Some other stories from the nuclear industry you may have missed:

New York Times: A Bad India Deal
‘The House of Representatives approved President Bush’s ill-conceived nuclear agreement with India last week, shrugging off concerns that the deal could make it even harder to rein in Iran’s (and others’) nuclear ambitions. We hope the Senate shows better judgment.’

CNN: Senate may be close to vote on India nuclear pact
‘The Senate may be ready to give approval this week to a nuclear trade deal with India that the Bush administration has been pushing Congress to complete. […]But the vote is not a certainty. At least one senator has been using parliamentary rules to anonymously block a vote.’

Hindustan Times: Russia to build 26 nuclear power reactors
‘Russia intends to build 26 major nuclear power reactors over twelve years to come, chief of the state-run corporation Rosatom, Sergei Kiriyenko, said. Kiriyenko was speaking at the 52nd general conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on 29th september.’

ABC: Cambodia looks to nuclear power
‘Cambodia's government says the kingdom may develop its first nuclear power plant as early as 2020. It says with hydropower and coal capacity expected to peak in the next decade, nuclear energy is the best option for the country.’

Stars and Stripes: Navy resists Sasebo call for nuclear drill
‘Nearly two months after learning a U.S. submarine leaked minute amounts of radiation in its harbor, the city of Sasebo said it hopes to persuade the U.S. Navy this week to cooperate in local safeguards against accidents involving nuclear-powered vessels. But officials at Sasebo Naval Base said Tuesday that participation is unlikely. The Navy has steadfastly stuck to its position that its nuclear vessels are safe enough that accident drills with Japan are not needed.’

The Zonie Report: Lawsuit aims to block uranium mining near Grand Canyon
‘Three large environmental groups are suing the federal government for allegedly dragging its heels to protect almost 1.1 million acres near the Grand Canyon from uranium mining and other such projects.’

Associated Press: EPA issues radiation exposure rules for Yucca dump
‘The EPA has struggled to comply with a 2004 court directive that said it must establish a radiation health standard for a million years into the future because some of the isotopes in the buried waste will remain extremely dangerous for that long. An earlier standard of only 10,000 years was ruled inadequate by the court.’

In an article for EnergyBiz magazine, Benjamin K. Sovacool has some figures on the number of accidents and casualties caused by the nuclear industry:

One recent study published in the May issue of Energy Policy looked at major energy accidents from 1907 to 2007. The major accidents were defined as incidents that resulted in either death or more than $50,000 of property damage. The study identified 279 incidents totaling $41 billion in damages and 182,156 fatalities, with the number of accidents peaking in the decade between 1978 and 1987, which had more than 90 accidents. In terms of cost, nuclear plants ranked first with regard to their economic damage, accounting for damages equivalent to $16.6 billion, or 41 percent of all damages during the past century.

Contrary to the industry´s claim that nuclear facilities are safe, 63 major accidents have occurred at nuclear power plants. Twenty-nine accidents have occurred since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, and 71 percent of all nuclear accidents, that is, 45 out of 63, occurred in the United States, refuting the notion that severe accidents cannot happen within the country or that they have not happened since Chernobyl.

Using extremely conservative estimates, nuclear power accidents have also killed 4,100 people. The nuclear power accidents have involved meltdowns, explosions, fires, and loss of coolant, and have occurred during both normal operation and extreme, emergency conditions such as droughts and earthquakes.

Just as Americans are being asked to back the biggest bailout in U.S. history, Senator McCain’s would again put the American taxpayer on the hook for yet another corporate giveaway.

Senator McCain wants to build 100 more nuclear reactors in the U.S., 45 by 2030.
But there’s an important detail that the Senator and his campaign fail to mention. The economics of nuclear power are so abysmal that many nuclear CEO’s will not construct reactors unless the American taxpayer guarantees they won’t lose money.

But the good senator and his campaign should know better. Senator McCain has been around long enough to actually remember the implosion of the nuclear industry. If his recollection has failed, his economic advisor Douglas Holtz-Eakin could refresh his memory. When the notion that the American taxpayer should guarantee loans to nuclear corporations was introduced in the Senate, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) then headed by Senator McCain’s economic advisor Holtz-Eakin found that:

CBO considers the risk of default on such a loan guarantee to be very high—well above 50 percent. The key factor accounting for this risk is that we expect that the plant would be uneconomic to operate because of its high construction costs, relative to other electricity generation sources. (http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/42xx/doc4206/s14.pdf)

Senator McCain’s support for nuclear loan guarantees can not be justified by the nuclear industry’s past performance. According to the Department of Energy, the first 75 reactors built in the U.S. experienced cost overruns totaling over $100 billion and that was before the meltdown at Three Mile Island sent the nuclear industry even further into a tailspin.

U.S. Nuclear Power Plant Construction Cost Overruns

It was this economic track record that doomed nuclear power in the U.S. and led Forbes magazine to declare that the "failure of the U.S. nuclear power program ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster of monumental scale." Really, who in their right mind would guarantee loans to an industry with this track record? Obviously, not Wall Street!

Last July, six major U.S. Banking institutions (some of which have been bought or are now bankrupt) including Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch & Morgan Stanley sent a letter to the Department of Energy (DOE). The bankers told DOE that unless the U.S. Taxpayer backed 100% of the debt incurred by nuclear corporations that they would have difficulty “accessing capital markets.”

We believe many new nuclear construction projects will have difficulty accessing the capital markets during construction and initial operation without the support of a federal government loan guarantee. Lenders and investors in the fixed income markets will be acutely concerned about a number of political, regulatory and litigation-related risks that are unique to nuclear power, including the possibility of delays in commercial operation of a completed plant or “another Shoreham”. We believe these risks, combined with the higher capital costs and longer construction schedules of nuclear plants as compared to other generation facilities, will make lenders unwilling at present to extend long-term credit to such projects in a form that would be commercially viable. (http://www.lgprogram.energy.gov/nopr-comments/comment29.pdf)

Senator McCain has already been warned by the CBO, the GAO and Wall Street that building new nuclear power plants is an economic meltdown waiting to happen. Even a subsidiary of Warren Buffet’s corporation Berkshire Hathaway has rejected a new nuclear reactor as economically unsound.

Before Americans go to the polls in November, they should know that Senator McCain has abandoned his straight talk when it comes to nuclear power. The Senator needs to explain why the American taxpayer should be put on the hook for new nuclear plants that the industry would never build if they and their stockholders had to bear the risk.

(This is guest post by Jim Riccio, nuclear policy analyst for Greenpeace USA)

Some other stories from the nuclear industry you may have missed:

US News & World Report: A Moribund Nuclear Manufacturing Industry Shows Sign of Life
‘Renewed calls for building new nuclear reactors to cope with a worrisome energy future have become a popular theme on the campaign trail for candidates like John McCain, but any effort faces a serious obstacle—the moribund state of the nation's nuclear manufacturing industry.’

World Nuclear News: Areva and others beat loan guarantee deadline
‘Areva has submitted an application for a US government loan guarantee for its proposed Eagle Rock uranium enrichment facility. Would-be reactor builders Duke Energy and PPL also managed to get their applications in by the 29 September deadline.’

Washington Post: Senate Backs Far-Reaching Nuclear Trade Deal With India
‘The bill, which passed 86 to 13, goes to President Bush for his signature, handing the chief executive a rare victory that both advocates and foes say will reverberate for decades. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who conceived of the deal, have pushed hard for it from the earliest weeks of the president's second term.’

Vue Weekly: Dr Helen Caldicott: Truth is stranger than fission
‘For more than 35 years, Dr Helen Caldicott has been an outspoken critic of the follies of the nuclear age, dedicating her life to shining a spotlight on the risks posed to human health and the environment by both nuclear weapons and the widespread use of nuclear power.

Nuclear energy is truly a globalised industry. Countries and companies across the world share reactor designs, components, and construction techniques. Hand in hand with that, those countries also share design faults, component failures, and construction shortcomings. Witness, for instance, how the EPR reactors currently being built in France and Finland share many of the same fundamental problems in their construction – poor safety standards, cost overruns and missed deadlines.

Add to these lists the way investigations, studies and public consultations are conducted when governments decide to build new nuclear power stations. The same tricks are exported all over the world. Canada and Bulgaria’s nuclear industries both produce woefully inadequate Environmental Impact Assessments. Consultations with the public are regarded as shams and whitewashes in Bulgaria and the UK.

The latest questions to be asked about the transparency of consultations have been asked by the UK’s satire and investigative journalism magazine, Private Eye:

After the high court slammed the government’s public consultation over new nuclear power stations last year as ‘misleading, seriously flawed, manifestly inadequate and procedurally unfair’, you’d think mandarins might have learned. But recent consultations on the siting of nuclear stations suggests not.

An Eye reporter applied to go to one of the meetings but was barred the night before and told that he wasn’t a ‘stakeholder’ in the nuclear debate. The department for business, enterprise and regulatory reform (BERR) clearly believes that protest group Parents Concerned About Hinkley (PCAH) isn’t a stakeholder either – even though it sits on the official site stakeholder group for Hinkley Point in Somerset. The group has made a formal complaint to BERR to ask why it was not invited.

PCAH is not alone. Delegate lists for the three events, in Bristol, Manchester and London, show that out of 117 attendees the vast majority were representatives from nuclear companies, their lobbyists and their consultants, along with a few regulators, while fewer than half a dozen of those opposed to the plans made it in.

Journalists are not ‘stakeholders’? Do they not use electricity? Are they not the eyes and ears of those members of the public unable to attend such events? Is the UK government perhaps worried about the standards of these consultations and therefore unwilling to allow journalists to report the facts? If that isn’t the case some would be forgiven for thinking so. Excluding the PCAH – stakeholders who aren’t stakeholders? – is merely perverse.

This comes along at a time when research by the Royal Society shows that, in the UK, ‘a good deal of fatalism about the legitimacy of any upcoming public consultation on siting of new stations is married with an overwhelming demand for proper consultation well in advance of any siting decisions.’. You can bet in this age of globalisation, that fatalism about consultations’ legitimacy is being exported worldwide.

With a widespread desire for transparency and open scrutiny in the nuclear industry, you would think governments would be anxious to build public confidence, not undermine it. If all is proper, clean, safe and cheap, what have they got to hide?

