nuke.news

"The worst man-made disaster in history took place at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine almost 25 years ago. It has inspired one of Russia's top screenwriter-directors to make a film based on the story. Yahoo StumbleUpon Google Live Technorati del.icio.us Digg Reddit Mixx Propeller "On Saturday", Aleksandr Mindadze's tragic exploration of the nuclear disaster, will go back to the events of 1986, when the notorious Number Four reactor suffered an unstoppable chain reaction."

"Chancellor Angela Merkel's plan to extend the running time of German nuclear power plants faces legal and legislative obstacles, the Financial Times Deutschland said, citing an internal report by her government. Only a "moderate" extension is possible without the consent of Germany's upper house of parliament, where Merkel lacks a majority, the newspaper reported today. That means her plan for a law to extend nuclear power by between 12 and 20 years can't succeed, FTD said. "

Mining giant BHP Billiton is risking the lives of its staff and employees at Olympic Dam in South Australia by exposing them to unsafe levels of radiation, according to a company whistleblower. Documents received by The Independent Weekly say BHP Billiton has been warned about the risks, and has chosen to take no action. The documents show BHP Billiton uses manipulated averages and distorted sampling to ensure its "official" figures slip under the maximum exposure levels set by government. But experts have warned exposure levels currently regarded as the international limit should be lowered, following the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in London four years ago."

"Stimulus funds wills ease environmental concerns BROOKHAVEN NATIONAL LABORATORY Congressman Tim Bishop (D-Southampton) met with representatives of the Department Energy Tuesday at Brookhaven National Laboratory to announce that the lab will receive an additional $28 million in Recovery Act funding to complete the dismantling of the Brookhaven Graphite Research Reactor by this fall. The remaining steps include the removal of a 300-foot stack at the site and a concrete shield that once surrounded the reactor's core, already removed. Also to be dismantled are concrete air ducts, equipment from an associated ventilation building and exhaust filters, and other contaminated pipes and structures."

"Three degrees might not sound like much. But according to FirstEnergy Corp., a three-degree reduction in Davis-Besse's operating temperature will provide enough safety over the next two years to ensure there is no additional cracking of the steel nozzles that penetrate the reactor's interim head. Now it's up to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to decide whether it agrees with the utility's analysis of what caused 24 of the massive steel device's 69 nozzles to either develop flaws or full-blown cracks. One had been leaking reactor acid on top of the lid when the flaws were found in mid-March, though - unlike eight years ago - the problem was caught long before any noticeable amount of steel had melted, according to Vito Kaminskas, Davis-Besse's director of plant engineering."

"EnergySolutions Inc., as the managing partner for Uranium Disposition Services (UDS), marked the commencement of the initial operation of the DUF6 Conversion Facility at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant. EnergySolutions, working closely with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), took control of the project in 2007 to manage the operational reviews and construction, completing the project within budget and ahead of schedule. Working closely with AREVA NP Inc. and Burns and Roe Enterprises, the work involved managing the operational reviews and construction. The facilities will be used to convert DOE inventory of depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) into a stable form for beneficial use, re-use and/or disposal."

There are some serious new safety concerns surrounding the Prarie Island nuclear power plant. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission notified the plant last week that if nearby water pipes broke and flooded the plant, important safety equipment could fail. Those pipes carry non-radioactive cooling water out of the plant to the Mississippi. Experts for Xcel Energy say they have already fixed the problem. But city officials say this should be a warning to the state that Red Wing is underfunded to deal with the possibility of a major catastrophe."

"A June update by the U.S. Department of Energy said that 1.5 million tons of uranium mill tailings have been removed from near the banks of the Colorado River and buried in a disposal site 30 miles away. Federal stimulus funding of $108 million has accelerated the cleanup, which will tackle an additional 1.2 million tons of tailings between now and September 2011."

"Every minute, 10,000 gallons of water mysteriously gush out of the desert floor at a place called Ash Meadows, an oasis that is home to 24 plant and animal species found nowhere else in the world. A new Brigham Young University study indicates that the water arriving at Ash Meadows is completing a 15,000-year journey, flowing slowly underground from what is now the Nevada Test Site. The U.S. government tested nuclear bombs there for four decades, and a crack in the Earth's crust known as the "Gravity Fault" connects its aquifer with Ash Meadows."

A loan granted by Britain's last government to a steelworks company to help it build a manufacturing facility for the nuclear industry is under review, the new business minister said on Thursday. Vince Cable said the 80-million-pound ($118 million) loan to Sheffield Forgemasters agreed under the Labour government that lost power after a May 6 election was being re-examined, like all other projects agreed after Jan. 1, 2010. "We inherited a very large number of projects which were agreed in a hurry in the run-up to the last general election," Cable told parliament during a question and answer session."

"The nuclear industry is being offered what campaigners claim is a taxpayer subsidy on the disposal costs of waste from new reactors following a secret lobbying campaign, the Guardian has learned. The revelation will put further scrutiny on the new government's promise that there will be no subsidy for nuclear power. Liberal Democrat Chris Huhne, the new energy and climate change secretary of state, admitted to the Guardian this week that the government already faces a £4bn funding black hole over existing radioactive waste."

