nuclear-news

Chinese solar billionaire sets out vision for the future ENDS Europe30 June 2009Dr Zhengrong Shi is the founder, chairman and CEO of Chinese firm Suntech Power, the world’s largest solar photovoltaic (PV) module manufacturer. He tells ENDS how he envisages the future.

The demise of the pebble bed modular reactor Bulletin od the Atomic Scientists By Steve Thomas | 22 June 2009Article Highlights * After years of investment, South Africa has abandoned its plan to develop a fleet of electricity-generating pebble bed modular reactors (PBMR), once hyped as the future of nuclear power. * Problems with the PBMR aren’t new; a 2008 German report chronicles Germany’s own problems developing the reactor since 1967. * China, still developing PBMR-based power reactor designs, has taken a slow approach and it is unclear if they have run into problems as well. In February 2009, Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) Ltd., an eponymously named South African company announced a major change of strategy. After 10 years of development it said it was abandoning plans to build a full-size 165-megawatt-electric demonstration plant. Furthermore, PBMR Ltd. said it will try to redirect its future plans for the reactor from electricity generation toward thermal applications, such as coal gasification and water desalination. With government funding set to run out next year, the company will have to close if new funding is not found…………………The company’s actions instead point to potentially deeper problems with the reactor design itself. If this is the case, there are bound to be implications for the only other major pebble bed reactor research program left, which is in China and based on the same technology……………………..South Africa took a particularly aggressive approach, believing that it could develop a commercial-size PBMR design without even operating a prototype. If the PBMR is proved to be fundamentally flawed, as indicated in the Jülich report, South Africa’s $980 million investment in the project will be seen in hindsight as wasteful, one that the country, plagued with many more pressing and basic problems, could ill afford………………….Chinese nuclear decision-making is rather opaque to the West and if the problems identified in the Jülich report do cause the Chinese to think again about their plans for the pebble bed modular reactor, it is unlikely that there will be a public announcement comparable to that by PBMR Ltd. The project will just quietly slip out of Chinese plans.

N-plant won’t release report on cause of leak philly.com The Associated Press Jun. 29, 2009 LACEY TOWNSHIP, N.J. – The Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in New Jersey thinks it knows what caused a leak of radioactive tritium , but it won’t share the information with the public.The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission says a report addresses groundwater contaminated with tritium, some of which may be entering a cooling canal flowing into Barnegat Bay in undetectable levels.Plant spokesman David Benson says the report, which was given to the NRC, is an internal company document meant only for engineers.

Fatal blow to GNEP? World nuclear News 29 June 2009 The US Department of Energy is cancelling the wide-ranging environmental analysis of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) project. Its decision follows a change in government policy on commercial reprocessing…………………..So far, 25 countries have joined the GNEP partnership.

 In a notice published in the Federal Register, the Department of Energy (DoE) said that it had decided to cancel the GNEP programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) because it is no longer pursuing domestic commercial reprocessing, which was the primary focus of the prior administration’s domestic GNEP program…………………….In 2007, a panel of the US National Academy of Sciences suggested that the commercial-scale reprocessing facilities envisaged under GNEP were not economically justifiable.

Ontario drops plans for 2 new nuclear reactors Denocratic Undergrouns.com 1 july 09 Source: CBC

Citing ballooning costs and its responsibility to the taxpayers of the province, the Ontario government says it is indefinitely mothballing plans to build two new nuclear reactors at the Darlington power station.

French nuclear test victims to get compo The Age uly 1, 2009 – 10:19AMThe French National Assembly approved a landmark bill on compensating the victims of nuclear tests carried out in French Polynesia and Algeria over more than three decades.Some 150,000 civilian and military personnel took part in 210 nuclear tests carried out in the Sahara desert and the Pacific between 1960 and 1996. Many of them later developed serious health problems.The bill must now be presented to the Senate, which is practically certain to approve it………………………….

Under the bill, a nine-member committee of physicians, led by a magistrate, will examine individual claims for compensation.

Socialist opposition MPs had welcomed the bill, but warned it gives too much say to state appointees and too little to victims’ groups in deciding who is eligible.

By offering compensation, the government hopes to avoid long, drawn-out litigation. About a dozen veterans have won minor damages in lawsuits brought against the state……………………..

The government is also lifting the veil of secrecy surrounding its nuclear program as it considers the compensation claims.

The military archives of the nuclear program have been opened and are being examined by two experts who are to submit a report in December on the environmental impact of the tests.

Nuclear industry accused of hijacking clean energy forum Critics say France is using debate about where to base new Irena global renewables body to co-opt organisation The Guardian Terry Macalister 28 June 09

The nuclear power industry has been accused of trying to muscle in on plans to establish a global body to represent the renewable energy industry at a key meeting in Egypt tomorrow.

France – a major user and exporter of nuclear technologies – is accused by critics of trying to win the top job inside the renewable organisation so it can move the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) towards being a promoter of “low-carbon” technologies – including atomic power……………………..

The renewable agency will have a mandate to disseminate knowledge, develop regulatory framework and to actively promote the widespread adoption of renewable energy technologies around the world.

It comes ahead of vital new talks in Copenhagen at the end of this year about how to tackle global warming and amid excitement that the US and China are finally starting to play more constructive roles compared with the past.

Nuclear News: French government forces Areva’s ‘iron lady’ to bend ’Areva’s board meets today to rubber stamp what was always inevitable – the sale of the nuclear group’s transmission and distribution business and its stakes in a number of blue-chip companies. This is what Areva’s main shareholder, the French government, has long wanted to fund the rising investment needs of its nuclear champion. This is what Jean-Cyril Spinetta, its new chairman – also the chairman of Air France-KLM – is going to recommend. He is also expected to confirm that the government, which, through different state or state-controlled institutions, owns more than 90 per cent of Areva, has agreed to open up the company’s capital to new investors, although perhaps not the investors Anne Lauvergeon, Areva chief executive, would have wanted. Ms Lauvergeon, sometimes called France’s “iron lady”, has long campaigned for a market flotation to open up the group’s capital, which is only traded through investment certificates.