radbull This has been one of the biggest news weeks in quite awhile.Â The news is mixed as usual but what a week.Â I’ve got a dentists appt tomorrow so I’m gonna cut this short but add more commentary on monday evening.Â Possibly the biggest story in years is on n-weapons with Obama officially acknowledging Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons. Right next to it is his budget news, with the top story being his complete cutoff of oil subsidies.Â Then the nuclear stories just pour in with too many to mention but by far the biggest is the Europe wide seismic shakedown over Finland’s warning of a possible closure threat to Areva’s Olkiluoto reactor.

Just to toss more stuff in, make sure to check out the policy section as there’s a story on Areva’s international blogging strategy and of course FERC’s new head that has said we don’t need any more coal orÂ nuclear.

Enjoy, and as I said, when I get back from the doctor I will be adding another bunch of stories to this as it is such a large news week.

Top Nuclear Stories Index

Reactors	Safety	NRC	Fuel Cycle	N-Waste
Policy	Weapons	DOE	Energy News	OpEd

Nuclear Reactor News

Dom Joly: Chernobyl: where better to slake a tourist’s thirst? – Dom Joly, Columnists – The Independent
Spring is in the air down in the beautiful Cotswolds. Bluebells carpet the woods while lambs are agambolling in the lush fields. Sadly I know this only from telephone calls home as I’m on a weekend break in Chernobyl.

Only 5,000 visitors a year leave Kiev, the handsome capital of the Ukraine, to take a minibus to the “exclusion zone”. This is an area 30km around reactor No 4 of the V I Lenin nuclear power station that blew up on 26 April 1986, covering Europe in a radioactive cloud.

I was at school at the time, and I remember newscasters pointing to frightening maps of the Continent showing wind patterns and the advance of “the cloud”. Some teachers at school started wearing masks and doom-laden predictions were everywhere in the press.
Nuclear plans in doubt after safety concerns | SNP – Scottish National Party
Commenting on official safety fears which have thrown the UK government’s plans to build a new generation of nuclear power stations into jeopardy, SNP Westminster Energy spokesperson, Mike Weir MP, said the situation underlined why Ministers must concentrate on creating a green energy future rather than the danger, cost and worry of new nuclear stations.

UK plans have been thrown into doubt as the nuclear regulatory body in Finland, where the first of the reactors is being built, has taken the extraordinary step of threatening to halt its construction because it is not satisfied that essential safety systems will work. The revelations come in a leaked letter from the Finish government’s Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK) and the chief executive of French nuclear company Aviva.

Mr Weir said:

“The Finnish safety concerns, and the regulators threat to pull the plug on construction, has the most serious knock on implications for the UK government’s nuclear plans.

Bataan nuke plant study ready by October – INQUIRER.net
State-run National Power Corp. expects Korea Electric Power Co. (Kepco) to submit as early as October this year the results of a feasibility study on the possible rehabilitation of the mothballed 630-megawatt Bataan nuclear power plant.

Napocor senior vice president Pio J. Benavidez told reporters that everything was on track as the 12-member Kepco team and government representatives were already doing a system verification process, which is expected to end by September.

Entergy pushes ahead with Enexus spin-off – Brattleboro Reformer
By the end of July, Entergy Nuclear hopes to have an answer from New York and Vermont on whether the spin-off of six nuclear reactors into a separate holding company will be allowed to go ahead.

“We continue to see value in pursuing a spin-off of Enexus, which will have our non-utility nuclear assets,” said J. Wayne Leonard, Entergy’s chief executive officer, during an earnings call on May 4.

Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, which is owned and operated by Entergy, is one of the six reactors Entergy wants to spin off into a new company called Enexus.

Those six reactors are called “merchant plants” or “standalone assets” because they sell power to the open market.

Other reactors owned by Entergy Nuclear, and which will remain under its umbrella, produce power with a cost that is regulated by a government entity.

Entergy needs a certificate of public good from Vermont’s Public Service Board to include Vermont Yankee in the spin-off. But if the board listens to the Department of Public Service, it won’t get the certificate.
Nuclear plant to wipe out 765 acres of wetlands – St. Petersburg Times
Progress Energy’s plans to build a $17 billion nuclear plant in rural Levy County will do more than just add advance charges to its customers’ utility bills.

The utility’s plans also calls for wiping out about 765 acres of wetlands, according to a public notice posted recently by the agency that issues federal wetland permits, the Army Corps of Engineers.

Yet Progress Energy plans to do little to replace their beneficial effect on the underground aquifer even as the new power plant slurps up more than 1 million gallons of water a day from that source. At its peak, the plant could use more than 5 million gallons a day.

Reactor at nuclear power plant resumes operation 22 months after quake – The Mainichi Daily News

Niigata — A reactor at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant
in Niigata Prefecture, which was shut down after a major earthquake in 2007, started
test operations Saturday.

Test operations of the plant’s No. 7 reactor, an advanced boiling water reactor
with an output of 1.356 million kilowatts, are due to continue for 40 to 50 days.
If all goes well, the plant will begin supplying power to the capital region after
one week, and start commercial service as early as late June.

Mountain Home News: Snake River Alliance offers its rebuttal to Gillispie’s letter
Don Gillispie’s April 29 letter to the editor was breathtaking in its inaccuracies, misstatements, and flat out lies. If this is the best the chief executive officer of the company that hopes to jam a nuclear reactor in the heart of Elmore County farmland can offer, then the opponents of Alternate Energy Holdings, Inc., have grossly overestimated its challenge in fighting the reactor.

Mr. Gillispie seems obsessed with stickers, having devoted much of his op-ed to who was wearing what kinds of stickers. It is well known in this community that Mr. Gillispie’s green AEHI stickers were doled out to those who handed his company resumes or letters asking for jobs and being told to go inside to speak out in favor of the reactor in return. It is also well known in this community that the jobs they are seeking are illusory. Even in Mr. Gillispie’s most fantastic imagination, no dirt will turn on the site for another seven to 10 years. Given the time it will take to identify a legitimate U.S. –certified reactor (he has none) and then to submit and process a power plant application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), there simply is no way it could happen sooner. The fact AEHI was trolling for job applications on April 22 before the County Commission hearing on the rezone application is the height of cynicism. If a generic department store were to come to Mountain Home and seek applications for a job at a store that would open in 2017, it would be laughed out of the county. The fact it’s a nuclear reactor means it’s no laughing matter.

Greenpeace calls for cancellation of Olkiluoto 3 construction permit – Dominican Today

Greenpeace is calling for the construction permit for the Olkiluoto European PressurizeÂ Reactor (EPR) in Finland – the world’s largest prototype nuclear reactor – to
be cancelled, following revelations of severe problems in the design of its electronic
safety control systems.

The call comes after a Finnish TV current affairs program broadcast details yesterday evening of a leaked letter from Finnish nuclear regulator STUK to Areva, the French constructor of the Olkiluoto 3 plant. The letter warns of a lack of real progress in the design of control protection systems’, which could lead to a halt in further construction work.

Monroe Evening News: Opponents, proponents square off in Fermi 3 hearing

A federal licensing panel heard claims and counter-claims Tuesday that a new Fermi
3 nuclear power plant proposed near Newport would be either a dangerous polluter
or an environmentally friendly energy supplier.

A three-member Atomic Safety Licensing Board convened at Monroe City Hall to weigh arguments against the plant from a broad coalition of environmental and citizen groups. Most of their charges that the plant would pose health and environmental risks were pooh-poohed by DTE Energy and Nuclear Regulatory Commission lawyers during the course of the five-hour hearing.

The federal panel of three administrative law judges ‘Ronald M. Spritzer, Michael F. Kennedy, and Randall J. Charbeneau ‘ will decide, possibly by the end of June, whether the claims against the plant have merit. If so, the groups will be granted the right to intervene in the formal licensing process.

DTE has applied for an NRC license to build and run Fermi 3, a 1,560-megawatt reactor expected to cost about $10 billion that could be ready to operate by 2017.

Exelon seeking 20 more years – The Times Herald News: Norristown, PA
Exelon Nuclear has made it official, announcing that it intends to file a request to extend the license on the Limerick Generating Station for another 20 years.

There’s plenty of time.

Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said the first generator at Limerick is licensed until Oct. 26, 2024, and the second generator until June 22, 2029.

Vogtle could be ‘reference site’Â – The Augusta Chronicle

Southern Co.’s Plant Vogtle in Burke County has moved into position to become
the demonstration site for the federal licensing process required of all nuclear
power plants with the new Westinghouse AP1000 reactors.

