UK to get new interim nuclear waste store – so they can make more wastes?
Sizewell B builds new radioactive nuclear waste store, BBC News 15 Jan 13, All the spent radioactive waste from Sizewell B is stored on site An energy firm has begun work on a new store for radioactive waste at Sizewell B nuclear power station.
EDF Energy said the dry fuel store at its site on the Suffolk coast would provide capacity for all the spent fuel created until the plant shuts in 2035.
The store for uranium oxide waste should by completed by 2015…… All the nuclear waste created since Sizewell B started generating electricity in 1995 is currently stored on site under water in storage ponds.
EDF said the new project meant spent fuel would be put in welded metal canisters, cleaned and placed in large concrete casks.
‘Safely and securely’
The energy firm said it would continue to store waste on site until a deep geological disposal facility was made available – similar to the storages created in underground rock caverns in Finland.
Jim Crawford, Sizewell B’s station director, said: “This is an important development for Sizewell B which will ensure we have the ability to continue to store our spent fuel, safely and securely on site for many years to come…..http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-21032888
There’s money in them thar nuclear wastes
Veolia Draws Upon Fukushima to Move Into Nuclear Dismantling, Bloomberg, By Tara Patel – Jan 15, 2013 Veolia Environnement SA (VIE), which treated radioactive water from Japan’s nuclear meltdown at Fukushima, plans to use the experience to move into decontamination and power plant dismantling.
The water utility and the nuclear research group known as CEA plan to earn as much as 400 million euros ($534 million) in revenue within about four years by cleaning radioactive sites and taking apart installations, they said today.
“The market is developing very quickly,” Veolia Chief Executive Officer Antoine Frerot told a press conference today in Paris. About 300 nuclear reactors will have to be halted worldwide within two decades including in France, Germany, Japan and the U.S., he said.
The shift into the atomic market comes after President Francois Hollande pledged to lower France’s dependence on the energy and shut the country’s oldest plant at Fessenheim. It’s also the first new market Veolia has publicly announced it will enter into since Frerot pledged to pull out of some countries and businesses in a bid to boost profit…… http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-15/veolia-draws-upon-fukushima-to-move-into-nuclear-dismantling-1-.html
Opposition growing to nuclear waste plan for Cumbria’s Lake District
‘Nuclear waste? No thanks,’ say Lake District national park tourism
chiefs, Martin Wainwright guardian.co.uk, 16 January 2013
Board joins clamour against idea of digging repository to hold power
station waste under landscape much loved by visitors Cumbria’s tourism
board has joined the growing clamour against any further research into
the burying of nuclear power station waste within the borders of the
Lake District national park.
The board – which oversees the park, the county’s largest earner and
one of the most-visited group of attractions in the UK – has also
stated its strong opposition to investigations in the Solway Coast
area of outstanding natural beauty on the West Cumbrian side of the
famous lakes and fells…..
A crucial meeting of the three councils potentially affected – Cumbria
county and Allerdale and Copeland districts – will decide on 30
January whether to agree to full-scale preliminary planning for a
repository whose underground facilities would cover an area larger
than the nearby town of Workington.
The three councils are the only ones in the UK still considering a
government request to provide underground nuclear storage, but
Cumbria’s fractured geology has already narrowed potential areas to
limited parts of the western coast, including the Ennerdale valley in
the national park.
There were gasps at public meetings in November when mock-ups of the
possible construction project were shown.
The projections, based on a French scheme, showed how construction and
surface maintenance buildings might irrevocably scar the beautiful
foothills of legendary fells such as Great Gable and Pillar…….
