Mrs Tiggywinkle’s Laundry – hot pants! Sellafield Laundry scandal?
“…The only brand protection worth having is to contain radioactive contamination on the Sellafield site rather than dispersing it to the environment at previously non nuclear sites through landfill, metal “recycling”, a proposed nuclear dump and now, we learn, the laundry!….”
INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SELLAFIELD LAUNDRY AND CUMBRIAN HOTELS – (Mrs Tiggywinkle and the hot pants) A Cumbrian laundry, Shortridge, supplying some of the most prestigious hotels in the Lake District has a £50,000 – £600,000 contract to provide a contingency laundry for Sellafield’s towels and underwear.
27 January 2013
There is no monitoring once the laundry leaves Sellafield, no checks once it arrives at the same laundry used by Cumbrian Hotels. Baroness Verma’s recent comments about the intimate relationship between the nuclear industry and tourism perhaps refers to the use of the same laundry? £500,000 has been pledged by government to protect the Lake District’s image. No doubt aggressive Mrs Tiggywinkle marketing could put a positive spin on the nuclear laundry being shared with Cumbrian hotels. The only brand protection worth having is to contain radioactive contamination on the Sellafield site rather than dispersing it to the environment at previously non nuclear sites through landfill, metal “recycling”, a proposed nuclear dump and now, we learn, the laundry!
The Environment Agency has provided answers below confirming the appalling situation which, despite assurances, opens up another new pathway for routine and accidental contamination. This has only come to light as a result of an anonymous letter to Radiation Free Lakeland.
Environment Agency -Freedom of Information Answers: PROTECT-NTH6582H
Dear Marianne Thank you for your request for information which was received in this office on 14 January 2013. Requests for information that are recorded are generally governed by the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).
The information you have requested is environmental and it is therefore exempted from the provisions of FOIA by FOIA s.39(1). We have therefore considered your request under the provisions of the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR).
I will answer your points in turn. Laundry at Sellafield Sellafield Ltd has an on-site laundry for active and non-active (i.e. contaminated and non-contaminated) laundry. However, in case the laundry cannot operate, Sellafield Ltd has a contract with Shortridge Laundry as a contingency for the non-active (i.e. non-contamined) laundry.
MUST WATCH: Belgian MP, Laurent Louis, drops the F-bomb in parliament about the neo-colonial adventures for which media provides propaganda cover! Areva named and shamed!
Working link in french below..
MUST WATCH: Belgian MP, Laurent Louis, drops the F-bomb in parliament about the neo-colonial adventures for which media provides propaganda cover
Posted on January 27, 2013 by stacyherbert| 3 Comments
Stacy Summary: I suspect this is the next European parliamentarian to go viral. The speech is so amazing, I doubted its authenticity! I assumed it was green screened, anyway, to the Belgians reading this, do comment about who this guy is, etc., as I had never heard of him and would like to know more. Regardless, a surprising speech to hear delivered in any Western parliament.
If you have problems viewing on that link
Update : There appears to be a problem with the video on my you tube channel too! looks like the video has been redirected to belgium?? ie youtu.be
i am trying to find out whats going on but you might be able to still watch it on the max kaiser link.. read the comments anyway.. i have a download in french but no transcript file yet.. I will post the transcript here when it becomes available.. hopefully soon! there are subtitles available on the kaiser link
working link in french
you need to sign in to enable translation..
After he gave a press conference to the Belgian media to expose the report of autopsy of the paedophile Marc Dutroux’ little victims “Julie and Melissa” who have officially died of hunger in Marc Dutroux’s basement while he was in prison for another case, the members of the Belgian Parliament have sanctioned Laurent Louis, on the 30th of june 2012, by obvious fear the cruel truth to be brought in plain sight and protect those among the government who are directly involved in the protection of the pedocriminals… or worse, those who belong this international paedo-criminal ring…….
http://dotsub.com/view/ce14c149-e361-4465-a2ab-180a52ae234c
notes on video here
Here are some excerpts from his speech:
1:25 And today, in the name of democracy and the fight against terrorism,
Fukushima Political Fallout: NHK Documentary; ‘Questioning Nuclear Power’
Published on Jan 26, 2013
A picturesque town with a slumping economy was torn by the lure of nuclear energy. Should the people accept the construction of a nuclear power plant, in the hope it will help fund their future? Or continue to struggle in bountiful nature, free of the risks of radiation? We get a close look at their 40-year dilemma.
