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The Zvezdochka shipyard in northern Russia said on Friday that a recent minor radioactive leak at its storage facility posed no threat to people or environment. According to a Zvezdochka statement, the "radiation incident" took place on Thursday when about two cubic meters liquid radioactive waste leaked through a seam in a pipe connecting a storage tank and a waste treatment facility. "The pipe itself is located in a leak-proof tunnel and the waste did not spill outside," the statement said, adding that the tunnel has been drained of the waste in two hours following the leak. "The radiation levels around the tunnel are normal. The causes of the leak are being investigated," the shipyard said. Severodvinsk-based Zvezdochka is Russia's biggest shipyard for repairing and dismantling nuclear-powered submarines. It has the capacity to scrap up to four nuclear submarines per year.

The Zvezdochka shipyard in northern Russia said on Friday that a recent minor radioactive leak at its storage facility posed no threat to people or environment. According to a Zvezdochka statement, the "radiation incident" took place on Thursday when about two cubic meters liquid radioactive waste leaked through a seam in a pipe connecting a storage tank and a waste treatment facility. "The pipe itself is located in a leak-proof tunnel and the waste did not spill outside," the statement said, adding that the tunnel has been drained of the waste in two hours following the leak. "The radiation levels around the tunnel are normal. The causes of the leak are being investigated," the shipyard said. Severodvinsk-based Zvezdochka is Russia's biggest shipyard for repairing and dismantling nuclear-powered submarines. It has the capacity to scrap up to four nuclear submarines per year.

A tritium leak at Oyster Creek Generating Station has prompted the federal government to take a closer look at leaks happening at nuclear plants nationwide. On Tuesday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission released its inspection report on a leak found at Oyster Creek on April 15, days after the plant was relicensed for another 20 years. The full report did not reveal any new information about the tritium leak, but the issuing of the report has prompted more investigation into future leaks at nuclear plants, including another leak that happened at Oyster Creek in August. The leaks occurred 18 years after the underground pipes had last been recoated. In 1991, engineers reported that two underground pipes had been excavated and completely recoated. The recent investigation revealed that the coating was not applied thoroughly enough. Adjoining areas of the pipes that were not coated properly allowed moisture to seep in, causing corrosion.

Exelon working to determine source of leak A radioactive leak at Exelon's Dresden nuclear power plant has been contained and isn't a risk to public health, authorities said Tuesday. Leaked tritium -- a radioactive byproduct of nuclear reaction that can cause cancer and birth defects -- was found Saturday during routine tests at the Grundy County plant, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said. The leak is not believed to have left the 1,700-acre plant site, which is not far from the Kankakee and Des Plaines Rivers. Exelon officials said leaked tritium has not entered the public water supply. But the company hasn't found the cause or source of the leak.

"An updated state report on whether the recent radioactive leaks at the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor affect the plant's long-term reliability has raised questions about the potential of additional leaks if more money isn't spent on prevention. The report, conducted by Nuclear Safety Associates of Johnson City, Tenn., and released late Friday by the Department of Public Service, said Entergy Nuclear workers responded well to the tritium leak, which was first confirmed on Jan. 6, after an initial positive test on Nov. 17. "The occurrence of the leaks underscores the need to more proactively determine plant vulnerability to similar leaks," the report concluded. "While the occurrence of the leaks is not in and of itself indicative of a lack of management oversight, more management attention needs to be applied to detect future leaks at an early stage," the report added."

"As President Obama advocates expansion of America's nuclear power industry, pushing for billions of dollars in federal incentives and announcing plans to build the first nuclear plant in decades, a long-running facility in Vermont is leaking a cancer causing carcinogen. The Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant is leaking possibly dangerous levels of tritium, a radioactive byproduct of the nuclear process. Thus far, tritium has only be found on the plant grounds, which are nestled amidst farms in rural Vernon, Vermont. Around the clock efforts are underway to find and stop the leak. The timing is bad for the plant's owner, Entergy corporation, which is seeking to renew the facility's operating license, set to expire in 2012. The facility, which began operating in 1972, is just one of dozens across the country that have seen similar leaks in recent years. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees inspection and licensing of nuclear facilities, says roughly 30 of the nation's 104 reactor units have experienced tritium leaks."

Technicians at Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon are trying to fix another pipe after a "several-gallon-per-minute leak" in service water piping was discovered, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Last week, technicians discovered a leak in the plant's condenser tubes, miles of piping used to cool down radioactive steam produced by the reactor to power the plant's turbine. The service water leak is located near the plant's intake structure on the Connecticut River, according to the NRC. The section of piping of concern channels water that is sprayed on screens used to minimize the buildup of debris on those screens. The screens themselves keep debris from the river from entering the plant's condenser tubes. A Yankee spokesman said the valve to the service water pipe has been shut off, meaning it is not actively leaking at this point. It will only be turned on when enough debris -- such as sticks, stones and mud -- has accumulated on the screens to justify a backwash to flush them clean, said Larry Smith, Yankee's director of communications. The pipe is an eight-inch line and was found to be leaking in the past two days by technicians conducting their normal inspection rounds, he said.

