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Brian Goodall says no to next stage of submarine dismantling

“Whichever way we deal with all seven of the subs currently at the dockyard I remain completely against any further nuclear submarines being brought to Rosyth.

By Ally McRoberts, Dunfermline Press, 8th Nov 2025

REMOVING the reactor from one of the laid-up nuclear submarines at Rosyth Dockyard is a “stage too far”.

Local SNP councillor Brian Goodall said there was “no need” to cut out the most radioactive parts left in HMS Swiftsure, which is being dismantled as part of an innovative recycling scheme.

He said there was nowhere to safely store the waste and it would also be cheaper to not go ahead – a stance that Labour MP Graeme Downie said was an “insult to the highly skilled team at Rosyth”.

Cllr Goodall said: “The next step will see Babcock cutting out the pressure vessel from the reactor compartment of the decommissioned nuclear submarine Swiftsure, in an experimental process that has never been done anywhere in the world before.

“This part of the submarine dismantling project has required Babcock to seek an increase in the limits to the levels of radioactivity they are allowed to discharge into the environment around the area.

“I believe there’s no clear justification for the cutting out of the pressure vessel, and that the removal for long term storage of the entire reactor compartment would be the more logical, proven, safer and cheaper approach to the next step in the dismantling process.”

There are currently seven old nuclear subs laid up at Rosyth and another 15 at the Devonport naval base in Plymouth.

A further five are due to come out of service.

The dismantling programme at the dockyard began in 2015 – Swiftsure is the first to be cut up – and in September yard bosses said Rosyth could become a “centre of excellence” for dealing with the UK’s old nuclear subs.

The project is doing what no-one else has attempted to do – removing the most radioactive parts left in the vessel, the reactor and steam generators, and recycling up to 90 per cent of the ship.

However, Cllr Goodall said: “The only justification ever given for cutting out the reactor pressure vessels in this way was to reduce the volume of the intermediate level radioactive waste that would be going into the UK’s deep geological radioactive waste facility.

“But such a facility does not exist and it looks like it never will, so long term, near surface storage at a nuclear licensed facility in England, like Capenhurst or Sellafield, is now the most likely outcome.

“And so there’s no need to take forward the experimental stage two part of the proposed procedure, with the increased radioactive discharges associated with it.”

He said he had made the same point at the consultation stage in 2012, before the dismantling of subs at Rosyth got the go ahead.

The councillor continued: “While I support the demonstrator project and, if it’s successful, I’d reluctantly back the on-site dismantling of the six other decommissioned submarines that are currently at Rosyth, I feel it’s not too late to rethink stage two of the process.

“Whichever way we deal with all seven of the subs currently at the dockyard I remain completely against any further nuclear submarines being brought to Rosyth.

“With homes within metres of the site and schools, shops and countless other businesses right next door, Rosyth should never have become a nuclear facility and radioactive waste store.

“We should now be doing all we can to create a long positive, clean, green future for the dockyard.”…………………https://www.dunfermlinepress.com/news/25606854.brian-goodall-says-no-next-stage-submarine-dismantling/

November 11, 2025 Posted by | decommission reactor, UK | Leave a comment

Radioactive waste from Canada would be buried in Utah under EnergySolutions proposal.

The company wants to import more than 1 million cubic yards of low-level radioactive waste from Canada to its facility in Utah’s West Desert.

Salt Lake Tribune, By  Leia Larsen  and  Jordan Miller, Nov. 8, 2025

A Utah company wants to import massive amountsof Canadian radioactive waste to a facility less than 100 miles from the state’s largest population center.

EnergySolutions seeks to transport up to 1.3 million cubic yards of low-level radioactive and mixed waste — enough to fill roughly 400 Olympic-sized swimming pools — from Ontario, Canada, to its Clive facility in Tooele County,it confirmed in a statement Thursday. The international nuclear services company is headquartered in Salt Lake City.

Its proposal, if approved, would mark the first time Utah allows foreign radioactive waste to be stored within state boundaries.

The company currently accepts low-level radioactive and other hazardous waste from across the nation at the Clive site for burial, which opened in 1988.

The request is under consideration by the Northwest Interstate Compact on Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management, which manages the disposal of such waste in Utah and seven other states. At least six states must approve the proposal, and Utah can veto it.

EnergySolutions says it will ask Utah regulators for permission to expand its storage capacity to accept the waste from Canada and shipments from across the U.S. The company expects to pay $30 million under a new tax imposed by the state Legislature in order to generate money for Gov. Spencer Cox’s Operation Gigawatt — his initiative to double energy production in Utah over the next decade…………………………………………………………………..

What kind of radioactive waste could come to Utah?

……………………..Typical low-level radioactive materials include contaminatedprotective clothing, filters, cleaning rags, medical swabs and syringes, according to the NRC. However, a lobbyist for EnergySolutions told lawmakers this year, while discussing the proposed expansion, the waste could include components of decommissioned nuclear power plants.

The Canadian shipments would also include mixed waste, which is any type of radioactive material that is combined with hazardous waste.

The Clive facility currently holds Class A radioactive “soil, concrete rubble, demolition debris, large components and personal protective equipment,” a company spokesperson said. That waste comes from the federal government and domestic power plants.

