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1000s of nuclear bombs? Russia exits US nuke pact to reclaim 34 tons of plutonium

The pact required both nations to dispose of 34 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium.

Kapil Kajal Oct 09, 2025 , https://interestingengineering.com/military/russia-dumps-us-nuclear-deal

ussia has officially pulled out of an important agreement with the United States regarding how to dispose of weapons-grade plutonium.

According to Russia’s state news agency TASS, the lower house of the Parliament passed a legislation on October 8 to officially denounce the 2000 Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement (PMDA). 

The pact required both nations to dispose of 34 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium, enough for thousands of nuclear warheads, by converting it into fuel for civilian power reactors.

Terminating nuclear pact

The deal, signed in 2000 and ratified in 2011, was designed to ensure that plutonium declared surplus for defense needs could never again be used for weapons. 

However, Russia is no longer willing to follow its agreements with the United States regarding plutonium.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told lawmakers that the current situation makes it unacceptable to keep these obligations.

Ryabkov pointed out that Russia’s demands for restoring the deal have not been met. These demands include lifting US sanctions, reversing the Magnitsky Act, and reducing NATO’s military presence near Russia’s borders.

The Russian government explained to parliament that it is withdrawing from the deal due to “fundamental changes in circumstances,” including NATO expansion, US sanctions, and military support from Washington for Ukraine.

Although the agreement was technically in place, Russia stopped participating in 2016. It accused the US of not meeting its obligations and using the agreement for political gain.

The Kremlin at the time demanded concessions unrelated to the agreement, such as restrictions on NATO activities in Eastern Europe and the lifting of sanctions imposed after Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.

34 tons of plutonium

The termination of the PMDA means that the 34 tons of plutonium Russia had pledged to render unusable for weapons could now be reclassified as part of its strategic reserves. 

The State Duma’s official statement described further commitments on the material as “inexpedient.”

The decision adds to the growing list of suspended or terminated arms control agreements between Moscow and Washington. 

Russia has already withdrawn from the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty, suspended its participation in New START, and halted cooperation under the Open Skies treaty.

The plutonium agreement was among the few remaining technical measures of nuclear risk reduction from the early 2000s. 

While smaller in scale than New START, the PMDA was seen as a pragmatic step toward reducing stockpiles of weapons-usable material in both nations.

Tomahawk cruise missiles

The move comes as geopolitical tensions between the US and Russia continue to escalate over the war in Ukraine. 

On the same day the withdrawal was announced, the Kremlin condemned Washington’s reported deliberations over providing Tomahawk cruise missiles to Kyiv.

“If the U.S. administration ultimately makes that decision, it will not only risk escalating the spiral of confrontation, but also inflict irreparable damage on Russian-US relations,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said, according to TASS. 

She added that Moscow was “closely monitoring” the situation and urged the US to exercise restraint

The United States has not yet commented on Russia’s decision to terminate the plutonium deal. 

However, the move underscores the growing collapse of bilateral nuclear cooperation amid the deepest rift between Washington and Moscow in decades.

The developments also come as Bloomberg reported on September 30 that Russia remained the largest supplier of enriched uranium to the United States in 2024, providing about 20 percent of the fuel used in American nuclear reactors despite formal import restrictions. 

US waivers still permit deliveries through 2028 for national energy security reasons.

As both countries move further away from long-standing nuclear agreements, experts warn that ending the PMDA shows a growing risk to global nuclear safety and a widening rift in US-Russia relations.

October 12, 2025 Posted by | - plutonium, Russia | Leave a comment

U.S. Dept. of Energy steps up plutonium pit manufacturing at Savannah River Site

The site is part of the nation’s effort of “re-establishing capabilities retired after the Cold War,” the national nuclear stockpile plan stated. And also, provide a home for another data center.

Jillian Magtoto, Savannah Morning News, 9 Oct 25,

Key Points

https://b869a89cfd12aa4b4835a5af049aa210.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-45/html/container.html

ENVIRONMENT

U.S. Dept. of Energy steps up plutonium pit manufacturing at Savannah River Site

The site is part of the nation’s effort of “re-establishing capabilities retired after the Cold War,” the national nuclear stockpile plan stated. And also, provide a home for another data center.

Jillian Magtoto, Savannah Morning News

Key Points

  • The Department of Energy is accelerating construction of the new facility, aiming to produce 50 plutonium pits annually by 2030.
  • While production ramps up, concerns remain about existing radioactive waste and the diversion of funds from cleanup efforts.

More than two hours up the river from Savannah is a nuclear Superfund site, about the size of Augusta just across the border. Despite decades of cleanup, radionuclides still trickle from nearby streams to cow udders, and lurk in the tissues and bones of alligators, hogs, and deer, and the flesh of tadpoles and fish. In July, workers discovered a radioactive wasp hive at one of its hazardous waste tank farms. The site spanning three South Carolina counties is still active as the country’s only plant extracting and purifying tritium, a radioactive isotope that boosts the efficiency and explosivity of nuclear weapons.

But the Savannah River Site (SRS) is about to be re-awakened to produce plutonium pits, hollow bowling-ball sized spheres of plutonium at the core of warheads that causes the nuclear blast. Plutonium is a heavier metal that, according the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), can enter the bloodstream upon inhalation, resulting in lung scarring, disease, and cancer. It carries a half-life of about 24,000 years.

Last October, the Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) assumed primary responsibility of the SRS to produce 50 of the country’s 80 annual plutonium pits by 2030. The remaining 30 will be made in the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, where plutonium pits were first created in the 1940s.

Over 80 years later, “NNSA is being asked to do more than at any time since the Manhattan Project,” stated NNSA Administrator Jill Hruby at the 2024 Nuclear Deterrence Summit. For SRS, the goal “is aggressive, complete construction by 2032 so that rate production can support the W93 schedule.” W93 is the newest and 93rd nuclear weapon design the U.S. has considered after a 30-year hiatus, planned for deployment by U.S. Navy submarines…………………………………………………………………………………………………

While plans are accelerating, “most of the public doesn’t even know what’s going on out there,” said Tom Clements, founder of his one-man watchdog website, Savannah River Site Watch, who has monitored the plant since the 1970s. “They don’t know they’re building the pit plant.” And likely, also a data center…………………………………………………………………………………………..

Plutonium’s pitfall

It’s one thing to stop plutonium production, but it’s an entire other affair to dispose it.

Because weapons-grade plutonium cannot be blended with other materials to render it unusable for weapons, Russia and the U.S. agreed it would instead be made into mixed oxide (MOX) fuel and irradiated in civil nuclear power reactors for electricity. For the U.S., that MOX facility would be housed at the SRS, which began construction in 2007.

But the promise was a far cry from what the DOE was able to do.

Technical issues, delays, and mismanagement reported by outlets like the Post & Courier ended its operations in 2018. In 2022, the MOX building contractor paid $10 million to the DOE for fraudulent invoices for nonexistent materials. If completed, SRS’ MOX facility would have been 32 years behind schedule and $13 billion over budget, according to the DOE.

Meanwhile, the state of South Carolina was growing wary of the tanks sitting on its soils. In 2014, the state sued the U.S. government and six years later, won the state’s largest single settlement of $600 million and the DOE’s commitment to remove all 9.5 metric tons of plutonium from the state by 2037. Until then, South Carolina has waived its right to bring any lawsuit against DOE for plutonium disposal.

