Nuclear - Inside Climate News https://insideclimatenews.org/topic/nuclear/ Pulitzer Prize-winning, nonpartisan reporting on the biggest crisis facing our planet. Fri, 19 Jul 2024 22:46:17 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6 https://insideclimatenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/cropped-favicon-32x32.png Nuclear - Inside Climate News https://insideclimatenews.org/topic/nuclear/ 32 32 228474941 In New Mexico, a Walk Commemorates the Nuclear Disaster Few Outside the Navajo Nation Remember https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20072024/new-mexico-walk-commemorates-navajo-nation-nuclear-disaster/ Sat, 20 Jul 2024 09:10:00 +0000 https://insideclimatenews.org/?p=84185 The Church Rock spill released more radioactive material than the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island four months earlier. Last week’s walk highlights the continuing cleanup and the ongoing hazards uranium mining poses to tribal lands.

RED WATER POND ROAD, New Mexico—As Tony Hood walked along New Mexico Highway 566 last Saturday, he thought about where he was 45 years earlier, when an earthen dam broke at the site of a uranium mill operated by the United Nuclear Corp., releasing 94 million gallons of radioactive water and 1,100 tons of uranium waste across portions of New Mexico, Arizona and the Navajo Nation.

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Tribes and Environmentalists Press Arizona and Federal Officials to Stop Uranium Mining Near the Grand Canyon https://insideclimatenews.org/news/17072024/arizona-activists-press-officials-to-stop-uranium-mining-near-grand-canyon/ Wed, 17 Jul 2024 09:00:00 +0000 https://insideclimatenews.org/?p=84021 Activists hope to shut down an existing mine within a new national monument and to prevent the transportation of uranium on state and federal roads across Navajo Nation lands.

PHOENIX—Members of environmental groups stood together in the lobby of the Arizona State Capitol Executive Tower late last month to deliver a petition to Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, requesting that she stop uranium mining activities near the Grand Canyon National Park.

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In Chile’s Southern Tip, a Bet on Hydrogen Worries Conservationists https://insideclimatenews.org/news/03072024/south-america-hydrogen-plan-threatens-bird-sanctuary/ Wed, 03 Jul 2024 09:05:00 +0000 https://insideclimatenews.org/?p=83615 The growth of green hydrogen in the Magallanes brings heated debate about wind farms, a bird sanctuary and the region’s ecosystems.

The birds are like clouds in Bahía Lomas. Far off in the southern tip of South America, in the province of Tierra del Fuego, migration takes its highest form in this bay in the eastern mouth in the Straits of Magellan. 

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Q&A: What’s the Deal with Bill Gates’s Wyoming Nuclear Plant? https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04052024/wyoming-terrapower-nuclear-plant/ Sat, 04 May 2024 09:00:00 +0000 https://insideclimatenews.org/?p=81688 An MIT professor of nuclear science breaks down the benefits of the TerraPower plant.

From our collaborating partner “Living on Earth,” public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by Host Steve Curwood with Jacopo Buongiorno, a professor of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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Will There Be Less Wind to Fuel Wind Energy? https://insideclimatenews.org/news/26042024/illinois-less-wind-energy/ Fri, 26 Apr 2024 10:30:00 +0000 https://insideclimatenews.org/?p=81383 Illinois policy says wind and solar are supposed to replace coal plants that are closing, but that didn’t happen in 2023. Another fossil fuel, natural gas, filled the void instead.


This article is published in partnership with the Chicago Sun-Times.

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Lithium Companies Fight Over Water in the Arid Great Basin https://insideclimatenews.org/news/08042024/nevada-great-basin-lithium-fight-over-water/ Mon, 08 Apr 2024 09:05:00 +0000 https://insideclimatenews.org/?p=80362 In the Nevada valley that is one of the most significant domestic sources of a key element for the energy transition, one company controls the groundwater needed to mine it, another is fighting for a share of it and others are lining up at the tap.

Over the past few decades, the United States has imported most of its lithium from Chile and Argentina, but there’s one major domestic source of the mineral—Nevada. Clayton Valley, a remote basin in the nation’s driest state, is home to the Silver Peak mine, where lithium is extracted in gridded ponds that turn neon blue as they recover one of Earth’s lightest elements through solar evaporation. 

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Small Nuclear Reactors May Be Coming to Texas, Boosted by Interest From Gov. Abbott https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04042024/texas-power-small-nuclear-reactors/ Thu, 04 Apr 2024 09:00:00 +0000 https://insideclimatenews.org/?p=80461 A nuclear power plant hasn’t been built in Texas in decades because of cost and public fears of a major accident. Now the governor wants to find out if smaller reactors could meet the state’s growing need for on-demand power.

This article was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans—and engages with them—about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

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This Month’s Superfund Listing of Abandoned Uranium Mines in the Navajo Nation’s Lukachukai Mountains Is a First Step Toward Cleaning Them Up https://insideclimatenews.org/news/26032024/navajo-nation-lukachukai-mountains-abandoned-uranium-mines-superfund/ Tue, 26 Mar 2024 09:00:00 +0000 https://insideclimatenews.org/?p=79914 Uranium sickened Navajo who worked in the mines and contaminated the mountains where they hunted, grazed livestock and gathered plants for medicines and ceremonies.

COVE, Ariz. – In a corner of the Cove Chapter house on March 15, members of the Navajo Nation were silent as they looked at photos the Environmental Protection Agency showed of abandoned uranium mines in the Lukachukai Mountains Mining District during a visit by EPA officials to highlight the area’s placement under the agency’s Superfund program.

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Pennsylvania’s Governor Wants to Cut Power Plant Emissions With His Own Cap-and-Invest Program https://insideclimatenews.org/news/13032024/pennsylvania-governor-power-plant-emissions/ Wed, 13 Mar 2024 22:00:00 +0000 https://insideclimatenews.org/?p=79289 Gov. Josh Shapiro promises to pull the state out of a broader cap-and-invest cooperative involving 11 Northeast states, known as RGGI, if lawmakers approve his plan. But Shapiro promised to press on with his appeal of a court ruling that effectively blocked RGGI membership, until his own plan is passed.

Pennsylvania would run its own cap-and-invest program for cutting carbon emissions from power plants and increase its use of renewable fuels if lawmakers approve two bills outlined by Gov. Josh Shapiro on Wednesday.

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Maya van Rossum, the Delaware Riverkeeper, Shouts Down Pennsylvania Gov. Shapiro Over a Proposed ‘Hydrogen Hub’ https://insideclimatenews.org/news/12032024/activists-disrupt-pennsylvania-governor-proposed-hydrogen-hub-meeting/ Tue, 12 Mar 2024 17:20:00 +0000 https://insideclimatenews.org/?p=79262 Activists want more public participation in a proposal to produce hydrogen in southeastern Pennsylvania. Touted by the Biden administration as “crucial” to the nation’s climate goals, advocates fear the federally-funded project will create more pollution and further burden environmental justice communities.

Protestors disrupted a public meeting on Monday about a federally-funded “hydrogen hub” to be located in southeastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and Delaware that would produce, transport and store the controversial fuel at sites across the region.

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