Some other stories from the nuclear industry you may have missed:

International Herald Tribune: Venezuela, France eye nuclear energy cooperation
‘France is willing to help Venezuela develop a civilian nuclear power program, the foreign ministers of both countries said Thursday. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner also said that France would like to use Venezuela — a staunch critic of the United States — as a go-between with Iran in discussions about the Middle Eastern nation's disputed nuclear program, but that Iranian officials have so far proved unreceptive to the approach.’

The Guardian: Iran willing to abandon uranium enrichment, envoy suggests
‘Iran would consider suspending uranium enrichment if the country were guaranteed a supply of nuclear fuel for its power stations, a senior Iranian diplomat said yesterday.’

The Economist: Who wins, nukes
‘NO NUCLEAR material, no bomb. It’s as simple as that. Hence the renewed, unanimous call by the United Nations Security Council for Iran to cease its suspect uranium-enriching and plutonium work. The same is true for terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda, known to be seeking nuclear materials and other weapons of mass destruction as a “religious duty”. The difference is that Iran can produce its own fissile material; terrorists have to steal theirs.’

Wall Street Journal: Cap in Hand: Power Companies Feel Credit Crunch, Too
‘The latest victims of the credit crunch? U.S. utilities, which after the government and the finance sector are the nation’s third-biggest borrowers. Rebecca Smith reported in the WSJ that power companies are increasingly feeling the pain. The capital-hungry industry is finding it harder, or at least more expensive, to get cash. And that cash is needed to build new power plants and transmission lines to keep the lights on. The credit crunch is just the latest blow to a sector that has already felt deregulation, looming environmental regulation, and wild swings in fuel prices.’

The Guardian: Warren Buffett and EDF set for power struggle over Constellation
‘Warren Buffett looks to be set on a collision course with French electricity giant, EDF, over Constellation Energy, the US nuclear firm he has just agreed to buy for $4.7bn (£2.7bn).’

World Nuclear News: Nine Mile Point COL lodged
‘Unistar, a joint venture of Constellation Energy and Electricité de France's EDF Group, is seeking approval for an Areva-designed 1600 MWe EPR unit which would be built at a site on the shores of Lake Ontario, already home to two boiling water reactors.’

Science Daily: Chernobyl Fallout? Plutonium Found In Swedish Soil
‘More than 20 years later, researchers from Case Western Reserve University traveled to Sweden and Poland to gain insight into the downward migration of Chernobyl-derived radionuclides in the soil. Among the team's findings was the fact that much more plutonium was found in the Swedish soil at a depth that corresponded with the nuclear explosion than that of Poland.’

Bloomberg: U.S. Rules Out Compromise on North Korea Inspections
‘The U.S. said North Korea must submit to international inspections of its nuclear sites, as envoy Christopher Hill continued talks in Pyongyang today aimed at salvaging the disarmament process.’

You can’t give one kid a lollipop without the rest of them complaining that they haven’t got one. And you know, it’s exactly the same with governments and exemptions from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). You give one country an exemption and sure enough other countries will want one as well.

If India can have nuclear technology without signing the NPT, Pakistan are saying, then why can’t we? U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declared the deal to allow India to trade in nuclear technology a ‘very big step forward’. Indeed, it’s a very big step over the corpse of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

You have to wonder what the US and the wider global family were expecting. If you treat one of your children as the favourite there is always going to be jealousy, resentment and conflict from the rest. As any parent can tell you, a lack of consistency in your attitude to discipline can lead to behavioural problems. Iran gets sanctions, Syria gets bombed, Libya gets arms, India gets exemptions. Is it any wonder people are confused? What will Pakistan get?

This, yet again, shows how dangerous and divisive nuclear energy is. Aside from the waste and safety fears, the industry has real potential to put nations at loggerheads. Say what you like about renewables but we defy sunlight, waves and wind to cause international tensions.

Some other stories from the nuclear industry you may have missed:

Tehran Times: Ahmadinejad envisions greater Iran-Venezuela cooperation
‘Current world economic conditions have paved the way for more cooperation between Iran and Venezuela, Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad said on Sunday. “Today we need to make big decisions to boost mutual and international cooperation,” Ahmadinejad told visiting Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro.’’

Climate Feedback: Nuclear energy: falling out of favour?
‘"The fact is, there's no such thing as a carbon-free lunch for any energy source", says Jim Riccio, a nuclear policy analyst for Greenpeace in Washington DC. But "for every dollar you spend on nuclear, you could have saved five or six times as much carbon with efficiency, or wind farms", concludes Benjamin Sovacool, author of a recent study in Energy Policy on the lifetime emissions of nuclear power plants.’

Deutsche Welle: IAEA Members Call for Middle East Without Nuclear Arms
‘Delegates at the nuclear watchdog's annual general conference in Vienna on Saturday, Oct. 4, adopted a resolution calling on all states in the region to accept IAEA inspections, and to accede and adhere to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which bans the development of nuclear arms.’

JTA: Israel to IAEA: N. Korea gave technology
‘Israel's envoy to the International Economic Energy Agency did not name the nations when he made the accusation Saturday at the 145-nation assembly meeting in Vienna. Iran and Syria, both currently under IAEA investigation, are likely on the list.’

Mineweb: Uranium's crystal ball is price sobering
‘The growth of nuclear power is still marching forward but the aspirations on uranium's price have dropped back a peg or two, according to the latest quarterly research by Sydney-based Resource Capital Research (RCR).’

China View: France's AREVA to launch uranium project in Jordan in November
‘Jordan Nuclear Energy Commission Chairman Khalid Touqan said AREVA will start drilling in November for the project's first phase, during which the company will identify the locations of crude uranium in the central part of the kingdom.’

The UK government is desperate for a new generation of nuclear power stations. But how is the older generation doing? Not well…

Six of the UK's ten nuclear stations are not operating at full capacity. Three are completely closed, one is operating at half capacity and two have been reduced to 70 per cent because of safety fears.

There is talk of brownouts and blackouts in the UK as early as next month when it is feared the country’s national grid will be unable to fulfil demand for electricity..

So why has the British government continuing to fail to learn the lessons of the past? Why isn’t the rest of the world looking at the example of the UK’s nuclear industry?

Some other stories from the nuclear industry you may have missed:

Reuters: Nuclear power back on German political agenda
‘Although there is no prospect Germany will build new nuclear stations, there are signs some closures could be put on hold.’

Energy Daily: Hungary inaugurates first stage of nuclear waste disposal facility
‘The completed first stage of a nuclear waste disposal site -- the first in Hungary -- was inaugurated Monday in Bataapati, some 180 kilometres (110 miles) southwest of Budapest.’

Sofia Echo: RWE risks reputation loss with Belene power plant –Greenpeace
‘German power utility RWE put its reputation at stake by pursuing an interest to buy 49 per cent in the company that would build and operate Bulgaria's second nuclear power plant at Belene on the Danube River, Greenpeace has said in a media statement.’

TerraDaily: Emissions Rising Faster This Decade Than Last
‘The latest figures on the global carbon budget released in Washington and Paris indicate a four-fold increase in growth rate of human-generated carbon dioxide emissions since 2000.’

Gather: Ads Cite Financial Risks of Nuclear Energy
‘"First the government bails out the banks, then all of Wall Street, at a cost of over $1 trillion," a gravelly voiced announcer says in the ad, which Friends of the Earth posted Monday on YouTube. "So why would taxpayers ever risk billions on nuclear power plants? The default rate on the loans is over 50 percent and cost over-runs are astronomical."’

Boston.com: NRC rejects complaints based on inspector's report
‘The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has rejected calls by environmental groups to overhaul its review process before processing applications for license extensions by reactors in Vermont, Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey.’

The Peninsula: Qatar plans adding up to 5,400MW nuclear power
‘With a power crunch looming, Qatar is studying the possibility of adding up to 5,400 megawatts (MW) of nuclear capacity between 2011 and 2036, according to the ‘Arabian Gulf Electricity Industry’ report released by Moody’s yesterday.’

Gulf Times: North Korea gives ultimatum to the US in latest nuclear row
‘North Korea has given the United States an ultimatum to accept its proposed solution to the latest nuclear row between the two sides, a pro-Pyongyang newspaper said yesterday.’

We’ve decided to make some big changes here at Nuclear Reaction. We’re getting rid of our computers and replacing them with typewriters. We’re giving up our email and telephones and taking up smoke signals and semaphore. We’ve stopped going to the doctor and now have our aches and pains treated by an old woman who lives around the corner with her black cat and broomstick.

‘But Nuclear Reaction!’ we hear you cry. ‘You’re giving up all those wonderful inventions that have made life so much better and you’re going back to old, discredited methods and ways of doing things. It’s madness!’

And ordinarily we’d agree with you but then we saw this news story…

Amec showed its determination to pursue nuclear business at the expense of renewables yesterday when it signed a "transition agreement" to take over management of the Sellafield atomic site in Cumbria [,UK] while selling off its wind business for £126m.

…and we thought, ‘Well, if Amec are giving up a clean, safe, productive and profitable technology in favour of a dangerous, expensive and discredited ways of doing things, why shouldn’t we? Amec aren’t morons, are they?’

We’ve found a nice cave to live in as well…

Some other news stories from the nuclear energy industry you may have missed:

Bloomberg: JPMorgan Cuts Uranium Price Forecasts, Citing Crisis
‘JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut its forecast for uranium prices through 2010 because of increased spot-market sales of the radioactive metal in September and the potential for the credit freeze to slow nuclear power project development.’

Financial Times: Climate groups' revenue hits $300bn
‘Companies providing goods and services that tackle climate change now form a bigger industry grouping than the global software and biotechnology sectors combined, according to new research.’

World Nuclear News: 'Very long term' deals for Areva and CGNPC
‘Areva has announced two new agreements with China Guangdong Nuclear Power Company (CGNPC). The Chinese firm will gain supplies of uranium, and the two will start a nuclear engineering joint venture.’

Tri-City Herald: Department of Energy faces huge cost increases
‘Cost increases and project delays continue to mount at the Department of Energy's 10 largest projects at nuclear weapons sites, five of them at Hanford, according to a Government Accountability Office report to Congress.’

