Russia is preparing to search for a nuclear-powered missile that was lost at sea months ago after a failed test, CNBC 221 Aug 18
Moscow is preparing to recover a nuclear-powered missile lost at sea, according to sources with direct knowledge of a U.S. intelligence report.
Russian President Vladimir Putin bragged earlier this year that the new missile had unlimited range.
The missile was tested four times between November and February, each resulting in a crash, according to sources who spoke to CNBC on the condition of anonymity.
Amanda Macias | @amanda_m_macias ………..Crews will attempt to recover a missile that was test launched in November and landed in the Barents Sea, which is located north of Norway and Russia. The operation will include three vessels, one of which is equipped to handle radioactive material from the weapon’s nuclear core. There is no timeline for the mission, according to the people with knowledge of the report……
Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled the new nuclear-powered missile in March, boasting it had unlimited range. Yet, the weapon has yet to be successfully tested over multiple attempts.
Russia tested four of the missiles between November and February, each resulting in a crash, people who spoke on the condition of anonymity previously told CNBC. The U.S. assessed that the longest test flight lasted just more than two minutes, with the missile flying 22 miles before losing control and crashing. The shortest test lasted four seconds and flew for five miles. Russia has denied the missile test failures. ……..https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/21/russias-nuclear-powered-missile-that-putin-claimed-had-infinite-range-is-currently-lost-at-sea.html
What Is the Probability of a Mega-quake Striking Japan in the Future?, NHK News, 2 July 18, “…….. A government panel has released its latest earthquake probability map, which indicates the likelihood of each area being hit in the coming 3 decades by tremors of 6-minus or above on the Japanese intensity scale of zero to 7 — about the same level as the one that hit Osaka. A member of the panel says an earthquake of 6-minus could strike anywhere in Japan, and urges people to be prepared.
High probability in the Kanto region and along the Pacific coast………. In the Kanto region, the probability of a major quake is highest in Chiba City, at 85 percent. The figure is 82 percent for Yokohama and 81 percent for Mito. Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward is located in an area with 48 percent probability.
In the Tokai region, the probability for Shizuoka is 70 percent and Nagoya is 46 percent.
Beware of massive earthquakes that occur in ocean trenches The panel explains that these areas have high probabilities because massive earthquakes centering in the Chishima Trench, Japan Trench and the Nankai Trough have been occurring at intervals of a few decades to a century.
These earthquakes occur around ocean trenches where the oceanic plate is forced underneath the continental plate.
Huge earthquakes have been occurring especially around the Nankai Trough roughly every 100 years. As the last one took place more than 70 years ago, there is a growing probability the next one will happen soon around the Pacific coast of western Japan……….https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/nhknewsline/backstories/megaquakestriking/
The danger: Police state The nuclear industry has traveled a long, dark way from its claims in the 1950s that it would produce energy too cheap to meter, Keegan said.
With nuclear power plants being retired around the globe, the age of nuclear energy has become the age of nuclear waste, Keegan said. No solution has been found for the safe disposal or storage of the waste, which remains dangerous essentially for eternity.
As the LaSalle proposal suggests, the potential involvement of the military, the secrecy of the transportation routes and the absence of consultation with the public are signs of a police state taking shape, according to Keegan.
“We’ve become a police state in which the transportation of the lethal excrement of the nuclear industry — nuclear waste — is totally secret and takes place under military escort,” said Keegan.
One of the costs: Our civil liberties.
“The industry and the government say, Sorry, we can’t tell you the details,” said Keegan. “We’re protecting you by not telling you.
Exelon Corp. proposes shipping nuclear waste by road through Port Huron, Route is under review by NRC, By Jim Bloch For The Voice, 18 Aug 18
Federal officials are considering approving a highway shipping route for high-level nuclear waste between the LaSalle nuclear reactors in Illinois and the city of Port Huron — and environmental groups are concerned……….
The company is proposing to transport the nine spent fuel rods, weighing about 5 pounds apiece, inside a 24-ton, collision-absorbing, heavily shielded shipping cask to the Chalk River Laboratories in Ontario, Canada, for testing.
The Chalk River site is about 425 miles northeast-east of Port Huron on the far side of Algonquin Provincial Park.
