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Joint Regulatory Position Statement on the EPR Pressurised Water Reactor
The UK nuclear safety regulator (HSE's ND), the French nuclear regulator (ASN), and the Finnish nuclear regulator (STUK) are currently working to assess the EPR Pressurised Water Reactor.
In carrying out individual assessments, we have all raised issues regarding the EPR Control and Instrumentation (C&I) systems, which the proposed licensees and/or the manufacturer (AREVA) are in the process of addressing.
Although the EPR design being developed for each country varies slightly, the issues we raised with the current C&I system are broadly similar, our aim being to collectively obtain the highest levels of safety from the EPR.
The issue is primarily around ensuring the adequacy of the safety systems (those used to maintain control of the plant if it goes outside normal conditions), and their independence from the control systems (those used to operate the plant under normal conditions).
KOMU.com - Radioactive Material Tracked on Campus - Coverage You Can Count On
An MU researcher accidentally tracked phosphorus from a lab to a few areas across campus.
An unidentified lab researcher accidentally spilled phosphorus-32, a radioactive isotope, at a Schlundt Annex laboratory. The researcher then walked outside, unaware that the chemical spilled onto his or her shoes. Without traveling too far, the researcher realized something was wrong.
"(The worker) called the Environmental Health and Safety Department," MU spokesman Christian Basi said. "They responded right a
WWW.WPCVA.COM: Uranium dust a problem
Over the last 2 1/2 years I have been talking about the dust problem that would accompany the opening of an open-pit uranium mine in Pittsylvania County.
I have spoken about the low-level radioactive dust that would come with the blasting and the tailing piles.
(Low-level radiation accumulates in the body).
I have spoken to the supervisors probably a dozen times, with absolutely no results.
Phil Lovelace has spoken more often than I have about leakage of radioactive water from the holding ponds.
He also has received dumb looks from the supervisors.
*
In fact, one of them sometimes looks as if he is asleep.
In my opinion five of the supervisors have paid so little attention that it appears they work with Virginia Uranium.
Deseret News | Funds dwindling to oversee Utah's hazardous waste
Businesses that handle some of Utah's most dangerous materials are being inspected less often because of dwindling funds to pay for the work.
State monitoring of hazardous and radioactive waste has for years been funded by fees collected from commercial waste companies. That fund — which reached nearly $6 million in 2006 — has fallen off with the down economy, dwindling to just $30,000 at the end of the last fiscal year.
Utah is still adequately regulating hazardous waste operations but is no longer able to inspect them as often as in the past, said Dennis Downs, director of the state's hazardous and solid waste division. That not only includes monitoring of large hazardous waste disposal sites in Utah but also regular checks on hundreds of smaller operations — from autobody shops and dry cleaners to oil refineries — that generate and store dangerous materials.
Funds dwindling to oversee Utah's hazardous waste - Salt Lake Tribune
Regulation » Inspections of businesses that handle disposal are becoming less frequent.
Salt Lake City » Businesses that handle some of Utah's most dangerous materials are being inspected less often because of dwindling funds to pay for the work.
State monitoring of hazardous and radioactive waste has for years been funded by fees collected from commercial waste companies. That fund -- which reached nearly $6 million in 2006 -- has fallen off with the down economy, dwindling to just $30,000 at the end of the last fiscal year.
Utah is still adequately regulating hazardous waste operations but is no longer able to inspect them as often as in the past, said Dennis Downs, director of the state's Division of Solid and Hazardous Waste. That includes not only monitoring of large hazardous-waste disposal sites in Utah but also regular checks on hundreds of smaller operations -- from auto body shops and dry cleaners to oil refineries -- that generate and store dangerous materials.
NRC- NRC Cites Wal-Mart for Violations in Handling Tritium Exit Signs
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has cited Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., with four violations concerning improper disposal and transfer of tritium exit signs at its stores throughout the United States and Puerto Rico.
The violations, issued Oct. 28, concerned the improper transfer or disposal of 2,462 signs from Wal-Mart stores in states under NRC jurisdiction between 2000 and 2008, and the improper transfer of an additional 517 signs between various Wal-Mart facilities. The company also failed to appoint an official responsible for complying with regulatory requirements and failed to report broken or damaged signs as required.
Exit signs containing tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, pose little threat to public health and safety and do not constitute a security risk. However, the NRC requires proper recordkeeping and disposal of the signs because a damaged or broken sign could cause minor radioactive contamination of the immediate vicinity, requiring environmental clean up.
