Still Crazy After All These Years

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Seven nuclear power companies announced a joint effort to "apply for a license to build a new commercial power plant" -- the first in 30 years. The consortium will "test a simplified licensing system created by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission... to help the industry go from reactor order to electricity production in 5 years, as opposed to the 10 or 12 years" it used to take. The consortium is integral to the Bush administration's "Nuclear Power 2010" program, a "joint government/industry cost-shared effort" hoping to "deploy" new plants "in the 2010 timeframe." In other news, a two-year study by 30 environmental, health and safety groups faulted the Energy Department for "the seepage of radioactive and toxic byproducts" from nuclear weapons complexes "into vital water resources."