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Department of Energy lawyers are forging ahead with their defense of a license application to build the nation's nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. They met a deadline last week for filing briefs on questions that Nevada's attorneys raised with a nuclear regulatory panel, which is tracking safety concerns about plans for turning the mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, into a burial site for 77,000 tons of highly radioactive waste. Most Popular Stories # Sahara closes two hotel towers due to low demand # Real estate analysts predict continued gloom for Las Vegas # CITYCENTER'S ARIA: THE CRESCENDO # Fatal pedestrian accident shuts down I-15 # Teen arrested in slaying of mother # NORM: Palms owner sees Gaga as Palms hit # NORM: Trump fires back about CityCenter # NORM: The Donald slams new megaresort # Armored truck heist nets $36,000 # Teacher arrested on sexual misconduct charges The briefs were filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board despite the Obama administration's stance that Yucca Mountain is no longer an option for a repository. An internal DOE memo that surfaced last month also stated, "All license defense activities will be terminated in December 2009." Nevada's top legal consultant, Marty Malsch, had hoped lawyers for the DOE would default by missing the deadline but was not surprised that didn't happen. "As things now stand, they are pursuing the license application by defending their position in the briefs they filed," he said Tuesday.

Department of Energy lawyers are forging ahead with their defense of a license application to build the nation's nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. They met a deadline last week for filing briefs on questions that Nevada's attorneys raised with a nuclear regulatory panel, which is tracking safety concerns about plans for turning the mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, into a burial site for 77,000 tons of highly radioactive waste. Most Popular Stories # Sahara closes two hotel towers due to low demand # Real estate analysts predict continued gloom for Las Vegas # CITYCENTER'S ARIA: THE CRESCENDO # Fatal pedestrian accident shuts down I-15 # Teen arrested in slaying of mother # NORM: Palms owner sees Gaga as Palms hit # NORM: Trump fires back about CityCenter # NORM: The Donald slams new megaresort # Armored truck heist nets $36,000 # Teacher arrested on sexual misconduct charges The briefs were filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board despite the Obama administration's stance that Yucca Mountain is no longer an option for a repository. An internal DOE memo that surfaced last month also stated, "All license defense activities will be terminated in December 2009." Nevada's top legal consultant, Marty Malsch, had hoped lawyers for the DOE would default by missing the deadline but was not surprised that didn't happen. "As things now stand, they are pursuing the license application by defending their position in the briefs they filed," he said Tuesday.

California is urging federal regulators to turn down the Energy Department's bid to build a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, charging analysts did not fully study how the plan would affect Death Valley groundwater and the state's transportation networks. "Proceeding with the project in the manner described by DOE poses a threat to the people, natural resources and environment of California," attorneys said at the outset of a 400-page document filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Share & Save Newsvine Digg Fark Technorati reddit StumbleUpon del.icio.us Slashdot Propeller Mixx Furl Twitter MySpace Facebook Google Bookmarks Yahoo! Bookmarks Windows Live Favorites Ask MyStuff myAOL Favorites What is this? Most Popular Stories # WYNN RESORTS: Enter the Encore # NORM: Fredericks bidding KVBC-TV farewell # HAPPY NEW YEAR: Rates for rooms at discounts # SILENT NIGHT: Workers outnumber stocked racks at soon-to-be-closed stores # NORM: Deadbeat leaves his mark on Strip # F Street closing called biased # NORM: Record numbers of strippers seen # LAS VEGAS LAWYER: Justices chide 'heavy hitter' # North Las Vegas police officer arrested on misconduct, other charges # Station Casinos to use its remaining credit The commission "may not approve DOE's license application unless DOE provides an adequate environmental analysis that analyzes threats to California and how to mitigate them," said the lawyers from the state's Energy Commission and its Department of Justice.

The rocks in the Marcellus Shale not only hold an abundance of natural gas, they also contain quite a bit of radioactivity. It comes in the form of Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials, which the drilling industry refers to by the acronym NORM. Is NORM harmful to human health?

For more than 20 years, the government's plan to dispose of highly radioactive spent fuel piling up at U.S. nuclear power reactors has been to haul it to Yucca Mountain and entomb it in a maze of tunnels. But this year, more than a decade before the first shipment was ever expected to arrive at the mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, and years before a license could have been approved for the project, the Obama administration halted funding, saying the Nevada site was "not an option." That prompted a group of university experts on nuclear waste policy to explore another plan. That plan, they hope, will chart the course for a soon-to-be-chosen Department of Energy blue ribbon panel to follow as it sets out to develop a new national nuclear waste strategy.

