BERLIN — The cooling tower of a former nuclear power plant next to the Rhine River in Germany that was online for just 13 months has been demolished, 31 years after it stopped producing electricity.
Remote-controlled excavators on Friday removed pillars that supported the tower at the Muelheim-Kaerlich plant, near Koblenz. The tower, whose top half had already been removed by a specially designed robot, collapsed under its own weight in a cloud of dust a couple of hours later.
Muelheim-Kaerlich was switched off in September 1988 after 13 months in service when a federal court ruled the risk of earthquakes in the area hadn’t been taken into account sufficiently. After a lengthy legal battle, demolition started in 2004. Operator RWE says nearly all radioactive material had already been removed by then.
The Savannah River Site has been in the state since the late 1950’s and was originally home to a nuclear bomb making facility, but over the years the site has taken on the role of several different operations, including the storage of plutonium.
Savannah River Site is now home to a nuclear laboratory and facility to reuse the nuclear material left behind from the Cold War. Over the years the storage of that plutonium has become a concern.
“A lot of pollution left over from that so the main mission of the Savannah River Site for a long time has been the cleaning up of the contamination that exists,” explained Tonya Bonitatibus, the Executive Director of Savannah Riverkeeper. Savannah Riverkeeper monitors the quality of the Savannah River, which is used for drinking water for more than 1 million residents.
The United States Department of Energy notified the state’s attorney general of the removal of one metric ton of plutonium from the Savannah River Site.
In 2016, Congress passed a law to remove the plutonium if production goals to reuse the material were not met.
The plutonium removed so far is the first step in a wider cleanup after the state won a lawsuit against the DOE.
Bonitatibus continued, “The Savannah River Site has been the dumping ground for nuclear waste. It just has because nobody wants it. So it ends up being stored here leaking into the coastal plain and groundwater.”
The National Nuclear Security Administration says, “The material removed from the Savannah River Site (SRS) in Aiken, South Carolina, will be used for national security missions and is not waste.”
NNSA also released a removal plan that designated Texas and New Mexico as the destinations for the removed plutonium.
The ruling outlined that one metric ton of the plutonium would be removed each year. The process could take another 5 to 7 years to remove the plutonium being stored.
The removal was supposed to be completed by January 1, 2020. The process is 6 months ahead of schedule, according to NNSA.
Savannah River Site is located on land in Aiken, Allendale and Barnwell counties.
Official: China buried nuclear waste in Sudan desert, Dabanga Sudan, November 12 – 2015KHARTOUMChina has buried dozens of containers with toxic waste in the desert of Northern Sudan, according to a high-ranking official. The waste was most probably coming from nuclear plants in China.
According to the former director of the Sudan Atomic Energy Commission in Sudan, Mohamed Siddig, 60 containers have been brought to Sudan together with construction materials and machinery for the building of the Merowe Dam (Hamdab Dam) in the Northern part of Sudan. He did not mention the exact year of the import and the date the nuclear waste was disposed. China worked on the dam between 2004 and 2009.
During a conference held by the Sudanese Standards and Metrology Organisation (SSMO) in Khartoum on Tuesday, he disclosed how the Sudanese authorities allowed the import of the waste ‘without inspection’. He told the audience that 40 containers were buried in the desert not far from the Merowe Dam construction site. Another 20 containers were also disposed in the desert, though not buried…..
Mohamed Siddig was responsible for the Sudan Radioactive Waste Management programme that started in 1995, a central radioactive waste management facility was established in Soba near Khartoum. The Atomic Energy Committee is responsible for overseeing the safety in activities that involve the use of atomic energy in Sudan, and promoting the use of nuclear techniques.
Gold miners complain
In 2010, the government was already confronted by complaints of local gold diggers, according to the Sudanese newspaper El Tariq. Several gold workers approached the government complaining about many of the worker suffering from cancer and skin diseases. The Sudan authorities downplayed the questions saying the waste they dug up were remnants from earlier times. However witnesses told El Tariq that 500 sealed barrels were discovered in the El Atmur desert area in River Nile State…….https://www.dabangasudan.org/en/all-news/article/official-china-buried-nuclear-waste-in-sudan-s-desert
An excellent article, explaining Deep Isolation, and thoroughly outlining the global problem of radioactive trash. What a pity, then, that this article, and its title, mindlessly accept the current dogma about nuclear power being the solution to climate change!. To believe this is to ignore nuclear’s serious problems, and especially the fact that the thousands of nuclear reactors required would never be built in time to have any effect on global warming – even if that claim were true – which it isn’t.
