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The expensive 30 year process of decommissioning Fukushima’s nuclear plant

Experts split on how to decommission Fukushima nuclear plant, Mainichi Daily News,  Japan) August 28, 2011 What is actually going to take place at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, where word is that the four reactors that were crippled in the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami will eventually be decommissioned?…

 Around the world, only around 15 nuclear reactors have thus far been dismantled. Continue reading →

August 30, 2011 Posted by | decommission reactor, Japan | Leave a comment

USA planning to send radioactive wastes back to uranium selling countries

Official: U.S. in Early Talks About Int’l Nuclear Leasing Arrangements, NYT. By HANNAH NORTHEY, August 23, 2011 Department of Energy officials have spent weeks trying to knock down reports that they have been interested in building a nuclear waste repository in Mongolia.

Now, the Obama administration is going a step further, disclosing that what DOE hopes to do is “lease” uranium from other countries, then return the spent fuel to the originating country.

A senior Obama administration official told Greenwire earlier this month that the government is in preliminary talks with several countries, including Mongolia, Japan and the United Arab Emirates, about setting up commercial nuclear fuel leasing arrangements.

In one example of how a fuel leasing arrangement could work, countries with uranium reserves could mine, enrich and fabricate the material and lease it to reactor companies abroad. Spent nuclear fuel would then be sent back to the originating country, the official said.

Discussions have not touched upon what those countries would do with the waste, the official said, but the United States hopes to prevent proliferation by providing alternatives to domestic enrichment and reprocessing capabilities…..

the commercial nuclear fuel leasing arrangements the administration official discussed seem to be consistent with what some U.S. officials want to see for the International Framework for Nuclear Energy Cooperation (IFNEC), formerly the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership.
The Obama administration scrapped parts of GNEP, which was part of the George W. Bush administration’s efforts to accelerate research and development on the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel in reactors (ClimateWire, Dec. 24, 2009). The partnership was seeking to create “cradle-to-grave fuel services” under a regulated market for enriched uranium, which would allow a few large countries to supply smaller ones with enriched uranium to burn in reactors, sparing them the billions of dollars needed to build facilities for uranium processing and disposal (Greenwire, Oct. 26, 2010……http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/08/23/23greenwire-official-us-in-early-talks-about-intl-nuclear-96182.html

August 25, 2011 Posted by | politics international, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

General Atomics trying to avoid uranium mine cleanup

General Atomics Faces Yet Another Uranium Cleanup Fight, By Matt Potter, San Diego Reader August 22, 2011,  The New York Times has reported via the Greenwire news service that Rio Grande Resources Corp., a subsidiary of La Jolla-based General Atomics is stirring opposition in New Mexico with its plans to delay cleanup of its Mount Taylor uranium mine, which has been closed since 1990.

The mountain, which contains the nation’s largest single deposit of the radioactive ore, is said to be viewed as sacred land by surrounding Native American tribes, the story says.

“More than 8 million pounds of “yellow cake” were produced from the mine before it was closed more than two decades ago due to plummeting uranium prices,” according to the report…….

Rio Grande critics testified at a hearing on the application to keep the mine in “standby status” held by the New Mexico Mining and Minerals Division that a five year delay in remediation risked further contamination of the site, but backers said it would help the mine get back into operation.

As we’ve previously reported, General Atomics, operated by San Diego brothers Neal and Linden Blue, also faces a fight in Colorado over the cleanup of an old uranium mill in that state….San Diego Reader | “General Atomics Faces Yet Another Uranium Cleanup Fight” by mpotter

August 23, 2011 Posted by | Uranium, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Japan will import 1000 tons of nuclear waste every year for 7 years

The Fukushima disaster and the voyage of the 5,100-ton Pacific Grebe highlights the dilemma facing Japan and the world’s nuclear industry:Radioactive waste is deadly and needs to be locked away for thousands of years, so how can any storage site be guaranteed safe and permanent?

