"For 11 years, the federal government has been burying nuclear waste in New Mexican salt beds at a place called WIPP, or the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. It's waste from making atomic weapons.
But now the government is looking for a place to put thousands of tons of spent fuel from reactors. These salt beds could be the place. New Mexicans, however, are faced with the prospect of becoming the nation's default nuclear waste dump.
The former mayor of Carlsbad, N.M., is solidly on the "yes, bring it on" side. Say the word "salt," and he grins.
"The biggest asset we have are those salt beds out here east of town," says Bob Forrest, as he sips iced tea in the restaurant of the Stevens Hotel. "They've been out there 250 million years, and they've just proven perfect to put this kind of waste to store it permanently, and that's the key to our success."
The U.S. Department of Energy spends $235 million to run WIPP, and a lot of that comes to Carlsbad. That means jobs -- about 1,400 of them -- from mining engineers to safety officers. "
"Ten private Japanese power companies have agreed to place lucrative plutonium contracts with Sellafield. The plant might have been forced to close without new business.
Material from recycled Japanese spent fuel will be made into mixed oxide fuel and returned to Japan for use in the country's own nuclear reactors. This will help secure the future of the plant which has been under review for some time as poor performance put its future in jeopardy.
There would have been a threat to around 1,000 Sellafield jobs but over the last year the plant has chalked up record production.
As part of the contracts the Japanese customers will also put money into engineering changes and modifications designed to help SMP perform better."
"Texas was all set to be part of an agreement with Vermont to dump nuclear waste in a remote region of the Lone Star state, and for the most part people living near the site were OK with it.
Now, though, that compact could mushroom to include waste from 36 other states, reinvigorating those who oppose the project to fight harder.
Environmentalists, geologists, the Texas League of Women Voters and others say the huge dumping ground will pollute groundwater and otherwise wreak havoc with the environment. The company that runs the site contends it'll be safe and many local residents applaud any expansion as a way to bring more jobs and prosperity to the West Texas scrubland. "
"While officials in Washington continue to pass the political hot potato of nuclear waste production and disposal, the Palmetto State has been left holding the bag. The issues on the ground surrounding the nuclear industry in South Carolina are as perplexing as the national policies at the heart of the debate. On one hand, the Savannah River Site and the two new slated nuclear reactors in Jenkinsville and Cherokee County provide jobs and utilities; on the other hand we face the necessary evil of nuclear waste production and storage, a prospect made grimmer after the federal government recently backpedaled on plans to open the Yucca Mountain Repository in Nevada.
The good news: the four new nuclear reactors slated to be built in our state will be constructed using a state of the art, efficient design, but the bad news: a recent (still disputed) study found a potential flaw in the design that could spew radioactive particles to the four winds. Good news: the U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE) has rescinded an order to triple waste canister density at SRS, but the bad news: the waste that was supposed to be temporary is still there indefinitely… sort of a black mushroom cloud with a silver lining."
"A planned uranium-enrichment plant in Idaho, not one in southern Ohio, is getting a $2 billion federal loan guarantee, the Department of Energy said today.
But that doesn't mean USEC's $3.5 billion project in Piketon, which could bring hundreds of jobs to economically struggling southern Ohio, is out of the running for the federal loan guarantee.
The Energy Department took pains to say, even as it was granting the $2 billion loan guarantee to the French-based Areva for its plant near Idaho Falls, that it planned to award an additional $2 billion loan guarantee. At this point, USEC is the only other company that has applied for a uranium-enrichment loan guarantee, the Energy Department confirmed.
The Energy Department said the loan guarantee for Areva is contingent on the project obtaining a construction and operating license from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The project must obtain a Combined Construction and Operating License (COL) from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission before the loan guarantee can be finalized."
"U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu today announced the selection of 42 university-led research and development projects for awards totaling $38 million. These projects, funded over three to four years through the Department's Nuclear Energy University Program, will help advance nuclear education and develop the next generation of nuclear technologies.
"We are taking action to restart the nuclear industry as part of a broad approach to cut carbon pollution and create new clean energy jobs," said Secretary Chu. "These projects will help us develop the nuclear technologies of the future and move our domestic nuclear industry forward."
Twenty-three U.S. universities will act as lead research institutions for projects in 17 states. Other universities, industries, and national laboratories will serve as collaborators and research partners. The projects focus on four nuclear energy research areas:
Fuel Cycle Research and Development (13 projects, $11,823,154) "
"USEC Inc. reported a net loss of $9.7 million in the first quarter, due largely to a decline in enrichment services compared to the same quarter in 2009, but the company is maintaining a positive front - at least in its public statements - on the American Centrifuge Project.
The new enrichment facility is based at Piketon, Ohio, but the project has a significant impact on Oak Ridge, where much of the advanced centrifuge equipment is being manufactured. Hundreds lost their jobs last year when the project was scaled back, but about 300 people are still employed in Oak Ridge, either directly for USEC or its manufacturing contractor, B&W.
USEC is still hoping to get about $2 billion in loan guarantees from the U.S. Department of Energy, which initially rejected the company's application and then agreed to work with USEC cooperatively to resolve some technology issues. In a prepared statement, USEC CEO John K. Welch said the plan is to update the application this summer after gaining data from operation of the new AC100 machines, which are running in a commercial configuration at Piketon."
