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The U.S. Energy Department has halted its plan to conduct an Environmental Assessment involving the proposed lease of 2,700 acres at Savannah River Site for an energy park. The assessment was to be the first step in the process of determining the suitability of allowing the SRS Community Reuse Or­gan­ization to use the land for economic development purposes that critics fear could bring additional nuclear waste to South Carolina. Jim Giusti, a DOE spokesman at the site, said halting the assessment will allow time for more dialogue and discussion before any binding decisions are made.

Warren F. "Pete" Miller, Jr. has been selected by President Barack Obama to fill two posts that oversee each end of nuclear energy-supplying it and storing its waste. First, Miller was nominated to be Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy in the Department of Energy, and about a week later, he was also chosen to serve as director of Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. Industry observers believe Miller's latter role will involve carrying out Obama's wishes to end the controversial project to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Miller was confirmed by the Senate for the first position on August 7, 2009, but his confirmation for the radioactive waste role was held up by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), who opposes the closing of Yucca Mountain. Born in Chicago on March 17, 1943, Miller is one of five children raised by Warren F. Miller, Sr., and Helen Robinson Miller. His father worked as a milkman, delivering dairy products to homes in the Chicago area, and his mother worked as a secretary at the University of Chicago. Miller attended all-black inner city schools while growing up, and during high school, he enrolled in the Reserve Officers Training Corps, becoming commander of his ROTC unit.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will hold a public meeting July 28 in Bruneau, Idaho, to brief members of the public on a proposal by Westinghouse Electric Co. to dispose of low-activity radioactive materials at the U.S. Ecology Disposal Facility in Grand View, Idaho. The meeting will take place from 6 - 8:30 p.m. in the Auditorium of Rimrock Jr. Sr. High School, 39678 State Highway 78, in Bruneau. Westinghouse is currently decommissioning its Hematite nuclear fuel fabrication facility in Jefferson County, Mo. Westinghouse has requested a license amendment and authorization from the NRC to dispose of some low-activity radioactive waste - including small amounts of "special nuclear material" (enriched uranium and plutonium) - at the U.S. Ecology facility. Westinghouse has also asked the NRC to exempt U.S. Ecology from the agency's licensing requirements for radioactive byproduct material and special nuclear material.

Tennessee Valley Authority, others express interest JACKSON --- The U.S. Energy Department is negotiating with the Tennessee Valley Authority and at least one other potential client to use mixed oxide fuels from a $4.86 billion facility under construction at Savannah River Site. The 600,000-square-foot complex, scheduled to open in 2016, will dispose of 34 metric tons of surplus, weapons-grade plutonium by using small amounts to make fuel for commercial nuclear reactors. Clay Ramsey, the National Nuclear Security Administration's MOX federal project director, said TVA has expressed strong interest in using the fuels in some of its six existing commercial reactors. TVA also has plans to complete a seventh reactor at Watts Bar and has proposed completing two more units at its Bellefonte site in Alabama.

The Multicultural Alliance for a Safe Environment, a coalition of community groups affected by uranium mining and committed to renewable energy development, announces the 30th anniversary commemoration of the Church Rock uranium tailings spill on July 16. The purposes of the event are to remember and honor the Dine communities that were affected by the largest release of radioactive waste in U.S. history, and to reaffirm the Navajo Nation's ban on uranium mining and processing, as set forth in the Dine Natural Resources Protection Act of 2005. A prayer walk will be held on State Route 566 from Red Water Pond Road next to the Northeast Church Rock Mine to the site of the spill across from the United Nuclear Corp. mill site and ending at the King Family Ranch on Old Churchrock Mine Road at SR 566 - a distance of about five miles. Prayers for healing will offered at the start of the walk and at the spill site. The walk will end at the King Ranch with a press conference where Navajo Nation elected officials will reaffirm the Navajo Nation ban on uranium mining.

"The politically-independent Nuclear Waste Council is not convinced of the safety of a planned storage scheme for Sweden's nuclear waste. TT reports that the committee questions the durability of the copper capsules set to hold the waste and the quality of the bentonite mud that is to surround the containers. The debate about what to do with Sweden's nuclear waste has especially divided residents of Östhammar, the place where the waste would be stored under the scheme. The leftover nuclear products would be kept in copper barrels surrounded by a layer of protective bentonite mud, all of it buried 500 meters inside a rock mountain. SKB, the Swedish company with plans to build the storage center, has told the Council that the waste would be safely stowed for 100,000 years."

Foreign Minister Carl Bildt denies that he had any knowledge of the radioactive waste and chemical weapons, that Swedish Television reports say could have been dumped in the Baltic Sea by the Russian military as late as the 1990s. According to Swedish Television's programme Uppdrag Granskning, the Swedish government at the time was aware of the dumping, but the Ministry of Defence decided it would be too difficult to investigate the matter. Swedish secret service agent Donald Forsberg holds that the Russians unloaded the chemicals near the island of Gotland between the years 1989 and 1992. "They just sailed out at night and dumped in two areas," he told the television programme."