Life is a series of compromises and trade offs. We balance every decision we make. We prioritise. Doing that means we can’t do this. Doing this means we can’t do that. Everything has as opportunity cost.

Take Lithuania for example. One of the conditions for Lithuania being admitted to the European Union in 2004 was that it closed Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant. The plant is of a similar design to that at Chernobyl and like the doomed Russian reactor, Ignalina lacks adequate containment facilities in the event a meltdown.

The Lithuanian people are voting on October 12 in referendum on whether to hold to the promise to close the plant. However, ‘many of the Baltic country's leaders and voters want to renege, arguing that the risk of having to rely on nearby Russia for electricity outweighs the risk of another Chernobyl’.

As we said, life is a series of compromises. We have to prioritise. But might we humbly suggest that, if you think that buying electricity from another country until another solution is found is worse than the risk of a repeat of the worst nuclear accident in the world’s history, you have your priorities slightly confused.

Nuclear power can help with the water shortage in the Middle East. You heard us. Despite the millions of litres of water needed every day just to cool a nuclear reactor, the wonder technology can help irrigate one of the driest places on the planet.

Once the logistical problems of investment, component production bottlenecks, skills shortages, and the transporting of dangerous nuclear materials into the world’s most politically unstable region are solved, and the plants have been built without coming under attack from one of the region’s many terrorist organisations, the reactors will apparently power desalination plants. Sounds so easy.

The Middle East, however, has an inexhaustible and abundant energy-producing resource that isn’t subject to the same problems of nuclear energy: it’s called sunlight. There’s loads of the stuff. And you know what? The market in sunlight can’t be controlled by anybody. Terrorists can’t blow the sun up or use it to make dirty bombs. The sun can’t be invaded by unfriendly countries. Not unless there’s a Middle Eastern dictator somewhere building fireproof spaceships.

Hook desalination plants up to solar energy generators. We’d drink to that.

Some other stories from the nuclear industry you may have missed:

Bloomberg: Areva, EDF Dispute Nuclear Waste Treatment Costs, Echos Says
‘The French government has been forced to intervene in a dispute between Areva SA and Electricite de France SA over the cost of nuclear-waste treatment at the La Hague plant in France, Les Echos reported, without saying where it got the information.’

Rutland Herald: NRC calls special meeting
‘The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is holding an unusual public meeting next week on the status and condition of the cooling towers at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant. The public meeting comes after the NRC sent a special inspection team to Vernon to look at the towers in July, after the towers again started leaking, this time because of missing brackets.’

Yahoo! News: Hair-size leak in nuclear reactor
‘Scientists are yet to find a guaranteed solution for an ongoing problem with Australia's only nuclear reactor, but will shut it down again later this month to attempt further repairs.’

VOA News: US in Deliberate Study of North Korean Nuclear Position
‘The State Department says the Bush administration is engaged in a careful study of North Korea's latest position on the six-party nuclear talks, as conveyed to a senior U.S. envoy late last week. VOA's David Gollust reports from the State Department another top U.S. diplomat is still in the region consulting other parties to the talks.’

Calgary Herald: Nuclear energy has many pitfalls
‘Does Alberta want to find itself in need of cutting its losses after hundreds of millions of dollars have been poured into building a reactor that won't work? The question of real costs must be determined first, before the province moves in this direction.’

Wall Street Journal: Nuclear Option: Atomic Power Generates Energy, But Not Many Votes
‘Politicians, energy types, and even many environmentalists see nuclear power as a key part of the answer to the energy crunch. And voters? Not so much.’

Vermont Yankee is a lady who loves trouble. Last year part of one of the nuclear power plant’s cooling towers collapsed. At one point in July this year the reactor’s coolant system was leaking 60 gallons of water a minute. That leak was found to be caused by ‘missing brackets’. Because that’s just what you need in a nuclear reactor’s coolant system, isn’t it? Missing brackets. Just why the brackets were missing and who was responsible has yet to be revealed.

And then we hear that Vermont has just received a ‘hot shipment’. No, it’s not a delivery of steaming takeaway pizza but a load of lead shielding from another nuclear site. It was ‘hot’ because the radioactivity from the shielding was found to have exceeded federal radiation levels. When the shielding left the Pilgrim nuclear plant in Massachusetts to travel to Vermont, its radiation level was in the ‘acceptable’ range. Mysteriously, when it arrived at Vermont it was above the level. Why was this the case and how had it happened? Nobody knows.

That’s the thing about the nuclear industry. It’s PR people, supporters, and cheerleaders can categorically, absolutely, and positively assure you that it is safe, cheap and clean. They’re definite, categorical, and cast-iron with their assurances and information.

Then something goes wrong and they’re all scratching their heads and shrugging their shoulders and shuffling their feet. They don’t know how such a thing could have happened. They don’t have the information. They’ll get back to you.

Once the fuss has died down again they’re all, ‘Hey! Nuclear power! Trust us, it’s great!’ again. And so it goes on…

Press Telegram: Doctor sounds alarm on risks of nuclear energy

‘Nuclear power is a grave public health danger, far worse than tobacco. Over time, it will induce epidemics of cancer, leukemia and genetic disease in all future generations from the massive quantities of radioactive waste currently being generated.’

World Nuclear News: German research reactor fuel returned to USA

Some nine kilograms of US-origin highly enriched uranium (HEU) research reactor fuel has been shipped from Germany to the USA, marking the return of all such material from the country. The US Department of Energy's (DoE's) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said that the material, transported by sea and rail, was the fourth shipment completed during the past year.

Guardian: PM urges Spain to reconsider nuclear moratorium

Spain's socialist government should reconsider its moratorium on building more nuclear power plants, former socialist prime minister Felipe Gonzalez said on Thursday. Gonzalez, Spain's longest serving prime minister since its transition to democracy and a leading figure in the socialist party, was a staunch defender of Spain's moratorium on new nuclear capacity when he was in power from 1982 to 1996.

World Nuclear News: Environmental report for third new Finnish nuclear project

The environmental impact assessment (EIA) report for Fennovoima Oy's project to build a new nuclear power plant has found no environmental problems at any of the three sites under consideration. The report is the last of three to be submitted for the three different new build projects proposed in Finland.

The Standard: more studies needed on nuclear power

‘Kenya must undertake a comprehensive assessment of her long-term energy needs and exploit local resources before contemplating the construction of a nuclear plant, a nuclear expert has said. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) senior energy economist Dr Ferenc Toth, said the country might encounter enormous problems in financing a nuclear plant due to stringent conditions from international financers.’

International Herald Tribune: The US and the Nukes – Nonproliferation

North Korea's decision to expel nuclear inspectors and restart production of nuclear weapons-grade plutonium at its Yongbyon reactor is a stark reminder of what the Bush administration is leaving its successor. This came just a week after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Iran now has 3,820 centrifuges operating at 85 percent efficiency and has produced 1,056 pounds of low-enriched uranium (LEU).

Let’s round off the week again with some more amazing facts from the crazy world of nuclear energy…

• According to Nobel Prize nominee and physician Dr. Helen Caldicott, mutations of recessive genes caused by nuclear waste can take up to 20 generations to reveal themselves. That’s more than 500 years.

• A document drawn up in 2001 by the UK government’s environment department says that, even if no new nuclear power stations are built, the total amount of radioactive waste produced by the country’s reactors will total 500,000 tonnes. It would take eight Yucca Mountains to store it all.

• Unlike humans, birds have no love of nuclear energy. Experiments conducted around Chernobyl showed that birds are sensitive to levels of radiation and will choose nesting sites in the area with low levels of radioactivity.

• At the end of August this year, US nuclear lobbyists, the Nuclear Energy Institute spent $1.2 million lobbying the White House, Congress, and Department of Energy. There’s still plenty of time to beat the $1.6 million they spent in 1998 when one John McCain received $35,500 from them.

• Did you know that the nuclear industry once tried to market its own soft drink? The cans leaked.

Have a good weekend.

Some other stories from the nuclear industry you may have missed:

Belarus News: Nuclear power project is fraught with «ordeals», expert says
‘The Belarusian government’s plans to build a nuclear power plant are fraught with “multiple troubles and ordeals for the people,” Belarusian expert Heorhiy Lepin said at an international conference in Vilnius on October 9.’

The Guardian: North Korea in nuclear U-turn after terror list reprieve
‘North Korea said yesterday it would resume dismantling its nuclear weapons programme, hours after the US removed it from the list of states that sponsor terrorism.’

The London Times: EDF considers the sale of Eggborough power station
‘The French energy company is understood to be confident that regulators in Brussels will approve the proposed £12.4 billion takeover of British Energy quickly without recourse to a lengthy Phase II inquiry, which could drag on until next spring. The European Commission is to consider the implications of the deal for competition in Britain's wholesale electricity markets this month.’

Monsters and Critics: French delegation gets no new insight into Iran's nuclear policy
‘'As far as the nuclear issue is concerned, we leave Iran with less than we knew before,' French socialist lawmaker Elisabeth Guigou told reporters at the French ambassador's residence in Tehran.’

The Earth Times: Vote count underway in Lithuanian elections – Summary
‘Votes were being counted early Monday after Lithuanians went to the polls in a general election that included a separate referendum on the future of the country's only nuclear power plant.’

Poor Vermont Yankee’s troubles just won’t go away. Following the collapse of a cooling tower, a leaking coolant system, and the delivery of radioactive lead shielding, the troubled nuclear reactor has become the latest victim of the global economic meltdown:

The decommissioning trust fund for the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant has taken a hit on Wall Street, dropping by 10 percent or more than $40 million in the past month, officials said.

[…]

The fund, which would pay to dismantle Vermont Yankee, dropped from $427 million on March 31 to $397 million on Sept. 30.

The fund is about $400 million short of what will be needed to clean up the plant, according to recent estimates.

But guess what? There is some good news. Vermont Yankee has found a rich backer to bail her out of her financial troubles – the US taxpayer! Legislation was drawn up last year in Vermont to force the reactor’s owner Entergy to make financial guarantees for the reactors decommissioning. Vermont’s Governor James Douglas vetoed the legislation instead trusting to Entergy’s goodwill on the matter.

