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Nuclear waste cargo sailing the Barents Sea –

Nuclear waste cargo sailing the Barents Sea barents Observer 19 June 09

40 year old rusty spent nuclear fuel containers from Russia’s abounded submarine base Gremikha were shipped to Murmansk this week.

The voyage from Gremikha to Murmansk normally takes one day. This is the same route as the Russian retired submarine K-159 took when it sank northeast of the inlet to the Kola Bay in August 2003. The vessel which is sailing with the highly radioactive spent fuel this week is the 35 year old Serebryanka.

The rusty spent nuclear fuel containers have been stored outdoor at Gremikha for 40 years, posing a grave radiation threat. They contain uranium fuel from some of the Soviet Union’s first nuclear powered submarines, which at that time were based at Gremikha. The submarines reloaded their deadly radioactive spent fuel to the onshore open-air storage site.

Nuclear waste cargo sailing the Barents Sea – BarentsObserver

June 20, 2009 Posted by | Russia, wastes | , , , , | Leave a comment

A potential nuclear mess

A potential nuclear mess LAS VEGAS SUN 19 June 09 Many companies are not setting aside enough money for closing of nuclear plants The companies that own most of the nation’s aging nuclear reactors are not putting aside an adequate amount of money to properly close them when the time comes, an Associated Press review of financial records found……………………..

Instead of planning for closure, plant owners are delaying the inevitable, with the help of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NRC has given 19 plants permission to mothball their reactors for as many as 60 years before closing them. The commission has also granted 20-year license extensions for 54 reactors, more than half of the nation’s plants, which could mean closure would come in 80 years.

The hope, apparently, is that the plant owners will be able to afford closure several decades down the road, and that is dangerous. The plants could become a safety and security risk if the owners don’t have the money to properly maintain and close them. Nuclear power critics wonder whether the companies that plan to mothball their plants will even be around in 60 years.

“Our concern is that they’ll just walk away from it,” said Jim Riccio of Greenpeace. “It’s like a sitting time bomb. The notion that you can just walk away from these sites and everything will be hunky-dory is just not true.”

Supporters of nuclear power like to portray it as a clean, environmentally friendly source of power, but that is not true. Nuclear power has created tremendous environmental and health hazards and the contamination the plants have created will be around, in some cases, for tens of thousands of years. These issues must be adequately addressed, yet the NRC appears to be letting the nuclear plant operators push off the problems to the next generation.

A potential nuclear mess – Las Vegas Sun

June 20, 2009 Posted by | USA, wastes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

With nuclear waste piling up, FPL seeks Turkey Point rezoning

With nuclear waste piling up, FPL seeks Turkey Point rezoning Miami Herald 19 June 09 Florida Power & Light is seeking a zoning change at Turkey Point that most environmentalists know nothing about.

BY JOHN DORSCHNER

jdorschner@MiamiHerald.com

After more than two million pounds of nuclear waste has piled up in South Dade over 35 years, Florida Power & Light is quietly seeking a zoning change to allow six acres of its Turkey Point site to be used for new above-ground storage casks.

Environmentalists have known for a long time FPL planned to use casks but they knew little, if anything, about the need for a zoning change, which generally allows for public discussion that could lead to modifications of the utility’s plans……………………………….

Environmentalists emphatically want a hearing. ”There are very important issues here,” said Reynolds. “Because this site is so close to the water, we’re concerned about rising water levels with global warming and storm surges from hurricanes.”

LAST CHANCE

A county hearing may be the environmentalists’ last chance to stop expansion of the storage area. Last month, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection gave its approval for the site change.

For more than 30 years, FPL has stored the Turkey Point waste in stainless steel-lined covered concrete pools. Those pools will be filled in the next two years, Veenstra wrote in an e-mail, and FPL plans to switch to dry-cask storage in silo-shaped structures six feet wide and 16 feet tall, consisting of ”stainless steel containers secured inside concrete modules,” two to four feet thick………………………………..The environmentalists’ main concern is protecting the water. ”You’re asking for all kinds of trouble with water intrusion,” said Oncavage of the Sierra Club. “You could have hurricanes on top of global warming — how high do you have to have the casks raised so they’d be safe from storm surge?”

With nuclear waste piling up, FPL seeks Turkey Point rezoning – Miami-Dade – MiamiHerald.com

June 19, 2009 Posted by | USA, wastes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

SC jobseekers line up to clean nuke waste

SC jobseekers line up to clean nuke waste google News By MEG KINNARD 19 June 09  “…………………..The jobs, most of them cleaning up the nuclear waste, are only temporary, funded through September 2011 as part of the federal stimulus package…………………….The new employees will be hired by the end of this summer and will focus on closing down several unused facilities, cleaning up about 600 acres of contaminated soil and disposing of or storing about waste created by processing spent nuclear fuel. Workers will also be tasked with closing several old reactors and evaporating millions of gallons of contaminated water.

