Nuclear waste storage and the “Waste Confidence Rule”
According to the NRC “waste confidence” is a generic finding that spent nuclear fuel can be safely stored for decades beyond the licensed operating life of a reactor without significant environmental effects.
The NRC said the rule enables the agency to license reactors or renew their licenses without examining the effects of extended waste storage for each individual site
NRC Will Study Environmental Impact of Temporary On-Site Storage of Nuclear Waste, Montville Patch 9 Sept 12, Following a lawsuit brought by Attorney’s General of Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Vermont, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it will assess the environmental impact of storing spent nuclear fuel at reactor sites for longer periods of time. For towns near Dominion’s Millstone Nuclear Power Plant, including Montville, just 8 miles away as the corw flies, federal heel-dragging on the issue of what to do with the nation’s nuclear waste is increasingly becoming an issue . Continue reading
Opposition to bringng in more nuclear waste to South Carolina
Green groups oppose shipping hot waste to SRS The State, By SAMMY FRETWELL 7 Sept 12, – sfretwell@thestate.com Environmentalists spoke out Thursday against sending highly radioactive waste from commercial power plants to the Savannah River Site near Aiken for storage. The federal government has been trying to decide what to do with spent fuel created by the nation’s 104 atomic energy plants since President
Barack Obama chose in 2009 to abandon the Yucca Mountain, Nev., disposal site. Continue reading
USA to get another “Waste Confidence Rule”?
The Appeals Court ruled that the NRC should have considered the potential environmental effects in the event a permanent repository for disposing of spent fuel …. is never built
NRC staff to review nuclear reactor waste storage rules http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/06/us-utilities-nrc-waste-idUSBRE88515T20120906 by Scott DiSavino, Sep 6, 2012 (Reuters) – The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) directed its staff on Thursday to start an environmental review into the temporary storage of spent nuclear fuel, following a court ruling that led the agency to stop issuing new reactor licenses. Continue reading
Confusion in Aomori Prefecture about importing radioactive waste
Aomori Pref. mulling rejecting nuclear waste The Yomiuri Shimbun , 6 Sept 12, AOMORI—The Aomori prefectural government is considering refusing to accept highly radioactive 
waste scheduled to be returned from reprocessing overseas if the central government abolishes its nuclear fuel cycle policy.
The prefectural government was likely prompted to act by recent moves by the central government toward abandoning nuclear power generation.
The village of Rokkasho in the prefecture is home to a spent nuclear fuel reprocessing plant that is considered to be the foundation of the nuclear fuel cycle, in which plutonium and uranium are extracted from spent fuel to be reused.
The plant has yet to begin operating, and spent nuclear fuel from the nation’s nuclear reactors are currently stored at nuclear power plants or at the Rokkasho facility. Some spent nuclear fuel is reprocessed in France and Britain. Vitrified radioactive waste, the highly radioactive waste that is produced in the reprocessing process, has been shipped from Europe to the Vitrified Waste Storage Center at the Rokkasho facility. So far, the plant has received 1,414 containers of vitrified waste, and 28 more are scheduled to be shipped from Britain in October at the earliest. Continue reading
Kazakhstan’s nuclear fuel bank or nuclear graveyard?
Nuclear fuel bank or nuclear graveyard? Asia Times, 5 Sept 12, By Zhulduz Baizakova Kazakhstan plans to build an international nuclear fuel bank in Ust-Kamenogorsk (Oskemen), in the country’s east, at the site of Ulba Metallurgic Plant, part of the giant national company Kazatomprom, which produces fuel tablets for nuclear power plants.
While the authorities are keen on the plan, some citizens are seriously questioning it – questions that are likely to remain largely unanswered. Continue reading
Costs of USA’s MOX nuclear plant spinning out of control
Supporters, opponents of MOX facility speak out at hearing Augusta Chronicle, By Rob Pavey Sept. 4, 2012 “…..The government has not altered its mission to dispose of the plutonium, but has amended its original plan to build a freestanding plant to process plutonium “pits” from dismantled 
warheads into powder for use at the MOX plant. Instead, the new plan will use multiple existing facilities, including the H Canyon facilities at Savannah River Site, to accomplish the same mission without building a new plant. Plutonium not suitable for MOX will be disposed of at a site in New Mexico.