So the DOE went with a cheaper and quicker alternative: diluting the plutonium with a plutonium powder into a “more secure” and less weapon-usable form—though the potential of reversibility led Russia to back out of the deal. SRS has undergone a flurry of expansion, automation, tank transport, and construction of mega-sized disposal units all to dilute the plutonium into a Superfund smoothie that gets vitrified into obsidian-like glass and shipped to a waste isolation pilot plant 2,000 feet underground in a New Mexico salt mine, according to SRS. It completed the first shipment in December 2023.

Still, radioactive byproduct remains in 35 million gallons of waste stored in roughly 43 of the original 51 underground carbon steel containers according to most recently published updates this January.

“These tanks have outlived their design lives, posing a threat to the environment,” stated a Savannah River National Laboratory webpage. “Some of the tanks have known leaks.”

A new mission swipes cleanup funds

From aging plutonium pits housed at the Pantex facility in Texas, the SRS will generate new plutonium pits at the SRS unit originally intended to retire weapons-grade plutonium…………………………………..

But as the site shoulders the new plan, remediation funds get pulled. When the DOE EM handed over primary responsibility of the site to the NNSA last year, $173 million were reallocated from cleanup to weapons activities and transition costs. And it seems some environmental processes fell though the cracks.

“They basically named SRS as the second [plutonium pit] plant site without doing an environmental analysis,” said Clements. “And that’s we got them for, violating the National Environmental Policy Act.”

In 2021, Clements, the Savannah River Site Watch and a few other plaintiffs sued the DOE and NNSA, resulting in a settlement that will play out over the next couple of years. Until the DOE conducts a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) examining the environmental impact of other approaches to pit production and reach a Record of Decision filed by July 17, 2027, the DOE will not introduce nuclear material into the SRPPF’s main processing building…………………………………. https://www.savannahnow.com/story/news/environment/2025/10/09/savannah-river-site-takes-on-an-enduring-mission-to-make-plutonium-pits-and-also-take-a-data-center/86442685007/

October 11, 2025 Posted by | - plutonium | Leave a comment

Holtec abandons nuclear waste project in New Mexico

by Energy News updated October 9, 2025, https://energynews.oedigital.com/energy-markets/2025/10/09/holtec-abandons-nuclear-waste-project-in-new-mexico

Holtec, a private nuclear power company, announced this week that it was abandoning a plan to store radioactive waste in New Mexico despite a U.S. Supreme Court decision in June which gave some hope for projects aiming at storing the material. The Supreme Court threw away a legal challenge in June by Texas, New Mexico, and some oil companies against the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s licensing of nuclear storage projects in the drilling country. Some believed that this opened the door to temporary storage for these states.

New Mexico lawmakers and the Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham are opposed to storing nuclear waste on the site, even temporarily. They fear that without a permanent U.S. facility for nuclear waste, it will become a permanent solution.

Holtec announced in a Wednesday statement that it is leaving the HISTORE project in the Permian basin, near the oil hub Carlsbad. The statement said that the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance and Holtec had mutually agreed to cancel the agreement due to the unsustainable path for used fuel storage. This was reported first by Axios.

It’s been obvious for years that New Mexicans are opposed to spent fuel storage and disposition in the state. “We’re happy that Holtec finally acknowledged that reality,” Don Hancock, director at the Southwest Research and Information Center of Albuquerque for the nuclear waste safety programs.

Holtec’s Pat O’Brien, a spokesperson for the company, said that the company hoped to work with states that were willing to store the waste following outreach efforts by the U.S. Department of Energy which began during former President Joe Biden’s Administration.

O’Brien stated that Holtec believes communities in 15 to 20 different states are interested in hosting a potential storage facility.

The danger to human health makes it necessary to store nuclear waste for a long time. Nuclear power plants, both active and closed, store the waste.

After state legislators raised objections, the former Obama administration halted funding in 2010. (Reporting and editing by Paul Simao; Timothy Gardner)

October 11, 2025 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

German Nuclear Operator’s Insolvency Could Shift Dismantling Costs to Taxpayers

October 6, 2025, Full Story: Clean Energy Wire, Author: Benjamin Wehrmann, https://www.theenergymix.com/german-nuclear-operators-insolvency-could-shift-dismantling-costs-to-taxpayers/

The insolvency of an operator of a decommissioned nuclear power plant in Germany raises questions about the financial responsibilities for deconstructing the reactor and disposing of its radioactive materials.

HKG, the owner of the nuclear plant Hamm-Uentrop that was opened in 1983 and taken out of service only six years later, filed for insolvency at a court in western state North Rhine-Westphalia, reports Clean Energy Wire, citing the German business weekly WirtschaftsWoche.

The operating company, owned jointly by major energy company RWE and several local utilities, initially had demanded about 350 million euros from the federal and the state government to cover the costs for deconstruction and disposal, but failed to win a lawsuit it filed in 2024. A court in the city of Düsseldorf rejected HKG’s claim in June this year, which led the company to declare itself insolvent. “HKG faces an unchanged situation with unclear financing of the remaining deconstruction work,” said the company’s CEO, Volker Dannert. According to WirtschaftsWoche, the actual costs for dismantling the plant and storing the nuclear waste initially were gauged at 750 to one billion euros.

Co-owner company RWE said the HKG shareholders bear no legal responsibility to fund deconstruction works beyond payments they made in the past. HKG manager Dannert said that talks with the federal and the state government had remained inconclusive, which meant that “it is now a task for the responsible authorities at the federal level and in North Rhine-Westphalia to organize the further dismantling.”

The prototype Thorium-Cycle-High-Temperature-Reactor (THTR) in Hamm-Uentrop was decommissioned due to technical challenges after serving for about 16,500 hours. It was sealed in 1997 and will remain so until at least 2030 to let radioactive contamination diminish before deconstruction works can begin. The process of dismantling is expected to take about one decade.

Germany is in the process of dismantling its nuclear power plants after shutting down the remaining three reactors in 2023 as part of the country’s nuclear phase-out. Dismantling nuclear power stations and safely storing radioactive waste will cost Germany dozens of billions of euros, and take many decades.

In 2017, Germany’s four major nuclear plant operators—E.ON, EnBW, RWE and Vattenfall—handed money earmarked for nuclear waste disposal over to the country’s fund for nuclear waste management, passing all responsibilities to the state. In 2025, over half of the German environment ministry’s budget is spent on managing the country’s nuclear waste, including finding a location for a final nuclear repository.

This post was originally published by Berlin-based Clean Energy Wire.

October 7, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, decommission reactor | Leave a comment

45K gallons of radioactive water to be dumped into Hudson River from Indian Point nuclear plant

Shane Galvin Oct. New York Post, 2, 2025, 

Roughly 45,000 gallons of radioactive water from a defunct plant north of New York City will be discharged into the Hudson River after a federal court ruling struck down a state environmental law.

US District Judge Kenneth Karas sided with company Holtec International over New York State in a ruling issued last week that reversed the 2023 “Save The Hudson” law which sought to prevent the company from muddying the Hudson’s waters.

Holtec sued the Empire State last year, arguing that only the federal government had the right to regulate discharge of the Indian Point plant’s nuclear waste, which amounted to the 45,000-gallon sum, The New York Times reported……………………………………..

