Nuclear waste: is everything under control? - Special six-page edition (2007-02) of the Environemntal Alert Bulletin of the United Nations Environmental Program.
50 years after the opening of the world’s first civil nuclear power station, very little radioactive waste produced has been permanently disposed of. Moreover, the average age of today’s reactors is approximately 22 years, meaning most of them will be decommissioned over the next decades. All of these wastes will have to be disposed of even if no more nuclear reactors are built. But is it wise to take further advantage of the “nuclear path”, without proven and widely-utilized solutions to the problem of nuclear waste?
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SEVILLE, Spain (Reuters) - The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog on Wednesday praised Spain’s regulator but recommended stepping up efforts to find a permanent site for dumping spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste.
Urich Schmocker, head of an International Atomic Energy Agency mission to Spain, said building a central storage facility was just an interim solution. (more…)
The UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has formally advised the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate - the country’s nuclear safety regulator - that it plans to extend the operating life at Oldbury nuclear power station, the NDA said Wednesday. (more…)
Sofia. ‘This is not a rare case, we have such cases once every month’, the Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Agency Sergey Tsochev said in an interview for FOCUS News Agency.
There are such problems around the world and they are caused by having a radiation source inside metal scrap. (more…)
LONDON, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Britain has set up a watchdog to ensure that decommissioning the nuclear power plants that the government wants to be built, and disposing of the waste, does not cost the taxpayer anything.
The Nuclear Liabilities Financing Assurance Board (NLFAB) will scrutinise how the companies planning to build the new power plants will pay to shut them at the end of their useful lives and clean up the radioactive waste they produce. (more…)
Remember that “The Simpsons” episode where Homer gains so much weight he plugs the cooling tower? Hilarious stuff. Laugh out loud funny.
This joke EnergySolutions is playing on all of us - nuclear regulators, the governor and Utah residents? Not so funny. (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…)
People living near a former RAF base yesterday spoke of their shock at being told their homes could be radioactive.
Radium and asbestos have been found at the site, where military waste was burned and buried. The council is now testing 90 nearby homes. (more…)
For decades nuclear power has been slated as being environmentally harmful. But with climate change emerging as the world’s top environmental problem, the nuclear industry is now starting to enjoy a reputation as a green power provider, capable of producing huge amounts of energy with little or no carbon emissions. As a result, the industry is gaining renewed support. In the United States, both presidential candidates view nuclear power as part of the future energy mix. The US government isn’t alone in its support for an expansion of nuclear facilities. Japan announced in August that it would spend $4 billion on green technology, including nuclear plants. (more…)
Luxembourg’s Minister for Health, Mars Di Bartolomeo, has confirmed that no nuclear waste is, nor has been, transported through the Grand Duchy.
The information was provided in response to a parliamentary question which was raised following an incident this summer when a train carrying nuclear waste was stopped (outside Luxembourg) on its way to the Moselle. (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…)
