nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

Rundown on world’s nuclear energy situation, and I do mean DOWN

India’s nuclear march of folly http://wrd.mydigitalfc.com/op-ed/india%E2%80%99s-nuclear-march-folly-012 By Praful Bidwai,  Jul 11 2012 HOLLOWMEN: Blind to the perils of nuclear reactors, India continues its ‘March of Folly’, even as it seeks untested reactors, with potentially dangerous consequences, such as the disaster in Fukushima.

All those, including Indian policymakers, who nurture the illusion that nuclear power is the energy source of the future and will flourish despite the Fukushima disaster, increasingly adverse atomic economics, and widespread social and political opposition, would do
well to read the just-released World Nuclear Industry Status Report (WNISR) 2012 (http://www.­worldnuclearreport.org). Continue reading →

July 13, 2012 Posted by | 2 WORLD, business and costs, Reference | Leave a comment

Worldwide nuclear industry control of safety regulations

Those “wider structural problems” are far wider than Japan–they are global. The “regulatory capture” cited in the Japanese panel’s report has occurred all over the world–with the nuclear industry and those promoting nuclear power in governments making sure that the nuclear foxes are in charge of the nuclear hen houses. The “pus that pervades Japanese society” is international.

Nuclear Foxes In Charge of the Nuclear Hen Houses, OpEd News, 11 July 12 By Karl Grossman   The conclusion of a report of a Japanese parliamentary panel issued last week that the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster was rooted in government-industry “collusion” and thus was “man-made” is mirrored throughout the world. The “regulatory capture” cited by the panel is the pattern among nuclear agencies right up to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Continue reading →

July 12, 2012 Posted by | 2 WORLD, Reference, safety | 1 Comment

A brief history of USA’s nuclear waste (mis)management

In 2010, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a “waste confidence decision” that asserted that used fuel rods could be stored at the power plants for 60 years after they close down.  NRC also asserted that a permanent repository would be ready to handle such wastes “when necessary.”

NUCLEAR WASTE Manila Bulletin By ATTY. ROMEO V. PEFIANCO July 11, 2012,  “…Storing used fuel rods from nuclear power reactors is one problem that remains unsolved by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.  Nuclear waste in the US comes from: 1) nuclear weapons production facilities, 2) nuclear power plants, 3) medical equipment previously used in radiation treatments, 4) industrial sources of radioactivity used as a more powerful alternative to X-rays, and 5) residues from uranium mining. Continue reading →

July 12, 2012 Posted by | history, Reference, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Britain looks at dubious technical “fixes” for its radioactive pile at Sellafield

It is the task of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) to clean all this up. The plans are to pay the French company Areva, who have proved their technology works, to build a new mixed oxide fuel (MOX) plant.
The other option is to let the US-Japanese GE-Hitachi build a new fast PRISM reactor on the site to burn the plutonium and produce electricity. This is a more elegant engineering option but the reactor is totally unproven and is decades away from completion.

Sellafield: The dangers of Britain’s nuclear dustbin RT, 10 July, 2012“…….Cold war legacy   Behind the razor wire, security guards and public relations campaigns,
Sellafield is home to some of the most radioactive buildings in Europe.
The UK has the largest stockpile of Plutonium anywhere in the world and it’s all stored at Sellafield. Plutonium is used for the manufacture of nuclear weapons and is extremely radioactive with a half-life of 25,000 years. Continue reading →

July 11, 2012 Posted by | - plutonium, Reference, technology, UK, wastes | Leave a comment

New nuclear power plants – Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina – just gobbling up money!

The plants burning natural gas are far cheaper to build than nuclear power plants…..….

Building costs rise at US nuclear sites Bloomberg, By Ray Henry on July 10, 2012 ATLANTA (AP) — America’s first new nuclear plants in more than a decade are costing billions more to build and sometimes taking longer to deliver than planned, problems that could chill the industry’s hopes for a jumpstart to the nation’s new nuclear age.

Licensing delay charges, soaring construction expenses and installation glitches as mundane as misshapen metal bars have driven up the costs of three plants in Georgia, Tennessee and South Carolina, from hundreds of millions to as much as $2 billion, according to an Associated Press analysis of public records and regulatory filings.