Time to move nuclear wastes to dry cask storage
as the second anniversary of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident in Japan draws near, some members of Congress say it is time to reduce the risk posed by spent fuel by moving some of it to dry casks.Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, will take over as the committee’s chairmanwhen Congress begins its new session next month. In an interview on Monday, he pointed out that the department collects about $750 million a year in waste disposal fees at the rate of one-tenth of a cent per kilowatt-hour generated by the reactors that feed those utilities. Yet the government is spending nearly nothing, he noted……
Mr. Wyden said the committee would have to take a broad look at the issue of the Energy Department’s nuclear waste fund. “The utilities are obviously unhappy they’re paying the money,’’ which is being “hijacked” for other purposes, he said — namely, deficit reduction. The fund now has a balance of $25 billion. “There is a lot of frustration” about the money and the lack of progress, he said. Continue reading
Nuclear wastes problem: let’s not forget MILITARY nuclear wastes
Come January, Another Try on Nuclear Waste, By MATTHEW L. WALD, NYT, December 18, 2012, “……..As for the search for a permanent burial site, Mr. Wyden said the government should be looking for volunteers but that the site would have to be technically suitable. He also said he would like to explore separating the military wastes from the civilian wastes, and perhaps sending them to the Waste Isolation Pilot Project, which is in a salt deposit near Carlsbad, N.M. The repository is now used for plutonium-contaminated materials but not high-level waste.
The military wastes have been dear to Mr. Wyden’s heart for 30 years: many of them are in leaking tanks at the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington, across the Columbia River from his home state, Oregon. But those wastes would have to be solidified before they could be buried, and the Energy Department has had great difficulty doing that.
Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, a Democrat who is head of the committee until the end of the lame duck session, has already introduced a bill to reform the process of picking a site, but action is unlikely this year. The lame duck session has failed so far to deal with its central task, a budget and tax compromise. http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/18/come-january-another-try-on-nuclear-waste/?smid=fb-share
New EU law permits export of nuclear waste, but Germany won’t do that
Merkel confirms Germany won’t export nuclear waste, DW, 6 Jan 13, The
German chancellor has said the country is to dispose of its nuclear
waste within its own borders. The announcement came after her
environment minister denied a report that the government planned to
export it.
Chancellor Angela Merkel delivered her message on her government’s
nuclear waste disposal policy on Saturday at her Christian Democrat
Party’s (CDU) convention in the north western state of Lower Saxony.
It’s clear “that we’ll dispose our own [radioactive] waste here,” she
said, adding that this position had been “well-established.”
Merkel’s confirmation of her party’s position served to back her
environment minister, Peter Altmaier, who had spoken out on the issue
on Friday….. The current scheduled date for a complete German
shutdown is 2022. http://www.dw.de/merkel-confirms-germany-wont-export-nuclear-waste/a-16500965
Possible export of nuclear waste draws criticism, DW 5 Jan 13,
“…..A new law would allow Germany and other EU countries to export
radioactive material….., a new draft law has emerged in the midst of
the waste site debate. Changes to the existing law would allow the
possible export of spent nuclear fuel to storage facilities abroad.
The law is required because of EU guidelines from 2011 that must be
enshrined in national law by all member states by August 2013.
EU guideline
The draft, which Deutsche Welle has seen, allows the “permanent
storage” of nuclear waste abroad when “at the time of delivery there
is a valid accord between the Federal Republic of Germany and the
third-party country.” In other words, German nuclear waste may be
stored outside of Germany, provided certain conditions are met: for
example, that the storage facility in which the German waste is to be
stored was already operational prior to the export of the waste.
In response to criticism from environmental groups, the German
government has denied that plans are afoot to send German nuclear
waste abroad. However, Berlin emphasized that Germany is obliged under
European law to insert the criticized paragraph into existing German
law…… http://www.dw.de/possible-export-of-nuclear-waste-draws-criticism/a-16500605
Illegal dumping of radioactive material in Fukushima
Contaminated soil might have been illegally dumped in Fukushima
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20130104p2g00m0dm068000c.html
TOKYO (Kyodo), 4 Jan 13, — Some Japanese contractors are suspected of 
having
illegally dumped radioactively contaminated soil, vegetation and water
into rivers or other places close to the tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi
nuclear power plant, the Environment Ministry said Friday. Continue reading
America’s big con job – the Nuclear “Waste Confidence Rule”
The only reasonable and logical solution is to stop making more. But this “Waste Confidence” decision isn’t based on reason or logic. It’s based on keeping the reactors OPERATING for the next hundred years.