Indian Point, which sits on the Hudson River about 35 miles north of Manhattan, was closed in 2021 after years of public outcry from the local community over environmental concerns…………………… https://nypost.com/2025/10/02/us-news/45k-gallons-of-radioactive-water-to-be-dumped-into-hudson-river-from-indian-point-nuclear-plant/

October 6, 2025 Posted by | USA, wastes, water | Leave a comment

U.S. to gift Plutonium-239 to private nuclear industry

 The Trump Administration’s trafficking of nuclear weapons-grade usable plutonium would significantly increase the global proliferation of nation state-sponsored nuclear weapon programs as well as the nuclear weapons material acquisition by thief and purchase for acts of nuclear terrorism.

 The Trump Administration’s trafficking of nuclear weapons-grade usable plutonium would significantly increase the global proliferation of nation state-sponsored nuclear weapon programs as well as the nuclear weapons material acquisition by thief and purchase for acts of nuclear terrorism.

October 2, 2025, https://beyondnuclear.org/u-s-to-gift-pu-239-to-private-nuclear-utilities/

Trump Administration’s give away of 20 MT of US plutonium weapons stockpile to private companies threatens nuclear proliferation 

According to previously unreleased government documents obtained and reviewed by Politico and addressed in a letter from three Democrat members of Congress to President Donald Trump, The White House is preparing to give away 20 metric tons of weapons-usable plutonium to new nuclear start companies. The Trump deal calls for the equivalent of 2000 nuclear bombs previously slated for permanent disposal as nuclear waste) from the nation’s Cold War era nuclear weapons stockpile to be freed up to help jump start privately-owned U.S. commercial nuclear startup companies. The fledgling nuclear companies would instead  use the plutonium fuel in a still unproven and unlicensed new generation of nuclear power plants for domestic power production. The plan includes U.S. startups to reprocess plutonium used in nuclear fuel for  international export.  The Trump Administration’s trafficking of nuclear weapons-grade usable plutonium would significantly increase the global proliferation of nation state-sponsored nuclear weapon programs as well as the nuclear weapons material acquisition by thief and purchase for acts of nuclear terrorism.

The White House proposal calls for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), currently charged with the nation’s nuclear weapons development and nuclear power promotion, to “alter” the military-grade plutonium so it can be used as fuel by civilian startup power companies in new reactor designs. Theses unfinished and yet to be approved designs (such as the sodium cooled metal fuel fast reactors “Aurora” by the Santa Clara, CA start-up Oklo, Inc.’s and Bill Gates’ TerraPower’s “Natrium”) are already being privately marketed for the domestic and international export of fast reactors by companies such as Oklo.

The White House Executive Orders originally issued in May 2025 as part of the President Trump’s national call to “Unleash Nuclear Energy” had directed that the US Department of Energy draw down the from the nation’s plutonium surplus. The current White House plan now additionally includes the military to civilian utility transfer of reserve warhead parts known as “plutonium pits.

The Politico article quotes Oklo’s CEO Jacob DeWitte, “Oklo, wants to take advantage of the plutonium fuel program. Unlike its competitors, Oklo’s fast-neutron reactors can use plutonium as a ‘bridge’ fuel to get around the bottlenecks that exist in obtaining the more desirable grades of uranium.” Those “desirable grades of uranium” fuel are currently only commercially available from the Russia global monopoly on High Assay Low Enriched Uranium (HALEU) which is just less than 20% enriched U-235.

Oklo’s prestigious former board member, Chris Wright, stepped down from the company when he was confirmed to be President Trump’s new Secretary of Energy. Oklo’s Aurora reactor design now under review by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is a controversial liquid sodium-cooled metal fueled fast reactor. The fast reactor design is controversial chiefly because it can be retrofitted as a “dual purpose” (military and commercial) reactor to breed more plutonium for nuclear weapons and commercial power generation.

The concept for Oklo’s plan was opposed in a July 25, 2025 letter to Congress signed by 17 scientific experts on global non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. First and foremost, nothing has fundamentally changed to break with the five decades that the United States has opposed from using plutonium fuel in commercial power plants due to security and economic concerns. Their letter further pronounces that authorizing funds for the proposed civilian use of nuclear weapons-usable plutonium as fuel in nuclear power plants will only accelerate the global spread of nuclear weapons in two obvious ways;  1) US companies plan to internationally export plutonium fuel and the plutonium extraction technology, and; 2) the US cannot discourage other countries from further trafficking of weapons-usable plutonium as civilian nuclear fuel if the US is doing it ourselves.

Moreover, pyro-processing or “recycling” to extract plutonium and uranium for reuse as reactor fuel has already proven to be unsustainable economically and will only deepen the already bad economics of nuclear power. The processing is  acknowledged as “very costly, due to safety and security concerns, both to extract from nuclear waste and to fabricate into fuel.”

October 4, 2025 Posted by | - plutonium, USA | Leave a comment

Leah McGrath Goodman, Tony Blair and issues on torture (with added radiation)

Image

Published by arclight2011- date 15 Sep 2012 -nuclear-news.net

[…]

Accusations: Despite the mockery of the film Borat, leaked U.S. cables suggest the country was undemocratic and used torture in detention

Other dignitaries at the meeting included former Italian Prime Minister and ex-EU Commission President

Romano Prodi. Mr Mittal’s employees in Kazakhstan have accused him of ‘slave labour’ conditions after a series of coal mining accidents between 2004 and 2007 which led to 91 deaths.

[…]

Last week a senior adviser to the Kazakh president said that Mr Blair had opened an office in the capital.Presidential adviser Yermukhamet Yertysbayev said: ‘A large working group is here and, to my knowledge, it has already opened Tony Blair’s permanent office in Astana.’

It was reported last week that Mr Blair had secured an £8 million deal to clean up the image of Kazakhstan.

[…]

Mr Blair also visited Kazakhstan in 2008, and in 2003 Lord Levy went there to help UK firms win contracts.

[…]

Max Keiser talks to investigative journalist and author, Leah McGrath Goodman about her being banned from the UK for reporting on the Jersey sex and murder scandal. They discuss the $5 billion per square mile in laundered money that means Jersey rises, while Switzerland sinks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA_aVZrR5NI&feature=player_detailpage#t=749s

And as well as protecting the guilty child sex/torturers/murderers of the island of Jersey I believe that they are also protecting the tax dodgers from any association.. its just good PR!

FORMER Prime Minister Tony Blair was reportedly involved in helping to keep alive the world’s biggest takeover by Jersey-incorporated commodities trader Glencore of mining company Xstrata.

11/September/2012

[…]

Mr Blair was said to have attended a meeting at Claridge’s Hotel in London towards the end of last week which led to the Qatari Sovereign wealth fund supporting a final revised bid from Glencore for its shareholding. Continue reading →

October 4, 2025 Posted by | 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES, Belarus, civil liberties, depleted uranium, environment, Fukushima 2012, health, Japan, Kazakhstan, marketing, politics international, Reference archives, Russia, secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK, Ukraine, USA, wastes, weapons and war | 1 Comment

Democrats alarmed as Trump eyes weapons material to fuel nuclear reactors

The scramble to build new reactors to supply power to AI data centers may include plutonium from the nation’s nuclear deterrent.

Politico, By Zack Colman, 09/29/2025 

The Trump administration is considering a proposal to divert plutonium that plays a central role in the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile to fuel a new generation of power plants, according to an Energy Department official and previously undisclosed department documents.

