Meet your local Green Party at 7 pm on the third Tuesday of December
Our next meeting is on December 15th at the Civic Media Center, 433 South Main ST, Gainesville, FL. Join us to continue to plan our forum on Sustainable Energy and the campaign against two new nuclear plants in Levy County. Hope to see you there!
Contact Michael Canney for more information about Green Party activities: alachuagreens@gmail.com or (386) 418-3791.
Here are some things you can do today and in the near future:
Please read this message from our friends at Southern Energy Network, then take action.
Action Alert! If you don’t want to pay for risky nuclear power with no guarantees, you will want to read this!
Ever wanted to buy something but you didn’t have enough cash? Maybe you put it on your credit card. Maybe you asked a friend to cover you.
Well, right now, Progress Energy and Florida Power and Light (FPL) are asking you and other Floridians to pick up the bill for two risky nuclear projects.
That’s right, through a policy called Early Cost Recovery, these utilities are turning to their customers to make this investment for them. Early Cost Recovery allows increases in electricity bills now for nuclear reactors that take at least 10 years to build. With the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission delaying operational licenses until serious water, environmental, and radioactive waste concerns are addressed, these reactors may never even produce energy. Although the delay is what we want, it is not fair for customers to continue paying for this risky technology.
Progress Energy and Florida Power and Light are charging their customers for energy that has no guarantees of ever being produced!
We need real solutions in Florida! We can’t waste our time on expensive, risky nuclear. We need Solar in the Sunshine State!
Join Southern Energy Network and others at the Florida Public Service Commission (PSC) Meeting as we tell them we do not want to pay for their risky business. Wall Street funders won’t touch these projects, why should we pay for them?
What:
The Florida Public Service Commission’s Early Cost Recovery Hearing will focus on financial problems associated with the new nuclear reactors that FPL has proposed at Turkey Point near Miami and Progress Energy has proposed at Levy County near Crystal River. The PSC will hear expert testimony from all sides to determine the if Early Cost Recovery is a legitimate way for utilities raise funds for these risky projects. In addition to showing presence at the hearings, we will also be rallying outside to support real solutions to climate change and energy security.
To access all the information relevant to this docket, visit http://www.psc.state.fl.us/
For talking points, contact mandy@climateaction.net.
When: Hearing begins Tuesday, September 8, 2009 at 9:30 am and will continue through September 11, 2009.
Where:
Betty Easley Conference Center at the FL PSC
Room 148
4075 Esplanade Way Tallahassee, FL
For directions and parking, visit http://www.psc.state.fl.us/
Public Comment will not be heard at the hearing, please submit comments using one of the following options:
Submit written comments to the FL PSC in advance of the October 26, 2009 decision. Please make sure to reference Docket 090009.
Email: contact@psc.state.fl.us, reference Docket 090009 in the subject line
Mail: Florida Public Service Commission
2540 Schumard Oak Blvd.
Tallahassee, FL 32399
In addition to the PSC, concerned citizens can also call or mail comments to the Office of Public Counsel. Include reference to Docket 090009:
Office of Public Counsel
111 West Madison Street, Room 812
Tallahassee, Florida 32399-1400
Phone: 850-488-9330 or 1-800-342-0222
Listen to the hearings online at http://www.psc.state.fl.us/
Background Information:
Ultimately due to legislation passed by the Florida Assembly in 2006 encouraging development in nuclear power, FPL and Progress in March 2009 asked the FL PSC to approve early recovery of costs associated with building these four new nuclear reactors. The Office of Public Counsel, the Florida Industrial Power Users Group, White Springs Agricultural Chemicals, Inc./PCS Phosphate – White Springs, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, and the Federal Executive Agencies have each been granted intervention in this docket. View the Notice of Hearing at http://www.psc.state.fl.us/
For more information on the high costs of building new reactors in Florida, please visit http://www.cleanenergy.org/
I hope to see you there!
Mandy Hancock
Florida Organizer. Southern Energy Network
Ways to eat and live locally and sustainably:
Visit our Links page for more local resources.
To all Alachua County Greens and concerned citizens of the county:
Many of us in Gainesville and Alachua County live within a 50-mile radius of the site where Progress Energy intends to construct a massive nuclear power station. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has designated this 50-mile radius as the "impact area" for a nuclear plant, which grants legal standing to all persons residing within this area who choose to intervene in the permitting process and challenge the deficiencies in the nuclear plant application (Email me for a copy of the 50-mile radius map in .pdf format). Organizations with members residing within the 50-mile radius also have legal standing.
The Green Party of Florida is currently considering a proposal to intervene in the Progress Energy application process, and if the GPF adopts the proposal (which is likely), Alachua County will have the option of joining with the state party in filing one intervention.
