Russia’s nuclear legacy
Bowermaster’s Adventures — Russia’s nuclear legacy
Gadling.comby Jon Bowermaster
Aug 24th 2009
Just around the corner from Petropavlovsk, ten miles by land or sea, located across Avachinskaya Bay on a small peninsula called Krasheninnikova sits Russia’s largest nuclear submarine base. It is off limits to outsiders and a shell of what it was during the Soviet Union’s heyday. Today – judging by a simple Google map search – there are just a half-dozen active nuclear subs sitting at its docks. Worrying to those who pay attention to such things are the shadows on the far edge of the docks on the same map, indicating somewhere between a dozen and twenty subs piled up next to each other. They are said to be at varying degrees of decommissioning………………….
The operation of nuclear-powered submarines generates considerable amounts of nuclear waste. Liquid and solid radioactive wastes need to be removed from submarines and stored. In addition, periodically the submarine needs to be refueled, thus spent fuel needs to be removed from the submarine and also stored. Decommissioning a nuclear submarine generates these streams of waste and in addition, the refueled reactor compartment must be dealt with…………………This is from a U.S. State Department report: “In Russia every step of the process is facing problems. The support complex which was already in poor shape and accident-prone during Soviet times has been particularly burdened in the last few years. Shore-side waste sites are full of low-level radioactive waste and spent fuel. Shipments of the spent fuel for reprocessing have been delayed due to lack of funds and equipment. The service ships, which unload the spent fuel from submarines, are also full and in poor shape (and some have suffered accidents).
The shipyards where the work is done are facing financial shortages, power blackouts and strikes. There are no final land-based storage sites for decommissioned reactor compartments removed from submarines, so they are being stored afloat in bays near naval bases. Finally, contamination is widespread at waste storage sites in the North and Far East due to accidents. Lower-level contamination is thought to plague virtually every support facility for the fleet. In addition, accidents on submarines have lead to contamination of the surrounding area.
Bowermaster’s Adventures — Russia’s nuclear legacy | Gadling.com
Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump plan is being killed off
Yucca Mountain funding nears its demise
Government Executive By Darren Goode Congress Daily August 21, 2009
House and Senate Democrats are well on their way to helping the Obama administration kill Nevada’s Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.Both chambers have approved fiscal 2010 Energy and Water Appropriations bills that match the administration’s $197 million request to let the Energy Department officially keep the project open on paper for a year while funding Energy Secretary Stephen Chu’s blue ribbon panel to develop an alternative plan for storing and managing nuclear waste.
The current 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste are held in temporary surface storage facilities at 131 sites in 39 states.
Yucca Mountain funding nears its demise (8/21/09) — www.GovernmentExecutive.com
Sellafield nuclear waste: Cumbrian Council doesn’t want it
(UK) Nuclear waste sites set for thumbs down
Charlie, The Whitehaven News 20 August 09
Why do Sellafield want to store their waste in other peoples back yards? If it safe to be stored at Lillyhall then why not dig a big hole on the site of the old reactors? If waste is contained within a defined site it will not give surprises to future generations when the paperwork has been mislaid. This is proved by the problems over what is stored at Drigg. If we can’t trust them to keep track of dangerous waste for fifty years how can we expect them to know what is buried in hundreds of years to come.
The Whitehaven News by Alan Irving 20 August 09
TWO local sites earmarked for radioactive waste disposal are set to get the thumbs down from Cumbria County Council even though one – at Lillyhall – has already taken small amounts.
Cabinet councillors next week are expected to approve a recommendation that the low level radioactive waste is kept at Sellafield rather than sent to Keekle Head or Lillyhall…………
……………..yesterday Councillor Knowles said: “Sellafield waste should be dealt with at Sellafield. What we don’t want is a proliferation of radioactive waste, it should not be put in holes around West Cumbria and imposed on people.” At Keekle Head, French company subsidiary Endecom is already drilling boreholes to see whether it will be suitable. It also has an agreement to buy the derelict 173-acre site……………………
Consultations on the national strategy to manage future arisings of waste will close on September 11. Cabinet members will consider a county council response on the lines that “LLW produced at Sellafield should be disposed of near to Sellafield and should not be dispersed in sites further afield in West Cumbria.”
Whiitehaven News | News | Nuclear waste sites set for thumbs down
Overcoming Nuclear Power’s Biggest Hurdle
Nuclear Power’s biggest hurdle
Strategy and Business 4 August 09 Nuclear power supporters had long hoped that the solution to the nuclear waste problem could be found in a storage facility hollowed out of Yucca Mountain, deep in the Nevada desert roughly 80 miles north of Las Vegas.But questions about Yucca’s long-term ability to keep radioactivity from leeching into groundwater energized nuclear opponents, as well as nearby residents and Nevada political leaders.
