Thunder Bay Council to debate nuclear waste position
Thunder Bay’s city council will debate whether to stake out a position opposing the transportation of nuclear waste through the city.
TBnewswatch.com Ian Kaufman, Oct 27, 2023
THUNDER BAY — Thunder Bay’s city council will consider its position on the transportation of nuclear waste through the area on Monday, as a decision to ship the waste to the Ignace area looms.
Citizen groups Environment North and We the Nuclear Free North asked council last year to endorse the “proximity principle,” which would dictate keeping nuclear waste as close as possible to its point of generation.
That ask was referred to the city’s intergovernmental affairs committee, which will present a recommendation against the step at a council meeting on Monday…………..
The groups point to a now decades-old plebiscite in which Thunder Bay voters expressed concerns over nuclear waste disposal.
A 1997 plebiscite asked citizens if they were in favour of nuclear waste disposal in the Thunder Bay area. Of roughly 40,000 who voted, over 91 per cent voted no.
In 2000, city council passed a motion building on that plebiscite, expressing “concern with the transportation of nuclear waste through the city of Thunder Bay.”………………
We the Nuclear Free North has launched a similar call to endorse the proximity principle at Queen’s Park, delivering a long-shot petition in May bearing over 1,000 signatures to the Ontario Legislature.
It wants the province to direct Ontario Power Generation to look to storage systems at or near points of generation, rather than a deep geological repository in other areas of the province.
The Nuclear Waste Management Organization, the industry group tasked with finding a disposal solution for Canada’s nuclear waste, is considering Revell Lake, between Ignace and Dryden, and South Bruce as DGR sites.
A selection between the two sites for the $25-billion project is expected in 2024. …………………………………………
Wendy O’Connor, communications lead for We the Nuclear Free North, said approving a repository in Ignace would force the region to bear the burden of a nuclear waste a problem “that’s been sidestepped for decades.”
“There is no solution to nuclear waste. There is no good, totally safe way to deal with it,” she said.
However, she believes a solution closer to where waste is generated at sites in Southern Ontario makes more sense……………………………….. https://www.tbnewswatch.com/local-news/council-to-debate-nuclear-waste-position-7745525 #nuclear #antinuclear #NoNukes
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What happens after a nuclear power station is closed?
When Hinkley Point B. opened in 1976, its two advanced gas-cooled reactors
(AGRs) were state of the art. But over nearly half a century of generation,
cracks developed in their graphite cores, creating potential safety
concerns, and they were shut down for good last year.
Yet inside the
cavernous main hall, little seems to have changed. Freshly painted
machinery gleams under bright lights, as teams of workers in blue boiler
suits scurry around above the reactors themselves. The main activity at the
moment is defueling: removing hundreds of fuel assemblies from deep within
the reactor cores, stripping them down, and sending the wastes away for
storage at Sellafield. As we watch, a large steel tower is being positioned
over the reactor.
This is the charging machine. It looks rather like an
old-fashioned helter-skelter, but in fact it is a heavily-shielded crane.
The fuel assemblies, having been in the reactor for years, are highly
radioactive and need to be handled with extreme care.
Once defueling is
complete, EDF will hand over the site to the Nuclear Decommissioning
Authority (NDA). To find out what happens then, it is worth going next door
– to another power station, Hinkley Point A. This was one of the UK’s
first-generation nuclear sites. Its two reactors were brought online in
1965 – and shut down for good in 2000. Nearly a quarter of a century later,
its two box-like reactor buildings still stand tall against the skyline.
But other buildings, including the huge turbine hall, have been removed –
leaving just a deep, weed-strewn hole in the ground. Old fuel storage ponds
have been drained, cleaned and painted to reduce radiation risks, although
we are warned not to linger around them. But elsewhere a water-filled vault
remains half-full of radioactive scrap, which is being painstakingly
removed.
BBC 27th Oct 2023
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67087673 #nuclear #antinuclear #NoNukes
Hanford’s pre-treated nuclear waste might not meet vital plant criteria
Hanford’s underground tanks contain some 56 million gallons of liquid radioactive waste left over from decades of plutonium production for nuclear weapons.
