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The world’s 240,000 tonnes of intensely radioactive civilian waste

Nuclear’s environmental costs No nation has come up with a permanent, safe way to dispose of radioactive waste Montreal Gazette, By IAN MACLEOD, Postmedia News December 17, 2011 “……More than 240,000 tonnes of intensely radioactive civilian waste has piled up around the globe since the dawning of the atomic age.

Sixty years on, no one is sure yet how to safely and permanently dispose of the stuff, much of it harmful to living organisms for thousands of years. Canada’s share of the highlevel heap stands at 44,000 tonnes. Virtually all is spenturanium fuel bundles – 2.3 million of them – that powered the commercial and research reactors that made Canada a leading nuclear nation…..
Spent fuel bundles are just one piece of fallout from the nuclear fuel cycle. Continue reading →

December 19, 2011 Posted by | Canada, wastes | Leave a comment

USA no nearer to solving its huge nuclear waste problems

Three decades after the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act said the federal government would handle disposal of high-level radioactive waste, the United States still has no agreed-upon solution for where and how to dispose of about 70,000 metric tons of it. About 10 percent is from the military’s nuclear weapons programs; most of the rest is piling up at commercial reactor sites around the country……

Nuclear waste site hunt could point to granite, WSJ, 18 Dec 11, MONTPELIER, Vt. — The likely death of a planned nuclear waste site at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain has left federal agencies looking for a possible replacement. A national lab working for the U.S. Department

of Energy is now eying granite deposits stretching from Georgia to Maine as potential sites, along with big sections of Minnesota and Wisconsin where that rock is prevalent. Continue reading →

December 19, 2011 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Nuclear waste disposal problem looming large and urgent for USA

U.S. anxious to secure nuclear waste disposal site as China emerges on scene Mainichi Daily News, Japan, By Haruyuki Aikawa, Europe General Bureau, December 14, 2011 “……As the world shifts away from the business of recycling plutonium-based nuclear fuel, the construction of facilities to handle nuclear waste remains a nagging issue. After plans to construct an international disposal facility in Australia fell through, the United States and Japan moved forward in negotiations to build such a facility in Mongolia, an inland country which is believed to hold rich deposits of uranium…..

After the Mainichi Shimbun reported the plans in May, an opposition campaign was launched in Mongolia, and in September this year, Mongolian President Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj issued an order prohibiting negotiations, effectively putting an end to the plans…… at the end of March that the rise of emerging nations had weakened the United States’ grip. While it still has power, it wants to secure a place that will accept spent nuclear fuel. The project previously proposed in Mongolia strongly highlights the United States’ anxiousness. …  http://mdn.mainichi.jp/features/news/20111214p2a00m0na013000c.html

December 15, 2011 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Many thousands of tons of radioactive water accumulating at Fukushima

Tepco estimates that the amount of treated water requiring storage is increasing by 200 to 500 tons every day. 

Japan’s earthquake-hit nuclear plant scraps plan to dump water in sea, Reuters  Tokyo December 12, 2011 Japan’s utility operating the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant said on Friday it has scrapped a plan to dump water it treated for radiation contamination into the sea following fierce protests from fishing groups. Continue reading →

December 12, 2011 Posted by | Japan, oceans, wastes | Leave a comment

Turmoil over Hanford’s huge radioactive wastes, whistleblowers targeted?

the worst of the waste is still decades away from being completely removed. Millions of gallons of a highly radioactive stew — enough to fill dozens of Olympic-size swimming pools — are stored in aging underground tanks. Some of those tanks have leaked, threatening the groundwater and the river.

 Hanford workers filed suit as whistleblowers, claiming they were targeted for reprisals after raising safety concerns. 

New concerns about Northwest nuclear waste plant Google News, By SHANNON DININNY,12 Dec 11 RICHLAND, Wash. (AP) — The federal government says a one-of-a-kind plant that will convert radioactive waste into a stable and storable substance that resembles glass will cost hundreds of millions of dollars more and may take longer to build, adding to a string of delays and skyrocketing price tag for the project.

In addition, several workers at southeast Washington’s Hanford nuclear reservation have raised concerns about the safety of the plant’s design — and complained they’ve been retaliated against for voicing their issues. Continue reading →

December 12, 2011 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Anxiety in Ontario at the prospect of nuclear waste dump

Peabody said Walkerton’s tainted water tragedy a decade ago should be
reason enough to stay out of the radioactive-waste business.

“I would (also) question the wisdom of putting all of Canada’s nuclear
waste beside or close to Lake Huron under some of Canada’s best farm
land.” 

Nuclear waste dump idea sparks unease in Ontario The Canadian Press, Dec. 11, 2011  TORONTO — A community on the shores of Lake Huron has cracked open the door to southern Ontario’s becoming the permanent storage site for Canada’s spent, but still dangerously radioactive, nuclear fuel. Continue reading →

December 12, 2011 Posted by | Canada, wastes | Leave a comment

Will Los Alamos plutonium nuclear lab be USA’s Fukushima?

