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An Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, or ASLB, panel accepted one contention for a hearing on Progress Energy's combined construction permit-operating license, or COL, application for a new unit at its Harris plant in North Carolina. The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board panel said in an October 30 order that the North Carolina Waste Awareness and Reduction Network, or NC WARN, has standing to intervene and accepted a contention the group filed in August. NC WARN contends that the Harris COL application is incomplete because the NRC is still reviewing proposed amendments to its certification of the Westinghouse AP1000 design that Progress Energy plans to use. The ASLB panel said a hearing on the contention will be "held in abeyance" pending further review by the NRC staff and resolution of the issues in the ongoing design certification amendment rulemaking.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has called a meeting regarding the GE Plant in Castle Hayne. The commission is concerned about an alert the global nuclear fuels facility issued in January when moisture may have leaked into a container of uranium dioxide powder. The executive director of the environmental watchdog group NC Warn said it was most likely a human error. However Jim Warren voiced his concern, saying, "That's the NRC's clever way of saying there was no risk."

North Carolina's top elected officials have agreed the state should pay another quarter-million dollars for outside lawyers and expert witnesses for three pending lawsuits. Council of State members approved yesterday giving $253,000 from a special fund to the state Justice Department. Attorney General Roy Cooper said the money will pay invoices for defending North Carolina against lawsuits filed by other states involving a low-level radioactive waste compact and the Catawba River basin. And Cooper said the state's lawsuit against the Tennessee Valley Authority already is leading to reduced pollution from TVA power plants. Labor Commissioner Cherie Berry voted no because she's not persuaded all expenses are justified. The council has authorized more than $4 million for the three lawsuits over the years.

North Carolina's top elected officials have agreed the state should pay another quarter-million dollars for outside lawyers and expert witnesses for three pending lawsuits. Council of State members approved yesterday giving $253,000 from a special fund to the state Justice Department. Attorney General Roy Cooper said the money will pay invoices for defending North Carolina against lawsuits filed by other states involving a low-level radioactive waste compact and the Catawba River basin. And Cooper said the state's lawsuit against the Tennessee Valley Authority already is leading to reduced pollution from TVA power plants. Labor Commissioner Cherie Berry voted no because she's not persuaded all expenses are justified. The council has authorized more than $4 million for the three lawsuits over the years.

EXPERTS TO WARN THAT BILLIONS IN TAXPAYER-BACKED LOAN GUARANTEES FOR NEW REACTORS ARE IMPRUDENT IN WAKE OF NRC'S MAJOR OBJECTIONS TO AP-1000 DESIGN NRC Action Throws Into Question Future of 14 of 31 Proposed New U.S. Reactors; Forward Path Now Unclear for Proposed Reactors in NC, SC, GA, FL, AL - Including AP-1000 Reactors in GA and SC on DOE Loan Guarantee Short List.

EXPERTS TO WARN THAT BILLIONS IN TAXPAYER-BACKED LOAN GUARANTEES FOR NEW REACTORS ARE IMPRUDENT IN WAKE OF NRC'S MAJOR OBJECTIONS TO AP-1000 DESIGN NRC Action Throws Into Question Future of 14 of 31 Proposed New U.S. Reactors; Forward Path Now Unclear for Proposed Reactors in NC, SC, GA, FL, AL - Including AP-1000 Reactors in GA and SC on DOE Loan Guarantee Short List.

"The U.S. Supreme Court handed North Carolina a victory Tuesday in an epic, decades-long legal battle with other states over plans for a low-level nuclear disposal site that would have been in Wake County. Seven Southeastern states joined in 1986 to share the burden of disposing of irradiated material produced by nuclear reactors, factories, hospitals and laboratories. North Carolina was picked to host a landfill for the material, and the other states in the compact agreed to help with the costs. But safety concerns and out-of-control expenses delayed the project. Money from the other states dried up. Eventually, North Carolina decided to cancel the project and withdraw from the interstate compact. Other states sought to assess $80 million in penalties. North Carolina has maintained since 1999 that it didn't owe anything. The Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday."

A small eastern Idaho company aiming to build a $55 million plant in the West to extract industrial gases from depleted uranium has narrowed its search to four sites, including two in Idaho. International Isotopes Inc. Chief Executive Officer Steve Laflin said one of the Idaho sites is near Idaho Falls, where France's Areva NC Inc. plans a $2 billion uranium enrichment plant. The other Idaho site hasn't been disclosed.

Officials from the federal commission charged with deciding whether a nuclear-enrichment plant is right for New Hanover County assured residents Thursday night that they will conduct a thorough review and consider public opinion.

On December 30, 2008, AREVA Enrichment Services, LLC (a subsidiary of AREVA NC, Inc.), submitted an application to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), seeking a license to construct and operate a gas centrifuge uranium enrichment facility in the United States. Specifically, AREVA has selected a site in Bonneville County, Idaho, for its new facility, which will be known as the Eagle Rock Enrichment Facility. For detail, contact us or see the following topics on this page:

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Tuesday that its staff has scheduled a conference to discuss an apparent violation of requirements associated with a warning system at Global Nuclear Fuel-Americas. The Criticality Warning System (CWS) is designed to sound an alarm in the very unlikely event of an accident at the nuclear fuel manufacturing operation located at GE's Castle Hayne facility. The operation is jointly owned by General Electric, Hitachi and Toshiba.

