Relicensing Oyster Creek nuclear plant was a mistake
Relicensing Oyster Creek nuclear plant was a mistake
TriTown News 14 May 09 Paula Gotsch Grandmothers, Mothers and More for Energy Safety
It has been a crisis month for Exelon since federal regulators jumped the gun and relicensed the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in Lacey until 2029.
Failure of a main transformer led to the shutdown of the reactor. That followed the recent discovery of high levels of radioactive tritium contamination at the site.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff have tracked the tritium leak to two burst pipes, a concrete vault and a monitoring well. Concentrations of radioactive tritium are 300 times the allowable levels in four test wells at the site.
This raises alarm about the plant’s aging management program, which was the basis of the relicensing that is supposed to prevent this sort of dangerous mishap.
Despite assurances from Oyster Creek spokespeople that tritium has not traveled off company grounds, it has entered the water table. Water flows, and at Oyster Creek it will eventually empty into Barnegat Bay, where the state announced this week a huge reseeding program of the oyster beds…………………
…………………Tritium leaks at Oyster Creek are a serious issue for the public. Contrary to reassuring words, tritium, though low energy, is highly radioactive and has a half-life of over 12 years. Low-energy beta particles, like those emitted by tritium, can cause considerable harm.
Tritiated water is handled by the body like regular water, becoming part of the cells. It easily crosses the placental barrier, with risk of spontaneous abortion, stillbirth, congenital malformation and childhood diseases.
Exelon’s record for handling tritium leaks in the past at its other nuclear power stations is horrible. At the Braidwood plant in Illinois, tritium leaked from the site for nine years and state officials were not notified until a citizen noticed and tested a pool of water in his backyard. The test came back positive for tritium, and the state of Illinois subsequently sued Exelon.
………………………..Each day Oyster Creek operates, the public is exposed to continuous doses of low-level radiation. Of all nuclear plants nationwide, Oyster Creek’s airborne emissions for strontium 90 are highest, and they are the second highest for airborne strontium 89. The plant also emits the second highest airborne levels of barium 140. All are radioactive.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says these discharges are just a normal part of routine nuclear operation, and are below acceptable levels for public health. This claim is dead wrong.
The Bier VII report issued by the NationalAcademy of Sciences stated there are no safe levels of exposure to continuous levels of low-level radiation. Also, the socalled allowable standards are set for the most robust: a healthy 35-year-old male.
The “allowable” doses do not protect the most vulnerable: women, children, infants and the developing fetus……………………… http://tritown.gmnews.com/news/2009/0514/letters/009.html
Village’s fury over radioactive waste plan
Village’s fury over radioactive waste plan
Whitehaven News By Andrew Clarke
13 May 2009
CONTROVERSIAL proposals to bury radioactive waste in Keekle have met with opposition from councillors. French-owned company Sita UK plans to drill 24 exploratory boreholes at Keekle Head to see if the area is suitable for disposing of very low-level radioactive waste.
However, councillors from Frizington, which neighbours the potential site, have voiced their concerns.
“We have had enough rubbish dumped on us,” said parish council chairman Peter Connolly.
“We unanimously agree that we don’t want the proliferation of any waste, in particular low-level nuclear waste.”
Coun Tim Knowles gave Cumbria County Council’s view to the parish council meeting, held on Monday.
“The council is strongly against the dispersal of nuclear waste that I believe these boreholes relate to
Nuclear is not the answer
Nuclear is not the answer
“………………………………….To forestall the reopening of the BNPP, Greenpeace has brought in Yves Marignac, an international consultant on nuclear and energy issues, who is executive director of WISE-Paris, an organization dedicated to “promoting independent information and well-informed decision-making” regarding the use of nuclear energy for power generation…………………………….A mathematician by training, Marignac says he has been going around the world talking about the French “experience” with nuclear energy because French President Nicholas Sarkozy “has been aggressively promoting the French nuclear industry,” convincing governments in the developing world to invest in nuclear power with the help of French-built machinery and expertise……………………………
France is extraordinarily committed to nuclear power generation, with 50 reactors around the country, and some still under construction. But a report on the French nuclear industry, published by Global Chance, an association that includes among its members several of France’s independent nuclear experts, shows that “France’s nuclear promises are a dangerous illusion … locked into nuclear power in a way that presents an obstacle to the development of renewable energy and energy efficiency measures.”