“Japan has 1,000 tons of spent fuel coming out of reactors every year, and there are 7 more years before the spent fuel pools are filled,” 

Japan Prepares for Its First Import of Radioactive Waste Since Earthquake, Bloomberg, By Yuriy Humber, Chisaki Watanabe and Stuart Biggs – Aug 14, 2011  Japan is preparing to receive its first import of highly radioactive waste since March, when an earthquake and tsunami caused a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

The vessel Pacific Grebe set sail Aug. 3 to Japan from Britain with more than 30 metric tons of radioactive waste on board. The cargo, Japanese spent fuel reprocessed in the U.K., is returning sealed in 76 stainless steel canisters packed into 130-ton containers. It will arrive early next month at the Mutsu-Ogawara port in northern Honshu for delivery to Japan Nuclear Fuel’s nearby Rokkasho storage site. Continue reading →

August 16, 2011 Posted by | Japan, wastes | Leave a comment

America’s costly problem of nuclear wastes

AUDIO  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904292504576484133479927502.html  Nuclear Waste Piles Up—in Budget Deficit. WSJ, By MARK MAREMONT, 14 Aug 11

Imagine a football field packed 20 feet high with highly radioactive nuclear waste. That’s about the volume of the 65,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel stranded at dozens of nuclear sites across the U.S.

It isn’t just a potential public health hazard, as Japan’s recent nuclear disaster showed, but a growing burden on the federal government’s groaning finances. Continue reading →

August 16, 2011 Posted by | Resources -audiovicual, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Nuclear engineering expert advises against Yucca Mt for nuclear waste

Expert: Yucca not best place for storing nuclear waste, BY KEITH ROGERS, LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL, Aug. 12, 2011 There are better places than Yucca Mountain to bury nuclear waste…..That’s what one expert on Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future believes.

The expert, Per Peterson, a University of California, Berkeley, nuclear engineering professor, said the choices range from stowing it in salt formations that stretch from Texas to Louisiana and that exist in New Mexico, or putting it down deep boreholes below the water table.

In either case, drinking water supplies would be spared of contamination because the water is either too saline already or there is no evident pathway to it, he said.

And, he said, the search should start for a new course on dealing with tens of thousands of tons of highly radioactive waste stored in pools and above ground at reactor sites, once destined for a maze of tunnels in Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas…..http://www.lvrj.com/news/expert-yucca-not-best-place-for-storing-nuclear-waste-127623883.html?ref=883

August 16, 2011 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Just the bare $115 billion to clean up USA’s Hanford nuclear waste

$115 billion needed to finish Hanford cleanup  The News Tribune, BY ANNETTE CARY, TRI-CITY HERALD, 13 Aug 11, The Department of Energy has taken a look at all the environmental cleanup yet to be completed at the Hanford nuclear reservation and come up with a big price tag: $115 billion.

That’s what it projects will be required to finish environmental cleanup in about 2060 and then prevent any intrusion into areas, such as landfills holding radioactive waste, until 2090. Continue reading →

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

USA’s radioactive nuclear waste piles up, with no plan in sight

Florida PSC to consider more rate hikes for nuke projects at FPL and Progress Energy, Kenric Ward, Sunshine State News,  August 10, 2011  “…….RADIOACTIVE WASTE PILES UP, WITH NO PLAN IN SIGHT As another subsidy for the nuclear industry, the federal government has pledged to dispose of the waste, which remains radioactive for hundreds if not thousands of years. But legal fights, transportation concerns and a prevailing not-in-my-backyard mentality have blocked solutions.

In fact, no federal money is available anyway. The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that since the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, Congress and successive administrations have funneled a $25 billion disposal fund into the government’s general coffers.

Because Washington failed to start taking spent fuel as promised beginning in 1998, utilities are suing it to cover their additional storage costs, the Journal reported. Legal fees are $16.2 billion and counting.

After spending billions to dig a dry-cask storage facility in the Nevada desert, Washington has, for now, scrapped that plan. Last month, the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future declared that the U.S. nuclear-waste disposal program has “all but broken down.” …

http://www.sunshinestatenews.com/story/nuclear-power-boosts-bills-and-piles-radioactive-waste

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

15 years later -work still continuing on getting rid of nuclear reactor

Visitors allowed into the decontamination workshop at Lubmin must wear radioactivity detectors and change into special protective clothing.

Working from inside containers, equipped with portholes, employees use high-pressure water, abrasive dust jets and acid baths to decontaminate the rooms one at a time.

“Don’t think radioactivity just disappears. It stays there as ground dust which has to be disposed of,” says Uwe Kopp, in charge of one of the workshops…..

Contaminated material from the plant is held in dozen of containers and barrels, awaiting a final government decision on a site for long-term storage.

