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The nuclear industry’s cunning strategy to pass its clean-up costs to the tax-payer

“This is a way that bankruptcy is increasingly being used by companies — to shed their environmental liability.”
“To the extent that decommissioning and environmental repair costs exceed Energy Harbor’s ability to pay, those costs will be borne by Ohio through its ratepayers or taxpayers.
The cleanup envisioned for Perry and Davis-Besse plants in Ohio and the two Beaver Valley units in Pennsylvania would extend for the better part of a century — from 2021 through 2083,
By the time FirstEnergy Solutions emerged from bankruptcy in February, it had a new name, Energy Harbor, and it had largely released its former parent company, FirstEnergy Corp., from any responsibility to clean up the nuclear plants it used to own.
The nuclear bailout nobody’s talking about, https://highlandcountypress.com/Content/In-The-News/In-The-News/Article/The-nuclear-bailout-nobody-s-talking-about-/2/20/60902, By Marty Schladen, Ohio Capital Journal, 19 Oct 20,  https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/

Ohio state government continues to be gripped by an alleged $61 million bribery scandal involving a billion-dollar nuclear bailout.

But while the effort for that bailout was brewing as part Akron-based FirstEnergy’s strategy to prop up and spin off unprofitable nuclear power plants, another part of the strategy might have resulted in an additional — and potentially larger — bailout in a separate venue.

And, some observers warn, many more such bailouts throughout the country might be on the way.

In February, seven months after Gov. Mike Dewine signed the $1.3 billion ratepayer bailout that mostly would subsidize two Northern Ohio nuclear plants, FirstEnergy might have gotten an even bigger break in U.S. bankruptcy court. That’s when Judge Alan M. Koschik signed off on a settlement that largely excused FirstEnergy from footing part of the bill to clean up the aging nuclear plants in Ohio and another in Pennsylvania that it had bequeathed to to its successor, now known as Energy Harbor, in the event that company goes belly up.

If the new company can’t make a go of it with the nuclear and coal plants that had been owned by FirstEnergy, taxpayers could well be on the hook for whatever part of the estimated $10 billion nuclear cleanup that Energy Harbor and a trust fund it’s required to maintain can’t.

Those are cleanups that, for financial reasons, will take 60 years — decades during which the crumbling cooling tower of the company’s Davis-Besse plant, for example, will loom over the Lake Erie shoreline in view of South Bass Island, one of Ohio’s premier tourist attractions.

Energy Harbor’s “financial future doesn’t look bright and when we say (FirstEnergy) needs to set aside money for (shutting down and cleaning up the plants), their response is going to be, ‘The bankruptcy court approved the reorganization, FirstEnergy isn’t on the hook anymore,’” said Margrethe Kearney, senior staff attorney at the Environmental Law & Policy Center, which is appealing the bankruptcy ruling to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati. “This is a way that bankruptcy is increasingly being used by companies — to shed their environmental liability.”

And, Kearney said, companies across the country that own nuclear generators likely will try to use the bankruptcy to ease looming cleanup costs off of their books and onto the backs of taxpayers.

“Especially here in the Midwest we have a lot of nuclear power plants, a lot of them are coming to the end of their useful life, most of them are out of the money, so it doesn’t really make sense to invest in them because natural gas and renewable energy is less expensive and we’re going to have a real crisis when it comes to the decommissioning of power plants and the financial ability to pay for them,” she said.

A doozy of a scandal

The Ohio Capitol was rocked in July when the FBI arrested then-House Speaker Larry Householder and four associates in what U.S. Attorney David DeVillers said was “likely the largest bribery and money-laundering scheme ever in the state of Ohio.”

DeVillers alleged that $61 million flowed from FirstEnergy and related companies through 501(c)(4) dark money groups and into campaigns of House candidates who later elected Householder speaker, a perch from which he shepherded House Bill 6, the $1.3 billion bailout, to passage. (House Bill 6 was cosponsored by Hillsboro Republican State Rep. Shane Wilkin and Rep. Jamie Callender, a Lake County Republican.)

The money also funded a nasty, xenophic campaign to block a voter initiative to repeal HB 6, while Householder and his associates simultaneously lined their own pockets with some of the loot, DeVillers said.

It wasn’t the only such scandal to break in July. In Illinois, Commonwealth Edison and parent company Exelon admitted to an eight-year bribery scheme targeting people around Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, who hasn’t been charged. One of the things the company received from the legislature during that period was a $2.35 billion bailout of two struggling nuclear power plants in that state.

