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Japan’s Indistry Minister calls for a quick phaseout of nuclear energy

The most serious problem is spent fuel buildup at each plant as well as an additional storage at a fuel reprocessing plant in Aomori prefecture, northern Japan. The country lacks plans about what to do with the highly radioactive waste.

Minister: Japan Must Quickly Phase out Nuke Energy abc news, By MARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press TOKYO September 29, 2012 Japan’s industry minister said the country must give up nuclear power plants as soon as possible because they pose too much risk in one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries.

Yukio Edano said last year’s meltdowns after a tsunami hit the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant showed that nuclear power’s cost is too high. He expressed the opinion in his new book of policy views that hit stores Saturday.

Edano, who served top government spokesman during the height of the nuclear crisis last year, said he came to the conclusion after seeing “what was believed to be masterpiece of modern technology succumb to natural disaster so easily.”

“Now I want to eliminate nuclear power plants as soon as possible,” he wrote in the book, “Even if I get a beating, I must say this.”…. Continue reading →

October 1, 2012 Posted by | Japan, wastes | Leave a comment

USA’s rapidly accumulating, highly toxic radioactive nuclear wastes

There are 104 U.S. commercial nuclear reactors operating at 64 sites in 31 states that are holding some of the largest concentrations of radioactivity on the planet in onsite spent fuel pools.

Occupy the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission), 29 Sept 12,  And we thought Fukushima was bad? Check out what is in our backyards. Spent fuel is dangerous stuff. If something bad happens at a plant, it is not just the fuel in the reactor has the potential to be released in the atmosphere. SCARY. NOT FEAR MONGERING. REALITY PEOPLE, REALITY

Reactor operating cycles in the US have been doubled from 12 to 24 months in order to generate more electricity. As a result, more spent fuel with higher radioactivity
and thermal heat is being offloaded into evermore- crowded pools during each refueling outage. Continue reading →

September 29, 2012 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Nuclear waste problem slams the brakes on USA’s nuclear ndustry

 “You can’t store this waste in a region where there’s intense local opposition to it.”

 the used fuel will sit, in the “backyard” of nuclear plants, likely for several years, because of the federal court ruling.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently announced it will start a two-year environmental review of temporary waste storage, even as it refuses to grant permits for any new reactors

Nuclear industry slowed by its own waste By Kristi Swartz, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 23 Sept 12,  Just as the nuclear industry is starting to build reactors after a 30-year drought, it faces another dry spell.
The industry thought it had what it needed for its rebirth: federal loan guarantees; a uniform reactor design; a streamlined licensing process. The nightmares from the 1979 partial meltdown at Three Mile Island, 1,000 new safety regulations and cost overruns would be left in the past, industry officials believed.
But what never came together was a long-term plan for how to store the used radioactive fuel. As a result, judges and regulators have slammed the brakes on new reactor projects — with two exceptions, one of those in Georgia Continue reading →

September 28, 2012 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Increasing worry over the piling up of nuclear wastes

Nuclear industry slowed by its own waste By Kristi Swartz The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 23 Sept 12, “…..NO MAGIC BULLET’ Utilities store a total of 2,000-2,300 metric tons of used nuclear fuel a year, according to industry figures. That adds up to about 65,000 metric tons of radioactive waste currently sitting at nuclear plants.
“If we reject long-term storage, we’re left with dry casking, and that’s it,” said Cham Dallas, a professor and director at the University of Georgia’s Institute for Health Management and Mass Destruction Defense. “Yes, it’s probably safe, but can we continue this policy for an infinite number of years?”
The concerns over safely handling nuclear waste are many. Continue reading →

September 28, 2012 Posted by | Reference, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Entergy Sues U.S. for Failure to Dispose of Nuclear Waste, Bloomberg News By Tom Schoenberg and Julie Johnsson on September 27, 2012 An Entergy Corp. (ETR ) unit sued the U.S. for $100 million alleging the government breached a contract for disposal of nuclear waste at two plants in Michigan.

