Federal authorities cancel shipment of high level radioactive trash to Idaho
Feds cancel research shipment of spent nuclear fuel to Idaho, Salt Lake Tribune, By KEITH RIDLER The Associated Press, 25 Oct 15, Boise, Idaho • Federal authorities have canceled the first of two proposed research shipments of spent nuclear fuel to eastern Idaho but still hope to deliver the second.
The U.S. Department of Energy said Friday that 25 fuel rods weighing about 100 pounds will not be sent to the Idaho National Laboratory.
The move comes after federal and state officials couldn’t come to terms on a waiver to a 1995 agreement that ties such shipments to nuclear waste cleanup at the 890-square-mile site. The federal agency is currently in violation of the agreement because of its failure to convert 900,000 gallons of liquid waste into solid form due to malfunctions at a $571 million plant……..
The Department of Energy wants to better understand “high burnup” spent fuel that is accumulating at nuclear power plants in the U.S. High burnup fuel remains in nuclear reactor cores longer to produce more energy but comes out more radioactive and hotter. It’s cooled in pools before being encased in steel and concrete.
The first proposed shipment to Idaho initially set for August would have come from the Byron Nuclear Power Station in Illinois.
The second shipment, also of 25 spent nuclear fuel rods weighing about 100 pounds, is scheduled for January 2016, from the North Anna Nuclear Power Station in Virginia.
The Department of Energy “will continue to work with the state of Idaho in an effort to identify a path forward for the proposed second shipment,” the agency said……..http://www.sltrib.com/home/3097310-155/feds-cancel-research-shipment-of-spent
Decadesof bungling over radioactive landfill in St Louis County
How a six-figure deal from the 1960s blocked clean-up of radiotoxic site, Examiner, Byron DeLear , 13 Oct 15 One hundred and twenty-six thousand dollars. That’s how much money was offered by Contemporary Metals Corporation in 1962 to acquire all the contents of the world’s first nuclear waste dump. It may seem unbelievable and incredibly reckless by today’s standards for the U.S government to even consider off-loading thousands of tons of highly dangerous radioactive material to a small private entity, but at that time the dangers were neither fully known nor appreciated. A subsequent owner illegally dumped a large quantity of this radioactive material at the West Lake Landfill.
Today, an underground fire threatens to ignite these dangerous substances inundated with uranium, thorium, and radium — a radiotoxic concoction found to be unique to nuclear weapons-related waste. Recently, experts brought by Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster estimate the fire could reach the radioactive waste in as little as 3-6 months. These same experts cite evidence of the radioactive contaminants leaching off-site into trees and groundwater. Emergency evacuation plans warning of a potential “catastrophic event” have also been released by St. Louis County — naturally, as can be expected, folks are growing restless.
Yesterday, four local school districts have sent letters to parents letting them know of the potential emergency and that the circumstances are being closely monitored. “We remain frustrated by the situation at the Landfill,” said Mike Fulton, superintendant of the Pattonville School District. “This impacts not only our community, but the entire St. Louis region.”
With the underground fire burning for nearly six years, four decades of inaction by a rotating cavalcade of shape-shifting private interests, numerous state and federal agencies, officials, and politicians, one might wonder:
What’s makes the West Lake Landfill case so special? — so absolutely unique a situation to have foisted upon this region a decades-long, ongoing saga of bungled management, finger-pointing, and negligence? Why hasn’t the site been cleaned-up? Continue reading
Anxieties, disputes, over St Loius underground fire burning near radioactive trash dump
“I can say with some confidence that a flood, fire, earthquake, tornado, what have you, is going to move this radioactive material and other contaminants at the landfill in a way we cannot control.”
Officials squabble as underground fire burns near radioactive waste dump in St. Louis area , LA Times, 21 Oct 15Matt Pearce Contact Reporter A fire is smoldering beneath a landfill in a densely populated suburb of St. Louis — and it has been there for five years.
