Group items tagged

A long-awaited study expected to lead to final decisions on environmental cleanup of much of the Hanford nuclear reservation's waste has been delayed because of Yucca Mountain. The draft Tank Closure & Waste Management Environmental Impact Statement most recently was expected to be released in May. Now the Department of Energy is saying the draft report, expected to be thousands of pages long, will be available by the end of the year. The draft was originally planned to be ready in spring 2007. "It's a very large, complex document that requires a very thorough and focused effort to get it done and done right," said Carrie Meyer, Department of Energy spokeswoman.

The Department of Energy's long-stated plan to shut down its Oak Ridge incinerator at the end of September has been put on hold -- at least for another month and a half. According to Dennis Hill, a spokesman for Bechtel Jacobs Co., efforts to burn the remaining inventory of hazardous waste got delayed, in part, because some of the last liquid-waste shipments contained higher-than-expected quantities of mercury. That meant the waste had to be burned at a slower rate to meet the incinerator's emissions requirements, Hill said. "The higher concentration waste is incinerated at lower rates to meet emission limits and, therefore, requires additional time to incinerate," Hill said. "We also are conducting tank rinse and closure activities at the same time.''

Most nuclear power plants have a nominal design lifetime of up to 40 years but many have been approved to operate for longer. The possibility of component replacement and extending the lifetimes of existing plants are very attractive to utilities, especially given lingering public opposition to constructing new nuclear plants, while some governments see them as a way of limiting carbon emissions and power price rises. But economic, regulatory and political considerations have led to the premature closure of some power reactors. Below are details of those plants that have been granted life extensions in Europe:

More than 20,000 people gathered in a small Kazakh town on Thursday to mark 20 years since the closure of a site where the Soviet Union conducted lethal nuclear tests for much of the Cold War. Moscow used the vast open steppes of now-independent Kazakhstan to test some 500 nuclear bombs between 1949 and 1989, poisoning swathes of land and entire generations of people, and feelings among the population still run high. President Nursultan Nazarbayev, despite being a close ally of Russia, used some of his strongest words yet to describe the grave legacy of the Soviet nuclear past. "Millions of Kazakh citizens fell victim to this nuclear madness," he told the crowd gathered at the town's memorial site. "The scar inflicted on our environment is so serious that it will not disappear for at least 300 years."

Work should begin this month to dig up another Cold War burial ground at Hanford used to dispose of boron balls once employed to soak up radioactive neutrons. The boron balls were part of a backup emergency system at Hanford reactors starting in the 1950s to slow down or stop nuclear reactions. The burial ground, which holds assorted wastes from Hanford's K reactors, includes 16 unlined trenches and 11 silos. The silos contain the boron balls, radiation-contaminated reactor equipment and pieces, and ash from burning radiation-contaminated waste. Washington Closure announced Thursday that it has awarded a $9 million subcontract to Dance Designs of Pocatello, Idaho, for the work. Watts Construction Inc. of Kennewick and Babcock Services Inc. of Richland are major subcontractors to Dance Designs, which also has offices in Richland. During the Cold War, K East and K West were among nine reactors along the Columbia River at Hanford that produced plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons program. The K Reactors operated from 1954-71 and waste from them was buried nearby in the 118-K-1 Burial Ground until 1973.

Sellafield's Thorp reprocessing plant is to shut down while a probe into an evaporator is carried out. Site bosses said the move is not linked to a rumour sweeping west Cumbria last week that the troubled site would be closed because of the failure of another, older evaporator. Thorp's 1,500 workers were told last Thursday that evaporator B had been fixed, normal operations would resume and the threat of closure had been lifted. However, it emerged this morning that Thorp will be shut down, for a routine inspection of evaporator C.

Work to determine what was buried in one of Hanford's most hazardous waste sites is ready to begin with federal economic stimulus money. Washington Closure Hanford has awarded a subcontract worth up to $4.4 million to North Wind Inc., of Idaho Falls to see what can be learned about the 618-10 Burial Ground without opening it up. It is one of the two highest risk and most complex burial grounds in the 210 square miles at Hanford along the Columbia River. It was used from 1954 to 1963 to dispose of highly radioactive waste from research in Hanford's 300 Area just north of Richland. The burial ground is a couple miles southeast of the Fast Flux Test Facility and about six miles north of Richland near the highway. The Department of Energy believes it may contain up to 2.2 pounds of plutonium, but more will be known after North Wind completes its work.

