Youtube: nuclear waste dump for Tochigi, Japan
NHK – Japan proposes radioactive disposal site in Tochigi http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Whe6frtDdo Sep 3, 2012 by NHKReloaded NHK World News —- The Japanese government has proposed a site in Tochigi Prefecture, north of Tokyo, to dispose of radioactive waste from the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. It is the first time the central government has made such a proposal to a prefectural government.
Senior Vice Environment Minister Katsuhiko Yokomitsu made the proposal to Tochigi Governor Tomikazu Fukuda on Monday.
The central government is responsible for disposing of more than 42,000 tons of radioactive ash and mud in 9 prefectures. Levels of Cesium in the waste are above the government standard of 8,000 becquerels per kilogram.
Tochigi Prefecture is already temporarily storing about 9,000 tons of radioactive waste at sewage treatment and other facilities.
The Environment Ministry says a 4-hectare national forest in Tochigi’s Yaita City is large enough for the purpose and far enough from the closest residential area and water source.
The ministry will brief people living near the site on the need and safety of the planned facility.
Where to put Canada’s 2358873 radioactive used nuclear fuel bundles?
Nuclear waste seeks a home The Star.com September 01, 2012“………A fuel bundle for a Candu nuclear power reactor is about the size of a fireplace log. As of June 30, 2011, Canada had 2,273,873 used fuel bundles stored at its nuclear plants in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick.
Another 85,000 or so have been added since then.
In total, they’d fill about six NHL hockey rinks, stacked up as high
as the boards.
The Nuclear Waste Management Organization, formed by the three electric utilities that run nuclear reactors, wants to bury the waste deep underground in caverns excavated from stable rock, where it can lie undisturbed forever.
The depth will probably depend on the site’s geology. A facility proposed to hold less-potent radioactive waste at the Bruce nuclear site near Kincardine will be 680 metres deep. By comparison, the CN Tower is 553 metres tall.
The NWMO is looking for a “willing” community to agree to take the $16-to-$24-billion project. The host community itself will decide how to define “willing.” Candidate communities will have multiple opportunities to withdraw if they get cold feet, the NWMO says.
As it moves through a nine-stage selection process, the NWMO hopes to have narrowed the field to one or two communities by 2015, then spend until about 2020 deciding on a specific site within the chosen community.
After that, it will take three to five years to do an extensive environmental assessment of the site. The proponents will also have to satisfy the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission that their plan makes sense, and obtain a license to construct and operate the facility.
Then, it will take six to 10 years to build. The NWMO doesn’t expect the first bundles to be stored until 2035…. http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1250109–nuclear-waste-seeks-a-home#.UEH_alKdoKU.twitter
Space exploration’s radioactive mess
In Russia, the situation is even grimmer. In true Soviet fashion, the bomb makers secretly dumped unknown quantities of liquid waste into giant reservoirs around the plant. Nobody knows how much radioactive contamination is out there, but a single accident – the explosion of a waste tank in 1957 – is thought to have been Chernobyl-like in scale.
remember this, too: That little rover on Mars has left a big mess back here on Earth.
Curiosity’s dirty little secret http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/curiositys-dirty-little-secret-20120828-24xvn.html#ixzz255PEGe79 August 29, 2012 I’m as happy as anyone that the Curiosity rover got to Mars; it’s hard not to barrack for all those NASA geeks in their blue polo shirts. But before you get all apple pie about the achievement, there’s something you should know: Curiosity runs on plutonium from a Soviet-era nuclear weapons plant.
Take a look at the back of Curiosity. Other rovers have solar panels, but Curiosity doesn’t. Instead, there’s a little white thing that looks cute, almost like a tail. Inside are eight boxes filled with pellets of nuclear fuel. This stuff is hot, so hot that the boxes glow bright red, and will glow for years to come. Think of it as nuclear charcoal. The fuel will keep the rover toasty on cold Martian nights and supply it with electricity.
It’s a neat trick, and one that NASA has used before. Since the 1960s, the US has been launching nuclear-powered spacecraft. The first were military satellites. That worked swell, except that when the mission ended, you had a radioactive pile of junk orbiting the planet. And every now and then, one would fail to launch or fall back to Earth. That was bad for PR.
