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Japan’s massive, and growing, plutonium problem

Japan currently possesses 44 tons of plutonium, according to the Atomic Energy Commission. Nine tons, including the latest shipment, are in Japan, while the remaining tons are in Britain and France, where spent fuel from Japan has been reprocessed.

Storage pools for spent fuel are quickly reaching capacity at nuclear power plants across the nation. If Aomori Prefecture refuses to accept spent fuel, nuclear plants will be saddled with overflowing spent fuel pools and will be unable to continue operations.

Direct disposal, or burying spent fuel without reprocessing, was considered under the previous Democratic Party of Japan government. But discussions have gone nowhere after the Liberal Democratic Party took over government in December.

plutonium238_1Plutonium problem lingers as mixed-oxide fuel comes to Japan June 25, 2013 THE ASAHI SHIMBUN A shipment of mixed-oxide fuel will arrive in Japan as early as June 27, part of the nation’s plutonium stockpile that is already equivalent to 5,000 Nagasaki-type atomic bombs.

The shipment, two years behind schedule due to the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, is expected to be used for plutonium-thermal (pluthermal) power generation, a key component of Japan’s nuclear fuel recycling program.

However, the fuel recycling program has been plagued by so many problems that the nation’s plutonium stockpile could increase further, heightening concerns in the international community about possible nuclear weapons proliferation. Continue reading →

June 26, 2013 Posted by | - plutonium, Japan, Reference | Leave a comment

Nuclear firms gave big bucks to US congressmen to promote MOX nuclear program

money-lobbyingEnergy Department Nuclear Nonproliferation Program Plagued By Problems Center For Public Integrity   HUFFINGTON POST By Douglas Birch and R. Jeffrey Smith, 25 June 13 “…..For years, the plant has been kept alive by South Carolina’s mostly Republican congressional delegation, which includes many strident critics of federal spending, budget deficits, and mammoth public works projects – including Sen. Tim Scott (R.) and Rep. Joe Wilson (R.). On the issue of the MOX plant, which employs 2,100 workers, they have been hugely supportive.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), joined others on Capitol Hill in January in asserting that “the time has come for the President to face up to the need to control federal spending.” Since then, Graham has lectured DOE officials at hearings on the diplomatic and security disaster that would ensue if the Savannah River project was halted.

With three other Republican senators, Graham pledged in a joint statement last month to hold up nominations and use the budget process “to ensure the [MOX] program moves forward.”

Graham declined to comment for this article. According to an analysis by the Center for Public Integrity of campaign donations and leadership committee receipts listed by the Center for Responsive Politics, Graham has received $46,500 since 2001 from three private firms with a stake in the MOX project. In total, the firms provided at least $437,000 in campaign funds during this period to members of the four congressional committees that decide the Energy Department’s annual budge

Rep. James Clyburn (D.-S.C.), who has long been a member of the House Democratic leadership and who has boasted about helping block Hobson’s challenge to the plant, collected $51,000 in political funding from the firms, whose lobbyists and officers also donated $40,000 to a golf charity he runs. Clyburn’s spokeswoman Hope Derrick said the congressman “is solely motivated by the best interests of the people and communities he serves in Congress.”

In the last three years alone, Areva and Shaw have spent a total of $6.3 million to lobby for their legislative interests, including efforts by at least four former congressmen and some former committee staffers that advocated spending on MOX and nuclear issues, according to an analysis by the Center for Public Integrity……”.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/25/energy-department-nuclear-nonproliferation_n_

June 26, 2013 Posted by | - plutonium, politics, Resources -audiovicual, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Savannah River Nuclear Site the $billion “plutonium elimination” project

PuEnergy Department Nuclear Nonproliferation Program Plagued By Problems  HUFFINGTON POST Center For Public Integrity  |  By Douglas Birch and R. Jeffrey Smith, 25 June 13  “….The government’s current estimate is that the plant will not begin operation before 2019, seven years late. Estimates of its operating costs over a 15 to 20 year period range from $8 billion to $12 billion, meaning that it could cost around $20 billion in total to create fuel rods from all 34 tons of the plutonium that Washington has promised to eliminate.

But even if the government finds buyers for the fuel – which seems doubtful – it will not recoup more than $2 billion of its expenses, according to the Congressional Research Service. At the current pricetag, eliminating each pound of plutonium at the U.S. plant may cost roughly $243,000, according to Matthew Bunn, a nuclear expert at Harvard.

