Group items matching

in title, tags, annotations or url

Many in sparsely populated Andrews County in West Texas embraced the idea of opening up a radioactive waste site there. They saw it as a chance to bring much needed jobs and tax dollars into the remote, sparsely populated West Texas county. Now, they're not so sure after the waste company asked the county to go a step further and come up with $75 million to pay for a disposal area at the site. Voters in the county on the New Mexico border will decide Saturday whether to help Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists fund construction of a low-level radioactive waste disposal facility. If passed, the measure would give county officials the ability to issue bonds to purchase $75 million of Waste Control Specialists' assets and lease them back to the company.

Storing Canada's nuclear waste in one single location will not be a process that will happen overnight, this year, or even in the next decade or two. The Nuclear Waste Management Organization is considering New Brunswick, along with Ontario, Quebec and Saskatchewan (all of which are Canada's nuclear provinces) as possible areas to house the nation's used nuclear fuel in the long-term, all in an underground repository. Mike Krizanc, spokesman for the NWMO, said the process of setting guidelines for choosing a site will likely take the rest of 2009 to cement. But that would be just filling the foundation of the entire project.

In February, hundreds of government regulators and businesspeople gathered in Phoenix for "Waste Management '08," the annual radioactive waste industry confab. Amid the swag and schmoozing, industry insiders appraised the state of their business. The good news: The nuclear industry appears to be rebounding in the United States, providing potentially huge new radioactive waste streams as planned reactors come online. The bad news: The number of landfills for burying low-level radioactive waste is dwindling. One of the oldest sites, in Barnwell, South Carolina, will close to all but a handful of states on July 1. That will leave 36 states, including Texas, with no place to send the radioactive waste generated by their nuclear power plants, universities, hospitals, and companies.

"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."

"Legislators in Russia's Far Northern Murmansk Region, on the Kola Peninsula, have signalled a green light to the interment of liquid radioactive waste in their region - brushing aside the public and environmentalists' concerns and, effectively, giving Moscow authorities a carte blanche to create nuclear repositories in Murmansk, while the costs of handling the already accumulated stockpiles of radioactive waste will have to be borne by regional and municipal budgets. Anna Kireeva, 23/02-2010 - Translated by Maria Kaminskaya The questionable bill "On Management of Radioactive Waste" was passed in its first reading in the federal parliament in the Russian capital during a plenary session on January 20 and raised a storm of objections from Russia's ecological organisations. Non-governmental organisations decried the bill as a means for the Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom to attend to its own narrow interests while going bluntly against the interests of the nation. In an open letter to lawmakers in Moscow, they urged them to halt on passing the bill without making serious amendments."

"THE Ministry of Defence should come clean once and for all about whether or not it plans to use the base at Machrihanish to store radioactive waste from old submarines. Alan Reid MP for Argyll and Bute has vowed to campaign to stop the waste ending up at Machrihanish or any of three other sites in Argyll and Bute and he has called on the MoD to go public. Defence Minister Quentin Davies MP has refused to reveal the sites on the secret list but has said Argyll and Bute is one of four regions being considered, along with Devon, Fife and Berkshire. 'This would appear to narrow the shortlist of sites in Argyll and Bute down to Coulport, Faslane, Glen Douglas and Machrihanish,' said Mr Reid, 'and I am disappointed that the Government is still refusing to publish its shortlist. The secrecy will only lead to speculation.' He added that all four in Argyll were unsuitable for the job."

U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, and EnergySolutions Inc. are going public with their complaints about one another, with dueling press conferences Wednesday and mailers. EnergySolutions also aired an ad last weekend on four television stations to attack what the Salt Lake City radioactive waste company calls the congressman's "playing politics with Utah jobs" and "catering to left-wing fringe groups." The company accused the congressman of inciting fear and misleading the public about the safety of their operations. "Everything we put into our ad is factual," said EnergySolutions President Val Christensen. The company operates a specialized landfill in Tooele County that serves as the sole disposal site for low-level radioactive waste from 36 states.

