Long term nuclear wastes problem remains unsolved: we should not be producing more of it
Above all, deep disposal should not be upheld as the solution that legitimates new
build. The existing nuclear legacy is already proving difficult to manage; the uncertainties of time-scale and inventory 
that new build would introduce would make the legacy unmanageable.
Why worry about nuclear waste? What has the future ever done for us? Ecologist, Andrew Blowers, 16th November 2016
The long term problems of what to do with nuclear waste remain entirely unsolved, writes Andrew Blowers. Yet governments and the nuclear industry continue to peddle their untenable ‘bury and forget’ policy of deep geological disposal, which only unloads the toxic legacy of modern day nuclear power and weapons onto uncountable future generations.
In all the recent debate about the future of nuclear energy, one issue, perhaps the most important of all, has been largely ignored.
Yet the problem of dealing with waste and contamination that follows nuclear activity as night follows day afflicts not only those generations that get the dubious benefit of nuclear electricity, but also imposes burdens of effort, risk and cost on generations into the far and unforeseeable future.
That burden will be disproportionately borne by those communities already hosting nuclear facilities as they will be the most likely recipients of any new nuclear development.
There are two primary reasons for neglect of this issue. One is that, in today’s world, there is an emphasis on the short run, on security and jobs and investment for the present and foreseeable future of our children and grandchildren.
Beyond that the future, both environmentally and socially, becomes unimaginable and so a perverse and cavalier disregard of the interests of those bearing the nuclear legacy becomes permissable, even normal.
At worst the needs of the future are subordinated to those of the present (‘what has the future ever done for us?’) while, at best, there is implicitly an assumption that the future will take care of itself, with perhaps a little help…….
All will be well in the best of all possible worlds
This idea that all will be well if only we can bury and forget is the second reason for neglecting the issue of waste in the debate over new build.
The UK Government glibly dismisses the problem of long term management with the casuist assertion that “effective arrangements will exist to manage and dispose of the waste that will be produced from new nuclear power stations.” (DECC, 2011, p.15). Continue reading
Europe’s nuclear waste problem areas – Hanford, Sellafield, Le Hague, Gorleben, Mayak ….
Why worry about nuclear waste? What has the future ever done for us? Ecologist, Andrew Blowers, 16th November 2016 Places on the periphery “…..Hanford, USA. Located in America’s North West, Hanford was the chosen location for the manufacture of the plutonium for the ‘Fat Man’ nuclear weapon that devastated Nagasaki on 9 August, 1945.
In the subsequent Cold War, Hanford’s nuclear activities expanded with nuclear reactors on the banks of the Columbia river, reprocessing ‘canyons’ in the middle of this vast site and a variety of production and experimental facilities scattered around its fringes.
Production at Hanford has ceased but a vast nuclear legacy remains: in the tank farms containing high-level liquid waste and sludge, some leaking towards the Columbia; in the abandoned reactors and decommissioned reprocessing works; and in waste management facilities and clean-up projects scattered around the site.
Cleaning up this legacy is a long-term, costly ($2bn. federal funding a year), intractable and complex task but it is an inescapable one.
Sellafield, UK. Like Hanford, Sellafield’s nuclear legacy stretches back to the beginning of the UK’s military nuclear programme.
On to its compact site is crammed around two-thirds of all the radioactivity from the UK’s nuclear legacy, all the country’s high-level wastes, most of the spent fuel, a stockpile of around 140 tonnes of plutonium and other complex streams of wastes.
These include often unrecorded mixtures of fuel, skips and other highly radioactive debris tipped into the notorious ponds and silos which, in the words of Margaret Hodge, a former Chair of the Public Accounts Committee pose “intolerable risks” to the public and the environment.
Cleaning up this legacy is a task that stretches decades ahead absorbing around £1.7 bn. from the government a year.
La Hague and Bure, France. In France, where three quarters of the country’s electricity is nuclear, much of the legacy is focused around the reprocessing facilities at La Hague at the tip of the Cotentin peninsula in Normandy.
At this remote location spent fuel is reprocessed for recycling in the form of mixed oxide fuel (MOX) or it is vitrified and stored pending disposal.
After several unsuccessful attempts to find a suitable and acceptable site for deep disposal, an underground laboratory at Bure, a nuclear no-man’s land in eastern France, is being stealthily and steadily developed as an underground laboratory though a fully-fledged disposal facility is still a long way off.
