International engineering firm Atkins said it had been awarded a Tokyo Electric Power Company contract to assess fire hazards at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station in Japan. nuclearstreet.com

The government in Canada has effectively delayed granting approval for a deep well radioactive waste repository at the Bruce nuclear power plant until after a federal election that takes place in October. nuclearstreet.com

The construction of nuclear power plants and development of the nuclear industry in China’s Sichuan province will be promoted under a strategic cooperation framework agreement signed between China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) and the provincial government. world-nuclear-news.org

Sixty-eight projects have been selected to share over $60 million of US Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear energy research and infrastructure enhancement awards. The projects, including some international collaborations, have been selected for their potential to create scientific breakthroughs. world-nuclear-news.org

 

 

Japanese government expert says that the West Coast of the United States will soon be hit by 800 Trillion Bq of Fukushima Cesium-137. enenews.com

South Korea has axed plans to build four coal-fired power plants and will boost its nuclear reactor fleet by two more units, as it looks to increase the share of nuclear and gas in power generation and cut reliance on coal. reuters.com

Decision on Canadian Lake Huron nuclear waste facility delayed until after election. theglobandmail.com

A year ago, San Onofre’s operators argued that with the nuclear power plant shut down, and with nuclear fuel no longer in the reactors, its emergency plan should be less stringent. ocregister.com

 

 

 

Radiated Fukushima Prefecture soil disposal facility to be nationalized. japantimes.co.jp

On 5/25/2015, TEPCO reported still 960,000 Bq / hour of Cesium-134 and 137 is assumed to be discharged from Reactor 1 -4 to the air this April. fukushima-diary.com

Areva Resources Canada and researchers at the University of Saskatchewan have completed a major study on the long-term condition of uranium mill tailings at the McClean Lake mill using the Canadian Light Source (CLS) synchrotron facility. world-nuclear-news.org

The Savannah River Site is dismantling the building that used to house hundreds of 55-gallon drums containing radioactive transuranic waste, most of which has been shipped to a New Mexico repository. northaugustastar.com

 

 

Part Four of Four Parts (Please read Parts One, Two and Three first)

12) Too much  or  too little water: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been criticizing the flood prevention measures of twenty old U.S. power reactors similar to the ones that melted down at Fukushima. Each reactor is downstream from a dam. If there was a break or major leak in the upstream dam, the reactor would be in danger of flooding. There is a major sink hole forming under one of the dams that has authorities worried.

       Some major rivers in the U.S. and other parts of the world are no longer flowing into the ocean. Human use has drained all the water out before the rivers reach the coast. Levels of major lakes and reservoirs such as Lake Mead are dropping to historical low levels. It takes enormous amounts of water to cool a nuclear power reactor. Some power reactors may have to be shutdown if their source of water drops too low. The shut downs will be permanent if the water level is not restored.

13) Regulatory agencies are not competent or honest. Some of the national nuclear regulatory agencies in nuclear nations have an impossible task of simultaneously regulating and promoting nuclear energy generation. There have been charges that the U.S. NRC has been failing to enforce regulations on the operators of U.S. nuclear power reactors. In one case, the agency was accused of changing the rules with respect to earthquake reinforcement so that a nuclear power plant would qualify as being prepared. If there is a quake similar to previous quakes in that area, that plant may be seriously damaged.

14) Corporations are incompetent or deliberately negligent: There are many examples of the owners of nuclear power reactors failing to follow national nuclear regulation. There are cases of lack of training of staff, shoddy construction methods, failing to report or openly lying about problems, failure to replace worn parts, purchase of uncertified parts, etc. It has been established that TEPCO, the owners of the Fukushima power plant that had reactors melt down in 2011 were aware of the dangers of a tsunami causing flooding three years before the disaster but they did not report the danger until the week of the disaster. They ignored calls from the Japanese regulators to move a backup generator that was destroyed in the disaster. Since the disaster they have repeatedly failed to deal with contaminated water on the site and have lied about the release of radiation from the accident. Corporation that own and operate nuclear power reactors are a public threat when they place profits before safety.

