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"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued annual assessment letters to the nation's 104 operating commercial nuclear power plants. "We ensure nuclear power plants are safe, continually inspecting them and rating their performance on a regular basis, as part of our mission to protect people and the environment," said Eric Leeds, director of the NRC's Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. Currently, 103 of 104 plants are in the two highest performance categories. There are five levels of plant performance based on a detailed assessment of performance indicators (e.g., safety system availability and reliability, control of radiation exposure and unplanned shutdowns) and inspection findings. Levels range from "fully meeting all safety cornerstone objectives" (highest level) to "unacceptable performance" (lowest level). If a nuclear power plant's performance declines, the NRC increases the level of inspection to ensure the plant operator is taking the steps necessary to correct the situation. The additional amount of inspection is commensurate with the level of plant performance. Additional information on the Reactor Oversight Process is available at: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/staff/sr1649/r4/."

"NUCLEAR power will be the Western world's cheapest option for electricity in an age of significant carbon charges, but Australia will be one of the few exceptions, a global study has found. In a stunning conclusion, the study by the OECD and the International Energy Agency found that even with a carbon charge of $US30 ($A33) a tonne, it ill be cheaper for Australian generators to burn black coal and send the emissions into the atmosphere than to turn to gas or other low-emission alternatives."

"The federal government had one place in mind to store the country's most hazardous nuclear waste. It was at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. President Barack Obama recently killed that project, even though the country had spent more than nine billion dollars on it. Shawn Allee found that figure is just the beginning: A map of purchaser fee payment to the Nuclear Waste Fund More about the Nuclear Waste Fund's budget A related article from the Christian Science Monitor"

"Reprocessing of nuclear waste is neither an affordable remedy for future waste disposal in the United States nor will it eliminate the need for a deep geologic repository to replace Yucca Mountain, according to a recent study released by the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER), a nonprofit and nonpartisan research group. Even as some are urging the Obama Administration's blue-ribbon panel on nuclear waste to consider the options of reprocessing and breeder reactors, the IEER study looks at the global experience - including those of France and Britain - and finds that both approaches are widely misunderstood in the United States. France has not solved its nuclear waste problems and now needs a repository in face of strong public opposition to the development of such a facility."

"Nuclear power plant construction in Wisconsin likely will be just as difficult to accomplish after the legislative session as it was before. "It's definitely disappointing," said state Rep. Jim Soletski, D-Green Bay. "I'm not saying we should ring Lake Michigan with 20 new plants, but we need to have the option on the table." Soletski and three other lawmakers drafted that option as part of the Clean Energy Jobs Act. But the Assembly did not debate the act during its session Tuesday, and, even if it were to pass the Assembly, the Senate does not have the votes to pass the act as drafted, said Carrie Lynch, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker, D-Wausau."

"The prostate cancer program at the Veterans Affairs Department's medical center in Philadelphia, where 97 patients were given an incorrect radiation dose, went four years without a peer review or quality assessment, the agency's internal watchdog said Monday. The inspector general for the Veterans Affairs Department also found that computer problems kept several patients under treatment for cancer from receiving a check to make sure they received the correct dose. The inspector general recommended that standardized procedures be implemented throughout the VA. It also said the agency should follow-up to ensure patients who received too low of a dose receive appropriate care."

"Few people see nuclear power as a cheap option. The capital cost is high, and the ultimate cost, if something goes seriously wrong, could be very large. The UK's nuclear liability law is based on the Paris and Brussels Convention on Nuclear Third Party Liability, which has been in operation since the 1960s. The operator is required to take out the necessary financial security to cover its liabilities and in the UK this is currently set at £140m. Recent amendments, which are not yet in force, are aimed at ensuring that greater compensation is available to a larger number of victims in respect of a broader range of nuclear damage. In particular, it will be possible to claim compensation for certain kinds of loss other than personal injury and property damage, including loss relating to impairment of the environment. The period of operators' liability for personal injury has been increased from 10 to 30 years and, more generally, the limit on operators' liability has been increased to €700 m. That's the situation as summarised recently by Lord Hunt, then energy Minister. However if the worst comes, then even €700m is unlikely to be enough. The cost of just upgrading the emergency containment shelter at Chernobyl in 1997 was $758 m. Quite apart from the loss of life, with estimates of early deaths ranging up to several thousand and beyond, and also lifelong illnesses (e.g. related to immune system damage) for some of those exposed, the total economic costs of the Chernobyl disaster were much larger: e.g. Belarus has estimated its losses over 30 years at US $235 bn, with government spending on Chernobyl amounting to 22.3% of the national budget in 1991, declining gradually to 6.1% in 2002. And 5-7% of government spending in the Ukraine still goes to Chernobyl-related benefits and programmes. www.greenfacts.org/en/chernobyl"