EnergySolutions will only accept foreignwaste generated within the province of Ontario, it noted in a letter filed Sept. 9 seeking approval from the interstate compact. The materials cannot be shipped from other locations. No depleted uranium will travel from Canada to the landfill site, the company confirmed.

This case would mark the first time a state in the compact accepts foreign radioactive waste, confirmed Kristen Schwab, executive director of the Northwest Interstate Compact. And only two states in the compact accept low-level radioactive waste for disposal at all — Utah and Washington.

…………………………………… HEAL Utah, an environmental watchdog, said it has concerns about potential spills along the route.

“Historically, Utah residents have been concerned about waste coming through their communities to be dumped in our state,” said Carmen Valdez, a senior policy associate for the nonprofit.

EnergySolutions previously sought to ship parts of a dismantled nuclear plant from Italy to its Utah location in 2008. The state vetoed the plan with the backing of then-Gov. Jon Huntsman, who bristled at the idea of storing radioactive materials from other countries.

“As I have always emphatically declared,” Huntsman said at the time, “Utah should not be the world’s dumping ground.”

Cox did not directly respond Friday to a question about whether he supports EnergySolutions’ proposal.

In order to import the Canadian waste, EnergySolutions must get a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, the company confirmed.

The company also needs approval from the Utah Department of Environmental Quality to move forward with its facility expansion. The company estimates will keep the Clive site operational for another 45 years.

The Utah Legislature earlier this year passed Senate Bill 216, which streamlined the process for such expansions and added a new tax on facilities that plan to scale up. Revenue generated from that tax would go to the Utah Energy Research Fund.

EnergySolutions said it would apply for the expansion by Dec. 31, and DEQ confirmed it has not yet received an application.

The company wants compact officials to approve the Ontario deal ahead of that state process, EnergySolutions said in an Oct. 31 follow-up letter. Waiting until DEQ approves its expansion would cause delays, it said.

One member of the compact committee suggested imposing a 10-year deadline for EnergySolutions to import the 1.3 million cubic yards of waste from Ontario to the Clive site. The company opposed the timeline, saying it would jeopardize its ability to “reasonably recover its investment,” including the $30 million expansion tax………

Shipments from Ontario will account for a fraction of the waste ultimately stored in the planned expansion, the company and DEQ said.

……………………………….Environmental advocates at HEAL remain wary about importing waste from other countries.

“We do have to find solutions to storing that waste safely,” Valdez said, “but we want to really ensure that we have enough means to manage the waste that already exists in the United States before we start accepting international waste at the benefit and profit of a private company.”

Low-level radioactive waste generated in Utah — from facilities like medical labs or universities, for example — is not disposed of in the state. As a member of the compact, Utah sends its waste to a facility in Richland, Washington.

The compact committee plans to discuss EnergySolutions’ proposal again at a meeting on Nov. 25. https://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2025/11/07/utahs-energysolutions-proposes/

November 10, 2025 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Los Alamos National Laboratory Prioritizes Plutonium “Pit” Bomb Core Production Over Safety

Santa Fe, NM – The independent Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board recently released its Review of the Los Alamos Plutonium Facility Documented Safety Analysis. It concluded that:

“While LANL facility personnel continue to make important upgrades to the Plutonium Facility’s safety systems, many of those projects have encountered delays due to inconsistent funding and other reasons. DOE and LANL should consider prioritizing safety-related infrastructure projects to ensure that the Plutonium Facility safety strategy adequately protects the public, as the facility takes on new and expansive national security missions.” (Page 24)

In early October 2024, the Department of Energy’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced with great fanfare that the Los Alamos Lab had produced its first “diamond stamped” plutonium pit for the nuclear weapons stockpile. Tens of billions of taxpayers’ dollars have been sunk into LANL’s long delayed and over budget pit production program. Given no further announcements, it is not currently known whether or not the Lab is meeting its congressionally required production goals. Endemic nuclear safety problems have long been an intractable issue, at one point even forcing a three-year halt to plutonium operations at LANL’s Plutonium Facility-4 (“PF-4”).

In its recent Review, the Safety Board reported:

“The [2009] Plutonium Facility safety basis described very large potential [radioactive] dose consequences to the public following seismic events…. DOE committed to upgrade and seismically qualify the ventilation system, with a particular focus on a specific ventilation subsystem…”

“As the only facility in the DOE complex that can process large quantities of plutonium in many forms, [PF-4] represents a unique capability for the nation’s nuclear deterrent. The Board has long advocated for the use of safety-related active confinement systems in nuclear facilities for the purposes of confining radioactive materials…Passive confinement systems are not necessarily capable of containing hazardous materials with confidence because they allow a quantity of unfiltered air contaminated with radioactive material to be released from an operating nuclear facility following certain accident scenarios. Safety related active confinement ventilation systems will continue to function during an accident, thereby ensuring that radioactive material is captured by filters before it can be released into the environment… (Page 2, bolded emphases added)

The Safety Board referred to DOE Order 420.1C, Facility Safety, which has a clear requirement that:

“Hazard category 1, 2, and 3 nuclear facilities… must have the means to confine the uncontained radioactive materials to minimize their potential release in facility effluents during normal operations and during and following accidents, up to and including design basis accidents… An active confinement ventilation system [is] the preferred design approach for nuclear facilities with potential for radiological release. Alternate confinement approaches may be acceptable if a technical evaluation demonstrates that the alternate confinement approach results in very high assurance of the confinement of radioactive materials.” (Page 2, bolded emphases added; PF-4 is a Hazard Category 2 nuclear facility)

