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The cost of Pebble Bed Modular Reactor's (PBMR's) demonstration plant and pilot fuel plant had almost doubled to R31-billion as a result of inflation and higher materials costs, company chief executive Jaco Kriek said last week. Kriek said the demonstration reactor, which would generate 200 megawatts of heat and 80MW of electricity, was now expected to be commissioned by 2018 - four years later than previously expected. The plant has yet to receive environmental clearance.

The cost of Pebble Bed Modular Reactor's (PBMR's) demonstration plant and pilot fuel plant had almost doubled to R31-billion as a result of inflation and higher materials costs, company chief executive Jaco Kriek said last week. Kriek said the demonstration reactor, which would generate 200 megawatts of heat and 80MW of electricity, was now expected to be commissioned by 2018 - four years later than previously expected. The plant has yet to receive environmental clearance.

The cost of Pebble Bed Modular Reactor's (PBMR's) demonstration plant and pilot fuel plant had almost doubled to R31-billion as a result of inflation and higher materials costs, company chief executive Jaco Kriek said last week. Kriek said the demonstration reactor, which would generate 200 megawatts of heat and 80MW of electricity, was now expected to be commissioned by 2018 - four years later than previously expected. The plant has yet to receive environmental clearance.

Two truckers were exposed to excessive doses of radiation last year while hauling a radioactive device across the country, newly released documents show. A preliminary investigation by Canada's nuclear-safety watchdog found the drivers got more than their yearly limit of radiation on a six-day trip last December. The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission learned of the problem when the shipment triggered a radiation alarm on arrival at an MDS Nordion office in Ottawa. The commission traced the problem to a technician with Nomad Inspection Services of Olds, Alta., who didn't fasten a safety lock to a radioactive device before it was packaged and shipped.

Carla McCabe spent a decade building nuclear bombs at the sprawling Rocky Flats complex near Denver. When she developed a brain tumor and asked for help, federal officials told her that none of the toxic substances used at the top-secret bomb factory could have caused her cancer. Now, on the eighth anniversary of the federal program created to help sick nuclear weapons workers, the man who until recently was the program's top doctor says that McCabe, now 55, and many others like her are being improperly rejected.

The Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (COMARE) is a quango that is supposed to be a watchdog on the health issues arising from the activities of nuclear installations in the UK. COMARE's terms of reference are "to assess and advise Government . on the health effects of natural and man-made radiation and to assess the adequacy of the available data and the need for further research". But how seriously does this body take its responsibilities? Not very, it seems. A recent authoritative health study commissioned by the German government entitled KiKK (Kinderkrebs in der Umgebung von KernKraftwerken, or Childhood Cancer in the Vicinity of Nuclear Power Plants) found increased leukemias near all German nuclear facilities. The Environmental Health Sub-Committee of the West Cumbria Site Stakeholder Group, a group that discusses nuclear issues mainly concerning Sellafield, raised the findings of this study with COMARE and asked for its views. A one-page COMARE briefing was sent by Professor Alex Elliott, the COMARE chairman, and was read out to the May 2009 meeting of the Environmental Health Sub Committee as COMARE's official view. It is likely that other stakeholder groups near other UK nuclear sites were informed along similar lines. However the COMARE briefing was never published on its website.

Italy's plan to increase nuclear power may cost 40 billion euros ($59 billion,) Enel SpA Chief Executive Officer Fulvio Conti told daily Il Sole 24 Ore. Italy will probably need about eight reactors that will cost as much as 5 billion euros each, Conti said, according to the newspaper. Italy, which has the highest electricity prices in the European Union, has been looking for ways to cut power costs and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. Italians voted to shutter the country's nuclear power plants in a 1987 referendum following the Chernobyl power-plant accident in the former Soviet Union. Enel may invest an additional $1.3 billion over the next three to four years in the U.S., where the utility has invested in renewable energy projects, Conti told the newspaper.

A difference in interpretation of a diplomatic document in 1959 apparently led to a secret pact allowing Washington to bring nuclear weapons into Japan--and decades of denials from Tokyo, former officials said. The revision of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty in 1960 introduced a "prior consultation" system between the two nations about nuclear wea-pons. At that time, Japanese officials believed prior consultation would be conducted when U.S. ships and aircraft carrying nuclear weapons anchored or landed in Japan or even passed through Japanese waters or airspace. However, U.S. officials thought that the 1959 document meant that such acts would not require prior consultation.