"The U.S. Department of Energy Thursday approved a $2 billion loan guarantee for the French company Areva to build a nuclear power facility near Idaho Falls. The proposed $3.3 billion facility, called the Eagle Rock Uranium Enrichment Plant, could lead to 400 permanent jobs and up to 1,000 jobs to build the plant, and bolster the state's nuclear energy efforts. Gov. Butch Otter applauded the move. "The loan guarantee confirms that Idaho continues to lead the nuclear renaissance in America," he said in a news release. "

"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. -- Kentucky US Senate candidate Rand Paul's Republican colleagues have tried to contextualize his controversial comments about anti-discrimination laws and the Obama administration's handling of the Gulf Coast oil spill, but privately they bemoan the political newcomer's gaffes and wish he'd focus less on the national media spotlight and more on Kentucky and the economy. "In any campaign there's going to be a few bumps," said Brian Walsh, a spokesman. "

U.S. reactors have generated about 65,000 metric tons of spent fuel, of which 75 percent is stored in pools, according to Nuclear Energy Institute data. Spent fuel rods give off about 1 million rems (10,00Sv) of radiation per hour at a distance of one foot - enough radiation to kill people in a matter of seconds. There are more than 30 million such rods in U.S. spent fuel pools. No other nation has generated this much radioactivity from either nuclear power or nuclear weapons production. Nearly 40 percent of the radioactivity in U.S. spent fuel is cesium-137 (4.5 billion curies) - roughly 20 times more than released from all atmospheric nuclear weapons tests. U.S. spent pools hold about 15-30 times more cesium-137 than the Chernobyl accident released. For instance, the pool at the Vermont Yankee reactor, a BWR Mark I, currently holds nearly three times the amount of spent fuel stored at Dai-Ichi's crippled Unit 4 reactor. The Vermont Yankee reactor also holds about seven percent more rad

"Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), operator of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, has handed a Diet science committee another heavily redacted accident manual for the stricken plant. The House of Representatives Special Committee on Promotion of Science and Technology and Innovation had requested TEPCO submit two operating manuals -- one each for accidents and severe accidents -- through the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry (METI). On Sept. 7, the committee announced it had received only the first of the two manuals, the majority of which had been blacked out, prompting the body to demand TEPCO resubmit both manuals by Sept. 9. The committee revealed on Sept. 12 that the severe accident manual subsequently handed over by TEPCO was also almost entirely redacted."

The Lakeshore area has been a longtime friend of the nuclear power industry. We are home to the nuclear plants at Point Beach in the town of Two Creeks and a few miles away near Kewaunee. Advertisement They provide hundreds of good-paying jobs and produce energy in the context of a good safety record. Wisconsin in 1983 banned construction of new nuclear plants, in large part because there is no national or international site to permanently dispose of the waste they would generate. That's still the case 26 years later and it's the reason we remain concerned with proposals to lift the moratorium on nuclear plant construction.

The Lakeshore area has been a longtime friend of the nuclear power industry. We are home to the nuclear plants at Point Beach in the town of Two Creeks and a few miles away near Kewaunee. Advertisement They provide hundreds of good-paying jobs and produce energy in the context of a good safety record. Wisconsin in 1983 banned construction of new nuclear plants, in large part because there is no national or international site to permanently dispose of the waste they would generate. That's still the case 26 years later and it's the reason we remain concerned with proposals to lift the moratorium on nuclear plant construction.

