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"A company's plan to ship radioactive steam generators on the Great Lakes is drawing crticism from Mayor Mike Bradley. Bradley said he's seen no evidence Bruce Power has consulted with communities along the shipping route. The comapny plans to transport 16 generators this fall from its nuclear plant near Kincardine, Ontario, to Owen Sound, Ontario. From there, the generators will be loaded on a ship that will travel the Great Lakes and the St. Clair River en route to a recycler in Sweden. Removing the generators is part of a refurbishment project at the plant near Kincardine, company officials have said. "

"The story of Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson sounds like a film, and now it is Cannes, from what I have seen from afar, has always seemed like the epicentre of surreality. Up close it is, if anything, even more surreal. We arrived on Sunday in a charming seaside town thronged with sightseers, journalists, aspiring actresses scarcely out of their teens, and white guys in linen blazers with tans and mobile phones. But daily this small, easygoing place is transformed, as the pressure of tens of thousands of people buying, selling, watching and writing about fantasy - with some documentary thrown in - grows. Every day the crowds grow thicker, the energy level higher and the fashion sense on the Croisette, the elegant sweep of palm-fringed pedestrian walkway by the sea, more extreme and startling. "

A new nuclear facility in the Northwest? Residents of southwest Idaho appear sharply divided over a proposed new nuclear power plant near the Oregon-Idaho border. Thursday night, around 250 people filled a high school auditorium for an initial public hearing on the project. KPLU's Tom Banse reports from Payette, Idaho. Full story A small Idaho company called Alternate Energy Holdings is proposing a large commercial nuclear power plant on private ranchland in rural Payette County. Payette resident Kent Porter was one of dozens of locals who testified they'd welcome a nuke plant. Kent Porter: "Someday if we don't get cheap power to keep our farmers going, we're all going to pay dearly when our food prices go up."

A new nuclear facility in the Northwest? Residents of southwest Idaho appear sharply divided over a proposed new nuclear power plant near the Oregon-Idaho border. Thursday night, around 250 people filled a high school auditorium for an initial public hearing on the project. KPLU's Tom Banse reports from Payette, Idaho. Full story A small Idaho company called Alternate Energy Holdings is proposing a large commercial nuclear power plant on private ranchland in rural Payette County. Payette resident Kent Porter was one of dozens of locals who testified they'd welcome a nuke plant. Kent Porter: "Someday if we don't get cheap power to keep our farmers going, we're all going to pay dearly when our food prices go up."

Some of the spent nuclear fuel rods stored in the No. 4 reactor building of the crisis-hit Fukushima Daiichi power plant were confirmed to be damaged, but most of them are believed to be in sound condition, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Wednesday. The firm known as TEPCO said its analysis of a 400-milliliter water sample taken Tuesday from the No. 4 unit's spent nuclear fuel pool revealed the damage to some fuel rods in such a pool for the first time, as it detected higher-than-usual levels of radioactive iodine-131, cesium-134 and cesium-137. The No. 4 reactor, halted for a regular inspection before last month's earthquake and tsunami disaster, had all of its 1,331 spent fuel rods and 204 unused fuel rods stored in the pool for the maintenance work and the fuel was feared to have sustained damage from overheating. The cooling period for 548 of the 1,331 rods was shorter than that for others and the volume of decay heat emitted from the fuel in the No. 4 unit pool is larger compared with pools at other reactor buildings. According to TEPCO, radioactive iodine-131 amounting to 220 becquerels per cubic centimeter, cesium-134 of 88 becquerels and cesium-137 of 93 becquerels were detected in the pool water. Those substances are generated by nuclear fission. The government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said the confirmed radioactive materials were up to 100,000 times higher than normal but that the higher readings may have also been caused by the pouring of rainwater containing much radioactivity or particles of radiation-emitting rubble in the pool.

Chronology of events surrounding crippled Fukushima nuclear plant A school building, which was submerged as a result of a tsunami on March 11, stands in an area of Yamamoto, Miyagi Prefecture. (Mainichi) TOKYO (Kyodo) -- The following is a chronology of events regarding the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station in Fukushima Prefecture, triggered by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that struck northeastern and eastern Japan. March 11 -- Magnitude 9.0 earthquake forces power plant's Nos. 1-3 reactors to suspend operations automatically (Nos. 4-6 reactors were shut down, undergoing regular checks). Prime Minister Kan declares nuclear emergency, directing local residents in 3-kilometer radius of plant to evacuate. March 12 -- Kan inspects stricken plant. Radioactive steam is vented from No. 1 reactor's containment vessel. Hydrogen explosion rips No. 1 reactor building. Government expands evacuation zone to 20 km radius of plant. March 14 -- Hydrogen explosion rocks No. 3 reactor building. No. 2 reactor's fuel rods are exposed as water recedes inside reactor vessel. March 15 -- Kan scolds Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) officials at company head office. Explosion is heard near suppression chamber of No. 2 reactor's containment vessel. Explosion is also heard at No. 4 reactor. Government directs residents in 20-30-km ring of plant to stay indoors. A tsunami crests the embankment of the Heikawa River in Miyako, Iwate Prefecture, before sweeping into the city on March 11. (Mainichi) March 16 -- Damage is feared to have been done to No. 3 reactor's containment vessel, forcing workers to retreat. March 17 -- Ground Self-Defense Force helicopters drop water on No. 3 reactor building. Fire engines spray water from ground. March 18 -- Nuclear safety agency gives crisis involving Nos. 1-3 reactors preliminary value of Level 5 on nuclear accident scale of 7. March 19 -- Tokyo firefighters spray water at No. 3 reactor. Government announces detecti

