Comment: Rarely, this blog post anything the uranium group publishes, however, following articles will list of facts about Nuke Power group ever tells us! By the way, did the Secretary of Energy go to Coles Hill; was this the purpose of the whole Rural Tour? Not very nice!
Comments: Now facts about the so call modern Uranium mining problems!
America:
Environmental Problems and Violations Accumulate for Uranium Mining and Processing
While the uranium mining industry insists that the in-situ leaching process for extracting uranium is environmentally safe, mining violations and associated fines imposed by mining regulatory agencies continue to accumulate. To avoid violations, some mining companies request more lax environmental standards. Significant problems also occur with uranium processing and transportation.
Here are some recent examples:
•Uranium Mine (Power Resources, Inc.) to pay $1.4 million settlement. See http://www.trib.com/articles/2008/07/10/news/breaking/doc4876424160775926209366.txt.
•Cameco Resources agrees to pay $50,000 fine for deficienies identified during abandoned drill hole inspection at Smith Ranch ISL site. See http://www.wise-uranium.org/umopwy.html#SMITHR.
•According to Texas Commission on Environmental Quality records, 51 requests for “amended restoration tables to make them higher” have been granted out of 80 uranium mining production areas. See http://www.victoriaadvocate.com/goliad_county/story/323434.html.
•Strathmore pays $18,000 fine for numerous violations connected to exploration activities at Sky ISL project site (Wyoming). See http://www.wise-uranium.org/upusawy.html#SKY.
•The Cotter Corp. uranium mill has been cited by the state for radioactive contamination at the adjacent Shadow Hills Golf Club. See http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/aug/14/uranium-mill-cited-for-new-contamination/.
•$50,000 penalty imposed on Cameco's subsidiary Crow Butte Resources for violations at ISL uranium mine (Nebraska). See http://www.wise-uranium.org/umopusa.html#CROWBCD080523.
•Wyoming DEQ issues Notice of Violation to Cameco Resources for deficienies identified during abandoned drill hole inspection. See http://www.wise-uranium.org/umopwy.html#SMITHR.
•Cameco Resources Reaches Settlement with Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality. See http://www.cameco.com/media_gateway/news_releases/2008/news_release.php?id=236.
•Wyoming Model In Situ Uranium Mine Under Scrutiny for an Alarming Volume of Environmental Violations. See http://www.nunnglow.com/latest/wyoming-deq-sanctions-uranium-mine.html.
•WISE Uranium Reports Cogema Seeks Approval for Groundwater Restoration. See http://www.nunnglow.com/latest/wise-uranium-reports-cogema-seeks-approval-for-groundwater-restoration.html
•Probe finds uranium mine violations. See http://www.nunnglow.com/probe-finds-uranium-mine-violations.html
PROBLEMS WITH Australia:
The requirement to manage the radioactive tailings and all other solid wastes to minimise both long-term environmental as well as radiological releases and impacts makes uranium mining fundamentally different to other types of mining.”
“The long-term management of uranium mill tailings present a major environmental challenge. Given the tailings contain most of the original radioactivity of the ore (i.e. the decay products), they must be isolated from the environment for periods of at least tens of thousands of years – a time scale which is beyond collective human experience and certainly challenges engineering approaches for waste containment.” Gavin M. Mudd.
So, what is our record as a nation of Uranium miners?
Ranger:
• despite being expected to operate under a “no-release” water management system, incidents involving misplaced low grade ores or failures in water control bunds have led on numerous occasions to contaminated runoff waters being leaked into adjacent creeks (especially Corridoor Creek, a tributary of Magela Creek).
• in early 2004 incorrect plumbing saw the process water circuit being connected to the potable drinking water circuit – leading to rapid and significant toxic process water being mixed with drinking water, and much of the Ranger workforce being potentially exposed to both acute chemical and radiological exposure.
Olympic Dam:
• after operating for nearly a decade, a major ongoing leak from the tailings dam was revealed, amounting to the loss of billions of litres of tailings water to groundwater.
• in March 1999, and again October 2001, major explosions and fires caused substantive damage to the mill and smelter complexes, including major releases of noxious fumes – though the extent of radiological releases remains highly contentious, the fact that the uranium solvent extraction circuit in the 2001 incident was on fire raises serious concerns about how these incidents are handled by current regulators.
Beverley:
• numerous spills and leaks from pipelines have occurred.
Nabarlek (now closed):
• due to the need to reduce the inventory of contaminated mine site waters, evaporation pond water was irrigated over an area adjacent to the mine/mill and led to significant tree deaths and lasting impacts on water quality in the adjacent creek which have taken nearly two decades to flush through.
Can uranium mines be satisfactorily rehabilitated?
The experience of rehabilitating uranium mines to date in Australia is questionable. The first generation of uranium mines from the Cold War, namely Rum Jungle, Radium Hill, Mary Kathleen and the South Alligator group of mines, all still present environmental and radiological management problems and require constant vigilence and maintenance.
Examples include:
• Rum Jungle – despite extensive remediation/rehabilitation works in the early 1980’s, including excavating remnant tailings and disposal into former pits, re-contouring and engineering soil covers over low grade ore and waste rock dumps, acid mine drainage continues to pollute the Finniss River, and the complete site still urgently requires more remediation/rehabilitation works.
• Radium Hill – after being abandoned in early 1962, minimal earth works were undertaken in the early 1980’s, mainly just engineering soil covers over the tailings piles – erosion is a continual problem and tailings requires ongoing maintenance.
• Mary Kathleen – operating in both the Cold War phase of the late 1950’s to mid-1960’s as well as again in the commercial era of the late 1970’s, the mid-1980’s rehabilitation of the mine won an engineering excellence award for its perceived quality – despite internal concerns by the regulators about potential for long-term seepage from the tailings dam. Recent field studies in the late 1990’s have validated this concern and shown ongoing seepage of saline, metal and radionuclide rich waters from the tailings dam – well above the quantities predicted at the time of rehabilitation – impacting on the local creek.
Conclusion;
Overall, the experience to date with uranium mining does not give rise to any sufficient degree of confidence, as past sites – even after significant rehabilitation works – are still showing problems with erosion and seepage and ongoing impacts on water quality.
Problems with CANADA:
“Modern” mines: All are in northern Saskatchewan. Open pit and underground operations, some using freezing and remote control mining techniques; tailings in surface dams and mined-out pits using “hydraulic containment” to control groundwater contamination:6
Cluff Lake (Areva):
o Discovered in 1971
o Mining began in 1980
o Deposits include: OP underground mine (1983-85), Dominique-Janine open pit mine (1989-90) and extension (1994-97), Janine North open pit mine (1990-91), Dominique Peter and Dominique Janine West mines (1998-1999), and West Dominique Janine underground mine (1994-2002)7
o Mill initially separated radioactive components of tailings for storage in concrete barrels, which leaked.
o On March 24, 1998, the AECB (Atomic Energy Control Board) denied a two year licence renewal. Instead, AECB approved an extension to the licence expiring March 31, 1998 for nine months, subject to several conditions. This decision reflects a number of deficiencies identified by AECB at the Cluff Lake site:
the recent detection of increased radium levels in a lake located next to the tailings
management facility,
6 Ore reserves and details of processing and tailings disposal are not included here.
7 http://www.ir.gov.sk.ca/dbsearch/MinDepositQuery/default.aspx?ID=2153 \
IWUS: Uranium Extraction Methods and Regulatory Issues in Canada page 4
the recent twofold increase in workers’ radiation exposure,
the insufficience of the tailings management facility’s capacity (by the end of 1996, there was capacity for a production of one more year, while mining is scheduled to continue for ten years),
Cogema’s inadequate project management capabilities at Cluff Lake.8
o Closed 2002
Key Lake (Cameco/Areva):
o Discovered in 1975
o Mining began in 1983
o Open pit mines and mill
o Gaertner ore body mined out in 1987
o In September, 2004, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission approved the renewal of the mining operating licence for the Key Lake Operation although the tailings disposal in the Deilmann open pit suffers from periodic sloughing of the pit sidewalls. One million cubic metres of sand have already slumped into the tailings, and another half a million cubic metres may follow. This sloughing not only decreases the capacity of the tailings disposal facility, it moreover distorts the performance of the facility in the long term which is based on the impermeability of the tailings.
o Still operating as mill for McArthur River ore; Deilmann pit to receive tailings
Rabbit Lake/Collins Bay (Cameco):
o Discovered in 1968
o Mining started in 1975
o Deposits include mined-out original Rabbit Lake open pit and Collins Bay A-, B- and D-zone pits as well as Eagle Point underground (incline access) mine
o In 1989, 2 million litres of radioactive water spilled into Wollaston Lake; the company was charged and eventually pled guilty, attracting a $5000 federal and a $55,000 provincial fine.
o Eagle Point still in operation
o Mill to process half of Cigar Lake ore
McArthur River (Cameco/Areva):
o Discovered in 1988
o Mining began in 1999
o Ore is frozen and removed by raise boring and boxhole boring remote mining methods and slurried to surface for milling
o On April 7, 2003, Cameco suspended production due to underground flood; resumed operation on July 2, 2003.
McClean Lake (Areva):
o Discovered in 1979
o Mining began in 1995
o JEB open pit, McClean North & South underground mines, Sue C open pit
o Open pit and underground mines
Cigar Lake (Cameco/Areva/Idemitsu/KEPCO)
o Discovered in 1981
o Jet boring remote mining method proposed
o Underground flooded October 23, 2006 – production development delayed at least 2 years
8 AECB News Release 98-07 http://www.aecb-ccea.gc.ca/news_rel/9807_e.htm
Comment: Heard Nukes say Nuke Plants will not hurt ya! NOT!
Push For New Nuclear Power Sputters, But Old Reactors Still Pose Cancer Risks
CHICAGO, Illinois, July 27, 2009 --/WORLD-WIRE/-- Nuclear reactors in the United States should be phased out, and replaced by technologies that don’t threaten public health with the emission of radioactive chemicals, urges the Cancer Prevention Coalition.
A recent energy bill sponsored by Congressional Republicans proposed building 100 new nuclear reactors across the United States in the next 20 years.
The proposal, which would double the current U.S. total of 104 operating nuclear reactors, would amount to a nuclear renaissance, as no new reactors have been ordered since 1978.
Concerns about global warming gave utilities the idea for this revival since reactors don’t emit greenhouse gases while generating power, and utilities have stopped closing old reactors while proposing 33 new ones to be sited in New England, throughout the South and Southeast, and in Texas, Utah and Idaho.
