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Radioactive leak in US National Laboratory

National Lab in NY Halts Some Work After Leak, ABC News, By FRANK ELTMAN Associated Press GARDEN CITY, N.Y. October 10, 2011 (AP) A sealed device used to check whether radiation detectors are working properly at Brookhaven National Laboratory leaked a small amount of radioactivity last month, lab authorities said. There was no threat to public health or the environment, but the lab has halted some operations while it investigates.

The radioactivity was later found on two employees, in a parking lot and private vehicle, and in one of the facility’s buildings, the lab said. The lab is reviewing policies, procedures and training programs.

“Even the leak of a small amount of radiation is unacceptable,” George Goode, assistant director for environmental safety and health at the lab on eastern Long Island, said Monday. “We are treating this very seriously.” Continue reading →

October 11, 2011 Posted by | incidents, USA | Leave a comment

Radioactive leak from Dounreay nuclear plant

Leak found at former nuclear plant, Google News, (UKPA) 9 Oct 11, Scotland’s environment secretary has called for a full investigation after a radioactive leak was found at the former Dounreay power station. The leak was discovered during a routine operation of the plant which is destroying the liquid metal used as the coolant in the Dounreay Fast Reactor (DFR).

Monitoring systems detected drips of caustic liquor from pipework in a shielded cell. Dounreay Site Restoration Limited (DSRL) said the plant was immediately shut down and the leak isolated and stopped. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) said no material had been released into the environment and that the leak was “minor”….

Dounreay’s nuclear reactor was shut down in 1994 and work to decommission the site in Caithness has been under way since then. It was the only plant in Britain to use liquid metal instead of gas or water in the cooling circuits…. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5gbScqRflnDY2MmCLODQSX6TveHNA?docId=N0834141318086993943A

October 10, 2011 Posted by | incidents, UK | Leave a comment

Sympathy with advocates of nuclear moratorium, from NRC chief

US Nuclear Regulator Sympathizes With Moratorium Advocates, Fox Business By Ryan Tracy October 05, 2011 WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)– The top U.S. nuclear watchdog said Wednesday that he sympathized with the views of groups who argue the U.S. should stop moving forward with plans for new nuclear-power plants until it can implement lessons from Japan’s nuclear crisis earlier this year.

“There are strong arguments on both sides about putting [in place] a moratorium,” Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko said during a public discussion about the Japan incident at the National Press Club.

Jaczko noted that, collectively, the five-member commission has decided to move forward with licensing new reactors and re-licensing existing ones as it reviews the Japan incident. Jaczko didn’t dispute that course outright, but said one process should inform the other. “What I feel personally is that I think these processes can’t be independent,” he said….http://www.foxbusiness.com/industries/2011/10/05/us-nuclear-regulator-sympathizes-with-moratorium-advocates/

October 10, 2011 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Generator failures hit 4 U.S. nuclear plants

4 generator failures hit US nuclear plants, Kake County News Sun, By RAY HENRY Associated Press October 9, 2011  ATLANTA — Four generators that power emergency systems at nuclear plants have failed when needed since April, an unusual cluster that has attracted the attention of federal inspectors and could prompt the industry to re-examine its maintenance plans.

None of these failures has threatened the public. But the diesel generators serve the crucial function of supplying electricity to cooling systems that prevent a nuclear plant’s hot, radioactive fuel from overheating, melting and potentially releasing radiation into the environment. Continue reading →

October 10, 2011 Posted by | incidents, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear power and democracy in conflict in India

Safety record at Kalpakkam facility

*In 1987, a refuelling accident ruptured the reactor core.

*In 1991, workers were exposed to a radioactive heavy water leak.

*In 1999, another leak exposed 42 workers.

*In 2002, 100 kg of radioactive sodium leaked.

*In 2003, high-level radioactive waste was released into a work area, exposing six workers to nuclear radiation.

