New consultations in Ignace, Ontario, over nuclear waste site
New consultations in Ignace over nuclear waste site, Residents asked to fill out survey from Nuclear Waste Management Organization between Jan. 18 and Feb. 26 By: IGNACE, Ont. – Residents in Ignace, one of two remaining candidates to serve as a repository for Canada’s nuclear’s waste, are being asked to weigh in as the Nuclear Waste Management Organization’s site selection process continues.
Beginning Monday, residents can fill out a short survey created by the NWMO and the Township of Ignace that will help guide how the agency engages the public as it conducts numerous studies in the area in early 2021.
The agency narrowed its list of candidate sites to two – Ignace and South Bruce – in January of 2020. Final site selection was scheduled for 2023, with construction of a nuclear waste repository expected to take another 10 years to complete.
……….. Some experts and civil society groups have raised serious concerns over “deficient” federal nuclear waste policies, calling for an overhaul before moving forward.https://www.tbnewswatch.com/local-news/new-consultations-in-ignace-over-nuclear-waste-site-3268753
Big doubts on small nuclear reactors – on economics, on waste problems
Former U.S. regulator questions small nuclear reactor technology, Business case for small reactors ‘doesn’t fly,’ says expert on nuclear waste, Jacques Poitras · CBC News Jan 15, 2021 A former head of the United States’ nuclear regulator is raising questions about the molten-salt technology that would be used in one model of proposed New Brunswick-made nuclear reactors.
The technology pitched by Saint John’s Moltex Energy is key to its business case because, the company argues, it would reuse some of the nuclear waste from Point Lepreau and lower the long-term cost and radioactivity of storing the remainder.
But Allison Macfarlane, the former chairperson of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and a specialist in the storage of nuclear waste, said no one has yet proven that it’s possible or viable to reprocess nuclear waste and lower the cost and risks of storage.
“Nobody knows what the numbers are, and anybody who gives you numbers is selling you a bridge to nowhere because they don’t know,” said Macfarlane, now the director of the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia.
“Nobody’s really doing this right now. … Nobody has ever set up a molten salt reactor and used it to produce electricity.”
Macfarlane said she couldn’t comment specifically on Moltex, calling information about the company’s technology “very vague.”
But she said the general selling point for molten-salt technology is dubious.
“Nobody’s been able to answer my questions yet on what all these wastes are and how much of them there are, and how heat-producing they are and what their compositions are,” she said.
“My sense is that all of these reactor folks have not really paid a lot of attention to the back end of these fuel cycles,” she said, referring to the long-term risks and costs of securely storing nuclear waste.
Moltex is one of two Saint John-based companies pitching small nuclear reactors as the next step for nuclear power in the province and as a non-carbon-dioxide emitting alternative to fossil fuel electricity generation.
Moltex North America CEO Rory O’Sullivan said the company’s technology will allow it to affordably extract the most radioactive parts of the existing nuclear waste from the Point Lepreau Generating Station.
The waste is now stored in pellet form in silos near the plant and is inspected regularly.
The process would remove less than one per cent of the material to fuel the Moltex reactor and O’Sullivan said that would make the remainder less radioactive for a much shorter amount of time.
Existing plans for nuclear waste in Canada are to store it in an eventual permanent repository deep underground, where it would be secure for the hundreds of thousands of years it remained radioactive………..
Shorter-term radioactivity complicates storage
Macfarlane said a shorter-term radioactivity life for waste would actually complicate its storage underground because it might lead to a facility that has to be funded and secured rather than sealed up and abandoned.
“That means that you believe that the institutions that exist to keep monitoring that … will exist for hundreds of years, and I think that is a ridiculous assumption,” she said.
“I’m looking at the United States, I’m seeing institutions crumbling in a matter of a few years. I have no faith that institutions can last that long and that there will be streams of money to maintain the safety and security of these facilities. That’s why you will need a deep geologic repository for this material.”
And she said that’s assuming the technology will successfully extract all of the most radioactive material.
“They are assuming that they remove one hundred per cent of the difficult, radionuclides, the difficult isotopes, that complicate the waste,” she said.
“My response is: prove it. Because if you leave five per cent, you have high-level waste that you’re going to be dealing with. If you leave one per cent, you’re going to have high-level waste that you’re going to be dealing with. So sorry, that one doesn’t fly with me.”
Macfarlane, a geologist by training, raised doubts about molten-salt technology and waste issues in a 2018 paper she co-authored for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists………. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/nuclear-waste-reactors-new-brunswick-allison-macfarlane-moltex-arc-1.5873542
Property developer volunteers Allerdale, Cumbria for UK’s nuclear waste
anyone to volunteer anywhere, even an individual who doesn’t live in the area, or a company can volunteer it.
of the local population.
mirrored by the ease of withdrawing. There the government have chosen a highly prescriptive system.
