Herbert, Utah Leaders Urge Stop to Nuclear Waste Arrival
Herbert, Utah Leaders Urge Stop to Nuclear Waste Arrival
Fox13now David Wells Senior Web Producer
May 18, 2009 SALT LAKE CITY – A federal judge has removed a major roadlock for EnergySolutions in its quest to to import Italian nuclear waste. U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart has ruled that a compact of several states doesn’t have the authority to ban foreign imports. Many Utahns, including Gov. Jon Huntsman, Jr. and Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert, have spoken out against the company’s plan to bring 1,600 tons of Italian nuclear waste to its facility in Utah’s west desert.
Utah Representatives Jason Chaffetz (R) and Jim Matheson (D) are co-sponsors of a national bill that could block imports of nuclear waste. FOX 13’s Katy Carlyle has more. http://www.fox13now.com/news/kstu-judge-compact-of-states-cant-block-foreign,0,7394556.story
Conn. high court backs anti-nuke plant activist
Associated Press
Conn. high court backs anti-nuke plant activist
By DAVE COLLINS , 05.20.09 A Connecticut environmental activist on Wednesday scored a significant legal victory in her fight over how the Millstone nuclear power complex manages its wastewater.
The state Supreme Court unanimously decided to allow Nancy Burton to challenge the state process that led to a preliminary decision to allow Millstone to renew its wastewater discharge permit. The state Department of Environmental Protection released a draft decision in August 2006 to renew the permit
Burton claims Millstone’s water intake and discharge system has destroyed billions of fish and other marine life in Long Island Sound and alleges the permit renewal process that began in 1997 has been tainted by bias, state favoritism toward Millstone and a disregard for environmental laws.
The five justices overturned a lower court judge’s ruling that Burton had no standing under state law to challenge the permit process.
“We conclude that the plaintiff’s complaint adequately sets forth facts to support an inference that unreasonable pollution, impairment or destruction of a natural resource will probably result from Millstone’s operation,” Justice Richard N. Palmer wrote in the court’s decision………………………A federal appeals court ruled in 2007 that power plants, including nuclear facilities, must use the best technology available to avoid harming aquatic life…………
Delays at Japan’s ill-fated nuclear plant
Delays at Japan’s ill-fated nuclear plant
By Hiroyuki Koshoji
UPI Tokyo, Japan — Japan’s Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant, built to extract plutonium from the spent fuel produced in Japan’s nuclear reactors, continues to be plagued by technical difficulties that have pushed its start-up date for commercial operations to August this year.
The plant in Rokkasho in northern Japan was out of action for nine months from the end of 2007 due to problems in one of its vitrification facilities, a furnace that mixes high active liquid waste with molten glass to seal radioactive waste in glass canisters that can safely be buried in the ground.
Attempts to restart the plant failed last October as problems with the glass melting process persisted. Then in January, 150 liters of high-level liquid radioactive waste leaked from pipes in the vitrification cell, forcing Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd. to postpone operations until August.
The problems at Rokkasho, especially with extracting plutonium from spent nuclear fuel, are a blow to Japan’s nuclear fuel-cycle program,………………. According to the Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan, out of the 19,240 tons of total storage capacity available in Japan for spent nuclear fuel, 60 percent is already occupied. It is believed that storage capacities at Fukushima and the Tokyo Electric Power Company Inc. would be used up within two to three years.
An open, honest nuclear debate
An open, honest nuclear debate Alberta’s ‘public consultation’ on nuclear power seems designed to quash any opposition to the plan canada.com By Douglas Roche, 19 May 2009
The consultation process launched by the Alberta government to determine if a nuclear power plant should be built in the Peace River area appears designed to dampen any opposition to the plan.
The Alberta nuclear consultation survey is cleverly formulated to intimidate all those without a scientific background, for example, asking the responders if they can explain the details of Alberta’s electricity system or nuclear energy to others. The responder is asked to affirm whether or not: “I was very familiar with the history of nuclear use in Canada.” In other words, if you don’t have a technical background, is your opinion worth much? Why bother to proceed if you’re not an expert?………..
