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An armed cargo ship carrying recycled nuclear fuel from France reached Japan on Monday. Environmental group Greenpeace says the ship's load of plutonium would be enough to make 225 nuclear weapons. A small group of local residents and anti-nuclear activists protested at the ship's arrival. "Using the mixed oxide, MOX fuel at the nuclear plant here is suicidal," said local activist Yoshika Shiratori in Omoaezaki fishing port on Japan's Pacific coast. "Once a big earthquake hits, there is no doubt this entire bay, the Pacific Ocean and all the seas around Japan would become contaminated," he told the AFP news agency.

Speculation about storing nuclear waste in the province is premature, said New Brunswick Energy Minister Jack Keir, even as a growing number of experts say the province has geology that may be suited to the task. '[The province] might be suitable and it might be possible to develop a repository'- Tom Al, UNB geologist The Nuclear Waste Management Organization was in New Brunswick this week meeting with people in various communities about its plan to build an underground storage site somewhere in Canada for spent nuclear fuel. The organization, which was formed in 2002 to be responsible for the long-term management of Canada's used nuclear fuel, seemed to catch the provincial government off guard on Thursday when a company official said that any of the four Canadian provinces involved in the nuclear industry - New Brunswick, Ontario, Quebec and Saskatchewan - could be home to this proposed storage facility.

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.

Taxpayers forked over a great deal of money to build the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository, which the federal government now has no plans to use. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., says taxpayers should get some of that money back. In fact, Washington's decisions regarding high-level nuclear waste disposal have been so slow and so political that a bill such as Graham's is needed to force politicians to take responsibility for this safety issue for the generations. The United States needs a place to store or dispose of its spent commercial reactor fuel. Nuclear power plants use up fuel. Those spent fuel rods are highly radioactive. Right now, they are simply piling up at the nuclear power plants that used them.

The cancellation of US funding for some programmes of GNEP does not signal the demise of GNEP, or the US's support for its work. Schulte mentioned that there are two international working groups in GNEP. The first addresses infrastructure development and seeks to help states begin implementing the guidance conveyed in the IAEA Milestones document. The second working group addresses reliable nuclear fuel services as a viable alternative to the acquisition of sensitive fuel cycle technologies. The US government's own Ed McGinnis is the chair of the GNEP parnters and observers steering group.

Tochmash, Russia's defense enterprise from the city of Vladimir, conducted successful tests of a special ampoule that was designed to store spent nuclear fuel of Russian nuclear power plants. The ampoule guarantees that the storage of toxic fuel will be ecologically secure. Russia develops special tube to store nuclear wastes Russia develops special tube to store nuclear wastes BREAKING NEWS Latin America creates new currency Train carrying deadly virus arrives in Moscow Relations between Russia and USA get into Cold War spirit again Pilot lands plane on school playground More... Engineers of the enterprise were working on Ampoule PT for eight years. "It is made of stainless steel, is not heavy at all and is equipped with a unique spring lock that does not let the lid open even under the impact of heavy pressure," a spokesperson for the enterprise said. The ampoule looks like a cylinder with a lid. The cylinder will not let fuel particles penetrate into the environment for over 50 years.

Toshiba Corp., Japan's largest supplier of reactors, plans to buy a controlling stake in a nuclear fuel supplier to help compete with global rivals for new atomic power plants, officials said. Toshiba's Westinghouse Electric Co. seeks to buy more than 50 percent of Nuclear fuel Industries Ltd. from Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd. and Furukawa Electric Co., said two officials close to the negotiations who declined to be named before an announcement. Yuichiro Horiba, a spokesman at Osaka- based Sumitomo Electric confirmed the talks and said the companies have yet to reach a decision.

Exclusive: Call for public inquiry as Sellafield recycling plant is costing taxpayer millions every year A controversial nuclear recycling plant, approved by the Government despite warnings over its economic viability and reliance on unproven technology, has racked up costs of more than £1bn and is still not working properly. Backers of the plant at Sellafield, which promised to turn toxic waste into a useable fuel that could be sold worldwide, had claimed the plant would make a profit of more than £200m in its lifetime, producing 120 tonnes of recycled fuel a year. But after an investigation by The Independent, the Government admitted technical problems and a dearth in orders has meant it has produced just 6.3 tonnes of fuel since opening in 2001.