It now seems the energy company is trying to wriggle out of its responsibilities – and they haven’t made a contribution to the decommissioning fund since 2002.

Where does that, once again, leave the reserves of trust and goodwill for the nuclear industry? About as short of contributions as the Vermont Yankee decommissioning trust fund.

Some other stories from the nuclear industry you may have missed:

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: Nuclear stances differ in degree
‘Republican presidential hopeful John McCain has called for the construction of 45 plants by 2030. Democrat Barack Obama concedes that nuclear power has a role to play in cleaner-burning energy production but has set no construction targets and, unlike McCain, opposes storing the spent waste in Nevada's Yucca Mountain -- a long-discussed but still-unused depository.’

LoHud.com: Entergy plans to spin off Indian Point, other nuclear plants
‘Indian Point's owner says it still expects to spin its nuclear plants off into a separate company despite the credit crisis that has racked the global economy this month.
"We know what's going on in the market," said Jim Steets, spokesman for Entergy Nuclear, which owns and operates Indian Point. "But we expect that we are going to be complete the financing necessary for the spin-off by the end of the fourth quarter."’

Colombo Page: Sri Lanka mulling to produce nuclear power
‘Sri Lankan government says it is considering producing nuclear power in the near future as a solution to future power needs in the country. Sri Lankan Minister of Science and Technology Tissa Vitharana says this project would be a better answer to the rising power crisis.’

FXstreet.com: Tricastin reactor 2 to be off for several weeks-EDF
‘Unplanned works at the 900-megawatt (MW) nuclear reactor 2 at the troubled Tricastin plant in southeast France will take another few weeks, EDF said on Monday.’

SFGate: Fiscal woes could delay climate change efforts
‘Hopes for action had been running high since both Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama had pledged to make cutting U.S. greenhouse gas emissions a top priority. But environmentalists now fear that the next president may be more focused on reviving a flatlining economy, and Congress could be wary of supporting any measures that might slow growth or raise energy prices for consumers.’

Bloomberg: Uranium Falls to January 2006 Level as Utilities Seek Bargains
‘Uranium dropped to the lowest level since January 2006 as utilities held off purchases, expecting the metal used to fuel nuclear reactors to continue declining, Denver-based pricing service TradeTech LLC said.’

Bloomberg: North Korea to Resume Shutting Down Reactor Today, IAEA Says
‘North Korea will resume shutting down its Yongbyon nuclear reactor today and allow United Nations inspectors to monitor the process, the International Atomic Energy Agency said.’

More details are emerging of the failed bidding process for the contract to build Turkey’s first nuclear reactor. Not only did the process only attract one bid - meaning it fell foul of Turkish competition laws - it now turns out the bid from the Park Teknik consortium fell short technically as well.

One of the shortcomings of the bid was that the proposed reactor would be fuelled by uranium pellets available only from Russia. While this might have been excellent for the long term prospects of the Russian nuclear industry is would have done nothing for the shaky reputation of nuclear power providing energy security. (Russian industry is already responsible for generating 35 per cent of Turkey’s electricity – this deal would push it to 55 per cent.)

This doesn’t mean the matter is over. Despite the Turkish Atomic Energy Agency (TAEK) dismissing the bid on technical grounds, the Turkish cabinet can still rule the bid as acceptable. Will technical considerations beat political ones? We can only hope.

We’ve also yet to discover how much the Park Teknik consortium say the reactor would cost. We know this project won’t give energy security. We can guarantee it won’t be clean. So, will it be cheap, the last of the three virtues its cheerleaders claim for nuclear power?

The answer is we just don’t know. The envelope containing the cost of the project was not opened when TAEK pronounced its judgement on the bid’s technical aspects. It will only be opened should the government decide to go ahead in the face of expert advice. That’s one envelope that should be left closed.

The Turkish cabinet makes its decision next week…

Some other stories from the nuclear industry you may have missed:

Eco Buying: Brit’s Eye View: Is this the end of capitalism as we know it?
‘I have no idea what kind of defense secretary John Hutton will make, but it’s a relief that he is no longer running the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (BERR), where he orchestrated the renaissance of nuclear power almost single-handedly. Where the return of Peter Mandelson to the cabinet will take us on business issues remains to be seen, but more interesting is the creation of a new Department of Energy and Climate Change to be led by Ed Miliband, taking away BERR’s energy responsibilities (and hopefully rescuing energy policy from the odd cabal of nuclear enthusiasts there, or at least ending the long-running feud between the industry and environment departments).’

RSC: Radiopharmaceutical shortage raises long-term supply questions
‘A temporary European shortage of radionuclides, caused by the closure of several nuclear reactors, has highlighted potential long-term problems with the supply of radioactive isotopes for medical imaging.’

Your Nuclear News: Mirion Technologies Awarded the Contract for the Radiation Monitoring Systems for Flamanville 3 Nuclear Power Plan
‘The contract was awarded by Electricite de France (EDF) to a partnership group, led by INEO ANC (part of the GDF SUEZ Group) which includes MGP Instruments SA (a Mirion Technologies Company), SNEF and CERAP (part of the GDF SUEZ Group). Together the team is responsible for the design, manufacture, cabling, fluid handling, installation and commissioning of the radiation monitoring systems. The contract starts with immediate effect and is expected to last up to five years.’

ITAR-TASS: Iranian specialists ready to launch Bushehr nuclear power plant
‘Iranian specialists are prepared to put into operation the Bushehr nuclear power plant (NPP), Ahmad Fiyazbahsh, deputy head of the Organization for Atomic Energy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, told local reporters on Tuesday.’

Grist: Old dog, nuke tricks
‘Environment America today released a new report looking at the environmental implications of John McCain's plan to build 45 new nuclear reactors by 2030, and 100 over time. Their report concludes that McCain's plan would be "an economic and environmental disaster."’

Bloomberg: Paladin Says Crunch May Scupper Some Uranium Projects
‘Paladin Energy Ltd., the Australian company producing uranium in Namibia, said the global credit crisis will delay or scupper planned industry projects, cutting supplies of the nuclear fuel.’

The Netherlands, this tiny country with endless possibilities in a liberal and tolerant environment, has a new scoop: the company "Atoomstroom.nl" (which translates as "Atomic electricity") offers its customers 100% nuclear electricity. Selling solely electricity that was produced in Western European nuclear power plants, the company claims to supply CO2-free electricity that does not need any subsidies. New customers will receive a keyring with a small nuclear waste barrel, representing the 10 grams of highly radioactive waste that is produced per year per household using nuclear electricity. Presumably the keyring does not actually contain this waste, otherwise many people would die and the company would run out of customers very quickly...

Some other stories from the nuclear industry you may have missed:

World Nuclear News: Stiff opposition to nuclear charge
‘Electrabel has reacted strongly against a plan from the Belgian government to force a one-off payment of €250 million ($338 million) from nuclear power generators.’

China View: European Commission underlines need to reinforce rules on nuclear safety
‘The European Commission underlined on Wednesday the need for a higher level of nuclear safety as a high-level group on nuclear safety and waste management met. "While we can see a potential rise in the use of nuclear energy around the globe as well as in the EU, European citizens call for a strong European role in the field of nuclear safety," said European Union (EU) Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs, who opened the meeting.’

OHS: NRC Updates Policy on Advanced Nuclear Power Plant Design
‘The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has published the latest update to its policy statement on advanced nuclear power plant designs. The policy provides expectations and guidance on safety, security and preparedness-related issues so designers can address them early in the development of advanced reactors.’

IOL: N Korea, Russia in first nuclear talks
‘North Korea's foreign minister met in Moscow on Wednesday with his Russian counterpart for nuclear talks bolstered by a US decision to drop Pyongyang from its terrorism blacklist.’

Counterpunch: The New Nuclear Navy
‘New large U.S. Navy amphibious assault ships will be required to be nuclear powered as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2009 signed into law by President George W. Bush on Tuesday, October 14.’

IHT: France's EdF pulls drops bid for US Constellation
‘French energy giant Electricite de France SA said Wednesday it is dropping its bid for Constellation Energy, a major U.S. power wholesaler, because of the global credit crisis.’

Whitehaven News: US-Anglo-French consortium finalises Sellafield takeover
‘THE Sellafield parent body competition has come to an end as the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority finalised an agreement with Nuclear Management Partners (NMP). The agreement marks the end of the competitive process to appoint a new organisation to take control of the Sellafield plant.’

When you’re a nuclear energy company it pays to have friends in high places. When you’re EDF, however, and you’re negotiating to buy UK nuclear company British Energy, you can do better than that.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is a huge fan of nuclear – he’s desperate for a UK nuclear ‘renaissance’. When EDF was successful in buying British Energy, he said: ‘This deal is good value for the taxpayer and a significant step towards the construction of a new generation of nuclear stations.’

That being the case, we’d love to know what he and his younger brother Andrew talk about whenever they get together.

Andrew Brown is head of media relations at EDF Energy.

Research conducted by Greenpeace has found high levels of uranium in drinking water in the area around the Caetité uranium mine in Brazil. Some of the drinking water samples, that were analysed by an independent accredited laboratory in the UK, show uranium levels as much as seven times higher than World Health Organisation’s recommendations. Though the study does not answer the question of whether the uranium mining operations caused the contamination, they point at a significant potential for local populations to be exposed to elevated levels of uranium and other radionuclides.

The water samples were collected within 20 kilometres of the mine in the zone called the ‘direct influence area’ in site’s the official Environmental Impacts Assessment. The people living around the mine who use the contaminated water say that, while Industrias Nucleares Brasileiras (INB – Brazilian Nuclear Industries) take regular samples of the water, the company has yet to inform them about the water’s quality.

Some other stories from the nuclear industry you may have missed:

Yahoo! News: IAEA Dissatisfied With Role in Verifying North Korean Nuke
‘The U.N. nuclear watchdog has expressed discontent over its projected role in verifying North Korea's atomic weapons program, a South Korean government official said Thursday.’

Gulfnews: Firm awarded contract to steer nuke programme
‘Abu Dhabi: Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) has appointed CH2M HILL, a global full-service programme management, engineering, construction and operations firm, as the Managing Agent for the potential United Arab Emirates Civil Nuclear Power Programme currently under evaluation.’