Previously, the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Bellefonte site was to be what the Nuclear Regulatory Commission refers to as the “reference site,” from which other companies applying for “combined operating license” permits could duplicate documentation already approved by the NRC.

Michigan MessengerÂ» Former federal regulator: Plans for Fermi 3 nuclear reactor could lead to job loss

Construction of a new nuclear power plant in Michigan could cost the state jobs,
according to Peter Bradford, a former Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner who toured
the state last month.

“No state has ever succeeded in improving its jobs picture by building unnecessarily expensive power plants,” he said in a phone interview. “The reason is the impact of high rate on the customers in commercial and industrial class.

Nuclear Health and Safety News

Sick workers may get compensation
People who worked at the Westinghouse Atomic Power Development Plant in East Pittsburgh from 1942 to 1944 or their survivors may be eligible for federal compensation if the workers developed one of 22 types of cancer.

The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health has recommended that employees of the plant in those years should belong to a “special exposure” group. Members of the group can qualify for a $150,000 lump sum payment and coverage of certain medical expenses.

Because even younger workers at the time would be in their 80s today, the most likely benefit will be for survivors to get the lump sum payment if their relative qualified under the program’s medical criteria, federal officials said.
Group to raise tritium concerns – Peterborough Examiner – CA
A local group is raising concerns about radioactive material levels at Peterborough Municipal Airport even though they don’t exceed limits monitored by the federal nuclear watchdog agency.

Jeff Brackett, with Safe and Green Energy Peterborough, told The Examiner yesterday he plans to speak at the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) hearing for the licence renewal for Shield Source Inc. on June 10 in Ottawa.

Shield Source, which manufactures emergency lighting and signs that don’t need to be plugged into an electrical outlet, has been at the Peterborough airport since 1986.

The company uses radioactive material — tritium — in its products.

Brackett pointed to the tritium levels recorded in soil and water near the facility and in an apple from across the road from the airport.

“Environmentalists such as ourselves believe it’s not prudent to increase your exposure to tritium because every exposure increases the risk of genetic mutation, birth defects and cancer,” he said.

Brackett added experts debate what levels of tritium cause those effects.

FR: NIOSH: contanmination cohort petition for workers at Tyson’s Farm Mo
Final Effect of Designation of a Class of Employees for Addition to the Special Exposure Cohort AGENCY: National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). ACTION: Notice.

SUMMARY: HHS gives notice concerning the final effect of the HHS decision to designate a class of employees at Tyson Valley Powder Farm near Eureka, Missouri, as an addition to the Special Exposure Cohort (SEC) under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act of 2000. On March 31, 2009, as provided for under 42 U.S.C. 7384q(b), the Secretary of HHS designated the following class of employees as an addition to the SEC: All Atomic Weapons Employer (AWE) employees who worked at Tyson Valley Powder Farm near Eureka, Missouri, from February 13, 1946 through June 30, 1948, for a number of work days aggregating at least 250 work days, occurring either solely under this employment or in combination with work days within the parameters established for one or more other classes of employees in the SEC.

FR: NIOSH: exposure cohort petition for Westinghouse workers
Final Effect of Designation of a Class of Employees for Addition to the Special Exposure Cohort AGENCY: National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). ACTION: Notice.

SUMMARY: HHS gives notice concerning the final effect of the HHS decision to designate a class of employees at Westinghouse Atomic Power Development Plant in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as an addition to the Special Exposure Cohort (SEC) under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act of 2000. On March 31, 2009, as provided for under 42 U.S.C. 7384q(b), the Secretary of HHS designated the following class of employees as an addition to the SEC: All Atomic Weapons Employer employees who worked at Westinghouse Atomic Power Development Plant in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from August 13, 1942 through December 31, 1944, for a number of work days aggregating at least 250 work days, occurring either solely under this employment or in combination with work days within the parameters established for one or more other classes of employees in the SEC.

U.S. Radiation Dose Has Doubled / Science News
Collectively, Americans now receive more than twice as much radiation each year as in the 1980s. That’s according to a new tally by the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements.

Of course, the operant word here is collectively. NCRP isn’t saying every individual is getting twice as big an annual radiation dose, only that if you sum up doses to the entire population each year, that big figure has doubled and more over the past two decades or so.

A burgeoning population accounts for 30 percent of the increase, notes Ken Kase, who chaired the NCRP panel that prepared the report. The rest of the increase stems largely from an increase in medical procedures that rely on radiation ‘ from conventional diagnostic X-rays and CT scans to radiotherapy for cancer. Kase, a semi-retired health physicist and senior vice president of NCRP, describes his team’s findings in a Q&A appearing in the May Health Physics News.

Radiation Authority Sees Safety Problems at Nuclear Site | YLE Uutiset | yle.fi

The Finnish Nuclear and Radiation Safety Authority STUK says that the construction of the commercial nuclear reactor in Olkiluoto, which is to be the world’s largest, has not proceeded according to official requirements.

STUK has demanded that the builder of the installation, the French company Areva, correct faults with the automation that guides the reactor.

YLE current affairs programme Ajankohtainen Kakkonen acquired a letter from STUK to Areva warning that the building site could be shut down if the automation is not fixed and approved.

According to STUK, the design of the automation does not meet the basic principles required for nuclear safety, and on this basis STUK does not see any possibilities to approve the automation for installation at Olkiluoto.

Mishap at Hungarian nuclear reactor
In a mishap during maintenance work, a device that measured neutron flow fell into the Block 4 reactor at the nuclear power plant in Paks, but no radioactivity was released, plant administrators said Tuesday.

The accident happened on Monday, when the winch cable broke that was to have hauled it out of the reactor interior.

There were no injuries to workers, plant officials said.

Hungarian nuclear energy officials rated the accident at level 2 on the 0-7 International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES) scale. Seven is the most serious accident.

NRC News

Lowbagger.org — Navajos Challenge Head Fed Nuke Commission In Court

For the first time in United States history, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
(NRC) will be challenged in Federal appeals court for its approval of a source
materials license for an in situ leach uranium mine.

The Navajo communities of Crownpoint and Church Rock, New Mexico, with the assistance of the New Mexico Environmental Law Center (NMELC), Eastern Navajo Dine against Uranium Mining (ENDAUM) and Southwest Research and Information Center (SRIC) will fight the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and Hydro Resources, Inc., demanding that they stay off of Navajo lands in New Mexico. NMELC will present oral arguments on May 12 to a panel of Federal judges in Denver asking that the NRC decision to allow mining be set aside.

“The importance of our hearing on May 12 cannot be overstated, states Eric Jantz, New Mexico Environmental Law Center attorney. “We are talking about the land, water, air and health of two whole communities. There are people on this land grazing their cattle and hauling their daily drinking water.

NRC: NRC Regulatory Agenda: Semiannual Report, July December 2008 (NUREG-0936, Volume 27, Number 2)
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Regulatory Agenda is a semiannual compilation of the agency’s recent rulemaking activities. It contains a summary and the status for each ongoing rulemaking and petition for rulemaking received by the agency.
Organization of the Agenda

The agenda consists of two sections that have been updated through December 31, 2008. Section I, “Rules,” includes: (A) rules on which final action has been taken since June 30, 2008, the closing date of the last NRC Regulatory Agenda; (B) rules published previously as proposed rules on which the Commission has not taken final action; (C) rules published as advance notices of proposed rulemaking for which neither a proposed nor final rule has been issued; and (D) unpublished rules on which the NRC expects to take action.

Section II, “Petitions for Rulemaking,” includes: (A) final actions on petitions for rulemaking since June 30, 2008; and (B) petitions pending staff review.

In Section I of the agenda, the rules are aligned numerically with the parts of Title 10, Chapter I, of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) (Title 10). If more than one rule appears under the same part, the rules are arranged within that part by date of most recent publication. If a rule amends multiple parts, the rule is listed under the lowest numbered affected part.

In Section II of the agenda, the petitions are aligned numerically with the parts of Title 10 and are identified with a petition for rulemaking (PRM) number. If more than one petition appears under the same CFR part, the petitions are arranged by PRM numbers in consecutive order within that part of Title 10.