How pertinent is the nuclear option? Deccan Chronicle October 8, 2011 , By R. Mohan Democratic protests against nuclear plants are the flavour of the season.What began in Jaitapur has come down south to Koodankulam in Tamil Nadu and protests are bound to spread across the country to wherever nuclear power plants are being planned.

There is a fundamental conflict here between the aims of the government to arm the country with clean nuclear energy and the people’s fears over nuclear power plant catastrophes fanned further by the Fukushima experience. Continue reading →

October 8, 2011 Posted by | India, politics, safety | Leave a comment

Nuclear energy’s new dangers in the “developing world”

developing countries with little nuclear experience and spotty industrial safety records are moving ahead with ambitious plans to expand generating capacity.

Nuclear energy after Fukushima, Washington Post, By ,  October 6, PALO ALTO, Calif. The environmental disaster at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant this spring is creating a new global divide over the safety of nuclear energy.

Sharply differing responses to Fukushima from the world’s wealthiest and poorest nations will bring diminished safety for all.

Countries that should be best equipped to deal with nuclear mishaps are turning away from atomic energy Continue reading →

October 8, 2011 Posted by | 2 WORLD, safety | Leave a comment

NRC delays permitting restart of Virginia nuclear reactors

The NRC has said it wants Dominion to prove the plant can operate safely before the agency will approve of its restart.

1-NRC not ready to allow restart of Virginia reactors

* NRC to hold meeting on North Anna Oct. 21

* North Anna shut Aug. 23 following earthquake

Oct 7 (Reuters) – The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Friday it does not expect to allow U.S. power company Dominion to restart the 1,806-megawatt North Anna nuclear power plant in Virginia until sometime after an Oct. 21 meeting. Continue reading →

October 8, 2011 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear industry fears on the safety of Iran’s nuclear power plant

“They say trust us, but there’s no such thing as trust us in nuclear politics. “

Iran reactor disaster warning from whistleblower, The Australian, Martin Fletcher October 08, 2011 IRAN’S first nuclear power station is unsafe and will probably cause a “tragic disaster” according to a document apparently written by an Iranian whistleblower. Continue reading →

October 8, 2011 Posted by | Iran, safety | Leave a comment

Armenia’s nuclear power plant the most dangerous in the world?

Aging nuclear technology, a disaffected work force in a facility located in a seismically active region – what could possibly go wrong?

Armenia’s Aging Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant Alarms Caucasian Neighbors International Business Times, By Dr. John C.K. Daly | October 6, 2011  The USSR might have imploded two decades ago, but debris from its headlong industrialization drive litter the post-Soviet landscape, and nothing more unsettles the population of the fifteen new nations carved out of the Soviet Union than its nuclear legacy. Continue reading →

October 7, 2011 Posted by | EUROPE, safety | Leave a comment

Concern over India’s Kalpakkam nuclear reprocessing facility

 Indian peace activists have expressed suspicions that the plutonium separated at Indian civilian reprocessing facilities will be diverted and used to increase the country’s stock of atomic weapons.

Technological preparations towards the building of a full-scale fast breeder reactor at Kalpakkam are reportedly in an advanced stage.

Anti-Nuclear Struggle Has Large Fallout, International News Magazine, 05 October 2011 Peter Custers “……..The Kalpakkam complex does not just harbour a nuclear power plant, but also a reprocessing facility- a plant where nuclear fuel rods, after they have outlived their use in reactors, are chemically treated so as to extract raw materials for re-use as energy source.

The method of reprocessing nuclear fuel rods has always been defended as an appropriate method to dispose of dangerous nuclear waste, as a method of ‘recycling’. Yet nuclear reprocessing results in new waste, and that is the most damaging industrial waste in the entire nuclear production chain. It has to be stored and put aside in nuclear waste tanks for an indefinite period of time.