Entergy Nuclear Palisades LLC, owner of the Palisades Nuclear Plant
and the Big Rock Point plant, alleged yesterday that the Energy
Department collected fees under a 1983 contract without ever starting
to dispose of the radioactive material. The suit is in the U.S. Court
of Federal Claims in Washington……
Most nuclear-plant owners continue to store spent nuclear fuel onsite
despite contributing for decades into a fund meant to finance a
central waste depository.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is freezing U.S. operating
licenses for at least two years as it reassesses waste-storage risks
and strategies in response to a June 8 order by the U.S. Court of
Appeals in Washington.

Entergy Corp., based in New Orleans, is the second-largest owner of
nuclear plants in the U.S….. The case is Entergy Nuclear Palisades
LLC v. U.S., 12-cv- 1641, U.S. Court of Federal Claims (Washington).
… http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-09-27/entergy-sues-u-dot-s-dot-for-failure-to-dispose-of-nuclear-waste

September 28, 2012 Posted by | Legal, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

USA’s problem seeking safe disposal of uranium 233

Uranium Substitute Is No Longer Needed, but Its Disposal May Pose Security Risk   http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/24/us/uranium-233-disposal-proves-a-problem.html     By MATTHEW L. WALD  September 23, 2012 WASHINGTON — At the dawn of the civilian nuclear age in the 1950s, one of the pressing questions was how to find enough fuel for reactors and bombs. The government and the private sector seized on a man-made substitute for natural uranium, producing about 3,400 pounds of an exotic and expensive material called uranium 233.
Today, the problem is how to safely get rid of it. Continue reading →

September 25, 2012 Posted by | Reference, Uranium, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Plutonium left Livermore – (but where did it go?)

High-Security Nuclear Material Leaves Livermore
http://www.kolotv.com/news/californianews/headlines/High-Security-Nuclear-Material-Leaves-Livermore-170905161.html  KOLO8 News 23 Sept 12, LIVERMORE, Calif. (AP) – Federal officials say Lawrence Livermore Laboratory is no longer home to some high-security, special nuclear weapons materials.

The National Nuclear Security Administration say the lab will still focus on the safety, security and reliability of the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile, but just with a reduced amount of nuclear material that does not require as much as security as was needed in the past.

The agency says that decision will save about $40 million in taxpayer funds.

NNSA Administrator Thomas D’Agostino says taking the materials out of Livermore is part of a national plan to consolidate special nuclear materials in as few places as possible.
The Oakland Tribune reports (http://bit.ly/OQD1PT) the materials were
removed from the lab’s Plutonium Facility, which is located in an area known as the “Superblock.”

September 24, 2012 Posted by | - plutonium, USA | 1 Comment

UK’s new nuclear programme hangs on the question of waste disposal

Nuclear new build programme faces uncertainty, FT.com By Andrew Bounds and Jim Pickard, September 21, 2012   Britain’s nuclear new build programme is facing fresh uncertainty amid fears that Cumbria county council will postpone or even reject plans to host a permanent storage facility for the country’s nuclear waste.

Local politicians have warned that the council is increasingly wary about volunteering to store hundreds of thousands of tonnes of radioactive material underground amid the rolling hills of the north-west…….

Sir David King, former chief scientific adviser to the government, has warned that the uncertainty around nuclear waste could “really set back” the process of building new nuclear plants.
“Implementation of a final policy solution for radioactive wastes in Britain is now long overdue and . . . if we don’t manage the legacy issue with the best science this in itself could hinder nuclear new build,” he said.
At present most of Britain’s nuclear waste is in temporary storage in Sellafield, awaiting a permanent home elsewhere. If the local authorities in Cumbria say Yes – the county council and either Copeland district or Allerdale district – this would pave the way for geological surveys of the area. Yet it could still take another 15 years before a final decision is made on storage, with the repository not opening for at least two decades.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/fefcb306-040d-11e2-9675-00144feabdc0.html#axzz27ETNh6qF