World Nuclear News: NEA: Celebrating the past, looking to the future
‘As the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) marks its 50th anniversary, a new report from the agency suggests that as many as 1400 nuclear power reactors could be in operation worldwide by 2050.’

Canada.com: Energy-hungry Poland eyes nuclear plants
‘Poland hopes to reduce its heavy reliance on coal, which produces harmful greenhouse gases, by building a few nuclear power plants by 2030, Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Waldemar Pawlak said on Thursday.’

Mining Weekly: Uranium to anchor Namibian economy in future– central bank
‘Namibia’s central bank said last week that future economic growth would be spearheaded by uranium as the diamond-mining sector, which had traditionally anchored the country’s economy, was beginning to lose its shine. The Bank of Namibia (BoN) said at the launch of its second-quarter economic report that growth in 2008 would largely be a result of increased uranium production and the continued strong performance of the construction, transport and communications sectors.’

Sofia Echo: Bulgaria pours 300M leva in Belene nuclear plant
‘Bulgaria's Cabinet plans to inject 300 million leva into the National Electric Company (NEK) to cover the costs of the transitional stage of building the nuclear power plant at Belene on the Danube River, the Government press service said in a statement.’

Things are going from bad to worse with the disastrous construction of Finland’s Olkiluoto reactor. Despite the builders ‘working six days a week and 24 hours a day’, it has been announced that the reactor is now three years behind schedule. Instead of it going online in 2009, Olkiluoto-3 will not now produce any electricity until 2012 at the earliest (if, it has to be said, at all). The more work they do, the further behind schedule it gets which is quite an amazing trick when you think about it.

In a masterpiece of understatement, Philippe Knoche, project manager of the OL3 construction said, ‘OL3 is and will remain a very challenging project’. Yes, and the Titanic was a dinghy.

With the reactor also now somewhere in the region of 25 per cent over its original budget of three billion euros the builders, France’s nuclear clowns Areva, are now negotiating with Finnish utility TVO to share the losses it is making. How’s that for confidence?

Of course, none of this is Areva’s fault. The blame lies squarely with the Finnish authorities who want the reactor built as safely as possible, the fools. How dare they want confidence and reassurance? Of the 100,000 engineering documents, only 30 per cent have been approved by the Finnish Safety Authority. ‘It's heavy work, which none of the parties had anticipated,’ said Knoche who seems to need reminding that it’s nuclear reactor he’s building and not, say, a LEGO house.

Amazingly, Areva are looking to build Finland’s next nuclear reactor. This is a crazy idea but wouldn’t it be sensible to see if they can get Olkiluoto-3 anywhere near finished before letting them start another disaster?

When Gordon Brown became the UK’s prime minister, he promised to...

...build trust in our democracy, I’m sure we need a more open form of dialogue with citizens and politicians to genuinely talk about problems and solutions. It is about a different type of politics, a more open and honest dialogue...’

So what happened? Take the government's consultation on nuclear power for example. As Greenpeace UK have discovered, it's rigged...

Late yesterday we received an astonishing response to our complaint to the Marketing Research Standards Board about the government's second public consultation on nuclear power. The board sets the standards for opinion research and found that the market research company Opinion Leader Research breached the Code of Conduct. The board said Opinion Leader "information was inaccurately or misleadingly presented, or was imbalanced, which gave rise to a material risk of respondents being led towards a particular answer."

Is that an 'open form of dialogue with citizens' and politicians talking 'genuinely' about 'problems and solutions'? Is it 'a different type of politics' and 'a more open and honest dialogue'?

We’re going to hazard a 'no'.

The thing is, there’s a question that must be asked whenever instances of public nuclear consultations being fixed come to light (and they do with disturbing regularity, all over the world). The question is this: if nuclear power is as wonderful as its supporters and cheerleaders say it is - if it really is clean, safe, and cheap - why the need to rig public consultations?

Why do the public need persuading? Why do they need to be ‘led towards a particular answer’? Surely, nuclear power being so fantastic, people should be clamouring for nuclear power, shouldn’t they? So why aren’t they?

(More information over at Greenpeace UK)

Some other stories from the nuclear industry you may have missed:

AFP: China to help Pakistan build two more nuclear plants
‘Energy-hungry Pakistan said on Saturday that China had agreed to help it build two more nuclear power plants in a major boost to the country's long-term plans to end crippling electricity shortages.’

Associated Press: Billions of fish, fish eggs die in power plants
‘For a newly hatched striped bass in the Hudson River, a clutch of trout eggs in Lake Michigan or a baby salmon in San Francisco Bay, drifting a little too close to a power plant can mean a quick and turbulent death.’

The deal to allow India to begin its own nuclear ‘renaissance’ is unconventional. It also runs counter to international treaties – the country is to be given access to nuclear technology without having to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

But in other respects, the deal is everything you would expect:

The US private sector firms, which do not have their national government guarantee for accident claims, are lobbying hard with the Indian Government to lay down a policy framework on the issue of nuclear liability - or the cost of damages to be borne in case of an accident involving US-supplied nuclear power plants.

In other words, the US nuclear industry wants the Indian government to pay for the clean-up of any nuclear accident a US-built reactor might cause. How’s that for confidence?

Needless to say, if nuclear was as clean, safe and cheap and its cheerleaders like to insist, this kind of buck-passing wouldn’t be needed. Why don’t American nuclear companies make good on their promises of nuclear’s benefits and do without state-funded liability? Why? Because those promises are empty.

There are very real signs that future electricity generation – along with C02 emission and energy efficiency targets - in the UK could be trouble and the country’s government only has itself to blame.

First comes fresh news that the UK nuclear industry has a shortfall of inspectors. It currently needs 30 additional nuclear inspectors just to cope with the country’s existing nuclear programme. Another 20 are required to make the initial assessments of plans for future power stations.

With a generation of UK nuclear experts now retiring and countries all over the world now needing experts for their own nuclear ‘renaissances’, skills are now in short supply. The UK government have left it far too late and are now putting the country’s already shaky reputation for nuclear safety at greater risk. They will now have to offer huge salaries and other inducements to attract experts.

Some other stories from the nuclear industry you may have missed:

Lynchburg News Advance: Areva looks to federal loan guarantees for new reactors
‘The fate of four power plants that would use Areva’s new nuclear reactor design could depend in part on a decision the U.S. Department of Energy will make soon. Later this month, the agency will say which nuclear plants are first in line to share $18.5 billion in federal loan guarantees that are in high demand, since at least 19 companies have announced plans to build new reactors.’

World Nuclear News: EdF generator renovation contract for Alstom
‘Alstom has signed a framework agreement with Electricité de France (EdF) for the renovation of generators at EdF's nuclear power reactors. Alstom originally supplied the generators for all the units.’

Asian Tribune: The 4th Burmese Empire with Nuclear Weapon
‘Google Alert Burma duly reported of how Burma is near completion of nuclear weapon on the 18th instant and of how its Defense Minister boasts that by 2020 Burma would be one of the greatest nations in Southeast Asia. Given the economic reality of Burma compounded with its gross mismanagement and human rights violations is it but an empty dream or a reality?’

World Nuclear News: Nuclear phase out a '€50 billion mistake'
‘Italy will begin new nuclear power station construction by 2013, reversing the 'terrible mistake' made in phasing out nuclear power, said Claudio Scajola, Italy's Minister for Economic Development.’

The Star: Nuclear costs pressure industry
‘Resource, labour and regulatory constraints continue to draw attention to the risks and uncertainties of building new nuclear reactors, and as North American utilities start digging into the details they're finding expansion of their nuclear fleets are likely to cost much more than originally thought. And that's ignoring any impacts the current credit crunch could have on financing these massive projects.’

iStockAnalyst: Rostekhnadzor to Inspect Mayak Spent Nuclear Fuel Processing Facility
‘The Russian industrial safety watchdog Rostekhnadzor will inspect the Mayak chemical plant on October 20 to 25 under a plan of comprehensive checks on Russia's industrial enterprises, Rostekhnadzor said in a press release.’

IHT: The limits of nuclear power
‘There's a problem about nuclear energy that gets little attention. At present, fossil fuels provide 87 percent of the world's total energy while nuclear power plants provide just 4.8 percent. (All nuclear power plants currently generate electricity, accounting for about 15 percent of world electricity generation, while fossil fuels produce almost 67 percent of the electricity.) The best estimates put the amount of uranium that can be mined economically (what geologists call the reserves) at about 5.5 million metric tons, and according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, today's nuclear power plants use 70,000 metric tons a year of uranium. At this rate of use, the uranium that could be mined economically would last about 80 years.’

The Daily Times: India and the nuclear black market
‘As India waits to reap the dividends of its nuclear deal, the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) has, in a recent report, questioned the adequacy and implementation of India’s export control and nuclear classification procedures.’

As we’ve seen before, birds are the innocent victims in humankind’s push for nuclear power. Regular readers will know about the freezers at the Sellafield nuclear plant in the UK that are stuffed with seagulls shot by sharpshooters because the birds are radioactive after swimming in contaminated water.

The latest victims, it seems, are two pigeons arrested in Iran for espionage:

Iranian security forces have arrested two pigeons suspected of spying on one of the country's nuclear facilities. The birds were captured near the heavily-bunkered underground uranium enrichment plant in Natanz.

What fate awaits them at the hands of their Iranian captors? Are the pigeons willing conspirators or were they brainwashed by western intelligence agencies? Did the Natanz Two sell their services (we hope they amount of corn they were paid was worth it) or were they perhaps blackmailed by the CIA (their wives and kids being held against their will in a secret facility)? Either way, it’s a black day for pigeonkind.

The pigeon community has refused to comment.

Some other stories from the nuclear industry you may have missed:

The Hindu: India will wait till Japan is “ready” for nuclear cooperation
‘Japan was one of the eight countries — alongside China — to hold out till the end on the waiver for India at the Nuclear Suppliers Group meeting in Vienna last month and is in no hurry to embrace the idea of nuclear cooperation with New Delhi. But Indian officials say that as far as they are concerned, there are at present no legal obstacles to Japanese firms like Hitachi and Toshiba supplying reactor components for safeguarded nuclear power projects in India.’