Gorleben, Germany. By contrast, there are other places, Gorleben in Germany being one, where resolute and continuing resistance on the part of local communities has prevailed to prevent, or at least restrain, the imposition of the nuclear industry and its unwanted and dangerous legacy.
But Gorleben’s legendary defence of its identity expresses just how difficult it will be for the nuclear industry to extend its reach and colonise greenfield sites.
Elsewhere there are sites such as the Mayak plutonium facilities at Ozersk in Russia, for long a closed city, scene of a major accident in 1957 (Medvedev,1979) and left with a legacy of high levels of environmental pollution in rivers and lakes from its military reprocessing and waste facilities (Brown, 2013).
And there are many other sites, across the world, where the nuclear legacy imposes risk, blight and environmental degradation on local communities. http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2988342/why_worry_about_nuclear_waste_what_has_the_future_ever_done_for_us.html
British nuclear wastes to remain at old nuclear power plants
Nuclear waste to remain at old UK plants rather than moved off-site
Leaving more contaminated soil and rubble on-site instead of moving it to dedicated dumps is cheaper and allows for quicker clean-ups, say officials, Guardian, Adam Vaughan, 10 Nov 16 More contaminated soil and rubble will remain at the sites of Britain’s old nuclear power plants rather than going to a dedicated dump, under government-backed proposals.
But officials said that the sites would not be left in a hazardous state because international radiological standards would still be upheld.
They argued the changes would mean former nuclear sites could be cleaned up more quickly, less waste would need to be moved around the country, and decommissioning would be cheaper than under today’s regime.
Experts were split over the proposals. Some said that it showed the UK did not know what to do with its nuclear waste, but others welcomed it as a way of saving money.
The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) currently oversees the licensing of 17 nuclear sites that are slated for decommissioning and cleanup. The final stage involves dealing with large amounts of rubble, concrete, brick and soil, some of which is radioactive and designated low level waste (LLW). That waste currently goes to the UK’s only LLW site, at Drigg in Cumbria, which is almost full……..
nuclear critics said the changes showed the government lacked a long-term plan on nuclear waste.
“It’s another example of how much of the stuff we have and we don’t really know what we’re going to do with it, we’re just leaving it [the LLW]. It’s an appalling choice,” said Dr Paul Dorfman of University College London, who was involved in the decommissioning of Harwell in Oxfordshire, a former nuclear research site which is now partly used as a business park.
“The notion of the acceptability about LLW being just low level: you can say low, but this stuff is dangerous. You don’t want this stuff near you,” he said.
Under the proposed changes, former sites would no longer be considered “nuclear” at the end of their cleanup, and therefore no longer the responsibility of the ONR. Regulation would fall instead to the Health and Safety Executive and environment agencies.
“What the government is suggesting is, they’re turning off the liability but they’re not turning off the risk or hazard,” said John Large, a nuclear consultant who has advised the UK government on nuclear issues.
He said one of the drivers behind the change might be the pressure on the ONR from regulating and overseeing the new nuclear reactors planned in the UK, such as EDF’s new reactors at Hinkley Point in Somerset, and the regulator wanting to lighten its load. “I suspect the ONR are cutting their cloth here, I suspect they are hard pushed,” he said.
The government’s discussion paper said the changes could not be made without legislation being amended to allow the ONR to relinquish regulation of sites in their final stages of decommissioning. A public consultation on the proposal is planned in 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/nov/10/nuclear-waste-to-remain-at-old-uk-plants-rather-than-moved-off-site
Advocates Protest In their letter, the plan’s opponents argue that the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 bars the federal government from taking responsibility for interim waste in the absence of a federal repository.
the concept of interim storage came out of the Obama Administration’s Blue Ribbon Commission on nuclear waste.
Meanwhile, the Energy Department remains decades away from developing a permanent repository.
.At nearly every meeting of the San Onofre Community Engagement Panel, residents line up to ask whether sea air might cause corrosion in the casks, what the chance of leakage is, and who’s responsible if the casks degrade
As the amount of waste grows, so does the government’s liability……….The government’s estimated total liability is $29 billion.”That’s probably low, because it’s getting more expensive to store this stuff,”
Nuclear Plants Closing Early Leave Decades of Toxic Waste Stranded http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-03/decades-of-toxic-waste-stranded-as-nuclear-plants-close-early Catherine Traywick ctraywick Mark Chediak markchediak November 4, 2016 —
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U.S. government has no permanent repository for spent fuel
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76,000 metric tons of waste stored at commercial sites Continue reading
Ukraine (over) confident of its nuclear waste storage plans
Nuclear Regulation Inspectorate approves preliminary spent nuclear fuel storage facility safety report http://en.interfax.com.ua/news/economic/381495.html, 4 Nov 16, A panel of Ukraine’s State Nuclear Regulation Inspectorate at a Thursday meeting approved a conclusion of the public examination of nuclear and radiation security under a preliminary safety analysis report for the centralized spent nuclear fuel storage facility.