Leaked memo shows incompetence of company doing Hanford nuclear waste cleanup
“This memo details exhaustive and disturbing evidence of why Bechtel should be terminated from this project and subject to an independent investigation.”
Bechtel Incompetent To Complete Hanford Nuclear Waste Cleanup: DOE Memo, Forbes, Jeff McMahon, 29 Aug 12, More than 10 years into the job, Bechtel National Inc. has been described as incompetent to complete the $12.2 billion nuclear waste treatment plant at Hanford, Wa., the nation’s largest radioactive waste site, according to an internal Department of Energy memo.
In the Aug. 23 memo, the DOE official responsible for supervising engineering at the facility, Gary Brunson, calls for Bechtel to be immediately removed as the design agent for the novel Waste Treatment Plant (WTP), which was supposed to begin operation last year. Continue reading
Cumbria’s huge report on proposal for underground nuclear waste bunker
NUCLEAR WASTE DISPOSAL: THE DEFINITIVE REPORT CONDENSED, in-cumbria by Ellis Butcher , 24 August 2012 The experts call it a “geological disposal facility”. Opponents call it a “nuke dump”. They all agree it’ll contain “high level and intermediate nuclear waste”.
A history-making vote takes place on October 11 which represents one of Cumbria’s most important ever nuclear decisions.A trio of councils, involving hundreds of community leaders, decides on whether West Cumbria takes part in a search to site a massive underground bunker containing the UK’s most toxic nuclear waste. Business Editor Ellis Butcher looks at the definitive report facing them. Continue reading
Cumbria ponders on hosting UK’s underground radioactive waste dump
The anticipated footprint of the underground facilities ranges from 2.32 square miles to 8.88 square miles, depending on rock type and the amount and type of waste to be disposed of.
The Government has said deep geological disposal is the best way to dispose of higher activity radioactive waste. The waste is currently stored above ground at 36 UK sites, with most of it at Sellafield.
NUCLEAR DUMP COULD BE AS BIG AS WORKINGTON, Times & StarNews, 24 August 2012 An underground nuclear dump in West Cumbria would be about the size of Workington, a report has revealed. West Cumbria Managing Radioactive Waste Safely Partnership, which published its final report this week, said it would take at least 15 years to find a site.
Twenty-five per cent of West Cumbria has already been ruled out as unsuitable for an underground nuclear waste dump, the report said, and more work would be needed before it would be known if any of the area would be able to host the site. Continue reading
Opposition to USA plan to commercialise plutonium wastes at Savannah
The preferred plan under consideration calls for the shipment of 7.1 metric tons of so-called pits — or cores — of an undisclosed number of nuclear warheads now stored at the Pantex plant in West Texas to Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and the Savannah River Site for disarmament and processing into fuel for commercial nuclear reactors.
Anti-nuclear activists question plan for shipping plutonium from warheads to New Mexico By Associated Press, August 22 LOS ALAMOS, N.M. — Nuclear watchdogs are fighting a proposal to ship tons of plutonium to New Mexico, including the cores of nuclear warheads that would be dismantled at an aging and structurally questionable lab atop an earthquake fault zone.
Opponents voiced their opposition at a series of public hearings that opened this week on the best way to dispose of the radioactive material as the federal government works to reduce the nation’s nuclear arsenal.
The Department of Energy is studying alternatives for disposing of plutonium in light of federal budget cuts that have derailed plans for new multi-billion-dollar facilities at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Continue reading
Urgent nuclear waste problem in Ukraine
Ukraine badly needs waste nuclear fuel storage facility, says Emergencies Ministry Interfax, 17 Aug 12, Ukraine needs to give a serious thought to building a centralized storage facility for waste nuclear fuel since waste fuel from Ukrainian nuclear power plants (NPPs), which is temporary stored in the Russian Federation will start to come back from 2013, the Emergencies Ministry said. Continue reading
UK’s plans for nuclear waste burial in Cumbria
Full report published on Cumbria nuclear waste burial and local involvement http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/the-northerner/2012/aug/17/lakedistrict-nuclearpower-west-cumbria-managing-nuclear-waste-safely-partnership?newsfeed=true
by Martin Wainwright 17 August 2012 Findings of three-year review by the West Cumbria Managing Radioactive Waste Safely Partnership are now in print and online The complicated and contentious issue of burying nuclear waste in Cumbria is heading for a milestone on 11 October when the three local councils which have expressed an interest meet to debate further involvement.