Twenty three workers were exposed to low levels of radiation after a leak at Chubu Electric Power Co.'s Hamaoka nuclear plant in central Japan, the company said on Wednesday. The amount of radiation from the leak of tainted water at the No 3 reactor was minimal and not enough to harm the workers' health, the company said. Operations at the plant, in the Shizuoka Prefecture, southwest of Tokyo, have not been affected. The cause of the leak, which saw 53 liters of water contaminated by more than 300 times radiation the amount permitted, is being investigated.

Twenty three workers were exposed to low levels of radiation after a leak at Chubu Electric Power Co.'s Hamaoka nuclear plant in central Japan, the company said on Wednesday. The amount of radiation from the leak of tainted water at the No 3 reactor was minimal and not enough to harm the workers' health, the company said. Operations at the plant, in the Shizuoka Prefecture, southwest of Tokyo, have not been affected. The cause of the leak, which saw 53 liters of water contaminated by more than 300 times radiation the amount permitted, is being investigated.

"A new report released today by Beyond Nuclear - Leak First, Fix Later: Uncontrolled and Unmonitored Releases from Nuclear Power Plants - finds that the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is ignoring its oversight and enforcement responsibilities at the nation's increasingly leaky, uninspected and unmaintained nuclear power plants. The report shows that despite agency efforts initiated in 1979 to prevent uncontrolled radioactive releases to groundwater, the NRC is capitulating to an industry decision to take almost three more years before announcing an action plan. One reactor operator has committed to complete proactive corrective actions by the end of 2010 to prevent recurring radioactive leaks, raising concern over why the rest of the industry needs so much more time. "The NRC has relinquished its oversight of leaking reactors to an industry where profits have been more important than public health," said report author, Paul Gunter, director of the Reactor Oversight Project for Beyond Nuclear, a national organization based in Takoma Park, Maryland. "Instead of enforcing its regulations to prevent leaks, NRC is entrusting the nuclear industry with 'voluntarily' corrective actions that won't be announced for years to come.""

A New Jersey nuclear plant has reduced its operating power by about 50 percent while workers repair an underground pipe that's been leaking. Advertisement David Benson, a plant spokesman, says the leak was detected Monday inside Oyster Creek's turbine building. Workers excavated soil immediately outside the building, and samples showed elevated levels of tritium - a weak radioisotope found naturally and produced in somewhat higher concentrations in commercial reactors. Officials say the leak at the Lacey Township plant does not pose a threat to employee or public safety. The excavation is near the area where two other small leaks were found in April and repaired. Oyster Creek opened in December 1969 and produces about 9 percent of New Jersey's electricity.

A cooling-water leak at Indian Point in February has prompted two congressmen to question the adequacy of pipe inspections at the nation's 104 nuclear plants and to call for revamping leak-detection programs. "We need to make sure these critical safety systems are inspected before it's too late," said Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., who leads the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee. Advertisement Markey and John Hall, D-Dover Plains, wrote a letter Thursday to Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Dale Klein, citing the Feb. 16 leak and questioning whether the leak "may demonstrate a systemic failure" of Indian Point and the NRC to guarantee the public's safety. Plant workers discovered the 18-gallon-a-minute leak of radioactive water from the non-nuclear side of Indian Point 2 after it pooled near a manhole cover.

Leaking nuclear waste in a storage facility in Lower Saxony has raised the temperature of the conversation over nuclear power in Germany. Conservatives say nuclear power is safe and clean, but the Left is saying, 'I told you so.' But no one knows what to do about radioactive water leaking from the mine. The Asse II salt mine, in Lower Saxony, is leaking radioactive brine. The trouble with nuclear waste is that it never goes away, German politicians are (re-)learning this week, after a status report on barrels of leaking nuclear waste in a storage facility based at a former salt rock and potash mine called Asse II in Lower Saxony

Critics round on ministry's 'scandalous' safety record after admission to nine nuclear submarine leaks in past 12 years Radioactive waste has leaked from Britain's nuclear submarines nine times in the past 12 years, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has admitted. Two of the leaks - including one at Devonport near Plymouth two months ago - had not been revealed until today. Confirmation of the leaks raises new questions about the MoD's safety record, which has been coming under increasing scrutiny since HMS Vanguard, a British submarine armed with Trident nuclear missiles, collided with a nuclear-armed French submarine, Le Triomphant, under the Atlantic in February.

The latest radioactive leak at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant is in a threaded plug on the bottom of a demineralizer tank that is part of the reactor's water cleanup system, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Thursday. The tank contains filter material and is used to clean and purify reactor coolant water that circulates through the reactor, said Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The filter also removes radioactivity. "The leak is small and unrelated to the leak involving the valve," Sheehan said, referring to the December leak, which was only contained last week.

