When thousands of people donate no more than $100 per person per election, we can build a campaign without money from special interests. _______________________ But it's about more than money. We need your energy and your enthusiasm, too. Sign up to volunteer on Jim Hansen's campaign for Congress.
 _______________________ 
|
|
You must Register and Login before you can correspond with this community.
|
|
|
|
|
|
These community forums are intended solely as a tool for people to express their views. As long as everyone in the forums acts in a respectful manner, the discussions will remain unmoderated by campaign staff.
The campaign is not responsible for forum content. Views expressed in these forums do not necessarily reflect Jim Hansen's views, nor the views of his campaign.
Take them for what they are, an informal conversation about issues that matter to all Idahoans. And by all means, participate!
|
|
|
| You are not authorized to post a reply.
|
|
| Author |
Messages |
|
Peter Rickards
Posts:13
 |
| 18 Feb 2006 18:59 |
 Alert
|
Hi Jim and everyone,
I have yet to see a Democrat candidate say he will oppose and stop the effort by Simpson to cluster all nuclear dirty work in Idaho. Perhaps Jim will be the first. What will Jim's position be, with all these jobs at stake?
We are presently funding the first commercial nuclear power plant on any federally soveriegn DOE land, complete with transmission lines to sell the power out of state, to the highest bidder. Up to 5 more are considered, for starters, by the delegation backed Bush plan, called Nuclear Power 2010. They can't build them in any city, so the nuclear businesses are moving to Idaho.
Simpson, in the article below, defends clustering nuclear weapons grade material here because of the terrorist threat. That is the DOE/politician logic on their plutonium-238 production clustering in Idaho, too.
Should we cluster a terrorist target in Idaho? The other Dem candidate, Craig Cooper, favors all nuclear projects in Idaho. What is your position and plan of action Jim?
Thanks...Peter in Twin Falls
"Idaho Republican Rep. Mike Simpson is a member of the House appropriations panel that approved the language in the spending bill. He said that because the enriched uranium is not waste and similar materials are already stored at INL, he's willing to consider using the Idaho lab as a storage site.
"It's important to keep in mind that Idaho has the experts, the facilities and the security to deal with these materials in a safe and responsible manner," Simpson said Tuesday. "If the Idaho National Laboratory can play a significant role in helping to secure our nation against nuclear terrorism and save taxpayers billions of dollars in the process, we have a responsibility to sit down with DOE and talk about it."
http://www.magicvalley.com/articles/2005/05/25/news_localstate/news_local_state.3.txt
Wednesday, May 25, 2005 • Twin Falls, Idaho
House passes bill setting aside money to upgrade INL buildings for bomb-grade uranium
By The Associated Press
BOISE -- The U.S. House passed a spending bill Tuesday that sets aside money to upgrade buildings at the Idaho National Laboratory for storing bomb-grade uranium stockpiles from federal weapons labs in other states.
The $29.7 billion appropriations bill for federal energy and water programs includes money for several existing and new programs at the eastern Idaho nuclear research compound. The bill passed the House 416-13. The legislation must still be considered by the Senate.
The House bill boosts the budget for the Energy Department's Office of Security and Performance Enhancement to $356.5 million, more than the $300 million recommended by Bush. An unspecified portion of that increase will be used to design renovations to two concrete bunkers at INL to house surplus plutonium and highly enriched uranium no longer needed for nuclear bomb production.
Hundreds of tons of the so-called "special nuclear materials" are stored at installations around the country. The bill orders the Energy Department to come up with a plan by Sept. 30 to consolidate much of the weapons material in Idaho.
The Bush administration is seeking to cut costs and the threat of terrorist attack by moving the materials from multiple sites near population centers to more remote locations.
Idaho Republican Rep. Mike Simpson is a member of the House appropriations panel that approved the language in the spending bill. He said that because the enriched uranium is not waste and similar materials are already stored at INL, he's willing to consider using the Idaho lab as a storage site.
