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RADIOACTIVITY leaking from a pipe, which was first spotted on the day of the Prime Minister's visit to Sellafield, had been escaping into the open for 14 months, it has been revealed. The incident has been raised to level two on the International Event scale - the highest at Sellafield since the major leak in Thorp four years ago. Sellafield Ltd said: "There is no relation between the two. The amount of radioactivity involved in this incident was very low." The leak was discovered on January 23 - the day the Prime Minister made his announcement about new reactors. The radioactivity came from an overhead ventilation duct carrying water vapour (condensate) from the Magnox reprocessing plant for dilution treatment before authorised discharge to the sea. There was a steady drip from a faulty valve flange contaminating a two metre square concrete slab. A walkway had to be cordoned off to prevent access. No workers are said to have been harmed and no contamination was found above normal background levels.

As we've detailed, nuclear waste is an expensive problem in the United States. The government is liable to utilities for billions of dollars, due to a failure to produce a central, national location for storing waste. With the closing of Yucca Mountain, we need to figure out what the plan is. MIT Technology Review interviewed DOE chief Steven Chu on the topic. He talks about reprocessing and setting up regional facilities for storage. Technology Review: There's some 50,000 metric tons of nuclear waste scattered among 130 sites across the country. What are you going to do with that waste now?

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will conduct two public workshops in September to solicit public views on major issues for new regulations for land disposal of unique radioactive wastes, including but not limited to significant quantities of depleted uranium. The workshops will be held Sept. 2-3 in Rockville, Md., and Sept. 23-24 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Exact locations and final agendas for the workshops will be announced closer to those dates. The Commission directed the agency staff March 18 to initiate rulemaking to specify a requirement for a site-specific analysis for the disposal of large quantities of depleted uranium, and other unique waste streams, such as reprocessing wastes and the technical requirements for such an analysis. The Commission also directed the staff to develop a guidance document for public comment that outlines the parameters and assumptions to be used in the site-specific analyses. The Commission said the staff should "promptly" conduct a public workshop to discuss issues associated with disposal of depleted uranium and other unique waste streams, potential issues to be considered in rulemaking, and technical parameters of concern in the analysis so that informed decisions can be made in the interim before the rulemaking is final.

Efforts by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to keep countries from acquiring nuclear technology by offering them alternatives got a boost this week as three plans for nuclear fuel banks and multinational fuel factories were tabled. The latest proposal was put forward by Germany on Friday. The text foresees the creation of an internationally-governed nuclear fuel production plant. Two additional, complementary, proposals for Russian and IAEA fuel banks to provide supply of last resort are also to be considered by the 35 countries on the IAEA's governing board in June. The ideas were proposed by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei in 2003 to keep countries such as Iran from acquiring uranium enrichment and reprocessing technologies, which can be used not only for energy purposes, but also for making nuclear bomb material. But diplomats say the Vienna-based nuclear agency is split on the issue between those countries that already hold the technology, and sceptical countries such as Egypt, Argentina and Brazil, many of them developing economies.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee narrowly defeated a GOP amendment yesterday that would have provided government support for two nuclear waste reprocessing facilities and $1 million for places willing to site a temporary storage area for used fuel.

Congressman Joe Wilson is proposing a new energy bill he believes balances energy needs and environmental concerns, without compromising either. Drilling for oil off the coast of South Carolina and others states, building a nuclear reprocessing center and commercial reactors at the Savannah River Site and coal furnaces are all part of Wilson's proposal for "American Conservation and Clean Energy." Wilson unveiled a bill this week that the Congressman believes will take great strides toward the future of clean energy. A bill that has support from both sides of the isle and would be a boon for the Savannah River Site and the Congressman's state.

Greenpeace sounded an alert Wednesday over possible hazards that a large ship transporting reprocessed nuclear waste may pose when it passes through Philippine waters next month. The environmental activist group urged the Philippine government to proactively prevent the passage of the waste in the vicinity of the country's exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in early May. It said about 1.8 tons of radiotoxic plutonium in Mixed-Oxide (MOX) fuel intended for nuclear power plants is traveling to Japan via the Cape of Good Hope and the southwest Pacific Ocean. Greenpeace said the shipment left France for Japan last March 5 and is expected to pass by the waters between the Philippines and Palau before it reaches Japan by mid-May.