(For a list of applications to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for approval of new reactors click here. http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/new-licensing-files/expected-new-rx-applications.pdf)
But this month, two Swedish scientists published an article concluding that a large increase in nuclear reactors will not solve global warming.
The utilities, of course, fail to report that greenhouse gases are emitted throughout the entire nuclear fuel cycle, and operating the reactor itself is the only exception. Both the nuclear reactor industry and its support industries spew radioactive materials into local air and water, posing a serious health hazard, warns Dr. Samuel S. Epstein, chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition and Professor emeritus Environmental & Occupational Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health.
In the 1970s, Wall Street investors stopped funding new reactor projects due to cost and safety concerns. Today, these issues are unchanged, and private investors again gave a thumbs-down to nuclear power. A 2005 law authorizing $18.5 billion in federal loan guarantees would only cover two reactors.
The Bush administration was a willing partner in the nuclear revival. George W. Bush became the first sitting U.S. president to visit a nuclear plant since a grim-faced President James Carter toured the damaged Three Mile Island reactor on April 1, 1979.
President Barack Obama has poured cold water on the renaissance. He rejected a request for $50 billion in loan guarantees in the stimulus package. Additionally, he rejected further funding for developing the nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain Nevada, leaving utilities with no place to permanently store their highly radioactive nuclear waste. It is now being held temporarily at 55 storage sites licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and at Department of Defense sites and national laboratories across the country.
The major threat posed by nuclear reactors is not the addition of new reactors, but continuing to operate old and corroding ones, says Dr. Epstein. U.S. reactors are granted licenses for 40 years, and many are approaching that mark. Many utilities have asked regulators to extend their licenses for an additional 20 years.
"Each of the first 52 requests has been given a rubber-stamp approval, even though operating a 60 year old reactor would be a huge risk to human health," says Joseph Mangano, MPH, MBA, executive director of the Radiation and Public Health Project.
Notable exceptions are state government officials in New York and New Jersey, who are opposing the attempts to extend licenses for reactors in their states.
About 80 million Americans in 37 states live within 40 miles of a nuclear reactor, including residents of New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Miami, Phoenix, Cleveland, and Boston. "If a meltdown were to occur, safe evacuation would be impossible and many thousands would suffer from radiation poisoning or cancer," warns Dr. Epstein. "The horrifying specter of Chernobyl, or of terrorists attacking a nuclear plant, is not lost on concerned Americans."
Reactors are a real health threat, not just a potential one, a fact largely ignored by mainstream media, he declares.
To generate electricity, over 100 radioactive chemicals are created – among the most dangerous chemicals on Earth, and the same toxic mix in atomic bomb test fallout. These gases and particles, including Strontium-90, Cesium-137, and Plutonium-239, are mostly stored as waste. But some must be routinely released into air and water. Humans breathe, eat, and drink them - just as they did bomb fallout - raising the cancer risk, especially to children.
Industry and government officials argue that reactor emissions are too small to cause harm. But for years, scientists have produced study after study documenting high cancer rates near reactors. For example, a 2007 review of the scientific literature by researchers from the University of South Carolina found elevated rates of childhood cancers, particularly leukemia and brain cancers, in nearly all 17 studies examined. A 2008 study of German reactors was one of the largest ever done, and it also found high local rates of child cancer.
Mangano and colleagues published a January 2002 article in the journal "Archives of Environmental Health," showing that local infant deaths and child cancer cases plunged dramatically right after shut down whenever a U.S. reactor closed. Because the very young suffer most from radiation exposures, they benefit most when exposures are removed. This research indicated that there would be approximately 18,000 fewer infant deaths and 6,000 fewer child cancer cases over the next 20 years if all nuclear reactors were closed.
Over half the states in the United States, 31, currently host nuclear power plants. Illinois has the most with 11, Pennsylvania has nine, New Jersey has four.
While waiting for the federal government to phase out nuclear power in favor of safer alternatives, state governments should act to warn and protect their citizens, urges the Cancer Prevention Coalition.
Governors have responsibilities to take whatever political action they can to phase-out nuclear plants. In the first instance, governors should tell their citizens of the danger.
In 1954, Atomic Energy Chairman Lewis Strauss declared nuclear power “too cheap to meter.” President Richard Nixon envisioned that the nation would have 1,000 reactors by this time. But the dreams of people like Strauss and Nixon were dashed by staggering costs and built-in dangers.
The attempt to revive this Cold War-era dream has been, and still is, largely talk. While the talk goes on, the nation is fast developing technologies like solar and wind power, which never run out and don’t pollute. Putting millions of Americans at risk of cancer by hanging on to old reactors – that produce only 19% of America's electricity and 8% of the country's total energy – is a reckless gamble. Nuclear reactors in the U.S. should be phased out, and replaced by options that don’t threaten public health.
CONTACT:
Samuel S. Epstein, MD
Professor emeritus Environmental & Occupational Medicine
University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health
Chairman, Cancer Prevention Coalition
Chicago, Illinois
www.preventcancer.com epstein@uic.edu
312-996-2297
Rosalie Bertell, PhD
Founding Member European Committee on Radiation Risk
International Association for Humanitarian Medicine
http://www.iahm.org/eng/home.htm
Founder and President emeritus International Institute of Concern for Public Health
http://iicph.org/
rosaliebertell@greynun.org
Joseph Mangano, MPH, MBA
Executive Director Radiation and Public Health Project
http://www.radiation.org/
Odiejoe@aol.com
Comment: Nuke Power CO2 Free, NOT!!!
26 July 2009
Why nuclear energy is not the answer to Climate Change.
by Ben Williams Original article at : examiner.com
It’s funny. People really believe that nuclear power is emissions free. Powering cities with nuclear, they propound, is the panacea to climate change. And yet, if you really take a look at the fuel cycle, it is obvious nuclear energy is, in fact, emissions intensive.
First off the ore needs to be mined. This involves drilling, explosions, heavy equipment. Even at the EPA standard of 15 grams of carbon per break horsepower engine hour, this translates to a lot of carbon. Then the ore needs to be shipped to a processing facility, or mill.
Here, twenty-four hours a day, heavy equipment loads the ore into a hopper, the intake into the semi-autogenous grinding mill. This grinding mill uses electricity (coal) to turn an enormous steel drum filled with metal tumbling balls. Additionally, tons — yes tons — of concentrated sulfuric acid are needed to help leach the uranium from the ore, among quantities of other highly caustic chemicals, all of which must be prepared on industrial scales and shipped to the facility.
After a number of other mechanical operations, all of them energy intensive, the ore must be dried in an oven, where, twenty-four hours a day, countless kilo-watt hours are burned heating the rock to temperature.
Finally, the processed ore, now ‘yellow cake’, has to be boxed up, sealed in steel drums (refined and produced industrially), and then shipped to market.
Then, of course, it needs to be reacted with hexaflourine, or some other chemical, to be refined and turned into the uranium rods that are used in the reactor core. Only now can the power be said to be emissions free: once the rods are installed and operational, powering generators with their nuclear heat.
Of course, after a few months the rods are spent. They then need to be safely disposed of — or, more accurately, buried somewhere where no one will notice them, contained for 1,000 years, after which they become someone else’s problem (probably the DOE or EPA). They must be safely interred for over four billion years. Yes, they need to be baby-sat for an amount of time that exceeds the current age of the Earth.
Because a nuclear core demands fresh, refined uranium, there is a constant use-cycle — an unstoppable appetite — that, ultimately pollutes in manifold ways:
1.The diesel burned in extracting the ore produces CO2, CO, NOX, SOX, dioxins, VOCs among the other expected particulates from incomplete combustion of fossil fuels.
2.The dust produced from mining becomes airborne and settles on downwind communities, increasing the cancer rate noticeably.
3.The diesel burnt in shipping the heavy rock to processing produces the same slew of pollutants as the heavy mining machinery, while trailing radioactive dust along the way.
4.The mill itself burns up millions of KWh every year, KWh generated, in this day and age, almost exclusively from burning coal — high SO2, H2SO3 and H2SO4 meet heavy metals like Hg with the clouds of greenhouse gases.
5.The mill must vent many toxic gases as it processes the ore. It must store radioactive slurry in the ground, hoping it will evaporate so the tailings can be capped. Groundwater and runoff pollution occurs. Once capped, the tailings are radioactive for billions of years. Future contamination becomes a certainty. (Just, the mill operators hope, not in their lifetime.)
6.Shipping the yellow cake to market. There are only two enrichment plants in the Northern United States, and one of them is in Canada. Long trips equal large emissions. Much of the yellow cake will be shipped overseas, adding emissions from large container vessels and potential maritime spills to the list.
7.The enrichment facility then vents toxic gases from the reagents used in reducing the yellow cake to weapons-grade uranium.
8.The rods are shipped to power plants, necessitating the fourth round of distribution-related emissions.
9.The rods are used, then spent, sealed up, and transported to a nuclear waste dump — more emissions, more radioactive decay along public roads and waterways.
10.Countless emissions result from policing the waste site.
Of course, none of this includes the emissions from the industrial-scale production of the reagents needed by the uranium refining cycle. Not to mention their weekly delivery to processing mills and enrichment facilities.
Nor does it take into account the ‘depleted’ uranium used as munitions (which, despite what you might infer from its name, is actually enriched — it is depleted of the less radioactive isotopes). That causes enough pollution to contaminate our armed-forces personnel before it’s even fired! Let alone the land where it is unleashed.
The whole thing is utterly non-sustainable. And no model on which to base future, responsible energy production. So why all the hoo-ha? Simple. Uranium allows, not so much for clean energy, but centralized energy production. Centralized energy production — aside from being grossly inefficient from the distribution angle, losing more than 7% of all energy generated — means centralized profits. Same, boring story we’re all tired of hearing about. Corporate profits should no longer trump the public right to choose viable, alternative energy. Making the right choice means sharing the benefits of energy production: Not letting a small group of corporate elitists eat the whole pie while pushing the future costs (which approach infinity) onto every subsequent generation of human beings, ever.
Wake up. This is madness. And it won’t stop until we hold CORPORATE GREED accountable. Haven’t you had enough of this yet?