Exchange Monitor, By Wayne Barber,
A storage tank spoiled a batch of liquid radioactive waste at the Hanford Site that
was thought to be clean enough for disposal, according to a contractor memo
seen by the Exchange Monitor.
The waste from Hanford’s tank farm, part of
a less-radioactive tranche that is supposed to be solidified starting in
2025 by the Bechtel National-built Waste Treatment and Immobilization
Plant, had been scrubbed by the Tank Side Cesium Removal (TSCR) outside the
plant and piped into a nearby tank, designated AP-106, for storage.
But recent sampling of TSCR-treated waste stored in AP-106 revealed higher
levels of radioactive contamination than is allowed in the Waste Treatment
and Immobilization Plant during its Direct Feed Low Activity Waste phase,
according to an Oct. 3 memo from the site’s liquid-waste prime
contractor, the Amentum-led Washington River Protection Solutions.
Hanford’s underground tanks contain some 56 million gallons of liquid radioactive waste left over from decades of plutonium production for nuclear weapons. Production began during the Manhattan Project and ran through much of the Cold War.
The Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant as constructed can only solidify a portion of Hanford’s less-radioactive waste, called low-activity waste. DOE has yet to approve a means of solidifying high-level waste or settle on a means of solidifying the low-activity waste that cannot be treated in the existing plant. One option for the later tranche of waste is mixing it with concrete-like grout.
Exchange Monitor 19th Oct 2023
https://www.exchangemonitor.com/hanfords-pre-treated-waste-might-not-meet-vit-plant-criteria/ #nuclear #antinuclear #NoNukes #radiation
Vermont Yankee nuclear plant teardown ahead of schedule, but removal of the spent fuel is a problem.
By CHRIS LARABEE, Staff Writer, 10/15/2023
VERNON, Vt. — With the reactor building serving as one of the final structures standing, the decommissioning of the former Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant has been progressing steadily with a potential finish date four years ahead of its 2030 deadline.
Amid a teardown of the former turbine building’s foundation one day last week, officials from NorthStar, the company undertaking the $600 million decommissioning project, shared their planned decommissioning timeline of the controversial power plant…………………………………
Entergy, the former owner and operator of the plant, closed the facility in 2014, citing the lack of profitability of Vermont Yankee in the energy economy. The plant began operation in November 1972 and faced decades of scrutiny from anti-nuclear activists. Decades later, Entergy, which purchased the facility for $180 million in 2002, also faced several lawsuits over the final decade of Vermont Yankee’s lifetime……………………………………………………
Removing waste
As of Aug. 31, NorthStar had sent a total of 685 shipments of waste by rail to a storage facility in Texas, amounting to approximately 39,188 tons of material, according to Corey Daniels, senior manager for the spent fuel storage installation for NorthStar…………….
Removing waste
As of Aug. 31, NorthStar had sent a total of 685 shipments of waste by rail to a storage facility in Texas, amounting to approximately 39,188 tons of material, according to Daniels.
While the site is expected to be cleared in just a few years, there is a potential snag.
NorthStar is able to transport “low-level radioactive” materials, such as metal waste, for disposal, but the nuclear fuel that powered the reactor currently remains on the site because a license to an interim Texas storage facility was vacated.
The license was vacated after the Texas state government challenged the facility and the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s authority to grant a permit for an interim waste facility, according to The Brattleboro Reformer.
State added that it is the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s legal fight and there is the possibility the case could be brought before the U.S. Supreme Court.
In the meantime, State said the spent fuel will remain on the parcel until the federal and various state governments can find a solution. ……………………. https://www.gazettenet.com/Vermont-Yankee-nuclear-plant-teardown-ahead-of-schedule-52630716 #nuclear #antinuclear #NuclearFree #NoNukes #NuclearPlants
Fukui governor accepts utility’s nuclear fuel plan, comes under fire
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN, October 13, 2023 https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/15028320
FUKUI–Fukui Governor Tatsuji Sugimoto on Oct. 13 approved Kansai Electric Power Co.’s revised plan on storing spent nuclear fuel, drawing outrage from prefectural assembly members.
