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It is still dubious as to how many nuclear reactors will be installed in Alberta since it all depends on water and approval after the environmental assessment. Schacherl claims that Energy Alberta Corporation, the original nuclear proponent, was intending to build 13 nuclear reactors in Alberta as part of their business plan. Then Bruce Power bought them out. Elena Schacherl founder of CAUSE explains, "When Bruce Power first came to Alberta, CEO Duncan Hawthorne stated that the Peace River region reactors are 'just the start' of development in Alberta. He admitted that the company has a 'very aggressive growth program.'" "What will be problematic for this plan in going forward, aside from public opposition, will be insufficient water for cooling. Nuclear uses 50% more water to generate electricity than fossil fuels. Bruce Power is now planning to build cooling towers and a cooling pond for the reactors proposed in Northern Alberta because there is not enough water for a 'once through cooling system' in the Peace River. But even then they have to pipe in water from the river to keep the cooling pond sufficiently filled. Not sure where they will find the water to venture into southern Alberta as well," warns Schacherl.

It is still dubious as to how many nuclear reactors will be installed in Alberta since it all depends on water and approval after the environmental assessment. Schacherl claims that Energy Alberta Corporation, the original nuclear proponent, was intending to build 13 nuclear reactors in Alberta as part of their business plan. Then Bruce Power bought them out. Elena Schacherl founder of CAUSE explains, "When Bruce Power first came to Alberta, CEO Duncan Hawthorne stated that the Peace River region reactors are 'just the start' of development in Alberta. He admitted that the company has a 'very aggressive growth program.'" "What will be problematic for this plan in going forward, aside from public opposition, will be insufficient water for cooling. Nuclear uses 50% more water to generate electricity than fossil fuels. Bruce Power is now planning to build cooling towers and a cooling pond for the reactors proposed in Northern Alberta because there is not enough water for a 'once through cooling system' in the Peace River. But even then they have to pipe in water from the river to keep the cooling pond sufficiently filled. Not sure where they will find the water to venture into southern Alberta as well," warns Schacherl.

It is still dubious as to how many nuclear reactors will be installed in Alberta since it all depends on water and approval after the environmental assessment. Schacherl claims that Energy Alberta Corporation, the original nuclear proponent, was intending to build 13 nuclear reactors in Alberta as part of their business plan. Then Bruce Power bought them out. Elena Schacherl founder of CAUSE explains, "When Bruce Power first came to Alberta, CEO Duncan Hawthorne stated that the Peace River region reactors are 'just the start' of development in Alberta. He admitted that the company has a 'very aggressive growth program.'" "What will be problematic for this plan in going forward, aside from public opposition, will be insufficient water for cooling. Nuclear uses 50% more water to generate electricity than fossil fuels. Bruce Power is now planning to build cooling towers and a cooling pond for the reactors proposed in Northern Alberta because there is not enough water for a 'once through cooling system' in the Peace River. But even then they have to pipe in water from the river to keep the cooling pond sufficiently filled. Not sure where they will find the water to venture into southern Alberta as well," warns Schacherl.

"President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev reached final agreement Friday on a nuclear arms treaty that would cut the nuclear arsenals of the onetime rivals to the lowest levels since the 1960s, settling the deal during a morning phone call prior to meeting on April 8th in Prague to sign the pact. Charles Digges, 27/03-2010 The new pact will replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START 1), which has enabled the decommissioning of hundreds of nuclear warhead the countries have pointed at one another and enabled US- Russia bilateral programmes to destroy nuclear weapons like the Cooperative Threat Reduction act. Signed in 1991, the START 1 treaty entered into force in 1994. The new treaty, called the the Measures to Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, also replaces the Moscow Treaty of 2002, viewed by many, including Bellona, as useless showmanship. "

