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Abstract posted below. Download the full article online (PDF, 16 pages). Abstract: Since the dawn of the atomic age, the United States has sought to encourage the use of nuclear energy while minimizing the proliferation risks associated with it. The latest U.S. initiative that sets out to accomplish this is the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), which, in its current form, potentially includes the spread of sensitive nuclear technologies around the globe. This article examines the concerns surrounding the proliferation of these technologies and surveys their history both domestically and internationally. In identifying these concerns, the author argues that GNEP needs to be considered in the context of the Atoms for Peace program; that it erodes the successful thirty-year U.S. position against reprocessing; and that it allows for the spread of technologies that are not proliferation-resistant.

THREE Sellafield workers may have received abnormal exposure to radiation after an incident in the Magnox reprocessing plant. They were dismantling a containment tent in one of the Magnox controlled areas where other workers had been carrying out an operation. Alarms went off to warn that some radiation had escaped into the air. Sellafield Ltd say the three affected workers have been able to return to normal duties in the "active" area following tests.

The environmental watchdog group, Greenpeace is calling for a halt to plans to ship a load of nuclear fuel through the Pacific. Around two tonnes of reprocessed waste is about to leave France for Japan - the largest such shipment ever. The shipment contains a nuclear fuel known as MOX - a mixture of Plutonium and Uranium. The French nuclear group Areva has confirmed it will be shipping the Plutonium, but will only say possibly through the Pacific.

French navy boats escorted a vessel carrying a major shipment of recycled nuclear fuel as it pulled out of a northern port Thursday to begin its 70-day trip to Japan. The Pacific Heron, a specially adapted ship with a British police team on board to head off possible hijackers, left Cherbourg to deliver the shipment of MOX, a blend of plutonium and reprocessed uranium, to Japanese power plants. Its departure came despite a request by the environmental group Greenpeace to the UN nuclear watchdog to stop the shipment of "an extremely dangerous and proliferating substance" that is "unsafe and unnecessary."

If the Nuclear Regulatory Commission chooses to ignore the flashing red lights of unresolved safety problems at the Oyster Creek generating station by relicensing the facility to run for another 20 years, there still remains another unresolved problem no one has found a permanent answer for: What do you do with nuclear waste? The problem is playing out all over the world as countries scramble to get rid of their poisonous legacy. Italy has entered into agreements to send theirs to the U.S. for temporary storage in places like Texas. The United Kingdom and France are trying to figure out what to do with their failed and leaking reprocessing plants that have contaminated rivers and land areas. Germany is concerned about childrens' health problems around some of its storage facilities. And everywhere, the cost to even begin clean up is astronomical.

Two small areas of radioactive contamination have been detected during a survey of grazing land adjacent to the former nuclear research site at Dounreay. They were excavated and removed to the site for analysis. One was identified as a 'minor' particle of fast reactor fuel and the other as soil contaminated with radioactivity. The finds were 5-30cm below the surface and covered by vegetation, indicating they are most likely to be historic in origin. Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd is carrying out an investigation. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency has been informed. The field where the contamination was detected forms part of a 44-hectare site zoned for the construction of a disposal facility for low-level waste from the decommissioning and closure of the site.Previously, this area was earmarked for construction of the European Demonstration Reprocessing Plant. The survey is to establish a baseline of radioactivity levels prior to the start of construction of the low level waste facility. The survey is due for completion by the end of August.

Floods and landslides expose risk of incomplete radiation cleanup The coalition urging state and federal officials to do a full cleanup of the state's largest nuclear waste site, at West Valley, has a clear understanding of the implications of doing nothing. Doing nothing means that far into the future, the legacy of West Valley will be the way in which we treated our natural resources. Will Lake Erie be a clean body of water free from radioactive-waste pollutants? Or will it contain evidence of neglect and of a refusal to take responsibility for the highly toxic nuclear wastes buried in, or leaking from, the decommissioned reprocessing site south of Buffalo? There are already signs that should heighten concerns.

A recent letter advocated more nuclear power plants. There are too many problems with this technology. First, companies will not build nuclear power plants without the protection of the Price-Anderson Act which provides taxpayer compensation in case of an accident since no company in the world will insure them. Price-Anderson, however, only provides $500 million when the latest government report, states that depending on the severity of the accident, damages could run in the billions. Second, after 50 years of operation there is still the waste problem. Energy Secretary Steven Chu appeared before the House lawmakers on June 3 and declared the planned Yucca Mountain repository "dead." More than $9 billion have been invested developing this waste dump, which caused one lawmaker to say: "We got a mighty expensive dinosaur sitting there." This waste, which is lethal for thousands of years, now stays on site in fuel pools and dry casts for future generations to worry about. Minimum morality would demand that we, at least, stop producing it. Estimates as to the cost of this "eventual cleanup" are incalculable. Still the proponents declare nuclear as cheap energy. Third, uranium, like oil, is a finite fuel. Reprocessing, the separation of plutonium which can then again be used as fuel, was discontinued by the United States nearly three decades ago on nonproliferation grounds. Fourth, since 2005, cost estimates for building a new nuclear reactor have more then tripled. Nuclear energy, once declared to be "too cheap to meter," is now too expensive to pursue. Frieda Berryhill, Wilmington