NRC requests small increase for fiscal 2010 budget
NRC requested $1.071 billion for fiscal 2010, up about 2% from the $1.046 billion approved for FY-09. Both of the agency’s program areas — nuclear reactor safety, and nuclear materials and waste safety — would receive modest funding increases under the proposed budget. The agency anticipates making about $5.3 million in cuts to some of its programs, including the Office of General Inspector’s budget, which would receive about $758,000 less than the FY-09 funding. In the budget proposal released May 7 by President Barack Obama’s administration, NRC asked for $56 million from the Nuclear Waste Fund for reviewing DOE’s high-level waste repository application. NRC Chief Financial Officer Jim Dyer said the requested funding would not be an increase over the $49 million allocated in FY-09 because NRC has an additional $10 million in carryover funds from FY-08, bringing the total available funding through September to $59 million.
NRC: Oconee Nuclear operated safely | The Greenville News
But maintenance-related 2008 incident will trigger additional federal oversight

All three reactor units at Oconee Nuclear Station operated safely overall during 2008; however, Unit 1 will be under greater federal scrutiny due to an April 15 incident that raised safety concerns, federal officials said Thursday.
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With one exception, all findings during the year were of “very low safety significance, said Andy Hutto, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission senior resident inspector at the plant. Those were corrected appropriately, he said.

Only the April 15 incident rose to a level of concern that triggers additional oversight, Hutto said.

San Clemente Times – NRC Delivers Annual SONGS Assessment

Increased scrutiny for San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station after regulators
say improvements coming too slowly

Operators of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station still have not made enough progress addressing issues in the plant’s operation, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission charges, more than a year after revelations that a worker falsified records to hide that he’d skipped hourly fire patrols, and six months after an announcement that a battery on a backup generator had been inoperable for years.

In a March 4 letter to the plant’s primary owner, Southern California Edison, the NRC says San Onofre still suffers from an inability to understand and address the underlying causes of problems, and from human-performance issues.

“We’ve not been happy with the progress they’ve been making in addressing the issues we’ve identified, NRC spokesman Victor Dricks said. He added none of the issues are directly related to safety at the plant, and that the NRC plans to step up oversight and inspections until the issues are corrected.

State appeals NRC ruling – Plymouth, MA – Wicked Local Plymouth
Attorney General Martha Coakley and her counterparts in New York and Connecticut are appealing a Nuclear Regulatory Commission decision that could impact the relicensing of Pilgrim Station Nuclear Power Plant.

Massachusetts, New York and Connecticut officials have filed a brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York challenging the NRC’s ruling that there was no “new and significant information on the risks of severe accidents in the spent fuel pools at nuclear plants, including Pilgrim and Vermont Yankee, caused by terrorist attack, human error, equipment malfunction, or natural disaster.

In 2006, Massachusetts filed a petition claiming that new and significant information on these risks to Pilgrim and Vermont Yankee, both owned by Entergy Nuclear Operations, and should be part of the relicensing process for each nuclear power plant.

FR: NRC: Areva proposal to double the size of Idaho enrichment facility
AREVA Enrichment Services (AES) LLC submitted the original license application on December 30, 2008, that proposes the construction, operation and decommissioning of a gas centrifuge uranium enrichment facility to be located near Idaho Falls, Idaho. On April 24, 2009, AREVA resubmitted the application to request an enrichment capacity increase. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and 10 CFR Part 51, announces its intent to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) evaluating this proposed action. The EIS will examine the potential environmental impacts of the proposed facility. DATES: NRC invites public comments on the appropriate scope of issues to be considered in the EIS. The public scoping process begins with publication of this NOI. Written comments submitted by mail should be postmarked by no later than June 19, 2009

NRC: NRC TO HOLD PUBLIC MEETINGS MAY 19 IN WILMINGTON, N.C., ON ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW FOR PROPOSED ENRICHMENT PLANT
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will hold two public meetings May 19 in Wilmington, N.C., to seek comments about specific issues that should be addressed in its environmental review of a proposed uranium enrichment facility.

The meetings will be held at the Warwick Center, Ballroom 1, at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, from 1 to 4 p.m., and 7 to 10 p.m. NRC staff members will be available for an hour prior to each meeting to speak informally to members of the public.

General Electric-Hitachi Global Laser Enrichment, LLC, (GLE) submitted the environmental report Jan. 30, as one part of an application for a 40-year license to construct and operate a laser-based uranium enrichment facility at the existing General Electric/Global Nuclear Fuels-Americas site near Wilmington. GLE has indicated it intends to file the rest of its application Ã¢â‚¬â€œ pertaining to safety aspects of the facility by the end of June.

NRC: – “The Nuclear Renaissance in America NRC Commissioner Kristine L. Svinicki, at the French Institute for International Relations
In the United States and globally there has been much discussion in recent years of a so-called “Nuclear Renaissance. Generally speaking, this phrase describes a renewed interest by government and industry in nuclear power as a solution to a number of the world’s most daunting problems, including energy shortages and clean air goals. If it comes to fruition in the United States, such a renaissance could result in the construction of the first new nuclear power plants in years, and is already leading to the creation of new, more-standardized, and potentially safer nuclear reactor designs.

I plan to speak to you about what has been and is being done in the United States today in anticipation of the nuclear renaissance. It is the responsibility of my agency the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to license and regulate any such new facilities, and we are taking the issue very seriously. As I will discuss later, the NRC has made significant changes and improvements to our regulatory processes and personnel staffing to ensure that such a renaissance would result in the continued safe use of nuclear power, but would not impose unreasonable regulatory burdens that would stifle such efforts.

Nuclear Fuel Cycle News

Green Left: Nuclear weapons and ‘fourth generation’ reactors
“Integral fast reactors and other “fourth generation nuclear power concepts have been gaining attention, in part because of comments by US climate scientist James Hansen.

“We need hard-headed evaluation of how to get rid of long-lived nuclear waste and minimise dangers of proliferation and nuclear accidents, Hansen says. “Fourth generation nuclear power seems to have the potential to solve the waste problem and minimise the others.

Integral fast reactors (IFRs) are reactors proposed to be fuelled with a metallic alloy of uranium and plutonium, with liquid sodium as the coolant.

PDF: Uranium In Situ Leaching : The Case Against Solution Mining

The mining and export of Australian uranium has been a controversial issue for many years, and will continue to remain an intense political issue for many more years to come. With a depressed world uranium market, the mining industry has been seeking to cut costs in order to make projects more economically viable. One such method of achieving this is a mining process known as In Situ Leaching (ISL) or Solution Mining.

It involves pumping chemicals into the ground to dissolve the uranium mineral “in situ and then pumping these uranium-laden solutions back to the surface for extraction and processing of the uranium into yellowcake for export. It is claimed by the industry to be “a controllable, safe, and environmentally benign method of mining which can operate under strict environmental controls and which often has cost advantages1. This ignores the reality of many former ISL trials and mine sites across Europe and North America, and the history of ISL trial mines in Australia.
New Mexico Independent Ã‚Â» Abandoned uranium mines pose health risk to New Mexicans

New Mexico legislators are in Washington D.C. this week to press the federal government
to help clean up hundreds of abandoned uranium mines that dot the state’s landscape.

The trip comes on the heels of an appropriation of $150,000 included in this year’s state budget to help complete the painstaking work of assessing the extent of the problem, said Bill Brancard, director of the state’s Mining and Minerals Division of the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department.

So far, his agency has listed 259 mines that have reported uranium production at some point. And there may be many more than that, he said.

Kyrgyzstan Drafts Plan to Address Soviet-Era Uranium Waste

(ENS) – Radioactive dust, contaminated groundwater and toxic landslides and floods
threaten more than a million people in Central Asia, warned experts at a conference
last week.

The radioactive threat stems from 92 toxic waste sites in Kyrgyzstan that contain tailings, or waste, from uranium mining during the Soviet era.

In addition to Kyrgyzstan, neighboring Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are also vulnerable to the radioactive material.

“The state of these tailings, which contain large amounts of highly toxic wastes of uranium – over the tens of years since the shutdown of the facilities, has significantly worsened,” Kyrgyzstan President Kurmanbek Bakiev cautioned in a speech at the conference.

U.S. EPA: $600 million in Recovery Act Funding to Clean Up Hazardous Waste Sites, Create Jobs

EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson today announced $600 million in new funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 for the cleanup of hazardous waste (Superfund) sites across the nation. In most cases, this recovery act funding will accelerate the hazardous waste cleanup already underway at the sites and fund new clean-up projects. It will also jumpstart the local economy by creating jobs in the site areas.

“EPA has an answer to these challenging economic times, said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. “Under the Recovery Act, we’re getting harmful pollutants and dangerous chemicals out of these communities and putting jobs and investment back in.

More big uranium moves | The Australian
SOME people in Alice Springs are very upset at the news that drilling for uranium has just begun 25km out of town, and have been protesting to make their views known.

Hard cheese for them (and their counterparts who have fought uranium exploration near the Grand Canyon in the US). Work is going ahead in both cases.