The proposal calls for the department to alter the plutonium so it can be used by civilian power companies, including startups pitching advanced reactor designs. It’s part of a broader push by President Donald Trump to convert tons of the Energy Department’s plutonium to civilian use, a notion that some lawmakers argue would undermine the U.S. weapons program for the benefit of untested private companies.

The initiative would involve harvesting plutonium on a large scale: According to a department official and a July 31 DOE memo seen by POLITICO, more than a fifth of the plutonium needed to meet Trump’s mandates would come from the highly radioactive spheres manufactured for the cores of nuclear weapons. DOE already faces a crunch to make more of those spheres, known as plutonium pits — it’s lagging behind Congress’ demands that it boost pit production to modernize the country’s nuclear deterrence.

The department is “not meeting the current pit manufacturing schedule,” said a former DOE official who is familiar with the department’s plutonium reserves. “So to make pit plutonium available would be a huge shift, and I’d be shocked.”

Both the current and former officials were granted anonymity to share sensitive details about national security matters.

Trump didn’t mention the pits in a May executive order in which he directed DOE to draw from another source — its stores of surplus plutonium — to help revive the nuclear power industry and meet the soaring electricity demands of data centers used in artificial intelligence. The U.S. officially halted its program that made weapons-grade plutonium in 1992.

The department declined to confirm or deny any details of its plutonium plans in response to questions from POLITICO.

“The Department of Energy is evaluating a variety of strategies to build and strengthen domestic supply chains for nuclear fuel, including plutonium, as directed by President Trump’s Executive Orders,” the department said in a statement. “We have no announcements to share at this time.”


The White House referred POLITICO’s questions about the plutonium plans to DOE. The Defense Department referred questions to the White House.

Government watchdogs and congressional Democrats have spent weeks objecting to the entire notion of transferring government-owned plutonium to the power sector. Such a move “goes against long-standing, bipartisan U.S. nuclear security policy,” Democratic Sen. Ed Markey and Reps. Don Beyer and John Garamendi wrote in a Sept. 10 letter to Trump. “It raises serious weapons proliferation concerns, makes little economic sense, and may adversely affect the nation’s defense posture.”

In a separate Sept. 23 letter to Trump, Markey said he was concerned that Energy Secretary Chris Wright was pushing the plutonium proposals to help a Californian nuclear power startup named Oklo, on whose board Wright once sat………….

Oklo spokesperson Paul Day declined to comment on Markey’s concerns of a possible conflict of interest. He also declined to comment on how much plutonium the company intends or has agreed to acquire from DOE. He said DOE “has not, as far as we know, established a plutonium fuel program.”

One nuclear safety watchdog echoed many of the Democrats’ concerns in an interview, saying DOE’s proposal could hollow out the nation’s nuclear defenses and compromise the Pentagon’s long-term deterrence strategy. And it appears to be happening without coordination with the Defense Department, said Hans Kristensen, director of the nuclear information project at the Federation of American Scientists, a nonprofit group that focuses on global security.

…………………………………………..U.S. civilian reactors now use only uranium for their nuclear fuel, but some reactors under development are planning to use plutonium. Spent plutonium from reactors is far more radioactive than uranium — and could pose a greater security risk than uranium if it were to fall into the hands of hostile nations or terrorist groups.

………………………………………… The DOE memo called for delivering 18.5 metric tons of the government’s surplus plutonium and an additional 6.5 metric tons pulled from “material in classified form once it has been declassified.” That latter term, the current DOE official who spoke to POLITICO said, refers to the plutonium pits, whose shape and characteristics can reveal information about nuclear weapons.

The company where Wright was once a board member, Oklo, wants to take advantage of the plutonium fuel program. Unlike its competitors, Oklo’s fast-neutron reactors can use plutonium as a “bridge” fuel to get around the bottlenecks that exist in obtaining the more desirable grades of uranium, CEO Jacob DeWitte told POLITICO in an interview.

DeWitte said Oklo has not publicly revealed how much plutonium the company is seeking to run its new reactors, or from where precisely it plans to obtain that plutonium. He also said the Trump administration has not detailed exactly how much plutonium it will make available, noting that “there is disagreement” over how much surplus plutonium the federal government can hand off before harming nuclear deterrence……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/29/trumps-nuclear-power-push-stirs-worries-about-us-weapons-stockpile-00583424

October 3, 2025 Posted by | - plutonium, USA | Leave a comment

UK Government names six decommissioning sites being considered for new nuclear

30 Sep, 2025 By Tom Pashby New Civil Engineer

The government has named UK six nuclear sites currently being decommissioned where there is interest in establishing new nuclear developments.

The SMR ambitions, revealed as part of the US-UK nuclear
deal, named Hartlepool in County Durham, Cottam in Nottinghamshire and
London Gateway port in Kent as potential locations for hosting new small
reactors. The new regulation for nuclear developments, including siting –
National Policy Statement for nuclear energy generation (EN-7) – was
published in draft form in February 2025.

This new policy will open up more
potential locations for new nuclear developments beyond the eight sites
stipulated in the former statement. In April, the government said it
planned to publish the final EN-7 policy by the end of 2025.

Great British Energy – Nuclear is already assessing Wylfa on the Isle of Anglesey in
North Wales and Oldbury-on-Severn in Gloucestershire, as potential sites
for hosting three 470MW Rolls-Royce SMR reactors. Both Wylfa and Oldbury
have historic nuclear power plants, which are undergoing decommissioning.

Now the government has named four additional sites where nuclear reactors
are being decommissioned that are being considered for new nuclear
developments. It named them in response to a parliamentary question. “The
government is also aware of developer or community interest in nuclear
projects at several other sites, including those being decommissioned.
These include Pioneer Park (Moorside), Trawsfynydd (via Cwmni Egino),
Hartlepool, and Dungeness.”

Pioneer Park at Moorside in Cumbria is a
project led by Energy Coast West Cumbria (BEC) which is a joint venture
(JV) between the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) and Cumberland
Council. BEC’s website makes reference to the government having announced
in June 2025 that part of the Moorside site was designated as suitable for
nuclear generation. The JV says Pioneer Park “will be a transformative
project designed to diversify and strengthen the local economy in West
Cumbria, reducing reliance on the Sellafield site while creating new
opportunities in the clean energy sector”.

Kent County Council pursuing
one or more SMR at Dungeness. In June 2023, a report from Kent County
Council updated cabinet members “on the opportunity to secure a nuclear
future for Dungeness and seeks support for a coordinated campaign of
action”. The report from Kent County Council cabinet member for economic
development Derek Murphy said: “We believe Dungeness is a perfect
location for one (or more) of the new breed of SMRs safely producing green,
low carbon energy and retaining high-quality jobs and skills in the area
while helping to power local growth.”

It went on to say that the council
would continue to conduct discussions about potential reactors which could
be deployed at the site with vendors, and committed to undertake “soft
market testing to develop a small number of high-level proposals for the
site”.

Cwmni Egino was set up by the Welsh Government in 2021 to explore
opportunities to develop new nuclear projects in Wales at Wylfa and
Trawsfynydd – both of which host nuclear power stations that are being
decommissioned. The organisation says it has confirmed the “viability of
small scale nuclear at Trawsfynydd”. Small scale nuclear could mean small
modular reactors (SMRs), advanced modular reactors (AMRs) or micro-modular
reactors (MMRs). The Trawsfynydd, however, also appears to be being
considered as a potential host for a medical research reactor, under the
Welsh Government’s Project Arthur, according to Cwmni Egino.