"Bruce Power has added 40 long-term employees to a growing list of workers being tested for exposure to alpha radiation, company spokesman John Peevers said Monday. "This is just another step based on what we learned from the restart project," Peevers said. "We put a number of measures in place to protect employees, to better monitor alpha, and now we're looking back historically to see if any of our long-term employees in operations have had any exposure to alpha over their career." The company unexpectedly discovered alpha radiation when workers were doing Jprep work -- cutting and grinding down tubes that had carried coolant as part of the Bruce A Unit 1 restart project. Similar work on Unit 2 had been done without incident. The first hint of airborne alpha radiation in the Unit 1 nuclear vault came during a routine air sample test on Nov. 26, 2009. Two days later, a similar radiation spike was found but the company didn't find out it was alpha radiation until Dec. 21. "We have always been looking for alpha but we were using . . . industry standard assumptions" based on ratios of beta-gamma radiation which are quite common in nuclear plants, Peevers said. The company now knows "that the ratios weren't as accurate as we wanted." "

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission gave Bruce Power a B report card overall for 2007, with calls for improvement in three areas at the Bruce A site. Ken Lafreniere, the CNSC director of Bruce Regulatory Program Division said Bruce Power is a "good nuclear licensee" that makes "adequate provisions" to keep in line with the Nuclear Safety and Control Act. "All of the facilities that are licensed meet the requirements and meet them well," Lafreniere said at the Davidson Centre Tuesday night. "It's a complex site and there's a lot of activity going on." Bruce Power got an A for emergency preparedness at both the Bruce A and B nuclear sites, with the regulator's staff noting no "degradation in the program or weaknesses in its implementation."

Ontario Power Generation is halfway through the drilling and geological studies for its Deep Geologic Repository project and nothing has been found so far to stop the project.

`It looks as though all Africa might be gone in a week or so ... It seems to go quite quickly at the end, so far as we can ascertain. It's a bit difficult, because when more than half the people in a place are dead, the communications usually go out, and then you don't quite know what's happening." So says a character in "On the Beach," Nevil Shute's 1957 novel in which, following a nuclear war, every person on Earth is dead or dying. Preposterous? Dr. Helen Caldicott does not think so. She read the book as a girl growing up in Melbourne, Australia. Unlike many of us, she had the good sense to be frightened by the story, finding it all too plausible.

Canadians have until Dec. 15 to make suggestions on the design of the process to select a storage facility site for high-level nuclear waste. The Nuclear Waste Management Organization is responsible for the long-term management of Canada's used nuclear fuel. It was established in 2002 by Ontario Power Generation Inc., Hydro- Québec and New Brunswick Power Corporation, under the Nuclear Fuel Waste Act. People can make a submission, participate in an online discussion or complete a survey on the NWMO website, a news release from the organization says.

We'd like to know a great deal more than we do about the specifics of the presidential candidates' views on nuclear power. It seems odd, with so much of the public's focus on fuel issues -- cost, greenhouse gas emissions and renewable energy -- that we aren't hearing more about them on the campaign trails. We have their short answers. But the public, we think, would like more detail, especially with the price of fossil fuels ratcheting up daily and polar bears prowling shrinking ice floes. The three major hopefuls have differing views on a possible future role for nuclear.

Ontario Power Generation is planning an underground radioactive waste dump in Bruce County, a mere kilometre from the shore of Lake Huron. Citizens from across the Great Lakes region fear the independence of the environmental assessment panel will be compromised by the presence of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. Great Lakes United's Green Energy and Nuclear Free Task Force urges that a completely independent review board be established, without Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission presence. The task force also calls on Great Lakes residents on both sides of the border to speak out, given the potential hazards of the proposed dumpsite for the entire Great Lakes watershed.