Soon after taking office, President Obama defunded the project.Pending another solution, the roughly 60,000 tons of nuclear fuel waste currently in the U.S. is stored on-site at nuclear plants, either in subsurface canisters or in secure “ponds” filled with boric acid.
If this approach continues much longer, it could cost Washington a lot of money: Utilities have successfully sued the federal government for failing to provide a permanent storage solution after they ponied up roughly US$30 billion in fees paid over several years to fund the Yucca project.
Indeed, untangling the nuclear waste problem may be more a matter of economics than of location.
Germany’s nuclear waste problem shows long term danger for waste storage
Salting it Away (and Other Problems with Nuclear Waste)
Miller McCune By: Michael Scott Moore | July 29, 2009
Germany’s vaunted salt mine solution for low-level nuclear waste has proven to be full of holes……………………….
Around 12,000 liters of groundwater leak into the mine every day. Some of it mixes with the radioactive waste. A few weeks ago, the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) finally admitted that some brine collected in Asse II had traces of tritium and caesium 137.
But last year the German public learned that the group in charge of maintaining Asse II at the time had known about the accumulation of suspect water since 2005…………………….The public outrage led German politicians to take the mine out of the Helmholtz Institute’s hands and place it under the BfS. But Asse II has also leaked groundwater since at least 1988 — meaning, at the very least, that decades of Cold War research conducted there failed to solve some of the most basic problems of nuclear storage……………….Along with 120,000-odd barrels of radioactive slop, according to a report last year, highly radioactive plutonium waste and even a few spent fuel rods were dumped in the mine………….
It’s hubris for a government to think it can safely store nuclear waste beyond the lifetime of the government itself. The trouble with Asse II has been a chastening example. Political promises, stern-sounding policies, and even scientific assessments from 1989 (which said the mine had no leaks) all proved to be as full of holes as the mine itself.
Environmentalists show no confidence in nuclear waste site’s safety
Environmentalists show no confidence in nuclear waste site’s safety THE HANKYOREH, 30 July 09
Lawmaker Cho and environmental researchers disclose prior site assessment reports on Gyeongju waste facility site that reveal base rock instability
Environmental organizations asked for further investigation into the safety of the nuclear waste disposal site currently under construction in the Gyeongju area on Tuesday. The organizations are basing its demands for a complete stop to construction on a review of previously released reports. The completion of the facility’s construction originally set for the end of 2009, has already been delayed by some two and a half years due to problems in the site’s base rock.
Cho Seung-soo, a lawmaker with the New Progressive Party, and members the Korean Federation for Environmental Movement (KFEM) and other environmental organizations, held a press conference at the National Assembly and said, “We cannot confirm the safety of the site because a site assessment (in 2005) confirms the condition of the base rock is unstable and weak.”
Nuclear decommissioning: the problem that won’t go away
“…………………………IT IS A sprawling landscape of chimneys, storage ponds filled with nuclear waste and radioactive buildings awaiting demolition. The UK’s Thorpe nuclear-processing plant at Sellafield – nestled somewhat incongruously among the picturesque hills of Cumbria, northern England – is unlikely ever to become a tourist attraction, despite its fame.
For decades, Sellafield has been officially the most hazardous building in western Europe (according to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority). And disposing safely of its crumbling, highly radioactive edifices, its hastily dumped reactor parts and decaying fuel rods is a slow and painstaking job that will probably ensure Sellafield holds the same dubious accolade for decades more…………..http://www.petroleum-economist.com/default.asp?Page=14&PUB=46&SID=721393&ISS=25450
Israeli Nuclear Waste ‘Leads to Palestinian Cancer’
Israeli Nuclear Waste ‘Leads to Palestinian Cancer’
The Media Line by Rachelle Kliger , July 21, 2009
Radiation from Israel’s nuclear facility in Dimona is being buried in Palestinian territory and causing an increase in cancer cases among West Bank Palestinians, a Palestinian doctor and anti-nuclear activist says.“The waste from Dimona is buried west of Dahriyya and the radiation from this buried waste reaches the people and causes cancer,” said Dr. Mahmoud Sa’ada, a Palestinian general practitioner and head of the Middle East division at International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, referring to a small West Bank Palestinian village just north of Hebron and just over 12 miles from the Dimona nuclear reactor.
“What’s new over the past two months is that the radiation has reached Tul Karem,” he told The Media Line, referring to a Palestinian city in the northern West Bank over 100 miles from the Dimona site.