Questions swirl around $6 billion US nuclear lab Canadian Business, By AP  | December 04, 2011 SANTA FE, New Mexico (AP) — At Los Alamos National Laboratory, scientists and engineers refer to their planned new $6 billion nuclear lab by its clunky acronym, CMRR, short for Chemistry Metallurgy Research Replacement Facility. But as a work in progress for three decades and with hundreds of millions of dollars already spent, nomenclature is among the minor issues.

 Questions continue to swirl about exactly what kind of nuclear and plutonium research will be done there, whether the lab is really necessary, and — perhaps most important — will it be safe, or could it become New Mexico’s equivalent of Japan’s Fukushima? Continue reading →

December 5, 2011 Posted by | - plutonium, safety, USA | Leave a comment

UK government and its crazy economics of a plutonium Mox nuclear plant

“This is crazynomics – the reality is that the nuclear fairytale is a nuclear nightmare. Having announced the closure of a Mox plant because it was colossally inefficient and because there was no market for its service, the government now wants to build another one that will fast become a hugely expensive white elephant.

Mox plant U-turn by coalition stuns anti-nuclear campaigners, Guardian UK, Terry Macalister, 2 Dec 11 Having closed down a massively loss-making mixed-oxide fuel
reprocessing plant at Sellafield, the government amazes Greenpeace by proposing to build a new one

The government has astonished the anti-nuclear lobby by outlining plans to spend £3bn of public money building a new mixed-oxide fuel (Mox) plant – months after announcing the closure of a similar facility that lost taxpayers hundreds of millions of pounds….. Continue reading →

December 3, 2011 Posted by | - plutonium, politics, UK | Leave a comment

Japan trying out a giant washing machine for radioactive cleanup

Japan looks to giant washer to clean Fukushima debris, MY sinchew.com,TOKYO, December 2, 2011 (AFP) – Japan is looking to launder tsunami debris in a giant washing machine to get rid of radiation from the Fukushima nuclear accident, a researcher said Friday.

In a scheme they hope will result in finally being able to dispose of contaminated waste left by the waves that crushed towns on the country’s northeast coast, a cleaning plant will be built near the Fukushima Daiichi power station. Shredded waste — including the remains of houses and cars destroyed by the tsunami — will be put inside a huge water-filled drum where steel attachments will scrub away radioactive particles, the researcher told AFP.

The plan is a joint scheme between Tokyo-based construction company Toda Corp. and the Japan Atomic Energy Agency…..Government planners have said radiation-contaminated debris could be stored in a facility in Fukushima prefecture for at least 30 years until its final destination is determined. http://www.mysinchew.com/node/67283

December 3, 2011 Posted by | Japan, wastes | Leave a comment

Taiwan’s nuclear waste dilemma

Activists challenge government on nuclear waste management policy, Taiwan News, Central News Agency, Taipei, By Hsu Chih-wei and Elizabeth Hsu Nov. 28 (CNA) Environmental groups charged Monday that Taiwan’s government has not resolved how to deal with nuclear waste and proposed suspending operations at the country’s three nuclearpower plants until the issue was dealt with.

The environmentalists made the appeal at an environmental assessment meeting held by the
Cabinet-level Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) on the government’s radioactive waste management policy. During the meeting, officials from the Atomic Energy Council (AEC), the country’s top nuclear regulatory body, presented a report on its proposed approach to dealing with nuclear waste that will become official policy ifapproved by the EPA assessment committee. One of the plan’s centerpieces was to have nuclear waste recycled overseas beforeshipping it back to Taiwan for permanent storage.

But environmental activists, including Green Citizens’ Action Alliance Deputy Secretary-General Hung Shen-han, were not convinced the solution was viable and advocated shutting down Taiwan’s three nuclear power plants until the issue was clearly addressed.  Hung contended that one way or another, radioactive waste had to be stored either at home or abroad, and no foreign country has so far been willing to lease Taiwan land for storage of the waste. He acknowledged that radioactive waste could be recycled overseas but said the leftover material was still unstable and would still have to be stored in Taiwan, which he saw as a bad option.

Hung compared nuclear waste to a ticking time-bomb that threatened the life and
property of Taiwan’s people because of the unstable geographic nature of the island, which is prone to earthquakes. …. The government has selected Wuchiu in Kinmen and Daren in Taitung to serve as permanent storage sites for the waste, but it has encountered strong opposition from people in the two townships.  http://www.taiwannews.com.tw/etn/news_content.php?id=1771961

November 29, 2011 Posted by | Taiwan, wastes | Leave a comment

World’s nuclear waste problem becoming ever more urgent

A New Urgency to the Problem of Storing Nuclear Waste, NYT By KATE GALBRAITH, November 27, 2011 AUSTIN, TEXAS — The nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan, earlier this year caused many countries to rethink their appetite for nuclear power. It is also, in subtler ways, altering the fraught discussion of what to do with nuclear plants’ wastes.

