[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Reactor at Czech nuclear power plant shut down
Index:
Reactor at Czech nuclear power plant shut down
UK's BNFL says not in talks over nuclear unit sale
Uranium plant critics say federal documents should disclose risks
Exelon Corp Exec To Manage PSEG Nuclear Plants
IAEA chief proposes 5-year freeze on nuke fuel reprocessing
Booming uranium demand could mean restarted mines in Utah
==============================
Reactor at Czech nuclear power plant shut down
PRAGUE, Czech Republic (AP) - A malfunction in a generator's cooling
system forced the shutdown of reactor at the troubled nuclear power
plant in Temelin, near the border with Austria, an official said
Sunday.
Workers shut down the reactor of the plant's second unit late
Saturday after they detected the malfunction in a non-nuclear part of
the plant, said spokesman Milan Nebesar.
He said it would take four to five days to fix the problem. The
plant's first unit was working at full capacity, he said.
Construction of the plant's two 1,000-megawatt units, based on
Russian designs, started in the 1980s. The reactors later were
upgraded with U.S. technology, but they have remained controversial
because of frequent malfunctions.
The station, 60 kilometers (35 miles) north of the Austrian border,
has been a source of friction between the two countries.
Environmentalists in Austria demand it be closed, while Czech
authorities insist it is safe.
-------------
UK's BNFL says not in talks over nuclear unit sale
LONDON, Jan 9 (Reuters) - Britain's state-owned nuclear company BNFL
said on Sunday it was not in any talks aimed at selling its main
nuclear unit, amid press reports that government was to begin talks
over a potential sale of the division.
"We are not involved or aware of any such discussions," a BNFL
spokesman told Reuters.
The Independent on Sunday and The Business newspaper reported that
the government was to begin talks with U.S. companies Bechtel and
Lockheed Martin over the possible sale of British Nuclear Group, the
main unit of BNFL.
However, the Independent said no deal was likely until after
Britain's general election, which is expected in either April or May.
---------------
Proposed uranium plant critics say federal documents should disclose
risks
EUNICE, N.M. (AP) - Opponents of a proposed uranium enrichment plant
near here say federal government fears of terrorism are trampling on
their right to know about potential health and safety risks of the
factory.
But a Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff member says certain
information contained in a draft environmental impact statement about
the plant could be useful to terrorists, so security concerns should
come first.
Louisiana Energy Services - a consortium of largely European backers -
wants to build the plant near Eunice in southeastern New Mexico to
refine uranium for nuclear reactors.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is considering whether to
license the plant, removed information about the consequences of
accidents associated with it from a draft environmental impact
statement and other documents.
For example, if a train shipping radioactive waste from a proposed
nuclear fuel factory crashed and burned in Albuquerque, there is a
"very remote" chance that 28,000 people could suffer "adverse health
effects."
Or, if a container inside the factory overheated and ruptured - a
remote, worst-case scenario - workers in the building would be killed
instantly, and a dangerous radioactive cloud would spread upwind.
"I don't know how the public can grapple with these issues with that
kind of secrecy," said Lindsay Lovejoy, attorney for two groups that
oppose the project.
Tim Johnson, an NRC staff member, said, "The commission has decided
that that's information where the sensitivity of it for security
reasons is greater than the public's right to know."
The NRC began removing information from its documents in October,
days before NBC News broadcast a story suggesting the information
could help terrorists.
All documents related to the proposed Eunice plant were removed from
the NRC's public reading room in Maryland, as well as its massive
Internet-based document collection.
In the months since, the documents have been slowly released to the
public. But in many cases, information previously made public has
been removed in new versions of the documents.
The 480-page environmental impact statement - a requirement of the
National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 - details environmental and
safety issues related to the plant.
The NRC placed a censored version back on its Internet site the week
before Christmas.
The NRC's staff concluded the accident scenarios might give a
terrorist "information on particular things in the plant to target,"
Johnson said.
Some copies of the document were sent out before the cuts were made,
so it is possible to determine what was censored.
Don Hancock of the Southwest Research and Information Center has
compared the original with the new version of the statement.
His page-by-page review shows that large sections of the document
used to calculate health effects and the risks of accidents are gone
from public view.
The whole point of the National Environmental Policy Act, Hancock
said, is to provide information to the public and government decision-
makers about the environmental impacts projects might have.
While he still has access to the old, uncensored version of the
Environmental Impact Statement, other members of the public do not.
"This is the kind of thing that now the public doesn't have the right
to know," Hancock said. "That's not OK."
Rod Krich, the project's lead engineer, said LES would prefer that
the information all be public because the company has nothing to
hide, but he understands the NRC's position.
"It pays to be more conservative than not," he said.