Plutonium pit production at LANL is slated for a 15% increase to $1.7 billion in FY 2026. But in a clear example of how the NNSA prioritizes nuclear weapons production over safety, the DNFSB reported:

The active confinement safety system “remained the planned safety strategy for the Plutonium Facility for many years… However, in a March 2022 letter to the Board, the NNSA Administrator stated that the planned strategy would shift away from safety class active confinement… A safety class would require substantial facility upgrades far in excess to those that are currently planned… facility personnel also noted that some projects [for alternate confinement approaches] have been paused or delayed due to funding issues…” (Pages 3 and 21, bolded emphases added)

Instead of a technical evaluation demonstrating that “the alternate confinement approach results in very high assurance of the confinement of radioactive materials,” the Board concluded:

“Predicting the amount of release under passive confinement conditions can be quite complex. Fire or explosions could add energy to the facility’s atmosphere and introduce a motive force that could carry hazardous materials through an exhaust path… Therefore, determination of the amount of radioactive material that could escape the facility becomes very complex and uncertain.” (Page 8, bolded emphases added)

In sum, DOE reneged on its commitment to retrofit a safety class confinement system at PF-4, even as it ramps up plutonium pit production. At the same time, LANL has not demonstrated that its “alternate confinement approach results in very high assurance of the confinement of radioactive materials” in the event of an accident or earthquake.

This also contradicts the NNSA’s position that potential radioactive doses are vanishingly small. For example, the agency claims that the “Most Exposed Individual” of the public would have only a one in a million chance of developing a “Latent Cancer Fatality” from an accidental fire in gloveboxes at PF-4, which commonly process molten, pyrophoric plutonium. (Draft LANL Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement, January 2025, Page D-23)

Moreover, pit production that involves plutonium-239 is not the only nuclear safety issue. PF-4 also processes plutonium-238, a dangerous gamma emitter, as a heat source for radioisotope thermoelectric generators (AKA nuclear batteries). The Safety Board’s Review noted:

While newly installed gloveboxes meet seismic requirements, and facility modifications associated with the pit production mission prioritize upgrades for some gloveboxes, others have known seismic vulnerabilities and will not be able to perform their credited post-seismic function. Many of these deficient gloveboxes are associated with processing heat source plutonium, a high-hazard material which accounts for much of the facility’s overall safety risk… Upgrading glovebox support stands is important to return the facility to a safety posture more reliant on credited engineered features…” (Pages 22-23, bolded emphases added)

Nuclear safety issues will always be inherent to plutonium pit production, yet new pit production itself is simply not necessary. No currently planned production is to maintain the safety and reliability of the existing nuclear weapons stockpile. Instead, it is all for new-design nuclear weapons, which could prompt the U.S. to resume full-scale testing, as Trump has recently ordered. Pit production is the NNSA’s most expensive program ever, but it has no credible cost estimates. Independent experts have concluded that pits last at least a century (their average age now is ~43) and there are at least 15,000 existing pits already stored at the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, TX.

Moreover, the future of the independent Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board is in doubt, without whom the DOE’s chronic nuclear safety record would not be publicly known. The DNFSB’s five-member Board recently lost its quorum because of term limits. The Board desperately needs nominations from the Trump Administration, which so far has not happened either by design or neglect.

Jay Coghlan, Director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, commented, “We are facing a perfect storm of expanding plutonium pit production and diminishing oversight by the Safety Board. LANL’s expanding nuclear weapons programs are sucking money from the Lab’s other programs that are truly needed, such as nonproliferation, cleanup and renewable energy research (which is being completely eliminated). NNSA’s prioritization of plutonium pit production for the new nuclear arms race and the erosion of nuclear safety could have disastrous results for northern New Mexico.”

The DNFSB’s Review of the Los Alamos Plutonium Facility Documented Safety Analysis is available at https://www.dnfsb.gov/sites/default/files/2025-10/Review of the Los Alamos Plutonium Facility Documented Safety Analysis %5B2026-100-001%5D.pdf https://nukewatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/LANL-Prioritizes-Plutonium-Pit-Bomb-Core-Production-Over-Safety.pdf

November 8, 2025 Posted by | - plutonium, USA | Leave a comment

Hinkley Point B to begin 95-year decommissioning plan

Clara BullockSomerset, 5 Nov 25, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c986pvg41y2o

A former nuclear power station will begin its 95-year decommissioning process after regulators granted formal consent.

EDF’s Hinkley Point B, which lies on the Somerset coast near Stogursey, has been given the green light to be demolished by the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR).

In August 2022, Hinkley Point B reached the end of its operating life after nearly 46 years of generating electricity.

Dan Hasted, ONR director of regulation, said: “We will continue to proportionately regulate the Hinkley Point B site throughout the decommissioning phase to safeguard workers and the public.”

The nuclear site will transfer from EDF to the Nuclear Restoration Services next year, which will oversee the site’s dismantling.

Under the proposals, Hinkley Point B, which opened in 1976, could be decommissioned in three phases.

The first phase, which will last until 2038, includes the dismantling of all buildings and plant materials except for the site’s safestore structure. This facility will be used to store and manage the residential nuclear waste from the power station.

