August

August 30, 2010
CT Paying Price In Fight Over Nuclear Waste Storage, Hartford Business Journal
Fed up with 12 years of delays in removing nuclear waste from Connecticut’s power plants, a coalition of business and utilities is demanding the Obama administration reverse its decision undoing three decades of planning for disposing of waste from the country’s nuclear power programs. These businesses, led by the New England Council, see the administration’s move to abandon a Nevada storage site as compounding a long-standing federal delay costing Connecticut millions in fees and inflicted untold damage on nuclear power’s reputation in the state and region. Connecticut ratepayers contribute more than $8 million per year to store more than 1,920 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel at its temporary sites in the state — including a 588-acre site in Haddam that seems prime for redevelopment. That annual fee comes on top of the $383 million state ratepayers have contributed since 1982 to develop a permanent disposal site for this waste.
http://www.hartfordbusiness.com/news14567.html
See Related NFAC Article Below (August 30 Brattleboro Reformer)

August 30, 2010
DOE, New York Reach Cost Agreement for Nuclear Cleanup, Environmental Protection
The Department of Energy (DOE) and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) have reached agreement on the allocation of costs for cleanup of the West Valley Demonstration Project (WVDP) and the Western New York Nuclear Service Center. On Aug. 17, the U.S. District Court, Western District of New York, signed a consent decree that formalized the agreement. “The Department of Energy is committed to partnering with our stakeholders as we fulfill our cleanup requirements,” said Ines Triay, Ph.D., assistant secretary for the Office of Environmental Management.
http://eponline.com/articles/2010/08/30/doe-new-york-reach-cost-agreement-for-nuclear-cleanup_0.aspx

August 30, 2010
NRC considers long-term on-site storage of waste, Brattleboro Reformer
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted earlier this month to explore the option of storing nuclear waste at decommissioned sites past the current 30-year standard. NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko wrote in his vote, "The Commission has made a generic determination that, if necessary, spent fuel generated in any reactor can be stored safely and without significant environmental impacts for at least 60 years beyond the licensed life for operation." He also recommended that the staff prepare an update to the Waste Confidence Findings and Proposed Rule, "to account for storage on site storage facilities, off-site storage facilities, or both, for more than 100 years, but no longer than 300 years, from the end of licensed operations of any nuclear power plant, which may include the term of a revised or renewed license." Now that all the chairmen have voted, the Secretary of the Commission will condense the information and provide guidance for the staff, NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said.
http://www.reformer.com/localnews/ci_15934549

August 27, 2010
Radioactive waste agreement reached in Texas, Bloomberg Business Week
State officials and a West Texas waste processing, storage and disposal facility have reached an agreement that allows hot low-level radioactive material to be stored at the company's site for up to three years. The agreement Friday resolves a dispute over how long the material could be stored. State officials initially wanted a one-year limit.
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9HS290G0.htm
See Related NFAC Article (August 11 PR Newswire):
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/federal-investigation-of-texas-radioactive-waste-dump-urged-100445079.html

August 27, 2010
Hanford workers digging up hazardous wastes, Tri-City Herald
TRI-CITIES, Wash. Work is nearly complete to help identify the type and amount of radioactive and hazardous materials at the 618-10 Burial Ground, one of the most hazardous sites on the Hanford nuclear reservation. Washington Closure Hanford workers have dug test pits in burial trenches containing laboratory waste, drums - including one with depleted uranium shavings - and other material at the site about six miles north of Richland and just off Hanford's main highway. The discoveries will help determine exactly what was discarded in the trenches when the six-acre burial site was used between 1954-63. That information will help guide a plan for cleanup that's expected to start in spring 2011, Washington Closure and Department of Energy officials said Thursday. The cleanup project is one of the most challenging to date at Hanford because records of what was dumped in the 12 trenches at the site are incomplete, said John Darby, Washington Closure project manager. http://www.tri-cityherald.com/2010/08/27/1145301/hanford-workers-ready-to-clean.html#ixzz0y6jkDNcy

August 26, 2010
US MOX plant clears licensing hurdle, World Nuclear News
A mixed oxide (MOX) fuel fabrication facility being built in the USA to turn ex-military plutonium into fuel for nuclear power reactors has taken a step forward in the licensing process with the publication of a draft Safety Evaluation Report (SER) by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The report documents the NRC's technical safety review of Shaw Areva MOX Services' application for an operating licence for the facility, under construction at the Department of Energy's (DoE) Savannah River site in South Carolina. In it, the NRC has concluded that the descriptions, specifications, commitments and analyses provided by MOX Services provide an adequate basis for safety and safeguards operations, and that operation of the facility "would not pose an undue risk to worker and public health and safety."
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS-US_MOX_plant_clears_licensing_hurdle-2608107.html

August 24, 2010
WIPP site being considered for DOE plutonium disposal, Carlsbad Current-Argus
CARLSBAD — The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad is being eyed as a potential site for the disposal of surplus plutonium by the Department of Energy. The material represents approximately 13 metric tons (MT) of surplus plutonium, including about 7 MT from retired nuclear weapons and 6 MT of non-pit plutonium. A "pit" is the plutonium core of a nuclear weapon, while "non-pit" plutonium comprises plutonium oxides or metals that existed when the Cold War ended. The material under consideration for potential disposal at the WIPP facility is 6 MT of surplus non-pit plutonium to be moved from the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina. It could be disposed of as transuranic (TRU) waste at WIPP in the same way other TRU waste is disposed of currently. A public scoping meeting was held Tuesday at the Best Western Stevens Inn as part of the process to determine subjects to be considered and evaluated in a supplemental environmental impact statement (EIS) required by the project.
http://www.currentargus.com/ci_15884714

August 24, 2010
Little Hope, Help for DOE's Displaced Yucca Mountain Contract Workers, New York Times
Steve Hommel has had a difficult year by almost any standard: He lost his job on the Yucca Mountain project, uprooted his family to South Carolina and sold his Las Vegas-area house for a third of the price he paid for it. But Hommel still considers himself "one of the lucky ones." Unlike many of his former Yucca co-workers, he found a new job and was able to settle his home mortgage with the bank. At 30, he is relatively young; he can start over and learn new skills. "It was scary. It was not an easy decision," Hommel said in a recent interview about his move. "Just the thought of not being able to support my family made me start looking everywhere."
http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/08/24/24greenwire-little-hope-help-for-does-displaced-yucca-moun-27266.html

August 24, 2010
It's official: Test site gets new name, Las Vegas Review-Journal
Known for six decades as the Nevada Test Site, the Rhode Island-size tract of high desert where government scientists detonated nuclear bombs during the Cold War got a new name Monday: the Nevada National Security Site. The scientists who work there will probably call it "N-squared, S-squared," or N2S2, short for NNSS, said Troy Wade, chairman of the Nevada Test Site Historical Foundation. The name change was brought about by legislation from Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and the state's congressional delegation. The branch of the Department of Energy that runs the site -- the National Nuclear Security Administration -- selected a name to reflect the site's expanded missions on counterterrorism, homeland security and treaty verification.
http://www.lvrj.com/news/it-s-official--test-site-gets-new-name-101363079.html

August 23, 2010
NRC PUBLISHES VOLUME 1 OF YUCCA MOUNTAIN SAFETY EVALUATION REPORT, NRC Press Release
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has published the first volume of the agency staff’s safety evaluation report on the Department of Energy’s license application seeking authorization to construct a high-level radioactive waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev. This first volume contains the staff’s evaluation of the “General Information” section of the DOE license application, which contains introductory and overview information about the proposed facility and its operation. Publication of Volume 1 does not represent a licensing decision or indicate what an eventual licensing decision might be. No decision to grant or deny a construction authorization can be made until after completion of the NRC staff’s independent technical review of the application, the adjudicatory hearing and subsequent Commission review.
http://adamswebsearch2.nrc.gov/idmws/doccontent.dll?library=PU_ADAMS^PBNTAD01&ID=102360091
Report Available at: http://adamswebsearch2.nrc.gov/idmws/doccontent.dll?library=PU_ADAMS^PBNTAD01&ID=102360091