Related stories:
Atomic Nightmare: Krümmel Accident Puts Question Mark over Germany’s Nuclear Future
By SPIEGEL Staff
The recent accident at the Krümmel nuclear power plant in northern Germany was more serious than was previously known. Anglea Merkel’s Christian Democrats are now finding themselves on the defensive with their plans to extend the life of German nuclear reactors…
Read more…
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Nuclear Power* but were afraid to ask (Includes a text transcript of the entire video)
The compelling new video, Everything Nuclear, produced by David Weisman and the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility, is packed with… authoritative interviews of experts on the myriad problems of nuclear power. Featured here is a transcription of the highly informative speakers juxtaposed against industry promotional videos and government propaganda videos.
Read more…
Living with Chernobyl – The Future of Nuclear Power
This documentary by Berkeley filmmakers and journalists Cliff Orloff and Olga Shalygin covers disadvantages and advantages of nuclear power, and includes interviews with scientists, environmentalists and Chernobyl survivors about the world’s worst nuclear accident.
Comment: History of the so call New Reactor and the French that the state of Virginia has fallen in love with:
May 29, 2009
America:
Environmental Problems and Violations Accumulate for Uranium Mining and Processing
While the uranium mining industry insists that the in-situ leaching process for extracting uranium is environmentally safe, mining violations and associated fines imposed by mining regulatory agencies continue to accumulate. To avoid violations, some mining companies request more lax environmental standards. Significant problems also occur with uranium processing and transportation.
Here are some recent examples:
•Uranium Mine (Power Resources, Inc.) to pay $1.4 million settlement. See http://www.trib.com/articles/2008/07/10/news/breaking/doc4876424160775926209366.txt.
•Cameco Resources agrees to pay $50,000 fine for deficienies identified during abandoned drill hole inspection at Smith Ranch ISL site. See http://www.wise-uranium.org/umopwy.html#SMITHR.
•According to Texas Commission on Environmental Quality records, 51 requests for “amended restoration tables to make them higher” have been granted out of 80 uranium mining production areas. See http://www.victoriaadvocate.com/goliad_county/story/323434.html.
•Strathmore pays $18,000 fine for numerous violations connected to exploration activities at Sky ISL project site (Wyoming). See http://www.wise-uranium.org/upusawy.html#SKY.
•The Cotter Corp. uranium mill has been cited by the state for radioactive contamination at the adjacent Shadow Hills Golf Club. See http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/aug/14/uranium-mill-cited-for-new-contamination/.
•$50,000 penalty imposed on Cameco's subsidiary Crow Butte Resources for violations at ISL uranium mine (Nebraska). See http://www.wise-uranium.org/umopusa.html#CROWBCD080523.
•Wyoming DEQ issues Notice of Violation to Cameco Resources for deficienies identified during abandoned drill hole inspection. See http://www.wise-uranium.org/umopwy.html#SMITHR.
•Cameco Resources Reaches Settlement with Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality. See http://www.cameco.com/media_gateway/news_releases/2008/news_release.php?id=236.
•Wyoming Model In Situ Uranium Mine Under Scrutiny for an Alarming Volume of Environmental Violations. See http://www.nunnglow.com/latest/wyoming-deq-sanctions-uranium-mine.html.
•WISE Uranium Reports Cogema Seeks Approval for Groundwater Restoration. See http://www.nunnglow.com/latest/wise-uranium-reports-cogema-seeks-approval-for-groundwater-restoration.html
•Probe finds uranium mine violations. See http://www.nunnglow.com/probe-finds-uranium-mine-violations.html
PROBLEMS WITH Australia:
The requirement to manage the radioactive tailings and all other solid wastes to minimise both long-term environmental as well as radiological releases and impacts makes uranium mining fundamentally different to other types of mining.”
“The long-term management of uranium mill tailings present a major environmental challenge. Given the tailings contain most of the original radioactivity of the ore (i.e. the decay products), they must be isolated from the environment for periods of at least tens of thousands of years – a time scale which is beyond collective human experience and certainly challenges engineering approaches for waste containment.” Gavin M. Mudd.
So, what is our record as a nation of Uranium miners?
Ranger:
• despite being expected to operate under a “no-release” water management system, incidents involving misplaced low grade ores or failures in water control bunds have led on numerous occasions to contaminated runoff waters being leaked into adjacent creeks (especially Corridoor Creek, a tributary of Magela Creek).
• in early 2004 incorrect plumbing saw the process water circuit being connected to the potable drinking water circuit – leading to rapid and significant toxic process water being mixed with drinking water, and much of the Ranger workforce being potentially exposed to both acute chemical and radiological exposure.
Olympic Dam:
• after operating for nearly a decade, a major ongoing leak from the tailings dam was revealed, amounting to the loss of billions of litres of tailings water to groundwater.
• in March 1999, and again October 2001, major explosions and fires caused substantive damage to the mill and smelter complexes, including major releases of noxious fumes – though the extent of radiological releases remains highly contentious, the fact that the uranium solvent extraction circuit in the 2001 incident was on fire raises serious concerns about how these incidents are handled by current regulators.
Beverley:
• numerous spills and leaks from pipelines have occurred.
Nabarlek (now closed):
• due to the need to reduce the inventory of contaminated mine site waters, evaporation pond water was irrigated over an area adjacent to the mine/mill and led to significant tree deaths and lasting impacts on water quality in the adjacent creek which have taken nearly two decades to flush through.
Can uranium mines be satisfactorily rehabilitated?
The experience of rehabilitating uranium mines to date in Australia is questionable. The first generation of uranium mines from the Cold War, namely Rum Jungle, Radium Hill, Mary Kathleen and the South Alligator group of mines, all still present environmental and radiological management problems and require constant vigilence and maintenance.
Examples include:
• Rum Jungle – despite extensive remediation/rehabilitation works in the early 1980’s, including excavating remnant tailings and disposal into former pits, re-contouring and engineering soil covers over low grade ore and waste rock dumps, acid mine drainage continues to pollute the Finniss River, and the complete site still urgently requires more remediation/rehabilitation works.
• Radium Hill – after being abandoned in early 1962, minimal earth works were undertaken in the early 1980’s, mainly just engineering soil covers over the tailings piles – erosion is a continual problem and tailings requires ongoing maintenance.
• Mary Kathleen – operating in both the Cold War phase of the late 1950’s to mid-1960’s as well as again in the commercial era of the late 1970’s, the mid-1980’s rehabilitation of the mine won an engineering excellence award for its perceived quality – despite internal concerns by the regulators about potential for long-term seepage from the tailings dam. Recent field studies in the late 1990’s have validated this concern and shown ongoing seepage of saline, metal and radionuclide rich waters from the tailings dam – well above the quantities predicted at the time of rehabilitation – impacting on the local creek.
Conclusion;
Overall, the experience to date with uranium mining does not give rise to any sufficient degree of confidence, as past sites – even after significant rehabilitation works – are still showing problems with erosion and seepage and ongoing impacts on water quality.
Problems with CANADA:
“Modern” mines: All are in northern Saskatchewan. Open pit and underground operations, some using freezing and remote control mining techniques; tailings in surface dams and mined-out pits using “hydraulic containment” to control groundwater contamination:6
Cluff Lake (Areva):
o Discovered in 1971
o Mining began in 1980
o Deposits include: OP underground mine (1983-85), Dominique-Janine open pit mine (1989-90) and extension (1994-97), Janine North open pit mine (1990-91), Dominique Peter and Dominique Janine West mines (1998-1999), and West Dominique Janine underground mine (1994-2002)7
o Mill initially separated radioactive components of tailings for storage in concrete barrels, which leaked.
o On March 24, 1998, the AECB (Atomic Energy Control Board) denied a two year licence renewal. Instead, AECB approved an extension to the licence expiring March 31, 1998 for nine months, subject to several conditions. This decision reflects a number of deficiencies identified by AECB at the Cluff Lake site:
the recent detection of increased radium levels in a lake located next to the tailings
management facility,
6 Ore reserves and details of processing and tailings disposal are not included here.
7 http://www.ir.gov.sk.ca/dbsearch/MinDepositQuery/default.aspx?ID=2153 \
IWUS: Uranium Extraction Methods and Regulatory Issues in Canada page 4
the recent twofold increase in workers’ radiation exposure,
the insufficience of the tailings management facility’s capacity (by the end of 1996, there was capacity for a production of one more year, while mining is scheduled to continue for ten years),
Cogema’s inadequate project management capabilities at Cluff Lake.8
o Closed 2002
Key Lake (Cameco/Areva):
o Discovered in 1975
o Mining began in 1983
o Open pit mines and mill
o Gaertner ore body mined out in 1987
o In September, 2004, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission approved the renewal of the mining operating licence for the Key Lake Operation although the tailings disposal in the Deilmann open pit suffers from periodic sloughing of the pit sidewalls. One million cubic metres of sand have already slumped into the tailings, and another half a million cubic metres may follow. This sloughing not only decreases the capacity of the tailings disposal facility, it moreover distorts the performance of the facility in the long term which is based on the impermeability of the tailings.
o Still operating as mill for McArthur River ore; Deilmann pit to receive tailings
Rabbit Lake/Collins Bay (Cameco):
o Discovered in 1968
o Mining started in 1975
o Deposits include mined-out original Rabbit Lake open pit and Collins Bay A-, B- and D-zone pits as well as Eagle Point underground (incline access) mine
o In 1989, 2 million litres of radioactive water spilled into Wollaston Lake; the company was charged and eventually pled guilty, attracting a $5000 federal and a $55,000 provincial fine.
o Eagle Point still in operation
o Mill to process half of Cigar Lake ore
McArthur River (Cameco/Areva):
o Discovered in 1988
o Mining began in 1999
o Ore is frozen and removed by raise boring and boxhole boring remote mining methods and slurried to surface for milling
o On April 7, 2003, Cameco suspended production due to underground flood; resumed operation on July 2, 2003.
McClean Lake (Areva):
o Discovered in 1979
o Mining began in 1995
o JEB open pit, McClean North & South underground mines, Sue C open pit
o Open pit and underground mines
Cigar Lake (Cameco/Areva/Idemitsu/KEPCO)
o Discovered in 1981
o Jet boring remote mining method proposed
o Underground flooded October 23, 2006 – production development delayed at least 2 years
8 AECB News Release 98-07 http://www.aecb-ccea.gc.ca/news_rel/9807_e.htm
Comment: Heard Nukes say Nuke Plants will not hurt ya! NOT!
Push For New Nuclear Power Sputters, But Old Reactors Still Pose Cancer Risks
CHICAGO, Illinois, July 27, 2009 --/WORLD-WIRE/-- Nuclear reactors in the United States should be phased out, and replaced by technologies that don’t threaten public health with the emission of radioactive chemicals, urges the Cancer Prevention Coalition.