"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has completed a draft environmental statement recommending commission approval of a license for the Global Laser Enrichment facility proposed for the GE complex in Castle Hayne. The approval was reported in a notice published in Friday's Federal Register, which stated: "The NRC staff preliminarily recommends that, unless safety issues mandate otherwise … the NRC should issue a license" to Global Laser Enrichment to operate a laser-base uranium enrichment facility. The notice went on to say the "NRC staff in the Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, Division of Fuel Cycle Safety and Safeguards is currently completing the safety review of (GE Hitachi's) license application. The safety review is currently scheduled for completion in December 2010.""

"On January 30, 2009, General Electric (GE)-Hitachi Global Laser Enrichment LLC (GLE) submitted an environmental report to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for a license to construct, operate, and decommission the GLE Global Laser Enrichment Facility. The proposed GLE Facility would be located in the North-Central Sector of the existing GE property near Wilmington, North Carolina. The proposed GLE Facility, if licensed, would enrich uranium for use in commercial nuclear fuel for power reactors. Feed material would be comprised of non-enriched uranium hexafluoride (UF6). GLE would employ a laser-based enrichment process to enrich uranium to up to eight percent uranium-235 by weight, with an initial planned maximum target production of six million separative work units (SWUs) per year. GLE expects to begin preconstruction activities in 2011. If the license is approved, GLE would expect to begin facility construction in 2012, and continue some construction activities through 2017. GLE anticipates commencing initial production in 2013 and reaching peak production in 2017. Prior to license expiration in 2052, GLE would seek to renew its license to continue operating the facility, or plan for the decontamination and decommissioning of the facility per the applicable licensing conditions and NRC regulations. The proposed GLE Facility would be licensed in accordance with the provisions of the Atomic Energy Act. Specifically, an NRC license under Title 10, "Energy," of the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) Parts 30, 40, and 70 would be required to authorize GLE to possess and use special nuclear material, source material, and byproduct material at the proposed GLE site."

"Federal nuclear regulators are meeting to discuss a special inspection of a South Carolina plant that shut down earlier this year. Staff from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission are in Hartsville on Wednesday to talk about safety at Progress Energy's nearby Robinson plant. Two fires happened March 28 in the plant's electrical system. The commission says the plant and public were never in danger but decided that issues raised in an initial inspection warranted further study. The plant entered a refueling outage originally planned for mid-April and remains shut down. Last month, the commission sent in a special inspection team to review the events that led to shutdown. The agency will issue a report after the public hearing."

Transport of nuclear waste could put area residents at risk Asheville? Nuclear waste? Why worry that Asheville City Council declined to pass a measure that would have sent federal planners the message "Don't come through here" with these deadly wastes? Taken in a larger context, this nonaction by City Council may be vitally important. Folks have a right to know about some very local nuclear history and the potential for future impacts on Asheville residents' safety and welfare. Does the name Sandy Mush mean anything to you? About 25 years ago, a federal agency was studying Sandy Mush-a rural area in Leicester, about 20 miles from City Hall-as a potential site for a permanent high-level nuclear waste dump. Were you part of the citizen action that helped block it?

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.

The Shearon Harris nuclear-power plant that supplies Wilson with most of its energy has received a 20-year license extension that allows it to operate through 2046. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the operating-license renewal of the power plant in southern Wake County. The license was set to expire in 2026. The extension, which was granted earlier this month, could mean future lower electric rates for municipal members of the N.C. Eastern Municipal Power Agency. The agency owns a share of the Harris plant, and the plant provides member cities with 16 percent of their power generation. The plant is also the largest part of the agency's debt that the 32 member cities are set to pay down until 2026.

A proposed ban on transporting high-level nuclear waste through Asheville likely wouldn't work and could complicate the safe storage of the deadly radioactive material, a majority of City Council members said Tuesday. Advertisement The council members rejected the idea of a local ordinance making the transport of waste from nuclear power plants on interstates or rail through the city a misdemeanor. A local group, Common Sense at the Nuclear Crossroads, had proposed the ban to protect the city from accidents or acts of sabotage on vehicles transporting the waste. About 60 people came to Tuesday's council meeting in support of the ban.

Members of a local group opposing high-level nuclear waste traveling on local roads and rail lines think the city should ban moving the material through the city. The group, Common Sense at the Nuclear Crossroads, plans to ask the City Council today to make it a misdemeanor to transport nuclear power plant waste through the city. Advertisement The federal government does not now transport the waste through Asheville, said Mary Olson, who volunteers with the local group and works for a nonprofit opposed to nuclear power. But if nuclear power use is increased, waste from current reactors could be moved from the north through Asheville to South Carolina to be reprocessed for fuel or weapons, she said.

Duke Energy Carolinas has raised the expected construction costs of its proposed Lee Nuclear Station to $11 billion, excluding financing costs. That's roughly twice the company's original estimates. Based on the financing costs for Duke's new coal-powered unit at Cliffside Steam Station, financing expenses would increase the nuclear plant's price to more than $14 billion. The new estimate is included in a cover letter Duke has sent to the N.C. Utilities Commission with its 2008 Integrated Resource Plan. That annual plan outlines Duke's expectations for demand over a 20-year period and outlines how the utility expects to meet the demand.

Duke Energy doesn't plan to use nuclear reactor fuel made from converted weapons-grade plutonium at its Oconee reactors, a spokeswoman has told The Greenville News. But Duke, the only American utility to use the mixed-oxide, or MOX, fuel in its reactors, does plan to use MOX in two of its other nuclear plants once the MOX factory at the Savannah River Site near Aiken begins production, said Rita Sipe, a Duke spokeswoman.