[ RadSafe ] Radioactive cesium leaks into Baltic from Swedish
nuclear plant, no risk to public
Sandy Perle
sandyfl at earthlink.net
Wed Jun 29 17:04:44 CEST 2005
Index:
Cesium leaks into Baltic from Swedish nuclear plant, no risk
Congress Requests Review of Hanford Plant
Russia wants to build more nuke reactors for Iran
Nuclear project could solve energy woes--scientist
Fukushima Pref OKs Tepco Reactor To Resume Operations -Kyodo
=================================================
Radioactive cesium leaks into Baltic from Swedish nuclear plant, no
risk to public
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Radioactive cesium has leaked into the
Baltic Sea from storage tanks at a nuclear power plant in central
Sweden, but poses no risk to the public or the environment, the state
nuclear authority said Wednesday.
Even though cesium levels in the water are 10 times higher than
normal, they are still well below what's allowed under Swedish law,
the Swedish State Radiation Protection Institute said.
It was not clear exactly how much radioactive waste water had leaked
from the tanks at the Forsmark nuclear plant, 75 kilometers (46
miles) north of Stockholm.
"We believe that storage tanks containing low- and medium-level
radioactive waste have corroded and leaked into the drainage system,
from where the water continues out into the Baltic Sea," institute
spokeswoman Anki Hagg said.
She said the institute had asked the plant management to take
measures to stop further leaks.
Forsmark accounts for roughly one-sixth of Sweden's electricity
production. The first of its three reactors was started in 1980.
Sweden has 10 nuclear reactors providing 50 percent of its
electricity, but the government plans to phase them out over the
coming decades.
---------------
Congress Requests Review of Hanford Plant
YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) - In the latest setback to the government's
largest construction project, a congressional subcommittee is calling
for an investigation into a multibillion-dollar waste treatment plant
at the Hanford nuclear reservation.
Paul Anderson, a spokesman for the Government Accountability Office,
confirmed Tuesday that Ohio Republican Rep. David Hobson and Indiana
Democratic Rep. Peter Visclosky - the chairman and ranking Democrat
on the House Appropriations subcommittee on energy and water -
requested an audit of the project in a letter dated June 24.
Anderson declined to release additional details or the letter, as did
spokesmen for the committee members.
However, the review is likely to focus on the burgeoning cost of the
plant - a point that has been a continuing source of alarm for the
Energy Department, which manages cleanup at the highly contaminated
Hanford site.
The cost of construction was estimated at $4.35 billion before the
contract was awarded in 2000; it's grown to $5.8 billion.
The plant is being built to treat millions of gallons of radioactive
waste left from Cold War-era nuclear weapons production. It is
located in south-central Washington.
Under a cleanup pact signed by the Energy Department, U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency and Washington state, the plant must
be built by 2009.
Gov. Christine Gregoire said in a statement that officials are
prepared to enforce that deadline "unless the Department of Energy
submits a change request that clearly justifies the need for any
delays."
For 40 years, the Hanford reservation made plutonium for the nation's
nuclear weapons arsenal. Today, work there centers on cleanup to be
finished by 2035.
-------------------
Russia wants to build more nuke reactors for Iran
MOSCOW, June 28 (Reuters) - Russia wants to construct up to six new
nuclear reactors for Iran, despite U.S. criticism of its assistance
to the Islamic republic, Moscow's top nuclear boss was quoted as
saying on Tuesday.
Russia has pressed ahead with construction of Iran's first nuclear
power plant near the southern city of Bushehr, dismissing
Washington's belief that Tehran could use Moscow's technology and
know-how to make an atom bomb. "When Iran announces new tenders to
construct nuclear reactors, we'll take part in them," Alexander
Rumyantsev, head of Russia's Atomic Energy Agency, told Itar-Tass
news agency.
"Tehran intends to build another six nuclear reactors."
