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Danger in USA’s 71,862 tons of spent nuclear fuel rods

A 2006 study by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) warned Congress and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) that spent fuel pools were vulnerable to terrorist attack, with some nuclear plant designs more than others. With water gone from the pools, the spent fuel could easily catch fire and see “the release of large quantities of radioactive materials to the environment,” the study found…….

Fukushima warning: US has ‘utterly failed’ to address risk of spent fuel Nuclear experts told Congress Wednesday that spent-fuel pools at US nuclear power plants are fuller than safety suggests they should be. They say the entire US spent-fuel policy should be overhauled in light of the nuclear crisis at Japan’s Fukushima plant. CSMonitor.com, By Mark Clayton,   March 30, 2011 Continue reading →

March 31, 2011 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Vast area of uranium waste in Nevada

the towering waste piles, open pit lake and old leach ponds spread across an area the size of 3,000 football fields.

Polluted mine is back on feds’ list | Reno Gazette-Journal | rgj.com Scott Sonner, Associated Press  28 March 11, YERINGTON — Federal regulators who have spent a decade assessing the uranium and other toxic wastes seeping into the water table at an old Anaconda copper mine in Northern Nevada have concluded that the pollution can’t be cleaned up without adding the vast, abandoned site to the U.S. Superfund’s National Priorities List. Continue reading →

March 29, 2011 Posted by | Uranium, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

The vulnerability of USA’s spent nuclear fuel cooling ponds

Three-quarters of that waste is stored in water-filled cooling pools like those at the Japanese plant, stored outside the thick concrete containment barriers that block the release of radioactive material in an accident…..”The spent-fuel pools are currently holding, on the average, four times more than their designs intended,”

Japan Disaster Raises Questions About Backup Power at U.S. Nuclear Plants, NYTimes.com, By MIKE SORAGHAN   March 24, 2011 In the United States, most spent fuel remains on site at nuclear plants because the country has not developed a facility to store it.The United States has 71,862 tons of the waste, according to a recent analysis by the Associated Press (Greenwire, March 23).

Continue reading →

March 26, 2011 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

USA’s nuclear waste storage raises safety dangers

in light of the overheating of spent fuel at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant, some elected officials have renewed calls to remove waste from nuclear plants, many of which are near heavily populated areas…..the nuclear industry has raised the risk of a fire by reconfiguring its pools over the years to squeeze in more fuel.

Storage of Nuclear Waste Gets New Scrutiny.  WSJ.com, 24 March 11, By STEPHEN POWER The nuclear crisis in Japan is reviving a battle over what should be done with the spent nuclear fuel that has been piling up around the U.S. for decades. Continue reading →

March 26, 2011 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

How to deal with dead nuclear reactors?


“The need for national and international mechanisms for early planning, adequate funding and long-term strategies applies not only to decommissioning, but also to radioactive waste management and spent fuel management.”

Closing old atom plants poses safety challenge: IAEA By Fredrik DahlMar 24, 2011  VIENNA (Reuters) – The closing of aging nuclear reactors is expected to peak in 2020-30, posing a major challenge in terms of safety and the environment, a draft U.N. atomic agency report says. Continue reading →

March 26, 2011 Posted by | 2 WORLD, decommission reactor | Leave a comment

Nuclear waste is the really most serious problem

nuclear waste lasts forever. That’s the real horror of Fukushima – that the spread of radioactive material could make an entire chunk of Japan uninhabitable. We could afford to be smug if we knew how to deal with our nuclear waste. But we don’t.

Forget meltdowns. The real nuclear problem is waste, thestar.com Thomas Walkom , 21 March 11, For Canada, the danger of nuclear power lies not in a Japanese-style meltdown. When industry boosters say such an event is unlikely here, they are right.

But what the boosters don’t talk about is radioactive waste.

That’s the main hazard, the part of the nuclear question that has never been properly addressed. No one knows what to do with nuclear fuel rods that remain highly radioactive for thousands of years.

The industry talks of burying them. But this is not a real solution. Sealed containers leak. Ground shifts. Over decades, unforeseen events occur. Continue reading →

March 22, 2011 Posted by | Canada, wastes | 5 Comments

Questions over the safety of USA’s spent nuclear fuel cooling ponds

President Barack Obama has ordered a comprehensive review of U.S. nuclear plant safety.

Martha Coakley asks feds to re-examine nuclear storage – BostonHerald.com, March 21, 2011 BOSTON – Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley is urging federal energy officials to re-examine the safety of the wet storage of spent fuel at nuclear power plants, including the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth.In a letter sent Monday to Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko, Coakley said federal regulators need to take another look at the wet storage protocol, which is also used at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant near the Massachusetts border.

It was also used at the damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi plan in Japan…….. Continue reading →

March 22, 2011 Posted by | safety, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

At Fukushima, radiation leak continues, spent fuel storage pool a big problem

A separate storage pool for spent fuel rods also is drawing the attention of some Tepco and safety officials. The area, which takes fuel rods from all six reactors, is located near the No. 4 reactor. The pool is nearly full with 6,375 units of fuel, according to Tepco.

