Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson told reporters that the agreement represents a major win for hundreds of workers who have been getting sick for years while cleaning up the nation’s nuclear waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in eastern Washington.
“Those workers deserve to be protected,” Ferguson said.
He added that the U.S. Department of Energy did not take the issue seriously and resisted putting protections in place.
“There’s no way to sugar coat this,” Ferguson said.
The Energy Department will for the first time test a new technology that Ferguson called “game-changing” that would protect workers from the vapor exposures.
Under the agreement, the agency will pay $925,000 in fees and costs to the state and Hanford Challenge, a watchdog group that has for decades been warning about worker safety. The agency will also install a new vapor monitoring and alarm system and maintain safety measures that are currently in place, including supplying air and respirators.
The Department of Energy said in an emailed statement that the agreement “acknowledges the extensive actions” that the agency, and its contractor, Washington River Protection Solutions LLC, have taken to protect workers from potential exposure to chemical vapors.
The agency said they continue to “take a very conservative approach to protecting workers from potential exposures to chemical vapors” and that agreement reinforces the ongoing effort.
The state, Hanford Challenge and the pipefitters union Local 598 sued the Energy Department in 2015 and its contractor for tank farms containing nuclear waste, seeking better protection for workers at risk of inhaling vapors or gases that leaked from underground storage tanks.
The agreement puts that federal lawsuit on hold while the Energy Department tests and implements a new system to capture and destroy vapors escaping waste tanks. Ferguson said if the federal agency doesn’t meet its obligations, legal action could resume.
“Hearing and documenting dozens of stories of sick workers was heartbreaking,” said Meredith Crafton, a lawyer representing Hanford Challenge, whose voice broke as she spoke to reporters.
The agreement protects workers in the interim but also creates incentives to find better technology to protect workers in the future, she said.
The 586-square-mile (943-square-kilometer) Hanford nuclear site located along the Columbia River in Eastern Washington state produced up to 70 percent of the plutonium for the U.S. nuclear arsenal since it was established in World War II.
Hanford has 177 underground tanks made of steel that contain more that 54 million gallons (204 million liters) of radioactive and chemical wastes.
Ferguson said studies over the last 20 years, including by the Energy Department and other government agencies, have shown workers falling ill after being exposed to the vapors. They’ve experienced dizziness, nausea and other issues.
September 21, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
employment, safety, USA |
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Big research payments in radiation oncology are distributed only to a few, Radiology Business, September 19, 2018 | Subrata Thakar |New research in the Journal of the American College of Radiology suggests an association between disclosed payment from the healthcare industry and increased individual productivity metrics.
September 21, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA |
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FT 18th Sept 2018 , As President Donald Trump weakens one environmental rule after another, the
deep green state of California has found a way to fight back: with a
rocket. “With science still under attack and the climate threat growing, we
are launching our own damn satellite,” declared Governor Jerry Brown,
explaining that the craft will track emissions and share the results. One
of the pollutants the satellite will measure is methane, a potent
greenhouse gas. Mr Brown’s declaration on Friday in San Francisco, came
just two days after the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington said
it wanted to relax methane rules. For California and Mr Brown, the
satellite is not only about monitoring methane monitoring but also shows
how much states can do themselves to fight climate change.
https://www.ft.com/content/aae5fe16-b91b-11e8-94b2-17176fbf93f5
September 21, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
climate change, USA |
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Vogtle’s Escalating Costs Concern Lawmakers, Stakeholders, Power magazine, 09/20/2018 | Sonal Patel, The Vogtle nuclear expansion’s “ever-escalating” cost is concerning several members of Georgia’s General Assembly, according to a letter sent to partners building the much-delayed project.
Twenty lawmakers from both houses of state government—19 Republicans and one Democrat—sent a letter to the board of directors at Georgia Power Co., Oglethorpe Power Co. (OPC), and Municipal Electric Authoity of Georgia (MEAG Power), lamenting continuing cost increases, and their impact on local utility rates, despite a change in project management eight months ago.
The lawmakers urged the utilities to ensure a cost cap is established before the utilities vote in support of moving forward with the project, as required by the amended co-owners agreement, before September 24. Georgia Power holds a 45.7% stake in the two-unit Plant Vogtle expansion, while OPC (30%), MEAG Power (22.7%), and Dalton Utilities (1.6%) hold the remaining shares. MEAG Power could vote as early as today (September 20). A 90% vote for the project is required for the project to continue……….