In Ohio, nobody from FirstEnergy has been charged. But DeVillers in July said his investigation was far from over.
In September, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost named FirstEnergy and associated companies as defendants in a civil suit. Among other things, it demanded that bailout funds be blocked and that the companies that funded the HB 6 scheme either fire the officials involved or see the companies themselves dissolved.

Who was in charge?

The funds promised by HB 6 were far from the first ratepayer largesse enjoyed by companies related to FirstEnergy, whose name graces the stadium in which the Cleveland Browns play. Last year, Ohio Rep. Mark Romanchuk, R-Ontario, said the company’s Ohio nuclear plants had received $10.2 billion in state subsidies since 1999.

The attorney general’s lawsuit says that four years ago, what to do about the failing nuclear plants was at the heart of what he said was a corrupt scheme to obtain a bailout.

“In late 2016, FirstEnergy Corp. had a problem,” the suit says. “The nuclear power generation plants it owned through its subsidiary FirstEnergy Solutions Corp. had turned from assets to liabilities.”

It also said that by spinning off the plants, passing the bailout and sending its former subsidiary through bankruptcy, FirstEnergy did lasting harm to the state. That’s because, the suit said, FirstEnergy had potentially shifted some of the burden to clean up the Perry and Davis-Besse reactors in Ohio from itself and onto the taxpayers.

“Ohio’s environmental future has been damaged, because the costs for the ultimate decommissioning of the nuclear plants are now secured by Energy Harbor, a company with far smaller capitalization than FirstEnergy Corp.,” the suit said. “To the extent that decommissioning and environmental repair costs exceed Energy Harbor’s ability to pay, those costs will be borne by Ohio through its ratepayers or taxpayers — a scenario that already played out once in the FirstEnergy Solutions’ bankruptcy plan that created Energy Harbor.”
Yet, FirstEnergy maintains that after 2016 its leaders had no control over the former subsidiary that owns nuclear as well as coal plants in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

“FirstEnergy leadership has not had any decision-making power regarding the strategic direction of FES since November 2016, and FirstEnergy and Energy Harbor are now separate, unaffiliated companies,” FirstEnergy spokeswoman Jennifer Young said in September after the Ohio attorney general’s lawsuit was filed.

However, that claim seems hard to credit because FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones is also CEO of FirstEnergy Services.

Until June, First Energy Services provided the power plant-owning company that became Energy Harbor with many — if not all — of the services one would associate with running it. They include “administrative, management, financial, compliance, ethical, external affairs, and political and regulatory advocacy services. ”

For her part, Young said that the companies are independent because they have separate boards.

Long-term strategy

In late 2016, as FirstEnergy was spinning off the company that after bankruptcy became Energy Harbor, Jones announced a strategy of seeking a bailout for the spun-off company’s failing nuclear assets.

“We are advocating for Ohio’s support for its two nuclear plants, even though the likely outcome is that FirstEnergy won’t be the long-term owner of these assets,” Jones said.

In an affidavit supporting criminal charges against the former Ohio speaker and others, FBI Special Agent Blane Wetzel introduces the case for a criminal conspiracy by referring back to that time.

“In 2016, (FirstEnergy) Corp.’s nuclear generation future looked grim,” it said. “In its November 2016 annual report to shareholders, Ohio-based (FirstEnergy) Corp. and its affiliates reported a weak energy market, poor forecast demands, and hundreds of millions of dollars in losses, particularly from its nuclear energy affiliate…

“Given this backdrop, (FirstEnergy) announced future options for its generation portfolio as follows: ‘legislative and regulatory solutions for generation assets’; asset sales and plant deactivations; restructuring debt; and/or seeking protection under U.S. bankruptcy laws for its affiliates involved in nuclear generation.”

On March 31, 2018, Energy Harbor predecessor FirstEnergy Solutions exercised one of those options when it filed for Chapter 11 protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of the Northern District of Ohio.

Broad immunity

By the time FirstEnergy Solutions emerged from bankruptcy in February, it had a new name, Energy Harbor, and it had largely released its former parent company, FirstEnergy Corp., from any responsibility to clean up the nuclear plants it used to own.

“It makes it really difficult to get into the pockets of the parent if the subsidiary runs out of money,” Kearney, of the Environmental Law and Policy Center said of the settlement.