Savannah River Site officials have taken corrective actions - and fired two workers - after two incidents in H Canyon in which bundles of highly enriched uranium were dropped by a crane. According to a Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board report - dated Aug. 21 and made public Thursday - the incidents "had potential criticality safety implications" and halted reprocessing operations for a week. A criticality accident is one in which a chain reaction occurs, said Charles Nickell, the site's nuclear materials disposition manager. "It is something we definitely don't want to happen." The H Canyon area is where highly enriched uranium is loaded by cranes into vats of acid, called "dissolvers," that help purify and convert the material from solid to a liquid form. The liquid is later blended with natural uranium to create low-enriched uranium and shipped off-site for use in the manufacture of fuel rods for commercial reactors.

During the 53rd IAEA General Conference, delegates from the Russian Federation and Serbia signed a trade contract, laying the groundwork for the final repatriation of spent nuclear fuel from the Serbian Institute for Nuclear Sciences at Vinča to the Russian Federation. The Foreign Trade Contract (FTC) is a pre-condition for the spent fuel´s envisioned repatriation to Russia, setting out provisions for the safe and secure transport, reprocessing, storage and subsequent disposal of the high-level waste at Russian facilities. The FTC was signed by Mr. Sergey Kazakov, Director of the Russian Federal Centre for Nuclear and Radiation Safety and Mr. Radojica Pesic, General Director of the Serbian Public Company Nuclear Facilities.

U.S. Nuclear Waste Law and Policy: Fixing a Bankrupt System Source: New York University Law and Economics Working Papers The current U.S. system of nuclear waste law and policy is bankrupt. Twenty years after the designation by Congress of Yucca Mountain as the only potential site for a deep geologic repository to receive spent nuclear fuel and high level waste from reprocessing, the proposed Yucca repository remains mired in controversy and unremitting opposition by Nevada. There is no prospect for an alternative repository or for the development of a federal consolidated storage facility. The volume of these wastes already exceeds the current maximum storage capacity set by Congress for Yucca and continues to grow. This article first provides a brief overview of nuclear wastes and a summary history of federal nuclear waste law and policy to date. It then diagnoses the major failures in the current design and proposes a suite of new measures to launch a comprehensive new approach, including a reconsideration of the ethical principles underlying the drive for immediate waste burial; the creation of a high-level National Waste Management Commission; the creation of two new federal entities to manage nuclear wastes and to site waste storage facilities and repositories; the elimination of Environmental Protection Agency regulatory authority over these activities; the adoption of a thoroughgoing risk-based approach to waste regulation and management; and the adoption of new, more flexible and adaptable strategies for siting storage and disposal facilities. + Full Paper (PDF; 240 KB)

A RISE in radioactive discharges into the air is causing another problem at Sellafield, it was confirmed to The Whitehaven News yesterday. Increased levels have come from the Magnox reprocessing plant. For the last five weeks it has had to close to avoid exceeding the discharge limit. The plant has just started up again but Sellafield Ltd has applied to the Environment Agency for a new authorisation to raise the discharge limit.

Chicago area nuclear critics say recurring tritium leaks like the one at the Dresden Nuclear facility near Morris last month muddy the picture of nuclear plants as a clean energy source. "Is a June 2009 tritium leak at the Dresden NPP 150 times higher than the EPA water standard henceforth to be considered "clean"?" David Kraft, with the Nuclear Energy Information Service asks in a detailed critique the "Sense of Congress Regarding the Strategic Role of Nuclear Energy (and Spent Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing)" approved in June by the Senate Energy Committee. But local critics of nuclear power say it is more non-sense than sense; and it could lay the groundwork to turn Illinois into the "de facto Yucca Mt. of the Great Lakes."

Nuclear power is considered by some energy experts to be the most effective answer to global warming due to the lack of C02 emissions. The only problem is the cost of building them, as well as the unresolved issue of what to do with radioactive waste. Technology has improved, and there is broad consensus that the new plants are safer and have reduced waste due to advanced reprocessing. But a new plant being built in Finland shows how big the problems are (see this New York Times article). The price for this plant went up to $4 billion and still isn't ready after four years construction. The article says a new plant would cost as much as $8 billion. (see our previous stories on the cost of nuclear projects in Florida here, and here).