……………………The report of the nuclear power expert panel and the government’s subsequent workbook downplay the risk of nuclear accidents, the staggering costs to taxpayers of nuclear power, the link between nuclear power and nuclear weapons, and the immense new potential of alternate sources of energy……………………………
A new study by the Pembina Institute found Alberta could go from producing more than 70 per cent of its electricity from coal to 70 per cent from clean energy sources in just 20 years, based on existing technology and rates of deployment already seen in other jurisdictions.
Using proven renewable energy technologies, combined with industrial co-generation and a serious commitment to improved consumption efficiency, Alberta could satisfy its growing demand for power while dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions and other harmful environmental impacts……………..
……………..For every argument that nuclear power is entering a “renaissance,” there is another that it is headed for obsolescence.
Soviet-Era Uranium Waste Sites Now Threaten Central Asia
Soviet-Era Uranium Waste Sites Now Threaten Central Asia Georgian Daily 19 may Paul goble Storage sites for uranium tailings that were built in Soviet times in Tajikistan are now leaking radiation into the surrounding atmosphere and ground water supplies, undermining the health and well-being of the people of a republic and a broader region that lack the resources to clean up a problem that it did nothing to create………………………..
The impact of the release of radioactive materials on the health of the population is already clear. Not only are the numbers of people suffering from cancer increasing, but the age of onset of cancers is falling, with many local people showing signs of cancer when they are only 15 or 16 years old, something almost unheard of earlier.
Moreover, medical officials from Dushanbe say that the overall health statistics for the areas around the uranium tailings sites are chilling: The number of stillborn children has increased as have the number of newborns with congenital defects. Some 85 percent of women in the region suffer from anemia, as do more than 64 percent of newborns…………………………..he amount of radioactive leavings is enormous, more than 450 million tons.
As a result, Ferghana.ru concludes sadly, the prospects are not good. “The elites have left the area forever because they know that the supplies of uranium are practically exhausted and that sooner or later all the factories and combines involved with the production of nuclear fuel will stop.”
In the end, the news service suggests, the local population will stand alon, facing “only the ruins of nuclear processing and mountains of ecological problems.”
georgiandaily.com – Soviet-Era Uranium Waste Sites Now Threaten Central Asia
Russia starts building world’s first floating nuclear power plant
Russia starts building world’s first floating nuclear power plant MOSNEWS.com 19 May, 11:07 PMRussia began assembling the world’s first floating nuclear power plant on a St. Petersburg wharf on Monday. The enormous platform carrying two nuclear reactors will produce heat and energy and desalinate sea water……………………
Developers of the floating station claim it is environmentally friendly.
The contract for building the first of the floating nuclear power plants is worth 983 billion rubles ($30.6 billion), Interfax reported.
Russia starts building world’s first floating nuclear power plant / MosNews.com
Anti-missiles in Europe: unneeded, ineffective, harmful |
Russia Today 19 May 09 The anti-ballistic missile system, which the US wants to use to protect itself and Europe from a possible strike from Iran, is not up for the job, a joint US-Russian threat assessment says. published on Tuesday by the non-partisan independent think-tank EastWest Institute, is the result of one year of work by both American and Russian scientists and missile experts.
Anti-missiles in Europe: unneeded, ineffective, harmful | Politics from 2009-05-19 | RT
Is it safe to store US nuclear waste above ground?
Is it safe to store US nuclear waste above ground? News Scientist Phil McKenna, 20 May 09 If leading US energy experts have their way, the US will be storing tens of thousands of tonnes of nuclear waste above ground for decades to come. But are dry casks, originally intended as a short-term fix for nuclear waste, a safe bet?………………………Existing reprocessing technology is “costly, prone to sabotage, offers very little waste reduction, and very little additional energy,” said Harvard’s Matthew Bunn of a process that can yield weapon-grade plutonium.
