U.S. govt in legal trouble over nuclear wastes
Solutions Remain Few on Issue of Nuclear- Waste Storage WSJ.com, JUNE 1, 2010 By REBECCA SMITH “……….Utilities have filed more than 70 lawsuits against the government accusing it of breach of contract because it hasn’t taken the waste. So far, $1.3 billion has been paid out. The Department of Justice estimates the liability will top $12 billion if a waste facility is not opened by 2020…….utilities continue to contribute $770 million a year to a Nuclear Waste Fund to pay for a permanent repository that now isn’t even on the drawing board.In April, a group of utilities sued the federal government, demanding that these storage fees be suspended. Ellen Ginsberg, general counsel of the Nuclear Energy Institute, a trade group, says, “We don’t want to pay any more fees until the government has a waste plan.”
Solutions Remain Few on Issue of Nuclear- Waste Storage – WSJ.com
Uranium milling company won’t be able to pay for clean-up
Cash-strapped Energy Fuels can pay for uranium mill but not for clean up « Colorado Independent, 2 June 2010, Gulf spill underlines need for companies to put aside vast sums in advance By David O. Williams 6/2/10 12 A Canadian company looking to build the first new uranium mill in the United States in nearly three decades is burning through cash at a rate that could leave it broke right about the time it hopes to secure its final approvals from Colorado public health officials. Continue reading
UK’s expensive nuclear white elephant
it is an expensive white elephant which produces as much carbon as a conventional power station over its lifetime….. [producing wastes] which will remain dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years – long after EDF, Britain and France have ceased to exist…..So thank you nuclear industry for hobbling all our futures.
NUCLEAR POWER REMAINS THE BIGGEST WHITE ELEPHANT IN THE WORLD, Andy Crick, 3 June 2010 Huhne has pointed out that the huge cost to his department of this necessary cleanup means that in effect it will be able to do nothing else, least of all invest in sustainable new technologies for energy generation.The outcome of this horrendous expense is likely to be the final death knell for any plans for new nuclear power stations, which the coalition has agreed can only go ahead if they are built with no public subsidy and clear plans for their full costs over their whole lifetime. Continue reading
Massive taxpayer payouts to UK nuclear executives
all the directors listed have since moved into other jobs in the nuclear industry.
Nuclear costs spiral as clean energy budgets face axe, Left Foot Forward, 2 June 2010, “…..there’s a need for an independent and open audit of NDA spending to examine the room for greater cuts there when you look at these examples of the organisation’s largesse:
* The ex-managing director of Sellafield, Barry Snelson, who ran the site on behalf of the NDA, was recently given a £2,000,000 golden adieu for “loss of office.”
* His colleague David Bonser, head of the thermal oxide reprocessing plant (THORP), was given a £1m pay off at the same time. He was in charge of the site, during the 2007 THORP leak that went unnoticed Continue reading
Thousands of tons of nuclear wastes in above ground casks
– Atomic Waste Gets ‘Temporary’ Home, WSJ.com, JUNE 1, 2010 By REBECCA SMITH “……Power companies are likely to rely on casks even more in coming years. About 80% of reactor sites in the U.S. intend to move used fuel to casks because their storage pools are filling up.
So far, more than 800 casks have been filled and they sit tucked away behind fences on reactor sites. They hold 14,000 metric tons of waste, an amount that is steadily growing. There is an additional 49,000 metric tons being held in spent-fuel pools, used fuel’s first stop after it leaves reactors. Each year, another 2,000 metric tons of nuclear reactor waste is created. Continue reading
Oil disaster does not augur well for uranium amd nuclear industry
One virtually certain outcome of the environmental disaster currently blackening the Gulf of Mexico is that federal regulators will take a harder line on enforcement of environmental regulations. Uranium miners are likely to be particularly hard hit because there isn’t a person in the US who doesn’t fear the consequences of radiation exposure…….Playing fast and loose with the environment is no longer a winning strategy.
Uranium Miners Get Some Good News and Some Bad 24/7 Wall St., Paul Ausick, June 1, 2010 “....The first installment of the investment will help USEC to continue its deployment of its American Centrifuge Plant which produces enriched uranium for use in nuclear power generation. The cash will also help support USEC’s $2 billion loan guarantee application with the US Department of Energy. The not-so-good news for uranium companies was delivered Continue reading
Nuclear Non-Proliferation not solved, nor is Nuclear Waste
Christina Macpherson's websites & blogs
As the May Nuclear Non Proliferation conference ends, the nuclear industry and President Obama continue to use this story as a selling point for the “peaceful” nuclear industry. And for June, perhaps the critical issue 
is – how to convince the world that nuclear wastes are OK, that this problem is solved, – when it’s not!
Other selling points are emerging now – perhaps a sign of the desperation of the industry?
There’s a push to use a nuclear bomb as a cure for the oil spill – based on Russian experience – for goodness’ sake! Who in their right mind would trust the Russian history of things nuclear?
Then there’s the push for little reactors, thorium reactors, instead of uranium-fuelled reactors. Anything to look as though the nuclear industry is forging on. But it’s not – except for nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile, despite all the propaganda, and lack of real government incentives, renewable energy technologies are forging on.
The nuclear industry in decline
Ockham’s Razor – 30 May 2010 – Nuclear energy: a panacea for climate change?
Nuclear energy: a panacea for climate change?. ABC Radio National, Ockham’s Razor, Dr Adam Lucas – 30 May 2010 “………..What is the status of nuclear energy in the world at the moment? And do the arguments of its proponents stand up to scrutiny? Continue reading
Birth defects from depleted uranium bring lawsuit
Atomic radiation has increased the number of babies born with defects in the southern provinces of Iraq.
