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Areva is a process, devised by a French firm of the same name, whereby radioactive isotopes are bound together by chemicals that are injected into the contaminated water of a reactor’s cooling system.

These standards are also being applied to humans. According to Gunderson, “Kids are now allowed to get the same dosages as adult nuclear workers would get in the U.S. It’s a complete distortion of radiation physics.” Another recent development that has Gunderson concerned is the buildup of radioactive sewage that poses a catastrophic risk to drinking water. “Before the accident, they used to turn the sewage into building blocks,” says Gunderson. “Now they can’t. So they have these enormous piles of sewage sludge that can’t be disposed of.  It’s not yet in the ground water, but it’s heading that way.”

“What’s happening off site is frightening,” says Gunderson. “Dangerous levels of radioactive contamination are being found in kids’ urine, mothers’ breast milk and animal meat. I’m estimating that over the course of the next 20 years, there’ll be a million cancers. If they’re not caught soon enough, many of those will be fatal.” “The first cancers will affect the thyroids,” Gunderson predicts. “They take about three years. In three to five years it’ll move on to the lungs. In the northern prefectures, I expect a 20 percent increase in lung cancers.”

Instead of taking steps to raise public awareness about the dangers of exposure to contaminated food products that will contribute to these cancer risks, the Japanese government is doing just the opposite. “They’re raising the radiation standards,” Gunderson reports. “Before, 600 becquerels [measure of radioactivity] were the most you could have in beef. Now they’ve raised the bar to 6,000. They’re telling people it’s safe.”

Gunderson continued, “They’re cooling the reactors by pouring treated water into the top and onto the floor. That has a tendency to build up lots more radioactivity in the filters that are trapping it, but it’s not building up any more water, and that’s a good thing because they’ve run out of space on site.”

The Japanese have also initiated a campaign to get people to return to homes as close as 20 miles from the site of the accident. They’re clearing streets and playgrounds, but everything else is still contaminated. “On the sides of the roads where the runoff is, we’re seeing 50,000- 60,000 becquerels in a pound of dirt,” adds Gunderson.

“My biggest concern is that the Japanese are burning rubbish,” he says. “Farmers in rural areas are burning their contaminated crops and those in urban areas are burning their trash. If two pounds of material has less than 8,000 becquerels, the government allows it to be burned.”

Gunderson says the government also allows blending of highly contaminated material with material that isn’t, creating an even more lethal mix that, when burned, revolatilizes the deadly, cancer-inducing cesium. The resulting plumes not only drift into neighboring communities, he said, but are also caught up in wind currents that reach the western coast of the United States and Canada.

To achieve the goals set in the emergency plan, the government will lead decontamination activities to scale down areas where radiation exposure is expected to top 20 millisieverts a year, such as within the 20-km no-entry zone around the plant, it said.

Local governments can request the cleanup of contamination if safety is assured. Reactors spewed less The amount of radioactive substances emitted into the atmosphere from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant is now estimated at 570,000 terabecquerels, down from an earlier estimate of 630,000 terabecquerels, the chairman of the Nuclear Safety Commission said.

Given a large margin of error in an estimate of this kind, however, the figure "may change greatly" as more data on the nuclear accident become available, Haruki Madarame said Wednesday. The Nuclear Industrial and Safety Agency has made its own estimate that the total amount of radioactive substances released into the air from the plant is 770,000 terabecquerels.

In the Chernobyl nuclear accident of 1986, an estimated 5.2 million terabecquerels of radioactive substances were discharged into the atmosphere. The earlier estimate was revised based on new data on the release of radioactive substances in the four days from March 12, when the first of a series of explosions occurred at the plant. According to the recalculated estimate by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, 130,000 terabecquerels of iodine-131 and 11,000 terabecquerels of cesium-137 were emitted into the air from March 11 through April 5, Madarame said.

To accelerate the decontamination work, the Kan administration has decided to set up an office to deal with radioactive contamination within the Cabinet and a decontamination team in Fukushima Prefecture.

