NEI Nuclear Notes

Whether or not Nevada’s Yucca Mountain becomes a permanent repository for used nuclear fuel, the decision by the Obama administration to stop the project a few years ago left behind many loose ends, a fair number of them ripe for contention. One of them was the repository’s license application submitted by the Department of Energy to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. This is a valuable document in itself and the NRC’s license approval – or rejection – would carry with it a tremendous amount of information that would be practically and scientifically useful regardless of the repository’s disposition – notably the technical and safety reports. Stopping this process made the political calculation behind the closing sting all the more. But - A couple of months ago, this happened : The District of Columbia Court of Appeals ordered the NRC on Aug. 13 to restart work on the process to license Yucca Mountain as the nation's repository for commercial used nuclear fuel and for hi...

Late on Friday night Washington Gov. Jay Insleee announced the following news : Six underground storage tanks at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation along the Columbia River in Washington state were recently found to be leaking radioactive waste, but there is no immediate risk to human health, state and federal officials said on Friday. The seeping waste adds to decades of soil contamination caused by leaking storage tanks at Hanford in the past and threatens to further taint groundwater below the site but poses no near-term danger of polluting the Columbia River, officials said. The newly discovered leaks were revealed by Governor Jay Inslee a week after the U.S. Energy Department disclosed that radioactive waste was found to be escaping from one tank at Hanford. Inslee said he was informed on Friday by outgoing U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu that a total of six of the aging, single-walled tanks were leaking radioactive waste. "There is no immediate or near-term health ...

Monday, I wrote that that several Republican Presidential candidates did not support reactivating the Yucca Mountain used fuel repository on states rights grounds. But the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, for one, held used nuclear fuel that clearly fell outside the purview of its state – because it derived from defense uses. Here’s another : Taxpayers have already spent billions to develop the [Yucca Mountain] site as a safe depository for nuclear waste. We all have an interest because the worst of the nuclear waste cleanup at Hanford, Wash., is or was scheduled to be stored there. The storage is needed by about 2015, when a new plant will begin producing glass pucks of nuclear waste as a way to drain 177 storage tanks of highly toxic material. This is from the Daily Astorian in Washington state. The Hanford Site was created by the federal government in the early 40s as part of the Manhattan Project. Its reactors (used to generate materials for defense) were decomm...

Well, maybe not, but this news about the Hanford Nuclear Reservation certainly took us by surprise. Per KONA- 610 AM , The hottest ticket in town appears to be the 60 tour dates set for the Hanford site. The on line registration started just after midnight, and all 2500 slots were filled up before noon. The Department of Energy’s Cameron Hardy says those lucky to get a tour date will see the construction on the massive vitrification plant. Other stops include the historic B reactor and the Hanford Tank farm. Hardy says they purposely decided not to publicize the actual time that registration began this morning. In part, because last year, the system crashed with the number of registrations within the first half hour….just after midnight.