The second phase will see “a period of relative inactivity” of up to 70 years from 2039, to allow for the radioactive materials within the safestore to safely decay.

The final phase will see the former reactor and debris vaults being dismantled and removed.

Meanwhile, a new nuclear power station, Hinkley Point C, is being constructed near Hinkley B.

November 8, 2025 Posted by | decommission reactor, UK | Leave a comment

The iodine-129 paradox in nuclear waste management strategies

Nature, Analysis 05 November 2025, Haruko M. Wainwright, Kate Whiteaker, Hansell Gonzalez-Raymat, Miles E. Denham, Ian L. Pegg, Daniel I. Kaplan, Nikolla P. Qafoku, David Wilson, Shelly Wilson & Carol A. Eddy-Dilek  Nature Sustainability (2025) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-025-01629-2

Abstract

Nuclear energy has an important role in the low-carbon energy transition, but the safety of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) management remains a public concern. Here we investigate the interplay between waste management strategies and their environmental impacts with a particular focus on a highly mobile and persistent radionuclide, iodine-129 (I-129), which is the dominant risk contributor from SNF disposal and at existing groundwater contamination sites.

The results show that the current recycling practice releases more than 90% of I-129 in SNF into the present-day biosphere using an isotropic dilution strategy, whereas the direct disposal of SNF in geological repositories is likely to delay and reduce the release by 8 orders of magnitude. In addition, our data synthesis of surface water concentrations near four nuclear facilities shows that the release-dilution strategy results in lower concentrations than regulatory standards, while insufficient waste isolation in the past has resulted in locally high concentrations within one site.

Our analysis suggests that it is essential to consider effluents more explicitly as a part of the waste, that as society moves from dilution to isolation of waste, the potential risks of waste isolation to local regions should be carefully evaluated, and that excessive burdens of proof could hinder or discourage waste isolation. Comprehensive waste management strategies—considering not just volume but also mobility, isolation technologies and ultimate fates—are needed for persistent contaminants. This study offers valuable insights for optimizing the management of SNF and other persistent contaminants.

November 8, 2025 Posted by | wastes | Leave a comment

UK’s nuclear waste problem lacks a coherent plan.


The [GDF] will comprise vaults and tunnels of a size that may be
approximate to Bermuda, but without the devilish tax evaders, coupled with
a 1 km square surface site that will periodically swallow up trainloads of
toxic radioactive waste. It would be unsurprising if Nuclear Waste
Services, the agency charged with finding and building the site, placed a
job advert for its own Hades to manage this dystopic underworld and if the
postholder engaged Cerberus to guard the entrance.

The plan comes with an enormous bill for taxpayers which will scare the ‘bejeebers’ out of taxpayers. Previously the Government’s new National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) had identified in its August 2025 report that the GDF facility may have a whole life cost estimated to range from £20 billion to £53 billion.

Now PAC members have had a further frightener placed on them because these headline figures were based on 2017/18 prices and they have found that, when adjusting to the present, the undersea radioactive monster might cost over £15 billion more. It would be far cheaper to hire Godzilla.

The Public Accounts Committee Chair Geoffrey Clifton-Brown has called on the Government to produce a ‘coherent plan’ to manage the UK’s stockpile of radioactive waste

NFLA 31st Oct 2025, https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/trick-not-treat-nuclear-dump-is-full-of-nasty-surprises-not-sweet-treats/

November 6, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, UK, wastes | Leave a comment

Some 890 tons of Tepco nuclear fuel kept at Aomori reprocessing plant

Aomori – Nov 1, 2025,
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/11/01/japan/tepco-nuclear-fuel-aomori-plant/

Some 890 tons of spent nuclear fuel from Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings are being stored at Japan Nuclear Fuel’s reprocessing plant under construction in Aomori Prefecture — the first time a specific amount of nuclear fuel at the plant from an individual company has been confirmed.

Also kept at the nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in the village of Rokkasho are about 180 tons of fuel from Japan Atomic Power.

Both numbers were included in the Aomori Prefectural Government’s answer dated Oct. 7 to a questionnaire from a civic organization in the prefecture. The prefecture’s answer was based on explanations from Tepco and Japan Atomic Power

The plant keeps a total of 2,968 tons of used nuclear fuel.

The plant, planned to be completed in fiscal 2026, will start to extract plutonium from used nuclear fuel once it becomes operational.

Under the principle of the peaceful use of plutonium, the Japanese government has a policy of not possessing the radioactive material unless there are specific purposes for it such as use for uranium-plutonium mixed oxide (MOX) fuel, because it can be used to make nuclear weapons.

With none of the nuclear reactors at Tepco and Japan Atomic Power having restarted and neither companies having clear plans to start so-called pluthermal power generation using MOX fuel, there are concerns that a situation may occur in which Japan possesses plutonium without specific purposes.

In the prefecture’s answer to the questionnaire, Tepco said that it “plans to implement pluthermal power generation at one of its reactors based on a policy that it will consume plutonium definitely.”

The firm also said it assumes that some plutonium will be supplied to a nuclear plant of Electric Power Development, better known as J-Power, which is now being constructed in the town of Oma, Aomori Prefecture. The Oma plant is expected to use MOX fuel at all reactors.

“There is no change in our policy to use our plutonium with our responsibility,” Japan Atomic Power said.