The education and science ministry estimates that radiation accumulation at 35 places inside the warning area in a period of one year from the start of the nuclear fiasco will exceed 20 millisieverts per year, a level sufficient enough to trigger an evacuation order. At 14 of these places, it is estimated that the radiation level will be more than 100 millisieverts per year. At one place, it is estimated that the level will be 508.1 millisieverts per year and at another 223.7 millisieverts per year.

The data underline the need for the central government to carry out decontamination work methodically and with perseverance. It also should take a serious look at the fact that radioactive contamination has spread outside Fukushima Prefecture. Beef cows in many parts of eastern Japan were fed on radioactive rice straw and the cows were was shipped to all the prefectures except Okinawa. Radioactive contamination has also been detected in sludge of sewage treatment plants in many parts of eastern Japan.

The central government must establish methods to decontaminate areas so that local governments can easily emulate them. It is expected to collect necessary data from a model project in the Ryozan area in Date, Fukushima Prefecture. Decontamination will be carried out in an area of 100-meter-by-100-meter square that will include agricultural fields and houses with extremely high radiation levels.

Depending on the nature of soil, the central government will try several decontamination methods such as directing high pressure water to wash away radioactive substances and removing soil after hardening it with chemicals. After determining the cost and benefit of the contamination work, and the amount of radioactive substances collected, it will write a decontamination manual as well as develop computer software to measure the effect of decontamination work.

Another problem is how to deal with radioactive rubble in areas devastated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, and radioactive sludge that has accumulated at sewage treatment plants. Decontamination of areas contaminated with radioactive substances will also produce contaminated soil. The central government must hurriedly find places for long-term storage of contaminated rubble, sludge and soil.

Your Party has made a reasonable proposal concerning decontamination work. It calls for giving priority to decontaminating areas close to Fukushima No. 1, radiation "hot spots," as well as kindergartens and parks. Its main aim is to minimize the effect of radiation on children and pregnant women. The central government and other parties should carefully study the proposal and take legislative and other necessary actions.

To ensure effective decontamination, detailed radiation maps will be indispensable. A reliable system to accurately gauge radiation levels of various foods also should be set up. Decontamination will be a difficult and time-consuming task. It is important that the central and local governments give accurate information about the situation to local residents and avoid giving a false hope about when evacuees can return to their homes. The central government envisages a long-term goal of limiting people's radiation exposure to 1 millisievert per year. But Mr. Shunichi Tanaka, a former acting chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, who carried out decontamination work in Iidate and Date in Fukushima Prefecture, says that in some places in the prefecture, it is impossible to lower the radiation level to 1 millisievert per year and that a realistic goal should be 5 millisieverts per year. Informed public discussions should be held on this point.

And Ahmad Al-Malabeh, a professor in the Earth and Environmental Sciences department of Hashemite University, adds: "Jordan is rich not only in solar and wind resources, but also in oil shale rock, from which we can extract oil that can cover Jordan's energy needs in the coming years, starting between 2016 and 2017 ... this could give us more time to have more economically feasible renewable energy."

Finance, rather than Fukushima, may delay South Africa's nuclear plans, which were approved just five days after the Japanese disaster. South Africa remains resolute in its plans to build six new nuclear reactors by 2030. Katse Maphoto, the director of Nuclear Safety, Liabilities and Emergency Management at the Department of Energy, says that the government conducted a safety review of its two nuclear reactors in Cape Town, following the Fukushima event.

Vietnam's nuclear energy targets remain ambitious despite scientists' warning of a tsunami risk. Vietnam's plan to power 10 per cent of its electricity grid with nuclear energy within 20 years is the most ambitious nuclear energy plan in South-East Asia. The country's first nuclear plant, Ninh Thuan, is to be built with support from a state-owned Russian energy company and completed by 2020. Le Huy Minh, director of the Earthquake and Tsunami Warning Centre at Vietnam's Institute of Geophysics, has warned that Vietnam's coast would be affected by tsunamis in the adjacent South China Sea.