Legal Complications
As the fate of project grows murky, a legal battle is also brewing that involves the City of Jacksonville, Florida, and JEA, the city’s municipal utility that serves about 458,000 electric customers. The entities on September 11 asked a federal appeals court for a declaratory judgment on a power purchase agreement (PPA) the utility entered into with MEAG in 2008 for power from Vogtle Units 3 and 4, which were originally scheduled for completion in April 2016 and April 2017.
Completion dates have since been extended by five years: Unit 3 is expected to come online in November 2021, and Unit 4 in November 2022. “A new unlimited cost-plus reimbursement agreement was implemented without JEA’s approval in June 2017 after the project’s initial general contractor, Westinghouse, declared bankruptcy. The amended agreement has increased JEA’s liability from $1.4 billion to more than $2.9 billion—an uncapped and rising amount,” the company noted.
MEAG Power on September 11 filed its own lawsuit in the Northern District of Georgia in Atlanta, claiming that the Florida entity became “irreversibly obligated” when the company entered into the PPA to pay its share regardless of “whether or not the project is completed or is operating or operable.”………https://www.powermag.com/vogtles-escalating-costs-concern-lawmakers-stakeholders/?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTnpFNFpXUmpZbVJqWWpCbCIsInQiOiJOTXhEekNRSSszWDdKcEd5eWFKWm5YN3JpUjVPQXRWNm9ZVkJLbXNjbzF4M1o0Z2hBOHFRc2pucjBLS29xTVV5QW
September 21, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, USA |
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Now’s the time for Utahns to comment on EnergySolutions’ dangerous exemption request, https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/letters/2018/09/20/letter-nows-time-utahns/ By Benjamin Silberman | The Public Forum
·EnergySolutions is requesting exemption from a law that prohibits the amount of depleted uranium (DU) that can come into Utah. When laws governing the disposal of nuclear waste were developed in the 1980s, byproducts like DU weren’t yet considered. So how can EnergySolutions ensure the safety of future generations from hazards like DU?
Currently, there are limits on DU concentrations and masses allowed in Utah, and any shipments above the limit require safety evaluations. EnergySolutions hopes to exceed these limits by bringing in DU munitions. While EnergySolutions insists that DU is less of a hazard in this form, advocacy groups like HEAL Utah and Utah Sierra Club have raised legitimate concerns.
Most concerning is that DU becomes “hotter” over time. While it begins as a low-level waste, its radioactivity increases for thousands of years. EnergySolutions’ Clive disposal site, just off Interstate 80, is in a particularly vulnerable area, is subject to flooding and will look vastly different in even 100 years. It’s unsettling that EnergySolutions thinks it has the power, and knowledge, to evade the law for something this capricious and uncertain.
There is a public comment period Sept. 6-Oct. 6 regarding EnergySolutions’ exemption request.
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September 21, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
depleted uranium, USA, wastes |
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Air Force: Space Force would cost $13 billion over 5 years, SF Chronicle, Sep. 17, 2018 WASHINGTON (AP) — Creating a Space Force as a separate military service, as proposed by President Donald Trump, would cost an estimated $12.9 billion in its first five years, according to a detailed Air Force plan for how to go about it.
This is the first publicly available cost estimate. When the White House announced plans to establish a Space Force in August, Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan declined to give a figure but said it would be in “the billions.”
The Air Force’s estimate is contained in a Sept. 14 memo from Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson, who proposed that the Pentagon ask Congress for the authority and money to establish a Space Force headquarters in 2020……..
In an indication of the complexities of creating a new military service, the Air Force says the proposed U.S. Space Force would be a separate department organized under a civilian secretary appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, along with an undersecretary, four assistant secretaries, a chief lawyer, an inspector general and a legislative liaison. A four-star general would serve as chief of staff.
The proposal said the missions of Space Force would include missile defense. More broadly, it would be “responsible for the preparation of forces necessary for the effective prosecution of war.”