So far, around $3.7 billion has been spent on the fuel factory, which could wind up an abandoned concrete shell in the middle of a pine forest. Another $700 million was used to design a related plutonium dismantlement facility that NNSA never built.

Those expenditures have helped make it the single most expensive U.S. nonproliferation project now under way, according to independent experts…..

New budget troubles arise

Austerity pressures in Washington have created new obstacles for the companies and their lobbyists, however. The Obama administration, after convening four high-level meetings about the MOX plant this spring, urged a 50 percent cut in its planned spending in fiscal year 2014, to just $320 million.

“Cost growth and fiscal pressure may make the project unaffordable,” the Energy Department said in its formal budget proposal to Congress. A spokesman for the department declined comment about the review now under way……..” .http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/25/energy-department-nuclear-nonproliferation_n_3498626.html

June 26, 2013 Posted by | - plutonium, USA | Leave a comment

Savannah River MOX project should be shut down

the MOX plant has “become from my point of view a pretty meaningless program” that should now be killed.

“The irony of this whole project is that it basically started with a good goal, of eliminating weapons grade material with the idea that it won’t be available for weapons purposes,”  “But then it sort of evolved into this program that provides a fairly significant subsidy to the plutonium economy. So in the end, we will end up with more plutonium.”

How a Massive Nuclear Nonproliferation Effort Led to More Proliferation, The Atlantic,  More than a decade of negotiations with Russia produced a clear winner, and it was not the United States. DOUGLAS BIRCH AND R. JEFFREY SMITHJUN 24 2013 SAVANNAH RIVER SITE, South Carolina – A half-finished monolith of raw concrete and rebar rises suddenly from slash pine forests as the public tour bus crests a hill at this heavily-secured site south of rural Aiken……..

Dark clouds hover over this ambitious federal project, 17 years in the making and at least six more from completion–if, indeed, it is ever completed. It lies at the center of one of the United States’ most troubled, technically complex, costly, and controversial efforts to secure nuclear explosive materials left stranded by the end of the Cold War.

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This plant – and another just like it in Russia — is meant to transform one of these materials, plutonium, into commercial reactor fuel that can be burned to provide electricity for homes, schools and factories, essentially turning nuclear “swords into ploughshares.” The aim of the so-called Mixed Oxide, or MOX, plant is to ensure the material never winds up in the hands of terrorists.

In the right hands, only nine pounds of plutonium — an amount about the size of a baseball — could make a bomb as powerful as the one the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima. The world’s military and civilian nuclear programs have produced about 500 metric tons of pure plutonium, an amount that could fuel tens of thousands of nuclear weapons yet fit into a backyard shed. Countries with nuclear programs continue to add roughly two tons to this inventory every year.

Washington has been spending hundreds of millions of dollars annually to help secure or remove plutonium and weapons-grade uranium in dozens of countries. But the U.S.-Russia plutonium disposition program, which includes the Savannah River plant, is the U.S. government’s single most expensive nonproliferation project now, according to Michelle Cann, senior budget analyst with a nonprofit group called Partnership for Global Security. Continue reading →

June 25, 2013 Posted by | - plutonium, Reference, reprocessing, weapons and war | Leave a comment

UK nuclear decommissioning costs soar- could be over £100bn.

DecommissioningUK’s nuclear clean-up programme to cost billions more than expected pound-sterlingGuardian UK,   23 June 13, Nuclear Decommissioning Authority declines to predict final lifetime clean-up cost amid fears total bill could exceed £100bn

The public body charged with overseeing the dismantling of Britain’s network of atomic power and research stations will reveal on Monday that its estimates for the lifetime cost of the programme has risen by billions of pounds.

Despite this, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) will say in its annual report that it is getting to grips with the clean-up problem because the rate of cost growth is slowing year-on-year.

Yet the soaring costs will alarm industry critics at a time when the government is trying to encourage construction of a new generation of atomic power plants while plans to construct a permanent home for high-level radioactive waste are stalled.