A recent energy bill sponsored by Congressional Republicans proposed building 100 new nuclear reactors across the United States in the next 20 years.
The proposal, which would double the current U.S. total of 104 operating nuclear reactors, would amount to a nuclear renaissance, as no new reactors have been ordered since 1978.
Concerns about global warming gave utilities the idea for this revival since reactors don’t emit greenhouse gases while generating power, and utilities have stopped closing old reactors while proposing 33 new ones to be sited in New England, throughout the South and Southeast, and in Texas, Utah and Idaho.
(For a list of applications to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for approval of new reactors click here. http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/new-licensing-files/expected-new-rx-applications.pdf)
But this month, two Swedish scientists published an article concluding that a large increase in nuclear reactors will not solve global warming.
The utilities, of course, fail to report that greenhouse gases are emitted throughout the entire nuclear fuel cycle, and operating the reactor itself is the only exception. Both the nuclear reactor industry and its support industries spew radioactive materials into local air and water, posing a serious health hazard, warns Dr. Samuel S. Epstein, chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition and Professor emeritus Environmental & Occupational Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health.
In the 1970s, Wall Street investors stopped funding new reactor projects due to cost and safety concerns. Today, these issues are unchanged, and private investors again gave a thumbs-down to nuclear power. A 2005 law authorizing $18.5 billion in federal loan guarantees would only cover two reactors.
The Bush administration was a willing partner in the nuclear revival. George W. Bush became the first sitting U.S. president to visit a nuclear plant since a grim-faced President James Carter toured the damaged Three Mile Island reactor on April 1, 1979.
President Barack Obama has poured cold water on the renaissance. He rejected a request for $50 billion in loan guarantees in the stimulus package. Additionally, he rejected further funding for developing the nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain Nevada, leaving utilities with no place to permanently store their highly radioactive nuclear waste. It is now being held temporarily at 55 storage sites licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and at Department of Defense sites and national laboratories across the country.
The major threat posed by nuclear reactors is not the addition of new reactors, but continuing to operate old and corroding ones, says Dr. Epstein. U.S. reactors are granted licenses for 40 years, and many are approaching that mark. Many utilities have asked regulators to extend their licenses for an additional 20 years.
"Each of the first 52 requests has been given a rubber-stamp approval, even though operating a 60 year old reactor would be a huge risk to human health," says Joseph Mangano, MPH, MBA, executive director of the Radiation and Public Health Project.
Notable exceptions are state government officials in New York and New Jersey, who are opposing the attempts to extend licenses for reactors in their states.
About 80 million Americans in 37 states live within 40 miles of a nuclear reactor, including residents of New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Miami, Phoenix, Cleveland, and Boston. "If a meltdown were to occur, safe evacuation would be impossible and many thousands would suffer from radiation poisoning or cancer," warns Dr. Epstein. "The horrifying specter of Chernobyl, or of terrorists attacking a nuclear plant, is not lost on concerned Americans."
Reactors are a real health threat, not just a potential one, a fact largely ignored by mainstream media, he declares.
To generate electricity, over 100 radioactive chemicals are created – among the most dangerous chemicals on Earth, and the same toxic mix in atomic bomb test fallout. These gases and particles, including Strontium-90, Cesium-137, and Plutonium-239, are mostly stored as waste. But some must be routinely released into air and water. Humans breathe, eat, and drink them - just as they did bomb fallout - raising the cancer risk, especially to children.
Industry and government officials argue that reactor emissions are too small to cause harm. But for years, scientists have produced study after study documenting high cancer rates near reactors. For example, a 2007 review of the scientific literature by researchers from the University of South Carolina found elevated rates of childhood cancers, particularly leukemia and brain cancers, in nearly all 17 studies examined. A 2008 study of German reactors was one of the largest ever done, and it also found high local rates of child cancer.
Mangano and colleagues published a January 2002 article in the journal "Archives of Environmental Health," showing that local infant deaths and child cancer cases plunged dramatically right after shut down whenever a U.S. reactor closed. Because the very young suffer most from radiation exposures, they benefit most when exposures are removed. This research indicated that there would be approximately 18,000 fewer infant deaths and 6,000 fewer child cancer cases over the next 20 years if all nuclear reactors were closed.
Over half the states in the United States, 31, currently host nuclear power plants. Illinois has the most with 11, Pennsylvania has nine, New Jersey has four.
While waiting for the federal government to phase out nuclear power in favor of safer alternatives, state governments should act to warn and protect their citizens, urges the Cancer Prevention Coalition.
Governors have responsibilities to take whatever political action they can to phase-out nuclear plants. In the first instance, governors should tell their citizens of the danger.
In 1954, Atomic Energy Chairman Lewis Strauss declared nuclear power “too cheap to meter.” President Richard Nixon envisioned that the nation would have 1,000 reactors by this time. But the dreams of people like Strauss and Nixon were dashed by staggering costs and built-in dangers.
The attempt to revive this Cold War-era dream has been, and still is, largely talk. While the talk goes on, the nation is fast developing technologies like solar and wind power, which never run out and don’t pollute. Putting millions of Americans at risk of cancer by hanging on to old reactors – that produce only 19% of America's electricity and 8% of the country's total energy – is a reckless gamble. Nuclear reactors in the U.S. should be phased out, and replaced by options that don’t threaten public health.
CONTACT:
Samuel S. Epstein, MD
Professor emeritus Environmental & Occupational Medicine
University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health
Chairman, Cancer Prevention Coalition
Chicago, Illinois
www.preventcancer.com epstein@uic.edu
312-996-2297
Rosalie Bertell, PhD
Founding Member European Committee on Radiation Risk
International Association for Humanitarian Medicine
http://www.iahm.org/eng/home.htm
Founder and President emeritus International Institute of Concern for Public Health
http://iicph.org/
rosaliebertell@greynun.org
Joseph Mangano, MPH, MBA
Executive Director Radiation and Public Health Project
http://www.radiation.org/
Odiejoe@aol.com
Comment: Nuke Power CO2 Free, NOT!!!
26 July 2009
Why nuclear energy is not the answer to Climate Change.
by Ben Williams Original article at : examiner.com
It’s funny. People really believe that nuclear power is emissions free. Powering cities with nuclear, they propound, is the panacea to climate change. And yet, if you really take a look at the fuel cycle, it is obvious nuclear energy is, in fact, emissions intensive.
First off the ore needs to be mined. This involves drilling, explosions, heavy equipment. Even at the EPA standard of 15 grams of carbon per break horsepower engine hour, this translates to a lot of carbon. Then the ore needs to be shipped to a processing facility, or mill.
Here, twenty-four hours a day, heavy equipment loads the ore into a hopper, the intake into the semi-autogenous grinding mill. This grinding mill uses electricity (coal) to turn an enormous steel drum filled with metal tumbling balls. Additionally, tons — yes tons — of concentrated sulfuric acid are needed to help leach the uranium from the ore, among quantities of other highly caustic chemicals, all of which must be prepared on industrial scales and shipped to the facility.
After a number of other mechanical operations, all of them energy intensive, the ore must be dried in an oven, where, twenty-four hours a day, countless kilo-watt hours are burned heating the rock to temperature.
Finally, the processed ore, now ‘yellow cake’, has to be boxed up, sealed in steel drums (refined and produced industrially), and then shipped to market.
Then, of course, it needs to be reacted with hexaflourine, or some other chemical, to be refined and turned into the uranium rods that are used in the reactor core. Only now can the power be said to be emissions free: once the rods are installed and operational, powering generators with their nuclear heat.
Of course, after a few months the rods are spent. They then need to be safely disposed of — or, more accurately, buried somewhere where no one will notice them, contained for 1,000 years, after which they become someone else’s problem (probably the DOE or EPA). They must be safely interred for over four billion years. Yes, they need to be baby-sat for an amount of time that exceeds the current age of the Earth.
Because a nuclear core demands fresh, refined uranium, there is a constant use-cycle — an unstoppable appetite — that, ultimately pollutes in manifold ways:
1.The diesel burned in extracting the ore produces CO2, CO, NOX, SOX, dioxins, VOCs among the other expected particulates from incomplete combustion of fossil fuels.
2.The dust produced from mining becomes airborne and settles on downwind communities, increasing the cancer rate noticeably.
3.The diesel burnt in shipping the heavy rock to processing produces the same slew of pollutants as the heavy mining machinery, while trailing radioactive dust along the way.
4.The mill itself burns up millions of KWh every year, KWh generated, in this day and age, almost exclusively from burning coal — high SO2, H2SO3 and H2SO4 meet heavy metals like Hg with the clouds of greenhouse gases.
5.The mill must vent many toxic gases as it processes the ore. It must store radioactive slurry in the ground, hoping it will evaporate so the tailings can be capped. Groundwater and runoff pollution occurs. Once capped, the tailings are radioactive for billions of years. Future contamination becomes a certainty. (Just, the mill operators hope, not in their lifetime.)
6.Shipping the yellow cake to market. There are only two enrichment plants in the Northern United States, and one of them is in Canada. Long trips equal large emissions. Much of the yellow cake will be shipped overseas, adding emissions from large container vessels and potential maritime spills to the list.
7.The enrichment facility then vents toxic gases from the reagents used in reducing the yellow cake to weapons-grade uranium.
8.The rods are shipped to power plants, necessitating the fourth round of distribution-related emissions.
9.The rods are used, then spent, sealed up, and transported to a nuclear waste dump — more emissions, more radioactive decay along public roads and waterways.
10.Countless emissions result from policing the waste site.
Of course, none of this includes the emissions from the industrial-scale production of the reagents needed by the uranium refining cycle. Not to mention their weekly delivery to processing mills and enrichment facilities.
Nor does it take into account the ‘depleted’ uranium used as munitions (which, despite what you might infer from its name, is actually enriched — it is depleted of the less radioactive isotopes). That causes enough pollution to contaminate our armed-forces personnel before it’s even fired! Let alone the land where it is unleashed.
The whole thing is utterly non-sustainable. And no model on which to base future, responsible energy production. So why all the hoo-ha? Simple. Uranium allows, not so much for clean energy, but centralized energy production. Centralized energy production — aside from being grossly inefficient from the distribution angle, losing more than 7% of all energy generated — means centralized profits. Same, boring story we’re all tired of hearing about. Corporate profits should no longer trump the public right to choose viable, alternative energy. Making the right choice means sharing the benefits of energy production: Not letting a small group of corporate elitists eat the whole pie while pushing the future costs (which approach infinity) onto every subsequent generation of human beings, ever.
