nuke.news

"Entergy Corporation today announced it has identified and stopped the source of tritium leakage at its Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant and has begun initial work to support the remediation of soil and groundwater at the plant site. The successful effort to identify the source of the leakage, fix the problem and prevent a recurrence capped an intense and rigorous effort by Entergy with the oversight of state and federal regulators that began in January when elevated levels of the radionuclide tritium were detected in monitoring wells built for that purpose. In a special briefing for key stakeholders, Entergy's Executive Vice President, Operations Mark Savoff expressed regret that the leak occurred. At the same time, Savoff announced that the company has embarked on a six-point, fleet-wide initiative to become an industry leader in tritium leak prevention, detection, and mitigation. The six-point initiative includes benchmarking industry best practices, prioritizing structures, systems and components, improved inspection techniques, and improved strategies for prevention, monitoring and mitigation of leakage."

"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission confirmed Tuesday evening that a large fiberglass pipe in the recently rebuilt cooling towers at Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor had developed an 18-inch crack and was leaking water. Another crack developed in a joint in another location along the same pipe, a spokeswoman for the NRC said. The disclosure of the cracks in the large distribution or header pipe in the east cooling tower comes after Entergy recently completed rebuilding the infrastructure of the two cooling towers over the past three years, after the western tower partially collapsed in August 2007. Samuel Collins, Region One administrator for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and Donald Jackson, another NRC official, confirmed the cracks in the cooling tower pipe during a public meeting over the annual assessment of the plant's operation and condition held at Brattleboro Union High School. There are cracks in cell 1-5 and cell 1-8 in the east tower, which is closest to the Connecticut River. Until the issue was brought up by Raymond Shadis, senior technical advisor to the nuclear watchdog group The New England Coalition, about two hours into the meeting, neither Entergy nor NRC officials had mentioned the problem, which was discovered Thursday by Entergy. The leaks have already undergone a temporary repair, according to Entergy spokesman Larry Smith."

"Many might be alarmed to learn of a homemade nuclear reactor being built next door. But what if this form of extreme DIY could help solve the world's energy crisis? By day, Mark Suppes is a web developer for fashion giant Gucci. By night, he cycles to a New York warehouse and tinkers with his own nuclear fusion reactor. The warehouse is a non-descript building on a tree-lined Brooklyn street, across the road from blocks of apartments, with a grocery store on one corner. But in reality, it is a lab. In a hired workshop on the third floor, a high-pitched buzz emanates from a corner dotted with metal scraps and ominous-looking machinery, as Mr Suppes fires up his device and searches for the answer to a question that has eluded some of the finest scientific minds on the planet."

"Gerald Boyd, the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge manager, said several of the environmental cleanup projects funded with Recovery Act money are coming in under budget, and Boyd said DOE hopes (plans) to spend those savings on other projects. Oak Ridge officials apparently are expecting other stimulus money may become available as well. "We have some proposals in Washington that we would like to do - a few additional projects," Boyd said. "They're all EM (environmental management) projects.""

"Proposed new legal deadlines for treating or shipping Hanford's transuranic waste could extend work past the date a national repository is projected to be open to accept the waste. Proposed Tri-Party Agreement deadlines would allow the Department of Energy to continue treating or shipping transuranic wastes -- typically debris contaminated with plutonium -- through 2035. No previous deadline had been set for shipping the waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, the nation's repository for transuranic waste. But current projections anticipate WIPP will stop accepting waste in late 2030 and work then would begin to close the repository. "

"* Egypt wants to build four nuclear plants by 2025 * Cairo backed 2012 conference on WMD-free Middle East The U.N. nuclear watchdog is ready to cooperate with plans to build nuclear power plants in Egypt, which is now working on locations for construction, the head of the U.N. body said on Tuesday. Egypt said in March it planned to build four plants by 2025 and inaugurate the first in 2019 in an effort to reduce the most populous Arab country's reliance on oil and gas. Officials hope the programme would add capacity of up to 4,000 megawatts."

"Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said Tuesday his country will not stop its calls on Israel to join the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and submit its facilities to international observation. Following a meeting here with Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Yukiya Amano, Abul Gheit said his country will press ahead with its calls for submitting all Israeli nuclear facilities to international observation, state- run MENA news agency reported. "I can not imagine any one in Egypt would say that we stop calls for submitting Israeli facilities to the observation of international society represented in the IAEA," he said. Meanwhile, Abul Gheit said his meeting with Amano also touched upon ways the international watchdog could help Egypt to carry out its peaceful nuclear program."