"Progress Energy wants approval to construct a new "cooling tower" at the Crystal River nuclear plant to help lower temperatures of discharge from the facility. The company needs the tower to help it comply with regulations about thermal output, as it works to upgrade the plant.
The construction of the cooling tower and its operations would affect more than 1.3 acres of wetlands and 3.1 acres of surface waters. The impact on the wetlands "may affect" the West Indian manatee. It is unlikely that other wildlife will be affected, according to the utility's application.
The company powered down the nuclear plant in September for a major maintenance project that was expected to be done by the end of December. But shortly after the job began, workers discovered that part of the containment wall had separated into two layers. "
"Knowing how salt travels in water is easy, since it dissolves quickly and evenly.
But determining where groundwater carries that salt isn't as simple.
Local and state officials whose job it is to keep track of and remove the toxic salt perchlorate are leaning on science to find out how far and fast the Santa Clarita Valley's underground water is traveling - and taking the toxin with it.
State and local water officials are redoubling efforts to track the spread of perchlorate, in light of the discovery last year of the salt at Well 201 in Valencia, owned by the Valencia Water Company.
A state health official said the finding was a surprise, although local water officials say the discovery was expected.
Valencia Water has been testing water from Well 201 every month since first finding perchlorate there in August 2010."
"Tokyo Electric Power Co., Inc. has embarked on full-fledged studies in preparation for extraction of spent fuel from the stricken reactors at Fukushima I nuclear power station (NPS). On September 1, it instituted an ad-hoc organization whose name translates "Fuel Extraction Preparations Group," and assigned ten employees to it. The Group is to examine methodology and technical issues in preparation for extraction of the approximately 2,700 spent fuel assemblies in the spent fuel pools in units 1 through 4. Its future schedule envisions the removal of rubble and performance of other work in parallel, and start of the fuel extraction job no later than three years after the achievement of cold shutdown of the reactors.
The fuel pools in units 1-4 at Fukushima I are already undergoing cyclic cooling through heat exchange, and the temperature of their water is being maintained in the range of 30-40 deg C. In units 1, 3 and 4, however, the reactor building is damaged and the radioactive substances in them are not completely contained.
The numbers of spent fuel assemblies in the pools are 292 in unit 1, 587 in unit 2, 514 in unit 3, and 1,331 in unit 4. In medium-term approaches following cold shutdown, a key question is how to go about extracting this large number of spent fuel assemblies."
ou've probably already seen XKCD's radiation chart, which we shared here on TH last week. That chart did a nice job of putting the dangers of radiation in perspective, and probably helped soothe some worried souls -- at least it got people tweeting about the amount of radiation eating a banana exposes you to. Well, in case you didn't get your fill of information about how radiation impacts the human body, this infographic, designed by the folks at Geary explores that angle in greater detail:
"A decade and a half before it blew apart in a hydrogen blast that punctuated the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, the No. 3 reactor at the Fukushima nuclear power plant was the scene of an earlier safety crisis.
Then, as now, a small army of transient workers was put to work to try to stem the damage at the oldest nuclear reactor run by Japan's largest utility.
At the time, workers were racing to finish an unprecedented repair to address a dangerous defect: cracks in the drum-like steel assembly known as the "shroud" surrounding the radioactive core of the reactor.
But in 1997, the effort to save the 21-year-old reactor from being scrapped at a large loss to its operator, Tokyo Electric, also included a quiet effort to skirt Japan's safety rules: foreign workers were brought in for the most dangerous jobs, a manager of the project said. "
"The sun has only just risen in Iwaki-Yumoto when groups of men in white T-shirts and light blue cargo pants emerge blinking into the sunlight, swapping the comfort of their air-conditioned rooms for the fierce humidity of a Japanese summer.
Four months on from the start of the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl, this hot-spring resort in north-east Japan has been transformed into a dormitory for 2,000 men who have travelled from across the country to take part in the clean-up effort 30 miles away at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.
Iwaki-Yumoto has come to resemble corporate Japan in microcosm. Among its newest residents are technicians and engineers with years of experience and, underpinning them all, hundreds of labourers lured from across Japan by the prospect of higher wages.
They include Ariyoshi Rune, a tall, wiry 47-year-old truck driver whose slicked-back hair and sideburns are inspired by his idol, Joe Strummer.
For five days a week, Rune is in thrall to the drudgery of life as a "nuclear gypsy", the name writer Kunio Horie gave to contract workers who have traditionally performed the dirtiest, most dangerous jobs for Japan's power utilities."
"The head of the nation's nuclear-regulation agency said Monday that long-term public health and safety - not the nuclear industry's agenda - are driving decisions on the radioactive waste allowed in Utah.
"Our staff's focus is 100 percent on safety," said Gregory B. Jaczko, who was in Salt Lake City to address the Health Physics Society annual meeting.
The NRC must look at the technical questions, the science and the law as it determines if the EnergySolutions site is the right place to bury forever unusual forms of low-level radioactive waste, including depleted uranium and blended waste being generated by the tons."
A consortium, including the UK's Amec, has been named as the government's preferred choice to clean up and run the Sellafield nuclear site in Cumbria.
The UK's Amec, URS's Washington Division of the US, and France's Areva have been shortlisted for the £1.3bn-a-year contract.
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