Contacted by reporters, Tepco offered the same explanation as that given to the Aomori government.

Meanwhile, Japan Atomic Power said that it plans to conduct pluthermal power generation at the Tsuruga nuclear power station’s No. 2 reactor in Fukui Prefecture and at the Tokai nuclear plant in Ibaraki Prefecture, although when this would start has yet to be decided.

November 5, 2025 Posted by | - plutonium, Japan | Leave a comment

EDF’s plan to decommission Hinkley Point B approved despite regulator’s concerns

31 Oct, 2025 By Tom Pashby

The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) has approved EDF’s plans for the
decommissioning of its Hinkley Point B nuclear power station, despite
wide-ranging concerns raised by organisations, including the Environment
Agency, which regulates the nuclear sector.

 New Civil Engineer 31st Oct 2025, https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/edfs-plan-to-decommission-hinkley-point-b-approved-despite-regulators-concerns-31-10-2025/

November 4, 2025 Posted by | decommission reactor, UK | Leave a comment

Nuclear waste removal under way at silo.

“Because the removal of the waste had not been planned when the building was opened, engineers had to retrofit an exit route for it.“

COMMENT. Doesn’t that tell you everything about the stupidity of the men who design the nuclear industry?

Jonny Manning, Local Democracy Reporting Service, 1 Nov 25, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgvq930vwpo

Seventy tonnes of radioactive waste have been removed from a nuclear site’s most hazardous building.

Teams at Sellafield in Cumbria have removed the waste from the Magnox Swarf Storage Silos with the company saying it has placed it into safe storage.

The work began in 2022 after two decades of preparation, because when the building was constructed in the 1960s no-one had considered how the waste would be removed.

Sellafield’s head of legacy silos Phil Reeve said so much waste had been removed that a 7m (23ft) crater had been dug in the middle of the pile.

However, the crater presents a risk of the waste around the edges collapsing inwards.

To fix the issue, Sellafield has created its own version of a garden rake – a 1.4 tonne machine which uses its stainless steel arms to pull the nuclear waste into the centre.

“It’s a big moment to see it successfully deployed in an active environment for the first time,” said Mr Reeve.

“It allows us to crack on with confidence.”

Because the removal of the waste had not been planned when the building was opened, engineers had to retrofit an exit route for it.

This involved assembling huge retrieval machines on top of the building’s 22 waste compartments.

One machine is currently up and running with another two set to start soon.

But while work is well under way, the Sellafield team still has about 10,000 tonnes of waste to remove.

November 3, 2025 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

Escalating nuclear waste disposal cost leads senior MP to demand ‘coherent’ plan.

The escalating costs of the geological disposal facility (GDF) have led the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chair to demand that the government produce a “coherent plan” to manage the country’s nuclear waste legacy

29 Oct, 2025 By Tom Pashby
https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/escalating-nuclear-waste-disposal-cost-leads-senior-mp-to-demand-coherent-plan-29-10-2025/

A GDF represents a monumental undertaking, consisting of an engineered vault placed between 200m and 1km underground, covering an area of approximately 1km2 on the surface. This facility is designed to safely contain nuclear waste while allowing it to decay over thousands of years, thereby reducing its radioactivity and associated hazards.

PAC chair Geoffrey Clifton-Brown’s comments were made in reaction to the revelation that the total life cost of the GDF is up to £15bn more than the sum listed in the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority’s (Nista’s) recent annual report. Nista is a government body and works with the Cabinet Office and Treasury and its August 2025 report published figures from Nuclear Waste Services (NWS), the government body responsible for the GDF, showing the GDF as having a whole life cost of from £20bn to £53.3bn.

However, Nista’s Infrastructure Pipeline dashboard lists the GDF’s CapEx (capital expenditure) range for new infrastructure in 2024/2025 prices as being from £26.2bn to £68.7bn, with the top end being slightly over £15bn higher than the figure published in the annual report.

A government source explained to NCE earlier that the discrepancy is because the figures published in Nista’s annual report was based on 2017/2018 prices, meaning the effects of long-term inflation were not accounted for.

Criticism has previously been levied at High Speed 2 (HS2) because of its use of historic pricing figures to reduce the impact of inflation on budget projects and make the total cost of the project appear to be lower than it would end up being.

Government must have coherent plan to manage nuclear waste – senior MP

The House of Commons PAC is one of the most active and powerful select committees in Parliament, able to formally request that the National Audit Office carry out investigations into government projects.

Nuclear decommissioning is a key area of focus for the Committee because of the high total costs, which will hit the public purse into the far future. Sellafield is seen as the government’s flagship project within the wider nuclear decommissioning programme.

The scale of future nuclear decommissioning is clear in the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority: Annual Report and Accounts 2024 to 2025, which says: “the discounted best estimate of the future costs of the decommissioning mission of £110.1bn”. This is a £5bn increase on the previous year.

October 31, 2025 Posted by | decommission reactor, UK | Leave a comment

Members of Congress object to plutonium giveaway

October 26, 2025, https://beyondnuclear.org/senators-object-to-plutonium-giveaway/

On December 31, the Trump White House will start revealing which lucky startup companies will receive free plutonium needed for their new reactor fuel. Trump will give away between 20-25 tons, according to reports, going against US energy policy that has long avoided the transfer of nuclear weapons-usable materials into the commercial sector. One likely recipient is Oklo, on whose board Trump’s present energy secretary, Chris Wright, once sat, raising serious conflict of interest issues.