Czech government plans to impose nuclear dump on municipalities against their will
Euractiv 12th Jan 2021, Czech municipalities fight against nuclear waste repository. Czech
municipalities chosen to provide space for a deep geological repository for used nuclear fuel are ready to fight against the government’s decision “with all possible means”.
On 21 December, the Czech government decided that a radioactive waste repository will be created in one of the four selected sites.
However, although the government intends to launch exploratory works in order to find the most suitable location, there is no possibility for affected areas to have their say in this matter. Four municipalities hoped that their negotiating position would be strengthened by a new law but it has never been proposed by the government despite its previous promises.
Creating jobs and community opportunities -Pickering City Council wants immediate dismantling of nuclear station
Clean Air Alliance (accessed) 8th Jan 2021, Ontario’s new Minister of Finance, Peter Bethlenfalvy, can create 16,000 person-years of employment in Pickering by directing Ontario Power Generation (OPG) to immediately dismantle the Pickering Nuclear Station after its operating licence expires in December 2024.
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, immediate dismantling is “the
preferred decommissioning strategy” for nuclear plants. In fact, dismantling is the one area of employment growth in the nuclear industry.
Immediate dismantling will permit most of the 600-acre site to be returned to the local community by 2034 for parkland, recreational facilities, dining, entertainment, housing and other employment uses. That is among the reasons why Pickering City Council unanimously supports having the plant dismantled as “expeditiously as possible” after it is shut down.
Unfortunately, OPG wants to delay dismantling until 2054 to put off its
dismantling costs for 30 years despite the fact that it already has more
than $7.5 billion in its decommissioning and dismantling fund.
Seven beautiful Italian regions furious at sites recommended for nuclear trash
We’ll fight it’: Uproar over nuclear dump plan in scenic Tuscany, https://www.theage.com.au/world/europe/we-ll-fight-it-uproar-over-nuclear-dump-plan-in-scenic-tuscany-20210108-p56skh.htmly Nick Squires, January 8, 2021 Some: Italian regional leaders are fighting against plans to dump nuclear waste in some of the most picturesque areas of the country.
Some of the 67 potential sites earmarked to become a national contaminated waste facility include the rolling valleys of Tuscany and the countryside around the southern ancient town of Matera, famed for its cavernous homes.
The governors of the seven affected regions, including Piedmont, Puglia, Basilicata, Sardinia and Sicily, have accused the national government and SOGIN, Italy’s nuclear decommissioning agency, of failing to consult them. Italy closed down its nuclear power plants after a referendum in 1987 – held in the wake of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
The new deposit site would store waste from those power plants as well as radioactive material that is still produced by industry, hospitals and research centres.
Manolo Garosi, the mayor of Pienza, a Tuscan hill town, said he was incredulous about the prospect of a nuclear dump being located in his region.
“How can they be considering a region like ours, which has World Heritage recognition? It is totally unacceptable. This is an area of natural beauty,” he told Corriere della Sera newspaper. “I can’t imagine what tourists would say when they come here looking for beauty and discover instead radioactive waste dumps.”
Domenico Bennardi, the mayor of Matera, said locating the dump near the town would be a “slap in the face”, particularly as it was a European City of Culture in 2019. It was also used as a location for the forthcoming Bond film No Time To Die. “We’ll fight it at every level,” he said.
More than 20 of the potential dump sites are in the northern part of Lazio, famed for its Etruscan heritage, small villages and farmland. One of the sites is near the village of Gallese, where William Urquhart, a British businessman, helps run a country estate that his family has managed for more than a century.
“Of course, no one wants buried nuclear waste where they live, but it needs to be an open, transparent process. Instead, it has come as a bombshell that will frighten a lot of people.”
The publication of the map of potential sites is the first stage in a long process that could last years.
“Now that people have seen the list, they can participate in the process and express their views,” said Deputy Environment Minister Roberto Morassut.
The government said the nuclear deposit site could bring benefits to a region – there would be 4000 jobs during the four-year construction phase and up to 1000 jobs when it is operational. The 370-acre facility would cost about €900 million ($1.4 billion).
Hinkley Point C mud dredging – radioactive mud could be dumped off Somerset instead of south Wales.
