Group items tagged

Facts, News No nuclear for Australia

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has received 17 applications to build 26 new U.S. nuclear reactors and could get five more applications for seven reactors by the end of next year, the agency's chairman told Congress on Wednesday. "We are actively reviewing those applications as we speak," NRC Chairman Dale Klein told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee at a hearing on the state of the U.S. nuclear industry.

ON October 17, 1956, the Queen threw a switch to connect Calder Hall nuclear power station to the grid. It was the world's first commercial nuclear power station and had been built from scratch in three years. It continued to operate well for the next 47 years, and became the first of a series of 11 Magnox nuclear power stations. Next year, the last of those will close, leaving Britain at the mercy of fossil fuel, much of it imported, to meet a growing demand for electrical power. The Magnox stations and their successors - a generation of bigger, more modern pressurised-water reactors (PWRs) - were a triumph for sophisticated, British engineering. Sizewell B PWR was built and opened in 1995. It was intended to be the first of a series of 10 PWR stations but it was to be the last one to be built in the UK - even though, at its opening, nuclear power was providing a crucial 20% of UK electricity.

James Lovelock Normally the media can smell a rat better than a hungry terrier, and I was slightly surprised that they did not wonder more about the murder of the Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko in 2006 in London. He was cruelly poisoned by a few hundred nanograms of the radioactive isotope polonium210. When swallowed it soon finds its way to every cell of the body, where it emits helium atoms that plough through the vital structures. An evil way to kill someone: a slow, unstoppable, tortured death.

THE State Government reached an in-principle agreement to pay a Hunters Hill family $3.4 million to buy their radioactive home, built on the site of a uranium dump, in an out-of-court settlement that raises safety and compensation questions for past and current residents of the street. The Government has been fighting the purchase for more than six months and has maintained that the land has only low levels of contamination. But independent tests paid for by Peter and Michelle Vassiliou on their Nelson Parade home contradicted the Government's assurances and found radiation many times the recommended safe levels, including a dangerous hot spot in the ground beneath a bedroom.

Oregon is joining a Washington state lawsuit against the federal government over its slow cleanup of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, saying the delays increase the risk of "serious environmental damage" to the Columbia River. Gov. Ted Kulongoski and Attorney General John Kroger issued a joint statement today announcing plans to join the lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Energy. Hanford's hazardous waste also threatens the traditional fishing grounds of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, their statement said. Waste stored in 177 tanks at the former weapons production site threatens the Columbia, Washington and Oregon say, with at least 67 single-wall tanks already leaking.

The nuclear power industry is pressuring Congress to dramatically expand federal loan guarantees for building new plants, which would put taxpayers and ratepayers at significant financial risk, according to a report released today by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). view counter Congress already has authorized $60 billion for loan guarantees in which the federal government would shield utilities and private investment firms from the risk of default on loans for building new electricity generation plants. The Department of Energy (DOE) has allocated $18.5 billion of that money for new nuclear plants over the next few years. Given the average projected cost of building one reactor is currently $9 billion, the industry is clamoring for considerably more. To date, the DOE has received $122 billion in applications for loan guarantees for new nuclear power plants.

Notice of Issuance of Early Site Permit and Limited Work Authorization for the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant ESP Site AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Notice of Issuance of Early Site Permit and Limited Work Authorization. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: [[Page 44880]] I. Introduction Pursuant to 10 CFR 2.106, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is providing notice of the issuance of Early Site Permit (ESP) ESP-004 to Southern Nuclear Operating Company (SNC), Georgia Power Company, Oglethorpe Power Corporation, Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia, and the City of Dalton, Georgia, an incorporated municipality in the State of Georgia acting by and through its Board of Water, Light and Sinking Fund Commissioners, for approval of a site located in Burke County, Georgia, 26 miles southeast of Augusta, Georgia for two nuclear power reactors; this action is separate from the filing of an application for a construction permit or combined license for such a facility. The NRC has found that the application for an early site permit (ESP), and accompanying limited work authorization (LWA), filed by Southern Nuclear Operating Company (SNC), on behalf of itself and the other four entities named above, complies with the applicable requirements of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, and the applicable rules and regulations of the Commission. All required notifications to other agencies or bodies have been duly made. There is reasonable assurance that the permit holders will comply with the regulations in 10 CFR Chapter I and the health and safety of the public will not be endangered. There is reasonable assurance that the site is in conformity with the provisions of the Act and the Commission's regulations. SNC is technically qualified to engage in the activities authorized. Issuance of the ESP will not be inimical to the common defense and security or to the health and safety of the public. Issuance of the LWA will provide reasonable assurance of a