In June, Trump directed the Pentagon to create a “separate but equal” space force. In August, Vice President Mike Pence announced that the administration will work with Congress to come up with a workable approach. The last time the U.S. created a new military service was in 1947 when the Air Force was established as an independent service. https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/politics/article/Air-Force-Space-Force-Would-Cost-13-Billion-13236410.php?utm_campaign=twitter-premium&utm_source=CMS%20Sharing%20Button&
September 21, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
USA, weapons and war |
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The Energy 202: Hurricane Florence blows hole in Trump team’s case for helping coal and nuclear power, critics say, WP, By Dino Grandoni,18 September 18 Hurricane Florence has blown a hole in the Trump administration’s argument that bolstering nuclear and coal-fired power is essential to providing reliable electricity to homes and businesses, especially during times of crisis, according to energy experts long critical of the plan.
For months, the Department of Energy has considered throwing a lifelineto that sector of the power market to make the electric grid more resilient to natural and man-made disasters. The Trump administration has been preparing to use a Cold War-era law, once marshaled by President Harry S. Truman to secure U.S. steel production, to compel regional grid operators to buy electricity from nuclear and coal plants.
The rationale is that only these two types of generation regularly have enough fuel on site to run for when national security is threatened. Wind turbines and solar panels only generate electricity when the weather is right while natural gas stations often have their fuel pipelined in from afar.
But hours before the once powerful hurricane made landfall in North Carolina on Friday, Duke Energy shut down its two reactors at the Brunswick Nuclear Plant near Wilmington, N.C. in anticipation of high winds. The temporary shutdown illustrates how many other factors beyond just fuel stored on site affect grid reliability.
“There are so many flaws to their argument, we hardly need this to add,” said David Hart, professor of public policy at George Mason University. “There are lots of better ways to get reliability than to stockpile a lot of fuel.”
……..The Energy Department has yet to detail exactly what the plan to bolster coal and nuclear will look like after Trump ordered aid in June. The request comes as expensive coal and nuclear assets are retiring across the country in the face of competition from cheaper natural gas and renewable energy resources……..https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-energy-202/2018/09/18/the-energy-202-hurricane-florence-blows-hole-in-trump-team-s-case-for-helping-coal-and-nuclear-power-critics-say/5ba022621b326b47ec9596b9/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.66a830d4f690
September 19, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
politics, USA |
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Ars Technica 16thSept 2018 , Though economics might not favor nuclear power in the US, policy makers do.
Last week, the House passed a bipartisan bill that originated in the Senate
called the Nuclear Energy Innovation Capabilities Act (S. 97), which will
allow the private sector to partner with US National Laboratories to vet
advanced nuclear technologies.
The bill also directs the Department of
Energy (DOE) to lay the ground work for establishing “a versatile,
reactor-based fast neutron source.” The Senate also introduced a second
bill called the Nuclear Energy Leadership Act (S. 3422) last Thursday,
which would direct the DOE actually establish that fast neutron reactor.
That bill also directs the DOE to “make available high-assay, low-enriched
uranium” for research purposes. The Nuclear Energy Leadership Act has not
yet made it past a Senate vote.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/09/us-congress-passes-bill-to-help-advanced-nuclear-power/
September 18, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
politics, USA |
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Congress looking for money for cities hit by nuclear plant closures — including Diablo Canyon,The Tribune BY KAYTLYN LESLIE, kleslie@thetribunenews.com, September 17, 2018
Congress wants to find money to support communities where nuclear power plants are being decommissioned — which could mean some funding for San Luis Obispo County once Diablo Canyon starts the process itself in the coming years.
Congressman Salud Carbajal announced Monday that Congress directed the U.S. Department of Energy to study public and private funding sources available to help those communities, as part of its Fiscal Year 2019 Energy and Water, Legislative Branch and Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act (HR 5895).
“With the impending Diablo Canyon Power Plant closure, I am working to secure all available federal resources to help offset the economic impact of this decommissioning,” Carbajal said in a news release. Carbajal, a Democrat, represents California’s 24th Congressional District, which spans between San Luis Obispo and Ventura counties.
The Department of Energy study will focus on identifying public and private funds to support municipalities where a nuclear power plant is decommissioned, in the process of decommissioning or plans to shut down within three years of the act’s enactment, and contains nuclear waste within its boundaries, according to the news release.
