Act would give states voice on nuclear waste dumps, Las Vegas Sun, March 5, 2019 The Nuclear Waste Informed Consent Act would require approval of the governor and impacted local governments and tribes before any money could be spent on a nuclear waste repository from the federal Nuclear Waste Fund. The act would be applicable to all states.
The act was introduced by most of the Nevada delegation, including U.S. Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen and U.S. Reps. Dina Titus, Susie Lee and Steven Horsford, all Democrats.
Members of Nevada’s congressional delegation are attempting to ensure states have a voice in the construction of nuclear waste repositories.
Nevada is home to the dormant Yucca Mountain nuclear waste depository.
Titus, who has introduced a similar bill multiple times in the past, said the federal government should not force a waste site on any community.
“The Trump Administration’s attempt to treat our state as the dumping ground for the nation’s nuclear waste is based on dirty politics, not sound science. No state or community should have a nuclear waste dump forced upon them. I’m reintroducing this legislation as part of our strategy to put an end to the Yucca Mountain project once and for all,” she said in a statement…….
Lee, Horsford and Titus characterized Yucca Mountain as a push to turn Nevada into the nation’s dumping ground.
“I refuse to sit by and watch my community be used as a dumping ground for the nation’s nuclear waste,” Horsford said in a statement. “Yucca Mountain is an ongoing threat to the safety of Nevada families and to the Silver State’s $40 billion tourism industry.” https://lasvegassun.com/news/2019/mar/05/act-would-give-states-voice-on-nuclear-waste-dumps/
March 7, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
politics, USA, wastes |
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U.S. still has no place for spent nuclear fuel, so Maine Yankee’s owner gets millions
The award will help pay for the roughly $10 million per year to maintain the repository at the closed nuclear plant in Wiscasset. PressHerald, BY TUX TURKEL STAFF WRITER 3 Mar 19, For the fourth time since 1998, a federal judge has awarded the owners of three closed nuclear power plants, including Maine Yankee, millions of dollars for the federal government’s failure to remove spent nuclear fuel.
According to Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Co., Yankee Atomic Electric Co., and Maine Yankee Atomic Power Co., the owners won a partial summary judgment last week totaling $103.2 million. Maine Yankee’s share is $34.4 million.
The award will help offset the roughly $10 million per year cost of operating an interim spent fuel storage site on plant property in Wiscasset. It will indirectly benefit ratepayers, who otherwise foot the bill. The actual financial impact hasn’t been determined, but is expected to be minimal.
In 2016, for instance, Maine Yankee was awarded about $24.6 million. Roughly $3.6 million of the total award was returned to utilities, including Central Maine Power. The balance, $21 million, went to operate the spent fuel storage site…….
Wayne Norton, president of the three companies urged Congress to authorize funding for a pilot program to remove and consolidate spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste from closed reactor sites, and to complete a review for a permanent repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
Maine Yankee operated from 1972 to 1996. Although activists fought for years to close the plant, it was the company’s board that ultimately voted to pull the plug rather than fix expensive, safety-related problems.
Yankee, in Rowe, Massachusetts, closed in 1992. Connecticut Yankee shut down in 1996.
By law, the federal government is charged with coming up with a long-term solution for disposing of radioactive waste from nuclear reactors. It was supposed to begin removing waste in 1998. Facing ongoing public and political opposition, that process hasn’t happened.
Plans to build a permanent waste repository in the Nevada desert were scrapped in 2009 by President Obama. The Trump administration has sent mixed signals about whether it supports reviving Yucca Mountain.
For the foreseeable future, highly radioactive fuel rods are being stored in 60 airtight steel canisters and housed in concrete casks in Wiscasset. Another four canisters hold radioactive steel from the decommissioning process. Maintaining them costs roughly $10 million a year, according to Maine Yankee.
The current award is for a period from 2013 to 2016, and the three companies are seeking an additional $1.2 million in costs. The federal government has 60 days to appeal the award.
Tux Turkel can be contacted at 791-6462 or at:
tturkel@pressherald.com https://www.pressherald.com/2019/02/25/judge-awards-34-million-to-offset-costs-of-storing-spent-fuel-rods-in-wiscasset/
March 4, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
politics, USA, wastes |
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Kerr: Army planning to demolish Fort Belvoir’s nuclear plant Inside Nova, BY DAVID KERR 3 Mar 19″……
The Army built another working nuclear plant at Fort Greely in Alaska that at the time was serving as an interceptor missile launch site. They also built one on a Liberty Ship called the U.S.S. Sturgis. That plant, built at Fort Belvoir, in Gunston Cove, was used as a floating power source for facilities in the Panama Canal Zone.
There was also one at the South Pole’s McMurdo Station. It ran for almost 12 years. Alas, all of these sites ran up against two problems. First, they turned out to be more expensive to operate than expected. Secondly, by the early 1970s anxiety was growing over nuclear power. Was it such a good idea to have small nuclear plants? It didn’t sound safe.
The Army built another working nuclear plant at Fort Greely in Alaska that at the time was serving as an interceptor missile launch site. They also built one on a Liberty Ship called the U.S.S. Sturgis. That plant, built at Fort Belvoir, in Gunston Cove, was used as a floating power source for facilities in the Panama Canal Zone.
There was also one at the South Pole’s McMurdo Station. It ran for almost 12 years. Alas, all of these sites ran up against two problems. First, they turned out to be more expensive to operate than expected. Secondly, by the early 1970s anxiety was growing over nuclear power. Was it such a good idea to have small nuclear plants? It didn’t sound safe.
As for the South Pole nuclear facility, unlike its counterparts in the U.S., that was demolished almost immediately. Roughly 12,000 pounds of radioactive material were shipped to a secure nuclear waste site in the United States.
Just how safe this procedure was, given the site’s remoteness and the absence of guidelines for handling radioactive debris at the time, remains an open question.
As for the SM-1, when the core was removed, Army engineers decontaminated the underground liquid radioactive waste tanks and filled them with concrete. They then sealed the reactor dome, removed the underground piping, tore down some uncontaminated structures and began a decades-long effort to monitor and continually assess the site.
They did the same at Fort Greely.
Now, the facilities are getting old and since they’re still radioactive, the Army wants to go ahead and demolish these facilities. But this is not your average construction contract or your average hazardous waste management project. These are nuclear facilities; everything about them has special requirements. …….
The SM-1 and its sister facilities were a part of our country’s early commitment to nuclear power and all that it might accomplish. Our nuclear industry learned a lot from their operations. However, while they were relatively easy to build, it’s turned out to be a lot more difficult to get rid of them than anyone ever would have imagined in the 1950s. https://www.insidenova.com/opinion/columnists/kerr-army-planning-to-demolish-fort-belvoir-s-nuclear-plant/article_f8b43228-3d4d-11e9-8098-eb75c50b06d9.html
March 4, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
decommission reactor, USA |
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‘Reset’ on nation’s nuclear waste policy includes Yucca Mountain By Gary Martin / Las Vegas Review-Journal
February 27, 2019 WASHINGTON — A panel of scientists are urging a “reset” of the nation’s stalled nuclear waste management system and recommendations to manage and store the material that include using Yucca Mountain as a potential repository.
The proposals were included in a 126-page report, “Reset of America’s Nuclear Waste Management,” that addresses the buildup of highly radioactive waste from commercial power plants and military programs stranded at 75 sites around the country.
Scientists involved with the report were on Capitol Hill on Wednesday to discuss a way forward, or a reset of current management and policy to address the lack of safe storage for the waste.
The report, released in January, includes development of a consensus-based siting process, but one that would still include Yucca Mountain as a candidate.
The inclusion of the site located 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas would continue the travesty of the 1987 decision by Congress that singled out “Yucca Mountain as the only site to be considered for development of a national nuclear waste repository,” said Steve Frishman, a technical consultant to the state of Nevada.
He noted that state, local and tribal leaders, as well as business groups and environmentalists in Nevada, are staunchly opposed to permanent waste storage in Nevada, and claim that the site is unsafe despite Department of Energy studies and recommendations.
Opposition to Yucca Mountain has led to an impasse on storing nuclear waste.
“The site for the proposed Yucca Mountain repository was formally selected in 2002,” the reported noted. “Today, the fate of that site is in political limbo.”
The report further noted that there is “no clear path forward” to manage nuclear waste produced by commercial power plants.
The report compiled by scientists at Stanford University and George Washington University recommends taking the management of nuclear waste storage away from the DOE and creating either a new single-purpose nuclear waste management organization, or a non-profit corporation owned by the nuclear utility industry to handle the waste.
Many of the topics covered in the reset report were also covered, with differing emphasis, by the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future in 2012, Frishman said. The commission did not consider Yucca Mountain as a potential repository.
The report comes as Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., plans a push in the Senate to resolve the three-decade impasse that has left nuclear waste piled up at generating plants across the country……..
Former Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., told the Review-Journal in an interview this month that Yucca Mountain would never be developed because of the astronomical cost to complete the facility. He suggested utility companies place the waste in dry casks and bury them on site. …..
President Donald Trump has proposed restarting the licensing process in his past two budget proposals to Congress. The House also passed a law to streamline the procedure, but all attempts died in the Senate, which stripped out funding in spending bills and never took up the House bill.
If the licensing process restarts, Nevada has filed 218 “contentions,” or objections that would have to be settled before a construction permit is issued.
Experts testified before the House in 2016 that that process could take three to five years.
Meanwhile, two private groups have filed applications with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for permits to build interim storage facilities in New Mexico and Texas.
Alexander said he favors developing interim storage sites while a strategy on permanent storage can be settled. He told his subcommittee last year that he views Yucca Mountain as part of the solution. https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/local-nevada/reset-on-nations-nuclear-waste-policy-includes-yucca-mountain-1606813/
Contact Gary Martin at gmartin@reviewjournal.com or 202-662-7390. Follow @garymartindc on Twitter.
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March 2, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
politics, USA, wastes |
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Nuclear waste meeting in Swansea is cancelled and replaced with an online event Wales Online, By Robert DallingSenior Reporter 1 MAR 2019
It was one of a series of meetings taking place across the country to discuss where to bury the country’s most dangerous radioactive waste.
The organisation that had planned a meeting in Swansea about where to store nuclear waste has cancelled it, and said it’s staging an online event instead.
Government-run Radioactive Waste Management was behind the meetings in Swansea and Llandudno to discuss where to create a geological disposal facility for burying the UK’s stockpile of the most dangerous radioactive waste.
No details of any potential sites were made public and it was understood that the body was seeking “a willing host community” where radioactive waste could be stored hundreds of metres underground.
The Swansea meeting was planned for Tuesday, March 1
A statement from the firm read: “Radioactive Waste Management (RWM) respects the views expressed by Swansea Council in their proposed motion (for consideration on 28 February) about hosting a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) in their area.
“RWM also reaffirms that none of its regional events, including the one for Swansea , is linked in any way to where a GDF might be sited and no site anywhere in England or Wales has been targeted, proposed or chosen. A GDF can only be sited in Wales if a community is willing to host it…….
It is expected that the process of selecting an underground site and going through the planning and construction process will take decades with any chosen site first receiving waste in the 2040s.
The Government said communities interested in hosting a GDF could receive up to £1m a year initially and up to £2.5m a year if deep borehole investigations took place.
Swansea Lib Dem councillor Peter Black criticised the move to cancel the physical meeting.
He said: “I think we should have met them face to face so as to get some clarity as to what exactly they were proposing.
“A webinar means that many people who might want to contribute to this debate, who are not on the internet, will now be excluded.”
Leader of Swansea Council, Rob Stewart said: “I’m pleased that RWM has listened to the very strong representations that we have made and cancelled this meeting in Swansea.
“We note that they have replaced it with an online event so I will make it clear that we will not let up on in our fight until the Swansea Bay area is ruled-out as a potential location for a dump for radioactive waste.
“The reaction of most councillors, our local residents and businesses is clear – nuclear waste is not and never will be welcome here and we will not allow it.” https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/nuclear-waste-meeting-swansea-cancelled-15901315
March 2, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
politics, UK, wastes |
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Fierce opposition to recycling radioactive soil from Fukushima http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201902260058.html, THE ASAHI SHIMBUN, February 26, 2019 How to dispose of mountains of soil contaminated by radiation from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster poses a massive headache for the central government.
Officials had long insisted that contaminated surface soil removed after the triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant would eventually be stored outside of Fukushima Prefecture.
According to one estimate, the total volume of such soil will reach 14 million cubic meters by fiscal 2021. Local entities outside of Fukushima are understandably hesitant about serving as host to such vast quantities of possibly hazardous dirt.
Officials in Tokyo are now hoping to sway local governments to act as hosts by proposing reuse of the contaminated soil for public works projects under certain conditions.
One requirement would be that soil radiation levels below 8,000 becquerels per kilogram, the standard used by the government in classifying whether the waste material requires special treatment, could be used for various construction projects.
This poses a dilemma for Fukushima Prefecture, which fears local residents will be stuck with the problem despite repeated pledges by the government to move all contaminated soil from the prefecture.
Work got under way four years ago to move contaminated soil to intermediate storage facilities in Fukushima Prefecture. As of Feb. 19, the volume of soil transported to those facilities totaled 2.35 million cubic meters.
Initially, the government set a target date of March 2045 for moving all of the contaminated soil outside of Fukushima to a permanent storage facility.
However, discussions have yet to begin on where to build the structure.
Koji Yamada, an Environment Ministry official who has been involved in the issue, conceded it will not be easy to find a candidate municipality for the facility.
“We are now at the stage of trying to obtain understanding from a national perspective,” he said.
Ministry officials say that reusing contaminated soil to reduce the volume that eventually will have to be moved to the final storage facility could win favor from some municipalities.
A panel of experts set up by the Environment Ministry agreed in June 2016 that moving the entire volume of contaminated soil to a final storage facility is unrealistic.
The panel suggested that reducing the volume of contaminated soil by reusing portions deemed safe under radiation standards now in place seemed to offer the best option in finding a candidate site for the final storage facility.
It also proposed ways in which the soil could be reused; for example, in public works projects where the commissioning authority was clearly a responsible body.
The panel also proposed using the soil for the foundations of roads and embankments. It said sufficient quantities were available to ensure stable maintenance over many years.
When the panel met again last December, the members were briefed on the best-case scenario for the development of technology to reduce radiation levels in the soil. The most optimistic forecast was that as much as 99 percent of the debris could eventually be reused.
Under that scenario, only 30,000 cubic meters, or about 0.2 percent of the total volume, would have to be moved to the final storage facility to be buried there.
While Environment Ministry officials say that reusable treated soil would be considered for locations both within and outside Fukushima Prefecture, the only specific proposals made to date have been limited to three municipalities in Fukushima.
Local residents in two of those municipalities, one of which is Nihonmatsu, have mounted petition drives and other activities to block the reuse of contaminated soil in their areas. They contend that allowing such plans to go ahead would be at odds with government promises to store the soil outside of the prefecture.
The fact remains that the bulk of the contaminated soil is stored in Fukushima Prefecture. However, seven other prefectures also have a combined 330,000 cubic meters stored at various locations, such as parks and farmland.
Since August 2018, the Environment Ministry has been trying to determine whether using contaminated soil for land reclamation projects would prove detrimental to the health of local residents.
It has conducted field trials in Nasu, Tochigi Prefecture, and on the grounds of a facility operated by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture.
But Nasu resident Masato Tashiro, who has been following the issue, was highly critical of the six-month period authorized to confirm the safety of such soil.
“That is way too short to make such a judgment, considering the fact the soil will be buried for such a long time,” Tashiro said. “Residents fear their health may be impaired over the long-term.”
(This article was written by Teru Okumura and Shintaro Egawa.)
February 28, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
Japan, opposition to nuclear, wastes |
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L’Express 22nd Feb 2019 , Sooner or later, EDF will have to close power plants. Facing the corporation is a vast building project with many unknowns. And in the middle flows the Meuse.
Nestled in one of its loops, a few kilometers from the Belgian border, the two cooling towers of the Chooz nuclear power 
plant spew their plumes of white smoke. On the other side of the river, under the wooded hillside that has taken the colors of autumn, EDF is leading the dismantling of Chooz A.
Shut down since 1991 this reactor, installed in an\ artificial cavern, saw its installations gradually dismantled and
evacuated. Still to settle the fate of the tank. Perched on a metal bridge over a deep pool where she was dipped, a handful of Swedish engineers from the American company Westinghouse remotely maneuver the articulated arms of a robot that cut it. A long work, which must last until 2022. After which, the cave Chooz A will be filled with sand, for eternity.
https://lexpansion.lexpress.fr/actualite-economique/les-travaux-d-hercule-du-demantelement-nucleaire_2040298.html
February 25, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
decommission reactor, France |
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Risk of terrorism at radioactive waste site kept secret from residents near earmarked sites, Jade Gailberger, Federal Political Reporter, The Advertiser February 24,
The risk of terrorist activity at a radioactive waste site, including the removal of drums for use in a “dirty bomb”, has been kept secret from residents near two sites earmarked for a new national dump.
As the communities of Hawker and Kimba remain divided on the site selection for a new waste site, documents obtained under Freedom of Information laws reveal the Defence Department identified a potential risk of terrorist activity at a dump at Woomera.
The revelation has cemented the security concerns of residents, who say they have been ignored by Government officials.
The now closed Koolymilka dump, situated on Defence land at Woomera, was licensed for temporary radioactive waste storage but has not taken new material since 2010.
An emergency response plan for the site, which still houses waste that is anticipated to be transferred to a national facility, details scenarios that may affect it including:
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- TERRORISTS removing drums to make a “dirty bomb”.
- MISSILE and aircraft strikes, fire, flood or a storm in Woomera that could damage the building and cause contamination if drums ruptured.
- CIVILIAN protest activity.
Defence has said it has no responsibility to inform the public of the risks because the new waste dump is an Industry Department project.
Kimba farmer Peter Woolford, who is opposed to radioactive waste storage on agricultural land, said security, terrorism and fire concerns at a national site had been raised but “fobbed off” by officials who claimed it “would be safe”.
“The (Industry) Department continually says it is going to be open and transparent but you have to obtain FOI documents to get the full story,” he said. “It’s an issue that the department should be … explaining.”
Centre Alliance Senator Rex Patrick said communities had been denied information needed to make an informed decision about a dump in their region.
At a Senate estimates hearing last week, Mr Patrick asked if the Industry Department had briefed the communities about potential terrorism. Industry Minister Matt Canavan said: “I have never been provided with any advice that this is at all a risk … this has never been raised as an issue”.
The Industry Department said the new dump would pose “no security or safety risk to the community” and “significant detail” on safety and security had been made public.
The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation said 14 of 45 jobs at the new dump would be security.
February 25, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
AUSTRALIA, secrets,lies and civil liberties, wastes |
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Radioactive waste bill gets preliminary approval in Utah Senate, Deseret News, By Amy Joi O’DonoghueFebruary 20, 2019 SALT LAKE CITY — EnergySolutions is seeking assurances from Utah lawmakers that if it meets disposal requirements and the approval of regulators, it can bury depleted uranium at its Tooele County facility.
That is how Sen. Scott Sandall, R-Tremonton, explained the genesis of HB220, which received a 23-6 vote on its second reading Wednesday in the Utah Senate.
Sandall said the bill, in its fourth version, does not guarantee acceptance of the waste or site suitability but rather ensures that if the company continues to spend money on a site-specific analysis that its investment will not be in vain.
Critics say not only will the measure, if passed into law, give a potential green light on millions of tons of depleted uranium coming to Utah, it opens the door for acceptance of even “hotter’ waste……..
The bill needs another vote in the Senate, House approval and the governor’s signature before it becomes law. https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900056657/radioactive-waste-bill-gets-preliminary-approval-in-utah-senate.html
February 23, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
depleted uranium, USA, wastes |
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No plutonium pit at SRS, https://www.augustachronicle.com/opinion/20190220/letter-no-plutonium-pit-at-srs By Cassandra Fralix, Lexington, S.C. With the demise of the MOX fuel plant, good riddance, since there wasn’t a buyer for this dangerous material. There is only one option for the more radioactive plutonium waste, and that is long-term storage.
Long-term for Pu-239 is a half-life of 24,100 years. No one can predict what the state of the country will be in five years, much less 24,000, so who will monitor this dangerous material?
The horrible legacy of plutonium waste is one we are living with because of the development of nuclear weapons and nuclear power. Now, we have the Department of Energy’s plan to use Savannah River Site’s plutonium for nuclear weapons purposes. Plutonium, being radioactive and “pyrophoric,” is very difficult to handle, as the workers at SRS can testify to, and Savannah River Site, a Superfund site, continues a never-ending cleanup.
To return Savannah River Site to a weapons manufacturer is a testament to man’s lack of concern for God’s creation – human and environmental. We have seen the warnings from the increase of cancer rates at Rocky Flats, Colo., a plutonium pit producer – available in the Final Summary Report on the Historical Public Exposures Studies on Rocky Flats – to Fukushima, Japan, where the focus now is on the plutonium plant, so much more toxic than that of most other elements used in nuclear processing.
We must put people over profits and stop this maniacal race to our destruction. Say no to plutonium pit production at SRS!
February 23, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
- plutonium, USA, weapons and war |
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Scottish ministers can stop nuclear waste dump, say advisers, The Ferret, 19 Feb 19, Scottish ministers have the power to halt plans to dump nuclear waste on Aboriginal land in Australia which could breach human rights, according to government advisors.
Documents obtained by The Ferret reveal that expert advice sought by ministers stated that the Scottish Government could prevent the export of radioactive waste from the UK under a swap arrangement involving the Dounreay nuclear complex in Caithness.
The revelations have prompted campaigners to call for the Scottish Government to step in and stop the waste dumping, which they see as a potential desecration of sacred Aboriginal lands in south Australia.
The Scottish Government and its regulator, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa), have insisted that regulating the waste shipment is not their responsibility – but Sepa’s former chief executive says this is wrong.
Nuclear fuel was sent from an Australian research reactor to Dounreay for reprocessing in the 1990s. The resulting radioactive waste, amounting to 51 cemented drums, was originally due to be returned to Australia for disposal.
But under the terms of a waste substitution deal in 2014, Scottish and UK governments agreed that the drums should stay at Dounreay because of the difficulties of transporting them around the globe……
Peter Roche, an anti-nuclear campaigner and member of Nuclear Waste Advisory Associates, pointed out that environmentalists were opposed to nuclear waste being transported around the world. “It should be stored in above
ground stores on the site where it is produced,” he said. “And should certainly not be sent back to Australia if it is likely to pose a potential risk to the rights of Aboriginal communities near the two proposed storage sites in Australia.” He added: “The Scottish Government should accept that it bears some responsibility for this waste and tell the UK government
to halt the proposed shipment.” https://theferret.scot/scottish-government-australian-nuclear-waste/
February 21, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
AUSTRALIA, UK, wastes |
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The Indy Explains: How a secret plutonium shipment exacerbated mistrust between Nevada and Department of Energy, The Nevada Independent By Daniel Rothberg 18 Feb 19, The secretive Nevada plutonium shipment that has spawned angry rhetoric from Nevada politicians has a history that starts with Russia. In 2000, the United States entered into a pact with Russia to set aside excess weapons-grade plutonium for civilian use in nuclear reactors. Congress then passed a law that it would turn the excess 34 metric tons of plutonium into MOX, or mix-oxide fuel, at a newly built facility in South Carolina.
But that statute came with a firm deadline: If the MOX facility was not operational by 2014, the Department of Energy would be required to move one metric ton of plutonium stored at South Carolina’s Savannah River Site, a nuclear facility built in the 1950s, within two years.
After years of cost overruns and technical challenges, the Trump administration scrapped the facility. Meanwhile, the state of South Carolina obtained a court order in 2017 requiring the Department of Energy enforce the deadline and move the metric ton of plutonium by 2020.
Less than one year later, the agency said it moved a half-ton of that plutonium to the Nevada National Security Site. The action came after months of questioning from state officials, and its furtive nature has spurred a lawsuit, driving a deep chasm between the state and the agency.
Four months after South Carolina obtained the court order, Nevada officials heard that the federal government might be sending some of the plutonium to the state, according to court records. From August to November, state officials began asking questions about the potential shipment. But Nevada officials received few assurances from Department of Energy officials.
Beyond a general ‘expectation’ that any plutonium would be removed by approximately 2026-27, [a November 20] letter did not contain any of the requested assurances,” Pam Robinson, the policy director for then-Gov. Brian Sandoval, wrote in a December affidavit.
What Nevada officials didn’t know: the United States had already moved the plutonium.
Who knew what when
That surprising disclosure came months later — on January 30 — when a general counsel for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) disclosed that the agency had made a half-ton plutonium shipment from South Carolina to the Nevada Test Site prior to November.
Gov. Steve Sisolak responded to the revelation with a heated statement, pledging to continue existing litigation and keep the Department of Energy accountable.I am beyond outraged by this completely unacceptable deception from the U.S. Department of Energy,” he said to the media. “The department led the state of Nevada to believe that they were engaging in good-faith negotiations with us regarding a potential shipment of weapons-grade plutonium, only to reveal that those negotiations were a sham all along.”
Members of the state’s congressional delegation also released fiery responses.
State officials worry that the plutonium shipment to the testing facility, which is about 65 miles outside of Las Vegas and occupies an area the size of Rhode Island, could set a precedent for the federal government to send more nuclear materials to the state.
In court filings, lawyers for Attorney General Aaron Fordalso argued the federal government failed to fully inventory the environmental impacts of the size and type of plutonium being sent to the highly guarded site.
They also view the action as a backdoor move to open Yucca Mountain, the controversial nuclear waste repository that sits in the remote desert about 100 miles outside of Las Vegas.
The NNSA disputes all of these claims. ………
“Plutonium is nasty stuff,” said Allison Macfarlane, a George Washington University science and technology professor who chaired the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission from 2012 to 2014. “But we’ve made so much of it on the weapons side in this country — and the civilian side in other countries — that we really need to manage it very carefully unless we eliminate it.”
With South Carolina’s MOX facility mothballed, the options are more limited…….. https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/indy-explains-how-a-secret-plutonium-shipment-created-mistrust-betw
February 19, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
- plutonium, OCEANIA, secrets,lies and civil liberties |
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Council leader voices ‘strong opposition’ to nuclear waste burial proposals https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/local-news/council-leader-voices-strong-opposition-15847252Meetings are taking place in Wales next month as part of the search for a site in which to bury the country’s most dangerous radioactive waste, Elizabeth BradfieldLocal Democracy Reporter, 18 Feb 19,
The leader of Neath Port Talbot Council has said the local authority will not engage “at any level” when it comes to an upcoming consultation on possible sites where nuclear waste can be buried.
Meetings are taking place in Wales next month as part of the search for a site in which to bury the country’s most dangerous radioactive waste.
The UK Government wants to bury the lethal stockpile that has been accumulating from nuclear power stations over the last 60 years.
People in two areas – Swansea and Llandudno – are to be consulted as part of the hunt for a “willing host community”.
There are also consultations in eight parts of England.
At a full council meeting on Wednesday, February 14, council leader Rob Jones said: “There have been a number of articles in the media this week concerning public meetings to be organised, apparently, by an agency of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority to consult on the possibility of sites being identified for the disposal of nuclear waste.
“I want to make it absolutely crystal clear that Neath Port Talbot Council will not be engaging in this process at any level.
“The Welsh Government has made it clear that they would only support such a proposal if the community concerned was willing.
“Well, ours is not as far as I’m concerned and that is the end of the matter.
“Moreover, in the unlikely event that a credible proposal emerged in any adjacent area, we would very strongly oppose that as well.”
The waste is currently stored in 20 sites around the country in specially-engineered containers but this is not seen as a long-term solution.
It is expected that the process of selecting an underground site and going through the planning and construction process will take decades with any chosen site first receiving waste in the 2040s.
The government website says that communities willing to take part on the consultation will receive £1m a year initially and up to £2.5m a year if boreholes are drilled.
A website has been set up by the UK Government to inform the public geologicaldisposal.campaign.gov.uk
February 19, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
opposition to nuclear, UK, wastes |
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nuclear-news 