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Nuclear Waste Reprocessing – Take Action

Nuclear Waste Reprocessing – Take Action

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Nuclear Waste Reprocessing Endangers Human Life and Health – Take Action through June 4th

Statement from Physicians for Social Responsibility

The Department of Energy has proposed a program called the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership to resume nuclear waste reprocessing. This program promotes new nuclear power plants with the misleading claim that nuclear waste reprocessing is like “recycling” and will reduce the dangers of nuclear waste. Nuclear waste reprocessing is a dirty, dangerous and expensive process that creates some new (and much more dangerous) nuclear fuel and new radioactive waste by the chemical extraction of plutonium from the spent fuel from a nuclear reactor.

Physicians for Social Responsibility opposes the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership as a grave danger to human life and health. It would: massively increase the transportation of nuclear waste around the country, turning thousands of waste shipments into potential “dirty bombs on wheels;” subsidize a resurgence in the dirtiest kind of nuclear power employing plutonium that could be stolen by terrorists to make a nuclear bomb; and would “recycle” the disastrous idea of nuclear waste reprocessing, which the last time it was tried in the U.S. resulted in environmental contamination that the Department of Energy estimates will cost $5 billion and take 40 years to clean up.

The Department of Energy is taking public comments on a draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership through June 4. Tell the Department of Energy that the potential health and environmental impact of GNEP is disastrous.

Fact sheet on dirty, dangerous and expensive nuclear power

Sending your comment to Mr. Timothy A. Frazier, GNEP PEIS Document Manager, Office of Nuclear Energy, U.S. Department of Energy at GNEP-PEIS@nuclear.energy.gov.

To view a suggested comment and send a letter, click here – but it is more effective to use your own words. Be respectful, please.

Energy and Climate Change

Energy and Climate Change

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Did anyone else see Bush speaking at the G8 on climate change? He just kept repeating that we’re doing a lot, we’re spending millions on research, it’s very complicated, we’re spending money on research. Maybe when Florida’s under water, maybe when the new plague is released from polar ice, maybe when …. it’s too late. Meanwhile, they simply edit and delete the results of the research if such disagrees with their ideology – you know, a bit like the doctored evidence to go to war in Iraq, a bit like the way Bolton bullied people who didn’t come up with the results he wanted to see.

I think the other superpower -“the rest of the world” (see the piece, was it yesterday? in the New York Times) – should go ahead and do what they can. States and cities here should do what they can – some mayors have already started. Kudos!

America should not be equated with its current president. The tide will change – get things going now. Every little bit will help. Meanwhile – American reader? Sell the SUV, make your house or apartment or modular home (mobile or immobile) more energy-efficient. One dollar spent on efficiency is worth $7 spent on new energy.

Nukes are coming back – but they won’t be protected from terrorist attacks or from breakdown disasters. The Republicans want to drill a new oil well in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area – and there’s a guy in California with a bill to strike down the Endangered Species Act.

Oil supply is dwindling, and competition for carbon-based energy is growing, but there’s still so much money for them to make in the short-term.

Wanna make money? Start figuring out new energy sources now. YOU could be the big winner!