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"The Nuclear Review, Issue# 7 : Nuclear Constructions, Waste Management, More, March 29, 2010, by Arn Specter, Phila. 1.Managers Warned Against Bungling Los Alamos Lab Construction project 2.Costs Climb for Los Alamos Research Site 3.Project Estimates Go Up and Up, 4.Secretary Chu, NNSA Administrator and the Tennessee Congressional Delegation Join Local Officials in Dedicating Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility at Y-12 5.A recent uranium mining ruling could lead to NM nuke renaissance 6.Need for an Information Repository in the Española Valley as part of NMED Hazardous Waste Permit for LANL 7.Under the Nuclear Shadow 8.Los Alamos scientists write in Physics Today about enabling largest superfund cleanup to date, 9. Australian Prime Minister's Russia Meltdown, 10. IAEA Could Acquire Russian Uranium for Fuel Bank, 11. House Members Criticize Proposal to Halt work on Yucca Mountain"

"The Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in Lacey has killed 80 million pounds of aquatic organisms in the past 40 years, a federal agency says. In a March 15 letter to a state Department of Environmental Protection official, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service repeated its support for cooling towers to be built at the plant. In 2005, the service also concluded that closed-loop cooling (cooling towers) is the best technology available at Oyster Creek, according to the letter. A draft DEP permit calls for cooling towers, but Oyster Creek officials have said they aren't necessary and they'll close the plant if required to build them."

"Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen says the government will not grant permits to all three applicants to build new nuclear reactors. He rejected the notion that they should all be approved and then let the market decide which of them should be built and when - as Finance Minister Jyrki Katainen of the conservative National Coalition Party has suggested. The PM says that the decision must be made based on laws governing nuclear energy. "

"A hearing on the risk of a nuclear renaissance in the EU was held at the European Parliament on April 7th. It discussed three projects for new units at existing nuclear power plants that are under planning or construction in Europe. While one project was withdrawn, one was caught in legal entanglements and a third was facing massive cost overruns and delays. Veronica Webster, 15/04-2010 The hearing was co-sponsored by German Member of the European Parliament Rebecca Harms from the Greens, and Finnish Member of the European Parliament Sirpa Pietikainen from the centre-right group EPP, in co-operation with green NGO Friends of the Earth Europe. Three case studies were examined. The nuclear power plant units Mochovce 3 and 4 in Slovakia were permitted in the 1980s under the socialist regime and were partly built before the project was stopped after the economic changes of the early 1990s. The project has recently been revived, but it is still based on a reactor-design from the early 1970s, and offers, for instance, insufficient protection against plane crashes."

"Exelon has submitted an application to the US nuclear regulator for an early site permit (ESP) for the construction of a new nuclear power plant in Victoria County, Texas. It has also formally withdrawn its application for a combined construction and operating licence (COL) for the proposed plant. Exelon announced in July 2009 that it had decided to indefinitely postpone plans to build new reactors and would instead pursue power uprates for its existing plants. The decision was made due to "uncertainties in the domestic economy, lowered expectations of future electricity demand and related economic considerations." The company said at that time that it planned to withdraw its COL application for the Victoria plant, but would instead seek an ESP for the site to keep the option of constructing the plant open. Unlike a COL, an ESP does not authorize construction of a new plant."

"* Bill to spur development of 12 nuclear plants * Would delay carbon caps and weaken permit price cap * Maintains U.S. goal to cut emissions 17 pct by 2020 (Adds quote from Republicans, background, graphics) By Timothy Gardner WASHINGTON, April 23 (Reuters) - The U.S. climate change bill expected to be unveiled on Monday contains incentives to spur development of a dozen nuclear power plants, but delays emissions caps on plants that emit large amounts of greenhouse gases, industry sources said on Friday."