----------------
Exelon Corp Exec To Manage PSEG Nuclear Plants
LOWER ALLOWAYS CREEK, N.J. (Dow Jones)--Public Service Enterprise
Group Inc. ( PEG) said A. Christopher Bakken III, the president of
its nuclear group and chief nuclear officer plans to resign as of
Jan. 17.
The departure of the chief nuclear officer will coincide with the
beginning of PSEG's agreement to have Exelon Corp. (EXC) provide
management services for plant operations at its nuclear sites in
Salem and Hope Creek.
In a press release Thursday, PSEG said Bill Levis, who is currently
vice president of mid-Atlantic operations for Exelon Nuclear, will
become senior vice president and chief nuclear officer for PSEG's
Salem and Hope Creek stations.
Exelon is preparing to fulfill its part of a bargain, which was
signed in December and calls for for Exelon managers to work at the
designated plants while some PSEG Nuclear employees transfer to
Exelon nuclear sites.
The contract between the two companies, is scheduled to begin Jan.
17, is for a two-year period, and may be renewed for three years.
In December, Exelon agreed to acquire PSEG for about $12 billion in
stock and the companies to get state and federal approval for the
deal within 15 months.
---------------
IAEA chief proposes 5-year freeze on nuke fuel reprocessing
BELGRADE, Jan. 6 (Kyodo) - The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog
agency has proposed that countries aiming to establish a nuclear fuel
cycle freeze their programs for five years in order to restore the
faltering nuclear nonproliferation regime, Radio France reported
Thursday.
Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic
Energy Agency, revealed the proposal in an interview with foreign
media, the report said.
ElBaradei's proposal, if realized, may affect the operation of a
nuclear fuel reprocessing facility in the village of Rokkasho, Aomori
Prefecture.
He said countries such as Iran and North Korea have been pursuing
uranium enrichment programs and extracting plutonium from spent
nuclear fuel citing their rights under the Nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty.
ElBaradei also emphasized the need to establish an international
management system on spent nuclear fuel.
-----------------
Booming uranium demand could mean restarted mines in Utah
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Rising demand for uranium is driving up prices,
and could reopen mines for the radioactive chemical in Utah's
impoverished San Juan county.
Ron Hochstein, president of International Uranium Corp., said global
demand for the ore is far outstripping its supply, and prices are
higher than at any time during the past 20 years.
The company's White Mesa mill near Blanding already was scheduled to
restart operations in March to process "alternate feed" material from
California mining operations and place the remains in an onsite
disposal cell, Hochstein said.
However, he said mining and processing the ore instead of leaching
waste from other mines has become a more attractive venture,
Hochstein said.
"It's looking like it could be quite a permanent 'up' market," he
said. "We're seeing a tremendous mount of growth in nuclear power,
particularly in Asia and India."
Hochstein spoke Friday during a meeting with the state's Division of
Radiation Control Board to discuss remediation plans for a chloroform
plume discovered five years ago at the White Mesa site. He said IUC
would probably decide within the year whether it would resume mining
and processing.
White Mesa and Cotter Corp. in Colorado are the only two uranium
processing mills still operating in the United States. Hochstein said
that puts the White Mesa mill five to seven years ahead of even such
uranium-rich locations as Western Australia, which is closer to the
vast Asian nuclear market but hasn't tapped its potential because of
a state moratorium on uranium mining.
San Juan County Administrator Rick Bailey said the county backed the
return of uranium mining.
The revenue "could help put a kid through school, provide the sort of
things that in a small rural area are not taken for granted," he
said.
Environmental activist Jason Groenewold, who attended the Radiation
Control Board meeting, was surprised by Hochstein's statements.
Considering the toll on public health Utah's mining history has
taken, he said, "it just seems like bad ideas never die, but people
who implement them do."
Hochstein said he expected protests from environmentalists over
mining renewal.
Uranium mining boomed in Utah following World War II, when Charles
Steen in 1952 struck a deep bed of nearly pure uraninite near Moab,
the one-time "uranium capital of the world."
Steen's mill, bought by the Atlas Corp. in 1956 and operated until
1984, left 12 million tons of radioactive tailings next to the
Colorado River. The federal Energy Department is studying how to
relocate the mill tailings.
By 1970, the federal Atomic Energy Commission stopped buying uranium
altogether, and the uranium-fueled economy of southeastern Utah
collapsed. A brief resumption of the industry in the mid-1970s died
quickly.
Hundreds of miners in the Four Corners area died of lung cancer after
working in the unregulated mines.
-------------------------------------
Sandy Perle
Senior Vice President, Technical Operations
Global Dosimetry Solutions, Inc.
2652 McGaw Avenue
Irvine, CA 92614
Tel: (949) 296-2306 / (888) 437-1714 Extension 2306
Fax:(949) 296-1902
E-Mail: sperle@dosimetry.com
E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net
Global Dosimetry Website: http://www.dosimetry.com/
Personal Website: http://sandy-travels.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/