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On Thursday, Senator Lisa Murkwosi (R-AK), who is also ranking member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, introduced a bill to open two temporary storage sites for spent rods. "This proposal addresses one of the most glaring failures of our national nuclear policy--what to do with nuclear fuel currently that is currently being stored at over 100 sites across the country," Murkowski said.

The federal government, she said, is responsible for finding a long-term solution for nuclear waste storage.

Workers who relocated the material fell ill simply from inhaling the fumes, Carpenter said. Department of Energy officials said none of the material has leaked outside the outer steel wall or the concrete casing that surrounds the structure, and there is no present hazard to workers or groundwater. They said they were trying to determine whether the material leaked from the inner tank or oozed from a nearby pit into the space between the two walls, known as the annulus. "There's no evidence of it leaking the liquid from the inner shell right now," Gamache said. The material – a mound 2 feet by 3 feet by 8 inches -- is dry and doesn't appear to be growing. It was discovered during a routine video inspection of the annulus conducted last month from a viewpoint not normally used. The possibility that it could have come as overflow from a nearby pit arises because a pipe runs into the annulus from the pit, Gamache said.

But Carpenter, who has talked extensively with workers at Hanford and was briefed Tuesday by one of the Department of Energy's senior officials at the tank farm, said he believed the evidence was strong that there was a leak. "I know Hanford would like it not to be so. But the people I'm talking to at the Hanford site say, no, it really does look like a leak," he said.

"From what I'm being told and looking at the pictures, it appears it's coming from under the tank and going up. Which is a far cry from it coming from the pit." Gamache said an initial sample of the material revealed that "the contamination levels were higher than expected" and it definitely contained radioactive waste. "There wasn't enough material to fully characterize the material, so we're preparing to pull another sample. That will probably happen around the mid-September time frame," she said. Carpenter said that if the inner tank leaked, it would probably prompt the need to reevaluate expectations that the tanks could safely act as interim storage vessels for several decades.

In the July through September period, NEI lobbied Congress, the Commerce Department, the Defense Department, the Executive Office of the President, the Departments of Transportation, Energy, State and Homeland Security Department, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Office of Management and Budget, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, according to the report the NEI filed October 19 with the House clerk's office.

Note the interesting exchange during Tomasitis’ recent Senate testimony at around 3:00 in DR. WALTER TAMOSAITIS, URS: Bechtel is still in charge of the project. Yes, Senator. SEN. CLAIRE MCCASKILL (D), MISSOURI: And everyone sees you go to work in the basement with no windows? TAMOSAITIS: Yes. Yes, ma`am. MCCASKILL: And knows that you are not allowed to work even though you`re there on site and getting paid? TAMOSAITIS: Correct. MCCASKILL: So everyone — so every day you are an example to all the workers there, whether they`re federal employees or Bechtel employees, don`t say anything or you too will be banished to the basement?

TAMOSAITIS: Yes, Senator. Very directly. It`s a very visible example of what happens if you speak up. Advertise | AdChoices MCCASKILL: It`s just unbelievable to me that we`ve allowed this to occur.

Philip Verleger, an economist who specializes in oil markets, says even if environmentalists convince Obama to block the Keystone XL pipeline, it won't stop the growth of production in the Canadian oil sands. "With prices around a hundred dollars a barrel globally, that oil is going to make it to the market somehow," Verleger says. "The development may be slowed for a year or two. But one can move the oil west on the existing Kinder Morgan pipeline. They could expand pipelines east. Those pipelines already exist, and they can be expanded."

Dip in revenue predicted by Solco Solco, the solar company based in Washington, foresees a sudden dip in revenues for the financial year 2011. However, Solco sales figures bounced back up in September following a prominent fall in July and August 2011, and the company looks at it as a continual occurrence. But owing to the speedy expansion of its national division of solar products, Solco anticipates a fall in revenues to as low as USD 41 million in the year 2011/12, post a 56 percent jump hitting the mark of USD 53.7 Million in 2010/11.

t Solco’s record making profit figures in 2010/11 has stabilized the company’s financial standing which would take them safely across the deteriorating market phase. Solco says that it is acquiring several mid-sized projects across the country,

Predictions for solar panels Solar Panel makers are mostly expected to be faced with huge heaps of excess material in the next year, as many analysts predict considerably lower sales in 2012 following a rise of 40 percent in this year. According to this week’s report of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, prominent dips in the major European market subsidies translate into lower buying capacity in next year as compared to the current year. In contrast to 24.5 GW in 2011, installations would be very low to the tune of 23.8 GW in 2012, thereby increasing pressure on companies burdened with dipping prices and piling stocks.