In fact, the release worked out between FirstEnergy, a primary creditor, and its former subsidiary was so broad that Judge Koschik disallowed part of it, saying it would make the overall settlement legally unconfirmable.

“The only (nuclear cleanup) ‘mechanism’ offered by (Energy Harbor) is its own assumption of these long-term environmental obligations and a promise that as a reorganized debtor with new capital structure facilitated by (FirstEnergy Corp.), it will stalwartly stand by and satisfy these claims if and when they arise,” Koschik wrote.

FirstEnergy and its former subsidiary modified the “third-party releases” and Koschik signed off on the overall settlement.

But he did so without allowing Kearney’s group to put on testimony from an expert witness, Peter Bradford, a former commissioner with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Bradford planned to testify that there were expenses far in excess of what the commission — which is responsible only for the cleanup of radioactive material — requires nuclear operators to pay into a trust fund, Kearney said.

Koschik’s refusal to hear from Bradford is a big part of why the Environmental Law and Policy Center and associated groups are appealing the bankruptcy settlement, although they also have briefed the appellate court on the federal criminal and state civil actions surrounding the HB 6 bailout scandal.
“We are asking to have our expert heard on the nuclear decommissioning issues,” Kearney said. “That doesn’t mean that the entirety of the bankruptcy proceeding will be reopened.”

Cleanup of the century

Asked last week about what it would cost to clean up its former nuclear plants in Ohio and Pennsylvania, FirstEnergy’s Young said, “FirstEnergy’s liabilities related to nuclear decommissioning are hypothetical and comparable to any former owner of nuclear generating facilities. The bankruptcy did not change that. The other questions you asked about decommissioning would need to be directed to Energy Harbor since they are the current owners and operators of the plants and are primarily liable for decommissioning. As you’ll recall, Energy Harbor is a separate company now unaffiliated with FirstEnergy.”

Calls and emails to two Energy Harbor spokesmen were unanswered.

Young said that as of June, Energy Harbor’s nuclear decommissioning trust funds were worth about $2 billion.

The cleanup envisioned for Perry and Davis-Besse plants in Ohio and the two Beaver Valley units in Pennsylvania would extend for the better part of a century — from 2021 through 2083, according to 2018 studies performed for FirstEnergy as part of the bankruptcy. Kearney said the longevity of the process isn’t because the cleanup is so complex. It’s because the money in the trust fund isn’t enough to pay for it now, so it needs time to grow.

However, based on the estimates commissioned by FirstEnergy, it’s hard so see how $2 billion would be enough. They list four categories of costs associated with the cleanup:

• Decommissioning, including a 17% contingency;

• Hefty NRC license-termination fees (fees are a major source of the agency’s funding);

• Spent-fuel management; and

• Non-nuclear demolition.

Taken together, the combined estimated cost to shut down and clean up all the facilities is $9.6 billion in 2014 dollars. And not nearly all of the $2 billion in the trust fund will be allowed to grow until 2074 to meet it.

The total cost to clean up Beaver Valley Unit 2, for example, is estimated at just under $2 billion, or about 20% of the total.

The timeline in the estimate calls for about an eighth of that — $233 million — to be spent through 2026 preparing for a 48-year “dormancy” period. The estimate says that it will cost between $6 million and $7 million a year for the first 33 years and $3 million to $4 million a year for the next 15.

In other words, if Energy Harbor were to stop paying into the trust fund tomorrow, far less than $2 billion will be allowed to grow until the final cleanup starts in 2075.

The estimates were financed by an interested party, FirstEnergy. But even if they weren’t, Kearney stressed that they could be significantly off — especially since they’re drawn out over such a long period. She said, however, “That $2 billion represents about half of the (overall) estimated cleanup costs.”

The uncertainty over how much the nuclear cleanups will cost and whether Energy Harbor can pay for them makes it unjust that its bankruptcy let FirstEnergy off the hook — especially in light of the criminality alleged in Ohio’s other nuclear bailout, the state’s official consumer representative said.

“An inadequate funding of the future decommissioning costs for the Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear power plants would also be of concern to Ohioans who, one way or another, may ultimately be asked to pay the tab for any shortfall in funding of these costs,” the Office of the Ohio Consumer Counsel said in a brief filed with the 6th Circuit. “Such a result would be objectionable for consumers.”

The OCC needn’t have limited his claims to the potential burden to Ohioans. As things stand now, if Energy Harbor can’t cover the cost of the cleanup, it will fall on all U.S. taxpayers.

