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DOE Plan Reduces Nuclear Arsenal By Up to 40 Percent But Results in Few Savings or Reductions in Size of Weapons Complex | Union of Concerned Scientists
Tue, 07/20/2010 - 11:57"The Obama administration is planning to cut the U.S. nuclear arsenal by as much as 40 percent by 2021, but also wants to spend nearly $175 billion over the next 20 years to build new facilities and maintain and modify thousands of weapons, according to two sections of an administration plan made public today by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) and the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).
The proposal, the “FY 2011 Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan,” which is part of the Department of Energy’s proposed fiscal year 2011 budget, was drafted by DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and presented to members of Congress in May. "
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Alternative nuclear fuel is surprisingly reactive - tech - 13 July 2010 - New Scientist
Tue, 07/20/2010 - 00:10"Uranium nitride, a nuclear fuel that might one day offer a more efficient alternative to the uranium and plutonium oxides now used, has been given a boost by research that has illuminated its reactive properties.
The threat of climate change and uncertain fossil fuel prices have made nuclear power a tempting option for meeting some of the world's future energy needs. The nuclear industry today uses oxides of uranium and plutonium, but some chemists think they could one day be replaced with uranium nitrides."
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Md. nuclear reactor raises foreign ownership concerns | Washington Examiner
Tue, 07/20/2010 - 00:07"A proposed nuclear reactor in Maryland that is close to winning a billion-dollar federal loan guarantee would produce twice the energy of the state's two existing reactors combined.
But the project at Calvert Cliffs faces many hurdles.
Nuclear energy opponents are challenging the reactor's licensing qualifications with charges that the amount of foreign ownership violates the Atomic Energy Act -- which bars nuclear projects with "foreign ownership, control or domination."
The Calvert Cliffs reactor would be built by UniStar Nuclear Energy -- a joint venture between Maryland's Constellation Energy Group and French company Electricite de France. Paris-based Areva would provide the reactor technology.
Electricite de France and Areva are 85 percent owned by the French government."
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Both proponents, opponents of uranium mining will voice opinions - The Denver Post
Tue, 07/20/2010 - 00:06"Groups on either side of proposed uranium-mining operations in Colorado this week will present their ideas about how companies should conduct themselves if they use water and chemicals to extract the ore.
The Colorado Mined Land Reclamation Board hearings begin this morning and are likely to last through Wednesday. The board will issue formal rules on in-situ mining in August.
The in-situ process injects water and chemicals to free the uranium, pumps out the fluid and collects the ore.
The state has been gathering information on the proposed rules since last year. The rule-making process is required under a law signed by Gov. Bill Ritter in 2008 that regulates pollution and reclamation activity for in-situ uranium mines in Colorado."
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Domenici fireworks liven up nuclear waste hearing - Carlsbad Current-Argus
Tue, 07/20/2010 - 00:01"At first glance, the agenda for last week's Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future looked pretty mundane.
Who knew that former Sen. Pete Domenici - fresh from cataract surgery and sporting dark sunglasses - would bring the fireworks. The New Mexico Republican lobbed plenty of them at Ron Curry, New Mexico's secretary of environment, during a hearing to examine the Waste Isolation Pilot Project.
First, a little background. The commission, appointed by President Obama earlier this year, met in Washington last Wednesday to consider best practices for disposing of high-level nuclear waste. Among those invited to testify were Curry
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Relationship between Carlsbad
Mon, 07/19/2010 - 23:49"How can the United States establish one or more disposal sites for high level nuclear waste in a way that is technically, politically and socially acceptable?
State Rep. John Heaton, D-Carlsbad, told a federal blue-ribbon panel last week that the relationship between Carlsbad and the U.S. Department of Energy's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) is the road map showing how to achieve that goal.
Heaton, along with Lokesh Chaturvedi, former deputy director of the Environmental Evaluation Group, and Don Hancock, from the Southwest Research Center, were in Washington last week to present testimony before the Disposal Subcommittee of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future. The topic was WIPP, a low-level nuclear waste repository located about 27 miles east of Carlsbad, and why it has achieved great success."
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AllGov - News - Plutonium Cleanup in Washington State Could Take Millennia
Mon, 07/19/2010 - 23:39"t’s not out of the question that the United States might not be around long enough to see the complete cleanup of its Cold War legacy in Washington State.
