wastes « nuclear-news

Highly radioactive wastes from “next generation” nuclear reactors

waste from the next generation plants that use enriched uranium fuel would be two to 158 times more radioactive than waste from existing Canadian reactors….. unfairly paid for by taxpayers, ratepayers and future generations.”

Waste from proposed nuclear plants more radioactive: report The Vancouver Sun, By Mike Desouza, Canwest News Service May 31, 2010 The latest generation of proposed multi-billion dollar Canadian nuclear plants could be up to 158 times more hazardous than their predecessors, opening the door to massive cost overruns and possibly forcing taxpayers to pick up the tab, warns a report to be released today……….. Continue reading →

June 3, 2010 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Canada, wastes | antinuclear, enriched, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear renaissance, nuclear secrecy, nuclear spin, nuclear wastes, radiation, radioactive, reactors, uranium | Leave a comment

No solution to ever-growing nuclear wastes

the intractability of the nuclear-waste problem confronting the power sector and the failure of policymakers to find a permanent solution.……the president and the energy secretary are looking to a new blue ribbon commission to recommend “a safe, long-term solution” to the waste problem

Solutions Remain Few on Issue of Nuclear- Waste Storage – Atomic Waste Gets ‘Temporary’ Home, WSJ.com, JUNE 1, 2010 By REBECCA SMITH Three months after the U.S. cancelled a plan to build a vast nuclear-waste repository in Nevada, the country’s ad hoc atomic-storage policy is becoming clear in places like Wiscasset, Maine. Continue reading →

June 3, 2010 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, wastes | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear renaissance, nuclear secrecy, nuclear spin, radiation, reactors, uranium | Leave a comment

Thousands of tons of nuclear wastes in above ground casks

– Atomic Waste Gets ‘Temporary’ Home, WSJ.com, JUNE 1, 2010 By REBECCA SMITH “……Power companies are likely to rely on casks even more in coming years. About 80% of reactor sites in the U.S. intend to move used fuel to casks because their storage pools are filling up.

So far, more than 800 casks have been filled and they sit tucked away behind fences on reactor sites. They hold 14,000 metric tons of waste, an amount that is steadily growing. There is an additional 49,000 metric tons being held in spent-fuel pools, used fuel’s first stop after it leaves reactors. Each year, another 2,000 metric tons of nuclear reactor waste is created. Continue reading →

June 3, 2010 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, wastes | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear renaissance, nuclear secrecy, nuclear spin, nuclear technology, nuclear wastes, radioactive, reactors | Leave a comment

Short term approach to nuclear wastes masks reality of the problem

as the world’s nuclear military powers are discovering the costs continue after the submarines and power stations have been decommissioned from active service. The equipment and reactors cannot easily or cheaply be dismantled and will remain radioactive for hundreds of years

Nuclear and radioactive waste disposal – by Patrick Boniface – Helium, 30 May 2010, Nuclear waste is dangerously toxic, its environmental impact if released would be devastating, as was witnessed during both the Chernobyl explosion, the American Three Mile Island scare and the Windscale fire of 1957.In these cases radioactive material was released into the atmosphere. With the Windscale fire some 15,000 terabequerels (TBq) of radioactive material (notably Iodine-131) were released (3).

A report compiled by Crick & Linsley in 1983 estimated that 260 people would eventually die from dieases, such as thyroid cancers, related to the release of the material during the fire, (4).

Other aspects that environmentalist’s voice concerns over include the storage of spent nuclear fuels, from commercial nuclear reactors and increasingly from redundant nuclear warships such as submarines.

In particular in the former Soviet Union around the submarine base of Arkangel in Northern Russia there are around sixty nuclear submarines that are rotting away but still with large amounts of nuclear material contained within their hulls.