"It's important to keep in mind that Idaho has the experts, the facilities and the security to deal with these materials in a safe and responsible manner," Simpson said Tuesday. "If the Idaho National Laboratory can play a significant role in helping to secure our nation against nuclear terrorism and save taxpayers billions of dollars in the process, we have a responsibility to sit down with DOE and talk about it."
Opponents say that although the Idaho lab has been billed as the proving ground for new generations of clean nuclear power, consolidating the material there would put INL into a Cold War-era role of atomic weapons support.
"Just because INL has better security than Los Alamos (National Laboratory in New Mexico) -- which isn't hard -- it seems all of the real dangerous programs are turning toward us," said Jeremy Maxand of the Boise-based Snake River Alliance. "It's all happening through the appropriations process and there's no public debate, no hearings, no environmental impact statements."
Maxand also points to $8.5 million in the bill for INL to plan and build facilities to take over Los Alamos National Laboratory's production of plutonium-238, which is used in "space batteries" to power orbiting satellites.
Simpson said several provisions in the House spending bill reinforce INL's role in developing nuclear power reactors, including $13.5 million for an advanced test reactor for the Navy, $7 million to accelerate operation of a homeland security test range to study ways to protect the nation's electrical grid and wireless communications systems, and $16 million for upgrading research facilities at the site.
The bill also directs the Department of Energy to begin storing spent commercial nuclear reactor fuel at interim storage sites by 2006, specifying INL as one possible alternative until a permanent repository is operating at Nevada's Yucca Mountain.
Simpson says chances of that ever happening are slim. He said the bill's language does not alter the force of a 1995 court-ordered settlement between the state of Idaho and the Energy Department that states DOE "will make no shipments of spent fuel from commercial nuclear power plants" to INL.
Story published at magicvalley.com on Wednesday, May 25, 2005
|
|
|
|
|
Peter Rickards
Posts:13
|
| 10 Apr 2006 3:31 |
Alert
|
Hmmm, does nuclear weapons plutonium work clustered at INL sound good to you? The DOE has admitted it is looking for a single site where they can TRY to be secure from terrorist strikes. Where have I heard that before? Oh yah, the "space battery" Trojan Horse Simpson volunteered Idaho for. That's the plutonium-238 production cluster chosen for Idaho.
Between Nevada and Idaho, any bets that Reid and Nevada politicians will fight this, and Simpson will invite this deadly project? As in the article above, Simpson is already trying to stack the deck in favor of Idaho doing all the nuclear dirty work...Peter
April 6, 2006
"In September, an independent security review of the complex by retired Adm. Richard Mies pointed to the Nevada Test Site or an underground storage facility at Idaho National Lab as potential places to store the material."
U.S. to consolidate all plutonium work by 2022
By BETSY MASON
Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, Calif.)
Lawrence Livermore National Lab
Lawrence Livermore National Lab scientists working with radioactive material.
The Department of Energy announced plans Wednesday to move plutonium from Lawrence Livermore Laboratory by 2014 and to consolidate all U.S. work involving plutonium at a single facility by 2022.
The move, intended to enhance security and increase efficiency, is part of a larger plan to renovate the nuclear weapons complex by 2030.
"We're looking to make the complex safer and more secure," said Bryan Wilkes, spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration -- the DOE branch that oversees the weapons complex.
Plutonium is now scattered across the country at seven different DOE facilities, requiring high-level security tailored to each site. Livermore may be the most problematic because of its proximity to the surrounding community, and to the densely populated Bay Area.
Livermore recently beefed up defense of its plutonium facility with the addition of multiple six-barreled Gatling guns, capable of firing more than 50 shots per second.
Community groups including Livermore-based Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment have long argued that the 7 million people living within a 50-mile radius of the lab make it an inappropriate place to store plutonium.