Several Members of Congress have already written to Trump expressing their concerns. In the  letter sent by Senator Ed Markey and Reps. Don Beyer and John Garamendi,  all Democrats, they pointed out that dishing out plutonium “to private industry for commercial energy use,”  crossed a line that “goes against long-standing, bipartisan US nuclear security policy. It raises serious weapons proliferation concerns, makes little economic sense, and may adversely affect the nation’s defense posture.”  They also pointed out that the amount of plutonium Trump is preparing to move into the commercial sector “is enough for at least 2,000 nuclear bombs.”

And they also took care to remind Trump that “commercial nuclear energy does not require separated plutonium, and today there is no global demand for plutonium to make civilian nuclear reactor fuel. Nuclear power reactors instead rely on uranium fuel, which is safer and cheaper to process.”

October 31, 2025 Posted by | - plutonium, politics, USA | Leave a comment

Roll up, roll up for your free plutonium.

The 19-25 metric tons of plutonium Trump would be redirecting into the civil nuclear sector had previously been slated for permanent disposal as nuclear waste left over from the Cold War era. Disposing of it is far cheaper than reprocessing it — $20 billion versus $49 billion according to the senators’ letter — and also isolates it from potentially falling into the wrong hands. 

    by beyondnuclearinternational

Trump is preparing a dangerous giveaway to struggling commercial nuclear startups, writes Linda Pentz Gunter

Imagine you are a commercial nuclear reactor startup company but you just can’t quite start up because there’s one little problem. Your “new” reactor design needs a special kind of fuel. And that fuel requires a particular ingredient: plutonium.

Plutonium is the trigger component of a nuclear bomb. The countries that developed nuclear weapons — as well as those that have reprocessed irradiated reactor fuel in order to separate the plutonium from uranium — have massive surplus piles of plutonium left over, an ever-present security threat.

Now imagine that a former board member of one of those struggling startup companies, Oklo, is Chris Wright, the current US Secretary of Energy in the Trump government. Lo and behold, all of a sudden, that same carnival barker who passes for a US president is offering your former company plutonium for free from a stockpile of close to 20 metric tons or more.

The White House has announced that it will begin revealing its lucky free plutonium recipients on December 31 based on applications received by the US Department of Energy by November 21, according to Reuters. The news agency put the plutonium surplus amount at 19.7 metric tons, although the Trump administration has suggested it has 25 tons to spare. 

That amount, according to a letter sent to the Trump administration by one senator — Ed Markey — and two representatives— Don Beyer, John Garamendi — all Democrats — is enough for at least 2,000 nuclear bombs. 

Dishing out plutonium “to private industry for commercial energy use,” the trio wrote in their September 10 letter, “goes against long-standing, bipartisan US nuclear security policy. It raises serious weapons proliferation concerns, makes little economic sense, and may adversely affect the nation’s defense posture.”

Markey wrote to Trump again on September 23, specifically enquiring whether it was more than just a peculiar coincidence that Wright’s former company, Oklo, would be the beneficiary of the plutonium handout.

Earlier, with his colleagues, Markey had expressed concern that “the transfer of weapons-usable plutonium to private industry would increase the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation, including to rogue states or terrorists.” 

Markey now wanted to know whether “a serious conflict of interest may exist within your Administration on this issue because the plutonium transfer will benefit Secretary of Energy Chris Wright’s former company.”

Saying that he had “questions about the propriety of the transaction,” Markey noted that in addition to the free plutonium, Trump’s Department of Energy was also supporting Oklo to build a $1.7 billion reprocessing plant in Tennessee that would enable Oklo to further extract the plutonium needed for its as yet unlicensed micro-reactors. 

Markey went on to question whether the administration even cared whether or not a new Oklo-owned reprocessing plant made any sense but was instead backing the project with taxpayer money “because Oklo stands to benefit financially and Secretary Wright is acting in his former company’s interest.”

Among the eager corporations already lined up for their plutonium handouts are not only Oklo but also a foreign corporation, the now French-based but originally British nuclear company, newcleo, as well as US-based Valar Atomics, which has been criticized for developing a reactor that would not only consume but also produce plutonium. 

Perhaps to celebrate the impending largesse, newcleo announced on October 20 that it has entered into a partnership with Oklo and will invest $2 billion to develop advanced nuclear fuel fabrication and manufacturing facilities.

On the very day — May 23rd —that Trump released his executive orders fast-tracking nuclear power expansion, Valar Atomics put out its own statement celebrating the news. (Do you think they’d seen the EOs in advance, or maybe even written parts of them themselves?)

Echoing the identical language repeatedly used by Trump officials, the Valar Atomics statement said: “There’s a new arm to national nuclear security: Dominance. Dominance in civilian nuclear technology development, dominance in nuclear energy infrastructure deployment, dominance in shaping global development.”  

We should note here that the word “dominance” appears 35 times in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 guide to autocracy, which contains an entire section called American Energy and Science Dominance and another called Restoring American Energy Dominance. 