………Michael Keegan, with Don’t Waste Michigan and the Coalition for a Nuclear-free Great Lakes, uncovered the proposed shipment. Keegan said shipments of high-level liquid nuclear waste from Chalk River through Buffalo to the Savannah River Site, owned by the Department of Energy in South Carolina, are accompanied by military escort. About 75 of the 150 shipments have taken place, Keegan said.
The danger: Environmental catastrophe
Critics of the proposed shipment site the danger of an environmental catastrophe if the container was compromised en route.
“Irradiated nuclear fuel rods discharged from commercial nuclear power plants are highly radioactive, a million times more so than when they were first loaded into a reactor core as ‘fresh’ fuel,” according to the Chicago-based Nuclear Information and Resource Service. “Even after decades of radioactive decay, a few minutes of unshielded exposure could deliver a lethal dose. Certain radioactive elements (such as plutonium-239) in ‘spent’ fuel will remain hazardous to humans and other living beings for hundreds of thousands of years. Other radioisotopes will remain hazardous for millions of years. Thus, these wastes must be shielded for centuries and isolated from the living environment for hundreds of millennia.”
David Kraft directs NIRS.“We have serious concerns about shipping high-level radioactive waste from Exelon’s LaSalle reactors to a port city,” said Kraft in a statement. “Except in cases of extreme emergency, we believe that irradiated fuel should only be moved once for permanent isolation.”
Port Huron sits at the mouth on the St. Clair River, part of the crucial linkage between the Upper and Lower Great Lakes.
“A ground route would take the wastes either over the Blue Water Bridge, which crosses the St. Clair River, or by rail, through a tunnel that connects the two countries,” said Kay Cumbow, with the Port Huron-based Great Lakes Environmental Alliance, in a statement.
“A spill, release or fire here or near waterways that flow into the St. Clair River could potentially ruin one of the largest fresh water deltas in the world — the St. Clair Flats — and potentially poison forever the drinking water for up to 40-plus million people of the Great Lakes, including residents of Canada, the U.S., U.S. Tribes, First Nations and other Indigenous Peoples.”
The danger: Police stateThe nuclear industry has traveled a long, dark way from its claims in the 1950s that it would produce energy too cheap to meter, Keegan said.
With nuclear power plants being retired around the globe, the age of nuclear energy has become the age of nuclear waste, Keegan said. No solution has been found for the safe disposal or storage of the waste, which remains dangerous essentially for eternity.
As the LaSalle proposal suggests, the potential involvement of the military, the secrecy of the transportation routes and the absence of consultation with the public are signs of a police state taking shape, according to Keegan.
“We’ve become a police state in which the transportation of the lethal excrement of the nuclear industry — nuclear waste — is totally secret and takes place under military escort,” said Keegan.
Pakistan’s Nuclear Safety and Security https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2018/08/14/pakistans-nuclear-safety-and-security/ August 14, 2018 By Sonia NazWyn Bowen and Matthew Cottee discuss in their research entitled “Nuclear Security Briefing Book” that nuclear terrorism involves the acquisition and detonation of an intact nuclear weapon from a state arsenal. The world has not experienced any act of nuclear terrorism but terrorists expressed their desires to gain nuclear weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has observed many incidents of lost, theft and unauthorized control of nuclear material. The increased use of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes has intensified the threat that terrorist can target these places for acquiring nuclear materials. They cannot build a nuclear weapon because production of a nuclear weapon would require a technological infrastructure. Thus, it is the most difficult task that is nearly impossible because the required infrastructure and technological skills are very high which even a strong terrorist group could not bear easily, but they can build a dirty bomb
A dirty bomb is not like a nuclear bomb. A nuclear bomb spreads radiation over hundreds of square miles while nuclear bomb could cause destruction only over a few square miles. A dirty bomb would not kill any more people than an ordinary bomb but it would create psychological terror. There is no viable security system for the prevention of nuclear terrorism, but the only possible solution is that there should be a stringent nuclear security system which can halt terrorists from obtaining nuclear materials.
