industries represent up–front financial gain for their owners, while creating long–term financial,
health and environmental liabilities for their communities.
>>> How do you feel when being rushed to sign on the dotted line? The DOE is
trying to sell you a used Chevy and they want you to buy it right now, before someone else snaps
up this great deal. If it’s such a great deal, why did the DOE have to pay the site owner for a cost
that is normally borne by the commercial concern interested in licensing? The DOE is in a big rush
to get this project underway, to have the government fund it enough so that, later, they’ll be able
to say, “if you don’t spend more on this project, all that money we’ve spent already will be wasted.”
That’s called, in government–speak, “front–loading.” It’s the sign of a 100%, all–American, mom–
and–apple–pie boondoggle. When the wheels fall off, it’s your problem, not the salesman’s.
STILL THINK IT'S A GOOD IDEA?
Ask yourself what a $300 billion investment in alternative fuels and alternative energy sources
might do for this country. It might preserve your way of life without having to worry about your air
or your water eventually harming you or your family. That investment, too, might provide you a
good job––without any radioactive waste to slog through. Or, you can become Homer Simpson.
Anyone in ABQ go to meeting Friday 3/30 at the Hilton on University from 6:00 to 9:00 pm.
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