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
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
How to hide highly radioactive waste – “down blending”
“Blenced nuclear wastes” – a way to get around restrictions on toxic wastes
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
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
Western North Carolina at risk of becoming USA’s nuclear waste host
Specter of nuclear waste dump returns to WNC, Macon County News, , 28 July 2011 by Christopher Carpenter “…– “We’re back to where we started; it’s the same story,” said Olson, a biologist and biochemist by training who has worked with NIRS since 1991. This week the first draft recommendations of a federal commission on nuclear energy are due out. Olson cautioned to be prepared for more flashbacks to come.Unfortunately ‘fabulous’ It was only later that Yucca Mountain became the main focus of federal planners, even though there were many indicators that the site was geologically unsound. The site was crisscrossed with four major fault lines, the porous volcanic bedrock was far from ideal and in the first three years of studying the site, more than 200 earthquakes were recorded registering over 2.5 on the Richter Scale. Twenty years and $10 billion later, the Obama Administration finally conceded that a facility at the site would be destined to leak radiation and decided to walk away from it.
Thirty years ago, Western North Carolina, with its solid granite bedrock, was identified as a possible site for a national nuclear waste repository. The community of Sandy Mush in Leicester (just 23.5 miles from the Buncombe County Courthouse in downtown Asheville) was one of twelve sites in the country that were seriously being studied by the U.S. Department of Energy. Continue reading
Fears of Tennessee becoming global radioactive waste dump
Some worry Tennessee town may be world nuclear waste dump, By Tim Ghianni, NASHVILLE, Tenn | Wed Jul 27, 2011, (Reuters) – A new contract to process 1,000 tons of nuclear waste from Germany has environmental activists concerned that the town of Oak Ridge, Tennessee could become a prime destination for the world’s nuclear trash.
The city in east Tennessee was founded by scientists who were developing the atomic bomb during World War II. It continues to be a center for the nuclear industry.
It has processed nuclear waste for decades, including some from Britain and Canada. But the large German contract, its first from continental Europe, marks a significant expansion and has raised eyebrows.
Safer said that even people who are in favor of nuclear power should question importing foreign nuclear waste to a state which he said puts “very little scrutiny” on the industry.
“With current regulatory conditions, there is nothing stopping really great quantities of radioactive waste materials from coming from all over the world to be processed in Tennessee,” says Don Safer, chairman of the board of the Tennessee Environmental Council, said on Tuesday……http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/27/us-nuclear-tennessee-idUSTRE76Q6Q020110727
The massive costs of disposing of spent nuclear fuel
Contrary to power company figures, cost of nuclear power generation highest: research, Mainichi daily News, 23 July 11 “……There’s also a problem that’s specific to nuclear energy. As Oshima points out, massive amounts of money are needed to dispose of spent nuclear fuel, Continue reading
USA and Japan want Mongolia as toilet for their nuclear wastes
So for now US, Japan will humbly ask Mongolian people to please let us use your toilet in exchange to their uranium which is said to last for another 80 years only, not for 100,000 years.
MONGOLIA – Our Nuclear Waste Disposal Site? For US and Japan, ALLVOICES, Ulaanbaatar : Mongolia | Jul 21, 2011, BY northernlight Kyodo Japan reported on July 18 that Mongolia-US-Japan drafted the pact for the ‘comprehensive fuel services’ in which Mongolia supplies uranium and nuclear fuel to other countries (such as US and Japan) and receive the nuclear wastes
Nuclear Power Plants are liken to ‘Condos without toilets.’ Continue reading
Stop shipments of nuclear wastes, say Caribbeans
Caribbean objecting to nuclear waste shipment, Bloomberg, 21 July 11, KINGSTON, JAMAICA, Caribbean officials are calling for an immediate halt to a European shipment of reprocessed nuclear waste that will pass near the islands on its way to Japan. They contend the practice poses a major risk.
Caribbean Community spokesman Leonard Robertson says regional officials have been told by British authorities that the shipment of radioactive waste will be soon. He says they gave no specifics about the vessel for security reasons.
Waste from Japanese nuclear reactors has for years been sent on specially equipped ships to Britain and France for reprocessing, then returned for storage in Japan….http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9OK9ARO0.htm
Mismanagement in nuclear decommissioning industry
IG reports question management of contractors at nuclear sites, I Watch News, By Corbin Hiar, 21 July 11, The Center for Public Integrity Serious contractor-related problems at facilities that handle nuclear material have been disclosed by two new audits.
The most serious issues were raised in a report by the Department of Energy’s inspector general on the decontamination and decommissioning of K-25 , a massive World War II-era nuclear enrichment facility that is a part of the East Tennessee Technical Park (ETTP) in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Continue reading
USA taxpayers paying up for nuclear companies’ radioactive wastes
NPPD gets $61M to pay for storing nuclear waste, BLOOMBERG, 16 JULY 11BROWNVILLE, NEB., The Nebraska Public Power District has received nearly $61 million from the federal Energy Department to help pay for the cost of storing spent fuel at Cooper nuclear power plant.
The Columbus-based utility says it also reached an agreement with federal officials about how future fuel storage costs will be handled, so its lawsuit against the Energy Department has been dismissed.
The initial payment covers about 90 percent of NPPD’s storage costs from 2007 through 2009. NPPD says it had to build a facility to store spent fuel at Cooper because the federal government never set up the promised national repository for radioactive waste…..http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9OG8UCG2.htm
$20 million budget for NRC to review licensing application for Yucca Mt as radioactive waste repositary
House increases money for nuclear waste review, Fuel Fix, July 14, WASHINGTON — The House has approved more money to review an application to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, deviating from the Barack Obama administration effort to kill the project.
The 297-130 vote on an amendment to an energy spending bill doubles from $10 million to $20 million the budget for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to review a licensing application for the Yucca operation.
Some $15 billion has been spent over the past several decades to prepare Yucca Mountain as the central burying point for the nation’s nuclear waste, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada has long opposed the project and Obama has followed through on a campaign promise to shut down the project. His administration has sought to withdraw the government application to build the dump……http://fuelfix.com/blog/2011/07/14/house-increases-money-for-nuclear-waste-review/
Nuclear Regulatory Commission to decide on USA nuclear waste repository
Fate of Yucca Mountain Decision in NRC Hands, By SONYA ANGELICA DIEHN, 11 July 11 , (CN) – The D.C. Circuit ruled that a decision on the controversial Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada lies firmly with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission…..Although the DOE withdrew its application and has halted construction at the site, it’s really up to the NRC to decide its fate, the appeals circuit wrote in three separate concurring opinions.
Judge Kavanaugh said this case is a “mess” due to overlapping responsibilities between the two agencies. While both are under the executive branch, the NRC can act more independently.
But for now, he wrote, “the ball in this case rests in the executive branch not with the President, but rather with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.”
Since the commission hasn’t made a final decision on Yucca Mountain yet, the case was determined untimely and dismissed. …..http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/07/11/38033.htm
USA taxpayers to pay Xcel for temporary nuclear waste storage
A proposed permanent storage site for U.S. nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada was dropped from consideration last year by the Obama administration. The blue ribbon commission has been studying what to do next……..
U.S. to pay Xcel $100M for nuclear waste storage: DAN BROWNING and NEAL ST. ANTHONY , Star Tribune , July 8, 2011 In the latest in a series of settlements with the nation’s electric utilities, the government agreed to bear the cost of storing waste……Xcel announced Friday that the government will pay $100 million to settle a lawsuit it filed in 1998. The payment is reimbursement for 10 years of storage costs incurred by the utility and its customers,…… 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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