Fallujah babies born with birth defects as a result of Depleted Uranium WMD contaminated dust. 1 June 2010, Iraq WILL sue US and Britain over depleted uranium bombs FULL story here- http://www.presstv.ir Ministry for Human Rights will file a lawsuit against Britain and the US over their use of depleted uranium bombs in Iraq, an Iraqi minister says. Continue reading
Glut of uranium as prices plummet
Uranium Remains Weak FNArena News – June 01 2010 By Chris Shaw Spot uranium has given up some recent gains, leading industry consultant TradeTech to reduce its indicative spot market price another US25c last week to at US$40.50 per pound. The fall reflects aggressive attempts by sellers to motivate buying interest, which is coming via material being offered at lower prices.
Nuclear giants stockpile fuel while price is cheap Times Online, June 1, 2010 Some of the world’s biggest energy companies are stockpiling the nuclear fuel used to power reactors as they try to capitalise on rock-bottom uranium prices.An oversupply of nuclear fuel on international commodity markets has followed five successive years of rapid growth in uranium ore production in Kazakhstan, which has nearly quadrupled its output since 2004.
Raw uranium prices have tumbled to around $40 per pound — almost one quarter of the levels of $140 in 2007……About one third of the world’s total supply of nuclear fuel comes from Russian nuclear weapons that have been decommissioned as part of a disarmament agreement struck with the United States at the end of the Cold War. Nuclear giants stockpile fuel while price is cheap – Times Online
Leaking and lying – time for Vermont Nuclear Plant to close
Nuclear Power Plant Leaking AGAIN AGAIN – IndyPosted, by Maggie Romuld May 31, 2010 The Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant could close in March 2012 when its current license expires. While that might not be good news for some, it seems fair for a plant that has been plagued with problems for years, and leaked once again over the weekend. And, perhaps more importantly, when you consider that radioactive tritium was found in an underground pipe and plant officials “acknowledged they had misled state regulators and lawmakers regarding whether the plant had underground pipes that carried radioactive substances.”
Short term approach to nuclear wastes masks reality of the problem
as the world’s nuclear military powers are discovering the costs continue after the submarines and power stations have been decommissioned from active service. The equipment and reactors cannot easily or cheaply be dismantled and will remain radioactive for hundreds of years
Nuclear and radioactive waste disposal – by Patrick Boniface – Helium, 30 May 2010, Nuclear waste is dangerously toxic, its environmental impact if released would be devastating, as was witnessed during both the Chernobyl explosion, the American Three Mile Island scare and the Windscale fire of 1957.In these cases radioactive material was released into the atmosphere. With the Windscale fire some 15,000 terabequerels (TBq) of radioactive material (notably Iodine-131) were released (3).
A report compiled by Crick & Linsley in 1983 estimated that 260 people would eventually die from dieases, such as thyroid cancers, related to the release of the material during the fire, (4).
Other aspects that environmentalist’s voice concerns over include the storage of spent nuclear fuels, from commercial nuclear reactors and increasingly from redundant nuclear warships such as submarines.
In particular in the former Soviet Union around the submarine base of Arkangel in Northern Russia there are around sixty nuclear submarines that are rotting away but still with large amounts of nuclear material contained within their hulls.
The Russian economy is unable to afford the costs of de-commissioning these submarines. The cost of decommissioning is between $100-300 million per submarine (5). Continue reading
Oil disaster now, nuclear later?
BP oil spill live feed & oil spill update: people express frustration as Top kill fails Chronicle.com, May, 2010 “…Top Kill has failed to work and BP bosses have no idea as to why it failed. ….. Meanwhile people have started shooting off tough question in the eye of increasing oil leak problem. A disgruntled reader says, “They can’t control OIL. How will they control NUCLEAR ? These are the same energy billionaires that own nuclear power plants / giant CANCER machines. How will they control invisible highly radioactive cancer causing nuclear radiation when a nuclear power plant melts down ? AND DONT !! try to tell us accidents “never happen” You make your billions from us while you destroy us. And Obama just approved 54 billion in loan guarantee’s to build more nuclear power plants ! Why should we pay for the billionaires to build more cancer machines ? And we pay their insurance. Because they are uninsurable the government (with our money)” BP oil spill live feed & oil spill update: people express frustration as Top kill fails : ndChronicle.com
Nuclear wastes, like diamonds, are forever
THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY AND RADIOACTIVE WASTES – our theme for June 2010. “The question whether one generation of men has a right to bind another, seems never to have been started either on this or our side of the water. Yet it is a question of such consequences as not only to merit decision, but place also, among the fundamental principles of every government.” – Thomas Jefferson, September 6, 1789
Half-life is the period of time it takes for a radioisotope atom to degrade to a state having half of its original intensity
As you can see the continued production, use, and dumping of such waste materials as depleted uranium and plutonium, into the world’s air, land, and water leaves a permanent problem for our children, grandchildren. great-grand-children ….
U.S. politicians wake up to nuclear scam, postpone “Emergency Bill” bonus for nukes
HOUSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE POSTPONES CONSIDERATION OF EMERGENCY BILL, $9 BILLION IN NEW REACTOR LOANS, Nuclear Information and Resource Centre, 28 May 2010, About 3 pm yesterday, the House Appropriations Committee suddenly postponed its scheduled 5 pm meeting to consider the emergency supplemental funding bill, which right now includes a provision that would allow $9 Billion in new taxpayer loans for nuclear reactor construction.
The meeting has not yet been rescheduled, but will take place after the Memorial Day recess; most likely the week of June 14.
Many Appropriations Committee members apparently didn’t even realize the nuclear loans are in this bill. And because of the way they are described–as $90 million for nuclear and $90 million for renewables under the byzantine Congressional budgeting procedures–some members may not have understood that translates into $9 Billion in taxpayer loans for new reactors.
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