Larkin says nuclear energy is the only alternative to coal for generating adequate electricity. "What other alternative do we have? Renewables are barely going to do anything," he said. He argues that nuclear is capable of supplying 85 per cent of the base load, or constantly needed, power supply, while solar energy can only produce between 17 and 25 per cent. But, despite government confidence, Larkin says that a shortage of money may delay the country's nuclear plans.

The government has said yes but hasn't said how it will pay for it. This is going to end up delaying by 15 years any plans to build a nuclear station."

The Ninh Thuan nuclear plant would sit 80 to 100 kilometres from a fault line on the Vietnamese coast, potentially exposing it to tsunamis, according to state media. But Vuong Huu Tan, president of the state-owned Vietnam Atomic Energy Commission, told state media in March, however, that lessons from the Fukushima accident will help Vietnam develop safe technologies. And John Morris, an Australia-based energy consultant who has worked as a geologist in Vietnam, says the seismic risk for nuclear power plants in the country would not be "a major issue" as long as the plants were built properly. Japan's nuclear plants are "a lot more earthquake prone" than Vietnam's would be, he adds.

Undeterred by Fukushima, Nigeria is forging ahead with nuclear collaborations. There is no need to panic because of the Fukushima accident, says Shamsideen Elegba, chair of the Forum of Nuclear Regulatory Bodies in Africa. Nigeria has the necessary regulatory system to keep nuclear activities safe. "The Nigerian Nuclear Regulatory Authority [NNRA] has established itself as a credible organisation for regulatory oversight on all uses of ionising radiation, nuclear materials and radioactive sources," says Elegba who was, until recently, the NNRA's director general.

Vietnam is unlikely to experience much in the way of anti-nuclear protests, unlike neighbouring Indonesia and the Philippines, where civil society groups have had more influence, says Kevin Punzalan, an energy expert at De La Salle University in the Philippines. Warnings from the Vietnamese scientific community may force the country's ruling communist party to choose alternative locations for nuclear reactors, or to modify reactor designs, but probably will not cause extreme shifts in the one-party state's nuclear energy strategy, Punzalan tells SciDev.Net.

Will the Philippines' plans to rehabilitate a never-used nuclear power plant survive the Fukushima accident? The Philippines is under a 25-year moratorium on the use of nuclear energy which expires in 2022. The government says it remains open to harnessing nuclear energy as a long-term solution to growing electricity demand, and its Department of Science and Technology has been making public pronouncements in favour of pursuing nuclear energy since the Fukushima accident. Privately, however, DOST officials acknowledge that the accident has put back their job of winning the public over to nuclear by four or five years.

In the meantime, the government is trying to build capacity. The country lacks, for example, the technical expertise. Carmencita Bariso, assistant director of the Department of Energy's planning bureau, says that, despite the Fukushima accident, her organisation has continued with a study on the viability, safety and social acceptability of nuclear energy. Bariso says the study would include a proposal for "a way forward" for the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant, the first nuclear reactor in South East Asia at the time of its completion in 1985. The $2.3-billion Westinghouse light water reactor, about 60 miles north of the capital, Manila, was never used, though it has the potential to generate 621 megawatts of power. President Benigno Aquino III, whose mother, President Corazon Aquino, halted work on the facility in 1986 because of corruption and safety issues, has said it will never be used as a nuclear reactor but could be privatised and redeveloped as a conventional power plant.

But Mark Cojuangco, former lawmaker, authored a bill in 2008 seeking to start commercial nuclear operations at the Bataan reactor. His bill was not passed before Congress adjourned last year and he acknowledges that the Fukushima accident has made his struggle more difficult. "To go nuclear is still the right thing to do," he says. "But this requires a societal decision. We are going to spark public debates with a vengeance as soon as the reports from Fukushima are out." Amended bills seeking both to restart the reactor, and to close the issue by allowing either conversion or permanent closure, are pending in both the House and the Senate. Greenpeace, which campaigns against nuclear power, believes the Fukushima accident has dimmed the chances of commissioning the Bataan plant because of "increased awareness of what radioactivity can do to a place". Many parts of the country are prone to earthquakes and other natural disasters, which critics say makes it unsuitable both for the siting of nuclear power stations and the disposal of radioactive waste.