In the NDA’s 2011 annual report the provisional cost of dealing with the UK’s nuclear legacy was put at £53bn, compared with a 2010 figure of £49bn. The new number in the 2012 set of accounts is expected to be around £55bn. But under previous accounting methods, the figure historically used has risen to well over £80bn with some predicting the final bill could exceed £100bn. Continue reading →

June 24, 2013 Posted by | decommission reactor, UK | Leave a comment

Hanford radioactive cleanup $billions over budget

Hanford 2011see-this.wayNuclear waste clean-up delayed and billions over budget http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57590163/nuclear-waste-clean-up-delayed-and-billions-over-budget/

  CBS News: Worry about explosion of unstable radioactive material at U.S. nuclear site — “We don’t understand the chemical reactions” -Safety Manager (VIDEO)  http://enenews.com/cbs-news-worry-about-explosion-at-u-s-nuclear-site-video#Hanford Title: Nuclear waste clean-up delayed and billions over budget

Source: CBS News
Reporter: Carter Evans
Date: June 19, 2013 
h/t Anonymous tip

Little is known about what was put in the tanks and how it’s changed since the 1940s. [Donna Busche, a manager of environmental and nuclear safety at Hanford,]  is worried it’s unstable and an explosion during clean-up could release radioactive material.

Asked how a treatment facility can be built when it’s unclear what is in the tanks, Busche says, “I think that is the fundamental issue. We don’t understand the chemical reactions, but yet we’re building the plant.”

Similar concerns were raised in a review by the Government Accountability Office, Congress’ investigative agency. It blamed the Department of Energy for building the plant before the design process was complete. As a result, parts of the facility “may not work and may not meet nuclear safety standards,” the report said.
Watch the broadcast here

June 22, 2013 Posted by | Resources -audiovicual, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

VIDEO: Hanford’s radioactive waste crisis

Waste will be leaking into the ground water. It will continue to leak. It’s an urgent problem that must be solved.”

 But engineers have to get this right. It will take 40 years to treat the waste, and during that time, radiation will make parts of the plant inaccessible to humans.

see-this.wayVideo: Nuclear waste clean-up delayed and billions over budget http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57590163/nuclear-waste-clean-up-delayed-and-billions-over-budget/ By Carter Evans (CBS News) 19 June 13, The new Secretary of Energy has been on the job only four weeks, but he made a beeline Wednesday to see his biggest headache for himself. Ernest Moniz went to the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state.

Hanford made the plutonium for American nuclear weapons from the Manhattan Project in World War II until 1987. Now, highly radioactive waste is leaking, and a project to clean it up has stalled.The clean-up at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation costs U.S. taxpayers $2 billion every year. This winter, engineers discovered six new leaks of radioactive material from underground tanks.

“There’s something on the order of 1,000 gallons a year that are leaking now from these six tanks,” says Washington Gov. Jay Inslee. Continue reading →

June 22, 2013 Posted by | USA, wastes | 4 Comments

UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority doesn’t know what to finally do with nuclear wastes

No plan to dump nuclear waste Bill Hamilton The Guardian,   22 June 2013 As a public body, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has a duty to deliver value for money. Moreover, all nuclear site operators have a regulatory requirement to optimise site operations. There is no proposal to “dump” radioactive waste at Bradwell or at any other NDA-owned site (Only way is Essex – nuclear waste row, 17 June). Our first decommissioning priority is hazard reduction, which includes the safe, secure and environmentally responsible interim storage of intermediate level waste (ILW) until geological disposal becomes available.Currently, the plan is to build an interim storage facility at each Magnox reactor site to store the ILW from that site. A number of interim stores have already been constructed, with several more stores planned. In the interests of value for money to the taxpayer, we are exploring whether there is a business case for reducing the number of new stores that need to be built. There could also be environmental benefits from building fewer stores. The option of storing ILW from a small number of other sites at Bradwell, which already has an ILW store, is one of a number of options under consideration.

Our intention to explore the potential benefits of building fewer interim storage facilities was first made public in our strategy published in 2011, on which we engaged widely and consulted publicly. We are engaging openly and transparently with stakeholders on the options under consideration and will consult on our preferred option(s) at the appropriate time. Furthermore, any decision that requires a change to existing storage plans will require consultation and local planning permission.

June 22, 2013 Posted by | Reference, UK, wastes | Leave a comment

San Onofre nuclear “decommissioning” will last for decades

So there the disabled behemoth sits, awaiting a decommissioning project that will continue for decades, requiring continued regulatory oversight and inspiring never-ending debates about who should pay and how much.

The Unit 1 reactor, which was shut down in 1992, was supposed to be boxed up and shipped to a repository in South Carolina, but no one could figure out how to transport a 770-ton bundle of radioactive junk across the country. Instead, it remains where it is, encased in concrete, waiting for the transmutation of the elements to complete its ten-thousand-million-year-long conversion from deadly isotopes to stable lead. We won’t be free of it anytime soon.

