nuke.news

"A federal class action claims that leaks from two nuclear processing plants poisoned dozens of people in the Kiskiminetas Valley and killed 10 of them. More than 35 named plaintiffs claim that Babcock & Wilcox Power Generation Group, B&W Technical Services and Atlantic Richfield Co. "sought to prevent details about their operations from reaching workers, [the class] or surrounding community" though the defendants were "aware of the fact that they were releasing toxic and radioactive materials into the air, water and soil." The plants at issue are in the Borough of Apollo and Parks Township. The class claims the plants' operators "opted not to take sufficient remedial measures to eliminate or abate emissions and releases." This led to a "casual attitude towards environmental and health safety, even though they were aware of the health risks posed to by such releases," according to the 53-page complaint."

"The long and drawn-out process of gathering environmental and regulatory information for a building permit occupy plans for a nuclear power plant that could be in the future at the site of the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant at Piketon. The plant shut down in 2001 after nearly 50 years of turning out weapons-grade uranium. The loss of 900 jobs was felt throughout the southern Ohio communities surrounding the plant. It's been just over a year now since officials from four of the nation's biggest energy companies came together and announced formation of an alliance to pursue the development of America's first clean energy park at the site, owned by the U.S. Department of Energy. "

"Hat tip to the Map Room: a global map video of 2,053 nuclear explosions from the American desert tests in 1945 ('I am become death, the destroyer of worlds') to 1998. It is supposed to run at a rate of one second a month, but the 1945 segment is slowed down for some reason. As Jonathan Crowe points out, the pace picks up from the late "

"Nuclear energy is a double-edged sword that should be regulated and put under efficient controls, said Jamal Sharaf Chairman of the Jordan Nuclear Regulatory Commission JNRC. He told participants in a nuclear safety course held in cooperation with the Arab Atomic Energy Agency, that safety is the mainstay of radiation protection and control. Sharaf said that the JNRC was ready to receive Arab nuclear staff to be trained on nuclear safety and radiation control, urging broader Arab cooperation in this regard."

"About 250 people attended the Students of Sustainability (SoS) conference at Flinders University in Adelaide over July 4-8. A highlight of the conference was the attendance of the Indegenous Solidarity Rides bus full of passengers on their way from Newcastle to the convergence at Alice Springs. They presented workshops on the NT intervention, its effects on Aboriginal communities and the struggle to repeal the racist laws. Another strong feature of the conference was the many workshops given by members of Aboriginal communities in South Australia about the disastrous effects the mining and uranium industries were having on their land and water."

"Elevated levels of the radioactive isotope tritium have been detected in one of the new groundwater monitoring wells at Pilgrim Station Nuclear Power Plant. The release, issued Thursday by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission of test results taken from a sample of one of the 12 monitoring wells by Pilgrim staff June 21, states that the level falls within federal drinking water limits and does not require public notification but the information is being released because it's an issue of public interest. Six of the 12 monitoring wells were added in May. The monitoring well where the tritium was detected at 11,072 picocuries per liter is located near the condensate storage tank that stores water for use in the nuclear reactor. The Environmental Protection Agency's safe drinking water limit for tritium is 20,000 picocuries per liter."

"Port Penn resident Julie L. Harrington is surrounded by nuclear reactors. So is Dae Y. Kwak in Hockessin and Carl Cook in Middletown. In fact, no region in America has so many people living within the overlapping, 50-mile planning areas of so many nuclear power reactors as northern Delaware and nearby areas in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland, according to a review of nuclear sites and Census Bureau statistics by The News Journal."

"Powertech USA Inc. is embarking on a path of destruction from which there is no return. The company plans to start in situ leach mining in South Dakota's Custer and Fall River counties that will puncture through four aquifers on the Great Plains and endanger a fragile geologic system. As a result of ISL mining planned at the Dewey-Burdock site - 12 miles northwest of Edgemont - we on the Plains must face the threat of groundwater contamination for generations, while the corporate leaders reside far away in their homelands of Canada and France. This new corporation has no history of accountability in adhering to environmental laws or in the clean-up of a mined-out area. There are thousands of reports by mining corporations that document problems trying to contain uranium-laden water at mine sites, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Web site."

"The amount of plutonium buried at a U.S. nuclear reservation in Washington state is almost triple what the government had previously reported, officials say. The New York Times Sunday reported the discovery of the higher plutonium levels at the 560-square-mile Hanford Nuclear Reservation will likely make long-term cleanup a greater challenge than previously thought. The plutonium poses no immediate radiation danger because of "institutional controls" such as guards, weapons and gates, the Times said. "

"Anti-nuclear protesters have reacted angrily to a report which suggested the burial of nuclear waste is the only safe method of disposal. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority wants communities to volunteer to host underground repositories in return for investment in community projects. Copeland council, Allerdale council, Cumbria County Council and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority are discussing the possibility of having a geological waste facility, which would provide long-term storage for highly-active nuclear waste from across the UK, in Copeland or Allerdale. The authorities have argued that, due to the existing economic and environmental impacts on the region, it is vital west Cumbria is involved in the process that decides what happens. But members of Radiation Free Lakeland, an activist group run by Marianne Birkby, have branded a potential site "the worst possible option" for the region."

"The European Commission has been looking into whether Electrabel abused its dominant position after reaching a nuclear power plant deal with the Belgian government, a spokesman said on Saturday. The preliminary investigation has been underway "for several months," said Amelia Torres, spokeswoman for EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia, confirming reports in the Belgian newspapers De Tijd and L'Echo. Electrabel, a unit of French utility group GDF Suez, is the leading electricity provider in Belgium."