The UN Security Council and the IAEA introduced multilateral nuclear security initiatives. Pakistan actively contributed in all international nuclear security efforts to prevent nuclear terrorism. For example, United States President Barak Obama introduced the process of Nuclear Security Summit (NSS)in 2009 to mitigate the threat of nuclear terrorism. The objective of NSS was to secure the material throughout the world in four years.
Pakistan welcomed it and not only made commitments in NSS but also fulfilled it. Pakistan also established a Centre of Excellence (COEs) on nuclear security and hosted workshops on nuclear security. In addition to all this, Pakistan is a signatory of UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1540 and affirms its strong support to the resolution. It has submitted regular reports to 1540 Committee which explain various measures taken by Pakistan on radiological security and control of sensitive materials and Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) transfer. Pakistan is the first country which submitted a report to the UN establishing the fact that it is fulfilling its responsibilities. Pakistan ratified Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material (CPPNM) in 2016. It is also the member of Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism (GICNT). It can be rightly inferred that Pakistan is not only contributing in all the international nuclear security instruments but has also taken multiple effective measures at the national level.
Pakistan created National Command Authority (NCA) to manage and safeguard nuclear assets and related infrastructures. The Strategic Plan Division (SPD) is playing a very important role in managing Pakistan’s nuclear assets by collaborating with all strategic organizations. Establishment of Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Authority (PNRA)in 2001 is another development in this regard. The PNRA works under the IAEA advisory group on nuclear security and it is constantly improving and re-evaluating nuclear security architecture. National Institute of Safety and Security (NISAS) was established under PNRA in 2014. Pakistan has also adopted the Export Control Act to strengthen its nuclear export control system. It deals with the rules and regulations for nuclear export and licensing. The SPD has also formulated a standard functioning procedure to regulate the conduct of strategic organizations. Christopher Clary discusses in his research “Thinking about Pakistan’s Nuclear Security in Peacetime” that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenals are equipped with Permissive Action Links (PALs) for its stringent security. According to Pakistan’s former nuclear scientist Samar Mubarakmand, every Pakistani nuclear arsenal is now fitted with a code-lock device which needs a proper code to enable the arsenal to explode.
Nonetheless the nuclear terrorism is a global concern and reality because terrorist organizations can target civilian nuclear facility in order to steal nuclear material. The best way to eradicate the root of nuclear terrorism is to have a stringent nuclear security system.
Western media and outsiders often propagate that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenals can go into the wrong hands i.e. terrorists, but they do not highlight the efforts of Pakistan in nuclear security at the national and international level. The fact is that Pakistan has contributed more in international nuclear security efforts than India and it has stringent nuclear security system in place.
Paul Richards 17 Aug 18 ‘The San Onofre’ transport/storage cask, was, and remain placed next to the ocean, in a high-risk area for a Tsunami. In a state that has over 75% of the seismic activity in North America, within close proximity of the well-known earthquake fault line in California.
The citizens of Orange, & San Diego County along with Los Angeles were assured these casks were guaranteed for a hundred years. As opposed to the many thousands of years needed in guarantee for future generations, yet there were and still are signs of cask breakdown in under twenty years.
Let that sink in, U N D E R 2 0 Y E A R S.
It was the typical, nuclear industry message when this plant was phased out as economically and environmentally unviable, demonstrating the nuclear energy experiment had failed:
“Trust us, we know best, these casks are world best practice…”
What are the probabilities after over 70 years of using the same line of logic others in the Nuclear State have;
* that this industry has solved its spent nuclear fuel cask containment problem, or ever will?
Even without going into the long-term storage issues, of a final dump site, as a repository for the indefinite cost of backdoor waste, the IAEA acknowledges has no solution; the whole concept of nuclear energy looks far more trouble, in terms of cost, wasted development and risk to life on earth be relied on.
However, that’s subjective, to whether an individual or group actually considers emerging and future generations life of value.
A premise where a win at all cost, tailors into the mantra of efficiencies, and ROI – profit, for senior executives, shareholders, stakeholders, and financiers, is put before ‘social responsibility’.
The possibility of a shipment of spent nuclear fuel on Michigan highways to Port Huron and into Canada has members of a nuclear watchdog group concerned and asking questions.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission received a request for approval of a highway shipment route for spent nuclear fuel from LaSalle County Nuclear Generating Station to Port Huron and Michigan’s port of exit.