What is the best way to frame the issue of nuclear power? In the end, maybe a great deal hinges on how people define “quality of life”.
Questioning Nuclear Power The program presents the thoughts of the residents of Ashihama who have been directly concerned with the pros and cons of the nuclear power issue ever since a plant was first proposed there in 1963.
A broadcasting issue created a somewhat poor quality video. The “message” comes through loud and clear regardless of the jerkiness of the film. Originally aired June 29, 2012.
Rebroadcast 1/26/13.
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/w/movie/
Reject Nuclear Power
http://dissidentvoice.org/2013/01/reject-nuclear-power/
Bulgarians begin voting in confusing nuclear referendum
27 Jan 2013
Sofia (dpa) – Bulgarians began casting ballots Sunday in a referendum on the future of nuclear energy which is likely to fail due to an insufficient turnout.
Turnout is expected to fall short because many voters are confused by the question at hand: “Should nuclear energy be developed in Bulgaria through construction of a new nuclear power plant?”
Depending upon how that question is interpreted, voters are being asked to support future generation at an existing plant in Kozloduy, which may be expanded with additional generators, or one in Belene, some 100 kilometres downstream.
Bulgaria began working on Belene in the 1980s, but froze the work in the 1990s.
The project was revived in the next decade, only to be placed on ice once again by the present conservative cabinet, which scrapped the plan involving Russian contractors as outrageously overpriced.
The way the referendum question has been formulated, it could mean restarting work at Belene, which is favoured by the opposition Socialists, or adding new units at Kozloduy, something for which Prime Minister Boyko Borisov has interceded.
That means, regardless of whether the “yes” or “no” votes takes the day, Bulgaria leaders will have wiggle room in deciding if and where to plan future nuclear power production.
And the whole exercise could be rendered moot if the referendum fails, as expected, because turnout proves to include less than 60 per cent of the electorate, as required.
Latest surveys predicted a 27-37 per cent turnout. Voting begins at 6 am and ends at 7 pm (0400-1700 GMT). dpa bb ncs Author: Boris Babic
Crunch vote on nuclear dump in Lake District UK
Plans to bury radioactive waste in Cumbria face growing local opposition. Mike Glover reports
SUNDAY 27 JANUARY 2013
Image courtesy of http://www.facebook.com/SouthWestAgainstNuclear
Proposals to store nuclear waste under England’s largest national park and other areas of outstanding natural beauty will face stormy opposition this week. A decision to abandon or press on with a nuclear waste dump in Cumbria will be made by three councils on Wednesday. The result will have major implications for energy policy, experts warn.
Copeland and Allerdale borough councils and Cumbria County Council will separately vote whether to advance to detailed geological surveysfor the dump. Three possible sites – Ennerdale, Eskdale and the Solway Plain – have been identified. All three delayed a vote last November after councillors sought and got government assurances that they could reject the deal later.
http://www.noend.org.uk/Index.htm
But the delay has allowed a dramatic escalation in opposition. Yesterday protesters from Spand (Solway Plain Against Nuclear Dump) presented a 3,600-signature petition to county councillor Tony Markley, who wants the proposals to go to the next stage. In December an online petition attracted more than 6,000 signatories and a series of public meetings has seen a groundswell of opposition. At one meeting, in Keswick this month, 600 people voted to stop the process.
