Major problems at a salt mine where 126,000 drums of radioactive debris are stored are fuelling public distrust of long-term waste disposal plans, reports Fred Pearce from Asse, Germany
Enough plutonium-bearing radioactive waste is stored here to fill 20 Olympic swimming pools. When engineers backfilled the chambers containing 126,000 drums in the 1970s, they thought they had put it out of harm’s way forever.
But now, the walls of the Asse mine are collapsing and cracks forming, thanks to pressure from surrounding rocks. So the race is on to dig it all up before radioactive residues are flushed to the surface.
A short film by a government advisory body carries a stark message: the nation faces a crisis over storing its spent nuclear fuel after running reactors for decades.
From the August 2009 Scientific American Magazine | 40 comments Yucca Mountain was supposed to be the answer to the U.S.'s nuclear waste problem, but after 22 years and $9 billion, that vision is dead. Now, some say that doing nothing in the near term ma
Ecomafia: le “navi a perdere” e lo smaltimento illegale delle scorie radioattive. Navi che affondano, rifiuti che spariscono: un business da miliardi di euro. Le denunce di Legambiente e del WWF. Lo strano caso della motonave Rosso. Carlo Lucarelli.
“Dobbiamo scongiurare il rischio – ha sottolineato Cogliati Dezza – che questa vicenda venga sottovalutata, mentre in realtà è in ballo il futuro dell’ambiente, del turismo, della legalità, dell’economia. C’è bisogno di un forte segnale che dia speranza a
Cadarache. World Nuclear News 15 Oct 09. "France's nuclear regulator has suspended decommissioning and castigated a plant operator after discovering that plutonium inventory was much higher than thought. The plant owner has now contradicted the regulator
Acronym Institute's Disarmament Diplomacy, Nov 2002: "On August 22 [2002], a substantial amount of weapons-grade uranium was removed from a nuclear reactor in Serbia to a site in Russia. Details of the operation were provided by the US State Department on
The weapons-grade plutonium from the Serbian research reactor Vinca could (have) be(en) used as a radiological weapon. That plutonium, too, is (or was) a kind of radioactive waste.
Greenpeace, le 14 octobre 2009. - « Nous estimons que la découverte, à Cadarache, de plusieurs kilos de plutonium ayant échappés à tout inventaire constitue une des situations les plus graves et les plus critiques que l'on ait pu rencontrer dans une inst
"Slutförvaret för Sveriges utbrända kärnbränsle bör placeras vid Forsmark i Östhammars kommun. Det beskedet gav Svensk Kärnbränslehantering den 3 juni [2010]. Här hittar du vår samlade rapportering kring frågan om ett slutförvar. Det slutgiltiga beslutet
Nuclear Waste Advisory Associates (NWAA), a group of experts with over 200 years of collective experience of the issues involved in nuclear waste, have submitted detailed written evidence to the House of Commons' Energy and Climate Change Select Committee
contrary to myth, reprocessed French waste is not “recycled.” The hottest waste, about 4 percent of the total, is stored at La Hague, along with about 81 tonnes of separated – and proliferation-friendly – plutonium (1 percent of the total). The remaining
Terrapower. 13 February 2010. "Today we are always refueling the reactor so lot of controls and lots of things that can go wrong," Gates said. "That is not good. With this, you have a piece of fuel, think of it like a log, that burns for 60 years and it
Windscale report. "An inquiry into last month's fire at Cumberland's Windscale nuclear power plant has blamed the accident on a combination of human error, poor management and faulty instruments. The fire happened on 10 October during a routine maintenanc
The International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM) was founded in January 2006 and is an independent group of arms-control and nonproliferation experts from both nuclear weapon and non-nuclear weapon states. The mission of the IPFM is to analyze the tec
20,000 discarded uranium fuel rods stored in the Arctic Circle are corroding. The possible result? Detonation of a massive radioactive bomb experts say could rival the 1986 disaster. By Rachel Shields Sunday, 10 June 2007.