Accordingly, we now have something called the National Energy Dominance Council, headed by Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum. Burgum heralded the newcleo-Oklo deal, saying: “This agreement to implement newcleo’s advanced fuel expertise into Oklo’s powerhouses and invest $2 billion into American infrastructure and advanced fuel solutions is yet another win for President Donald J. Trump’s American Energy Dominance Agenda.” 

Standing in the way of such dominance, according to Valar Atomics and others, remains the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). In April, Valar Atomics had joined the states of Texas, Utah, Louisiana, Florida, and Arizona, as well as fellow reactor companies Last Energy and Deep Fission, to sue the NRC. Their beef is that, going back to the days of NRC predecessor, the Atomic Energy Commission, there has been an annoying insistence “to require licenses even for reactors that use small amounts of special nuclear material that have no effect on US defense and security or public health and that the NRC itself has stated do not pose public health and safety risks.”

Innovation, complains Valar Atomics, is made “virtually impossible,” by the NRC. “Their rules — created in the overreaction to the Three Mile Island incident — shuttered the nuclear industry. Simply testing a reactor prototype takes five to seven years, at best. This is not the way to foster innovation! To regain our dominance in nuclear energy, the status quo must change, quickly.”

The suit is currently under discussion for a possible resolution, given that the Trump DOE is moving fast to rein in any excessive safety oversight by the newly downsized NRC, where the mission statement now extolls the “benefits” of nuclear energy for the US public.

The 19-25 metric tons of plutonium Trump would be redirecting into the civil nuclear sector had previously been slated for permanent disposal as nuclear waste left over from the Cold War era. Disposing of it is far cheaper than reprocessing it — $20 billion versus $49 billion according to the senators’ letter — and also isolates it from potentially falling into the wrong hands. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Plutonium has no place in the civil nuclear sector. But it should have no place in our lives, period, if we really want to avoid nuclear proliferation or worse.

Linda Pentz Gunter is the founder of Beyond Nuclear and serves as its international specialist. Her book, No To Nuclear. Why Nuclear Power Destroys Lives, Derails Climate Progress and Provokes War, can be pre-ordered now from Pluto Press. https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2025/10/26/roll-up-roll-up-for-your-free-plutonium/

October 28, 2025 Posted by | - plutonium | Leave a comment

Nuclear waste plan turns neighbor against neighbor in a struggling Japanese fishing village

A huge underground vault could hold highly radioactive waste for thousands of years — but only if the government can overcome local opposition

Leslie Liang Science Line, • October 25, 2025

Nobuka Miki was flustered by the television reporter’s question. She was happily spending the day with her daughter, enjoying a Buddhist festival on the main street of her village in northern Japan, when the question came.

What did she think about the proposal to build an underground storage site for Japan’s high-level radioactive waste in Suttsu, the struggling fishing town where she lives? “As long as it’s not dangerous, then it should be OK?” Nobuka briefly answered before fleeing the uncomfortable exchange.

Until that 2020 interview, Nobuka, who owns a local beauty salon, had no idea the Japanese government was considering her village as the site for a huge underground vault capable of holding all of Japan’s high-level nuclear waste for thousands of years.

As soon as the television news clip was broadcast and calls from her worried friends started lighting up her phone, Nobuka had second thoughts.

“Everything was lovely and suddenly, I heard ‘nuclear waste’,” remembered Nobuka, who has since changed her mind and is now helping to voice the local opposition against the waste proposal. “I felt surprised.”

The bigger surprise came when Nobuka learned that years earlier, Suttsu’s own leadership had volunteered to be considered for the site, in an attempt to revitalize a community whose primary industry, herring fishing, has been declining for years.


Suttsu’s mayor, Kataoka Haruo, applied for the survey in 2020 to investigate if the village can be a permanent site for Japan’s high-level radioactive nuclear waste after a subsidy incentive was promised. The subsidies for the first stage of the survey were up-to-2 billion yen ($19.4 million), and seven billion yen ($48.6 million) for the second stage.

Five years later, the proposal remains highly divisive in Suttsu, which has a population of less than 3,000. Neighbors who know each other through generations of friendship have stopped talking. Their kids no longer play together……………………………………………………………………………………………………..

The situation has gotten slightly less heated recently after a series of community meetings, Nobuka says, but nothing is resolved yet. Suttsu remains one of three candidates for the waste disposal site — the other is another isolated northern town 60 kilometers farther up the coast — despite growing opposition centered on safety concerns, including the possibility of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

Japan needs to have a nationwide discussion about the waste issue, which has not attracted much attention beyond the potentially affected communities, said Takumi Saito, a professor who studies nuclear power at the University of Tokyo. He believes that for energy security, a natural resource-deprived country like Japan needs nuclear power.

The conflict in Suttsu is a small manifestation of a worldwide debate over what to do with highly radioactive waste products of nuclear power, especially spent fuel rods. As of 2023, Japan has generated more than 19,000 tons of used rods and other highly radioactive waste since it opened its first commercial nuclear reactor in 1966. Currently that waste is in temporary storage on the grounds of Japan’s 15 nuclear power plants, a situation experts say is risky considering that the waste will remain dangerous for more than 10,000 years.

Many other countries are in the same boat. More than a dozen nations are trying to develop underground storage facilities for high-level nuclear waste, but none are open yet, and many are mired in controversy. In the United States, the federal government has been pushing for the construction of a high-level waste storage facility at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain since 1987, but the proposal is now moribund after intense opposition from lawmakers and the public.