Wake up. This is madness. And it won’t stop until we hold CORPORATE GREED accountable. Haven’t you had enough of this yet?
Related stories:
Atomic Nightmare: Krümmel Accident Puts Question Mark over Germany’s Nuclear Future
By SPIEGEL Staff
The recent accident at the Krümmel nuclear power plant in northern Germany was more serious than was previously known. Anglea Merkel’s Christian Democrats are now finding themselves on the defensive with their plans to extend the life of German nuclear reactors…
Read more…
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Nuclear Power* but were afraid to ask (Includes a text transcript of the entire video)
The compelling new video, Everything Nuclear, produced by David Weisman and the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility, is packed with… authoritative interviews of experts on the myriad problems of nuclear power. Featured here is a transcription of the highly informative speakers juxtaposed against industry promotional videos and government propaganda videos.
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Living with Chernobyl – The Future of Nuclear Power
This documentary by Berkeley filmmakers and journalists Cliff Orloff and Olga Shalygin covers disadvantages and advantages of nuclear power, and includes interviews with scientists, environmentalists and Chernobyl survivors about the world’s worst nuclear accident.
Comment: History of the so call New Reactor and the French that the state of Virginia has fallen in love with:
May 29, 2009
In Finland, Nuclear Renaissance Runs Into Trouble
By JAMES KANTER
OLKILUOTO, Finland — As the Obama administration tries to steer America toward cleaner sources of energy, it would do well to consider the cautionary tale of this new-generation nuclear reactor site.
The massive power plant under construction on muddy terrain on this Finnish island was supposed to be the showpiece of a nuclear renaissance. The most powerful reactor ever built, its modular design was supposed to make it faster and cheaper to build. And it was supposed to be safer, too.
But things have not gone as planned.
After four years of construction and thousands of defects and deficiencies, the reactor’s 3 billion euro price tag, about $4.2 billion, has climbed at least 50 percent. And while the reactor was originally meant to be completed this summer, Areva, the French company building it, and the utility that ordered it, are no longer willing to make certain predictions on when it will go online.
While the American nuclear industry has predicted clear sailing after its first plants are built, the problems in Europe suggest these obstacles may be hard to avoid.
A new fleet of reactors would be standardized down to “the carpeting and wallpaper,” as Michael J. Wallace, the chairman of UniStar Nuclear Energy — a joint venture between EDF Group and Constellation Energy, the Maryland-based utility — has said repeatedly.
In the end, he says, that standardization will lead to significant savings.
But early experience suggests these new reactors will be no easier or cheaper to build than the ones of a generation ago, when cost overruns — and then accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl — ended the last nuclear construction boom.
In Flamanville, France, a clone of the Finnish reactor now under construction is also behind schedule and overbudget.
In the United States, Florida and Georgia have changed state laws to raise electricity rates so that consumers will foot some of the bill for new nuclear plants in advance, before construction even begins.
“A number of U.S. companies have looked with trepidation on the situation in Finland and at the magnitude of the investment there,” said Paul L. Joskow, a professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a co-author of an influential report on the future of nuclear power in 2003. “The rollout of new nuclear reactors will be a good deal slower than a lot of people were assuming.”
For nuclear power to have a high impact on reducing greenhouse gases, an average of 12 reactors would have to be built worldwide each year until 2030, according to the Nuclear Energy Agency at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Right now, there are not even enough reactors under construction to replace those that are reaching the end of their lives.
And of the 45 reactors being built around the world, 22 have encountered construction delays, according to an analysis prepared this year for the German government by Mycle Schneider, an energy analyst and a critic of the nuclear industry. He added that nine do not have official start-up dates.
Most of the new construction is underway in countries like China and Russia, where strong central governments have made nuclear energy a national priority. India also has long seen nuclear as part of a national drive for self-sufficiency and now is seeking new nuclear technologies to reduce its reliance on imported uranium.
By comparison, “the state has been all over the place in the United States and Europe on nuclear power,” Mr. Joskow said.
The United States generates about one-fifth of its electricity from a fleet of 104 reactors, most built in the 1960s and 1970s. Coal still provides about half the country’s power.
To streamline construction, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Washington has worked with the industry to approve a handful of designs. Even so, the schedule to certify the most advanced model from Westinghouse, a unit of Toshiba, has slipped during an ongoing review of its ability to withstand the impact of an airliner.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has also not yet approved the so-called EPR design under construction in Finland for the American market.
This month, the United States Energy Department produced a short list of four reactor projects eligible for some loan guarantees. In the 2005 energy bill, Congress provided $18.5 billion, but the industry’s hope of winning an additional $50 billion worth of loan guarantees evaporated when that money was stripped from President Obama’s economic stimulus bill.
The industry has had more success in getting states to help raise money. This year, authorities permitted Florida Power & Light to start charging millions of customers several dollars a month to finance four new reactors. Customers of Georgia Power, a subsidiary of the Southern Co., will pay on average $1.30 a month more in 2011, rising to $9.10 by 2017, to help pay for two reactors expected to go online in 2016 or later.
But resistance is mounting. In April, Missouri legislators balked at a preconstruction rate increase, prompting the state’s largest electric utility, Ameren UE, to suspend plans for a $6 billion copy of Areva’s Finnish reactor.
Areva, a conglomerate largely owned by the French state, is heir to that nation’s experience in building nuclear plants. France gets about 80 percent of its power from 58 reactors. But even France has not completed a new reactor since 1999.
After designing an updated plant originally called the European Pressurized Reactor with German participation during the 1990s, the French had trouble selling it at home because of a saturated energy market as well as opposition from Green Party members in the then-coalition government.
So Areva turned to Finland, where utilities and energy-hungry industries like pulp and paper had been lobbying for 15 years for more nuclear power. The project was initially budgeted at $4 billion and Teollisuuden Voima, the Finnish utility, pledged it would be ready in time to help the Finnish government meet its greenhouse gas targets under the Kyoto climate treaty, which runs through 2012.
Areva promised electricity from the reactor could be generated more cheaply than from natural gas plants. Areva also said its model would deliver 1,600 megawatts, or about 10 percent of Finnish power needs.
In 2001, the Finnish parliament narrowly approved construction of a reactor at Olkiluoto, an island on the Baltic Sea. Construction began four years later.
Serious problems first arose over the vast concrete base slab for the foundation of the reactor building, which the country’s Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority found too porous and prone to corrosion. Since then, the authority has blamed Areva for allowing inexperienced subcontractors to drill holes in the wrong places on a vast steel container that seals the reactor.
In December, the authority warned Anne Lauvergeon, the chief executive of Areva, that “the attitude or lack of professional knowledge of some persons” at Areva was holding up work on safety systems.
Today, the site still teems with 4,000 workmen on round-the-clock shifts. Banners from dozens of subcontractors around Europe flutter in the breeze above temporary offices and makeshift canteens. Some 10,000 people speaking at least eight different languages have worked at the site. About 30 percent of the workforce is Polish, and communication has posed significant challenges.
Areva has acknowledged that the cost of a new reactor today would be as much as 6 billion euros, or $8 billion, double the price offered to the Finns. But Areva said it was not cutting any corners in Finland. The two sides have agreed to arbitration, where they are both claiming more than 1 billion euros in compensation. (Areva blames the Finnish authorities for impeding construction and increasing costs for work it agreed to complete at a fixed price.)
Areva announced a steep drop in earnings last year, which it blamed mostly on mounting losses from the project.
In addition, nuclear safety inspectors in France have found cracks in the concrete base and steel reinforcements in the wrong places at the site in Flamanville. They also have warned Électricité de France, the utility building the reactor, that welders working on the steel container were not properly qualified.
On top of such problems come the recession, weaker energy demand, tight credit and uncertainty over future policies, said Caren Byrd, an executive director of the global utility and power group at Morgan Stanley in New York.
“The warning lights now are flashing more brightly than just a year ago about the cost of new nuclear,” she said.
And Jouni Silvennoinen, the project manager at Olkiluoto, said, “We have had it easy here.” Olkiluoto is at least a geologically stable site. Earthquake risks in places like China and the United States or even the threat of storm surges mean building these reactors will be even trickier elsewhere.
Matthew L. Wald contributed reporting from Washington.
A little history of Secretary of Energy:
Steven Chu, Ph.D (born February 28, 1948),[3] is an American physicist and currently the 12th United States Secretary of Energy. As a scientist, Chu is known for his research in cooling and trapping of atoms with laser light, which won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997.[3] At the time of his appointment as Energy Secretary, he was a professor of physics and molecular and cellular biology at the University of California, Berkeley and the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where his research was concerned primarily with the study of biological systems at the single molecule level.[1] He is a vocal advocate for more research into alternative energy and nuclear power, arguing that a shift away from fossil fuels is essential to combat global warming
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Chu
Comment: Interesting Nuke Connection:
The U.S. Department of Energy; nuclear by nature, forever?
by Ann Garrison
On March 11, 2009, Barack Obama's Energy Secretary, Stephen Chu, announced his support for a new generation of nuclear power , but Terry Macallester, writing five days later, on March 16, 2009, in Common Dreams, warned that these new power plant designs could, by 2075, produce enough plutonium to make a million nuclear bombs, and cause nuclear anarchy.
The next day, March 17, 2009, New York Times ran Stephanie Cooke's well-reasoned, but, nevertheless curious, op-ed about Barack Obama and Steven Chu, beginning thus:
"PRESIDENT OBAMA has made clean and efficient energy a top priority, and Congress has obliged with more than $32 billion in stimulus money mostly for conservation and alternative energy technologies like wind, solar and biofuel. Sadly, the Energy Department is too weighed down by nuclear energy programs to devote itself to bringing about the revolution Mr. Obama envisions."
It seemed a bit strange, or disingenuous, of Stephanie Cooke, to suggest that Energy Secretary Stephen Chu, former head of Berkeley's Lawrence Livermore Labs, really wants to "avoid getting dragged down by the nuclear undertow," since Chu, a physicist, has openly advocated a nuclear renaissance.
