USA Today - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the nation's first nuclear power plant in a generation on Thursday, clearing the way for Atlanta-based Southern Co. to build two reactors at its Plant Vogtle site near Augusta.
The commission approved a license on a 4-1 vote over the objections of environmentalists and the NRC's own chairman, Gregory Jaczko. It's the first approval since 1978, the year before the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania.
Jaczko said he couldn't vote for the licensing without a commitment from Southern that it would make safety changes prompted by the March 2011 nuclear disaster in Japan.
Nine environmental groups plan a challenge in federal court in Washington.. .The groups say the approval process was rushed, and that regulators failed to incorporate lessons from Japan's accident.
The groups want federal judges to require the NRC to prepare a new environmental impact statement for the new reactors. They want the new statement to explain how cooling systems for the reactors and spent fuel storage pools will be upgraded to protect against earthquakes, flooding and prolonged loss of electrical power.
1 comments:
I guess all that money the nuclear industry has been spending in colleges for the past 15-20 years has finally paid off. Enough people have been lied to for long enough that they are believing the nuclear industry's snake oil.
So where is the new spent fuel going to go? Let me guess, it will be stored on site until a disaster then it can be entombed on site at taxpayer expense. Just like Chernobyl, Fukushima, and most other nuclear facilities on earth.
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