At a time when many countries are talking about building a new generation of nuclear power plants to reduce dependence on fossil fuels that drive global climate change, the lack of approved long-term waste storage facilities has been a critical hurdle — both in countries with long-established nuclear power programs and in many smaller nations that would like to develop their own………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Like many other countries with nuclear power, Japan is also trying to make progress on building a plant to reprocess and ultimately reuse spent nuclear fuel. France and Russia have been operating similar plants for years. In Japan’s case, reprocessing is crucial because the country is determined to reuse as much material as possible before it is shipped to the long-term storage site.

Critics are skeptical. The reprocessing facility in the town of Rokkasho “has been under construction for 30 years. [It was] supposed to be finished by September 2024. But it’s delayed again [until 2027],” said Satoshi Takano, a researcher from Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center, an anti-nuclear group in Japan. “The policy is not working. We need to reconsider it.”

Plans to build the long-term storage site have been under consideration for almost as long. Suttsu’s leaders had volunteered their town for consideration more than 20 years ago, in response to a nationwide call from the Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Japan. The government promised billions in financial subsidies to the chosen community, but ultimately only three put themselves forward, including Suttsu.

In 2020, the government disclosed the names of the three communities. That was news to many local Suttsu residents, including Nobuka.

At the time, she didn’t even know what nuclear waste was. Even the devastating 2011 accident at Fukushima felt like a distant issue, 800 kilometers to the south. She and others quickly learned otherwise, not only because of the waste site proposal but also because of a plan to reopen the nuclear plant at Tomari, just 50 kilometers up the coast.

Their anxiety grew last November, when the government announced that a long-awaited review of the scientific literature on local geology showed that Suttsu and another northern coastal town, Kamoenai, were potentially suitable sites.

There are still numerous other steps, however, including drilling surveys and test tunnels — work that could take another 18 years, the government estimates.

The government’s plan is to build an underground storage site 1 to 2 kilometers wide and a depth of 300 to 500 meters, according to Satoshi. “If the site were to be built, it would be enough for the current waste in Japan,” he said

Nobuka, though, is one of many locals who say they are determined to stop it. She has made nuclear waste her second career, joining the Town Residents’ Association to speak out in opposition.

“People who are interested in this issue are quite doubtful about the decision” to name Suttsu as one of the finalists, Satoshi said. “The safety is not clear.”

Nobuka’s biggest concern is that nuclear accidents caused either by a natural disaster or man made malfunction will destroy Suttsu. But she worries that the project may already have too much momentum to stop, especially with the government’s drive to expand nuclear power.

She feels excluded from the government’s decision-making process. “Nobody showed up and asked about our concerns,” Nobuka said. “We’re not getting enough attention and I feel less and less hopeful.”…………………………………………..https://scienceline.org/2025/10/nuclear-waste-plan-turns-neighbor-against-neighbor/

October 27, 2025 Posted by | wastes | Leave a comment

Germany destroys two nuclear plant cooling towers as part of nuclear phaseout plan.

Euronews,  25/10/2025,https://www.euronews.com/2025/10/25/germany-destroys-two-nuclear-plant-cooling-towers-as-part-of-nuclear-phaseout-plan

The two towers, equivalent to roughly 56,000 tonnes of concrete, collapsed in a controlled demolition on Saturday. It comes as part of Germany’s nuclear phaseout.

Two cooling towers of the former nuclear power plant in Germay’s Bavarian town of Gundremmingen were brought down in a controlled demolition at noon on Saturday.

The plant had served as an important landmark in the town for nearly six decades, bringing numerous new jobs and boosting the local economy.

As part of the country’s nuclear phaseout and under Germany’s energy transition policy, the Gundremmingen, as well as the Brokdorf, and Grohnde nuclear power plants, had already been decommissioned in December 2021.

The municipality, who had prepared for a large crowd of onlookers, set up a restricted zone around the power plant.

According to energy company RWE, the demolition could be observed from various watch points in the region. Some pubs also offered public “demolition viewing parties”

How the towers will be blown up

There were three explosions in total. The first was carried out to chase away nearby animals and wildlife. The second brought down the first tower, and the third caused the second tower to collapse.

Roughly 56,000 tonnes of concrete collapsed in a matter of seconds. Following Saturday’s demolition, the dismantling of the plant will further continue, local media report, with completion expected by 2040.

October 27, 2025 Posted by | decommission reactor, Germany | Leave a comment

Early engagement launched on £360m nuclear waste capping scheme

 By Harmsworth

 Nuclear Waste Services (NWS), the state-owned body responsible for
managing the UK’s radioactive waste, has launched early market engagement on a £360m programme to cap and extend the Low Level Waste Repository (LLWR) in Cumbria.

NWS operates the repository on behalf of the Nuclear
Decommissioning Authority (NDA), a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

The scheme will involve installing a permanent engineered cap over disused trenches and Vault 8 at the LLWR site near Drigg. Capping is a method used to isolate radioactive waste from the environment. It involves layering materials such as clay, concrete and geomembranes to prevent water from reaching the waste and to contain any gas emissions.

 Construction News 24th Oct 2025,
https://www.constructionnews.co.uk/civils/early-engagement-launched-on-360m-nuclear-waste-capping-scheme-24-10-2025/

October 26, 2025 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

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