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Exactly how did Entergy get away with not monitoring the radiation emitted by spent fuel stored in dry casks at Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon? To answer that question, the Public Service Board is opening an investigation today in Montpelier. During the investigation, the PSB will also determine if penalties should be assessed against Entergy for any failure on its part to comply with board orders. In April 2006, the PSB issued a certificate of public good allowing Entergy to store spent fuel in dry casks on a concrete pad just north of the reactor building. At this time, there are five casks with 68 fuel assemblies each on the pad. As part of that certificate, Entergy was required to continuously monitor the temperature of the dry casks. It was also required to conduct monthly "radiation surveillance" of the casks. "The Department of Public Service and (Entergy), in consultation with the Department of Health, will develop a protocol for reporting the results of such monitoring and surveillance to the DPS and the Department of Health," stated the certificate of public good. But on July 31, Entergy filed a letter with the PSB reporting that though it had been monitoring the temperature of the casks, it had not initiated the required monthly radiation checks.

Exelon Nuclear spokes-man Bill Stoermer says dry cask storage of spent nuclear fuel is safe, secure, and reliable. Stoermer, government affairs manager for the utility, told the Marseilles City Council during the regular bi-monthly meeting Wednesday evening that La Salle Generating Station is constructing a dry cask storage facility at a cost of $30 million to $40 million.

It would be logical to assume that when the second highest court in the nation rules that a federal agency must comply with specific federal laws, that would decide the matter once and for all. Case closed. But in San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace v. the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the reality is much different. Since 2002, the San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace (MFP) has pursued the legal avenues available to force the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to protect the public from potential terrorist attacks on the new dry-cask storage facility at Diablo Canyon. But ironically, even though the NRC and the Department of Homeland Security specify that all nuclear facilities are targets of terrorists, the NRC has repeatedly refused to produce studies of the environmental impacts of an attack on the dry casks.

The Vermont Public Service Board should not have given the OK for the storage of spent nuclear fuel produced by Vermont Yankee on the banks of the Connecticut River, according to a report that was discussed Monday in the Statehouse in Montpelier. Testimony that was given during hearings conducted by the PSB were "affected by insufficient data to have reached a conclusion of acceptability of the site and granting of a permit," stated William Steinhurst, who holds a Ph.D. in geology. Steinhurst presented the report on behalf of Synapse Energy Economics, which hired Prof. Michael Wilson of SUNY-Fredonia to evaluate the geological characteristics of the plant's spent fuel storage site. The Public Service Board issued a certificate of public good in 2006 allowing Entergy, which owns and operates Yankee, to store nuclear waste in dry casks on a concrete pad just to the north of the plant's reactor building.

The Vermont Public Service Board should not have given the OK for the storage of spent nuclear fuel produced by Vermont Yankee on the banks of the Connecticut River, according to a report that was discussed Monday in the Statehouse in Montpelier. Testimony that was given during hearings conducted by the PSB were "affected by insufficient data to have reached a conclusion of acceptability of the site and granting of a permit," stated William Steinhurst, who holds a Ph.D. in geology. Steinhurst presented the report on behalf of Synapse Energy Economics, which hired Prof. Michael Wilson of SUNY-Fredonia to evaluate the geological characteristics of the plant's spent fuel storage site. The Public Service Board issued a certificate of public good in 2006 allowing Entergy, which owns and operates Yankee, to store nuclear waste in dry casks on a concrete pad just to the north of the plant's reactor building.

PG&E's decision to begin moving its spent fuel to above-ground canisters sparked a legal battle Operators at Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant will begin loading the first dry cask with highly radioactive used reactor fuel on June 1. The decision by plant owners Pacific Gas and Electric Co. to begin transferring its spent fuel to above-ground canisters touched off a groundbreaking legal battle with local antinuclear activists in 2002 - and it continues to this day. San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace wants federal regulators to require that PG&E take additional steps to protect the storage facility from terrorist attacks.

The concrete-and-steel "dry casks" used at the Vermont Yankee plant to store spent nuclear fuel were not tested as completely as they should have been, according to federal regulators. But the decision by Holtec International, the New Jersey company that built the casks, to omit one set of tests does not pose a safety risk, Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials said Wednesday. That's because there were other kinds of inspections done on those casks, and the waste stored in the casks is not as hot as allowed, meaning they are safe even though they were not tested with pressurized helium as required under a federal licensing agreement. About 109 of the casks that were not completely tested are in use nationwide, including five at Vermont Yankee, regulators say. "The violation is a concern" because the canister "is relied upon to prevent the release of radioactive material," according to a letter from the NRC to Holtec. "It is also relied upon to maintain an inert environment and sufficient helium pressure to keep cladding temperatures below the acceptable limit."

