Michael Buhrman, the infamous former licensed senior nuclear reactor operator turned fugitive who is believed to have fled the country to evade capture by authorities, was convicted last month of aggravated vehicular hijacking and vehicular hijacking and sentenced to 40 years in prison. It took the DuPage County jury less than an hour to reach […]
An employee supervisor at the V.C. Summer nuclear power plant in South Carolina tested positive for alcohol during a random fitness for duty test. The individual has had site access terminated. Source: NRC Event Notifications
Early Easter Sunday morning, an industrial accident at the Arkansas Nuclear Power Plant killed one worker and injured 8 others and left the unit without offsite power. At the time of the accident, workers were moving the Main Turbine Generator Stator out of the turbine building when the lift crane failed and dropped the […]
A licensed reactor operator at the Grand Gulf Nuclear Power Plant in Mississippi tested positive test for illegal drugs during a random fitness-for-duty test. The operator has had access to the GE BWR reactor site terminated. Source: NRC Event Notifications
In 2009, President Obama issued a memorandum to executive agencies which outlined guidance for the use of social media to increase outreach efforts. In January 2011, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission launched its first official blog. Over the course of the last few years, the NRC has been working to expand their social media impact. The […]
Former Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Gregory Jaczko, has been appointed to an little-known panel with the National Nuclear Security Administration this week. The Congressional Advisory Panel was created by the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act, will include 12 congressionally appointed members, and will work to make recommendations to improve operations culminating in a […]
At the 2013 Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference in Washington, DC on April 8th and 9th, former Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko called for the phase out of all 103 operating reactors in the United States. He argued that all nuclear power plants in the United States have a “fundamental design problem”, which cannot […]
Dr. Gordon Edwards, a well respected nuclear expert, explains the background of Chairman Jaczko’s decision: Gregory Jaczko, Chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission until last year, has arrived at a very basic realization: every potentially dangerous machine should have an emergency “off” switch that shuts everything down completely. And nuclear power reactors don’t have […]
On Wednesday, officials from Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority approved a new set of nuclear safety guidelines for utilities to follow in order to prepare for emergencies and natural disasters, the new rules will go into effect in July. The rules are stricter in controlling how utilities prepare for serious accidents and most will need to […]
A former energy advisor to the French government, Mycle Schneider, was being interviewed by BBC this week when he questioned the French utility EDF’s ability to build new nuclear power plants in Britain. “EDF is in big trouble. The whole of the nuclear power industry in France is in big trouble,” he said. According to […]
Japan, one of the most densely populated nations in the world, lies in a zone of extreme crustal instability named the Ring of Fire, where 90% of the world’s earthquakes and a large number of volcanic eruptions occur. The Ring consists of 25,000 mile series of oceanic trenches, volcanic arcs, and grinding tectonic plates all […]
This week, while remodeling a bathroom in the protected area on the third floor of the Administrative Building, workers found a bottle of gin while removing the ceiling tiles. The finding is eerily similar to another reported event which took place last September, after a contractor working above a locker room in the protected area […]
Around 07:50 on Easter Sunday morning, an accident at the Arkansas Nuclear Power Plant not only killed one worker and injured others it also left the Unit 1 reactor without offsite power. Workers were using the Unit 1 turbine temporary lift device to move the Main Turbine Generator Stator, which weighs over 500 tons, out […]
In Japan, a fierce debate is taking place over the future of the nation’s energy supply. Protests in Tokyo last July held more demonstrators than the 1960s protests against a security treaty with the United States. While the previous administration under Prime Minister Noda had passed a policy which phased out nuclear power in the […]
Tohoku Electric first announced plans to construct the Namie-Odaka nuclear power plant 10 kilometers north of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station in 1968. After the proposed site was one of the areas hardest hit by the March 11th earthquake and tsunami, local community assemblies began opposing the construction project until the utility was forced […]
On Wednesday, officials from the Atomic Energy Society of Japan discussed the report at their annual meeting held at Kinki University in Osaka Prefecture. The report released by the Atomic Energy Society accepted that the direct cause of the disaster was a loss of reactor cooling functions due to damage sustained by the tsunami and […]
There have been many flood-related concerns about the safety of nuclear power plants in the United States in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, documents released through the Freedom of Information Act have shown that regulators have been concerned about the possibilities of floods overwhelming nuclear power stations for decades. The Nuclear Regulatory […]
Former governor of the Northern Mariana Islands, Benigno R. Fitial stands alone in history as the first governor of any U.S. territory to be the subject of impeachment, but only the ninth United States governor to be impeached and removed from office. On August 28th, 2012, while Governor Fitial was in the United States for […]
This week Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility attorney John Geesman, seismologist consultant Dr. Douglas Hamilton, and outreach coordinator David Weisman traveled to a three day workshop in Oakland, which was a part of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission mandated post-Fukushima workshop. All three members of the watchdog organization were evicted from the building prior to a presentation […]
Around the world, the costs of operating nuclear reactors are continuing to climb almost as much as the additional liability costs are. The Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd released a statement late Tuesday night which raised the estimate of its costs and liability for nuclear decommissioning and waste management from C$3.6 billion to C$6 billion, […]