The governor’s approval means that three aging reactors operated by the utility in the prefecture can continue to run.
The continued operation of the old reactors was contingent on Kansai Electric finding a site outside Fukui Prefecture to store the spent fuel from its nuclear plants.
Sugimoto, who met with industry minister Yasutoshi Nishimura and Kansai Electric President Nozomu Mori on Oct. 13, approved the plan even though the utility has not picked a storage site.
“The plan is a pie in the sky as no candidate site for the interim storage facility has been presented,” a prefectural assembly member said.
Under the approved plan, operations will start at an interim storage facility outside the prefecture around 2030 for spent nuclear fuel accumulating at Kansai Electric’s nuclear power plants in Fukui Prefecture.
The spent fuel will remain there until it can be transferred to a reprocessing plant.
But that brings up another problem.
The central government has long been promoting a nuclear fuel recycling program that reprocesses spent nuclear fuel.
However, the reprocessing plant in the village of Rokkasho in Aomori Prefecture, the key facility in the recycling program, has suffered a series of problems, and its completion has been delayed for more than 25 years.
Spent nuclear fuel is currently placed in storage pools at the nuclear plants in Fukui Prefecture.
The prefectural government has been urging Kansai Electric to build an interim storage facility outside the prefecture because space is running out for the fuel.
The utility had promised to find a candidate site for the storage facility by the end of this year.
It said if it could not find a site, it would halt the No. 1 and No. 2 reactors at the Takahama nuclear plant and the No. 3 reactor at the Mihama nuclear plant. These three reactors have each been in operation for more than 40 years.
In June, Kansai Electric presented a plan to ship about 200 tons of spent nuclear fuel from the Takahama nuclear power plant to France, claiming “we fulfilled our promise.”
But the prefectural government opposed this plan, saying that volume was only a fraction of the total amount.
On Oct. 10, the utility proposed a revised plan, including increasing the amount to be shipped to France and setting up dry storage facilities within the compounds of nuclear plants in Fukui Prefecture that are separate from the existing storage pools.
Kansai Electric also said the storage capacity within the nuclear plants would not increase, in principle.
Another prefectural assembly member criticized this plan.
“Since no duration was specified for the dry storage facilities, they might end up effectively serving as the final disposal site,” the assembly member said.
(This article was written by Kenji Oda and Tsunetaka Sato.) #nuclear #antinuclear #NuclearFree #NoNukes #NuclearPlants
UK’s old nuclear submarines, dead for over 40 years, and a new plan for turning them into “tin cans and razor blades”.
BABCOCK International want to build a new industrial building at Rosyth
Dockyard for the dismantling of old nuclear submarines. If approved, and a
planning application has gone into Fife Council, the metal waste disposal
facility will go up at the corner of Wood Road and Caledonia Road.
Seven old nuclear subs have been laid up at the yard for decades, Dreadnought has
been there since 1980, longer than it was in service, and last year
councillors were told of a UK Government pledge to “de-nuclearise Rosyth”
by 2035. They were also informed of a world first in removing the most
radioactive waste and the overall aim of cutting up the vessels and turning
them into “tin cans and razor blades”.
Blyth and Blyth, of Edinburgh, have
been appointed by Babcock as civil and structural engineering consultants
for the Rosyth Submarine Dismantling Project and are agents for the
application. The plans say the building would be around 200 square metres
in size and the council are expected to make a decision next month.
Dunfermline Press 16th Oct 2023
https://www.dunfermlinepress.com/news/23853192.rosyth-babcock-plans-new-metal-waste-disposal-building/ #nuclear #antinuclear #NuclearFree #NoNukes #NuclearPlants
Nuclear reactor that operated for only 9 years will take many (expensive) decades to decommission .
Complete dismantling of experimental French reactor to proceed.
1WNN, 0 October 2023
EDF has been authorised to begin the third and final phase of the decommissioning of the Brennilis nuclear power plant in the Monts d’Arée in Brittany, France. The plant is a unique 75 MWe gas-cooled heavy water reactor that operated between 1972 and 1981.
The first phase of the plant’s decommissioning – the removal of all fuel and the dewatering of its systems – was completed in 1992. The second phase – the dismantling of equipment and all buildings (with the exception of the reactor building) – was completed in 2005.