As Marignac puts it, the French nuclear power industry “hasn’t delivered even against its own set targets.”………….
………..Marignac has many tables and charts to show how power generated by nuclear plants provides only a small percentile of the total energy required by the French people, mainly because so much of this demand is created by reliance on gasoline……………………………
BUT the main drawback to an energy program dependent on nuclear power, says Marignac, is that “it approaches the problem from the wrong end.”
In his view, any long-term solution to cut dependence on fossil fuels must be addressed from the “demand side,” that is, reducing dependence on electricity and fuel by cutting down electricity use. Not only is nuclear power dangerous, expensive and wrought with untold health and security issues, it ultimately will not bring an end to the threat of climate change. As France has shown, even with 50 nuclear power plants, the French remain as dependent on fossil fuels as ever.
Nuclear is not the answer – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos
political risks for uranium mining
Q+A-Eurasia Group on political risks for global mining
REUTERS 11 by Andrew Marshall May 0 9 “……………………………Q – What are the implications of the economic downturn on the expansion of nuclear energy and uranium mining projects?
A – Generally bad news across the board. The absence of new loan guarantees for new reactors in the UK and the U.S. will undermine the growth of the nuclear power sector. Emerging market nuclear programs… will also face funding pressures…………….
Safety threat to planned nuclear power stations
Safety threat to planned nuclear power stations Devastating blow as leaked letter shows regulator could pull plug on proposed UK reactors because of ‘design errors’
THE INDEPENDENT By Geoffrey Lean, 10 May 09
Britain’s plans to build a new generation of nuclear power stations have been thrown into jeopardy by startling official safety fears. The nuclear regulatory body in Finland, where the first of the reactors is being built, has taken the extraordinary step of threatening to halt its construction because it has not been satisfied that key safety systems will work.
STUK, the Finnish government’s Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority, says that “evident errors” have not been corrected more than a year after it raised its concerns and condemns the “lack of professional knowledge” of people working for the firm responsible for its design and construction.
This is an unexpected, and potentially devastating, blow because one of the main selling points of the new European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) has been that its safety systems will work far better than those in current reactors. It is particularly important that they do because, as The Independent on Sunday reported in February, they will produce many times as much radiation that could be rapidly released in the event of an accident…………………………….
Safety threat to planned nuclear power stations – Green Living, Environment – The Independent
Niger’s uranium, poverty and France’s growing wealth
The $1.5 billion new uranium mine in Niger that is expected to yield 5,000 tonnes of uranium a year once opened will follow in the tradition of the existing two Areva-owned mines. Areva currently operates two uranium mines in Niger that have left poverty in place and radiological contamination behind. The new Imouraren mine – that will be the second largest uranium mine in the world – will continue to deliver most of the profits to France (Areva is 90%-owned by the French government.) The Niger government has only a 33% share in the mining operation but historically any domestic profit has in any case been fed back into the richer southern half of the country
Niger’s uranium, poverty and France’s growing wealth AFRIK.COM 5 May 2009, by Konye Obaji Ori, Patrick K. JohnssonNiger to get the world’s 2nd largest uranium mineThe President of Niger, Mr. Mamadou Tandja has sought peace-talks with rebel groups in the country to reach terms of agreement to share the country’s impending rise of Uranium wealth. According to estimates, Niger will become home to the world’s second largest uranium mine by 2012. To benefit from this development, the president has promised amnesty to rebels who will lay down their weapons. But will the mines profit Nigeriens?…………….……….Areva, French nuclear energy giant formerly known as Cogema, is building the mine and will take a majority share in it. France has kept close ties with its former colony for its uranium; a relationship which is vital to France’s nuclear energy program. Areva’s uranium mines have helped in shaping France’s place as the world’s fourth uranium producer and the first producer of nuclear power…………………In 2007, anti-Areva protests rocked the country as thousands of Nigeriens marched on the streets against the presence of the French company, following a nearly 40 year Areva operation in Niger that had yielded little development in the lives of the local people and the country………………..
……………Activists from the local branch of the Greenpeace lobby group claim that the potential pollution from the Uranium mines will bring about the forced displacement of the local people……..
……………the fluctuating price in uranium created by the big consumers in a profit maximization system, has brought repeated instability to Niger’s economy as the world’s fourth biggest producer of uranium.
Abandoned uranium mines pose health risk to New Mexicans
Abandoned uranium mines pose health risk to New Mexicans Study: The New Mexico Independent Increased likelihood of kidney disease and diabetes among people who live close to mines by Marjorie Childress 5 May 09
ALBUQUERQUE — New Mexico legislators are in Washington D.C. this week to press the federal government to help clean up hundreds of abandoned uranium mines that dot the state’s landscape.
The trip comes on the heels of an appropriation of $150,000 included in this year’s state budget to help complete the painstaking work of assessing the extent of the problem………………
…………The abandoned mines are found literally all over the state. But the overwhelming concentration is in the “Grants uranium belt” in western New Mexico. Uranium mining began in earnest on Navajo land in the 1950s and lasted until the late 1980s. This was the “Grants uranium boom,”……………………………
Data on the health impacts of uranium mining on communities is hard to come by. While studies have been done on miners themselves, studies looking at the effects on entire communities have been limited in scope.
Dr. Johnnye Lewis, director of the Community Environmental Health Department in the College of Pharmacy at UNM’s Health Sciences Center, is currently heading up an effort to assess the health impact of uranium mines in 20 chapters of the Eastern Agency of the Navajo Nation…………………….
Lewis’s team has only finished the first stage of the study, but initial findings show an increase in likelihood of kidney disease and diabetes among people who live close to mines, she said.
The findings have to take into account a higher prevalence of these health problems among Navajo and Hispanic populations in general, she said. However, a longterm medical monitoring program conducted in Fernald, Ohio has also shown an increase in kidney disease among people living near and drinking water contaminated by uranium. The initial findings in New Mexico support those results, she added…………………………….
The Mount Taylor Uranium Mine also faces a lot of scrutiny from the Navajo Nation, the Hopi Tribe, and the pueblos of Zuni, Acoma, and Laguna, which consider Mount Taylor a sacred site and pushed for its designation by the state last year as a traditional cultural property, as a direct result of the increased interest in uranium mining.
New Mexico Independent » Abandoned uranium mines pose health risk to New Mexicans
International dialogue on nuclear waste management held in Stockholm
International dialogue on nuclear waste management held in Stockholm People’s Daily Online By Xuefei Chen People’s Daily Online correspondent in Stockholm.
7 May 09 “……………………. Panelists from 8 countries including those from China, the US, Germany and France came to attend the discussions…………………..According to SKB, there is currently 120 thousand tones of high-level nuclear waste in the world. This quantity is increasing at a rate of 7200 tons per year. The largest amounts are in the US: around 50 thousand tons. Europe has about 35 thousand tons while Asia has an equal amount……………………..So far no country has a complete system in place yet for the final disposal of spent nuclear fuel or other high-level waste..
Another contentious issue, another phony nuclear consultation
Issues: Another contentious issue, another phony consultation Nuclear Consultations VUE WEEKLY Ricardo Acuña Why bother? Does anyone in Alberta really believe that “consultations” and “expert panel” reports generated by the provincial government are ever anything more than attempts to whitewash contentious issues and unpopular policies? Yet the government continues to spend millions of dollars on these public relations exercises, and continues to try pass them off as genuine and objective consultations.
The latest supposed information gathering and public consultation effort launched by the government is no different. When Albertans responded loudly and angrily to a proposal from Ontario’s Bruce Power to build up to four nuclear reactors in northern Alberta, the government sought to quell the outcry by assuring us that they would not take a position on nuclear power without first studying the pros and cons in depth and fully consulting the public.