Bloomberg New Energy Finance analyst Martin Simonek said that greater demand in 2011 as compared to last year has sustained many nations. It would be a different scenario in 2012. However, then again, different people predict differently. According to Simonek, 2011 installations could rise as high as 29.4 GW, whereas, 2012 could see installations from as low as the basic 23.8 GW to the towering 31.8 GW mark.

Goldman Sachs predicts a dip by 10 percent in 2012, bringing annual additional installed capacity down to 20.8 GW as compared to 19.6 GW predicted this year. While Vishal Shah, an analyst from Deutsche Bank predicts 21GW in 2011 and 25GW in 2012, silicon manufacturer Wacker Chemie foresees between 22GW to 26GW in 2011. Solar panel maker Yingli Green estimates it to be between 18 to 19 GW in 2011. Simonek of Bloomberg forecasts an increased demand in 2013, when developing and promising nations see a healthy competition in solar energy by way of introduction of low priced panels.

Hope In The Desert

Desertec, a highly anticipated and venturesome project that endeavours to aid the power industry in Europe with solar power deduced from the Sahara desert is expected to kick off its first ever power plant, worth USD 800 million, in Morocco.

Desertec will launch the first solar thermal 150 MW plant, the first one in the entire network worth USD 400 million. This would also mark the launch of solar PV, and wind provisions, spanning from Egypt to Morocco. The CEO of the project management company Dii, Paul van Son said in a Bloomberg interview that he is very certain that firm and permanent measures would be adopted in 2012. Owing to its stability, government support for expansion of renewable energy and connectivity to Europe through two cables running in the sea all throughout the Strait of Gibraltar, with free power of as much as 1000MW, Morocco would be tested for the first development.

many other nations in North Africa are far ahead of Desertec in executing projects of their own. There are some plants located in Egypt while others are being planned somewhere.

According to the USGS website, under the undated heading, “Can we cause earthquakes? Is there any way to prevent earthquakes?” the agency notes, “Earthquakes induced by human activity have been documented in a few locations in the United States, Japan, and Canada. The cause was injection of fluids into deep wells for waste disposal and secondary recovery of oil, and the use of reservoirs for water supplies. Most of these earthquakes were minor. The largest and most widely known resulted from fluid injection at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal near Denver, Colorado. In 1967, an earthquake of magnitude 5.5 followed a series of smaller earthquakes. Injection had been discontinued at the site in the previous year once the link between the fluid injection and the earlier series of earthquakes was established.” Note the phrase, “Once the link between the fluid injection and the earlier series of earthquakes was established.” So both the U.S Army and the U.S. Geological Survey over fifty years of research confirm on a federal level that that “fluid injection” introduces subterranean instability and is a contributory factor in inducing increased seismic activity.” How about “causing significant seismic events?”

Fast forward to the present. Overseas, last month Britain’s Cuadrilla Resources announced that it has discovered huge underground deposits of natural gas in Lancashire, up to 200 trillion cubic feet of gas in all. On 2 November a report commissioned by Cuadrilla Resources acknowledged that hydraulic fracturing was responsible for two tremors which hit Lancashire and possibly as many as fifty separate earth tremors overall. The British Geological Survey also linked smaller quakes in the Blackpool area to fracking. BGS Dr. Brian Baptie said, “It seems quite likely that they are related,” noting, “We had a couple of instruments close to the site and they show that both events occurred near the site and at a shallow depth.” But, back to Oklahoma. Austin Holland’s August 2011 report, “Examination of Possibly Induced Seismicity from Hydraulic Fracturing in the Eola Field, Garvin County, Oklahoma” Oklahoma Geological Survey OF1-2011, studied 43 earthquakes that occurred on 18 January, ranging in intensity from 1.0 to 2.8 Md (milliDarcies.) While the report’s conclusions are understandably cautious, it does state, “Our analysis showed that shortly after hydraulic fracturing began small earthquakes started occurring, and more than 50 were identified, of which 43 were large enough to be located.”