A useful waymarker has now been published in full, based on the views of some 2,300 people and organisations whose submissions, while often very different and sometimes in direct conflict, have led to changes and hesitations, albeit not altering the general approach of cautiously making headway.
The document was summarised on 19 July and you can read a precis of that here. The full report has now gone up online and that is availablehere. It is the work of the West Cumbria Managing Radioactive Waste Safely Partnership which is made up of the councils – Cumbria countyand Allerdale and Copeland districts – and other groups including the National Farmers Union, the Lake District national park authority and representatives of all the parish councils potentially involved. Continue reading
Eastern Connecticut’s nuclear waste problem
if no national repository is built, the nuclear waste will have to stay there forever and the property will not be marketable.
Public Voices Concerns About More Nuclear Waste In Eastern Connecticut
At a public forum by Dominion, neighbors voiced their concerns about Millstone increasing its capacity for nuclear waste, although said there is little other choice. Groton Patch 17 Aug 12, By Paul Petrone At a public forum Wednesday night, neighbors and an anti-nuclear activist raised concerns about Millstone Power Station’s plans to vastly increase the amount of nuclear waste it can store on site , although most agreed there was no other option.
“I feel bad for the people growing up in this area,” said Ed Saller, who lives within 2,000 feet of Millstone. “We have a dysfunctional government, I don’t know how they can ever solve this issue.”
Dominion, owners of Millstone, are asking the Connecticut Siting Council if they can put on the top layer of a nearly two-acre concrete pad that would hold nearly 60 years of nuclear waste in dry cask storage. Continue reading
No confidence in USA’s “Waste Confidence Rule” – so nuclear licensing stopped
puts waste where it belongs, front and center in the debate over the future of nuclear power in this country
NRC elevates nuclear waste to front and center of debate http://www.thereporteronline.com/article/20120815/OPINION01/120819748/nrc-levates-nuclear-waste-to-front-and-center-of-debate&pager=2 08/15/12 BECAUSE THE U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is a part of the federal bureaucracy, it can make even groundbreaking news seem mundane.
Take this understated sentence in its ruling Aug. 7 delaying the final issuance of any nuclear permits, for existing or new power plants:
“Waste confidence undergirds certain agency licensing decisions, in particular new reactor licensing and reactor licensing renewal.”
Translation: The country cannot continue to talk about building new nuclear plants without figuring out what it is going to do with the dangerous waste that literally is stacking up at sites all over the country, including at Ameren Missouri’s Callaway County plant.
That means that because Americans can have no confidence that the NRC has seriously dealt with the growing problem of nuclear waste, the NRC will stop making the problem worse by extending nuclear plant licenses. Continue reading
Allison Macfarlane speaks out on USA’s nuclear waste problem
New U.S. Nuclear Regulator Says Spent Fuel a Top Priority Bloomberg News, By Kasia Klimasinska August 14, 2012 The new chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said she plans to concentrate on the disposal of spent atomic fuel, an issue that is holding up decisions on power-plant licenses.
Allison Macfarlane, in her first news conference since taking over at the NRC on July 9, today also called on Congress and the White House to identify a permanent disposal site for spent fuel from the nation’s 104 nuclear reactors. Continue reading
VIDEO: Norway cops radioactive water waste from UK’s Sellafield nuclear site
Norway’s Nuclear Problem http://www.sbs.com.au/shows/thalassa/ Radioactive material from the Sellafield nuclear plant in the UK has been detected in Norwegian waters.In the early 1990s in Norway, scientists discovered the presence of radioactive material in the seawater, seaweed and lobster. But Norway has no nuclear facilities, and no nuclear weapons, so it had to be coming from another country.
Russia was a prime suspect, but it is in fact in southern Scotland on the edge of the Irish Sea that the problem originated. Over fifty years ago the British government built the Sellafield plant to produce electricity and plutonium for the making of atomic bombs. Now it has reconverted into a nuclear waste processing plant, but security is still not guaranteed and fires, leakage and accidental toxic discharge have occurred over the years.
Some speak of negligence. Environmental activists around the world are on the case, demanding the closure of the site once and for all. In 1997, a huge rock concert was organised by U2 to raise the alarm.