Vice President Dick Cheney told the FBI he had no idea who leaked to the news media that Valerie Plame, wife of a Bush administration critic, worked for the CIA. An FBI summary of Cheney's interview from 2004 reflects that the vice president had deep concern about Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador in Africa who said the administration had twisted prewar intelligence on Iraq. Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was convicted of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI in the probe of who leaked Plame's identity to the news media. At the end of Libby's trial, prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said that "there is a cloud over the vice president" in the leaking of Plame's identity.

Vice President Dick Cheney told the FBI he had no idea who leaked to the news media that Valerie Plame, wife of a Bush administration critic, worked for the CIA. An FBI summary of Cheney's interview from 2004 reflects that the vice president had deep concern about Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador in Africa who said the administration had twisted prewar intelligence on Iraq. Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was convicted of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI in the probe of who leaked Plame's identity to the news media. At the end of Libby's trial, prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said that "there is a cloud over the vice president" in the leaking of Plame's identity.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. succeeded in stopping highly radioactive water from leaking into the Pacific Ocean from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant early Wednesday morning after injecting a chemical agent, it said. In a bid to stem the leak, Tepco injected about 6,000 liters of "water glass," or sodium silicate, and another agent around a seaside pit located near the plant's No. 2 reactor water intake, through which the highly radioactive water had been leaking heavily. The leak has apparently seriously contaminated the marine environment, as a seawater sample taken near the water intake Saturday showed a radioactive iodine-131 concentration of 7.5 million times the maximum level permitted under law.

The most senior figure in nuclear safety has defended the regulation of an atomic power station barely 50 miles from the centre of London that leaked radioactive material for 14 years. Mike Weightman, chief inspector at the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, said it was not possible to "inspect or check every feature of a complex plant". But as soon as the leak in the sump of one of the Magnox reactors at Bradwell-on-Sea was discovered the safety body did all it could to ensure that the cause of the problem was identified and dealt with, he added. The leak became public when a little-publicised case started by the Environment Agency against the then owners of the plant, Magnox Electric Ltd, for 11 breaches of safety regulations came to court last month.

Vermont Yankee discovered another leak in a cooling tower on Tuesday night. This one doesn't appear to be related to leaks that caused two power reductions in the past year, said a spokesman for the nuclear power plant in Vernon. "The leak was not related to any structural issues as had been the cause of previous events in the cooling tower," stated Rob Williams, in an e-mail to the media. When the leak in the east tower's distribution pipe was discovered Tuesday night, it was taken out of service and the plant's power generation ramped down to 57 percent of capacity. The west tower re-mained in service, saidWilliams, Vermont Yankee spokesman. Repairs should be done soon, he said, and the plant would then return to full power production.

The president of Canada's nuclear safety regulator said Tuesday he was surprised by public and media interest in what he described as minor, harmless leaks of water - including radioactive water - last December at the Chalk River, Ont., nuclear reactor operated by Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL). But Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) president Michael Binder told MPs the commission and AECL have re-evaluated their communications protocol in the wake of the leaks at the National Research Universal (NRU) reactor, and will establish a new proactive system of disclosure - even for events that pose no health risk, and may seem like routine variations on normal operating procedure.

"The Pilgrim nuclear power plant in Plymouth could be leaking radioactive substances and should be required to perform more extensive testing to monitor the situation, Gov. Deval Patrick said. In a letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Patrick also calls for a stay on further consideration of relicensing the plant or approving a proposed spin-off of the plant by its owner, Entergy Corp. Patrick is the most recent New England governor to ask the federal commission to take action against a local plant. Buried piping at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant - also owned by Entergy Corp. - has been leaking radioactive tritium that state health officials said Wednesday has reached the Connecticut River. Governors in Vermont and New Hampshire have called for an investigation by the NRC. But the difference between the Yankee and Pilgrim plants is that officials at the Vermont facility agree there's a leak. Their monitoring wells detected tritium levels that exceed federal standards for drinking water."

Valve Leak Stopped, No Radioactive Release Reported At Beaver Valley SHIPPINGPORT, Pa. -- A leak in a valve at a nuclear reactor in Shippingport, Beaver County, has been resolved and no radioactive release was reported. The leak in the Beaver Valley Power Station's No. 2 nuclear reactor was discovered at about 3 a.m. Tuesday. It was resolved within an hour. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission declared the incident an "unusual event," the least of four emergency classifications. A spokesman for the NRC told Channel 4 Action News that the plant has been shut down for maintenance since October, and a valve was accidentally left open while the cooling system was being taken out of service, which caused water to flow into the pressurized relief tank.

Valve Leak Stopped, No Radioactive Release Reported At Beaver Valley SHIPPINGPORT, Pa. -- A leak in a valve at a nuclear reactor in Shippingport, Beaver County, has been resolved and no radioactive release was reported. The leak in the Beaver Valley Power Station's No. 2 nuclear reactor was discovered at about 3 a.m. Tuesday. It was resolved within an hour. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission declared the incident an "unusual event," the least of four emergency classifications. A spokesman for the NRC told Channel 4 Action News that the plant has been shut down for maintenance since October, and a valve was accidentally left open while the cooling system was being taken out of service, which caused water to flow into the pressurized relief tank.