U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, and EnergySolutions Inc. are going public with their complaints about one another, with dueling press conferences Wednesday and mailers. EnergySolutions also aired an ad last weekend on four television stations to attack what the Salt Lake City radioactive waste company calls the congressman's "playing politics with Utah jobs" and "catering to left-wing fringe groups." The company accused the congressman of inciting fear and misleading the public about the safety of their operations. "Everything we put into our ad is factual," said EnergySolutions President Val Christensen. The company operates a specialized landfill in Tooele County that serves as the sole disposal site for low-level radioactive waste from 36 states.

Activists are protesting a decision by the California Department of Public Health that would allow the Boeing Co. and NASA to send contaminated dirt from a nuclear accident site to a waste facility in the San Joaquin Valley that is not licensed to accept radioactive waste. The Department of Toxic Substances Control, which has the final say, has sent a letter to the agency requesting more information on its decision that the dirt "does not represent a public health threat" and could be sent to the hazardous waste facility in Kettleman City. The dirt was dug up as part of a cleanup effort at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory near Los Angeles, where a partial meltdown of a nuclear reactor took place in 1959. The field lab was also used for rocket engine tests.

Activists are protesting a decision by the California Department of Public Health that would allow the Boeing Co. and NASA to send contaminated dirt from a nuclear accident site to a waste facility in the San Joaquin Valley that is not licensed to accept radioactive waste. The Department of Toxic Substances Control, which has the final say, has sent a letter to the agency requesting more information on its decision that the dirt "does not represent a public health threat" and could be sent to the hazardous waste facility in Kettleman City. The dirt was dug up as part of a cleanup effort at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory near Los Angeles, where a partial meltdown of a nuclear reactor took place in 1959. The field lab was also used for rocket engine tests.

"Germany's government was advised to move 126,000 barrels of nuclear waste from a crumbling underground storage site in central Germany to a nearby location in a bid to stop any leaks of radioactivity into groundwater. Wolfram Koenig, president of the Federal Office for Radiation Protection, manager the Asse facility, made the recommendation today in Hannover, Germany. With 12,000 liters (3,170 gallons) of underground water leaking daily into the abandoned salt mine and eroding walls, the regulator is seeking to relocate waste from Asse before it may get mixed with water and seep back out into aquifers. "

"Germany has been looking for a permanent storage site for its nuclear waste for over 30 years. The history of the Gorleben salt dome, a potential nuclear repository, is one full of deception and political maneuvering. And if opponents to the plans have their way, the search might even have to start again from scratch. The ride down into the Gorleben salt dome takes less than two minutes. When the elevator stops at 840 meters (2,755 feet) below ground, the folding gates open onto a scene that looks like it could be in a modern art museum. A sculpture made of old soft drink cans and other scrap metal welcomes visitors as they step out of the elevator. The artwork is meant to symbolize society's unresolved waste disposal problem."

"Would a truly "clean energy" source produce "one of the nation's most hazardous substances"? Of course not. So why include provisions on nuclear reactors in the state's Clean Energy Jobs Act, recently introduced in the Legislature? Nuclear reactors generate high-level radioactive waste, which is "one of the nation's most hazardous substances," according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. In a November report, the respected nonpartisan agency found there were no good options for dealing with the radioactive waste. And as the federal government continues its decades-long struggle to find a solution to this grave public safety, environmental and political problem, the costs to taxpayers and ratepayers will skyrocket. In the meantime, radioactive waste is piling up at 80 sites in 35 states, including three sites in Wisconsin. Many sites have active nuclear reactors, where the mounting waste problem has forced plant operators to rearrange "the racks holding spent fuel in (cooling) pools … to allow for more dense storage," according to the GAO report. "Even with this re-racking, spent nuclear fuel pools are reaching their capacities.""

