Wild Horse Energy Ltd. of Australia is planning to built a uranium mine in Bátaszék, southern Hungary, after initial research found 0.01-0.084% uranium at between 140-230 meters, writes napi.hu.
Enough processed uranium to make six nuclear weapons was secretly transported thousands of miles by truck, rail and ship on a monthlong trip from a research reactor in Budapest, Hungary, to a facility in Russia so it could be more closely protected against theft, U.S. officials revealed Wednesday.
The shipment, conducted under tight secrecy and security, included a three-week trip by cargo ship through the Mediterranean, up the English Channel and the North Sea to Russia's Arctic seaport of Murmansk, the only port Russia allows for handling nuclear material.
Enough processed uranium to make six nuclear weapons was secretly transported thousands of miles by truck, rail and ship on a monthlong trip from a research reactor in Budapest, Hungary, to a facility in Russia so it could be more closely protected against theft, U.S. officials revealed Wednesday.
The shipment, conducted under tight secrecy and security, included a three-week trip by cargo ship through the Mediterranean, up the English Channel and the North Sea to Russia's Arctic seaport of Murmansk, the only port Russia allows for handling nuclear material.
The 13 radiation-proof casks, each weighing 17,000 pounds, arrived by rail at the secure nuclear material facility at Mayak in Siberia on Wednesday, carrying 341 pounds of weapons usable uranium, said Kenneth Baker, a National Nuclear Security Administration official who oversaw the complex project.
Hungary's new nuclear waste disposal facility has the highest possible safety standards that current technology allows, Jozsef Palinkas, head of the Academy of Sciences (MTA), said on Monday.
"MTA scientists went to enormous efforts to find the location from where radioactive materials cannot escape under any circumstances," Palinkas said, opening the first phase of the project.
Eastern Europe is promoting nuclear energy as the only way to tackle climate change and reduce dependence on Russian gas, in spite of costs of going nuclear that it cannot meet.
Amid the last Ukrainian-Russian gas spat early this year, officials from several Central and Eastern European countries were quick to point to the need for nuclear energy to reduce problematic imports of Russian gas.
Unlike many countries in the West, public opinion in Central and Eastern Europe overwhelmingly supports nuclear energy, with opinion polls showing 80 percent support in Slovakia and 70 percent in Hungary.
"They see it as a way to export electricity, and they believe the simple solution is to have big facilities," Olexi Pasyuk, energy specialist in Kiev with Bankwatch, an independent group monitoring European Bank investments told IPS. "But you have to invest a lot, and maybe you get money back in 30 years, if you're lucky."
Hanford Challenge plans a Global Nuclear Legacy Project to explore the worldwide health and environmental affects of nuclear weapons and energy production.
The nonprofit group, which monitors Hanford environmental cleanup and advocates for workers, plans a meeting later this month in Budapest, Hungary. It expects scientists, politicians and activists from 10 countries to attend to lay the groundwork for hearings next year in the United States, Europe and Russia.
"Hanford Challenge is the natural group to start this process," said Executive Director Tom Carpenter. "The Hanford site in Washington state is where the nuclear age made the jump from being a theoretical concept to the industrial and environmental reality that we know today."
The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability is a co-sponsor of the project.
The first 16 barrels of low and medium radioactivity waste were deposited at Hungary's new nuclear waste facility at Bataapati (SW) on Tuesday.
The country's sole nuclear power plant at Paks (C) produces some 900 barrels of radioactive waste a year, of which a truckload is planned to be forwarded to Bataapati each day, Jozsef Hegyhati, head of the radioactive waste management company (RHK) told MTI.
The current facility - built above ground - has a capacity to receive 3,000 barrels of waste, and its planned underground section is expected to be completed in 2010, Hegyhati said.
In a mishap during maintenance work, a device that measured neutron flow fell into the Block 4 reactor at the nuclear power plant in Paks, but no radioactivity was released, plant administrators said Tuesday.
The accident happened on Monday, when the winch cable broke that was to have hauled it out of the reactor interior.
There were no injuries to workers, plant officials said.
Hungarian nuclear energy officials rated the accident at level 2 on the 0-7 International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES) scale. Seven is the most serious accident.
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