“Thus, the panel confirmed that the spent nuclear fuel storage facility project meets the nuclear and radiation safety requirements. According to a resolution of the panel, some project safety solutions shortly described in the project will be presented in details at the next designing stage,” the press service of national nuclear generating company Energoatom said.
The conclusion will be sent to the State Architectural and Construction Inspectorate of Ukraine.
Energoatom President Yuriy Nedashkovsky said at the meeting of the panel, the discussion of the issues linked to construction of the centralized spent nuclear fuel storage facility should be accelerated.
“Technologies and project solutions selected for construction of the facility meet international spent nuclear treatment requirements and ensure reliable and safe storage of spent nuclear fuel from Ukrainian nuclear power plants (NPPs). The feasibility study of the centralized spent nuclear fuel storage facility passed public environmental examination and obtained a positive conclusion. Today all organization and legal issues related to construction of the storage facility have been settled. A delay with the start of construction would entail further financial losses for Ukraine, while the launch of the facility would considerably increase the country’s energy security,” he said.
Head of State Nuclear Regulation Inspectorate Serhiy Bozhko said that construction of spent nuclear fuel storage facilities is permanent global practice, but today this solution is only an intermediate link in settling the issue of treading spent nuclear fuel in a long-term outlook.
Japan’s danger: spent nuclear fuel pools
“Reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel is something only about one-fifth of countries operating nuclear power plants are paying any attention to, as most places like the UK and France are either halting operation or considering it,” said von Hippel.
“Declining international prices for low-enriched uranium, the fuel for light-water reactors, mean there is no economic value,” he explained.
If there’s a fire at spent nuclear fuel pool, 24 million would need to be evacuated http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/768290.html by Lee Keun-young, senior staff write Nov.1,2016 Analysis indicates that method of storing spent nuclear fuel presents risk, and is going mostly ignored
More than 24 million people would have to be evacuated if a fire occurred at the water pool holding spent nuclear fuel at the Kori No. 3 Nuclear Power Plant, an analysis indicates.
“Analysis with HYSPLIT (Hybrid Single Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory) model, the computer recognized by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for assessment of atmospheric radiation exposure from a nuclear power plant accident, showed maximum damages covering an area of 54,000 square kilometers or over 50% the national territory, and the evacuation of up 24.3 million people due to leaking of cesium-137 (Cs-137) and other radioactive materials in the event of a fire in the Kori No. 3 reactor spent nuclear fuel water pool,” said senior researcher Kang Jung-min of the US Natural Resources Defense Council in an Oct. 31 debate at the National Assembly on the topic “How dangerous is spent nuclear fuel?”
HYPSLIT code was also the analytical program applied by the US at the time of the 2011 Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant disaster in Japan.
Averages from the analysis, which involved the inputting of meteorological conditions for the first weeks of the months January to December 2015, showed large-scale damages in other countries besides South Korea. In addition to the 5.4 million people who would have to be evacuated in South Korea, another 1.1 million would require evacuation in North Korea, 7.9 million in Japan, and 700,000 in China.
“The method of storing spent nuclear fuel in dense water pools presents a serious risk of accident from the loss of cooling functions, not just from an earthquake, tsunami or other natural disaster but also potentially from a terrorist or missile attack,” Kang said.
“To reduce the damage risk, we need to move [spent fuel] into dry storage facilities five to six years after it comes out of the reactor, and to store in a regular rather than dense way,” he added.
Princeton University professor Frank von Hippel noted the same day that “the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission reported benefits equivalent to just 10% of costs in the case of dry storage, but it also reduced the costs by limiting the danger radius to 80 km and using 1995 figure to calculate life values for cancer deaths.”
“It costs far less to move spent fuel into dry containers than it does to reprocess it,” von Hippel added.
In 2003, the US Congress asked the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to review a plan for keeping spent nuclear fuel in water pool storage for five years before transferring it to dry containers and storing it on open racks. A report was published in 2006, but the NRC did not take action. Its benefit calculations were released only recently after the Fukushima disaster.
“Reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel is something only about one-fifth of countries operating nuclear power plants are paying any attention to, as most places like the UK and France are either halting operation or considering it,” said von Hippel.
“Declining international prices for low-enriched uranium, the fuel for light-water reactors, mean there is no economic value,” he explained.
Australia’s pivotal role in the global nuclear lobby’s pitch for survival
So – the Australian public dreams on – preoccupied with the Melbourne Cup and other sporting events. And the global nuclear lobby continues its machinations. It would be such a strong selling point, to be able to tell South Asian countries that they can go ahead with nuclear power, as Australia will take out the radioactive trash.
The machinations of the global nuclear lobby http://readersupportednews.org/pm-section/27-27/40006-the-machinations-of-the-global-nuclear-lobby-qdown-underq Noel Wauchope , 31 October 2016
Australia has been pretty much of a forgotten player in the global nuclear “renaissance”. Not any more. The big nuclear players – USA, Russia, Canada, France, China , Japan South Korea are busily marketing nuclear technology to every other country that they can. Strangely enough little ole non-nuclear Australia, (population 23 million) has a starring role to play in all this.
You see, the global nuclear lobby’s problem is – what to do with the radioactive wastes? I know that the new geewhiz guys and gals are pushing hard for Generation IV reactors that will “eat the wastes”. The trouble is – there is an awful lot of the stuff. World total of high level radioactive wastes was estimated at 250,000 tonnes in 2010 . There must be quite a bit more by now. The other trouble is that even the most geewhiz of the as yet non- existent Gen IV nuclear reactors still would leave a smaller but highly toxic volume of radioactive trash, which would still require disposal.
This leads to a serious marketing issue. If countries such as USA, Japan, Canada, South Korea, are still having trouble dealing with their own domestic accumulation of nuclear waste, how can they persuasively sell nuclear reactors to Asian, Middle Eastern and African countries? The waste problem must be solved!
The wizards of the global nuclear lobby have come up with what they see as the perfect answer. A far away land, with lots of space that’s owned by “unimportant” indigenous people, could import the wastes, and thus remove the problem. It’s a sort of variant on the old “toilet way down the back”. Continue reading
Secret documents reveal that British tax-payers will cop the costs of Hinkley’s nuclear wastes and any serious accident
The UK government accepts that, in setting a cap, the residual risk, of the very worst-case scenarios where actual cost might exceed the cap, is being borne by the government.”
Separate documents confirm that the cap also applies should the cost of decommissioning the reactor at the end of its life balloon.
Secret government papers show taxpayers will pick up costs of Hinkley nuclear waste storagehttps://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/oct/30/hinkley-point-nuclear-waste-storage-costs Documents show steps Whitehall took to reassure French energy firm EDF and Chinese investors,Guardian, Jamie Doward, 30 Oct 16, Taxpayers will pick up the bill should the cost of storing radioactive waste produced by Britain’s newest nuclear power station soar, according to confidential documents which the government has battled to keep secret for more than a year.
The papers confirm the steps the government took to reassure French energy firm EDF and Chinese investors behind the £24bn Hinkley Point C plant that the amount they would have to pay for the storage would be capped.
The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy – in its previous incarnation as the Department for Energy and Climate Change – resisted repeated requests under the Freedom of Information Act for the release of the documents which were submitted to the European commission.
“The government has attempted to keep the costs to the taxpayer of Hinkley under wraps from the start,” said Dr Doug Parr, Greenpeace chief scientist. “It’s hardly surprising as it doesn’t look good for the government’s claim that they are trying to keep costs down for hardworking families.”
But, earlier this month, on the very last day before government officials had to submit their defence against an appeal for disclosure of the information, the department released a “Nuclear Waste Transfer Pricing Methodology Notification Paper”. Marked “commercial in confidence”, it states that “unlimited exposure to risks relating to the costs of disposing of their waste in a GDF [geological disposal facility], could not be accepted by the operator as they would prevent the operator from securing the finance necessary to undertake the project”.
Instead the document explains that there will be a “cap on the liability of the operator of the nuclear power station which would apply in a worst-case scenario”. It adds: “The UK government accepts that, in setting a cap, the residual risk, of the very worst-case scenarios where actual cost might exceed the cap, is being borne by the government.”
