Word: nrc
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Aside from its idiosyncratic risks, Vermont Yankee also shares the risks posed by nuclear power plants in general. Built in the early ’70s, the plant seems ripe for a meltdown, yet like so many other plants nationwide, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has allowed it to increase its output by 20 percent. The plant should have expired years ago, but instead it was purchased and upgraded by Entergy, a company based out of conveniently distant Louisiana...
...convince nearby residents that they are not endangered by the ticking bomb, state and local emergency management agencies (overseen by the NRC) have created a contingency plan for dealing with a disaster. People living within the evacuation zone have received a potassium iodide pill that looks remarkably like Tylenol, which they must take if Vermont Yankee melts down (or blows up). The pill plan, reminiscent of the duck-and-cover Cold War contingencies, does not inspire much confidence...
...drivers are willing to risk their lives to come at all.) Furthermore, the NRC’s own investigation of Vermont Yankee found that the alert system was inadequate in areas outside of normal siren coverage. Hurricane Katrina showcased the deadliness of a botched evacuation, yet the NRC does not appear to have learned from the mistakes in New Orleans...
...this beleaguered outpost finds itself caught up in an escalating battle over the future of atomic power in the U.S. Last month the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a license for a $3.1 billion project that would make the Skull Valley reservation the nation's biggest nuclear-waste holding site, a temporary parking lot for 44,000 tons of highly radioactive spent fuel now being stored at nuclear power plants nationwide. For utilities, it could solve what has been a vexing problem. For tribal officials, the advantages are tangible: as much as $100 million in fees to be paid over...
...plan has sparked widespread resistance, with opponents ranging from a few tribal holdouts to the Governor of Utah. The state has filed suit in federal court to void the NRC license on the grounds that the spent fuel would sit dangerously close to an Air Force training path. F-16 fighter jets roar overhead on 7,000 sorties a year. Should one crash into the steel-and-concrete casks, state attorneys argue, cancer-causing radiation could waft over Salt Lake City. Moreover, the state says, used fuel rods, parked aboveground, would be a target for car bombers or airplane hijackers...