New Extended Flyover of Giant Sinkhole: “We are finding that things actually look a bit worse” (VIDEOS & PHOTOS)
Published: January 26th, 2013 at 8:51 pm ET
By ENENews
Title: 20130126 – Bayou Corne OWOC Flyover
Source: On Wings of Care
Photos & Video: Brayton Matthews of Flightline First at New Orleans’ Lakefront Airport
Date: January 26, 2013
Five weeks after our last update of December 24 on the Bayou Corne sinkhole, we are finding that things actually look a bit worse. The water levels seems higher, and the work efforts appear to have subsided. Equipment has been removed, and the homes to the west and northwest of the sinkhole look seriously unpopulated. The recent seismic activity has people and the government concerned […]
Reassessing the health effects of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident
While the Japanese tsunami of March 2011 was devastating in its own right, the long term health consequences because of the damage to the nuclear reactor at Fukushima Daiichi are also of serious concern.
There are a number of factors that have to be considered when assessing the health effects of radiation exposure: for example land decontamination efforts, size of evacuation area, shielding by buildings and terrain and consumption of contaminated food.
Jan Beyea, from the US expert consulting service Consulting in the Public Interest, together with fellow colleagues has been analysing previous calculations of the subsequent nuclear accident in Japan, and believes that the number of predicted future mortalities from cancer is higher than originally predicted. ‘Health consequences predicted for the Fukushima Daiichi accident are dominated by “groundshine” gamma radiation from the decay over several decades of dispersed radioactive caesium. Although an individual’s risk is small, the mid-range, predicted number of future mortalities from cancer is closer to 1000 than the 125 figure calculated without considering long-term groundshine [gamma radiation emitted from radioactive materials deposited on the ground].’
What are the long-term consequences for public health following the 2011 disaster in Fukushima?
A critical part of calculating the consequences of a nuclear accident is the treatment of the gamma ray dose from land contaminated with caesium-134 and caesium-137. Radiocaesium isotopes can also be responsible for extra cancers that can be expected years after the initial exposure. It is these long-term doses in the environment that were not included in the original estimations.
Lynn Anspaugh, from the University of Utah, US, who works in the field of radiology and reconstructing radiation doses and who analysed the Chernobyl accident, agrees that Beyea’s research points out several inaccuracies in the previous work. However, he feels that the real question this work raises regards the future of nuclear power itself. ‘Both accidents had a root cause in poor judgments having been made by humans. If nuclear power is to have a future, its proponents must indicate how they can make such reactors fail safe and how they will assure that siting decisions do indeed take account of possible, or even likely, natural events.’
Beyea hopes that this work will help improve models of accident consequences as well as future emergency planning and response. When discussing the future of this type of research he adds: ‘Quantifying the psychological and physical effects of stress following large releases of radioactivity may be the next frontier in consequence analysis.’
From the Enenews article
The last sentence in the Chemistry World article disturbs me.
“Quantifying the psychological and physical effects of stress following large releases of radioactivity may be the next frontier in consequence analysis.”
Those lucky Consequence Analysts
may have new reasons for funding to acquire,
and a new frontier
to fill with scholarly papers adored,
on the topic of stress that’s so deplored,
adding weight to the theme of radiophobes,
those folks here-to-fore mostly ignored,
who need counselling to have their confidence restored,
so that radioactivity need not be abhored,
and with drugs and therapy be happy once more.
Paladin energy (Uranium mining) having some difficulties.. final death throes?
“…I have looked at the numbers for all the big public miners and the average cost to run the businesses is about $106/lb. So at $40/lb they are losing about $66 on every pound they sell. You can’t make that up without the price going up. So, yes, I think we are going to see the price come up. I absolutely think that we’ve seen the bottom. I think $80/lb is not unreasonable and $100+/lb is more likely….”
“…One company I was concerned about was Paladin Energy Ltd. (PDN:TSX; PDN:ASX). I told my readers that they should be very careful. It has some great assets and a long-term supply contract with one of the French utilities, but it’s experienced some problems turning a profit. So going back to acquisitions, it might make sense for a big mining company to take over Paladin. It has a lot of debt. It’s a $712 million ($712M) market value with $830M in debt. In addition, the company has $125M of convertible bonds coming due in two months, which will lead to converting up to 147M shares. That’s a big dilution. This might be something for readers to look at down the road after these bonds convert. If the share price sinks below a significant point where the dilution’s not going to hurt quite as badly, that could be a possibility. It may be that Paladin is worth a flyer for its assets after the dilution happens….”