The global Canadian uranium player Cameco (which, incidentally, is based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan) has begun drilling at the Angela prospect and expects to come up with some uranium hits in very short order

This news is significant for two reasons. One is that it is further evidence of Cameco’s interest in Australia. The other is that the non-operator partner is Paladin Energy and underlines the potential that latter company presents as an even more influential player in the uranium world.

Montana Streamlines Cleanup Process for State Superfund Sites
Two pieces of legislation
have passed and been signed by Governor Brian Schweitzer that streamline the process of cleaning up contaminated sites on Montana’s state superfund list. Both laws take effect in October.

State superfund sites are locations where contamination has been released from industry or mining activities. In Montana, the majority of these contaminated releases occurred at sites where mining, smelting, wood treating, railroad fueling and maintenance, petroleum refining, landfilling, and chemical manufacturing and storage activities were conducted, says the state Department of EnvironmentalQuality.

BLM authorizes Grand Canyon uranium exploration – NYTimes.com
The Bureau of Land Management has authorized several new uranium exploration permits near the Grand Canyon despite a congressional resolution last year barring new claims near the national park.

According to documents (pdf) released yesterday by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Grand Canyon Trust, BLM on April 27 authorized Quaterra Alaska Inc. to conduct eight uranium mine exploration operations at five separate projects north of Grand Canyon National Park and west of the Kaibab Plateau.

Times & Star | Nuclear scrap metal recycling plant opens in West Cumbria
A controversial Â£6 million nuclear recycling plant near Workington will be officially opened today.

Studsvik UK’s Metal Recycling Facility (MRF) at Lillyhall will decontaminate scrap metal from the nuclear industry for further use in industry.

It is the first plant of its kind to open in the UK and the first new nuclear site licence to be granted in two decades.

Phil Davies, of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) and Malcolm Smith of nuclear firm Babcock Marine will cut the ribbon.

AFP: Niger president in talks with Tuareg rebels Niger President Mamadou Tandja arrived Sunday in the symbolic Tuareg town of Agadez for his first-ever peace talks with rebel leaders who were flown in by mediators Libya, a government source said.

Niger’s north is rich in uranium and Tandja — making his first trip there since the start of the latest Tuareg rebellion in 2007 — is also due Monday to officiate at the start of construction work on a giant uranium mine in development with French nuclear giants Areva.

Telluride Daily Planet: Uranium producers ready for rebound
The CEO of Energy Fuels, George Glasier, holds up a tiny pellet, smaller than a ping-pong ball, to illustrate his point. This pellet of nuclear fuel, he says, is the equivalent of five gallons of oil, one railroad car, or 100 tons of coal.

Behind this small finished pellet, however, is a long and expensive chain of production, from mining the uranium ore, to milling it into concentrated yellowcake that will travel across the country to be refined again into pellets that are placed into a fuel rod and used in a nuclear reactor. Right now, the price of uranium is too low to support that chain of production, according to Denison Mines President Ron Hochstein.

Hochstein said that Denison’s White Mesa Mill, the nation’s only operating uranium mill, has ceased its regular milling operations for the remainder of 2009.

“We will stop processing conventional ore through 2009, but will be processing alternate feedstock on a reduced scale, and we’ll be laying off some personnel, said Hochstein. “Our costs are higher than the current spot price.

Hochstein was upbeat about the future of the uranium market, and his company already has processing contracts in place for 2011, when he expects that the spot price of uranium will again make it profitable to process the radioactive material.
indynews.ca | Public has right to now about uranium in soil
Families Against Radiation Exposure recently released soil test results showing that a popular Port Hope beach playground is contaminated with uranium (‘Port Hope park safe: Mayor’, May 1).

The volunteer environmental organization handed out brochures to fishermen and residents at noon at the East Beach park at Mill and Madison Streets.

FARE provided the results to Mayor Linda Thompson, but she has not made them public. FARE believes the public, which uses the beach area, has a right to know it is contaminated by uranium more than four times higher than guidelines issued by the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME). What is disturbing is the testing was done by SENES Consultants for Cameco Corporation and sent in a report to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) in June, 2008, but nobody told the municipality or the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management Office (LLRWMO).

Deseret News | Crescent Junction site quietly taking the ‘Pile’
Motorists whipping past along I-70 see only the turnoff for Moab at the sign that says Crescent Junction. But a little to the north, a train sits on the railroad tracks, and oversize trucks unload rail cars.

From there containers of the radioactive waste that are the legacy of a bankrupt uranium mine are unloaded one after the other, filling up a disposal cell that will trap the tailings for years to come.

Much was celebrated Monday to the south on the outskirts of Moab at the former Atlas mine site, where full-time operations to remove the waste have been under way since mid-April.

Deseret News | It’s a ‘go’ for tailings cleanup
More than half a century ago, an unemployed geologist stumbled across the country’s largest deposit of high-grade uranium
in southeastern Utah.

The result of that discovery fueled a thriving industry for Moab at the time, but left a legacy of 16 million tons of uranium tailings that currently threaten the Colorado River.

Today is a celebratory landmark in the cleanup process at the former Atlas mill site, where 22 rail cars hauling 88 containers of the waste will head 30 miles north to Crescent Junction to a disposal site.

The site is 1700 feet longs, 1800 feet wide, and 30 feet deep. Trucks carrying the material dump it into the disposal site, where a front end loader make several passes to pack the bright red dirt, which is full of tailings.

Independent -: Contaminated ground water near Navajo boundary
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 6, in Dallas will discuss ground water cleanup efforts at the former United Nuclear Corp. mill site May 5 at a community meeting in Pinedale.

In short, cleanup efforts are no longer working.

Contamination from the UNC site ‘ which is in Pinedale Chapter right in the middle of Indian Country ‘ is nearing the Navajo Nation boundary. And though the cleanup remedy at the Superfund site is no longer effective, because no one is drinking the contaminated water, the remedy is still considered protective of human health and the environment.

Uranium ill On Superfund Site Plans New Venture – cbs4denver.com
Owners of an idled Canon City uranium mill where contamination remains a problem are planning to reopen for business.

The Cotter Corp. has told state officials they plan to process uranium from a New Mexico mine as early as 2014. The company would ship 12.5 million tons of
ore by train to its site along the Arkansas River.

Nuclear Waste News

times transcript – Nuclear waste in N.B. unacceptable – New Brunswick, Canada
Premier Shawn Graham, Energy Minister Jack Keir and every other politician of whatever stripe in New Brunswick need to be told and to clearly understand that New Brunswickers do not want and will not accept a national nuclear waste dump
in this province no matter how deep underground, how many jobs it creates or how many glib assurances are given about its safety.

Premier Graham has refused to just say “no” to the idea, and as the
Nuclear Waste Management Organization prepares to hold public “information” meetings in New Brunswick to find out if the public thinks the “process” proposed for determining a permanent nuclear waste dump site is “fair” and “appropriate,” Minister Keir has said “Whatever they do, I want to make sure they do it right and that it’s in the interest of Canadians,not just New Brunswickers.”

timestranscript – Nuclear dump site could take 30 years to create |Â New Brunswick, Canada
Storing Canada’s nuclear waste in one single location will not be a process that will happen overnight, this year, or even in the next decade or two.

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization is considering New Brunswick, along with Ontario, Quebec and Saskatchewan (all of which are Canada’s nuclear provinces) as possible areas to house the nation’s used nuclear fuel in the long-term, all in an underground repository.

Mike Krizanc, spokesman for the NWMO, said the process of setting guidelines for choosing a site will likely take the rest of 2009 to cement. But that would be just filling the foundation of the entire project.

OSCE meeting urges regional efforts to mitigate radioactive waste_-_Xinhua
An OSCE meeting on support to Central Asia in mitigating radioactive waste problems held here on Thursday urges international organizations and Central Asian countries to step up cooperation in managing radioactive waste.

According to OSCE press release, this meeting attracted representatives of the OSCE, the UN Development Program, the International Atomic Energy Agency and the World Bank to discuss ways of enhancing regional cooperation between international organizations, donors and the private sector.

Ambassador Tesoriere, head of the OSCE Centre in Bishkek, noted that this joint presentation seeks to inform a wider international audience about the dangers of radioactive and toxic waste in Central Asia to human life, economy and environment, and to demonstrate how these dangers can be addressed.

Andrews County to vote on funding nuke site – KSWO, Lawton, OK-
Many in sparsely populated Andrews County in West Texas embraced the idea of opening up a radioactive waste site there. They saw it as a chance to bring much needed jobs and tax dollars into the remote, sparsely populated West Texas county.

Now, they’re not so sure after the waste company asked the county to go a step further and come up with $75 million to pay for a disposal area at the site.

