Opposition in Kamoenai to hosting nuclear waste dump

Second site in Hokkaido considers hosting nuclear waste dump, Japan Times, SAPPORO/SUTTSU, HOKKAIDO – The village of Kamoenai in Hokkaido is considering hosting a final disposal facility for high-level radioactive waste, it was learned Friday.The village is looking at applying for a literature survey, the first of three stages in the research process to select the location of a final disposal facility for high-level radioactive waste from nuclear power plants.

Kamoenai is the second municipality in the nation to be contemplating the process since the government published details of areas it considered suitable for nuclear waste disposal in its Nationwide Map of Scientific Features for Geological Disposal in 2017. The town of Suttsu, also in Hokkaido, was the first municipality to do so…….

The village, which is located in western Hokkaido and had a population of 823 as of the end of August, faces the Sea of Japan and neighbors the village of Tomari, which hosts a nuclear power plant run by Hokkaido Electric Power Co. The plant is currently offline.

According to the government map, almost all of Kamoenai except for some southern areas is unsuitable for waste disposal.

Procedures to select a host for a final disposal site are conducted in three stages, comprising the “literary” survey, a “preliminary” investigation and a “detailed” investigation. A municipality undergoing a literature survey can receive subsidies of up to ¥2 billion from the central government.

Meanwhile, many residents of Suttsu, Hokkaido, another municipality that is considering applying for a literature survey, voiced opposition to the plan Thursday at a briefing session organized by the municipal government.

The meeting was the fourth of its kind for Suttsu residents. The first such session was held on Monday.

At Thursday’s meeting, which was opened to the press, Suttsu Mayor Haruo Kataoka explained the reasons for considering applying for a literature survey.

Some 260 residents attended the session, which lasted for over three hours from 6:30 p.m.

Participating residents voiced concerns that the move would lead to harmful rumors about the town, and that if the town received subsidies from the government as a result of applying for the literature survey, it would have no choice but to become a final disposal site. Some said that detailed discussions should be held after the mayoral election in the town next year…….

In talks with reporters after the meeting, Kataoka rejected the idea of holding a local referendum on the matter, saying, “It will divide the town residents.”

According to the town, the first briefing session on Monday was cut short due to technical issues, such as not having reserved enough time for questions from residents. Therefore, the town government plans to hold an additional session within this month for participants that attended the Monday meeting. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/09/11/national/hokkaido-village-nuclear-waste/

September 12, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Japan, politics, wastes | Leave a comment

Britain’s National Audit Office warns on costs of cleaning up old nuclear plants

UK spending watchdog warns on costs of cleaning up old nuclear plants Decommissioning charge has risen by £3bn since 2017 and there remains ‘inherent uncertainty’ over final bill, NAO finds Ft.com, Nathalie Thomas in Edinburgh 11 Sept 20,

Estimates of the cost to clear up 12 of the UK’s earliest nuclear power sites have increased by nearly £3bn since 2017 and there remains “inherent uncertainty” over the final bill, the country’s public spending watchdog has warned. The National Audit Office on Friday published its latest report into the long-running saga around the decommissioning of two research sites and 10 early nuclear power stations in Britain, which came to be known as the “Magnox” plants due to the magnesium alloy that was used to cover the fuel rods inside their reactors.

The spending watchdog also found that the costs to the taxpayer of a botched 2014 tender process to outsource the decommissioning to the private sector was £20m higher than when it last investigated three years ago.

Cleaning up the Magnox sites, which were built before privatisation and include Hunterston A in Scotland and Hinkley Point A in Somerset, has turned into a costly and torturous affair. In 2016 the High Court ruled the 2014 competition for a 14-year contract to decommission the sites — which had been awarded to Cavendish Fluor Partnership, or CFP, a joint venture between UK-based Babcock International and Fluor of the US — had been “fudged” by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, a body attached to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

A year later ministers, acting on legal advice, terminated the arrangement with CFP nine years early and renegotiated a shorter contract that ran until the end of August 2019. Decommissioning of the sites was then brought in-house by the NDA. ………. https://www.ft.com/content/6f313c84-d314-4160-b124-a68c4e85be09

September 12, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | decommission reactor, UK | Leave a comment

Donald Trump says US has incredible nuclear weapons; denies leaking classified info

78053124.cmsSynopsis– 11 Sept 20, “Woodward writes that anonymous people later confirmed that the US military had a secret new weapons system, but they would not provide details, and that the people were surprised Trump had disclosed it,” The Washington Post said.

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump has said the US has some “incredible” nuclear weapon systems that nobody knows about but refuted allegations of leaking classified information about them to a renowned investigative journalist in his upcoming book.

Penned by American journalist Bob Woodward, the book ‘Rage’ to be launched on September 15 has stirred several controversies around Trump’s presidency, weeks before the US election to be held on November 3.

According to the excerpts of the book released by The Washington Post, Trump during an interview with Woodward said, “I have built a nuclear — a weapons system that nobody’s ever had in this country before. We have stuff that you haven’t even seen or heard about. We have stuff that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and (Chinese President) Xi Jinping have never heard about before. There’s nobody — what we have is incredible.”

“Woodward writes that anonymous people later confirmed that the US military had a secret new weapons system, but they would not provide details, and that the people were surprised Trump had disclosed it,” The Washington Post said.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Trump denied having talked about classified information about US nuclear weapons.

“We have great weaponry. No, I’m not talking about classified (information). I’m talking about what we build. We’re building great weaponry,” the president said when asked if he shared classified information about a nuclear weapons system with Woodward.

“What were you talking about when you talked about that?” Trump was asked.

“Our military is stronger now than it’s ever been. We spent USD 2.5 trillion on our military over the last three-and-a-half years. We now have new rockets and missiles. And, frankly, our nuclear — we have to hope to God we never have to use it — but our nuclear now is in the best shape it’s been in decades,” he asserted.

Trump told reporters the US has some nuclear systems that nobody knows about. ..

James Acton, co-director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s nuclear policy programme, tweeted that Trump might have been mentioning about a 2017 announcement of a plan to reduce the explosive power of some nuclear warheads on submarine-launched missiles.

“The timing was kept secret. My guess is that Trump told Woodward about the first deployment before it was made public. This weapon is usually called the low-yield D5 (because the missile is the Trident D5 sea-launched ballistic missiles). The warhead is the W76-2,” he tweeted on Thursday.

“I don’t believe that the US could build an actually new nuclear weapon in secret. Too much money for classified budgets. Too many people involved for it not to leak,” Acton said in another tweet.

Meanwhile, addressing a public rally in Michigan on Thursday, Trump asserted that he did not leak any information and asserted that he just wanted to inform the people that the US has the greatest weaponry in the world.

“I said, we have systems and missiles and rockets and military – we have systems that you’ve never even seen before. (Chinese) President Xi (Jinping) has nothing like it. Russian President (Vladimir) Putin has nothing like it.

“They (the media) said he may be giving away classified information. These people are sick. Never speak well about our technology…I just want to let people know we have the greatest systems, the greatest equipment and the greatest people anywhere in the world. There is nobody like the US military,” Trump told the crowd.

Donald Trump says US has incredible nuclear weapons; denies leaking classified info https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/donald-trump-says-us-has-incredible-nuclear-weapons-denies-leaking-classified-info/articleshow/78053124.cmsSynopsis

“Woodward writes that anonymous people later confirmed that the US military had a secret new weapons system, but they would not provide details, and that the people were surprised Trump had disclosed it,” The Washington Post said.

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