A prime example is Germany, which decided to shut down all its nuclear power plants by 2022 after the partial reactor meltdowns at Fukushima. That decision is making it easier for Germans to have a calm and focused discussion about a permanent disposal site for the plants’
wastes, analysts say.

Previously, opponents of nuclear power worried that backing a permanent solution for the wastes would make it easier for nuclear power plants to continue to exist, according to Michael Sailer, the chief executive at the Öko-Institut in Berlin, a research and consulting group focused on sustainability.

Anti-nuclear politicians, he said, felt that if they came out in favor of a permanent disposal site, “they support pro-nuclear people because they solve the waste problem.”….

Germany is now moving forward on the waste issue. Continue reading →

November 28, 2011 Posted by | 2 WORLD, wastes | Leave a comment

Nuclear power for space research (another ploy to keep nuclear industry alive?)

Nuclear or Solar, Where Does the Future of Space Exploration Lie? Oil Price.com , James Burgess, 24 November 2011  “………The major problem that NASA faces when pursuing this form of technology is that, as Dr. John M. Logsdon, a space expert at George Washington University, said “It’s really only possible with plutonium-238 to do what it’s intending to do,” and the United States stopped making Plutonium-238 in the 1980’s. Since then they have bought it from Russia, but now they no longer make it either. A 2009 report by the National Academy of Sciences called for restarting production, but this has not been done, mostly for cost reasons….
Therefore, solar cells have always been used where possible. Steven W. Squyres, a professor of astronomy at Cornell who is the chief scientist behind the Opportunity and Spirit rovers, said: “You always use solar when you can; it’s simpler, cheaper, just easier to do. You only use nuclear when you have to.’’ This thought was obviously prevalent when NASA launched their Jupiter-bound, Juno space shuttle, as that too relies upon solar cells….”
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Nuclear-or-Solar-Where-Does-the-Future-of-Space-Exploration-Lie.html

November 27, 2011 Posted by | - plutonium, technology, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear waste train meets strong protest in France

Nuclear waste train spurs protests in France, Nov 23 (Reuters) – French anti-nuclear activists scuffled with police in Normandy on Wednesday as they tried to hold up a train transporting radioactive waste processed by nuclear producer Areva to a storage site in Germany.

Several hundred protesters tried to occupy the train tracks near the town of Valognes in northwestern France before being repelled by police in riot gear. Police said they had detained five people. Before the train eventually departed around mid-afternoon, the activists played a cat-and-mouse game with police officers, who launched canisters of tear gas to disperse them before charging the crowd with batons.

“This movement is about the indignation of people who are aware of the dangers of nuclear power and who reject politics geared only toward the profit of certain businesses,” said a 60-year-old activist, who did not want to give his name……

The train carried 11 tubular containers of highly radioactive nuclear waste processed by Areva at its treatment plant at La Hague, northwest France. The treated waste, which originates from German nuclear plants, was en route to the nuclear waste facility of Gorleben in northeastern Germany for storage. Wednesday’s train marked the last of 12 shipments of treated nuclear waste sent in recent years from France to Gorleben. An expired contract between the two countries is not expected to be renewed.  http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/23/france-nuclear-protests-idUSL5E7MN30R20111123

November 24, 2011 Posted by | France, opposition to nuclear, wastes | Leave a comment

France grapples with the eternal unsolved problem of nuclear wastes

A pyramid to warn of a French nuclear waste site?, By Muriel Boselli, PARIS | Tue Nov 8, 2011  (Reuters) – How can mankind signal to future generations thousands of years from now that hazardous radioactive waste is buried deep underground in eastern France — by building a giant pyramid, a museum or a site for art projects or by employing geology? Continue reading →

November 13, 2011 Posted by | France, wastes | 2 Comments

UK government hypocrisy when it comes to nuclear waste dumping

Localism loses out in High Court decision, PS Public Service.co UK 03 November 2011 Campaigners from the village of Kings Cliffe near Peterborough have lost their High Court battle to overturn a decision by Communities and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles to let radioactive waste be dumped at the nearby East Northants Resource Management Facility.
The case was seen as an example of how the government may speak of encouraging localism in one breath but in the next force communities to accept decisions that they have opposed through democratic means.

The Kings Cliffe Wastewatchers had protested at Pickles overturning local planning decisions on the low-level waste, allowing it to be dumped between now and August 2013. There were also fears that the waste disposal company Augean could go ahead with its plans to expand the site’s operation for hazardous and nuclear wastes until 2026.

Before the verdict, spokesperson Louise Bowen-West said: “We feel the [Pickles] decision is unlawful and must be stopped in order to set a precedent. I get the impression that the government thinks that because we’re a tiny community they can stamp all over us. But we plan to fight this all the way. Whatever the verdict in the case we will battle on to make sure this is stopped.”

The campaigners’ defence lawyer had said this was a “classic case of the developer obtaining, through this permission, a foot in the door for the extended landfill”. He added that the Pickles decision was unlawful and should be overturned.

http://www.publicservice.co.uk/news_story.asp?id=17921

November 4, 2011 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

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