Minimal funding recommended; new options advised Nevada's congressional delegation praised President Barack Obama for making it clear in his budget outline Thursday that the Energy Department's 20-year, $9 billion effort to study Yucca Mountain and seek a license for a nuclear waste repository there is on its last legs. "This project is dead, and this announcement is another indicator that our efforts are paying off," Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said in a joint statement released by the delegation. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said it "was very easy working with the Obama administration" to cut funding for the project to record low levels. "In the future, people will say that President Obama kept his promise to the people of Nevada," Reid said.

U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson commiserated Monday with Utahns who want tougher controls on low-level radioactive waste in the state, urging them to become advocates for his bill to ban shipments from abroad. "I don't stand before you with all of the ideas about how to get this done," the Utah Democrat told a state Capitol meeting room filled with about 60 people "I'm looking for ideas and suggestions that can help me move this forward." Salt Lake City-based EnergySolutions Inc. -- which operates a disposal site for low-level radioactive waste in Tooele County that serves 36 states -- won a federal court ruling last spring to import waste from Italy and other nations, a ruling that limits the state's authority over the site on all but health and safety issues.

"The Tennessee Valley Authority is preparing to make a key component for America's hydrogen bombs at its Sequoyah Nuclear Plant near Soddy-Daisy. In the White House budget released this week, the U.S. Department of Energy said it wants TVA to make bomb-grade tritium at Sequoyah, similar to what TVA has done at its Watts Bar plant near Spring City, Tenn., for the past decade. TVA officials said Tuesday that adding military production to Sequoyah's energy generation will have only a minimal impact on plant operations and fulfills the agency's federal mission. "We've tested and done this type of production at Watts Bar since 1999 with limited impact on our operations," TVA Vice President Jack Bailey said. PDF: DOE tritium facility But critics said such plans could heighten the risk of a terrorist attack near Chattanooga and weaken U.S. efforts to limit nuclear proliferation abroad."

"A local environmental group is rallying its members and supporters to appear at tonight's San Clemente City Council meeting to question whether it is safe to restart the shut-down Unit 2 reactor at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. The City Council has scheduled an appearance by Greg Warwick, senior Nuclear Regulatory Commission resident inspector at San Onofre, to report on safety at the power plant just south of town. Southern California Edison shut off the reactor in September for refueling and to swap out two aging 640-ton steam generators. On Jan. 19, Gary Headrick, founder of San Clemente Green, asked for the city's support in delaying reactivation of Unit 2 until there is assurance it is safe. He cited reports about concerns of some employees at the plant, air pockets in some welds on one of the new steam generators and NRC investigations into safety practices at San Onofre."

"The state's plans for stricter depleted uranium controls has sparked a war of words, with EnergySolutions Inc. calling the proposal a violation of state law and the company's critics saying Utah should close the gates to the stuff forever. "Please keep a rein on EnergySolutions and other pollutant companies who want to take advantage of Utah," wrote Carolyn Potter of Sandy. "This is our state not the world's dumping ground." Potter's was one of more than three dozen letters that arrived by the Feb. 2 deadline at the Utah Division of Radiation Control on its pending DU regulation. The regulation, when finalized, would block more DU until EnergySolutions develops a technical report telling why its low-level radioactive waste site in Tooele County is suitable for large quantities and the state signs off on it. "

"If we take seriously the protection of human health we have to phase out coal and nuclear-powered electricity. Ontario's coal plants kill hund re d s of people and trigger thousands of illnesses (e. g., asthma attacks) annually. Coal is also the most climate-destructive fuel around, emitting twice as much carbon as natural gas does. Whether the issue is respiratory disease or global warming, coal is a catastrophe. But nuclear is extremely unhealthy as well. A scientific review by the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment found all functioning reactors release radioactive materials on a routine basis. A 2008 German government study showed children (younger than five) living within five kilometres of a nuclear plant are at elevated risk for leukemia. And Scientific American recently reported nukes harm the climate: "Nuclear power results in up to 25 times more carbon emissions than wind energy, when reactor construction and uranium refining and transport are considered." But to phase out conventional power we need to use less energy and switch over to renewables, including wind turbines. "

"Canadians have watched in horror as BP's Gulf of Mexico oil spill has mushroomed week by week into the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history. The damage to the Gulf's ecosystem is unknown. Oceanographers report seeing massive columns of oil well below the surface. This is a phenomenon not seen before. Likewise, the chemical dispersants used so far may prove to be a "cure" that rivals the oil itself for toxicity. Economically, the costs are already staggering. BP has spent nearly $1 billion on cleanup and appears to have barely made a dent. Fishing and oceanside tourism anywhere in the Gulf states are crippled. Huge areas of precious wetland may have to be burnt. Here in Canada we can draw some conclusions already about the consequences of this spill, which is now at least twice as serious as theExxon Valdezdisaster in 1989. "