nuclear-news

latest news on the uranium/nuclear industry

Nuclear reprocessing plant closes down

Globally, the shutdown leaves just one other commercial MOX facility operating globally: the French MELOX plant located in Gard.

UK closes key nuclear reprocessing plant - Nature News Blog August 03, 2011 Today the UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority announced the closure of the Mixed Oxide fuel fabrication facility at Sellafield. “The reason for this is directly related to the tragic events in Japan and its ongoing impact on the power markets,” Tony Fountain, the decommissioning authority’s CEO, said in a prepared statement. Read more »

August 4, 2011 Posted by | reprocessing, UK | Leave a Comment

USA’s pro nuclear Blue Ribbon Waste Commission rejects nuclear reprocessing

The good news: The BRC rejects reprocessing for now. The report states: “No currently available or reasonably foreseeable reactor and fuel cycle technology developments—including advances in reprocess and recycle technologies—have the potential to fundamentally alter the waste management challenge this nation confronts over at least the next several decades, if not longer. 

Waste Commission rubberstamps more nuclear, but rejects reprocessing – for now Beyond Nuclear 30 July 11, A year and a half after its creation, on July 29th Energy Secretary Chu’s “Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future” (BRC) has published its draft report of recommendations for dealing with the mountain of U.S. high-level radioactive waste now nearly 70 years high. Read more »

July 30, 2011 Posted by | reprocessing, USA | Leave a Comment

The massive costs of disposing of spent nuclear fuel

Contrary to power company figures, cost of nuclear power generation highest: research, Mainichi daily News, 23 July 11 ”……There’s also a problem that’s specific to nuclear energy. As Oshima points out, massive amounts of money are needed to dispose of spent nuclear fuel, Read more »

July 23, 2011 Posted by | Japan, reprocessing, wastes | 1 Comment

Japan might suspend developing its troubled fast breeder reactor

Unlike regular light-water reactors fueled by uranium, the Monju reactor, operated by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, runs on an oxide mix of plutonium and uranium, or MOX, made from spent nuclear fuel from existing plants.

The reactor first achieved criticality in 1994, but was shut down due to a serious accident involving a leak of sodium coolant and a resulting fire in 1995.

Science minister says gov’t will mull halting Monju prototype reactor project, Mainichi Japan) July 15, 2011TOKYO (Kyodo) — Science minister Yoshiaki Takaki indicated Friday that the government will consider suspending the development of the prototype fast-breeder reactor Monju in the wake of the country’s worst nuclear crisis that continues at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant. Read more »

July 15, 2011 Posted by | Japan, reprocessing | Leave a Comment

Long Branch Center refutes any need for USA nuclear reprocessing

Reprocessing in the United Kingdom has been an abysmal failure, and Russia continues reprocessing with no use of separated plutonium, and all European countries have now withdrawn from reprocessing in France and France reuses little of the contaminated uranium removed via reprocessing, and the $20 billion Japanese reprocessing plant Rokkasho has failed to start after more than two years of attempts. The disastrous U.S. experience with commercial reprocessing at West Valley, New York, from 1966-1972 was a total failure which contaminated the environment and resulted in a multi-billion dollar clean-up program that is still proceeding, revealing that the NRC must guarantee that all costs of operation, clean-up and potential accidents must be must be guaranteed by license holders, not by the Federal Government or taxpayers.
Local environmental group submits comment on nuclear-fuel reprocessing facilities, Mountain Xpress,  by Margaret Williams 10 July 11
Subject: Comment on Docket ID NRC–2010–0267 NRC, “Draft Regulatory Basis for a Potential Rulemaking on Spent Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing Facilities”, July 9, 2011

Secretary
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Washington, DC 20555-0001
Attn: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff
fax 301-415-1101
Rulemaking.Comments@nrc.gov

Re: Comment on Docket ID NRC–2010–0267, NRC “Draft Regulatory Basis for a Potential Rulemaking on Spent Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing Facilities” Read more »

July 10, 2011 Posted by | reprocessing, USA | Leave a Comment

AREVA pushing for nuclear reprocessing in USA

Areva sees nuclear waste recycling planning by 2015 (Reuters) By Ayesha Rascoe WASHINGTON | Mon Jun 6, 2011- Areva hopes that by 2015, it can start planning construction of a facility for recycling nuclear waste in the United States, an executive for the French nuclear power company said on Monday.