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So long, San Onofre (in like 700 million years) High Country News Judith Lewis Mernit | Jun 17, 2013“……We have come to the end of an era — the nuclear power renaissance I had set out to investigate a decade ago has come to nothing.

Yes, a handful of new reactors have been proposed and a couple are even under construction, interrupting a hiatus that lasted nearly a quarter of a century. And the same band of shiny, PR-minded techno-enviros continue to argue that nuclear power is the only solution to climate change (their latest effort, Robert Stone’s documentary “Pandora’s Promise,” is simply one long advert for dreamy advanced waste-free reactors that don’t yet exist). Continue reading →

June 19, 2013 Posted by | decommission reactor, USA | Leave a comment

They don’t now how much it costs to bury all those dead nuclear reactors

nuke-reactor-deadNuclear Decommissioning Surge Is Investor Guessing Game, Bloomberg by Stefan Nicola in Berlin at snicola2@bloomberg.net; Julie Johnsson in Chicago at jjohnsson@bloomberg.net   editor responsible for this story: Reed Landberg at landberg@bloomberg.net 16 June 13 

Nuclear utilities thrust into the spotlight after the Fukushima meltdowns have ordered 20 reactors shut, the most in a three-year span since Chernobyl’s aftermath, saddling the industry with a possible $26 billion in costs.

EON SE and RWE AG (RWE) are leading the biggest decommissioning project by European utilities ever, an effort to tear down 12 reactors in Germany over two decades. Edison International (EIX) said June 7 it will never restart its idled two-unit San Onofre Generating Station outside Los Angeles, bringing the number of U.S. reactors permanently closed in a year to a record four.

The global utility industry faces its biggest test to prove enough money was saved for shutdowns, having undergone numerous cost-overruns building atomic plants. A cautionary tale can be seen with government-owned facilities. In Britain, where taxpayers are on the hook to retire the Sellafield complex’s seven reactors and fuel-reprocessing stations on the Irish Seaduring the next 100 years, the U.K. government this year doubled its estimate for the work to 67.5 billion pounds ($106 billion).

“There’s a lot of speculation how much these projects cost, but an exact estimate can only be given by utilities,” said Sascha Gentes, a Karlsruhe Institute for Technology professor specializing in atomic shutdowns. “The longer a nuclear decommissioning project takes, the more expensive it becomes.” Continue reading →

June 17, 2013 Posted by | business and costs, decommission reactor, Reference | Leave a comment

Closing of Germany’s nuclear reactors

Nuclear Decommissioning Surge Is Investor Guessing Game, Bloomberg by Stefan Nicola in Berlin at snicola2@bloomberg.net; Julie Johnsson in Chicago at jjohnsson@bloomberg.net   editor responsible for this story: Reed Landberg at landberg@bloomberg.net 16 June 13 “………German Closings Germany closed eight units after Fukushima and will shutter another nine by 2022. Its four utilities have set aside about 33 billion euros for decommissioning their 21 reactors and handling the deadly waste from them. The utilities set up GNS, a company that supplies 125-ton Castor dry casks to store and transport spent nuclear fuel, and also employ in-house decommissioning staff.

EON is 10 years into the job on its oldest commercial-scale unit, the 672-megawatt Stade plant in Lower Saxony, slated for completion by 2014. It started tearing down its 670-megawatt Wuergassen reactor in 1995, and plans to also complete that next year.

RWE said tearing down its 1970s-era Muelheim-Kaerlich reactor will cost about 750 million euros; it didn’t give cost estimates for the two pressurized water reactors at the 2,525-megawatt Biblis plant, which was closed after Fukushima, citing a lack of permits for their deconstruction plans.

EON declined to reveal the individual bill for the Wuergassen and Stade projects. It said costs are at about 1 billion euros depending on the reactor type, citing a “benchmark report for Germany,” in an e-mailed reply to questions.

Green Opposition

The opposition Green Party, which was in government from 1998 until 2005 and helped draft Germany’s first nuclear phase-out agreement, has called for the money to be put in a government-administered fund.

“Projects are often more expensive and longer than anticipated,” Sylvia Kotting-Uhl, a lawmaker with the Greens, said in an interview. “The question is: Will the money be available when it’s needed? A public fund would ensure that.”….”