So why are we burdening our future generations with an ever-growing, unsolvable problem?
The Eternal Problem – Nuclear Waste Confidence, Counter Punch by RUSSELL D. HOFFMAN, JANUARY 03, 2013“………The pro-nuker preferred to call it “spent fuel confidence.” I, on the other hand, didn’t like the word “confidence” since there’s nothing that warrants ANY confidence in this discussion, whatsoever. ”Waste Failure” would be more appropriate. Or “Waste Impasse” might be even better. Or better yet: ”The Intractable, Unsolvable, Filthy, Disgusting Mess We’ve Made” but I guess that would just be too accurate to a group where a “rapid disassembly” is the term for a core explosion that spews radioactive crud for miles around.
But one way or another, it’s obvious that “Waste Confidence” is a misnomer from start to finish…… …… Nuclear waste storage is a huge unsolved problem in every nuclear country. Continue reading
24 organisations warn Nuclear Regulatory Commission not to rush a new “Waste Confidence Rule”
24 Groups: NRC Rushing Nuclear “Waste Confidence” Process, Not Satisfying Court-Ordered Requirements By Physicians for Social Responsibility, Washington, D.C., Jan. 3, 2013 — Incomplete Process Should Trigger Continued Suspension of All Reactor Licensing, Re-Licensing
In documents filed Wednesday with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), a wide range of national and grassroots environmental groups said it would be impossible for the NRC to adequately conduct a court-ordered assessment of the environmental implications of long-term storage of spent nuclear reactor fuel in the two short years the federal agency envisions for the process.
In their filings, the 24 groups said a full review of the three issues outlined in June 2012 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit – long-term storage risks for spent nuclear fuel, spent fuel pool fire risks, and spent fuel pool leakage risks – would take at least the seven years originally projected by the NRC staff, and likely considerably longer. Current federal law requires that the NRC conduct a comprehensive environmental impact statement (EIS) study before issuing a revised Waste Confidence Decision; the 24 groups submitted their comments about the appropriate “scoping” of the EIS.
In the absence of an adequate EIS review, the NRC has “no choice but to continue to suspend all licensing and re-licensing actions” for U.S. nuclear reactors, according to the 24 organizations. All licensing and re-licensing actions were previously suspended by the NRC until an EIS and revised Waste Confidence Decision have been issued…..
Highlights of the 24-group filings include the following: Continue reading
Critically dangerous state of Vermont Yankee’s accumulated nuclear waste
Vermont, New York regulators urge review of storage of spent nuclear fuel, VT Digger, by Andrew Stein | January 3, 2013 “……Vermont Yankee has 1,507 fuel rod assemblies submerged in a spent fuel pool, which was originally designed to hold about 350. Spent fuel rods must be kept under water in order to prevent the Zirconium cladding (the metal tubes that contain the fuel pellets) from igniting. The rods can remain hot for several years.
Vermont Yankee’s spent fuel pool, located in a metal warehouse structure, has more than five full reactor cores worth of radioactive material. In the event of an accident, the impact would be five times greater than a single reactor meltdown.
The dry cask storage containers on the site are hundreds of times safer than the spent fuel pool, Shadis said.
At this point, the site has 13 loaded casks, four of which were filled last year, according to Neil Sheehan, NRC public affairs officer for Region 1.
Each cask, which can hold 72 assemblies, costs $1 million. It would cost roughly $11 million to move all of the assemblies into dry cask storage……. http://vtdigger.org/2013/01/03/vermont-new-york-regulators-urge-review-of-spent-nuclear-fuel-storage/
New York and Vermont regulators demand review of nuclear waste spent fuel pools
Vermont, New York regulators urge review of storage of spent nuclear fuel, VT Digger, by Andrew Stein | January 3, 2013 Leading Vermont and New York regulators on Tuesday called on the Nuclear Regulator Commission to conduct a comprehensive environmental review of spent nuclear fuel storage.