The bill passed both the House of Representatives and the Senate and is set to be signed into law by President Donald Trump sometime before the end of the fiscal year, Sept. 30……. https://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/article218563600.html
September 18, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
decommission reactor, USA |
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The country doesn’t need “parking lot dumps for interim storage,”
“We as communities want it out of here. We want it to be in safe place where its never moved again. We think it’s lunacy to move it twice.”
Waste Control Specialists has been lobbying federal officials to establish an interim high-level waste repository
Anti-nuclear groups urge action against national waste dump https://www.recorder.com/CAN-plans-nuclear-waste-speaking-tour-20148074 By RICHIE DAVIS
Staff Writer, September 15, 2018
With closure and dismantling of the Yankee Atomic plant in Rowe and now Vermont Yankee and other New England nuclear sites pretty much a fait accompli, watchdog groups like Citizens Awareness Network are focused on the one tremendous remaining issue: the high-level nuclear waste remaining on the reactor sites.
CAN is planning a tour with a giant can — a 32-foot-long wooden mock-up of a radioactive waste cask — and an array of speakers to speak about what the organization calls “the abdication by the federal government and the nuclear industry” to deal with high-level nuclear waste “stranded” at nuclear sites around. Continue reading →
September 17, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
USA, wastes |
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Why NASA wants to build a nuclear reactor on the Moon, techradar, By Jamie Carter 16 Sept 18,”………“Safe, efficient and plentiful energy will be the key to future robotic and human exploration,” says Jim Reuter, NASA’s acting associate administrator for the Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) in Washington. “I expect the Kilopower project to be an essential part of lunar and Mars power architectures as they evolve.”
The tech was successfully demonstrated between November 2017 and March 2018 as part of NASA’s Kilopower Reactor Using Stirling Technology (KRUSTY) experiment……….
Why do we need nuclear power on the moon?
Before you say something like ‘we shouldn’t be polluting space with nuclear waste’, know that almost every single space mission you’ve even heard of has used radioisotope thermoelectric generators, which have Plutonium-238 as their electricity source. That’s true for everything from Apollo and Voyager to New Horizons and Cassini…………
Marc Gibson, lead Kilopower engineer at Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. “When we start sending astronauts for long stays on the Moon and to other planets, that’s going to require a new class of power that we’ve never needed before.”
Can’t we use solar power on the moon?
…….. Japanese company Shimizu has a concept to construct a massive belt of solar panels a few kilometres wide around the moon’s entire 11,000-kilometre-long equator. It reckons that half of this ‘solar belt’ would always be in sunshine, and given that the moon doesn’t have an atmosphere, so is never cloudy, solar power generation would theoretically be five times more efficient than it is on Earth.
Is NASA going to the Moon or not?
It’s an on again, off again commitment that keeps changing with every new US president. The Trump administration’s Space Policy Directive 1 proposes robotic missions on the lunar surface ahead of crewed missions, as well as a Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway to help astronauts on missions beyond the moon, either going to Mars or to asteroids. NASA is asking private companies to develop new tech to deliver payloads to the Moon………https://www.techradar.com/news/why-nasa-wants-to-build-a-nuclear-reactor-on-the-moon
September 17, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
technology, USA |
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Yucca nuclear dump a threat to Nevada military bases, Rosen says By Ray Hagar, Nevada Newsmakers, Las Vegas Sun, Sept. 16, 2018
Nevada 3rd Congressional District Rep. Jacky Rosen looks at the controversy over a proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain through the eyes of a member of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee. The transportation and storage of nuclear waste at the site — less than 100 miles from Las Vegas — would pose a threat to national security because of the U.S. military bases that surround the area, Rosen said Thursday on Nevada Newsmakers.
“We have Nellis Air Force Base, the premier pilot-training (facility) throughout the world. We have the Nevada Test and Training Range where we do all that training — 70 percent of the Air Force’s live munitions lives there,” Rosen said.
“We have Creech Air Force Base, where we have our unmanned aerial system,” she said. “We train those Topgun naval aviators in Fallon. We have a Hawthorne Army Depot, a Nevada Test Site and Area 51.”
“Yucca Mountain sits right in the center of all that,” Rosen said. “Nevada is critical to our national security, our homeland security and safety. And anything that could compromise that, moving nuclear waste through the Nevada Test and Training Range or any of those other routes, could put us at risk.”
Storage of nuclear waste near U.S. military installations is only one problem with Yucca, Rosen said. Another is moving it there through wide swaths of the United States.
