USA’s nuclear waste dumpsters need high level guarding
America’s Nuclear Dumpsters After Yucca Mountain, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is stocking up on guns and ammo. Slate, By Geoffrey Brumfiel| , Jan. 30, 2013, While the rest of America spent January debating new gun control laws, one government agency announced its plans to expand the use of high-capacity magazines, assault weapons, and even fully automatic machine guns. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees the nation’s nuclear plants, is seeking the firepower not for securing the plants themselves, but to defend their nuclear waste.
Since America’s commercial reactors started opening in the 1960s and ’70s, nuclear waste has been piling up. At first, it was stored in spent fuel pools—swimming pools you’d never, ever want to swim in. That was fine for a time, but by the 1980s, the pools started to get crowded. So the utilities began putting old fuel rods in something they call dry cask storage, and I’ll call nuclear dumpsters.
They’re big, they’re white, and they’re literally kept out back like the rest of the trash. Continue reading
Britain’s new nuclear power plans stalled, ad Cumbria refuses to host waste dump
Nuclear plans in disarray after Cumbria votes ‘no’ to radioactive dump The future of new nuclear power stations in Britain has been dealt a serious blow, after a council threw out plans for a giant radioactive waste dump near the Lake District.Telegraph UK, By Rowena Mason, and Emily Gosden 30 Jan 2013
Eddie Martin, Conservative leader of the council, told a public meeting he did not feel ministers had offered enough reassurances to Cumbria.
The Coalition wants to see several nuclear power stations built over the next decade, but the plans cannot go ahead unless there are “effective arrangements” for storing the future waste.
Cumbria was the only county council that came forward offering to explore the possibility of a “geological disposal facility” on its land but it has now ruled itself out of contention. Continue reading
New Nuclear Waste Confidence Decision” (NWCD) designed to let nuclear power continue?
the fact that their best scenario now projects a repository to be ready by about 2050 is a story in itself.
Seventy Years of Nuclear Fission, Thousands of Centuries of Nuclear Waste ,25 January 2013 By Gregg Levine, Truthout “…….Confidence Game
Two months after the Appeals Court found fault with the NRC’s imaginary waste mitigation scenario, the agency announced it would suspend the issuing of new reactor operating licenses, license renewals and construction licenses until the agency could craft a new plan for dealing with the nation’s growing spent nuclear fuel crisis. In drafting its new nuclear “Waste Confidence Decision” (NWCD) – the methodology used to assess the hazards of nuclear waste storage – the Commission said it would evaluate all possible options for resolving the issue.
At first, the NRC said this could include both generic and site-specific actions (remember, the court criticized the NRC’s generic appraisals of pool safety), but as the prescribed process now progresses, it appears any new rule will be designed to give the agency, and so, the industry, as much wiggle room as possible. Continue reading
Dangers of nuclear spent fuel cooling ponds, and of dry cask storage
Seventy Years of Nuclear Fission, Thousands of Centuries of Nuclear Waste ,25 January 2013 By Gregg Levine, Truthout “…….Everyone Out of the Pool
As disasters as far afield as the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and last October’s Hurricane Sandy have demonstrated, the storage of spent nuclear fuel in pools requires steady supplies of power and cool water. Any problem that prevents the active circulation of liquid through the spent fuel pools – be it a loss of electricity, the failure of a back-up pump, the clogging of a valve or a leak in the system – means the temperature in the pools will start to rise. If the cooling circuit is out long enough, the water in the pools will start to boil. If the water level dips (due to boiling or a leak) enough to expose hot fuel rods to the air, the metal cladding on the rods will start to burn, in turn heating the fuel even more, resulting in plumes of smoke carrying radioactive isotopes into the atmosphere.
And because these spent fuel pools are so full – containing as much as five times more fuel than they were originally designed to hold, and at densities that come close to those in reactor cores – they both heat stagnant water more quickly and reach volatile temperatures faster when exposed to air. Continue reading
Atoms for Peace, Problems Forever
leaves America today with what amounts to over five dozen nominally temporary repositories for high-level radioactive waste – and no defined plan to change that situation anytime soon.
