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A key assessment document for the proposed pebble bed nuclear reactor was fatally flawed, the Public Service Accountability Monitor said on Tuesday. A decision on whether to go ahead with a PBMR demonstration project involved choices on the use of substantial public resources, the Grahamstown-based NGO said. It said the socio-economic impact assessment (SEIA) carried out on the project did not give the public the information it needed to participate meaningfully in these decisions. It said the SEIA was based on a proposal for a 400 megawatt demonstration unit. However the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (Pty) Limited (PBMR) website now said the reactor was "designated DPP200".

After years of denying the existence of depleted uranium (DU) at its installations in Hawaii, the Army is now seeking a permit to possess tons of the radioactive material. DU has been confirmed at Schofield Barracks and the Pohakuloa Training Area, and is suspected at the Makua Military Reservation and Kahoolawe. The toxic material was used to make M101 spotting rounds for the Davy Crockett recoilless gun, one of the smallest nuclear weapons ever built. Soldiers were trained on the weapon in Hawaii and at least eight other states throughout the 1960s.

As a fairly new resident of San Antonio, but a well seasoned reactor engineer and energy analyst, I would like to present my comments concerning investing in additional nuclear power by San Antonio residents. For 17 years, I worked in a nuclear power plant for a utility that owned two nuclear power stations and attempted to build a third. In the 1980s my company invested billions of dollars toward building two new nuclear plants with a lot of analysis showing the need for the plants. The plant was never finished due to multiple issues, primarily the inability to resolve intervener issues and changing regulations. Who won and who lost in this attempt? The companies building the plants received their pay. The companies who supplied the materials were paid. The utility company engineers, executives, lawyers, etc. were paid. The people of the community lost. They had to pay for the plant and never received any electricity from it. I contend that investing in a nuclear power plant is one of the most risky investments available. A simple review of the history of the last attempts to build a nuclear plant here in the U.S will show plants that never achieved operations, plants that were required to shut down early, and extreme over-budget and delayed projects. Even a simpler project of the Yucca Mountain waste repository was not able to be completed even after spending billions of dollars.

Southern Nuclear has secured a necessary federal permit to allow it to build two new nuclear reactors at Georgia Power's Plant Vogtle facility in Waynesboro, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Wednesday. The permit, called an early-site permit, means federal regulators have reviewed safety and environmental issues related to building two additional reactors at the site. It also lets Georgia Power do some preliminary construction work. The permit is good for 20 years.

When Florida Power & Light chief Armando Olivera was asked Tuesday whether he and company executives would be willing to give up a pay raise to help struggling consumers with their bills, he offered a short answer: "No," he said, "because that would be short- sighted." Olivera, who as FPL's CEO is paid $3.6 million a year, told state regulators that although the economy is tight, executive pay is crucial to the successful operation of the company and the pay packages offered by FPL are justified.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued an early site permit for two new nuclear reactors to be built in Georgia. The permit means the NRC has determined that the site is suitable for construction and operation of the reactors at Plant Vogtle near Waynesboro. A limited work authorization will allow workers to begin preliminary preparations at the site.

The reports cited men in masks, a death squad van and other suspicious sights around the Davis Besse Nuclear Power Plant. Authorities fielded a flurry of calls Saturday from concerned residents who saw men in ski masks, Ghostbusters, ballerinas, ninjas and Little Red Riding Hood. The calls initiated numerous traffic stops over three hours as the Ottawa County Sheriff's Office, the Port Clinton Police Department's Harbor Patrol, Carroll Township and Oak Harbor Police and the U.S. Border Patrol responded to the calls.

A New Jersey nuclear plant has reduced its operating power by about 50 percent while workers repair an underground pipe that's been leaking. Advertisement David Benson, a plant spokesman, says the leak was detected Monday inside Oyster Creek's turbine building. Workers excavated soil immediately outside the building, and samples showed elevated levels of tritium - a weak radioisotope found naturally and produced in somewhat higher concentrations in commercial reactors. Officials say the leak at the Lacey Township plant does not pose a threat to employee or public safety. The excavation is near the area where two other small leaks were found in April and repaired. Oyster Creek opened in December 1969 and produces about 9 percent of New Jersey's electricity.