"The Province of Guadalajara has today passed a measure which unanimously rejects the candidacy of the Municipality of Yebra (Guadalajara) to host a temporary centralised nuclear waste depot to stockpile waste from all of the country's nuclear power plants. The motion prevents all of the municipalities of the Province from standing as candidates to host the plant as well as preventing the central government from taking any such requests stemming from the province's municipalities into consideration, ''in view of the community and political rejection regarding them''. "

"A public hearing in the Siberian city of Angarsk, the reluctant hometown of a uranium enrichment enterprise, was another testament to the nuclear industry's endless foot-dragging over unsafe practices of storing radioactive waste. City authorities rejected the plant's proposal to leave its uranium tails storage facility on Angarsk's territory, while legally taking it out of city limits. Angarsk is still waiting for its toxic inhabitant to provide more efficient solutions to handle the waste. Below is a comment by Andrei Ozharovsky. Andrei Ozharovsky, 29/01-2010 - Translated by Maria Kaminskaya Radioactive waste next door The uranium enrichment enterprise Angarsk Electrolysis Chemical Combine (AECC), founded in 1954, is located right on the outskirts of Angarsk, a city of 241,000 in Russia's Irkutsk Region in Southeast Siberia. In fact, AECC's production-related sites - including open-air yards housing containers with highly toxic radioactive waste - are within city limits."

"DEAN parish council has come out against the former Keekle Head opencast coal site being converted for radioactive waste disposal. Potential developer Endecom has submitted plans to Cumbria Council for Keekle Head to dispose of very low levels of radioactive waste mainly arising from Sellafield. The government is looking for alternatives in order to free up future capacity at Drigg, the UK's only designated low level radioactive waste site."

"Greenpeace said it had obtained partly classified documents which prove that Gorleben should not have been used as a nuclear waste site. The environmental activist group Greenpeace said on Wednesday that it had obtained official documents, which prove that the salt mines in the German town of Gorleben should not have been used as a disposal site for nuclear waste. "There was never a scientific selection procedure that concluded the salt mines in Gorleben would be the best choice," Greenpeace nuclear expert Mathias Edler told reporters at a press conference in Berlin. "Geological criteria for a nuclear disposal site in the salt mines played a minor role." Greenpeace said the more than 12,000 pages of partly classified documents, which date back to the mid-1970's, are from the Lower Saxony state chancellery, environment ministry, and the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources. "

"The "American Power Act", the Kerry/Lieberman energy bill, was drafted to offer a lot of encouragement for offshore drilling. But then the Deepwater Horizon oil rig collapsed in the Gulf of Mexico and reminded everybody that, though drilling rig collapses are extraordinarily rare, they make a disastrous mess when they happen. The incentives to drill were kept, but the legislation was quickly amended to give states veto power over offshore drilling within 75 miles of shore. Why is that offered as a compromise? Does it make any less likely offshore oil rigs might collapse? Of course not. And it only marginally reduces the risk of onshore damage should a spill occur, since whether the oil comes ashore is a matter more of tides and currents and wind and rate of release than proximity. So why does giving states veto power somehow make the risk of offshore drilling seem different? "

"Thirty-six states could start shipping loads of radioactive waste through Texas for more than a decade _ likely crisscrossing the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex on major highways and train tracks _ if they get approval this summer to send their contaminated materials to a West Texas disposal site. The proposal to allow the states to send low-level waste to a site in Andrews County has prompted concern from some state lawmakers, who worry about the safety of communities along travel routes _ including the Interstate 20 corridor through North Texas _ and from environmentalists, who worry about radioactive leakage and contamination at the site. An eight-member commission is expected to take up the issue in coming weeks, considering rules that would govern what materials are accepted and whether dozens of states should be allowed to send radioactive waste to the Waste Control Specialists' Texas site owned by Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons. "

