Waste

Germany may set up nuclear waste fund

Friday, April 13, 2012

The German government ill consider setting up a publicly administered fund to manage the disposal of nuclear waste from its power plants, environment minister Norbert Röttgen said following the publication of a Greenpeace report on Wednesday.

Greenpeace has called for a public fund because it fears German nuclear operators Eon, RWE, EnBW and Vattenfall may go bankrupt or try to wriggle out of their obligations after 2022, when the last of Germany’s reactors are due to close.

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TÜV finds rusted nuclear waste barrels

Thursday, March 8, 2012

At a time when Germany's solar industry is suffering from weakened political support, the Technical Inspection Association, TÜV, has uncovered rusted radioactive waste barrels in the already inoperative Brunsbüttel nuclear plant in northern Germany.

The nuclear power plant, which was shut down last year has an underground storage of approximately 500 barrels of low and intermediate levels of radioactive waste from the reactors. In order to move the waste to end-disposal point, Schacht Konrad repository in Lower Saxony, the material has to be transferred to cast iron containers. Amidst this process, TÜV North made the discovery of rusted barrels.

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Research plan for nuclear waste issued

Monday, February 6, 2012

An EU consortium on the geological disposal of radioactive waste has issued a research plan to deliver scientific and technological information on the construction of permanent underground sites. A consultation on the plan runs until next week.

The IGD-TP group wants Europe to have built its first disposal facilities by 2025. It aims to provide common advice on the safe disposal of highly radioactive waste. France, Finland and Sweden have the most advanced projects.

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UK 'subsidising nuclear power unlawfully'

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Green energy campaigners are attempting to block new nuclear power stations in the UK by complaining to the European Commission that government plans contravene EU competition regulations.

They say financial rules for nuclear operators include subsidies that have not been approved by the commission.

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Serbia to house "biggest nuclear waste site in Europe"

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

BELGRADE -- The largest nuclear waste disposal site in Europe will be located in Serbia - in Vinča, near Belgrade, it has been announced.

A public company in charge of its construction at the same time reassured that the facility was built "according to EU standards".

The site is now awaiting a permanent permission to operate.

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Swedish waste fees rise to reflect repository cost

Sunday, October 16, 2011

The Swedish Radiation Safety Authority (SSM) has recommended a tripling of the fee paid by the country's nuclear power industry towards paying for management of the country's nuclear waste.

SSM has been tasked with assessing what level of fee Sweden's nuclear generators should be required to pay into the country's Nuclear Waste Fund for the next three years. Basing its assessment on information gathered from the relevant organisations - including cost estimates from the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Co (SKB) - SSM has recommended to the government that the fee should be set at 3 öre per kWh of nuclear electricity produced. The current level is 1 öre per kWh. (1 öre is worth approximately $0.001.)

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Posiva: No room for Fennovoima waste in nuclear cave

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

The project director of the Olkiluoto 3 nuclear power plant, Posiva President Reijo Sundell, insists there is no space for waste from utilities other than TVO or Fortum in the Onkalo underground disposal site on Finland's west coast.

Onkalo (or ‘cave’) is being dug into the bedrock near the Olkiluoto power station by Posiva, which is 60 percent owned by TVO and 40 percent by Fortum. The latter utility owns two commercial reactors in Loviisa on the south-east coast, and has applied to build a third. TVO has two operating reactors on Olkiluoto, an island in the municipality of Eurajoki, on the west coast between Rauma and Pori.

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Explosion at French Nuclear Site Leaves One Person Dead

Thursday, September 15, 2011

PARIS — One person was killed and four were injured Monday afternoon in an explosion at a nuclear waste treatment site in southern France, according to the French Nuclear Safety Authority.

The authority and local police officials said there had been no radiation leak. About five hours after the explosion, the authority announced that the episode was over. The site, about 20 miles from Avignon, has no nuclear reactors, the authority said. A spokesman for the French power utility Électricité de France, which owns the site, said, “It is an industrial accident, not a nuclear one.”

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Germans pour salt on to nuclear storage wound

Monday, September 5, 2011

Some 800m below the town of Gorleben, northern Germany, salt glistens like ice underfoot.

The man in charge of the nation’s nuclear waste is walking through caverns carved into a huge salt formation that could one day entomb 17,000 tonnes of highly radioactive detritus.

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EU Council draft of nuclear waste directive to allow exports: sources

Thursday, June 30, 2011

European Union member state experts have agreed on a draft text for a new nuclear waste and spent fuel management directive that would allow permanent exports of waste from the EU under certain conditions.

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