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High-level radioactive vitrified waste will arrive in Japan from Britain around March, Japan's four major electric power companies said Wednesday. A total of 28 units of nuclear waste that was packed into solidified glass in Britain will be transferred to the Rokkasho nuclear facility in Aomori Prefecture where it will be stored for 30 to 50 years, and then be buried at a final disposal site.

High-level radioactive vitrified waste will arrive in Japan from Britain around March, Japan's four major electric power companies said Wednesday. A total of 28 units of nuclear waste that was packed into solidified glass in Britain will be transferred to the Rokkasho nuclear facility in Aomori Prefecture where it will be stored for 30 to 50 years, and then be buried at a final disposal site.

"he first shipment of highly radioactive waste from the UK has left the Sellafield nuclear site, the BBC has learnt. It has been loaded onto a ship specifically designed to carry nuclear waste that will sail for Japan later. The waste is a by-product of nuclear fuel spent by Japanese reactors that was sent to the UK for reprocessing during the 1980s and 1990s. Some campaigners have criticised the shipments, saying they are dangerous. "It is highly irresponsible for the industry to still be sending this kind of material across the world," said anti-nuclear campaigner Martin Forward. "

"A protest from Utah Governor Gary Herbert caused the Department of Energy to suspend shipments in January of depleted uranium from SRS to a disposal facility near Salt Lake City. Now regulators have determined that more than 3,000 tons of the waste meet Utah's health and safety standards. That could mean shipments will start up again soon."

"A plan to temporarily store two trainloads of Savannah River Site's depleted uranium in Texas after it was rejected by Utah's governor might be unnecessary and could waste taxpayers' money, according to the U.S. Energy Department's Inspector General. * Comment (1) * E-mail * Bookmark and Share Advertisement "The only apparent driver in this case was a Recovery Act-related goal established by the Department to accelerate the general disposition of the SRS material," said the report, released Tuesday as a "management alert" based on information received from a "reliable and credible" department source."

"Groups opposed to a Bruce Power plan to ship 16 steam generators, considered intermediate-level waste, through Owen Sound and the Great Lakes en route to Sweden for recycling are circulating a resolution to municipalities and other organizations calling for an end to the proposal. A Bruce Power spokesman said the company sees moving the 100-tonne generators more as a traffic issue than one of nuclear safety. "Everyone has the right to express their opinions, but we don't see any risk in this," said Peevers. The resolution being circulated by groups such as Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Great Lakes, Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination, Beyond Nuclear and the Nuclear Information and Resource Centre (NIRC) has collected signatures from a few hundred anti-nuclear, First Nations, environmental, and physicians groups from across Canada, the United States and countries around the world. In Bruce County, Citizens for Renewable Energy out of Lion's Head is opposed to the shipment of steam generators off the site. Hundreds of individuals have also signed, including Inverhuron's Eugene Bourgeois, Dr. Paul J. Eisenbarth of Hanover and Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley. "

"The French nuclear group Areva said Friday it would halt shipments of depleted uranium to Russia in July in response to a commercial dispute. Areva each year sends several tonnes of depleted uranium to Russia to be re-enriched in facilities operated by the Russian nuclear agency Rosatom. A contract between Areva and its Russian partner Tenex, a Rosatom subsidiary, was to run until 2014, with a possibility that conditions could be re-negotiated for the period 2011-2014. "We have agreed on ending the contract in 2010 because of a disagreement over commercial conditions," an Areva spokeswoman told AFP, adding that shipments would stop in July."

"Nearly universal local opposition to the resumption of shipment of radioactive waste from Los Alamos plus howling winds from the southwest put a stop on transloading operations Monday morning. About 15 demonstrators with signs in opposition taped to their cars and a few signs secured to wooden posts and held on the south side of the highway by the operation's site were backed mid-morning by another document. A temporary injunction against the loading of railcars signed by 41 area citizens"

Drums of radioactive cleanup waste in South Carolina are ready for loading onto rail cars for the journey to a Tooele County disposal site. But now those plans could be delayed more than a year, after the state Radiation Control Board voted Tuesday to allow more depleted uranium (DU) only after EnergySolutions Inc. submits a report confirming its extra steps to safeguard the waste will work. The move was a victory for the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah (HEAL) which has sought at least a temporary moratorium on DU, as the uranium-enrichment waste is called.

Drums of radioactive cleanup waste in South Carolina are ready for loading onto rail cars for the journey to a Tooele County disposal site. But now those plans could be delayed more than a year, after the state Radiation Control Board voted Tuesday to allow more depleted uranium (DU) only after EnergySolutions Inc. submits a report confirming its extra steps to safeguard the waste will work. The move was a victory for the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah (HEAL) which has sought at least a temporary moratorium on DU, as the uranium-enrichment waste is called.

