Ambient office  = 9114 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 81 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 82 nanosieverts per hour

Crimini mushroom from Central Market = 118 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 111 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 106 nanosieverts per hour

Dover sole – Caught in USA = 118 nanosieverts per hour

Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
       Several bills attempting to allocate funds for spent nuclear fuel disposal have been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives but none of them has even made it to the U.S. Senate. Many members of the nuclear power industry say that the impasse over disposal of spent nuclear fuel has been impeded by political disagreements. The State of Nevada has vigorously opposed the Yucca Mountain repository because state officials say that it would be unsafe. They say that it would be vulnerable to possible volcanic activity, earthquakes, penetration by ground water, underground flooding and critical nuclear chain reactions.
        Nevada GOP Senator Dean Heller has been part of the strong opposition to the Yucca Mountain repository. Nevada Senator-elect Democrat Jacky Rosen who replaces Heller in 2019 has said that she would continue to oppose the Yucca Mountain repository.
        At the end of November of this year, Representative Dina Titus (D-Nev) sent the U.S. House of Representatives a letter asking them to reject any funding that could revive the licensing process for the Yucca Mountain repository that might be slipped into a final appropriations bill.
       In the past year, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Energy and Water Development Appropriations, 2019. This bill included provisions for funding nuclear energy programs. The DoE had asked for one hundred and twenty million for the development of the Yucca Mountain repository and the bill included not only this request but added an extra one hundred billion dollars to the DoE budget.
       The U.S. Senate passed a bill that authorized the development of an interim spent nuclear fuel storage facility at a “voluntary site.” The Senate bill did not include any funding for work at Yucca Mountain. Ultimately, the bill that passed both the House and the Senate did not include additional funding for the Yucca Mountain site or the interim storage facility.
       The DoE recently sought public comment on the proper interpretation of the legal term, “high level radioactive waste.” In response to this DoE request for input, Representative Titus issued a statement that said, “This move to reinterpret the definition of high-level nuclear waste is nothing more than a backdoor Yucca Mountain. Current law does not allow this kind of waste to be shipped to the State for permanent disposal. If Donald Trump and the Republicans get their way, the flood gates for nuclear waste will be swung wide open, and the Nevada Test Site will be Destination #1.”
       While confusion reigns, the spent nuclear fuel keeps piling up at the reactor sites. If the overpacked cooling pools at commercial reactor sites are not relieved soon by having spent nuclear fuel rods moved to temporary storage, some reactors may have to be shut down. Unfortunately, there are serious problems with the design of the current generation of dry storage casks being used for temporary spent nuclear fuel storage. Recently, the dry casks being employed to store spent nuclear fuel from the closed San Onofre nuclear power plant near San Diego, California were all found to be defective and will have to be replaced. Perhaps, new solutions should be sought to the problem of the long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel.
Yucca Mountain repository design:

Ambient office  = 97 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 101 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 97 nanosieverts per hour

Blueberry from Central Market = 97 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 102 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 89 nanosieverts per hour