On 26 September, EDF obtained the “complete dismantling” decree, signed by the Minister of Energy Transition, which makes it possible to launch the dismantling of the reactor, the cleaning up of the civil engineering, the demolition of the reactor building and the final rehabilitation of the Brennilis site………..
The final deconstruction of Brennilis is a complex operation,” noted Cédric Lewandowski, director of the nuclear and thermal fleet at EDF, on LinkedIn. “Indeed, this prototype, unique in France, using heavy water reactor technology, is contained in a concrete cube measuring 20 metres on each side and 1.5 metres thick. Inside, the equipment to be dismantled is tightly packed into a very cramped space.
“To carry out this work on time and to guarantee the protection of personnel, the EDF Deconstruction and Waste Projects Department (DP2D) is working with its industrial partners on innovative tele-operation and robotics solutions.”
The dismantling of the reactor’s peripheral circuits, entrusted by DP2D to Onet Technologies and Cyclife Engineering, will begin later this year.
Reconciling With Truth Requires Listening… what about nuclear waste?
September 30, 2023 https://mailchi.mp/preventcancernow/reconciling-with-truth-requires-listening?e=ba8ce79145 #nuclear #antinuclear #nuclear-free #NoNukes
As Canadians look back and Remember the Children who suffered at residential schools, we wish to highlight Algonquin First Nations’ important work to protect the health of children, and the Kitchi Sibi (Ottawa) River watershed from pollution.
The First Nations oppose a hillside nuclear waste Near-Surface Disposal Facility (NSDF) proposed on unceded Algonquin territory at the Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories. In a remarkable turn of events, rainfall during the final hearing on the NSDF demonstrated that the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) is unlikely to meet its goal to keep nuclear waste secure for hundreds of years.
At Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories scientists first worked on the atomic bomb in the 1940s; ongoing nuclear research ever since has resulted in voluminous waste, that will remain toxic longer than planning horizons. People oppose transportation of nuclear waste through their communities, so the CNSC concluded that it had to deal with waste onsite. A federal Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) was published for a nuclear waste NSDF.
Disturbingly, assessment of the natural environment is absent from the federal EIS, so the Algonquin First Nations retained experts and published Assessment of the CNSC NSDF and Legacy Contamination in June 2023.
The federal assessment found that the top risk for stability of hillside waste disposal was severe rainfall. Too much rain could sweep the nuclear waste down the hill and into Perch Lake, polluting Perch Creek and the Kitchi Sibi River a kilometre away. This could pollute the ecosystem and food sources, as well as drinking water for millions of people downstream in smaller towns, Ottawa and cities.
On Aug. 10, 2023, at the sacred site where the Rideau, Kitchi Sibi and Gatineau rivers tumble together, Chiefs of Kebaowek, Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg and Mitchibikonik Inik First Nations, Elders and other experts, made final submissions to the CNSC. As witnesses spoke, attendees heard a roar of rain drumming on the roof.
This rain flooded Ottawa streets and basements, stopped traffic, took out power, and backed up sewers. Five centimetres of rain fell in an hour, and more than 300 million litres of untreated water flowed into the Ottawa River.
The EIS vastly under-estimates future weather severity, defining “heavy rainfall” as over only 0.7 cm per hour. The EIS also cites a 2013 estimate of low tornado risks—an insult to fresh memories of catastrophic tornadoes and derechos in Eastern Ontario.
The acceleration of climate disasters is boggling Canada’s long-term predictions of the scale of extreme weather. The nuclear waste disposal facility was designed to withstand end-of-the-century estimates of less than five cm of precipitation in a day for Deep River, and over five cm in a day—not an hour—for Ottawa.
Ottawa’s not alone in breaking rainfall records and disproving future estimates. July 2023 brought rainfall disasters to Nova Scotia, with rainfall up to 50 cm per hour measured in one location. Much of the province experienced 20 cm in a day, causing widespread damage. Canadian federal climate predictions call for much less—up to 9 cm in a day by the end of the century.