Rumyantsev's remarks came just days after Russian President Vladimir
Putin said Moscow would continue developing nuclear ties with Iran
after ultra-conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's election as president
of the Islamic Republic last week.
Iran says its nuclear programme is peaceful.
For Russia, Iran is a key market in the Middle East as it seeks a
bigger share of the global nuclear industry, but Moscow is worried it
may lose its near-monopoly status there as its Western rivals try to
push into the Iranian market.
Moscow and Tehran, whose nuclear ties date back to the early 1990s,
signed a fuel supply deal earlier this year that paved the way for
Bushehr to start up in late 2006.
Once operational, Bushehr will generate 1,000 megawatts of
electricity. Initiated before Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution and
badly damaged during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, the project was later
revived with Russian help and has cost about $1 billion.
--------------------
Nuclear project could solve energy woes--scientist
LONDON, June 28 (Reuters) - If scientists succeed in building an
experimental nuclear fusion reactor and making it work it could solve
the world's energy problems for the next 1,000 years or more, a
leading scientist said on Tuesday.
After months of wrangling, France defeated a bid from Japan and
signed a deal to build the 10-billion-euro ($12 billion) experimental
reactor at Cadarache in the south of the country.
Ian Fells, of the Royal Academy of Engineering in Britain and an
expert on energy conversion, described the ITER (International
Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) project backed by China, the EU,
Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States as a huge physics
experiment.
It is one which has enormous potential and could lead to the building
of a prototype power station in about 30 years time.
"If we can really make this work, there will be enough electricity to
last the world for the next 1,000 to 2,000 years. So it is really
quite important but quite difficult to do it," Fells said in an
interview.
In terms of the scientific and engineering difficulty involved, he
compared it to landing a man on the moon.
"I give it a 50-50 chance of success but the engineering is very
difficult," said Fells.
ITER would have an advantage over current nuclear reactors because it
would be cleaner. It would not rely on enriched uranium fuel and it
would not produce plutonium, which is a concern from a terrorism
point of view.
"The technology of this is the science of the hydrogen bomb," Fells
said. "You take a couple of hydrogen atoms and you squeeze them
together, you fuse them together, and they turn into an atom of
helium and produce a great burp of energy."
"This is turning mass into energy as with Einstein's celebrated
equation E=MC2 (energy = mass times the speed of light squared)."
Scientists know it could work because they know the hydrogen bomb
works. But the problem they face is trying to do it in a controlled
manner so the heat can be used to generate electricity.
ITER seeks to mimic the way the sun produces energy, potentially
providing an inexhaustible source of low-cost energy using seawater
as fuel.
The hydrogen atom used is deuterium which is a stable isotope of
hydrogen.
"The oceans are absolutely stuffed full of it," said Fells.
Although ITER would be cleaner than current nuclear reactors it does
pose some problems.
"In the course of the reaction it produces a lot of neutrons and they
get into the actual fabric of the machine and over years it becomes
radioactive, so there is still a problem of decommissioning," said
Fells.
But he added that the potential for the technology, if it can be made
to work, is so great it is really worthwhile putting in a large
effort to see if it can succeed.
-------------------
Fukushima Pref OKs Tepco Reactor To Resume Operations -Kyodo
TOKYO -(Dow Jones)- Fukushima Prefecture decided Tuesday to allow
Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501.TO) to resume operations of the No. 1
reactor at its Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in the
northeastern Japan prefecture, Kyodo News reports.
Of Tepco's 17 nuclear reactors in Japan, the No. 1 reactor at
Fukushima is the last one that remains suspended.
Tepco was forced to temporarily shut down its 17 nuclear-power
facilities after it was revealed in August 2002 that the firm had
covered up reports showing cracks in the structures of some reactors.
-------------------------------------
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 at dosimetry.com
E-Mail: sandyfl at earthlink.net
Global Dosimetry Website: http://www.dosimetry.com/
Personal Website: http://sandy-travels.com/
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