FPIF: The Race to De-Nuclearize North Korea
‘While speculation over Kim Jong-Il's health has dominated headlines, the real issue in North Korea (also known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea or DPRK), remains the country's nuclear program. It's possible to end the DPRK's ability to produce plutonium in a matter of months. Policymakers in the U.S. and North Korea can either act now to make a decisive deal that will support the long-term interests of both countries or let the months of effort invested in the nuclear deal go down as another in a long line of missed opportunities to improve security in Northeast Asia.’

The Local: Safety check forces Swedish nuke plant shutdown
‘Sweden shut down one of its nuclear reactors on Tuesday to check the plant's control rods after cracks were found in the rods at an identical plant, the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority (SSM) reports.’

New York Times: Europe’s Leadership in Carbon Control at Risk in Credit Crisis
‘As the threats of global recession and rising unemployment loom after the expensive bank bailouts, some European leaders are demanding that the trade bloc backpedal on a pledge announced with much fanfare last spring to cut greenhouse emissions by 20 percent and to generate 20 percent of power through renewable sources by 2020.’

New Scientist: Do we need to go nuclear to stay green?
‘It's the billion-dollar question. Will nuclear energy save the world from global warming? Nuclear power plants produce virtually zero carbon emissions throughout their lifecycle, but they are costly to build and environmentalists claim the money would be better spent on building renewable resources.’

Arab News: GCC ministers to attend nuclear forum in Jeddah
‘Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, who is sponsoring the first international symposium on “Peaceful Application of Nuclear Technology in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Countries” scheduled to begin here on Nov. 3, has given consent to invite all concerned ministers in the six GCC member states to attend the three-day event.’

The Peninsula: Doha explores nuclear cooperation with Moscow
‘A high-level team from Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation (Kahramaa), headed by Vice Chairperson Issa Shaheen Al Ghanim, discussed potential cooperation between Russia and Qatar during a discussion with Russian Federal Agency for Nuclear Energy (Rosatom) held recently in Russia.’

For a document consisting of over 400 pages, the environmental impact assessment for the new Ignalina nuclear power plant in Lithuania is missing some very significant details. Prepared by Pöyry Energy Oy in Finland and the Lithuanian Energy Institute, the report has some rather large holes in it, as Greenpeace has discovered…

1) Most surprisingly, the report gives no details on what model of reactor is to be built. Given that reactor waste produced in a year can range between 47 and 370 tons, depending on the model of reactor, fundamental and accurate assessments of environmental impact cannot be made.

2) Any discussion of the impact of nuclear waste and how it would be dealt with and managed is missing from the report.

3) The construction timetable is completely unrealistic. As we’ve seen with the reactor building at Flamanville, France and Olkiluoto, Finland, tight deadlines have lead to poor safety regulation and incompetence which only lead to schedules and budgets over-running.

4) The report boasts that migrant workers will boost the local economy. It fails to mention that this benefit will only last until the short-term construction period is over.

5) Viable alternatives to nuclear power are ignored. The report goes as far to say that without a new nuclear plant, Lithuania will be forced to increase it’s reliance on fossil fuels.

6) The risk to the tens of thousands of people living near the plant have not been considered. Research into the correlation between proximity to nuclear reactors and instances of cancer have been ignored.

7) The affects of a nuclear accident are played down by the report.

These are fundamental questions that need to be asked about the construction of any nuclear power plant. Why were they left out? Did Pöyry Energy Oy and the Lithuanian Energy Institute do it in a rush like a school kid who’s left his homework until the last minute? We’ve all done a poor job sometimes, when we’re tired or demotivated or it’s Friday afternoon, but then most of us aren’t building nuclear power stations.

Again, we can only assume that these omissions are due to the fact that Pöyry Energy Oy and the Lithuanian Energy Institute are less than confident about the so-called benefits of a new reactor. If they were, why ignore these questions and not answer them fully and transparently?

(The full text of Greenpeace's reaction is available here.)

Some other stories from the nuclear industry you may have missed:

World Nuclear News: Nuclear decisions delayed in South Africa
‘Speculation is mounting on whether South Africa's nuclear new build program will get a chance to deliver in an atmosphere of continuing political turmoil.’

Deutsche Welle: German Energy Company Looks to Build Nuclear Plants Abroad
‘Germany's second-biggest power supplier plans to build up to five nuclear power plants outside of the country, its chairman said in a newspaper interview Wednesday.’

Balkan Insight: Macedonia Eyes Bulgarian Nuclear Plant
‘Senior officials from Skopje and Sofia will discuss Macedonia’s possible participation in the building of a nuclear power plant, in a bid to ease energy shortages.’

The Whitehaven News: Public invited to debate the fate of plutonium stockpile
‘The debate as to whether the UK’s stockpile of plutonium – most of which is held at Sellafield – should be considered an asset or a liability could have a major impact on the economic future of region.’

Associated Press: Official describes secret uranium shipment
‘Enough processed uranium to make six nuclear weapons was secretly transported thousands of miles by truck, rail and ship on a monthlong trip from a research reactor in Budapest, Hungary, to a facility in Russia so it could be more closely protected against theft, U.S. officials revealed Wednesday.’

Poor, accident prone Vermont Yankee continues to cause trouble. The latest incident at the nuclear power plant concerned the escape of radioactive contaminants during the refuelling of the reactor.

It seems that, when workers removed the cover of a reactor vessel, they placed it too close to a fan which then blew radioactive particles across the site. Nice going. It’s definitely one we’ll use when we eventually write our comedy show set in a nuclear power plant. Twenty-five workers were exposed to ‘very minor’ amount of radiation and had to be evacuated.

The accident took place on the first day of the reactor’s three-week refuelling process. With Vermont’s current run of luck, that’s going to be a very long, tense three weeks.

If you want to see just how cosy politicians, nuclear companies and lobbyists can get, just take a look at this from the UK’s Guardian newspaper. With Prime Minister Gordon Brown launching the UK’s nuclear ‘renaissance’, the nuclear power companies are obviously desperate to get a slice of the action. So, they hire lobbyists to put their case to the politicians.

The Japanese-American nuclear company Westinghouse have recruited lobbyists Sovereign Strategy. It looks like a very smart choice – in hiring Sovereign, Westinghouse have bought themselves some excellent connections. According to the UK’s Electoral Commission which records donations made to political parties, Sovereign Strategy made donations to Brown’s ruling Labour Party totalling nearly £124,000 between 2002 and 2007.

Alan Donnelly, Sovereign’s chairman is a former Labour member of the European Parliament. He also happens to be the chairman of the local Labour Party in Foreign Secretary David Miliband’s constituency. How’s that for access?

Sovereign Strategy specialise in ‘relationship building and stakeholder engagement support’. That’s a euphemism that could cover a multitude of sins. Last year, the then UK Foreign Minister Margaret Beckett was asked about meetings with representatives of Sovereign Strategy:

[T]he Minister for Europe has met Alan Donnelly, Executive Chairman of Sovereign Strategy, on a number of occasions as they have been personal friends for a number of years. Mr. Donnelly is well known to many Ministers and is likely also to have met others on a number of occasions.

Isn’t that nice? Of course there’s no suggestion of corruption here, it’s just an illustration of how these things work. Who has never asked a friend of a friend for a favour? Just scale that up to asking a favour about a business deal worth billions of dollars.

We shall be watching Westinghouse’s progress in the UK's nuclear industry with close interest.

Some other stories from the nuclear industry you may have missed:

Business Wire: Areva: Revenue and Data for the First Nine Months of 2008
‘The group cleared revenue of 9.1 billion euros over the first nine months of 2008, up 12.9% compared with the same period in 2007.’

World Nuclear News: Go-ahead for Tricastin fix
‘Electricité de France (EdF) has been given permission to go ahead with a new plan to dislodge two fuel assemblies that became stuck during the refuelling of the Tricastin 2 reactor. The assemblies have been stuck since 8 September.’

The Salt Lake Tribune: Legal roadblock aims to keep Brazilian nuclear waste from Utah
‘Even as debate has roiled for months over a proposal to bury radioactive waste from Italy in Utah, plans for a shipment from South America have been quietly in the works. But the plan to bring in contaminated laundry waste from a nuclear reactor in Brazil appears dead on arrival.’

Bloomberg: North Korea Produced 30.8 Kilograms of Plutonium, Dong-a Says
‘North Korea told China in June it had produced 30.8 kilograms of plutonium, Dong-a Ilbo newspaper reported. North Korea used 2 kilograms of the material for a nuclear test in October 2006 and the rest to develop nuclear arms, the Korean-language daily said, citing an unidentified official.’

Here at Nuclear Reaction we’ve been unforgivably neglectful of one of the nuclear industry’s major players. Wherever there’s a nuclear deal to be done, you can almost guarantee that Atomic Anne Lauvergeon will be at the heart of the action.

Chief Executive of world famous nuclear idiots Areva (whose clumsy and dirty children include Tricastin, Olkiluoto and Flamanville), Atomic Anne is one well-travelled lady. She often accompanies France’s number one nuclear salesman Nicholas Sarkozy on his overseas sales trips. She was with him in the Gulf States earlier this year with him when the French Presidents silky sales skills saw a nuclear power deal signed between France and the United Arab Emirates.

Today Anne is being given an honorary doctorate in sciences by Imperial College in London. And guess what? Atomic Anne’s Areva have close ties to Imperial College – they cooperate together on research and development. They’re big fans of nuclear power at Imperial College hosting, as they do, the Keeping the Nuclear Option Open initiative. They and Anne are the perfect match.

Are you one of those people whose power fantasies have led them to wonder what it would be like to have their finger on the nuclear button? Well, if you head over to France you might just get your chance:

India's atomic safety body said Thursday that radioactive scrap metal which found its way into buttons installed into lifts in France had been traced back to a western Indian foundry.

There bad news and then there’s bad news, we afraid. ‘20 workers who handled the lift buttons had been exposed to excessive levels of radiation’ and ‘India has not been able to ascertain the source of the contaminated scrap’. Isn’t that great? Someone’s putting potentially dangerous metals on the world scrap metal market and we don’t know who it is!