Jacques Besnainou, head of Areva’s North American unit, said the company was in discussions with several utilities about forming an alliance to advocate for a recycling center……Areva has said it would cost about $25 billion to build a recycling center in the United States. Besnainou suggested part of the funding for the project could come from the federal government’s Nuclear Waste Fund, which brings in about $750 million in fees annually from U.S. ratepayers….

June 7, 2011 Posted by | reprocessing, USA | Leave a Comment

Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant the world’s most dangerous complex

Making Hamaoka a special concern to its opponents is the presence of plutonium. Chubu is the only utility in Japan to have signed a contract to process mixed oxide fuel containing plutonium and uranium with the Sellafield plant in the UK.

The industry’s clout, its collusion with government watchdogs and a largely compliant media have helped smother concerns about this potentially explosive collision of state-of-the-art atomic power with primordial seismic instability

‘We all said disaster would strike here, not Fukushima’, The Independent, 3 May 11, After a 40-year campaign, warnings about the vast nuclear power station on Japan’s earthquake faultline are finally being heard. By David McNeill in Omaezeki and Nanako Otani, Norihiko Watanabe is pointing to his home, 600m from what he calls the most dangerous nuclear power complex on the planet. “There’s nothing like it anywhere in the world,” he says, eyes widening. “If it blows up, we’re all finished.” Read more »

May 3, 2011 Posted by | Japan, reprocessing, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a Comment

Facts on plutonium and Mox nuclear fuel

some reactors do use Mox, but only as a small percentage (less than 30 per cent) of the total fuel. The rest of the fuel is conventional uranium oxide…Mox, which in any case remains far more expensive than conventional uranium fuel…

(UK) Government’s doomed  £6bn plan to dispose of nuclear waste,  The Independent, 11 April 11“……Q & A: Why has it come to this?

Q: What is Britain’s “plutonium mountain”?

A: It is the nation’s stockpile of radioactive plutonium, kept as plutonium dioxide powder, packed into special drums stored at Sellafield in Cumbria. A further, smaller amount is stored at the Dounreay nuclear facility in Scotland, the site of the doomed nuclear fast-breeder reactor programme. Read more »

April 11, 2011 Posted by | - plutonium, reprocessing, UK | Leave a Comment

Only AREVA to benefit from dangerous plutonium reprocessing plant?

A mixed-oxide, or MOX, plutonium reprocessing plant that is being built in South Carolina has become “an expensive effort that enriches contractors, led by the French government-owned company Areva,”

US anti-nuclear activists slam reprocessing plan, Google news, (AFP) –  5 April 11, WASHINGTON — US anti-nuclear groups Monday condemned a project to build a plant where plutonium from weapons would be reprocessed into fuel for nuclear power plants, saying the plan was costly, dangerous and would benefit mainly the French group, Areva.

A mixed-oxide, or MOX, plutonium reprocessing plant that is being built in South Carolina has become “an expensive effort that enriches contractors, led by the French government-owned company Areva,” Tom Clements of Friends of the Earth said at the launch of a report by an anti-nuclear alliance.”In my opinion, it is primarily because of Areva’s influence inside the Department of Energy that the US is pursuing a plutonium fuel program and it’s because of Areva’s influence that there’s a push for the US to also reprocess commercial spent fuel to remove plutonium, like France does,” he said…….

The plant, on the Department of Energy’s Savannah River site, is roughly one-third finished and three times over budget, with a price tag so far of $4.9 billion dollars, Clements maintained.

But even as the nuclear disaster in Japan highlights the dangers of MOX fuel — which the ANA report says was used in one of the reactors at Japan’s crippled Fukushima power plant — the US government is failing to rethink construction of the South Carolina facility, Clements told reporters.

“As plutonium leaks from the damaged reactors in Japan, the US Department of Energy (DoE) continues planning for the use of dangerous mixed-oxide fuel in US nuclear reactors of the same design as the Fukushima reactors in Japan,” Clements said.

MOX fuel pellets “make reactors harder to control and, in the case of a severe accident, the radiation plutonium releases will be worse than uranium fuel,” said Clements……

Anti-nuclear activists would prefer encasing the plutonium left over from dismantled US nuclear weapons in glass, and then storing it as high-level waste.

That method, called vitrification, is “cheaper, quicker and safer” than converting plutonium into MOX fuel, says the report released Monday by ANA, a network of three dozen organizations…..
AFP: US anti-nuclear activists slam reprocessing plan

April 5, 2011 Posted by | reprocessing, USA | Leave a Comment

Fast breeder nuclear reactor trains for Russia?

