nuke.news

Germany's environment minister made himself out to be a crisis manager in the scandal surrounding the Asse nuclear waste storage facility. But the problem has not been solved -- and the issue threatens to derail the CDU's plans to postpone Germany's nuclear phaseout.

Welcome to the website of the campaign "Europe's Nuclear Heritage"! This project started in 2006 and was initiated by the German youth environmentalists group "Greenkids e.V.". For this reason much text is in German language. But we try to translate it as soon as possible. Our aim is to provide most articles on this website in English and German, if possible in other languages, too.

A council has now decided to ban uranium explorer Marathon Resources from dumping any waste at the Hawker dump in the northern Flinders Ranges of South Australia. The company wants to dump waste including industrial clothing, calico and plastic bags and cardboard from its uranium exploration site in the Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary.

The "ultra-secure uranium warehouse of the future" in Oak Ridge, Tenn., is now built, if not quite ready for work. Part of Complex 2030-the Bush Administration's ambitious and semi-secret plan to revamp the nation's aging infrastructure for building nuclear weapons-the warehouse will provide one location for the nation's supply of the highly enriched uranium (HEU) that makes for a powerful nuclear bomb.

"I carry clean [drinking] water with my truck to the villages upstream almost on a daily basis. I was born here and I remember that in the past the road on this side of the river was closed to traffic. They say that was because of some mines and radioactive waste tailings," Bakyt told IRIN in Kairygach, about 10-15 minutes' drive from Mailuu-Suu.

On September 9 Bulgarian and international environmental organisations, including the local coalition BeleNE (No to Belene nuclear power plant) and Greenpeace, sent a letter to the European Union (EU) Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes asking him to investigate the tender procedures for subcontractors in the construction of Bulgaria's Belene nuclear power plant. Subcontracts worth more than one billion euro are to be granted without tender to Bulgarian companies. Under the agreement with Atomstroyexport, the Russian company chosen to construct the power station has to subcontract 30 per cent of the value of the Belene construction contract to Bulgarian companies, which means procurement contracts worth a total of 1.3 billion euro.

Marge Detraz, long-time outspoken Lincoln County opponent of the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository and the planned Department of Energy (DOE) railroad through the county, was removed from the September 2 County Commission meeting by a Sheriff's Deputy and was not permitted re-entry until the meeting was adjourned.

A few years ago, Ward wrote for Tomdispatch about various plans to dump radioactive waste, including 40 years worth of "spent fuel rods" from nuclear reactors, in his Utah backyard. People who lived downwind were alarmed. They had been exposed to radioactive fallout during the era of atomic testing in the 1950s and feared more of the same -- cancer for "downwinders" and obfuscation and denial from federal regulators. Since Ward wrote his account, local activists have successfully blocked the projects. Score one for the little guys.

Among the details to emerge from the meeting was acknowledgment by the NRC that, although ISL mine permits call for returning groundwater to its original condition when mining is done, some of the "baseline parameters" have proved unachievable by mining companies.

An inquiry into the removal of body tissue from Sellafield nuclear workers has been hit by concerns about the medical records of dead patients. Michael Redfern QC is heading a public inquiry into why samples were taken between 1962 and 1992 and whether next of kin were informed.

French power giant EDF is preparing to make a sweetened offer for nuclear power firm British Energy (BGY.L: Quote, Profile, Research) as early as this week, the Sunday Express newspaper reported, without citing sources. The paper said the offer of about 770 pence a share was set to be signed off by EDF's board of Wednesday and could be announced the next day, although the timetable could also slip.

The US push to end India's status as a nuclear pariah was partly motivated by a desire to counter China's rise, but New Delhi does not want to get sucked into a US-Sino power play, analysts say. "India does share many US concerns regarding China," said Anupam Srivastava, director at the Center for International Trade and Security at the University of Georgia.

West Australian-based uranium stocks have soared in early trade on news of a pro-uranium government. The Liberal leader, Colin Barnett, has vowed to overturn the state's long running policy banning uranium mining.

Scientists monitoring a beach in Fife for radioactive hotspots say they have discovered seven contaminated areas. Local people are worried Dalgety Bay may now be placed on a new register for radioactively contaminated land.

The nuclear smuggling ring headed by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan possessed a broader range of secret nuclear designs than was previously known and shared them electronically among members of the network, a U.N. watchdog group said yesterday. A report by the International Atomic Energy Agency also acknowledged large gaps in investigators' understanding of the smuggling ring, raising concerns that Khan's nuclear black market may have had additional customers whose identities remain unknown.

The man perhaps most responsible over the past 30 years for thwarting the federal government's plan for a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain slides into the driver's seat with a mischievous grin. He has offered to drive to lunch on this hot August day. His state-issued rusted road hog looks like it belongs on an abandoned lot. The state's fleet managers must shudder every time they see its grimy government plates.

Westinghouse finally settled out of court with the uranium cartel participants for damages in excess of US$800 million to make up for its losses due to the artificially inflated price of uranium supplied over four years and some punitive damages for breaching the US Sherman Anti Trust Act.

A subsidy represents a transfer of Federal Government resources to the buyer or seller of a good or service that has the effect of reducing the price paid, increasing the price received, or reducing the cost of production of the good or service. Put simply, the Federal Government promotes targeted energy outcomes, such as production of a specific fuel or promotion of conservation and energy efficiency by energy consumers through incentives such as tax credits, grants, and low interest loans.

A series of mishaps that occurred during a recent refueling outage at Duke Energy's Oconee nuclear plant near Greenville, S.C. exposed workers to dangerous levels of radiation, the Union of Concerned Scientists reports. On April 12, the plant shut down for refueling -- the 24th such outage since the reactor began operating in the early 1970s. But practice clearly did not make perfect, as one mishap after another occurred during the 36-hour shutdown. By the time the outage was over, the company had damaged two reactor coolant pumps, unknowingly exceeded reactor cool-down limits, and triggered a potentially disastrous loss-of-coolant accident.

Finland's plans to build the world's first next-generation pressurised water reactor has hit a rough patch as the initial estimated price tag has now doubled to nearly 4.5 billion euro. Areva, the French nuclear construction company building the power plant, announced that the final costs for the reactor will be 50 percent higher than originally estimated, according to Les Echos, a business newspaper. The reasons for the increase in building costs at the power plant in Olkiluoto include both rising global prices for materials and the need for Areva to bring in additional skilled workers "to ensure a quality product". This could have something to do with a recent report issued by Greenpeace condemning the safety and quality of essential welding on the plant. Confidential sources within the construction site reported that the welds were being done by unqualified welders and inspected by unqualified supervisors.