Perhaps the most distinctive building near N Reactor, the "golf ball," should be rubble by the end of today. The building, which looks like a large, white golf ball half buried in the sand, was used as a waste treatment facility for the piping system at N Reactor. It stands about 20 feet high and has a diameter of 35 feet. Washington Closure Hanford also is making progress at the cooling water building on the banks of the Columbia River. It filtered water from N Reactor's fuel storage basins, which stored highly radioactive fuel rods. Two sand filter tanks, each weighing about 60,000 pounds, have been removed from the building.

Germany's environment ministry denied approval for nuclear operator Vattenfall Europe [VATN.UL] to keep its Brunsbuettel reactor open longer, a fresh blow to operators' attemps of getting around a national closure plan. Vattenfall in May 2007 had asked to transfer 15 terawatt hours of power production quotas from its nuclear plant at Kruemmel in north Germany to Brunsbuettel, in order to lengthen Brunsbuettel's life cycle by another two-and-a-half years.

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. (WVLT) -- The Department of Energy is pulling the plug on Oak Ridge's controversial toxic waste incinerator. The DOE says it'll stop receiving waste by the end of April. Crews are scheduled to begin demolishing the facility in five years. The incinerator has burned concerns about emissions for years. "It's basically done its job," said Walter Perry, a DOE spokesman. That job's been burning more than 33 million pounds of waste since 1991. The one-of-a-kind, $26 million dollar incinerator at the former K-25 uranium enrichment plant treats what the DOE calls "mixed wastes." "You have polychlorinated biphenyls, PCBs as they're commonly called, as well as hazardous types of waste....and radioactive elements," Perry said. The DOE plans to burn through the remaining 1.7 million pounds of remaining mostly liquid waste by September 30th. "At that time, we'll begin closure activities, which basically taking the incinerator, rinsing all the piping and the tanks, and leading up to the facility demolition," Perry said. The DOE says that's set to happen in 2014.

Remaining waste to be burned at unique OR facility before closure OAK RIDGE - At the end of April, the Department of Energy will stop receiving waste at its Oak Ridge incinerator and proceed with plans to shut down the one-of-a-kind facility. The incinerator has burned more than 33 million pounds of waste over the past two decades, specializing in the treatment of so-called mixed wastes that contain radioactive elements, polychlorinated biphenyls and other hazardous chemicals.

"A new draft study shows importing radioactive waste for disposal at Hanford would significantly increase pollution in ground water beneath the nuclear reservation, according to the Washington State Department of Ecology. The state long has opposed the Department of Energy sending radioactive waste to Hanford for disposal. But the draft Hanford Tank Closure and Waste Management Environmental Impact Statement that's open for public comment puts some numbers to that assertion. "We're cleaning up Hanford of some of the constituents we care most about and then recontaminating it with off-site waste to above the acceptable level from a cancer risk standpoint or a safe drinking water standpoint," said Suzanne Dahl, tank waste treatment section manager for the Department of Ecology. Under some scenarios that appear likely, the amount of certain long-lived radioactive isotopes that would be imported and buried at Hanford would account for as much as 90 percent of the releases of that isotope to the environment, according to the state. Some of the worst contamination could occur 1,000 or more years from now."

"Speakers at a public hearing Tuesday night split their comments between calling for the Fast Flux Test Facility to be saved and worries that proposed cleanup plans for Hanford would not protect the environment and human health. The Department of Energy hearing in Richland kicked off a series of eight meetings in three states to hear public opinion on a wide-ranging draft study that lays out options for cleanup of many areas of the Hanford nuclear reservation. More than 100 people attended. Among the decisions that the Draft Tank Closure and Waste Management Environmental Impact Statement recommends are entombing FFTF, emptying 99 percent of radioactive waste from underground tanks, leaving the emptied tanks in the ground and extending a ban on sending many types of radioactive waste to Hanford."