The Russian economy is unable to afford the costs of de-commissioning these submarines. The cost of decommissioning is between $100-300 million per submarine (5). Continue reading →

May 31, 2010 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Russia, wastes | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear renaissance, nuclear secrecy, nuclear spin, nuclear weapons, radioactive, reactors, uranium | Leave a comment

Nuclear company AREVA’s waste dumping in Russia

Less than 10% of the uranium mass shipped from France to Russia over the past four years “came back”….Considering the fact that the total amount of spent fuel reprocessed in France is about 38,000 tons, a significant share has gone elsewhere. It is clear now that most of it ended up in Russia

End of reprocessed uranium exports to Russia? Fissile material, By Mycle Schneider on May 29, AREVA’s controversial shipments of uranium wastes from France to Russia could be terminated as early as July 2010, according to media reports and a press release by the French chapter of the environmental group Greenpeace. Continue reading →

May 31, 2010 Posted by Christina Macpherson | France, wastes | antinuclear, AREVA, nuclear, nuclear secrecy, nuclear spin, nuclear weapons, radiation, radioactive, uranium | Leave a comment

Texas to get nuclear wastes from 36 States?

Tx. Could Receive Nuclear Waste from 36 States, Environmental Leader, May 24, 2010, Texas could become the repository for low-level nuclear waste from 36 states, according to a report in the Associated Press.According to a rule change proposed by the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission, the state could accept radioactive materials such as glass, metal and clothing used at power plants, research centers, and medical facilities throughout the country at a storage facility in West Texas. The 1,340-acre site, located in Andrews, Tx., is run by Waste Control Specialists.Local opposition to the rule change has come from the Texas chapter of the Sierra Club, which successfully pushed the state legislature to delay its decision on the rule change until at least June. According to a presentation created by Texas Nuclear Safety, an organization opposing the rule change, the amount of waste at the facility could increase up to 19 times.

Tx. Could Receive Nuclear Waste from 36 States · Environmental Leader · Green Business, Sustainable Business, and Green Strategy News for Corporate Sustainability Executives

May 31, 2010 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, wastes | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear wastes, radioactive | Leave a comment

No real solution for Hanford’s deadly nuclear weapons waste

one of the biggest challenges the US nuclear weapons complex, and consequentially, the Department of Energy, has ever had to deal with………… the tanks were leaking, and the government had failed to report the leaks and the spreading contamination……….

Cleaning Up After The Cold War: Hanford’s Tank Waste, Daily Kos:by Page van der Linden May 23, 2010 “…..the remote sites around the United States, consisting of laboratories and manufacturing facilities, the complex that made The Bomb possible. And unless you’re very familiar with this complex, or you’re a resident of the Pacific Northwest, you may not know about a remote part of Washington State known as the Hanford Site Continue reading →

May 24, 2010 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, wastes | antinuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear technology, nuclear wastes, nuclear weapons, plutonium, radiation, radioactive, wastes | Leave a comment

Finland’s 100,000-Year Plan to Banish Its Nuclear Waste

There are somewhere between 250,000 and 300,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste already in the world, much of it in pools on the sites of nuclear power plants where the rods have to cool for years before they can be put into containers.

Films on ScienceFinland’s 100,000-Year Plan to Banish Its Nuclear Waste – NYTimes.com, 11 May 2010, Continue reading →

May 11, 2010 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Finland, wastes | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear secrecy, nuclear spin, nuclear wastes, nuclear weapons, radioactive | Leave a comment

Niger’s enviroment contaminated by AREVA’s radioactive uranium wastes

VIDEO Left in the Dust – Areva’s uranium mining in Niger | Greenpeace International

Left in the Dust – Areva’s uranium mining in Niger | Greenpeace International 6 May 2010, Operations of Nuclear giant AREVA put lives at risk in Niger. Uranium mines in Niger operated by the state-owned French nuclear giant AREVA continue to create a radioactive hazard for the people living nearby. Continue reading →

May 7, 2010 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Niger, wastes | antinuclear, AREVA, nuclear, nuclear secrecy, nuclear weapons, radiation, radioactive, uranium, water | Leave a comment