The improper transfer or disposal of the 2,979 signs and failure to appoint a responsible official were determined to be a Severity Level III problem under NRC’s enforcement policy, and the failure to report damaged signs is a Severity Level IV violation, the lowest on the NRC’s enforcement scale.
Feds Looking Into Safety Goof At Nuke Plant - Central Coast News Story - KSBW The Central Coast
Federal regulators are investigating a mistake at the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant that could have hampered safety measures during an emergency.
A spokeswoman for the Central Coast plant says two switches that allow operators to remotely open cooling water valves were improperly set. If the plant lost its water during an earthquake or terrorist attack, operators would have had to manually open the valves to restore it.
Spokeswoman Emily Christensen Archer said the mistake was discovered late last week during a maintenance shutdown of the reactor, and the switches were reset.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is investigating.
Native American Uranium Miners Still Suffer, As Industry Eyes Rebirth - Working In These Times
On the Navajo Nation, almost everyone you talk to either worked in uranium mines themselves or had fathers or husbands who did. Almost everyone also has multiple stories of loved ones dying young from cancer, kidney disease and other ailments attributed to uranium poisoning.
The effects aren’t limited to uranium miners and millers; whole families are usually affected as women washed their husbands’ contaminated clothes, kids played amidst mine waste and families even built homes out of radioactive uranium tailings.
New research suggests how low doses of radiation can cause heart disease and stroke
A mathematical model constructed by researchers at Imperial College London predicts the risk of cardiovascular disease (heart attacks, stroke) associated with low background levels of radiation. The model shows that the risk would vary almost in proportion with dose. Results, published October 23 in the open-access journal PLoS Computational Biology, are consistent with risk levels reported in previous studies involving nuclear workers.
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death and one of the leading causes of disability in developed countries, as reported in the paper and also by the World Health Organization (http://www.who.int/whosis/en/). For some time, scientists have understood how high-dose radiotherapy (RT) causes inflammation in the heart and large arteries and how this results in the increased levels of cardiovascular disease observed in many groups of patients who receive RT. However, in the last few years, studies have shown that there may also be cardiovascular risks associated with the much lower fractionated doses of radiation received by groups such as nuclear workers, but it is not clear what biological mechanisms are responsible.
AdelaideNow... Alarm over radioactive waste plan
ABOUT 80 drums of radioactive waste has been earmarked to be shifted 450km from Edinburgh RAAF base to a new waste dump at Woomera.
The Defence Department is seeking licence approvals to turn an old explosives storage building into the Koolymilka Waste Storage Facility in the Woomera Prohibited area.
Defence has told The Advertiser that it also plans to shift 206 44-gallon (194 litres) drums – or about 40 cubic metres – from a nearby Woomera site for the new "temporary" waste dump.
Greentech Media: Experts: Energy Department Should ‘Immediately Halt’ Plans to Issue Taxpayer-Backed Loan Guarantees
Not only does the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) objection last week to major problems in the AP1000 reactor design call into serious question the future of over half of proposed new reactors in the United States (14 of 25), it also means that it would be “grossly imprudent” for the Department of Energy (DOE) to proceed with its plans for loan guarantees for new reactors that are not finalized and licensed.
Four experts delivered that stern warning during a news conference today urging the DOE to halt controversial plans to issue nuclear loan guarantees “soon,” according to Energy Secretary Chu. These guarantees are part of the DOE’s Title XVII Loan Guarantee Program. Two of the four new nuclear projects that the DOE is reported to be considering for taxpayer-backed loan guarantees are AP1000 designs proposed by the Southern Company at the Vogtle site in Georgia and the South Carolina Electric & Gas (SCE&G) V.C. Summer site.
Boston Business Journal: Seabrook gets a violation
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued a Severity Level IV violation to the owners of the Seabrook nuclear power plant because a contract employee deliberately failed to report an arrest to his employer, violating the plant's physical security plan requirements, according to the Daily News of Newburyport.
The NRC Enforcement Policy describes a Severity Level IV violation as one that involves noncompliance with NRC requirements that are not considered significant based on risk, according to the Daily News.
Study of baby teeth yields new findings on nuclear fallout
Joan Ketterer still recalls the button her son Edward got for donating his baby teeth to what was then a ground-breaking study looking at the effect of nuclear fallout on children born in the St. Louis-area in the 1960s.
"I Gave My Tooth To Science" proclaimed the button, which Edward or "E.J." as his parents called him, proudly wore for days.
But the button was eventually put away. Edward grew up, got married and opened a successful orthodontics practice in Houston. And Joan Ketterer forgot all about the study.
