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Nuclear weapons proliferation: other countries fear that Japan may use its piles of plutonium for weapons

Japan vows to cut its nuclear hoard but neighbours fear the opposite, Japan has amassed a large stockpile of plutonium and neighbours fear that the country may decide to build more nuclear weapons. By Motoko Rich, 25 Sept  2018 New York Times, More than 30 years ago, when its economy seemed invincible and the Sony Walkman was ubiquitous, Japan decided to build a recycling plant to turn nuclear waste into nuclear fuel.

It was supposed to open in 1997, a feat of advanced engineering that would burnish its reputation for high-tech excellence and make the nation even less dependent on others for energy.

Then came a series of blown deadlines as the project hit technical snags and struggled with a Sisyphean list of government-mandated safety upgrades. Seventeen prime ministers came and went, the Japanese economy slipped into a funk and the initial $6.8 billion budget ballooned into $27 billion of spending.

Now, Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd, the private consortium building the recycling plant, says it really is almost done. But there is a problem: Japan does not use much nuclear power anymore.

The country turned away from nuclear energy after the 2011 Fukushima disaster, and only nine of its 35 reactors are operational.

It is a predicament with global ramifications. While waiting for the plant to be built, Japan has amassed a stockpile of 47 metric tons of plutonium, raising concerns about nuclear proliferation and Tokyo’s commitment to refrain from building nuclear arms even as it joins the United States in pressing North Korea to give up its arsenal.

In August, North Korea’s state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper accused Japan of accumulating plutonium “for its nuclear armament.”

Japan pledged for the first time this past summer to reduce the stockpile, saying the recycling plant would convert the plutonium into fuel for use in Japanese reactors.

But if the plant opens as scheduled in four years, the nation’s hoard of plutonium could grow rather than shrink.

That is because only four of Japan’s working reactors are technically capable of using the new fuel, and at least a dozen more would need to be upgraded and operating to consume the plutonium that the recycling plant would extract each year from nuclear waste.

“At the end of the day, Japan is really in a vice of its own making,” said James M. Acton, a researcher at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.

“There is no easy way forward, and all those ways forward have significant costs associated with it.”

A handful of countries reprocess nuclear fuel, including France, India, Russia and the United Kingdom.

But the Japanese plan faces a daunting set of practical and political challenges, and if it does not work, the nation will be left with another problem: about 18,000 metric tons of nuclear waste in the form of spent fuel rods that it has accumulated and stored all these years.

Japan’s neighbours, most notably China, have long objected to the stockpile of plutonium, which was extracted from the waste during tests of the recycling plant and at a government research facility, as well as by commercial recycling plants abroad.

Most of this plutonium is now stored overseas, in France and Britain, but 10 metric tons remain in Japan, more than a third of it in Rokkasho, the northeastern fishing town where the recycling plant is being built.

Japan says it stores its plutonium in a form that would be difficult to convert into weapons, and that it takes measures to ensure it never falls into the wrong hands.

But experts are worried the sheer size of the stockpile — the largest of any country without nuclear weapons, and in theory enough to make 6,000 bombs — could be used to justify a nuclear buildup by North Korea and others in the region.

Any recycling plan that adds to the stockpile looks like “a route to weaponise down the road,” said Alicia Dressman, a nuclear policy specialist. “This is what really concerns Japan’s neighbours and allies.”

Japan maintains that its plutonium is for peaceful energy purposes and that it will produce only as much as it needs for its reactors. “We are committed to nonproliferation,” said Hideo Kawabuchi, an official at the Japan Atomic Energy Commission.

But the launch of the Rokkasho plant has been delayed so long — and popular opposition to restarting additional nuclear reactors remains so strong — that scepticism abounds over the plan to recycle the stockpile.

Critics say Japan should concede the plant will not solve the problem and start looking for a place to bury its nuclear waste.

“You kind of look at it and say, ‘My God, it’s 30 years later, and that future didn’t happen,’” said Sharon Squassoni, a nonproliferation specialist at George Washington University.

“It’s just wishful thinking about how this is going to solve their myriad problems.”

Engineers have repeatedly revised the design of the plant to address water leaks and earthquake safety, and it took years to develop a safe way to dispose of hazardous byproducts.

After the Fukushima disaster, government regulators demanded even more safety measures.

Giving up on the recycling plant, though, would be politically difficult, not least because Aomori Prefecture, where it is, has threatened to send the 3,000 metric tons of nuclear waste stored here back to communities around the country with nuclear plants……….. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/japan-vows-to-cut-its-nuclear-hoard-but-neighbours-fear-the-opposite

September 26, 2018 Posted by | - plutonium, Japan | Leave a comment

Magical thinking about nuclear waste – but that doesn’t solve the problem

A conversation with Dr. Gordon Edwards: contemporary issues in the Canadian nuclear industry, and a look back at the achievements of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility (CCNR), http://www.ccnr.org/ Montreal, August 25, 2018,   Nuclear waste management: an exercise in cynical thinking. DiaNuke.org, 24 Sept 18, Dennis Riches (DR): Instead of a question I thought we would ask you to comment on something that has been published by an organization called Waste Management Symposia (Waste Management Symposia Inc. http://www.wmsym.org/wm2019 ). They are a non-profit organization, but they seem to be something that was set up by the nuclear industry so that different players in the field could get together and talk about waste management issues. They have a symposium coming up in March of 2019

 Gordon Edwards (GE): Well it’s an exercise in cynical thinking……….Of course, the problem is that there’s no way of destroying this stuff. There’s no way of getting rid of it that is technically or economically feasible, so all we’re really doing is repackaging. We’re not getting rid of it, and of course the packages do not last forever, so you can’t eliminate this liability by simply repackaging it and moving it from one place to another. It may be justified on the basis of environmental protection—for example, moving it away from waterways and so on so as to have less opportunity for the material to be dispersed, but once again you really can’t get rid of it. So the with language itself, they talk about “disposal.” Disposal implies that you somehow magically eliminate or get rid of this waste when in fact all you’re doing is reconstituting it in a different form, a different physical form, a different chemical form, but generally not changing the nature of the problem fundamentally.
2. Private solutions for public problemsSo when the last government approached this problem they decided, being Conservative, that it’s better to get private enterprises to look after these things, so they hired a consortium of multinational corporations to solve the problem for us, and in the absence of any policy—the trouble is that Canada has absolutely no policy regarding any nuclear waste except for the irradiated nuclear fuel itself………..

3. Early days: ignorance about nuclear wasteBut if we just back off on all this, the way my organization sees the picture, my organization being the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, which formed in the early 1970s—Well, basically in 1974 we formed, and from our view, the first thirty years of the nuclear age were characterized by a total ignorance about nuclear waste. That is, the public was not informed that there was such a thing as nuclear waste and the decision-makers who authorized the spending of billions of dollars in building a nuclear infrastructure and nuclear reactors were also not informed that this was a major unsolved problem. So it was basically a lie

Nuclear energy was presented as an absolutely clean energy source and people interpreted that to mean, “Hey, no problem. There is no waste.” When it became clear that it is, in fact, the most dangerous industrial waste ever produced on the face of the earth, in the form of the irradiated nuclear fuel, the industry then embarked upon a second lie which was, “Yes, we do have this waste product, the irradiated fuel, and it is very dangerous, and it is essentially indestructible, but we know exactly what to do with it. We know how to solve the problem, and the solution is simply to stick it underground in an undisturbed geological formation and then it’s all safe. We just walk away from it, and no problem.”

4. Belated realization of the problemWell, of course, that was then and this is now, and in the light of experience in the intervening years…  In the mid-1970s there was a series of reports in Canada, the United Kingdom, the USA and other countries calling attention to this nuclear waste problem and basically saying quite plainly that unless this problem could be adequately solved that there should be no more nuclear power plants built. So I call this the nuclear ultimatum. It was really an ultimatum to the nuclear industry: You do not have a future if you don’t solve this problem. And because the industry said that they knew what to do with it, the expectation was that they could solve it in ten or twenty years. It would only take ten or twenty years……….

DR: But it seems like they want to keep up the impression that the solution is being worked on. It’s underway. As long as they can keep doing that, the nuclear plants can keep running.

GE: That’s correct, and people have been bamboozled by this empty promise really, and of course it’s become increasingly clear. There have been eight attempts in the United States to locate a high-level waste repository, all of which have failed. There have been two underground repositories in Germany which have failed, for low-level and intermediate-level waste. There’s no facility anywhere in the world which is operational for high-level waste, although there are some that have been built like the one in Finland, for example, near Olkiluoto.

5. Barbaric plans for nuclear wasteAnd now we have this consortium of private companies that has come into Canada to deal with not the irradiated nuclear fuel, but the decommissioning waste and the other post-fission waste, and they have come up with what we consider to be barbaric suggestions.One of them is to, just less than one kilometer from a major river—the Ottawa River which flows into the St. Lawrence River and which comes right down here to Montreal flowing through the nation’s capital—they wanted to build a gigantic mound, basically a surface facility, which is simply a landfill, nothing more than a glorified landfill, and put all the low-level and intermediate-level waste into this one facility which would be five to seven stories high and cover an area which would be equivalent to 70 major-league hockey rinks, and this would basically have no solidity to it. It would be just a mound, an earthen mound of radioactive waste, about million cubic meters.

There has been a massive outcry over this. For example, the twenty-eight communities which make up the municipality of Montreal, as an agglomeration of municipalities, have all come out unanimously against this project. And there are over a hundred municipalities up and down the Ottawa River.

DR: How about Ottawa itself?

GE: No, not Ottawa itself, unfortunately. Most of the opposition has come from the Quebec side of the border. There has been far, far less opposition on the Ontario side. Of course, Ontario is also largely dependent upon nuclear power and so that may be the reason why.

We do not find that Canada has produced any enviable plans for nuclear waste disposal. On the contrary, we feel that they’re setting a terrible example for the rest of the world, and we are fighting to stop it cold in its tracks. We actually had a press conference just last week in Ottawa, just the last few days, in fact, and a march and a demonstration and so on, calling upon the federal government to stop these plans which are underway right now.

6. In situ abandonment of nuclear facilitiesIn addition to piling up the waste on the surface, as I was mentioning, in a huge mound, they’re also planning to take four prototype nuclear reactors, or at least two of those four (they haven’t talked about the other two), and use a process of entombment whereby they will simply dump all the radioactive waste from the reactor itself into the sub-basement and then flood the interior of the building with concrete and turn it into a concrete mausoleum, very close to various rivers, including the Ottawa River, and the Winnipeg River in Manitoba. This they call in situ decommissioning. What it means is that you are taking a facility which was originally licensed to house a nuclear reactor, and you’re turning it into a permanent nuclear waste repository, even though it was never chosen with that in mind. It never went through the examination, the scrutiny, and the qualification that would be associated with a permanent waste repository. And yet that’s what they’re planning to do: just wave their magic wand and turn it from a reactor into a waste repository. We are totally opposed to this, and we’re mobilizing citizen opposition to it……….

7. Wrong people in charge, telling rather than consultingThe nuclear industry wants to abandon these wastes because they cannot possibly look after them for the period of time we’re talking about. Who can really? But we feel that they’re the wrong people to be in charge of this because they have a clear conflict of interest, and this conflict of interest manifests itself in many different ways.

There has been no consultation with Canadians to arrive at these plans. These plans have been announced, and then there have been meetings to inform the public of what they’re planning to do, with no opportunity to change those plans other than to criticize them. Basically it is regarded as a fait accompli.

DR: Yeah, in Japan they call those setsumeikai—explanatory meetings, which means it goes in one direction—we’re explaining to you what’s going to happen.

GE: Yeah. This is by no means a consultation. And we’re calling upon the Canadian government to actually stop these plans and to launch true consultations with Canadians and with First Nations, and to follow up on the recommendations that have been made by several independent bodies in Canada, all of which have recommended that there should be a nuclear waste agency completely independent from the nuclear industry and which has on its board of directors major stakeholders, including First Nations people, in order to ensure that the sole efforts of this organization should be the protection of the public and the environment, and not the furtherance of the nuclear industry, the promotion of expansion of the nuclear industry, which is what the consortium is interested in……….https://www.dianuke.org/a-conversation-with-dr-gordon-edwards-contemporary-issues-in-the-canadian-nuclear-industry-and-a-look-back-at-the-achievements-of-the-canadian-coalition-for-nuclear-responsibility-ccnr-http-ww/

September 26, 2018 Posted by | Canada, wastes | 1 Comment

Six hundred Lake Superiors needed to dilute nuclear waste to a safe level

 

September 26, 2018 Posted by | Canada, wastes | Leave a comment

The danger in transporting nuclear wastes to just a “temporary” nuclear morgue

Activists rally against nuclear waste transport,  By JOSHUA SOLOMON
Staff Writer,Greenfield Recorder  September 21, 2018 GREENFIELD — In a lot of ways it was like a party, celebrating the accomplishments of the past few years: The closures of the Vermont and Rowe nuclear plants. ……..The theme of the night? The high-level nuclear power plant waste being stored in Rowe and Vernon, Vt., must go — but only once the right and final safe place for it is decided.

“I haven’t bothered you for three or four years at this point,” leader of CAN and Rowe resident Deb Katz said. “But we’ve come back to our community to say: We need to be involved again. And I wish it wasn’t so.”

Katz and CAN just begun a tour of New England, and after spending their first two nights in Vermont, they came to Greenfield Thursday. On Friday, they will take the tour to the Statehouse on Beacon Hill.

Currently, the anti-nuclear activists are rallying against a bill that could allow for the high-level nuclear waste in Rowe and Vernon, Vt., to be shipped in canisters across the country to Texas or New Mexico. It would place the waste in what CAN is calling “parking lots” that are seen as more temporary holdings than anything else, but could be pitched as helping tthe economy in these regions in the Southwest of the country.

“Why shouldn’t we just say ‘yes, wow. Thank you so much’? The trouble is this is a really bad idea,” Katz said. “We all want the waste off the site, but we want it done right. And we want it done once.” ………

At the moment there isn’t a distinct solution on where to move the high-level nuclear waste, but Katz and fellow lead organizer Chris Williams of Vermont advovated for more science to figure out the best solution to storing waste that remains toxic for thousands of years.

“It took a lot of hard science to create this mess,” Williams said. “To get rid of this stuff properly, we’re going to have to apply real science and not just political expediency.”

The goal is to look to scientists to find the place for “deep geological storage,” Williams said.

Preaching to find a better, scientific solution was organizer and activist Kerstin Rudek from the Peoples Initiative, based out of Germany, where her neighbors have faced similar issues.

“It’s an international thing,” Rudek said, pointing to the lack of answers of what to do with the nuclear waste and the need for answers. “It’s not just a local thing.”

The meeting, which Williams described as a “little more lively than your usual nuclear waste meeting,” also included the speaker Leona Morgan, from the Navajo Nation and an Albuquerque, N.M. resident.

“It’s great news when we hear a nuclear power plant has been shut down, but it makes me nervous because it makes the push for these false solutions even harder,” Morgan said.

She described the political climate in New Mexico as pitching to residents that moving the nuclear waste there would be good for their economy, creating jobs, but ignoring the will of the residents who might be affected by it most.

“I’m here tonight to tell you we don’t want it,” Morgan said. “We don’t want this waste.”………

You can reach Joshua Solomon at:  jsolomon@recorder.com  413-772-0261, ext. 264     https://www.recorder.com/Anti-nuclear-group-CAN-advocated-for-one-final-location-for-waste-at-tour-event-at-Hawks—Reed-20333471

September 21, 2018 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, safety, USA, wastes | 2 Comments

Britain’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority partnering with Japan Atomic Energy Agency

Whitehaven News 20th Sept 2018 , The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has joined forces with the Japan
Atomic Energy Agency to share expertise in nuclear decommissioning and
radioactive waste management. The NDA – which is responsible for cleaning
up and decommissioning 17 sites in the UK including Sellafield in Cumbria
– has signed an agreement that will see skills, knowledge, research,
information and technology exchanged with the JAEA, Japan’s research and
development institute for nuclear energy.

JAEA’s work includes undertaking research and development work to support the decommissioning
and environmental restoration of TEPCO’s stricken Fukushima Daiichi
Nuclear Power station. It is also aiding the decommissioning of the Monju
fast breeder reactor and the Tokai Reprocessing Plant.
http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk/news/business/NDA-joins-forces-with-Japan-Atomic-Energy-Agency-98721037-4777-4322-a8fc-22b18d0c979e-ds

September 21, 2018 Posted by | Japan, UK, wastes | Leave a comment

UK Government delayed scrapping potentially unsafe nuclear submarines in bid to cut costs

Independent 21st Sept 2018 Government delayed scrapping potentially unsafe nuclear submarines in bid
to cut costs, MPs told. Influential Commons committee tells Ministry of
Defence to put a stop to postponements after expert admits possible ‘safety
issue’. The government has delayed scrapping potentially unsafe nuclear
submarines because of concerns over costs, a new report from an influential
committee of MPs has revealed. 20 disused submarines are currently awaiting
disposal, according to the Ministry of Defence (MoD), including nine that
still contain nuclear fuel. But despite admitting to potential safety
risks, the government will only begin dismantling the next vessel in the
mid-2020s, while the total work needed to scrap the entire 20 submarines
will not be completed until at least 2045.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/trident-uk-nuclear-submarines-government-cuts-pac-ministry-defence-a8547856.html

September 21, 2018 Posted by | UK, wastes, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The global nuclear nightmare of plutonium

REAL PLUTONIUM, Paul Richards shared a link. Nuclear Fuel Cycle Watch South Australia, 21 Sept 18

Global nuclear brotherhood driving weapons proliferation, they still haven’t anywhere to store;

* unspent & spent nuclear fuel, 
* excess radionuclides,
* redundant weapons arming material
* contaminated material and their
* respective short &
* long-term containment systems as canisters, or
* short-term storage, 200-litre drums.

Containers at worst need repacking in

* five years in case of the 200-litre drums, with best practice, every

* hundred years, and that is

* unless sealed five kilometres below

the surface or more, this repacking of nuclear waste containers is ad infinitum ∞ https://www.facebook.com/groups/1021186047913052/?multi_permalinks=2123030991061880%2C2123017674396545%2C2122319811132998&notif_id=1537435582423128&notif_t=group_activity

September 21, 2018 Posted by | - plutonium | 1 Comment

Plutonium a risk to humans and environment for thousands of years

Even if the optimism of the scientists and engineers is well-founded, it will still take almost two more decades for the vitrification plant to run at full bore. So it may be 2047—or later—before the ghosts of plutonium are finally laid to rest.

illustration by Abigail Malate, Staff Illustrator, American Institute of Physics

September 21, 2018 Posted by | - plutonium, Reference, USA | Leave a comment

UK: Labour parliamentarians raise concerns about Nuclear plant mud dumping

Nuclear plant mud dumping worries raised by Labour AMs , BBC News, 19 September 2018 

Two senior Labour AMs have raised concerns in the Senedd about the dumping of mud from a nuclear plant site into the sea near Cardiff.

Julie Morgan and Jane Hutt – both close to leadership frontrunner Mark Drakeford – said constituents had safety worries about dredging 300,000 tonnes of mud from Hinkley Point.

Dumping began last week. AMs were told the mud poses no risk to human health.

Campaigners have called for more tests, and are seeking an injunction.

Ms Morgan and Ms Hutt quizzed Rural Affairs Secretary Lesley Griffiths following a topical question raised by independent AM Neil McEvoy.

The project to build the new Hinkley Point C nuclear power station in Somerset includes dredging mud and sediment from Bristol Channel near the sites of the decommissioned Hinkley Point A and B nuclear plants, and disposing of it just over a mile out to sea from Cardiff Bay.

Protestors want the licence from Natural Resources Wales (NRW) which permitted the dredging to be scrapped, amid worries the mud could be contaminated from discharges from Hinkley.  In the assembly on Wednesday, Cardiff North AM Julie Morgan asked why the dumping site was chosen “when it’s only two kilometres from the shore”, and what the benefits to south Wales were. ……..

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-politics-45578768

September 21, 2018 Posted by | politics, UK, wastes | Leave a comment

EnergySolutions wants exemption from Utah law restricting import of depleted uranium

September 21, 2018 Posted by | depleted uranium, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

U.S.Cogress seeks funds to compensate communities affected by nuclear power plant shutdowns

Congress looking for money for cities hit by nuclear plant closures — including Diablo Canyon,The Tribune  BY KAYTLYN LESLIE, kleslie@thetribunenews.com, September 17, 2018 

Congress wants to find money to support communities where nuclear power plants are being decommissioned — which could mean some funding for San Luis Obispo County once Diablo Canyon starts the process itself in the coming years.

Congressman Salud Carbajal announced Monday that Congress directed the U.S. Department of Energy to study public and private funding sources available to help those communities, as part of its Fiscal Year 2019 Energy and Water, Legislative Branch and Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act (HR 5895).

“With the impending Diablo Canyon Power Plant closure, I am working to secure all available federal resources to help offset the economic impact of this decommissioning,” Carbajal said in a news release. Carbajal, a Democrat, represents California’s 24th Congressional District, which spans between San Luis Obispo and Ventura counties.

The Department of Energy study will focus on identifying public and private funds to support municipalities where a nuclear power plant is decommissioned, in the process of decommissioning or plans to shut down within three years of the act’s enactment, and contains nuclear waste within its boundaries, according to the news release.

The bill passed both the House of Representatives and the Senate and is set to be signed into law by President Donald Trump sometime before the end of the fiscal year, Sept. 30……. https://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/article218563600.html

September 18, 2018 Posted by | decommission reactor, USA | Leave a comment

Former floating nuclear power station is dismantled

Army Corps of Engineers Dismantles Former Floating Nuclear Plant in Galveston https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/2018/09/18/304524/corps-of-engineers-dismantles-former-floating-nuclear-plant-in-galveston/More than 1.5 million pounds of radioactive waste have been safely removed from the USS Sturgis’ nuclear reactor  SEPTEMBER 18, 2018, HE U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS HAS ANNOUNCED THAT A FORMER FLOATING NUCLEAR PLANT IN GALVESTON HAS BEEN DISMANTLED.

More than 1.5 million pounds of radioactive waste have been safely removed from the USS Sturgis’ nuclear reactor. Additionally, more than 600,000 pounds of lead from the vessel have been recycled.

The removal process has taken three years and the Corps said decommissioning the Army’s first and only floating nuclear reactor prototype is now complete.

The World War II vessel was converted into a barge-mounted nuclear reactor in the 1960s.

The Galveston Daily News reported the ship will be towed to Brownsville later this month, where it will be scrapped.

September 18, 2018 Posted by | decommission reactor | Leave a comment

Campaign against “interim” (stranded) waste dump – USA

The country doesn’t need “parking lot dumps for interim storage,”

“We as communities want it out of here. We want it to be in safe place where its never moved again. We think it’s lunacy to move it twice.”

Waste Control Specialists has been lobbying federal officials to establish an interim high-level waste repository

Anti-nuclear groups urge action against national waste dump  https://www.recorder.com/CAN-plans-nuclear-waste-speaking-tour-20148074   By RICHIE DAVIS
Staff Writer, September 15, 2018

With closure and dismantling of the Yankee Atomic plant in Rowe and now Vermont Yankee and other New England nuclear sites pretty much a fait accompli, watchdog groups like Citizens Awareness Network are focused on the one tremendous remaining issue: the high-level nuclear waste remaining on the reactor sites.