The government will today identify further sites around Britain that could be suitable for building a nuclear plant, as part of a scheme to fast track a new generation of reactors. Ed Miliband, the energy and climate change secretary, will unveil a series of national policy statements setting out the need for new energy infrastructure including renewables, fossil fuels and gas, as well as an overarching energy statement which will include climate change policy. A separate strategy statement on the nation's ports will also be published. Miliband will stress what the government believes to be the importance of a diverse energy supply. But the most detail will given in the nuclear policy statement, which will include a forensic assessment of the 11 sites already nominated by energy firms as well as identifying alternatives. "Because nuclear is controversial, we wanted to make it quite clear where the sites we consider suitable are," said one official.

The government will today identify further sites around Britain that could be suitable for building a nuclear plant, as part of a scheme to fast track a new generation of reactors. Ed Miliband, the energy and climate change secretary, will unveil a series of national policy statements setting out the need for new energy infrastructure including renewables, fossil fuels and gas, as well as an overarching energy statement which will include climate change policy. A separate strategy statement on the nation's ports will also be published. Miliband will stress what the government believes to be the importance of a diverse energy supply. But the most detail will given in the nuclear policy statement, which will include a forensic assessment of the 11 sites already nominated by energy firms as well as identifying alternatives. "Because nuclear is controversial, we wanted to make it quite clear where the sites we consider suitable are," said one official.

Ground work for significant Hanford cleanup is laid out for decades to come in a draft version of a massive new environmental study of Hanford released in the Tri-Cities on Monday. Among decisions it recommends are entombing Hanford's Fast Flux Test Facility, emptying 99 percent of waste from underground tanks, leaving the emptied tanks in the ground, and continuing to ban some, but not all, radioactive waste from being sent to Hanford. The Draft Tank Closure and Waste Management Environmental Impact Statement is more than 6,000 pages and has been in the works since 2003. Topics it covers have been expanded several times in that time. The draft study will be the basis for a final study and followed by decisions by the Department of Energy.

Ground work for significant Hanford cleanup is laid out for decades to come in a draft version of a massive new environmental study of Hanford released in the Tri-Cities on Monday. Among decisions it recommends are entombing Hanford's Fast Flux Test Facility, emptying 99 percent of waste from underground tanks, leaving the emptied tanks in the ground, and continuing to ban some, but not all, radioactive waste from being sent to Hanford. The Draft Tank Closure and Waste Management Environmental Impact Statement is more than 6,000 pages and has been in the works since 2003. Topics it covers have been expanded several times in that time. The draft study will be the basis for a final study and followed by decisions by the Department of Energy.

Moscow and Washington want to reach a deal on a key nuclear disarmament treaty before US President Barack Obama receives his Nobel Peace Prize on December 10, a Kremlin source was quoted as saying Friday. The source, quoted in the Kommersant daily, said the Obama administration wanted to sign an agreement on replacing the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) before the Nobel ceremony and that Moscow was willing to oblige. "On December 10 the ceremony for awarding Nobel laureates will take place... Our partners want the document to be signed before the Nobel Peace Prize is given to Barack Obama," the Kremlin source was quoted as saying.

Moscow and Washington want to reach a deal on a key nuclear disarmament treaty before US President Barack Obama receives his Nobel Peace Prize on December 10, a Kremlin source was quoted as saying Friday. The source, quoted in the Kommersant daily, said the Obama administration wanted to sign an agreement on replacing the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) before the Nobel ceremony and that Moscow was willing to oblige. "On December 10 the ceremony for awarding Nobel laureates will take place... Our partners want the document to be signed before the Nobel Peace Prize is given to Barack Obama," the Kremlin source was quoted as saying.

" ... we know that doing 62 million scans every year for a population of 300 million is not just unnecessary and wasteful, but it's dangerous. It's producing tens of thousands of cancers."-- Dr. Atul Gawande, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, on NPR's Morning Edition, Sept. 3, 2009 Medical CT and PET scanners expose at least four million North Americans to high doses of radiation each year, a new study shows. Around 400,000 of them get very high doses, higher than the maximum annual doses allowed for nuclear reactor or nuclear weapon site workers, or anyone working with radioactive materials, according to an article in The New England Journal of Medicine (August 27, 2009), "Exposure to Low-Dose Ionizing Radiation from Medical Imaging Procedures."

