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Small cracks have again been detected in control rods used to control the fission process at two nuclear reactors in Sweden, media reports said Wednesday. Cracks were detected last year at one reactor at Forsmark, north of Stockholm, and one reactor at the Oskarshamn plant, in south- eastern Sweden. Several control rods were replaced at the end of the year, but some of the new rods appear to have faults. Chief executive Lars Turing of the Oskarshamn plant told Swedish radio news that the new rods may have been damaged at production, but a probe was underway. Reactor 3, one of three at Oskarshamn, is to remain offline due to maintenance work and the new finds were likely to delay the scheduled start-up in June. The Swedish Radiation Safety Authority said it would review the report from the operators, but did not rule out allowing the reactors to be restarted for a limited time. Sweden operated 12 nuclear reactors at the peak of its nuclear activity. Two at the Barseback plant in southern Sweden have been decommissioned, the most recent in May 2005.

Progress Energy's plans to build a $17 billion nuclear plant in rural Levy County will do more than just add advance charges to its customers' utility bills. The utility's plans also calls for wiping out about 765 acres of wetlands, according to a public notice posted recently by the agency that issues federal wetland permits, the Army Corps of Engineers. Yet Progress Energy plans to do little to replace their beneficial effect on the underground aquifer - even as the new power plant slurps up more than 1 million gallons of water a day from that source. At its peak, the plant could use more than 5 million gallons a day.

The groups fighting expansion of the nuclear South Texas Project want a detailed side-by-side comparison of how much it would cost to produce the same power with renewable resources such as wind and solar. They think such an analysis should be complete before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission considers granting a license for the multibillion-dollar plan to build two more reactors outside this community. This was among the arguments a consortium of environmental groups made to a panel of judges with the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board at the second and final day of hearings on the project's permit application.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission completed the environmental part of the license renewal proceeding for Exelon Corp's (EXC.N) 786-megawatt Unit 1 at the Three Mile Island nuclear power station in Pennsylvania, the NRC said in a release Friday. The NRC concluded there were no environmental impacts that would preclude the reactor's license renewal for an additional 20 years of operation. The current license for Three Mile Island 1 expires April 19, 2014. A new license would extend the reactor's operating life until 2034.

(Ed. Note: Writer Art Hobson is a retired physics professor from the University of Arkansas and an old friend of Santiago Times publisher Steve Anderson. In this article Hobson makes the case for nuclear energy - an issue that is very much in the news in Chile. The Santiago Times respectfully disagrees with Hobson's conclusion that - given the world's current and very urgent climate change plight - there are few alternatives as good as nuclear energy. Hobson's argument may hold for some parts of the world, but not for Chile. Why? Because Chile is different, with more renewable energy potential than almost any other country on earth: huge coastline, dozens of rivers, a remarkable Atacama desert. And because a quantum jump by Chile to wind, solar and run of the river energy sources would show other developing nations the real economic benefits and job creation potential that comes with a truly radical commitment to renewable energy. Chile could and should be a world leader in renewable energy development.

Efforts by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to keep countries from acquiring nuclear technology by offering them alternatives got a boost this week as three plans for nuclear fuel banks and multinational fuel factories were tabled. The latest proposal was put forward by Germany on Friday. The text foresees the creation of an internationally-governed nuclear fuel production plant. Two additional, complementary, proposals for Russian and IAEA fuel banks to provide supply of last resort are also to be considered by the 35 countries on the IAEA's governing board in June. The ideas were proposed by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei in 2003 to keep countries such as Iran from acquiring uranium enrichment and reprocessing technologies, which can be used not only for energy purposes, but also for making nuclear bomb material. But diplomats say the Vienna-based nuclear agency is split on the issue between those countries that already hold the technology, and sceptical countries such as Egypt, Argentina and Brazil, many of them developing economies.

* Faulty reprocessing facility threatens UK atomic plans * Critics call for plug to be pulled on 'white elephant' The company that runs the Thorp nuclear reprocessing plant admitted that it may have to close for a number of years owing to a series of technical problems. The huge £1.8bn plant at Sellafield imports spent nuclear fuel from around the world and returns it to countries as new reactor fuel. But a series of catastrophic technical failures with associated equipment means Thorp could be mothballed at a cost of millions of pounds. Under strict orders from the government's safety watchdog, the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, the plant's operators, Sellafield Ltd, is expected to have little option but to mothball the reprocessing plant for at least four years.