A July 13 letter from the NRC indicates the agency received the application, dated May 13, 2018, and the NRC has a goal to complete the review within 45 days, by late August.
LaSalle County Generating Station, near Chicago, has two nuclear reactors that produce 2,320 megawatts of energy, or enough to power 2.3 million homes, according to Exelon Generation, the company that operates the plant.
The company said the proposed shipment is for nine fuel rods, weighing around five pounds each, that will be shipped to a testing facility in Canada after reaching Port Huron.
Beyond Nuclear, an advocacy group working to push for a future free of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons, found the letter posted online on July 23, among hundreds of documents on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s online library.
The group, along with other advocates, criticized the possible shipping route.
“We have serious concerns about shipping high-level radioactive waste from Exelon’s LaSalle reactors to a port city,” said David Kraft, director of the Chicago-based Nuclear Energy Information Service. “Except in cases of extreme emergency, we believe that irradiated fuel should only be moved once for permanent isolation.”
Kay Cumbow of Great Lakes Environmental Alliance in Port Huron said a spill, release or fire in the area or near waterways that flow into the St. Clair River could potentially ruin one of the largest fresh water deltas in the world, the St. Clair Flats. ………
Beyond Nuclear believes the application’s wording suggests a possible water route to the destination, according to a news release from the advocacy organization.
Michael Keegan, spokesperson for Don’t Waste Michigan and Coalition for a Nuclear Free Great Lakes, in Monroe, Michigan, said, “Why risk sending deadly radioactive wastes through our communities and Great Lakes watersheds?”
Ekklesia 13th Aug 2018, *Burghfield** The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) has required immediate safety
changes to be made at the UK’s nuclear warhead assembly facility and has
said that even with the changes, operations at the site can only continue
for a limited period of time.
If sufficient progress is not made on
reducing risk at the facility, ONR have said that operations may need to
stop altogether. The UK’s nuclear warheads are assembled in the Assembly
Technology Centre at the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), Burghfield,
using components manufactured at nearby AWE Aldermaston.
The work is carried out in buildings known as ‘Gravel Gerties’ which are designed
to collapse inwards and trap radioactive material if there is a partial
explosion during the assembly process. Burghfield’s Gravel Gerties are
thought to have been built in the 1950s. In May the National Audit Office
revealed that a replacement building is six years late and is expected to
cost £1.8 billion, an increase of 146 per cent over the £734 million
approved for the project in 2011. http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/26557
A Hanford laboratory was evacuated and two workers went to the hospital after a small fire shortly before noon Thursday.
A worker at the 222-S Laboratory in central Hanford put out the fire with a hand-held fire extinguisher while other employees pulled the fire alarm and called 911, according to a message to employees of Washington River Protection Solutions.
The Hanford Fire Department responded and confirmed the fire was out. Surveys were done to verify that no radioactive material was involved. About 250 laboratory employees evacuated the lab facilities, with all employees accounted for at 12:11 p.m. and sent to air-conditioned office buildings.
One employee was taken to Kadlec Regional Medical Center in Richland with symptoms of heat stress and later reported symptoms of respiratory irritation.
A second employee was taken to the Richland hospital after reporting symptoms of respiratory irritation.
Workers were allowed back into the lab at 3:15 p.m.
The 222-S Laboratory accepts samples of some of the Hanford Site’s most radioactive and hazardous chemical waste to determine the content of dangerous substances down to parts per trillion.
Work is done under fume hoods or in the lab’s 11 radiation hot cells, with operators outside the cells operating tools within the cells.
Most of the analyses are of high-level radioactive waste from Hanford’s underground waste tanks. Information is used to determine what wastes can be combined within tanks and to help plan how workers can be protected while working at specific tanks.
No other information was available Thursday afternoon. Annette Cary: 509-582-1533
Tri-City mayors worry about ‘catastrophic’ Hanford tunnel collapse , BY ANNETTE CARY, acary@tricityherald.com, August 10, 2018 RICHLAND, WA
Tri-City-area mayors say the public is at risk of a “potentially catastrophic tunnel collapse” if work doesn’t start soon to stabilize a Hanford tunnel storing radioactive waste.