Sensitized to the issue, the oil and natural gas industry has been quick to dismiss the charges and deluge the public with a plethora of televisions advertisements about how natural gas from shale deposits is not only America’s future, but provides jobs and energy companies are responsible custodians of the environment. It seems likely that Washington will eventually be forced to address the issue, as the U.S. Army and the USGS have noted a causal link between the forced injection of liquids underground and increased seismic activity. While the Oklahoma quake caused a deal of property damage, had lives been lost, the policy would most certainly have come under increased scrutiny from the legal community. While polluting a local community’s water supply is a local tragedy barely heard inside the Beltway, an earthquake ranging from Oklahoma to Illinois, Kansas, Arkansas, Tennessee and Texas is an issue that might yet shake voters out of their torpor, and national elections are slightly less than a year away.

Reverse osmosis has been identified by EPA as a “best available technology” (BAT) and Small System Compliance Technology (SSCT) for uranium, radium, gross alpha, and beta particles and photon emitters. It can remove up to 99 percent of these radionuclides, as well as many other contaminants (e.g., arsenic, nitrate, and microbial contaminants). Reverse osmosis units can be automated and compact making them appropriate for small systems. via EPA, Radionuclides in Drinking Water

However, EPA designed its recommendations for the contaminants typically found in municipal water systems, so it doesn’t specify Iodine-131 by name. The same document goes on to say, “Reverse osmosis does not remove gaseous contaminants such as carbon dioxide and radon.” Iodine-131 escapes from damaged nuclear plants as a gas, and this is why it disperses so quickly through the atmosphere. It is captured as a gas in atmospheric water, falls to the earth in rain and enters the water supply.

Dissolved gases and materials that readily turn into gases also can easily pass through most reverse osmosis membranes,” according to the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension. For this reason, “many reverse osmosis units have an activated carbon unit to remove or reduce the concentration of most organic compounds.” Activated Carbon

That raises the next question: does activated carbon remove iodine-131? There is some evidence that it does. Scientists have used activated carbon to remove iodine-131 from the liquid fuel for nuclear solution reactors. And Carbon air filtration is used by employees of Perkin Elmer, a leading environmental monitoring and health safety firm, when they work with iodine-131 in closed quarters. At least one university has adopted Perkin Elmer’s procedures. Activated carbon works by absorbing contaminants, and fixing them, as water passes through it. It has a disadvantage, however: it eventually reaches a load capacity and ceases to absorb new contaminants.

Ion Exchange The EPA also recommends ion exchange for removing radioactive compounds from drinking water. The process used in water softeners, ion exchange removes contaminants when water passes through resins that contain sodium ions. The sodium ions readily exchange with contaminants.

Ion exchange is particularly recommended for removing Cesium-137, which has been found in rain samples in the U.S., but not yet in drinking water here. Some resins have been specifically designed for capturing Cesium-137, and ion exchange was used to clean up legacy nuclear waste from an old reactor at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site (pdf).

Upcoming Events A July 28 public Nuclear Regulatory Commission meeting will focus on the agency’s near-term task force recommendations for safety enhancements at U.S. nuclear energy facilities after the Fukushima accident. The Foundation for Nuclear Studies will host a July 29 briefing and discussion on the status of Fukushima Daiichi for congressional staff in Washington, D.C. The briefing will be conducted by Lake Barrett, former NRC site director for Three Mile Island and former acting director of the DOE Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.

VZCZCXRO8369 RR RUEHBC RUEHDBU RUEHDE RUEHDIR RUEHKUK RUEHLN RUEHPOD RUEHSK RUEHVK RUEHYG DE RUEHMO #0851/01 0930402 ZNR UUUUU ZZH R 030402Z APR 09 FM AMEMBASSY MOSCOW TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 2715 INFO RUEHSF/AMEMBASSY SOFIA 0616 RUEHKV/AMEMBASSY KYIV 0335 RUEHSK/AMEMBASSY MINSK RUEHCV/AMEMBASSY CARACAS 0286 RUEHTRO/AMEMBASSY TRIPOLI RUEHUM/AMEMBASSY ULAANBAATAR 0304 RUCNCIS/CIS COLLECTIVE RUEHXD/MOSCOW POLITICAL COLLECTIVE RUEHII/VIENNA IAEA POSTS COLLECTIVE RUCNIRA/IRAN COLLECTIVE RHMFIUU/DEPT OF ENERGY WASHINGTON DC RUEANFA/NRC WASHDC RUEHLN/AMCONSUL ST PETERSBURG 5295 RUEHVK/AMCONSUL VLADIVOSTOK 3181 RUEHYG/AMCONSUL YEKATERINBURG 3534