"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has made available to the public an Early Site Permit (ESP) application for the Victoria County site near Victoria, Texas. The applicant, Exelon, submitted the application and associated information on March 25. The application, minus proprietary and security-related details, is available on the NRC Web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/esp/victoria.html. Exelon's ESP application seeks resolution of safety and environmental issues for the site, approximately 13 miles south of Victoria. The NRC staff is currently conducting an initial check of the application to determine whether it contains sufficient information required for a formal review. If the application passes the initial check, the NRC will "docket," or accept it for review; this decision is expected by late May. If the application is accepted, the NRC will then announce an opportunity for the public to request an adjudicatory hearing on the application. More information about"

"For the third consecutive legislative session, myopic legislators have introduced illogical, almost surreal rationalizations for why they should repeal one state law that has successfully protected Illinois for 23 years, and sabotage a second that promotes zero-carbon, sustainable and less-polluting energy. I refer here to attempts to repeal what has become known as the "nuclear construction moratorium." This 1987 law simply says: Illinois will not permit the construction of new nuclear plants until there exists an environmentally responsible way of permanently disposing of the dangerous radioactive wastes they create. The Sears Tower, John Hancock Center and Illinois' currently operating nuclear reactors were being constructed around the same time. Imagine if legislators of the day - touting reasons like jobs, federal money and proud legacies - allowed these and future skyscrapers to be built without bathrooms. This is precisely the (il)logic of today's legislators calling for moratorium repeal."

"Iranian President Ahmedinejad minced no words when he responded to reporters' queries prior to the ongoing UN Non Proliferation Treaty Review Conference which started on Monday, May 3, 2010, in New York. He is the only head of state attending and was clearly prepared to take on Washington and its allies on the question of his country's uranium enrichment programme. This, the US and friends insist, is meant to fuel bombs not civilian power, regardless of Iran's claims that it is no more than that and well within the NPT rules. Ahmedinejad told reporters last Sunday that the dominant powers are using the atomic bomb as a 'tool for bullying, domination and expansionism,' and are imposing heavy pressures on independent countries, under 'the pretext of prevention of nuclear weapons proliferation.' As expected, the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Ahmedinejad were found sparring on stage on the opening day, the latter terming it 'disgusting' and 'shameful' that the US would still be in possession of over 5,000 atomic warheads.[ The United States revealed on Monday that it has a total of 5,113 nuclear warheads in its stockpile, as of September 30, 2009.] The Iranians stressed that this was not only unjustified but also a threat to global security. They added that an independent probe would be required to verify the actual number of nuclear warheads in US possession. All this must have been quite infuriating for Clinton. Prior to Monday's inaugural heat, she had told a 'Meet the Press' session, 'We're not going to permit Iran to change the story from their failure to comply.' "

"With Shell Oil's recent withdrawal of a water right permit application to divert 375 cubic feet per second of water from the Yampa River in northwest Colorado, one would get the impression that the bubble has finally burst on mass scale, traditional energy development in the West and that the oil industry has finally come to terms with the impact of traditional energy development on rapidly diminishing water resources. Not so in Utah. While recently briefing the Utah Board of Oil, Gas and Mining, Dr. Laura Nelson, vice president of the Salt Lake City-based Ecoshale, for example, proclaimed that the company just completed a pilot project that produced a high-quality oil-shale product and, "we did so working closely with the Environmental Protection Agency to make an environmentally sensitive product." Similarly, the National Commission on Energy Policy - a bipartisan group of energy experts - recently stated that climate change legislation currently being considered by Congress must also spur more domestic energy production by extending the production tax credit for new reactors through 2025 and expanding the renewable energy standard to include nuclear."

The Chernobyl exclusion zone is still a desolate place. It is slightly larger than the 20-km (12 miles) restricted area currently in place around Fukushima in Japan. The Japanese nuclear crisis, caused by an earthquake and tsunami, happened just before the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, the world's worst nuclear accident. Even after a quarter of a century, no-one in Ukraine is permitted to live within 20 miles (30km) of the plant, though a few pensioners have insisted on returning to be close to their family graves. As you drive in, you can see abandoned villages being slowly swallowed up by the forest. People who left their homes here in 1986 had no idea they would never come back.

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.

"Riverkeeper has petitioned the state Department of Environmental Conservation urging the agency to uphold its decision not to grant certification to Entergy on the grounds that its Indian Point nuclear power plant does not meet state water quality standards. Entergy needs that certification as part of its application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to renew the plant's licenses for another 20 years. Riverkeeper's petition supports DEC's decision that continued operation of the power plant would violate state clean water standards and continued use of the once-through cooling system would lead to ongoing harmful impacts to the Hudson River's ecology and aquatic species, said staff attorney Deborah Brancato."

A mining company says a uranium deposit in the Lake Frome region in the east of South Australia may be Australia's next mine. Chairman of Curnamona Energy Limited, Bob Johnson, says the Oban deposit was found about 18 months ago and has "quite a bit" of easily-extractable uranium.