NEI Nuclear Notes

Over the past few days, plenty of folks have been asking questions about a claim anti-nuclear activist Arnie Gundersen made concerning some soil samples he took during a recent trip to Japan. Gundersen made his claims in a video he posted online last week, and the charge was repeated in an AP story that hit the national wire yesterday with a dateline out of Vermont (more on that later). Gundersen says that the soil samples he took in Japan were so irradiated, that they would be classified as low level radioactive waste in the U.S. Like a lot of folks, the claim struck me as rather odd given reported radiation levels in Japan, so I dialed up Ralph Andersen, NEI's resident health physicist for his take on Gundersen's claim. Here's what Andersen told me. In order to classify anything as radioactive waste, it takes more than simply triggering a Geiger counter. When it comes to NRC licensees who need to dispose of items that have become irradiated -- in the case of nuclear pow...

Andrea Jennetta and Nancy E. Roth, the two minds behind the new blog, Fuel Cycle Week , have a challenge for their colleagues in the mainstream media : Why do respected reporters and editors so often use the word “dump” in mainstream news stories on any kind of radioactive waste, including spent fuel from civilian reactors? “Dump” appears in reports on the Yucca Mountain project, proposed interim storage sites and even low-level waste facilities in South Carolina, Utah and Washington. The word is endemic in the popular media. No one gives it a second thought. But does “dump” fairly characterize these sites? No. Absolutely. For more on how the nuclear industry takes care of used nuclear fuel and nuclear waste, click here . And let me welcome Jennetta and Nancy to the blogosphere, we're glad you're here. Thanks to the indefatigable Dan Yurman for the pointer.

Slate talked with someone from the American Nuclear Society about it . I think we owe them a favor.