Energy is considering two sites in the Bristol Channel.
over concerns the mud was contaminated by nuclear waste. But a private disposal site off Portishead, on the England side of the channel, is also under consideration. A public outcry over the original mud dumping led to protests and petitions attracting hundreds of thousands of signatures online, a full Senedd debate and an acknowledgment by both the developers
and Natural Resources Wales that better communication with the public was needed over the plans.https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-55577848
Seven regions in Italy to take legal action against plan for nuclear waste dumping
 Row after 7 regions tapped to take nuclear waste. https://www.ansa.it/english/news/2021/01/05/row-after-7-regions-tapped-to-take-nuclear-waste_b9f64a6e-95fc-442e-8bf0-f67284e0fec8.html Edazione ANSAROME
05 January 2021, ANSA) – ROME, – A row has erupted in Italy after seven regions were named as having 67 potential sites to take nuclear waste. The industry and environment ministries gave decommissioning company SOGIN the go ahead to draft the national map of areas potentially suitable for the waste.
The regions involved are Piedmont, Tuscany, Lazio, Puglia, Basilicata, Sardinia and Sicily. All seven have announced legal action against the move. The centre-right opposition was also up in arms. Nationalist League leader Matteo Salvini, the leader of the opposition, called the government “incompetent”. His partner, the smaller nationalist Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, said “it is folly to publish the SOGIN map in the midst of a COVID crisis”. (ANSA). |
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Decommissioning of Oyster Creek nuclear station – a nasty precedent for closing down of other USA reactors.
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The decommissioning at Oyster Creek was funded by ratepayers and amounted to almost $1 billion when it was sold, presumably for significantly less than its billion-dollar-fund balance. Authoritative sources had previously estimated the cost to decommission Oyster Creek at over $1.4 billion. The original decommissioning schedule was to occur over a 60-year period, but the new owners are betting they can decommission the plant faster, and for significantly less than their investment, pocketing the difference. The quicker they can do this, the more they earn. Of course, if they find they bit off more than they can chew and look like they are on a pathway to failure, they can pack up their wrenches and backhoes and abandon the project, leaving New Jersey ratepayers to fund whatever actions remain to safely complete decommissioning. Seems like a win-win for both buyer and seller. For the new owner, if the challenges exceed their abilities, they can simply cut and run before depleting their newly acquired billion-dollar decommissioning fund. For the seller, they have unloaded an unpleasant responsibility in a way that’s sadly reminiscent of the actions of a deadbeat dad. Current questions on nuclear subsidiesThe current question before the BPU on subsidies presents a rare opportunity for regulators to exert some leverage considering tangential, but critical, questions on nuclear energy. Are safety practices sufficient to deter today’s technology-savvy terrorists? How reliable are their storage processes for spent fuel and what are the long-term plans for its disposal or relocation? What are the plans for the eventual decommissioning of remaining New Jersey nuclear reactors that combined are almost five times the size of Oyster Creek? Are we comfortable following the path blazed by Oyster Creek with the potential of a pre-emptive sale if the new owners make their way out of Dodge before the sheriff shows up …. |
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Holtec wants to build new nuclear reactor at site of USA’s oldest, most dangerous nuclear station
New Jersey nuclear plant proposed at site of old reactor PBS, Jan 5, 2021
LACEY, N.J. (AP) — The company that’s in the process of mothballing one of the nation’s oldest nuclear power plants says it is interested in building a new next-generation nuclear reactor at the same site in New Jersey.
Holtec International last month received $147.5 million — $116 million of which will come from the U.S. Department of Energy — to complete research and development work on a modern nuclear reactor that could be built at the site of the former Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in the Forked River section of Lacey Township, New Jersey.
Holtec owns that facility and oversaw its shutdown in 2018……
company spokesperson Joe Delmar said Holtec is “actively engaged with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission” about the project, but has not yet formally applied to build the reactor…..
Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club and a longtime opponent of the Oyster Creek plant, called the proposal “a threat to health and safety.”
“Things are going from bad to worse,” he said. “What was supposed to be the cleanup and ending of the Oyster Creek nuclear plant is now being looked at for another nuclear power plant. The whole point of closing and decommissioning this site was to get rid of the oldest and probably most dangerous nuclear plant. Putting all of that nuclear material in one area that is vulnerable to climate impacts like sea-level rise is a disaster waiting to happen.”……. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/new-nuclear-plant-could-rise-at-site-of-former-one-in-nj
British tax-payers’ £ 132 billion cost for 120 years of nuclear decommissioning
Brinkwire 4th Jan 2021, It has been warned that a “perpetual” lack of information about the condition of the nuclear facilities in Britain means that decommissioning for 120 years would not be complete and cost billions of pounds.
