Author: theunstablenucleus

Here is a very random grab bag of news stories that might be starting points for your writing:

1.  Japan, nuclear waste reprocessing, and the growing plutonium stockpile
2. WIPP nuclear waste site:  communities in New Mexico want to weigh in on changes to the amount of nuclear waste it is meant to store.
3. Confusing statements by Trump on Yucca Mountain; meanwhile, Nevada and Illinois are at odds about the future of U.S. nuclear waste , and U.S. nuclear waste policy remains completely stalled. 
4. There’s quite a bit of nuclear waste building up around the Great Lakes
5. What’s happening with the radioactive waste site outside St. Louis that is leaking?
6. Here’s a piece on the high cost of nuclear reactors in the U.S.
7. ... and one on the current status of a reactor being built now (with huge cost overruns) in Florida
8. India and Russia are collaborating on some new nuclear power plants
9. U.S. and Japanese companies are discussing building small modular nuclear reactor designs
10. … reactors sometimes leak…
11. …and Fukushima is still leaking like crazy

 

This is a list of some resources I suggest for facts and statistics to support the arguments in your first opinion letters, on nuclear energy or nuclear waste issues.

U.S. government websites:

Nuclear Regulatory Commission (oversees licensing and safety regulations for reactors)

E.P.A. (sets standards for radiation exposure limits, including standards applied for nuclear waste sites)

D.O.E. (the “science” part of the government’s involvement in nuclear energy)

Pro-nuclear industry groups (often these websites have excellent statistics to use):

American Nuclear Society

World Nuclear Association

Anti-nuclear groups:

Union of Concerned Scientists (this organization is not strongly anti-nuclear, but is mostly concerned with advocating for safety and good approaches to waste management)

NEIS (Illinois anti-nuclear-power group with a long history and an active Chicago presence)

Federation of American Scientists (a long-standing anti-nuclear-weapons group with many helpful publications, although only a few deal directly with nuclear energy or waste)

 

 

This is the class blog for The Unstable Nucleus.  See the Canvas page for instructions about how to log in and post.  Some of the topics we will be following this semester include:

1.  North Korea!  What exactly is going on with their nuclear program, and what exactly is the Trump administration doing about it?   See, for initial discussion, this Vox article on whether a nuclear deal might happen.

2.  The Iran deal:  What’s happening now that Trump has pulled the US out of the Iran nuclear deal?  See, for initial discussion, this Times of Isreal article.

3.  The Fukushima crisis of 2011 is far from over.  Just this week, the Japanese government acknowledged the first cancer death due to radiation exposure during cleanup.  See this NPR article as a starting point on this topic.

Anything else you run across that relates to radiation, radioactivity, nuclear technology, or related topics is likely to be good material for posting.  Post often!  It makes the class more interesting!

The previous post had a set of resources on nuclear weapons issues.  Historically, nuclear weapons issues have blurred lines between the political left and the political right in the U.S..  Recently, however, there have been sharper divides, and the organizations listed in the previous post tend towards the views of the current political left, which is more aligned with a disarmament agenda.

If you are seeking conservative perspectives, the best resources are often the conservative ‘think tanks.’ For example, the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute.

Also, seek writing from publications like the National Review and the American Conservative.  Often it helps to search on a specific issue, e.g. the Iran Nuclear Deal or nuclear weapons modernization.

Finally, you can get some material that takes a more conservative point of view from our current government, e.g. on this page on the Nuclear Posture Review.

To help with your final letter/paper, here are links to some resources that may be useful.  In the debates over nuclear weapons, there are very few organizations out there that take as a part of their mission to actively promote nuclear weapons, thus most of the resources have somewhat of an anti-nuclear flavor, to varying degrees.

Here are several places where you can get solid information about nuclear arsenals of the world, current US nuclear policy issues, and nuclear disarmament.  Consider looking into major funding sources for some of these to see what political and economic biases might be involved if that is relevant for your argumentation.

1) Federation of American Scientists  This is a non-partisan research group that collects information on nuclear arsenals and publishes commentary and reviews with the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (see below).

2) Bulletin of Atomic Scientists  This is a publication and group that tracks nuclear weapons safety issues and generally takes an anti-nuclear stance, but usually with high quality factual information.

3) Union of Concerned Scientists A lobby and advocacy organization that generally seeks disarmament and improved nuclear weapons safety.

4) Arms Control Association Another non-partisan information and nuclear disarmament advocacy organization.  Good source of “fact sheets” on nuclear arsenals.

5) Nuclear Threat Initiative and related World Institute for Nuclear Security these are non-partisan independent groups that collaborate with governments and the UN to secure nuclear materials and promote nuclear safety.