In Kenya, nuclear proponents argue for a geothermal – nuclear mix In the same month as the Fukushima accident, inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency approved Kenya's application for its first nuclear power station (31 March), a 35,000 megawatt facility to be built at a cost of Sh950 billion (US$9.8 billion) on a 200-acre plot on the Athi Plains, about 50km from Nairobi

The plant, with construction driven by Kenya's Nuclear Electricity Project Committee, should be commissioned in 2022. The government claims it could satisfy all of Kenya's energy needs until 2040. The demand for electricity is overwhelming in Kenya. Less than half of residents in the capital, Nairobi, have grid electricity, while the rural rate is two per cent. James Rege, Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Energy, Communication and Information, takes a broader view than the official government line, saying that geothermal energy, from the Rift Valley project is the most promising option. It has a high production cost but remains the country's "best hope". Nuclear should be included as "backup". "We are viewing nuclear energy as an alternative source of power. The cost of fossil fuel keeps escalating and ordinary Kenyans can't afford it," Rege tells SciDev.Net.

Hydropower is limited by rivers running dry, he says. And switching the country's arable land to biofuel production would threaten food supplies. David Otwoma, secretary to the Energy Ministry's Nuclear Electricity Development Project, agrees that Kenya will not be able to industrialise without diversifying its energy mix to include more geothermal, nuclear and coal. Otwoma believes the expense of generating nuclear energy could one day be met through shared regional projects but, until then, Kenya has to move forward on its own. According to Rege, much as the nuclear energy alternative is promising, it is extremely important to take into consideration the Fukushima accident. "Data is available and it must be one step at a time without rushing things," he says. Otwoma says the new nuclear Kenya can develop a good nuclear safety culture from the outset, "but to do this we need to be willing to learn all the lessons and embrace them, not forget them and assume that won't happen to us".

But the government adopted its Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) for 2010-2030 five days after the Fukushima accident. Elliot Mulane, communications manager for the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation, (NECSA) a public company established under the 1999 Nuclear Energy Act that promotes nuclear research, said the timing of the decision indicated "the confidence that the government has in nuclear technologies". And Dipuo Peters, energy minister, reiterated the commitment in her budget announcement earlier this year (26 May), saying: "We are still convinced that nuclear power is a necessary part of our strategy that seeks to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions through a diversified portfolio, comprising some fossil-based, renewable and energy efficiency technologies". James Larkin, director of the Radiation and Health Physics Unit at the University of the Witwatersrand, believes South Africa is likely to go for the relatively cheap, South Korean generation three reactor.

It is not only that we say so: an international audit came here in 2006 to assess our procedure and processes and confirmed the same. Elegba is firmly of the view that blame for the Fukushima accident should be allocated to nature rather than human error. "Japan is one of the leaders not only in that industry, but in terms of regulatory oversight. They have a very rigorous system of licensing. We have to make a distinction between a natural event, or series of natural events and engineering infrastructure, regulatory infrastructure, and safety oversight." Erepamo Osaisai, Director General of the Nigeria Atomic Energy Commission (NAEC), has said there is "no going back" on Nigeria's nuclear energy project after Fukushima.

Nigeria is likely to recruit the Russian State Corporation for Atomic Energy, ROSATOM, to build its first proposed nuclear plant. A delegation visited Nigeria (26- 28 July) and a bilateral document is to be finalised before December. Nikolay Spassy, director general of the corporation, said during the visit: "The peaceful use of nuclear power is the bedrock of development, and achieving [Nigeria's] goal of being one of the twenty most developed countries by the year 2020 would depend heavily on developing nuclear power plants." ROSATOM points out that the International Atomic Energy Agency monitors and regulates power plant construction in previously non-nuclear countries. But Nnimmo Bassey, executive director of the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN), said "We cannot see the logic behind the government's support for a technology that former promoters in Europe, and other technologically advanced nations, are now applying brakes to. "What Nigeria needs now is investment in safe alternatives that will not harm the environment and the people. We cannot accept the nuclear option."