Now we need an honest update on the Reliable Replacement Nuclear Warhead (RRW)
Bush's former Defense Secretary Robert Gates is now Obama's, and he has often pitched for continuing to develop the Reliable Replacement Nuclear Warhead:
Chu headed Lawrence Livermore Labs while it led development of the design for the Reliable Replacement Nuclear Warhead (RRW), a new strategic tactical nuclear weapon, under Bush. The RRW would have, and still may be, the first new nuclear weapon in the U.S. arsenal in many years. Los Alamos National Labs (LANL) worked on the RRW, first in competition with Livermore, and then, under the direction of Livermore, then headed by Chu, from 2006 until 2008, when Congress defunded further development, The London Guardian reported recently that RRW developers in the U.S. had simply moved to Britain's Aldermaston nuke bomb factory, to work alongside British scientists in finishing the design, with British and who knows what other, funding, quite likely slush funding. There are quite a few very slushy funds scattered throughout the military and intelligence departments of the U.S. national security state.
It's virtually inconceivable that the U.S. could have continued development of the Reliable Replacement Nuclear Warhead without Chu's knowledge, either before or after he became Secretary of Energy, which is to say, of Nuclear Power, Weapons, and Waste, because, before becoming the top nuclear power and weapons official in the U.S., he headed the lab overseeing the RRW design. And he most certainly knows now, since this 02/09/2009 London Guardian exposé. There seems, however, to be no evidence that he has made any evidence to halt the RRW's ongoing development at Aldermaston.
Chu's official statement on the RRW says that, "Under this budget, development work on the Reliable Replacement Warhead will cease," but "under this budget" sounds like a very convenient way of taking credit for Congress's vote to defund RRW's development, without acknowledging that he's overseeing its continuation, covertly, in cooperation with Britain, at Aldermaston.
Did Congress simply get fed up with funding the development of a new nuclear weapon, in hard times, or, did they decide it was a lousy, hugely toxic, and dangerous idea, discouraging to the goal of world peace, which most of the world embraces, honestly or not?
Cooke seems either to have skipped research into Chu's background, even so recent as his 03/11/2009 embrace of next generation nuclear power. Or, she may have intended, for whatever reason, to greenwash, and apologize, for Obama and Chu's nuclear predilections, by saying that there's just no changing the U.S. Department of Energy and its nuclear DNA, no matter how one might want to.
Or, she may even have meant to encourage whatever renewables interest Obama and Chu may have, with flattery. This might be a logical, persuasive rather than confrontational strategy, but, nevertheless, these important question still hangs:
How are Steven Chu and Barack Obama involved with the U.S.-British, Reliable Replacement Nucleaer Warhead development in Britain, now, even though this obviously began after Congress defunded the new nuclear weapon, and before George Bush left office? They essentially have to pick up where George left off, to complete it, or abandon it, as much of the world, including many of us in the U.S.A., which they would.
Do they have any intention of shutting it down, over, no doubt, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates's objections? And, who is managing and funding this nuclear weapons development now, at Britain's Aldermaston. And, to what strategic purpose?
This is serious business, designing and building the first new nuclear weapon in the U.S. arsenal, in years. Not a decision that U.S. and British national security state cabals should make without public approval or oversight.
The U.S. Department of Energy, nuclear by nature?
Cooke, again, writing in the NY Times, was most certainly correct that, in the unlikely event that Chu choose to emphasize solar, wind, and other forms of renewable power over nuclear, he would have to recreate or even rename, the U.S. Energy Department, because it is and always has been, above all, the Department of Nuclear Power, Nuclear Weapons, and, Nuclear Waste; it grew out of the Atomic Energy Commission, created to oversee the creation of U.S. nuclear weapons and nuclear power infrastructure after the end of World War II.
There are more nuclear, and coal-fired, power plants in Barack Obama's Illinois than in any other state in the union; and Chicago-based http://www.exeloncorp.com/, the largest nuclear power corporation in the U.S., gave Obama's campaign over $200,000 in bundled contributions.
However, Obama did, very shortly after taking office, and, at long last, shut down the longstanding DOE plan to make one of Native America's most sacred sites, Yucca Mountain, a big high radiation nuclear waste dump, in Nevada. By doing so, he handed a hard, lifelong won victory to the Western Shoshone people, and, to Carrie Dann, lifelong Native American environmental and indigenous rights activist, and, defender of indigenous sacred sites.
By convening a "panel on nuclear waste," to choose the best way to dispose of waste generated by the next generation of nuclear reactors, Obama's Energy Secretary, Steven Chu unfortunately implied that there is a "best way, " or, rather, a rational way. But, whatever their panel's conclusion, Obama and Chu have at least promised that it will not mean the nuclear disposal of the magnificent Carrie Dann's sacred mountain. Turning Yucca Mountain into a High Radiation Nuclear Waste Dump had been a pillar of the Global Nuclear Energy Project since its inception under Bush; Carrie, the Western Shoshone, and the rest of the Native Southwest fought to save their sacred mountain for 22 years, so this was a huge victory, even as the Navajo and other Native Americans continue to battle uranium mining leases expanded by the Energy Department under George Bush.
Is the Energy Department nuclear by nature, now and forever, amen?
Stephanie Cooke aptly said that the U.S. Department of Energy has "nuclear weapons in its DNA"; it grew out of the Atomic Energy Commission, created to manage and build atomic weapons after World War II, after the U.S. dropped the first atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and nation states raced to build and place their own weapons on the global nuclear chessboard.
"Today, the department’s main task is managing the thousands of facilities involved in producing nuclear weapons during the cold war, and the associated cleanup of dozens of contaminated sites. Approximately two-thirds of its annual budget, which is roughly $27 billion, is spent on these activities, while only 15 percent is allocated for all energy programs, including managing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and researching and developing new technologies."
The name of the Energy Department seems incidental to the central questions:
1) How will we develop and energy resources, now, to what purpose?
2) Will our energy resources sustain life and future generations?
With these questions in mind, however, I'll gladly agree that "the Energy Department must be relieved of duties that aren’t related to energy"---i.e., that it must be relieved of its primary task, nuclear weapons handling, which Obama's Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag has suggested moving into the equally misnamed, but, better understood, Department of Defense (DOD).
This is a good idea, a damn good, and most excellent idea. Obama's OMB Budget Director Peter Orszag should be applauded for championing such rare honesty and focus in Washington D.C. Let's do indeed pass the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile to the "Defense Department" and, finally turn the Energy Department into the Real Energy Department, and hopefully even: the Renewable, Sustainable Energy Department, mandated to build renewable energy and sustain life. Yeah Peter Orszag!!! The new Chief of the OBM is not only intelligent but rational!!! He's tacking the logical contradiction of an "Energy Department" whose primary task is management of our nuclear weapons arsenal. This is the best idea I've heard out of Team Obama yet.
We've still got these problems, Energy Secretary Stephen Chu, overseer of Lawrence Livermore Labs during the design of the Reliable Replacement Nuclear Warhead (RRW), and the covert continuation of the RRW development, at Aldermaston, but perhaps they could both, at least be moved over and locked up at DOD, with the rest of the nuclear weapons, to give Energy a chance.
Comment: Rarely, this blog post anything the uranium group publishes, however, following articles will list of facts about Nuke Power group ever tells us! By the way, did the Secretary of Energy go to Coles Hill; was this the purpose of the whole Rural Tour? Not very nice!
By Norman W. Reynolds
Wednesday, July 29, 2009 10:10 AM EDT
U. S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu could not have picked a better spot than Pittsylvania County to sound his ringing call for "restarting" our nation's nuclear energy program, as well as endorsing Virginia's state-sanctioned study to assess the safety and feasibility of mining and milling uranium in the commonwealth.
The setting for Dr. Chu's speech at a local farm last Saturday was just 10 miles south of the Coles Hill uranium site and 50 miles south of the City of Lynchburg, one of the most dynamic hubs of advanced nuclear technology in Virginia.
Coles Hill is where Virginia Uranium proposes to mine and mill the largest known undeveloped uranium deposit in the United States.
Speaking to concerns that have been raised about mining in Virginia, Dr. Chu, a Nobel laureate in physics, explained that in "any kind of mining, whether it's uranium, coal or nickel, or you name it, it has to be done in a way that protects the environment and protects the people....there's a study going on as to whether uranium mining in Virginia is going to do that....we will wait for the results of that study."
The Virginia Coal and Energy Commission is working with the National Academy of Sciences to conduct an independent study to address concerns of Virginians about safety to people, livestock, crops and the environment.
The secretary's position on the uranium potential at Coles Hill seemed to reflect that of his boss, President Obama. When the President was campaigning in Virginia last year, the Roanoke Times carried the following report:
"According to an e-mail from his Virginia communications director, Obama supports a proposed study of the [Coles Hill] site to evaluate the potential environmental effects of mining. But, he adds, 'Virginia has the potential to be a national leader in uranium mining, and development of uranium resources in Pittsylvania County could create hundreds of jobs in that part of the state.'"
On the larger subject of using nuclear energy to power America, Dr. Chu told the local audience of around 275 people that the Obama Administration and the U.S. Department of Energy are "very supportive of restarting the nuclear power industry," adding that he believes it can be done safely.
Secretary Chu's comments echo those heard from various Virginia officials over the past two years, starting with the Virginia Energy Plan released in the fall of 2007. In addition to numerous references to the massive uranium deposit in Southside Virginia, the energy plan states:
"There are sufficient resources to support a uranium mining industry in Pittsylvania County with enough to meet the fuel needs of Virginia's current generation. Significant work to assess the risk from mining and need for regulatory controls must be completed before any decision can be made whether such mining should take place."
For those of us who have worked long and hard on the Coles Hill project, it is gratifying that the nation's highest energy official saw fit to come to Pittsylvania County and to endorse the scientific study and to state so unequivocally the Obama Administration's high commitment to getting nuclear back on track in the United States. We look forward to moving ahead hand in hand with such enlightened thinking.
We haven't the slightest doubt that all aspects of the nuclear cycle-from mining to operating reactors-can be done as safely as any other industrial undertaking. When the same safety issues were studied by the state 25 years ago, scientists found that under well-defined guidelines our project could go forward safely. I am confident that similar findings will be reached this go-around.
What Dr. Chu is talking about goes straight to the heart of energy independence for our nation. Yes, we need to move ahead on all fronts that make sense. But let us keep in mind that of the 55 million pounds of uranium needed to operate nuclear facilities for one year in this country, over 50 million pounds are imported. That is a frightening statistic in a world as unpredictable as the one in which we are living.
We should be grateful for the enlightened approach expressed by Secretary Chu. And we should support sensible efforts to achieve greater energy independence, including the full development of our nuclear resources.