Part 1 of 2 Parts
       Two days ago, a broad coalition of fifteen industry groups including labor unions, state public service commissions, clean energy organizations and energy trade associations sent a letter the leaders of the U.S. House and Senate urging them to take swift action on finding a permanent solution to the problem of disposing of spent nuclear fuel. Among the organizations sending the letter were the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), the American Public Power Association, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, and the Edison Electric Institute—along with the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, which is a group of state regulators.
       The letter pointed out that there had been no progress on the Yucca Mountain repository license application and that consolidated temporary storage was simply “untenable.” The letter said, “It is time for the federal government to meet its statutory and contractual obligations. Utilities and their electricity customers have done their part.” At this time, it is estimated that eight hundred thousand metric tons of spent nuclear fuel are contained in temporary storage at seventy-five reactor sites in thirty-three state.
        Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, the U.S. Department of Energy was obligated to create a permanent geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel from U.S. commercial nuclear power reactors. The repository was to be finished and ready to operate by 1999. In anticipation of the availability of this facility, the DoE began collecting a fee from all the operators of commercial nuclear power reactors. The fee was ultimately collected from ratepayers who purchased electricity from nuclear power.
         Unfortunately, 1999 came and went with no facility being completed. The DoE was working on creating such a facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, but that plan was cancelled in 2009 by the U.S. President and the U.S. Congress. In the meantime, over forty billion dollars was collected from nuclear plant operators by the DoE. It is accumulating interest of about one and three quarters billion dollars a year from investment in Treasury securities.
       When the 1999 deadline passed, owners of commercial nuclear power plants began to file lawsuits to claw back those payments to the DoE. So far, forty lawsuits have been settles with paybacks of seven billion four hundred thousand dollars. Another fifty-seven lawsuits have been resolved.
       The letter said, “taxpayers have been saddled with the federal government’s inaction,” and “billions [of dollars] more in liability continuing to mount.” The letter pointed out that the nuclear industry employs about a hundred thousand people directly and almost five hundred thousand people indirectly.
       The letter went on to say, “Yet the lack of a strong used fuel management program has stymied public support of nuclear power for the existing fleet as well as advanced reactors currently under development. This is unfortunate as the overwhelming scientific evidence clearly demonstrates that used nuclear fuel can be stored, transported, and disposed of safely.” 
       Last May, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2018. Previously, the condition for a license for the Yucca Mountain repository was dependent on the satisfaction of public land use laws. Under the new bill, the license process would be completely under the control of the DoE. The bill would also permit the temporary storage of spent nuclear fuel at interim storage facilities licensed by the NRC but owned by non-federal entities. Under the bill, the storage capacity of a Yucca Mountain repository would be raised from seventy thousand metric tons to one hundred and ten metric tons. The U.S. Senate has failed to ratify this House bill.
Please read Part 2

Ambient office  = 126 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 126 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 126 nanosieverts per hour

Orange bell pepper from Central Market = 115 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 90 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 85 nanosieverts per hour

       One of the things that supporters of nuclear power always bring up is the fact that nuclear power plants are base-load power. This means that the plants are always running and producing power as opposed to solar and wind installation which are intermittent. Having base-load power sources on the electrical grid to continually supply a minimum amount of electricity is very important. While nuclear power is theoretically base-load, in reality, nuclear power plants are not “always on.” In addition to the scheduled downtime necessary to load new nuclear fuel every twelve to eighteen months, there can be unscheduled shutdowns caused by technical problems in the complex components of plant.
       The Grand Gulf Nuclear Generating Station is the largest single-unit nuclear plant in the U.S. It is located near the western border of Alabama and has a maximum capacity of one thousand four hundred and forty-three megawatts. It began operating in 1985. There have been plans to add additional reactors, but they were all abandoned. It is an example of why nuclear power cannot be counted on for base-load power.
       A review of federal daily reactor status reports by E&E News found that between 2013 and the present, the Grand Gulf only operated at full power for a little over half the time. It was at zero power about one fifth of the time. The rest of the time, it was operating at reduced power.
        Entergy holds a ninety percent stake in Grand Gulf through a company called System Energy Resources, Inc. Utilities in Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana all receive electricity from Grand Gulf. When Grand Gulf is shut down, the local grid must find other power sources which can be more expensive and involve the use of fossil fuels with their carbon emissions.
       The Grand Gulf had five unplanned downpower events in the past year. One of these outages lasted for three months. There have been other long power outages. An outage that started in September of 2016 lasted for five months. In 2016, Grand Gulf was at zero power for a total of one hundred and seventy-six days.
        Turning a nuclear power reactor on and off can make the reactor unstable. Entergy says that it is working on making the plant operation more reliable at Grand Gulf. The NRC says that the plant is still safe to operate. However, the NRC has sent a notice to Entergy that the performance of the Grand Gulf is now outside of what the NRC considers normal.
       Other electrical utilities and nuclear plant operators have similar problems as many reactors in the U.S. fleet are nearing the end of their licensed life spans. The operators of many of these aging nuclear plants are applying to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for twenty-year extensions of their operating licenses.
       It is very expensive to build a nuclear power plant but once in operation, they are relatively cheap to operate. The fuel is inexpensive and is not subject to the volatility of other fuels. While in operation, the plants do not emit carbon dioxide and other pollutants. However, as nuclear power plants age, the maintenance costs rise and obtaining replacement parts becomes increasingly difficult. In addition, downtimes increase.