Voters in the county on the New Mexico border will decide Saturday whether to help Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists fund construction of a low-level radioactive waste disposal facility.

If passed, the measure would give county officials the ability to issue bonds to purchase $75 million of Waste Control Specialists’ assets and lease them back to the company.

The end of Yucca, according to Obama – Las Vegas Sun
For those of you want to read it for yourselves, this is what the end of Yucca Mountain looks like, straight from President Barack Obama’s proposed 2010 budget released today.

It starts with the heading, “Termination: Yucca Mountain Repository Program.

Then it’s downhill from there.

But you can read it for yourself.

Here is the full text from the president’s proposed budget (minus the chart):

Reid: Yucca Budget Slashed, Project To Close
After receiving the smallest budget in its history through the work of Nevada Senator Harry Reid, the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump will be shutdown. “It’s over with — Yucca Mountain is gone,” said Reid.

The Obama Administration’s budget plan for the upcoming fiscal year, officially released today, follows through on the president’s commitment to end the failed Yucca Mountain proposal and instead pursue responsible alternatives for storage of the nation’s nuclear waste.

The project will have a budget of less than $197 million Ã¢â‚¬â€œ a cut of more than $90 million from last year. Remaining funding for Yucca Mountain will be spent on the Blue Ribbon Commission examining alternate options and on phasing out work on the project in preparation for its final shutdown.

Nuclear-Waste Storage: Solve Radioactive Enigma | The Ledger | Lakeland, FL

Taxpayers forked over a great deal of money to build the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository, which the federal government now has no plans to use. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., says taxpayers should get some of that money back.

In fact, Washington’s decisions regarding high-level nuclear waste disposal have been so slow and so political that a bill such as Graham’s is needed to force politicians to take responsibility for this safety issue for the generations.

The United States needs a place to store or dispose of its spent commercial reactor fuel. Nuclear power plants use up fuel. Those spent fuel rods are highly radioactive. Right now, they are simply piling up at the nuclear power plants that used them.

Realignment planned for nuclear reactor control rod at Diablo CanyonÂ – San Luis Obispo
Operators at Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant will soon realign a control rod that is hanging too low in one of the plant’s two reactors.

The repair will take place in the middle of this month, when the reactor will be running at reduced power to perform other previously planned maintenance, said Bill Guldemond, the plant’s director of site services.

Associated Press: Utah takes nuclear waste from states with own dump
Despite having their own radioactive waste dump, three states have shipped millions of cubic feet of waste across the country this decade to a private Utah facility that is the only one available to 36 other states, according to an Associated Press analysis of U.S. Department of Energy records.

The shipments are stoking concerns that waste from Connecticut, New Jersey and South Carolina is taking up needed space in Utah, unnecessarily creating potential shipping hazards and undermining the government’s intent for states to dispose of their own waste on a regional basis.

“It’s clear that the low-level waste system in this country is broken when there are states with their own dump sites sending tons of radioactive garbage across the country for disposal in Utah,” said Vanessa Pierce, executive director of the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, an advocacy group. “The compact system, which was supposed to protect states from becoming the country’s dumping ground, has been totally derailed.”

Nuclear Policy News

U.S. utilities, regulator disagree on generation | Reuters
The nation’s top power industry regulator on Tuesday suggested that U.S. utilities don’t need to build big nuclear or coal-fired power plants to fill the nation’s future power supply
needs. Instead, Jon Wellinghoff, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said future electricity demand growth can be met with a low-emission supply from wind, solar and other renewable sources, combined with more efficient use of all sources of electricity.

Areva engages nuclear bloggers
Outreach effort ramping up from impulse power to
warp drive
Note to public relations consultants to major nuclear reactor vendors, Areva, the world’s largest integrated firm across the entire nuclear fuel cycle, thinks the blogsphere is worth its time in terms of dialog. The French nuclear giant has an initiative underway in which company officials hold monthly conference calls with nuclear energy bloggers.

During the hour-long call, bloggers get to ask some tough questions. For their part, Areva is working to emerge from a traditional corporate communications strategy of walking softly and not saying very much to the press, much less to bloggers.

Wide ranging topics for discussion

In the conference call held this past Friday, May 8, the fifth in the series, the firm fielded questions about the facts behind a hostile article published in the Economist May 7, the status of the MOX fuel plant under construction in South Carolina, and next steps at Calvert Cliffs III which was short-listed for federal loan guarantees and got a green light this week from the Maryland PUC.
The project to build the first 1,600 MW EPR reactor in the US is scheduled to break ground in 2011 and enter revenue service in 2015.

AFP: France, Saudi close to civil nuclear pact: minister
France and Saudi Arabia are close to finalizing a civil nuclear cooperation pact which could lead to the sale of French atomic energy technology, French Economy Minister Christine Lagarde said on Sunday.

A deal could be completed “soon,” Lagarde said after a day of meetings with top Saudi economic and energy officials as well as Saudi King Abdullah.

“The talks have progressed well,” she added.

Lagarde gave no details of what would be covered by the agreement, but officials said it could be completed and signed by the end of 2009.

Nuclear plants face huge price tagÂ | The Courier-Journal
A ghost from the U.S. nuclear industry’s early years has reappeared.

It is not public apprehension about safety or disposal issues, but the staggering cost of building nuclear reactors.

A wave of reactors now in the works is intended to solve at least part of the nation’s energy problems as it attempts to shift away from fossil fuels. But cost is likely to plague every upcoming nuclear project.

Last month in Missouri the first of the next-generation reactors was put on hold because of its $6 billion price tag.

Whether or not AmerenUE’s Missouri reactor was a casualty of the current economic climate, the legal fight in several states shows how big the cost hurdle will be.

Some states have altered laws so that consumers will begin footing the bill now, even before construction begins. Missouri did not.

German nuke phaseout seen boosting gas demand up to 23% by 2023
Germany’s planned phase-out of nuclear power generation will raise the country’s natural gas demand between 12.6% and 23% by about 2023, according to a statement on energy security policy submitted to the EU summit in Prague on Friday by the co-ruling Christian Democrats. The statement, which the party said is based on government projections, also will be submitted to the EU Energy Summit scheduled for this weekend in Sofia, Bulgaria.

AFP: Japan’s Toshiba announces biggest loss
Japanese high-tech giant Toshiba Corp. announced Friday its biggest ever loss and warned it would remain mired in the red this year because of weak demand computer chips.

The group, which owns US nuclear plant maker Westinghouse, suffered a net loss of 343.6 billion yen (3.5 billion dollars) in the year to March, against a year-earlier profit of 127.4 billion yen.

It logged an annual operating loss of 250.2 billion yen, against a profit of 246.4 the previous year. Revenue slid 13 percent to 6.65 trillion yen.

“The economic downturn has appeared to hit bottom but we are not seeing a recovery yet,” vice president Fumio Muraoka told reporters. “We cannot expect a rapid rebound.”

NASA is Running Out of Plutonium | Universe Today
Decommissioning nuclear weapons
is a good thing. But when our boldest space missions depend on surplus nuclear isotopes derived from weapons built at the height of the Cold War, there is an obvious problem.

If we’re not manufacturing any more nuclear bombs, and we are slowly decommissioning the ones we do have, where will NASA’s supply of plutonium-238 come from? Unfortunately, the answer isn’t easy to arrive at; to start producing this isotope, we need to restart plutonium production.

And buying plutonium-238 from Russia isn’t an option, NASA has already been doing that and they’re running out too

Russia, Japan to Sign Nuclear Energy Accord on May 12- Bloomberg
Russiaand Japan will sign an agreement on peaceful uses of nuclear energy on May 12
during Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s visit to Tokyo.

Putin and his Japanese counterpart Taro Aso will also discuss North Korea and their territorial dispute, though Russia isn’t prepared to cede four Kuril Islands claimed by Japan, Yury Ushakov, Putin’s deputy chief of staff, told reporters in Moscow today.

“We’re not ceding anything, but we may be ready to some degree to discuss hypothetical situations, Ushakov said. “That’s all. We’re not ready to give the islands away. Russia favors a “calm, constructive dialogue on the Kurils without “inflated expectations and disappointments, he said.

Federal Budget’s New black Book / Science News
Each year, the administration releases its federal-spending blueprint ‘ usually in a series of phone book-sized tomes that must surely weigh eight to 10 pounds. And of course, the first thing most of us look for is what programs are slated for big gains ‘ or excisions. Well, team Obama made looking for the big cuts a little easier this year. This morning it issued a 120-page volume: “Terminations, Reductions, and Savings: Budget of the U.S. Government, Fiscal Year 2010.