CAN is planning a tour with a giant can — a 32-foot-long wooden mock-up of a radioactive waste cask — and an array of speakers to speak about what the organization calls “the abdication by the federal government and the nuclear industry” to deal with high-level nuclear waste “stranded” at nuclear sites around. Continue reading →

September 17, 2018 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Nevada military base would be endangered by Yucca nuclear waste dump

Yucca nuclear dump a threat to Nevada military bases, Rosen says By Ray Hagar, Nevada Newsmakers, Las Vegas Sun, Sept. 16, 2018

Nevada 3rd Congressional District Rep. Jacky Rosen looks at the controversy over a proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain through the eyes of a member of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee.  The transportation and storage of nuclear waste at the site — less than 100 miles from Las Vegas — would pose a threat to national security because of the U.S. military bases that surround the area, Rosen said Thursday on Nevada Newsmakers.

“We have Nellis Air Force Base, the premier pilot-training (facility) throughout the world. We have the Nevada Test and Training Range where we do all that training — 70 percent of the Air Force’s live munitions lives there,” Rosen said.

“We have Creech Air Force Base, where we have our unmanned aerial system,” she said. “We train those Topgun naval aviators in Fallon. We have a Hawthorne Army Depot, a Nevada Test Site and Area 51.”

“Yucca Mountain sits right in the center of all that,” Rosen said. “Nevada is critical to our national security, our homeland security and safety. And anything that could compromise that, moving nuclear waste through the Nevada Test and Training Range or any of those other routes, could put us at risk.”

Storage of nuclear waste near U.S. military installations is only one problem with Yucca, Rosen said. Another is moving it there through wide swaths of the United States.

“There are 75,000 metric tons of nuclear waste. At three loads a week via trains or trucks on our freeways, going through over 44 states and 300 counties, it will take 50 years to transport it,” Rosen said. “So don’t tell me that within that 50 years, there is not going to be some kind of accident.”………https://lasvegassun.com/news/2018/sep/16/yucca-nuclear-dump-a-threat-to-nevada-military-bas/

September 17, 2018 Posted by | safety, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

New USA legislation on stranded nuclear wastes

Nuclear waste bill that could aid Zion awaiting presidential signature , Chicago Tribune, 15 Sept 18 Legislation to help communities such as Zion with stranded nuclear waste issues has passed both houses of Congress, and now awaits President Donald Trump’s signature to become law, according to a statement released Friday by U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider.

The 10th District Democrat said the measure — included in H.R. 5895, the Energy and Water, Legislative Branch, and Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act of 2019 — would require a report by the Department of Energy on existing public and private resources and funding available for municipalities in which a nuclear power plant is decommissioned, in the process of decommissioning, or plans to shut down within three years.

“Communities like Zion have been saddled with storing our nation’s stranded nuclear waste while the federal government has failed to meet its legal obligation to find a permanent repository,” Schneider said in a statement. “They deserve compensation, and this new report is a step toward connecting these communities with critically needed federal assistance.”

In May, Schneider said, he introduced a legislative amendment requiring the Secretary of Energy to assemble a task force to work across all federal agencies to identify existing resources and funding opportunities that could assist communities with decommissioned plants where nuclear waste is being stored.

Last October, Schneider introduced the Sensible, Timely Relief for America’s Nuclear Districts’ Economic Development (STRANDED) Act with Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill.

“I urge President Trump to sign (H.R. 5895) into law,” Schneider added in Friday’s statement, “and I will continue to work to build on this progress by advancing the STRANDED Act to finally compensate communities like Zion what they deserve.”

In addition to forming a task force, the STRANDED proposal would compensate communities storing waste through economic impact grants and would establish tax credits to encourage development and homeownership in affected communities.

Last year, ZionSolutions, which is part of Utah-based EnergySolutions, said it will finish deconstructing and demolishing the deactivated Zion nuclear power plant and its 20-story containment silos in 2018, according to EnergySolutions Vice-President Mark Walker, but 61 casks full of spent nuclear rods will remain on-site until a repository is found.

H.R. 5895 does not address long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel, but it does require the Department of Energy to “submit to Congress and the State of Nevada a report on the potential of locating a reprocessing or recycling facility for spent nuclear fuel near the Yucca Mountain site.”………http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/lake-county-news-sun/news/ct-lns-schneider-nuke-bill-st-0915-story.html

September 17, 2018 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

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