The Department of Energy recently asked the Washington State Department of Ecologyto allow Hanford nuclear reservation workers to fill the longer of the two tunnels with concrete-like grout.
Federal officials requested an answer by July 23 to begin work in August. Ecology, a regulator at the Hanford nuclear reservation, is legally required to give an answer as soon as it practically can.
Starting work in August would allow most work to be done before the worst of the winter weather makes roads icy, according to federal officials. The project will require 5,000 truckloads of grout.
“What DOE is asking is to take irreversible action — put grout in that tunnel — before the the public process really has a chance to get off the ground,” said Alex Smith, Ecology’s Nuclear Waste Program manager.
But many worry about the decaying tunnel and upcoming winter weather.
A video inspection of the inside of the second tunnel shows corrosion of bolts and weld plates.
“It could go another 50 years. It could go another 50 days,” said Doug Shoop, manager of the DOE Richland Operations Office told the Hanford Advisory Board on Tuesday. “I wish I could tell you.”
An unusually wet and snowy winter may have contributed to the partial collapse of the first tunnel. Precipitation-soaked soil on top of the tunnel would have increased the weight on the tunnel’s flat roof made of timbers.
The coming winter also could be unusually wet, Al Farabee, a DOE Hanford project director, told the advisory board this week.
The state is legally required to hold a 45-day public comment period, which it plans to start on Aug. 13, according to the Department of Ecology. Public hearings are planned 5:30 p.m. Aug. 27 at the Richland library and Sept. 5 in Seattle.
The mayors of Kennewick, Richland, Pasco and West Richland sent a letter July 31 to Smith, saying they were frustrated by how long the state was taking to make a decision………
Questions have been raised about how rail cars filled with waste could be removed eventually from a tunnel filled with grout, although DOE says cutting up the grouted waste and removing it should be possible.
A group of senators recently sent a letter to the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) expressing concern over a draft proposed rule on nuclear
power plant decommissioning that has been presented to the commissioners
for review.
The rule includes proposed changes to emergency preparedness,
physical security, cyber security, funding assurance, financial protection
requirements and environmental considerations, among other issues.
Sens. Edward J. Markey (D-MA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY),
and Kamala Harris (D-CA) said in their letter to NRC Chair Kristine L.
Svinicki that the rule would limit the general public’s opportunity to
participate in the decommissioning process.
They also wrote that the rule does not adequately address concerns about the long-term storage of spent
nuclear fuel and reduces financial protections, especially in case of an
accident, which increases financial risk for taxpayers and communities.
“By failing to propose a comprehensive set of decommissioning and cleanup
regulations, by automatically approving facilities’ exemptions from
safety, security and emergency planning regulations, and by continuing to
rubber-stamp the industry’s post-shutdown decommissioning activities
report, as currently drafted, this proposed regulation would abdicate the
NRC’s responsibility to ensure the safety of these plants,” the
senators wrote.
“This is more an absence of rulemaking than a rule that
will affirmatively guide plants and communities through the decommissioning
process.”
Mersea Life July 2018, A band of BANNG representatives, including myself, attended the June meeting of the LCLC at Mundon. The LCLC looks at what is happening at the Bradwell A site with regard to decommissioning and the future of the site.
The big issues discussed were: the entry of the site into Care & Maintenance (C&M); the long-term presence on site of the Intermediate-Level waste (ILW) store and of the highly radioactive graphite reactor cores. It was questioned how the site could really be said to be in C&M when it would still have activities ongoing.
The ILW store would require to be opened from time to time to accept deliveries of the 164 ILW casks still to come
from Dungeness and Sizewell (making Bradwell a regional nuclear waste store); and the highly radioactive reactor cores would continue to remain on site for the long-term.
This prompted questions: were the plans to monitor the site remotely from Sizewell during the C&M stage appropriate?;
what about the effects of public spending restraints on site security?; would cuts to police numbers affect the ability of Essex Police to respond to any incident at the site?
The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) tried to reassure the meeting that the site will not be permitted to enter C&M
until the agency is satisfied with the safety case and it was known that Magnox and the police would be able to respond to events.