The first container carrying spent nuclear fuel rods has left the Chapelcross plant in southern Scotland. Over the next three years it is expected about 300 similar journeys will be undertaken to remove 38,000 spent rods in total. It is part of the £800m decommissioning process at the Annan plant which ceased energy production five years ago.

"President Obama has called for a world without nuclear weapons. As he prepares to whittle down America's arsenal, however, a crucial question remains: what to do with the bomb material? Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. has decommissioned thousands of warheads-the explosive cores of which are in storage, pending a way to dispose of their plutonium. Leaving it intact is a potential security risk. But most of the alternatives (including launching it into the sun) have their own risks. While non-weapons-grade plutonium is used to fuel nuclear plants in Europe, it has never been processed out of a warhead and into a form for commercial reactors. That could change. The Department of Energy is building a South Carolina-based plant that can convert America's plutonium stockpile into fuel. And late last month, the Tennessee Valley Authority agreed to evaluate it for use in its reactors near Chattanooga and Athens, Ala. If the TVA ultimately accepts the fuel, which energy analysts expect it to, the final home of much of the U.S. arsenal could be the heart of Dixie-and lightbulbs throughout the nation."

"On an island in the Baltic Sea, Finland is building what it calls a permanent underground repository for spent nuclear fuel-but that depends on your definition of permanent. IEEE Spectrum writer Sandra Upson takes a trip to Olkiluoto Island to report on the construction of the Onkalo facility, bringing a science-literate but smartly skeptical view to her topic: Posiva, the Finnish company building an underground repository here, says it knows how to imprison nuclear waste for 100,000 years. These multimillennial thinkers are confident that copper canisters of Scandinavian design, tucked into that bedrock, will isolate the waste in an underground cavern impervious to whatever the future brings: sinking permafrost, rising water, earthquakes, copper-eating microbes, or oblivious land developers in the year 25,000. If the Finnish government agrees-a decision is expected by 2012-this site will become the world's first deep, permanent repository for spent nuclear fuel."

The Energy Department is close to naming a blue-ribbon committee to consider new policies for dealing with spent nuclear reactor fuel but has further to go in completing negotiations on loan guarantees for a first group of new nuclear reactors, Deputy Energy Secretary Daniel Poneman said. Poneman also said he is interested in the possibilities for development of smaller modular nuclear reactors, calling this a potentially important carbon policy option in the United States and abroad. "I certainly agree with the premise that small, modular reactors are a very interesting path to explore," Poneman said in an interview this week.

The Energy Department is close to naming a blue-ribbon committee to consider new policies for dealing with spent nuclear reactor fuel but has further to go in completing negotiations on loan guarantees for a first group of new nuclear reactors, Deputy Energy Secretary Daniel Poneman said. Poneman also said he is interested in the possibilities for development of smaller modular nuclear reactors, calling this a potentially important carbon policy option in the United States and abroad. "I certainly agree with the premise that small, modular reactors are a very interesting path to explore," Poneman said in an interview this week.

Many countries in Africa and the Middle East have said they want to develop civilian nuclear programmes to meet rising power demand. Nuclear is seen by many as a long-term solution to high fuel costs and an effective way to cut carbon emissions from the electricity generation sector. A fall in fossil fuel prices since summer 2008 has made nuclear power less attractive than it was when oil CLc1 was above $147 a barrel in July 2008. South Africa is the only country in the region with an operational nuclear power plant. Below are the nuclear aspirations of countries across Africa and the Middle East.

Many countries in Africa and the Middle East have said they want to develop civilian nuclear programmes to meet rising power demand. Nuclear is seen by many as a long-term solution to high fuel costs and an effective way to cut carbon emissions from the electricity generation sector. A fall in fossil fuel prices since summer 2008 has made nuclear power less attractive than it was when oil CLc1 was above $147 a barrel in July 2008. South Africa is the only country in the region with an operational nuclear power plant. Below are the nuclear aspirations of countries across Africa and the Middle East.

"Spent nuclear fuel shipped under heavy guard from Israel and Turkey is the latest batch of weapons-grade material now stored at Savannah River Site. The shipment -- four casks with 131 spent fuel assemblies -- entered the U.S. through the Charleston Naval Weapons Station and was moved by truck to SRS last week. The material contains highly enriched uranium -- a critical ingredient for nuclear weapons -- and marks the 50th such operation completed since 1996, when the U.S. government launched a program to recover material in foreign countries that could be vulnerable to exploitation by terrorists."