 New Civil Engineer 30th Sept 2025, https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/government-names-six-decommissioning-sites-being-considered-for-new-nuclear-30-09-2025/

October 3, 2025 Posted by | decommission reactor, UK | Leave a comment

DOE can’t pin down costs, schedules for nuclear cleanups — audit

The Government Accountability Office found that cleanups at just eight waste sites could cost roughly $15 billion.

Politico, By: Brian Dabbs | 09/29/2025

ENERGYWIRE | The Department of Energy is unable to outline the precise costs and schedules for waste cleanups at a dozen federal sites that produced nuclear weapons materials during World War II and the Cold War, the Government Accountability Office said in a report published Friday.

At just eight of the 12 sites, cleanup could cost roughly $15 billion over the next 60 years, GAO said.

DOE’s Office of Environmental Management cannot “readily identify the scope, schedule, and cost of soil and legacy landfill cleanup,” the report said, adding that “having information available that is specific to soil and legacy landfill cleanup at EM sites would improve headquarters’ ability to track resources needed to implement remedy decisions.”

The eight sites investigated by GAO include the Hanford Site in Washington state, Los Alamos in New Mexico, Oak Ridge in Tennessee and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. GAO said 12 total sites have “remaining soil or legacy landfill cleanup.”………………………………….(Subscribers only) https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/eenews/2025/09/29/doe-cant-pin-down-costs-schedules-for-nuclear-cleanups-gao-00582626

October 2, 2025 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Secrets of the deep, deep tunnels where nuclear waste is buried.

 Almost half a kilometre underground, engineers in Finland are about to seal
radioactive material safely for ever. Britain wants to do the same. If all
goes to plan, spent nuclear fuel will be transported early next year down
dedicated lift shafts before robotic machines bury the 24-tonne copper and
iron canisters in the rock where they will remain for the rest of time.

This is the world’s first deep geological disposal facility for nuclear
fuel, a concept that has been discussed by engineers and politicians for
half a century. More than 20 other countries including the UK, US, France
and Sweden have plans to follow suit. But the Finns have got there first.

Fiona McEvoy, 50, the head of site characterisation and research and
development at the British government agency Nuclear Waste Services, is
here as part of a fact-finding mission to see how a similar feat could be
achieved in the UK. She says: “It’s a watershed moment for the nuclear
sector. Long-lived, dangerous waste will be locked away, safe for eternity.
That is amazing.”

Martin Walsh, 51, head of engineering at Nuclear Waste
Services, also on the visit, says: “Nobody disagrees that for the legacy
for nuclear waste in the UK, geological disposal is necessary.” The most
radioactive nuclear waste produced by Britain’s nuclear power stations will
remain hazardous, Walsh says, “beyond our lifetime, and beyond the
lifetime of our children and our children’s children”.

Burying it deep in
the earth is considered a “final disposal”, a solution that has been
calculated to enable the radioactive waste to remain undisturbed for a
nominal 500,000 years, surviving ice ages, tectonic shifts, earthquakes and
sea level rise.

The two private companies that run these facilities, TVO
and Fortum, jointly founded Posiva in 1995, developing this repository to
dispose of their waste. Every week, for the next 100 years, one canister of
spent nuclear fuel will be transported 433m down into the earth.

In the UK,
plans for a similar geological disposal scheme have experienced false
starts because no council has yet agreed to host a site. In June, the newly
elected Reform leadership of Lincolnshire county council pulled the plug on
long-running discussions to site a geological disposal site near the
coastal village of Theddlethorpe.

The most likely location for a site is
now off the Cumbrian coast, close to Sellafield. Nuclear Waste Services is
in discussions with Mid Copeland and South Copeland community partnerships
for a proposal for an access tunnel to be sunk onshore, and then run ten
miles out below the seabed, where 250 miles of disposal tunnels would be
dug, nearly ten times the size of the Finnish scheme.

Subject to local
approval and the go-ahead of whichever government is then in power,
construction is expected to start in the 2040s and start being filled in
the 2050s. It will be filled with waste for 150 years before it is sealed
in 2200.

The lifetime cost of the UK project is estimated at up to £53
billion, compared with about £5 billion for the Finnish scheme, which at
roughly a tenth of the size, serving a nation with a tenth of the
population, is roughly comparable. The speed at which progress has been
made, however, is not comparable. But Walsh defends the cautious pace the
British experts have taken. “The thought process, particularly around
nuclear, has to be robust. You have to make sure your relationship with
safety and security and the environment is sound.”

Times 28th Sept 2025,
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/environment/article/nuclear-power-waste-finland-bkq8sq0lj

September 30, 2025 Posted by | Finland, UK, wastes | Leave a comment

Nuclear waste in a landfill?

    by beyondnuclearinternational

Navajo communities want pros and cons delivered in language all can understand, writes Kathy Helms

Explaining the rationale of burying low-level radioactive waste in a solid waste landfill to Navajo elders, especially if English is not their first language, obviously would be a bit daunting. Regulators relish acronyms like one would a yummy bowl of alphabet soup – RCRA, SMCRA, NORM, TENORM. Elders, not so much.

Regulators need to bring the discussion down to the people’s level, Judy Platero, secretary/treasurer of Thoreau Chapter, told federal, state and tribal officials during an August 14 tour of the Red Rock Landfill.

“A lot of our community members are not here because they don’t understand this,” Platero said. “There’s no understanding of this because all of this language, all of this information that’s being disseminated, is all technical. We’ve asked many times, ‘Bring it to us in our own language.’”

Not against cleanup

Platero made it clear that the people of Thoreau are not against cleanup of the former Quivira uranium mine near Church Rock. They understand the need for the removal of 1.1 million cubic yards of radioactive waste rock and sand from within the Red Water Pond Road community. Residents have been saddled with those Cold War remnants for more years than they care to remember.

“What we are trying not to have happen is the transport and the storage here in Thoreau. That’s what we are talking about. “We want everybody, all our people, to be safe,” Platero said.

The proposed removal plan means that an estimated 76,710 truckloads – over 60 truckloads a day – will travel a 44-mile haul route along New Mexico Highway 566 to Interstate 40E, across the Continental Divide to and through downtown Thoreau to the Red Rock Landfill. Another 3,300 truckloads of waste from Sections 32 and 33 mines in Casamero Lake are expected to travel a more rural haul route, including a private toll road, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Region 9.

If the landfill “test pilot” for the waste is successful, the state of New Mexico could approve the disposal of more waste in other areas of the landfill on a case-by-basis in the future, tour-goers were told.

Another tour, another time

Platero recalled participating in a smaller tour of the landfill within the last couple years. “We were taken to this place over on the other side and told, ‘This is where the proposed site is.’ But now we’re over here on this side. I see it as there is really nothing definite – and I’m glad there’s nothing definite – except for the cleanup,” she said.

During a June 30, 2023, meeting of the Eastern Navajo Land Commission, Jay R. DeGroat, who worked with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Eastern Navajo Agency for many years, informed land commissioners that back when the landfill first was being proposed, they were talking to the Elkins family which was acquiring land for the Red Rock facilities.

“They assured us that the area with the Indian mineral rights was a buffer zone to the location and they weren’t ever going to put anything on there,” DeGroat said. But upon hearing EPA’s proposal to haul uranium- and radium-contaminated mine waste to the landfill, DeGroat said he was afraid the agency might have a problem with obstructing the mineral rights of Navajo allottees.

“What you’re putting on there, the way it’s going to be, you can’t ever, ever remove it again,” he said. “My understanding is that part of the landfill area included these lands that still had mineral rights that belonged to the allottees.”

Mine waste ‘reality’

…………………………………………………………………………………………………..Keyanna wants a safe place to live. She has been fighting for removal of the waste pretty much all her life. Figuratively speaking, her son basically cut his teeth on Nuclear Regulatory Commission and EPA meetings.

“My kids, unfortunately for them, they have been brought up in the capacity of learning how to be a leader in their community because I had to do that,” she said. “My children have probably gone to more meetings than some of you here because they’re involved.”

Keyanna noted that Platero was correct about the language barrier. “You are completely right. It needs to be explained to you in our Dine´ language,” she said.

………………………………………………………………………Too close for comfort?

Stephen Etsitty, executive director of Navajo Nation EPA, said during the 2023 meeting that it had taken a lot of internal meetings within U.S. EPA and the state of New Mexico to reach possible solutions for disposal of the Quivira wastes. “We have been advocating for the initial position that the Nation took, which is off-site reservation disposal,” he said

The Thoreau community had hoped that “off-site” meant taking the waste to an established repository far away from the reservation, according to Platero “I know it was said, ‘off the Navajo Nation.’ You know what? Navajo Nation is just a skip and a hop away.” She sees it as a continuing pattern of the federal government – regulators “pitting neighbor against neighbor” in the name of money. EPA estimates the pilot project cost at $189 million – about $100 million more than they have currently.

Talia Boyd, a Navajo tribal member, works with communities on environmental issues. She sees regulators’ proposal as an indication of just how much federal agencies, state agencies, and industry don’t listen to the communities.

“From the get-go, our communities have always asked that this waste be removed far from our homelands. Over the years, we haven’t been listened to. They’ve been giving us the bare minimum as far as coming up with solutions on where to take this waste,” she said. “So far, the best thing they’ve come up with is, really, putting it right on the other side of Navajo federal trust land, which is absolutely unacceptable.”

While there is no permanent repository for high-level nuclear waste in the United States, there are four active, licensed low-level waste disposal facilities. Those are located in Barnwell, SC.; Richland, Wash.; Clive, Utah; and Andrews County, Texas.

There are over 520 abandoned uranium mines on the Navajo Nation, Boyd said. “We have a lot of waste that we need to be removed … We understand and hear the communities on both parts – the community of Church Rock and Red Water Pond Road who want their waste removed, and the Thoreau community who don’t want this waste housed in their backyard.

“This is how our communities are being pitted against each other by federal agencies, by the industry, and sometimes even our own tribal governments who don’t step in to help advocate for the people and demand transparency and accountability and justice on behalf of their people,” she said.

Kathy Helms is a retired investigative journalist who has spent her career either editing or covering courts, corruption, energy and environmental issues in Tennessee, Indiana, Arizona and New Mexico. https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2025/09/28/nuclear-waste-in-a-landfill/

September 30, 2025 Posted by | wastes | Leave a comment

Nuclear reactor Tihange 1 to cease operations after fifty years

27 September 2025, https://www.belganewsagency.eu/nuclear-reactor-tihange-1-to-cease-operations-after-fifty-years

Next Tuesday, the plug will be pulled on the Tihange 1 nuclear reactor after 50 years of service. However, the Belgian government hopes that this will not be the end.

Tihange 1 is the fourth Belgian nuclear reactor to be shut down, following the permanent shutdown of Doel 3, Tihange 2 and Doel 1. Doel 2 will follow at the end of November. The two remaining reactors – Doel 4 and Tihange 3 – are allowed to operate for another ten years, until 2035.

Construction of the reactor on the banks of the Meuse near Huy, Liège province, began in 1969. Electricity was generated for the first time in 1975. Normally, the reactor – half owned by Engie and half by EDF Belgium – should have ceased operations already in 2015, but in the context of security of supply, it was allowed to remain open until 2025. Today, Tihange has a capacity of 962 megawatts

On Tuesday 30 September, the operators in the control room will shut down the reactor and disconnect it from the high-voltage grid. Then the decommissioning phase will begin, a preparation for the actual dismantling. The reactor will be unloaded and the fuel cooled, so that it can later be transported to temporary storage. Afterwards, the primary circuit will be chemically cleaned, amongst others. All this work will take years to complete.

The decommissioning phase is not scheduled to begin until 2028 and will continue until 2040. But if it were up to the government, all this work would be delayed. The government hopes to keep the reactor open for longer and is asking nuclear operator Engie not to carry out any irreversible work. Discussions about an extension are ongoing.

Engie itself has repeatedly made it clear that it is not keen to operate any nuclear power plants other than Doel 4 and Tihange 3. Keeping Tihange 1 open for longer would also come with a hefty price tag due to the necessary upgrades, and the reactor would also have to undergo a ten-year safety review.

September 30, 2025 Posted by | decommission reactor, EUROPE | Leave a comment

‘Inevitable’ that nuclear waste facility will go ahead without local consent says former minister.

Now we see it- the nuclear industry, adopted by government, will lead to fascism.

Added to the madness, governments are hell-bent on making more nuclear radioactive trash that they don’t know how to get rid of.

“However, in the case of the UK, the DESNZ’s review raises the possibility that overriding public approval could be a matter of policy.

“These developments point to a growing sense of futility and desperation, to secure both a suitable site for nuclear waste disposal and public support for it.”

23 Sep, 2025 By Tom Pashby https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/inevitable-that-nuclear-waste-facility-will-go-ahead-without-local-consent-says-former-minister-23-09-2025/

It is “inevitable” that the government moves away from the consent-based approach for deciding where to site the planned geological disposal facility (GDF) for nuclear waste, a former Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) minister has told NCE.

The comments come as reports suggest the government is considering scrapping the “consent-based” approach for siting the GDF. However, DESNZ has asserted that the reports are “wrong” and “no changes are planned to this process currently”.

The GDF is currently the only solution proposed by the government for disposing of high level nuclear waste (HLW). HLW is generated by both the civil and defence nuclear sectors

It would involve disposing of HLW in an engineered vault placed between 200m and 1km underground, covering an area of approximately 1km2 on the surface.

Work to select a GDF site should take 20 years, according to the government body responsible for the project – Nuclear Waste Services (NWS) – and a further 150 years to build, fill and close the facility.

The HLW then needs to sit and remain undisturbed for 100,000 years before its radioactivity has reduced sufficiently for people to be able to be near it. Due to the hazards associated with radioactive waste, the government has always maintained that a GDF will only be sited in a location where the local community has agreed to host it. This is known as the “consent-based” approach and it has been in discussion with a few communities for a number of years.

Consent-based approach seeing little progress over years

The “voluntary” or “consent-based” approach to deciding where to site a GDF was first proposed by the government in a White Paper published in 2008 titled Managing radioactive waste safely: a framework for implementing geological disposal.

“For the purposes of this White Paper ‘an approach based on voluntarism’ means one in which communities voluntarily express an interest in taking part in the process that will ultimately provide a site for a geological disposal facility,” the paper said.