Underground landfill fires, or “smoldering events” as some officials call them, aren’t rare. What makes the fire at the landfill in Bridgeton, Mo., so unusual is that it’s less than a quarter of a mile from a large deposit of nuclear waste — with no barrier in its way.
The radioactive legacy of St. Louis’ role in the World War II atomic weapons program has unleashed Cold War-style nuclear paranoia in the area, as some residents debate what kind of gas masks to buy or whether to move away. Corporate, federal and state officials don’t agree on what kind of threat West Lake Landfill poses to residents, or even if it poses a threat at all. Various scientists and officials have presented clashing stories to the public about whether the underground fire is moving and what might happen if it reaches the nuclear waste.
A year later, uncertainty over management of Vermont Yankee’s radioactive trash
Nearly A Year After Shutdown, Vermont Yankee Continues To Spark Debate http://digital.vpr.net/post/nearly-year-after-shutdown-vermont-yankee-continues-spark-debate#stream/0By JANE LINDHOLM & SAM GALE ROSEN • OCT 12, 2015 Almost a year after its shutdown, the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant is still sparking debate over safety, spending and the disposal of nuclear waste.
Vermont Edition spoke to Susan Smallheer, a reporter with theRutland Herald, about what’s been happening since the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant shut down last December, as well as the back and forth between Entergy Corporation and the state of Vermont as mediated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
On what’s currently happening at the plant
Entergy is putting a majority of buildings in what is called “safe and dark” mode, and demolishing minor buildings. Ultimately, they are preparing to transfer fuel from the spent pool into a facility that will begin construction in 2016.
“That will hold the spent nuclear from Vermont Yankee until the year 2052, when Entergy is expecting the Department of Energy to take away the fuel,” says Smallheer.
Uncertainties arise when discussing where this spent fuel will be held next. Vermont and Vermont Yankee have a contract with a Texas facility, owned privately by Waste Control Specialists, which holds a federal permit until 2045. According to filings that Entergy has made with the NRC, Vermont Yankee does not expect to begin deconstruction until 2068.
“Vermont Yankee has to be demolished, decommissioned and decontaminated before the waste can be shipped to Texas,” says Smallheer.
On how decommissioning funds are being spent
A point of contention for the state and Entergy is how Entergy Vermont Yankee is spending money from the decommissioning trust fund, which had reached approximately $660 million as of the shutdown.
“Now it’s down to about $600 million,” says Smallheer. “Yankee has made quite a few withdrawals with this so-called 30-day notification to the NRC, which is how the state of Vermont learns about it.”
The state claims that Entergy is not providing enough information on how these funds are being spent. “Vermont has a very vested interest in not only getting the plant decommissioned as quickly as possible, because Entergy said they’ll start decommissioning as long as there’s adequate funds in the decommissioning trust fund, but because whatever’s leftover goes back to Vermont ratepayers who started the fund,” says Smallheer.
“[The state] needs to know how [Entergy] is spending it, and if they can say it’s being spent wisely,” says Smallheer.
New York nuclear stations can’t afford costly shutdowns – so prolong decommissioning
New York nuclear plants phase out, challengingly http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/albany/2015/10/8579839/new-york-nuclear-plants-phase-out-challengingly One doesn’t have look hard in New York and throughout the region to see that the nuclear power industry has hit a rough patch.
The James FitzPatrick nuclear plant in Oswego County may be closing. The Ginna plant is on life support. Gov. Andrew Cuomo says he wants to close Indian Point.
Those closings and potential closings, combined with closure of Vermont Yankee in December and the announcement this month that Pilgrim in Massachusetts would be shuttered, herald what nuclear experts say is a denouement to the story of nuclear power in the United States.
“I would call it an organic phaseout,” said Mycle Schneider, a nuclear consultant based in Paris, during a conference at the New York Society for Ethical Culture on Thursday. “Nuclear’s position is threatened by a number of factors.”