"The Department of Energy is proposing that it close and cover two landfills at Hanford using federal economic stimulus money to start the project. Both landfills lie east of the Rattlesnake Barrier on Army Loop Road in the 600 Area about nine miles from the Columbia River. Although neither was used for waste with radioactive contamination, containers of hazardous chemicals were disposed of in one, the Nonradioactive Dangerous Waste Landfill. DOE considered digging up portions or all of the waste in the landfills but concluded that closing and covering them with a barrier would comply with state regulations. "

Nuclear waste from France has been sent to Siberia for storage. According to news reports, over 100 tons of uranium were transported to Seversk. France's ecology minister has called for an investigation into the case. According to the French daily newspaper Liberation and Franco-German television broadcaster Arte, France's electricity company EDF has sent 108 tons of uranium to Siberia since the mid-1990s. About 13 percent of France's nuclear waste is stored in open-air parking lots near a nuclear plant in Seversk, said reports on Monday. EDF said it sends uranium left over from nuclear plant production in France to Russia to be treated so that it can be used again.

Nuclear waste from France has been sent to Siberia for storage. According to news reports, over 100 tons of uranium were transported to Seversk. France's ecology minister has called for an investigation into the case. According to the French daily newspaper Liberation and Franco-German television broadcaster Arte, France's electricity company EDF has sent 108 tons of uranium to Siberia since the mid-1990s. About 13 percent of France's nuclear waste is stored in open-air parking lots near a nuclear plant in Seversk, said reports on Monday. EDF said it sends uranium left over from nuclear plant production in France to Russia to be treated so that it can be used again.

Issuance of Environmental Assessment and Final Finding of No Significant Impact for Modification of Exemption From Certain NRC Licensing Requirements for Special Nuclear Material for Waste Control Specialists, LLC, Andrews County, TX AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Environmental Assessment and Final Finding of No Significant Impact. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SUMMARY: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has prepared an Environmental Assessment for the issuance of an Order under Section 274(f) of the Atomic Energy Act that would modify an Order issued to Waste Control Specialists, LLC (WCS) on November 5, 2004. In accordance with 10 CFR 51.33, the NRC prepared a draft Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) for public review and comment that was issued on July 9, 2009 (74 FR 34983). The public comment period closed on August 10, 2009. NRC received comments from one resident of Texas. The current action is in response to a request by WCS dated December 10, 2007. The November 5, 2004 Order was published in the Federal Register on November 12, 2004 (69 FR 65468). The November 5, 2004 Order, which modified an initial Order issued to WCS on November 21, 2001, exempted WCS from certain NRC regulations and permitted WCS, under specified conditions, to possess waste containing special nuclear material (SNM), in greater quantities than specified in 10 CFR Part 150, at WCS's facility located in Andrews County, Texas, without obtaining an NRC license pursuant to 10 CFR part 70.

Issuance of Environmental Assessment and Final Finding of No Significant Impact for Modification of Exemption From Certain NRC Licensing Requirements for Special Nuclear Material for Waste Control Specialists, LLC, Andrews County, TX AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Environmental Assessment and Final Finding of No Significant Impact. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SUMMARY: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has prepared an Environmental Assessment for the issuance of an Order under Section 274(f) of the Atomic Energy Act that would modify an Order issued to Waste Control Specialists, LLC (WCS) on November 5, 2004. In accordance with 10 CFR 51.33, the NRC prepared a draft Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) for public review and comment that was issued on July 9, 2009 (74 FR 34983). The public comment period closed on August 10, 2009. NRC received comments from one resident of Texas. The current action is in response to a request by WCS dated December 10, 2007. The November 5, 2004 Order was published in the Federal Register on November 12, 2004 (69 FR 65468). The November 5, 2004 Order, which modified an initial Order issued to WCS on November 21, 2001, exempted WCS from certain NRC regulations and permitted WCS, under specified conditions, to possess waste containing special nuclear material (SNM), in greater quantities than specified in 10 CFR Part 150, at WCS's facility located in Andrews County, Texas, without obtaining an NRC license pursuant to 10 CFR part 70.