Casks hold dangerous radioactive elements like Cesium-137, Strontium-90 and Plutonium-239, fuel bi-products created inside reactors, which remain dangerous for generations.
Here’s what they do to people.
Oyster Creek, before it shut down in September, was one of the nation’s oldest nuclear power plants. Camden-based Holtec plans to decommission this half-century-old facility and profit off the reactor’s nearly $1 billion decommissioning trust fund, money set aside for dismantling the reactor.
Under the agreement, Holtec subsidiaries Oyster Creek Environmental Protection International LLC will serve as owner and Holtec Decommissioning International will oversee decommissioning.
Holtec purchased the power plant for an undisclosed amount from Exelon Generation of Chicago.
Exelon had originally planned to take the plant down slowly over the course of 60 years in a process that would have allowed some of the facility’s dangerous radioactivity to degrade to safer levels. But Holtec’s proposal seeks to complete the decommissioning within a mere 10 years. The company says its new spent fuel storage systems enable hot, radioactive fuel to be removed from the plant’s cooling pool and placed into storage casks years earlier than originally planned.
Holtec is also applying to build an fuel storage facility in New Mexico, but is waiting on approvals. In the meantime, the spent fuel will be stored in steel and concrete canisters on the plant’s property in Lacey…….
Holtec has also applied to purchase other nuclear plants at Indian Point in New York, Palisades in Michigan, and Pilgrim in Massachusetts from Entergy Nuclear. Each has massive decommissioning trust funds that would be transferred to Holtecupon completion of the sales. …..this is Holtec’s first major expansion into the business of decommissioning.
Currently, Holtec is also developing small modular nuclear reactors….
Casks hold dangerous radioactive elements like Cesium-137, Strontium-90 and Plutonium-239, fuel bi-products created inside reactors, which remain dangerous for generations.
Here’s what they do to people.
A local residents group, the Concerned Citizens for Lacey Coalition, is demanding more answers from the company about its plans to quickly demolish Oyster Creek. Coalition member Paul Dressler worries about Lacey being a “guinea pig” for the relatively new and evolving process.
“We want to see transparency,” he said during a meeting with Press staff last week.
Dressler and coalition Chairman Ron Martyn, who live about five miles from the plant, want assurances that Holtec won’t abandon the project if money runs out before completion. They also want to see the regulatory agency that oversees plant decommissioning, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, come up with more stringent rules and best practices for this emerging practice.
“There are too many unanswered questions to go forward, and no one is stepping up to answer the basic business questions,” said Martyn. “It’s not fair to the community, it’s not fair to the state, to operate in such a vacuum.”……… https://www.app.com/story/money/business/2019/07/02/oyster-creek-nuclear-plant-sale-to-holtec-is-complete/1622164001/
Putin signs bill suspending participation in nuclear treaty https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/07/03/world/putin-signs-bill-suspending-participation-nuclear-treaty/#.XR0oyOszbGg 3 July 19
MOSCOW – President Vladimir Putin has signed a bill suspending Russia’s participation in a pivotal nuclear arms treaty. Putin’s decree released on Wednesday formalizes Russia’s departure from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty with the United States following Washington’s withdrawal from the pact.
The U.S. gave notice of its intention to withdraw from the INF in February, setting the stage for it to terminate in six months unless Moscow returns to compliance. Russia has denied any breaches, and accused the U.S. of violating the pact. Moscow followed Washington’s example in February, also suspending its obligations under the treaty.
Putin has warned the U.S. against deploying new missiles in Europe, saying that Russia will retaliate by fielding new fast weapons that will take just as little time to reach their targets.
From ProPublica: https://www.propublica.org: “THE REAL BOSSES OF NEW JERSEY Meet the Congressman Defending Questionable Tax Breaks for a Company Connected to His Rich Brother After multiple issues have surfaced with Holtec International’s New Jersey tax break application, Rep. Donald Norcross, its biggest congressional supporter (and the brother of a Holtec board member) is playing defense. […]
Originally posted on Mining Awareness + : Nuclear waste can oligarch Kris Pal Singh of Holtec International has a son named Kris Pal Singh Jr. Junior loves to spend millions at a time on fast cars. This Lamborghini is probably too cheap for him. He paid over $4 million for one. We will let the interested reader…
Deadline is blown, but Ohio nuclear plant operators say there’s still time for bailout, By
Jul 1, 2019Inside new £1,300,000,000 structure built over destroyed Chernobyl nuclear reactor https://metro.co.uk/2019/07/03/inside-new-1300000000-structure-built-destroyed-chernobyl-nuclear-reactor-10106545/ Georgia Diebelius [excellent photos] 3 Jul 2019 Anew structure built to confine the Chernobyl reactor at the centre of the world’s worst nuclear disaster was previewed for the media yesterday. Reactor No. 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine exploded and burned April 26, 1986. The complex construction effort to secure the molten reactor’s core and 200 tons of highly radioactive material has taken nine years to complete under the control of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The structure itself cost £1.5 billion and the entire shelter project cost £2.2 billion. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development managed a fund with contributions from 45 countries, the European Union and £715 million in the bank’s own resources.‘
CORNISH: You used the term bully earlier in talking about the U.S. effort when it comes to Iran. Do you see this as a test of European power, whether it’s strong enough to oppose the U.S. and enforce this deal?