" ... we know that doing 62 million scans every year for a population of 300 million is not just unnecessary and wasteful, but it's dangerous. It's producing tens of thousands of cancers."-- Dr. Atul Gawande, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, on NPR's Morning Edition, Sept. 3, 2009 Medical CT and PET scanners expose at least four million North Americans to high doses of radiation each year, a new study shows. Around 400,000 of them get very high doses, higher than the maximum annual doses allowed for nuclear reactor or nuclear weapon site workers, or anyone working with radioactive materials, according to an article in The New England Journal of Medicine (August 27, 2009), "Exposure to Low-Dose Ionizing Radiation from Medical Imaging Procedures."

EnergySolutions won't be able to bring more depleted uranium to Utah until the company proves the waste can be safely disposed in Tooele County for the long run. That's what the Utah Radiation Control Board decided Tuesday by sticking to principles it adopted last month, even after the company threatened legal action. The limit on DU, as depleted uranium is often called, does not go into effect for several months, and that leaves open a window for EnergySolutions to bring up to 15,000 drums of it from a government cleanup in South Carolina. But board members said their action Tuesday actually gets the safeguard in place sooner than originally expected. EnergySolutions sent its attorney to the board meeting Tuesday to warn of potential legal consequences if the board did not backtrack on actions taken at its October meeting.

EnergySolutions won't be able to bring more depleted uranium to Utah until the company proves the waste can be safely disposed in Tooele County for the long run. That's what the Utah Radiation Control Board decided Tuesday by sticking to principles it adopted last month, even after the company threatened legal action. The limit on DU, as depleted uranium is often called, does not go into effect for several months, and that leaves open a window for EnergySolutions to bring up to 15,000 drums of it from a government cleanup in South Carolina. But board members said their action Tuesday actually gets the safeguard in place sooner than originally expected. EnergySolutions sent its attorney to the board meeting Tuesday to warn of potential legal consequences if the board did not backtrack on actions taken at its October meeting.

Boeing's filing of a federal complaint on Friday the 13th against the state's Department of Toxic Substances Control over cleaning up the monstrously polluted Santa Susana Field Lab was no tardy Halloween trick. The move attempts to gut state Senate Bill 990, which was signed by Governor Schwarzenegger in October 2007, to ensure that the 2,850-acre site is cleaned up to the highest standards. Invalidating SB 990 would save Boeing hundreds of millions of dollars. The state's stringent cleanup levels would be relaxed, saving Boeing on the amount of soil and groundwater contamination that would have to be removed from the site and sent to a dump.

Boeing's filing of a federal complaint on Friday the 13th against the state's Department of Toxic Substances Control over cleaning up the monstrously polluted Santa Susana Field Lab was no tardy Halloween trick. The move attempts to gut state Senate Bill 990, which was signed by Governor Schwarzenegger in October 2007, to ensure that the 2,850-acre site is cleaned up to the highest standards. Invalidating SB 990 would save Boeing hundreds of millions of dollars. The state's stringent cleanup levels would be relaxed, saving Boeing on the amount of soil and groundwater contamination that would have to be removed from the site and sent to a dump.

"Tokyo (AFP) April 26, 2011 A survivor of the Chernobyl disaster says people exposed to radiation from Japan's crippled nuclear plant will spend the rest of their lives fearing the "bombshell" of cancer and other dire illnesses. Tuesday marks the 25th anniversary of the world's worst nuclear calamity and coincides with efforts to stop radiation seeping from the Fukushima plant after its cooling systems were knocked out by an earthquake and tsunami on March 11. "The Fukushima accident is like the twin brother of Chernobyl," said Pavel Vdovichenko, 59, who had already accepted an invitation from Japanese anti-nuclear groups to join a rally marking a quarter-century since Chernobyl. "People in the two places have to suffer long-time hardship," Vdovichenko, a Russian, told AFP through an interpreter. "People in Chernobyl suffered from cancer after the accident. A similar thing may happen to Fukushima.""

"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. "