Say what you like about wind turbines but we won’t have to worry about this kind of thing should they ever be used for scrap metal.

Some other stories from the nuclear industry you may have missed:

The Deal: Northrop Grumman in $360M nuclear deal with French MNC
‘Defense and technology company Northrop Grumman Corp. said its shipbuilding division is creating a joint venture with France's Areva SA to build a manufacturing and engineering facility in Newport News, Va., to supply the American nuclear energy sector. As the U.S. searches for energy independence -- or something close to it -- proponents of nuclear energy have been touting improved technology and safer methods of producing nuclear power.’

Daily Monitor: The emerging Afro-power in world politics
‘Though the United States is vehemently opposed to the development of nuclear capabilities by Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, there is no consensus on what qualifies a country to be a nuclear power. There is room here for a new kind of Black Power in the new millennium. The current nuclear club is not sustainable.’

Port Clinton News Herald: Officials to monitor Davis-Besse plant this week
‘Todd Schneider, a spokesman for FirstEnergy, said Sunday the plant was not evacuated and will not be on shutdown, “but officials will be monitoring and performing testing on the site this week.” Schneider said the 3-inch carbon steel pipe was leaking tritium, a “slightly radioactive” substance. Tritium is a hydrogen atom, and although it can be found in gas, its most common form is in water, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency web site.’

The Guardian: MP's anger as state bears cost of any Sellafield disaster
‘Taxpayers have been left with unlimited liability amounting to billions of pounds should there be a repeat of a nuclear accident at Sellafield under a deal signed with a US-led consortium which takes over the decommissioning of the waste facility from November 24. The indemnity even covers accidents and leaks that are the consortium's fault.’

It’s probably unfair to expect high-flown rhetoric and complex ideas from a presidential candidate’s speech. They’re designed to get the candidate’s ideas and policies across to potential voters in the most simple and shortest way.

That said, you can take the simplicity too far. Take John McCain criticising Barack Obama’s stance on nuclear power…

You know, the other night in a debate I said his eloquence is admirable but pay attention to his words […] We talked about nuclear power. Well, it has to be safe, environment, blah blah blah. […] Nuclear power is safe. We ought to do it now.

Pay attention to Obama’s words, says McCain. What about McCain’s words? Blah, blah, blah? Is that an ‘admirable eloquence’? Sure, the arguments around nuclear power and safety can be complex. They often need to be simplified so that people who aren’t nuclear scientist can understand then, but blah, blah, blah? Do the workers cleaning up at Hanford, the most radioactive place in America regard nuclear safety as blah, blah, blah, do you think? John McCain is 72, as if we needed reminding, not 7.

And ‘nuclear power is safe’, says McCain. Really? If it’s so safe why is McCain on the record as saying he would not want nuclear waste being transported through his home state of Arizona? Is it safe or is it not, Senator? If it’s as safe as you say, let’s see you call for nuclear waste to be trucked through Arizona. Let’s have a straight answer and make it a little less simple than blah, blah, blah. We’re intelligent enough to understand.

Some other stories from nuclear industry you may have missed:

Times Online: Nuclear-powered passenger aircraft 'to transport millions' says expert
Nuclear-powered aircraft may sound like a concept from Thunderbirds, but they will be transporting millions of passengers around the world later this century, the leader of a Government-funded project to reduce environmental damage from aviation believes.

World Nuclear News: Flamanville supply chain 'needs oversight'
Areva has been told to monitor its subcontractors more closely after it was discovered that one had supplied a pressure system part without properly following testing procedures. The parts in question are to be used to form the pressurizer of the water-cooled reactor under construction at Flamanville. A routine check carried out by France's Nuclear Safety Authority (Autorité De Sûreté Nucléaire, ASN) revealed a 'gap' in compliance with regulations. '

Your Nuclear News: Areva/India - Talks with French firm soon for nuclear reactors
Final negotiations between the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) and French firm Areva are expected to start soon. NPCIL chief S K Jain was in Paris last week in this connection, diplomatic sources said. Areva had the "political clearance" to negotiate on the first generation European Pressurised Reactors (EPRs) and their construction in India.

Counterpunch: The Clean, Green Nuclear Machine?
The Marshallese medical studies declassified in the 1990s include documents demonstrating that Atomic Energy Commission scientists fully expected adverse health effects to not only occur in the first generation of people exposed to fallout, but in the subsequent generations of people who live in a contaminated setting.

AllAfrica: Namibia: Conversations - Nukes and Uranium
Today, a labour think-tank hosts a public debate about uranium in Namibia. The Labour Resource and Research Institute (LaRRI) is putting the vexatious issue of nuclear use in the public domain. It is simply not good enough to say: "Namibia should consider exploiting its uranium ore reserves in the light of rising uranium prices."

Market Watch: 'Alert' Declared at PPL's Susquehanna Nuclear Power Plant
An alert was declared at 12:06 p.m. Monday (10/27) at the Susquehanna nuclear plant in Luzerne County near Berwick, Pa., when workers detected a low oxygen level in a pump room related to the Unit 2 reactor. "Plant personnel were working on a pipe to improve a system that could be used to circulate water in the reactor," said Joe Scopelliti, PPL's Susquehanna public information manager.

The Salt Lake Tribune: Radioactive sieve: Compact tries to close loophole for foreign waste
The Northwest Interstate Compact on Low-level Radioactive Waste Management isn't much of a doorman. For years, the compact thought it was guarding against shipments of foreign radioactive waste into the eight-state region, which includes Utah. Meanwhile, Envirocare, now EnergySolutions, has been using the back door to bypass the regional regulators, doing a brisk business in imported radioactive waste at its nuclear garbage dump in Tooele County.

Following on from yesterday’s entry of taking simplicity too far – this morning, it’s refreshing to see that simplicity was the essence of the message given by Mohammed ElBaradei – Head of the UN Atomic Energy Agency and Nobel Prize laureate - when he drew a line in the sand on all the rhetoric and expectations on nuclear energy and said:

"It(nuclear energy) is not a panacea by itself and many countries will have to understand that it will take 10 to 15 years before they can use nuclear (power)," he said. "They'll have to prove it's economically competitive, a good part of the energy mix."

It is great that he has taken the time in the sleepy onset of winter to help us out at the “Nuclear Reaction” – ever ready to debunk and uncover claims that nuclear power is a panacea to climate change, energy security and even the water shortage in the Middle East!

Its clear and simple: even the head of an international organization, having a dual role of being a nuclear weapons watchdog and promoting nuclear energy has had enough of nuclear PR, believes that there is over-expectation from the nuclear energy.

He also said in his interview that; “they (Nuclear plants) are expensive to build and require strict adherence to safety and security requirements”. He must be a regular reader of our blog.

In spite of his welcome criticism, of course there are issues that we still disagree on; we do not think nuclear capacity will be doubled, and more importantly we do not believe we need it at all! Solutions to climate change and energy security do exist – sustainable, economically viable, efficient and clean solutions which do not include nuclear power, or pose a risk to public health.

He concluded with a reminder that safety is always an issue and that the associated risks have not vanished:

"Vulnerabilities remain. We can never be complacent about safety. A single nuclear accident anywhere in the world could undermine the future of nuclear energy everywhere,"

Good you mentioned it Mr Baradei, but isn’t it better to envisage a future with a secure energy supply which does not pose such a risk of accident?

Some other stories from the nuclear industry you may have missed:

New York Times: Rate of Nuclear Thefts ‘Disturbingly High,’ Monitoring Chief Says
‘Dr. ElBaradei, in his annual report to the General Assembly, said nearly 250 such thefts were reported in the year ending in June. "The possibility of terrorists obtaining nuclear or other radioactive material remains a grave threat," he said. "Equally troubling is the fact that much of this material is not subsequently recovered."’

World Nuclear News: Control rod woes for Swedish units
‘Maintenance outages at Forsmark 3 and Oskarshamn 3 have been extended after defects were found in control rods. The units, totalling 2323 MWe of capacity, are not expected to restart until the end of November or early December.’

Peopleandplanet.net: Flawed economics of nuclear power
‘Over the last few years the nuclear industry has used concerns about climate change to argue for a nuclear revival. Although industry representatives may have convinced some political leaders that this is a good idea, there is little evidence of private capital investing in nuclear plants in competitive electricity markets. The reason is simple: nuclear power is uneconomical.’

BBC: Plans for nuclear dump considered
‘[The UK’s] Cumbria County Council is considering "expressing an interest" in a formal government process to find a suitable location for a nuclear waste dump.’

iStockAnalyst: Russia, China Intend to Jointly Build Second Extension of Tianwan Npp
‘Russia and China have agreed on building the second extension of the Tianwan Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told a Russian-Chinese economic forum in Moscow on Tuesday.’

Daily Times: Pakistan calls for steps to meet N-energy demand
‘UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan on Tuesday called for evolving a universal and non-discriminatory criterion that would ensure every state’s right to peaceful nuclear energy use to meet the growing worldwide energy demand.’

The ethics surrounding the nuclear industry are curious things and worthy of study. Just look at the levels of cover-ups, misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda that gush from its public relations departments. You wouldn’t trust some of these people to look after a cat let alone a nuclear reactor.

To that list you can also add exploitation:

African communities are gathering to take up the fight against international companies which are mining uranium on their land and their own governments, as they are driven off their land, suffer exposure to radiation and toxic waste at mining sites…

Namibia’s Citizens for Justice tried to sue one mining company, Australia’s Paladin. The company decided to settle out of court and ‘made some concessions like agreeing to pay US$10 million for social development projects and clean water provision to the rural communities in the mining area’.

The question that needs to be asked here is why did Paladin have to be dragged to court to ‘make some concessions’? Why were Namibian citizens not able to rely on their government for protection and had to form a civil society organisation? Why are these safeguards not in place from the beginning of any mining operation? Who is it exactly who decides that a group of people’s homes and health are forfeit in the name of uranium?

There is a disturbing pattern here where people living near uranium mines seem to be regarded as having far less rights that the consumers of the electricity produced by that uranium. And we see it with the Native Americans. And with Australia’s Aborigines.

The nuclear industry is notorious for having to conduct large and expensive clean-up operations. It’s time it realised its human rights record is also contaminated.

