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Yesterday, the Department of Energy (DOE) reaffirmed its prior decision to relocate the uranium mill tailings predominantly by rail from Moab, Utah. The tailings will be trained from the banks of the Colorado River 30 miles north to Crescent Junction, Utah. DOE may still consider using truck transport under certain circumstances, but it won't be the primary mode of transportation for the contaminated pile.

The Russian state company on nuclear energy Rosatom this week signed an agreement with the Italian Ministry of Economic Development over the construction of a vessel for transports of spent nuclear fuel from bases on the Kola Peninsula.

What's big and blue and tying up traffic? Three nuclear reactor heads being transported through the Inland area. A truck carrying the equipment left Long Beach last week and will slowly make its way to Wintersburg, Ariz., via Highway 91 and Interstate 10. Wednesday, the reactor heads were parked on the side of the 91 in Corona, near Serfas Club Drive. "It is creating quite a traffic nightmare," said John Standiford, deputy director of the Riverside County Transportation Commission, who was stuck in traffic because of the reactors. "Everyone is stopping to see what is this thing." The reactor heads, the main housing for the Palo Verde Nuclear Plant's three reactors, were made in Korea and shipped to the U.S.

Regardless of whether Canada's nuclear waste gets sent to New Brunswick for long-term storage, the radioactive material would never-the-less be transported through the province by way of truck, train or boat to such a facility, says the group responsible for finding a storage site. The Nuclear Waste Management Organization says the issue of transporting used nuclear fuel from reactors across the country to one main underground storage facility is a major part of their site selection process, and they want to hear from the public about their methods and procedure. The organization held a public information meeting yesterday in Fredericton, the first in a series of provincial meetings about the process of selecting a site. Similar public meetings will take place today in Edmundston and Saint John, with another scheduled June 18 in Bathurst.

"Greenpeace activists said Monday they were blocking a train transporting nuclear waste to the French port of Cherbourg from where it was to be shipped to Russia. Four activists who had chained themselves to the railway line near the harbour were removed early Monday morning by police but more activists were blocking the line at a different location, they said. "We were dislodged in Cherbourg, but we are continuing our action some 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the city, where we are physically blocking the passage of the train transporting nuclear waste," Greenpeace representative Yannick Rousselet told AFP. Two Greenpeace activists were chained to the rails just metres from the train, which had stopped, he said."

"The Indiana Senate has passed legislation that would boost the state's regulations for radioactive materials being shipped within the state. The Senate voted unanimously Tuesday to send the bill sponsored by state Sen. Jim Arnold to the Indiana House for consideration. The LaPorte Democrat says his bill is needed to keep Indiana safe from dangerous materials that require delicate handling because of their radiation threat. His bill would require the state's Homeland Security agency to issue a permit for the transportation of radioactive materials within Indiana. Shippers of radioactive material would have to tell the state how much material they plan to transport, when it will be shipped and what route the shipments will take through the state."

"THE first return shipment of foreign nuclear waste from Britain is due to occur in the next few days with the shipment of highly radioactive waste from the Sellafield Plant to customers in Japan. These nuclear shipments raise critical security, safety and environmental concerns and subject coastal communities to unnecessary risks. The NDA's commercial transport subsidiary, International Nuclear Services (INS), will be responsible for the shipment, which will leave from Barrow, northwest England. The vessels will be carrying 28 stainless steel containers of vitrified radioactive waste and are expected to arrive in Japan by the end of March. This is the first in a series of nuclear waste transports to Japan, which are expected to involve between 850 and 1000 containers and take up to 10 years to complete."

An environment group says a BHP Billiton proposal to transport uranium yellowcake through the Northern Territory should be reconsidered in light of a train derailment near Katherine. Four carriages left the tracks west of Katherine yesterday and investigators are trying to determine the cause. Justin Tutty from the No Waste Alliance says BHP's proposal would see a trainload of radioactive material a day on the same rail line.

BHP Billiton says any increase in the amount of uranium being transported through the Northern Territory would not create problems, but an environmental lobby group is not so sure. BHP currently produces about 4,000 tonnes of uranium a year from its Olympic Dam mine in South Australia. About a quarter of that is taken by train to the Port of Darwin.

Lawmakers: Rail line will affect many WASHINGTON -- Federal lawmakers are calling for public hearings and a broader review of the government application to build a rail line across rural Nevada for nuclear waste shipments to Yucca Mountain. DOE plans for the 330-mile route "will have impacts far beyond Nevada's borders," the state's five members of Congress said in a letter to the chairman of the U.S. Surface Transportation Board, which is weighing the application. The board "has both a statutory and moral duty to comprehensively examine the full effects of the proposed nuclear waste line on the entire national rail transportation system before making any decision," they said.

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.

Transport of radioactive waste to an interim storage facility near the German town of Gorleben from a reprocessing plant in La Hague in France has been cancelled for the coming year, German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung reported on Tuesday.

The Western Governors' Association and Energy Secretary Steven Chu agreed today to enhance safe and secure transportation of nuclear waste to a repository in New Mexico. The agreement was signed during the Western Governors' Association's annual meeting by Gov. Brian Schweitzer of Montana and C.L. "Butch" Otter of Idaho, along with Chu. It expands a 10-year-old agreement that has existed through the two previous administrations of Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, said Alex Schroeder, spokesman for the association. The waste is mostly equipment, clothing and materials containing trace amounts of plutonium or other radioactive particles that can be traced back to Cold War nuclear weapons work in the West.

Las Vegas » Clark County officials are moving forward with a $200,000 study evaluating risks for transporting nuclear waste to a repository that has yet to open and has had its funding cut numerous times. Energy Secretary Steven Chu has declared that the Yucca Mountain project 90 miles from Las Vegas is no longer considered an option for radioactive waste storage, but county officials say they want to be armed with as much information as possible to keep the dump from ever opening. The study will examine rail and truck corridors that could be used to haul high-level nuclear waste and spent nuclear fuel to Yucca Mountain, which is the site legally designated to hold the nation's high-level radioactive waste.

Five years from now, Lab scientists will be able to better determine how, when and why plutonium moves in soil and groundwater. The way to predict how plutonium is transported in groundwater away from a site is by looking at the dominant geochemical processes that control plutonium's (Pu) behavior in the subsurface at environmental levels. But that isn't always so easy. A $6 million five-year proposal funded by the Department of Energy's Office of Science, Biological and Environmental Research (BER), will allow about a dozen LLNL scientists to study Pu transport at concentration levels at the picomolar to attomolar scale (equivalent to dissolving one grain of salt in 100 Olympic-size swimming pools).

The Castor Transport protests that took place in November 2008 were not only about the transport of nuclear waste to the Gorleben temporary disposal site - they were also meant to highlight the still unsolved problem regarding the final disposal of Germany's, and the world's, nuclear wastes. In Gorleben itself there are several nuclear facilities: a temporary disposal site for low- and medium-level radioactive waste, a temporary disposal site for high level radioactive waste, an experimental conditioning facility, and a salt mine currently referred to as a "research" final disposal site for radioactive waste - however this site is almost certainly going to become one of the German government's official final disposal sites.

"Idaho Cleanup Project officials are continuing to investigate the cause of a fire that was confined to the engine compartment of a vehicle called a telehandler, Tuesday at the Radioactive Waste Management Complex of the Department of Energy's Idaho Site. There were no injuries and no release of contamination. The fire was believed to be caused by an electrical short in a telehandler being used to transport radioactive and hazardous waste that was buried in the 1960s in an area of the RWMC's Subsurface Disposal Area called Pit 5. A telehandler is a forklift with an extendable arm (or boom) utilized in the waste exhumation process to transport waste trays. Once the fire ignited, the telehandler operator activated the equipment's fire suppression equipment, which temporarily extinguished the flames in the engine compartment. "

