The Energy Department filed to withdraw an application for a nuclear-waste repository at Yucca Mountain, formally seeking Wednesday to reverse a Bush administration policy.The Obama administration’s Energy Department has said that it hopes to develop a new plan for long-term disposal of nuclear waste. The Energy Department has established a blue-ribbon panel to make recommendation
Here is the filing:
Last night over 10,000 MoveOn members participated in our first real-time dial test of the President’s State of the Union Speech. Below is a chart showing their reactions to President Obama’s speech, with the points of strongest approval and disapproval highlighted:
Workers at a nuclear power plant in southern India were treated for poisoning after drinking water was deliberately spiked with radiation, senior government officials said Sunday.
Routine tests showed 55 employees from the plant in Kaiga in the state of Karnataka had increased levels of the radioactive element tritium, which is used in nuclear reactors.
B. Bhattacharjee, a member of the National Disaster Management Authority, said someone had inserted contaminated water into a water cooler, according to the Press Trust of India.
A small amount of radiation has been detected in a reactor building at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in central Pennsylvania.About 150 employees were sent home after the radiation was detected Saturday afternoon, but officials say there is no public health risk.
Exelon Nuclear spokeswoman Beth Archer says investigators are searching for the cause, but that the radiation was quickly contained.
“In its present form I would not vote for it,” he said. “I have some real questions about the real complexities on cap and trade.”
“That piece of legislation right now is something that is going to cause a lot of people a lot of concern,” he said.
He would much rather pass a nuclear subsidy bill, apparently:
On Monday, Webb and Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) proposed their own energy bill that would double the use of nuclear power through the country over the next 20 years.
The legislation would spend $20 billion over the next two decades to fund loan guarantees, worker training, research into nuclear power, advanced biofuels, electric vehicles, solar power, and nuclear fuel recycling. Both the senators’ home states – Virginia and Tennessee – have significant nuclear power plants.
Perhaps we should think more carefully about who we allow to stick that big D — and all of the $ and support that comes with it — next to their name.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You’ve also pledged to help – to work with the president on preserving our national parks. You’re here with Secretary Salazar. And one of the things you’re having a hearing on this weekend is the threat of climate change to our national parks.
I was in Glacier National Park a couple years ago with Governor Schweitzer. You talked about the problem there. Glaciers just evaporating, could be completely gone by 2025, 2035. What’s the threat here?
MCCAIN: I think the threat is serious here. We’ve seen increased temperatures, which has had impact on the wildlife, on the flora and fauna, on the Colorado River itself, which we are seeing less and less of.
We are in serious drought conditions, our parks have very fragile ecology here and, frankly, when you’re in this driest area anyway, then they’re even more fragile.
So I think that part of the impact of climate change on our national parks is – well, you know, they’re going to have to change the name of Glacier National Park because the glaciers are going away.
STEPHANOPOULOS: In the past, you’ve been supportive of legislation to deal with greenhouse gas emissions, cap and trade. What about the current legislation that’s coming out of the House now, moving to the Senate? They’ve met a lot of your objections about not giving away the allowances. Is this something that you can support?
MCCAIN: Well, to support a 1,400 page piece of legislation to start with is always difficult for me, but I believe that the only way we’re going to truly reduce greenhouse gas emissions effectively is through nuclear power.
We have got to build 100 nuclear power plants in the next 20 years. We can do that. Right now, the administration’s position is against storage and they’re against recycling of spent nuclear fuel. I can’t support a genuine reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, unless nuclear power is a key part of it.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But you’ve been for it in past.
MCCAIN: I’ve been for – and nuclear – assuming that nuclear power would be a key part of it. I mean, you can’t get there from here. The only country that’s really making its Kyoto goals is France, where 80 percent of their electricity is generated by nuclear power.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But you’d be willing to go along with cap and trade, if it were part of a comprehensive deal that included more …
MCCAIN: Well, that would have to be part of it. And second of all, in any 1,400 page piece of legislation, you put in a lot of special deals for a lot of special interests. We know what happened there. The bazaar was open in the House of Representatives, so obviously I would have to want to do away with a whole lot of that.
But I think climate change is real and I would be glad to sit down and try to work, as I have in the past, across the aisle on this issue. Senator Lieberman is great on this issue…
STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Kerry is putting a group together as well; have you been part of that?
MCCAIN: I have not yet, no.
