nuclear-news

EDITORIAL: A Jolt of Reality: More Radioactive Waste is Downside to Building Nuclear Power Plants iStock  December 11, 2008  Source: Beaver County Times)trackingBy Beaver County Times, Pa.Dec. 11–During the presidential campaign, Republican candidate John McCain pledged to build 45 nuclear reactors by 2030 to meet the nation’s energy needs.With just about everybody but the most ardent of global-warming deniers recognizing the negative impact that coal-fired plants are having on the environment, the proposal was appealing politically because it rolled energy independence and global warming into one package.It also was unrealistic…………….e major factor for going slow on nuclear power is disposing the radioactive waste it generates.

The United States has designated Yucca Mountain in Nevada as a proposed depository for spent fuel, but it is more than a decade away from being up and running, if it ever does at all.

It’s also important to remember that shipping spent fuel to Nevada would raise serious security and safety concerns.

It’s not just the disposal of spent fuel that presents a problem. As The Times reported on Sunday, facilities like the Beaver Valley Nuclear Power Station in Shippingport are having trouble disposing of low-level nuclear waste because a South Carolina landfill has stopped accepting it. (Until another disposal facility can be found, the waste is being stored on site.)

Low-level waste consists of such things as resins used to clean water at power plants and material used to power equipment at university laboratories and hospitals. It differs from high-level nuclear waste such as fuel rods in that the volume and concentration of radioactive isotopes it contains is much lower.

DOE calls for bigger nuclear waste dump Associated Press By H. JOSEF HEBERT 10 Dec  08 – “……………………….The Yucca Mountain repository, with its statutory capacity limit, is nowhere near adequate for handling all the material expected to be generated by the country’s 104 commercial reactors before they are shut down, the department said.

Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said unless Congress removes the 77,000-ton limit on Yucca Mountain lawmakers will have to approve a search for a second repository. As many as nine potential waste sites had been looked at before Congress in 1987 declared that only the Nevada site should be considered…………………..Nearly 64,000 tons of reactor waste is now kept in cooling ponds and concrete storage canisters at commercial power plants, with about 2,200 tons being added every year. The Energy Department said Tuesday that power plants could generate as much as 143,000 tons over their extended operating life. The Yucca Mountain site also would have to accommodate defense-related reactor waste………………………

The department submitted an application for a permit to build and operate Yucca Mountain to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission earlier this year. The commission has four years to act on the proposal. If a permit is approved on schedule the Yucca site could begin taking waste by 2020.

Nevada officials have vigorously fought the Yucca project, arguing that the site is not the best place to put material that will remain highly radioactive for up to a million years.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has vowed to starve the project of funds.

Revisiting nuclear power waste of time and resources I am very concerned about the possible nuclear reactor in Saskatchewan,……………………….Nipawin Journal Jacqueline Swiderski 11 Dec 08 There is no safe storage option for uranium products and wastes. Radium, radon gas, and polonium are highly radioactive byproducts. Storage methods are at best controversial and at worst responsible for death and a toxic legacy for generations.

Mining poses serious health risks. Radon gas is a known cancer-causing agent. Uranium mining can poison water sources. Reactors need a lot of water. They, too, can leak radioactive substances into both watersheds and ground water. We cannot even know until it is too late, because radioactivity cannot be detected by our senses. We cannot see it, smell it, hear it, or feel it. There is no such thing as clean nuclear power. All parts of the nuclear processes pose serious hazards.

The uranium industry and our politicians are trying to trick us by dangling jobs as a carrot to entice us into allowing a reactor. There is absolutely no value for people to be employed if the jobs cause their suffering and death. We as a society, can’t even remove oil from the tar sands without causing tremendous devastation to our earthly home. Oil sands wastes pose relatively passive and benign problems to the earth, compared to uranium.

A chilling poser on nuke option Business Mirror, Philippines, 12 Dec 08 “………………………….The United States lost even more of what remained of its appetite for nuclear energy soon after September 11, 2001. The nuke threat America now faces comes not from a rival superpower, but from terrorist groups and even disgruntled kooks…………………..authorities have arrested an American suspected of trying to develop a nuke-spiked “dirty” bomb while there have been dozens of reported cases of attempted theft and sales of nuclear and radioactive material. Multinational forces have reportedly discovered a diagram for a nuclear device at an Al-Qaeda safe house in Kabul.The problem with nuclear power is that the ingredients required to generate electricity and those needed to manufacture a weapon are essentially the same.In a country whose authorities cannot be trusted to keep under detention some of Southeast Asia’s most notorious cross-border terrorists, anxiety over our ability to secure a nuclear plant from pilferage, sabotage and attack will persist…………………Foreign surveys say the Philippines is Asia’s most corrupt country and the second-most corrupt in the world.

SunPower to Build Largest Solar Power Tracking System in Australia Market Watch BELMONT, Australia,

Sun Power Corporation a manufacturer of high-efficiency, solar cells, solar panels, and solar systems, today announced an agreement to build a 505-kilowatt solar power installation for Horizon Power, a government-owned company providing power to remote and regional communities and resource operations in Western Australia. The ground-mounted installation will be located on two sites in Marble Bar and Nullagine, in the east Pilbara region of Western Australia, and will be the largest solar tracking system in Australia……….

SunPower will install SunPower solar tracking technology on the sites, which will maximize the solar plant’s energy delivery, while optimizing land use and reducing related costs.

I’ll take West Australian native land: Barnett THE AUSTRALIAN Amanda O’Brien, WA political reporter | December 11, 2008 WEST Australian Premier Colin Barnett has used a speech to 500 business leaders to reveal he will forcibly acquire land from Aboriginal people in the Kimberley to provide a site for a major gas-processing precinct…………..Kimberley Land Council executive director Wayne Bergman said the announcement was heavy-handed and objectionable and he was seeking legal advice………………

“It’s no surprise that the most disadvantaged people are being put further under pressure for big business. It’s been a consistent message from the Premier.”

Mr Barnett told the business audience that his Government would be “unashamedly pro-development”. It would be a theme in everything he did.

Mining boom’s last echo

THE September quarter could well go down in history as the final chapter of the commodities boom,……………….Among those that suffered large slides were nickel (down 63 per cent to $355 million), diamonds (down 30 per cent to $110 million), petroleum products (down 17 per cent to $199 million) and uranium (down 13 per cent to $148 million).

Family to sue govt over radioactive home

The Age 11 Dec 08 The owner of a Sydney property riddled with radioactive waste says he has no choice but to sue the NSW government after it failed to honour a commitment to buy the home.

Peter Vassiliou bought the Hunters Hill property in 2001, after being told the health department had cleared the site of contamination from a uranium smelter used in the 1910s.

Concerns about radiation levels at homes on Nelson Parade were raised again earlier this year, prompting a parliamentary inquiry…………………..the waterfront home in Sydney’s north is reported to have cost $4.65 million.”Our house is basically unliveable now. We’ve really got nowhere to live,” Mr Vassiliou said

It found sections of the street needed to be remediated – especially the Vassiliou property at number 11 – before the area would be safe for residential occupation.

Australian nuclear research group acquires two cyclotronsSNM SmartBrief | 12/11/2008The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization has installed two cyclotrons that will produce short-lived radiopharmaceuticals used in PET scanners to diagnose and treat cancer and other diseases. “The twin cyclotron facility will ensure there is a duplication of quality systems and processes to guarantee delivery of these important radiopharmaceuticals to hospitals and research facilities at the required dose,” an ANSTO spokeswoman said. St. George and Sutherland Shire Leader (Australia) (12/11)