EON and RWE said the current system shouldn’t be changed in favor of a state-run fund. The German system of setting aside money via utilities’ balance sheets “has proven itself,” Lothar Lambertz, a spokesman for RWE, said in an e-mailed reply to questions.http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-16/nuclear-decommissioning-surge-is-investor-guessing-game.html

June 17, 2013 Posted by | decommission reactor, Germany | Leave a comment

Decommissioning Fukushima nuclear reactors will take 50 years at the very least

Fukushima-reactor-6Stricken nuke plant struggles on, Yahoo 7 Finance, AAP  Jun 10, 2013 “……Experts, including even the most optimistic government officials, say decommissioning Fukushima Dai-ichi will take nearly a half-century.

TEPCO acknowledges that the exact path to decommissioning remains unclear because an assessment of the state of the melted reactor cores has not yet been carried out. Since being brought under control following the disaster, the plant has suffered one setback after another.

A dead rat caused a power blackout, including temporarily shutting down reactor-cooling systems, and leaks required tons of water to be piped into hundreds of tanks and underground storage areas.

The process of permanently shutting down the plant hasn’t gotten started yet and the work up to now has been one makeshift measure after another to keep the reactors from deteriorating.

Thousands of spent nuclear fuel rods that are outside the reactors also have to be removed and safely stored. Taking them out is complex because the explosions at the plant have destroyed parts of the structure used to move the rods under normal conditions. The process of taking out the rods, one by one, hasn’t even begun yet. The spent rods have been used as fuel for the reactors but remain highly radioactive…….”.http://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/stricken-nuke-plant-struggles-000105277.html

June 12, 2013 Posted by | decommission reactor, Fukushima 2013, Japan | Leave a comment

Demolishing San Onofre nuclear plant – 50 years and $billions in costs

nuke-reactor-deadA long cooling-off period for San Onofre nuclear plant http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jun/08/local/la-me-san-onofre-nuclear-20130609 Tearing down San Onofre’s two nuclear reactors will be a technically complex job completed over decades. It’s likely Southern California Edison will first mothball the plant.|By Ralph Vartabedian, Los Angeles Times 

Southern California Edison built San Onofre’s two nuclear reactors in about nine years, but tearing them down will be a technically complex, multibillion-dollar job completed over decades. It is likely that Edison first will mothball the plant, which under federal rules could keep its imposing imprint on the Orange-San Diego County coastline for another half-century.

When the plant does come down, it will be a massive job.

Tons of highly radioactive fuel now stored in pools will have to cool before the rods can be moved to concrete pads outdoors. Giant pipes that extend more than a mile into the ocean will have to come out. Pieces of the reactors will have to be cut with special saws and torches that reach 20 feet into the vessels’ cooling water. Continue reading →

June 12, 2013 Posted by | decommission reactor, Reference, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear waste rolling in to Texas dump site

wastesFlag-USATexas Site Begins Taking Federal Nuclear Waste http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/texas-site-begins-taking-federal-nuclear-waste-19343196#.UbJENOdwo6I By BETSY BLANEY Associated Press ANDREWS, Texas June 7, 2013 (AP)  Republican mega-donor Harold Simmons’ remote hazardous waste dump in West Texas began accepting low-level radioactive material Thursday from a federal lab in New Mexico — the latest step in Simmons’ vision of site that accept all types of waste. Continue reading →

June 8, 2013 Posted by | USA, wastes | 1 Comment

USA’s nuclear waste policy is a mess

Feds Fail on Nuclear Waste, Mational Review Online, Jack Spencer, June 6,The federal government assumed responsibility for nuclear-waste management more than 30 years ago. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 created an ostensibly simple system: Nuclear utilities would pay the U.S. Treasury a fee, collected from their customers, to cover the costs, and the government would see to it that the waste was taken care of. The act and its amendments over the years specified every detail of the disposal process. They stipulated how the waste would be disposed of, where, and who would be responsible.

Surprise! Despite the politicians’ and bureaucrats’ best efforts to centrally plan a long-term solution, the system doesn’t work. Although the government successfully collects money from the consumers of nuclear-generated electricity — nearly $30 billion since 1982 — it has collected zero nuclear waste. And as the waste — nearly 70,000 tons and counting — continues to build up at nuclear plants around the country, the government continues to dither. It literally has no plan to collect and dispose of the waste.

To address this, earlier this spring four senators released a draft of another “solution”: the Nuclear Waste Administration Act of 2013. Unfortunately, the NWAA does nothing to fix the failed system. Instead, it accepts the notion that the feds, not waste producers themselves, should be responsible for nuclear-waste management, and it continues the policy of having waste producers pay a flat fee for these services…….

June 8, 2013 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

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