September 23, 2012 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

UK: No new nukes if no waste solution

Nuclear new build programme faces uncertainty, FT.com, September 21, 2012  
By Andrew Bounds and Jim Pickard“……In the run-up to the general election, David Cameron accused the Labour government of being “irresponsible” for failing to deal with the issue of nuclear waste: “They have to be dealt with in order to make any new investment [in nuclear power] possible,” he said, Jim
Pickard reports.
Two years later, as Mr Cameron’s administration tries to draw in private investment for a new wave of nuclear reactors, the issue is as far from resolved as ever.
Britain is not alone in its attempts to find a site for a gigantic underground repository, a construction project on the same scale as the Channel tunnel.

Governments worldwide have failed to find a permanent solution for the tens of thousands of tonnes of high-level radioactive waste currently stored in temporary facilities.

The disaster at Fukushima in Japan in 2011 highlighted the potential dangers; spent fuel rods were stuffed into cooling tanks at the site, each packed with lethal levels of radioactive isotopes.
Campaigners such as Greenpeace argue that it is foolish for governments to proceed with new nuclear plants when they have not yet resolved this legacy problem from half a century of nuclear power.
One of the few countries going ahead with a permanent repository is Sweden, where two communities competed for the project and the hundreds of jobs it provided.
By contrast, the US has a deep level repository in New Mexico, but it only accepts waste from weapons research and production. A permanent repository for civil waste was proposed for Nevada but the controversial project was scrapped by President Barack Obama. Opponents of underground repositories say spent fuel can be safely
kept for decades while more research is done on alternatives. But the Fukushima crisis has placed a question mark over that argument. http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/fefcb306-040d-11e2-9675-00144feabdc0.html#axzz27ETNh6qF

September 23, 2012 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

‘Not In My Backyard’ say UK Councils about nuclear waste plan

Romney Marsh nuclear waste storage plant plan rejected, BBC News, 20 Sept 12 The facility would have had nuclear waste underground with research facilities at ground level Plans to build a nuclear waste storage facility on Romney Marsh in Kent have been thrown out by Shepway council. The final decision was taken by Conservative council leader Robert Bliss after councillors voted against the proposals on Wednesday.
The issue had split residents with 63% of people rejecting it in a survey.

Councillors voted 21 to 13 against formally expressing interest in the government’s facility for the geological disposal of nuclear waste……
The public gallery was packed with residents opposed to the scheme as the full council debated the waste plant on Wednesday evening.

Lydd Conservative councillor Victoria Dawson said members had been assured the proposal would not go ahead if the community was againstit….. Kent County Council and neighbouring East Sussex County Council both opposed the plan.

The area is the site of Dungeness nuclear power station, where Dungeness A is being decommissioned and Dungeness B is due to stop generating power in 2018 or 2023.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-19656382

September 21, 2012 Posted by | politics, UK, wastes | Leave a comment

AS USA’s nuclear wastes pile up, solutions seem further away

Piling up spent nuclear fuel presents future disposal challenge,Fierce Homeland Security September 16, 2012 | By David Perera Even were the Energy Department to resume this year licensing efforts for Yucca Mountain as a permanent nuclear power waste disposal facility, it would still be 15 years before the site could start accepting spent fuel, says the Government Accountability Office.

By then, about 50,000 metric tons of spent fuel stored roughly equally in wet and dry storage will have accumulated, assuming that no new nuclear power plants open in the interim, according to Nuclear Energy Institute estimates cited by the GAO in an Aug. 15 report  (.pdf) not posted online until Sept. 14……. Continue reading →

September 17, 2012 Posted by | Reference, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Japan’s science panel calls for a curb on nuclear waste production

The recommendation said it is essential to set an upper limit on the total amount of radioactive waste and to implement controls to prevent it from increasing without limits. 

Science panel recommends delaying burying radioactive waste http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201209120009 September 12, 2012 THE ASAHI SHIMBUN, Jin Nishikawa contributed to this article. Citing the country’s geologically unstable archipelago as a threat, the Science Council of Japan is recommending that the government build temporary storage facilities to hold more than 27,000 cylinders of high-level radioactive waste.