The decommissioning of UK civil nuclear power plants, including the Torness power plant in East Lothian and the Hunterston B power plant in Ayrshire, would cost the taxpayer about £ 132 billion, according to a new estimate, and will not be finished for 120 years.
The Public Accounts Committee blames the U.K. in its sober analysis. Government for a “sorry saga” of massively ineffective contracts, “weak” government monitoring and a “persistent” lack of awareness of the condition of nuclear installations. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) has left decades of inadequate information on the status and location of dangerous and
radioactive materials with a history of a lack of awareness about the condition of the sites it is responsible for safeguarding, the study warned. The NDA recognizes that it still does not have a complete understanding of the condition of the 17 sites in its custody, including the 10 former Magnox power plants, the report from the committee said.
According to the latest NDA figures, the decommissioning of UK civilian nuclear power plants would cost an incredible £ 132 billion for current and future generations of British taxpayers, and the work will not be finished for 120 years, with a huge effect on the lives of people living
near the plants, the study said.
Massive nuclear waste storage construction at Dounreay
Press & Journal 4th Jan 2021, Work on Dounreay’s newest radioactive waste store has reached new heights
following a marathon efforts by staff. The construction project was one of
the first to re-start work in June, following the easing of lockdown
restrictions. The 60-strong team has had to learn Covid-19 compliant ways
of working, sometimes in close proximity with each other, to keep
themselves and their colleagues safe on site.
Since then they have poured
1,500 tonnes of concrete and the building walls have now risen to above the
first floor level. Last week the team embarked on the biggest concrete pour
of the project so far, working for nine hours to lay the floor slab in the
crane maintenance bay (CMB) on the first floor of the building, with 27
lorries delivering 425 tonnes of concrete. An overnight shift completed the
job in the early hours of the morning.
The new intermediate level waste
store will hold drums of waste in safe long term storage at Dounreay in
accordance with Scottish Government policy. The £22 million contract,
awarded to Graham Construction Ltd, started in 2018 and is expected to take
around three years to complete. Dounreay project manager Dave Busby said
that casting the CMB floor slab was a significant construction milestone as
it will allow the team to install the 170 tonne CMB shield door early next
year.
Fukushima nuclear clean-up hugely affected by discovery of lethal radiation levels
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Lethal Levels of Radiation Found in Damaged Fukushima Reactor Will Have ‘Huge Impact’ on Shutdown, Regulators Warn https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/12/30/lethal-levels-radiation-found-damaged-fukushima-reactor-will-have-huge-impact The radiation levels reported around shield plugs at two reactors are high enough to kill a worker exposed for even an hour. Brett Wilkins, staff writer
In what Japanese regulators on Wednesday called an “extremely serious” development, lethal levels of radiation have been recorded inside the damaged reactor building at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, threatening the shutdown and decommissioning of the site of the second-worst peacetime nuclear disaster in history.”This will have a huge impact on the whole process of decommissioning work.” —Toyoshi Fuketa, Nuclear Regulation Authority According to The Asahi Shimbun, Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) reported that massive amounts of radioactive materials have been found around shield plugs of the containment vessels in the No. 2 and No. 3 reactors. NRA officials estimated radiation levels at 10 sieverts per hour—enough to kill a worker who spends just one hour there. Decommission of the reactor requires workers to remove the shield plugs, which block radiation from the reactor core during normal plant operation. This discovery has forced officials to reconsider their shutdown plans. NRA chair Toyoshi Fuketa said that removing the highly irradiated shield plugs made safe retrieval of nuclear fuel debris—an already dangerously daunting task—all the more difficult.. “It appears that nuclear debris lies at an elevated place,” Fuketa said at a news conference earlier this month. “This will have a huge impact on the whole process of decommissioning work.” The latest alarming find is the result of an investigation that resumed in September after a five-year pause in which the NRA took new measurements of radiation levels around the shield plugs at the No. 2 and No. 3 reactors. Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the plant, announced December 24 that nuclear fuel debris removal would be postponed until 2022 or later due to the coronavirus pandemic. As Common Dreams reported in October, Greenpeace and other environmental and anti-nuclear advocates expressed shock and outrage after the Japanese government announced a plan to release stored water from the ill-fated plant into the Pacific Ocean. Greenpeace subsequently released a report claiming that radioactive carbon-14 released into the ocean “has the potential to damage human DNA.” The Fukushima Daiichi disaster—the result of a 2011 earthquake and tsunami that killed more than 15,000 people in northeastern Japan—was the worst nuclear incident since the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown in the former Soviet Union, and the worst in Japan since the United States waged a nuclear war against the country in 1945 that killed hundreds of thousands of people. |
USA is not facing up to the climate threats to its nuclear wastes
US is Ill-Prepared to Safely Manage its Nuclear Waste from Climate Threats. More than 150 sites across the country have to be managed for radioactive waste for centuries or millennia. But there’s no plan in place for how this will be done, says GAO report. Earth Island Journal , CHARLES PEKOW, December 29, 2020 The Cold War never erupted into the nuclear nightmare that the world feared for decades. But the legacy of the never-used nuclear weapons remains a ticking time bomb that could endanger countless people and lead to environmental catastrophe any time.