"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff is citing Florida Power & Light Co. for three violations and has proposed a $70,000 civil penalty against the company for an issue with the Unit 3 spent fuel pool racks at the Turkey Point nuclear power plant near Homestead, Fla., about 20 miles south of Miami. In December 2009, the NRC became aware that the neutron-absorbing material called Boraflex in the Unit 3 spent fuel pool had degraded below the levels spelled out in the plant's design basis documents. Although FPL had taken compensatory measures including the addition of soluble boron, the regulatory requirements that ensure the spent fuel pool remains safe were not met. The company's actions ensured the pool's condition did not pose an immediate safety concern, but the NRC found that FPL did not promptly identify and correct the condition. The NRC issued the civil penalty because the agency felt the company did not report the condition in a timely fashion. The NRC has determined that the issue has low to moderate safety significance and may result in additional inspections. The NRC staff held a regulatory and enforcement conference with FPL in April, and the company disagreed with some aspects of the NRC's evaluation. After considering information provided by FPL, the NRC staff issued its final determination including the three violations and $70,000 fine."

"Bruce Power has added 40 long-term employees to a growing list of workers being tested for exposure to alpha radiation, company spokesman John Peevers said Monday. "This is just another step based on what we learned from the restart project," Peevers said. "We put a number of measures in place to protect employees, to better monitor alpha, and now we're looking back historically to see if any of our long-term employees in operations have had any exposure to alpha over their career." The company unexpectedly discovered alpha radiation when workers were doing Jprep work -- cutting and grinding down tubes that had carried coolant as part of the Bruce A Unit 1 restart project. Similar work on Unit 2 had been done without incident. The first hint of airborne alpha radiation in the Unit 1 nuclear vault came during a routine air sample test on Nov. 26, 2009. Two days later, a similar radiation spike was found but the company didn't find out it was alpha radiation until Dec. 21. "We have always been looking for alpha but we were using . . . industry standard assumptions" based on ratios of beta-gamma radiation which are quite common in nuclear plants, Peevers said. The company now knows "that the ratios weren't as accurate as we wanted." "

"Two of the world's leading nuclear states - the United States and China - are set to clash at a closed-door meeting in Christchurch this week. About 200 technical and diplomatic officials from 46 nations that make up the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) are at the Convention Centre for a week-long meeting, which started yesterday. China is expected to be questioned about controversial plans to export two nuclear power-generating reactors to Pakistan. If a row develops, Beijing may claim Washington has double standards because the United States sold nuclear technology to non-member India in 2008 after pushing through an exemption with the help of other major powers. Asked yesterday about a possible deal between China and Pakistan, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesman said it was premature to comment. "

"India and Canada are set to sign a civilian nuclear energy agreement this weekend that will allow the South Asian nation to secure uranium, and nuclear equipment and technology to meet its energy needs. The accord is expected to be initialed during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's stay in Toronto for the G-20 summit from June 26. Negotiations have made "substantial progress" and the agreement is waiting for approval by both sides, Vivek Katju, a secretary at India's foreign ministry, said in New Delhi today. "The agreement will cover the large ambit of peaceful nuclear applications." "

"Officials at Vermont's only nuclear power plant say a design flaw that kept engineers from inspecting underground pipes helped cause a leak of radioactive water into the ground. In a report released Tuesday, Entergy Vermont Yankee says a pipe tunnel was blocked with construction material left over from the plant's construction in 1972 and prevented water contaminated with tritium (TRIHT'-ee-um) from passing through the drain line and into a tank. A separate pipe installed in 1978 created a pathway that allowed the contaminated water to reach the soil on the plant's grounds."

"A cracked containment lid at a nuclear power plant in Ohio needs replacing, and a new one will be installed in 2011, plant officials say. FirstEnergy Corp. has purchased a replacement lid for the Davis-Besse reactor near Toledo, Ohio, The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported Monday. The plant has been closed since Feb. 28 for work to repair cracks in its lid. Such cracks can allow radioactive coolant into the facilities containment building, the newspaper said."