Those problems, along with jangled nerves from last year’s meltdown in Japan and the lure of cheap natural gas, could discourage utilities from sinking cash into new reactors, experts said. The building slowdown would be another blow to the so-called nuclear renaissance, Continue reading →

July 11, 2012 Posted by | business and costs, Reference, USA | Leave a comment

World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2012

“The fact that plant life extension seems the most likely survival strategy of the nuclear industry raises serious safety issues. Most critically will be to what extent and for how long nuclear safety authorities will be in a position to withstand growing pressure from nuclear utilities to keep operating increasingly outdated technology”

We are glad to announce that the report is now available for free download at www.WorldNuclearReport.org.    Mycle Schneider Consulting ,Independent Analysis on Energy and Nuclear Policy 9 July 12,  Twenty years after its first edition, the World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2012 portrays an industry suffering from the cumulative impacts of the world economic crisis, the Fukushima disaster, ferocious competitors and its own planning and management difficulties.

Key results of the assessment include:

• Only seven new reactors started up, while 19 were shut down in 2011. On 5 July 2012, one reactor was reconnected to the grid at Ohi in Japan and another unit is expected to generate power on the site within two weeks. However, it remains highly uncertain, how many others will receive permission to restart operations in Japan.

• Four countries announced that they will phase out nuclear power within a given timeframe.

• At least five countries have decided not to engage or re-engage in nuclear programs.

• In Bulgaria and Japan two reactors under construction were abandoned.

• In four countries new build projects were officially cancelled. Of the 59 units under construction in the world, at least 18 are experiencing multi-year delays, while the remaining 41 projects were started within the past five years or have not yet reached projected start-up dates, making it difficult to assess whether they are running on schedule.

• Construction costs are rapidly rising. The European EPR cost estimate has increased by a factor of four (adjusted for inflation) over the past ten years.

•  Two thirds of the assessed nuclear companies and utilities were downgraded by credit rating agency Standard and Poor’s over the past five years.

•  The assessment of a dozen nuclear companies reveals that all but one performed worse than the UK FTSE100 index. The shares of the world’s largest nuclear operator, French state utility EDF, lost 82 percent of their value, that of the world’s largest nuclear builder, French state company AREVA, fell by 88 percent.

In contrast, renewable energy development has continued with rapid growth figures. Continue reading →

July 9, 2012 Posted by | 2 WORLD, business and costs, Reference | Leave a comment

Researchers tracking patients’ medical radiation as it adds up

Experts plan to track radiation doses from medical checks Asahi Shimbun,  http://ajw.asahi.com/article behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201207090009 July 09, 2012 By YURI OIWA/ Staff Writer  Concerned about an increase in radiation exposure at hospitals, a group of researchers plans to set up a system to track patients’ cumulative radiation doses and protect children from potential harm. Continue reading →

July 9, 2012 Posted by | health, Japan, Reference | Leave a comment

the “Arab Spring” has pulled the plug on nuclear power for the Middle East

Arab Spring proves winter to nuclear ambitions Times Live, Sapa-dpa | 08 July, 2012 Along with lifetime presidencies, emergency laws, and personalised security forces, the Arab Spring uprisings of the past year have claimed another illustrious victim: nuclear energy.

“All the plans, all the agreements, all the studies; everything has stopped,” said Abdelmajid Mahjoub, director of the Arab Atomic Energy Agency (AAEA), a regional atomic energy body affiliated with the Arab League. Continue reading →

July 9, 2012 Posted by | business and costs, MIDDLE EAST, politics international, Reference | Leave a comment

Recycling electronic wastes is the way of the future

“We need to recover rare elements to continue manufacturing IT products, batteries for electric cars, solar panels, flat-screen televisions and other increasingly popular products,” 

E-Waste: Annual Gold, Silver ‘Deposits’ in New High-Tech Goods Worth $21B; Less Than 15% Recovered Science Daily (July 6, 2012) — Urban mining’ deposits are 40 to 50 times richer than mined ore, experts tell 1st GeSI and StEP e-Waste Academy in Africa; New PCs, cell phones, tablets, other e-products now use 320 tons of gold, 7,500 tons of silver per year, and rising. A staggering 320 tons of gold and more than 7,500 tons of silver are now used annually to make PCs, cell phones, tablet computers and other new electronic and electrical products worldwide, adding more than $21 billion in value each year to the rich fortunes in metals eventually available through “urban mining” of e-waste, experts say.

Manufacturing these high-tech products requires more than $16 billion in gold and $5 billion in silver: a total of $21 billion — equal to the GDP of El Salvador — locked away annually in e-products. Most of those valuable metals will be squandered, however; just 15% or less is
recovered from e-waste today in developed and developing countries alike.

Electronic waste now contains precious metal “deposits” 40 to 50 times richer than ores mined from the ground, experts told participants from 12 countries at last week’s first-ever GeSI and StEP e-Waste Academy for policymakers and small businesses, co-organized in Accra, Ghana by the United Nations University and the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI)……. Continue reading →

July 7, 2012 Posted by | 2 WORLD, RARE EARTHS, Reference | Leave a comment

Fukushima disaster workers forced to do cleanup without safety precautions

there was never any health supervision or monitoring of radiation doses. I am worried about the amount of radioactive substances that may have built up in my body.”

