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NNSA admin is 'very happy' with MOX | Aiken Standard | Aiken, SC
The National Nuclear Safety Administration is "very happy" with the progress being made at the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility despite the facility again being cited and not having a customer for the multi-billion dollar product.
Thomas P. D'Agostino, NNSA administrator, was in Aiken on Wednesday to tour the facility and the other missions at Savannah River Site one day after a recent inspection report cited four specific faults with the MOX project's construction.
"These are incredibly minor issues ... very minor. They do not affect the integrity of construction at all," D'Agostino said. "There is strong support (for the project); in fact, the (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) was strongly supportive."
Poll: Carolinians favor conservation over power plants - Charlotte Business Journal:
A growing number of Carolinians say rising demand for electricity can be met through conservation rather than by building more power plants.
That’s a key finding of a new poll commissioned by Duke Energy Carolinas. And it reflects a distinct shift in public opinion from two years ago.
In the latest poll, 43% of the 1,100 N.C. and S.C. residents surveyed say “people and companies will learn to conserve energy and use significantly less electricity.” Only 30% say “government will give permission for more power plants to be built.”
MOX inspection finds some minor violations, report says 110309 - The Augusta Chronicle
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s most recent round of inspections at the U.S. Energy Department’s mixed oxide fuel facility yielded four notices of violation for mostly minor infractions, according to a copy of the report made public today.
Inspectors who conducted extensive reviews at the construction site from July 1 to Sept. 30 also noted that many programs—including the placement of concrete and steel—were adequate and in complete compliance.
The $4.8 million MOX facility, scheduled to open at Savannah River Site in 2016, is designed to dispose of 34 metric tons of surplus, weapons-grade plutonium by using small amounts to make fuel for commercial reactors.
The inspections involved evaluation of construction of principle structures and included quality assurance activities related to design verification and documentation control; problem identification, resolution, and corrective actions; structural steel and support activities; structural concrete activities; and geotechnical foundation activities, the report said.
Funds quicken SRS waste removal | Aiken Standard | Aiken, SC
Earlier this month, a shipment off-site of seven barrels of tritium- and mercury-contaminated oil put the Savannah River Site on a fast track to remove legacy mixed waste originally scheduled for disposition in 2053.
"Not only is it radioactive for its tritium content, it is hazardous for mercury, which can make treatment of this waste challenging," said Jacob Nims, Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) project engineer. "We had plans to let all of it decay to be able to ship it off-site in the future."
Decaying would have taken 10 to 50 years. Instead, funding from the Recovery Act accelerated the project as part of the cleanup that will reduce the footprint of the Site by 67 percent.
In essence, the removal of the mixed waste frees space in N Area, allowing for the consolidation of the remaining waste from a total of 30,000 square feet of space to a smaller 3,600-square-foot facility in E Area.
"The plan is to ship all we can from N Area and move only what is necessary into E Area to allow maximum space for all future generated waste," Nims said.
SRS subcontractor indicted for fraud | Aiken Standard | Aiken, SC
A former Aiken resident who worked at the Savannah River Site as a subcontractor on the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility has been indicted for fraud.
Joseph Ralph Lohre Jr., 46, was charged in a three-count indictment with theft of government funds and two counts of making false statements.
The indictment alleges that between March 2006 and May 2008, Lohre falsely claimed eligibility for housing benefits through a program administered by the National Nuclear Security Administration, the federal agency overseeing the MOX project, and that as part of his fraud, he submitted falsified documentation to support a claim that he owned a permanent residence in Fort Mitchell, Ky.
At the time, Lohre was working as an engineer contractor at SRS.
NRC orders changes in reactors set for S.C. - Local / Metro - The State
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is raising safety concerns a proposed new reactor designed by Westinghouse, two of which South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. and Santee Cooper plan to install at their existing plant north of Columbia.
A key part of the reactor may not withstand a tornado, earthquake or even high winds, NRC said.
The commission staff has directed Westinghouse to make changes in the reactor design so its outer shell, which protects the reactor's containment structure, is strengthened. The staff concluded the steel and concrete structure of the AAP-1000 reactor does not meet safety design requirements.
SCE&G spokesman Robert Yanity said Thursday the redesign is not expected to affect the schedule of the South Carolina reactors, which are set to come online by 2016 and 2019, respectively.
The project at the V.C. Summer nuclear station near Jenkinsville is projected to cost $10 billion. Utility officials hope to have a combined operating and construction license in hand by 2011.
Nuclear site rakes in S.C. stimulus funds - Business - The State
More than a third of the $4.2 billion in federal grants and contracts sent so far to South Carolina to revive the economy has gone to the former Savannah River nuclear weapons facility, according to an analysis of federal data by The Greenville News.
The stimulus awards amount to about $954 for each S.C. resident - the nation's third-highest per-capita rate behind only the District of Columbia and Alaska, the paper found.
STIMULATED
Richland County, home to the state capital, received the largest chunk of stimulus money among South Carolina's counties, according to the analysis. Much of Richland's funding went to state agencies to be used across South Carolina. Aiken was second because of large earmarks to clean up the Savannah River nuclear complex:
1. Richland - $2.2 billion
2. Aiken - $1.6 billion
3. Greenville - $76.3 million
Radioactive waste shipments to Utah site facing year delay - Salt Lake Tribune
Drums of radioactive cleanup waste in South Carolina are ready for loading onto rail cars for the journey to a Tooele County disposal site.
But now those plans could be delayed more than a year, after the state Radiation Control Board voted Tuesday to allow more depleted uranium (DU) only after EnergySolutions Inc. submits a report confirming its extra steps to safeguard the waste will work.
The move was a victory for the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah (HEAL) which has sought at least a temporary moratorium on DU, as the uranium-enrichment waste is called.
Depleted uranium shipments delayed - Salt Lake Tribune
U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson is applauding reports that a South Carolina cleanup site is delaying its shipment of depleted uranium by at least two months.
On Tuesday, a Department of Energy official in South Carolina said 15,000 drums of depleted uranium (DU) from the Savannah River Cleanup site won't start shipping to the EnergySolutions site in Utah until December.
Savannah River Site spokesman Jim Giusti told The Associated Press Tuesday that crews are preparing 11,000 tons of waste to load onto rail cars bound for the disposal facility 80 miles west of Salt Lake City through next summer.
The delay buys the Utah Democratic congressman time to try to persuade the U.S. Energy Department to suspend shipments until the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission completes its pending review of disposing depleted uranium (DU) safely.
Pass on power plant was sought all along - Business - The Sun News
The Grand Strand, South Carolina's tourist economic engine, won't have enough electricity by 2012 to keep its beachfront towers aglow unless a new $1.2 billion coal-burning power station is built near Florence.
That was the warning Santee Cooper, the state-owned electricity company, gave to state and federal regulators. It was the argument the power company presented at public hearings. And it was that caution that Lonnie Carter, Santee Cooper's president and chief executive, offered during interviews with journalists.
The argument that the coal-fired power plant was the only solution formed the key justification for Santee Cooper to spend $242 million over the past three years, most of that stockpiling material to build, even though it lacked government approval to operate the facility.
Officials: Missing SC nuclear pellets not risky - South Carolina & Regional - Wire - The Sun News
Federal investigators say the public faces little danger from 25 pounds of radioactive material reported missing from a South Carolina nuclear fuel plant, but at least one expert from a private group said any amount of uranium could be dangerous in the wrong hands.
Officials with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission held a public meeting in Columbia Thursday to discuss results of their months long inspection at the Westinghouse Electric Co. plant. In May, the Monroeville, Pa.-based company told regulators it could not account for about 25 pounds of low-enriched uranium - small, pencil eraser-sized pellets used to make nuclear fuel.
The material, which amounts to a container of pellets about the size of a five-pound coffee can, likely never left the plant and was recycled with discarded materials that don't meet quality standards, NRC spokesman Roger Hannah said Friday. And even if it had been released, the stable composition of the uranium is such that it couldn't be used as a weapon, like a dirty bomb, he said.
Failure to report SRS accidents costs two their jobs | Aiken Standard | Aiken, SC
One of two accidents at the Savannah River Site made public last week "had potential criticality safety implications" when a 200-pound bundle of highly enriched uranium fell 15 feet from a crane into a pit of acid.
Fuel bundles loaded with highly enriched uranium metal being transported by crane are lowered into a "dissolver" containing acid. The process converts the uranium into fuel for commercial nuclear reactors.
Twice in August there were problems with the process, problems that caused two SRS employees to lose their jobs.
"Two recent events illustrate the challenges management faces in changing the behavior of some workers," a report on the incidents read.
The incidents were described in the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board report that was made public last week. Having potential criticality safety implications mean that a nuclear chain reaction could have occurred.
Areva and Progress Energy form alliance
Areva Inc has announced a five-year deal that will see it become the comprehensive supplier of services and products for Progress Energy's four nuclear power plants.
The deal will see Areva provide refuelling and outage services, replace and repair plant equipment, and provide engineering and maintenance support plus other technical services to Progress Energy's plants in North and South Carolina and Florida.
.jpg "Brunswick (Progress)")
2 SRS workers fired over dropping uranium - The Augusta Chronicle
Savannah River Site officials have taken corrective actions — and fired two workers — after two incidents in H Canyon in which bundles of highly enriched uranium were dropped by a crane.
According to a Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board report — dated Aug. 21 and made public Thursday — the incidents “had potential criticality safety implications” and halted reprocessing operations for a week.
A criticality accident is one in which a chain reaction occurs, said Charles Nickell, the site’s nuclear materials disposition manager. “It is something we definitely don’t want to happen.”
