Group items tagged

03.05.09 Savannah River Site Public Tours Aiken, SC 03.05.09 Portsmouth Site Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Piketon, OH 03.05.09 Scoping Mtg.: EIS on Proposed Loan Guarantee for TX Energy, LLC, Industrial Gasification Facility Beaumont, TX 03.11.09 Nevada Test Site/Environmental Management Community Advisory Board Mtg. Las Vegas, NV 03.11.09 Oak Ridge Site Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Oak Ridge, TN 03.11.09 Savannah River Site Public Tours Aiken, SC 03.12.09 Paducah Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Paducah, KY 03.18.09 - 03.19.09 Environmental Management Site Advisory Board Chairs' Mtg. Augusta, GA 03.23.09 - 03.24.09 Savannah River Site Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Aiken, SC 03.24.09 Savannah River Site Public Tours Aiken, SC 03.25.09 Northern NM Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Santa Fe, NM 03.31.09 Public Mtg.: Revised Draft EIS on Decommissioning and/or Long-term Stewardship at West Valley Demonstration Project Irving, NY 03.31.09 Idaho National Lab/Environmental Management Citizens Advisory Board Mtg.

03.05.09 Savannah River Site Public Tours Aiken, SC 03.05.09 Portsmouth Site Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Piketon, OH 03.05.09 Scoping Mtg.: EIS on Proposed Loan Guarantee for TX Energy, LLC, Industrial Gasification Facility Beaumont, TX 03.11.09 Nevada Test Site/Environmental Management Community Advisory Board Mtg. Las Vegas, NV 03.11.09 Oak Ridge Site Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Oak Ridge, TN 03.11.09 Savannah River Site Public Tours Aiken, SC 03.12.09 Paducah Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Paducah, KY 03.18.09 - 03.19.09 Environmental Management Site Advisory Board Chairs' Mtg. Augusta, GA 03.23.09 - 03.24.09 Savannah River Site Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Aiken, SC 03.24.09 Savannah River Site Public Tours Aiken, SC 03.25.09 Northern NM Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Santa Fe, NM 03.31.09 Public Mtg.: Revised Draft EIS on Decommissioning and/or Long-term Stewardship at West Valley Demonstration Project Irving, NY 03.31.09 Idaho National Lab/Environmental Management Citizens Advisory Board Mtg.

EXPERTS TO WARN THAT BILLIONS IN TAXPAYER-BACKED LOAN GUARANTEES FOR NEW REACTORS ARE IMPRUDENT IN WAKE OF NRC'S MAJOR OBJECTIONS TO AP-1000 DESIGN NRC Action Throws Into Question Future of 14 of 31 Proposed New U.S. Reactors; Forward Path Now Unclear for Proposed Reactors in NC, SC, GA, FL, AL - Including AP-1000 Reactors in GA and SC on DOE Loan Guarantee Short List.

EXPERTS TO WARN THAT BILLIONS IN TAXPAYER-BACKED LOAN GUARANTEES FOR NEW REACTORS ARE IMPRUDENT IN WAKE OF NRC'S MAJOR OBJECTIONS TO AP-1000 DESIGN NRC Action Throws Into Question Future of 14 of 31 Proposed New U.S. Reactors; Forward Path Now Unclear for Proposed Reactors in NC, SC, GA, FL, AL - Including AP-1000 Reactors in GA and SC on DOE Loan Guarantee Short List.

SC-- Half a century ago, the Savannah River Site was a top spot for our government to meet nuclear needs during the Cold War. There were secret projects…and buzz words that surrounded the site: 'hydrogen bomb' and 'nuclear reactor.' But half a century later, SRS's mission has shifted. They now clean up harmful materials. And SRS researchers are looking to make this a sound of the past. Dr. Theodore Motyka, Hydrogen Program Manager: "Eventually we'll all run on hydrogen in my opinion. It's a matter of when."

"Savannah River Site officials emphasized their efforts to improve safety during a meeting Thursday of the Governor's Nuclear Advisory Council. "The federal staff as well as the contractors are all working hard to reverse what we were seeing as a negative trend in those agency statistics, given the number of incidents in late 2009," said Karen Guevara, assistant manager for closure at SRS. "Together we believe we are restoring the credibility in the site's safety posture, and most importantly, are better able today to ensure all our Savannah River Site employees return home healthy and free of injury at the end of every work day.""

"Supreme Court has rejected an environmental group's challenge of electricity rate increases to pay for proposed nuclear reactors. The State newspaper reported the court on Monday upheld the Public Service Commission's decision to allow South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. to increase rates to pay for nuclear reactors in Fairfield County. SCE&G is working with state-owned utility Santee Cooper to build two nuclear-powered generators for a total cost of $10 billion. SCE&G has said it will save $1 billion by increasing rates now instead of waiting until the first reactor comes online in 2016. Friends of the Earth had argued regulators failed to sufficiently review the need for the plants, but the justices disagreed. "

Is the Climate Bill morphing into an excuse to promote fossil fuels and new nuclear power plants? Sen. John Kerry's (D-MA) recent promotion of a pro-nuke/pro-drilling/pro-coal agenda in the name of Climate Protection has been highlighted in a New York Times op ed co-authored with Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC). The piece brands nuke power "our single largest contributor of emissions-free power." It advocates abolishing "cumbersome regulations" so utilities can "secure financing for more plants." And it wants "serious investment" to "find solutions to our nuclear waste problem."

Is the Climate Bill morphing into an excuse to promote fossil fuels and new nuclear power plants? Sen. John Kerry's (D-MA) recent promotion of a pro-nuke/pro-drilling/pro-coal agenda in the name of Climate Protection has been highlighted in a New York Times op ed co-authored with Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC). The piece brands nuke power "our single largest contributor of emissions-free power." It advocates abolishing "cumbersome regulations" so utilities can "secure financing for more plants." And it wants "serious investment" to "find solutions to our nuclear waste problem."

"The Department of Energy officially announced Monday that it is looking for a way to dispose of 13 tons of surplus plutonium, enough for more than 1,600 nuclear weapons, that was not part of that destined to be turned into mixed oxide fuel at the MOX project being constructed at the Savannah River Site. DOE posted its intent in the federal register Monday, stating it planned to modify the scope of a previous Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and to conduct additional public scoping meetings in stakeholder communities - including the Central Savannah River Area. Locally, a scoping meeting will be held Aug. 17 at the North Augusta Municipal Center from 5:30 to 8 p.m. The notice proposes to analyze new alternatives including sealing processed plutonium in cans then placing them in canisters that would in turn be surrounded with vitrified high-level liquid waste (meaning turned into glass), as well as simply increasing the amount of plutonium headed to MOX. "

A Massachusetts-based company that provides protective wear services for the nuclear industry says it will add 50 jobs at its South Carolina facility. UniTech Services Group said in a statement Friday the company is consolidating services from several of its other locations at its facility in Barnwell. UniTech currently employs 100 workers there. UniTech is a subsidiary of Springfield, Mass.-based UniFirst Corp. and provides radiological laundry and protective wear services for companies that deal with nuclear material.

Utility regulators will take up a request by South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. to begin charging higher rates now to help pay for two planned nuclear reactors. The state Public Service Commission has until the end of the month to decide on the company's request, which is on the agenda for a meeting Wednesday. The state's utility watchdog agency has recommended the request be approved.

An additional investment of $6 billion over the next four years at SRS and other DOE cleanup sites could mean 10,000 new jobs. As part of President-elect Barack Obama's stimulus plan, billions of dollars could be funneled into the Department of Energy's cleanup program with a view to significantly accelerate the remaining work, according to an internal DOE document. "These footprint reduction efforts will lower monitoring and maintenance costs enabling (the office of Environmental Management) to focus on critical long-term activities like managing highly radioactive liquid tank waste," documents state. "They will also enable the leveraging of DOE/EM site assets to address national energy and environmental goals through the Energy Parks Initiatives."

Opponents say plans to build two nuclear reactors northwest of Columbia is too risky and expensive. The Public Service Commission on Monday conducted a public hearing on plans by South Carolina Electric and Gas Co. and the state-owned utility Santee Cooper to build two new reactors at their plant in Fairfield County. The utilities estimate the two reactors would cost nearly $10 billion.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is warning the nuclear industry to be careful in its construction oversight after finding problems earlier this year at the Savannah River Site. Specifically, The Greenville News reported Sunday, the warning addresses bad concrete and faulty reinforcing steel in the foundation of the Savannah River plant. The site will produce nuclear reactor fuel from weapons-grade plutonium. In a report filed last week by the NRC, officials said problems discovered during construction of the plant near Aiken and two nuclear plants in Europe are reminders of problems found during the last wave of American nuclear construction in the 1970s and 1980s.

With the last shipment leaving the Savannah River Site (SRS), all legacy solvents from canyon operations have left South Carolina for necessary treatment before final disposition, according to an announcement Friday. When F-Canyon shut down for the last time in 2003, clearing out its systems of all legacy chemicals was a major task. This included uranium-bearing materials, plutonium-bearing materials and 50,000 gallons of PUREX solvents. PUREX (Plutonium and Uranium Extraction) was the chemical process used.

A series of mishaps that occurred during a recent refueling outage at Duke Energy's Oconee nuclear plant near Greenville, S.C. exposed workers to dangerous levels of radiation, the Union of Concerned Scientists reports. On April 12, the plant shut down for refueling -- the 24th such outage since the reactor began operating in the early 1970s. But practice clearly did not make perfect, as one mishap after another occurred during the 36-hour shutdown. By the time the outage was over, the company had damaged two reactor coolant pumps, unknowingly exceeded reactor cool-down limits, and triggered a potentially disastrous loss-of-coolant accident.

Over the past three days, teacher LaLisa Folk learned about the Savannah River Site, the Environmental Protection Agency, nuclear energy and the nuclear industry, reactor design and the basics of radiation. For the past decade, the U.S. Department of Energy has hosted the TREAT workshop for teachers - Teaching Radiation, Energy and Technology. The program is funded through an environmental grant with Savannah State University.

Tuesday marked the end of South Carolina's role as the low-level radioactive waste disposal site for much of the nation. Henceforth, the Barnwell waste site will operate at a sharply reduced level, accepting waste only from three states, including South Carolina.

Since 2002, a total of 263 buildings at the Savannah River Site have been torn down, said John Gilmour, chief engineer for deactivation and decommission. Only four of those buildings met the criteria as nuclear facilities and needed extensive coordination with federal and state regulators, Gilmour told Rotary Club of Aiken members Monday.

Only the older folk among us can remember the headline in the Aiken Standard and Review on Nov. 29, 1950, "AEC To Construct Huge Plant Near Aiken." That headline heralded a permanent change in the economy and culture of Aiken and the whole area. More importantly, that event greatly benefited the history of the planet by making it clear to the Soviet Union that their brutal expansionist plans would not be tolerated. President Truman had become convinced the Soviet Union was rapidly developing their nuclear weapons program, perhaps including a "super" bomb, now called the hydrogen bomb. America had no choice but to do the same because the survival of the free world was at stake. So, a new facility was needed to make tritium (the heaviest isotope of hydrogen) and plutonium. The Savannah River Plant was born. The end result was that freedom-loving countries, led by the U.S., stopped the expansion of the Soviet Union, and made it possible to win the Cold War.