"Spent nuclear fuel shipped under heavy guard from Israel and Turkey is the latest batch of weapons-grade material now stored at Savannah River Site. The shipment -- four casks with 131 spent fuel assemblies -- entered the U.S. through the Charleston Naval Weapons Station and was moved by truck to SRS last week. The material contains highly enriched uranium -- a critical ingredient for nuclear weapons -- and marks the 50th such operation completed since 1996, when the U.S. government launched a program to recover material in foreign countries that could be vulnerable to exploitation by terrorists."

"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued annual assessment letters to the nation's 104 operating commercial nuclear power plants. "We ensure nuclear power plants are safe, continually inspecting them and rating their performance on a regular basis, as part of our mission to protect people and the environment," said Eric Leeds, director of the NRC's Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. Currently, 103 of 104 plants are in the two highest performance categories. There are five levels of plant performance based on a detailed assessment of performance indicators (e.g., safety system availability and reliability, control of radiation exposure and unplanned shutdowns) and inspection findings. Levels range from "fully meeting all safety cornerstone objectives" (highest level) to "unacceptable performance" (lowest level). If a nuclear power plant's performance declines, the NRC increases the level of inspection to ensure the plant operator is taking the steps necessary to correct the situation. The additional amount of inspection is commensurate with the level of plant performance. Additional information on the Reactor Oversight Process is available at: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/staff/sr1649/r4/."

"While officials in Washington continue to pass the political hot potato of nuclear waste production and disposal, the Palmetto State has been left holding the bag. The issues on the ground surrounding the nuclear industry in South Carolina are as perplexing as the national policies at the heart of the debate. On one hand, the Savannah River Site and the two new slated nuclear reactors in Jenkinsville and Cherokee County provide jobs and utilities; on the other hand we face the necessary evil of nuclear waste production and storage, a prospect made grimmer after the federal government recently backpedaled on plans to open the Yucca Mountain Repository in Nevada. The good news: the four new nuclear reactors slated to be built in our state will be constructed using a state of the art, efficient design, but the bad news: a recent (still disputed) study found a potential flaw in the design that could spew radioactive particles to the four winds. Good news: the U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE) has rescinded an order to triple waste canister density at SRS, but the bad news: the waste that was supposed to be temporary is still there indefinitely… sort of a black mushroom cloud with a silver lining."

"On January 30, 2009, General Electric (GE)-Hitachi Global Laser Enrichment LLC (GLE) submitted an environmental report to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for a license to construct, operate, and decommission the GLE Global Laser Enrichment Facility. The proposed GLE Facility would be located in the North-Central Sector of the existing GE property near Wilmington, North Carolina. The proposed GLE Facility, if licensed, would enrich uranium for use in commercial nuclear fuel for power reactors. Feed material would be comprised of non-enriched uranium hexafluoride (UF6). GLE would employ a laser-based enrichment process to enrich uranium to up to eight percent uranium-235 by weight, with an initial planned maximum target production of six million separative work units (SWUs) per year. GLE expects to begin preconstruction activities in 2011. If the license is approved, GLE would expect to begin facility construction in 2012, and continue some construction activities through 2017. GLE anticipates commencing initial production in 2013 and reaching peak production in 2017. Prior to license expiration in 2052, GLE would seek to renew its license to continue operating the facility, or plan for the decontamination and decommissioning of the facility per the applicable licensing conditions and NRC regulations. The proposed GLE Facility would be licensed in accordance with the provisions of the Atomic Energy Act. Specifically, an NRC license under Title 10, "Energy," of the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) Parts 30, 40, and 70 would be required to authorize GLE to possess and use special nuclear material, source material, and byproduct material at the proposed GLE site."

The contractor who ran the Savannah River Site for almost two decades and is a big part of the company which was just awarded a new $3.3 billion deal to run the liquid waste operation is under federal investigation for irregular accounting practices. Washington Savannah River Company altered findings in a 2007 financial audit to justify expenses to the government, federal investigators said in a report made public Wednesday. The Energy Department's Inspector General said, as a result, it cannot verify more than $1 billion in expenses submitted by WSRC that year.

The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by Hanford's contractors in the massive downwinders' lawsuit - raising hopes for a legal settlement for up to 2,000 radiation-exposed people after 18 years of court battles and millions of dollars in litigation costs. The high court's one-line denial of the contractors' appeal was announced today. The contractors, including E.I. Du Pont De Nemours & Co., General Electric Co. and UNC Nuclear Industries Inc., filed their appeal in August, asking the court to review two recent 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rulings that sided largely with the downwinders.

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Savannah River Site's new contractor, Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, has recruited six new senior managers who are coming from positions within Fluor Daniel, Northrop Grumman, Honeywell and the U.S. Department of Energy. Rich Slocum, the new vice president of site infrastructure and project support services, previously served as vice president of closure services and infrastructure for Fluor Hanford in Richland, Wash.

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WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) today said he was very pleased Savannah River Site is in line to receive increased funding under the 2008 Defense Authorization bill. Graham is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The bill passed committee unanimously and will now be sent to the full Senate.