The H Canyon area is where highly enriched uranium is loaded by cranes into vats of acid, called “dissolvers,” that help purify and convert the material from solid to a liquid form. The liquid is later blended with natural uranium to create low-enriched uranium and shipped off-site for use in the manufacture of fuel rods for commercial reactors.
Ethics scandal brewing at DOE? | knoxnews.com
Weapons Complex Monitor reports that the Dept. of Energy is investigating an ethics complaint filed against Cynthia Anderson, who heads the Recovery Act efforts for DOE's Office of Environmental Management. The newsletter's Mike Nartker reported that the investigation was prompted by an anonymous complaint, which alleged improper acts in hiring-related activities at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and other issues.
The newsletter received a copy of the complaint, which also was reportedly sent to U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., the House Majority Whip, and Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and others. In a statement, DOE spokeswoman Shari Taylor Davenport told the newsletter, "The Department of Energy takes allegations of unethical behavior seriously and is looking into the matter."
Columbia Citypaper - Dark Convoy
Responding to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Friends of the Earth environmental organization, the U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE) recently released color photos of 18-wheeler trucks used to transport weapons grade plutonium, uranium and other nuclear materials over local highways to the Savannah River Nuclear Site for disposal. Prior to the DOE release, the only public image of the trucks and their escort vehicles belonged to Tom Clements, the Southeastern Campaign Coordinator of Friends of the Earth, who snapped a photo of the vehicles leaving the Charleston Naval Weapons Station with plutonium shipments bound of SRS and Duke Energy’s Catawba reactor in 2005.
The trucks in the recently released DOE photos are likely the same type as those used in recent plutonium shipments from the Hanford site in Washington State to the Savannah River Site (SRS). The K-Area Material Storage facility at SRS is slated to house approximately 13 metric tons of “non-pit” (never weaponized) plutonium, Allen Gunter, an SRS-based DOE manager, told City Paper in a Jan., 2008 report.
MOX hearing delayed as more details sought 090809 - The Augusta Chronicle
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission wants more details on how waste generated by the Energy Department's mixed oxide fuel facility will be managed.
Until more information can be gathered and evaluated, a hearing to discuss environmental groups' concerns over the waste stream will be postponed -- possibly until 2010 or later, according to a letter dated Monday from commission staff to the Atomic Safety & Licensing Board.
The $4.86 billion MOX plant under construction at Savannah River Site will dispose of plutonium from dismantled warheads by blending it with other materials to make fuel for commercial nuclear reactors.
Because commercial power plants would use the fuels, the MOX plant will require an NRC license.
Study: Cancer in workers elevated at SRS | Aiken Standard | Aiken, SC
Those who worked at the Savannah River Site and other parts of the nation's weapons complex are at an elevated risk for developing cancer, according to a new study.
This finding came from a study of older construction workers at four U.S. Department of Energy nuclear weapons complex sites. It found an increased risk of developing cancer for Site workers, especially for construction workers who worked prior to the 1980s.
Conducted at institutions including Duke University and the University of Cincinnati, the study found that trade workers at SRS, Hanford in Washington, Oak Ridge in Tennessee and the Amchitka site in Alaska had significantly elevated asbestos-related cancers.
The study was funded by DOE and was published in the current issue of the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, a medical publication.
DOE established medical screening programs at the four sites starting in 1996. Workers participating in these programs have been followed to determine their vital status and mortality experience through Dec. 31, 2004.
According to the study, 8,976 former construction workers from Hanford, SRS, Oak Ridge and Amchitka were followed using the National Death Index to ascertain vital status and causes of death.
Duke official says lake levels to decline : Anderson Independent-Mail
Managing lake levels is a delicate balancing act at best, a Duke official said Thursday, but the general outlook calls for levels of some lakes to decline.
Lake Jocassee can expect to take the biggest hit, said George Galleher of Duke Energy hydroelectric operations, because of the lake’s part in the whole balancing act.
Galleher spoke at a forum on the overall health of the Duke Energy lakes and their watershed. The forum was sponsored by the Friends of Lake Keowee Society and held at Duke Energy’s World of Energy center north of Seneca.
Metro Spirit: News - Nuclear war
As the nation settles in for a long and increasingly contentious health care debate, residents of the CSRA are starting to draw battle lines of their own regarding the future of the Savannah River Site (SRS).
According to the Department of Energy’s Strategic Plan for the Savannah River Site, the 310-square-mile site is poised to become the DOE’s premier location for new energy initiatives.
It’s got the land, the infrastructure, the brainpower and the workforce.
All it needs are the initiatives.
Skeptics of such an energy park, however, suspect the only real initiative the DOE is interested in involves prolonging its involvement in nuclear activities.
“I think it’s all a big ruse,” says the Sierra Club’s Susan Corbett. “What they really want are more nuclear missions.”
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