Read the federal complaint

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6999130/Ohio-House-complaint.pdf

Marty Schladen has been a reporter for decades, working in Indiana, Texas and other places before returning to his native Ohio to work at The Columbus Dispatch in 2017. He’s won state and national journalism awards for investigations into utility regulation, public corruption, the environment, prescription drug spending and other matters.

October 20, 2020 Posted by | business and costs, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

In Germany , a new dispute over the old abandoned Gorleben nuclear waste site

16 October 2020  Pledge Times (India/Germany)

New dispute over Gorleben

In an interview, the President of Germany’s Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management says it was problematic that Gorleben (current interim but beleaguered radwaste site) has been ruled out in the first review stage of the process to identify a geological repository site. The Green Party responded that the President “did not understand the procedure for which he is in charge. The search for a repository follows scientific criteria.”

October 20, 2020 Posted by | Germany, wastes | Leave a comment

Swedish council votes in favour of nuclear waste disposal facility

Swedish council votes in favour of nuclear waste disposal facility, Energy Live, 19 Oct 20, The final decision now lies with the Swedish Government and is the last remaining decision point for developer SKB to obtain the construction licence for the repository in Forsmark.
The Municipality Council of Östhammar in Sweden has voted in favour of plans to build a geological disposal facility (GDF) for spent nuclear fuel. ……
The final decision now lies with the Swedish Government and is the last remaining decision point for SKB to obtain the construction licence for the repository in Forsmark…….. https://www.energylivenews.com/2020/10/19/swedish-council-votes-in-favour-of-nuclear-waste-disposal-facility/

October 20, 2020 Posted by | Sweden, wastes | Leave a comment

Geological disposal of nuclear waste – a focus of interest in the coming months

GDF Watch 18th Oct 2020, Just  when you thought 2020 couldn’t get any weirder, geological disposal
programmes around the globe are making significant steps forward, all at
the same time.

More seems to have happened, in sociopolitical terms, in the
past month than perhaps in the rest of this Century combined: Swedish
community voting to host their nation’s geological repository; Two
Japanese communities choose to enter into initial discussions; expectation
in UK that at least one community will come forward; Germany publishes
geological analysis identifying potential host areas; Canada completes
acquisitions of land that could host a repository; Hungary Opposition
leader wants public debate on radwaste disposal;

Country situations are analysed in more detail below, but taken together, it seems clear that
geological disposal will become a feature of media and political focus in
countries around the world over the coming 18-24 months.

http://www.gdfwatch.org.uk/2020/10/18/geological-disposal-is-go/

October 20, 2020 Posted by | 2 WORLD, wastes | Leave a comment

Neighbouring countries oppose Japan’s plan to release nuclear waste water into the Pacific

World worries about release of Fukushima nuclear water  https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1203852.shtml, By Xu Keyue Source: Global Times  2020/10/18 

1Neighboring countries oppose ‘irresponsible’ plan,    The world public, especially those in Japan’s neighbors such as China and South Korea, have expressed deep concerns over environmental pollution and human health, and opposition to the Japanese government’s plan to dump radioactive water from the disabled Fukushima nuclear plant into the ocean.

Analysts said that Japan should think twice before making the decision as the move would have disastrous consequences for the marine environment and human health, which could lead to criticism by related international organizations, countermeasures by affected countries including cessation of imports of Japanese seafood, and harm to the country’s image.

Japanese media said that the country’s government will hold a related cabinet meeting as early as this month to make the final decision on the plan to release more than 1 million tons of radioactive water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean after reducing the level of radioactivity.

The plan has not gotten much rolling coverage in Japan, but there are still many Japanese netizens expressing their disagreement. According to a poll on Yahoo Japan, 41.5 percent of the 31,035 respondents disagreed with the plan
Local fishermen in Fukushima publicly announced their opposition, saying the plan will undo years of work rebuilding their industry’s reputation since the plant was wrecked by a huge tsunami in March 2011.

The public of South Korea has repeatedly voiced concern, claiming that discharging the water represents a “grave threat” to the marine environment.

A South Korean Foreign Ministry official told reporters that a meeting of related ministries regarding this issue was elevated to vice-ministerial status last month to step up the response to Japan’s move, reported South Korea’s KBS News on Friday. The official said the government will continue to closely monitor Tokyo’s activities and take measures based on cooperation with the international community.

Japan’s plan also sparked outrage among Chinese netizens, many of whom criticized Japan’s practice, saying it is throwing its responsibility onto the world to share.