Among those threats, he and others said, are the increasing costs of safely providing nuclear power, stagnant demand, a decrease in electricity use, and “ferocious competitors,” including natural gas and renewable power.
The question for state and federal regulators becomes how to safely and efficiently retire the nation’s nuclear fleet, a task infinitely more complex than getting rid of a typical power plant. Continue reading
Radioactive trash ship on its way to Australia, despite safety concerns
Ship carrying nuclear waste heads to Australia, West Australian CHERBOURG, AFP October 16, 2015 A ship carrying 25 tonnes of reprocessed nuclear waste is steaming to Australia despite protests from activists about an “environmental disaster waiting to happen”.
The BBC Shanghai left the northern French port of Cherbourg after approval from local officials, who carried out an inspection on Wednesday, and is due to arrive by the end of the year in NSW. It is laden with radioactive waste from spent nuclear fuel that Australia sent to France for reprocessing in four shipments in the 1990s and early 2000s, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation says.
The reprocessing involves removing uranium, plutonium and other materials, with the remaining substances stabilised in glass and stored in a container…….
Greenpeace, French environmental campaign group Robin des Bois (Robin Hood) and a leading Greens MP have called for the shipment, sent by Areva, to be halted. “Areva, almost bankrupt, are using a dustbin ship to carry waste, without any serious inspection!” Denis Baupin a senior MP with the French green party, tweeted.
Greenpeace Australia Pacific said the ship, owned by German firm BBC Chartering, was an “environmental disaster waiting to happen”, claiming the Shanghai was “blacklisted by the United States because of its safety record”……
But Areva’s external relations director, Bernard Monnot, said the ship was “not banned from ports in the United States but banned from transporting material for the American government”.
Nathalie Geismar from Robin des Bois said other ports had found it had a “staggering number of flaws”……
ANSTO said the material would be kept at the Lucas Heights facility in southern Sydney until a nuclear waste dump site, which has yet to be chosen, is found and constructed……https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/29834316/ship-carrying-nuclear-waste-heads-to-australia/
Closure of Pilgrim nuclear station opens a new era of costly, dangerous, radioactive trash clean-up
Decommissioning Pilgrim could take decades, millions Boston Globe By Nestor Ramos and David Abel GLOBE STAFF OCTOBER 13, 2015 Shutting off the power at a nuclear plant takes only a few minutes. But decommissioning one — safely removing and storing dangerous radioactive material and closing down the plant for good — can take decades.
In announcing Tuesday that it planned to close the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, owner Entergy Corp. revealed few details about how it plans to decommission its aging plant in Plymouth, rated among the least safe in the country. But recent history at nuclear plants in New England and beyond suggests that the process could be long, contentious and cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
Entergy has 60 years to close the plant, according to Nuclear Regulatory Commission guidelines, and that clock may not even start running until 2019, the year by which the company plans to cease operations at Pilgrim. That means it could be 2079 before radioactivity is reduced to safe levels — the ultimate goal of decommissioning.
Company officials say Pilgrim shouldn’t take that long. “We don’t intend to wait until 60 years,” said Bill Mohl, president of Entergy Wholesale Commodities, which oversees most of its nuclear plants.
Still, decommissioning any nuclear power plant takes time. Giant industrial edifices such as the reactor, where the fuel generates heat that is converted to steam, would be difficult to dismantle even if they were not brittle and dangerously radioactive. Radioactive nuclear fuel must remain in storage pools for years after the plant has ceased to generate power.
And even after the fuel is stowed in giant canisters called dry casks, deciding where to store the nuclear waste is still tied up by debate in Washington, and remains years away.