Separate documents confirm that the cap also applies should the cost of decommissioning the reactor at the end of its life balloon. The level of the cap is unclear. But Dr David Lowry, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Resource and Security Studies in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who made the FoI request, said it was clear that the risk of footing the bill for a significant cost overrun had been transferred from Hinkley’s operator to the taxpayer.
“This shows that the government cares more about the economic future of a foreign power generator than British taxpayers,” Lowry said.
In return for the cap, the document reveals that Hinkley’s operator will pay the government a risk fee which “is expected to be relatively low, reflecting the high level of confidence that the cap will not be breached”.
But Lowry pointed out that the nuclear industry had form when it came to sizable cost over-runs. He warned that an accident that could force the closure of the reactor, either because of problems with it or at another plant, as happened in Japan, would leave the taxpayer having to pay billions of pounds for the clear-up years after it ceased generating revenues.
A government spokesman said: “All operators of new nuclear power stations in the UK are legally obliged to meet the full costs of decommissioning and their full share of waste management and disposal costs. They will also pay the UK government to dispose of the waste produced at the end of a plant’s life.”
Transport of nuclear waste – as big a problem as storage
Nuclear Waste Travels With One Heck Of An Entourage Truck Yeah, Andrew P Collins , 27 Oct 16 Do you compost? Rinse and separate your recycling? Yeah, getting rid of garbage is a pain. Unless your garbage is nuclear waste. Getting rid of that is apparently a production of epic proportions……..
National and Texas groups unite against nuclear waste “interim” storage scheme
The groups are concerned that the “interim” storage facility may become the de facto permanent home
for the highly toxic waste……. taxpayers footing the entire bill, those that generated the waste would have no incentive to ensure its safe disposal in a permanent geologic repository.
‘storage sites’ likely would create a de facto high level national waste sacrifice zone.
Four Groups Urge NRC To Halt Review Of License Application For High-level Nuclear Waste Dump In Texas https://www.yahoo.com/news/four-groups-urge-nrc-halt-review-license-application-143000265.html WASHINGTON and AUSTIN, Texas, Oct. 27, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ –– Opposed to an industry scheme that risks a proposed short-term nuclear waste storage site becoming a permanent site while sticking taxpayers for the bill, four leading national and Texas groups — Beyond Nuclear, Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), Public Citizen, and the Texas-based Sustainable Energy & Economic Development (SEED) Coalition — are calling on the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to follow the law and terminate its review of the license application for the controversial plan by Waste Control Specialists (WCS) to construct an interim high-level nuclear waste dump in Andrews County, TX.
Available online at http://pubc.it/2eMSaXM, the letter from the four groups to the NRC’s top executive argues that the WCS proposal would require the NRC to break federal law, which bars the U.S. government from assuming responsibility for interim waste storage in the absence of a federal repository for permanent disposal. They contend that, until a long-term geological repository is ready, federal law forces utilities to solve their own interim storage problems, including bearing the economic burden for facility construction and operation, and liability for accidents.
The groups’ letter demands that NRC immediately drop its review of the WCS application, including its plans to embark on an environmental study.
High-level radioactive wastes are irradiated nuclear fuel rods, and short-term exposure at close range, with no shielding, can cause immediate death. Lesser exposure can cause death or cancer for over a million years. It is so dangerous that Congress required that it be buried deep underground in geologically isolated repository for millennia. This danger also prompted federal lawmakers to prohibit putting taxpayers on the hook for “interim” solutions that could become de facto permanent surface storage sites.
According to the groups, there is no safety imperative for moving the waste to a consolidated storage facility. The safety and security of our toxic nuclear waste stockpile, not financial gain for this private entity, should drive NRC waste storage activity. Rather than reviewing this premature and illegitimate proposal the NRC should focus its efforts on safeguarding the onsite storage of waste at nuclear facilities across the country.
“By requiring a permanent deep geological repository to be operating beforecentralized interim storage could be opened, Congress wanted to prevent the very real danger of a de facto permanent parking lot dump – a nuclear waste storage site that would be designed for the short-term but be there forever,” said Kevin Kamps, radioactive waste specialist, Beyond Nuclear. He added: “WCS is a cynical shell game and taxpayers are sure to lose. Congress was right that liability for the costs of storing commercial irradiated nuclear fuel belongs with the generators and should not be shifted onto the backs of the American public.”
Diane D’Arrigo, radioactive waste project director, Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), said: “Moving nuclear power waste over roads, rails and waterways to a supposedly temporary site puts us all at risk and creates only an illusion of a solution.”
Tom “Smitty” Smith, director of the Public Citizen Texas office, said: “Texans do not consent to the risky plan to store high-level radioactive waste at private sites on an open pad above ground in Texas. Another company near Hobbs New Mexico – less than 50 miles away — is expected to file an application to open a storage site that would accept the rest of the nation’s high level nuclear waste. These twin ‘storage sites’ likely would create a de facto high level national waste sacrifice zone. This proposal invites disaster because the private owners will be cutting costs at every turn to maximize profits. If there was radioactive contamination our land, air, water, and human health could be harmed for millennia.”
USA’s Energy Secretary Moniz promoting nuclear industry for all he’s worth
Moniz: Congress Should Authorize Interim Nuclear Fuel Storage, Morning Consult, | OCTOBER 24, 2016 Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz warned Monday that Congress and businesses need to act with more urgency to work out a medley of challenges in promoting nuclear power.
The United States is on track to experience a wave of nuclear plant retirements around 2030. …… Because raising capital and making the necessary business decisions on nuclear power is a slow process, there are only about five years left to start relicensing before many nuclear plants close. If more nuclear plants can extend their licenses to run for 80 years rather than 60, that would be “a very big deal” in terms of keeping nuclear power available, Moniz said.
This is important because the lack of a clear solution for storage of spent nuclear fuel creates a “significant headwind” for opening new nuclear facilities, Moniz said. He called on Congress to pass legislation creating an interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel.
Moniz previously told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee the department might be allowed to store nuclear waste at a privately managed facility without congressional approval.
Even so, Moniz said Monday that it would help if Congress acted on the issue. “If Congress acted to give us the authorities — and whether public or privately held storage — we could be having a pilot facility running in not much more than five years,” he said…..
“I believe that consolidated storage, sometimes called interim storage, is absolutely essential,” Moniz said. “No matter when a geological repository is realized, interim storage should be part of the system.”……
The Different Dangerosity of Some Radioactive Elements.
Ukraine decides to cease paying Russia for nuclear waste disposal
Ukraine to stop paying Russia for nuclear waste disposal Rt.com : 21 Oct, 2016 From next year Ukraine is not going to pay Russia $200 million annually to remove spent nuclear fuel from the country, according to Ukrainian Energy Minister IgorNasalik.
The country will build its own spent nuclear fuel storage facility, the minister announced.
The storage site chosen is in the exclusion zone of the Chernobyl nuclear power, but it is not designed to store nuclear waste for a long time.
The exclusion zone is a 30-kilometer radius from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant established by the USSR soon after the 1986 accident.
Construction of the new central used fuel storage facility is expected to start in March 2017, according to a director of a subsidiary of the Ukrainian nuclear power plant operator Energoatom.
European nuclear industry experts are concerned the Ukrainian project does not meet standards for nuclear safety and creates a risk of a radioactive accident.
In August, the former director of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant Mikhail Umanets warned of the rising number of emergency situations in Ukraine’s nuclear energy sector, stressing the country would face a “collapse” in the sector within seven years……https://www.rt.com/business/363655-ukraine-nuclear-waste-russia/
Dairyland Power gets major compensation for radioactive trash from its nuclear reactor that closed in 1987
Feds to pay Dairyland $73.5 million in nuclear settlement Dairyland Power has reached a major settlement with the U.S. Department of Energy over nuclear waste stored from its former nuclear reactor located at the La Crosse Boiling Water Reactor in Genoa.
The e-waste mountains – in pictures
The e-waste mountains – in pictures https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/gallery/2016/oct/18/the-e-waste-reduce-waste-old-technology-mountains-in-pictures Sustainable development goal target 12.5 is to reduce waste. But with a planet increasingly dependent on technology, is that even possible? Kai Loeffelbein’s photographs of e-waste recycling in Guiyu, southern China show what happens to discarded computers Anna Leach @avleachy 19 October 2016
1 This Month
9 September – online public forum THREE MILE ISLAND:
7-8:30 PM ET,
Legacy, resistance to reopening – https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_-LGJU4j6TD2Hgf0rpgAr1A#/registration
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.
No Nuclear in Cwm Llynfi! Stop the nuclear power station near Maesteg.
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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