Thirsty for electricity, and desirous of political clout, Egypt is determined that neither Fukushima ― nor revolution ― will derail its nuclear plans. Egypt was the first country in the Middle East and North Africa to own a nuclear programme, launching a research reactor in 1961. In 2007 Egypt 'unfroze' a nuclear programme that had stalled in the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster. After the Egyptian uprising in early 2011, and the Fukushima accident, the government postponed an international tender for the construction of its first plant.

Yassin Ibrahim, chairman of the Nuclear Power Plants Authority, told SciDev.Net: "We put additional procedures in place to avoid any states of emergency but, because of the uprising, the tender will be postponed until we have political stability after the presidential and parliamentary election at the end of 2011". Ibrahim denies the nuclear programme could be cancelled, saying: "The design specifications for the Egyptian nuclear plant take into account resistance to earthquakes and tsunamis, including those greater in magnitude than any that have happened in the region for the last four thousand years. "The reactor type is of the third generation of pressurised water reactors, which have not resulted in any adverse effects to the environment since they began operation in the early sixties."

Ibrahim El-Osery, a consultant in nuclear affairs and energy at the country's Nuclear Power Plants Authority, points out that Egypt's limited resources of oil and natural gas will run out in 20 years. "Then we will have to import electricity, and we can't rely on renewable energy as it is still not economic yet — Egypt in 2010 produced only two per cent of its needs through it." But there are other motives for going nuclear, says Nadia Sharara, professor of mineralogy at Assiut University. "Owning nuclear plants is a political decision in the first place, especially in our region. And any state that has acquired nuclear technology has political weight in the international community," she says. "Egypt has the potential to own this power as Egypt's Nuclear Materials Authority estimates there are 15,000 tons of untapped uranium in Egypt." And she points out it is about staying ahead with technology too. "If Egypt freezes its programme now because of the Fukushima nuclear disaster it will fall behind in many science research fields for at least the next 50 years," she warned.

Is nuclear energy cost efficient? A 2009 Massachusetts Institute of Technology study, which strongly recommended enhancing the role of nuclear power to offset climate change [2], found that nuclear electricity costs more per kilowatt-hour (kWh): 8.4 cents versus 6.2/6.5 cents for coal/gas. It suggested that as fossil fuel depletes, the nuclear-fossil price ratio will turn around. But it hasn't yet. The World Bank has labelled nuclear plants "large white elephants". [3] Its Environmental Assessment Source Book says: "Nuclear plants are thus uneconomic because at present and projected costs they are unlikely to be the least-cost alternative.

The aftermath of a Fukushima-type incident might look very different in many developing countries. With volatile populations and little disaster management capability, the social response would probably be quite different. In Japan, tsunami survivors helped each other, relief teams operated unobstructed, and rescuers had full radiation protection gear. No panic, and no anti-government demonstrations followed the reactor explosions. Questions about cost

There is also evidence that the cost figures usually cited by suppliers are substantially underestimated and often fail to take adequately into account waste disposal, decommissioning, and other environmental costs." [4] According to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the cost of permanently shutting down a reactor ranges from US$300 million to US$400 million. [5] This is a hefty fraction of the reactor's original cost (20–30 per cent). While countries like France or South Korea do find nuclear energy profitable, they may be exceptions to a general rule. Countries that lack engineering capacity to make their own reactors will pay more to import and operate the technology.

Poor track record, military ambitions The track record of nuclear power in developing countries scarcely inspires confidence. Take the case of Pakistan, which still experiences long, daily electricity blackouts. Forty years ago, the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission had promised that the country's entire electricity demand would be met from nuclear reactors. Although the commission helped produce 100 nuclear bombs, and employs over 30,000 people, it has come nowhere close to meeting the electricity target. Two reactors combine to produce about 0.7 GW, which meets around 2 per cent of Pakistan's electricity consumption.

India's record is also less than stellar. In 1962, it announced that installed nuclear capacity would be 18–20 GW by 1987; but it could reach only 1.48 GW by that year. Today, only 2.7 per cent of India's electricity comes from nuclear fuels. In 1994, an accident during the construction of two reactors at the Kaiga Generating Station pushed up their cost to four times the initial estimate. Cost overruns and delays are frequent, not just in India. And some developing countries' interest in nuclear technology for energy could mask another purpose. India and Pakistan built their weapon-making capacity around their civilian nuclear infrastructure. They were not the first, and will not be the last.

Warning bells ring loud and clear when big oil-producing countries start looking to build nuclear plants. Iran, with the second largest petroleum reserves in the world, now stands at the threshold of making a bomb using low enriched uranium fuel prepared for its reactors. Saudi Arabia, a rival which will seek its bomb if Iran makes one, has plans to spend over US$300 billion to build 16 nuclear reactors over the next 20 years. Climate change gives urgency to finding non-fossil fuel energy alternatives. But making a convincing case for nuclear power is getting harder. Neither cheap nor safe, it faces an uphill battle. Unless there is a radical technical breakthrough — such as a workable reactor fuelled by nuclear fusion rather than nuclear fission — its prospects for growth look bleak. Pervez Hoodbhoy received his PhD in nuclear physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA. He teaches at the School of Science and Engineering at LUMS (Lahore) and at Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan.

Local governments have been instructed to temporarily store their ash and dust at disposal sites until the panel reaches a conclusion. The ministry said it will ask the prefectures to continue monitoring radiation levels in the material. Incinerator ash containing cesium was detected at seven facilities in Fukushima Prefecture, the report said.

The Environment Ministry asked prefectures to monitor cesium levels after dust with 9,740 becquerels per kilogram was found at an incineration plant in Tokyo's Edogawa Ward in June. Before that, the only prefectures that had collected and released such data were Gunma and Ibaraki. The other prefectures that took part in the survey were Miyagi, Akita, Yamagata, Saitama, Kanagawa, Niigata, Yamanashi, Nagano and Shizuoka.

The ministry said it will ask the prefectures to continue monitoring radiation levels in the material.

Incinerator ash containing cesium was detected at seven facilities in Fukushima Prefecture, the report said. The Environment Ministry asked prefectures to monitor cesium levels after dust with 9,740 becquerels per kilogram was found at an incineration plant in Tokyo's Edogawa Ward in June. Before that, the only prefectures that had collected and released such data were Gunma and Ibaraki. The other prefectures that took part in the survey were Miyagi, Akita, Yamagata, Saitama, Kanagawa, Niigata, Yamanashi, Nagano and Shizuoka.

Yet in the entire history of the nuclear industry, there have been three major reactor accidents: Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, Chernobyl in Russia and Fukushima. And apart from Chernobyl — which was caused by a flawed reactor design that is not employed anywhere in the United States — no nuclear workers or members of the public have ever died as a result of exposure to radiation from a commercial nuclear plant. This fact is attributable to sound designs, strong construction, a culture in which safety always comes first, a highly trained, conscientious workforce, and rigorous government oversight.

Nuclear power plants are constantly upgraded.Unlike cars or appliances that are typically run until they break down, U.S. nuclear plants have a proactive aging-management program that replaces equipment well before it has the opportunity to malfunction. Using the car analogy, think of it this way: While the body of the car may have been manufactured years ago, its engine and safety systems are upgraded and rebuilt continuously with state-of-the-art components over time.In 2009 alone, the U.S. nuclear industry invested approximately $6.5 billion to upgrade plant systems with the latest technology. Continuous upgrades have always been the standard for U.S. nuclear plants for many reasons — most importantly protecting the health and safely of the public and workers. This industry considers continuous improvement to be a necessary investment rather than "optional" expense.

The amount of spent fuel is small and can be managed safely.In many cases, the issue of storing used fuel is discussed without proper context.Used nuclear fuel is in the form of solid pellets about the size of a pencil eraser. The fact is, the total amount of waste generated by the entire U.S. nuclear industry over more than 60 years of operation would fit in the area of one football field. For this entire time, we have safely and securely stored this fuel on-site in specially-designed pools and in strongly-engineered dry storage containers.

Nobody would argue that the on-site storage of used fuel is ideal. But it is a responsible option for now, since the relative amount of used fuel is so small; because multiple levels of safety and security protection have proven to be effective; more than 50 years of scientific research, engineering and experience proves that it can be stored with little environmental impact; and on-site storage is the only option utilities have until the federal government fulfills its responsibility to identify a long-term disposal solution.Moreover, only a small percentage of the available energy has been harvested from this fuel at the point when regulations require it to be stored on-site. This fuel should be recycled and re-used, as other countries have successfully concluded. But until political barriers in this country allow for this logical path, it must be stored on-site.

Nuclear plants have more government oversight than any other industry.The rigor and comprehensiveness of nuclear safety oversight in the United States is extraordinary. Our licensing and regulatory process is studied and emulated worldwide.Every nuclear power plant in the United States has multiple government inspectors on-site, year-round. They are top experts in the field and have unrestricted access to all vital areas of the plant, including plant records. In addition to these daily oversight activities, each plant frequently undergoes multiple evaluations and inspections that include detailed reviews of security, emergency planning, environmental protection, industrial safety, critical plant systems, plant culture and safety processes — all of which are aimed at ensuring the continued safe operation of these facilities.

Honest questioning from concerned citizens regarding nuclear energy is understandable. A thinking society should continuously strive for accurate, credible validation of its technologies. As to the safety and security of U.S. nuclear plants, the facts are reassuring. I firmly believe that these — and other facts — should be the basis for any discussion on the future of nuclear energy here in America.

However, in 2010 the NDA and ten Japanese utilities agreed on a plan to refurbish the SMP "on the earliest timescale" using technology from France's Areva. A new rod manufacturing line was being installed which, as well as improving overall performance, was meant to ultimately replace the existing one. The NDA's Sellafield site – including the SMP - is managed by Nuclear Management Partners, a consortium of URS of the USA, AMEC of the UK and Areva of France. Taking the back-end forward

The two major elements in the UK's strategy for the back-end of the nuclear fuel cycle were SMP and the Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (Thorp), at which used nuclear fuel is reprocessed to separate uranium and plutonium from wastes that go on to be vitrified ready for permanent disposal. A document released in March 2010 highlighted that Thorp would require refurbishment or replacement to handle the complete inventory of used nuclear fuel it was built to process - all that coming from the fleet of Advanced Gas-cooled Reactors (AGR) as well as international contracts. Some 6600 tonnes of AGR fuel remains outstanding, with options for storing it unclear until a permanent repository is available in about 2030.

Simultaneously, the UK is considering the future of some 100 tonnes of civil plutonium, which is currently classified as a 'zero value asset'. A public consultation on this ran from February to May. In late March the former science advisor to Tony Blair, Sir David King, presented a range of options which in essence showed it makes sense to produce MOX fuel from the plutonium. The question for the UK is whether it wants to offset the cost of this with extra savings and revenues from the potentially expensive return to the full nuclear fuel cycle that would come with a refurbishment of Thorp.

A cost-benefit analysis of a new MOX plant has been commissioned by the Department of Energy and Climate Change and a decision based on that is expected before the end of this year.

n an interview this week with Global Security Newswire, the high-level Energy Department official said that discussions have focused on an array of potential nuclear energy market roles for Mongolia, from mining its substantial uranium reserves to fabricating fuel and more. However, the unofficial talks have not broached the idea of Mongolia becoming a recipient of foreign-origin spent fuel, the senior figure said. "I never thought about U.S. spent fuel. Never," the Energy official said. "I never even thought about it, much less discussed it." The Obama administration generally supports the idea of creating international operations for waste storage and other fuel-cycle functions that might help stem global nuclear proliferation, but "what the Mongolian government and the Mongolian people end up deciding they want to do is completely their decision and I would not dream of imposing our views on that," the senior official said. "There's no discussion of an international spent-fuel repository," added a second Energy Department official who participated in the same interview. "What has been included as part of the comprehensive fuel services discussions are potential long-term storage of Mongolian-origin used fuel that has Mongolian uranium [in it]."

Adding Value An evolving concept of nuclear fuel "leasing" would have the Mongolians build on their existing uranium ore resources to ultimately provide reactor-ready fuel to foreign nations and, additionally, stand ready to take back used uranium fuel rods once they are depleted, according to reports. The idea, said the more junior Energy official, is that Mongolia could "potentially add long-term storage as part of the value of that uranium resource to potential buyers." Even if foreign-origin spent fuel cannot be stored in Mongolia, the nation's talks with its international partners might yet allow for U.S., Japanese or other companies to build facilities in the Central Asian nation to produce Mongolian fuel for sale abroad, which could later be returned to Ulaanbaatar for storage after it is used.

6. The industry acknowledges that nuclear power carries high risks of damage but wants governments, that is, the public, to subsidise and absorb them. 7. India has no independent authority that can evolve safety standards and regulate reactors for safety.

8. India’s energy security could be achieved by a careful mix of conventional with biomass, solar-thermal and wind, as experts have pointed out. 9. After Fukushima, advanced countries had a rethink on nuclear power expansion plans and imposed a moratorium on new reactors. India, on the other hand, is planning a necklace of nuclear power plants along its coastline, unmindful of what it means to its fragile ecology and displacement of traditional fishermen.

10. Last, but not the least, there are better and safer ways of boiling water to produce steam to turn turbines that generate electricity.

The bacteria prompt an electron transfer that turns uranium into mineral uraninite

The conference was set up by the Ministry of the Environment to expedite the acceptance of disaster debris in Iwate and Miyagi Prefectures. People in charge of waste disposal and cleaning in 43 prefectures and 74 municipalities participated.

It is considered that the March 11 disaster resulted in about 23 million tonnes of debris. However, there are many people voicing concern for radiation contamination, and the acceptance of the disaster debris is not happening except for Yamagata Prefecture which has already been accepting the debris and Tokyo which will start accepting starting the second half of October.

The Ministry of the Environment will ask the municipalities once again about their intentions and waste processing capacities, and will coordinate between the disaster-affected areas and the municipalities that will accept the debris.

As for the Tokyo Metropolitan government, it signed the agreement with Iwate Prefecture on September 30 with hardly any consultation with the Metropolitan Assembly and zero consultation with the residents to accept about 500,000 tonnes of disaster debris. The government says it tested the ashes of the disaster debris from Miyako City in Iwate Prefecture and it was only 133 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium.What the Metropolitan government didn't bother to tell anyone was that the radioactive debris were mixed with non-radioactive regular garbage and burned. The radioactive debris were supposedly 30%. However, the Ministry of the Environment itself did the testing of the disaster debris ashes in the same city back in July, and the Ministry's number was 4895 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium. (Information from Tokyo Shinbun on 10/5/2011, in Japanese)

In northern Japan, stored-up radioactive ash and dehydrated sludge from the sewage treatment process alone totaled 52,000 tones in mid-September, up 63 percent from levels at the end of July, data from the Transport Ministry showed.The volume is still growing by about 360 tones a day.The growing piles of radioactive ash are also causing financial headaches for local governments.Nagareyama city, next to Kashiwa, has set aside about 250 million yen ($3.2 million) in three of its four extra budgets so far this year for temporary storage and related projects.