"Skills gained from decommissioning the Dounreay nuclear plant could be turned to the dismantling of defunct oil and gas platforms, an expert has said. Simon Coles, a member of industry forum Decom North Sea, said 80% of the skills at the Caithness site "overlapped" with those needed in the oil sector. Two years ago, it was estimated that work breaking up redundant rigs could be worth £30bn by 2040. Most of the 470 offshore structures in UK waters will need to be scrapped. "

"U.S. Senator Jim Webb abruptly canceled a planned visit to military-ruled Myanmar on Thursday because of concern about the country's alleged nuclear cooperation with North Korea. Politics | North Korea Webb, chairman of the Senate subcommittee on East Asia and Pacific, said his visit would be "unwise" having learned of a report containing new allegations that Myanmar was seeking North Korea's help in developing a nuclear program. It was not immediately known what report Webb was referring to and a U.S. embassy spokesman could not confirm the origin of the report, or where it was published."

"ABORIGINAL traditional owners have initiated a Federal Court legal challenge to plans by the federal government to build Australia's first national radioactive waste dump near Tennant Creek, in the Northern Territory. Mark Lane Jangala, a senior elder of the Ngapa clan, says he and many other senior elders were not consulted about the nomination of their land. They say the proposed dump, on the disused Muckaty cattle station, would threaten a sacred male initiation site."

"The U.S. Department of Labor is notifying all former Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory employees who worked at the Berkeley, Calif., site between Aug. 13, 1942, and Dec. 31, 1961, about a new class of employees added to the Special Exposure Cohort of the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act. The act provides compensation and medical benefits to workers who became ill as a result of working in the nuclear weapons industry. Survivors of qualified workers may also be entitled to benefits. A worker who is included in a designated SEC class of employees, and who is diagnosed with one of 22 specified cancers, may receive a presumption of causation under the EEOICPA. On April 5, 2010, the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services designated the following class of employees as an addition to the SEC: all employees of the Department of Energy, its predecessor agencies, and their contractors and subcontractors who worked at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif., from Aug. 13, 1942, through Dec. 31, 1961, for at least 250 workdays occurring either solely under this employment or in combination with workdays within other classes of employees in the SEC. This designation became effective on May 5, 2010. The Labor Department's role is to adjudicate these claims based on the new SEC class definitions as determined and introduced by HHS. "

"The recent disclosure that the U.S. military is expanding its covert operations in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Horn of Africa is widely seen as a dangerous precedent, with Iran as one of the main targets. The Americans and their allies have long been waging a war of the shadows against the Islamic Republic, with Tehran often giving as good as it gets. On May 24, Abdolhamid Rigi, a senior commander of the largest insurgent group in Iran, Jundallah, was hanged for masterminding bombings and the murder of government officials."

The state ordered Exelon Corp. to dig new, deeper wells Friday in response to a spill of radioactive material last year that seeped into groundwater beneath the Oyster Creek Generating Station. The Department of Environmental Protection told the company to drill eight new monitoring wells in the Cohansey Aquifer, where the radioactive isotope tritium was detected in levels 50 times higher than what is considered safe for drinking water. About 180,000 gallons of tritium-contaminated water spilled from a leaky pipe at the nuclear plant April 9, 2009. The state invoked the Spill Act last month, giving it discretion over the cleanup. The state also directed Exelon to drill a monitoring well into the deeper Kirkwood Aquifer below the Cohansey to determine whether the contamination has seeped into that underground reservoir as well."

"Two West Texas sisters opposed to a new radioactive dump site are asking the state's highest court to reverse the results of an election that narrowly approved $75 million in bonds for the project. Peggy and Melodye Pryor filed their appeal Wednesday to the Texas Supreme Court. The bond referendum, held in May 2009, allows Andrews County to borrow to build the nuclear waste disposal site for Waste Control Specialists. The bond issue was approved by a three-vote margin, and a recount verified the 642-639 vote. The Pryors unsuccessfully challenged the balloting, and an El Paso appeals court upheld that outcome last month. Andrews County attorney John L. Pool said he believes the high court will deny the Pryors' appeal."

"Judges from the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, the independent trial-level adjudicatory body of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, heard arguments from attorneys of San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace (SLOMFP) and Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) regarding the pros and cons of license renewal for Diablo Canyon power plant on May 26. SLOMFP attorney Diane Curran opened the hearing with a summary of the positions of the watchdog group, arguing that recent inspection reports show a pattern of inefficiency related to safe operation and aging of the plant. PG&E argued that many issues raised by Curran weren't relevant to relicensing issues. The current operating licenses for the two reactors at Diablo Canyon are set to expire in 2024 and 2025, respectively. PG&E has applied to continue operating the two reactors through 2045. "It doesn't take 11 years to do a license application," SLO Mothers for Peace spokeswoman Jane Swanson told New Times. "

"A Nuclear Regulatory Commission legal panel is hearing arguments in Las Vegas about whether the federal Energy Department can withdraw its application to build a national nuclear waste dump in Nevada. Local officials say a decision by the NRC's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board and Construction Authorization Board will be pivotal to the fate of the Yucca Mountain project. A public hearing was expected to take all day Thursday at an NRC hearing facility near McCarran International Airport. The panel of administrative judges are also considering which petitioners can be admitted as parties in licensing proceedings, and how millions of documents generated during more than 25 years of study could be archived, maintained and preserved."