6) Here are some organizations that are explicitly and wholly dedicated to eliminating nuclear weapons:  ICAN (recent Nobel Peace Prize winner), Global Zero (related to a documentary film of the same name), Ploughshares Fund (which funds some of the organizations above).

7) Finally, the United Nations webpages and the IAEA webpages are excellent resources.

Hi all,

If you want to track down the state Senator and state House representative that represent you, go to this website: http://www.elections.il.gov/districtlocator/addressfinder.aspx

Enter your address, let the system find that address, confirm it, and then you’ll get a list with contact information.  If you write to one of these individuals using your Illinois address, your address will be used to confirm that you are a resident of that person’s district, and your letter will be received and counted.

Google “find my representatives” to get similar websites to find who represents your district (either using your Illinois address or another home address in the U.S.) at the federal level.

1.  The risks associated with storing nuclear waste in overcrowded temporary storage pools or in so-called “interim” consolidated storage facilities.  The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is an excellent starting point for researching these issues (try the articles here, and here).

2.  Should Illinois continue providing subsidies to support Exelon and our nuclear power plants?  Right now, this is the one thing that is keeping nuclear as a cost-competitive energy source in our state.  Search terms to use to find recent news articles on this:  “Illinois nuclear subsidies” and “Future Energy Jobs Act”.  Here and here are a couple of articles that might be an entry point to this topic.  And here is another.

Interestingly, the subsidies question has two distinctly different directions it can go, politically speaking.  On the one hand, nuclear power plants can be grouped with aging coal plants and given subsidies primarily intended to maintain jobs and support industry.  On the other hand, nuclear can be grouped with renewables, and subsidies can be use to achieve Paris Climate Accord goals or to forge legal precedent for carbon-based energy policy.

If you are a U.S. Citizen, this is an excellent topic to weigh in on right now, as it is being debated in our federal government.  A bill is in the House of Representatives that, if passed, would re-open the licensing process for Yucca Mountain.  The bill is being spearheaded by a Republican representative from a district in Southern Illinois. Here and here are two opinion pieces from some years ago in which he argues that Yucca should be re-opened.

The bill he has introduced is called H.R. 3053, or the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments act of 2017.  It is not yet up for discussion and vote in the House of Representatives as a whole, as it is moving through the committees that must review it.  This may take some time.  You can get updates, as well as the full text of the bill, here.

Use either name for the bill and do a ‘news’ search online and you can find some news stories from the point of view of Nevada residents and from other points of view.  Here is a post and video from the House committee proposing the bill.

Here are some calls for action from the Illinois-based anti-nuclear group NEIS.

 

This is a set of links you may find helpful for assignments, including your first “paper” for this class.

Good general resources to use for arguments AGAINST or critical of nuclear energy:

Union of Concerned Scientists:  This is a nonprofit, science focused group that, among many other things, collects and publishes materials on nuclear safety violations and public risk.

NEIS:  This is an Illinois-based citizen “watchdog” group that takes an anti-nuclear stance.  Their website is an excellent place to go for current, insider information on what is happening in Illinois energy policy, with the anti-nuclear view.

Good general resources to use SUPPORTING nuclear energy: 

Nuclear Energy Institute:  a U.S. based industry group.  Has general pro-nuclear materials as well as many statistics and facts about the U.S. nuclear energy program (look at the links on the bottom of the page).

World Nuclear Association:  a global nuclear industry group, with comprehensive sets of statistics on nuclear energy usage in every nuclear country.

 

Good Resources for Facts on Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Waste, and Safety Standards (U.S.): 

Nuclear Regulatory Commission  (U.S. government agency responsible for maintaining safe nuclear facilities).

E.P.A.  (U.S. government agency responsible for environmental and public health protection. Sets radiation exposure standards).  This website is difficult to navigate.  Try here for radiation protection information, and here for some useful Yucca Mountain stuff).

D.O.E. (U.S. government agency responsible for governmentally-sponsored research and technology development related to nuclear energy and weapons).  Their nuclear-specific page is here.

A Few Global Resources (I am picking ones that I can find with English web pages):

IAEA:  the United Nations watchdog agency responsible for monitoring global nuclear activities and treaty compliance.  Their nuclear energy page is here. 

NEA:  an international nuclear energy industry group

Japanese Atomic Energy Agency

South Korean Nuclear Energy Agency

 

 

The Nobel Peace Prize for 2017 was awarded to ICAN, an anti-nuclear organization pushing for an international ban on nuclear weapons.  The Nobel committee has a history of awarding Peace Prizes to anti-nuclear advocates, including President Obama in 2009.

Reading about this, I was reminded of a very interesting counter-argument published in Time magazine in 2009 after Obama’s win.  The article argues that nuclear weapons themselves deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.  It is worth a read:  http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1929553,00.html