"An anti-nuclear group will get another chance to prove calculations performed by Vermont Yankee engineers are not within safety margins to operate for another 20 years. The Petition Review Board for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has reversed a 2009 decision by the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board which was tasked with re-examining an earlier finding by the commission that the plant's plans to manage aging equipment were "acceptable." The ruling allows the New England Coalition to submit a revised contention that proves Entergy does not have accurate information about whether or not their equipment will fail. "This is next chapter in the nearly four-year battle," Clay Turnbull, New England Coalition staff member said. "Entergy still hasn't shown they can monitor and manage the effect of aging due to metal fatigue." The contention filed by the New England Coalition to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in 2007, argued that Entergy, which owns and operates the nuclear power plant, does not include an adequate plan to monitor and manage the effects of aging equipment due to metal fatigue. "

"Connecticut has two sites for nuclear power reactors that can be used for the salvation of Connecticut's current inventory of high-wage unemployed manufacturing and construction workers, and for long-term, high-paying plant operations jobs after two 10 year periods of construction. Connecticut can have the low-cost power to bring manufacturing back to the state! Now that is job opportunity, direct and resultant. Can Dominion tell us what subsidy or guarantees it would t need to construct such plants? Will it? Can and will the appropriate White House czar certify the availability of such stimulus funds for a sure-thing job-creation initiative that fills Connecticut's future electricity demand free of carbon emissions? Will Connecticut act now? Will our state's manufacturing workers and worker unions demand it?"

"Russian scientist Igor Sutyagin, who was serving 15 years following a wrongful conviction on espionage charges, was Friday delivered together with three other convicted spies to Vienna and exchanged, in what appears to be the biggest US-Russian "spy swap" since the Cold War, for ten Russian individuals who have admitted earlier in New York to have been acting as agents of the Russian Federation. Maria Kaminskaya, 09/07-2010 Information that Sutyagin, an innocent man who was imprisoned at the height of what became known as "spymania" in Russia, will be part of an exchange by which Russia will repatriate ten US-based agents has earlier been confirmed by his lawyer Anna Stavitskaya. His release became joyful news for Bellona, which is all too familiar with the dismal situation with human rights and the workings of the justice system in Russia, though the fact that Sutyagin was forced to sign a confession of guilt in order to walk free was another testimony that little has changed for the better."

"Deep in an abandoned German salt mine, barrels of nuclear waste lie in a jumbled heap-untouched since the 1970s, when this picture was taken. Since the 1960s the Asse II chambers in Lower Saxony (map) have served as storage sites for more than a hundred thousand barrels of low- to medium-level nuclear waste. Low-level waste isn't considered dangerous to handle, but medium-level waste may need shielding before disposal-such as encasing reactor components in concrete-according to the World Nuclear Association, which promotes nuclear energy. In 2008 reports emerged that water leaking from Asse II since the 1980s is radioactive."

"A Public Consultation on the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill 2010 on Wednesday held it unconstitutional and violative of the right to life and demanded that it be scrapped. The Bill is currently with the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology, which in an advertisement on June 24 had called for wider consultations to include public opinion on the Bill. Organised by the University of Mumbai's Law Department, Greenpeace India and Human Rights Law Network (HRLN), the consultation is an attempt to put forward a strong people's mandate against the Bill by the time it comes up for discussion before the Standing Committee between July 13 to 17. "

"We've talked often before about Turkey's many embarrassing attempts to build a nuclear reactor. Every time the plan falls down, it gets up again - it's had more comebacks than Freddie Krueger. Unable to admit defeat - and in the face of legal challenges, rigged bidding processes, and ludicrous, record-breaking costs - the country's government have resurrected the plan once again and have drawn up an agreement with Russia to build a nuclear reactor in the south of Turkey. The parliament will vote on the agreement this Friday."

"Tomorrow is the 25th anniversary of the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior by the French secret service in New Zealand's Marsden Wharf. It is the day we remember our colleague Fernando Pereira who was killed in the attack. He was just 35. The bombing was personally authorised by then French president François Mitterrand and was intended to prevent Greenpeace from leading protests against French nuclear weapons testing on the Moruroa Atoll. Just three months before its sinking, the Warrior helped evacuate 300 residents of the Rongelap Atoll in the Marshall Islands as part of Operation Exodus."

"The Canadian government may be hampered in trying to sell Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. because of a decision by the New Brunswick government to work with a competitor, the Globe and Mail reported. New Brunswick dropped a proposal by Atomic Energy to build a new nuclear reactor because the Canadian crown corporation had failed to make progress on a plan to build the reactor and sell the power to New England, the newspaper said. Instead, the province signed a letter of intent yesterday with Areva SA of France to build a so-called "energy park." "

"As part of its Open Government initiative, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is adopting a new web survey model to help measure and assess the public's perception of the agency's transparency. The survey, from ForeSee Results, will pop up at random on the NRC's website and ask a brief series of questions about the user's experience with and perceptions of various aspects of the website, including transparency. Other federal government agencies are using the same survey questions to provide metrics on transparency. The new survey model provides an accurate and precise way to measure how citizens view government transparency and quantify the relationships between online transparency, trust, and the likelihood to participate and collaborate with government agencies. Studies have found that satisfaction with federal websites, in turn, drives increased trust in government, as well as future participation and collaboration. The NRC encourages visitors to the website to participate in the survey if it appears on their screen to help the agency better serve the public and promote participation in the regulatory process."