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The governments new draft National Policy Statement on nuclear power, indicating which issues the new Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) should take on board, and which it can ignore, contains this remarkable statement: "The Government is satisfied that effective arrangements will exist to manage and dispose of the waste that will be produced from new nuclear power stations. As a result the IPC need not consider this question." The draft Statement goes on to say that 'Geological disposal will be preceded by safe and secure interim storage'. So it seems, the waste issue is all in hand and we needn't bother too much about it, or any problems with the much more active spent fuel that the new reactors' high fuel 'burn up' approach will create. Despite the fact that the highly active spent fuel is to be kept on site at the plant for perhaps several decades, that is evidently not something IPC will have to consider in its assessment of whether the proposed plants can go ahead. Instead the IPC will just focus on any conventional local planning and environmental impact issues that may emerge in relation to the 10 new nuclear plants that the government has now backed.

The governments new draft National Policy Statement on nuclear power, indicating which issues the new Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) should take on board, and which it can ignore, contains this remarkable statement: "The Government is satisfied that effective arrangements will exist to manage and dispose of the waste that will be produced from new nuclear power stations. As a result the IPC need not consider this question." The draft Statement goes on to say that 'Geological disposal will be preceded by safe and secure interim storage'. So it seems, the waste issue is all in hand and we needn't bother too much about it, or any problems with the much more active spent fuel that the new reactors' high fuel 'burn up' approach will create. Despite the fact that the highly active spent fuel is to be kept on site at the plant for perhaps several decades, that is evidently not something IPC will have to consider in its assessment of whether the proposed plants can go ahead. Instead the IPC will just focus on any conventional local planning and environmental impact issues that may emerge in relation to the 10 new nuclear plants that the government has now backed.

Article Highlights * Revelations about Iran's secret Fordow fuel enrichment plant have been seen as proof that Tehran is pursuing nuclear weapons. * But the facility's small capacity makes enriching either reactor-grade or even bomb-grade uranium extremely time-consuming and impractical. * Although it is significant that Iran has officially declared that there are no further secret nuclear facilities such as Fordow inside the country, it's possible that this facility could be one of several that has been either built or planned. When Iran's Fordow fuel enrichment plant first became public on September 25 at the G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh, the underground facility, located near the holy city of Qom, was widely portrayed as proof that Tehran was pursuing nuclear weapons. In particular, U.S. President Barack Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown claimed that the clandestine enrichment plant's "size and configuration" were "inconsistent with that of a peaceful program."

Article Highlights * Revelations about Iran's secret Fordow fuel enrichment plant have been seen as proof that Tehran is pursuing nuclear weapons. * But the facility's small capacity makes enriching either reactor-grade or even bomb-grade uranium extremely time-consuming and impractical. * Although it is significant that Iran has officially declared that there are no further secret nuclear facilities such as Fordow inside the country, it's possible that this facility could be one of several that has been either built or planned. When Iran's Fordow fuel enrichment plant first became public on September 25 at the G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh, the underground facility, located near the holy city of Qom, was widely portrayed as proof that Tehran was pursuing nuclear weapons. In particular, U.S. President Barack Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown claimed that the clandestine enrichment plant's "size and configuration" were "inconsistent with that of a peaceful program."

Nuclear fuel inside the crippled reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant has partially melted and settled at the bottom of pressure vessels in the shape of grains, according to an analysis by the Atomic Energy Society of Japan made public by Friday. The academic body's panel on nuclear energy safety has said the melted fuel at the No. 1 to 3 reactors has been kept at a relatively low temperature, discounting the possibility that a large amount of melted fuel has already built up at the bottom of their reactor vessels given the temperature readings there. A large buildup of melted nuclear fuel at th

"Two Republican US senators Monday introduced a bill that would increase the use of natural gas, nuclear power and electric vehicles as a means of reducing the US power sector's air emissions and building domestic energy supply without specifically targeting greenhouse gas emissions. Senators Richard Burr of North Carolina and Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, said their bill (S. 3535) would move the country toward cleaner domestic fuel sources through financial incentives. According to a bill summary, the measure would expand US use of natural gas with incentives for vehicles run by the fuel, including requirements for federal purchases of natural-gas fueled vehicles and extending income tax credit for vehicle purchases. For nuclear power, the bill would increase loan guarantees, provide a 15-year accelerated depreciation period for new plants, a 10% investment tax credit and launch a policy for recycling spent nuclear fuel. "

Having generated electricity as a plant operator, plant manager and vice president in three mid-sized electric power companies for a long career, I wish to express a few facts about using biomass (wood) as a fuel for large boilers ("Trees better alternative to coal" Hattiesburg American, Jan. 6). Advertisement There are several mid-sized boilers in service using biomass fuels. However, the low heat content of such fuels limit the electric output of such units. This causes the cost of such generation to go above the available cost per megawatt, thereby reducing use. The second factor is cost of processing wood into a useable fuel including the disturbing presence of a multitude of trucks on the local highways.