“There are 75,000 metric tons of nuclear waste. At three loads a week via trains or trucks on our freeways, going through over 44 states and 300 counties, it will take 50 years to transport it,” Rosen said. “So don’t tell me that within that 50 years, there is not going to be some kind of accident.”………https://lasvegassun.com/news/2018/sep/16/yucca-nuclear-dump-a-threat-to-nevada-military-bas/
September 17, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
safety, USA, wastes |
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Nuclear waste bill that could aid Zion awaiting presidential signature , Chicago Tribune, 15 Sept 18 Legislation to help communities such as Zion with stranded nuclear waste issues has passed both houses of Congress, and now awaits President Donald Trump’s signature to become law, according to a statement released Friday by U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider.
The 10th District Democrat said the measure — included in H.R. 5895, the Energy and Water, Legislative Branch, and Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act of 2019 — would require a report by the Department of Energy on existing public and private resources and funding available for municipalities in which a nuclear power plant is decommissioned, in the process of decommissioning, or plans to shut down within three years.
“Communities like Zion have been saddled with storing our nation’s stranded nuclear waste while the federal government has failed to meet its legal obligation to find a permanent repository,” Schneider said in a statement. “They deserve compensation, and this new report is a step toward connecting these communities with critically needed federal assistance.”
In May, Schneider said, he introduced a legislative amendment requiring the Secretary of Energy to assemble a task force to work across all federal agencies to identify existing resources and funding opportunities that could assist communities with decommissioned plants where nuclear waste is being stored.
Last October, Schneider introduced the Sensible, Timely Relief for America’s Nuclear Districts’ Economic Development (STRANDED) Act with Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill.
“I urge President Trump to sign (H.R. 5895) into law,” Schneider added in Friday’s statement, “and I will continue to work to build on this progress by advancing the STRANDED Act to finally compensate communities like Zion what they deserve.”
In addition to forming a task force, the STRANDED proposal would compensate communities storing waste through economic impact grants and would establish tax credits to encourage development and homeownership in affected communities.
Last year, ZionSolutions, which is part of Utah-based EnergySolutions, said it will finish deconstructing and demolishing the deactivated Zion nuclear power plant and its 20-story containment silos in 2018, according to EnergySolutions Vice-President Mark Walker, but 61 casks full of spent nuclear rods will remain on-site until a repository is found.
H.R. 5895 does not address long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel, but it does require the Department of Energy to “submit to Congress and the State of Nevada a report on the potential of locating a reprocessing or recycling facility for spent nuclear fuel near the Yucca Mountain site.”………http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/lake-county-news-sun/news/ct-lns-schneider-nuke-bill-st-0915-story.html
September 17, 2018
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USA, wastes |
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Work to demolish Hanford plutonium plant could resume next week https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/hanford/work-to-demolish-hanford-plutonium-plant-could-resume-next-week/281-594811180
Demolition work on Hanford’s plutonium finishing plant could resume next week after the U.S. Department of Energy stopped work at the site last December. September 15, 2018
Work to demolish a former nuclear weapons production plant in Washington state could resume next week, nearly nine months after a spread of radioactive contamination forced a shutdown.
Demolition of the Plutonium Finishing Plant on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation was halted in December after a spread of radioactive particles. In all, 42 workers were found to have inhaled or ingested small amounts of radioactive particles and workers drove contaminated cars off the nuclear site.
Also see | “It was complete chaos” says Hanford worker who inhaled plutonium
The Tri-City Herald reports that the planned restart is limited, focusing on less hazardous work.
The U.S. Department of Energy this week approved the resumption of demolition.
The plant for decades helped make plutonium, a key ingredient in nuclear weapons.
September 17, 2018
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USA, wastes |
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Daily Mail 15th Sept 2018 ,A unique wildlife refuge on the site of a former nuclear weapons plant in
Colorado is opening its gates on Saturday, after a confusing day when
officials first said they would not open the refuge and then said they
would.
The opening of Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge, where the U.S.
government made plutonium triggers for nuclear bombs, has been in the works
for months, surviving court challenges and protests.
But the plans were upended Friday when Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said he would keep the
refuge closed until he could get more information about public safety.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-6170525/Former-nuclear-site-open-public-wildlife-refuge.html
September 17, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
USA, wastes |
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