Group items matching

in title, tags, annotations or url

A new draft environmental study for the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership on the impacts of expanding nuclear energy favors reprocessing fuel that has been used in nuclear power plants rather than using it only once. A public hearing on the plan is planned at 7 p.m. Nov. 17 at the Pasco Red Lion, 2525 N. 20th Ave. An Oregon hearing will be held the next evening in Hood River. The draft study, or programmatic environmental impact statement, looked at alternatives to the practice of using nuclear fuel once and then sending it to a deep geological repository, such as Yucca Mountain, Nev.

The NRC gives the go-ahead to begin transferring radioactive spent fuel to another site, bypassing a group's call for an in-depth environmental review The Nuclear Regulatory Commission ruled Thursday that Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant can begin loading used reactor fuel into an above-ground storage facility without doing a more comprehensive analysis of the environmental effects of a terrorist attack. The ruling in Rockville, Md., removes the last hurdle to the process of taking highly radioactive spent fuel out of storage pools and into large steel and concrete casks that will sit on a large pad behind the plant.

Duke Energy has signed a contract with the Department of Energy for the disposal of spent fuel generated by its proposed William States Lee III nuclear power plant in South Carolina. Duke's contract with the department is the first publicly announced for disposal of spent fuel from new reactors. In a November 10 press statement, Duke Energy Chief Nuclear Officer Dhiaa Jamil said the contract "is a vital step in supporting the timely licensing" of the station.

Assurances on disposition of spent nuclear fuel could be more important than guarantees of fresh fuel in convincing new nuclear countries to rely on international supply arrangements rather than pursuing their own uranium enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing programs, according to a study released Tuesday by the US and Russian national science academies. For several years, there have discussions about establishing an international system so that countries starting or considering nuclear programs do not also embark on enrichment and reprocessing programs, since this could give countries the capability to produce material -- high-enriched uranium and plutonium, respectively -- that can be used in nuclear weapons.

Federal officials have approved the reopening and combining of two reclaimed underground uranium mines on the Utah-Colorado line. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management in Moab and Grand Junction, Colo., announced Friday that Lakewood, Colo.-based Energy Fuels Resources would combine the Urantah Decline and Packrat Mine into an operation called the Whirlwind Mine. Earlier the agency released an environmental assessment that showed the mine would have no significant impact. The Energy Fuels plan allows for up to 200 tons per day of uranium production, which would yield a quarter-ton annually of U308 to be processed to yellow cake in Blanding in southeastern Utah's, home to the nation's only conventional uranium mill. Energy Fuels is a Toronto-based uranium and vanadium mineral-development company that claims more than 40,000 acres of highly prospective uranium and vanadium property located in Utah, Colorado and Arizona. Uranium prices on the spot market currently are about $65 per pound, down from about $90 in December

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced it will award up to $15 million to 34 research organizations as part of the Department's Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI). AFCI is the Department's nuclear energy research and development program supporting the long-term goals and objectives of the United States' nuclear energy policy. These projects will provide necessary data and analyses to further U.S. nuclear Fuel cycle technology development, meet the need for advanced nuclear energy production and help to close the nuclear Fuel cycle in the United States.

After decades of debate and more than a year of construction, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. workers placed and sealed the first cask of spent nuclear fuel from the Humboldt Bay nuclear power plant into an underground container Friday. Over the next few months, PG&E will be moving five more stainless steel casks into the high-density concrete container designed to be unbreakable by a tsunami or a 9.3-magnitude earthquake. The six 80-ton casks will be sealed with 22,000-pound lids and will contain 390 spent fuel rods total, along with other radioactive waste currently stored in a pool of water on site.

Months of planning at the Monticello nuclear plant will be put into practice soon when spent nuclear fuel is moved to a new storage facility. Radioactive fuel rods will be moved in a process designed for safety and security from inside the plant to the above-ground storage.

It will be up to the Canadian people to decide where an underground nuclear waste storage facility will be built, a spokesman for the Nuclear Waste Management Organization said Tuesday. NWMO was formed in 2002 to come up with a solution for the fireplace log-sized bundles of used nuclear fuel that are building up at Canada's nuclear reactor sites. "If you were to take all of the used fuel bundles and stack them together like cordwood, they would fit into six hockey rinks from the ice surface to the top of the boards," said Mike Krizanc, NWMO communications manager. "The volume is not huge." The organization is working on a project that will see the two million bundles accumulated over the past 40 years end up in a safe and secure, deep geological repository that will contain and isolate the used fuel. NWMO is seeking public input into developing a process to find a site for the facility. A draft is to be complete by late spring.