“Initially communities will be invited to express an interest in finding out more about what hosting a geological disposal facility would mean for the community in the long term.

“Participation up until late in the process, when underground operations and construction are due to begin, will be without commitment to further stages, whether on the part of the community or government. If at any stage a community or Government wished to withdraw then its involvement in the process would stop.

“In practice, development could also be halted by the independent regulators at any point in the process through a refusal to grant authorisations for the next stage of work.”

The government further committed to the approach in 2014, when the then secretary of state for energy and climate change Ed Davey said: “The UK Government also continues to favour an approach to identifying potential sites for a GDF that involves working with communities who are willing to participate in the siting process.”

Despite having been committed to the approach for more than 10 years, NWS only has two communities it is making gradual progress with via community partnerships – Mid Copeland and South Copeland. Lincolnshire withdrew from the process in June after a change in governance.

With the government pushing for the deployment of dozens more nuclear reactors in the coming decades, the need to confirm a long-term solution for the waste is pressing – something that has been stressed to NCE by both the Nuclear Industry Association (NIA) and anti-nuclear campaigners.

Reports say Government reviewing consent-based approach

The Telegraph published a story on 22 September that claimed, based on a government source, that DESNZ had decided to review the consent-based approach to siting the GDF.

The source told the newspaper that conversations were taking place within government to consider prioritising areas with the best geology rather than areas with the most welcoming communities.

Ending the consent-based process could result in ministers effectively imposing a GDF on a community, although they would still face the standard planning and consenting obstacles, including judicial reviews from campaigners.

A DESNZ spokesperson denied the reports, saying: “Our position continues to be that any potential geological disposal facility site will be subject to agreement with the community and won’t be imposed on an area without local consent.

“Progress continues to be made, with two areas in Cumberland taking part in the siting process for this multi-billion-pound facility, which would bring thousands of skilled jobs and economic growth.”

Former minister tells NCE ‘we must get on with GDF’

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath is now a backbench Labour peer but was a DESNZ minister of state from July 2024 to May 2025. He was also an energy minister at the end of the previous Labour government from 2008 to 2010 and served in shadow front bench roles from 2010 to 2018.

“This is an inevitable approach. We must get on with GDF,” Hunt told NCE.

“It’s vital to the nuclear programme. It’s a matter of national strategic importance and should proceed on that basis.”


Reported policy change points to ‘growing sense of desperation’

Nuclear Information Service research manager Okopi Ajonye told NCE: “The prospect of the DESNZ reforming policy to override local consent for hosting a geological disposal facility is very concerning.”

“Furthermore, it mirrors developments in Australia, where efforts to secure sites for nuclear waste disposal have, just like the UK, been repeatedly stalled by local opposition.

“But critics are now concerned that recent legislation grants broad powers to the Australian government to designate any site as a nuclear waste dump, even without local or indigenous approval.”

“However, in the case of the UK, the DESNZ’s review raises the possibility that overriding public approval could be a matter of policy.

“These developments point to a growing sense of futility and desperation, to secure both a suitable site for nuclear waste disposal and public support for it.”

End to consent-based approach would ‘lead to more vociferous public resistance’

Nuclear Free Local Authorities secretary Richard Outram told NCE: “Any decision to abandon the established consent-based approach to siting a nuclear waste dump will be an admission by ministers that no community actually wants to host it.

“Proposals to site a GDF at South Holderness and Theddlethorpe were roundly defeated by massive and persistent public protests, backed by responsive local councillors.

“Opposition is also growing in South Copeland with residents impacted by the declared area of focus up in arms.”

Outram added that two local councils in the South Copeland area – Millom Town Council and Whicham Parish Council – have withdrawn their support for the process, and a third – Millom Without Parish Council – is “about to confer with parishioners about continued engagement”, he said.

He also said that the NWS community partnership was “described in a recent external review as ‘dysfunctional’ and seemingly at war with itself”.

“Replacing voluntarism with a plan to railroad such a controversial project onto an unwilling community will be a retrograde step and simply lead to more vociferous public resistance,” he added.

Government reveals to NCE it is ‘replanning’ GDF project

These latest developments add to the uncertainty that has bubbled around the GDF project in recent months.

In August, the Treasury’s National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (Nista) assessed the delivery confidence of the GDF as “appears unachievable” and said the cost could be as much as £53.3bn.

Following the rating, NCE asked DESNZ via the Freedom of Information Act whether the government was responding by changing its approach to the GDF project. It said that it is “undertaking some replanning to mitigate risks and support ongoing progress” on its major projects, including the GDF.

DESNZ added: “However, a GDF will always remain necessary as there are currently no credible alternatives that would accommodate all categories of waste in the inventory for disposal.”

Nuclear industry says credible GDF plan needed for investor confidence

The Nuclear Industry Association, which represents more than 300 companies across the civil and defence nuclear supply chain, was perturbed by this uncertainty around the GDF and told NCE: “A credible, long-term policy on HLW disposal is very important. Developers need confidence that the back end of the fuel cycle is being responsibly and sustainably managed, not just for regulatory compliance but also to secure investor confidence and public trust.

“Clarity and credibility in government policy reduces uncertainty, helps de-risk new nuclear projects and ensures that developers can focus on safe, efficient generation”

September 26, 2025 Posted by | politics, UK, wastes | Leave a comment

Fukushima recovery plagued with setbacks

    by beyondnuclearinternational

Perhaps the most significant stumbling block, acknowledged by Tepco on July 29, is the “unprecedented” technical complexity of locating, contacting, removing, and containerizing 880 tonnes of highly radioactive melted reactor fuel still smoldering at the bottom of the three devastated reactors.

In 14 years’ time, engineers managed to design, build, test, and rebuild a one-of-a-kind robot that removed less than one-gram of the waste fuel from reactor No. 2 last year. That November “breakthrough” was three years behind schedule, “and some experts estimate that the decommissioning work could take more than a century,” CBS News and Mainichi Japan reported.

Melted fuel, radioactive soil and a struggling fishing industry are some of the lingering legacies of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, writes John LaForge

Japan is one of the most earthquake-prone areas in the world, and the regular quakes raise traumatic memories of the March 11, 2011, record-breaker that left 19,000 dead and smashed the six-reactor Fukushima-Daiichi site. This summer, a magnitude 5.5 quake struck just off Japan’s southeast Tokara coast on July 3; a mag. 4.2 quake hit east of Iwaki, in Fukushima Prefecture July 12; and a mag. 4.1 quake shook the same area July 25.

In late July, a mighty 8.8-magnitude quake struck Avacha Bay in Russia’s Far East, triggering tsunami warnings and evacuations across the entire Pacific Rim. The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake was one of the strongest ever recorded.

The owner/operator of the wrecked reactor complex, Tokyo Electric Power Co., evacuated its entire staff of 4,000 in response to warnings of a possible nine-foot tsunami, after first halting its pumping of radioactive wastewater into the Pacific.

Elsewhere in Japan, over 1.9 million people were urged to evacuate the eastern seaboard, and a 4-foot tsunami wave did strike north of Fukushima at Iwate Prefecture, some 1,090 miles from Avacha Bay, site of the major Russian earthquake.

