nuclear-news

Likely transport routes and amounts of radwaste that would be sent to Yucca Mountain, Nevada, if that proposal should be resurrected.

The Department of Energy (DOE) has a new generation of leadership; “larger than life” John Kotek is promoting nuclear energy via selling a “durable solution” to the problem of deadly radioactive waste that is the direct result of generating electric power from the heat of fission. Without a perceived solution to handling this existential problem, promotion of more nuclear energy usually falls on deaf ears. After all, wastes that will be a hazard to all life on Earth over the next million years, even when contained, do pose a threat. And the DOE’s track record on radioactive waste, exemplified by the failed Yucca Mountain project, hardly inspires confidence.

So Kotek has a new plan: volunteers. He wants states and communities to “consent” to storing nuclear waste in their jurisdictions…

The current Hanford contractor, WRPS, LLC, for the leaky Hanford radioactive waste tanks is a consortium comprised of AECOM (due to recent purchase of URS), EnergySolutions (owned by Energy Capital Partners – mostly former Goldman Sachs investment bankers led by Doug Kimmelman), and French Government owned AREVA, which would be bankrupt if it weren’t French State owned. If AREVA knows so much then why did the US take French HEU (highly enriched uranium) or HEU waste off the hands of the French? Why didn’t the French take Swiss HEU waste or Swiss plutonium? Why, instead, was it dumped on America?

The State of Washington, Dept of Ecology, Explains: “The alarm indicates an increase in waste seeping from the primary tank into the space between the primary and secondary tank, known as the annulus.” Read the rest here: https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2016/04/19/leaking-hanford-nuclear-waste-tanks/

Hanford Contractors Under US Government investigation

In an SEC Quarterly…

This was actually top news in the early 1990s and there were worries about how quickly the contamination would reach the Columbia River and how to block it. It was such top news that even those of us with heads in the sand recall it. Since the US government hires contractors that apparently don’t know what they are doing, why is it importing foreign HEU and plutonium nuclear waste? The current Hanford contractor for the leaky tanks is a consortium comprised of AECOM (due to recent purchase of URS), EnergySolutions (owned by Energy Capital Partners – mostly former Goldman Sachs investment bankers led by Doug Kimmelman), and French state owned AREVA, which would be bankrupt if it weren’t French State owned. If AREVA knows so much then why did the US take French HEU (highly enriched uranium) or HEU waste off the hands of the French? Why didn’t the French…

World:

¶ To avoid reduced values of existing renewable production, Norway does not plan to introduce new targets under its green certificate program, which will be ended by 2021. Norway’s green certificates scheme is operated jointly with Sweden and was introduced in 2012. [SeeNews Renewables]

Wind farm in Norway. Author: John Christian Fjellestad.
License: Creative Commons, Attribution 2.0 Generic

¶ An Enel subsidiary has started building the Cristalândia wind farm in Brazil. It will have a capacity of 90 MW and should go into service in the second half of 2017. It will be able to generate more than 350 GWh per year, enough to meet the needs of 170,000 Brazilian households. [Your Renewable News]

¶ A plan to transform Australia’s energy use to 100% renewables was published by GetUp! and SolarCitizens on Tuesday after a modelling study commissioned by the groups suggested such a transition…

As US attorneys noted:
“Holtec should not be able to use a highly regulated and publicly funded industry to make profits, but to refuse to provide information about the cask business when the information it possesses about cask costs are an integral part of the damages claimed by the plaintiff in this case. When faced with damages of the magnitude of those being claimed by ComEd, it is imperative that we determine the reasonableness of these claims against the Federal Treasury.” “COMMONWEALTH EDISON COMPANY, Plaintiff, v. No. 98-621C Judge Hewitt UNITED STATES, Defendant, Case 1:98-cv-00621-ECH , Document 288 , Filed 03/12/2004“, Page 6 of 9 http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/download.html?id=14565388&z=24a65e24

What is Holtec hiding? Cheap costs with huge profits?

Holtec Spent Fuel Canisters-Casks at Diablo Canyon
Each US Nuclear power station will require around 4 spent fuel canisters-casks per year. Holtec sells them for around $1 million each, sometimes more…

Opinion:

¶ From talk to action: Signs of progress since the Paris climate talks • In December, 196 countries adopted the historic Paris Agreement on climate change. Since then, concrete steps have been made and examples of substantial progress that took place in 2015 are now coming to light. [GreenBiz]

Concrete results of the COP21 Paris are materializing.

Science and Technology:

¶ Researchers at the University of Bath have developed a fuel cell that can generate electricity from urine. Urine passes through the device, prompting a reaction within the bacteria which generates electricity which can then be stored or used to power electrical devices. [Bath Chronicle]

¶ The world can wean itself from fossil fuels in as few as ten years, with effort. Europe moved from wood to coal in Europe in 96 to 160 years, electricity took 47 to 69 years to become mainstream. But Ontario…