Storage of such high-level waste in tanks has resulted in catastrophic accidents, Continue reading →

October 6, 2011 Posted by | India, Reference, reprocessing, safety | Leave a comment

Radiation mishap at Belgian nuclear waste facility

UN agency reports Belgian nuclear mishap, 3 people contaminated ,Washington Post, By Associated Press,  October 5 VIENNA — The U.N. nuclear agency says three people were exposed to radiation and had to undergo decontamination after a mishap at a Belgian waste facility.

The International Atomic Energy Agency says no radioactivity has been released into the environment through the incident at the Belgoprocess nuclear waste processing facility in Dessel, Belgium…… http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/un-agency-reports-belgian-nuclear-mishap-3-people-contaminated/2011/10/05/gIQA3yAYNL_story.html

October 6, 2011 Posted by | EUROPE, incidents | Leave a comment

Nuclear Regulatory Commission report on dangers of spent fuel pools

Nuclear agency urged to review spent fuel pools,Forbes, By MATTHEW DALY , 10.05.11, WASHINGTON — The Nuclear Regulatory Commission should take immediate steps to improve the safety of pools containing radioactive waste stored at U.S. nuclear plants, an internal report released Wednesday said.

The report by NRC staff elevates the importance of spent-fuel pools, saying current regulations do not require instruments measuring water levels to be operable in case of accident. Water levels at spent-fuel pools were a key issue after a March 11 earthquake and tsunami that crippled a nuclear plant in Japan…..

The report also recommended immediate reviews of seismic and flooding risks at the nation’s 104 nuclear reactors. Those risks have come under greater scrutiny in the wake of the Japan crisis and the East Coast earthquake in August, which caused the ground to shake much more than a Virginia nuclear plant near the quake’s epicenter was designed to withstand….
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/10/05/general-us-japan-nuclear-safety_8719035.html

October 6, 2011 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Criminals in possession of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU)

US:Officials say crime ring has uranium,  AAP International News  27 Sep 2011,  WASHINGTON,  – Investigators following up on a nuclear sting in Eastern Europe suspect that a crime syndicate was trying to sell weapons-grade uranium to buyers in North Africa.

Officials in Moldova, a former Soviet republic, told The Associated Press that at least one kilogram of highly enriched uranium, or HEU, remains in criminal hands and probably is in another country.
The investigation has provided fresh evidence of a black market in nuclear material that probably was taken from poorly secured stockpiles in the former Soviet Union.
US authorities have been aiding the Moldovans in the search for a Russian, believed to be the ringleader of the smuggling operation. They also are searching for a North African buyer who fled Moldova. —http://aap.newscentre.com.au/acf/110927/library/nuclear_issues/26771097.html

 


October 3, 2011 Posted by | EUROPE, safety | Leave a comment

General Eclectric warns on nuclear reactors and earthquakes

GE warns nuclear reactors could struggle in earthquake, October 02, 2011,   NJ.com. By Eliot Caroom/The Star-Ledger  A manufacturer of dozens of boiling water nuclear reactors in the country, including many on the East Coast, warned the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last year and reiterated last week that earthquakes could hinder its reactors from shutting down. Continue reading →

October 3, 2011 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear plant in Georgia leaking radioactive water to ground

Radioactive water found under Ga. nuke plant, Forbes, By RAY HENRY , 09.30.11, ATLANTA — Radioactive water has been found underneath a Southern Co. nuclear power plant in southeast Georgia, but officials said Friday that the leak does not pose an immediate threat to public health and is unlikely to contaminate any drinking water.

The Atlanta-based Southern Co. learned of the leak beneath Plant Hatch in Baxley on Wednesday when it identified radioactive tritium in two test wells about 25 feet below the ground, said Dennis Madison, a utility vice president who oversees the plant. Workers guided by ground-penetrating radar were planning to dig Friday to identify the source of the leak….   http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/09/30/business-multiutilities-us-plant-hatch-leak-georgia_8710682.html

October 1, 2011 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

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