BRUSSELS, Dec. 8 (Xinhua) — European Union (EU) foreign ministers on Monday endorsed a plan for the UN nuclear watchdog agency to maintain an international nuclear fuel bank.
“The Council (of Ministers) decides to express its support for the establishment of a nuclear fuel bank placed under the control of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency),” said the ministers in a statement. (more…)
The increased sourcing of raw uranium that will arise from nuclear new build is an ethical and environmental nightmare currently being ignored by the government.
The World Nuclear Association (WNA), the trade body for companies that make up 90% of the industry, admits that in “emerging uranium producing countries” there is frequently no adequate environmental health and safety legislation, let alone monitoring. It is considerately proposing a Charter of Ethics containing principles of uranium stewardship for its members to follow. But this is a self-policing voluntary arrangement. Similarly, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s safety guide to the Management of Radioactive Waste from the Mining and Milling of Ores (pdf) are not legally binding on operators. (more…)
MOSCOW, Nov. 18 (UPI) — Russia’s state-run uranium mining concern Atomredmetzoloto said it would increase uranium production to 3,841 tons this year.
Proven uranium reserves in Russia have reached 545,000 metric tons, a 275 percent increase from 2006, Natural Resources Minister Yury Trutnev said Tuesday, RIA Novosti reported. (more…)
PARIS (Reuters) - Tests on water tables under French nuclear sites, after a major uranium leak in the south earlier this year, showed there were no significant environmental or health dangers, a government committee said on Friday.
Plant operator Areva said in July that 30 cubic meters of liquid containing non-enriched uranium was accidentally poured onto the ground and into a river at the Tricastin nuclear site in southeastern France. (more…)
MOSCOW, October 21 (RIA Novosti) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will discuss trade, energy and conflict in the South Caucasus with his Armenian counterpart, Serzh Sargisyan, at talks in Armenia on October 21, a Kremlin official said.
Bilateral trade grew 13%, year-on-year, in the first eight months of 2008 to reach $536.5 million, the Kremlin said earlier. Russia is a leading trade partner of Armenia and is one of the biggest investors in the country’s economy, with accrued investment from Russia topping $1.6 billion from 1991 to July 1, 2008. (more…)
Estonia has completed the decade-long clean-up of one of Europe’s most hazardous radioactive waste dumps on the Baltic coast, an official in charge of the operation said Monday.
“EU experts considered the radioactive waste storage at Sillamae one of the four most dangerous sites of its kind in Europe,” Tonis Kaasik, director of the OkoSil firm responsible for the clean-up of the Soviet-era dump told AFP. (more…)
The Belarusian government’s plans to build a nuclear power plant are fraught with “multiple troubles and ordeals for the people,” Belarusian expert Heorhiy Lepin said at an international conference in Vilnius on October 9.
He described nuclear energy programs as “the most costly and the most hazardous of all power generation technologies.” “This danger is connected not only with the possibility of accidents: a nuclear reactor pollutes the environment during its routine operation,” Dr. Lepin said. (more…)
Up to 10,000 tons of depleted uranium hexafluoride are expected to travel through St. Petersburg in the next six months, according to the local branch of the international environmental pressure group Bellona. The next cargo is expected to arrive in town in early October.
Arriving by sea, the radioactive material will then be sent by rail to the town of Novouralsk in Siberia for reprocessing and storage. Most of the cargo arrives in Russia from the Netherlands and Germany but Russia has signed contracts with India, Pakistan and China — states that are rapidly bolstering their nuclear programs — and looks set to receive even more spent nuclear fuel and uranium hexafluoride for reprocessing. (more…)
KIEV, September 26 (RIA Novosti) - Ukraine’s government has proposed allocating 450 million hryvnias ($90 million) in next year’s budget to set up a strategic nuclear fuel reserve, the country’s UNIAN new agency said.
“I think we will start gradually forming a fuel reserve next year,” Yuri Nedashkovsky, head of state nuclear power utility Energoatom, was quoted as saying on Thursday.
He said the allocation had been included in the draft budget for 2009. (more…)
SOFIA, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Bulgaria’s nuclear regulator on Friday rejected accusations that nuclear power plant Kozloduy used dangerous recycled fuel, firing back against sustained criticism of the plant’s safety.
In July, a nuclear scientist and long-term Kozloduy employee, Georgi Kotev, accused the plant in his web blog and several media interviews of using second-hand fuel. (more…)