If an Environmental Impact Assessment for a bridge was discovered to be this flawed—that the bridge would not withstand a storm as severe as what just occurred—it would be a good reason to reconsider the plans. The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission should heed the warning from Mother Nature and deny the present proposal.
2
UK’s Nuclear Waste Service has said that a willing community could trump unsuitable geology.
NWS is on record as saying that a willing community could trump unsuitable
geology. Nuclear Waste Services have taken this decision to withdraw
Allerdale without carrying out seismic blasting in the Solway area to
‘investigate the geology.’
We believe that this is because of the
vigorous campaign we have led against the invasive and damaging seismic
testing by Nuclear Waste Services and the bad publicity this has generated
for the nuclear dump plans.
For more analysis and opportunities to resist
the ongoing nightmare of a massive, deep and very hot nuclear dump (or more
than one what with all the even hotter new nuclear waste this government is
planning) please visit our new campaign site Lakes Against Nuclear Dump
Radiation Free Lakeland 4th Oct 2023
As Japan releases more Fukushima water, what about the rest of the plant?
A second batch of treated water is being released into the Pacific, but the entire decommissioning process will be far more complex.
all that will need to take place in an environment where the level of radiation is so high, it is nearly impossible for workers to get inside.
Japan has not yet worked out where all the waste will go
Aljazeera, By Hanako Montgomery, 5 Oct 2023 #nuclear #anti-nuclear #nuclear-free #NoNukes
“…………………………………………………………………………………………Japan has promised to decommission the power station as part of its recovery plan for Namie town and the rest of Fukushima prefecture. The plant’s six reactors suffered catastrophic damage, after the tsunami smashed into the complex, crippling the plant’s cooling systems. As radioactive material leaked from the site, 470,000 people were forced to evacuate.
But while the plant had been rendered useless, progress towards its decommissioning has been slow.
Complex challenge
According to Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the plant operator, that is partly because of the accumulation of 1.3 billion tonnes of treated radioactive wastewater that was used to cool the three reactors that were in operation at the time of the disaster.
The 1,000 or so blue and white tanks to store the water have taken up space needed for decommissioning, according to TEPCO, which has had to contend with strong criticism from local fishing communities and neighbouring countries like China, which have continued to protest against Japan’s plan to discharge the water into the ocean.
………………………………………………………………… According to TEPCO, the entire decommissioning process will take between 30 and 40 years. That is at least six times longer than it typically takes to decommission a plant under normal circumstances, Brent Heuser, a nuclear engineering professor from the University of Illinois in the United States, told Al Jazeera.
“Decommissioning involves removing fuel stored in structured arrangements. Japan, however, is facing unique challenges such as widely dispersed fuel, requiring both human and robotic efforts for detection,” he told Al Jazeera.
Japan has not yet worked out where all the waste will go.
TEPCO is planning to reduce some of it through incineration or recycling onsite, but that does not include the waste that will be produced from the dismantling of reactor buildings, and there is no estimate for how much radioactive waste there will be as the process moves forward.
To decommission the Daiichi plant, TEPCO must first remove the spent fuel and the fuel debris that is stuck inside the damaged units. Experts will then place the collected debris in storage containers before they can transport it to a new facility that will be built onsite.
The reactor buildings must also be dismantled.
Later this year, TEPCO will carry out a trial removal of melted debris from Unit 2. The retrieval will be expanded in stages if successful.
By 2027, plant operators hope to be able to turn their attention to Unit 1, the most seriously damaged of the reactors, which they plan to enclose with a large cover.
By 2031, they will focus on removing the melted debris.
But all that will need to take place in an environment where the level of radiation is so high, it is nearly impossible for workers to get inside.
“The doses they would receive would go way beyond any allowable limit, so that certainly is playing a role in the extended timeline for the decommission process,” Heuser said, suggesting more staff may be needed given the short period of time they will be able to remain on site.
“They’re spreading the worker dose exposure over a much larger body of people.”
Help from robots
The level of radiation means Japan is also yet to understand the full extent of the damage inside the corroded reactors.
TEPCO has used robotic probes to try and get a sense of the destruction. Equipped with 3D scanners, sensors, and cameras, robots have mapped the terrain, measured radiation levels, and searched for the elusive missing fuel.
