[ 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/ 



More information about the radsafe mailing list