"The United States and Russia have reached a deal on their most extensive nuclear arms-control agreement in nearly two decades, the Kremlin announced Wednesday. The pact appeared to represent President Obama's first victory in his ambitious agenda to move toward a nuclear-free world. The new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) would replace a 1991 pact that expired in December. Experts called the new agreement the most significant arms-control accord since the 1993 signing of START II, which the Russians never ratified. "

"A leader in the Russian Senate said Friday Parliament will consider the new START treaty with the United States in about three weeks. Mikhail Margelov, head of the Senate international relations committee, said he plans to discuss the treaty May 27 with James Miller, a U.S. undersecretary of defense, RIA Novosti reported. Miller will be coming to Moscow for the meeting. In the United States, the treaty has already been submitted to the Senate for ratification. The treaty, replacing one that expired in December, calls for both countries to cut the number of nuclear warheads to 1,550 over seven years, and delivery vehicles to 800."

"A radiation medicine expert has concluded the former head of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant did not become ill as a result of radiation exposure, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Friday. Makoto Akashi, executive director of the National Institute of Radiological Science, reviewed the cumulative amount of radiation Masao Yoshida, 56, was exposed to since the nuclear crisis started in March and informed Tepco of his view Thursday night, the utility said. Yoshida was relieved of his post Thursday to undergo medical treatment. He was hospitalized Nov. 24. There has been much speculation that his illness was caused by excessive radiation exposure, as he had led efforts to contain the disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 plant after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami knocked out three reactors. But the utility again declined to disclose further details on Yoshida's illness or his cumulative radiation exposure since the nuclear crisis started, citing privacy reasons."

"Georgia Power wants to raise rates by $1.02 billion over 26 months starting in January, eventually pushing up a typical family's power bill by nearly $18 per month. The phased increase would start with a $615 million hike in January, adding $10.88 to a typical monthly residential bill, or about 10 percent. Five smaller increases would follow, the last in February 2013. The company laid out its request Thursday in a filing to the state Public Service Commission, which will hold hearings in coming months before a vote Dec. 21. The increases would be on top of special charges already approved by the PSC to help Georgia Power pay for two new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle. Those charges will add about $1.30 to bills next year, with that amount growing to about $9 a month in 2017."

"Traces of uranium have been found in a large number of autistic children in India's northern state of Punjab. The metal, used for generating nuclear energy and to make nuclear bombs, is thought to be the reason behind their autism. Five-and-a-half-year-old Dashamveer Singh was born premature. It was one of the reasons behind his slow mental development. He is being treated at Baba Farid Centre For Special Children. "A normal kid would be active. He would start sitting up by six months of age and start reacting. My child did no such thing. After one year, he could neither sit nor stand. So, we sought treatment for him at the centre," said Satvinder Kaur, mother of Dashamvee. There are many children at the centre with similar symptoms - most of them are from a small town in India's northern state of Punjab. "

Tampa Bay legislators plan on taking a whack at a two-year-old law that allows Progress Energy to charge customers for its $17-billion nuclear project years before it starts producing electricity. The law paved the way for the average Progress Energy bill to rise by about $13 a month, contributing to the 25 percent increase customers will see starting in January. Customers just can't afford it, said state Sen. Mike Fasano, who voted for the law in 2006. Fasano now says his vote was a "mistake." He did not realize just how high bills would go, he said.

Work to design and construct a uranium production and conversion plant will start in Yakutia, Russia's Far East in 2009, the head of a local mining company said on Tuesday. "Pre-design work initiated by Rosatom [Russia's nuclear power corporation], which has a 100% stake in the plant, is being carried out, and investment feasibility study to run until March 2009 has started," said Alexander Morozkin, general director of the Elkon mining plant. The plant will annually process up to 5,000 tons of uranium ore, priced at within $80 per kg. The average world price of 1 kg of uranium is between $170 and $250. The plant will also produce gold and silver, and molybdenum has also been discovered at the Elkon deposit.