Barack Obama entered office with the nation facing a record $1.3 trillion budget deficit for the current year. “Just as families across the country are tightening their belts and making hard choices so must Washington, the new budget document says. The 121 programs that it recommends should die or diminish substantially could save taxpayers $17 billion.

First, there are the terminations: more than five dozen in all. Among them:

What do you get when you buy a nuke? You get a lot of delays and rate increases.
Progress Energy said Friday it has pushed back by 20 months its schedule for bringing
on-line two planned new nuclear reactors in Florida, after the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission said its review of the plant site will take longer than expected.

Progress also said it will spread out over five years certain early stage costs for the new reactors that it could legally bill to ratepayers entirely in 2010, an apparent bid to tamp down customer anger over rate increases linked to the project that took effect earlier this year.

Germany blocks Vattenfall Brunsbuettel reactor plan | Reuters
Germany’s environment ministry denied approval for nuclear operator Vattenfall EuropeÂ to keep its Brunsbuettel reactor open longer, a fresh blow to operators’ attemps of getting around a national closure plan.

Vattenfall in May 2007 had asked to transfer 15 terawatt hours of power production quotas from its nuclear plant at Kruemmel in north Germany to Brunsbuettel, in order to lengthen Brunsbuettel’s life cycle by another two-and-a-half years.

Nuclear power foes not stilled in N.E. – The Boston Globe
Sprawling along the Connecticut
River, just a few miles from the Massachusetts border, lies Vermont Yankee, one of the country’s oldest nuclear power plants and supplier of about a third of the Green Mountain State’s electricity.

When the reactor first booted up in the early ’70s, it was a symbol of an energy revolution in New England. Today, it is a symbol of how the region stands apart from the rest of the country, a place where skepticism of nuclear power – in the form of vocal and organized opposition – persists even as the nation gives nuclear energy a fresh look.

A march in Montpelier last week was only the latest reminder of ongoing opposition to Vermont Yankee’s bid to extend its operating license 20 more years.

Nuclear Power Bill Passes Senate : NorthEscambia.com
ust over a month after NorthEscambia.com broke the story that Gulf Power Company is purchasing land in North Escambia for a possible nuclear power plant, the Florida Senate has passed a bill promoting so-called “clean power ‘ including nuclear ‘ in the state.

The bill was approved by the Senate 37-1 late last week. The energy bill requires electric utilities to meet or exceed specified standards for the production or purchase of clean energy. Clean energy production methods include wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, hydrogen, hydroelectric and nuclear, according to the bill.

The bill will now head to the Florida House for approval.

Nuclear Weapons News

Green Left: AUSTRALIA: Anti-nuclear campaign gears up
PERTH ‘ Demonstrators wore “nuclear warheads while percussion band Junkadelik gave extra life to a spirited protest outside the Australian Uranium Summit on May 7. The 100-strong action was organised by the Anti-Nuclear Alliance of WA.

The rally chair, veteran peace campaigner Jo Vallentine, said the campaign against uranium mining must gear up in the face of moves by the state Coalition government to allow uranium mining in WA. She called on activists to organise a petition to state parliament with the largest number of signatures in WA history.

In response to a new pro-uranium push from the nuclear industry a further two protests were organised outside pro-uranium events for May 11. Anti-uranium campaigners have vowed to end uranium mining in the state.

Foreign Policy In Focus | The News on Nukes
It’s not on the front pages of what is
left of U.S. newspapers. The headlines are dominated by violence in Pakistan,
Afghanistan, and Iraq, by Miss America’s semi-nude photo scandal, and by the Chrysler fiasco. But just about everyone who is anyone is talking about nuclear weapons
this week.

At the United Nations, representatives from the world’s 190 or so nations are meeting (in typical fashion) to prepare to meet. The preparatory meeting of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) is taking place the first two weeks of May to get ready for the Review Conference of the Treaty, which will happen next year.
Closer to home this week, Congress heard from its Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States. And the Department of Energy released its budget for 2010 requesting $6.4 billion for nuclear weapons programs out of an overall budget of $26.4 billion.

Taking Up Where Clinton-Gore Left Off by Gordon Prather — Antiwar.com
This week several thousand delegates to the 2009 Policy Conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee will descend upon The Best Congress Money Can Buy, to conduct more than 500 separate meetings with congresspersons and key aides, to urge them “to deal with Iran’s nuclear threat against the Jewish state.”

Or else.

Of course, Secretary of State Clinton has already testified under oath that

“The Non Proliferation Treaty is the cornerstone of the nonproliferation regime, and the United States must exercise the leadership needed to shore up the [associated nuclear-weapons proliferation prevention] regime.”

The nuclear-weapons proliferation prevention regime which Obama-Biden-Hillary just declared we must “shore up” as a consequence of the largely successful attempt by Bush-Cheney-Bolton to tear it down is based upon what the IAEA Secretariat is required to do in the event it discovers that some nuclear materials subject to one of its Safeguards Agreements is “diverted to a military purpose.”

Jeffrey St. Clair: Echoes of Amchitka

40 Years After America’s Biggest Nuclear Blast, the Damage Continues

Amchitka Island sits at the midway point on the great arc of Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, less than 900 miles across the Bering Sea from the coast of Russia. Amchitka, a spongy landscape of maritime tundra, is one of the most southerly of the Aleutians. The island’s relatively temperate climate has made it one of the Arctic’s most valuable bird sanctuaries, a critical staging ground for more than 100 migratory species, as well as home to walruses, sea otters and sea lions. Off the coast of Amchitka is a thriving fishery of salmon, pollock, haddock and halibut.

Obama official admits Israel has nuclear weapons – International Middle East Media Center
While the US has never admitted that its ally Israel has nuclear weapons, the
last Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert admitted last year to the existence of
the arsenal.

Anti-nuclear whistle blower Mordechai Vanunu spent eighteen years in Israeli prison for exposing the Israeli nuclear program with photos and testimony.

As a condition for his release he was denied the right to speak to foreigners and reporters.

But the U.S. and Israel have both continued to maintain a don’t ask, don’t tell’ stance toward Israel’s nuclear arsenal of approximately thirty warheads.

Now, assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller may be breaking that taboo.
She gave a speech in New York listing the countries that must adhere to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty – India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea. By including Israel in that list, she broke a thirty year silence by U.S. officials on the existence of an Israeli nuclear arsenal.

Nuclear weapon fears spark calls for export bansÂ (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
The Environment Centre in the Northern Territory is urging the Federal Government to stop uranium exports to all countries with nuclear weapons.

The Environment Centre’s Justin Tutty told a parliamentary hearing in Darwin today there is no concrete guarantees that uranium sold for energy will not be used for nuclear weapons.

Mr Tutty says the committee needs to recognise Australia’s uranium exports do have an impact on nuclear proliferation.

Annual Safeguards Report Circulated to IAEA Board
IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei has circulated a report on the AgencyÂ´s implementation of nuclear safeguards in 2008 to the AgencyÂ´s Board of Governors, the 35-member policymaking body.

The Safeguards Implementation Report for 2008 provides a description and analysis of IAEA safeguards operations for the period January to December 2008. The AgencyÃ‚Â´s Board of Governors will discuss the report when it next convenes in Vienna on 15 June.

Circulation of the report is restricted, and it cannot be released to the public unless the IAEA Board decides otherwise.

The Associated Press: Delegates take key step in nuclear treaty review
Delegates preparing for a major conference next year to review the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty have agreed on an agenda, complete with contentious issues such as the pace of disarmament by the five nuclear powers.

Britain’s ambassador for multilateral arms control and disarmament said getting agreement on the agenda was a major goal.

The last review conference in 2005 was unable to agree on an agenda until nearly three weeks after it started, “and this was a major factor in the failure of the meeting,” John Duncan said.

Israel brushes off call to sign nuclear arms pactÂ | Reuters
An Israeli official on Wednesday criticized a U.S. call to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as hard to understand, citing the pact’s failure to prevent countries from obtaining atomic arms.

“It is therefore hard to understand why there should be such an insistence on a treaty that has proven its inefficiency,” a senior official at the Israeli Foreign Ministry said, after U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller urged Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea to join the treaty.

Israel does not confirm or deny foreign reports it has what arms control experts assume to be a sizeable atomic arsenal.

Secret U.S.-Israel Nuclear Accord in Jeopardy – FOXNews
President Obama’s efforts to curb the spread of nuclear weapons threaten to expose and derail a 40-year-old secret U.S. agreement to shield Israel’s nuclear weapons from international scrutiny, former and current U.S. and Israeli officials and nuclear specialists tell The Washington Times.