“It’s going to take years in any event,” said Geoffrey Fettus, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “It’s very complicated, very expensive industrial cleanup.” Continue reading
Burial of radioactive trash at San Onofre? NOT a good idea
Kelly Slater Weighs In on the State Decision to Bury Nuclear Waste at San Onofre, The Inertia,
OCTOBER 9, 2015 Kelly is pissed. And it’s with good reason. Despite widespread opposition, the California Coastal Commission approved on Tuesday the controversial plans to bury 2,700 steel castes of spent nuclear fuel in concrete bunkers 125 feet from the sea wall at San Onofre Beach. One proponent of the project claimed, “I wish that there were other options that were available now, but frankly I don’t see them.” Really? Burying them 125 feet from the water’s edge is the most viable solution? Kelly Slater thinks not:
So they’re planning on burying San-o’s nuclear waste at San-o for the next 20 years. Then what? They really gonna take it ‘away’? To where? At what point will we wake up before the fact and stop listening to people trying to sell Nuclear to the masses claiming it’s the safest and least expensive option? The endgame of this stuff is no joke. It won’t go away during our time on earth. We have the technology to move past this nowadays. Humans are a mess. What we leave in our wake is just a symptom of our ways of thinking. But now back to San onofre…thoughts?
Bill Alley, author of Too Hot to Touch, a book about the problems associated with storing nuclear waste, suggests that it would be much safer to transport the fuel to dry casks rather than leaving it in cooling ponds on site at San Onofre.
“The casks are fine for a couple of decades—certainly better than the pools,” Alley said. “But there’s no solution in the longer term, and that’s what really needs to be worked through.”
Alley and Slater touch on an important note: this is just a temporary solution to a much bigger problem. We must look beyond 20 years if we truly want to safeguard from another disastrous incident. After all, this is precisely the mentality that contributed to the most catastrophic oil and nuclear waste spills. Metal and concrete are NOT indestructible. Period……
With the daunting thought of “The Big One” looming in the minds of California residents, a quick, long-term solution is of the utmost importance. That is, unless we want a repeat of Fukishima, in which case the entire world should be concerned. Let’s do something about this and let’s do it now.
Germany says nuclear utilities can pay for decommissioning reactors
Germany Says Utilities’ Reserves Adequate for Nuclear-Power http://www.wsj.com/articles/germany-says-utilities-reserves-adequate-for-nuclear-power-exit-1444464002 Exit In wake of Fukushima, country plans to exit nuclear power by 2022 By STEFAN LANGE And MONICA HOUSTON-WAESCH Oct. 10, 2015 FRANKFURT—German utilities’ reserves for the country’s planned exit from nuclear power are adequate, the ministry for economics and energy said, citing a government-commissioned report on the matter.
“The affected companies have fully covered the costs with the designated provisions,” economics minister Sigmar Gabriel said in a statement.
The Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy had called for the stress test to determine whether utilities’ reserves are up to the task of financing nuclear waste and the decommissioning of plants. In the wake of the Fukushima disaster in 2011, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Germany would exit nuclear power by 2022, taking utilities by surprise. In the interim, politicians have voiced concern that nuclear operators could try to duck the long-term costs, leaving taxpayers with the bill.
Existing reserves for the country’s nuclear exit amount to €38.3 billion, the report said. In a worse-case scenario, costs could come to as much as €77 billion, however this assumes an average interest rate of a negative 1.6% until the year 2099, a highly unlikely event, the report noted.
Utilities have said that since the government supported the construction of nuclear facilities, it should also participate in dismantling them. Earlier this month, the economics ministry dashed those hopes.
“There will be no state assistance,” a ministry spokeswoman said on Oct. 5.
Separately, Germany’s cabinet is due to pass a draft law within days, giving utilities longer-lasting liabilities for the costs of a nuclear exit. In mid-September, shares of RWE AG and E.ON SE, the two largest utilities in the country, plummeted over 10% amid speculation that initial results of the test showed utilities’ reserves were inadequate. At the time, Mr. Gabriel said no preliminary results were available, and that the stress test was just one factor of many in determining future policy.