As always, the first step in this process was the appointment of an “expert panel” to produce a “comprehensive and balanced” research report, which would look at the environmental, safety and myriad other issues related to nuclear power generation.Unfortunately, the panel itself was neither comprehensive nor balanced. The panel is chaired by Harvie Andre, a former Conservative MP who remains closely allied with pro-nuclear Conservatives, including Stephen Harper. Also on the panel is John Luxat, who is a past president of the Canadian Nuclear Society, and a current board member of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL). Rounding out the panel are Joseph Doucet, an energy policy professor from the University of Alberta, and Harrie Vredenburg, a prof from the University of Calgary who has done work in the past for energy companies holding a direct stake in Bruce Power.
Missing from the panel were any environmental researchers, any health professionals and generally anyone who might be critical or provide a different perspective to that being presented by the nuclear industry. In fact, when Dr. Helen Caldicott, one of the world’s leading researchers on the health impacts of nuclear energy, was in Alberta recently she offered to meet with Harvie Andre and the entire panel, but her offer was refused by panel chair Andre…………….
The panel’s report heavily downplayed the environmental and health impacts of nuclear energy, focusing instead on nuclear energy as a low-carbon-emission source of electricity. To achieve that claim, the report ignores the full life-cycle emissions of nuclear power, which includes mining and transportation.
There was no mention in the report of peer-reviewed studies from Germany citing higher cancer rates in children living near nuclear plants, nor was there mention of the issue of radioactive emissions from reactors, including tritium. The risk assessment in the report was based on a small 800 megawatt reactor, despite the fact that what is being proposed in Alberta is up to 4000 megawatts of generation. The costs of nuclear generation were also downplayed, focusing only on the direct costs of generation and not including the full life-cycle costs of plants, including construction and decommissioning. These are the costs that have Ontario citizens still paying a premium on their monthly electricity bills to subsidize their nuclear power plants, which have never actually run at anywhere near 100 per cent of capacity…………..
………………… In short, the panel’s research report reads like a public relations document for nuclear power that would make Mr. Burns of The Simpsons proud. The government is now using this report as the foundation for its public consultation exercise…………………
……..Nuclear energy is an issue that demands public discussion, input and dialogue. It is an issue that requires an understanding of all the risks and implications. To tackle this issue by way of a glorified public relations campaign and consultations with predetermined results is an insult to Albertans, and does significant damage to the public interest
Radiation Authority Sees Serious Safety Problems at Olkiluoto,Nuclear Building Site
Radiation Authority Sees Serious Safety Problems at Nuclear Building Site Uutiset 7 May 09
The Finnish Nuclear and Radiation Safety Authority STUK says that the construction of the commercial nuclear reactor in Olkiluoto, which is to be the world’s largest, has not proceeded according to official requirements.
STUK has demanded that the builder of the installation, the French company Areva, correct faults with the automation that guides the reactor……………….. According to STUK, the design of the automation does not meet the basic principles required for nuclear safety, and on this basis STUK does not see any possibilities to approve the automation for installation at Olkiluoto.
State Sues Over Nuclear Waste
State Sues Over Nuclear Waste
3WCASX-TV NEWS Montpelier, Vermont – May 5, 2009
The state of Vermont is suing the federal government over nuclear waste at Vermont Yankee.
Highly-radioactive spent fuel from the reactor is stored at the nuclear plant in Vernon. The safety of spent fuel is governed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but it is not one of the factors the NRC will review as it considers whether to grant Vermont Yankee a license extension. The state wants to change that and is joining a federal lawsuit to force the NRC to consider spent fuel safety in the relicensing process.
State Sues Over Nuclear Waste – WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-
Project to move 15 million tons of radioactive waste begins
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2009/05/02/business/z6edbd99928ffa519882575a6006f16a6.txt
Project to move 15 million tons of radioactive waste begins KSLTV 4 May 09 “…………………..They’re finally moving 16 million tons of radioactive dirt away from the town of Moab.
The radioactive dirt is going into big boxes, the boxes onto rail cars: a project that will cost about $1 billion. “You cannot put a price on the image and reputation of the state,” said Gov. Jon Huntsman. “The fact that 50 years ago, during the height of the Cold War, the decision was to make this dump 3 miles out of town, nobody would have thought twice about it. And today, it seems absolutely ludicrous that ever would have been done.”
