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The Day - Nuke waste problem | News from southeastern Connecticut
It is great to read that several environmental groups are getting on board with the idea that more nuclear power construction has to be part of the mix if the nation is going to meet future energy needs while lowering greenhouse gas emissions.
This newspaper is on record as supporting a revival of nuclear power, noting there is room for more reactors at Millstone Power Station in Waterford.
An Environmental Protection Agency analysis of the Waxman-Markey energy bill passed in the House shows nuclear energy generation more than doubling by 2050, if it becomes law. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is reviewing 22 nuclear-plant applications.
Radioactive waste contaminating water supply: report
Controlled Ottawa River leak OK, AECL says
Nuclear facilities and power plants are contaminating Canadian food and water with radioactive waste that increases risks of cancer and birth defects, says a new report to be released today.
The report, Tritium on Tap, produced by the Sierra Club of Canada, warned that radioactive emissions from various nuclear plants across the country have more than doubled over the past decade. The figures were based on statistics compiled by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, which measured pollution coming from the plants.
Radioactive waste contaminating Canadian water supply: Report
Nuclear facilities and power plants are contaminating local Canadian food and water with radioactive waste that increases risks of cancer and birth defects, says a new report to be released on Friday.
The report, Tritium on Tap, produced by the Sierra Club of Canada, warned that radioactive emissions from various nuclear plants across the country have more than doubled over the past decade. The figures were based on statistics compiled by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission which measured pollution coming from the plants.
Although Canadian guidelines have suggested that the existing levels of tritium in the water are safe, the report cites recent peer-reviewed studies, including a recent review by the UK’s Committee Examining Radiation Risks of Internal Emitters, that suggest the opposite.
Nearly dead and buried - Las Vegas Sun
Energy Department still needs to abandon license application
Nevada has been fighting for more than 20 years efforts by the federal government to build a dump for the nation’s high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, a mere 90 miles northwest of the heavily populated Las Vegas Valley. Despite the clout of the nuclear power industry, things have begun to go Nevada’s way. Thanks to the efforts of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and the actions of the Obama administration, funding for the ill-conceived project is drying up.
The only major hurdle that remains is to have the Energy Department withdraw its license application before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build a permanent Yucca dump. It is only after that application is abandoned for good that Nevadans can truly rejoice.
Nuclear waste bill passes house, threatens Energy Solutions' controversial plans for Utah
t's a hot issue in Utah, and its final outcome may be decided in Washington. On Thursday, the House of Representatives voted a bill through that would block any import of foreign nuclear waste into the United States. Support for the measure was largely by Democrats, with only four House Republicans voting "yea."
The bill will likely face a more difficult battle in the Senate. If passed, it would thwart waste treatment company Energy Solutions' plans to import 20,000 tons of Italian nuclear waste and bury some of it (about 1600 tons, according to the company) in Utah's soil.
Gordon foreign waste ban to get committee vote on The Murfreesboro Post
Tomorrow (Nov. 19), the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee will consider Congressman Bart Gordon’s bill concerning foreign radioactive waste. Gordon’s bipartisan legislation, the Radioactive Import Deterrence (RID) Act, H.R. 515, would prevent foreign-generated radioactive waste from being processed in Tennessee and disposed in the U.S.
The full committee markup of the RID Act will begin at 8:30 a.m. CST. A live webcast can be viewed on the E&C’s website when the hearing begins http://energycommerce.house.gov/.
Tomorrow’s markup comes after the E&C’s Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment held a legislative hearing on October 16 and passed the RID Act on November 3.
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Background:
Tooele Transcript Bulletin - Foreign nuclear waste has no place in America
The hazardous waste industry, and nuclear waste in particular, have never been simple issues within Tooele County. While some along the Wasatch Front would like to see this genie put back into the bottle, most local residents have long realized our hazardous waste corridor is here to stay — requiring us to take a more pragmatic and nuanced view of the industry.
Hazardous waste has created jobs for county residents. It has also contributed millions of dollars to county government coffers in the form of mitigation fees — funds that were used to construct Deseret Peak Complex. Although that contribution has declined drastically in recent years, it remains an important revenue source within county budgets.
Seattle crowd opposes Hanford cleanup delays
A tentative agreement to stretch out the timetable to convert the Hanford nuclear reservation's worst radioactive wastes into more benign glass drew little support at a Seattle meeting last Thursday.
