[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Radioactive Fuel, Reported Missing, Found
Index:
Radioactive Fuel, Reported Missing, Found
Pacific Gas Investigates Certain Records
Neb. Wants Nuke Judgment to Be Overturned
Agency May Fine Contractor Over Sludge
Demolition Begins on Colo. Plutonium Plant
Radioactive fallout from nuke tests 1.5 times higher than
Fukui town among candidate sites to store KEPCO's spent nuke fuel
Experts Try to Affect Romanian Nuke Laws
------------------------------------------------------------
Radioactive Fuel, Reported Missing, Found
MONTPELIER, Vt. (July 13) - Two highly radioactive pieces of spent
nuclear fuel were found Tuesday where they belong, in the Vermont
Yankee nuclear plant's spent fuel pool, three months after they were
reported missing.
The discovery was made by engineers using a special tool to open a
container in the pool, which houses thousands of spent nuclear fuel
assemblies from the plant's 32 years of operation, a Nuclear
Regulatory Commission spokesman said.
Two earlier robotic searches of the pool had failed to turn up the
container. Its existence became known last week when investigators
found a record at a General Electric laboratory in California that
the container had been shipped to Vermont Yankee sometime during the
1980s.
"We earlier had checked all the containers in the pool, but when we
learned that General Electric had designed and sent a pipe-like
cylinder for the fuel-rod pieces, we rechecked the videotapes," said
Jay Thayer, site vice president in charge of Vermont Yankee for its
owner, Entergy Nuclear.
"That's when we noticed that what was previously thought to be part
of an existing in-pool structure could very well be the canister that
GE sent here," Thayer said.
The news in April that the radioactive spent fuel segments, likely
lethal to anyone exposed to them, were unaccounted for came at a
sensitive time for the 32-year-old reactor. Entergy Nuclear has a
request pending before the NRC to boost its power output by 20
percent.
Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the NRC's Northeast regional office, said
the federal agency was withholding judgment on the latest
developments at the Vermont plant.
The discovery of the GE records prompted engineers at Vermont Yankee
to build a new tool that could go into the spent fuel pool, open the
container and check its contents.
The container was described as a 40-inch-long cylinder about four
inches across - easily large enough to hold the two fuel pieces,
described as 9 and 17 inches long and about as thick as a pencil.
After the announcement that the fuel segments were missing, plant
officials said they believed the segments were in cylinders welded to
a bucket at the bottom of the 40-foot-deep spent fuel pool.
Raymond Shadis of the nuclear watchdog group New England coalition
said Tuesday that the discovery of the fuel rods in a separate
cylinder raised questions about what had been in the bucket and what
had become of it.
"These kinds of open questions, they don't give anyone any feeling of
security with respect to how they handle spent nuclear materials," he
said.
Vermont Yankee spokesman Robert Williams said discussions about the
fuel having been in the bucket were "speculation early in the
investigation."
"We've done a thorough search of the pool and this completes the
inventory," Williams said.
Sheehan said the NRC plans its own an investigation.
-------------
Pacific Gas Investigates Certain Records
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Pacific Gas and Electric Co. said Friday that it
discovered conflicting records about the storage of a small amount of
used nuclear fuel at a California power plant, in documentation that
dates back to more than 34 years ago.
The PG&E Corp. unit said the discrepancy involves its Humboldt Bay
Power Plant, near Eureka in Northern California, and has no impact on
the health and safety of the public. The fuel, which consists of
three segments weighing a total of about 4 pounds, may have been
shipped offsite in 1969 for reprocessing, or may have remained stored
safely underwater since 1968 in the plant's used fuel pool.
Pacific Gas said it discovered the conflict while verifying documents
to prepare to decommission the plant. The company, which has been
reviewing documents since last year for that purpose, said it plans
to move used fuel pool contents to dry cask storage.
The company said its investigation of the discrepancy could take
several more weeks because it must physically search the used fuel
pool. Pacific Gas notified the Nuclear Regulatory Commission about
the issue on June 28, and began the physical search on July 7.
Regional commission personnel have inspected the site and are
monitoring the search progress, the company said.
----------------
Neb. Wants Nuke Judgment to Be Overturned
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - Nebraska asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday
to overturn a $151 million judgment against the state for refusing to
host a nuclear waste dump.
Attorney General Jon Bruning was not optimistic that the high court
will agree to hear the case, let alone rule in Nebraska's favor.
"Look at the track record in this litigation - we haven't won
anything yet," Bruning said. "That's not to say we have no chance.
But let's be realistic - it's a long shot."
U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf of Lincoln ruled in 2002 that former
Nebraska Gov. Ben Nelson, now a U.S. senator, engaged in a
politically motivated and orchestrated plot to keep the regional dump
from being built in Nebraska. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
upheld that ruling in February.
Nebraska officials argued that they refused to license the dump for
low-level waste because of concerns about pollution and a high water
table at the proposed site in Boyd County in the northeast part of
the state.