Russia designs nuclear train2011- BarentsObserver Thomas Nilsen 24 Feb 2011, Sounds like a chapter in a science fiction book? Well,it’s not. Rosatom and Russian Railways are seriously developing a nuclear powered train.Vice-president of Russian Railways (RZhD) Valentin Gapanovich says they will present the layout of the train by the end of this year. The train will consist of 11 wagons.The engine of the train will be a small fast breeder reactor, and in its initial stage, the train will be a scientific exhibition complex.The design is made by Russia’s State Atomic Energy Corporation, Rosatom…….Russia designs nuclear train – BarentsObserver

February 25, 2011 Posted by | reprocessing, Russia, technology | Leave a Comment

Reprocessing nuclear waste – not a solution to the intractable waste problem

Nuclear waste- no place to go? Environment Reseach by Dave Elliott on February 19, 2011 Reprocessing nuclear waste provides little short-term benefit because the process costs too much and uranium supplies remain plentiful, according to a new study of US nuclear waste management options by MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Read more »

February 22, 2011 Posted by | reprocessing, USA, wastes | Leave a Comment

Britain to break international agreement in releasing plutonium into sea

Sellafield activity ‘will ensure UK breaks nuclear pollution  promise’ Group monitoring nuclear plant says ‘crash programme’ by government’s NDA will put UK in breach of Ospar convention Rob Edwards, guardian.co.uk,  17 February 2011
• ‘Sellafield is where we house the toxic legacy of our failed nuclear industry’

Britain is on course to break an international agreement to reduce radioactive pollution of the seas, because of an increase in activity at the Sellafield nuclear site, Read more »

February 18, 2011 Posted by | politics international, reprocessing, UK | 1 Comment

MOX – Britain’s failed attempt to deal with its plutonium problem

The problem is that Britain has the dubious distinction of being the world’s civilian plutonium capital, with 112 tons of it – about half the global total – almost all stored at Sellafield. It is there because, unlike in America, we “reprocess” our nuclear waste to extract plutonium. The idea was for it to power a new generation of “fast breeder” reactors, but the industry admits these are still half a century away, and so we are stuck with the stuff.

So the nuclear plant does not work, loses £90 million a year, and could be a security risk? Let’s build another, say ministers A bomb factory in our back yard, – Telegraph, UK, 14 Feb 2011, The so-called Mox plant could well go rogue, - Geoffrey Lean.

How’s this for timing? A week ago The Daily Telegraph published a confidential cable from the US embassy calling a controversial plant at Sellafield “one of Her Majesty’s Government’s most embarrassing failures in British industrial history”. Then, within days, ministers said they were minded to build another one like it. Read more »

February 15, 2011 Posted by | reprocessing, UK | Leave a Comment

UK’s plutonium stockpile could be used in new subsidy to nuclear industry

This could easily end up as yet another black hole for taxpayers’ money. The use of the UK plutonium stockpile in reactors could be yet another subsidy for new nuclear.”

Mox proposal would pay nuclear firms to use recycled plutonium• French group Areva wants to build a Mox plant at Sellafield• Greenpeace fears ‘yet another subsidy for new nuclear’   Tim Webb guardian.co.uk, 7 February 2011  Areva submitted a proposal to the government to build a Mox plant at Sellafield.

Nuclear companies could be paid by the government to buy recycled nuclear fuel from a new taxpayer-funded plant, to reduce the country’s stockpile of plutonium. Read more »

February 8, 2011 Posted by | reprocessing, secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a Comment

Unacceptable risks of plutonium nuclear fuel

Energy NW asked not to use plutonium reactor fuel | Seattle Times Newspaper, 4 Feb 2011, RICHLAND, Wash. —Friends of the Earth is calling upon Energy Northwest not to consider using nuclear reactor fuel derived from weapons-grade plutonium at its Columbia Generating Station at Hanford.The environmental organization says it has obtained Department of Energy documents that say the public power consortium is evaluating the potential use of plutonium mixed oxide fuel at the reactor. It says the use of such fuel poses unacceptable risks and costs.The government says the fuel could produce energy while disposing of plutonium from abandoned nuclear weapons. The Energy Department is building a plant in South Carolina to make the fuel.Energy Northwest spokeswoman Rochelle Olson says it has no plans to use the fuel until studies prove it would be safe, economical and technically feasible. Local News | Energy NW asked not to use plutonium reactor fuel | Seattle Times Newspaper

February 5, 2011 Posted by | reprocessing, safety and incidents, USA | Leave a Comment

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