China partially lifts ban on Japanese seafood imports

China “conditionally resumed” the importation of Japanese seafood products on June 30 ⸺ except from the 10 prefectures closest to the Fukushima disaster site ⸺ after conducting water sample inspections off the coast of the site. Beijing had banned all such imports from Japan as a protest and precaution, following the 2023 start of deliberately discharging large volumes of radioactively contaminated cooling water into the Pacific Ocean.

The 2023 ban was imposed to “comprehensively prevent the food safety risks of radioactive contamination caused by the discharge of nuclear wastewater from Fukushima into the sea,” China’s General Administration of Customs said then. Shocked by Japan’s action, Beijing’s Foreign Ministry added that the discharge was an “extremely selfish and irresponsible act,” which would “push the risks onto the whole world (and) pass on the pain to future generations of human beings,” the Agence France-Presse reported.

Chinese customs officials said June 30 the seafood import ban would continue for ten prefectures, namely Fukushima and its nine closest neighboring states. Products from other regions will need health certificates, radioactive substance detection qualification certificates, and production area certificates issued by the Japanese government for Chinese customs declarations, the government said.

Relatedly, Hong Kong announced that it will maintain its ban on Japanese seafood, sea salt, and seaweed imports from the same ten prefectures still targeted by mainland China ⎯ Fukushima, Gunma, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Miyagi, Niigata, Nagano, Saitama, Tokyo, and Chiba ⎯ citing ongoing concerns about the risks associated with the discharge of radioactive wastewater.

Tepco Lost $6 Billion as Meltdown Recovery Falters

Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings corporation (Tepco) lost $5.8 billion (903 billion yen) between April and June this year as the owner and operator of the triple reactor meltdown at Fukushima became overrun with the costs of inventing, designing, building, and testing robotic machines with which to remotely extract the ferociously radioactive melted reactor fuel from deep inside the earth-quake and tsunami-wrecked reactors.

There are a total of over 880 metric tonnes of “corium” or melted and rubblized uranium and plutonium fuel in three reactors that Tepco claims it will extract. Nikkei-Asia reported August 1 that Tepco says it has $4.7 billion “earmarked for future demolition work” (700 billion yen), which doesn’t even cover this spring’s one-quarter loss. Tepco has said that its preparations for the extraction are “expected to take 12 to 15 years.”

The quarterly financial loss makes a mockery of announced plans by the government and TEPCO to fully complete decommissioning of the rubbished reactors by 2051.

Two out of 14-to-20-million tonnes of radioactive soil buried on PM’s office grounds, in “safety” parody 

In a surreal display of political slapstick on July 19th, the office of Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba buried on his office’s garden grounds two cubic meters of radioactive soil scraped up during Fukushima clean-up operations (in which some 14-to-20 million cubic meters of topsoil and debris were collected) ⎯ “to show it is safe to reuse.”

Nippon Television reported that “The radioactive cesium concentration in the soil being buried is 6,400 Becquerels per kilogram” (Bq/kg). “Becquerels” are a standard measuring unit of radioactivity. The 6,400 is below the legally permitted limit of 8,000 Bq/Kg.

The radiation emitted by the soil originates from cesium-137, which was released in large amounts by Fukushima’s melting and exploding reactors and subsequently fell to the ground as fallout. Cesium fallout continues to contaminate vast areas of forest and farmland in the region.

The millions of tons of collected soil now in storage are being tested and sorted to identify material with cesium at 8,000 Bq/Kg or less. Several million tons of it may then be used as fill in construction projects, road-building, and railway embankments all around Japan. Asphalt, farm soil, “or layers of other materials should be used to seal in the radioactivity,” Akira Asakawa, an Environment Ministry official with the soil project, told the Agence France-Presse.

The PM’s demonstration plot is the first “reuse” of the poisoned waste, while experiments elsewhere have been halted due to public protest. The PM’s contaminated dirt was covered up with about eight inches of normal soil to provide some radiation shielding.

Any radiation exposure is unsafe, but adverse effects like radiation sickness, immune disorders, or cancers caused by contact with the radioactive soil would take years or decades to appear, owing to the latency period between radiation exposure and the onset of induced health problems. The joke seems to be that since Prime Minister Ishiba hasn’t dropped dead after walking by, low-dose exposure must be harmless.

Readers may remember a very similar high-level comedy sketch performed by former President Barack Obama, who traveled to Flint, Michigan in May 2016. Drinking water supplies there had been contaminated with lead and to calm the public uproar, Obama sat before the cameras and theatrically downed a glass of water. The straight-faced routine was proof positive and rock-solid confirmation beyond a doubt that Flint’s tap water was safe to drink. Bottom’s up!

Fukushima Disaster Response to Last Eons

Countless dilemmas and setbacks have plagued the now 14-year-long emergency response to the triple reactor meltdown and widespread radiation releases that began on March 11, 2011, at Fukushima on Japan’s northeast coast.

Perhaps the most significant stumbling block, acknowledged by Tepco on July 29, is the “unprecedented” technical complexity of locating, contacting, removing, and containerizing 880 tonnes of highly radioactive melted reactor fuel still smoldering at the bottom of the three devastated reactors.

Unprecedented is the key word here, since the industry has never before had to contain such a large mass of wasted and unapproachable radioactivity. All the work of dealing with the wasted fuel must be done robotically and remotely, since the waste’s fierce radioactivity kills living things that come near. Just planning and preparing to remove the “corium” material will take at least another 12 years.

Toyoshi Fuketa, head of a regulatory body overseeing the site, said at a press conference earlier that “The difficulty of retrieving the first handful of debris has become apparent,” the Kyodo News agency reported.

In 14 years’ time, engineers managed to design, build, test, and rebuild a one-of-a-kind robot that removed less than one-gram of the waste fuel from reactor No. 2 last year. That November “breakthrough” was three years behind schedule, “and some experts estimate that the decommissioning work could take more than a century,” CBS News and Mainichi Japan reported.

The torturously slow process has made Tepco’s early prediction of complete cleanup by 2051 (40 years’ time) appear to have been made up for PR reasons.

Tepco said July 29 that it would need another 12 to 15 years’ worth of preparation ⎯ until 2040 ⎯ “before starting the full-scale removal of melted fuel” at the No. 3 reactor. Tepco earlier claimed that “full-scale” extraction would begin four years ago, in 2021 according to the daily Asahi Shimbun August 1.

Of an estimated 880 tons of debris, only 0.9 grams have been recovered to date. With one million grams in a tonne, Tepco has only 879 million-plus grams to go, and “A simple calculation based on the time since the accident suggests the removal process could take another 13.6 billion years to complete,” the Asahi Shimbun smirked.

China’s reactor report card omits embarrassing emission info’

China issues annual reports on its extensive nuclear power operations known as “China Nuclear Energy.” The 2024 edition, its latest, made headlines by omitting for the first time information on the routine radioactive gases and liquids released from its operating reactors.

Kyodo News reported that the omission may be a way to avoid accusations of hypocrisy, as China has strenuously condemned Japan’s discharge of radioactively contaminated wastewater into the Pacific. At the same time China’s domestic reactors in 2022 reportedly “released wastewater containing tritium at levels up to nine times higher than the annual discharge limit” set by Japan’s discharge authorities. ###

John LaForge is a Co-director of Nukewatch, a peace and environmental justice group in Wisconsin, and edits its newsletter. This article first appeared on Counterpunch.

September 23, 2025 Posted by | Japan, wastes | Leave a comment

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