Ydinmateriaalien löytäminen ja tunnistaminen nopeutuu ja herkistyy merkittävästi, kun Euroopan komission tutkimuslaitos JRC (Joint Research Center) Saksan Karlsruhessa saa uuden laajan geometrian sekundääri-ionimassaspektrometrin (LG-SIMS). Uutta tietoa n
Lasse Karlsson har sammanställt några presscitat kring toppkonferensen i Washington. bl a Chrstian Science Monitors ledare, Eva Selin Lindgren (cp) och ett citat ur Christian Azars bok. Reuters ger en inblick i spelet bakom kulisserna i en intervju med fö
2009-05-11 08:15 (Downloadable files) Studsvik has signed an agreement with Bruce Power in Canada for the treatment of 32 steam generators. The total order value is estimated at approximately SEK 250 million
Studsvik of Sweden has signed a contract with Finland's Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO) for the dismantling and metal recycling of old heat exchangers from the Olkiluoto nuclear power plant. Studsvik's facility near Nyköping, Sweden, melts metal scrap, such
Publicerad 26 juni 2002 Studsvik AB har tillsammans med Washington Group International Inc, WGI, startat ett amerikanskt bolag för att bearbeta federalt kärnavfall. Det nybildade bolaget heter Thor Treatment Technologies och ägare är Studsviks dotterbola
sept 2007. Greenpeace överklagar transport av kärnavfall till kammarrätten - aktivisterna fortsätter vaka i Studsvik . Här gäller det transport av kärnavfall från Studsvik till Sellafield. Länkade Dokument * Norges miljöminister Helen Bjørnøys brev ti
American countervulture or counterculture hero gone made in his old days, now promoting nuklear power and whole earth catastrophe: "reason: You use the word pragmatist in the subtitle of your new book. But that presumes we agree on the goals we're pragmat
03 November 2010 The European Commission has today released its long-awaited proposed nuclear waste directive, which would tell European Union (EU) member states to develop plans to store radioactive waste in safe repositories." "Today's nuclear waste dir
"Why isn't every government, every philosopher, every theologian, everywhere in the world discussing Onkalo and its implications? I don't know, but they should see this film." Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian, Thursday, 11 November, 2010
Erst sah es so aus, als würde es keine Pannen geben: Am Mittwoch vergangener Woche lieferte das Schiff "Puma" im russischen Murmansk 300 Tonnen Atommüll ab. Auf der Rückreise am Wochenende geriet der dänische Frachter 20 Seemeilen vor der nordnorwegischen
Mikaelbook's comment:: "History is a nightmare from which we are trying to awake", Stephen said (or something close). But it is doubtful whether we will ever wake up - despite the efforts of a few wise men and women like Gorbachev and Raisa, his wife.
Gives backgroun, but is partly outdated, because: "unlike all of the other reactors in trouble, Unit 3 (of Fukushima I) has been using plutonium-based MOX (mixed oxide) fuel since September 10, 2010. (www.nirs.org)
"The Japanese government is considering extending the evacuation zone around the Fukushima nuclear plant because of high radiation levels. A 20-kilometre exclusion zone has been in place around the plant since a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami hit Ja
By Zoltán Dujisin, CHERNOBYL, Apr 30, 2011 (IPS) "The sarcophagous is welcome, but officials who say that this will solve the problem are not telling the truth: It will remain dangerous as long as there are 185 tons of nuclear fuel in it, fuel that is not
Japans industriminister bekräftar att härdsmältan i reaktor 1 i Fukushima smält sönder den omgivande tanken. Det är första gången något sådant sker i kärnkraftens historia. Första gången härdsmälta tar sig igenom tanken Den japanske industriministern Ban
Deutsche Welle 28.11.: "Starting in 2012, no German nuclear waste will be sent to France for reprocessing, with the waste simply being stockpiled instead. Nuclear waste reprocessing extracts reusable elements like plutonium and uranium, but does not reduce the radioactivity of the waste. Germany's anti-nuclear movement is considered one of Europe's strongest. Protesters oppose the transport on several grounds, saying it poses a threat to residents and the environment near the train's path in the event of an accident or an attack." They also say such transports draw attention to what they see as atomic energy's biggest unsolved problem: the disposal of waste. The waste being transported to the site at Gorleben will remain potentially hazardous for thousands of years.