Where others see only radioactive waste, engineers at TVA and the Department of Energy envision another source of needed energy. Most of the potential energy in the nuclear fuel used to generate nearly 30 percent of the electricity in the Tennessee Valley remains untapped in spent fuel pools or dry casks at the Sequoyah, Watts Bar and Browns Ferry nuclear plants, said Sherrell R. Greene, director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory's nuclear technology programs.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) will consider the issues raised in a petition for rulemaking (PRM) submitted by Mark Edward Leyse in the NRC's rulemaking process. The petition was dated March 15, 2007, and was docketed as PRM-50-84. The petitioner requests that the NRC amend its regulations to require that nuclear power reactors be operated in a manner to limit the thickness of crud layers and/or the thickness of oxide layers on fuel rod cladding surfaces to ensure that the facilities operate in compliance with the emergency core cooling system (ECCS) acceptance criteria. The petitioner also requests that the requirements pertaining to ECCS evaluation models be amended to explicitly require that the steady-state temperature distribution and stored energy in reactor fuel at the onset of a postulated loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) be calculated by factoring in the role that the thermal resistance of crud and/or oxide layers on fuel cladding plays in increasing the stored energy of the fuel.

Record of Decision and Floodplain Statement of Findings--Nevada Rail Alignment for the Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste at Yucca Mountain, Nye County, NV AGENCY: Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, U.S. Department of Energy. ACTION: Record of Decision. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SUMMARY: In July 2008, the Department of Energy (Department or DOE) issued the ``Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for a Geologic Repository for the Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High- Level Radioactive Waste at Yucca Mountain, Nye County, Nevada--Nevada Rail Transportation Corridor'' (DOE/EIS-0250F-S2) (hereafter referred to as the final Nevada Rail Corridor SEIS), the ``Final Environmental Impact Statement for a Rail Alignment for the Construction and Operation of a Railroad in Nevada to a Geologic Repository at Yucca Mountain, Nye County, Nevada'' (DOE/EIS-0369) (hereafter referred to as the final Rail Alignment EIS), and the ``Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for a Geologic Repository for the Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste at Yucca Mountain, Nye County, Nevada'' (DOE/EIS-0250F-S1) (hereafter referred to as the final Repository SEIS). The final Nevada Rail Corridor SEIS analyzed the potential impacts of constructing and operating a railroad for shipments of spent nuclear Fuel, high-level radioactive waste, and other materials in the Mina corridor, and DOE concluded that the Mina corridor warranted further analysis at the alignment level. This further, more detailed analysis is presented in the final Rail Alignment EIS, which analyzed the potential environmental impacts of constructing and operating a railroad along rail alignments in both the Caliente and Mina rail corridors. The final Rail Alignment EIS also analyzed the potential environmental impacts from shipments of general freight (also referred to as common carriage

Germany has returned over 20 pounds of highly enriched uranium fuel to the U.S. for safeguarding from terrorists or potential misuse, the government said Tuesday. The National Nuclear Security Administration said the spent fuel shipment was transported by ship and rail under secret and secure conditions. Spokeswoman Casey Ruberg said the material was secured at the federal Savannah River site near Aiken, S.C., on Sept. 23. Overall, nearly 115 pounds of spent fuel, originally provided by the United States for use in research reactors, has been returned to the United States from Argentina, Portugal, Romania and Germany during the past year, the agency said.

THE final defuelling of one of the reactors at Chapelcross began last week. The first fuel element was removed from the core of Reactor 1, beginning the active commissioning of the newly-upgraded fuel route. About 40,000 fuel elements will be systematically removed from all four reactors and dispatched for reprocessing at the Sellafield site in west Cumbria.

The Ukrainian Enerhoatom nuclear power generating company and the Russian TVEL Corporation have signed contracts on supplies of nuclear fuel to Ukrainian nuclear power plants in 2009. Ukrainian News learned this from a joint statement by Enerhoatom and the TVEL Corporation. According to the statement, a part of the nuclear fuel will be made from Ukrainian uranium. The statement reads that the Enerhoatom nuclear power generating company and the TVEL Corporation are intending to sign a long-term contract on supplies of nuclear fuel to the Ukrainian nuclear power plants after 2010.