Sun Yuliang, a nuclear expert at Tsinghua University in Beijing, told the Global Times on Sunday that whether to dump the waste water should depend on an authoritative scientific assessment to determine whether the processed radioactive water meets international standards for release.

Sun called on the Japanese government to invite professional teams from related international organizations such as the International Atomic Energy Agency to conduct a complete field investigation.

Liu Junhong, a research fellow at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, urged Japan to further communicate with the international community and share information transparently.

Liu said that the Japanese government should give priority to safeguarding public health and safety and the environment, rather than the cost of the rehabilitation work after the 2011 Fukushima disaster.

Liu noted that the seas in Asia are mostly connected and many of them are semi-closed, so that the contaminants from the Fukushima water could subside and then rise, which would severely affect the local marine and coastal environment and the health of people nearby.
Therefore, Japan’s neighboring countries including China and South Korea would be the first to react to the plan, Liu said.

He noted that if the Japanese government releases the water, these  countries are likely to stop imports of seafood from Japan, and foreigners could be reluctant to visit the country and enjoy its food, which would harm Japan’s economy.

Other analysts noted that the plan goes against Japan’s long-established image of being friendly to the marine environment.

Another expert on nuclear safety, who requested anonymity, said that the issues is not only one of Japan’s own business but also relates to the interests of the global community, so countries and related organizations in the international community should cooperate and assist Japan to deal with the contamination.

The Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Fukushima went into meltdown and released radioactive material in the aftermath of a tsunami in March 2011.
The disaster cast doubts over the safety of nuclear power worldwide, leading China to launch a campaign to review and upgrade the safety systems of all its nuclear power stations.

October 19, 2020 Posted by | ASIA, wastes | Leave a comment

France has more nuclear waste than shown in official inventory, reports the nuclear regulator

October 17, 2020 Posted by | France, wastes | Leave a comment

Divisive nuclear waste programme in South Bruce, Ontario

October 17, 2020 Posted by | Canada, wastes | Leave a comment

Bankrupt Mallinckrodt company faces large liabilities in radioactive trash cleanup

Bankrupt Mallinckrodt may still be expected to help shoulder nuclear cleanup costs, St Louis Post Dispatch, Bryce Gray, 17 Oct 20

    ST. LOUIS — Two sets of nuclear waste complaints against Mallinckrodt have been thrown into question in a two-week span, while the company restructures in bankruptcy court.

Facing a wave of lawsuits and a $1.6 billion settlement stemming from its role in the national opioid crisis, the company with deep St. Louis roots filed for protection from creditors on Monday.

While industry analysts have focused on Mallinckrodt’s future as a drugmaker, the company also faces potential liabilities for work a predecessor company, St. Louis-based Mallinckrodt Chemical Works, performed decades ago, when it processed uranium for the U.S. government. Radioactive waste left over from Mallinckrodt’s uranium production is buried today in the West Lake Landfill Superfund site in Bridgeton and also along sections of Coldwater Creek, which runs from St. Ann to the Missouri River.

“Their legal footprint is huge right now,” says Dawn Chapman, the activist co-founder of Just Moms STL, a volunteer group that has pressed for a cleanup of West Lake for years.

On Sept. 30, a two-year-old lawsuit aimed at getting Mallinckrodt to help shoulder the looming $205 million cleanup at West Lake was dismissed, but appears to be in mediation. Lawyers involved with the case warn that, despite the dismissal, the matters at hand remain unresolved and under discussion. ……

The dispute arose in 2018, when — after decades of inaction — a plan to soon excavate the bulk of West Lake’s radioactivity was finally announced. In the months that followed, Republic Services — the waste hauling company whose subsidiary, Bridgeton Landfill LLC, is the legal owner of the Superfund site — initiated a chain of legal actions against Mallinckrodt and other entities in an apparent strategy to spread out the nine-figure cost of the site’s long-awaited cleanup.

Allegations in the ensuing lawsuits focused on the histories of Mallinckrodt and other parties that Republic said belong at “the table,” regarding work at West Lake.

Mallinckrodt was the first to be roped into the litigation. During the development of the atomic bomb in World War II, the company “purified and provided all of the uranium oxide used by the Manhattan Project,” according to its website. Some of the radioactive waste from the company’s St. Louis operations eventually made it to West Lake Landfill, where it was illegally dumped in the 1970s…….….

West Lake’s cleanup is not the only matter involving radioactive waste that could affect Mallinckrodt.

