Archive for the ‘News’ Category

May 10, 2014

By Laura Zuckerman
Reuters

(Reuters) – A New Mexico nuclear waste dump, which saw a radiation leak in February, has halted shipments of toxic waste barrels to a commercial Texas facility amid concerns that chemical reactions could trigger another release there, officials said on Friday.

A probe found the February 14 accident may have been linked to improperly prepared and packaged drums of toxic waste accepted from the Los Alamos National Laboratory by the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), its managers said in a statement.

Investigators are still evaluating whether a chemical reaction caused the leak of unsafe concentrations of radiation in the underground salt caverns where waste is stored, which exposed 21 workers above ground to low levels of contamination.

"As they evaluate this possibility, it is prudent to temporarily stop shipments of this specific (Los Alamos lab) waste stream" to a commercial storage facility in Texas, managers said.

The WIPP complex in the Chihuahuan Desert in southeastern New Mexico was designed to permanently seal in salt chambers clothing, tools and other materials contaminated with radioisotopes like plutonium from U.S. nuclear labs and weapons sites.

There may have been chemical reactions between nitrate salts in radiological materials and organic materials such as plastic packing in barrels of waste from the Los Alamos lab, Jim Blankenhorn, deputy manager with the contractor running WIPP, told a public meeting on Thursday.

Fifty-five of the suspect barrels were stored in the salt chamber where the accident happened and additional drums from the same waste stream are in a separate disposal area below ground, Blankenhorn said.

Los Alamos chemists are seeking to develop a process for filtering out the nitrate salts before packing and shipping containers of waste, he said.

The repository is not expected to resume operations for at least 18 months but it may take as long as three years to be fully operational, Blankenhorn said.

(Reporting by Laura Zuckerman in Salmon, Idaho; Editing by Eric M. Johnson and Clarence Fernandez)

CCNS NEWS UPDATE
Runs 5/9/14 through 5/16/14

(THEME UP AND UNDER) This is the CCNS News Update, an overview of the latest nuclear safety issues, brought to you every week by Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety. Here is this week’s top headline:

* LANL waste shipments suspended

On May 2nd, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced that some nuclear waste shipments from Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) to Waste Control Specialists (WCS) were suspended for an undetermined amount of time. The reason for the stoppage was that one or more LANL waste containers may have exploded underground and caused the February 14th radiation release from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). However, DOE continues to state that the cause of the radiation release is unknown, but that it is investigating all possible scenarios.

Neither DOE nor LANL publicly identified the specific group of containers, called a waste stream, that are included in the shipment suspension. Nor have they publicly stated how many of the suspect containers are at WIPP and WCS and how many remain at LANL.

The suspended waste stream is LA-MIN02-V.001, which is the source of 54 of the 268 contact-handled waste containers in room 7, panel 7, at WIPP, where the radiation release may have originated. Another 116 containers from that waste stream are now at WCS. The waste stream was created by plutonium operations at LANL that are continuing at Technical Area 55.

The containers hold a portion of the 3,706 cubic meters of plutonium-contaminated waste that is the subject of the January 2012 Framework Agreement between the New Mexico Environment Department and LANL. The agreement states that it is non-binding, but LANL committed to removing all of that waste from Area G by June 30th, 2014. http://www.nmenv.state.nm.us/documents/Summary_of_NNMCAB_01-5-2012.pdf

When WIPP was closed in early February, about 100 shipments remained at LANL to meet the June 30th date. Since those shipments could not go to WIPP, DOE agreed to pay WCS $8.8 million to receive and store those wastes for up to one year.

The Environment Department has insisted that LANL meet the June 30th date, but not the deadlines for other cleanup activities included in the Consent Order that require wide-scale cleanup by 2015. Since October 2011,the Environment Department has issued more than 95 extensions of time for LANL to submit groundwater protection and cleanup investigation reports required by the Consent Order. http://www.nmenv.state.nm.us/HWB/documents/LANL_Extensions_as_of_4-7-2014.pdf The Framework Agreement does not give the Environment Department any power to impose fines and penalties to LANL for missing the June 30th deadline, while NMED does have that power under the Consent Order.

Joni Arends, of CCNS, said, "Both LANL and the Environment Department put all of their eggs in one basket by focusing on getting the waste off the Hill to WIPP instead of doing all of the work required under the Consent Order. Now, we still have waste at LANL – with more being created – but many of the important Consent Order activities have not been done."

This has been the CCNS News Update. For more information, please visit http://www.nuclearactive.org and like us on Facebook.

—
Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety (CCNS)
P. O. Box 31147
Santa Fe, NM 87594-1147
(505) 986-1973
www.nuclearactive.org

May 9, 2014

By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN
Associated Press

The head of the recovery effort at the federal government’s nuclear waste repository in southern New Mexico said Thursday it could be up to three years before full operations resume at the underground facility.