“…..TER: Any final advice for energy investors?
MB: I’m pretty excited about the developments that are going to happen, but you have to be careful….”
image courtesy http://www.tischendorf.com/2010/04/22/uranium-price-turnaround-some-technical-analysis-thoughts/
For nuclear-news subscribers.. This gentleman loves nuclear i suspect.. i have highlighted some sentences.. .. but i had to add the context..and the odd comment.. oh and an article at the bottom.. now im off for a tea.. to relax… and forget 🙂 interesting article though!
Uranium $100+/Pound Needed to Satisfy Stealth Demand
Commodities / UraniumJan 25, 2013 – 09:35 AM
By: The_Energy_Report
What’s the easiest way to track the ups and downs of energy markets? Watch what governments are doing rather than what they are saying, says S&A Resource Report Editor Matt Badiali. He has been watching behind-the-scenes nuclear energy importing in Germany and Japan and has concluded that the uranium market has hit bottom and is coming back up. What companies could benefit from these gyrations? He has an answer to that one in this Energy Report interview, plus some words of wisdom on U.S. oil and gas bottlenecks.
The Energy Report: In a recent piece for the S&A Resource Report titled “Government Lies and an Emerging Resource Opportunity,” you said that statements by German and Japanese officials that they plan to be nuclear free in the next two decades were a cover-up for what they’re really doing, which is importing nuclear power from other countries and secretly developing uranium supplies in former Soviet countries. How long can they hide these energy sources?
Matt Badiali: It’s not a case of hiding them. In both cases, the governments are playing politics. In Germany, the government was reacting to negative press and in Japan, which had just experienced a serious natural disaster. The Japanese government told people for decades that nothing of that sort could ever happen, that the nuclear reactors were completely impervious to natural disasters. That put them in a position where if they tried to make any improvements, they would lose face. They backed themselves into a corner and the only solution seemed to be to turn off the reactors. But the reality is that Japan needs nuclear energy. Without it, liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports have soared and the country doesn’t have the infrastructure to move it around. The result was a horrendous summer of spiking electricity prices and rolling brownouts; it was bad news.
[????? ARCLIGHT]
Germany used the Fukushima disaster and the negative sentiment that followed to push through a carbon-free agenda. What is really ironic is that Germany is not in a place that gets earthquakes or tsunamis. It is not at any risk for that. It also isn’t a place where solar power works really well. Turning off the nuclear plants leaves the country without adequate energy generation infrastructure, so they increased imports of electricity from France. However, over 75% of France’s electricity is generated by nuclear power plants. So really all they did was outsource their nuclear reactors. At the same time, they brought on an enormous amount of coal power, which is the single-worst contributor of carbon dioxide. It was politics at its finest.
[SEE ARTICLE BELOW i couldnt bear this paragraph.. had to respond !.”French & German Wind Likely Made the Difference during Arctic Cold Spell”…. ARCLIGHT]
TER: Is the German press not reporting on this? Are people not wondering where their energy is coming from?
MB: I don’t read the German press, but what I do see is that the Germans are paying an enormous surcharge for a modest amount of carbon-free electricity. I don’t know why there has not been a massive backlash in Germany. If I lived there, I would be furious about the costs. In France, it costs about €0.14 per kilowatt hour (KWh) of electricity. In Italy it costs about €0.20/KWh. In Germany it costs €0.25/KWh. That’s an 85% increase in the cost of electricity. It’s really amazing, and I haven’t seen any pushback.
