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The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) have published a meeting report on the first gathering of the Nuclear Energy Standards Coordination Collaborative (NESCC). NESCC is a joint initiative to identify and respond to the current needs of the nuclear industry. The activity provides a cross-stakeholder forum to facilitate and coordinate the timely identification, development, and revision of standards for the design, operation, development, licensing, and deployment of nuclear power plants. Standards for other nuclear technologies, including advanced reactor concepts, will also be addressed. On June 1, 2009, more than thirty individuals gathered at the NIST headquarters in Gaithersburg, Md., for the inaugural NESCC meeting. Attendees first discussed the intent of the activity, which is focused on collaboration and coordination rather than standards development. Ambler Thompson, Ph.D., of NIST and Fran Schrotter of ANSI then led participants in a thorough review of the group's charter, and the group agreed on very minor revisions to the document. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the American Nuclear Society (ANS) indicated that they would need to seek their respective Board approvals at upcoming meetings. The charter will be finalized based upon any comments from ASME, ANS, or any other interested stakeholder, provided such comments are received by ANSI by close of business on Wednesday, July 15.

nlike oil and gas extraction, pulling hard-rock minerals like uranium, gold and copper out of the ground is a royalty-free proposition in the United States, despite the often enormous costs of cleaning up public lands after the fact. The Environmental Protection Agency in a filing on Monday noted that hard-rock mining has impacted 40 percent of all western watersheds and that nationwide 28 percent of the toxic pollution generated in the United States comes from the mining industry -- the most of any sector. The EPA also concluded mining represents a major taxpayer burden because of cleanup costs.

The Environmental Protection Agency, complying with a court order, will develop a rule to guarantee companies that mine everything from copper to uranium will pay for needed environmental cleanup, not taxpayers. The announcement on Monday comes in the wake of a federal judge's order in February requiring the EPA to close loopholes that allow some companies to get out of paying for such costly cleanups when they file bankruptcy. The agency said it will develop similar financial responsibility requirements for other types of operations but started with hardrock mining because of the size of the operations, the amount of waste and the number of mining sites on its Superfund's national priorities list.

Uranium companies in Southwest Colorado could face stricter oversight if they restart the region's idled mines. The state's Mined Land Reclamation Board kicked off a rulemaking this week on the topic. Most of the controversy centers on a mine near Fort Collins that plans to dissolve the uranium in the ground and pump it to the surface - a process known as in-situ leach mining. But uranium laws passed by the Legislature in 2008 also apply to the conventional mines near the Dolores River, the historic home of uranium mining in Colorado.

Who is in charge of protecting Americans from products made from radioactively tainted metal? The answer: No one. Officials with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, the U.S. Department of Energy and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which is part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, all said their agencies are troubled by the spread of contaminated metal and items made from it, a Scripps Howard News Service investigation shows.

On May 13, 2009, President Obama has turned to Gregory B. Jaczko, a PhD physicist with critical views of the nuclear power industry to chair the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which is the foremost agency overseeing atomic energy. Senate confirmation was not required because Jaczko was already a member of the commission. At present, he is the only Democrat on the NRC, but that is expected to change soon. Former Chairman Dale Klein and Kristine Svinicki are Republicans, but two seats on the five-member commission are vacant. Although no more than three members of any one political party can be appointed to the commission, it is expected that President Obama will name two additional Democrats, creating a 3-2 majority. Born October 29, 1970, in Norristown, Pennsylvania, and raised in Albany, New York, Dr. Jaczko earned a bachelor's degree in physics and philosophy from Cornell University in 1993, and a doctorate in theoretical particle physics from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1999. Always interested in politics as well as science, while still at graduate school Jaczko applied for an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science and Technology Policy Fellowship, which paid him to work with Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) as a Congressional Science Fellow. At the same time, he worked as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University teaching science and policy.

Federal review of a new nuclear reactor design will take 15 months longer than expected, although the impact on planned nuclear projects is expected to be minimal, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Six U.S. energy companies, including Progress Energy and Florida Power & Light, plan to build the 1,100-megawatt Westinghouse AP1000 reactors. The delay in finalizing the reactor design is not expected to lead to significant delays in the licensing and building of planned reactors, said Scott Burnell, a spokesman for the commission. Progress Energy, for instance, has plans for a $17 billion nuclear project in Levy County originally scheduled to come online around 2016 or 2017.