SCE&G's plan to build two reactors goes before state regulators Wednesday SCE&G and Santee Cooper estimate it will cost about $10 billion to build two nuclear reactors in Fairfield County. What nuclear energy can you do with $10 billion? A few ideas: Thirty years after the commercial nuclear power industry appeared dead, South Carolina is on the leading edge of its rebound. Nationwide, applications to build a dozen nuclear power reactors - four in South Carolina - have been filed with the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission. While there is growing public support for nuclear power, its resurgence also has touched off a firestorm of debate.

The transition to the new contractor for Hanford's tank farms starts today. However, the transition to a new contractor for cleanup of central Hanford has yet to begin. The Department of Energy had announced that today was the soonest the transition might start, but has not issued a notice to proceed to the new contractor. At the tank farms, Washington River Protection Solutions begins work today to take over operations from outgoing DOE contractor CH2M Hill Hanford Group. The transition is expected to be completed Oct. 1.

A bill to revise the Japan Atomic Energy Agency Law to allow the construction of a site to dispose of low-level radioactive waste passed the House of Councillors on Wednesday. The revised law designates the agency as a body responsible for constructing and managing waste sites. JAEA will draw up a construction plan based on guidelines to be formulated by the Education, Science and Technology Ministry and will start looking at candidate sites for the facility with an eye on starting operations a decade later.

The price of uranium is skyrocketing, and we're a have-not province with aspirations of self-sufficiency and a government apparently willing to make major changes to achieve that goal. This gives New Brunswickers two big problems to consider. The first problem with the speculation about uranium mining in New Brunswick is environmental. It's no good to start exporting uranium if there's a risk you'd have to start importing water, environment contaminant clean-up service providers, and oncologists. No provincial government should be so blinded by a quick buck as to sell out a crucial parcel of the province permanently. (For all practical considerations, one should never consider a radioactive half-life of 4.5 billion years as anything less than permanent.)

Bill Wickersham knows the look well. Eyes glaze over, feet start tapping and people begin to look at their watches. It's the overwhelmed or disinterested look he gets when he starts talking about the dangers of nuclear warfare. "Our tendency is to behave like the ostrich and stick our head in the sand," said Wickersham, an adjunct professor of peace studies at the University of Missouri. That attitude of avoidance for many in the nuclear movement has reached dangerous levels. Yesterday, Jonathan Schell, one of the godfathers of the nuclear issue, urged a crowd of about 100 in Fisher Auditorium at MU to bring the issue back to the fore of the nation's consciousness. He said the world today is as oblivious to nuclear issues as it was in 2004 to the looming financial crisis. And the pot is boiling.

As the nation settles in for a long and increasingly contentious health care debate, residents of the CSRA are starting to draw battle lines of their own regarding the future of the Savannah River Site (SRS). According to the Department of Energy's Strategic Plan for the Savannah River Site, the 310-square-mile site is poised to become the DOE's premier location for new energy initiatives. It's got the land, the infrastructure, the brainpower and the workforce. All it needs are the initiatives. Skeptics of such an energy park, however, suspect the only real initiative the DOE is interested in involves prolonging its involvement in nuclear activities. "I think it's all a big ruse," says the Sierra Club's Susan Corbett. "What they really want are more nuclear missions."

As the nation settles in for a long and increasingly contentious health care debate, residents of the CSRA are starting to draw battle lines of their own regarding the future of the Savannah River Site (SRS). According to the Department of Energy's Strategic Plan for the Savannah River Site, the 310-square-mile site is poised to become the DOE's premier location for new energy initiatives. It's got the land, the infrastructure, the brainpower and the workforce. All it needs are the initiatives. Skeptics of such an energy park, however, suspect the only real initiative the DOE is interested in involves prolonging its involvement in nuclear activities. "I think it's all a big ruse," says the Sierra Club's Susan Corbett. "What they really want are more nuclear missions."

