The resignation of NRC Chairman Gregory Jackzo puts the issue of nuclear safety smack on the middle of Obama's desk, and then into the presidential race. That's a good thing. The NRC is not doing the job that the law and common sense require it to do. It is a captive of the nuclear industry, operates in secret and without due regard for the public health and safety. The NRC's relationship to the nuclear industry today is just what the SEC's relationship was to Wall Street four years ago. We are skating on very thin ice. The nomination of a new chairman, with the public debate that will follow is the best way to get it pointed in the right direction.
Full disclosure: I've been active for many years in the efforts to close Indian Point, because it's dangerous in design and operation, and within 50 miles of 22 million people, unlike any other American reactor. Those efforts have included litigation to force IP to stop taking three billion gallons of water a day from the Hudson River and returning it in polluted form, efforts to make the NRC adopt a real and workable evacuation plan for the region, and federal litigation, now before the courts, to stop the NRC from giving secret "exemptions" to IP from its own safety rules.
The conventional response from the nuclear industry has been to try to marginalize opponents by dismissing them as "anti-nuke activists." They've actually had some success at that, even as real events such as Three Mile Island and Fukushima have reminded every American about the realities of unsafe operation of nuclear plants.
But there's a growing awareness among some proponents of nuclear power, that a broken NRC actually hurts them as well. There's enormous political and economic muscle behind attempts to build new plants, with Obama in support, and taxpayer funded-corporate welfare already in place. But given the egregious behavior of the American nuclear industry, and the NRC, there remains massive resistance to a proliferation of new plants. So, fixing the NRC to a point where it enjoys the confidence of the American people turns out to be more than the goal of those opposed to nuclear power, it is the only way that "pro-nuke activists" can move forward.
Jackzo was in some ways trying to make that point. He got into trouble for a confrontational style, but in the end he was tanked by the dinosaurs in the nuclear industry. Their fond hope is to get a new chairman who will protect and expand the practices at the NRC that reduce their costs and endanger the American people.
Look at the issues the NRC really needs to decide. Spent fuel storage on reactor sites; spent fuel permanent storage; re-licensing of aged and non-conforming reactors; inadequate evacuation plans; terrorist attacks; earthquake protections; secret "exemptions" from safety rules, and much, much more.
Who Obama nominates and what he says about the NRC will be things that may get short shrift in an election year, but will do more to define the physical and economic security of the American people than most of what is now being debated. Let's recall the audacity of hope and hope for some audacity.
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Given that, I wan't a bully running the NRC.
Big business cuts corners till things break. That is a fact of human nature. No laws can stop it.
Nuke power cannot be made safe. 6 million cancer deaths from nukes so far, and a single CME could cause at least 100 meltdowns, 100 Chernobyls, Japan.....
The NRC should be doing what it's charter calls for, protecting the public from nuclear power.
That means replacing it with solar wind and waste, and shutting down all the reactors and finding a solution to the million year waste, and making the power companies the profited, pay for it.
The NRC and the IAEC are captive pr arms of the world nuclear power military industrial complex. Nukes get 500M$ per reactor per year in breaks for electricity we can get cheaper and safe from rooftop solar, offshore wind and waste bio fuels.
But bit money wins again.
Because of nukes I grew up with the fear of nuclear armageddon any moment. Something will still live with. You think that's a good thing?
Your perception of the NRC is, I suppose, necessary to your own involvement in trying to stop safe, carbon-free electricity generation at Indian Point. You need to believe that the detailed, exhaustive and very tough NRC inspections that Indian Point regularly passes are in some way not representative of reality. But you are wrong, and perhaps eventually you will realize that you are wasting your valuable energy and persusive powers on the wrong cause. I hope that day comes soon.
Big money cuts corners til things break, and they buy regulators to avoid the law.
This is reality 101.
You cannot inspect all the critical parts of a reactor without tearing it down. It's during decomisioning that we have discovered just how bad these reactors are decaying.
Million have died from nuclear power cancers. Yet you still can't wake up to how wrong and dangerous nukes are. Without the 500M$ in breaks per reactor per year, and the exemption for liability, there would be no nuke power.
He was appointed to the commission and later as chairman for one reason - to help Harry Reid kill Yucca Mountain. So far, it appears he was sucessful at that, but at an extremely high cost in the billions of dollars spent on a now dormant project and at the cost of the reputation of the NRC as an objective regulator.
Good riddance.
Yep, that's the narrative the nuclear industry want's people to believe
Here's to the hope that "the dinosaurs in the nuclear industry" will soon go the way of ...well... the dinosaur