Norman Reynolds of Chatham is president and chief executive officer of Virginia Uranium Inc., as well as Virginia Energy Resources.
http://www.wpcva.com/articles/2009/07/29/chatham/opinion/opinion01.txt
http://coloredopinions.blogspot.com/2009/03/nuclear-by-nature-us-dept-of-energy.html
http://www.sustainabilitank.info/2009/07/29/culture-change-brought-to-our-attention-the-ben-williams-article-why-nuclear-energy-is-not-the-answer-to-climate-change-it-is-rather-extermely-uninformed-to-think-otherwise/
http://world-wire.com/news/0907270001.html
http://www.nunnglow.com/latest/violations-accumulate-for-uranium-isl-mining.html
http://archiearchive.wordpress.com/2009/07/24/uranium-mining-and-a-national-park-2/
OLKILUOTO, Finland — As the Obama administration tries to steer America toward cleaner sources of energy, it would do well to consider the cautionary tale of this new-generation nuclear reactor site.
The massive power plant under construction on muddy terrain on this Finnish island was supposed to be the showpiece of a nuclear renaissance. The most powerful reactor ever built, its modular design was supposed to make it faster and cheaper to build. And it was supposed to be safer, too.
But things have not gone as planned.
After four years of construction and thousands of defects and deficiencies, the reactor’s 3 billion euro price tag, about $4.2 billion, has climbed at least 50 percent. And while the reactor was originally meant to be completed this summer, Areva, the French company building it, and the utility that ordered it, are no longer willing to make certain predictions on when it will go online.
While the American nuclear industry has predicted clear sailing after its first plants are built, the problems in Europe suggest these obstacles may be hard to avoid.
A new fleet of reactors would be standardized down to “the carpeting and wallpaper,” as Michael J. Wallace, the chairman of UniStar Nuclear Energy — a joint venture between EDF Group and Constellation Energy, the Maryland-based utility — has said repeatedly.
In the end, he says, that standardization will lead to significant savings.
But early experience suggests these new reactors will be no easier or cheaper to build than the ones of a generation ago, when cost overruns — and then accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl — ended the last nuclear construction boom.
In Flamanville, France, a clone of the Finnish reactor now under construction is also behind schedule and overbudget.
In the United States, Florida and Georgia have changed state laws to raise electricity rates so that consumers will foot some of the bill for new nuclear plants in advance, before construction even begins.
“A number of U.S. companies have looked with trepidation on the situation in Finland and at the magnitude of the investment there,” said Paul L. Joskow, a professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a co-author of an influential report on the future of nuclear power in 2003. “The rollout of new nuclear reactors will be a good deal slower than a lot of people were assuming.”
For nuclear power to have a high impact on reducing greenhouse gases, an average of 12 reactors would have to be built worldwide each year until 2030, according to the Nuclear Energy Agency at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Right now, there are not even enough reactors under construction to replace those that are reaching the end of their lives.
And of the 45 reactors being built around the world, 22 have encountered construction delays, according to an analysis prepared this year for the German government by Mycle Schneider, an energy analyst and a critic of the nuclear industry. He added that nine do not have official start-up dates.
Most of the new construction is underway in countries like China and Russia, where strong central governments have made nuclear energy a national priority. India also has long seen nuclear as part of a national drive for self-sufficiency and now is seeking new nuclear technologies to reduce its reliance on imported uranium.
By comparison, “the state has been all over the place in the United States and Europe on nuclear power,” Mr. Joskow said.
The United States generates about one-fifth of its electricity from a fleet of 104 reactors, most built in the 1960s and 1970s. Coal still provides about half the country’s power.
To streamline construction, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Washington has worked with the industry to approve a handful of designs. Even so, the schedule to certify the most advanced model from Westinghouse, a unit of Toshiba, has slipped during an ongoing review of its ability to withstand the impact of an airliner.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has also not yet approved the so-called EPR design under construction in Finland for the American market.
This month, the United States Energy Department produced a short list of four reactor projects eligible for some loan guarantees. In the 2005 energy bill, Congress provided $18.5 billion, but the industry’s hope of winning an additional $50 billion worth of loan guarantees evaporated when that money was stripped from President Obama’s economic stimulus bill.
The industry has had more success in getting states to help raise money. This year, authorities permitted Florida Power & Light to start charging millions of customers several dollars a month to finance four new reactors. Customers of Georgia Power, a subsidiary of the Southern Co., will pay on average $1.30 a month more in 2011, rising to $9.10 by 2017, to help pay for two reactors expected to go online in 2016 or later.
But resistance is mounting. In April, Missouri legislators balked at a preconstruction rate increase, prompting the state’s largest electric utility, Ameren UE, to suspend plans for a $6 billion copy of Areva’s Finnish reactor.
Areva, a conglomerate largely owned by the French state, is heir to that nation’s experience in building nuclear plants. France gets about 80 percent of its power from 58 reactors. But even France has not completed a new reactor since 1999.
After designing an updated plant originally called the European Pressurized Reactor with German participation during the 1990s, the French had trouble selling it at home because of a saturated energy market as well as opposition from Green Party members in the then-coalition government.
So Areva turned to Finland, where utilities and energy-hungry industries like pulp and paper had been lobbying for 15 years for more nuclear power. The project was initially budgeted at $4 billion and Teollisuuden Voima, the Finnish utility, pledged it would be ready in time to help the Finnish government meet its greenhouse gas targets under the Kyoto climate treaty, which runs through 2012.
Areva promised electricity from the reactor could be generated more cheaply than from natural gas plants. Areva also said its model would deliver 1,600 megawatts, or about 10 percent of Finnish power needs.
In 2001, the Finnish parliament narrowly approved construction of a reactor at Olkiluoto, an island on the Baltic Sea. Construction began four years later.
Serious problems first arose over the vast concrete base slab for the foundation of the reactor building, which the country’s Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority found too porous and prone to corrosion. Since then, the authority has blamed Areva for allowing inexperienced subcontractors to drill holes in the wrong places on a vast steel container that seals the reactor.
In December, the authority warned Anne Lauvergeon, the chief executive of Areva, that “the attitude or lack of professional knowledge of some persons” at Areva was holding up work on safety systems.
Today, the site still teems with 4,000 workmen on round-the-clock shifts. Banners from dozens of subcontractors around Europe flutter in the breeze above temporary offices and makeshift canteens. Some 10,000 people speaking at least eight different languages have worked at the site. About 30 percent of the workforce is Polish, and communication has posed significant challenges.
Areva has acknowledged that the cost of a new reactor today would be as much as 6 billion euros, or $8 billion, double the price offered to the Finns. But Areva said it was not cutting any corners in Finland. The two sides have agreed to arbitration, where they are both claiming more than 1 billion euros in compensation. (Areva blames the Finnish authorities for impeding construction and increasing costs for work it agreed to complete at a fixed price.)
Areva announced a steep drop in earnings last year, which it blamed mostly on mounting losses from the project.
In addition, nuclear safety inspectors in France have found cracks in the concrete base and steel reinforcements in the wrong places at the site in Flamanville. They also have warned Électricité de France, the utility building the reactor, that welders working on the steel container were not properly qualified.
On top of such problems come the recession, weaker energy demand, tight credit and uncertainty over future policies, said Caren Byrd, an executive director of the global utility and power group at Morgan Stanley in New York.
“The warning lights now are flashing more brightly than just a year ago about the cost of new nuclear,” she said.
And Jouni Silvennoinen, the project manager at Olkiluoto, said, “We have had it easy here.” Olkiluoto is at least a geologically stable site. Earthquake risks in places like China and the United States or even the threat of storm surges mean building these reactors will be even trickier elsewhere.
Matthew L. Wald contributed reporting from Washington.
A little history of Secretary of Energy:
Steven Chu, Ph.D (born February 28, 1948),[3] is an American physicist and currently the 12th United States Secretary of Energy. As a scientist, Chu is known for his research in cooling and trapping of atoms with laser light, which won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997.[3] At the time of his appointment as Energy Secretary, he was a professor of physics and molecular and cellular biology at the University of California, Berkeley and the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where his research was concerned primarily with the study of biological systems at the single molecule level.[1] He is a vocal advocate for more research into alternative energy and nuclear power, arguing that a shift away from fossil fuels is essential to combat global warming
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Chu
Comment: Interesting Nuke Connection:
The U.S. Department of Energy; nuclear by nature, forever?
by Ann Garrison
On March 11, 2009, Barack Obama's Energy Secretary, Stephen Chu, announced his support for a new generation of nuclear power , but Terry Macallester, writing five days later, on March 16, 2009, in Common Dreams, warned that these new power plant designs could, by 2075, produce enough plutonium to make a million nuclear bombs, and cause nuclear anarchy.
The next day, March 17, 2009, New York Times ran Stephanie Cooke's well-reasoned, but, nevertheless curious, op-ed about Barack Obama and Steven Chu, beginning thus:
"PRESIDENT OBAMA has made clean and efficient energy a top priority, and Congress has obliged with more than $32 billion in stimulus money mostly for conservation and alternative energy technologies like wind, solar and biofuel. Sadly, the Energy Department is too weighed down by nuclear energy programs to devote itself to bringing about the revolution Mr. Obama envisions."
It seemed a bit strange, or disingenuous, of Stephanie Cooke, to suggest that Energy Secretary Stephen Chu, former head of Berkeley's Lawrence Livermore Labs, really wants to "avoid getting dragged down by the nuclear undertow," since Chu, a physicist, has openly advocated a nuclear renaissance.
Now we need an honest update on the Reliable Replacement Nuclear Warhead (RRW)
Bush's former Defense Secretary Robert Gates is now Obama's, and he has often pitched for continuing to develop the Reliable Replacement Nuclear Warhead:
Chu headed Lawrence Livermore Labs while it led development of the design for the Reliable Replacement Nuclear Warhead (RRW), a new strategic tactical nuclear weapon, under Bush. The RRW would have, and still may be, the first new nuclear weapon in the U.S. arsenal in many years. Los Alamos National Labs (LANL) worked on the RRW, first in competition with Livermore, and then, under the direction of Livermore, then headed by Chu, from 2006 until 2008, when Congress defunded further development, The London Guardian reported recently that RRW developers in the U.S. had simply moved to Britain's Aldermaston nuke bomb factory, to work alongside British scientists in finishing the design, with British and who knows what other, funding, quite likely slush funding. There are quite a few very slushy funds scattered throughout the military and intelligence departments of the U.S. national security state.