An area of seabed equivalent in size to more than 10 football pitches is to be checked for radioactive particles during the summer using a remotely operated vehicle, known as Trol. Fathoms, a company based near Dounreay in Caithness, will use the device off to scan 75,000 sq metres of seabed near the old effluent discharge outlet from the nuclear plant, and retrieve particles detected in the sediment. It can work in water up to 30 metres in depth.

For the first time in eight years, countries are contemplating giving nuclear stations carbon credits in the run-up to the crucial world summit on climate change in Copenhagen in December. This could greatly boost prospects of a global nuclear expansion. Draft text currently under negotiation at climate change talks by 182 countries in Bonn, Germany, includes an option to make nuclear facilities eligible for funding from 2012 under two schemes meant to help poorer countries develop low-carbon technologies: the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation. Nuclear power was excluded from these schemes under the Kyoto protocol in 2001, after opposition from European and developing countries. Now the nuclear industry is hoping to overturn that, and open the door for funding to flow to nuclear stations across the developing world.

China will face safety issues and environmental hazards involving nuclear waste disposal if the nuclear power sector is expanded too fast, the country's nuclear safety chief said on Monday. China, the world's second-largest user of fuel and electricity after the United States, plans to quadruple its nuclear power capacity in the next decade to about 40 gigawatts, fast-tracking from an embryonic stage in the last three decades when a total of less than 10 GW was built.

AFTER years of public pressure, the NSW Government yesterday agreed to a thorough clean-up of radioactive land in Hunters Hill. It will dig out thousands of tonnes of contaminated dirt and uranium tailings from the site of a former uranium smelter by the end of next year, supervised by an independent auditor. It will then sell the waterside land in Nelson Parade for housing if it is declared safe. At least six people who have lived on or near the radioactive section of the street have died of cancer, though there is no proven link between the elevated radiation levels and their deaths.

In the Salado salt formation a half-mile below the New Mexico desert, WIPP has room to store all the radioactive waste an expanded nuclear power program could produce. Emphasis on the word could. The "nice" elevator is right out of a luxury hotel with a smooth ride and room for 75 people. It has six degrees of safety redundancy, which means that if one cable were to snap, several others, plus an emergency brake or two, would prevent the six of us from hurtling to our deaths. But just as I'm adjusting the self-rescuer respirator on my utility belt, we get the news: There's a problem with the "nice" elevator. We have to take the salt shaft.

"In late January, Dmitry Dmitriyenko, governor of Russia's Far Northern region of Murmansk, on the Kola Peninsula, met with representatives of the region's public organisations, ethnic and cultural groups, and members of the Public Chamber. Altogether, Dmitriyenko heard some 20 people - but not an environmentalist among them. Below is an opinion piece by Alexei Pavlov, Director of Bellona's St. Petersburg offices. Alexey Pavlov, 16/02-2010 - Translated by Maria Kaminskaya For those who have observed the situation, however, the meeting hardly came as a surprise. As soon as Dmitriyenko took the reins in March 2009, replacing Yury Yevdokimov at the post of Governor of Murmansk Region, environmentalists found themselves struggling to get the new governor's attention. Dmitriyenko's predecessor used to meet with environmentalists regularly and would listen to their opinions even if they were contrary to his own. Dmitriyenko, by contrast, never responded to the meeting request extended last year by Severnaya Koalitsiya (Northern Coalition), a group uniting five environmental non-for-profit organisations: Bellona-Murmansk, a WWF branch operating in the Barents region, Murmansk's Priroda i Molodyozh (Nature and Youth), the Kola Centre for the Protection of Wildlife, and the Kola Ecological Centre Gaea. Last May, a couple of months after the governor took office, the coalition asked for a meeting to discuss the Kola Peninsula's most pressing environmental problems, but never received an answer. "

"On an island in the Baltic Sea, Finland is building what it calls a permanent underground repository for spent nuclear fuel-but that depends on your definition of permanent. IEEE Spectrum writer Sandra Upson takes a trip to Olkiluoto Island to report on the construction of the Onkalo facility, bringing a science-literate but smartly skeptical view to her topic: Posiva, the Finnish company building an underground repository here, says it knows how to imprison nuclear waste for 100,000 years. These multimillennial thinkers are confident that copper canisters of Scandinavian design, tucked into that bedrock, will isolate the waste in an underground cavern impervious to whatever the future brings: sinking permafrost, rising water, earthquakes, copper-eating microbes, or oblivious land developers in the year 25,000. If the Finnish government agrees-a decision is expected by 2012-this site will become the world's first deep, permanent repository for spent nuclear fuel."