June 19, 2009 Posted by | USA, wastes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A holy terror

A holy terror Catholic archbishops speak out against nuclear reactors VICTORIA HANDYSIDES METRO NEWS 18 June 09 EDMONTON Toxic waste, terrorist threats and depleted natural resources could be part of Alberta’s future if nuclear reactors are erected in the province, a reality of which citizens are largely unaware, Alberta’s Catholic archbishops said yesterday. Continue reading →

June 19, 2009 Posted by | Canada, Religion and ethics | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Funds to shut nuclear plants fall short

Funds to shut nuclear plants fall short B y DAVE GRAM and FRANK BASS – Google News 17 June 09  VERNON, Vt. (AP) — The companies that own almost half the nation’s nuclear reactors are not setting aside enough money to dismantle them, and many may sit idle for decades and pose safety and security risks as a result, an Associated Press investigation has found……………………………..

At 19 nuclear plants, owners have won approval to idle reactors for as long as 60 years, presumably enough time to allow investments to recover and eventually pay for dismantling the plants and removing radioactive material.

But mothballing reactors or shutting them down inadequately could pose dangerous health, environmental or security problems. In the worst cases, generally considered unlikely, risks include radioactive waste leaking from idled plants into groundwater, airborne releases or a terrorist attack.

During the past two years, estimates of dismantling costs have soared by more than $4.6 billion because rising energy and labor costs, while the investment funds that are supposed to pay for shutting plants down have lost $4.4 billion in the battered stock market…………………………..some analysts worry the utility companies that own nuclear plants might not even exist in six decades.”Our concern is that they’ll just walk away from it,” said Jim Riccio, a Greenpeace nuclear policy analyst. “It’s like a sitting time bomb………………………………….Plant operators appear to benefit from NRC rules that don’t require them to set aside money to store old nuclear fuel, demolish buildings, or return the plant sites to pristine states. Although some states require a full site restoration, the federal government does not.

The Associated Press: AP IMPACT: Funds to shut nuclear plants fall short

June 17, 2009 Posted by | business and costs, USA | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Recycled radiation shows up at home | The Journal Gazette, Fort Wayne, Ind.

Recycled radiation shows up at homeLow levels revealed in consumer goods

journalgazette.net 7 june 09 Isaac Wolf
Scripps Howard News Service

Thousands of everyday products and materials containing radioactive metals are surfacing across the United States and around the world.

Cheese graters, reclining chairs, women’s handbags and tableware manufactured with contaminated metals have been identified, some after having been in circulation for as long as a decade. So have fencing wire and fence posts, shovel blades, elevator buttons and steel used in construction………………………One of the most conservative estimates comes from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which put the number of radioactively contaminated metal objects unaccounted for in the United States in 2005 at 500,000. Others suggest the amount is far higher. The most recent NRC estimate – made a decade ago – is 20 million pounds of contaminated waste.

Recycled radiation shows up at home | The Journal Gazette, Fort Wayne, Ind.

June 8, 2009 Posted by | USA, wastes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Nuclear power? Great! Nuclear waste? Wait! | Canada | News | Toronto Sun

Nuclear power? Great! Nuclear waste? Wait! By JONATHAN JENKINS, QUEEN’S PARK BUREAUL Toronto Sun : 26th May 2009,

Cabinet minister Rick Bartolucci is 100% for his government’s plans to build new nuclear reactors and 100% against storing their waste in his constituency.

“I don’t see a conflict in regard to my government’s direction at all,” Bartolucci, the minister for community safety and corrections, said yesterday.

Nuclear power? Great! Nuclear waste? Wait! | Canada | News | Toronto Sun

May 29, 2009 Posted by | Canada, politics | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Fears over safety after nuclear waste leaks into Clyde revealed

Click on thumbnail to view image

News Scotsman.com 28 April 2009

By David Maddox

CONCERNS have been raised about safety at Faslane after it was revealed nuclear waste has leaked into the Clyde.

The Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa) has said that if Faslane was a civilian installation it would consider closing it down.

The worst breaches included leaks of radioactive coolants from nuclear subs in 2004, 2007 and 2008, according to documents acquired under freedom of information requests by Channel 4………. http://news.scotsman.com/scotland/Fears-over-safety-after-nuclear.5210867.jp

April 28, 2009 Posted by | safety, UK | , , , , | Leave a comment

Resolve nuclear waste site first

Resolve nuclear waste site first post-Bulletin Jay Youmans 20 April 09

It makes no sense to lift the legal moratorium or build new nuclear power plants in Minnesota until the nuclear industry finds a solution for the radioactive waste produced at nuclear plants.

It makes no sense to pass the costs of electrical production and use on to future generations by leaving them nuclear waste that has to be stored and is dangerous for longer than recorded human history.

How can we justify passing this cost and legacy onto our children?

……………………..Yucca is located in an active earthquake zone with more than 30 known faults in the area (a 5.6 earthquake in 1992 did $100 million damage to the site). Since 1976, there have been 621 seismic events of magnitude greater than 2.5 within a 50-mile radius of Yucca Mountain. Today there is more civilian and military nuclear waste than the Yucca depository’s 70,000 metric ton capacity.

Postbulletin.com: Rochester, MN

April 22, 2009 Posted by | USA, wastes | , , , | Leave a comment

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