India hopes to restart nuclear talks with Japan soon
“…Japanese atomic power companies have been eyeing the huge nuclear market opened up for the world by the Nuclear Suppliers Group’s 2008 waiver for India. Besides, even the US companies, which partnered with Japanese firms, need a deal between Tokyo and Delhi to be able to sell India nuke technology and equipment with components originating from Japan…”
Negotiations were suspended after Fukushima disaster
India is expecting an early restart of the stalled talks for a bilateral civil nuclear cooperation agreement with Japan, with the new government in Tokyo led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe set to review the erstwhile regime’s decision to move towards bringing down the country’s reliance on atomic energy.
Image from this article http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2580648.ece
New Delhi and Tokyo are understood to be exploring the possibility of a visit by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Japan for the annual bilateral summit, which was put off in November due to fast-paced political developments that eventually led to an election and Abe took over as the new prime minister of the East Asian country, succeeding Yoshihiko Noda.
Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party’s professed policy on nuclear energy is significantly different from the one pursued by the erstwhile regime of the Democratic Party of Japan in the aftermath of the mishap at Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant following an earthquake and tsunami along the country’s east coast on March 11, 2011. This has rekindled New Delhi’s hope for resumption of its nuke talks with Tokyo.
Europe ‘has failed to learn from environmental disasters’
“…In a sharp rebuke to pro-nuclear advocates who have argued that the accident produced very few extra cancers, it argues that it is wrong to focus solely on cancer as an outcome of Chernobyl. “Post-Chernobyl non-cancer impact may be very great, including immunological disorders, and cardiovascular disease – especially among the young,” it says.
Reactor accidents are said to be by far the single largest risk now facing the nuclear industry. According to the study, the probability of a future major nuclear accident has increased 20-fold since Fukushima
An urgent re-appraisal of the way that nuclear power stations are assessed for safety is long overdue, says the study…”
Report says thousands of lives could have been saved and damage to ecosystems avoided if early warnings heeded
- guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 23 January 2013 06.00 GMT
Europe has failed to learn the lessons from many environmental and health disasters like Chernobyl, leaded petrol and DDT insecticides, and is now ignoring warnings about bee deaths, GM food and nanotechnology, according to an 800-page report by the European Environment Agency.
Thousands of lives could have been saved and extensive damage to ecosystems avoided if the “precautionary principle” had been applied on the basis of early warnings, say the authors of the 2013 Late Lessons from Early warnings report published on Wednesday.
They accuse industry of working to corrupt or undermine regulation by spinning and manipulating research and applying pressure on governments for financial benefit. “[It has] deliberately recruited reputable scientists, media experts and politicians to call on if their products were linked to possible hazards. Manufacturing doubt, disregarding scientific evidence of risks and claiming over-regulation appear to be a deliberate strategy for some industry groups and think tanks to undermine precautionary decision-making.”
The peer-reviewed study, which is aimed to improve understanding of scientific information, looks at 18 areas including radiation from mobile phones, birth control pills in the aquatic environment, and invasive species. It found that governments often introduced laws much too late to prevent deaths and massive financial costs, but were highly likely to ignore scientific warnings and resist any regulation. The authors found more than 80 cases where no regulation was introduced when it later turned out that the risk from a technology or chemical was real, or still unproven.
Nuclear power
The study says the Fukushima disaster in 2011 may have released twice as much radiation as the Japanese government admitted. The emissions of radioactive caesium-137 from Fukushima are said to have started earlier than the authorities have claimed, to have lasted longer, and to have spread over a wider area of land than previously believed.
Norway confirms great potential for CO2 storage but is a bit of a climate skeptic?
“…Bellona does however question the Norwegian Government’s reluctance to implement the EU CCS Directive (2009/31/EC). Norway thereby joins a club of only a handful of the EU’s 27 Member States, led by the climate-sceptical Poland. The Directive has been deemed EEA relevant, which adds a clear pressure to move forward in implementing it, but it seems obvious that the Norwegian Government are using unnecessary delaying tactics in order to avoid doing so…”
http://priceofoil.org/2009/07/02/exxon-still-funding-sceptics/
The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) states in a new report, released on 25 January, that significant amounts of CO2 can be stored in the Norwegian Sea. The potential for safe storage of CO2 in the Norwegian parts of the North Sea could amount to 5.5 gigatonnes.Sirin Engen, 25/01-2013
Although the potential for storing very large amounts of CO2 in the Norwegian Sea was already well-known, as seen in the “CO2 Storage Atlas” from December 2011 for example, a final confirmation from the NPD qualifying this is very welcome.