New York utility regulators likely will not decide on power provider Entergy Corp.'s plan to spin off its wholesale nuclear power generators into a separate company until 2010. Advertisement New Orleans-based Entergy had hoped for a decision in November on whether it may place six reactors under a separate publicly traded company Enexus Energy Corp. But two administrative law judges for the state Public Service Commission have ruled that a determination still is needed on whether the new company will have the financial capability to run three of the units in New York: two at Indian Point in Buchanan and one at James A. Fitzpatrick in Oswego County. PSC staff has concerns that long-term unsecured bonds issued for the spinoff might result in a low Enexus bond rating, thus limiting the new company's financial capacity. The judges have proposed a schedule under which environmental issues dealing with the spinoff would be heard by the PSC in December, followed by a ruling in January. Entergy spokesman Michael Burns said if the deal is approved in January, the spinoff could occur in April.

New York utility regulators likely will not decide on power provider Entergy Corp.'s plan to spin off its wholesale nuclear power generators into a separate company until 2010. Advertisement New Orleans-based Entergy had hoped for a decision in November on whether it may place six reactors under a separate publicly traded company Enexus Energy Corp. But two administrative law judges for the state Public Service Commission have ruled that a determination still is needed on whether the new company will have the financial capability to run three of the units in New York: two at Indian Point in Buchanan and one at James A. Fitzpatrick in Oswego County. PSC staff has concerns that long-term unsecured bonds issued for the spinoff might result in a low Enexus bond rating, thus limiting the new company's financial capacity. The judges have proposed a schedule under which environmental issues dealing with the spinoff would be heard by the PSC in December, followed by a ruling in January. Entergy spokesman Michael Burns said if the deal is approved in January, the spinoff could occur in April.

Department of Energy loan guarantee programs created to nurture innovative power projects have birthed a boon for lobbyists, with many of the companies that are seeking the federal money hiring well-connected advocates to shepherd loan applications. At least 47 companies since 2008 have hired lobbyists to help access the $50 billion DOE loan programs. Other companies vying for the loan funding are working with lobbyists they've had on the payroll for many years. Because the Energy Department won't release the names of more than 175 loan guarantee applicants, it's difficult to know precisely what proportion are working with lobbyists.

As many as two-thirds of adults underwent a medical test in the last few years that exposed them to radiation and in some cases, a potentially higher risk of cancer, a study in five areas of the U.S. suggests. It is the latest big attempt to measure how much radiation Americans are getting from sometimes unnecessary medical imaging. Though the annual average radiation exposure from X-rays, CT scans and other tests was low, researchers found about 20 percent were exposed to moderate radiation doses and 2 percent were exposed to high levels. "Super X-rays" to check for heart problems accounted for nearly a quarter of the radiation people received. "Given the growing use of medical imaging procedures, our findings have important implications for the health of the general population," the researchers reported in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

Americans may be receiving too much radiation from medical tests whose value has not been proven, researchers reported today in the New England Journal of Medicine. More than two-thirds of Americans underwent at least one such imaging procedure in the three years covered by the study, reported Dr. Reza Fazel of the Emory University School of Medicine and colleagues. The two biggest contributors to the radiation exposure are CT scans, which use a series of X-rays to produce a three-dimensional image of the body, and heart perfusion scanning to measure blood flow through the arteries leading to the heart. In that test, radioactive technetium-99m is injected into blood vessels and its progress through the heart monitored with external radiation detectors.

A study suggests some younger Americans may be getting too many imaging tests that expose them to worrisome amounts of radiation, which over a lifetime may raise their risk of cancer. Here are some procedures that deliver the biggest doses of radiation: * Myocardial perfusion scans, done in patients with heart disease to see how much blood is getting to the heart muscle. For the test, patients are injected with a small amount radioactive liquid. The test on average delivered 15.6 millisieverts of radiation per dose, and accounted for more than 22 percent of the total radiation exposure among people in the study, more than any other test. For people living in the United States, the normal expected radiation dose from chemicals in the ground or flying in an airplane is 3 millisieverts a year.

Radiation from x-rays and CT scans can accumulate to substantial doses, according to a study that estimates as many as 4 milion adults have high exposure ATLANTA - Many types of medical imaging procedures, such as x-rays, computed tomography scans, and nuclear medicine scans, expose patients to ionizing radiation, which over time can accumulate to substantial doses, according to a study published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine. "We know that radiation is not benign and some people are getting high exposures," says Reza Fazel, M.D., the lead author of the study and a cardiologist at Emory University.