"The French nuclear industry is in turmoil as uranium supplies have dried up and the treatment of spent fuel has been blocked amid an increasingly bitter row between the heads of its two main state operators. EDF, the electricity group that runs 58 reactors in France, said that Areva, the nuclear energy group, had stopped uranium deliveries on January 4 and was refusing to take away spent fuel for reprocessing. ''The transport of combustibles isn't working at the moment,'' Anne Lauvergeon, the chairwoman of Areva, said. As a result, used fuel is remaining at EDF sites instead of being reprocessed at La Hague treatment plant in northern France."

"Senators Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) and Harry Reid (D-Nevada) this week introduced the Thorium Energy Security Act of 2010 to accelerate the use of thorium-based nuclear fuel in existing and future reactors. Their legislation establishes a regulatory framework and a development program to facilitate the introduction of thorium-based nuclear fuel in nuclear power plants across the nation. The U.S. relies on foreign sources for approximately 90 percent of its uranium fuel needs. However, the most recent U.S. Geological Survey's (U.S.G.S.) Thorium Mineral Commodity capital summary confirms that the United States has the largest thorium deposits in the world. The well-documented Idaho-Montana Lemhi Pass thorium holdings of U.S. Rare Earths, Inc. (www.usrareearths.com) have officially been recognized by the U.S.G.S. in their Jan. 2010 Mineral Commodity Summary, pushing the U.S. to number one in the world (for the first time ever) with 440,000 metric tons of reserves. "

"DTE Energy is preparing to load highly radioactive bundles of used fuel from its Fermi 2 nuclear reactor into giant outside storage casks near the power plant. Six of the 20-foot-tall casks have been set up on a concrete pad in the plant's high-security "protected area," all part of a new $62.5 million spent-fuel storage facility. "We're in the testing and inspection phase right now," said Guy Cerullo, a DTE spokesman at the plant. "We're testing the process. They're doing sort of a dry run. Plans are to begin loading the first containers sometime this spring or early summer.""

"On Thursday, March 25th and Friday, March 26th, the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future, co-chaired by former Congressman Lee Hamilton and former National Security Advisor General Brent Scowcroft, will hold its first meeting in Washington, D.C. At the direction of President Obama, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu established the Blue Ribbon Commission to conduct a comprehensive review of policies for managing the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle and to provide recommendations for developing a safe, long-term solution to managing the Nation's used nuclear fuel and nuclear waste. The meeting is open to the press and the public. Press interested in attending the meeting should RSVP to Katinka.Podmaniczky@hq.doe.gov. Space is limited and credentials will be given on a first come, first serve basis on site. The meeting will be webcast live. Additional information will be available regarding the webcast on homepage. Read the meeting's agenda."

"A dispute over the recycling of nuclear fuel by reactor suppliers such as France's Areva SA surfaced in Washington as U.S. officials sought to skirt the issue during President Barack Obama's summit. Former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans and former U.S. ambassador-at-large Robert Gallucci called for an end to the fuel-recycling practice yesterday at a conference of experts being held in parallel with Obama's Nuclear Security Summit. The summit focuses on keeping separated plutonium and highly enriched uranium out of the hands of terrorists, and Evans and Gallucci said that recycling creates stockpiles of dangerous materials ripe for theft. The practice is drawing attention as the number of nations pursuing nuclear power for their energy needs is expected to double by mid-century, according to the White House. "

"Congressman Sestak submitted language directing a study on the use of thorium-liquid fueled nuclear reactors for naval power, an important assessment of an energy source that has shown great potential to be more efficient for our military. As a result, the House Armed Services Committee included funding in the bill for research and development of a nuclear-powered destroyer reactor utilizing thorium energy. While our nuclear Navy has thrived with a continuing record of zero reactor accidents, thorium may be more efficient than uranium as a fuel source. Massive fuel rods would not have to be utilized, and it produces only 1/2000th the waste of uranium. In domestic applications, waste can even be stored on-site, eliminating the necessity of facilities such as Yucca Mountain. Large deposits of thorium can be mined domestically in States such as Idaho, and we already have 160,000 tons in reserve."