Poisonous legacy of rare earths mining in China
Rare-earth mining in China comes at a heavy cost for local villages Guardian UK Pollution is poisoning the farms and villages of the region that processes the precious minerals , 7 August 2012 From the air it looks like a huge lake, fed by many tributaries, but on the ground it turns out to be a murky expanse of water, in which no fish or algae can survive. The shore is coated with a black crust, so thick you can walk on it. Into this huge, 10 sq km tailings pond nearby factories discharge water loaded with chemicals used to process the 17 most sought after minerals in the world, collectively known as rare earths.
The town of Baotou, in Inner Mongolia, is the largest Chinese source of these strategic elements, essential to advanced technology, from smartphones to GPS receivers, but also to wind farms and, above all, electric cars. The minerals are mined at Bayan Obo, 120km farther north, then brought to Baotou for processing.
The concentration of rare earths in the ore is very low, so they must be separated and purified, using hydro-metallurgical techniques and acid baths. China accounts for 97% of global output of these precious substances, with two-thirds produced in Baotou.
The foul waters of the tailings pond contain all sorts of toxic chemicals, but also radioactive elements such as thorium which, if ingested, cause cancers of the pancreas and lungs, and leukaemia. “Before the factories were built, there were just fields here as far as the eye can see. In the place of this radioactive sludge, there were watermelons, aubergines and tomatoes,” says Li Guirong with a sigh.
It was in 1958 – when he was 10 – that a state-owned concern, the Baotou Iron and Steel company (Baogang), started producing rare-earth minerals. The lake appeared at that time. “To begin with we didn’t notice the pollution it was causing. How could we have known?” As secretary general of the local branch of the Communist party, he is one of the few residents who dares to speak out.
Towards the end of the 1980s, Li explains, crops in nearby villages started to fail: “Plants grew badly. They would flower all right, but sometimes there was no fruit or they were small or smelt awful.” Ten years later the villagers had to accept that vegetables simply would not grow any longer. In the village of Xinguang Sancun – much as in all those near the Baotou factories – farmers let some fields run wild and stopped planting anything but wheat and corn.
A study by the municipal environmental protection agency showed that rare-earth minerals were the source of their problems. The minerals themselves caused pollution, but also the dozens of new factories that had sprung up around the processing facilities and a fossil-fuel power station feeding Baotou’s new industrial fabric. Residents of what was now known as the “rare-earth capital of the world” were inhaling solvent vapour, particularly sulphuric acid, as well as coal dust, clearly visible in the air between houses.
Now the soil and groundwater are saturated with toxic substances. Five years ago Li had to get rid of his sick pigs, the last survivors of a collection of cows, horses, chickens and goats, killed off by the toxins.
The farmers have moved away. Most of the small brick houses in Xinguang Sancun, huddling close to one another, are going to rack and ruin. In just 10 years the population has dropped from 2,000 to 300 people…… http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/aug/07/china-rare-earth-village-pollution
No nuclear waste solution in sight, as USA suspends new and renewing nuclear power licences
The suspension is likely to lower confidence in the nuclear industry, both on the part of the public and lawmakers. At least one congressman called for the end of new nuclear power in response to the order.
A century after a reactor shuts down, “the entity that operates reactors might not exist; the NRC might not exist. How do you say with a straight face that’s going to be safe?”
US nuke plant delay fails to solve storage conundrum http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22165-us-nuke-plant-delay-fails-to-solve-storage-conundrum.html 10 August 2012 by Sara Reardon The gauntlet has been thrown: until the US figures out what to do with its nuclear waste, new nuclear plants can’t be licensed and existing licences can’t be renewed.
The dramatic decision, taken by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on 8 August, is a sign of mounting pressure over the issue of nuclear waste storage, and is likely to rekindle doubts over the future of the nuclear industry. But whether it will result in a solution anytime soon is still unclear.
In taking the decision, the NRC was responding to a complaint from 24 organisations, demanding that it set more specific guidelines for its plans regarding nuclear waste.
The current modus operandi is for US nuclear plants to store spent fuel in pools onsite in the hope that a permanent geological repository, such as Nevada’s Yucca Mountain – or even better, somewhere else – becomes available within the coming decades. 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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