As the nation settles in for a long and increasingly contentious health care debate, residents of the CSRA are starting to draw battle lines of their own regarding the future of the Savannah River Site (SRS). According to the Department of Energy's Strategic Plan for the Savannah River Site, the 310-square-mile site is poised to become the DOE's premier location for new energy initiatives. It's got the land, the infrastructure, the brainpower and the workforce. All it needs are the initiatives. Skeptics of such an energy park, however, suspect the only real initiative the DOE is interested in involves prolonging its involvement in nuclear activities. "I think it's all a big ruse," says the Sierra Club's Susan Corbett. "What they really want are more nuclear missions."

Greenpeace is threatening to take legal action against E.ON and other nuclear power companies for rushing ahead with plans to build new reactors before they have got the proper consents. The move has been triggered by reports that preparatory bore holes for new reactors will start to be drilled for E.ON on 3 August at Oldbury in Gloucestershire. EDF is said to be considering similar work. A Greenpeace spokesman said its lawyers were reviewing a situation which made a mockery of a whole raft of hurdles that were meant to be overcome before the government starts official licensing in 2013.

The viability of a new generation of small nuclear power reactors, hailed by industry and several political leaders Wednesday, could be postponed by the realities of budgets and economics. Federal regulators say they are in no position to start reviewing plans for a new, smaller nuclear reactor like the one rolled out Wednesday by Babcock & Wilcox, a global company with facilities in Euclid and Barberton. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission even recently told the company to wait, as the agency confirmed to The Plain Dealer on Wednesday. The NRC simply lacks the money and staff to start reviewing prospective plans, especially when it has proposals for larger reactors that utility companies have committed to installing. Babcock & Wilcox's proposed "mPower" reactor, which could bring jobs to Ohio, has no committed user or site.

Japan's power industry utilities' association said on Friday it has delayed a target of having 16-18 nuclear reactors using mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel by five years to March 2016, denting the resource-poor nation's goal of a "closed" nuclear fuel cycle. Japan is aiming to move towards a closed cycle where it recycles its own spent fuel and then burns recovered uranium and plutonium as MOX fuel. The Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan, made up of 10 utilities, said it would do its best to achieve the target by the year starting in April 2015, when a nuclear reprocessing plant in northern Japan is scheduled to start operations. MOX plutonium-uranium enriched fuel is controversial because critics fear it could be used to build nuclear weapons. Currently, no commercial reactors in Japan use the fuel, but Chubu Electric Power Co (9502.T), Shikoku Electric Power Co (9507.T) and Kyushu Electric Power (9508.T) last month imported MOX fuel from France. (Reporting by Osamu Tsukimori; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

A special investigation is underway to find the reason behind the failure of a piece of a safety system last month at the Callaway Nuclear Plant. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced Monday that a team of inspectors is looking into a problem that was found with a secondary feedwater pump at the plant May 25 that has raised concern about that backup safety precaution. "In routine testing that pump didn't start automatically, but we did determine that it could have been started manually," Ameren UE spokesman Mike Cleary said. "It was technically inoperable and we don't know when it failed between the previous test on May 4 and May 25.

The proposed nuclear reactor is going to cost Bruce Power a lot of money. Guess again. The private sector does not invest in nuclear power - for good reason: the public will be on the hook for many generations for the biggest part of the costs. Nuclear power plants are usually over budget and start up behind schedule. If power is needed in the meantime, we will have to purchase elsewhere. It would be 10 years or likely more before a nuclear plant starts producing electricity. Construction of power grids to export to possibly Alberta and the U.S. will be a large expense - estimated at $1 billion, again largely at public expense. Power backup for both scheduled and unscheduled maintenance and refurbishing is necessary. Note that eight nuclear power plants were once shut down for a whole decade in Ontario. The UDP report says that nuclear is compatible with 'clean' coal. It better be, as coal will be required when the huge, equally highly centralized nuclear system goes down. Note that there is not an operational clean coal plant on the planet. $1.4 billion plus of our money is being spent on an experimental project to produce only 100 MW of clean coal power. What if it does not work or is too costly to expand? Where does the backup power come from? Old dirty coal that will cost us in carbon charges?