Areva and Electricité de France (EDF) are French-based companies at the heart of worldwide attempts to re-launch nuclear ordering - the so-called Nuclear Renaissance. Areva is an electricity industry equipment supplier offering transmission and distribution equipment as well as the full range of civil nuclear technologies. For its nuclear business, it operates as Areva NP, a joint venture with the German company Siemens in which Areva holds 66% and Siemens the balance, although in January 2009, Siemens announced it would be withdrawing from the joint venture (see below). EDF is an electric utility operating all the main generating technologies. The French state retains a majority holding in both companies although the priorities of their private shareholders, for EDF small shareholders and for Areva NP, Siemens, can no longer be ignored. In addition, the European Union law on unfair State Aids only allows governments to meet company losses or provide other assistance if such measures do not distort competition. For the markets Areva and EDF operate in, it would be hard to argue that any state aids did not distort competition.

The Alliance of Nuclear Worker Advocacy Groups has sent a letter to Labor Secretary Hilda Solis objecting to the Department of Labor's recent performance evaluation of the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program. In a statement distributed to the news media, Terrie Barrie of ANWAG said, "I find it incredible that DOL would offer that they must be doing a great job because so few claimants filed complaints in federal court. Their logic escapes me . . . The fact that few complaints have been filed in federal court is no evidence that DOL is obeying the law." In review of performance highlights, the Labor Department said, "First, DOL has paid over $4 billion for over 43,000 claims, and the pace of those payments is accelerating, not slowing. As shown in Chart 1, total payouts under this eight-year old program have exceeded $4 billion, about $1 billion of which was issued in the last 12 months. These totals far exceed Congress' expectations at the time of enactment."

U.S. Nuclear Waste Law and Policy: Fixing a Bankrupt System Source: New York University Law and Economics Working Papers The current U.S. system of nuclear waste law and policy is bankrupt. Twenty years after the designation by Congress of Yucca Mountain as the only potential site for a deep geologic repository to receive spent nuclear fuel and high level waste from reprocessing, the proposed Yucca repository remains mired in controversy and unremitting opposition by Nevada. There is no prospect for an alternative repository or for the development of a federal consolidated storage facility. The volume of these wastes already exceeds the current maximum storage capacity set by Congress for Yucca and continues to grow. This article first provides a brief overview of nuclear wastes and a summary history of federal nuclear waste law and policy to date. It then diagnoses the major failures in the current design and proposes a suite of new measures to launch a comprehensive new approach, including a reconsideration of the ethical principles underlying the drive for immediate waste burial; the creation of a high-level National Waste Management Commission; the creation of two new federal entities to manage nuclear wastes and to site waste storage facilities and repositories; the elimination of Environmental Protection Agency regulatory authority over these activities; the adoption of a thoroughgoing risk-based approach to waste regulation and management; and the adoption of new, more flexible and adaptable strategies for siting storage and disposal facilities. + Full Paper (PDF; 240 KB)

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Institute for 21st Century Energy Releases a Policy Paper On Near- and Long-Term Options to Manage the Nation's Nuclear Waste "Yucca Mountain has been demonstrated to be the best solution under current law, but is by no means the only solution for managing America's nuclear waste. If the Obama administration and Congress plan to change course after 30 years of independent scientific review and billions in investment, they have a legal responsibility to the American people and utilities that have paid more than $28 billion in fees and interest to immediately craft a workable long-term solution."

Despite President Obama's recent pledge to seek a world free of nuclear weapons, the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is proposing a major upgrade to the nation's nuclear weapons complex. * If the United States invests in a state-of-the-art nuclear weapons complex capable of producing thousands of new warheads over time, it will undermine confidence in any U.S. policy aimed at dramatically reducing or eliminating nuclear weapons.

Federal regulators are looking into the cause of an explosion that occurred early Thursday morning inside the electrical transmission switchyard on FirstEnergy Corp.'s Davis-Besse nuclear complex. No injuries occurred, and no radiation was released. The plant's nuclear reactor, shielded by a steel containment shell and concrete building well-removed from the blast, never stopped operating.