The dump was to take waste from the Central Interstate Low-Level
Radioactive Waste Compact, which consists of Nebraska, Kansas,
Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas.
Nebraska doesn't have the money to pay the court judgment because of
an ongoing budget crunch and has been trying to negotiate a
settlement.
The compact earlier rejected a settlement offer and said it would
offer a counterproposal. Compact officials are scheduled to discuss
negotiations at a meeting next week.
The Associated Press reported last week that Gov. Mike Johanns had
approached Texas Gov. Rick Perry about storing nuclear waste there.
As part of the deal, Nebraska has offered to pay Texas a flat fee of
$25 million to take the waste from the group of five states.
Nebraska also offered to pay an additional $5 million to Texas to
cover any unforeseen expenses for storing the waste.
Such a deal would not release Nebraska from the court judgment unless
the five-state group agreed.
-----------------
Agency May Fine Contractor Over Sludge
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) - The Department of Energy on Thursday proposed a
$935,000 fine against one of its contractors for safety violations in
a project to remove radioactive sludge from the Hanford nuclear
reservation.
The department said Fluor Hanford Inc. claimed in 2003 it was
prepared to begin removing 50 cubic meters of radioactive sludge from
the reservation but it failed the agency's readiness review.
The department found that company employees were not adequately
trained, documents and records were incomplete and some of the
equipment it planned to use was not safe enough.
DOE officials said that if the fine stands, it would be the largest
civil penalty ever levied at Hanford, which contains the nation's
largest collection of nuclear waste.
The company has not decided whether to challenge the fine, spokesman
Geoff Tyree said.
"We are disappointed with the civil penalty, particularly the level
of the fine, because we have completely turned this project around in
the past year," Fluor Hanford President Ron Gallagher said in a
statement Thursday.
The company was hired to remove spent nuclear fuel rods from storage
basins at the reservation and then clean up the remaining radioactive
sludge in a separate project.
The company has since passed a readiness review and has begun
removing the sludge. The company is continuing to remove the
remaining spent fuel rods.
The 586-square-mile Hanford site, located near Richland in south-
central Washington, was created as part of the Manhattan Project in
World War II to make plutonium for nuclear weapons.
----------------
Demolition Begins on Colo. Plutonium Plant
GOLDEN, Colo. (AP) - Demolition began Thursday on what has been
called "the most dangerous building in America," where workers at the
Rocky Flats nuclear plant once handled highly radioactive plutonium
used in triggers for nuclear weapons.
Leaks, spills and a 1957 fire plagued the building, and part of it
was closed 30 years ago because radiation levels were off the charts.
The building was called the workhorse of the weapons factory 16 miles
northwest of Denver. The Department of Energy also called the
building its "greatest vulnerability" in 1994 because of the buildup
of contamination over five decades.
"This (building) was the bad actor and that's really what made it so
notorious," said Nancy Tuor, president and chief executive of Kaiser-
Hill Co., in charge of the roughly $7 billion cleanup.
The jaws of excavators chewed through the north face of Building 771,
ripping through corrugated metal and sheetrock of a section that was
once a cafeteria. Workers who fashioned plutonium triggers in the
building were among those who watched it come down.
"It's awesome," said Chris Gilbreath, a Kaiser-Hill manager who gave
the signal for demolition to start. "Any time something disappears
around here, it's awesome."
Rocky Flats started producing plutonium triggers in the 1950s and was
closed in 1989 when chronic safety violations led to a raid by
federal agents. The end of the Cold War scuttled plans to reopen the
plant.
Work began in 1994 on decommissioning Rocky Flats, which will
eventually be turned over to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to
manage as a wildlife refuge. The core, 385-acre industrial area is
surrounded by 6,000 acres of open space stretching over rolling hills
of long-grass prairie beneath the craggy foothills of the Rockies.
Half of the roughly 800 buildings that made up the sprawling complex
have been dismantled. Completion is expected by December 2006.
Energy Department officials originally estimated the cleanup would
take 60 years and cost up to $36 billion. The final cost will likely
be less than $7 billion.
The faster-than-expected pace has led critics to question whether
proper precautions are being taken and if Kaiser-Hill is more
interested in earning hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses for
finishing ahead of schedule. The company also has been fined for
safety violations.
Kaiser-Hill has defended its safety record, and state and federal
officials said they are confident proper procedures are being
followed.
Cleanup crews were faced with 251 tanks and 11 miles of pipes
containing plutonium-contaminated liquid. The so-called "infinity
room" had been boarded-up since the 1970s. Radiation levels in the
room were so high that monitors couldn't register them; workers said
they went to infinity.
Mike Beranek said he felt proud as he stood with a crowd of about 100
behind a chain-link fence Thursday. He worked for 28 1/2 years in
Building 771 and is on a cleanup crew.
"Getting to this point has been an incredible accomplishment for
everybody involved," the 52-year-old Beranek said.