Notice of Issuance of Early Site Permit and Limited Work Authorization for the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant ESP Site AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Notice of Issuance of Early Site Permit and Limited Work Authorization. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: [[Page 44880]] I. Introduction Pursuant to 10 CFR 2.106, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is providing notice of the issuance of Early Site Permit (ESP) ESP-004 to Southern Nuclear Operating Company (SNC), Georgia Power Company, Oglethorpe Power Corporation, Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia, and the City of Dalton, Georgia, an incorporated municipality in the State of Georgia acting by and through its Board of Water, Light and Sinking Fund Commissioners, for approval of a site located in Burke County, Georgia, 26 miles southeast of Augusta, Georgia for two nuclear power reactors; this action is separate from the filing of an application for a construction permit or combined license for such a facility. The NRC has found that the application for an early site permit (ESP), and accompanying limited work authorization (LWA), filed by Southern Nuclear Operating Company (SNC), on behalf of itself and the other four entities named above, complies with the applicable requirements of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, and the applicable rules and regulations of the Commission. All required notifications to other agencies or bodies have been duly made. There is reasonable assurance that the permit holders will comply with the regulations in 10 CFR Chapter I and the health and safety of the public will not be endangered. There is reasonable assurance that the site is in conformity with the provisions of the Act and the Commission's regulations. SNC is technically qualified to engage in the activities authorized. Issuance of the ESP will not be inimical to the common defense and security or to the health and safety of the public. Issuance of the LWA will provide reasonable assurance of a

After years of denying the existence of depleted uranium (DU) at its installations in Hawaii, the Army is now seeking a permit to possess tons of the radioactive material. DU has been confirmed at Schofield Barracks and the Pohakuloa Training Area, and is suspected at the Makua Military Reservation and Kahoolawe. The toxic material was used to make M101 spotting rounds for the Davy Crockett recoilless gun, one of the smallest nuclear weapons ever built. Soldiers were trained on the weapon in Hawaii and at least eight other states throughout the 1960s.

Climate change and the resulting need for low-carbon energy sources is driving the current interest in nuclear energy despite the industry's near universal legacy of staggering cost-overruns, technical difficulties and dependence on enormous government subsidies. Government interest in new nuclear energy plants seems far more political than practical or economic in light of the fact that Europe's latest nuclear plant under construction in Finland is four years behind schedule and 50 to 70 percent over budget. Any claims that nuclear is a viable low-carbon or clean energy source are negated by its extraordinary costs that have increased at least five-fold in the past decade.

In a secret health and safety report, the chief nuclear inspector admits Britain's watchdog force is short of experienced staff The scale of safety problems inside Britain's nuclear power stations has been revealed for the first time in a secret report obtained by the Observer that shows more than 1,750 leaks, breakdowns or other "events" over the past seven years. The damning document, written by the government's chief nuclear inspector, Mike Weightman, and released under the Freedom of Information Act, raises serious questions about the dangers of expanding the industry with a new generation of atomic plants. And it came as the managers of the UK's biggest plant, Sellafield, admitted they had finally halted a radioactive leak many believe has been going on for 50 years. The report discloses that between 2001-08 there were 1,767 safety incidents across Britain's nuclear plants. About half were subsequently judged by inspectors as serious enough "to have had the potential to challenge a nuclear safety system". They were "across all areas of existing nuclear plant", including Sellafield in Cumbria and Aldermaston and Burghfield in Berkshire, says Weightman, chief inspector of the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII).

Nuclear, coal, natural gas - they're all just different ways of heating water. But oh, those differences. As Luminant and anti-nuclear activists duke it out during the next few years over Luminant's proposed expansion of its Comanche Peak nuclear plant, the jargon of nuclear power isn't likely to penetrate the public consciousness without help. In the interest of general enlightenment, here's the first of an occasional series we might call Nuclear Power 101. Today's topic: Catching up with nuclear reactor designs.

Berlin- A damaged fuel rod sought since last week has been located inside one of Germany's 12 nuclear power stations, regulators said Wednesday. The jinxed plant at Kruemmel near Hamburg was shut down for two years by a transformer fire. It was crippled again July 4 by a short circuit and was then reported to have a problem in one or more of its 80,000 fuel rods. Engineers took the lid off the reactor to find the damaged uranium rod. The problems at Kruemmel have led to calls to retire the station and re-ignited debate in Germany about nuclear power as an election approaches. Anti-nuclear activists are also highlighting mismanagement of nuclear waste dumps in old salt mines. Wolfram Koenig, president of the Federal Radiation Safety Agency (BfS), said radioactive contaminated fluid had been found to have seeped to the bottom of one such dump, the Asse mine.