A study released today by The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) concludes that uranium enrichment in Canada is likely to be more profitable for the Canadian nuclear industry than exporting natural uranium and buying it back in enriched form. Uranium Enrichment in Canada provides a detailed analysis of the Canadian mining of uranium, its subsequent processing, current enrichment technologies and the capital and operating costs of a modern centrifuge enrichment plant. It explains Canada's position as the world's largest producer and exporter of uranium, with an active nuclear power sector, but without the capability to enrich uranium.

A bill allocating P100 million for a feasibility study has already "predetermined" results, a member of a multisectoral alliance against the recommissioning and operation of mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) said on Friday. Engr. Roberto Verzola, secretary-general of Philippine Greens, a member of Network Opposed to Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (NO to BNPP), said in a statement that Rep. Mark Cojuangco's H.B. 6300 on the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) has been scheduled by the House of Representatives for plenary debates when it reconvenes in July.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has expressed concern about attempts to monopolize the nuclear fuel market, including attempts made by Ukraine's partners. "I am concerned about the current situation on the nuclear fuel market. Our traditional partners in this area are now taking active measures to monopolize the isotope uranium enrichment services market," Yuschenko said opening a meeting of the National Security and Defense Council on Friday.

Decades of lax screening, haphazard oversight and few rules in the United States and abroad have allowed low-level radioactive materials to slip into the recycled-metal pipeline and, from there, into ordinary goods. As a result, consumers, manufacturers, the metal industry, the environment and public health are bearing a growing cost. Here are some possible solutions:

When a metal recycler north of Memphis, Tenn., inadvertently mixed radioactive material into a new batch of metal in 1997, employees at the facility didn't know about it for three days, state documents show. Contained in a piece of metal scrap, the radioactive isotope Americium-241 slipped into White Salvage's scrap-metal supply at its Ripley, Tenn., plant, blending into a new batch of aluminum. The contamination was not discovered until a shipment of the newly made material reached Memphis metal broker Southern Tin three days later.

The carcinogenic effects of radiation exposure are most severe among infants and children. (NEW YORK) - Leukemia death rates in U.S. children near nuclear reactors rose sharply (vs. the national trend) in the past two decades, according to a recent study. The greatest mortality increases occurred near the oldest nuclear plants, while declines were observed near plants that closed permanently in the 1980s and 1990s. The study was published in the most recent issue of the European Journal of Cancer Care. The study updates an analysis conducted in the late 1980s by the National Cancer Institute (NCI). That analysis, mandated by Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA), is the only attempt federal officials have made to examine cancer rates near U.S. nuclear plants. U.S. Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-MA), a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said

Contractors at one of the nation's major nuclear weapons complexes repeatedly used substandard construction materials and components that could've caused a major radioactive spill, a recently completed internal government probe has found. One of the materials used at the Savannah River Site on the South Carolina-Georgia border failed to meet federal safety standards and "could have resulted in a spill of up to 15,000 gallons of high-level radioactive waste," the Energy Department's inspector general found. The inspector general's five-month investigation also found that contractors bought 9,500 tons of substandard steel reinforcing bars for the Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C. The faulty steel was discovered after a piece of it broke during the construction of a facility to convert spent nuclear weapons-grade plutonium and uranium into mixed-oxide, or MOX, fuel for civilian reactors. Replacing 14 tons of substandard rebar -- the steel bars commonly used to reinforce concrete -- that already had been installed cost $680,000 and delayed the completion of the $4.8 billion MOX facility, the investigation found.

The mining and export of Australian uranium has been a controversial issue for many years, and will continue to remain an intense political issue for many more years to come. With a depressed world uranium market, the mining industry has been seeking to cut costs in order to make projects more economically viable. One such method of achieving this is a mining process known as In Situ Leaching (ISL) or Solution Mining. It involves pumping chemicals into the ground to dissolve the uranium mineral "in situ" and then pumping these uranium-laden solutions back to the surface for extraction and processing of the uranium into yellowcake for export. It is claimed by the industry to be "a controllable, safe, and environmentally benign method of mining which can operate under strict environmental controls and which often has cost advantages"1. This ignores the reality of many former ISL trials and mine sites across Europe and North America, and the history of ISL trial mines in Australia.