----------------
Radioactive fallout from nuke tests 1.5 times higher than
TSUKUBA, Japan, July 15 (Kyodo) - Radioactive fallout from nuclear
tests conducted by the United States and Soviet Union in the Northern
Hemisphere prior to the 1970s was about 1.5 times higher than
previously estimated, according to researchers at the Japan
Meteorological Agency.
A research team led by Michio Aoyama, a senior researcher at the
agency's Meteorological Research Institute, says scientists may need
to review current estimates that fallout accounted for about 10
percent of environmental radiation exposure for those living in the
Northern Hemisphere.
Radioactive dust released by nuclear testing descended into wide
areas after reaching the stratosphere. The U.N. Scientific Committee
on the Effects of Atomic Radiation has estimated that about 500
petabecquerels of cesium-137 had fallen into the Northern Hemisphere
through nuclear tests before the 1970s.
Aoyama and his team analyzed data from 1970 on the atmosphere, soil
and seawater of about 30 countries and concluded that the amount of
fallout totaled about 700 petabecquerels -- about 1.5 times more than
previously estimated after the margin of error was taken into
account.
The team believes that the amount of fallout of other radioactive
materials such as strontium-90 is also about 1.5 times higher than
previously estimated.
Past analysis did not correctly reflect fallout into the sea,
according to Aoyama.
The United States and the Soviet Union frequently conducted
atmospheric nuclear tests in the 1950s and 1960s. The number of such
tests before 1970 totaled more than 450, according to the U.S.
Natural Resources Conservation Service.
------------------
Fukui town among candidate sites to store KEPCO's spent nuke fuel
OSAKA, July 15 (Kyodo) - Kansai Electric Power Co. has decided to
include the town of Mihama in Fukui Prefecture on a list of candidate
sites to host its interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel,
KEPCO officials said Thursday.
The decision, which followed the town's approval Wednesday to invite
the company for construction of such a facility, marks a turnaround
from KEPCO's earlier plan to build the facility outside the
prefecture on the Japan Sea coast.
KEPCO has judged it difficult to build the facility in time for its
planned start of operations in 2010 if the company sticks to the
initial idea of constructing it outside Fukui Prefecture, company
officials said.
Earlier in the day, Mihama Mayor Jitaro Yamaguchi met with KEPCO
President Yosaku Fuji to request that the company start a feasibility
study for construction of the facility, according to the officials.
Fuji was quoted as telling Yamaguchi, "We will consider the request
thoroughly, taking into account past developments."
The Mihama assembly on Wednesday approved by majority vote a plan to
invite KEPCO to build the facility in the town, although Fukui Gov.
Issei Nishikawa has insisted it should be constructed outside the
prefecture.
Among other candidate sites for the KEPCO facility is Gobo in
Wakayama Prefecture, western Japan.
Electric power companies are stepping up efforts to construct interim
nuclear storage facilities, which receive spent nuclear fuel from
nuclear plants, because temporary spent fuel storage pools at their
plants are filling up.
----------------
Experts Try to Affect Romanian Nuke Laws
CLUJ, Romania (AP) - Romanian and French scientists met Tuesday in a
seminar that aims to harmonize Romania's nuclear legislation with EU
standards for safety and environmental protection.
Some 130 scientists, experts and Romanian government officials were
taking part in the five-day seminar that opened Monday in the
Transylvanian city of Cluj.
The seminar, organized by the city's Babes-Bolyai University, gives
nuclear and environmental experts a forum for sharing information,
said Iustinian Petrescu, head of the university's department of
environmental studies.
Among those participating was the head of legal affairs at the
Nuclear Energy Agency of the Paris-based Organization for Economic Co-
operation and Development, as well as Romanian government officials
for nuclear issues.
Romania is aiming to improve its nuclear legislation, as it hopes to
join the European Union in 2007.
However the Eastern European country has never suffered any nuclear
accidents, and for decades has not had a Soviet-era nuclear plant on
its soil.
A Canadian-designed nuclear power plant, opened seven years ago in
the southeastern city of Cernavoda, provides 10 percent of the
country's electricity with only one of its four reactors in use.
***************************************************************
Sandy Perle
Sr. Vice President, Technical Operations
Global Dosimetry Solutions, Inc.
3300 Hyland Avenue
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
Tel: (714) 545-0100 / (800) 548-5100 Extension 2306
Fax: (714) 668-3149
E-Mail: sperle@dosimetry.com
E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net
Personal Website: http://sandy-travels.com/
Global Dosimetry Solutions Website: http://www.dosimetry.com/
************************************************************************
You are currently subscribed to the Radsafe mailing list. To
unsubscribe, send an e-mail to Majordomo@list.vanderbilt.edu Put the
text "unsubscribe radsafe" (no quote marks) in the body of the e-mail,
with no subject line. You can view the Radsafe archives at
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/radsafe/