Jerusalem Post: Iran says Bushehr plant nearly ready to join power grid
Salehi tells Iranian television that progress being made at power plant, says fuel has been pumped into core for several months. Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant is scheduled to be connected to the national electricity network in February 2011, one month later than previously stated. The country's Atomic Energy Organization chief Ali-Akbar Salehi had previously said that the Russian-built 1,000-megawatt reactor would be up and running by January 2011. On Sunday, however, Salehi told official Iranian television station IRIB, "As we have repeatedly announced, work in the Bushehr power plant is progressing well by God's grace," PressTV reported. He added that Iran began injecting fuel into the reactor's core in late October and said he hoped tests necessary for further progress would be completed by mid January.
The Mirror: Top secret document reveals British troops were knowingly revealed to radiation during nuclear fallout tests
British troops WERE knowingly exposed to radiation during nuclear fallout tests, a top-secret document has finally proved. For five decades, successive governments have denied any harm was caused to the 22,000 servicemen ordered to witness nuclear bomb tests in the Fifties and Sixties - saying the explosions were to test the weapons, not their effects on humans, and the men were at a safe distance. But a draft Press release written before tests in Australia in 1956, now uncovered in the National Archives, reads: "The possible effects of the ingestion of radioactive fallout (by men and animals) will be among the subjects studied." It has the words "by men and animals" crossed out in pencil, and the version that was actually released mentions only sheep and small animals. The document blows apart official claims that the tests were not harmful to the troops who witnessed test blasts in Australia, the US and the South Pacific.
Newsweek: Flirting With Disaster
Every few years the defenses of the nation’s nuclear plants are tested. What’s scary is how often they fail. In early 2009 a team of terrorists managed to enter a nuclear-power plant in the American South armed with machine guns and grenade launchers. After breaking through chain-link and barbed-wire gates, they battled with the plant’s guards. Those terrorists who weren’t killed were able to disable a critical component of the plant’s operating hardware. A meltdown of the reactor core looked imminent, as did the release of radioactive material from waste-storage pools located on-site. The surrounding area faced catastrophic fallout. Everything up to that point actually happened—sort of. In reality, the attackers were a group of highly trained government operatives—including security consultants and military members on leave—posing as terrorists. Every three years, such teams “attack” each of the country’s 104 nuclear-power plants to find weak spots in security. The raids are carefully choreographed: plant managers are given two months’ notice to prepare the guards, and the intruders follow a prearranged script to evade them. Still, eight times out of roughly 100 attempts over the past five years, the mock terror teams have successfully broken through those defenses. A growing number of plants are nearing the end of their operating lifetimes, and details about the security of existing facilities are classified. “The industry is hiding behind the 9/11 tragedy to withhold information—like which plants have failed tests and repairs that have been made—that should be available,” says David Lochbaum, a nuclear analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Brattleboro Reformer: NRC wants waste stored for century
BRATTLEBORO -- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has written a revision of the Waste Confidence Decision which could allow spent fuel and high-level waste to be stored at nuclear facilities for more than 120 years. "This analysis will go well beyond the current analysis that supports at least 60 years of post-licensed life storage with eventual disposal in a deep geologic repository," the commission explains in the recently published Federal Register notice. The presidentially appointed, five-member commission that oversees the NRC, in 2008 decided to take a fresh look at the decision of how long and how much waste produced by nuclear power plants can be safely stored on-site past operation. There is "reasonable assurance that sufficient mined geologic repository capacity will be available to dispose of the commercial high-level radioactive waste and spent fuel generated in any reactor when necessary," the commission stated. Previous language stated that at least one mined geologic repository will be available within the first quarter of the 21st century, according to Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the NRC. When a disposal facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada was proposed in the mid-1980s, it was estimated that it would be opened between 2007 and 2009. Legal and environmental challenges have slowed the process and the recent withdrawal of funding may have postponed the project indefinitely.
NPR: Commission Lets 36 States Dump Nuke Waste In Texas
HOUSTON January 4, 2011, 06:21 pm ET A Texas commission approved rules on Tuesday that will allow a company to greatly expand a remote landfill along the state border with New Mexico and to begin accepting low-level radioactive waste from 36 states. The 5-2 vote by the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Commission came after last-minute legal maneuvering on Monday failed to delay the meeting, environmentalists warned the dump would pollute groundwater and more than 5,000 people commented on the plan. The expansion stoked the debate over where — and if — nuclear waste can be dumped in the United States, an argument that has taken on new importance since President Barack Obama vowed to decrease the country's dependence on foreign oil, partly by building more nuclear power plants. In the end, however, the site's owner, Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists, convinced the commission the West Texas landfill was a secure solution to permanently dump radioactive waste. Until now, the site has only accepted waste from Texas, Vermont and the federal government.
Cape Cod Today: Nuclear Idiocy Redux -From Cape Cod To Telluride
Back in 1960, when I was a sophomore at Lawrence High in Falmouth, the upper Cape dodged the nuclear bullet, big time, shooting down a scheme to use Camp Edwards as the site for an "Atomic Park." The pitch was to create jobs here on the Cape by having the Commonwealth lease land to industries that reprocessed the waste from nuclear power plants all along the eastern seaboard. I put up a more detailed post on this bit of Cape history, entitled "Welcome to Atomic Park Cape Cod!", back on 3/16/09, and I will just summarize here. Proponents of the Atomic Park scheme, including the Buzzards Bay and Barnstable Chambers of Commerce, said it would be a huge boon for the Cape. In actuality, the idea was conceived as a huge boondoggle for the nuclear industry, a way to save billions in the proper handling and disposal of nuclear waste that would jeopardize the health and safety of all Cape Cod residents. Fortunately, we had a cadre of real scientists centered in Woods Hole, people who were knowledgeable about both radiation and aquifers, and they knew even more knowledgeable nuclear scientists from major universities and research centers. Dr. Albert Szent-Gyorgi, Nobel prize winner in medicine, was one of the first and most outspoken opponents of the proposed "Atomic Park."