Critics of the program, however, raised continuing concerns about escalating costs and suggested the plutonium could simply be processed as nuclear waste and immobilized.
Tom Clements, the non-proliferation policy director for the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, also noted that there are currently no clients willing to use MOX fuel in commercial reactors….. A cheaper alternative, he suggested, would be to immobilize plutonium at the SRS Defense Waste Processing Facility or a similar project that would
prevent any future use of the material for weapons.
“The costs are just spiraling out of control, Clements said……
National forest site for Japan’s nuclear waste disposal
Tochigi forest eyed as N-waste disposal site http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T120903003600.htm4 Sept 12, Jiji Press The Environment Ministry said Monday it has selected a national forest in Yaita, Tochigi Prefecture, as a candidate site for final disposal of waste contaminated by radioactive substances from last year’s nuclear accident.
It was the first time the ministry has unveiled a candidate site for refuse incineration ash, sludge and rice straw that are tainted with radioactive substances from Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, which was crippled by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
The ministry is also working on selecting final disposal sites in Miyagi, Ibaraki and Chiba prefectures.
The central government is required to dispose of such waste that contains radioactive cesium of more than 8,000 becquerels per kilogram under special legislation for dealing with radioactive materials from the nuclear accident. The amount of such waste is estimated to top 50,000 tons across the country. Tochigi Prefecture is projected to have about 9,000 tons.
The ministry chose the national forest in Yaita as the candidate site after considering the topography and effects on nearby areas, officials said.
The government plans to start construction there of a final disposal facility covering 3 to 4 hectares in fiscal 2013 for completion by the end of fiscal 2014.
USA Federal government responsible to clean up Hanford nuclear waste
State right to force federal Hanford cleanup http://union-bulletin.com/news/2012/sep/04/state-right-to-force-federal-hanford-cleanup/#
The federal government created the waste; it must clean it up.
By Editorial Board As of Tuesday, September 4, 2012 Washington state —
led by Gov. Chris Gregoire and Attorney General Rob McKenna — is
wisely threatening legal action against the federal government because
it continues to shirk its responsibilities to clean up the Hanford
Nuclear Reservation.
#Federal officials have been delaying fully funding the cleanup
operation for years. Congress trims current funding while promising to
make up for it some day — a day that never arrives. Continue reading
IN its quest for Arctic oil, Russia admits its undersea nuclear dump
17,000 containers of radioactive waste, 19 ships containing radioactive waste, 14 nuclear reactors, including five that still contain spent nuclear fuel; 735 other pieces of radiactively contaminated heavy machinery, and the K-27 nuclear submarine with its two reactors loaded with nuclear fuel.
one of the most critical pieces of information missing from the report released to the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority was the presence of the K-27 nuclear submarine, which was scuttled in 50 kilometers of water with its two reactors filled with spent nuclear fuel in in Stepovogo Bay in the Kara Sea in 1981.
Information that the reactors abord the K-27 could reachieve criticality and explode was released at the Bellona-Rosatom seminar in February.
Russia Dumped 17 Nuclear Reactors and Tons of Waste in the Arctic by Charles Digges / Bellona.org, Earth First! Newswire, 30 Aug 12, Enormous quantities of decommissioned Russian nuclear reactors and radioactive waste were dumped into the Kara Sea in the Arctic Ocean north of Siberia over a course of decades, according to documents given to Norwegian officials by Russian authorities and published in Norwegian media.
Bellona had received in 2011 a draft of a similar report prepared for Russia’s Gossoviet, the State Council, for presentation at a meeting presided over by then-president Dmitry Medvedev on Russian environmental security.
The Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom confirmed the figures in February of this year during a seminar it jointly held with Bellona in Moscow. Bellona is alarmed by the extent of the dumped Soviet waste, which is far greater than was previously known – not only to Bellona, but also to the Russian authorities themselves. Continue reading
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
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Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
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