The issue will likely come to a head when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with Mr. Obama on May 18 in Washington. Mr. Netanyahu is expected to seek assurances from Mr. Obama that he will uphold the U.S. commitment and will not trade Israeli nuclear concessions for Iranian ones.

Department of Energy News

PR-USA.net – Department of Energy’s Budget Request Focuses Nuclear Support on Next-Gen Plants, Says NEI
The U.S. Department of Energy today released a fiscal year 2010 budget request that increases funding for developing next-generation nuclear power plants and used nuclear fuel recycling, but does little to support construction of reactors that are expected to be built over the next two decades, according to The Nuclear Energy Institute.

The FY10 budget proposal — the first released by the Obama Administration — also cuts funding for DOE’s used nuclear fuel management program to $196.8 million, only $98.4 million of it from the federal Nuclear Waste Fund. The fund, established in 1983 to finance the federal government’s program to manage used nuclear fuel, is paid for by users of nuclear-generated electricity through a monthly surcharge on their electric bills. The $196.8 million request is only one-fifth of the interest that accrues annually on the $22 billion fund.

The Nuclear Power 2010 program — a cost-shared, industry-government partnership designed to reduce the technical and regulatory uncertainties associated with construction of advanced nuclear power plant designs — would receive only $20 million in the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. The program receives $177 million in the current year, a sum matched by industry. The industry intends to invest $121 million in the program in FY10 and had expected DOE to match that commitment, which would complete the program.

Looking back on Mother’s Day fire at Rocky Flats : Boulder Daily Camera
On Mother’s Day in 1969, Stanley Skinger and William Dennison bent to tape the
cuffs of their coveralls, pulled on their rubber gloves, adjusted their masks,
looked at each other and thought, “Let’s go.”

Then, without knowing anything about how to fight a fire, the pair waded into the worst industrial conflagration the country had ever seen. It wasn’t safe, Skinger knew, but the alternative was far worse.

Forty years ago, when Building 776-777 on the Rocky Flats campus eight miles south of Boulder caught fire, it contained 7,600 pounds of plutonium, enough for 1,000 nuclear bombs.

Hydrogen Car Goes Down Like the Hindenburg: DoE Kills the ProgramÂ | Discover Magazine
The dream of hydrogen fuel cell cars has just been put back in the garage. U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced yesterday that his department is cutting all funding for hydrogen car research, saying that it won’t be a feasible technology anytime soon. “We asked ourselves, Is it likely in the next 10
or 15, 20 years that we will covert to a hydrogen car economy?’ The answer, we felt, was no,’ Chu said [CNET]. While innovative new cars are a high priority, Chu declared that his department will focus on efforts that may pay off sooner, like plug-in electric cars.

DOE – Secretary Chu: President’s Energy Budget Creates Jobs, Restores America’s Scientific Leadership and Puts Nation on the Path to Energy Independence
U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu today detailed President Barack Obama’s $26.4 billion Fiscal Year 2010 budget request for the Department of Energy, highlighting the Administration’s commitment to transformational discoveries, breakthrough science, and innovative technologies in the nation’s effort to secure reliable, clean, safe and secure energy, create new jobs and fight climate change. While the budget makes important investments in energy independence and job creation, it also cuts back on programs that don’t work as well or are no longer needed.

“The President’s budget for energy reflects his commitment to ending our dependence on foreign oil, restoring our scientific leadership and putting Americans back to work through investments in a new green energy economy, Secretary Chu said. “It also demonstrates his commitment to using taxpayer dollars wisely cutting spending on programs we don’t need so we can make strategic investments in our economic future.

The President’s FY10 budget complements $38.7 billion the Department of Energy will invest as part of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Specifically, the President’s FY10 budget:

US DOE to fund 71 nuclear energy R&D projects
The US Department of Energy on Wednesday said it would use $44 million to fund 71 nuclear energy research and development projects. The funding will go to 31 universities and fund projects for the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative, the Next Generation Nuclear Plant, Light Water Reactor Sustainability, as well as Investigator-Initiated Research, according to DOE. “As a zero-carbon energy source, nuclear power must be part of our energy mix as we work toward energy independence and meeting the challenge of global warming,” Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in a statement. “The next generation of nuclear power plants — with the highest standards of safety, efficiency and environmental protection — will require the latest advancements in nuclear science and technology.” Chu has voiced his support for nuclear energy since becoming energy secretary in January, but the administration’s decision to stop pursuing a national nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain has led some to charge that DOE no longer supports nuclear power. The $44 million in funding announced Wednesday will be provided over three years and the project contracts will be awarded by Idaho National Laboratory contractor Battelle at the end of September.

DOE Trims List Of Nuclear Plants For Loan Backing
The Department of Energy has narrowed the list of proposed new nuclear power plants it is considering for $18.5 billion in federal loan guarantees down to four from five, a spokeswoman said.

“We have proceeded to due diligence with four applications for nuclear loan guarantees that are farthest along in the [Nuclear Regulatory Commission] application process,” the spokeswoman said. “We have not made any final decisions and have not eliminated any of the applicants.”

New reactors at Southern Co.’s (SO) Vogtle plant in Georgia, Scana Corp.’s ( SCG) Summer plant in South Carolina, Constellation Energy Group’s (CEG) Calvert Cliffs plant in Maryland and NRG Energy Inc.’s (NRG) South Texas plant are among the projects still in the running for federal loan backing. Under the loan guarantee program, the government promises to assume the companies’ debt obligations if they default on loans for the nuclear projects.

Aiken Standard | SRS key in new energy proposal
Congressman Joe Wilson is proposing a new energy bill he believes balances energy needs and environmental concerns, without compromising either.

Drilling for oil off the coast of South Carolina and others states, building a nuclear reprocessing center and commercial reactors at the Savannah River Site and coal furnaces are all part of Wilson’s proposal for “American Conservation and Clean Energy.”

Wilson unveiled a bill this week that the Congressman believes will take great strides toward the future of clean energy. A bill that has support from both sides of the isle and would be a boon for the Savannah River Site and the Congressman’s state.

DOE’s proposed $26.4B budget for 2010 | knoxnews.com
Meanwhile, DOE has moved a press release with some reported highlights of the DOE budget. Here are those:

The proposed budget, DOE said:

* Cuts funding for programs that aren’t needed or aren’t as effective as other investments – like more than $200 million in oil and gas company research that the companies can and do fund on their own.
* Substantially expands the use of clean, renewable energy sources while improving energy transmission infrastructure.
* Supports the Administration’s goal to develop a smart, strong and secure electricity grid.
* Helps restore America’s leadership in scientific research and innovation – including transformative science that can lead to a new generation of clean energy jobs.
* Makes significant investments in low-emissions plug-in and hybrid vehicles, nuclear energy, and clean coal technologies, as part of the Obama Administration’s aggressive effort to reduce greenhouse gas production.
* Supports the ongoing security of our weapons stockpile, continued efforts at nuclear non-proliferation and ongoing environmental cleanup and legacy management as part of the Department’s long-term stewardship responsibilities.

$2.18B proposed for DOE-Oak Ridge in 2010 | knoxnews.com
And that doesn’t include the weapons work, according to the overall numbers released today by the Dept. of Energy.

The Oak Ridge budget numbers released this afternoon show Science going up (from $635 million in 08 and $797 million this year to $836 million in 2010. That doesn’t include the stimulus money for Science in Oak Ridge, which is an additional $141 million.

The big drop occurred in Environmental Management, which showed a decline from $525 million this year to a proposed $431 in 2010. But, of course, the ARRA money for EM Oak Ridge is set at $825 million.

Nuclear nonproliferation funding is scheduled to go to $204 million, compared to current spending at $184 million.

DOE drops Luminant Texas from nuclear loan talks | Reuters
Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Co’s two-reactor expansion planned in Texas has dropped to “first alternate” in the heated competition for $18.5 billion in government-backed loans that developers say will be critical to advancing the first round of nuclear plant construction in three decades, a spokeswoman said on Thursday.

A Department of Energy official confirmed that the agency has cut to four the number of new nuclear projects being considered for the first round of federal loan guarantees.

Department of Energy – DOE Selects 53 New Projects Focused on Wind Energy for up to $8.5 Million
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Steven Chu today announced selection of 53 new wind energy projects for up to $8.5 million in total DOE funding. These projects will help begin to address market and deployment challenges identified in DOE’s 2008 report: “20% Wind Energy by 2030. Increasing wind energy generation will be a critical factor in achieving the Obama Administration’s goals for clean energy, while also supporting new green jobs. Secretary Chu made the announcement by video at the WindPower 2009 Conference in Chicago this week.