"The ACLU has filed a suit against the Brattleboro Police Department on behalf of four protestors arrested last March. During an economic stimulus conference the protestors silently held up a banner calling for the closure of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon. All four were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct, but the charges were later dismissed. However, the ACLU says the police violated the protesters' First Amendment right to peacefully protest. They're seeking damages, costs and fees."

"The closure of a South Carolina nuclear waste facility has spurred a debate in Utah and nationwide about whether to allow downblending, a process that mixes hotter nuclear waste with less radioactive material so it can be stored at facilities like EnergySolutions'. Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah policy director Christopher Thomas says downblending just creates pockets of more hazardous Class B and C waste, which is currently not allowed in the state. "That does not protect the state of Utah," Thomas says, "that doesn't respect our state rules and in fact it doesn't respect federal guidance, which has held for many years that these kinds of nuclear waste should not be mixed just for the purpose of lowering the waste classification." The Utah Radiation Control Board meets today to consider banning downblending. The board will also hear a presentation from EnergySolutions, which is only allowed to store the lowest-level waste, Class A, at its facility in the west desert."

"Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet has long supported extending the lifetimes of Germany's nuclear power plants. Previous plans to limit negotiations to a 20-year extension have apparently been scrapped. The German government is willing to consider extending the gradual closure of nuclear power plants by up to 28 years, according to an interview with Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen by the Munich-based daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung on Friday."

"Savannah River Site officials emphasized their efforts to improve safety during a meeting Thursday of the Governor's Nuclear Advisory Council. "The federal staff as well as the contractors are all working hard to reverse what we were seeing as a negative trend in those agency statistics, given the number of incidents in late 2009," said Karen Guevara, assistant manager for closure at SRS. "Together we believe we are restoring the credibility in the site's safety posture, and most importantly, are better able today to ensure all our Savannah River Site employees return home healthy and free of injury at the end of every work day.""

"Work could begin this summer to start building a cover over closed portions of private company US Ecology's waste disposal trenches at Hanford. The Washington State Department of Ecology plans a public meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesdayto provide information about the plan and hear comments. It will be at the state office at 3100 Port of Benton Blvd., Richland. US Ecology and its predecessors have been disposing of commercial waste since 1965 on 100 acres of land leased to the state of Washington and subleased to US Ecology. During those 45 years, environmental regulations have changed significantly, said Larry Goldstein, contract manager for closure of the commercial low-level radioactive waste disposal site."

"Sofia. EUR 860 million would cost the decommissioning of two units of the Kozloduy NPP until 2013, Jeffrey Van Orden, MEP and speaker in the European Parliament on Bulgaria's progress on its path to EU membership said during round table on "Belene NPP project and European energy security: Bulgarian dilemmas", a reporter of FOCUS News Agency announced. According to Order closure of the two units, has previously been unnecessary and this has led to increasing use of polluting lignite coals, the reduction of energy exports of Bulgaria and increasing prices of electricity. In his words should seek the best decision regarding the correct way of disposing of nuclear waste. Order stated that the Nabucco project will enable the supply of Caspian gas to Bulgaria and is important for diversification of supply. In his words Bulgaria can be an energy hub in the Balkans. "

"The Department of Energy issued a record of decision for the West Valley Demonstration Project and Western New York Nuclear Service Center in West Valley, N.Y., that will implement a phased decision-making process to continue the decommissioning and cleanup efforts at the site, according to a recent press release. The record of decision was published April 19 in the Federal Register. "This record of decision is a result of incredible teamwork with the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, oversight from our regulatory agencies, and substantial input from our community and stakeholders," said Bryan Bower, DOE federal project director. "The completion of the site's environmental impact statement will put the West Valley Demonstration Project on a path to closure." The record of decision for the final environmental impact statement (EIS) for decommissioning and/or long-term stewardship at the West Valley Demonstration Project and Western New York Nuclear Service Center examined three alternatives for moving forward and chose a two-phased decision-making process. "