Workers decommissioning a nuclear power complex have found Mr Muscle to be more effective than specialised techniques for cleaning contaminated glass tubes. The household cleaning product was used at Dounreay in Caithness, which is being demolished at a cost of £2.5bn. Hi-tech equipment had been developed to destroy radioactive materials. However, Mr Muscle was found to be the best option to help make safe the tubes which were used at a nuclear reprocessing laboratory.

"Radioactive waste from Norway's Halden and Kjeller research reactors could be sent to Russia, according to a report ordered by the Norwegian government's Ministry of Trade and Industry in what Bellona is calling an "unacceptable" move. Waste from the two research reactors are in need of new temporary storage and the and the Trade and Industry Ministry has appointed a technical committee to examine the possibilities. The Committee, in its report, has suggested, among other things, sending the waste to Russia's Mayak Chemical Combine, the country's long ailing central reprocessing facility in the southern Urals. "It would be totally irresponsible to send the Norwegian nuclear waste to Mayak in Russia," Nils Bøhmer, Bellona's nuclear physicist and director said bluntly. "

High-level radioactive vitrified waste will arrive in Japan from Britain around March, Japan's four major electric power companies said Wednesday. A total of 28 units of nuclear waste that was packed into solidified glass in Britain will be transferred to the Rokkasho nuclear facility in Aomori Prefecture where it will be stored for 30 to 50 years, and then be buried at a final disposal site.

High-level radioactive vitrified waste will arrive in Japan from Britain around March, Japan's four major electric power companies said Wednesday. A total of 28 units of nuclear waste that was packed into solidified glass in Britain will be transferred to the Rokkasho nuclear facility in Aomori Prefecture where it will be stored for 30 to 50 years, and then be buried at a final disposal site.

"he first shipment of highly radioactive waste from the UK has left the Sellafield nuclear site, the BBC has learnt. It has been loaded onto a ship specifically designed to carry nuclear waste that will sail for Japan later. The waste is a by-product of nuclear fuel spent by Japanese reactors that was sent to the UK for reprocessing during the 1980s and 1990s. Some campaigners have criticised the shipments, saying they are dangerous. "It is highly irresponsible for the industry to still be sending this kind of material across the world," said anti-nuclear campaigner Martin Forward. "

"A Blue Ribbon Commission was named Friday to recommend what the nation should do not only with its spent commercial nuclear fuel but also weapons waste, such as the glassified high level waste from Hanford's vitrification plant. The waste was expected to go to the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository until President Obama said last year said the Nevada site was not suitable. The nation has spent $10 billion to $12 billion over the last 25 years to study the site. The commission will look at options for storing, processing and disposing of the waste, which are expected to include reprocessing commercial nuclear fuel that now is used just once in U.S. reactors. "

"Proposal for eight new reactors and nuclear fuel reprocessing faces public opposition. Like most countries that embraced nuclear power decades ago, Japan has soured on the technology in recent years. But prompted by worries about climate and energy security, the country's industry ministry last week placed a big bet on a rapid expansion of its nuclear power capability."

"This week Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev will sign a new strategic arms reduction treaty. Since the US and Russia own 95% of the world's nuclear weapons, the signing of this treaty is the most significant step towards nuclear arms reduction since the original document was signed in 1991. Despite this advance, the nuclear non-proliferation treaty is under increasing pressure. Nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation are firmly back at the top of the political agenda and their importance at this time cannot be overestimated. Every country has a responsibility to contribute towards disarmament efforts, strengthening the non-proliferation regime and ensuring our nuclear security. At the same time, we also face the spread of nuclear technology as growing numbers of states harness the use of civil nuclear power for their increasing energy demands. States that can enrich uranium and reprocess spent fuel can more readily acquire the capability to create a nuclear weapon, so a truly international and non-discriminatory regulatory system is urgently needed to govern these technologies."