WHAT TO DO WITH THE DEADLY RADIOACTIVE WASTE? ensia, 31 July 19
The Deep Isolation Texas demonstration
“………Chernobyl’s reactor No. 4 site will remain dangerous for tens of thousands of years. In July 2019, 33 years after the explosion, 200 metric tons (220 tons) of uranium, plutonium, liquid fuel and irradiated dust was finally encased below an enormous 36,000-metric-ton (40,000-ton), €1.5 billion steel and concrete structure taller than the Statue of Liberty. The new sarcophagus will last about 100 years — after which it will deteriorate and future generations will have to decide how to dismantle and store it permanently.
Skip forward to Cameron, Texas, on January 16, 2019. This was a nerve-wracking day for Liz Muller, co-founder of California startup technology company Deep Isolation and her father, Richard Muller, professor emeritus of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and now chief technology officer at Deep Isolation.
The father-daughter team had invited 40 nuclear scientists, U.S. Department of Energy officials, oil and gas professionals, and environmentalists to witness the first-ever attempt to test whether the latest oil-fracking technology could be used to permanently dispose of the most dangerous nuclear waste.
At 11:30 a.m., the crew of oil workers used a wire cable to lower a 30-inch (80-centimeter)-long, 8-inch (20-centimeter)-wide 140-pound (64-kilogram) canister — filled with steel rather than radioactive waste — down a previously drilled borehole. Then, using a tool called a “tractor” invented by the industry to reach horizontally into mile-deep oil reservoirs, they pushed it 400 feet (120 meters) farther away from the borehole through the rock.
Five hours later, the crew used the tractor to relocate and collect the canister, attach it to the cable and pull it back to the surface — to the cheers of the workers. Until then, few people in the nuclear industry believed this could be done.
By avoiding the need to excavate large, expensive tunnels to store waste below ground, the Deep Isolation team believes it has found a solution to one of the world’s most intractable environmental problems — how to permanently dispose of and potentially retrieve the hundreds of thousands of tons of nuclear waste presently being stored at nuclear power plants and research and military stations around the world.
“We showed it could be done,” Elizabeth Muller says. “Horizontal, directional drilling has come a long way recently. This is now an off-the-shelf technology. Using larger canisters, we think about 300 boreholes with tunnels up to 2 miles (3 kilometers) long would be able to take much of the U.S.’s high-level nuclear waste. We think we can reduce by two-thirds the cost of permanent storage.” ……In 80-odd years of nuclear power, in which more than 450 commercial reactors, many experimental stations and tens of thousands of nuclear warheads have been built, great stockpiles of different levels of waste have accumulated.
Depending on how countries classify waste, only about 0.2–3% by volume is high-level waste, according to the World Nuclear Association, a London-based industry group that promotes nuclear power. Mostly derived from civil reactor fuel, this is some of the most dangerous material known on Earth, remaining radioactive for tens of thousands of years. It requires cooling and shielding indefinitely and contains 95% of the radioactivity related to nuclear power generation.
A further 7% or so by volume, known as intermediate waste, is made up of things like reactor components and graphite from reactor cores. This is also highly dangerous, but it can be stored in special canisters because it does not generate much heat.
The rest is made up of vast quantities of what is called low-level and very low level waste. This comprises scrap metal, paper, plastics, building materials and everything else radioactive involved in the operation and dismantling of nuclear facilities.
The consensus is that around 22,000 cubic meters (29,000 cubic yards) of solid high-level waste has accumulated in temporary storage but not been disposed of (moved to permanent storage) in 14 western countries, along with unknown amounts in China, Russia and at military stations. A further 460,000 cubic meters (600,000 cubic yards) of intermediate waste is being stored, and about 3.5 million cubic meters (4.6 million cubic yards) of low-level waste. Some 34,000 cubic meters (44,000 cubic yards) of new high-level and intermediate waste is generated each year by operating civil reactors, says another nuclear industry group, the World Nuclear Association (WNA).
The U.S., with 59 nuclear power plants comprising 97 working civil reactors each generating at least several tons of high-level waste per year, has around 90,000 metric tons (99,000 tons) of high-level waste awaiting permanent disposal, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Although it’s impossible to come up with a global total because of differences in how quantities are measured and reported, and with some inventories kept secret, other countries harbor significant amounts of waste as well.
Many Ideas
In the early days of nuclear power, waste of any sort was barely considered. British, U.S. and Russian authorities, among others, dumped nuclear waste, including more than 150,000 metric tons (160,000 tons) of low-level waste at sea or in rivers. Since then, billions of dollars have been spent trying to identify how best to reduce the amount produced and then store it for what may be eternity.
Vertical boreholes up to 5,000 meters (16,000 feet) deep have also been proposed, and this option is said by some scientists to be promising. But there have been doubts because it is likely to be near impossible to retrieve waste from vertical boreholes…….
Only Finland is close to completing a deep repository for high-level waste. In May, work started on an “encapsulation” plant where waste will be packed inside copper canisters that will be transferred into 400- to 450-meter (1,300- to 1,500-foot)-deep underground tunnels. But doubt has been cast on the long-term safety of the canisters.
“The problem is intractable,” says Paul Dorfman, founder of the Nuclear Consulting Group, a group of around 120 international academics and independent experts in the fields of radiation waste, nuclear policy and environmental risk. “The bitter reality is that there is no scientifically proven way of disposing of the existential problem of high- and intermediate-level waste. Some countries have built repositories, some plan them. But given the huge technical uncertainties, if disposal does go ahead and anything goes wrong underground in the next millennia, then future generations risk profound widespread pollution.”
But is interim storage really interim?……. the communities that give the OK to build an interim storage facility may end up having the waste stuck in their backyards for decades to come.
“Until there is an idea of a long-term repository,” said Maria Korsnick, CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute, at a recent Senate hearing, “anybody that raises their hands for that consolidated interim storage [site] is, de facto, the long-term” site.
Finding a repository for San Onofre plant’s nuclear waste is a difficult task L A Times,ROB NIKOLEWSKI
JULY 27, 2019, SAN DIEGO — Earlier this month, Southern California Edison — the operators of the now-shuttered San Onofre nuclear power plant — resumed transferring heavy canisters filled with spent fuel assemblies from wet storage pools to a newly constructed dry storage facility on the plant’s premises. Continue reading →
Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. will decommission the Fukushima No. 2 nuclear plant, its president, Tomoaki Kobayakawa, told Fukushima Gov. Masao Ochibori at a meeting Wednesday.
The facility is the second nuclear plant that the utility company has decided to decommission after accepting it would need to shutter the nearby Fukushima No. 1 plant, which was crippled by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster in the world’s worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.
Tepco’s decision to scrap Fukushima No. 2, which is expected to cost some ¥280 billion ($2.6 billion), will be formally approved at the company’s board meeting later this month if local municipalities accept the plan.
The prefecture has demanded the utility scrap the reactors at Fukushima No. 2, saying their existence would hamper its reconstruction efforts. The plant has been offline since its operations were suspended due to the 2011 disaster.
If the plan goes ahead, all 10 nuclear reactors in the prefecture — four at the No. 2 plant and six at the No. 1 facility — will be scrapped.
It will also leave the utility company with only the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata Prefecture and the planned Higashidori nuclear plant in Aomori Prefecture.
Kobayakawa said at the meeting, also attended by the mayors of the two towns — Naraha and Tomioka — that host the plant, that Tepco plans to build a new on-site storage facility for spent nuclear fuel from the reactors at the Fukushima No. 2 plant.
The fuel will be placed in metallic containers and cooled using a dry storage approach, according to the operator.
No decision has been made regarding final disposal of the spent fuel, raising concerns that the radioactive waste may remain on-site for a long time.
The Fukushima No.2 plant currently has around 10,000 assemblies of spent fuel cooling in pools.
Using Commercial Satellites To Control Nuclear Weapons Is A Bad Idea — But It’s Being Discussed Forbes, Loren Thompson 24 July 19, “……. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the appearance of new
threats, though, the sense of urgency about nuclear security has waned. The
infrastructure supporting nuclear deterrence has decayed to a point where all three
legs of the strategic “triad”—land-based missiles, sea-based missiles and long-range
bombers—need to be replaced. Meanwhile, the architecture used to command and
control nuclear forces has changed little since the Reagan era.
Against this backdrop, the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force said something curious at a meeting of
the Mitchell Institute on June 26. The institute recently produced a report focused on the need to
modernize technology for nuclear command and control. General David Goldfein opined that ongoing
efforts to network the Air Force were as relevant to control of nuclear forces as conventional forces.
In particular, he mentioned the “rapid and exciting expansion of commercial space”
as a trend that might facilitate the creation of resilient links for communicating with
nuclear forces. I was unaware of the chief’s comments until I saw a story by Mandy
Mayfield of National Defense Magazine entitled, “Air Force Wants To Utilize
Commercial Satellites For Nuclear Command, Control.” The Air Force is responsible
for most of the 200 systems comprising the nuclear command and control system, so
General Goldfein’s thoughts have to be taken seriously even if they are just random
musings.
This particular idea is dangerous.
Commercial satellites lack virtually all of the security features that would be
necessary to assure control of the nuclear arsenal in a crisis. First of all, they are not
survivable against a wide array of threats that China and Russia have begun posing
to U.S. orbital assets, ranging from kinetic attacks to electronic jamming to
electromagnetic pulse. Second, they are susceptible to cyber intrusion via their
ground stations that could impede their performance. Third, they frequently contain
foreign components, including in-orbit propulsion technology made in Russia, which
might be manipulated in a crisis or simply become unavailable during wartime.
Air Force planners presumably know all this, so why would General Goldfein suggest
relying on commercial satellites to execute the military’s most fateful decisions?
Perhaps for the same reason that the Army is backing into reliance on commercial
satellites for its next-generation battlefield networks. There are so many commercial
constellations in operation that it seems unlikely America’s enemies could shut them
all down in wartime, and they are a lot cheaper to use than orbiting dedicated military
satcoms with the requisite capacity and redundancy.
“Resilience” has become the watchword for modernizing military space activities, and
one way of creating resilience is to proliferate the pathways available for vital
communications to a point where adversaries can’t keep up with all the possible
options available to U.S. commanders. The same logic is leading technologists to
propose large numbers of cheap satellites in low-earth orbit as an adjunct to existing
military satcoms.
These “cheapsats” wouldn’t be anywhere near as capable as the secure
communications assets that Washington has placed in geostationary orbits, but there
would be so many that links could be sustained even in highly stressed
circumstances, such as the “trans-attack” phase of a nuclear war.
Or at least, so the reasoning goes.
……But the idea of relying on commercial satellites for command and control of
nuclear forces takes this reasoning a step too far, because market forces preclude
any of the hardening and other protective features that might be required in dedicated
military birds
……… think of all the ways an adversary like China might seek to interfere with
commercial satellites through their ground stations and uplinks, such as insertion of
malware via hacking and jamming of signals. ……..
This Texas Oil Town Actually Wants the Nation’s Nuclear Waste, BloombergBy Ari Natter and Will Wade July 24, 2019,
Andrews, pop. 13,000, seeks to diversify from oil drilling
Foes fear becoming ‘the Chernobyl of West Texas’ if it leaks
As Blake Roberts bounced along a single-lane dirt road in his red Ford Super Duty pickup he pointed to a pumpjack bobbing in the West Texas heat.
“Everything we do revolves around oil,” Roberts said as he neared his home outside the town of Andrews in the heart of the booming Permian Basin oil field.
But Roberts, 29, has his eye on what he hopes will be the next big thing for the area: nuclear waste. As president of the local chamber of commerce, knows that oil booms are inevitably followed by busts.
He is supporting a plan to establish a repository in the desert about 30 miles outside of town for as much as 40,000 metric tons of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel and waste from power plants…….
Local support for the project is strong, said County Judge Charlie Falcon, who presides over the four-member Andrews County Commissioners’ Court, which functions as the county’s board of commissioners.
The panel approved a resolution in 2015 backing the idea to accept high-level nuclear waste at the designated site, and is likely to reiterate its support with a letter in the near future, Falcon said during an interview in his chambers in the brick courthouse on Main Street.
…….. The plan by Interim Storage Partners LLC, a joint venture between Orano CIS LLC and Waste Control Specialists LLC, calls for waste to be shipped by rail from around the country. Then it would be sealed in giant concrete casks and stored above ground for as long as 100 years, or at least until a permanent repository is built.
Opponents say that could be never…….
In the meantime, the U.S. has no permanent place of its own to store radioactive material that will remain deadly for several thousand years. …
Not everyone in Andrews is on board with the idea of storing waste that can remain radioactive for thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years.
“We don’t need to put it right in the middle of the biggest oil field in the world,” said Tommy Taylor, director of oil and gas development for Fasken Oil and Ranch Ltd. of Midland, Texas, which is part of a coalition of oil and gas producers and landowners opposed to the nuclear dump.
More than 4 million barrels of crude are produced every day in the Permian Basin and drillers say a leak or terrorist attack could put the oil boom at risk. “It would shut the whole Permian down. The result would be catastrophic for us,” he said.
Said Andrews resident Elizabeth Padilla: “It only takes one accident and we would become the Chernobyl of West Texas.”
Some surrounding counties and cities have adopted resolutions against the plan. It’s also drawn opposition from national environmental groups……….
A panel of administrative judges from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently convened a hearing at the neighboring Midland County Courthouse and heard arguments from environmentalists, oil industry representatives and other groups. Outside, protesters gathered around an eight-foot-tall, green-and-black inflatable replica of a storage cask bearing a sign reading “Say No To Radioactive Waste.”
Kevin Kamps, an official with Takoma Park, Maryland-based group Beyond Nuclear, who drove to Midland for the hearing, said in an interview that high-level nuclear waste bound for Andrews would travel through major cities.
“The transport risks are for the entire country and they haven’t even been alerted,” Kamps said.
Other opponents expressed worry about the site’s proximity to the Ogallala Aquifer, a underground reservoir that spans eight states that supplies water for drinking and irrigation to millions of people. …..
The project has powerful backers. As Texas Governor, Rick Perry encouraged storing high level nuclear waste in the state and, as U.S. Energysecretary, he has been supportive of interim nuclear waste storage. The current governor, Greg Abbott, is opposed.
Scott State, the chief executive officer of Waste Control Specialists, which is owned by J.F. Lehman & Co., said he was optimistic the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would approve the license for the project, though additional approvals, such as plans for transporting waste, need to be approved before storage can begin, he said.
Rose Gardner, a 61-year-old grandmother who owns a floral shop in Eunice, N.M., about five miles away from the proposed nuclear dump, said she will do everything in her power to stop that from happening.
BY KATHLEEN O’BRIEN, TIMES RECORD KOBRIEN@TIMESRECORD.COM 24 July 19, WISCASSET — Wiscasset could collect more than $8 million for the 64 containers of nuclear waste stored at the former Maine Yankee power plant site.
U.S. Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois, introduced the Sensible, Timely Relief for America’s Nuclear Districts Economic Development (STRANDED) Act earlier this month, aimed at providing financial relief to communities like Wiscasset stuck with storing nuclear waste.
Should the Stranded Act pass, Wiscasset, home to decommissioned Maine Yankee, would be eligible to receive $15 per kilogram of nuclear waste currently being housed at the site, which is the rate for impact assistance established under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982.
There are about 542 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel stored at Maine Yankee, meaning Wiscasset would collect over $8 million from the government. According to Maine Yankee, it costs roughly $10 million per year to maintain the 64 canisters of radioactive waste.
“In the absence of a permanent (disposal) site, this will help alleviate the burden communities face and may help encourage Congress to take action on a long-term solution for nuclear waste, which is something Collins supports,” said Christopher Knight, a spokesperson for Collins.
Maine Yankee operated from 1972 to 1996. The company’s board voted to cease operations rather than invest in fixing expensive safety-related problems to keep the plant running.
The spent nuclear fuel is housed in 64 dry storage casks, which stand on 16 3-foot-thick concrete pads. Each concrete cask is comprised of a 2.5-inch thick steel liner surrounded by 28 inches of reinforced concrete.
The federal government was contractually obligated to remove the radioactive waste by 1998, but that commitment was never fulfilled.
Plans to build a permanent disposal site in the Yucca Mountains in Nevada were scrapped in 2009 by the Obama Administration. The Trump Administration has made no plans to revive the Yucca Mountains project.
A federal judge has awarded the owners of three nuclear power plants millions of dollars. This money pays for the operation of the fuel storage site so local taxpayers, including those in Wiscasset, aren’t left to foot the bill.
“The Yankee companies collectively have to date recovered about $575 million on behalf of our ratepayers in the ongoing litigation with the Department of Energy,” said Eric Howes, Maine Yankee director of public and government affairs. “Maine Yankee’s portion of the $575 million total is about $176.5 million.”
This money was amassed as a result of four separate lawsuits against the Department of Energy. When the U.S. government loses a lawsuit, the money lost comes from a Judgment Fund, which is funded by taxpayers.
“The Nuclear Waste Policy Act says those who benefit from nuclear power would be responsible for the removal of the spent nuclear fuel,” Howes said. “The cost of disposing Maine Yankee’s fuel has been fully paid for by the ratepayers. The government, however, has not met its obligation to remove the material from the site, and that’s true at every nuclear waste site in the country.”
Howes said Maine Yankee’s goal is to go out of business.
“It’s our responsibility to store this material in accordance with all the federal regulations,” Howes said. “When the government finally removes the spent nuclear fuel, we’ll go out of business, but I don’t know when that will be.”
There are 24 permanently and announced shutdown nuclear sites across the U.S. Five are in New England.
As jarring as the closure of the Three Mile Island One nuclear power station is to longtime Harrisburg-area residents, a cadre of them told Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials Tuesday they’d like the plant’s planned decommissioning to take a faster track.
It’s known in NRC lingo as DECON, and it can allow for the deconstruction, clean-up and re-use of closed nuclear plants in less than a decade, as opposed to the six decade-plus track Three Mile Island Unit One’s owners, Exelon Generation, has started planning for.
“How many dog and pony shows can you (the NRC) bring to Harrisburg over the last 40 years?” asked longtime TMI activist Gene Stilp, bemoaning the fact that under the current safe storage plan the island would be a nuclear waste dump long past the lifetimes of any current residents.
“You could start getting jobs for clean-up right now,” Stilp said. “Get retrained in some fashion and set up things for that. But you could actually have jobs right now and start on that. Not just monitoring the site… Start providing jobs right now, by starting the clean-up right now.
“This bargain with the devil to store it (spent nuclear fuel) on the Susquehanna River is an abomination to the river, an abomination to the citizens who live here…. and it provides more terrorist targets in a big way.”
NRC officials noted Tuesday it is ultimately the licensee’s decision whether to put a plant into safe storage or rapid decontamination.
Exelon’s current timeline calls for the site to spend most of the next 60 years in a “dormancy” stage, in which most activity will center around storage of spent fuel, and a wait for residual contamination levels to naturally break down until major reactor buildings and components can be dismantled.
Exelon, however, has recently changed paths with other retired nuclear plants – including one in New Jersey this year……..
There are other ways to join the TMI decommissioning conversation. Written comments on the report can be submitted through Oct. 9 either:
online to the NRC using Docket ID NRC-2019-0142 on the Regulations.gov website;
Tepco to retire remaining reactors in Fukushima https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Companies/Tepco-to-retire-remaining-reactors-in-FukushimaDecommissioning is expected to take 40 years and cost $2.5bn SUGURU KURIMOTO, Nikkei staff writer, JULY 20, 2019 TOKYO — Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings will scrap the four Fukushima Prefecture reactors that escaped damage in the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, moving to decommission all of the nuclear power plants the public utility owns in the disaster-stricken region.
The shutdown of the Fukushima Daini plant, which is located just 12km away from the Daiichi Plant crippled by fuel meltdowns, will be formally authorized at the company’s board meeting at the end of the month. This marks the first decision by the utility, known as Tepco, to decommission nuclear reactors apart from the Daiichi facilities.
Costs for decommissioning Fukushima Daini are estimated to exceed 270 billion yen ($2.5 billion). While Tepco’s reserves are not enough to cover them, the government adopted new accounting rules allowing operators to spread a large loss from decommissioning over multiple years. The company also believes it has secured enough people with necessary expertise to move forward.
Tepco soon will inform Fukushima Gov. Masao Uchibori of its decision. The utility intends to submit the decommissioning plan to Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority by March next year.
The decision means all 10 reactors in Fukushima will be scrapped. The Daini reactors will be decommissioned in roughly 40 years, sharing the same timetable as the Daiichi site. Tepco owns one other nuclear plant, the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa facility in Niigata Prefecture.
The Daini plant, where each reactor produced 1.1 gigawatts of power, served the Tokyo area for about three decades. Japan’s central government sought to restart the complex but faced withering opposition from local residents in Fukushima.
Including the Fukushima Daini facilities, a total of 21 reactors across Japan are now slated for decommissioning. Recent additions include two units at the Ikata plant in Ehime Prefecture and one reactor at the Onagawa facility in Miyagi Prefecture.
Earthquakes repeatedly striking proposed US nuclear waste site
Officials fear deadly radioactivity could seep into earth if another high-magnitude quake strikes Nevada desert, Independent, Emma Snaith, 19 July 19
Repeated earthquakes could risk releasing deadly radioactivity into the earth if plans for a nuclear waste site in go ahead in Nevada’s desert, the state’s governor has warned.
Tens of thousands of tons of highly radioactive used nuclear reactor fuel are due to be transferred from 35 US states to a new facility in the Mojave Desert.
The Yuka Mountain nuclear waste repository is set to store this material deep within the earth.
But a series of recent earthquakes in the Mojave Desert has raised concerns about the safety of storing radioactive waste at the facility.
On 4 July, a 7.1 magnitude earthquake ruptured the earth in the desert, which stretches across the California-Nevada border.
The force of the quake cracked buildings, sparked fires, damaged roads and caused several injuries in southern California. It was followed by a 6.4-magnitude temblor two days later.
In the wake of the earthquakes, the governor of Nevada Steve Sisolak said he was committed to “fighting any continued federal effort to use Nevada as the nation’s nuclear dumping ground”.
“These significant recent earthquakes so near to Yucca Mountain show one of the many geologic problems with the site as a nuclear waste repository,” he said.
Mr Sisolak sent a letter to the energy secretary, Rick Perry, urging him to reconsider the location of the facility.
………. In governor of Nevada’s letter to Mr Perry, he included the opinions of James Faulds at the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology and Graham Kent at the seismological laboratory at the University of Nevada.
They urged for more research to be conducted into the seismic activity at the Yuka Mountain site. “The Ridgecrest earthquake sequence, which began July 4 and has yet to subside, clearly highlights the importance of such studies,” Mr Faulds and Mr Kent said.
A recent ranking compiled by the US Geological Survey found Nevada was the US state with the fourth highest level of seismic activity after Alaska, Wyoming and Oklahoma.
Nuclear waste moves from wet pools to dry storage at San Onofre
1 down, 43 to go before the plant’s cooling pools are empty and its dry storage system is full By TERI SFORZA | tsforza@scng.com | Orange County Register July 18, 2019 It took the better part of two days, but Canister No. 30 — a 50-ton behemoth full of spent nuclear waste — was successfully moved from a fuel-handling building, rolled across the bluff on a giant transporter, then inserted into its steel-and-concrete vault in the Holtec Hi-Storm UMAX dry storage system at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.
The delicate, deliberate dance was originally projected to wrap up by early morning Wednesday, July 17, but finished up about 6 a.m. Thursday. And as far as majority owner and operator Southern California Edison is concerned, that’s just fine and dandy……..
Critics continue to worry about the integrity of those canisters — which have scratches from their descent into the vaults — over what could be decades in the San Onofre’s salty seaside atmosphere. They demand that the waste be moved from what they deride as a “beachfront nuclear waste dump” immediately, but that requires action from a federal government that has dithered on the issue for some 70 years.
The road to here
San Onofre’s reactors powered down in 2012 after tubes in its brand-new steam generators cracked, resulting in a small radiation leak. After local opposition to restarting it appeared insurmountable, San Onofre was shuttered for good in 2013.
Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois are calling the proposal “the STRANDED Act.”
That stands for “Sensible, Timely, Relief for America’s Nuclear Districts’ Economic Development.”