Nuclear lobby buoyant as Europe warms up to atomic energy |
Nuclear lobby buoyant as Europe warms up to atomic energy DEUTSCHE WELLE Mirjam Stöckel 20 May 09
EU warms up to nuclear energy
The nuclear lobby has certainly been banging the drum in recent years and with increasing success………………….The nuclear industry has stepped up efforts to advertize the potentially positive effects of atomic energy in cutting carbon emissions and limiting global warming as well as reducing Europe’s energy dependency.
Critics have condemned the rethink on nuclear power, pointing out that many EU parliamentarians are letting themselves be fooled by the nuclear lobby’s “climate” arguments.
“If you wanted to be really cynical you could say that the nuclear industry had to invent the whole climate discussion in order to see a chance for themselves,” said Rebecca Harms, an MP from Germany’s Green party.
“I know of no other case in which a huge industry tries so hard to benefit from a huge global problem as the nuclear industry does in the case of climate change.”……………………………….
Critics deplore lack of transparency
But for some, the nuclear lobby’s methods of networking with policy makers remain foggy.
That was illustrated in the case of former Euro MP Rolf Linkohr who worked as a special consultant for EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs after the end of his parliamentary term.
In 2007, Linkohr was fired after it emerged he had been on the board of nuclear energy giant EnBW and had been consulting energy companies with a private firm during his work for the Commission.
For non-governmental organizations such as the Corporate Europe Observatory CEO, Linkohr’s case was proof of the murky links between politics and the influential nuclear lobby.
CEO says the nuclear lobby is marked by a persisting lack of transparency. The EU Commission is advised by various expert groups and some of them are from the nuclear sector, Yorgos Vassalos of CEO said.
“Most of the time we have no access to the protocols of the meetings and to the list of participants. It’s generally very difficult to find out anything about the ties between decision-makers and the nuclear lobby,” Vassalos said.
Powerful and flush with cash
What is known for a fact is that the nuclear lobby in Brussels is — much like the nuclear industry — one of the most influential and well-funded groups. According to Foratom’s Web site, the group spent 1.6 million euros ($2.2 million) on lobbying the various arms of the EU in 2007.
Russia Especially Concerned About Threat of Nuclear War in Asia
Russia Especially Concerned About Threat of Nuclear War in Asia DIGITAL JOURNAL By Carol Forsloff.Published yesterday by ■ Carol Forsloff 19 May 09
Russian newspapers, like those in the West, are concerned about the ratcheting up of violence in Asia. They see the Russian – American nuclear armament race and potential outcome as a stalemate. Pakistan and India, however, play by different rules.Front page news in Russia declares the concern that country has about the possibility of nuclear war between two powers that don’t play by the same rules as other nations have done. This is seen as having serious catastrophic consequences for the entire world, given the threats involved and the extreme political views held by certain factions, especially within Pakistan……………….
………..India already has enormous potential since it expanded its capabilities in 2001 given the fact that the country never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The government of India believes it is entitled to have the same privileges as Russia, the USA, China, Great Britain and France with nuclear weapons.
Here’s the terrible problem. It is recognized that Pakistan and India are enemies and have been so for decades. China and India have had border clashes that could easily manifest into war. Whereas Pakistan could attack India, it doesn’t have the capability of destroying most of India’s nuclear arms. Pakistan is smaller in size, and India has a greater nuclear capability. Add to that the Aghanistan War and the problems on the border with Pakistan. The chief, however, is China that has enormous capacity compared to either India or Pakistan; and if that sleeping giant enters the fray, the facts are this: war indeed will be hell, as newspapers in Russia detail.
Russia Especially Concerned About Threat of Nuclear War in Asia – Digital Journal: Your News Network
Extent of tritium leaks still unknown
Extent of tritium leaks still unknown APP.com By Todd B. Bates • ENVIRONMENTAL WRITER • May 17, 2009
A month after radioactive tritium was found in a concrete vault and then ground water at the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in Lacey, experts still are trying to define the scope of the contamination. Plant owner Exelon Corp. also is still investigating the cause of the contamination and whether there are other leaks, according to plant and federal officials. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission decided last month that Oyster Creek was “good for 20 years, and it didn’t last three weeks before something failed,” said Richard Webster, legal director at the Eastern Environmental Law Center in Newark………
…………. Five monitoring wells at the plant were contaminated with up to 265 times government limits for tritium in water, according to May 6 data provided by Sheehan. Tritium is a weak isotope of hydrogen that increases the risk of cancer.