Although some headway has been made in assessing the condition of the reactors, the data is far from reassuring.
Since 2022, TEPCO has dispatched a robotic probe into Unit 1.
The probe’s findings revealed the core had largely melted and settled at the bottom of the containment chamber – which serves as a vital safeguard against the release of radioactive material – and possibly Unit 1’s concrete basement. Furthermore, it suggested significant damage to the pedestal, the primary support structure directly beneath Unit 1’s core.
Financial considerations also loom large in Japan’s struggle with decommissioning
Ordinarily, the decommissioning of a standard nuclear plant would cost between $300m to $400m, according to the US nuclear regulator.
But given the extensive damage, compensation paid to local residents and the specialised equipment required for managing one of the world’s worst nuclear disasters, the Japanese government predicts the final bill could come to about 21.5 trillion yen ($141bn).
Akira Ono, who leads TEPCO’s decommissioning unit, has admitted the work is “challenging”. Earlier this year, a remotely-operated vehicle managed to collect only a tiny sample from Unit 1’s reactor, which is thought to contain some 880 tonnes of melted fuel debris -10 times the amount removed during the cleanup of Three Mile Island in the northeastern United States in 1979………………………………………………………………………….. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/5/as-japan-releases-fukushima-water-into-the-sea-what-about-everything-else
Fate of Indian Point #Nuclear Wastewater Still Unclear
The Highlands Current, By Brian PJ Cronin, Reporter | September 29, 2023 #antinuclear #nuclear-free #NoNukes
Holtec considering ‘multiple options’ but won’t say more
A month after Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a bill preventing Holtec from discharging water from Indian Point’s spent fuel pools into the Hudson River, the company said it hasn’t yet decided what it will do with the waste.
At the Sept. 21 meeting of the Indian Point Decommissioning Oversight Board, a representative for Holtec, which is decommissioning the plant on the Hudson River near Peekskill, said he was not going to discuss what options it was considering. But he did say it expects the process will take longer.
“There will be a schedule impact; I don’t think you can avoid it,” said Rich Burroni, who was attending his last oversight meeting because he was recently promoted to become Holtec’s chief nuclear officer.
No remaining options are without their opponents. Boiling the water so that it evaporates would transfer its radiation to the air. Dumping it in the ocean would violate international law. Mixing it with concrete and shipping it to the western U.S. to be buried, which other decommissioned plants have done, has been criticized as an environmental justice violation, since it passes the risks to another community………………………………………………………………………………………
Dave Lochbaum, the oversight board’s nuclear expert, noted that in 2009 a tank at Indian Point failed, leaking 10,000 gallons a day “for a while” until the leak was discovered. “The result of that is the contamination gets into places it shouldn’t be, in higher levels of contamination,” he said.
When asked why the tanks fail so often, Lochbaum said that the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) policies don’t encourage the development of better tanks.
“If you’ve ever paid a nickel for an overdue library book, you’ve paid a nickel more than the NRC has ever fined anyone for spilling millions of gallons of contaminated water,” he said. “Because there’s no sanction for doing wrong, there’s no incentive for getting it right.”
Lochbaum also had harsh words for the NRC when making a presentation on how the dry casks that store the spent fuel itself are inspected. Almost all of Indian Point’s spent nuclear fuel has been loaded into metal canisters, which are lowered into concrete hulls to protect them until they can be shipped to a yet-to-be-built permanent facility. The casks are supposed to be inspected on a regular basis to make sure they aren’t leaking or in danger of cracking.
But an audit by the NRC released this year found that for the past 20 years, nuclear power plants in the Southeast weren’t being inspected nearly as often or as robustly as they should have been. And inspectors weren’t qualified. Lochbaum said that in some cases, the inspectors didn’t even enter the fenced areas where the dry casks were located.
“They walked around the outside of the fence,” Lochbaum said. “That’s probably not adequate inspections.”
He also took issue with the fact that the NRC only spot-checks casks, rather than inspecting them all. At the same time, inspecting all of the casks properly is impractical because the process exposes inspectors to a low dose of radiation.