The council on Sept. 11 completed a report that calls for regulating the total amount of radioactive waste from nuclear power plants and storing it temporarily. Continue reading →

September 17, 2012 Posted by | Japan, Reference, wastes | Leave a comment

Ending the Nuclear Age- A Mountain of Radioactive Waste

The event, “A Mountain of Radioactive Waste 70 Years High: Ending the Nuclear Age,” will take place from December 1st to 3rd.

For more information on radioactive waste, see the various sub-sections under Beyond Nuclear’s website section on the subject, as well as its pamphlet entitled “A Mountain of Radioactive Waste 70 Years High”

U.S. Senate hearing lays groundwork for latest Mobile Chernobyl legislation  http://www.beyondnuclear.org/radioactive-waste-whatsnew/2012/9/13/us-senate-hearing-lays-groundwork-for-latest-mobile-chernoby.html
at left: The cover of Beyond Nuclear’s pamphlet “A Mountain of Radioactive Waste 70 Years High”
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has acknowledged that the court-ordered revision to its Nuclear Waste Confidence Decision, and preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement about the risks on at-reactor storage of irradiated nuclear fuel, will delay the issuance of new reactor construction and operating licenses, as well as old reactor 20 year license extensions, by two years. This has led to a backlash by the nuclear establishment in industry and government. Continue reading →

September 15, 2012 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Nuclear power advocate predicts end of the industry,because of waste problem

Nuclear Advocate: “Within 5 years there will be no nuclear power in U.S. unless something is done” — Fuel pools will fill up without Yucca Mt., “There’s nowhere for old material to go” (VIDEO)   http://enenews.com/pro-nuclear-advocate-within-5-years-there-will-be-no-nuclear-power-in-u-s-unless-something-is-done-fuel-pools-will-fill-up-without-yucca-theres-nowhere-for-old-material-to-go-v    includes VIDEO  September 13th, 2012  By ENENews  interview with Karl Denninger Warren Pollock Sept 12, 2012
Transcript Excerpt at
Karl Denninger, Market Ticker: “… the uranium based system, which, by the way, Jazcko managed to essentially completely torpedo.

I don’t know if you’re aware of this, within 5 years there will be no nuclear power in the United States unless something is done with this administration.

Because what Jazcko did by illegally shutting down Yucca, which by the way was a violation of federal law the way he went about it, through that process he put a hard stop on nuclear power in the United States…

[Inaudible, Repeats Comment] This will result in the denial of license renewals when those fuel pools fill up, because you can’t store the material. There’s nowhere for old material to go and therefore you can’t put any new material in…”

September 15, 2012 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

US nuclear waste now much more than Yucca dump would hold

Leading Pro-Nuclear Senator: “Even if Yucca Mountain were open today, we’d still need a second repository very quickly” — Nuclear waste would fill it up very fast -NYTimes
http://enenews.com/leading-pro-nuclear-senator-even-if-yucca-mountain-were-open-today-we%E2%80%99d-still-need-a-second-repository-very-quickly-nuclear-waste-would-fill-it-up-very-fast-nyt  June 8th, 2012
By ENENews
  Moving From Square One on Nuclear Waste
New York Times
By MATTHEW L. WALD
The idea that the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in
Nevada is dead has not gone down well in Congress, where some
Republicans are trying to allocate new money to the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission so it can revive its evaluation of the site’s suitability.
But at a Senate subcommittee hearing on Thursday, some supporters of
the civilian power industry said it was time to move on.

“Even if Yucca Mountain were open today, we’d still need a second
repository very quickly,’’ said Lamar Alexander, a Republican from
Tennessee and one of the Senate’s foremost backers of nuclear power.
“The stuff we have would fill up Yucca Mountain very quickly.’’

Yucca [is] a volcanic structure in the desert about 100 miles from Las Vegas.

September 15, 2012 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

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