Background The growing use of imaging procedures in the United States has raised concerns about exposure to low-dose ionizing radiation in the general population. Methods We identified 952,420 nonelderly adults (between 18 and 64 years of age) in five health care markets across the United States between January 1, 2005, and December 31, 2007. Utilization data were used to estimate cumulative effective doses of radiation from imaging procedures and to calculate population-based rates of exposure, with annual effective doses defined as low (≤3 mSv), moderate (>3 to 20 mSv), high (>20 to 50 mSv), or very high (>50 mSv).

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Office of New Reactors has issued an Early Site Permit (ESP) and Limited Work Authorization (LWA) to Southern Nuclear Operating Company for the Vogtle ESP site near Augusta, Ga. The ESP, valid for up to 20 years, is the fourth such permit the NRC has approved. Successful completion of the ESP process resolves many site-related safety and environmental issues, and determines the site is suitable for possible future construction and operation of a nuclear power plant. The LWA allows a narrow set of construction activities at the site. Southern Nuclear filed its ESP application Aug. 15, 2006, and filed its LWA request on Aug. 16, 2007, seeking permission for construction activities limited to placement of engineered backfill, retaining walls, lean concrete, mudmats, and a waterproof membrane.

SAINT JOHN - A prominent researcher and academic says New Brunswick should abandon its pursuit of the nuclear energy sector in favour of renewable energy and related new technology. Yves Gagnon, who holds the K.C. Irving Chair in Sustainable Development at the Université de Moncton, said after a presentation to an IT conference Tuesday that, if the province wants to become a leader in the energy sector, it should forget about nuclear energy and fossil fuel-based energy generation in favour of wind, solar and tidal power.

CONTROVERSIAL proposals to put low-level radioactive waste in ordinary landfill sites are being resisted as expected both by Cumbria county and Copeland borough councils. For many years all low-level waste has gone into the designated national repository at Drigg but under a national strategy alternative disposal routes are being sought in order to free up a lot more space there. The Environment Agency is considering applications to allow very-low-level waste from Sellafield to be buried at the former Keekle Head opencast coal site and also Lillyhall, a conventional landfill which in the past has also taken very small amounts of low level radioactive material but now wishes to increase volume substantially.

Top Russian officials on Wednesday acknowledged for the first time that a ship hijacked in the Baltic Sea might have been carrying a suspicious cargo, deepening the mystery around its seizure. Speculation has been raging that the Arctic Sea -- seized by pirates last month and missing for weeks before its recapture by the Russian navy in the Atlantic -- may have held weapons or even nuclear materials. The Maltese-flagged vessel with a crew of 15 Russian sailors was officially heading to Algeria with a cargo of timber. But Moscow's top investigator, Alexander Bastrykin, cast doubt on that theory. "We do not rule out the possibility that the Arctic Sea transported something other than wood," Bastrykin told the official government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

More Lobbying Expected in 2010 in Even Tougher Environment After Yucca Mountain and Soaring Cost Estimates; Outside of Bans, Industry Falters on CWIP in Missouri and Key Fights in Other States. WASHINGTON, Aug. 27 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --The so-called "nuclear renaissance" is finding few friends among state lawmakers in the United States. The nuclear power industry has been shut out across the board in 2009 in its efforts in all six states -- ranging across the nation from Kentucky to Minnesota to Hawaii -- where it sought to overturn what are either explicit or effectively bans on construction of new reactors, according to the nonprofit Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS). Efforts to overturn bans also have failed to advance in Illinois and West Virginia and Wisconsin. Beyond failing to reverse a single state-level ban on new reactors, the industry also suffered a wide range of major defeats, including an effort to repeal a ban on "Construction Work in Progress" (CWIP) payments that would have been imposed on Missouri ratepayers to finance a new nuclear power plant, which was then promptly mothballed. Industry efforts to get nuclear declared "renewable" by the states of Indiana and Arizona also failed to achieve results. Also going nowhere is a California bill to lift the state's pioneering law banning new reactors until a high-level waste dump is in place. That follows a 2008 California statewide referendum drive with the same focus that failed for lack of sufficient signatures to get it on the ballot.