Allegations that Israel’s nuclear facility is causing health hazards are not new, but researchers say the scope of the damage is expanding and putting an increasing number of both Israelis and Palestinians in danger……..
………….. the Dimona nuclear facility was built in the 1960s and has not undergone an overhaul as required after 1993.
Israel admits to having a nuclear facility in Dimona, a city in the south of Israel, but will not confirm or deny allegations that the facility is being used to build nuclear weapons.
Israel maintains a policy of ambiguity regarding its alleged nuclear program whereas it will not confirm or deny the existence of nuclear weapons in its arsenal.
Non-Israeli sources have claimed Israel has more than 200 nuclear warheads in its possession.
Waste storage is dark cloud over nuclear power industry |
Burlington Free Press By Crea Lintilhac • July 20, 2009 –
“……………decommissioning of civilian nuclear reactors has been performed only seven times in the industry’s 60-year history and there is a shortage of data to make projections. Moreover, in recent times, the decommissioning of Connecticut Yankee ran half a billion dollars over budget and Yankee Rowe of Massachusetts ran four times over the projected costs. Since the financial collapse, I think we all believe that forecasting our financial future is ever more challenging…….
…….The lack of a disposal site is the dark cloud hanging over the entire enterprise of nuclear power. Until a deep geological repository for spent nuclear fuel opens, existing spent fuel should be stored in dry casks; the 150-ton concrete and metal cylinders each holding 10 tons of spent fuel and placed at the 104 reactor sites throughout the U.S…………
…………here are some of the critical points about the dangers of reprocessing and why it’s not the way to go as a waste disposal solution. To “reprocess” spent fuel, different elements like plutonium, are separated so they can be used in new fuel. The problem is, separated plutonium can be readily used to make nuclear bombs…………..
……….The Ford administration, and later the Carter administration, concluded that reprocessing was both uneconomic and dangerous.
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……………..In June 29, President Obama decided to scrap nuclear reprocessing in the United States. It is an encouraging first step towards building an international consensus on reducing the threat from nuclear weapons.Even if no new reactors are built, it is estimated that by mid century, the amount of spent fuel will double………..……We have only a temporary solution with dry cask storage. In the meantime we should at least shut the faucet off and stop generating more waste for the sake of our children’s future.
Reprocessing is no solution
Reprocessing is no solution
Rutland Herald July 7, 2009 “………………The Bush administration began the new push for a Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. In 1979 a United States naval nuclear engineer and president, Jimmy Carter, ended this dangerous program.Reprocessing spent nuclear fuel was supposed to be one alternative to lots and lots of mining forever and forever. The biggest experiment in reprocessing was at Sellafield in Britain. In 2005, after decades of contamination and leaks and general spewing of horrible matter into the ocean, air, and land around the reprocessing plant, Sellafield was shut down because a bigger-than-usual leak of fuel dissolved in nitric acid —some tens of thousands of gallons — was discovered. It contained enough plutonium to make about 20 nuclear bombs.A nuclear dump site just six miles from the famous Champagne vineyards in France is leaking radioactive waste into the groundwater. According to the French nuclear safety authority, the “wall of a storage cell fissured” while concrete was being added to a recent layer of nuclear waste.It showed levels of radioactivity leaking from another dump site run by the same company in Normandy — at up to 90 times above European safety limits.That waste has seeped into underground water used by farmers, with contamination spreading into the countryside and threatening dairy production. The Champagne site will receive a total of 4,000 terabequerels of tritium — more than three times the amount of tritiumwaste as the dump site in Normandy.
Reprocessing is not a new idea. In fact, more than $40 billion has been spent globally on reprocessing technologies that have never become commercially successful. A 1996 report by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that the costs of reprocessing and transmutation of irradiated fuel from waste produced by existing U.S. reactors alone easily could be more than $100 billion, in the addition to the cost of a geologic repository.
IAEA calls on Serbia to address nuclear waste problem
AEA calls on Serbia to address nuclear waste problem 3 July 2009 | 15:00 | Source: B92 BELGRADE — The head of the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) has warned that Serbia must dispose of any remaining atomic fuel as soon as possible. Mohammed ElBaradei and Serbian Science Minister Božidar Đelić today signed an additional protocol on cooperation between Belgrade and the IAEA, after visiting the Vinča Nuclear Science Institute yesterday.
ElBaradei warned that Serbia needed to dispose of its remaining supplies of atomic fuel to prevent any possible incidents.
