NEWS
RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 18, 2001
Contact: Sara Barczak
Georgians for Clean Energy
912-201-0354
Savannah
Speaks Out Over Plutonium Bomb Fuel:
Local Conservation Group Urges Denial of License
Request
Savannah, GA - Strong public
concerns are expected at tonight's public scoping
meeting sponsored by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
(NRC) to aid the agency in developing an Environmental
Impact Statement for a highly controversial plutonium
bomb fuel production facility at the Department of
Energy's Savannah River Nuclear Site, approximately
90 miles upstream from Savannah. The NRC is responsible
for licensing the facility. An international consortium,
Duke Engineering & Services, COGEMA, Inc. and Stone
& Webster (DCS)--with the French affiliate having
a history of severe neglect on environmental and health
protections--plans to build the plutonium fuel factory
to produce fuel for use in commercial nuclear plants
from surplus bomb plutonium.
The U.S. government and electric
utilities want to use plutonium bomb fuel to power
commercial nuclear reactors, starting with four in
the Southeast near Charlotte, North Carolina. The
fuel will be made from a blend of uranium and weapons
plutonium that has never been used anywhere in the
world nor have any nuclear reactors in the US been
built to use plutonium fuel. Plutonium, the essential
ingredient to modern nuclear weapons, remains radioactive
for hundreds of thousands of years and is lethal even
in small quantities. Unlike the plutonium created
in all commercial nuclear power plants during their
operational cycles, which can also be turned into
bombs, bomb plutonium also contains impurities such
as gallium that has to be removed and makes the process
more complicated, and more dangerous. During the removal
of impurities, vast quantities of additional radioactive
waste are generated.
"The proposed plutonium fuel factory
will add to the fact that the Southeast, especially
SRS, is exploited as the nation's radioactive pay
toilet," said Sara Barczak, Safe Energy Director in
Georgians for Clean Energy's Savannah office. "The
Bush Administration needs to seize this opportunity
to reverse the past Administration's grossly misguided
plutonium fuel program here and in Russia. We are
demanding the NRC to deny this license request."
It is bad enough that waste from other sites in this
country is being shipped to SRS. According to the
DOE, although SRS currently has more radioactivity
in its high level waste streams than any other DOE
site, 95% of future high-level radioactive waste generation
from all DOE sites, from 2000 - 2070, is projected
to come from SRS.
Georgians
for Clean Energy
www.cleanenergy.org
Main
Office:
427 Moreland Ave., NE, Suite 100,
Atlanta, GA 30307
404-659-5675 (phone) / 770-234-3909 (fax) |
Savannah
Office:
3025 Bull Street, Suite 101,
Savannah, GA 31405
912-201-0354 (phone & fax) |
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