It was hoped to move the wastes to the national repository within 65-85 years. Andy Blowers pointed out that a repository does not yet exist, no-one knows when it will exist – or if it will exist at all. In any event, it is unlikely that wastes from Bradwell A will be high in the queue when Sellafield has first call on the repository. http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/Launch.aspx?EID=46bf7f8d-da05-442f-83a8-2cc336bdc0a8
Transportation Eyed for State Role Nuclear watchdogs concur that the federal government doesn’t need New Mexico’s approval to award a license. But the state could do more to stop the project’s progress if leaders want to.
The cities of Albuquerque and Las Cruces, as well as Bernalillo County, have voted to formally oppose Holtec’s project.
A proposed nuclear storage project in Utah, for example, received a license but never accepted waste after opponents there raised questions about transportation, as well as other concerns.
New Mexico’s attorney general thinks the state can do little to stop Holtec International’s application to temporarily store high-level waste from commercial nuclear reactors, but that doesn’t deter critics of the project.
A state lawmaker and an environmentalist, who oppose the project to store the toxic trash in New Mexico before it is buried forever at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain or another site, said they believe the state—and not just the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission—can exert some influence over the Holtec project’s future.
New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas (D) recently assessed the state’s role in regulating Holtec’s plan to store the radioactive materials in rural southeast New Mexico near the the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). An Energy Department facility that stores a different type of nuclear waste generated from weapons production, WIPP was subject to some state reviews before opening in 1999.
Holtec has an application before the NRC for a temporary place to keep nuclear waste from commercial power plants throughout the U.S. while the federal government develops permanent storage deep underground. There’s no timeline for permanent storage, as work on Yucca Mountain has long been stalled and has been met with
Intense opposition from Nevada lawmakers.
The plan to consolidate used fuel in New Mexico has drawn support for its potential economic impact and criticism for a range of health of safety concerns. Candidates running in November to replace Gov. Susana Martinez (R) have had conflicting views on the project.
But of all the factors that the NRC considers when awarding a license for temporary storage, “state approval is not among them,” said the attorney general’s July 19 letter, released to Bloomberg Environment under New Mexico’s public-records law.
Federal Law Governs Project
State Sen. Jeff Steinborn (D), who requested the attorney general’s opinion, told Bloomberg Environment the answers are “troubling.” Steinborn chairs a legislative committee on radioactive materials that has held hearings on Camden, N.J.-based Holtec’s proposal.
Steinborn said he’s “basically opposed” to the project given unanswered questions on the impacts to the state. He wants New Mexico to take an active role in the license review process and said the state can’t “put its head in the sand.”
Prior litigation shows the NRC can license the temporary storage facilities, said the attorney general’s letter, signed by Assistant Attorney General John Kreienkamp. Federal law pre-empts state laws when it came to nuclear waste regulation, he wrote.
The NRC, though, does provide protection against Holtec abandoning the site by requiring licensees to plan for and financially back eventual decommissioning. State tort law may help if people were injured or sickened by Holtec’s operations, the opinion said. ………
Transportation Eyed for State Role
Nuclear watchdogs concur that the federal government doesn’t need New Mexico’s approval to award a license. But the state could do more to stop the project’s progress if leaders want to, Don Hancock, director of the nuclear waste safety program and administrator at the Albuquerque environmental group Southwest Research and Information Center, told Bloomberg Environment.
Hancock, who opposes the proposal, said Holtec would need New Mexico’s cooperation elsewhere, such as help with moving nuclear waste through the state. A proposed nuclear storage project in Utah, for example, received a license but never accepted waste after opponents there raised questions about transportation, as well as other concerns.
“They do have mechanisms to do it outside the licensing process,” Hancock said of New Mexico officials.
The cities of Albuquerque and Las Cruces, as well as Bernalillo County, have voted to formally oppose Holtec’s project. Gubernatorial candidate Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) has spoken against it, while challenger Steve Pearce (R) said it could boost the state economically……..
states have limited authority to regulate projects such as what Holtec is proposing compared to other kinds of hazardous waste, Geoffrey Fettus, senior attorney at the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council, told Bloomberg Environment. Fettus was an assistant attorney general in New Mexico in the 1990s and works on nuclear waste issues.