Public records indicate that the casks at Indian Point have been inspected more often and more thoroughly than those in the Southeast, but Lochbaum said that it’s still not clear if the inspectors are qualified or how many hours were spent.
The oversight board has asked the NRC for more detailed information on the inspection process at Indian Point, and expects to have answers in time for its next public meeting on Dec. 6. https://highlandscurrent.org/2023/09/29/fate-of-indian-point-wastewater-still-unclear/?fbclid=IwAR0Qd18gKvQAQcMkvF9g6si1l5b3OlNV5oHaOo-t7r3df8FVVXPf8SaqfXQ
Editorial: Japan city’s rejection of nuclear waste site probe casts doubt on gov’t stance.
Tsushima Mayor Naoki Hitakatsu announced on Sept. 27 that
the Nagasaki Prefecture city will not accept a reference material-based
preliminary survey for the construction of a final disposal facility for
nuclear waste, going against the local assembly’s initial adoption of a
petition calling for the survey’s approval.
The Japanese government must accept the reality that the search for a candidate site to dispose ofhighly radioactive nuclear waste, which will continue to accumulate as long
as nuclear power plants are in operation, is proving difficult.
Mainichi 30th Sept 2023
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20230930/p2a/00m/0op/009000c
Nuclear waste ship makes unprecedented port call at Novaya Zemlya
“I am deeply worried if Russia has started to move nuclear waste from the Kola Peninsula to the Arctic archipelago,” says Frederic Hauge with the Bellona foundation.
Much of the remaining uranium fuel elements in Andreeva Guba are damaged and pose special problems to handle. For that reason, the reprocessing plant in Mayak has been unwilling to receive.
Thomas Nilsen, September 29, 2023 https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/nuclear-safety/2023/09/nuclear-waste-ship-makes-port-call-novaya-zemlya
Last week, the “Rossita” could be seen on ship tracking services as it sailed outside Gremikha, a shutdown submarine base east on the Kola Peninsula. Now, the specially designed ship is moored at the pier in Severny, a military town on the shores of the Matochkin Strait diving the northern and southern islands of Novaya Zemlya
Severny is the settlement serving Russia’s nuclear weapons tests, nowadays in the form of sub-critical experiments taking place deep inside tunnels in the permafrost mountains. The last real detonation of a nuclear warhead was on October 24, 1990.
The “Rossita” was built in Italy with Italian taxpayers money. It was a helping hand from a European nation aimed to transport spent nuclear fuel from the run-down storage site in Andreeva Guba on the shores of the Litsa fjord, a short 60 km from the border with Norway.
Some 21,000 spent fuel elements from the Soviet Union’s fleet of Cold War submarines were stored. Italy’s contributions were part of a larger international cooperation to assist Russia in securing the lethal highly radioactive waste.
Other contributing nations were Norway, the United Kingdom and Sweden.
The “Rossita” shuttled between Andreeva Bay and Atomflot in Murmansk. From there, the containers with the fuel elements were sent by train to Mayak north of Chelyabinsk where Russia’s reprocessing plant is located.
With Moscow’s all-out war against Ukraine, the Western partners stopped all cooperation with Russia in regard to nuclear waste handling.
For the last 19 months, little information about what happens in Andreeva Bay has reached the public.
What is known is that two of the Northern Fleet’s most potent nuclear-powered submarines, the “Severodvinsk” and the “Kazan” of the Yasen class are moored across the bay at the piers in Nerpicha, part of Zapadnaya Litsa naval base.
“All reasons to monitor”
Frederic Hauge with the Bellona Foundation in Norway will not speculate too much about reasons Russia might have to move nuclear waste to the Arctic archipelago of Novaya Zemlya.
“What we do know is that “Rossita” is specially designed to carry TUK-18 containers modified to hold damaged spent nuclear fuel,” he says.
Much of the remaining uranium fuel elements in Andreeva Guba are damaged and pose special problems to handle. For that reason, the reprocessing plant in Mayak has been unwilling to receive.
“There are all reasons to monitor what now happens at Novaya Zemlya,” Hauge notes.
His team of nuclear experts in Oslo and Vilnius are now analyzing the limited available information with the hope of understanding what happens.