The new plan, outlined by the NNSA during a House Armed Services Committee meeting in Washington, involves moving plutonium from Livermore to Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico. A new facility being built there would ramp up to take over the production of pits -- the explosive cores of nuclear warheads -- and the plutonium work currently being done at both labs. By 2022, the plutonium would be moved again to a new facility whose location has not been determined.
Peter Stockton of the Project on Government Oversight says plutonium needs to be moved from Livermore, but doesn't think it should wait until 2014.
"We totally don't agree with the time frame," he said. "I'd say we want it out of there in a year."
Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo, a member of the House Armed Services Committee who has opposed removing all plutonium from the lab in the past, is supportive of the new plan.
"My priority has always been to buy down the risk for the community while at the same time assuring there is no diminishment of the lab's role, its pedigree and its opportunities," she said.
The plutonium issue has come to a head in Livermore in recent years.
In April 2004, NNSA administrator Linton Brooks testified before Congress that eliminating plutonium from Livermore would get in the way of important work related to maintaining the current weapons stockpile.
But the following month, then-Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham hinted during a speech in South Carolina that he would consider moving nuclear materials from Livermore.
Less than a year later, in April 2005, in a move directly counter to Abraham's suggestion, the NNSA proposed doubling plutonium allowed at Livermore from 1,540 pounds to 3,080 pounds. That plan was approved in November. The actual amount of plutonium currently stored at the lab is classified, but the official amount is 880 pounds.
In January 2005, safety concerns led to a nine-month stand-down of operations at Livermore's plutonium site.
Several recent assessments recommended consolidation of all special nuclear materials -- plutonium and highly enriched uranium that can be used to make nuclear weapons -- to a single site.
In September, an independent security review of the complex by retired Adm. Richard Mies pointed to the Nevada Test Site or an underground storage facility at Idaho National Lab as potential places to store the material.
The DOE's new plan is in response to a fairly negative assessment released in October by a special task force commissioned by Abraham that concluded the weapons complex is "neither robust, nor agile, nor responsive, with little evidence of a master plan."
The task force also recommended a new facility to house all special nuclear materials.
"They pose a threat to the civilian community," report author David Overskei said in October when the report was approved.
NNSA deputy administrator Tom D'Agostino presented the NNSA's response to the report on Wednesday.
"It's the first time a senior official has laid out a blueprint like this," said NNSA spokesman Wilkes. "It's all about maintaining a nuclear deterrent while reducing the total number of weapons in the stockpile."
Among the most sweeping plans D'Agostino laid out are designing a nuclear warhead to replace existing Cold War-era weapons, and consolidating all special nuclear materials to one site.
The plan also includes shutting down the Livermore lab's Site 300 hydrodynamic facility near Tracy.
Wilkes stressed the plan to move Livermore's plutonium does not mean the NNSA questions the lab's future. "We will always have a need for Livermore lab," he said. "Livermore lab has a bright future."
Times staff writer Dogen Hannah contributed to this story. Reach Betsy Mason at 925-847-2158 or bmason@cctimes.com.
LAWRENCE LIVERMORE LAB AND PLUTONIUM
• The lab has 880 pounds of plutonium and is allowed to have about 3,080 pounds.
• In Livermore and at two facilities in Nevada, the lab uses plutonium for nuclear weapons research. It conducts experiments to learn how plutonium performs as it ages; how it behaves under high pressure, such as with the impact of high explosives; and how to dismantle nuclear weapons safely, without causing contamination.
• Plutonium is dangerous to humans when inhaled or taken into the body. For instance, it can cause mutations that can lead to cancer.
• Amassing too much plutonium can trigger a "criticality," or a spontaneous release of energy that includes harmful radiation. How much is too much depends on the plutonium's shape, temperature and other factors. A criticality is not a nuclear detonation.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Another AP story on this at http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5736725,00.html?gusrc=ticker-103704
Energy Dept. to Consolidate Plutonium
Thursday April 6, 2006 2:46 AM
By H. JOSEF HEBERT
Associated Press Writer
|
|
|
|
|
|
| You are not authorized to post a reply. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|