The Natural Resources Defense Council has recommended giving states more power.
The NRC is starting to review the environmental impacts of the Holtec proposal. The public can request a separate hearing on the plan through Sept. 14, which would put Holtec’s application in front of judges from the commission’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel.https://www.bna.com/holtec-nuclear-waste-n73014481533/
Incident involving transfer of waste canister at San Onofre nuclear plant prompts additional training measures, LA Times, By ROB NIKOLEWSKI, AUG 12, 2018
A contractor responsible for transferring canisters of spent nuclear fuel at the site of the shuttered San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station has been cited for “performance errors” and was directed to “take corrective actions, including additional training” for its workers, Southern California Edison officials said.
The contractor, Holtec International, was cited for the incident that occurred earlier this month when a canister got caught on an inner ring as it was being lowered into a Cavity Enclosure Container at a newly constructed “dry storage” facility on the site of the plant that is in the process of being decommissioned, Edison said in a statement last week. The transfers have been placed on hold.
Since February, operators of the San Diego County plant have been transferring 73 canisters of spent fuel from what is called “wet storage” to the new dry storage installation. Used up fuel is thermally hot and to cool it, nuclear operators place the fuel in a metal rack and submerge it in a deep wet storage pool.
So far, 29 of the 73 canisters have been transferred to the new storage facility. Edison expects to complete the transfer by the middle of next year.
Edison’s announcement came one day after a man identifying himself as an industrial safety worker associated with the federal government’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration startled those attending a public meeting in Oceanside hosted by the SONGS Community Engagement Panel by describing a litany of safety shortcomings associated with the transfer process.
David Fritch said on Aug. 3 one of the canisters being lowered into the cavity enclosure “could have fallen 18 feet.”
In remarks during the Community Engagement Panel’s public comments period, Fritch said similar problems have occurred before “but it wasn’t shared with the crew that was working. We’re under-manned. We don’t have the proper personnel to get things done safely.”
Fritch, who said he’s been on the site for about three months, said some workers are “under-trained” and that many experienced supervisors “are often sent away” and replaced by new supervisors who “don’t understand it as well.”
Fritch’s remarks were captured on video from the livestream of the panel’s quarterly meeting.
……….Critics of Edison pounced on the disclosure, saying it points to larger issues surrounding the plant near San Clemente that is home to 3.55 million pounds of spent fuel at a site hugging the Pacific Ocean and near the busy 5 Freeway. The area also has a history of seismic activity and 8.4 million people living within a 50-mile radius.
The incident “confirms every fear we’ve had about what’s going on at San Onofre and what measures they’re taking to ensure the public’s safety,” said Charles Langley, executive director of the San Diego advocacy group Public Watchdogs, who has worried the walls of the canisters are not thick enough and could crack.
……..The utility also ran into a problem in March during the transfer of spent fuel at the site. Work was delayed 10 days after workers discovered a piece of shim — essentially, a pin 4 inches by a half-inch — came loose while a canister was being loaded.
Edison received assurance from Holtec and an independent engineering firm that the canister’s integrity was sound.
Nuclear rod shipment planned from Illinois to Michigan http://www.whig.com/article/20180811/AP/308119945#//The Associated Press Aug. 11, 2018 PORT HURON, Mich. (AP)— The owner of a northern Illinois nuclear plant wants to ship about 45 pounds of highly radioactive nuclear fuel rods through Michigan on their way to a Canadian testing facility.
Excelon Generation tells the Detroit Free Press that the rods will be packed inside a 24-ton, heavily shielded shipping cask for shipment from the LaSalle County Nuclear Generating Station near Marseilles, Illinois.
The company has asked the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission for highway route approval to Port Huron, Michigan. Commission spokeswoman Viktoria Mitlyng says the shipment’s route and timing are kept secret for security reasons.
Kevin Kamps of the environmental group Beyond Nuclear calls the transport casks “woefully inadequate for real-world accidents or attacks.”
The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission says it hasn’t received an application for allowing the shipment.
nuclear-news 