Recovery manager Jim Blankenhorn made the announcement when answering questions from the public during a weekly meeting in Carlsbad. He said the timeline continues to be a moving target, but full operations are expected to resume no earlier than 18 months from now.

Crews continue investigating the cause of a radiation release at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad that exposed some workers and halted operations in February.

Specially trained workers have been making trips into the repository in an effort to pinpoint the source of the release. Based on those trips, the focus has turned to a set of waste drums that came from Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Officials at the meeting reiterated the possibility that there may have been a chemical reaction inside the drums. They were then questioned about what would happen to that waste if it’s deemed unsafe to store.

"If we find a problem with this waste stream, it’s a chemistry problem," Blankenhorn said. The Los Alamos lab has "some of the best scientists in the world. It would be up to them to develop a path forward to give us treated, safe waste."

New Mexico Environment Secretary Ryan Flynn said the theory of a chemical reaction is based on limited knowledge, and he urged officials during the meeting not to withhold any information. Flynn said he’s concerned the public will lose faith if federal officials change their story every couple of weeks about what might have happened.

"We need to know what happened. We absolutely need to know," he said. "But we need to make decisions based on facts."

WIPP and Department of Energy officials vowed to continue to update the public on the recovery process and to keep the safety of their workers and the public in the forefront.

Officials have pointed to safety as the reason they decided earlier this month to halt shipments from Los Alamos to a temporary storage facility in West Texas. The shipments had been going on for about a month due to the closure of the plant.

Los Alamos is under a tight deadline to get the plutonium-contaminated waste off its northern New Mexico campus before wildfire season peaks. The state of New Mexico pressured the lab to hasten the cleanup after a massive wildfire in 2011 lapped at the edges of lab property.

Lab Director Charlie McMillan said Thursday during a news conference in Albuquerque that the recent developments "are very much a cause for concern." But he said it was too soon to tell if they will have any effect on the lab’s ability to meet the state’s deadline.

May 7, 2014

Reporting by Aaron Sheldrick
Reuters

May 7 (Reuters) – Toshiba Corp said on Wednesday it wrote down by more than $300 million the value of its stake in a company planning to extend a nuclear power plant in Texas, amid uncertainty over the award of licenses for reactors in the U.S.

Toshiba had only last month scored a victory in a dispute with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission over foreign ownership rules, when the watchdog’s judicial arm ruled in the Japanese company’s favour.

But the NRC also said it will not make any final reactor license decisions anywhere in the U.S. until late 2014 at the earliest due to issues surrounding the long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel.

Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011 has forced a reassessment of atomic power, and cheap shale gas and coal has led to the closure of several older plants in the U.S.

Nuclear Innovation North America, which is 90 percent owned by New Jersey-based NRG Energy Inc and 10 percent owned by Toshiba, wants to build two new reactors at the South Texas nuclear power plant.

"Toshiba has undertaken a conservative reassessment of asset value of Nuclear Innovation North America … and recognised an operating loss of 31 billion yen ($305 million)," the Japanese company said in a statement.

The South Texas plant has two 1,280-megawatt reactors. In 2007, the plant’s owners applied to the NRC to add two Toshiba 1,350 MW Advanced Boiling Water Reactors at a cost of at least $17 billion.

($1 = 101.5550 Japanese Yen) (Reporting by Aaron Sheldrick)

Deadly High-Level Radioactive Waste: Health and Safety Concerns About Storage and Disposal

April 30, 2014
For Immediate Release

Contact:
Karen Hadden, SEED Coalition, 512-797-8481
Tom "Smitty" Smith, Public Citizen 512-477-1155

Download press release in pdf format for printing

Austin, TX – A nuclear expert, a medical doctor, and an attorney joined public interest advocates to address the health and safety risks of bringing the hottest of nuclear reactor waste, the spent nuclear fuel rods, to Waste Control Specialists’ (WCS) dump in Andrews County, Texas or another Texas site. The legal issues involved were discussed as well.

Governor Perry and Speaker Straus are pushing consideration of importing dangerous radioactive waste for storage and possibly disposal in Texas, and the House Environmental Regulation Committee will hold a hearing on the issue in the near future.

The Interim Committee charge is to "study the rules, laws, and regulations pertaining to the disposal of high-level radioactive waste in Texas and determine the potential economic impact of permitting a facility in Texas," said Rep. Lon Burnam, of District 90, Ft. Worth. "Examining the risks of importing exceedingly dangerous high-level radioactive waste into Texas seems to have been left out, but is very important for protecting our health and safety."