"Recently Baosteel Co Ltd Special Steel Business Unit Steel-making Plant successfully cast a 35 tonnes octagon ingot for the first time while smelting a heat of extremely difficult steel for nuclear power. According to quality inspection various technical indicators all meet the specified requirements. The steel grade produced this time is the steel for nuclear power, which has very stringent requirement for composition control and the selection of raw material is very rigorous. In order to ensure the successful smelting of this new steel grade, the steel-making plant selected quality raw material and organized professional technical personnel to study the smelting characteristics of this steel grade and carefully devise the smelting process program. Elaborate preparations and precise operations featured the process of furnace purging, dry-out and charging operation."

Crews at Diablo Canyon Power Plant will start transferring radioactive material into dry casks on June 1. The casks are used to store spent reactor fuel. Eights casks will be filled and stored above-ground in a concrete storage pad. Another eight casks will be loaded in the spring of 2010.

"Chu told reporters Saturday that he doesn't want to pre-judge the panel's work. But Chu noted that he - and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission - believes the current practice of dry cask storage of spent fuel at the reactor sites is safe for decades. So . . . perhaps the government could own the waste at the plants while the ultimate disposal strategy is worked out. "It is possible to do that and keep it at present sites, pay the utility companies to keep it safeguarded, keep it safe, while we work through this process," Chu said, speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the National Governors Association meeting in Washington, D.C."

A recent letter advocated more nuclear power plants. There are too many problems with this technology. First, companies will not build nuclear power plants without the protection of the Price-Anderson Act which provides taxpayer compensation in case of an accident since no company in the world will insure them. Price-Anderson, however, only provides $500 million when the latest government report, states that depending on the severity of the accident, damages could run in the billions. Second, after 50 years of operation there is still the waste problem. Energy Secretary Steven Chu appeared before the House lawmakers on June 3 and declared the planned Yucca Mountain repository "dead." More than $9 billion have been invested developing this waste dump, which caused one lawmaker to say: "We got a mighty expensive dinosaur sitting there." This waste, which is lethal for thousands of years, now stays on site in fuel pools and dry casts for future generations to worry about. Minimum morality would demand that we, at least, stop producing it. Estimates as to the cost of this "eventual cleanup" are incalculable. Still the proponents declare nuclear as cheap energy. Third, uranium, like oil, is a finite fuel. Reprocessing, the separation of plutonium which can then again be used as fuel, was discontinued by the United States nearly three decades ago on nonproliferation grounds. Fourth, since 2005, cost estimates for building a new nuclear reactor have more then tripled. Nuclear energy, once declared to be "too cheap to meter," is now too expensive to pursue. Frieda Berryhill, Wilmington

A 98-foot-wide, two-mile-long ditch with steep walls 33 feet deep that bristles with magnets and radar reflectors will stand for millennia as a warning to future humans not to trifle with what is hidden inside the Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP) outside Carlsbad, N.M. Paired with 48 stone or concrete 105-ton markers, etched with warnings in seven languages ranging from English to Navajo as well as human faces contorted into expressions of horror, the massive installation is meant to stand for at least 10,000 years-twice as long as the Egyptian pyramids have survived.

Federal regulators ruled Thursday that a radioactive waste storage plan can go forward at a California nuclear power plant without further study of whether it's safe from terror attacks. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted 3-1 to deny the novel objection from the activist group San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, which had won a federal court ruling forcing NRC to consider its arguments. The decision OKs PG&E's plans to store spent nuclear fuel in aboveground casks at its Diablo Canyon power plant near San Luis Obispo, Calif.

The NRC gives the go-ahead to begin transferring radioactive spent fuel to another site, bypassing a group's call for an in-depth environmental review The Nuclear Regulatory Commission ruled Thursday that Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant can begin loading used reactor fuel into an above-ground storage facility without doing a more comprehensive analysis of the environmental effects of a terrorist attack. The ruling in Rockville, Md., removes the last hurdle to the process of taking highly radioactive spent fuel out of storage pools and into large steel and concrete casks that will sit on a large pad behind the plant.

Spent nuclear fuel is being moved from a storage pool at the twin-reactor Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant to a new above-ground storage facility at the Central Coast facility. Pacific Gas and Electric, operator of the coastal San Luis Obispo County plant, says loading of the used nuclear fuel began Monday night. Eight containers of fuel in a storage pool will be moved during several months to the new interim facility, where they will be anchored to a 7 1/2-foot-thick concrete pad.