"Samples of the depleted uranium waste from a government cleanup in South Carolina show that it meets a key safety limit, said the Utah Department of Environmental Quality. State regulators heard about the test results Monday from a Tennessee laboratory, which sampled 171 of the 5,400 drums sent most recently to Utah from the Savannah River Project cleanup for technetium-99, a waste product of reprocessing. "

"I am responding to the letter that stated that nuclear power was "cheap, green and safe;" that "the only accident was at Three Mile Island," the radiation from which was "contained;" that the "solution" to the problem of nuclear waste was to "neutralize and 'recycle'" it (the word is reprocess), a process that has been "perfected by France." Cheap: The decommissioning fund, which in Vermont is now close to or over a billion dollars, is almost sure to be foisted off, by means of corporate monkey business, on the taxpayers. There are those of us who would gladly pay more for power if without nuclear reactors, for to us, human life is not cheap. Green: Each ton of uranium mined produces 27 tons of greenhouse gases. The enrichment process, which provides the military with "depleted" uranium free, uses low grade coal. Safe: An "accident" at Vermont Yankee would make most of New England uninhabitable for about 250,000 years."

"A two-phase federal plan to clean up the former nuclear reprocessing plant near West Valley drew disappointment Friday from critics. The U. S. Energy Department issued a "record of decision" late Thursday for the West Valley Demonstration Project in Ashford that will result in a gradual return to normal for the closed facility. On Friday, Diane D'Arrigo, a member of the watchdog West Valley Action Network, said the plan falls short of what is needed. "There is widespread disappointment in the federal government's decision to pursue only a partial cleanup of the site," D'Arrigo said. "We have a big mess at West Valley, and we've been pushing for a full cleanup of [the site] for decades." "

There are 14 potentially active fault lines in areas near the crisis-hit Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant and other nuclear-related facilities, the Japanese government has announced. The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency announced the results of research undertaken by power utilities following the Great East Japan Earthquake. The 14 faults discovered to be potentially active were previously considered unlikely to cause earthquakes. According to the research, a magnitude-7.6 earthquake could occur on the potentially active Hatakawa fault line in Fukushima Prefecture, the largest magnitude earthquake estimated. The agency said the intensity of any quakes from the fault lines would not exceed the level the facilities were designed to withstand. It also said there were no problems with the facilities' quake resistance. Five of the 14 fault lines are near Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 and No. 2 nuclear power plants. The other nine are near Japan Atomic Power Co.'s Tokai No. 2 power plant and the Japan Atomic Energy Agency's Tokai reprocessing plant in Ibaraki Prefecture.

"The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) underwent an overhaul at a meeting last week in Accra, Ghana. Transformative changes reflect global developments that have occurred since the partnership was established in 2007, and include a new name-the International Framework for Nuclear Energy Cooperation-and a new mission statement. The partnership started out as a U.S.-led initiative under President George W. Bush in 2006, seeking to improve the proliferation-resistance of the nuclear fuel cycle while guaranteeing access to fuel supplies through both political and technological initiatives. But last year, after 14 hearings and 15,000 comments, the U.S. Department of Energy reportedly pulled the plug on domestic involvement in the partnership. A DOE spokesperson was quoted as saying that the nation's "long-term fuel cycle research and development program will continue but not the near-term deployment of recycling facilities or fast reactors." The spokesman noted that the international component of GNEP was under interagency review. "

"Despite its new international business strategy that halts plans to import foreign waste for burial, EnergySolutions will continue processing radioactive waste from other countries at its Bear Creek facility in Oak Ridge, a spokesman confirmed today. "Currently we process waste in Oak Ridge and then send all the waste back to the country of origin and will continue to do so," Mark Walker of EnergySolutions said by e-mail. I'm seeking clarification on Walker's comments about sending all of the waste back to the country of origin, because it was my understanding that much of the radioactively contaminated metals that EnergySolutions processed at Oak Ridge was smelted and formed into blocks used for shielding at nuclear facilities -- such as the Spallation Neutron Source at ORNL."