15) Organized crime is involved in nuclear industry. In Japan, the Yakuza crime organizations have been deeply involved in the construction and operation of nuclear power plants. They have provided much of the staffing for Japanese power plants even though some of the staffing they have provided is inadequately trained. In Italy, the Mafia controls much of the garbage and waste disposal for large areas and their work has included illegally disposing of spent nuclear fuel from European nuclear power plants. The involvement of organized crime in the operation of nuclear power plants and spent nuclear fuel disposal is totally uncontrolled and a threat to public safety.

Japanese government officials say that Fukushima should be declared uninhabitable. enenews.com

Germany’s tax on nuclear fuel conforms to European Union laws, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled yesterday. world-nuclear-news.org

French nuclear power company Areva and U.S.-based nuclear and hazardous waste management company Kurion said Thursday they would create an alliance for nuclear waste decommissioning and remediation services that would specifically serve the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) complex. nuclearstreet.com

The French government said Wednesday that it would support a rescue of struggling nuclear power giant Areva that would include a merger between its nuclear reactor business with Eletricite de France, the utility that is Areva’s largest customer. nuclearstreet.com

 

Part Three of Four Parts (Please read Parts One and Two first)

8) A lot of nuclear waste has been casually dumped with no thought to safety around the world. At the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State, millions of gallons of liquid nuclear waste from nuclear weapons manufacture was just poured into trenches dug in the dirt. Temporary underground storage tanks full of toxic chemicals and liquid nuclear waste are leaking into the ground. Drums of nuclear waste were just tossed into the English Channel. The Russians sank submarines with nuclear fuel and nuclear reactors from vessels into the sea near Murmansk off the northern coast of Russia. The Russians recently informed the Norwegians that Norwegian fishing grounds might be at risk.

9) There has been a lot of illegal dumping of nuclear waste around the world. In addition to the casual dumping on nuclear waste during the nuclear age, there has also been outright illegal dumping of nuclear waste. A Mafia informant told Italian authorities that a central Italian Mafia took a ship loaded with spent fuel from European reactors and deliberately sank it off the coast of Italy. They have also been dumping off the coast of Somalia. Nuclear waste from France and Germany was illegally smuggled to northern European ports for transport and illegal dumping in Russia. Illegal dumping of nuclear waste continues today.

10) Uranium mining devastates the environment. The process of mining uranium is terribly polluting. Acid is poured over piles of uranium ore to dissolve out the uranium and the acid often leaks out of the containment system. In the area of Spokane, Washington, decades of uranium mining have left toxic chemicals and radioactive isotopes in the groundwater, surface water and soil, threatening the health of the people who live there. In Canada, Australia and other locations around the globe, uranium mines have also ruined the environment. In Niger in Africa, dust from the local uranium mine blows through local villages and piles up in drifts. New uranium mines are being opened around the world which will severely impact the local environments.

11)  The fund for a geological repository for spent nuclear fuel is threatened in the U.S. The U.S. government started collecting funds for a permanent disposal site for U.S. spent nuclear fuel from the nuclear industry decades ago. The site was suppose to open in 1999 but that did not happen. The U.S. was working on a site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada but that project was cancelled in 2009. There was around thirty billion dollars in the fund when the project was stopped. The best estimate now is that the earliest that the U.S. could possibly  open such a facility would in 2050. Owners of nuclear power plants that have been paying into the fund have begun to take some of the money back from the fund through court proceedings. If the fund is depleted and the U.S. is unable to replenish it, there may be a lack of funds for the creation of a permanent spent fuel disposal facility in the U.S. by 2050. This will leave spent nuclear fuel in deteriorating temporary dry casks at U.S. nuclear power plants.

(See Part Four)

Ranger open pit uranium mine in Australia: