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Russia will provide $17 million to help improve safety at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the site of the world's worst civilian nuclear disaster, and fully decommission it, a top Russian nuclear official said on Monday. Three reactors of the Chernobyl plant continued to operate for several years after reactor number four exploded in 1986, the last reactor shutting down in 2000. The reactors still contain nuclear fuel rods, and require constant monitoring. The fourth reactor is housed in a Soviet-era sarcophagus set to be replaced by a $1.4 bln metal structure.

Old issue of radioactive waste lingers as utilities plan new nuclear plants Hundreds of spent fuel rods will be removed from Oconee Nuclear Station's Unit 2 when the reactor is shut down for routine maintenance and refueling next month. Advertisement The high-level radioactive waste will be stored in a contained pool, surrounded by water and a series of redundant safety precautions -- but only for a while, because Oconee's pools are full.

Nuclear waste continues to pile up at reactors across the United States and here in South Carolina. At the Oconee Nuclear Station, the pools for spent nuclear fuel rods are full. Space can continue to be added to dry storage in Oconee, but that space is intended for less radioactive waste. Advertisement The problem in Oconee is a familiar one across the nation. More than 60,000 metric tons of spent fuel are being stored at 121 locations, mostly nuclear reactors, in 39 states.

A few years ago, Ward wrote for Tomdispatch about various plans to dump radioactive waste, including 40 years worth of "spent fuel rods" from nuclear reactors, in his Utah backyard. People who lived downwind were alarmed. They had been exposed to radioactive fallout during the era of atomic testing in the 1950s and feared more of the same -- cancer for "downwinders" and obfuscation and denial from federal regulators. Since Ward wrote his account, local activists have successfully blocked the projects. Score one for the little guys.

The state attorney general's office suffered a major defeat yesterday in its fight to influence relicensing proceedings for the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission denied a petition submitted nearly two years ago that sought greater consideration of the environmental impact of spent fuel storage facilities in the event of an accident or terrorist attack. Attorney General Martha Coakley had argued the pools where used fuel rods are stored could be drained, leading to a zirconium fire and a significant amount of radioactive material being released into the environment.

Russia will invest $40 Billion into the country's nuclear power sector over the next 7 years, Prime Minister Putin says. After that he expects the industry will become self-financing. Every 6th nuclear reactor in the world runs on Russian nuclear fuel - uranium stored in rods. Prime minister Vladimir Putin says Russia's budget, boosted by high oil revenues, has enough cash to finance expansion of the country's nuclear power sector.

Sen. Webb wants to explore whether the U.S. should recycle nuclear fuel rods. The experts are divided, and an investigation is worthwhile. After a visit to a nuclear fuel processing plant in Lynchburg, Sen. James Webb said he wants to consider whether it's time for the United States to get serious about recycling nuclear waste

Government plans to send the highly-radioactive spent fuel rods stored at the Koeberg nuclear power station overseas for reprocessing, Parliament's minerals and energy portfolio committee heard on Wednesday. This was a short-term solution to disposing of it, in terms of policy approved by Cabinet "but not announced yet", minerals and energy department nuclear safety director Schalk de Waal told MPs.

he Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) gave conditional approval to a plan by the state-owned Taiwan Power Co. (Taipower) to build a temporary dump site in Taipei County to dispose of spent nuclear fuel rods from the neighboring No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, despite strong protest from the area's residents yesterday.

After decades of debate and more than a year of construction, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. workers placed and sealed the first cask of spent nuclear fuel from the Humboldt Bay nuclear power plant into an underground container Friday. Over the next few months, PG&E will be moving five more stainless steel casks into the high-density concrete container designed to be unbreakable by a tsunami or a 9.3-magnitude earthquake. The six 80-ton casks will be sealed with 22,000-pound lids and will contain 390 spent fuel rods total, along with other radioactive waste currently stored in a pool of water on site.

When the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission was struggling last December with a shortage of medical isotopes sparked by the Chalk River reactor shutdown, it was also dealing with another Ontario nuclear plant where there had been an "unprecedented" weld failure on one fuel bundle. In all, 10 defective welds were found on the fuel bundle, a collection of processed uranium rods resembling the barrel of a Gatling gun about a half-metre long.

Months of planning at the Monticello nuclear plant will be put into practice soon when spent nuclear fuel is moved to a new storage facility. Radioactive fuel rods will be moved in a process designed for safety and security from inside the plant to the above-ground storage.

The radioactive remnants of Colorado's single attempt to generate power from a nuclear reactor are locked up in dry casks - 244, to be precise. Buried in layers of concrete and steel designed to withstand a jetliner crash, each cylindrical cask holds six nuclear rods - spent fuel that was used to fire the state's only nuclear power plant, the Fort St. Vrain plant near Platte ville, before faltering mechanics led to its shutdown in 1989.

MANITOWOC - Lawmakers have asked federal regulators to investigate concerns of residents living near two nuclear plants about the storage of nuclear waste in their backyard. Point Beach Nuclear Plant, in Two Creeks, and Kewaunee Power Station, in Carlton, currently or plan to store spent nuclear fuel rods in dry cask storage bunkers at their facilities along Lake Michigan.

MANITOWOC - Lawmakers have asked federal regulators to investigate concerns of residents living near two nuclear plants about the storage of nuclear waste in their backyard. Advertisement Point Beach Nuclear Plant, in Two Creeks, and Kewaunee Power Station, in Carlton, currently or plan to store spent nuclear fuel rods in dry cask storage bunkers at their facilities along Lake Michigan. The dry storage is being used because of dwindling space in pool storage inside the plants and delays in opening the federal government's national repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

Albertans could face a significantly higher risk of radioactive exposure due to storage transportation, say opponents of a proposal to build a nuclear power station in the Peace Country. Canada is still 20 to 30 years away from completing a national storage facility, which according to the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) would see spent fuel rods from across Canada being shipped to one central underground storage location.

Albertans could face a significantly higher risk of radioactive exposure due to storage transportation, say opponents of a proposal to build nuclear power station in the Peace Country. Canada is still 20 to 30 years away from completing a national storage facility project, which according to the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) would see spent fuel rods from across Canada being shipped to one central underground storage location.

High-level nuclear waste, the detritus of a half-century of civilian nuclear power in the United States, was supposed to have someplace to go by now. It was supposed to have a designated hole in the ground to contain it, according to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, with infrastructure to transport and store it, staff to secure and protect it. In 2008, we were not supposed to still be debating where to put the fuel rods from nuclear reactors once they could no longer fission efficiently.

An international shipping website is publishing co-ordinates of the nuclear shipment after its departure from Port Kembla harbour. Despite a veil of secrecy and extensive anti-terrorism measures for the transfer of the spent nuclear rods over land through Wollongong, the website is carrying up-to-date information about the vessel, MV Lynx, including its location at sea and its expected arrival time in the United States. Even those who do not know the ship's name can find its path, simply by searching for ships which have recently left the country.

THE public has the right to know full details of a secret shipment of nuclear waste due to be trucked through Sydney streets in the next four months, the Greens say. Five years' worth of spent nuclear fuel rods from the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor will be transported to the US by the middle of the year, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation says. But the organisation refuses to reveal the date or route of the operation, except that it will take place in the "Sydney/ Illawarra region". "The shipment will be conducted under strict international and national security and safety standards," a spokeman said.