DALTON: European companies and the European Union recognize that the dominance of the dollar in international trading gives the United States very considerable power. And I believe that the Iran episode is going to be a turning point. It will show Russia, China, India, the European Union the value of building up alternative mechanisms for concluding international trade that do not use the dollar in any shape or form.
So I think the United States is set maybe to use their excessive power on this occasion but, over the long term, to lose power. ……https://www.npr.org/2019/07/02/738146393/british-nuclear-expert-says-u-s-has-put-europe-in-a-tough-spot-on-iran
Oswego County reaches tax agreement with nuclear plants, WRVO, By PAYNE HORNING 3 July 19, Exelon, the company that owns and operates the nuclear power plants in Oswego County, has reached an agreement with the county on a $69 million tax agreement.
The Payment In Lieu Of Taxes (PILOT) agreement will provide a steady stream of revenue to the county through 2023. Each year, the Mexico Central School District will get $9 million, the county will get $4 million, and the Town of Scriba will get $500,000. That’s about $2 million more per year than under the previous PILOT agreement……
Oswego County Administrator Phil Church says the increase in payments is a victory for the county because the value of the nuclear plants go go down as they age……https://www.wrvo.org/post/oswego-county-reaches-tax-agreement-nuclear-plants
State sets own deadlines for cleaning up Hanford wastes https://www.columbian.com/news/2019/jul/02/state-sets-own-deadlines-for-cleaning-up-hanford-wastes/ By Associated Press, July 2, 2019, RICHLAND — The state of Washington is setting new deadlines to clean up a former plutonium production site that contains a massive quantity of radioactive waste.
Such deadlines are usually set through negotiations among the Washington Department of Ecology, the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
But the Tri-City Herald reports that the state has become frustrated with a lack of legally-binding deadlines related to the 56 million gallons of radioactive waste in underground storage tanks on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.
The Energy Department had not negotiated the deadlines as required by 2015.
Among other things, the state is requiring the Energy Department to design new underground storage tanks by 2023.
DOE has long objected to building new tanks.
Hanford for decades made plutonium for nuclear weapons.
WIPP Facility Receives 12,500 Shipment Of Nuclear Waste https://www.krwg.org/post/wipp-facility-receives-12500-shipment-nuclear-waste By KRWG NEWS AND PARTNERS CARLSBAD, N.M. (AP) 3 July 19, — The federal government’s underground nuclear waste repository in New Mexico has received its 12,500th shipment since operations began two decades ago.
The U.S. Energy Department made the announcement Tuesday, saying the shipment arrived at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant just before midnight on June 27.
The shipment originated at Idaho National Laboratory.
The repository is licensed to take Cold War-era waste generated by decades of bomb-making and defense-related nuclear research. The waste includes gloves, clothing, tools and other materials contaminated with radioactive elements.
In all, more than 178,500 containers have been trucked over 14.9 million miles to the repository from sites around the country since 1999. The waste is entombed in disposal rooms carved out of an ancient salt formation about half a mile down.
Announced for the first time by the court spokesperson’s office on Wednesday, the convictions and jail sentences of the three were actually handed down in April and earlier, but were under gag order due to the implications for national security.
Unlike a normal case probed by police, the investigation was led by a special division in the Defense Ministry which eventually worked with a special team in the state prosecution – again all due to the extreme sensitivity of all issues related to Dimona.
Israel has never confirmed that it has nuclear weapons, but according to foreign sources, the Dimona reactor has been used to produce between 80-200 nuclear weapons which Israel can deploy by land, sea and air.
Unlike a normal case probed by police, the investigation was led by a special division in the Defense Ministry which eventually worked with a special team in the state prosecution – again all due to the extreme sensitivity of all issues related to Dimona.
A statement by the Justice Ministry said that some of the defendants had appealed the decision to the Supreme Court. …….
David Lowry’s Blog 2nd June 2019 Climate change was the only issue where consensus failed to be reached at the G20 meeting of leaders of the globe’s biggest economies, held in in
Osaka, Japan at the end of last week. Nuclear still is seen as having a
place in the energy mix, but without any real enthusiasm. http://drdavidlowry.blogspot.com/2019/07/g20-in-osaka-blows-hot-and-cold-over.html
Bill Would Expand Benefits for Tribal Members and Others Exposed to Cold War Radiation https://www.knau.org/post/bill-would-expand-benefits-tribal-members-and-others-exposed-cold-war-radiation, By RYAN HEINSIUS • JUL 2, 2019 A bill in the U.S. Senate would expand compensation for those sickened by Cold War-era nuclear weapons testing and uranium mining. KNAU’s Ryan Heinsius reports, many tribal members in the Southwest were left out of the original program.
The bill would amend the 1990 Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, or RECA. It provides restitution to many people known as “downwinders,” along with uranium mine workers throughout the West.
However, residents in some areas of the Navajo Nation, Arizona, New Mexico and other states aren’t covered, along with miners who worked during much of the 1970s. Many are tribal members who suffer from lung disease, cancer and other health problems they attribute to working in the mines and being exposed to radiation.
The current Senate bill would broaden eligibility for compensation and medical benefits. Navajo President Jonathan Nez and a group of former tribal uranium miners are pushing for its approval.
The U.S. tested nearly 200 atmospheric nuclear weapons between 1945 and 1962. About 30 million tons of uranium ore was mined on or near the Navajo Nation until the mid-1980s.