August 18, 2010
PART ONE OF A SERIES: What Lies Buried Not Far from Morehead, Ky.?
4.8 Million Curies of Mixed Fission Products, Huntington News Network (West Virginia)
Near Morehead, KY (HNN) - A classic television series hyped the beauty of rural areas and the stereotypical low education levels of those residing there. Before, during and after the Manhattan Project which developed the atomic weapon that ended the Second World War, the ideal venue for nuclear fuel processing and development plans were away from populated areas. Maxey Flats Nuclear Disposal is located nine miles from Morehead, Ky. Occupying 45-acreas, the area is designated as “restricted.” About 4.8 million cubic feet of low level radioactive waste is buried there. About 27 areas of the Restricted Area have been used for 52 disposal trenches. The area contains storage and warehouse buildings, liquid storage tank buildings, gravel driveways and parking. There is a polyvinylchloride (PVC) cover over the trench area.***As the Cold War ended, the need for waste disposal continued. Guess where scientists and government officials chose to discard “hot” reactor waste? In rural areas where it could be buried and forgotten. Cutting away all the inter-agency and extinct agency acronyms, the Atomic Energy Commission in 1962 retained authority to license the burial of waste from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel.
http://www.huntingtonnews.net/local/100818-rutherford-localmaxeyflats.html

August 17, 2010
Hundreds of jobs for Ohio cleanup, Dayton Daily News
PORTSMOUTH, Ohio — Federal energy officials say hundreds of jobs will come to southern Ohio for the next phase of the cleanup of a former uranium plant built during the Cold War. Energy Department officials expect the contractor to begin hiring by the end of this year, with 350 to 500 new jobs over the next three years.
They announced Monday a contract valued at $2.1 billion over 10 years for work at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, 65 miles south of Columbus. It produced enriched uranium until 2001.
http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/ohio-news/doe-hundreds-of-jobs-for-ohio-cleanup-865662.html

August 17, 2010
Transport, storage main concerns for plutonium, Decatur Daily News
What three-letter word ending in X excites passion throughout the Valley? No, not that one. The word is MOX — short for mixed oxide — and refers to a mixture of plutonium and uranium that the U.S. Department of Energy wants to use as fuel at Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant. The purpose of the plan is to dispose of at least 34 tons of plutonium made surplus by nuclear disarmament treaties with Russia. Sixty people attended a public hearing on the topic at Calhoun Community College recently, and with few exceptions those who spoke opposed the idea. Many also complained they knew little more about MOX after the hearing. The plutonium in MOX raises many fears, most involving security from terrorists during shipping from South Carolina to Browns Ferry, and storage at Browns Ferry.
http://www.decaturdaily.com/detail/66660.html?content_source=&category_id=&search_filter=&event_mode=&event_ts_from=&list_type=&order_by=&order_sort=&content_class=&sub_type=stories&town_id=

August 17, 2010
The cost of closing Yucca, The Post and Courier (Charleston)
[Editorial] South Carolina has a major interest in the opening of a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, and should pursue every avenue to reverse the administration's ill-considered decision to terminate the project. The state's lawsuit against the Energy Department recognizes that the federal government must live up to its responsibility to safely dispose of the vast quantities of highly radioactive waste from its Savannah River Site. Attorney General Henry McMaster also is acting on behalf of the state's ratepayers, who collectively have contributed $1.6 billion in surcharges on their electrical bills to develop the disposal site, which also will provide for storage of commercial radioactive waste.
http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2010/aug/17/the-cost-of-closing-yucca/

August 17, 2010
Mechanical design for vit plant lab finished, Tri-City Herald
Richland Hanford vitrification plant engineers have finished the mechanical systems design for the Analytical Laboratory, one of five major nuclear facilities at the plant.  It’s the first building to have the mechanical design system completed after nine years of work. When complete, the lab will contain 35,000 feet of piping. The vitrification plant, or Waste Treatment Plant, will be used to turn Hanford’s radioactive waste held in underground tanks into a stable glass form for disposal. The lab will analyze about 10,000 samples each year collected from throughout the vitrification process to ensure high-quality glass and strong process controls.
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/2010/08/17/1133851/hanford-mechanical-design-for.html#ixzz0xZ2N9TDO