In the wake of a French investigation into reports that nuclear waste is sent from French plants to Siberia, news has emerged that Germany has a long tradition of shipping toxic waste to Russia. The German anti-nuclear group "Ausgestrahlt" said that since 1996, Germany's only uranium enrichment plant in Gronau has shipped about 22,000 tons of uranium hexafluoride, which is a compound used in the uranium enrichment process, to Russia. "Ausgestrahlt" reported on Wednesday that only 10 percent of that was returned to Germany as enriched uranium. The anti-nuclear activists said the remaining 90 percent was stored in Siberia, outdoors and in rusting containers. Uranium hexafluoride is highly toxic and corrosive to most metals.

In the wake of a French investigation into reports that nuclear waste is sent from French plants to Siberia, news has emerged that Germany has a long tradition of shipping toxic waste to Russia. The German anti-nuclear group "Ausgestrahlt" said that since 1996, Germany's only uranium enrichment plant in Gronau has shipped about 22,000 tons of uranium hexafluoride, which is a compound used in the uranium enrichment process, to Russia. "Ausgestrahlt" reported on Wednesday that only 10 percent of that was returned to Germany as enriched uranium. The anti-nuclear activists said the remaining 90 percent was stored in Siberia, outdoors and in rusting containers. Uranium hexafluoride is highly toxic and corrosive to most metals.

It's the waste disposal equivalent of a last-minute call from the governor, a radioactive reprieve. The trains were to start arriving in Utah this month, carrying 15,000 drums containing 11,000 metric tons of depleted uranium to EnergySolutions' low-level radioactive waste disposal facility in Tooele County. Now, the Department of Energy has announced the shipments won't start leaving the yard at DOE's Savannah River site in South Carolina until December. The delay will buy time for Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, to convince the DOE to put the transfer on hold until the Nuclear Regulatory Commission completes an ongoing review of depleted uranium disposal. Matheson has a solid argument.

It's the waste disposal equivalent of a last-minute call from the governor, a radioactive reprieve. The trains were to start arriving in Utah this month, carrying 15,000 drums containing 11,000 metric tons of depleted uranium to EnergySolutions' low-level radioactive waste disposal facility in Tooele County. Now, the Department of Energy has announced the shipments won't start leaving the yard at DOE's Savannah River site in South Carolina until December. The delay will buy time for Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, to convince the DOE to put the transfer on hold until the Nuclear Regulatory Commission completes an ongoing review of depleted uranium disposal. Matheson has a solid argument.

The Department of Energy is proposing that tons of very low-level radioactive soil from a closed plutonium extraction plant in New York be trucked to Tennessee. The Chestnut Ridge Landfill in Anderson County was the only landfill mentioned as the likely dirt depository during a conference call Thursday organized by DOE. Some 6,000 cubic yards of soil that contains cesium-137 and detectable levels of strontium-90 and plutonium-239/240 are to be excavated from the New York site starting in mid-October, according to a DOE briefing. That's the equivalent of some 200 dump truck loads of waste.

The Department of Energy is proposing that tons of very low-level radioactive soil from a closed plutonium extraction plant in New York be trucked to Tennessee. The Chestnut Ridge Landfill in Anderson County was the only landfill mentioned as the likely dirt depository during a conference call Thursday organized by DOE. Some 6,000 cubic yards of soil that contains cesium-137 and detectable levels of strontium-90 and plutonium-239/240 are to be excavated from the New York site starting in mid-October, according to a DOE briefing. That's the equivalent of some 200 dump truck loads of waste.

When Oregon and Washington's governors announced a settlement with the U.S. Department of Energy in August for cleanup of radioactive tank waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, they said it included a "moratorium" on shipping new radioactive waste to Hanford until a plant to treat the tank wastes was up and running. But in fact a big chunk of radioactive waste -- including contaminated metal from decommissioned U.S. nuclear plants -- isn't included in that proposed moratorium, Oregon officials confirmed Friday. Ken Niles, assistant director of the Oregon Department of Energy, said Oregon continues to oppose importing the waste, formally known as "Greater than Class C" or GTCC waste.

When Oregon and Washington's governors announced a settlement with the U.S. Department of Energy in August for cleanup of radioactive tank waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, they said it included a "moratorium" on shipping new radioactive waste to Hanford until a plant to treat the tank wastes was up and running. But in fact a big chunk of radioactive waste -- including contaminated metal from decommissioned U.S. nuclear plants -- isn't included in that proposed moratorium, Oregon officials confirmed Friday. Ken Niles, assistant director of the Oregon Department of Energy, said Oregon continues to oppose importing the waste, formally known as "Greater than Class C" or GTCC waste.

"At last, victims of Japan's nuclear crisis can claim compensation. And they are angry. They are furious at the red tape they have to wade through just to receive basic help and in despair they still cannot get on with their lives seven months after the huge quake and tsunami triggered the world's worst nuclear disaster in 25 years. Shouts fill a room at a temporary housing complex where seven officials, kneeling in their dark suits, face 70 or so tenants who were forced to abandon their homes near the Fukushima nuclear plant after some of its reactors went into meltdown after the March 11 quake struck."