Japan Nuclear Dangers Linger Despite Progress, WSJ,  By PETER LANDERS And NORIHIKO SHIROUZU, MARCH 20, 2011,As of late Sunday, power was still out at reactors No. 3 and No. 4, the two most troublesome during the nine-day fight to keep the nuclear plant from spinning out of control. Until Tokyo Electric Power Co. fully restores power at the reactors and turns on cooling systems knocked out after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, it faces continued radiation leakage from spent fuel rods stored at the two reactors. Continue reading →

March 22, 2011 Posted by | - Fukushima 2011, Japan, wastes | Leave a comment

What about the state of Japan’s existing nuclear wastes?

still no one is speaking about the state of the nuclear waste already in Japan

No Nukes Now? A Lesson From Japan and Questions About the Security of Japan’s Nuclear Waste THE HUFFINGTON POST,Michael Vazquez, 16 March 11, Three weeks ago, I highlighted the risks Japan faces, as a nuclear energy-dependent nation on an earthquake fault line, in my review of Into Eternity, a documentary about a nuclear waste repository deep underground in Finland. I also noted how Australia — which was the first choice of scientists in Finland for storage of nuclear waste — had just been hit by a 200-year flood. Continue reading →

March 17, 2011 Posted by | Japan, wastes | Leave a comment

Precedent set in weakening the rules for transporting radioactive waste on waterways

.. the precedent set when it comes to transporting radioactive waste…..On Feb. 4 of this year, the CNSC approved BP’s plans to ship the generators over­seas, giving the power company a special dispensation over existing regulations covering the amount of radioactive materials allowed on inland Canadian waterways. It’s a big dispensation too: Edwards says the amount of radioactivity in the shipment is 60 times the permissible amount of radioactive waste allowed in one vessel for inland waters, and six times the amount for an ocean-going one. Furthermore, an environmental assessment of the changed plans was never held…….

Swimming with plutonium, Montreal Mirror, by PATRICK LEJTENYI, 11 march 11, Ontario’s Bruce Power nuclear plant is shipping hundreds of tonnes of radioactive waste up the St. Lawrence. Critics worry this is only the first batch Continue reading →

March 11, 2011 Posted by | Canada, wastes | Leave a comment

83 MPs join opposition to nuclear garbage shipment across Great Lakes

We’re talking about nuclear garbage, and we’re going to have a highway of nuclear garbage. This shipment is going to be the first of many if we allow it to happen,”

Groups urge feds to stall ‘nuclear garbage’ shipment Eighty-three MPs sign petition Montreal Gazette, By CARMEN CHAI, Postmedia News March 9, 2011 Continue reading →

March 10, 2011 Posted by | Canada, politics, wastes | Leave a comment

Secret dumping of nuclear wastes at Teesside, UK

the Ministry of Defence (MoD) cleared tonnes of hazardous and radioactive material left over after bomb blasts and transported it back to the UK, where it was dumped at Port Clarence landfill, Stockton, in 2008.

Shock at nuclear waste dumping on Teesside – Gazette Live, UK 7 mar 11, VETERANS of nuclear bomb tests carried out during the Cold War have spoken of their shock at discovering radioactive waste from the mission was dumped on Teesside 50 years later. The ex-servicemen witnessed the blasts at Christmas Island in the South Pacific first hand, and believe many veterans’ lives have been ruined by the after effects of exposure to the fallout. Continue reading →

March 8, 2011 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK, wastes | Leave a comment

U.S. Energy Dept sued over failure to provide nuclear waste dump

it could be several years before a repository is constructed and the federal government can begin accepting waste from nuclear power plants. Until then, the association wants to halt the nuclear waste fund fees that the Energy Department collects for that purpose…….

Utility Commissioners Sue To Suspend Annual Nuclear Waste Fees By Tennille Tracy  NEWSWIRES,WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones) 8 march 11,  A group representing state utility commissioners sued the U.S. Energy Department Monday to try to prevent it from collecting hundreds of millions of dollars in fees to build a nuclear waste dump. Continue reading →

March 7, 2011 Posted by | Legal, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Lawsuits express no confidence in nuclear “Waste Confidence Rule”

For many, the separate suits by state attorneys general and environmental groups raise fresh questions over why America is pouring billions into a nuclear renaissance with no long-term strategy for handling waste from the nation’s existing facilities. ….The lawsuit targets NRC’s recently updated “Waste Confidence Rule.”


As U.S. Moves Ahead with Nuclear Power, No Solution for Radioactive Waste, Solve Climate News, By Abby LubyMar 3, 2011 A pair of legal actions against the Nuclear Regulatory Commission raises fresh questions over how and where to store the nation’s growing nuclear waste, Continue reading →

March 4, 2011 Posted by | Legal, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s unfounded claim that “waste disposal solution will be available”

The NRC maintains its position that a repository “will be available …. when necessary.” But the petitioning groups say that assumption is made without “foundation in the facts and history of the U.S. geologic repository program.”….

As U.S. Moves Ahead with Nuclear Power, No Solution for Radioactive Waste, Solve Climate News, By Abby LubyMar 3, 2011“…….Less than a week after the attorneys general sued, environmental organizations petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to overturn two NRC rules that say storage and disposal of radioactive waste poses no significant safety or environmental concerns. Continue reading →

March 4, 2011 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

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