For almost a decade, the company has confronted personal injury lawsuits alleging that residents of surrounding communities have faced cancers and other health issues caused by the legacy of radioactive contamination along Coldwater Creek, after waste from Mallinckrodt was stored and buried at an upstream site near the airport.

Some of the cases — which originated in 2012 — have already been settled, and lawyers said in a hearing Wednesday that settlements that were verbally approved would not likely be affected by Mallinckrodt’s bankruptcy case. Outstanding cases will likely be stayed while bankruptcy proceedings take place, though it’s not clear what may happen next.

Back at West Lake, cleanup costs are currently set to be divided among Republic and two other parties deemed liable at the site: the U.S. Department of Energy and Exelon, the Chicago energy company that formerly owned the uranium processor, Cotter Corp., through a subsidiary….. https://www.stltoday.com/business/local/bankrupt-mallinckrodt-may-still-be-expected-to-help-shoulder-nuclear-cleanup-costs/article_dc7643f9-fc32-53e4-9a98-d1bcafdcdcc8.html

October 17, 2020 Posted by | Legal, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

In Scotland, UK’s old nuclear submarines are left to rot

The nuclear graveyard just five miles from Edinburgh, where Cold War submarines are left to ‘rot’There has been repeated criticism of the fact seven contaminated nuclear subs have been laid up at Rosyth dockyard since the 1980s.  Edinburgh Live,  By

Hilary Mitchell, Editor, 16 OCT 2020 

A recent viral tweet has brought fresh attention to a decades-old controversy in Edinburgh’s back yard: namely, a hulking fleet of decommissioned, but still radioactive, Cold War nuclear submarines.  The seven defunct submarines – Dreadnought, Churchill, Swiftsure, Revenge, Resolution, Repulse and Renown – have been laid up since the 1980s, stored at Rosyth in Fife while arrangements are made to safely dispose of them.

All of the subs have had their toxic fuel removed, but parts of the vessels, including the reactor compartments, are still contaminated with radiation.

Seven of the submarines have been in storage for longer than they were in service with the Royal Navy.

A lack of money and a lack of suitable disposal sites are amongst the issues causing lengthy delays to the disposal process. In 2016 the Ministry of Defence admitted it could take until 2040 to completely dispose of the retired fleet.

This week, an Edinburgh Twitter user took to the social media platform to complain about the fact the historic submarines were still in the Forth, saying they had been ‘dumped’ to ‘rust’ in the dockyard. The tweet has since been shared over 800 times………

The MoD has said it will dispose of the fleet “as soon as practically possible”.

According to an article on Scottish investigative journalism site The Ferret, in the 1980s the UK government tried to hatch a secret plan to dump the radioactive hulks of the problematic and hard-to-dispose of subs in the sea off north west Scotland, documents released by the National Archives reveal.

The Ferret say that a survey for the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in 1989 identified six sites for “seabed storage” of defunct naval submarines near the islands of Skye, Mull and Barra for up to 60 years – and probably longer.

According to one MoD official the aim was “to remove submarines from public view”. Another hoped that “everyone will forget about these submarines and that they will be allowed to quietly rot away indefinitely.”

The 1989 sea-dumping plan was dropped in the end, but the continuing presence of these ancient nuclear behemoths in the Forth makes it very clear that the MoD’s problem of what to do with the Cold War relics isn’t going away any time soon. https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/edinburgh-news/nuclear-graveyard-just-five-miles-19118105

October 17, 2020 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

UK: consultation with 2300 people about radioactive waste dump – only 13 people supported it.

Northern Echo 13th Oct 2020, THOUSANDS of people have written to the Environment Agency over concerns that plans to dump radioactive waste in Teesside will pose a risk to
communities. An application has been made by Augean North Ltd for a low
level radioactive waste permit at their existing Port Clarence site,
between Stockton and Billingham.

The Environment Agency, which held a
consultation which ended in January, published its report yesterday. About
2,300 people took part in the four-month exercise, with only 13 supporting
the application.

The Environment Agency is now considering these in
determining whether to grant the permit, taking into account information
submitted by Augean North. The operator has been asked to provide further
information, with a decision expected to be made by the end of January
2021.