FINAL REPORT (4) : TEPCO failed to warn nuke plant workers after 3/11 http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201207060070, THE ASAHI SHIMBUN Workers who remained in the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant even after it was hit by the huge earthquake and tsunami to deal with the fast-moving crisis were praised as heroes dubbed the “Fukushima 50.”

But the reality was that most were forced to do the dangerous work without vital information and safety precautions, the report by the Diet’s investigation panel has revealed.

The final report by the Diet’s Fukushima accident investigation panel has revealed that workers at the nuclear plant after the onset of the disaster were forced to tackle the accident without adequate information and or safety precautions.

The report, issued by the National Diet of Japan Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission on July 5, also reveals what Tokyo Electric Power Co. employees and subcontractors experienced and felt during operations after the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami hit the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant on March 11, 2011. Continue reading →

July 7, 2012 Posted by | employment, Fukushima 2012, Japan, Reference | Leave a comment

Tri-Valley Care fights the good fight to save Livermore valley from plutonium wastes

Tri-Valley CAREs has had many successes throughout the years…. the first group in the western US to receive an EPA grant to monitor the Superfund cleanup at Lawrence Livermore National Lab and the first community-based group in the country to win a recognition award from EPA for its effectiveness

For decades, a toxic groundwater plume has flowed westward from Lawrence Livermore National Lab in the Livermore community aquifer towards Dublin. 


Living with the Legacy of the Nuclear Stockpile Next Door in Livermore, CA http://www.arounddublinblog.com/2012/07/livermore-ca-nuclear-stockpile-next-door/ by Around Dublin Team Tri-Valley CAREs  was founded in 1983 in Livermore, CA by concerned neighbors living around Lawrence Livermore National Lab , one of two locations where all US nuclear weapons are designed. This grassroots organization works to strengthen global security by stopping the development of new nuclear weapons in the US and by promoting the elimination of nuclear weapons globally.

It monitors nuclear weapons and environmental clean-up activities throughout the US nuclear
weapons complex, with a special focus on Lawrence Livermore National Lab and the surrounding Tri-Valley communities. Continue reading →

July 7, 2012 Posted by | - plutonium, opposition to nuclear, Reference, USA | 1 Comment

Laser enrichment technology can promote the spread of nuclear weapons

a tension between the United States’ goal of safely commercializing nuclear-power technology and its efforts to control the proliferation of nuclear materials. ”When there’s a conflict, generally speaking, the policy to spread nuclear technology overrides the non-proliferation policy.”

Laser-based uranium enrichment plant sparks controversy 07/05/2012 Laser Focus World  by Gail Overton  Senior Editor  Washington, DC–A July 4 Nature news story from Sharon Weinberger says that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s decision to open a plant that uses laser-based uranium enrichment will be considered in private. Although the controversial laser uranium-enrichment technology is on the cusp of making it cheaper to create fuel for nuclear power plants, some non-proliferation experts are concerned that the efficiency of the laser-based technology will also smooth the path for bomb makers.  Continue reading →

July 6, 2012 Posted by | Reference, technology, Uranium, USA | Leave a comment

Integral Fast Reactors – let the public beware of these!

 In dispraise of Integral Fast Nuclear Reactors  Independent Australia, 5 July 12, Can only nuclear technocrats discuss nuclear issues — leaving the great unwashed out of the debate? Noel Wauchope considers the latest – but not necessarily the greatest – nuclear gizmo — Integral Fast Reactors. “….. It must be reassuring to the nuclear lobby to know that the great unwashed, the hoi polloi, the peasantry, have no idea about the differences between the various types of nuclear reactors now in operation — the Generation 2 and Generation 3 reactors. Let alone the new developing blueprints of Generation IV: Integral Fast Reactors, Lead Cooled Fast Reactors, Molten Salt Reactors, Sodium Cooled Fast reactors, Thorium Liquid Fuel reactors; the peasant mind boggles! And wait, like those old TV commercials – there’s more! – Generation V is now in the minds and on some bits of paper of the nuclear boffins.

Well, the nuclear priesthood is pretty safe in all this. They keep the argument narrowly technical, with pages and pages on the various technicalities of cooling systems, reprocessing of fuel systems, passive safety systems and so on; in other words, they induce in the public a kind of mindless torpor as they dazzle us with science.