The quantified amount of 5.5 gigatonnes is more than 100 times Norway’s total CO2-discharge in 2012.
Potential and opportunities for the EU
Bellona regards this as very good news in a European perspective as well, particularly due to the fact that fears relating to CO2 storage erode public support for CCS. In addition, the EU Energy Roadmap 2050 clearly states that the role of fossil fuels in Europe will be dependent on the implementation of CCS. The positive prospective for storage discovered in the Norwegian Sea could play a vital role in managing CO2 emissions in Europe by offeringstorage space to European countries that are lacking in this capacity.
Norwegian hesitation
Bellona does however question the Norwegian Government’s reluctance to implement the EU CCS Directive (2009/31/EC). Norway thereby joins a club of only a handful of the EU’s 27 Member States, led by the climate-sceptical Poland. The Directive has been deemed EEA relevant, which adds a clear pressure to move forward in implementing it, but it seems obvious that the Norwegian Government are using unnecessary delaying tactics in order to avoid doing so.
A Norway that chooses to take part in the international development of CCS could be proven very positive. The country already has valuable experience from Sleipner relating to the financial responsibility for stored CO2. Such expertise can be of great benefit to the EU, Canada and other countries in the world that are attempting to develop CCS demonstration projects.
The way forward
The NPD plans to map out the entire Norwegian shelf, particularly the Barents Sea, in search of suitable areas for CO2 storage.
http://www.bellona.org/articles/articles_2012/1359128467.64
Read more about CO2 storage on Bellona’s CCS web.
Stop NDAA – Flood the courthouse on February 6th 2012 -Details here!
Please help us get this important information out as far and as wide as possible! The time has come when we need to rally passionate support, and draw more and more attention to what’s taking place in the United States. It will be cold, but so necessary! We hope to see you, and many others there for this!
Please help us get this important information out as far and as wide as possible! The time has come when we need to rally passionate support, and draw more and more attention to what’s taking place in the United States. It will be cold, but so necessary! We hope to see you, and many others there for this!
Can we govern ourselves using digital technology? – Truthloader LIVE with Birgitta Jónsdóttirand -crowd sourced constitution
Fue 31 January 2013 live .. subscribe to this You Tube channel and here is a video explaining the details;
Call to Action! Appeals Court Date – Feb. 6, 2013
Our second circuit court date has been set for Wednesday, February 6, 2013 at 10AM, in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit – Thurgood Marshall Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, Room 1505 on 15th floor. If you support our efforts to restore your rights and are in the New York area, please publicly show your support by joining us in court this day! Your presence matters. Please share this widely, and invite your friends!
On September 12, 2012 we had one of the biggest victories for civil liberties and against government overreach in a decade. Federal Judge Katherine Forrest granted a permanent injunction against Section 1021(b)(2), the government promptly filed an appeal, and then went further: they requested a stay of execution on the injunction from Judge Forrest, once again providing no evidence and failing to answer all of her questions and concerns, while again claiming that the detention powers of the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) of 2001, (the law that allows the president to detain those who were involved in the 9/11 attacks and/or are members of Al Qaeda or the Taliban) and the NDAA’s Section 1021 powers are precisely the same.
This is disingenuous. Section 1021 provides sweeping powers of detention through incredibly vague and undefined terms, that are missing in the AUMF. The government is completely contradicting itself. Judge Forrest made it clear that her ruling did not touch the AUMF. And in their request for an emergency stay, the government claimed “irreparable harm” would be incurred if they do not have the powers of Section 1021. On October 2, 2012, a stay against the permanent injunction was granted by a three judge motions panel of the Second District US Court of Appeals, pending appeal on the merits.
http://www.facebook.com/birgitta.jonsdottir.english/posts/589302221084319?notif_t=notify_me
Russia’s nuclear power plants: Cruising planes with no landing in sight
“…Furthermore, Russia’s nuclear authority seems to choose to treat NPP decommissioning as a strictly technical task – one that will ostensibly be solved simply by providing a set of rules and instructions. In fact, decommissioning a nuclear power plant is a process that also implies solving a range of environmental, social, and even moral problems. A serious and thorough approach requires preparing for this process as early as the NPP designing stage…”
ST. PETERSBURG – What can Russia do with the nuclear power reactors that have exhausted their useful life terms? Where will the decommissioning funding come from? What options can be offered to the workforce employed at these power plants? And how can Russia benefit from international experience in decommissioning old reactors? Representatives of environmental NGOs tried to find answers to these questions during a recent international round-table discussion in St. Petersburg.
Yevgeny Usov, 25/01-2013 – Translated by Maria Kaminskaya
Published by Bellona
Nothing lasts forever
When the first nuclear power plants (NPPs) were being built in the Soviet Union, their designers didn’t have a very clear idea about what should happen with the reactors once their engineered life spans were over. If they did, then this issue found no reflection either in the plants’ project documentation or in the country’s long-term development plans. This may be why the Russian nuclear power industry today seeks to employ a variety of “modernizations” to extend the reactors’ life terms for as long as can be allowed – even as half of Russia’s 32 commercial reactors have been operating past their expiration dates, and still they remain in service.
There are also reactor units that have been taken out of operation: Units 1 and 2 of Novovoronezh and Beloyarsk NPPs were shut down over 20 years ago. Spent nuclear fuel has been removed from the reactors, but the actual decommissioning – dismantling the aged equipment, decontamination of the area, and other steps involved in the process – has been postponed indefinitely for lack of a comprehensive decommissioning concept and the needed funding.
“All the while, the time is approaching when dozens of reactors will all be nearing the end of their service life periods. And this process will have a snowball effect,” said Oleg Bodrov, chairman of the board of the St. Petersburg-based Zelyony Mir (Green World). “Russia doesn’t have enough experience decommissioning large nuclear power plants. This could trigger a serious socioeconomic crisis in those regions where the [expiring] NPPs are operated.”
Will anyone fly on a plane that will be unable to land?
This question, when it was sounded at the seminar in St. Petersburg, served as a metaphor hinting at the need to have a developed decommissioning concept as a logical stage in nuclear power plant projects, one that must be well worked out beforehand much like a future NPP’s construction or operation period. But though Russia has a federal nuclear power plant construction program, it never had and still has no program detailing the decommissioning of nuclear power plants.
 |
| This chart (click to enlarge) represents the Final Decommissioning Plan for Lithuania’s Ignalina NPP, where the remaining second unit was shut down on December 31, 2009 (following the closure of the first unit, in December 2004). In 2006, Ignalina NPP had purchased a decommissioning planning tool – Decommissioning Management System and Database (DMSD) – from Germany’s Greifswald NPP. Source: Ignalina NPP official website at http://www.iae.lt |
| Ignalina NPP official website at http://www.iae.lt |
1 This Month.
5 November – (online or in-person) Narratives on Nuclear Disarmament at the Intersection of Gender Equality and Protection of the Environment
Registration link
1:30 pm – 3:00 pm, 5 November 2025
Now until to February 10, 2026 Radioactive waste storage in France: the debate is finally open! How to participate?
of the week. STAND – Severnside Together Against Nuclear Development . THE TRUE FACTS ABOUT NUCLEAR POWER
Why it is: Unaffordable – Dangerous – Unnecessary – Bad For The Environment
PETITION. Tell the Nobel Committee: The Peace Prize belongs to Gaza’s journalists, not María Corina Machado!
PETITION- Say No to Nuclear Financing – World Bank and ADB, Why Turn Away from the Right Path?
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