“A week ago, Rosatom’s larger carrier “Sevmorput” sailed to Novaya Zemlya. We are also told that there have been busy days at Severny and near the tunnels designed for nuclear weapons testing,” Hauge says in a phone interview with the Barents Observer.
“The big unanswered question is if what we now are witnessing is a Russia that brings dangerous nuclear waste to Novaya Zemlya for long-term storage in the permafrost.”
Japan city forgoes applying for government survey on nuclear waste site
The mayor of Tsushima in southwestern Japan said Wednesday he has decided
against applying to the state for a preliminary survey to gauge the island
city’s suitability to host an underground disposal site for highly
radioactive waste from nuclear power generation. The decision comes in
contrast with the local assembly’s approval earlier this month of a request
filed by proponents urging the city to accept the survey.
“There is insufficient consensus among the public,” Mayor Naoki Hitakatsu said at a city assembly session, with some fearing the potential impact on tourism and primary industries such as fisheries.
He later told reporters he also has concerns about reputational damage that may arise from conducting the survey.
The preliminary survey is the first step in a three-stage process spanning two decades to select a permanent disposal site for nuclear waste. Struggling to find one, the central government is looking for municipalities willing to accept the survey, but only two municipalities in Hokkaido have so far done so.
Tsushima, on a remote island in Nagasaki Prefecture, was identified as a potential disposal site on a map of such locations released by the central government in 2017.
Hitakatsu has raised worries about hosting such a site, saying, “The risks that may arise from unperceived factors cannot be ruled out.”
Opponents of the plan have also said it would not be appropriate for the city to host a disposal site for nuclear waste given the history of the U.S. atomic bombing of Nagasaki city in 1945.
Local construction groups and other proponents argued that state subsidies of 2 billion yen ($13.4 million) for accepting the survey could be used for measures to rev up the shrinking city’s economy and support child-rearing.
The mayor, who may seek a third four-year term after his current term expires in March, told a press conference that the reputational damage that may arise from carrying out the survey “cannot be covered by a subsidy of 2 billion yen.”
He also said he “judged it would become difficult to reject” the subsequent geological research if the preliminary survey showed that the city is suited as a site for the final disposal of nuclear waste.
The surveys, conducted by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization, a quasi-government body in Tokyo, involve checking land conditions and volcanic activity based on published geological sources.
Following Tsushima’s decision, the central government said it will continue efforts to find more areas to carry out preliminary surveys.
“We are very grateful that Tsushima showed interest and had considered” accepting the survey, said Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno at a press conference.
Fast-aging Tsushima, where the number of residents fell below 30,000 in 2020, depends on squid fishing and pearl farming but is struggling to find young people to carry on the running of its industries.
It is located closer to the South Korean port city of Busan, 50 kilometers away, than any major Japanese cities.
High-level radioactive waste, produced when extracting uranium and plutonium from spent fuel, must be stored in bedrock at least 300 meters underground for tens of thousands of years until the radioactivity declines to levels that pose no harm to human health or the environment.
Japan, like many other countries with nuclear plants, is struggling to find a site for such disposal.
Kyodo News 27th Sept 2023
UK government decides not to take Allerdale further in GDF nuclear waste siting process due to limited suitable geology
Nuclear Waste Services (NWS) has been engaging
with the Allerdale community about the potential for hosting a Geological
Disposal Facility (GDF) to dispose of the UK’s most radioactive waste. As
part of this process NWS obtained existing data and undertook assessments
to understand if six siting factors, safety and security, community,
environment, engineering feasibility, transport, and value for money, could
be supported if a GDF were sited in Allerdale.
Following a comprehensive
and robust evaluation of information it was concluded only a limited volume
of suitable rock was identifiable and the geology in the area was unlikely
to support a post closure safety case. NWS has therefore taken the decision
not to take Allerdale further in the search for a suitable site to host a
GDF. Initial assessments of existing data and information for the other
three communities in the siting process have indicated potentially suitable
geology, which is why NWS is continuing in the siting process with those
communities.
Nuclear Waste Services 28th Sept 2023
1 This Month
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