Getting rid of a German nuclear plant, one rivet at a time, Google News By Aurelia End (AFP) –8 Aug 11,  LUBMIN, Germany — In Germany, where all nuclear power reactors are to close by 2022, clean-up work at one such plant still continues after 15 years, a sign of how long a real end to the atomic age here will take. Continue reading →

August 9, 2011 Posted by | decommission reactor, Germany | Leave a comment

Draft report from USA’s Blue Ribbon Commission on nuclear wastes

U.S. nuclear waste: where to now?, Smart Planet 5 Aug 11, By Melissa Mahony | August 1, 2011, Radioactive waste has been accumulating at sites across the United States for decades. The 75,000-metric-ton problem isn’t going away (well, not for a million years or so). And as of now, it’s not going to Nevada’s Yucca Mountain either. Tasked with finding long-term solutions to this disposal issue, the Blue Ribbon Commission released a draft report on Friday. Continue reading →

August 7, 2011 Posted by | USA, wastes | 1 Comment

A ‘deeply flawed project,’ Yucca Mountain isn’t the answer for nuke waste – , Aug. 4, 2011  – Las Vegas Sun  Editorial: For years, the nuclear industry and its supporters in Congress have tried to shove through plans to make Nevada a nuclear waste dump, repeatedly ignoring scientific and safety concerns.

Their plans have been frustrated over the years because of the work of Nevada’s congressional delegation, led by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Now, the plans to put waste in Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, are on the verge of being extinguished. President Barack Obama has ordered his administration to quit work on it, and he created a blue ribbon commission to study alternatives for the nation’s nuclear waste. Continue reading →

August 5, 2011 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Nuclear waste company fined for violation, but can leave the waste there anyway

EnergySolutions identifies violation and pays fine, Examiner.com. Shad Engkilterra , August 3, 2011 -“……EnergySolutions has paid an $80,000 fine, which meets the statutory limit that can be imposed according to Rusty Lundberg, DRC director.

EnergySolutions will not be required to remove the non-Class A waste…. http://www.examiner.com/community-activism-in-salt-lake-city/energysolutions-identifies-violation-and-pays-fine

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

How to hide highly radioactive waste – “down blending”

Utah lawmakers banned classes B and C waste in 2005, and the state Radiation Control Board opposes blending done “when the intent is to alter the waste classification for the purposes of disposal-site access.”
Blended waste decision is weeks away, regulator says, BY JUDY FAHYS, The Salt Lake Tribune 2 Aug 11, A state regulator said Tuesday it will be at least a few weeks before a decision is made on allowing “down-blended” radioactive waste to be buried at the EnergySolutions’ landfill in Tooele County. Continue reading →

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

“Blenced nuclear wastes” – a way to get around restrictions on toxic wastes

Green groups: State to OK blended nuke waste, BY JUDY FAHYS, The Salt Lake Tribune 1 Aug 11 State regulators appear poised to sign off on a request from Energy Solutions to allow “down-blended” waste from nuclear reactors to be buried at the company’s Tooele County radioactive landfill, says an environmental group…..

But HEAL said the prospect of more blended waste should be the subject of a more focused study of the Tooele County site to address the long-term safety and health questions raised by federal regulators and the state Radiation Control Board. In addition, said Thomas, blending will allow the company and its customers, in effect, to bury waste more hazardous than the Class A waste currently allowed in the state.

“It circumvents the state’s ban on Class B and C waste, which has been in place for years,” said Thomas.

He added that one analysis estimated the radioactivity at the EnergySolutions site would increase eight-fold if blended waste is permitted… http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/52305223-90/waste-blended-radiation-state.html.csp

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

USA’s nuclear waste management in a mess

Panel Scorns Nuclear-Waste Policy,  WSJ.com, 29 July 11, By RYAN TRACY,  A presidential panel Friday scolded the U.S. government for failing to effectively deal with a growing stockpile of radioactive nuclear waste, saying Washington should change course and create a new, independent entity to decide where to dump it.

In a draft of its final report, which is due in January, the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future said the current policy for dealing with nuclear waste is “all but completely broken down.”

The Obama administration didn’t support or reject the recommendations presented by the panel in the draft…..Panel Scorns Nuclear-Waste Policy – WSJ.com

July 30, 2011 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

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