Seventy Years of Nuclear Fission, Thousands of Centuries of Nuclear Waste ,25 January 2013 By Gregg Levine, Truthout “……The Manhattan Project’s goal was a bomb, but soon after the end of the war, scientists, politicians, the military and private industry looked for ways to harness the power of the atom for civilian use, or, perhaps more to the point, for commercial profit. Fifteen years to the day after CP-1 achieved criticality, President Dwight Eisenhower threw a ceremonial switch to start the reactor at Shippingport, Pennsylvania, which was billed as the first full-scale nuclear power plant built expressly for civilian electrical generation.
Shippingport was, in reality, little more than a submarine engine on blocks, but the nuclear industry and its acolytes will say that it was the beginning of billions of kilowatts of power, promoted (without a hint of irony) as “clean, safe and too cheap to meter.” It was also, however, the beginning of what is now a weightier legacy: 72,000 tons of nuclear waste.
Atoms for Peace, Problems Forever
News of Fermi’s initial success was communicated by physicist Arthur Compton to the head of the National Defense Research Committee, James Conant, with artistically coded flair:
Compton: The Italian navigator has landed in the New World.
Conant: How were the natives?
Compton: Very friendly.
But soon after that initial success, CP-1 was disassembled and reassembled a short drive away, in Red Gate Woods. The optimism of the physicists notwithstanding, it was thought best to continue the experiments with better radiation shielding – and slightly removed from the center of a heavily populated campus. The move was perhaps the first necessitated by the uneasy relationship between fissile material and the health and safety of those around it, but if it was understood as a broader cautionary tale, no one let that get in the way of “progress.” Continue reading
Radioactive water to be dumped into Pacific Ocean by TEPCO
TEPCO plans to dump water stored at Fukushima Daiichi into 
Pacific http://enformable.com/2013/01/tepco-plans-to-dump-water-stored-at-fukushima-daiichi-into-pacific/ TEPCO has announced that it plans to dump contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean after processing it to reduce radioactive materials to legally permissible levels. By “processing”, TEPCO means once-high radioactive content has been reduced considerably, but not completely.
The plant has already released enormous amounts of highly contaminated water directly into the ocean from a plethora of leaks from the reactor buildings. Outside experts are seriously concerned about the contaminated water that is released, and have warned there may well be lasting impact on the environment.
The utility says the operation is necessary due to concerns that they will run out of capacity to store highly contaminated water which continues to accumulate. After the water has passed through the crippled units, it is processed through the SARRY system to remove cesium, but other systems designed to remove other radioactive materials have been overwhelmed by the complexity and concentration of contamination found at Fukushima Daiichi.
TEPCO estimates show that the volume of contaminated water required to be stored on site will likely triple over the next three years.
Questions have been raised if TEPCO would be able to gain the necessary approval from local municipalities and other parties who have raised concerns about plans to dump the water into the ocean.
In December 2011, the utility was forced to scrap a previous plan to dump water into the sea following fierce protests from fishing groups.
Toxic nuclear waste dumps in the Arctic Kara Sea
Russia explores old nuclear waste dumps in Arctic By Laurence Peter BBC News, 24 Jan 13, The toxic legacy of the Cold War lives on in Russia’s Arctic, where the Soviet military dumped many tonnes of radioactive hardware at sea.
For more than a decade, Western governments have been helping Russia to remove nuclear fuel from decommissioned submarines docked in the Kola Peninsula – the region closest to Scandinavia.
But further east lies an intact nuclear submarine at the bottom of the Kara Sea, and its highly enriched uranium fuel is a potential time bomb.
This year the Russian authorities want to see if the K-27 sub can be safely raised, so that the uranium – sealed inside the reactors – can be removed.
They also plan to survey numerous other nuclear dumps in the Kara Sea, where Russia’s energy giant Rosneft and its US partner Exxon Mobil are now exploring for oil and gas.Seismic tests have been done and drilling of exploratory wells is likely to begin next year, so Russia does not want any radiation hazard to overshadow that. Rosneft estimates the offshore fossil fuel reserves to be about 21.5bn tonnes.