"High level radioactive waste can be a major threat to health and well-being. Obviously the effects are dependent on the quantity, the strength of the radioactivity, and the length of exposure that occurs. As with many health threats, growing children and babies in the womb are particularly at risk and vulnerable," said Dr. Elliot Trester, of Texas Physicians for Social Responsibility. The effects of radioactivity can be immediate and have long term consequences as well. The fact that the nuclear components of spent fuel rods can last for centuries and still be lethal is particularly disturbing."

According to a new report by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, an unshielded person a meter away from high-level radioactive waste would receive a lethal dose and die within a week and the waste Legislators are considering bringing to Texas for is four times hotter than this in terms of radioactivity.

"Used nuclear fuel rods contain plutonium and uranium isotopes, many of which have long-half lives and remain dangerous for thousands of years or longer," said Dr. Arjun Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. Reprocessing of this waste is expensive and not a viable solution. In general, the best approach for now is to move as much spent fuel as possible out of spent fuel pools and store it in dry casks on site. Moving spent fuel needlessly increases risks."

"Science, not politics, must come first. Extensive research is needed and the right combination of geologic setting, engineered barriers, and repository sealing and closure systems is crucial for long-term disposal and should be done before site selection starts. The standard setting process for the failed Yucca Mountain repository was poor. When the site didn’t meet the proposed standard, a new standard was mandated, instead of a new site. Public health protection standards should be set before site selection begins," said Makhijani. An independent institution, apart from the Department of Energy, is needed if effective oversight is to be achieved.

"The nuclear industry and its numerous political and government apologists refused to listen to common sense for decades and continued to generate spent nuclear reactor fuel as though we had disposal all figured out. True to history, the industry targets areas for dumps that lack political clout, like West Texas, the next proposed nuclear sacrifice zone," said attorney Robert Eye.

For decades it was believed that much commercial nuclear power waste would be reprocessed and that a disposal site would become available for high-level radioactive waste. A long, expensive series of failures showed these assumptions to be false. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 and amendment in 1987 made the federal government the regulator of spent nuclear fuel, with a repository to be developed by the DOE and licensed by the NRC.

Federal and private efforts to construct an interim storage site failed and Nevada fought efforts to make Yucca Mountain the nation’s geologic repository. Faulty science, and legal and political battles led to DOE spending nearly $15 billion on the site, which hasn’t been constructed. Funding was halted in 2011.

The US Government disposes of high-level radioactive waste at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, near Carlsbad, New Mexico. The site had recently been considered as a possible location for high-level commercial waste, but it has closed following both an underground fire and an airborne release of plutonium. The site’s future is un\certain.

The NRC’s Waste Confidence Rule arose from their decision not to "continue to license reactors if it did not have reasonable confidence that the wastes can and will in due course be disposed of safely," said Bob Eye. "This rule is used in reviewing new reactor licenses and license renewals. The timeframe for getting disposal capacity in place is slipping dramatically. Several states and environmental groups petitioned for review of the rule. The NRC halted licensing decisions until they complete a Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS) and revise federal code, which is scheduled for completion by September 2014." The rule change would allow spent nuclear fuel to be stored for 60 years after reactor shutdown.

Obama’s Blue Ribbon Commission said that a pilot interim storage facility could be in place by 2021, a larger storage facility by 2025, and a geologic repository by 2048. The Government Accountability Office says that several decades would be needed to transport of the spent nuclear fuel to a geologic repository and they anticipate that most US reactors closing by 2040.

"We don’t need or want this deadly, dangerous waste which every other state has rejected, or the risks it poses to our health and safety," said Tom "Smitty" Smith, director of Public Citizen’s Texas Office. "The Blue Ribbon Commission said that high-level waste storage or disposal isn’t likely to happen without state and local support. Unfortunately, Governor Perry and some Texas Legislators actually think dumping this waste on Texans is a good idea. Our fear is that the Legislature will pass resolutions asking Congress to designate our state for the unnecessary storage or disposal of spent nuclear fuel. We will fight this horrible idea."

"We don’t need our rivers and land poisoned by some of the deadliest contaminants on Earth. We don’t need children threatened by radiation poisoning, from leaks or transportation accidents. It’s time to stop producing these deadly materials and to prevent their importation," said Karen Hadden, director of the SEED Coalition. "We should reduce threats from crowding in existing spent fuel pools, where critical reactions can occur and lead to nuclear meltdowns, by moving spent fuel into dry casks and storing it onsite."

For more information:

• NukeFreeTexas – www.nukefreetexas.org
• PSR: http://www.psr.org/environment-and-health/environmental-health-policy-institute/radioactivity-and-health.html
• IEER – http://ieer.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/ManagingSpentFuel-BRC-2010-slides.pdf