"The recent acceptance of $8.3 billion in taxpayer-backed loan guarantees by the builders of the Vogtle nuclear reactors seems like good news for Georgia electric customers. The taxpayers of the entire country will now share in the costs and risks that had been on the shoulders of the customers of the utilities building the two reactors. But don't celebrate too soon. There are more loan guarantees in the pipeline - a total of $54.5 billion, none for Georgia reactors. These guarantees mean that you and I will repay the lender if the project cannot. The $54.5 billion would amount to an exposure of more than $500 for every American family. Some in Congress want unlimited nuclear loan guarantees, which translate to unlimited taxpayer exposure. For each of these loan guarantees, Georgia taxpayers will be exposed to the risks of new nuclear construction in such places as Texas, Maryland and South Carolina. Before long, the costs Georgians have passed on to taxpayers elsewhere through the Vogtle loan guarantees may be outweighed by the economic exposure that they will take on to help build reactors elsewhere."

"While a weekend derailment of a passenger train damaged about 400 feet of a short-line railroad's track, it didn't disrupt the owner's shipments, the president of the Southern Appalachia Railway Museum said today. The owner, EnergySolutions, typically moves radioactive materials from the company's waste-processing facility on Bear Creek Road in Oak Ridge to its landfill in Utah. Charles Poling, president of the museum, said "normal shipments occur at the end of the week," and track repairs were targeted for completion today. The back diesel engine on the Secret City Scenic Excursion Train went off the tracks and derailed while carrying some 80 passengers Saturday afternoon."

"Cooper Nuclear Station, an electric power plant in southeast Nebraska, declared a "Notification of Unusual Event" Tuesday, June 22nd at 2:06 a.m. The notification was made as part of safety and emergency preparedness procedures the station follows when flooding conditions are in effect. The procedures dictate when the Missouri River's water level reaches 42.5 feet, or greater than 899 feet above sea level, a notification of unusual event is declared. There is no threat to plant employees or to the public; the plant continues to operate safely. Appropriate Local, County, State, and Federal agencies were also notified, as part of Cooper's Emergency Preparedness plan. As a precautionary measure, when the river reached 897 feet above sea level last week, Cooper management initiated steps to barricade external doorways to the plant with sandbags. Should the river's level increase to 900 feet above sea level, plant personnel will also barricade internal doorways as another layer of protection for facility equipment."

"An Idaho company is moving closer in its effort to build a nuclear power plant in Payette County. Alternate Energy Holdings, Inc. officially filed a rezone application on Tuesday, June 22, asking that 5,000 acres of land near New Plymouth be converted from agriculture to industrial use. In April, Payette County Commissioners unanimously approved a change to their county's comprehensive plan, opening the door for a rezone application. A slate of hearings are expected to attract opponents and proponents of the plant, which Alternate Energy claims will create 5,000 jobs. Dates have yet to be announced, but check back to Citydesk for updates."

"The Department of Energy is proposing extending a chemical barrier along the Columbia River at Hanford after a pilot project successfully trapped radioactive strontium before it entered the river. At the same time, a system to pump contaminated water out of the ground and treat it, which had disappointing results, would be torn out. DOE has been testing the chemical barrier technology since 2005, with the most recent results showing a 90 percent reduction in strontium contamination in ground water, according to DOE. The test area extends 300 feet along the Columbia near Hanford's N Reactor, but DOE is proposing extending the chemical barrier to 2,500 feet to span the width of the area where strontium exceeds drinking water standards in ground water near the river."

"Putting a lid on it takes some time and patience. In this case, crews are transporting a 150-ton nuclear reactor lid from the Port of Long Beach to a plant near Phoenix. The lid, escorted by the California Highway Patrol, left the port last Tuesday. It's expected to arrive in the Coachella Valley by Wednesday night. The lid's transport vehicle travels at about 5 mph. Once in the Coachella Valley, crews will have to maneuver around a road sign near the Highway 111-10 Freeway interchange. The transport vehicle will cross from eastbound to westbound lanes and exit the interstate on the Highway 111 on-ramp."

"Radioactive waste buried under the Olympic Park could jeopardise plans to develop the site after the Games, it is claimed. Traces of thorium and radium have been buried in a disposal cell under the site of the main stadium. The Olympic Delivery Authority insists the deposits pose no risk during the Games. But experts say that a reassessment of the site after 2012 may be necessary before any development plans - housing, for instance - are put in place. Independent nuclear analyst John Large said: "There is some doubt about the applicability and validity of the radiological risk analysis undertaken for the future legacy use." The Lower Lea Valley site was industrial land which was used for landfill and where illegal dumping of waste was common in the Fifties and Sixties."