B92 – News – Society – IAEA calls on Serbia to address nuclear waste problem
High-level forum stresses need to tackle radioactive waste in Central Asia
High-level forum stresses need to tackle radioactive waste in Central Asia UN News Centre 29 June 2009 – A high-level forum organized by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) wrapped up in Geneva today with the adoption of a joint declaration stressing the need to tackle the challenge of radioactive waste in Central Asia.The meeting brought together over 100 representatives from the region, international organizations, donors and others to discuss the problems associated with the uranium tailing deposits – left over from mining during the Cold War in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan – which contain more than 800 million tons of radioactive and toxic waste.
These countries have not been able to deal with the problem adequately due to lack of resources and capacity.
UNDP Administrator Helen Clark said the legacy of nuclear waste and related environmental management issues has a direct impact on human development in the region.
“As most of the uranium tailing sites are located in densely populated and natural-disaster prone areas of Central Asia’s largest river basins, they represent a major potential risk to the region’s water supply and the health of millions of people,” she said in a statement to the forum.
“Many more are likely to suffer if uranium contamination moves downstream to other areas,” she added.
High-level forum stresses need to tackle radioactive waste in Central Asia
NUCLEAR LEGACY
NUCLEAR LEGACY Soviet nuclear tests still haunt Kazakhs canada.com By Maria Golovnina, ReutersJune 25, 2009 “…………………………
Moscow tested about 500 bombs here between 1949 and 1989, exposing 1.5 million people like Abishev to extreme levels of radiation and contaminating an area roughly the size of Germany.
The Soviet Union conducted its last test here in 1989 and the facility was officially closed in 1991 as the Soviet collapse brought the global nuclear arms race to an end.
Twenty years on, the Semipalatinsk test range is silent, a steppe wind blowing gently through the abandoned site dotted by ruined concrete buildings and giant hunks of rusty metal.
But hundreds of thousands of residents, subjected to the equivalent of 20,000 Hiroshima bombs during 40 years of Russian experiments, are still sickened by the legacy of their past.
The incidence of cancer, mental illness and fertility problems in this region is among the highest in Kazakhstan, a vast Central Asian nation west of China, and infant mortality is five times higher than in other regions………………………………scientists say more needs to be done to study the effect of 40 years of tests on the people. It is an issue still little understood by science, and researchers say mutations are already being passed down from parents to their children.
“The biggest issue is not so much those who experienced the explosions directly but the impact on their children and grandchildren,” said Mikhail Panin, an environmental scientist who is researching the matter in the Semipalatinsk area.
Nuclear waste cargo sailing the Barents Sea –
Nuclear waste cargo sailing the Barents Sea barents Observer 19 June 09
40 year old rusty spent nuclear fuel containers from Russia’s abounded submarine base Gremikha were shipped to Murmansk this week.The voyage from Gremikha to Murmansk normally takes one day. This is the same route as the Russian retired submarine K-159 took when it sank northeast of the inlet to the Kola Bay in August 2003. The vessel which is sailing with the highly radioactive spent fuel this week is the 35 year old Serebryanka.
The rusty spent nuclear fuel containers have been stored outdoor at Gremikha for 40 years, posing a grave radiation threat. They contain uranium fuel from some of the Soviet Union’s first nuclear powered submarines, which at that time were based at Gremikha. The submarines reloaded their deadly radioactive spent fuel to the onshore open-air storage site.
Nuclear waste cargo sailing the Barents Sea – BarentsObserver
A potential nuclear mess
A potential nuclear mess LAS VEGAS SUN 19 June 09 Many companies are not setting aside enough money for closing of nuclear plants The companies that own most of the nation’s aging nuclear reactors are not putting aside an adequate amount of money to properly close them when the time comes, an Associated Press review of financial records found……………………..
Instead of planning for closure, plant owners are delaying the inevitable, with the help of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NRC has given 19 plants permission to mothball their reactors for as many as 60 years before closing them. The commission has also granted 20-year license extensions for 54 reactors, more than half of the nation’s plants, which could mean closure would come in 80 years.
The hope, apparently, is that the plant owners will be able to afford closure several decades down the road, and that is dangerous. The plants could become a safety and security risk if the owners don’t have the money to properly maintain and close them. Nuclear power critics wonder whether the companies that plan to mothball their plants will even be around in 60 years.
“Our concern is that they’ll just walk away from it,” said Jim Riccio of Greenpeace. “It’s like a sitting time bomb. The notion that you can just walk away from these sites and everything will be hunky-dory is just not true.”
Supporters of nuclear power like to portray it as a clean, environmentally friendly source of power, but that is not true. Nuclear power has created tremendous environmental and health hazards and the contamination the plants have created will be around, in some cases, for tens of thousands of years. These issues must be adequately addressed, yet the NRC appears to be letting the nuclear plant operators push off the problems to the next generation.
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Shut down the radiation-damaged Heysham nuclear reactors now
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