The US government plans to reclassify some of the nation’s most dangerous radioactive waste to lower its threat level, outraging critics who say the move would make it cheaper and easier to walk away from cleaning up nuclear weapons production sites in Washington state, Idaho and South Carolina. The Department of Energy said on Wednesday that labeling some high-level waste as low level will save $40bn in cleanup costs across the nation’s entire nuclear weapons complex. The material that has languished for decades in the three states would be taken to low-level disposal facilities in Utah or Texas, the agency said.
Guardian 5th June 2019 read more »
LA Times 5th June 2019 read more »
Connecticut is set to massively increase investment in offshore wind after the state Senate passed a bill to require utilities to buy as much as 2 gigawatts of the renewable energy source, equivalent to almost a third of the state’s electricity needs. The bill passed unanimously in the Senate late Tuesday and now heads to Governor Ned Lamont, according to the Senate’s website. If he signs it, regulators will have 14 days to produce a plan to solicit bids from developers. Previously, the state planned to buy 300 megawatts of offshore wind. Connecticut will be joining New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts in leading the effort to build a $70 billion offshore wind industry along the Atlantic seaboard, transforming the way the region gets its electricity. Combined, they have plans to add more than 25 gigawatts over the next 15 years.
Bloomberg 5th June 2019 read more »
