The AP has a blockbuster report out this morning: US Nuke Regulators Weaken Safety Rules. (NPR is featuring the story, as are hundreds of other news outlets.) The opening sentence certainly gets your attention. “Federal regulators have been working closely with the nuclear power industry to keep the nation’s aging reactors operating within safety standards by repeatedly weakening those standards, or simply failing to enforce them, an investigation by The Associated Press has found.” Did you get that? “…repeatedly weakening those standards, or simply failing to enforce them…”
Now that’s not the voice of someone, like me, who has feared and loathed nuclear power for decades. That’s not the voice of an environmental organization, Greenpeace for instance, that some folks like to deride as overzealous. That’s a news organization widely respected over the whole world.
It’s a big story. Check out the video here:
UPDATE, 6/21: The AP has another article today: Tritium leaks found at many nuke sites. “Radioactive tritium has leaked from three-quarters of U.S. commercial nuclear power sites, often into groundwater from corroded, buried piping, an Associated Press investigation shows. The number and severity of the leaks has been escalating, even as federal regulators extend the licenses of more and more reactors across the nation.” Got your attention yet? In the immortal words of Hunter Thompson, it’s “bad craziness.”