AREVA (Paris:CEI) has signed today a contract* to supply 40 MOX fuel assemblies for unit 2 of the Shimanenuclear power plant, owned and operated by Japanese utility Chugoku EPCo. Under the terms of the contract, the fuel will be fabricated at AREVA`s MELOX plant in southern France, using plutonium recovered from the treatment operations performed at AREVA`s La Hague plant, thereby recycling it to be used in Japan as MOX fuel.

Exactly how did Entergy get away with not monitoring the radiation emitted by spent fuel stored in dry casks at Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon? To answer that question, the Public Service Board is opening an investigation today in Montpelier. During the investigation, the PSB will also determine if penalties should be assessed against Entergy for any failure on its part to comply with board orders. In April 2006, the PSB issued a certificate of public good allowing Entergy to store spent fuel in dry casks on a concrete pad just north of the reactor building. At this time, there are five casks with 68 fuel assemblies each on the pad. As part of that certificate, Entergy was required to continuously monitor the temperature of the dry casks. It was also required to conduct monthly "radiation surveillance" of the casks. "The Department of Public Service and (Entergy), in consultation with the Department of Health, will develop a protocol for reporting the results of such monitoring and surveillance to the DPS and the Department of Health," stated the certificate of public good. But on July 31, Entergy filed a letter with the PSB reporting that though it had been monitoring the temperature of the casks, it had not initiated the required monthly radiation checks.

The National Nuclear Security Administration recently announced that a team led by Baker Concrete Construction Inc. of Monroe, Ohio, has been awarded a $91.5 million contract for the construction of NNSA's Waste Solidification Building at the Savannah River Site. The Waste Solidification Building will process waste streams from the NNSA's plutonium disposition efforts at SRS - principally wastes from the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility and from weapons pit disassembly operations - by converting them to a cement-like material for off-site disposal. "This announcement is an important step forward for our plutonium disposition program," said Ken Baker, principal assistant deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation. "The Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility and the supporting Waste Solidification Building are key elements in this important nonproliferation effort to eliminate surplus plutonium in a transparent and irreversible manner." The MOX program, a critical part of NNSA's nuclear nonproliferation efforts, will take at least 34 metric tons of surplus weapon-grade plutonium - enough material for about 8,500 nuclear weapons - and use it to create mixed-oxide Fuel for use in nuclear power plants to generate electricity and render the plutonium unusable for nuclear weapons.

Saying there are growing uncertainties about US nuclear waste policy, the governors of 19 states adopted a resolution Sunday that seeks to deter the Obama administration and private energy companies from building any interim storage facilities for spent nuclear fuel in the Western US. The resolution, adopted at a meeting of the Western Governors' Association in Park City, Utah, says it appears "increasingly likely" that the administration of US President Barack Obama will propose establishing one or more centralized interim storage facilities for spent fuel from US nuclear power plants. But the 19 western governors, many of whom staunchly oppose having nuclear waste sent to their states, said in their resolution that no such interim storage facility shall be built in a western state without the written consent of the governor. "The creation of interim storage sites would be a direct result of the federal government's failure to begin accepting spent fuel on schedule," the resolution says.

* $1 bln in deals signed with PG&E, Ameren Corp, Luminant * Will give Russia 20 percent of U.S. uranium market 2014-2020 * Russia sees nuclear fuel storage in U.S. as next step (Recasts with quotes, details, background) By Simon Shuster MOSCOW, May 26 (Reuters) - Russia signed a landmark deal to supply nuclear fuel directly to U.S. companies on Tuesday, setting itself up to control 20 percent of the U.S. uranium market and extending its global reach in the nuclear sector. At a ceremony in the Russian capital, U.S. electricity firms PG&E, Ameren Corp and Luminant signed deals to get more than $1 billion in uranium supplies from Russia's state nuclear fuel exporter Tenex between 2014 and 2020.