If adopted, the agreement would delay start-up of a massive waste-glassification complex from 2011 to 2019. And completion of the glassification would shift from 2028 to 2047.
The agreement -- actually a negotiated settlement to a state lawsuit against the federal Department of Energy -- also gives a federal judge the power to enforce the new schedule if the feds balk at it in the future.
BBC NEWS | UK | England | Cumbria | Nuclear waste plan put to public
People in west Cumbria have the chance to find out more about government plans to store nuclear waste underground.
The West Cumbria Managing Radioactive Waste Safely (MRWS) Partnership is sending leaflets to all homes in the Allerdale and Copeland council areas.
There will also be a series of public meetings over the next three months.
Waste fees subsidizing general state operations - Salt Lake Tribune
Industry » Legislature should close loophole that pumps waste fees into general fund, group says.
It's been a long-standing principle in Utah to have hazardous waste operators cover the cost of state oversight. But with the economic slump and waste fees lagging, the self-supporting fund for hazardous waste regulation is short some $2.3 million.
An industry group has been looking since spring for a way to stanch the flow, and its focus has landed on the Utah Legislature. Turns out lawmakers have been reaching into the fund, called the Environmental Quality Restricted Account, for millions to cover other programs, some unrelated to the environment.
"The bottom line for us," said Bill Sinclair, deputy director of the Utah Department of Environmental Quality, "is, if we can't meet our revenue needs through fees, there will be consequences."
Nuclear waste moved off the agenda (environmentalresearchweb blog) - environmentalresearchweb
The governments new draft National Policy Statement on nuclear power, indicating which issues the new Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) should take on board, and which it can ignore, contains this remarkable statement:
“The Government is satisfied that effective arrangements will exist to manage and dispose of the waste that will be produced from new nuclear power stations. As a result the IPC need not consider this question.” The draft Statement goes on to say that ‘Geological disposal will be preceded by safe and secure interim storage’.
So it seems, the waste issue is all in hand and we needn’t bother too much about it, or any problems with the much more active spent fuel that the new reactors’ high fuel ‘burn up’ approach will create. Despite the fact that the highly active spent fuel is to be kept on site at the plant for perhaps several decades, that is evidently not something IPC will have to consider in its assessment of whether the proposed plants can go ahead. Instead the IPC will just focus on any conventional local planning and environmental impact issues that may emerge in relation to the 10 new nuclear plants that the government has now backed.
Nuclear disposal put in doubt by recovered Swedish galleon | Environment | guardian.co.uk
The plan to use copper for sealing nuclear waste underground has being thrown into disarray by corrosion in artefacts from the Vasa
Plans for nuclear waste disposal could be thrown into confusion tomorrow at a summit because of new evidence of corrosion in materials traditionally used for burial procedures.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) says it will keep careful watch on a meeting organised by the Swedish National Council for Nuclear Waste, which will look at potential problems with copper, designated for an important role in sealing radioactive waste underground.
S.C. waste coming to Oak Ridge » Knoxville News Sentinel
The U.S. Department of Energy's Savannah River nuclear facility in South Carolina is using a wealth of Recovery Act funding to accelerate cleanup activities and reduce its Cold War stockpile of radioactive waste.
Some of that waste, containing radioactive tritium and other contaminants, is coming to Oak Ridge for treatment and packaging before being shipped west to Nevada or Utah for disposal. Two local facilities owned by Perma-Fix Environmental Services Inc. - Diversified Scientific Services Inc. near Kingston and Materials & Energy Corp. in Oak Ridge - have been hired to treat the so-called mixed waste, which contains both radioactive elements and hazardous chemicals.
Depleted uranium - Salt Lake Tribune
DU: Depleted uranium, a unique waste that will become more and more radioactive until, roughly, the year 1002009. The acronym also gives sound guidance for where depleted uranium should be buried: deep underground.
But a lack of deep, underground storage space and a growing need to find permanent storage for 1.4 million tons of DU is "clearly driving" federal regulators to erroneously steer the materials to shallow burial sites like EnergySolutions' low-level radioactive waste disposal facility in Utah.
That's the contention of Kansas State University Geologist Charles G. Oviatt and a pair of Brigham Young University scientists, geologist Steve Nelson and climatologist Summer Rupper. In a letter to the NRC, which is gathering input in the early stages of a three-year review of DU disposal issues, they cite a "programmatic failure" by the agency to properly plan for deep disposal of depleted uranium.
northumberlandnews | Low-level radioactive waste survey in Port Hope gets underway
- The annual telephone survey to gauge public attitudes about the community's low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) clean-up is set to kick-off once again in Port Hope.
The Port Hope Area Initiative's (PHAI) eighth annual public attitude survey will get underway in mid-November, said Sue Stickley, communications officer. Every year, the PHAI surveys local residents to get feedback on issues related to the clean-up and safe long-term management of historic low-level radioactive waste in the community. As in past years, individual survey responses are absolutely confidential, but the overall results will be made public.
"If you receive a phone call and are invited to take part in the survey, please take a few moments to answer the interviewer's questions," said Ms. Stickley.
Radiation board requires safety report on depleted uranium - Salt Lake Tribune
EnergySolutions won't be able to bring more depleted uranium to Utah until the company proves the waste can be safely disposed in Tooele County for the long run.
That's what the Utah Radiation Control Board decided Tuesday by sticking to principles it adopted last month, even after the company threatened legal action.
The limit on DU, as depleted uranium is often called, does not go into effect for several months, and that leaves open a window for EnergySolutions to bring up to 15,000 drums of it from a government cleanup in South Carolina. But board members said their action Tuesday actually gets the safeguard in place sooner than originally expected.
EnergySolutions sent its attorney to the board meeting Tuesday to warn of potential legal consequences if the board did not backtrack on actions taken at its October meeting.
Life after Yucca Mountain - Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2009 | 2:06 a.m. - Las Vegas Sun
Report: Energy Department on verge of abandoning nuke dump application
We have cheered the Obama administration’s decision to eventually shutter the ill-conceived Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project by starving it of federal funding. Nonetheless, our optimism has been tempered because the Energy Department still has a pending license application before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build a permanent dump for the nation’s high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
What we eagerly await is the day when the Energy Department abandons the application so that the idea of forcing a potentially deadly nuke waste dump, on a state that does not want it, is buried for good.
Aiken-area group wants nuclear waste study - Local / Metro - TheState.com
Aiken-area business leaders say the Savannah River Site may become the nation's high-level nuclear waste dumping ground if the federal government drops plans for a disposal site in Nevada.
But the SRS Community Reuse Organization says shelving the Yucca Mountain site is a bad idea, and it says the nation now needs to figure out how to dispose of high-level nuclear waste. The group's mission supports job creation in the five counties around SRS, a 300-square mile nuclear weapons site.
Aiken, Augusta and surrounding communities could suffer a bad image if the waste is left at SRS, making it harder to recruit industry, the reuse organization said in a statement Monday. It is calling for a special blue-ribbon panel to study options for disposing of waste.
Company to present regulators some options -- and a warning - Salt Lake Tribune
EnergySolutions » Lawyer expected to outline "acceptable," unacceptable" paths
EnergySolutions Inc. says state regulators are tinkering too much with the depleted uranium provisions of its operating license, and the nuclear waste company is sending its lawyer Tuesday, along with a politely worded threat to sue, to the Radiation Control Board.
Company spokesman Mark Walker said EnergySolutions has no comment in advance of the discussion. But the company's eight-page outline of the radiation board's legal options range from what it considers "preferred" to "unacceptable."
"To avoid litigation of this issue," EnergySolutions says, the board must not impose a moratorium or follow through with the pending license change, says the prepared presentation of Craig D. Galli, an attorney for the company. The statement is contained in prepared testimony obtained by The Tribune through an open-records request.
Scientists: Nuke panel owes Utahns an apology - Salt Lake Tribune
Three scientists say federal nuclear regulators owe Utahns an apology -- and a policy change -- for allowing shallow burial of depleted uranium, including the 49,000 tons already at EnergySolutions Inc.'s landfill in Tooele County.
Geologist Stephen T. Nelson and climatologist Summer B. Rupper, both of Brigham Young University, and Kansas State University geologist Charles G. Oviatt, say it is "absurd" for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to deem depleted uranium safe for surface disposal.
The uranium enrichment waste gets increasingly hazardous for a million years, and that's too long to reasonably ensure the safety of any shallow landfills, especially one like the Tooele County site that is underwater a few hundred of every several thousand years. Those wet cycles could spread long-lived radioactive material throughout the Great Salt Lake basin, the scientists say.
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