"Sellafield, the nuclear plant that is Western Europe's most heavily contaminated industrial site, is facing an unexpected environmental challenge. The 262-hectare (645 acres) plant in West Cumbria is being overrun by seagulls, mice and stray cats, and managers are battling to contain the problem. Things have become so serious that a cull of seabirds is being considered. There are concerns that some have been swimming in open ponds containing plutonium and radioactive waste, some of which date back to Britain's atomic weapons programme of the 1950s and 1960s."

"Making good on a promise made during last week's State of the Union address, President Obama has included new money for what he describes as clean energy development. That includes authorization for the Department of Energy to guarantee loans for new nuclear power plants. This money is not a direct payment but will be available to back up investments in what many regard as a financially risky enterprise. The spending comes as DOE appoints a commission to study how to dispose of high-level nuclear waste. Last year the administration decided to end efforts to bury it at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The budget also extends credit subsidies for renewable energy and energy efficiency projects. Spending on renewable energy projects will also rise for solar, biofuels and energy efficient buildings. "

"President Obama is supporting more nuclear power plants. But what about the nuclear waste? Shawn Allee reports on a new plan from the government. And... Dr. James Hansen - the author of 'Storms Of My Grandchildren.' Dr. Hansen was the first NASA scientist to tell Congress about climate change. Lester chats with him about global warming and politics."

It was ground zero for nuclear bomb production, then it became the nation's biggest atomic waste headache. Now the old Hanford nuclear reservation boasts a new distinction: It is the single biggest recipient of federal stimulus contracts. The plan is to pump an additional $2 billion into the enormous effort to decontaminate the remote campus a few miles from the Oregon border, where abandoned reactors rise like weeds amid miles of sagebrush, and toxic plumes of waste roil underground. The money equals Hanford's annual cleanup budget and accounts for more than a quarter of the total stimulus spending in Washington. It's the reason the state ranks third in the number of stimulus-related jobs, despite being 13th in population.

It was ground zero for nuclear bomb production, then it became the nation's biggest atomic waste headache. Now the old Hanford nuclear reservation boasts a new distinction: It is the single biggest recipient of federal stimulus contracts. The plan is to pump an additional $2 billion into the enormous effort to decontaminate the remote campus a few miles from the Oregon border, where abandoned reactors rise like weeds amid miles of sagebrush, and toxic plumes of waste roil underground. The money equals Hanford's annual cleanup budget and accounts for more than a quarter of the total stimulus spending in Washington. It's the reason the state ranks third in the number of stimulus-related jobs, despite being 13th in population.

THE Opposition's desire to embrace nuclear power in the absence of an emissions trading scheme or carbon tax would result in electricity price rises of between 10 per cent and 33 per cent, according to estimates by the Howard government's nuclear energy expert, Ziggy Switkowski. In a report for John Howard in 2006, Dr Switkowski found nuclear power would never be commercially viable unless fossil fuel-generated electricity was made more expensive using an ETS or carbon tax. This resulted in Mr Howard embracing an emissions trading scheme as a way to reduce greenhouse gases while keeping open the nuclear option for the future.

THE Opposition's desire to embrace nuclear power in the absence of an emissions trading scheme or carbon tax would result in electricity price rises of between 10 per cent and 33 per cent, according to estimates by the Howard government's nuclear energy expert, Ziggy Switkowski. In a report for John Howard in 2006, Dr Switkowski found nuclear power would never be commercially viable unless fossil fuel-generated electricity was made more expensive using an ETS or carbon tax. This resulted in Mr Howard embracing an emissions trading scheme as a way to reduce greenhouse gases while keeping open the nuclear option for the future.

"Exposure to radiotherapy or radiation-based diagnostics like computed tomography (CT scans) in early childhood increases breast cancer risk in adulthood, a new study in the Jan 2010 issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. The study involved women exposed to thymic irradiation during infancy from 1926 to 1957. Breast cancer was identified in 96 treated in an average dose of 0.71 Gy and 57 untreated women during 159,459 person-year follow-up. Adams MJ and colleagues from University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry found women who were treated by radiation were 200 percent more likely to develop breast cancer than those who did not receive radiation. Higher doses of radiation were linked to high risk of breast cancer."