But Tuesday, a New York-based research group released new findings that suggest male tooth donors who ended up with cancer as adults had double the amount of a radioactive isotope created by nuclear fallout than healthy donors who participated in the original St. Louis study.
NRC Safety Warning Jeopardizes Nuclear | nrc, reactors, jeopardizes - Local News - ChipleyPaper.com
EXPERTS TO WARN THAT BILLIONS IN TAXPAYER-BACKED LOAN GUARANTEES FOR NEW REACTORS ARE IMPRUDENT IN WAKE OF NRC’S MAJOR OBJECTIONS TO AP-1000 DESIGN
NRC Action Throws Into Question Future of 14 of 31 Proposed New U.S. Reactors; Forward Path Now Unclear for Proposed Reactors in NC, SC, GA, FL, AL – Including AP-1000 Reactors in GA and SC on DOE Loan Guarantee Short List.
Radioactive Rabbit Droppings Help Spur Nuclear Cleanup
Putting a new spin on the term "nuclear waste dump," radioactive droppings from Cold War-era critters have spurred a high-tech cleanup funded by the current U.S. government economic stimulus program.
Government contractors this September flew a helicopter equipped with radiation detectors and GPS equipment over scrubland in eastern Washington State near the vast Hanford Site, a 1950s plutonium-production complex.
The goal was to pinpoint soils contaminated with harmful radioactive materials that had been spread far a field within the complex by animals and the wind.
FACTBOX-Plutonium, one of the world's deadliest elements | Markets | Reuters
France's nuclear safety watchdog said on Thursday it had suspended efforts to dismantle a plutonium technology plant after nearly 3 times the expected levels of the radioactive element were found at the site. [ID:nLF530004]
Around eight kilograms of plutonium were believed to have been stored at the site when it was up and running, but some 22 kilograms had been discovered to date and the final figure could be closer to 39 kilograms, the nuclear safety watchdog ASN said.
FACTBOX-Plutonium, one of the world's deadliest elements | Markets | Reuters
France's nuclear safety watchdog said on Thursday it had suspended efforts to dismantle a plutonium technology plant after nearly 3 times the expected levels of the radioactive element were found at the site. [ID:nLF530004]
Around eight kilograms of plutonium were believed to have been stored at the site when it was up and running, but some 22 kilograms had been discovered to date and the final figure could be closer to 39 kilograms, the nuclear safety watchdog ASN said.
Safety concerns could delay new plant at TVA's Bellefonte site near Scottsboro | Breaking News from The Huntsville Times - al.com
Officials with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Tennessee Valley Authority said they are unsure how long a proposed AP1000 nuclear plant near here could be delayed after Westinghouse failed to show that certain parts of a shield building can withstand design basis loads.
"Obviously, it won't make it shorter," TVA spokesman Terry Johnson said this afternoon.
NRC spokesman Roger Hannah said in a phone interivew that the shield building encloses the containment building, which contains the reactor.
In a press release issued this afternoon, the NRC said it informed Westinghouse, the designer of the AP1000 proposed for Bellefonte Nuclear Plant, "that it has not demonstrated that certain structural components of the revised...shield building can withstand design basis loads."
Metro - French nuclear safety authorities suspend work at fuel plant after excess plutonium found
France's nuclear safety authority has suspended work at a nuclear fuel plant after discovering it had underestimated plutonium levels.
The ASN safety agency says the plant in Cadarache failed to notice and then waited months to report several extra kilograms of plutonium in closed spaces used to manipulate radioactive material.
The ASN said in a statement Wednesday "the incident had no consequences." But it issued a warning to plant operators and suspended work on dismantling the plant.
The plant, which manufactured fuel for nuclear plants for 40 years, is being decommissioned.
It was operated by French nuclear manufacturer Areva and belongs to the state Atomic Energy Commission, which reported the excess plutonium on Oct. 6.
Ukraine head criticises slow progress on Chernobyl cover | Reuters
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko criticised his government on Tuesday for slow progress on building a new shelter to encase the wrecked fourth reactor of the Chernobyl power plant, site of the world's worst nuclear accident.
Ukraine signed a deal in September 2007 with the French-led Novarka consortium to erect an arch-shaped shelter at the plant where a fire, followed by an explosion, occurred on April 26, 1986, sending radiation billowing over parts of central Europe.
This project was due to be completed over four to five years at a cost of $1.39 billion. A second deal with U.S.-based Holtec International foresees building a facility to house spent nuclear fuel from reactors. Turning on his political rival Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, Yushchenko told a national security meeting: "We have had three international conferences, more than $900 million in resources have been brought together ... why is there an empty building site today?".
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