Vermont Attorney General Bill Sorrell, the Vermont Department of Public Service and the New York Attorney General’s office issued a formal letter to the federal commission on Tuesday regarding the “scope of consideration of environmental impacts of temporary spent fuel after cessation of reactor operation.” The states’ plea comes roughly eight months after the U.S. Appellate Court struck down the commission’s so-called “waste confidence rule,” which authorized the storage of spent fuel at a reactor. The court called for more extensive environmental assessments of this practice, and in August 2012, the NRC suspended all licensing decisions for nuclear power plants until it can address concerns regarding long-term storage of nuclear waste.
“The NRC owes a legal obligation to the public to engage in a full and thorough review of the environmental impacts of storing spent nuclear fuel at reactors that were never designed to be long-term storage facilities,” Sorrell said in a public statement.
The letter from Vermont and New York politicians says it is time to begin exploring new ways to store high-level nuclear waste other than spent fuel pools at reactor sites across the country.
“After more than three decades of failing to address the very real and widespread concern with the continued production of nuclear wastes without a permanent, safe, and secure nuclear waste repository NRC now has the opportunity, albeit mandated by a Federal Court, to apply its considerable expertise to address these concerns,” the letter says…… http://vtdigger.org/2013/01/03/vermont-new-york-regulators-urge-review-of-spent-nuclear-fuel-storage/
Early start for secret shipments of radioactive weapons fuel to Nevada
DOE: Uranium shipments to Nevada could start soon, knoxnews.com, Associated Press December 31, 2012 OAK RIDGE, Tenn. (AP) — A U.S. Department of Energy official says stocks of radioactive uranium could start shipping from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory to Nevada in 2013.
However, The Knoxville News Sentinel reports (http://bit.ly/WVktTK ) that agency officials will not discuss exact dates of the shipments because of safety and security reasons because of the fissionable material’s potential use in nuclear weapons. DOE’s Environmental Manager Mark Whitney said in an interview with the newspaper this fall that the DOE wanted to start the shipments to the Nevada National Security site in early 2013 pending approvals to ship. Continue reading
UK nuclear lobby desperate to keep the industry alive, therefore needs waste dump quickly
without a positive decision, new nuclear development could be put
at risk.
Ministers are thought to be working on plans to try to ensure the
new-build programme is not derailed. Final investment decisions and
approvals for EDF’s proposed nuclear plant in Somerset are expected
next year.
a “no” vote in Cumbria in January would be likely to
deter a consortium that is at the early stage of planning a new plant
in the county, as it would have to invest hundreds of millions of
pounds before seeking planning permission….
Nuclear sector pushes for green light on waste dump. Telegraph By
Emily Gosden 30 Dec 2012
Britain’s nuclear industry has warned that a “no” vote by local
councils on crucial plans to assess sites for a major radioactive
waste dump would be “an injustice to future generations”. Continue reading
$2 billion to shut down Quebec’s nuclear plant, but $4 billion to keep it open
The Parti Quebecois also announced it will set aside another $200 million in a
“diversification fund” to help the surrounding communities retrain
their workforces and spur alternative development opportunities.
Shutdown of Que. nuclear plant to cost $2B, Ifp
QMI Agency
December 28, 2012 MONTREAL – The licence for Quebec’s only
operational nuclear power plant expired Friday, and the provincial
government said it will spend hundreds of millions of dollars over the
next 50 years to dismantle the reactor.
The Parti Quebecois campaigned against refurbishing the plant,
claiming that the $4-billion price tag was financially unjustifiable, Continue reading
USA’s nuclear waste problem more acute, with probable reactor close-downs
with the current glut of natural gas, more [nuclear reactor] closings seem possible, which means leaving the wastes behind — “stranded,” as Mr. Wyden put it — at the sites of defunct reactors………...
Come January, Another Try on Nuclear Waste By MATTHEW L. WALD , NYT, 18 Dec 12, The incoming chairman of the Senate Energy Committee suggests that the Energy Department should stop billing utilities more in waste disposal fees than the department is actually spending on addressing nuclear wastes. And he wants the department to pay for moving some of the wastes out of spent fuel pools at the
nation’s highest-risk reactors and into dry casks. Continue reading
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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