The cause of the radiation leak at Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in Carlsbad, New Mexico, is still unresolved, but we know that it started with Los Alamos National Laboratories (LANL) and ended at the WIPP, shutting that facility down for a few more years and costing millions of dollars.
Yet even as LANL comes under criticism for its current issues, some government agencies are pushing to increase its production; another plan, coming from LANL itself, would involve the facility diversifying into handling hazardous biological agents. This isn’t sitting well with a lof of the New Mexicans who are following the radiation-leak saga.
[…]
NMED Secretary Ryan Flynn said on Sept 6, “The problem is that Department of Energy headquarters back in Washington, D.C., is looking at this situation through a political or (public relations) lens, so they’ve put a noose around the scientific personnel who can answer our questions and move this process along.” Flynn also said the DOE has thwarted attempts by the state NMED to gather information for its investigation. Flynn lauded LANL scientists who were in communication with him about possible causes, but DOE will not release documentation supporting the scientists. Flynn is questioning the whole “re-labelling” done by LANL and DOE, and says treating waste without a permit and labeling waste as less volatile than it actually is are violations.
[…]A series of media reports also puts LANL in a bad light, as they seem to support the idea that LANL will do as it pleases if left unaccountable. LANL fired James E. Doyle, a critic who openly supported President Obama’s non-proliferation agenda, and the Council of Concerned Scientists (founded by Dr. Robert Oppenheimer) immediately asked for his re-instatement. Doyle believes he was fired as part of a Washington campaign of retribution for his refusal to support the lab’s central mission, which is the continued development and production of nuclear arms, at a cost of almost $2 billion per year at Los Alamos. With declining military budgets and interest in things nuclear, LANL wants the funding to continue and quash dissent inside the Lab. Doyle said he was told his article, “Why Eliminate Nuclear Weapons?“, contained classified information by someone from the House Armed Services Committee even though the article had been approved.“Classification has been used against me for the purposes of censorship of the article and retaliation against me for writing the article,” said Doyle, according to the Center for Public Integrity.
[…]
Supporters say these won’t be for “new” weapons but to replace aging pits in the nation’s nuclear stockpile. Critics say LANL is now too small for the project and sits on a seismic fault. The current plutonium pits have a lifespan of 100 years, and have already been in use for around 50 years. Reporting to lawmakers in August, the Congressional Research Office described a national defense agenda to produce 30 war reserve plutonium pits per year by 2026 and up to 80 pits per year by 2030. Los Alamos started producing new plutonium pits in 2007, and has made only 30 since then. Before that the Rocky Flats, Colorado facility was closed down by the Feds in 1989 for “environmental crimes”, where they produced up to 2000 pits per year. At this point, Los Alamos is the only facility that can fulfill the project operationally, with major renovations and new funding of course.An August 11 report says LANL is considering asking for funding to research biohazard agents.[…]
The report asked the National Nuclear Safety Administration to reconsider asking for the funding of the proposed lab extension at LANL for biohazard research. LANL is considering a $9.5 million expansion to open a “biosafety” lab that would study high risk agents “that cause serious and potentially lethal infections”. A building was erected for the project in 2003 but now has to be retrofitted to withstand high level seismic activity at a cost of about a half million dollars. The NNSA plan asks for another $8 million to build an additional lab to study “medium risk biological agents”. Critics counter that there are already other facilities set-up to deal with biological agents equally secure and less expensive.
[…]
LANL critic Greg Mello of the Los Alamos Study Group said “LANL should not try to do everything but should rather try to focus on doing a few things well…accepting that its nuclear weapons mission is going to be shrinking…” Local New Mexicans agree with Mello and LASG to encourage LANL to continue work on alternative energy, long life storage batteries and AIDS research.Alex Jacobs
September 24, 2014Read more.
◇Gov’t audit raps Los Alamos over lax handling of radioactive waste
Featured Topics / 特集
-
A nuclear power plant in Byron, Illinois. Taken by photographer Joseph Pobereskin (http://pobereskin.com). カレンダー
-
Latest Posts / 最新記事
- 被ばく研究の灯は消さない 国や自治体が「風化待ち」の中、独協医科大分室が移転してまで続ける活動の意義via東京新聞 2024/10/05
- Chernobyl-area land deemed safe for new agriculture via Nuclear Newswire 2024/09/26
- 長崎「体験者」の医療拡充 なぜ被爆者と認めないのか【社説】via 中国新聞 2024/09/23
- Three Mile Island nuclear plant will reopen to power Microsoft data centers via NPR 2024/09/20
- Tritium into the air? via Beyond Nuclear International 2024/09/18
Discussion / 最新の議論
- Leonsz on Combating corrosion in the world’s aging nuclear reactors via c&en
- Mark Ultra on Special Report: Help wanted in Fukushima: Low pay, high risks and gangsters via Reuters
- Grom Montenegro on Duke Energy’s shell game via Beyond Nuclear International
- Jim Rice on Trinity: “The most significant hazard of the entire Manhattan Project” via Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
- Barbarra BBonney on COVID-19 spreading among workers on Fukushima plant, related projects via The Mainichi
Archives / 月別アーカイブ
- October 2024 (1)
- September 2024 (5)
- July 2024 (4)
- June 2024 (3)
- March 2024 (1)
- February 2024 (6)
- January 2024 (4)
- November 2023 (8)
- October 2023 (1)
- September 2023 (7)
- August 2023 (5)
- July 2023 (10)
- June 2023 (12)
- May 2023 (15)
- April 2023 (17)
- March 2023 (20)
- February 2023 (19)
- January 2023 (31)
- December 2022 (11)
- November 2022 (12)
- October 2022 (7)
- September 2022 (6)
- August 2022 (22)
- July 2022 (29)
- June 2022 (15)
- May 2022 (46)
- April 2022 (36)
- March 2022 (47)
- February 2022 (24)
- January 2022 (57)
- December 2021 (27)
- November 2021 (32)
- October 2021 (48)
- September 2021 (56)
- August 2021 (53)
- July 2021 (60)
- June 2021 (55)
- May 2021 (48)
- April 2021 (64)
- March 2021 (93)
- February 2021 (69)
- January 2021 (91)
- December 2020 (104)
- November 2020 (126)
- October 2020 (122)
- September 2020 (66)
- August 2020 (63)
- July 2020 (56)
- June 2020 (70)
- May 2020 (54)
- April 2020 (85)
- March 2020 (88)
- February 2020 (97)
- January 2020 (130)
- December 2019 (75)
- November 2019 (106)
- October 2019 (138)
- September 2019 (102)
- August 2019 (99)
- July 2019 (76)
- June 2019 (52)
- May 2019 (92)
- April 2019 (121)
- March 2019 (174)
- February 2019 (146)
- January 2019 (149)
- December 2018 (38)
- November 2018 (51)
- October 2018 (89)
- September 2018 (118)
- August 2018 (194)
- July 2018 (22)
- June 2018 (96)
- May 2018 (240)
- April 2018 (185)
- March 2018 (106)
- February 2018 (165)
- January 2018 (241)
- December 2017 (113)
- November 2017 (198)
- October 2017 (198)
- September 2017 (226)
- August 2017 (219)
- July 2017 (258)
- June 2017 (240)
- May 2017 (195)
- April 2017 (176)
- March 2017 (115)
- February 2017 (195)
- January 2017 (180)
- December 2016 (116)
- November 2016 (115)
- October 2016 (177)
- September 2016 (178)
- August 2016 (158)
- July 2016 (201)
- June 2016 (73)
- May 2016 (195)
- April 2016 (183)
- March 2016 (201)
- February 2016 (154)
- January 2016 (161)
- December 2015 (141)
- November 2015 (153)
- October 2015 (212)
- September 2015 (163)
- August 2015 (189)
- July 2015 (178)
- June 2015 (150)
- May 2015 (175)
- April 2015 (155)
- March 2015 (153)
- February 2015 (132)
- January 2015 (158)
- December 2014 (109)
- November 2014 (192)
- October 2014 (206)
- September 2014 (206)
- August 2014 (208)
- July 2014 (178)
- June 2014 (155)
- May 2014 (209)
- April 2014 (242)
- March 2014 (190)
- February 2014 (170)
- January 2014 (227)
- December 2013 (137)
- November 2013 (164)
- October 2013 (200)
- September 2013 (255)
- August 2013 (198)
- July 2013 (208)
- June 2013 (231)
- May 2013 (174)
- April 2013 (156)
- March 2013 (199)
- February 2013 (191)
- January 2013 (173)
- December 2012 (92)
- November 2012 (198)
- October 2012 (229)
- September 2012 (207)
- August 2012 (255)
- July 2012 (347)
- June 2012 (230)
- May 2012 (168)
- April 2012 (116)
- March 2012 (150)
- February 2012 (198)
- January 2012 (292)
- December 2011 (251)
- November 2011 (252)
- October 2011 (364)
- September 2011 (288)
- August 2011 (513)
- July 2011 (592)
- June 2011 (253)
- May 2011 (251)
- April 2011 (571)
- March 2011 (494)
- February 2011 (1)
- December 2010 (1)
Top Topics / TOPトピック
- anti-nuclear
- Atomic Age
- Capitalism
- East Japan Earthquake + Fukushima
- energy policy
- EU
- France
- Hanford
- health
- Hiroshima/Nagasaki
- Inequality
- labor
- Nuclear power
- nuclear waste
- Nuclear Weapons
- Radiation exposure
- Russia/Ukraine/Chernobyl
- Safety
- TEPCO
- U.S.
- UK
- エネルギー政策
- メディア
- ロシア/ウクライナ/チェルノブイリ
- 健康
- 公正・共生
- 兵器
- 再稼働
- 労働における公正・平等
- 原子力規制委員会
- 原発推進
- 反原発運動
- 大飯原発
- 安全
- 広島・長崎
- 廃炉
- 東京電力
- 東日本大震災・福島原発
- 汚染水
- 米国
- 脱原発
- 被ばく
- 資本主義
- 除染
- 食の安全
Choose Language / 言語