Duke Energy, the only commercial nuclear power plant operator that had agreed to use mixed oxide fuels to be made at Savannah River Site, has ended its contract to use the material. The U.S. Department of Energy's $4.86 billion MOX facility at SRS, scheduled to open in 2016, is designed to dispose of 34 metric tons of surplus, weapons-grade plutonium by using small amounts to make fuel for commercial reactors. The termination of Duke's contract -- disclosed Feb. 27 in a company financial filing with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission -- raises questions about the government's ability to find power plants willing to use the fuel, said Tom Clements, the Southeast nuclear campaign coordinator for Friends of the Earth.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) manages high-level waste (HLW) at sites across the DOE complex. This HLW is the highly radioactive waste material produced as a byproduct of the reactions that occur inside nuclear reactors: * Much of this HLW is spent (depleted) nuclear fuel, which has been accepted for disposal. * Some HLW consists of other highly radioactive materials that are determined (consistent with existing law) to require permanent isolation. * The remaining HLW comprises the liquid and solid waste byproducts (containing significant concentrations of fission products) that remain after spent fuel is reprocessed to extract isotopes that can be used again as reactor fuel. Although commercial reprocessing is currently not practiced in the United States, the defense reprocessing programs at certain facilities managed by DOE do produce significant quantities of HLW. From time to time, however, in accordance with DOE Order 435.1 exit icon, DOE has determined that certain waste resulting from reprocessing spent nuclear fuel is actually waste incidental to reprocessing (WIR), rather than HLW. For an understanding of the role that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) plays in the waste determination and disposal processes, see the following pages, as well as the related information provided below:

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission seeks public comment on proposed changes to its licensing requirements for the storage of spent nuclear fuel, which would clarify the term limits for specific licenses for independent spent fuel storage installations (ISFSIs) and for certificates of compliance (CoCs) for spent fuel storage casks. In a proposed rule published today in the Federal Register, the agency proposes formalizing the initial and renewal terms of a specific ISFSI license at a period of up to 40 years, instead of the current duration of up to 20 years. This change would codify a technical approach begun in 2004 with the renewal of the licenses for storage installations at the Surry and H. B. Robinson nuclear power plants. Currently, licensees must request an exemption if they desire a term of more than 20 years. Similarly, the proposed rule would allow CoC applicants to request initial and renewal terms of up to 40 years, provided they can demonstrate that all design requirements are satisfied for the requested term.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is proposing to double the period that nuclear power plants can store spent fuel on site to 40 years, as plans to build a permanent federal repository stall. The rule would formalize a site-by-site exemption the commission has used when nuclear plants, including those owned by Dominion Resources Inc. and Progress Energy Inc., applied to renew waste storage licenses for longer than 20 years. "This change would codify a technical approach begun in 2004," the commission said in a statement today. Utilities store nuclear waste on site until the government removes the spent fuel under contracts the U.S. has yet to honor because it has no permanent storage facilities. President Barack Obama abandoned support after he took office this year for the government's Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada, which had been proposed as a permanent underground site for spent fuel.

China has already begun adding refined fuel to its state reserves as part of a larger plan to enhance the country's energy security, a top economic planner said on Sunday. In May, an industry official told Reuters China planned to stockpile 10 million tons of fuel reserves by 2011, equivalent to about two weeks' of current consumption of gasoline, diesel and kerosene combined. "We are doing this already," Zhang Guobao, head of the National Energy Administration, told Reuters when asked how much refined fuel China intends to stockpile this year. He did not elaborate.

During the 53rd IAEA General Conference, delegates from the Russian Federation and Serbia signed a trade contract, laying the groundwork for the final repatriation of spent nuclear fuel from the Serbian Institute for Nuclear Sciences at Vinča to the Russian Federation. The Foreign Trade Contract (FTC) is a pre-condition for the spent fuel´s envisioned repatriation to Russia, setting out provisions for the safe and secure transport, reprocessing, storage and subsequent disposal of the high-level waste at Russian facilities. The FTC was signed by Mr. Sergey Kazakov, Director of the Russian Federal Centre for Nuclear and Radiation Safety and Mr. Radojica Pesic, General Director of the Serbian Public Company Nuclear Facilities.

Spent nuclear fuel is being moved from a storage pool at the twin-reactor Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant to a new above-ground storage facility at the Central Coast facility. Pacific Gas and Electric, operator of the coastal San Luis Obispo County plant, says loading of the used nuclear fuel began Monday night. Eight containers of fuel in a storage pool will be moved during several months to the new interim facility, where they will be anchored to a 7 1/2-foot-thick concrete pad.

A recent letter ("The case against storing at Yucca," June 11) shows a lack of understanding of nuclear waste; for example, the writer is worried about hundreds of truck or train loads of spent fuel, and mentioned the Graniteville accident. Sign up to get local news by e-mail Thousands of trucks and train cars of gasoline and other hazardous chemicals are crossing the country every day. They represent a risk thousands of times greater than spent fuel. The Graniteville accident involved tank cars of gaseous chlorine and killed people. After an accident a car load of spent fuel would just lie there until picked up. No terrorist would waste his time on such a target. At Savannah River Site, it was calculated that a truck load of explosives in a fuel storage pool couldn't spread radioactivity past the plant boundary. I hoped that, if a terrorist had a truck load of explosives, he was dumb enough to explode it at the plant rather than where he could kill people.

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.