The proposal calls for economic impact grants to local governments to offset the impacts of stranded waste. Communities would be eligible for $15 per kilogram of spent nuclear fuel stored.
Collins says the town of Wiscasset has endorsed the proposal. Wiscasset is the location of decommissioned Maine Yankee nuclear plant.
Collins says a permanent solution for the waste is also needed.
The co-sponsors of the bill include Maine’s other senator, independent Sen. Angus King.
Lawmakers quietly explore storing spent nuclear fuel. Wyo File, July 12, 2019 by Angus M. Thuermer Jr. Wyoming legislative leadership voted by email Monday to explore temporarily storing spent nuclear fuel rods in the state, a prospect one senator says could bring in $1 billion a year.
A legislative committee has appointed six of its members to investigate the idea with the U.S. Department of Energy, Sen. Jim Anderson (R-Casper) told WyoFile on Friday. Anderson is co-chairman of the Joint Minerals Business and Economic Development Committee which received approval and funding from the Legislative Management Council in an unannounced vote to study the issue before the next legislative session begins in early 2020. ………
The state is looking for other revenue options, Anderson said, and “this is a way.” The federal government could pay up to $1 billion a year for the temporary storage, he said, depending on the size and scope of a Wyoming project. That’s the amount the federal government offered last time Wyoming considered the issue about 15 years ago, he said.
Anderson couldn’t immediately name the six members who serve on the subcommittee that will engage DOE, but he said it’s unlikely the group would report at the next minerals committee meeting in August. More likely there would be a presentation in November, he said……….
The spent fuel rod casks would be temporarily stored in Wyoming on their way to a permanent storage site at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain. ….
The Wyoming effort is specific regarding fuel rods only, he said. “There’s nothing here about storing nuclear waste,” Anderson said. Storage might be for 5-10 years, he said……..
The old uranium sites are out of the way, Anderson said.
“Nobody will ever see it,” he said of a storage site. “Nobody even knows where it is,” he said of the locations at Gas Hills and the Shirley Basin. “They’ll never see it and there’s no danger from the casks.”
Wyoming might have to build some infrastructure, he said, like a fence around the casks. The state could offer both the old mine sites, he said, potentially increasing revenue.
“Environmental terrorists” sure to object
Wyoming’s previous attempts to bring some types of nuclear storage to the state were blocked by environmental groups, Anderson said.
During an earlier effort to bring nuclear material to Wyoming “the environmental terrorists came out against it and stopped it in its tracks,” he said. That opposition likely remains.
“I think they’ll be back terrorizing us again,” Anderson said.
Wyoming people will likely welcome such a project, Anderson said, given the potential $1 billion or more annual revenue stream. …….
On the Management Council, Sens. Ogden Driskill (R-Devils Tower), Dan Dockstader (R-Afton), Drew Perkins (R-Casper) and Bill Landen (R-Casper) plus Reps. Greear, Albert Sommers (R-Pinedale), and Speaker of the House Steve Harshman (R-Casper) supported the minerals committee request, Obrecht wrote.
Sens. Mike Gierau (D-Jackson), Liisa Anselmi-Dalton (D-Rock Springs, Chris Rothfuss (D-Laramie) opposed the measure along with Reps. Eric Barlow (R-Gillette), John Freeman (D-Green River) and Kathy Connolly (D-Laramie), according to Obrecht’s email.
The Management Council vote was taken by email, Obrecht said. The motion includes funds to support the investigation, but WyoFile could not immediately ascertain how much.
Gierau outlined his opposition to the measure. “I like a billion dollars as much as the next guy, but some things are not for sale,” he told WyoFile. He pointed to efforts through the state’s Economically Needed Diversity Options for Wyoming and other programs to diversify the state’s economy.
“Of all the things we want to do… I just don’t see this as a winning proposition, on an environmental, social or personal level,” he said.
He noted the close vote on the Management Council and said he would continue his opposition.
The nuclear industry and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission are threatening to restart Pennsylvania’s permanently closed and decommissioning Three Mile Island Unit 1 nuclear power station. Three expert speakers will present the resistance to this dangerous misadventure in a webinar hosted by the Clamshell Alliance, Beyond Nuclear and Massachusetts Peace Action.
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