Nearly 50 percent of Constellation Nuclear is in the process of being sold to a wholly-owned subsidiary of Électricité de France S.A., the world's largest nuclear power-plant owner, according to the New York State Public Service Commission. The commission approved Wednesday the $4.5 billion acquisition of nearly half of Constellation Nuclear, which is the owner of three nuclear power plants in upstate New York, including two in Oswego County. The commission's approval is one of several steps required in order to finalize the acquisition.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission assured Rep. Jim Matheson and other Congress members it will stay true to its commitment to see that depleted uranium can be disposed of safely in Utah and elsewhere. But the agency doesn't detail how it reached its decision to stick to its 1981 system, which treats depleted uranium as "Class A" waste, the standard category for the least hazardous low-level waste. Matheson, of Utah, and Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., hope to find at least some of those answers in the thousands of pages of documents that they have requested from NRC and that are due next Monday.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission assured Rep. Jim Matheson and other Congress members it will stay true to its commitment to see that depleted uranium can be disposed of safely in Utah and elsewhere. But the agency doesn't detail how it reached its decision to stick to its 1981 system, which treats depleted uranium as "Class A" waste, the standard category for the least hazardous low-level waste. Matheson, of Utah, and Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., hope to find at least some of those answers in the thousands of pages of documents that they have requested from NRC and that are due next Monday.

"A former member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is at the Capitol Monday telling lawmakers now is not the time to repeal the state's ban on new nuclear power plants. Peter Bradford said the much-anticipated nuclear renaissance is still some years away. He said plants under construction are hobbled by delays and cost overruns; the federal government has failed to find a spot for permanent disposal of waste; and the so-called next-generation of plant designs are not yet ready. "It's gone completely off the tracks," Bradford said. "What you're losing is a chance to buy a ticket on a slow-moving train wreck." Minnesota has had a ban on new nuclear plants for 15 years. Last year, a measure to repeal it failed but some lawmakers will push for repeal again this year. "

Hundreds more ill Hanford workers or their survivors now should be eligible for $150,000 compensation from the federal government. A special exposure cohort, a ruling that eases compensation rules for more Hanford workers, took effect this weekend after clearing a congressional waiting period. Under the new rule, workers in any part of Hanford who may have been exposed to radiation should automatically qualify for compensation if they worked for 250 days from Oct. 1, 1943, through June 30, 1972, and developed certain cancers. The list of cancers includes more than 20 that have been linked to radiation exposure by medical research.

Hundreds more ill Hanford workers or their survivors now should be eligible for $150,000 compensation from the federal government. A special exposure cohort, a ruling that eases compensation rules for more Hanford workers, took effect this weekend after clearing a congressional waiting period. Under the new rule, workers in any part of Hanford who may have been exposed to radiation should automatically qualify for compensation if they worked for 250 days from Oct. 1, 1943, through June 30, 1972, and developed certain cancers. The list of cancers includes more than 20 that have been linked to radiation exposure by medical research.

"Joliet is pushing the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency to more than double the concentration of cancer-causing radium it's allowed to dump onto farmland in the south suburbs, expanding the potential for deadly radon gas in these increasingly urban communities. Radium is a naturally occurring radioactive element abundant in deep-water wells in northern Illinois and throughout the Midwest. Cities such as Joliet that rely on these deep wells spend millions of dollars each year to remove radium from their drinking water. Some communities pay to dump radium in a landfill, but Joliet and others use a cheaper alternative, mixing it with waste material that is sold to farmers as fertilizer. About 21,000 tons of Joliet's radium-enriched fertilizer has been dumped on area farms since 2005 The city is petitioning the state EPA to allow it to dispose of more than twice the level of radium that's currently allowed. If granted, it would be 10 times higher than what was considered safe just five years ago - rekindling concerns about the long-term exposure of concentrated radium on the soil."

"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has called a special meeting next week to discuss three apparent violations involving a spent fuel pool at Turkey Point - a critical issue as the long-held plans for storing waste in Nevada have completely collapsed. Technically, the meeting in Atlanta on Wednesday involves the degradation of "a neutron-absorbing material called Boraflex in the Unit 3 spent fuel pool." Used nuclear fuel has been building up at Turkey Point for the 35 years of its operation. The degradation involves systems intended to cram more spent fuel into the pools, according to Lawrence King, a former NRC inspector. More than two million pounds of waste now sit at the South Miami-Dade site in pools of water - although Florida Power & Light Co. spokesman Michael Waldron says it's more accurate to think of the spent rods as occupying a 16-foot cube if bunched together."

Ex-official said to have sought jobs from firms while on panel A former member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission violated government ethics rules by directly contacting potential employers with business before the NRC before the end of his term in mid-2007, according to a report by the commission's inspector general. Jeffrey S. Merrifield twice cast votes on matters involving companies he had contacted about job prospects, the report says. The firms -- the Shaw Group, Toshiba's Westinghouse Electric and General Electric -- "could potentially have benefited financially from his votes . . . during the specific timeframes in which Merrifield was negotiating with the three companies," the report concludes.

Ex-official said to have sought jobs from firms while on panel A former member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission violated government ethics rules by directly contacting potential employers with business before the NRC before the end of his term in mid-2007, according to a report by the commission's inspector general. Jeffrey S. Merrifield twice cast votes on matters involving companies he had contacted about job prospects, the report says. The firms -- the Shaw Group, Toshiba's Westinghouse Electric and General Electric -- "could potentially have benefited financially from his votes . . . during the specific timeframes in which Merrifield was negotiating with the three companies," the report concludes.