“Wind energy is one of our most promising renewable energy sources, said Secretary Chu. That’s why I’m pleased to make this announcement today. By continuing to make investments in renewable energy we can cut our dependence on foreign oil and invest in a clean energy agenda that creates jobs and puts money back into the pockets of consumers.

Do ORNL workers get a fair shake under EEOICPA? | knoxnews
Mack Davis, 64, a retired Oak Ridge National Laboratory worker, said he spent 11 years of his 40-year career working in the lab laundry washing the hot clothes of rad workers. He thinks that exposure was the chief culprit for his cancers.

“That laundry was hot, hot, hot,” Davis said today by telephone.

“I was exposed to all of that stuff on the clothes,” Davis said. “That place was really hot.”

He said he ultimately developed four types of cancer, but was unable to collect under Part B of the compensation program. The findings he received indicated there was only a 42.5 percent chance that the rad exposures caused his cancer.

FR: DOE: Comments on accidental releases at liquid waste tanks
The NRC is soliciting public comment on its Proposed Interim Staff Guidance (ISG) DC/COL-ISG-013 (Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) Accession No. ML090830488). The purpose of this ISG is to modify and provide Combined License (COL) and Design Certification (DC) applicants additional clarity and guidance for the application of Standard Review Plan (SRP) Sections 11.2 and 2.4.13 on the characterization of hydro geological properties of a site associated with the effects of accidental releases of radioactive liquid on existing or likely future uses of ground and surface water resources in meeting the requirements of Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Part 100 (10 CFR 100.10 or 100.20) and Appendix B to 10 CFR Part 20 on effluent concentration limits.

Other Energy News

Waxman-Markey Bill
It’s interesting how none of the proponents of Waxman-Markey would point to the text, but it’s not hard to find. It’s linked here and is officially called the “American Clean Energy and Security Act”.

Although it is one of those things intimidatingly described as being over 600 pages long, it was very amusing to discover that the margins and font size match what you’d expect for a nine-year-old’s primer. There are about 200 words per page at most. So, though inhumanely formatted, the entire thing is only about 120,000 words. Not an easy thing to read but not overwhelming either.

Where did this come from? Waxman and Markey’s staffs? Lobbyists? Anyway it is proportionally less mysterious at 200 words per page than at the 1000 or so I imagined. (This is the first time I ever looked at draft legislation.)

The claim for the legislation is as follows:

The American Clean Energy and Security Act will create millions of new clean energy jobs, save consumers hundreds of billions of dollars in energy costs, enhance America’s energy independence, and cut global warming pollution. To meet these goals, the legislation has four titles:

Lights Back On for 28,600 Ameren Illinois Utilities Customers, Electricity to be Flowing for Majority of Customers by Late Tuesday
Lights have been turned back on for about 28,600 Ameren Illinois Utilities (AIU) customers in Southern Illinois, while more than 1,400 field and support personnel continue to repair the extensive damage caused by Friday’s inland hurricane.

Throughout the day, field crews have encountered major unexpected damage to the AIU electrical distribution system in and around Carbondale. As a result, the AIU Emergency Operations Center is sending additional field personnel and specialized equipment to help overcome the enormous damage caused by the exceptionally violent spring storm.

At 5:20 p.m. today, about 40,200 AIU customers are still without electric service, down from the peak outage count of 68,800 customers. The Ameren Illinois Utilities now anticipate the majority of all customers will have their lights back on by late Tuesday night. However, the unexpected severity of the damage in Carbondale means that service in and around that city may not be fully restored until Thursday.

The cost of wind, the price of wind, the value of wind

Jerome a Paris has an excellent (and long) article at TOD about the economics of wind power – The cost of wind, the price of wind, the value of wind.

I’d like to try to clear some of the confusion that surrounds the economics of wind power, as it is often fed and used by the opponents of wind to dismiss it. As I noted recently, even the basic economics of energy markets are often wilfully misunderstood by commentators, so it’s worth going in more detail through concepts like levelised cost and marginal cost, and identify how different electricity producers have different impacts on electricity (market) prices (which may or may not be reflected in retail prices) and have different externalities. Value for society of a generation source may also include other items that are harder to acount in purely monetary terms (and/or whose very value may be disputed), such as the long term risk of depletion of the fuel, or energy security issues, such as dependency on unstable and/or unfriendly foreign countries or vulnerable infrastructure.

Amarillo.com | Pantex wind farm proposed 05/08/09
President Obama’s proposed $9.9 billion Energy Department budget contains up to $28 million for a Pantex wind farm that would be designed to meet the nuclear weapons plant’s energy needs.

The Pantex Renewable Energy Project would be built on land in the vicinity of the plant and could generate surplus electrical power that could be sold to utilities, according to budget documents.

Preliminary plans call for the wind farm to be built by 2012.

The project’s overall scope would depend on future funding, but plans call for enough wind turbines to generate up to 75 megawatts of electrical generating capacity. Initial funding would only support construction of a 10- to 15-megawatt system.

BBC NEWS | UK | Rise of the nuclear ‘Terminators’
Pipe crawler and Reactorsaurus
sound as if they should be characters in the forthcoming apocalyptic robots v
humans film, Terminator Salvation.

The first might scurry centipede-like through wall cavities and drains, before bursting out to attack.

Meanwhile, the second crushes all in its path in gargantuan metal jaws.

U.S. Wind Industry Finds Support for Clean Energy Future

A new public opinion poll shows strong bipartisan support for a national Renewable Energy Standard requiring utilities to generate at least 25 percent of their electricity from renewable energy sources by 2025.

The poll was released Tuesday as the wind energy industry gathered in the Windy City for the American Wind Energy Association’s WINDPOWER 2009 Conference and Exhibition. For these 18,000 attendees and 1,200 exhibitors renewable energy means wind.

Associated Press: Obama budget rescinds energy industry tax breaks
President Barack Obama outlined a budget plan Thursday that would end $26 billion in oil and gas industry tax breaks, point to a new direction for dealing with nuclear waste and shift government aggressively toward helping to develop renewable energy sources.

Obama called the tax break to the oil and gas industry “unjustifiable loopholes” in the tax system that in most cases other companies do not get.

The proposed budget, details of which were released Thursday, calls for abandoning the decades-old Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project in Nevada and begin the search for another answer to disposing thousands of tons of used reactor fuel now kept at power plants in 31 states. It also would end government subsidies to the nuclear industry to help them certify and plan new nuclear power plants, cutting the program from $178 million to $20 million.

Peak Energy: World’s Largest Solar Power Tower Commissioned
REW reports the world’s biggest solar thermal tower has opened in Spain – World’s Largest Solar Power Tower Commissioned.

Abengoa Solar has begun commercial operations of the world’s largest solar power tower plant, a 20 MW installation.

The company claims that the performance of the power plant, the so-called PS20, has exceeded its design output in the wake of its three-day production and operational testing period.

Located at the SolÃƒÂºcar Platform, near Seville, Spain, PS20 is the world’s second power tower plant in commercial use and features a number of significant technological improvements with respect to its predecessor, PS10. These enhancements include a higher-efficiency receiver, various improvements in the control and operational systems, and a better thermal energy storage system.

PS20 consists of a solar field made up of 1255 heliostats with a surface area of 1291 square feet each. This reflects the solar radiation it receives onto the receiver, located on the top of a 531 foot-high tower, producing steam which is converted into electricity generation by a turbine. Plant construction was carried out by Abener.

Battery made from non-toxic materials may revolutionize electric vehicles
A new battery made from non-toxic materials abundant in the Earth’s crust could revolutionize the electric vehicles segment.

The battery, powered by LifePO4 – a material used in advanced lithium-ion batteries, was developed by Universite de Montreal researchers.

Nuclear Editorial and Opinions

Relicensing Oyster Creek nuclear plant a mistakeÂ | Brick Township Bulletin
Failure of a main transformer led to the shutdown of the reactor earlier this week. That followed the recent discovery of high levels of radioactive tritium contamination at the site.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff have tracked the tritium leak to two burst pipes, a concrete vault and a monitoring well. Concentrations of radioactive tritium are 300 times the allowable levels in four test wells at the site. This raises alarm about the plant’s aging management program, which was the basis of the relicensing that is supposed to prevent this sort of dangerous mishap.

Despite assurances from Oyster Creek spokespeople that tritium has not traveled off company grounds, it has entered the water table. Water flows, and at Oyster Creek it will eventually empty into Barnegat Bay, where the state announced this week a huge reseeding program of the oyster beds.

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