The filing of the intervention with the NRC will be handled by an attorney with the NIRS (Nuclear Information and Resource Service), and NIRS is assisting a number of co-intervenors in this action. Anyone wishing to assist with the work of researching and preparing our intervention is encouraged to get involved. We especially need volunteers with expertise in alternative energy, since our contention will be focused on the alternatives to nuclear portion of the application. Others will be filing contentions that address water issues, economic issues and other elements of the application, and they may be able to use assistance as well.
Those who cannot assist with the intervention but who wish to be listed as a party may do so, as long as they can prove residence within the 50-mile radius and membership in an organization filing an intervention. Registered Green Party voters, for example, can become a party to this intervention simply by signing an affidavit. Anyone who wishes to join this action and is not currently registered as a Green Party voter can do so by filling out a voter registration form and turning it in to the Supervisor of Elections office. They will provide proof of party affiliation at that time, in case there is a delay in receiving the voter registration by mail. Only one individual with standing is needed to file our intervention, but everyone is welcome.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission today announced the opportunity to participate in the hearing on a Combined License (COL) application for two new reactors at the Levy County site near Crystal River, Fla.
Progress Energy submitted the application and associated information on July 30. The application, minus proprietary or security-related details, is available on the NRC Web site at:
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/
On Oct. 6, the NRC staff determined that the Levy County application contains sufficient information for the agency to formally ³docket,² or file, the application and begin its technical review. Docketing the application does not preclude additional requests for information as the review proceeds; nor does it indicate whether the Commission will approve the license. The docket numbers established for this application are 52-029 and 52-030.
The NRC staff provided background information on the licensing and hearing process during a June public meeting held in Crystal River.
The NRC has published in the Federal Register a notice of opportunity to intervene. The deadline for petitioning to intervene is Feb.6, 2009. Petitions may be filed by anyone whose interest may be affected by the proposed license, who wishes to participate as a party in the proceeding, and who meets criteria set out in the NRC¹s regulations.
A petition to intervene must be electronically submitted in a timely manner to the NRC's Electronic Information Exchange (EIE) system. The petition to intervene must be filed in accordance with the NRC's E-Filing Rule that appeared in the Federal Register on Aug. 28, 2007. Additional guidance and instructions regarding electronic submissions to the NRC EIE system is available on the NRC web pages at http://www.nrc.gov/site-help/
News releases are available through a free listserv subscription at the following Web address:
http://www.nrc.gov/public-
Glenn Carroll
Coordinator
NUCLEAR WATCH SOUTH
P.O. Box 8574
Atlanta, GA 31106
404-378-4263
atom.girl@mindspring.com
http://www.nonukesyall.org
NOTE: Deadline to submit written statements to the NRC is December 23rd. Scroll down for details. For more information and resources on nuclear energy go to our Green Energy Links.
The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) held a public hearing on December 4th in Crystal River, FL. The purpose of the meeting was to prepare an environmental impact statement on the plan by Progress Energy to build two new nuclear power reactors on a site that has never had a power plant, let alone a nuclear power plant. This is the first "greenfield" site proposed for a new nuclear reactor in more than three decades in the USA.
While it was important to show up and express resistance and dissent, it is also important to bring real, specific concerns and issues about this project. Think of NRC as your students who must produce a research paper that will address the impact this development would have on water in the area--and how that local water is connected to a large freshwater resource. Not only would construction itself damage these treasures, the potential for groundwater contamination from operations is great. For info on ground water contamination at other nuclear sites in the USA, including sites in FL, see Union of Concerned Scientists at www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/reactor-map/embedded-flash-map.html
In addition to water, it is important to call for consideration of environmental impact of ALL the waste associated with operating new reactors: all the wastes in mining the uranium and making the fuel (including CO2 from burning fossil fuels), all the so-called low-level wastes--at the moment Progress Energy has no place it can ship these wastes, so focus in on the possibility that Levy County will be a so-called "low-level" waste dump--and then the high-level waste (irradiated fuel). Environmental impact assessment must include transportation impacts as well as storage or "disposal".
For those who could not get to this meeting, please submit a written statement to:
The Levy environmental review
Chief, Rules and Directives Branch
Mailstop T6D59
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Washington, DC 20555-0001
The NRC asks that you "tag" your comments with the reference date, October 17, and [[Page 63519]]. To be considered in the scoping process, written comments must be postmarked or delivered by the comment period end date, December 23, 2008. Electronic comments may be sent by email to the NRC at Levy.COLEIS@nrc.gov
Contacts:
Mary Olson, Nuclear Information and Resource Service (828) 675-1792 nirs@main.nc.us
Mandy Hancock, Southern Energy Network (229) 563-6090
Michael Canney, Ride Coordinator, (386) 418-3791 alachuagreen@gmail.com