At the end of 2014, E.ON had earmarked €16.6 billion, while RWE set aside €10.4 billion in reserves for the nuclear exit.
“In real terms, these are the highest provisions for an asset like this on the planet,” E.ON chief executive Johannes Teyssen said in September following his company’s decision to retain its German nuclear operations. E.ON has three nuclear plants in operation and minority stakes in a number of others.
Mr. Teyssen made the comments after the company scrapped plans to shift its nuclear operations to a new company, Uniper. E.ON will proceed with plans to split, moving conventional power, trading and exploration and production to Uniper, but E.ON will keep its German nuclear operations, it said. At the time, the company also said it expected a substantial net loss for the full year.
Write to Stefan Lange at stefan.lange@wsj.com and Monica Houston-Waesch at nikki.houston@wsj.com
European regulators approve nuclear waste plan – all too generous to the operators
Nuclear energy is a sensitive political issue in Europe that pits the European Union’s biggest economy Germany – and its plans to phase out atomic energy and pin costs on its utilities – against supporters of the energy source, such as Britain and France.
Britain wants to build a facility to store nuclear waste, with the operating date planned around 2040 and disposal expected to start around 2075 and last until 2140.
It sought approval from the European Commission for a pricing formula that limits the price that plant operators will pay for disposing of nuclear waste.
The Commission, responsible for setting a level playing field in the 28-country bloc, gave the green light, saying that the plan was in line with EU state aid rules.
“The Commission’s assessment showed that the UK pricing methodology makes sure that operators of new power plants will bear the disposal costs for their spent fuel and intermediate level waste,” the EU executive said in a statement.
Greenpeace however said the regulator should have sought more feedback before issuing its decision and the taxpayer was likely to face a huge long-term bill. “It’s a transfer of risk to the taxpayer,” Doug Parr, Greenpeace policy director, said.
“It’s odd that the Commission did not see the need to have a full enquiry when other countries are facing different circumstances.”
While some member states support nuclear power, others question whether Britain’s plans to fund new nuclear reactors at Hinkley Point in conjunction with EDF are illegal state aid, even though the Commission approved them.
Germany‘s E.ON is smarting from having to take on liability for billions of euros of decommissioning costs and a court ruling that a German tax, contested by the big utilities, on the use of nuclear energy, does not break EU laws.
(Editing by David Clarke and Adrian Croft)
San Onofre site to get “concrete monolith” for high level radioactive trash – spent nuclear fuel
Watchdog: Nuclear waste can be stored at new San Onofre site, Coastal Commission says, Orange County Register, by Teri Sforza, Oct. 6, 2015 The California Coastal Commission on Tuesday approved construction of a controversial “concrete monolith” to bury spent fuel at the shuttered San Onofre nuclear power plant, despite many unknowns — including precisely how the casks containing the deadly waste will be monitored.
The permit is only for 20 years, but critics fear it could be forever.
Opponents blasted the plan, saying it creates “America’s largest beach-front nuclear waste dump” just 100 feet from the plant’s sand and sea wall, and vowed legal action to block it.
Instead, opponents said, the Coastal Commission should demand that Southern California Edison – majority owner of the closed San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station – move spent fuel to the Palo Verde nuclear power plant in Arizona. Edison is a co-owner of that plant. Or, opponents say, the fuel should be moved to a remote spot in the desert, or to a private waste storage facility planned in Texas.
San Onofre’s waste would be safer there, critics insisted. There are simply too many unknowns attendant to burying it for decades in thin, hard-to-monitor steel canisters next to the beach in a densely populated area vulnerable to earthquakes and flooding…….http://www.ocregister.com/articles/coastal-686400-commission-plan.html
St Louis landfill fire: risk to nearby nuclear waste prompts plan for disaster
Disaster plan developed for use if St. Louis landfill fire reaches buried nuclear waste US News By JIM SALTER, Associated Press ST. LOUIS (AP), 6 Oct 15, — Beneath the surface of a St. Louis-area landfill lurk two things that should never meet: a slow-burning fire and a cache of Cold War-era nuclear waste, separated by no more than 1,200 feet.
