June 9, 2011

On April 13, our colleagues at Beyond Nuclear submitted a formal emergency petition to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to immediately suspend the operating license of all General Electric Mark 1 reactors in the U.S. (the same reactor design that failed so catastrophically at Fukushima) and to hold public meetings near every Mark I site. A list of the Mark 1 reactors can be found here. A factsheet on the 40-year history of the design deficiencies of the Mark I’s can be found here. The full text of the petition can be found here.

On June 8, the NRC held a “public” meeting on this petition. Hundreds of people tried to call in and the NRC’s system crashed, delaying the meeting for 1/2 hour. Eventually, more than 100 people successfully called in to the meeting. Only co-petitioners were allowed to speak, however.

Now we are asking all organizations and every person–especially the more than 7,500 who already have sent letters to their Congressmembers and President Obama demanding shutdown of these dangerous reactors–to join NIRS and other organizations and individuals in becoming Co-Petitioners to this petition. Let’s make sure the NRC doesn’t get off easy–let’s make sure they know the people of the world are watching them. The Mark I’s account for less than 4% of the U.S. electricity supply. Unlike the homes and livelihoods of the people near Fukushima, their power can easily be replaced. We need to close these reactors now.

Special Instructions for this Action:

Please edit the text of the message where appropriate and include in the text your name, organization (if you are co-petitioning on behalf of an organization, delete if you are acting for yourself), address and e-mail address. You may also add to the text of the message to include your own concerns–however, please do not delete any of the existing text.

By becoming a co-petitioner, you are joining a legal process–although there are no legal requirements or costs placed on you. However, all information that you submit to the NRC will become part of the public record and may be published by the NRC on its website. We thus advise you NOT to include your phone number. The NRC may contact you via e-mail about the status of this petition.