It's virtually inconceivable that the U.S. could have continued development of the Reliable Replacement Nuclear Warhead without Chu's knowledge, either before or after he became Secretary of Energy, which is to say, of Nuclear Power, Weapons, and Waste, because, before becoming the top nuclear power and weapons official in the U.S., he headed the lab overseeing the RRW design. And he most certainly knows now, since this 02/09/2009 London Guardian exposé. There seems, however, to be no evidence that he has made any evidence to halt the RRW's ongoing development at Aldermaston.
Chu's official statement on the RRW says that, "Under this budget, development work on the Reliable Replacement Warhead will cease," but "under this budget" sounds like a very convenient way of taking credit for Congress's vote to defund RRW's development, without acknowledging that he's overseeing its continuation, covertly, in cooperation with Britain, at Aldermaston.
Did Congress simply get fed up with funding the development of a new nuclear weapon, in hard times, or, did they decide it was a lousy, hugely toxic, and dangerous idea, discouraging to the goal of world peace, which most of the world embraces, honestly or not?
Cooke seems either to have skipped research into Chu's background, even so recent as his 03/11/2009 embrace of next generation nuclear power. Or, she may have intended, for whatever reason, to greenwash, and apologize, for Obama and Chu's nuclear predilections, by saying that there's just no changing the U.S. Department of Energy and its nuclear DNA, no matter how one might want to.
Or, she may even have meant to encourage whatever renewables interest Obama and Chu may have, with flattery. This might be a logical, persuasive rather than confrontational strategy, but, nevertheless, these important question still hangs:
How are Steven Chu and Barack Obama involved with the U.S.-British, Reliable Replacement Nucleaer Warhead development in Britain, now, even though this obviously began after Congress defunded the new nuclear weapon, and before George Bush left office? They essentially have to pick up where George left off, to complete it, or abandon it, as much of the world, including many of us in the U.S.A., which they would.
Do they have any intention of shutting it down, over, no doubt, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates's objections? And, who is managing and funding this nuclear weapons development now, at Britain's Aldermaston. And, to what strategic purpose?
This is serious business, designing and building the first new nuclear weapon in the U.S. arsenal, in years. Not a decision that U.S. and British national security state cabals should make without public approval or oversight.
The U.S. Department of Energy, nuclear by nature?
Cooke, again, writing in the NY Times, was most certainly correct that, in the unlikely event that Chu choose to emphasize solar, wind, and other forms of renewable power over nuclear, he would have to recreate or even rename, the U.S. Energy Department, because it is and always has been, above all, the Department of Nuclear Power, Nuclear Weapons, and, Nuclear Waste; it grew out of the Atomic Energy Commission, created to oversee the creation of U.S. nuclear weapons and nuclear power infrastructure after the end of World War II.
There are more nuclear, and coal-fired, power plants in Barack Obama's Illinois than in any other state in the union; and Chicago-based http://www.exeloncorp.com/, the largest nuclear power corporation in the U.S., gave Obama's campaign over $200,000 in bundled contributions.
However, Obama did, very shortly after taking office, and, at long last, shut down the longstanding DOE plan to make one of Native America's most sacred sites, Yucca Mountain, a big high radiation nuclear waste dump, in Nevada. By doing so, he handed a hard, lifelong won victory to the Western Shoshone people, and, to Carrie Dann, lifelong Native American environmental and indigenous rights activist, and, defender of indigenous sacred sites.
By convening a "panel on nuclear waste," to choose the best way to dispose of waste generated by the next generation of nuclear reactors, Obama's Energy Secretary, Steven Chu unfortunately implied that there is a "best way, " or, rather, a rational way. But, whatever their panel's conclusion, Obama and Chu have at least promised that it will not mean the nuclear disposal of the magnificent Carrie Dann's sacred mountain. Turning Yucca Mountain into a High Radiation Nuclear Waste Dump had been a pillar of the Global Nuclear Energy Project since its inception under Bush; Carrie, the Western Shoshone, and the rest of the Native Southwest fought to save their sacred mountain for 22 years, so this was a huge victory, even as the Navajo and other Native Americans continue to battle uranium mining leases expanded by the Energy Department under George Bush.
Is the Energy Department nuclear by nature, now and forever, amen?
Stephanie Cooke aptly said that the U.S. Department of Energy has "nuclear weapons in its DNA"; it grew out of the Atomic Energy Commission, created to manage and build atomic weapons after World War II, after the U.S. dropped the first atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and nation states raced to build and place their own weapons on the global nuclear chessboard.
"Today, the department’s main task is managing the thousands of facilities involved in producing nuclear weapons during the cold war, and the associated cleanup of dozens of contaminated sites. Approximately two-thirds of its annual budget, which is roughly $27 billion, is spent on these activities, while only 15 percent is allocated for all energy programs, including managing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and researching and developing new technologies."
The name of the Energy Department seems incidental to the central questions:
1) How will we develop and energy resources, now, to what purpose?
2) Will our energy resources sustain life and future generations?
With these questions in mind, however, I'll gladly agree that "the Energy Department must be relieved of duties that aren’t related to energy"---i.e., that it must be relieved of its primary task, nuclear weapons handling, which Obama's Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag has suggested moving into the equally misnamed, but, better understood, Department of Defense (DOD).
This is a good idea, a damn good, and most excellent idea. Obama's OMB Budget Director Peter Orszag should be applauded for championing such rare honesty and focus in Washington D.C. Let's do indeed pass the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile to the "Defense Department" and, finally turn the Energy Department into the Real Energy Department, and hopefully even: the Renewable, Sustainable Energy Department, mandated to build renewable energy and sustain life. Yeah Peter Orszag!!! The new Chief of the OBM is not only intelligent but rational!!! He's tacking the logical contradiction of an "Energy Department" whose primary task is management of our nuclear weapons arsenal. This is the best idea I've heard out of Team Obama yet.
We've still got these problems, Energy Secretary Stephen Chu, overseer of Lawrence Livermore Labs during the design of the Reliable Replacement Nuclear Warhead (RRW), and the covert continuation of the RRW development, at Aldermaston, but perhaps they could both, at least be moved over and locked up at DOD, with the rest of the nuclear weapons, to give Energy a chance.
Comment: Rarely, this blog post anything the uranium group publishes, however, following articles will list of facts about Nuke Power group ever tells us! By the way, did the Secretary of Energy go to Coles Hill; was this the purpose of the whole Rural Tour? Not very nice!
By Norman W. Reynolds
Wednesday, July 29, 2009 10:10 AM EDT
U. S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu could not have picked a better spot than Pittsylvania County to sound his ringing call for "restarting" our nation's nuclear energy program, as well as endorsing Virginia's state-sanctioned study to assess the safety and feasibility of mining and milling uranium in the commonwealth.
The setting for Dr. Chu's speech at a local farm last Saturday was just 10 miles south of the Coles Hill uranium site and 50 miles south of the City of Lynchburg, one of the most dynamic hubs of advanced nuclear technology in Virginia.
Coles Hill is where Virginia Uranium proposes to mine and mill the largest known undeveloped uranium deposit in the United States.
Speaking to concerns that have been raised about mining in Virginia, Dr. Chu, a Nobel laureate in physics, explained that in "any kind of mining, whether it's uranium, coal or nickel, or you name it, it has to be done in a way that protects the environment and protects the people....there's a study going on as to whether uranium mining in Virginia is going to do that....we will wait for the results of that study."
The Virginia Coal and Energy Commission is working with the National Academy of Sciences to conduct an independent study to address concerns of Virginians about safety to people, livestock, crops and the environment.
The secretary's position on the uranium potential at Coles Hill seemed to reflect that of his boss, President Obama. When the President was campaigning in Virginia last year, the Roanoke Times carried the following report:
"According to an e-mail from his Virginia communications director, Obama supports a proposed study of the [Coles Hill] site to evaluate the potential environmental effects of mining. But, he adds, 'Virginia has the potential to be a national leader in uranium mining, and development of uranium resources in Pittsylvania County could create hundreds of jobs in that part of the state.'"
On the larger subject of using nuclear energy to power America, Dr. Chu told the local audience of around 275 people that the Obama Administration and the U.S. Department of Energy are "very supportive of restarting the nuclear power industry," adding that he believes it can be done safely.
Secretary Chu's comments echo those heard from various Virginia officials over the past two years, starting with the Virginia Energy Plan released in the fall of 2007. In addition to numerous references to the massive uranium deposit in Southside Virginia, the energy plan states:
"There are sufficient resources to support a uranium mining industry in Pittsylvania County with enough to meet the fuel needs of Virginia's current generation. Significant work to assess the risk from mining and need for regulatory controls must be completed before any decision can be made whether such mining should take place."
For those of us who have worked long and hard on the Coles Hill project, it is gratifying that the nation's highest energy official saw fit to come to Pittsylvania County and to endorse the scientific study and to state so unequivocally the Obama Administration's high commitment to getting nuclear back on track in the United States. We look forward to moving ahead hand in hand with such enlightened thinking.
We haven't the slightest doubt that all aspects of the nuclear cycle-from mining to operating reactors-can be done as safely as any other industrial undertaking. When the same safety issues were studied by the state 25 years ago, scientists found that under well-defined guidelines our project could go forward safely. I am confident that similar findings will be reached this go-around.
What Dr. Chu is talking about goes straight to the heart of energy independence for our nation. Yes, we need to move ahead on all fronts that make sense. But let us keep in mind that of the 55 million pounds of uranium needed to operate nuclear facilities for one year in this country, over 50 million pounds are imported. That is a frightening statistic in a world as unpredictable as the one in which we are living.
We should be grateful for the enlightened approach expressed by Secretary Chu. And we should support sensible efforts to achieve greater energy independence, including the full development of our nuclear resources.
Norman Reynolds of Chatham is president and chief executive officer of Virginia Uranium Inc., as well as Virginia Energy Resources.
http://www.wpcva.com/articles/2009/07/29/chatham/opinion/opinion01.txt
http://coloredopinions.blogspot.com/2009/03/nuclear-by-nature-us-dept-of-energy.html
http://www.sustainabilitank.info/2009/07/29/culture-change-brought-to-our-attention-the-ben-williams-article-why-nuclear-energy-is-not-the-answer-to-climate-change-it-is-rather-extermely-uninformed-to-think-otherwise/
http://world-wire.com/news/0907270001.html
http://www.nunnglow.com/latest/violations-accumulate-for-uranium-isl-mining.html
http://archiearchive.wordpress.com/2009/07/24/uranium-mining-and-a-national-park-2/
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