Whether of the extremely radioactive high-level, long-lived kind or the short-lived, low-level type, the issue of nuclear waste and methods of its disposal remain one of the most pressing problems facing the nuclear sector. "Technical solutions for waste disposal do exist and they are certainly safe," explains Didier Louvat, who heads the IAEA´s Waste and Environmental Safety Section. "However, what has been missing so far is a uniform, international approach to this issue at a normative level."

Whether of the extremely radioactive high-level, long-lived kind or the short-lived, low-level type, the issue of nuclear waste and methods of its disposal remain one of the most pressing problems facing the nuclear sector. "Technical solutions for waste disposal do exist and they are certainly safe," explains Didier Louvat, who heads the IAEA´s Waste and Environmental Safety Section. "However, what has been missing so far is a uniform, international approach to this issue at a normative level."

Sen. Norm Coleman says the U.S. needs to catch up with advances in nuclear power technology and build more plants. The Republican senator says nuclear power would reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil and help combat global warming because it doesn't produce emissions.

Elevator maker Otis will replace hundreds of lift buttons in France after authorities found radioactive materials imported from India at a supplier factory, a source at Otis said on Wednesday. The French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) said about 20 workers at the plant run by the firm Mafelec, which makes lift buttons in the eastern Isere area, had been exposed to levels of radioactivity above legal norms. "The most important point is that the lift buttons do not represent any risk to people's health," said the source at Otis, who declined to be named. He estimated that contaminated buttons were installed at between 350 and 500 sites around the country.

Georgia Power and its utility partners Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia, Oglethorpe Power and Dalton Utilities are headed toward a nuclear relapse, betting billions of ratepayer and taxpayer dollars on nuclear power when the dollar is down, when filling up the gas tank is painful, when droughts have become the norm, and when the threat of climate change cannot be ignored.

With the receipt of dummy fuel from Russia, India has moved a step forward towards commissioning the first unit of 2x1,000 MW Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project in Tamil Nadu. IANS reliably learns that the dummy fuel landed in Tuticorin port Saturday and has reached Kudankulam where the Nuclear Power Corp of India Ltd (NPCIL) is putting up the project with Russian equipment. Kudankulam is in Tirunelveli district, about 600 km from Chennai. Dummy fuel is similar to real fuel in terms of weight and other features, but without uranium. It will be inserted into the reactor core to test the functioning of all systems, a process technically called status of hot operation. If the systems function as per norms, the real fuel will be loaded so that the reactor attains criticality.

"Operators of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant knew as recently as November of 2007 that there were underground pipes at the plant that top plant officials later said didn't exist, documents filed with state officials indicate. A sworn statement from Vermont Yankee chief engineer Norm Rademacher could help determine whether the plant officials intentionally misled state officials about the underground pipes in sworn Public Service Board testimony, unsworn testimony to lawmakers and at least one e-mail to a legislative consultant. Questions about the pipes came up repeatedly in a special investigation ordered by the Legislature in 2008, as it prepared to decide a question it still hasn't: whether Vermont Yankee should be allowed to operate for 20 years past its current license expiration date of March 2012. "

"Residents get fresh opportunity to air views about proposed Buchan plant dealing with oil waste Residents concerned about controversial plans to treat radioactive waste in Buchan have been given another chance to air their views on the project. A heated public meeting on proposals to treat naturally-occurring radioactive material (Norm) at Stoneyhill landfill, four miles from Peterhead, was held earlier this month. Waste management firm Sita and radiation specialists Nuvia are working together on the scheme. The firms announced last night that a further public meeting and exhibition will take place tomorrow. They said it will allow them to "clarify" some points raised at the previous meeting as they prepare to submit a planning application to Aberdeenshire Council."

"The firms behind controversial plans to treat radioactive waste at a Buchan landfill site have lodged an application for the proposal with the council. Waste management company Sita and radiation specialists Nuvia want to convert a building at Stoneyhill landfill near Peterhead into a facility for washing radioactive residue from contaminated oil and gas industry equipment. A spokeswoman for the firms last night confirmed the planning application for the project had been submitted to the local authority. It follows a series of heated public meetings on the proposals, which would see naturally-occurring radioactive material (Norm) treated at Stoneyhill. Local residents had objected to the plans, saying that they were con- cerned about possible health risks."