Ignorance of many Indian institutions about radioactive waste

A professor from a college on Palace Road said, “Maybe we can tie it in a bag, put it in a garbage bin or throw them in some remote place.”…

Is city sitting on radiation keg? Jayashree Nandi & Sruthy Susan Ullas, TNN, May 5, 2010, BANGALORE: Post-radioactive leak in Delhi recently, a reality check in Bangalore showed that the city was sitting on a live bomb with many colleges and other institutions having no clue as to what to do with the radioactive waste in their labs.. Continue reading →

May 5, 2010 Posted by Christina Macpherson | India, wastes | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear weapons, radiation, radioactive | Leave a comment

Strong opposition to importing radioactive wastes to Hanford

Groups demand DOE end plans to send waste to Hanford By Annette Cary, Tri City Herald 30 April 2010, A coalition of Northwest environmental groups is demanding that Energy Secretary Steven Chu end any plans to import radioactive waste to Hanford.The Department of Energy agreed as part of a proposed settlement with the state of Washington not to send most types of radioactive waste to Hanford for disposal until the vitrification plant is in full operation to treat the worst waste now stored in underground tanks. That’s scheduled for 2022. Continue reading →

May 1, 2010 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, wastes | AUSTRALIA, nuclear, nuclear weapons, radiation, reactors | Leave a comment

Anxiety over U.S. nuclear wastes, as “Blue Ribbon” Commission struggles for a solution

the Department of Energy convened a commission led by former lawmakers and regulators to study what to do next

SRS communities angered by nuclear waste decision | ajc.com By Bob KeefeThe Atlanta Journal, April 28, 2010 -Constitution, WASHINGTON — For decades now, workers and local residents have fully expected that giant canisters of nuclear waste put into temporary storage at the Savannah River Site would eventually be relocated from their backyards to a permanent nuclear repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Continue reading →

May 1, 2010 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, wastes | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear spin, nuclear weapons, radiation, radioactive | Leave a comment

Like USA, Europe worried about unsolved problem of nuclear waste

EU Health: Vast Majority Of Europeans Want EU Wide Radioactive Waste Management Legislation, eGov monitorSource: European Commission, 29 April, 2010 – The European Commission has published today a Eurobarometer survey showing that an overwhelming majority of Europeans would find it useful to have European legislation on radioactive waste management. The concern for the safety risk related to radioactive waste is shared both in countries with nuclear power plants and those with no nuclear energy.

May 1, 2010 Posted by Christina Macpherson | EUROPE, wastes | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear spin, nuclear wastes, radiation, radioactive | Leave a comment

Australian govt imposing nuclear waste dump on aboriginal land

a proposed measure before the parliament has deleted the use of the Australian Defence Force land in the Northern Territory,

Aboriginal landowners oppose nuclear waste dump in Northern Territory International Business Times, By Xien Jana Vencio | April 27, 2010Aboriginal landowners in the Northern Territory are up in arms against a government plan to construct the country’s first long-term nuclear waste storage facility on their territory. Continue reading →

April 30, 2010 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, wastes | antinuclear, AUSTRALIA, nuclear | Leave a comment

A futuristic film studies nuclear wastes

Film – Tribeca Review: Into Eternity, Cinematical, by Christopher Campbell Apr 29th 2010 What will the inhabitants of Earth be like over the next 100,000 years? Will they even be human, or some other civilization of animal or alien being? These questions are at the heart of Into Eternity, a beautiful and extremely fascinating Danish documentary about ONKALO, the ambitious nuclear waste repository near Olkiluoto, Finaland, which will bury thousands of tons of spent uranium from a local power plant in an extensive underground tunnel system…..In an eerie narration, Madsen addresses future viewers, whether or not they will understand his English-spoken warnings and questions, urging them not to curiously venture into the tunnels as if it were an archaeological find, like the Egyptian pyramids.

Tribeca Review: Into Eternity – Cinematical

April 30, 2010 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Finland, wastes | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear secrecy, nuclear wastes, radiation, radioactive | Leave a comment