News

August 27, 2009 

By BEN LEACH Staff Writer 

An aluminum pipe that was leaking tritium at the Oyster Creek Generating Station in Lacey Township, New Jersey, has been removed and the leak has been stopped.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission confirmed Thursday that a 25-foot-long portion of pipe was removed and will be studied by a laboratory to see what could have caused the leak.

By Kathryn Casa | Vermont Guardian

Posted March 24, 2005

The casks that Vermont Yankee plans to use to store highly radioactive nuclear waste in Vernon are “time bombs” riddled with material, design and welding flaws, according to a former nuclear industry inspector and auditor of the Holtec cask system.

Aug. 26, 2009

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Younger Americans are being exposed to worrisome amounts of radiation from medical scans that increase their risk of cancer, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.

They said the cumulative risk of repeated exposure to radiation from medical scans is a public health threat that needs to be addressed.

"Even though the individual risk for any patient exposed to these kinds of doses may be small, when you add that up over millions of people, that can be a concerning population risk," Dr. Reza Fazel of Emory University in Atlanta and colleagues wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine.

August 26, 2009

By MATTHEW L. WALD

WASHINGTON — Many of the hundreds of workers at the Shearon Harris nuclear plant in New Hill, N.C., are busy with high-tech tasks like calibrating equipment, monitoring radiation fields or controlling the reactor. But around the clock, there are three on duty who might have come out of another century.

They sniff for smoke.

 Notice of Availability of the Draft Revision to Generic 

Environmental Impact Statement for License Renewal of Nuclear Plants, 

Revision 1, NUREG-1437 and Public Meetings (see complete info from the Federal Register at bottom.) 

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is proposing to amend 

·        its environmental protection regulations by updating the Commission's 

·        1996 findings on the environmental impacts related to the renewal of a 

·        nuclear power plant's operating license. The Commission stated that it 

·        intends to review the assessment of impacts and update it on a 10-year 

·        cycle, if necessary. The proposed rule redefines the number and scope 

·        of the environmental impact issues which must be addressed by the 

·        Commission in conjunction with the review of applications for license 

·        renewal.

 July 24, 2009

Decision will influence future of industry

By PETER BEHR of ClimateWire

The Obama administration is close to a decision on filling two vacancies on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, according to industry and congressional sources. The appointments would come at a pivotal time for the industry's hopes of a revival, as NRC weighs operating license applications for a handful of new reactors and a review of its waste fuel policy.

The administration is believed to have settled on former Energy Department official William Magwood and Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor George Apostolakis as the nominees. Both would be welcomed by the industry, officials said.

By Ad Crable 

Lancaster New Era Staff

A control-room operator at the Peach Bottom nuclear plant spent 10 minutes reading a novel, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission alleges.

The violation of federal regulations came to light while the NRC was at the plant for an inspection prompted by a 2007 incident in which security guards at the plant were filmed sleeping in an off-duty room where they were allowed to rest but not sleep.

The latest incident occurred in July 2007, according to a notice of violation sent to Peach Bottom owner Exelon Generation on Thursday.

 The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (the Commission) is considering the issuance 

of an order under Title 10 of the CODE OF FEDERAL REGULATIONS (10 CFR), Section 50.80 

approving the indirect transfer of the Facility Operating License DPR-12 for Peach Bottom 

Many Americans mistakenly believe that France has solved the radioactive waste issue. According to this report, 

that is far from the truth: 

Reuters, June 30, 2009

French radioactive waste to double by 2030, High level waste to rise to 5,060 cm 

By Mathilde Cru

PARIS, June 30 (Reuters) - France's highly radioactive waste will more than double by 2030 mainly as spent fuel derived from nuclear reactors mounts up, the French national radioactive waste management agency (Andra) said on Tuesday.

Andra draws up every three years an inventory of sites polluted with radioactivity and details quantities per waste category as well as volume forecasts.

In 2007, high level waste, the most dangerous category, accounted for 95 percent of French waste radioactivity but only 0.2 percent in volume, it said in the inventory report. A complicated scale lists a wide range of different intensities of radioctive waste.

High level waste will rise by 120 percent to 5,060 cubic metres by 2030 out of a total of 2.2 million cubic metres, the Andra report said. The 2.2 million cubic metres itself is twice the 2007 level.

Eric Epstein, Chairman of Three Mile Island Alert, contends PPL's application for a license to construct a nuclear reactor at Bell Bend near Berwick, Pa. leaves at least four serious matters in need of attention. 

Epstein contends that the federally required funds to decommission (close down) a plant are inadequate. 

He also told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that PPL's has no solid plan for how to dispose of low-level radioactive waste.