‘Strategic imperative’
The Kara Sea region is remote, sparsely populated and bitterly cold, frozen over for much of the year. The hostile climate would make cleaning up a big oil spill hugely challenging, environmentalists say.
Those fears were heightened recently by the Kulluk accident – a Shell oil rig that ran aground in Alaska…….. “In the US the Arctic gets great public scrutiny and it’s highly political, but in Russia there is less public pressure.” Continue reading
EU lacks funds for decommissioning nuclear reactors
Funding gap for nuclear decommissioning in Bulgaria, Lithuania and Slovakia
Defects in the EU’s nuclear decommissioning programmes in Bulgaria, Lithuania and Slovakia include cost overruns, delays, lack of coordination and supervision, diffused responsibilities, too much money going to unrelated energy projects and ill-informed priority setting, say Budgetary Control Committee MEPs in a resolution voted on Monday. Continue reading
20,000 Tons of nuclear waste coming from Italy to Utah
Plan to Import 20,000 Tons of Italian Nuclear Waste into Utah Approved by US Gov Tree Hugger, Brian Merchant 21 Jan 13, Here’s a troubling plan—the ironically named US company EnergySolutions is seeking approval to import 20,000 tons of radioactive waste from Italy. The waste would be processed in Tennessee, then shipped on over to Utah, where it would be buried in the desert. Given that Yucca Mountain is such a controversial issue, it’s surprising that this plan—which the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission says it won’t halt—isn’t more hotly debated. Can this caravan of nuclear waste be stopped?Two US Representatives are attempting to do exactly that—they’re sponsoring a bill that would ban foreign radioactive waste from being imported into the US unless it was for a “strategic national purpose,” according to the AP.
They argue that the US should restrict its nuclear storage space to waste created domestically. But their bill has yet to even have a hearing, and it looks like the foreign waste plan is set to go ahead: the NRC says that it doesn’t have the authority to restrict foreign radioactive materials from being imported. They don’t “distinguish between domestic and foreign waste.” Furthermore, the agency has determined that
“as long as the material can be imported safely and someone is willing to accept it, the commission can’t keep the waste out.” EnergySolutions has agreed to limit 5% of their storage space to foreign radioactive waste—but the company’s storage site is already responsible for 36 states’ waste. And it seems a case like this could set a precedent, and maybe even open up a floodgate of tricky, potentially dangerous situations. If importing nuclear waste becomes legally recognized—and profitable—as a sound business practice, it could become a nightmare (not to mention a huge environmental concern) to regulate.
What’s more, it’s widely known that EnergySolutions is a major contributor to the Republican Party in Utah (the vast political majority in the state), and there are allegations that the company has promised to donate 50% of the revenue generated to the state. This certainly muddies up the issue…. http://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/plan-to-import-20000-tons-of-italian-nuclear-waste-into-utah-approved-by-us-gov.html
Corporations circle around for lucrative nuclear waste cleanup
UK firms to bid for Japan’s nuclear clean-up
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/uk-firms-to-bid-for-japans-nuclear-cleanup-8458524.html
MARK LEFTLY, 20 JANUARY 2013 British engineers Amec, Babcock
International, and Atkins are believed to be circling nuclear
decommissioning work estimated to be worth at least $5bn (£3.2bn) in
Japan as a result of the Fukushima disaster.
The new Japanese government is thought to be preparing decommissioning
contracts that will include Fukushima’s Daiichi plant, which was
overwhelmed by a tsunami in 2011, and other reactors in seismically
endangered areas.
A nuclear source said bids could be invited for the clean-up work
before the end of the year, with British groups in a strong position
due to all the decommissioning work that has been undertaken in the
UK.
US-owned Energy Solutions will also be interested.
“This is a huge opportunity,” claimed the source. “Japan should start
making some real progress on decommissioning now.”
Video: Cumbrians want Sellafield nuclear facility, just not the wastes
VIDEO Protests spread on Cumbria nuclear waste dump plan, guardian UK 17 Jan 13, As Cumbria Tourism joins the Lake District national park inwarning against research in Ennerdale and Eskdale, local meetings and rallies are spreading Here’s more on the growing concern that nuclear waste burial could be considered within the borders of the Lake District national park, followingCumbria Tourism’s stand against the prospect earlier this week.