SUBJECT: RUSSIA'S ATOMSTROYEXPORT CANNOT FULFILL EXISTING INTERNATIONAL NUCLEAR ENERGY CONTRACTS, BUT SEEKS NEW ONES REF A: ANKARA 111, REF B: 08 YEREVAN 1049, REF C: 08 MOSCOW 908 MOSCOW 00000851 001.2 OF 003

¶1. (SBU) Summary: Russian policymakers are relying on Russia's competitive advantage in civilian nuclear power to help it diversify its natural resources-based economy. Atomstroyexport, Russia's international nuclear power plant constructor is diligently pursuing construction contracts for 11 new nuclear reactors in India, Iran, Bulgaria, and Ukraine. It is in active discussions on another six reactors (two in China and a Build-Own-Operate plant with four reactors in Turkey). At least four other countries have stated their interest in having Russian-design reactors as their entry into the nuclear power arena. However, the crunch on credit, insufficient machine-building infrastructure, and a paucity of trained specialists make it unlikely that Atomstroyexport will be able to realize all of these plans soon. End Summary.

We're also lucky that this particular plant isn't as close to an urban centre as many others in the US. It's nearly 50 miles from Richmond, and about 100 miles from Washington, DC. But the plant that the NRC deemed most at risk was the Indian Point 3 reactor in Buchanan, New York – just 38 miles from New York City. This is the primary reason why New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has called for the plant to be shut down. After Fukushima, everyone within 50 miles of the plant had to be evacuated. Right now, our evacuation plans for all our nuclear sites only cover a 10-mile radius. If something really bad were to happen at Indian Point, it could create the need to evacuate 21 million people

The North Anna plant is located about 15 miles from the epicentre of the quake in Mineral, Virginia. It was designed to withstand a 6.2-magnitude quake, according to its owner, Dominion Resources. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission lists the plant as one of the 10 US plants most at risk of damage in a seismic event. So, it seems like we got lucky in this case.

Though a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told reporters that "as far as we know, everything is safe", the event revived fears about the safety of US nuclear plants. Most of the region's reactors were reportedly designed to withstand a 5.9 to 6.1 magnitude quake – which means Tuesday's quake was, for many, too close for comfort.

don't believe we're going to shut down our existing nuclear energy infrastructure entirely any time soon. But at the very least, the 23 August quake should be a reminder that our worst-case scenarios might not be bad enough. We should perhaps rethink just how ready we are for the worst.

9. The Mediterranean

For years, there have been allegations that the ‘Ndrangheta syndicate of the Italian mafia has been using the seas as a convenient location in which to dump hazardous waste — including radioactive waste — charging for the service and pocketing the profits. An Italian NGO, Legambiente, suspects that about 40 ships loaded with toxic and radioactive waste have disappeared in Mediterranean waters since 1994. If true, these allegations paint a worrying picture of an unknown amount of nuclear waste in the Mediterranean whose true danger will only become clear when the hundreds of barrels degrade or somehow otherwise break open. The beauty of the Mediterranean Sea may well be concealing an environmental catastrophe in the making.

8. The Somalian Coast

The Italian mafia organization just mentioned has not just stayed in its own region when it comes to this sinister business. There are also allegations that Somalian waters and soil, unprotected by government, have been used for the sinking or burial of nuclear waste and toxic metals — including 600 barrels of toxic and nuclear waste, as well as radioactive hospital waste. Indeed, the United Nations’ Environment Program believes that the rusting barrels of waste washed up on the Somalian coastline during the 2004 Tsunami were dumped as far back as the 1990s. The country is already an anarchic wasteland, and the effects of this waste on the impoverished population could be as bad if not worse than what they have already experienced.

7. Mayak, Russia

3. Mailuu-Suu, Kyrgyzstan

6. Sellafield, UK

The industrial complex of Mayak, in Russia's north-east, has had a nuclear plant for decades, and in 1957 was the site of one of the world’s worst nuclear accidents. Up to 100 tons of radioactive waste were released by an explosion, contaminating a massive area. The explosion was kept under wraps until the 1980s. Starting in the 1950s, waste from the plant was dumped in the surrounding area and into Lake Karachay. This has led to contamination of the water supply that thousands rely on daily. Experts believe that Karachay may be the most radioactive place in the world, and over 400,000 people have been exposed to radiation from the plant as a result of the various serious incidents that have occurred — including fires and deadly dust storms. The natural beauty of Lake Karachay belies its deadly pollutants, with the radiation levels where radioactive waste flows into its waters enough to give a man a fatal dose within an hour.

5. Siberian Chemical Combine, Russia

Mayak is not the only contaminated site in Russia; Siberia is home to a chemical facility that contains over four decades' worth of nuclear waste. Liquid waste is stored in uncovered pools and poorly maintained containers hold over 125,000 tons of solid waste, while underground storage has the potential to leak to groundwater. Wind and rain have spread the contamination to wildlife and the surrounding area. And various minor accidents have led to plutonium going missing and explosions spreading radiation. While the snowy landscape may look pristine and immaculate, the facts make clear the true level of pollution to be found here

4. The Polygon, Kazakhstan

Once the location for the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons testing, this area is now part of modern-day Kazakhstan. The site was earmarked for the Soviet atomic bomb project due to its “uninhabited” status — despite the fact that 700,000 people lived in the area. The facility was where the USSR detonated its first nuclear bomb and is the record-holder for the place with the largest concentration of nuclear explosions in the world: 456 tests over 40 years from 1949 to 1989. While the testing carried out at the facility — and its impact in terms of radiation exposure — were kept under wraps by the Soviets until the facility closed in 1991, scientists estimate that 200,000 people have had their health directly affected by the radiation. The desire to destroy foreign nations has led to the specter of nuclear contamination hanging over the heads of those who were once citizens of the USSR.

Located on the west coast of England, Sellafield was originally a plutonium production facility for nuclear bombs, but then moved into commercial territory. Since the start of its operation, hundreds of accidents have occurred at the plant, and around two thirds of the buildings themselves are now classified as nuclear waste. The plant releases some 8 million liters of contaminated waste into the sea on a daily basis, making the Irish Sea the most radioactive sea in the world. England is known for its green fields and rolling landscapes, but nestled in the heart of this industrialized nation is a toxic, accident-prone facility, spewing dangerous waste into the oceans of the world.

Considered one of the top ten most polluted sites on Earth by the 2006 Blacksmith Institute report, the radiation at Mailuu-Suu comes not from nuclear bombs or power plants, but from mining for the materials needed in the processes they entail. The area was home to a uranium mining and processing facility and is now left with 36 dumps of uranium waste — over 1.96 million cubic meters. The region is also prone to seismic activity, and any disruption of the containment could expose the material or cause some of the waste to fall into rivers, contaminating water used by hundreds of thousands of people. These people may not ever suffer the perils of nuclear attack, but nonetheless they have good reason to live in fear of radioactive fallout every time the earth shakes.

2. Chernobyl, Ukraine

Home to one of the world’s worst and most infamous nuclear accidents, Chernobyl is still heavily contaminated, despite the fact that a small number of people are now allowed into the area for a limited amount of time. The notorious accident caused over 6 million people to be exposed to radiation, and estimates as to the number of deaths that will eventually occur due to the Chernobyl accident range from 4,000 to as high as 93,000. The accident released 100 times more radiation than the Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombs. Belarus absorbed 70 percent of the radiation, and its citizens have been dealing with increased cancer incidence ever since. Even today, the word Chernobyl conjures up horrifying images of human suffering.

1. Fukushima, Japan

The 2011 earthquake and tsunami was a tragedy that destroyed homes and lives, but the effects of the Fukushima nuclear power plant may be the most long-lasting danger. The worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, the incident caused meltdown of three of the six reactors, leaking radiation into the surrounding area and the sea, such that radiative material has been detected as far as 200 miles from the plant. As the incident and its ramifications are still unfolding, the true scale of the environmental impact is still unknown. The world may still be feeling the effects of this disaster for generations to come.

Nuclear reactors produce about 20 percent of the nation's electricity, but the country's reactors are aging. No new reactor has been planned and completed since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. In April through June, NEI lobbied Congress, the Commerce Department, the Defense Department, the Executive Office of the President, the Departments of Transportation, Energy, State and Homeland Security Department, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Office of Management and Budget, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, according to the report the NEI filed July 19 with the House clerk's office. Lobbyists are required to disclose activities that could influence members of the executive and legislative branches of government under a federal law enacted in 1995.