Government officials have quietly adopted an emergency plan in case the smoldering embers ever reach the waste, a potentially “catastrophic event” that could send up a plume of radioactive smoke over a densely populated area near the city’s main airport.
Although the fire at Bridgeton Landfill has been burning since at least 2010, the plan for a worst-case scenario was developed only a year ago and never publicized until this week, when St. Louis radio station KMOX first obtained a copy. County Executive Steve Stenger cautioned that the plan “is not an indication of any imminent danger.” “It is county government’s responsibility to protect the health, safety and well-being of all St. Louis County residents,” he said in a statement.
Landfill operator Republic Services downplayed any risk. Interceptor wells — underground structures that capture below-surface gasses — and other safeguards are in place to keep the fire and the nuclear waste separate……….
Directly next to Bridgeton Landfill is West Lake Landfill, also owned by Republic Services. The West Lake facility was contaminated with radioactive waste from uranium processing by a St. Louis company known as Mallinckrodt Chemical. The waste was illegally dumped in 1973 and includes material that dates back to the Manhattan Project, which created the first atomic bomb in the 1940s.
The Environmental Protection Agency is still deciding how to clean up the waste. The landfill was designated a Superfund site in 1990.
The proximity of the two environmental hazards is what worries residents and environmentalists. At the closest point, they are 1,000 to 1,200 feet apart. If the underground fire reaches the waste, “there is a potential for radioactive fallout to be released in the smoke plume and spread throughout the region,” according to the disaster plan……..
The plan calls for evacuations and development of emergency shelters, both in St. Louis County and neighboring St. Charles County. Private and volunteer groups, and perhaps the federal government, would be called upon to help, depending on the severity of the emergency………Last month, Koster said he was troubled by new reports about the site. One found radiological contamination in trees outside the landfill’s perimeter. Another showed evidence that the fire has moved past two rows of interceptor wells and closer to the nuclear waste…….http://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2015/10/06/disaster-plan-developed-in-case-fire-reaches-nuclear-waste
Storage of radioactive debris on beach near San Onofre nuclear facility!
NBC: Radioactive debris on beach at California nuclear plant — Magazine: Bombshell report reveals radiation cover-up — Experts: “Unbelievable what they’re doing there”… “We still don’t know how high those levels were” (VIDEO)http://enenews.com/nbc-radioactive-debris-beach-california-nuclear-plant-magazine-bombshell-report-reveals-radiation-cover-experts-unbelievable-theyre-doing-dont-high-levels-video?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ENENews+%28Energy+News%29
East County Magazine, Sep 26, 2015 (emphasis added): NBC TV Investigation Finds Evidence Of Radioactive Debris On Beach At San Onofre — An investigation by KNSD-TV Channel 7 , the NBC affiliate in San Diego, has dropped a bombshell regarding efforts to cover-up lax handling of nuclear waste and radiation leaks at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Stations… NBC’s investigation found high radiation levels endangered Southern California employees in trailers, including radiation levels so alarming that Nuclear Regulatory inspectors at times refused to perform routine radiation surveys… Hundreds of pieces of contaminated radioactive equipment were stored on both sides of Interstate 5, which bisects the San Onofre nuclear waste dump now under construction… Nuclear power expert Joe Hopenfeld told NBC 7 that San Onofre was “very, very sloppy, very very careless in handling radioactive material.”… Some have reportedly been pressured to sign non-disclosure agreements to prevent negative information from being made public… NBC reported that SDG&E did not respond to its requests for comments, nor did the Marines… Due to secrecy shrouding the San Onofre high nuclear readings… [Charles Langley is a former public advocate at the Utility Consumers’ Action Network who was terminated for being a whistleblower] observes, “We still don’t know how high those radiation levels were. And if Edison gets its way, we will never know… The answer is probably worse than we think.”
NBC San Diego, Sep 23, 2015: Documents Detail How Nuclear Material Was Handled at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station… The documents were released to individuals involved with the secret negotiations about the current condition and future handling of the 25-acre property… According to the source, the team representing the utilities has told all involved they want nondisclosure agreements signed so no one can go public with any information disclosed during the negotiations [and] the utilities are reluctant to provide full disclosure on what has occurred on the property since they took possession of it… Joe Hopenfeld, an expert on the nuclear power industry, said, “It was unbelievable what they were doing there“… The report says it was determined the cubicle was “responsible for most of the radiation measured on the beach.”… The other document NBC 7 Investigates received is dated April 10, 2014… This document was provided by the utilities to “identify those locations at the Mesa that were affected by the inappropriate presence of radioactive materials.”… After reading in the report about a steam generator system pipe that was “hot,” Hopenfeld said, “You have hot spots, you don’t know what they are.”… “This is an indication of the mentality and the culture at the time at SONGS,” he said. [Former San Onofre Safety Officer Vinrod Arora ] said the plant grounds should be thoroughly inspected by an independent third party and not by SCE or SDGE or any of their subcontractors. “Be very careful of the goods they accept from Edison with the blessings of the NRC,” Arora warned. The concern, he said, is not just for the land but for those that might someday use it.
French govt uses amendment to impose nuclear waste dump without parliament vote
The CIGEO project, managed by l’Agence nationale pour la gestion des déchets radioactifs (ANDRA), aims to bury nuclear waste 500 meters under the village of Bure. The wastes consist of 80,000 cubic meters of high-level, long-lived waste produced by French nuclear facilities. The project was estimated to cost 16.5 billion euros in 2005, but an estimate done in 2009 set the figure at 36 billion euros. The final cost is unknowable. For several years, anti-nuclear activists and residents have opposed what they call a “nuclear garbage dump.”
So how did nuclear waste find its way into a bill with 400 articles related to economic growth?
Executive Privilege Invoked for Approving French Nuclear Waste Site http://nf2045.blogspot.jp/2015/09/executive-privilege-invoked-for.html
For many years, the French nuclear establishment has been struggling to overcome public opposition and legislative obstacles to its plans to bury high-level, long-lived nuclear waste in the rural village of Bure. During the summer of 2015, the socialist government of Francois Hollande took the desperate measure of tacking the issue onto an omnibus bill called the loi Macron, which is supposed to be concerned only with growth, equality and economic opportunity.
Just about anything could be subjectively judged to promote economic growth, so the government took an expansive view and included whatever it wanted under a very flexible definition of matters which favor “growth, equality and economic opportunity.” Once the nuclear waste project was in the Macron Bill, the government then took advantage of an executive privilege called Article 49.3.
About Article 49.3 Continue reading
Not one drop of nuclear waste treated after 25 years of costly Hanford project
The Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant project there, known as WTP, is meant to exhume the waste, freeze it in glass, and give it a proper burial. But it’s been plagued by delays. It was expected to cost $4.3 billion and be built by 2011. Instead, the cost has swelled past $12 billion to date, with an estimated $7 billion in work left to be done. So far, not a drop of waste has been processed.
Nuclear cleanup project haunted by legacy of design failures and
whistleblower retaliation, Center for Public Integrity, Twenty-five years after the project began, the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant at Hanford is nearing a three-fold cost overrun, and not a single drop of waste has been treated By Patrick Malone 2 Sept 15
But it hasn’t fully turned the corner yet, according to recent comments by the federal officials now overseeing its operation. Continue reading
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PLEASE OPPOSE HR 8255 AND S.3639 – bills would accelerate satellite deployment, with no environmental review or safeguards – https://ncstd5li.quorum.us/campaign/169331/
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