A meeting in Keswick saw all but three of 500 present vote against the idea of pursuing research in Ennerdale and Eskdale, one of the few areas of stable geology in West Cumbria, the home of the Sellafield nuclear complex.
As well as being in the national park, the lonely valley is the subject of an experiment called Wild Ennerdale which has barred all traffic apart from a few forestry trucks and the Land Rover which services remote Black Sail youth hostel. Even the latter has been limited to the minimum possible number of journeys to sustain the many walkers to whom it is a shrine.
You can read about the Guardian Northerner‘s weekend there last November, here, and a post from its recent wardens Suzanna Brett and Martin Lyne here.…… http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/the-northerner/2013/jan/17/ennerdale-nuclear-waste
Nuclear weapons components “scattered” across America
Strategy Lacking for Disposal of Nuclear Weapons Components Secrecy News, January 17th, 2013 by Steven Aftergood There is a “large inventory” of classified nuclear weapons components “scattered across” the nation’s nuclear weapons complex and awaiting disposal, according to an internal Department of Energy contractor reportlast year.
But “there is no complex-wide cost-effective classified weapon disposition strategy.” And as a result, “Only a small portion of the inventory has been dispositioned and it has not always been in a cost-effective manner.”.. http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2013/01/disposal_strategy.html
USA’s Dept of Energy announces goals for nuclear waste management
DOE touts interim storage option for spent nuclear fuel, Augusta Chronicle, By Rob Pavey Jan. 16, 2013 “……….Read the complete report:
http://energy.gov/downloads/strategy-management-and-disposal-used-nuclear-fuel-and-high-level-radioactive-waste
Legislative goals for next 10 years:
• Active engagement in a broad, national, consent-based process to site pilot and full-scale interim storage facilities, and site and characterize a geologic repository;
• Siting, design, licensing, and commencement of operations at a pilot-scale storage facility with an initial focus on accepting used nuclear fuel from shut-down reactor sites.;
• Significant progress on siting and licensing of a larger consolidated interim storage facility capable of providing system flexibility and an opportunity for more substantial progress in reducing government liabilities;
• Development of transportation capabilities (personnel, processes, equipment) to begin movement of fuel from shut-down reactors;
• Reformation of the funding approach in ways that preserve the necessary role for ongoing discretionary appropriations and also provide additional funds as necessary, whether from reclassified fees or from mandatory appropriation from the NWF or both; and
• Establishment of a new organization to run the program, the structure and positioning of which balance greater autonomy with the need for continued Executive and Legislative branch oversight.
Source: U.S. Energy Department http://chronicle.augusta.com/news/metro/2013-01-16/doe-touts-interim-storage-option-spent-nuclear-fuel?v=1358336852
AUDIO USA Dept of Energy plans to put radioactive materials into products
Gundersen: U.S. gov’t to allow highly radioactive material from nuclear plants into silverware, other items? (AUDIO)http://enenews.com/gundersen-u-s-govt-to-allow-highly-radioactive-material-from-nuclear-plants-into-silverware-other-items-audio 15 Jan 13
Source: Fairewinds Energy Education
Date: January 13, 2013 Arnie examines a new proposal by the Department of Energy to melt radioactive scrap metal and reuse it in consumer goods like knives and forks.
- 14:15 Radioactive material from inside a nuclear plant
- 14:20 Turn radioactive vessels from liability to asset
- 15:30 Pots, pans, forks, knives, spoons
- 16:30 Highly radioactive steam generators to be used?
- 17:15 Reused material can remain in radioactive lumps
- 19:45 It’s not helping the consumer here to get any radioactive material in their baby spoons
Full program here http://www.fairewinds.com/content/fairewinds-podcast
No nuclear waste dump until 2046, but USA will still keep making the stuff
1 This Month
23 April – WEBINAR – Why new nuclear reactors are the wrong tools for decarbonization Thursday, April 23 • 1 AM – 2 AM AEST
World Nuclear Power. Reactors 1951-2026, 75 Years of Nuclear Power.
Interactive Map– https://dv.worldnuclearreport.org/
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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