Members of the public, as well members of Stockton on Tees Borough
Council and Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council commented on the
socioeconomic impact and the general impact on the area, as well as the
potential impact on regeneration plans. Last year, Tees Valley Mayor Ben
Houchen criticised the plans, which he said were against the interests of
those living in surrounding areas. The report can be viewed by visiting
consult.environment-agency.gov.uk/north-east/port-clarence-landfill-permit-application

https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/18791632.2-000-objections-made-augean-north-port-clarence-nuclear-plans/

October 15, 2020 Posted by | public opinion, UK, wastes | Leave a comment

Los Alamos National Laboratory nuclear waste is potentially explosive

Report: LANL nuclear waste mix potentially explosive  https://www.taosnews.com/news/environment/report-lanl-nuclear-waste-mix-potentially-explosive/article_543eb72c-0b50-11eb-825a-3777d9ad7922.html, By Scott Wyland swyland@sfnewmexican.com, Oct 10, 2020  

Los Alamos National Laboratory is storing hundreds, maybe thousands, of barrels of radioactive waste mixed with incompatible chemicals that have the potential to cause an explosion, putting workers and the public at risk, a government watchdog said in a report. LANL personnel have failed to analyze chemicals present in hundreds of containers of transuranic nuclear waste, making it possible for an incompatible chemical to be mixed in and cause a container to burst, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board said in a September report.
Such an explosion would release radiation in doses lethal to workers and hazardous to the public, the safety board said. And yet the radiation levels that would be released have not been sufficiently estimated, it said.

Some of LANL’s facilities store radioactive waste without any engineered controls or safeguards beyond the containers, the board wrote in a cover letter addressed to the U.S. Department of Energy.

“As such, additional credited safety controls may be necessary to protect workers and the public,” the board said.

In 2014, a LANL waste container was packaged in a volatile blend of organic cat litter and nitrate salts, which caused the container to rupture and spew radiation at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. The underground disposal site closed for three years while it underwent a $2 billion cleanup.

The incidents that released high levels of radiation at WIPP and Idaho National Laboratory have shown the importance of adding multiple layers of protection to reduce the consequences of an accident, the board said.

The report estimates that an exploding waste canister could expose workers to 760 rem, far beyond the threshold of a lethal dose. A rem is a unit used to measure radiation exposure.

Federal guidelines define a lethal dose as high enough to cause 50 percent of the population to die within 30 days. Those levels range from 400 to 450 rem.

The 760 rem estimate is equal to 380,000 chest X-rays, said Dan Hirsch, retired director of programs on environment and nuclear policy at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

“This is vastly above what’s permissible for workers’ exposure,” Hirsch said, adding that far lower doses can cause cancer.

The 760 rem estimate is actually conservative, he said, noting that the WIPP explosion released four times that amount.

A spokeswoman for the National Nuclear Security Administration said officials were aware of the board’s letter and report regarding issues with transuranic waste storage and handling. She didn’t answer questions about the board’s criticisms or how the agency would tackle the problems identified in the report.

“Maintaining the safety, security, and effectiveness of America’s nuclear deterrent remains paramount to NNSA,” she said.

About 2,000 waste containers remain at LANL because they don’t meet WIPP’s criteria for disposal, mainly because of chemical residues in the waste that make it volatile and even flammable, the report said.

“It’s elementary,” Hirsch said. “You put certain chemicals together and they explode.”

Even water seeping into a barrel of waste containing sodium can trigger an explosion, Hirsch said. That’s what made a waste container blow up at a Nevada nuclear storage site five years ago, he said.

Having the waste containers stored above ground magnifies the hazard, Hirsch said. If one of those burst, it would be far more dangerous than one exploding at an underground site like WIPP, he said.

The report points to years of waste disposal problems that haven’t been corrected, said Greg Mello, executive director of the nonprofit Los Alamos Study Group.

“LANL keeps kicking the waste problem down the road,” Mello said. “LANL has always prioritized its weapons work, and this waste problem has built up for decades.”

If the lab produces plutonium triggers for bombs as planned, it will generate more waste that must be disposed of, Mello said. So if it doesn’t make its current waste safe and acceptable for WIPP, that waste might end up being stuck at the lab as a permanent hazard, Mello said.

The board, whose access the Energy Department has tried to restrict, has again shown how vital it is to report on hazards to workers – in this case, potentially lethal doses of radiation, said Jay Coghlan, executive director of nonprofit Nuclear Watch New Mexico.

“These dangers will only grow worse as LANL becomes less and less a lab and more and more a permanent nuclear weapons production site,” Coghlan said.

Any plutonium release is extremely hazardous, Hirsch said.

If someone inhales one millionth of an ounce of plutonium, that person has a 100 percent chance of getting cancer, Hirsch said. So every effort must be made to keep it contained and stabilized – something lab officials are not doing, he said.

“They seem to cut corners,” Hirsch said. “And they’re cutting corners with the most dangerous materials on Earth.”

On our website Read this story at santafenewmexican.com to view the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board’s report on Los Alamos National Laboratory’s faulty radioactive waste storage, which includes the board’s letter to the U.S. Department of Energy.

October 13, 2020 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Small modular nuclear reactors create intensely radioactive wastes

A bridge to nowhere    New Brunswick must reject small modular reactors, Beyond Nuclear International, By Gordon Edwards and Susan O’Donnell, 12 Oct, 20 ”………  In New Brunswick, the proposed new reactors (so-called “small modular nuclear reactors” or SMNRs) will create irradiated fuel even more intensely radioactive per kilogram than waste currently stored at NB Power’s Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station. The non-fuel radioactive wastes will remain the responsibility of the government of New Brunswick, likely requiring the siting of a permanent radioactive waste repository somewhere in the province.

Interestingly, promoters of both new nuclear projects in New Brunswick – the ARC-100 reactor and the Moltex “Stable Salt Reactor” – claim their reactors will “burn up” these radioactive waste fuel bundles. They have even suggested that their prototype reactors offer a “solution” to Lepreau’s existing nuclear fuel waste problem. This is untrue. Radioactive left-over used fuel from the new reactors will still require safe storage for hundreds of thousands of years.

……… Until now, every effort to recycle and “burn up” used reactor fuel – in France, the UK, Russia and the US – has resulted in countless incidents of radioactive contamination of the local environment. In addition, none of these projects eliminated the need for permanent storage of the left-over long-lived radioactive byproducts, many of which cannot be “burned up.”…….

The nuclear waste problem is not going away. The recent letter from more than 100 groups across Canada, and the recent cancellation of the proposed nuclear waste dump in Ontario have shown that significant opposition to new nuclear energy generation exists. Because producing nuclear energy always means producing nuclear waste as well……. https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2020/10/12/a-bridge-to-nowhere/,

October 13, 2020 Posted by | Canada, Reference, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, wastes | Leave a comment

Struggling Japanese towns look to nuclear waste storing and the money associated

October 13, 2020 Posted by | business and costs, Japan, politics, wastes | Leave a comment

Public Input Wanted On Transportation Of Nuclear Waste

October 13, 2020 Posted by | safety, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Groups urge New Mexico governor to take stand against nuclear waste plan

New Mexico governor urged to take stand against nuclear plan, SC Now, By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN Associated Press

Oct 12, 2020   ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Environmentalists and other watchdog groups want New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to create a government agency that would be tasked with keeping the state from becoming a permanent dumping ground for spent nuclear fuel and other high-level waste.

Dozens of groups sent a letter Friday to the Democratic governor. They pointed to Nevada’s past success in mothballing the once-proposed Yucca Mountain waste repository project in that state and asked the governor to consider similar measures to protect New Mexico.

“New Mexico’s people and our environment deserve better treatment than a plan offering millions of years of a public health menace from radioactive waste spreading into our soil, air, water and rivers,” the letter states. “Please consider what more aggressive steps can be taken to defeat the Holtec plan.”

New Jersey-based Holtec is seeking a 40-year license from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build what it has described as a state-of-the-art complex near Carlsbad. Company executives have said the project is needed because the federal government has yet to find a permanent solution for dealing with the tons of spent fuel building up at commercial nuclear power plants around the U.S.

The first phase of the project calls for storing up to 8,680 metric tons of uranium, which would be packed into 500 canisters. Future expansion could make room for as many as 10,000 canisters of spent nuclear fuel……..

State officials in comments recently submitted to federal regulators opposed a preliminary recommendation by staff of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that a license be granted to Holtec to build the multibillion-dollar facility. They said technical analysis has been inadequate so far and accused regulators of failing to consider environmental justice concerns and meet requirements spelled out by federal environmental laws.

Dave McCoy of Citizen Action is among those who signed the letter sent to Lujan Grisham. He said Monday that there’s a push to approve New Mexico for “interim” storage knowing that the waste will never leave……. https://scnow.com/business/new-mexico-governor-urged-to-take-stand-against-nuclear-plan/article_e167c5c0-4d7b-5a1f-8ebd-30a951f24c71.html

October 13, 2020 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, politics, wastes | Leave a comment

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