Not far from the banks of the Columbia River resides the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, once the most important manufacturer of plutonium for America’s nuclear arsenal. Today, the 560-square-mile decommissioned facility is teeming with plutonium, one of the most toxic substances on earth (minute particles of it can cause cancer), with a half-life of 24,000 years.
The U.S. Department of Energy estimated back in the mid-1990s that Hanford had more than 111,000 kilograms of plutonium to dispose of. A former department official, Robert Alvarez, recently went over old Energy reports and determined that the original math was way off. It turns out that Hanford has three times more plutonium than was calculated in 1996."
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Lithuanian premier hopeful of cancellation of Belarusian nuclear power project | БЕЛОРУССКИЕ НОВОСТИ
Mon, 07/19/2010 - 23:34"Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius expressed hope that Minsk would drop its plans to build a nuclear power plant close to the Baltic country's border, BelaPAN reports.
He said that Vilnius could encourage Minsk to change its mind on the project by offering cooperation in the sphere of nuclear energy, according to Lithuania's National Radio and Television. "
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The Annotated ‘Atomic’ Anne Lauvergeon | Greenpeace International
Mon, 07/19/2010 - 22:58"The formidable Anne Lauvergeon, the CEO of French nuclear giant AREVA, has been doing interviews. She’s always worth paying attention to, as much for what she doesn’t say as what she does.
Take this for example, from her interview with the UK’s Financial Times…
What is the smartest business idea you have ever had?
Setting up Areva and creating the ‘CO2-free’ strategy.
Really? Considering Anne’s ‘CO2-free strategy’ (and it’s proper that the term is in quotation marks because AREVA’s ‘CO2-free strategy’ is anything but) is currently eating the company’s profits thanks to the botched construction of the Olkiluoto-3 EPR reactor in Finland, we’re not sure we’d describe it as the ‘smartest’ business idea.
How about…
What do you like most about your job?"
Categories: Nuke News
Tritium remains high in some Oyster Creek wells | EnviroGuy
Mon, 07/19/2010 - 22:54" Levels of radioactive tritium remain high in a number of monitoring wells at the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in Lacey, according to new state data.
The Oyster Creek nuclear plant looms near its discharge canal in Lacey (file photo by Peter Ackerman)
Through late April, the highest tritium level – nearly 50 times government limits – was in a well in the Cohansey aquifer beneath the plant. The Cohansey is used for drinking water beyond Oyster Creek property lines.
A different well in the shallower Cape May aquifer beneath Oyster Creek had a tritium level that was about 45 times above government limits. The state Department of Environmental Protection has posted a map of well locations." Annotated link http://www.diigo.com/bookmark/http://blogs.app.com/enviroguy/2010/07/12/tritium-remains-high-in-some-oyster-creek-wells
Categories: Nuke News
Courthouse News Service
Mon, 07/19/2010 - 22:51"A federal class action claims that leaks from two nuclear processing plants poisoned dozens of people in the Kiskiminetas Valley and killed 10 of them. More than 35 named plaintiffs claim that Babcock
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Portsmouth Daily Times - A Year After Announcement Plans For Nuclear Plant At Piketon Occupied By Environmental And Regulatory Concerns
Mon, 07/19/2010 - 02:04"The long and drawn-out process of gathering environmental and regulatory information for a building permit occupy plans for a nuclear power plant that could be in the future at the site of the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant at Piketon.
The plant shut down in 2001 after nearly 50 years of turning out weapons-grade uranium. The loss of 900 jobs was felt throughout the southern Ohio communities surrounding the plant.
It’s been just over a year now since officials from four of the nation’s biggest energy companies came together and announced formation of an alliance to pursue the development of America’s first clean energy park at the site, owned by the U.S. Department of Energy. "
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Map of the Week
Mon, 07/12/2010 - 15:24"Hat tip to the Map Room: a global map video of 2,053 nuclear explosions from the American desert tests in 1945 ('I am become death, the destroyer of worlds') to 1998. It is supposed to run at a rate of one second a month, but the 1945 segment is slowed down for some reason. As Jonathan Crowe points out, the pace picks up from the late "
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Jordan Directions Sharaf: Nuclear energy a double-edged sword
Mon, 07/12/2010 - 15:23"Nuclear energy is a double-edged sword that should be regulated and put under efficient controls, said Jamal Sharaf Chairman of the Jordan Nuclear Regulatory Commission JNRC.
