Hello, nuke!

Would you like to live just 60 miles from a nuclear reactor that could shatter "like a glass cup?" You may have that opportunity if you're an Asheville-area resident and the proposed William States Lee III Nuclear Plant near Gaffney Units 1 and 2 is allowed to be licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a […]

“No Nukes — No Kidding,” demonstrat­ors proclaimed Friday, July 15


A group of around 50 protestors, accompanied by a small marching band and a large, mock nuclear waste cask, carried signs from a rally at Pritchard Park to the Federal Building late Friday afternoon, July 15. Their message: nuclear waste is not welcome traveling on area roadways, nor in a repository once proposed for north Buncombe County.
Photos by Jerry Nelson.

There’s a glow in the Smokies tonight: Nuclear waste and WNC **UPDATED*­*

Our research on the past and present of nuclear waste in WNC dug up two interesting campaign items from a 1980s citizen-based effort to keep radioactive waste out of the community. The campaign, which resulted in Madison County commissioners adopting a resolution against nuclear waste transit on county roadways, featured a photo of local music producer Steven Heller wearing a hazmat suit and seated on a tractor, as if plowing a field of contaminated soil. The photo was part of a campaign that appeared on billboards with the catch-phrase, “Don’t think it can’t happen here.” Heller produced a piece of music written to support the campaign (listen to it within); go ahead and sing along as “…the bears in the park/Are glowing in the dark/There’s a glow in the Smokies tonight.”
Look for a full report on nuclear-waste facts, fiction and fears in the July 13 Mountain Xpress.

Let’s have a no-nuke future

Proposed legislation promoting 200 new U.S. nuclear reactors is foolhardy. Construction costs will continue to escalate, exceeding $10 billion each before any could be operational 10 years hence; $2 trillion for completion would become the largest energy boondoggle in U.S. history. Furthermore, despite claims it's "clean,” dirty fossil fuel is expended, deadly radioactive waste created […]

New codes, new economy — not new nukes

What would allow our North Carolina legislators to fulfill their campaign promises to create jobs [and] protect homeowners and the environment without new nuclear plants? They have a win-win opportunity if they adopt the new 2012 Energy Conservation Code, which would increase energy efficiency by 15 percent in new residential and 30 percent in commercial […]