Moab has been trying to get rid of it almost ever since the uranium mill that produced it shut down 25 years ago. “It’s sitting in the flood plain of the Colorado River and draining into the river,” explained Bill Hedden, executive director of Grand County Trust.
Nuclear power foes not stilled in N.E.
Nuclear power foes not stilled in N.E.
Boston.com 4 May 09 “………………….A march in Montpelier last week was only the latest reminder of ongoing opposition to Vermont Yankee’s bid to extend its operating license 20 more years.
The Vermont Public Interest Research Group wants the Vermont Yankee plant shut down, and assurances that its owner, Entergy Corp., will pay the full cost of decommissioning it. “There are millions of people that live within a dangerous distance of this facility,” said James Moore, clean energy advocate for the group, known as VPIRG…………………… A cadre of activists who oppose Vermont Yankee have built a statewide coalition to oppose the 20-year renewal of the plant’s current license, which expires in 2012. The issue will be subject to a vote by the Vermont Legislature in the coming year.
At last week’s demonstration, activists marched from Montpelier’s City Hall to the State House to urge lawmakers to back development of clean sources of energy such as wind and solar. The marchers also announced they had gathered 12,000 signatures in support of closing Vermont Yankee……………………. Environmentalists and others remain concerned that there is no national plan for long-term storage of nuclear waste.
Safety issues revealed at nuclear facility
Safety issues revealed at nuclear facility
Contractors used substandard materials
The State 3 May 09 By James Rosen WASHINGTON — Contractors at the Savannah River Site — one of the country’s major nuclear-weapons complexes — repeatedly procured dangerous construction materials and components that failed to meet federal safety standards, according to a recently completed internal government probe.
One of the substandard materials revealed at the Savannah River Site on the South Carolina-Georgia border “could have resulted in a spill of up to 15,000 gallons of high-level radioactive waste,” the inspector general of the U.S. Energy Department found.
The five-month investigation also disclosed the purchase of 9,500 tons of substandard reinforcing steel at the SRS site near Aiken……………………. Many employees are engaged in a huge environmental cleanup effort to mediate decades of toxic nuclear waste production……………………. Some environmentalists and other critics cast the NRC as a weak regulator plagued by cozy relationships with the power utilities that own and operate the civilian nuclear reactors it is charged with licensing and overseeing.
Heads of the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management, in charge of waste cleanup at SRS and other nuclear complexes, didn’t dispute the inspector general’s findings. http://www.thestate.com/local/story/772791.html
Russia To Ring The Arctic With Floating Nuclear Power Stations
GIZMODO
Jack Loftus (information from The Guardian) May 4, 2009
Mr. Polar Bear and his brethren will be sharing real estate with a ring of floating, self-sustained nuclear power stations. It’s all part of Russia’s—and the world’s—ongoing thirst for energy.Environmentalists are understandably outraged over the impact said stations could have on an already endangered area of the globe, and if polar bears could talk, I imagine they’d be outraged too.
Said a rep from Bellona, a Scandinavian environmental watchdog group, “[The plan] is highly risky. The risk of a nuclear accident on a floating power plant is increased. The plants’ potential impact on the fragile Arctic environment through emissions of radioactivity and heat remains a major concern. If there is an accident, it would be impossible to handle.
“Oh, and there’s this fear that Russia will simply dump the radioactive waste into the Arctic Sea anyway, which they’ve done before on several occasions. To date at least 12 nuclear reactors from decommissioned Russian submarines have been dumped, along with more than 5,000 containers of solid and liquid waste.Pretty soon the ocean will be like a 24/7 aurora borealis up there. A wonderful, cancer-causing aurora borealis.
Russia To Ring The Arctic With Floating Nuclear Power Stations – Gizmodo Australia
1 This Month
petition to oppose the rapid increase of space-military industry threatening Jeju Island and the region.
[Petition by April 19th (KST)] Stop the joint military-Hanwha Systems-Jeju Provincial Government Sea Launch!
World Nuclear Power. Reactors 1951-2026, 75 Years of Nuclear Power.
Interactive Map– https://dv.worldnuclearreport.org/
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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