Germany votes for nuclear autumn, not spring: Paul Taylor
’PARIS, Sept 29 (Reuters) - To judge from the bounce in German energy companies' share prices, you might think Sunday's centre-right election victory means it's springtime for nuclear power in Germany. The reality is more likely to be a longer atomic autumn before ageing reactors are laid to rest. Both the conservatives and the liberal Free Democrats want to prolong the lifetime of Germany's 17 existing nuclear plants, but not build new ones. Experts reckon the reactors, built between 1975 and 1989 and due to be shut down by 2021 at the behest of a former left-green government, could be extended by eight to 20 years. That will require amending the nuclear exit law passed in 2000, which could take up to a year. Largely due to German opposition, atomic power was omitted from the European Union's strategy to promote low-carbon energy and fight climate change. A change of heart in Europe's biggest economy may make EU energy policy more nuclear-friendly as
a way of cutting greenhouse gas emissions. But a policy shift in Berlin is also sure to spark fierce opposition from the parliamentary opposition and on the streets that will dog moves to phase out the phase-out.’

UK vitrified waste returns set to begin
-level radioactive waste from used nuclear fuel sent to the UK for reprocessing will be returned to its country of origin under a program to begin this financial year, the UK's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) has announced. The Vitrified Residue Returns (VRR) program is the culmination of a 1986 government decision to exercise an option to return waste to its country of origin included in all UK reprocessing contracts since 1976. The NDA, which now holds the contracts to return the high level waste to customers in Japan and Europe, has announced that plans are sufficiently advanced for the VRR to begin in the 2009-2010 financial year, subject to the necessary authorisations and detailed timings to be agreed with regulators, customers and government departments both in the UK and overseas. The program will see approximately 1850 containers of waste returned over a 10-year period, including some containers being returned in accordance with UK government policy on waste substitution whereby the UK returns a greater amount of high-level waste to the customer but retains a radiologically equivalent amount of low- and intermediate-level waste in the UK for long term management.’

Iran built nuclear site shielded from air attack
’TEHRAN, Iran - In an unusually frank disclosure, Iran's nuclear chief said Tuesday the country's new uranium enrichment site was built for maximum protection from aerial attack: carved into a mountain and near a military compound of the powerful Revolutionary Guard. Iran's revelation that it covertly built a second uranium enrichment plant has raised international concerns that other secret nuclear sites might exist as well. Iranian nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi's statement came with a hard-line message ahead of crucial talks this week with the U.S. and other world powers - Iran will not give up its ability to produce nuclear fuel. The details emerging about the secret site near the holy city of Qom have only heightened suspicions Iran is trying to build a nuclear bomb, despite repeated denials. Salehi, who is vice president and head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, spoke at a news conference that touched on sensitive military and nuclear issues rarely discussed publicly in Iran. The effort at openness was seen as an attempt to counter international dismay over the nuclear site and a new round of missile tests this week.’

North Korea says strives for nuclear-free peninsula
’LONDON (Reuters) - North Korea would give up its nuclear weapons if its national sovereignty were respected and it did not face a nuclear threat, the country's ambassador to Britain said Monday. But, at the same time, Ambassador Ja Song Nam complained that the world subjected North Korea to double standards and said he doubted there could ever be genuine peace and security while this continued to be the case. The United Nations Security Council approved expanded sanctions and a trade and arms embargo against North Korea in June after Pyongyang carried out a nuclear test on May 25. "Our government will try to de-nuclearize the Korean peninsula on the basis of impartiality and equality," he said. North Korea's neighbors -- China, Russia and South Korea -- were either nuclear states or under the U.S. nuclear umbrella, Ja said. He said the nuclear issue had arisen because the United States had threatened North Korea with nuclear weapons and because Washington had pursued anti-North Korea policies. He said it was a double standard to call into question the nuclear test taken by a "certain country" when established nuclear powers had carried out some 2,000 nuclear tests.’

The lasting toll of Semipalatinsk's nuclear testing
’During the rainy, windy early morning of August 29, 1949, the Soviet Union conducted its first nuclear explosion--code-named "First Lightning"--at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in eastern Kazakhstan. Witnesses remember feeling the ground tremble and seeing the sky turn red--and how that red sky was quickly dominated by a peculiar mushroom-shaped cloud. The Soviet military and scientific personnel conducting the test knew that the rain and wind would make the local population more susceptible to radioactive fallout. But at the time, authorities disregarded the consequences for the sake of military and political goals. Throughout the next 40 years, such a trade-off would become all too familiar to those living at and around the test site.’

Russian forum discusses nuclear waste
’ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, Sept. 29 (UPI) -- The 4th AtomTrans-2009 international nuclear forum has opened in St. Petersburg. BaltInfo.ru news agency reported Tuesday that AtomTrans-2009 Press Secretary Vadim Titov said that a key topic of forum discussions will be "efforts to ensure safety in the transportation and use of radioactive materials, as well as safety in the handling of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste." Addressing Atomtrans-2009 participants Atomspetstrans JSC Director Vladimir Naschokin said that upgrading Russia's containers for transporting spent nuclear fuel will require investment of $79 million to $93 million. Otherwise, according to Naschokin, while the need for transport will continue until 2028, in the absence of investment a shortage of containers for transporting spent nuclear fuel from Russia's 19 VVER-440 440-megawatt reactors will occur beginning in 2016.’

US, Italy sign pact to build nuclear power stations
’WASHINGTON, Sept 29 (Reuters) - The United States and Italy on Tuesday signed a nuclear cooperation deal that would enlist U.S. companies to help build a string of nuclear power stations across Italy, ending a 22-year ban by the Italian government. "Italy is restarting its nuclear energy again," U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu told reporters. "It has aggressive goals, very admirable goals, in decreasing its carbon emissions through nuclear, through renewable energy, through improvements and efficiency." Chu said companies like General Electric (GE.N) and Toshiba Corp (6502.T) unit Westinghouse will be able to bid on projects in Italy, which hopes to issue in mid-February criteria that would determine the location of the facilities. Italy, the only Group of Eight industrialized nation without nuclear power, rejected it in a 1987 referendum after the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine. Italy aims to rebuild the sector and produce 25 percent of power from nuclear plants. That would help reduce Italy's heavy dependence on fossil fuel imports and cut carbon emissions.’