At the same time, the nuclear priesthood, like some gifted but autistic child with specialist knowledge in just one area, seems to have little grasp of other issues concerning nuclear power — blinkered as they are in their apparent view that the technicalities are the whole story.  This is the case with their latest propaganda for the ‘Integral Fast Reactor’ or IFR.

For instance, they ignore the fact that IFRs needs plutonium or enriched uranium as fuel. So, to have fast reactors, Australia would need to import these, or set up nuclear reprocessing or uranium enrichment here. This would also involve issues such as cost, politics, public opinion, issues concerning our growing renewable energy systems, radioactive waste storage — just to mention some of the more obvious of the considerable obstacles to Australia ever getting fast reactors. Nuclear lobbyists seem naively oblivious to the importance of these factors in the minds of the general public……

The Integral Fast Reactor is, after all, just another type of nuclear reactor — it runs on radioactive fuel, provides heat to make electricity and produces radioactive waste. It also uses reprocessed nuclear wastes for its fuel, therefore nuclear reprocessing plants would be needed. So far, all existing nuclear reprocessing has proved to be an expensive failure. For instance, the USA’s MOX reprocessing fuel plant is still under construction — it has cost billions of dollars, is over budget and also behind schedule. In Japan, the super expensive Monju prototype fast breeder reactor is costing 1,000 times more than conventional reactors to run………

As these fast reactors need to get the weapons grade plutonium and/or enriched uranium, these materials have to be procured from somewhere.  The nuclear lobby portrays this as a benefit to the world, by using up the existing plutonium and so on.  Now, I don’t know whether they say this out of naiveté or hypocrisy, but the obvious reality is that the old-fashioned Generation 3 and 4 reactors will have to be kept going – or uranium enrichment and reprocessing will have to keep going – to turn out more plutonium, which must then travel to the new IFRs. Of course, all this flies in the face of President Obama’s move to limit nuclear weapons proliferation, the New START treaty with Russia, which depends on confining the spread of uranium enrichment and weapons grade plutonium…….

there’s that final problem of the wastes. 

David Biello from the Scientific American comments:

‘Ultimately, however, the core problem may be that such new reactors don’t eliminate the nuclear waste that has piled up, so much as transmute it. Even with a fleet of such fast reactors, nations would nonetheless require an ultimate home for radioactive waste, one reason that a 2010 M.I.T. report on spent nuclear fuel dismissed such fast reactors.’…..

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/environment/in-dispraise-of-integral-fast-nuclear-reactors/

July 5, 2012 Posted by | 2 WORLD, Reference, spinbuster, technology | Leave a comment

South Carolina to be USA’s nuclear waste dump, with Small Modular Reactors (SMRs)?

The mini-reactors – also dubbed small modular reactors or SMRs – have been hailed as the nuclear technology of the future.

 waste is the problem……  waste could be shipped into the state from other areas…. South Carolina once again could become the nuclear dumping ground for the nation.

Mini-nuclear reactors Herald Online, 1 July 12,South Carolina might benefit in many ways from being the site of the nation’s first mini-nuclear reactors. But the resulting nuclear waste is a big concern.

The U.S. Department of Energy gave the go-ahead in April for three companies to partner with the Savannah River Site in Aiken County to possibly develop the nation’s first mini-reactors there. The three companies are competing with other design companies across the nation – as well as among themselves – for a federal matching grant totaling as much as $452 million to support engineering, certification and licensing for up to two mini-reactor designs. Continue reading →

July 2, 2012 Posted by | Reference, technology, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear company finds it unaffordable to decommission reactor

Company dismantling Zion nuclear plant under financial stress
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-07-01/business/chi-company-dismantling-zion-nuclear-plant-under-financial-stress-20120630_1_nuclear-plant-nuclear-fuel-chief-financial-officer July 01, 2012|By Julie Wernau |EnergySolutions, the company dismantling Exelon’s Zion nuclear plant, is struggling financially just as it nears the riskiest phase of the project — moving the nuclear fuel into storage casks.

Last month, the company suddenly replaced its chief executive and chief financial officer for the second time in two years, causing its stock to plunge 55 percent and its credit ratings to fall two notches amid a weak earnings forecast. In March, EnergySolutions revealed that
it underestimated by about $100 million the cost to dismantle Zion piece by piece, and ship the material to Utah for disposal The financial problems call the future of the company and the project into question. Though David Lockwood, the new president and chief executive of EnergySolutions said the company intentionally underbid the work to gain publicity that would help it snag similar work around the world.

“We undertook Zion for strategic, not financial reasons,” Lockwood said.

July 2, 2012 Posted by | decommission reactor, Reference, USA | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »