A new report from the Department of Energy’s Inspector General says that some 2,000 radioactive waste capsules currently held underwater at a Hanford, Washington facility should be moved to dry storage because of the risk of earthquakes in the region. “We acknowledge the budgetary challenges facing the department and its impact on moving the capsules…
Nuclear Power Another day, another poll–this one from Gallup–showing Americans support renewables & conservation, oppose more nukes. You’d think politicians, who are supposedly expert at reading polls, might have figured out which side of the issue to be on by now. But they haven’t. Eight hour Alert over after smoke seen at Exelon’s Fukushima-clone Quad…
Nuclear Power An investigation by the Mainichi newspaper found that a Japanese government team withheld high radiation data monitored at three sites near the damaged Fukushima reactors. The team also seems to want to change its assumptions about radiation exposure–a move that would lower projected doses. For example, their original assumption was that farmers in…
Nuclear Power Is this one reason the UK has seemingly been among the more reluctant European nations to support imposing sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine? The Guardian reported Wednesday that Britain is talking with Russia and its Rosatom atomic industry about building a new VVER reactor in the UK. A Memorandum of…
Former NRC Chair Greg Jaczko asks if Japan is ready for another nuclear accident: “This has to be remembered—that there are certain accidents that are not preventable,” said Gregory Jaczko, former chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. “The question Japan has to ask itself is: Is the country willing to have another accident? And…
Tomorrow, March 11, marks the third anniversary of the beginning of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. As the world learned at Chernobyl in 1986, and as has been reinforced at Fukushima, nuclear catastrophes do have a discernible beginning. What they don’t have have is an end. They are ongoing, and especially in Fukushima’s case, will be…
The aging of nuclear reactors is a topic that is receiving renewed attention this week, and for good reason. Last year, in the U.S. alone, technical problems faced by older reactors closed two reactors at San Onofre, California and one at Crystal River. Last week we learned that the two reactors at St. Lucie, Florida…
Nuclear Power This is a thorough and factual post from St. Louis Public Radio on the World War II-era radioactive waste dump at the West Lake landfill near the St. Louis airport–a site never designed to hold radioactive waste. A fire has been smoldering at an adjacent garbage landfill since 2010; one key question is…
Nuclear Power The Virginia legislature has passed a bill to force ratepayers to help Dominion Resources build a new reactor at its North Anna site. That’s not exactly how the rather convoluted and obscure bill was presented to the legislature, but now that it’s passed that’s exactly how a Dominion official described it to the…
On February 15, 2012, NIRS submitted a formal Petition for Rulemaking to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to change its regulations governing emergency evacuation and emergency planning around nuclear reactors. The heart of the petition calls for expansion of the current 10-mile Emergency Planning Zones around each reactor site, based on the real-world experiences at Fukushima…