Extent of tritium leaks still unknown | APP.com | Asbury Park Press
Constellation reduces Ginna reactor to half power
Constellation reduces Ginna reactor to half power May 18, 2009
NEW YORK, May 18 (Reuters) – Constellation Energy Group Inc (CEG.N) reduced the 498-megawatt Ginna nuclear power station in New York to about half power on Sunday due to irregularities in the circulating water system, a spokesman for the plant said Monday.
He could not say when the unit would return to full power since workers were still looking for the problem.
The circulating water system moves water to the two low pressure turbines.
The Ginna station, which entered service in 1970, is located in Ontario in Wayne County about 20 miles east of Rochester, New York. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) renewed the plant’s original 40-year operating license in 2004 for another 20 years until 2029.
Shaw Group spent $330K lobbying government in 1Q
Associated Press Shaw Group spent $330K lobbying government in 1Q Forbes.com Associated Press, 05.18.09,
The Shaw Group Inc., an engineering and construction company, spent $330,000 in the first quarter to lobby on federal stimulus spending, funding for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other issues, according to a recent disclosure report.
The Baton Rouge, La.-based company lobbied Congress and the Department of Energy on issues related to the federal budget, energy tax credits, and nuclear power plants and waste storage, according to the report filed April 17 with the House clerk’s office.
Shaw Engineering Group also lobbied Congress in the January-March period in support of an agreement between the U.S. and United Arab Emirates on the cooperative use of nuclear energy.
Shaw Group spent $330K lobbying government in 1Q – Forbes.com
Lawsuit targets risks of nuclear waste
Lawuit targets risks of nuclear waste Coakley seeks debate on Pilgrim license renewal The Boston Globe By Robert Knox 17 may 09 State Attorney General Martha Coakley is asking a federal court to force nuclear energy regulators to consider risks to public safety caused by storing nuclear waste at the Pilgrim nuclear power plant before deciding whether to extend the facility’s license for 20 years.
Coakley joined with officials from New York and Connecticut to file suit in a federal appeals court in New York. The lawsuit asks the court to force the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to open debate on license extensions for plants such as Pilgrim to the potential threat posed by terrorists and accidents to used nuclear fuel stored inside the plants.
“The risk of a spent-fuel pool catching on fire by accident or due to intentional sabotage is neither remote nor speculative,” the lawsuit, filed May 6, states.
Protests as nuclear ship docks
Protests as nuclear ship docks
Herald Sun May 18, 2009 10:00pm
AN armed vessel with a load of recycled nuclear fuel from France arrived amid heavy security today at a Japanese port where it was greeted by dozens of protesters.
The Pacific Heron – carrying a British police team to head off possible hijackers on its secretive two-month voyage – delivered a load of mixed-oxide or MOX fuel, a blend of plutonium and reprocessed uranium.
Several dozen anti-nuclear activists and residents rallied at a pier of the Omaezaki fishing port as the cargo ship docked under heavy police guard and cranes unloaded metal containers of the nuclear fuel.
Environmental group Greenpeace has called the cargo, which left France in March, “the largest shipment of plutonium in history”, saying the 1.8 tonnes would be enough to make 225 nuclear weapons.
The Pacific Heron is believed to have travelled around Africa, escorted by a second ship, the Pacific Pintail, which was not seen in the port.
1 This Month
10 June – Assessing Canada’s Investments in Small Modular Nuclear Reactors – https://zoom.us/meeting/register/IiqHA5feRhaEBycOLNTJlA#/registration
Cuba Is Not a Failed State – It Is a Besieged State
PETITION: “Global Appeal to Endorse Palestinian Right of Return of Refugees”
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