Hanford has completed shipping its leftover weapons-grade plutonium and unirradiated nuclear fuel to South Carolina, a major step toward reducing security requirements at the nuclear reservation. About 2,300 containers of material were shipped, most of them coffee-can-sized canisters of plutonium that had been stored at the Plutonium Finishing Plant. Shipments of the canisters ended in April. Since then, the Department of Energy has been shipping about a dozen packages of unirradiated fuel, with those shipments completed in September. DOE had set a goal to have the shipping done before the start of fiscal 2010, which began today. "It is a major accomplishment with a lot of effort by many people here at Hanford, a lot of effort by transportation crews and by the people at the Savannah River Site," said Geoff Tyree, a DOE Hanford spokesman.

Hanford has completed shipping its leftover weapons-grade plutonium and unirradiated nuclear fuel to South Carolina, a major step toward reducing security requirements at the nuclear reservation. About 2,300 containers of material were shipped, most of them coffee-can-sized canisters of plutonium that had been stored at the Plutonium Finishing Plant. Shipments of the canisters ended in April. Since then, the Department of Energy has been shipping about a dozen packages of unirradiated fuel, with those shipments completed in September. DOE had set a goal to have the shipping done before the start of fiscal 2010, which began today. "It is a major accomplishment with a lot of effort by many people here at Hanford, a lot of effort by transportation crews and by the people at the Savannah River Site," said Geoff Tyree, a DOE Hanford spokesman.

Want to know what a top-secret truck moving "special nuclear materials" around the country looks like? Check out this photo, which comes from a blog at the Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle. The photo was released after a Freedom of Information Act request from an environmental group. "It's big and blue - and rumbling down an interstate near you. But if you were parked next to a nuclear warhead at the gas station, would you know it?" writes Chronicle reporter Robert Pavey. The Chronicle covers the Savannah River Site (SRS), a big-bomb producing facility back in the day, by which I mean the Cold War era. The Chronicle just published a series of stories on SRS's critical role in disposing of plutonium from about 10,000 dismantled bombs. So what does this top-secret transporting of nuclear materials have to do with New Mexico? Patience, patience.

Want to know what a top-secret truck moving "special nuclear materials" around the country looks like? Check out this photo, which comes from a blog at the Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle. The photo was released after a Freedom of Information Act request from an environmental group. "It's big and blue - and rumbling down an interstate near you. But if you were parked next to a nuclear warhead at the gas station, would you know it?" writes Chronicle reporter Robert Pavey. The Chronicle covers the Savannah River Site (SRS), a big-bomb producing facility back in the day, by which I mean the Cold War era. The Chronicle just published a series of stories on SRS's critical role in disposing of plutonium from about 10,000 dismantled bombs. So what does this top-secret transporting of nuclear materials have to do with New Mexico? Patience, patience.

A bakkie carrying radioactive material rolled on the N1 near Bellville, shutting down traffic in both directions for more than two hours yesterday. Two men in the bakkie were taken to Louis Leipoldt Medi-Clinic for treatment after the accident at about 11.30am between Durban and Old Oak roads. The bakkie allegedly swerved to avoid another car and rolled on to the centre island, said Tristan Wadeley, a spokesman for ER24. He said the driver told paramedics who were first on the scene that the bakkie was transporting hazardous material. "It is radioactive, but the container was not broken and it did not spill," said Anzelle Smit, spokeswoman for the Western Cape Health Department EMS.

A bakkie carrying radioactive material rolled on the N1 near Bellville, shutting down traffic in both directions for more than two hours yesterday. Two men in the bakkie were taken to Louis Leipoldt Medi-Clinic for treatment after the accident at about 11.30am between Durban and Old Oak roads. The bakkie allegedly swerved to avoid another car and rolled on to the centre island, said Tristan Wadeley, a spokesman for ER24. He said the driver told paramedics who were first on the scene that the bakkie was transporting hazardous material. "It is radioactive, but the container was not broken and it did not spill," said Anzelle Smit, spokeswoman for the Western Cape Health Department EMS.