A VESSEL carrying a major shipment of recycled nuclear fuel is expected to arrive in Japan as soon as Monday after its 70-day trip from France, local media reported. The convoy, which left Cherbourg in March to deliver the MOX fuel - a blend of plutonium and reprocessed uranium - is expected to arrive in the central port of Omaezaki to unload part of the shipment, Kyodo News reported. The business daily Nikkei in a similar report said that the convoy was due to arrive at the port 'as soon as Monday.' The Pacific Heron, a specially adapted ship with a British police team on board to head off possible hijackers, is then expected to unload fuel at two other ports adjacent to nuclear plants in southwestern Japan, the reports said.

The US Department of Energy will issue a "no significant impact" finding on its plan to sell portions of its excess uranium inventory in the US uranium market, DOE's William Szymanski told officials Wednesday at the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission's annual fuel cycle conference. The finding stems from an environmental impact statement DOE began work on last year under the Bush administration, as the department surveyed how best to manage 59,000 metric tons of DOE-owned uranium that are now stored in cylinders. The finding soon will be published in the Federal Register, said Szymanski, the director of global nuclear fuel assurance in DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy. A statement that then-Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman issued last year states DOE believes it can sell up to 10% of the nation's annual nuclear fuel requirements on the US uranium market and "not have an adverse material impact on the domestic uranium industry." The department still "needs to cross all the 'Ts' and dot all the 'Is'" to ensure that the administration of President Barack Obama will approve such a plan, Szymanski said.

U.S. Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Ellen Tauscher in a written response to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said the EU, India and Japan reprocess nuclear fuel within their own territories at present, but she did not think the Obama administration must apply those cases of authorized reprocessing to other countries, including South Korea. She added there was no need for a revision in the Atomic Energy Agreement signed between South Korea and the United States. The comments effectively slap down calls within South Korea to start reprocessing its own spent nuclear fuel. The U.S. government seems wary of South Korea reprocessing spent nuclear fuel from the standpoint of "peaceful" use of nuclear energy, suspecting that the country over the long-term wants to make its own nuclear weapons. South Korea tried to develop nuclear weapons in the 1970s, but scrapped the plan. Now the issue has re-emerged after North Korea's second nuclear test.

The CEO of Energy Fuels, George Glasier, holds up a tiny pellet, smaller than a ping-pong ball, to illustrate his point. This pellet of nuclear Fuel, he says, is the equivalent of five gallons of oil, one railroad car, or 100 tons of coal. Behind this small finished pellet, however, is a long and expensive chain of production, from mining the uranium ore, to milling it into concentrated yellowcake that will travel across the country to be refined again into pellets that are placed into a Fuel rod and used in a nuclear reactor. Right now, the price of uranium is too low to support that chain of production, according to Denison Mines President Ron Hochstein. Hochstein said that Denison's White Mesa Mill, the nation's only operating uranium mill, has ceased its regular milling operations for the remainder of 2009. "We will stop processing conventional ore through 2009, but will be processing alternate feedstock on a reduced scale, and we'll be laying off some personnel," said Hochstein. "Our costs are higher than the current spot price." Hochstein was upbeat about the future of the uranium market, and his company already has processing contracts in place for 2011, when he expects that the spot price of uranium will again make it profitable to process the radioactive material.

Toshiba Corp., Japan's largest supplier of reactors, will spend 10 billion yen ($103 million) buying a nuclear-fuel manufacturer to help compete with global rivals such as Areva SA for new atomic power plants. Toshiba subsidiary Westinghouse Electric Co. agreed to buy a 52 percent stake in Nuclear fuel Industries Ltd. from Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd. and Furukawa Electric Co., Toshiba said in a statement to the Tokyo Stock Exchange today. It plans to complete the purchase in May, it said. Better access to fuel may help Toshiba win orders as competition with France's Areva and an alliance between Hitachi Ltd. and General Electric Co. intensifies. Nuclear power generation is set to increase as developing countries led by China and India build more reactors to meet demand and cut carbon emissions blamed for global warming.

"Federal regulators are at a South Carolina nuclear fuel plant investigating a spill of wastewater containing uranium. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Monday a team had arrived at the Westinghouse Electric Co. plant near Columbia. The NRC says about 200 gallons of wastewater containing ammonia and uranium spilled Jan. 24 after a pump failed. No workers were injured or needed medical attention. The team is examining Westinghouse's response and will issue a report in about a month. Westinghouse's 550,000-square-foot plant near the Congaree River makes fuel rods for nuclear power stations across the country. "