Nuclear News: Toxic waste trickles toward New Mexico's water sources
Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:
Toxic waste trickles toward New Mexico's water sources
‘Radioactive debris has been found in canyons that drain into the Rio Grande, but officials at the Los Alamos National Laboratory say there's no health risk. Reporting from Los Alamos, N.M. - More than 60 years after scientists assembled the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, lethal waste is seeping from mountain burial sites and moving toward aquifers, springs and streams that provide water to 250,000 residents of northern New Mexico. Isolated on a high plateau, the Los Alamos National Laboratory seemed an ideal place to store a bomb factory's deadly debris. But the heavily fractured mountains haven't contained the waste, some of which has trickled down hundreds of feet to the edge of the Rio Grande, one of the most important water sources in the Southwest. So far, the level of contamination in the Rio Grande has not been high enough to raise health concerns. But the monitoring of runoff in canyons that drain into the river has found unsafe concentrations of organic compounds such as perchlorate, an ingredient in rocket propellent, and various radioactive byproducts of nuclear fission. Much surface contamination, however, becomes embedded in sediment or moves down into groundwater. That subterranean migration poses the greatest long-term danger to drinking-water wells and ultimately the Rio Grande.’
Czech Utility Faces Dilemma
power utility CEZ AS received initial bids to build five nuclear reactors in Eastern Europe. Now the company must decide whether to use Western or Russian technology to construct them. The search for suppliers of reactors in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and possibly Turkey has reopened the issue of Central and Eastern Europe's reliance on Russia for energy. CEZ, one Central Europe's biggest companies, received expressions of interest Friday in a tender that analysts say could be valued at as much as $30 billion. It would be the region's biggest-ever deal for new nuclear reactors. Czech politicians view increased use of nuclear power as a way to counter the country's limited choice of natural-gas and crude-oil suppliers. CEZ also needs to scale back production at its coal-burning power plants to meet European Union targets for reducing emissions. Coal-fired power plants account for more than half of the company's power generation. Meanwhile, the EU and the U.S. are calling on former Soviet satellites to move away from Russian energy and work with Western partners, after the flow of oil and gas from Russia to Europe was stopped several times in recent years. Existing Czech and Slovak nuclear reactors are based on Soviet designs, although a hybrid unit in the Czech Republic's south Bohemian village of Temelin uses safety technology added in the late 1990s by Westinghouse Electric Co., a U.S.-based unit of Japan's Toshiba Corp.’
Russian envoy advises Iran to sign nuclear fuel deal
‘An IAEA-brokered draft proposal on nuclear fuel supply to Tehran is not a scheme to strip Iran of its low-enriched uranium, says a Russian diplomat. "This offer is not to trick Iran into giving away its low-enriched uranium," Russian Ambassador to Tehran Alexander Sadovnikov said in an interview with the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) on Sunday. "We believe that reaching an agreement on this offer and signing technical contracts to produce fuel for the Tehran reactor will be beneficial to Iran and will help in resolving Iran's nuclear issue," he added. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) presented a draft proposal to Iran, France, Russia and the United States after a meeting in Vienna on October 19. While the three powers have supported the deal, Iran has yet to announce its final decision. The nuclear deal envisages Iran shipping out its low-enriched uranium (LEU) to be converted into metal fuel rods and returned to the country for the Tehran medical research reactor. Under the deal, Iran would have to ship out at once 80 percent of its domestically-produced stockpile, amounting to 1,200 kg of uranium enriched to under 3.5 percent, by the end of the year.
Revealed: where the MoD wants to dump its radioactive waste
‘A secret shortlist of a dozen sites across the UK where the Ministry of Defence (MoD) is thinking of dumping dangerous radioactive waste from defunct nuclear submarines can be revealed today by the Sunday Herald. As many as five of the sites under consideration - for storing up to 500 cubic metres of toxic scrap from 27 submarines - are in Scotland. They are the two naval nuclear bases on the Clyde, at Coulport and Faslane, the Rosyth dockyard in Fife, the Dounreay nuclear plant in Caithness and possibly the Hunterston nuclear power station in North Ayrshire. Confidential documents leaked from the government's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) disclose official fears that such stores are like to be regarded as "contentious" because of the "sensitivity of military waste being 'dumped' on other communities". MPs and MSPs representing the targeted areas have warned they will fight any plans for turning their regions into nuclear waste dumps, and the MoD has been accused of "secrecy and spin".’
Campaign against Sellafield
from Norway descended on Westminster to demand Sellafield be closed down amid fears an accident at the site would cause devastation across the globe. The group claimed the quality of the radioactive waste is poor and they fear there will be an accident at the site. Frank Storelv, from Oslo, said 90 per cent of wind blows from the south west and if there was an explosion or accident at Sellafield, one or two days later the radioactive waste would be carried to the west coast of Norway. Mr Storelv said: "It would be 50 times more radioactive waste from a Sellafield explosion than Chernobyl. The Norwegian government is writing to the environment minister to set out concerns over the situation. We want Sellafield closed down and a decision has to be made here in parliament." Mr Storelv, who is part of campaign group Neptune Network, said: "We really believe that even the British government are afraid of this situation and the possibility of an accident. Closing Sellafield is the only solution."’