He told participants in a nuclear safety course held in cooperation with the Arab Atomic Energy Agency, that safety is the mainstay of radiation protection and control.
Sharaf said that the JNRC was ready to receive Arab nuclear staff to be trained on nuclear safety and radiation control, urging broader Arab cooperation in this regard."
Categories: Nuke News
Students slime nuclear scumbags | Green Left Weekly
Mon, 07/12/2010 - 15:22"About 250 people attended the Students of Sustainability (SoS) conference at Flinders University in Adelaide over July 4-8. A highlight of the conference was the attendance of the Indegenous Solidarity Rides bus full of passengers on their way from Newcastle to the convergence at Alice Springs.
They presented workshops on the NT intervention, its effects on Aboriginal communities and the struggle to repeal the racist laws.
Another strong feature of the conference was the many workshops given by members of Aboriginal communities in South Australia about the disastrous effects the mining and uranium industries were having on their land and water."
Categories: Nuke News
Tritium detected at Pilgrim Station Nuclear plant - Plymouth, MA - Wicked Local Plymouth
Mon, 07/12/2010 - 15:21"Elevated levels of the radioactive isotope tritium have been detected in one of the new groundwater monitoring wells at Pilgrim Station Nuclear Power Plant.
The release, issued Thursday by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission of test results taken from a sample of one of the 12 monitoring wells by Pilgrim staff June 21, states that the level falls within federal drinking water limits and does not require public notification but the information is being released because it’s an issue of public interest.
Six of the 12 monitoring wells were added in May. The monitoring well where the tritium was detected at 11,072 picocuries per liter is located near the condensate storage tank that stores water for use in the nuclear reactor. The Environmental Protection Agency’s safe drinking water limit for tritium is 20,000 picocuries per liter."
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Nuclear growth puts region at risk | delmarvanow.com | The Daily Times
Mon, 07/12/2010 - 15:18"Port Penn resident Julie L. Harrington is surrounded by nuclear reactors.
So is Dae Y. Kwak in Hockessin and Carl Cook in Middletown.
In fact, no region in America has so many people living within the overlapping, 50-mile planning areas of so many nuclear power reactors as northern Delaware and nearby areas in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland, according to a review of nuclear sites and Census Bureau statistics by The News Journal."
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White Plume: Keep out! Radioactive sacrifice area | Indian Country Today | Archive
Mon, 07/12/2010 - 15:17"Powertech USA Inc. is embarking on a path of destruction from which there is no return. The company plans to start in situ leach mining in South Dakota’s Custer and Fall River counties that will puncture through four aquifers on the Great Plains and endanger a fragile geologic system.
As a result of ISL mining planned at the Dewey-Burdock site – 12 miles northwest of Edgemont – we on the Plains must face the threat of groundwater contamination for generations, while the corporate leaders reside far away in their homelands of Canada and France.
This new corporation has no history of accountability in adhering to environmental laws or in the clean-up of a mined-out area. There are thousands of reports by mining corporations that document problems trying to contain uranium-laden water at mine sites, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Web site."
Categories: Nuke News
Plutonium levels triple previous estimate - UPI.com
Mon, 07/12/2010 - 15:16"The amount of plutonium buried at a U.S. nuclear reservation in Washington state is almost triple what the government had previously reported, officials say.
The New York Times Sunday reported the discovery of the higher plutonium levels at the 560-square-mile Hanford Nuclear Reservation will likely make long-term cleanup a greater challenge than previously thought.
The plutonium poses no immediate radiation danger because of "institutional controls" such as guards, weapons and gates, the Times said. "
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News
Mon, 07/12/2010 - 15:14"Anti-nuclear protesters have reacted angrily to a report which suggested the burial of nuclear waste is the only safe method of disposal.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority wants communities to volunteer to host underground repositories in return for investment in community projects.
Copeland council, Allerdale council, Cumbria County Council and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority are discussing the possibility of having a geological waste facility, which would provide long-term storage for highly-active nuclear waste from across the UK, in Copeland or Allerdale.
The authorities have argued that, due to the existing economic and environmental impacts on the region, it is vital west Cumbria is involved in the process that decides what happens. But members of Radiation Free Lakeland, an activist group run by Marianne Birkby, have branded a potential site “the worst possible option” for the region."
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