Over the last weeks, pro-nuclear politicians in Belgium have launched an attack in the media against the law which phases out nuclear power. This law, passed in 2003, would shut down the seven reactors one after the other when they reach the end of their 40-year lifetimes, starting in 2015.

The Christian-Democrats are now speaking out in favour of a lifetime extension, calling it 'inevitable', while still accepting the principle of a phase-out in the longer term. Otherwise – they claim – the electricity bills for households would double and the lights would go out. Those not accepting what is inevitable are defined as 'ideological'. Well, let's see about that.

Apart from all the problems with nuclear power - being dangerous and polluting - which the Christian-Democrats now try to minimise, they seem to ignore the simple fact that there is no experience with reactors of that age. Believing the nuclear utility Suez-GDF's claims that a 60-year lifetime is feasible will not be enough to keep them running in the real world. Looking around, we see an increase of serious incidents with ageing reactors. In the UK, Sweden, Germany and Spain, reactors have been shut down for months or years due to technical problems, making them increasingly unreliable, not to mention the increased risk to the population. For Belgium, being dependent on ageing nuclear reactors for 55% of its electricity, this does not look bright.

What about the costs? A look at what the market offers today might be interesting: green electricity suppliers are cheaper today than the dirty mixture of nuclear power and coal from Suez. Thus a clever housemother dumps Suez and shifts to green electricity: saving money and the environment. Also at the macro-economic level, they don't make sense. What they actually propose is to invest less in modern efficient or renewable electricity plants. It’s like saying let’s stop investing in the railway system, we will save a lot of money and can offer cheap tickets. But – as you can imagine - a few years later, electricity cables start to break, trains get delayed and the whole system derails. It will cost loads of money to get this corrected - it’s just a short-sighted approach.

The sad thing is that there is only one party winning with the Christian-Democrats' proposal: the private utility Suez-GDF. This French utility, partly owned by the French state, uses Belgium as a milking cow: making large profits in the short-term with their old nuclear and coal plants to finance coal plants in Germany or the Netherlands, or maybe a new nuclear plant in France. If the Belgian electricity system breaks down in 10 years, so be it: the money will be gone, and the shareholders of Suez-GDF will be happy. We can doubt that our Belgian politicians – who have demonstrated their excellence over the last year to the world - even understand the dirty game they are playing. Well, at least Greenpeace is offering them some basic education.

(This is a guest post from Jan Vande Putte, Greenpeace International nuclear campaigner)

Some other stories from the nuclear industry you may have missed:

Forbes: Trouble Awaits Nuclear Investors
‘Indian industry has hailed the signing of the U.S.-India nuclear agreement as an opportunity to solve crippling power shortage problems and to generate increased sources of wealth. However, plans to invest in the sector will take years to realize and will encounter significant problems along the way.’

Sydney Morning Herald: Syrian site faces scrutiny by atomic agency
‘FRESHLY evaluated soil and air samples from a Syrian site bombed by Israel on suspicion it was a covert nuclear reactor provide enough evidence to go ahead with a UN investigation.’

IHT: Eastern Europe looks to nuclear revival to meet its power needs
‘The renewed interest in nuclear energy in a region that has been under intense pressure from the European Union to close unsafe older-generation plants coincides with a lively debate in several West European countries, in which governments seek cleaner energy options to combat climate change.’

IHT: Accidents and uncertain rules harm nuclear power's image in Europe
‘Eight nuclear incidents reported since May 24 in Europe, including the inadvertent contamination of 100 workers and an off-site release of radioactive uranium in France, are reminders that the industry is a source of routine and accidental radioactive pollution.’

Earlier this month research by Greenpeace found that drinking water around the Caetité uranium mine in Brazil showed uranium contamination levels as much as seven times higher than World Health Organisation’s recommendations. In a significant move, Greenpeace activists in Brazil have been contacted by President Da Silva’s advisers requesting copies of the findings and asking to be kept informed of further developments.

The report has also been referred to the country’s Minister of the Environment and the head of Ibama who are responsible for licensing Brazil’s proposed Angra 3 nuclear reactor. The state water agency is also examining water and soil samples. The agency has stated that if contamination is confirmed it will suspend the water licence of Brazilian Nuclear Industries (INB, the company running the mine), putting the continued mining operation in doubt.

Brazil’s federal prosecutor has called a formal hearing on Novermber 6 to listen to the concerns of the local residents. The federal prosecutor has called for INB’s plans to double production at the mine to be halted. This may have a very real impact on the fuel supply for Angra 3.

Ironically, it was INB’s poor handling of Greenpeace’s finding that lead to the story escalating. It’s press release was picked up by local media and television companies which gave voice to the local community and affected workers and contradicted INB’s story.

This represents a great victory for the people living around and working at the Caetité uranium mine. We’ll keep you posted on further developments.

With the nuclear industry involved in a global push to lure skills and new blood into their workforce, we thought we would give them a rare break today and lend a helping hand to the recruitment effort. So if you are looking for an alternative to the civil service as the answer to a life time job – take a look at the advert below – lets face it – these guys are desperate for staff, they’ll never fire you – no matter how bad you mess up (once you never mention the safety).

JOB VACANCY: NUCLEAR WORKERS WANTED

Recent graduate? Looking for a step on the career ladder? If you are lazy and careless, then this opportunity could be just for you!!!

French based nuclear industry EdF and Areva are looking for willing young flesh (3500 apprentices for 2008 to fill a variety of positions to facilitate a nuclear renaissance but more importantly replace an aging workforce. http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN_Global_push_for_nuclear_skills_2910081.html

Ideal Candidates will possess the following:

• Strong ability to cover up industry inadequacies with spin (i.e. ability to attribute delays as ‘expected’ as the ‘global nuclear component manufacturing rebuilds the capabilities lost during recent decades of little nuclear build.’)
• Bad (preferably no) quality control skills – (for more information – see our track record on the welding difficulties at Ol3 – those violations went unaddressed for ages before we got caught!)
• Unwillingness to speak publically or to the media – yeah – we are pretty strict on this one!
• Strong ability to work without plans (especially regarding welding) and with no monitoring/supervision.
• No real consideration about your health – you could actually end up like one of the 100 workers only slightly contaminated at Tricastin in France, or 15 people were exposed to radioactive elements at the Saint-Alban plant or like in Japan where workers subjected to minor doses of radiation - but fear not, the symptoms are not unlike a very bad flu and we will give you the day off!
• Very bad resource and financial planning skills – in fact you preferably should not be able to do basic maths – in order to fudge projected costs of plants in a manner necessary to fool governments into believing that nuclear power is cheep and affordable. (insert here – too many examples to mention!)

These are excellent opportunities for individuals seeking to join an organisation which offers an unsafe working environment without any regard for workers rights, but which can offer you a wonderful career in lies and deceit- but the best news of all; is that you don’t even have to be good at your job – we’re not!

(This is a guest post by Sharon Mealy, Climate and Energy Assistant for Greenpeace International)

Some other stories from the nuclear industry you may have missed:

World Nuclear News: Research base for new Chinese nuclear power
‘A new research and development office opened in Beijing this week, focused on the task of assimilating AP1000 nuclear technology for mass deployment.’

The Japan Times: Rokkasho plant yields troubling nuke surprise
‘Some of the highly radioactive vitrified nuclear waste being churned out by the fuel reprocessing plant in the village of Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture, has been found to contain unexpected highly soluble chemical compounds that are escaping the vitrification process as liquids, Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd. said Thursday.’

IHT: Normalize and disarm
‘North Korea blinked first in its latest diplomatic showdown with the United States. In return for its removal from the U.S. list of terrorist states, Pyongyang made a significant concession that was not required under the terms of the October 2007 agreement linking North Korean denuclearization steps to U.S. moves toward normalized relations.’

Carnegie Endowment: Nuclear Renaissance: Is It Coming? Should It?
‘Despite talk of a renaissance, nuclear power will account for a declining percentage of global electricity generation without aggressive financial support and significant policy changes. Before committing to a rapid expansion of nuclear energy, the next U.S. administration must address critical questions about the feasibility and safety of nuclear expansion, and act to minimize current proliferation risks, concludes a new report by Sharon Squassoni.’

Like the rest of us Vermont Yankee is suffering in the current economic climate:

The owner of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant says it will have to wait almost 60 years before it has enough money to decommission the plant. Faced with that lengthy timeline, lawmakers are likely to try again to force Yankee to set aside funds for decommissioning. […] As the stock market has plummeted in recent months, so has the value of the Vermont Yankee decommissioning fund. It's worth around $397 million these days. But the expected cost of decommissioning is around $875 million.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. Entergy, Vermont’s owners are going to but the station into ‘Safestore mode’. Nice and comforting that, isn’t it? Vermont will be stored safely. On the banks of the Connecticut River. For 60 years.

We’d like to suggest an advertising slogan for Safestore technology: ‘Giving the responsibility to somebody else.’

Whenever he campaigns in Nevada, republican presidential candidate John McCain works hard to avoid any mention the state’s Yucca Mountain project. The nuclear waste repository is yet to be completed and is currently 20 years behind schedule and $32 billion over budget.

Nevadans are understandably anxious about having a mountain stuffed with high-level nuclear waste on their doorsteps.

And with news just being announced that global nuclear morons Areva are to be part of the team managing Yucca Mountain, it’s equally understandable why McCain keeps his mouth shut while on the campaign trail in Nevada.

Covering the various disasters, leaks, deceptions and cover-ups of the nuclear industry, as we do here daily at Nuclear Reaction, it’s difficult not to develop a rather dark sense of humour. Some days it’s hard not to laugh at some of the news coming out of the industry. It’s either that or cry, really.

We’ve pretty much got enough material to start writing a comedy show set in a nuclear power plant. And the material just keeps coming…

Managers of an atomic power plant in Sweden used janitors to guard the facility when the alarm system was malfunctioning, according to a critical report Thursday from the country's nuclear watchdog.

We promise most sincerely that we didn’t make that up. When a new alarm system failed at the Oskarshamn reactors earlier this month, cleaners and maintenance staff were told to guard the perimeter fences. Presumably they were expected to fight off any intruders with brooms and wrenches.

Honestly and truthfully, this isn’t a joke from a comedy show. Not yet.