The GAO report, “Environmental Liabilities: DoE Needs to Better Plan for Post-Cleanup Challenges Facing Sites” (pdf), issued earlier this year, found, among other things, that the DoE doesn’t have a plan for how to address challenges at some sites that may require new cleanup work that is not in the scope of LM’s expertise.
some of these sites have already been creating serious problems.
Among the many other problem sites, the Legacy Management office is struggling to figure out what to do with contaminated groundwater at the Shiprock nuclear waste dump on the Navajo Nation Indian Reservation in northwest New Mexico. Contaminated water, the legacy of uranium mining for nuclear power plants and weapons, is being pumped to an evaporation pond there.
nuclear watchdog groups aren’t satisfied with the slow progress on this front. The nation needs “a reverse Manhattan project,” to figure out how to safely diffuse the radioactive waste, says Schaeffer of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability. https://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/articles/entry/us-is-ill-prepared-to-safely-manage-its-nuclear-waste-from-climate-threats
Hanford’s dangerous collection of nuclear waste sites, including 177 underground leaky tanks
Washington’s new nuclear waste lead takes on Hanford’s aging tanks, OPB, By Anna King (Northwest News Network), Dec. 30, 2020.
David Bowen is charged with holding the U.S. Department of Energy accountable for its cleanup of a site that once produced plutonium for nuclear weapons.
At the Hanford site in southeastern Washington, along the Columbia River, millions of gallons of radioactive sludge are cradled in aging underground tanks.
Nearly 2,000 capsules filled with cesium and strontium rest unquietly in an old, glowing-blue pool of water. Two reactors along the Columbia still need to be sealed up and cocooned.
And those are just some of the bigger waste sites out of hundreds at the 580-square-mile cleanup site.
177 underground tanks filled with radioactive waste It’s a lot to ponder and a steep learning curve for freshly hired David Bowen. …..He started his new job Dec. 16 as the Nuclear Waste Program lead for Washington’s Department of Ecology in Richland.
he’ll hold the U.S. Department of Energy accountable for its cleanup at the site using the Tri-Party Agreement. That’s a 1989 document struck between Ecology, the federal Department of Energy and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Hanford houses leftovers from World War II and the Cold War, when it was the nation’s factory for plutonium. Trenches, pits and buildings are all contaminated with loads of chemicals and radioactive waste generated at breakneck speed.
The stickiest problem: 177 tanks — some of them leakers — filled with radioactive waste.
“Some of [the underground tanks] are 50-plus years old,” Bowen said. “And they weren’t designed to last this long. There are still fluids in them, millions of gallons, in sludge, et cetera. So, there’s the opportunity for that to escape and get into the Columbia River — or the groundwater is high.”
A massive waste treatment plant is being built in the desert at Hanford to treat that tank waste. But the cleanup timeline has been pushed back several times since the 1980s. It could be pushed back more because of the pandemic.
……. Aging infrastructure, aging expertsHanford is much like a complex small city: thousands of commuting workers, miles of highways and intertwining roads.
Then there are all the stakeholders: multiple tribes, Seattle-based Hanford watchdog groups, salmon and Columbia River advocates and multiple government agencies. Losing Hanford experts to retirement or attrition to other agencies is a big problem — and a growing one. Some key Ecology experts have recently been lured away to federal posts or to work as Hanford contractors. And many have already retired. Bowen said he’s well aware he needs to work fast……… https://www.opb.org/article/2020/12/29/washington-nuclear-waste-program-manager-hanford/
1 This Month
9 September – online public forum THREE MILE ISLAND:
7-8:30 PM ET,
Legacy, resistance to reopening – https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_-LGJU4j6TD2Hgf0rpgAr1A#/registration
The nuclear industry and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission are threatening to restart Pennsylvania’s permanently closed and decommissioning Three Mile Island Unit 1 nuclear power station. Three expert speakers will present the resistance to this dangerous misadventure in a webinar hosted by the Clamshell Alliance, Beyond Nuclear and Massachusetts Peace Action.
No Nuclear in Cwm Llynfi! Stop the nuclear power station near Maesteg.
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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