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The most adamant supporters of nuclear power are those in the investment field. The government gives the nuclear industry liability protection in case of an accident, tens of billions of dollars in loan guarantees and, if we don't stop it, financial coverage for any construction delays. This is a cash cow ready for milking. Other supporters are those who have some association with the Department of Defense and Department of Energy............

.................a major pressing problem is the radioactive waste and where to store it for thousands of years away from people...............

..........Proliferation of nuclear weapons through the proliferation of nuclear power use is a reality in a world going nuclear............

...........ny one of the many public health, safety and costs associated with nuclear would be enough to eliminate it as a global energy option. My View: Nuclear power not a safe energy option - Saginaw, Michigan Columns, Letters & Opinion - The Saginaw News – MLive.com

Confidential documents reveal Finnish nuclear reactor cannot be guaranteed safe WebWire August 13, 2008 — "Confidential documents obtained by Greenpeace reveal that basic safety procedures have not been followed in the construction of the European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) Olkiluoto 3 (0L3) in Finland. Greenpeace is calling for an immediate end to construction work on the reactor.

Independent nuclear safety expert Dr. Helmut Hirsh has reviewed the documents and concluded that the safety violations are “a clear case of bad practice and an indicator of bad safety culture”, and give “reason for serious concern regarding the resistance of the reactor building of OL3”, increasing the risk associated with external events like earthquakes, blast waves from explosions or missile impact.

The technical documents, which include Welding Procedure Specifications, show that the French builder Areva allowed welding work to be carried out for more than a year without approved procedures. The quality of welds has not been verified and test specimens from each batch of welds were not collected. Given that there were and still are no qualified personnel supervising the welding, the lack of standards is even more alarming......

.........“While nuclear power is inherently unsafe, the unsound safety culture existing under the French contractor Areva and its subcontractors threatens to significantly exacerbate the risks related to this nuclear power plant. This is not a cookie factory -- building a nuclear installation demands the upmost caution. Neglect of safety standards can be disastrous,” said Lauri Myllyvirta, nuclear campaigner for Greenpeace Finland.

This is the latest in a series of errors in the construction of Olkiluoto 3, a French designed EPR. Even though work only began in 2005, the EPR reactor in Finland is more than two years behind schedule, costs have doubled since the initial estimate and more than a thousand problems have been reported including poor quality concrete, defective welding on the containment and key components not meeting the required criteria At the end of July, a fire at the construction site caused extensive damage to the outer and inner wall structures of the reactor building......................Confidential documents reveal Finnish nuclear reactor cannot be guaranteed safe

Troubled French nuclear firm comes under fire from US safety advocates Facing South 8 August 08 - "More news today about AREVA, the French state-owned nuclear company whose experimental mixed-oxide fuel assembly had to be removed from Duke Energy's Catawba plant in South Carolina after experiencing potentially hazardous physical changes. Beyond Nuclear, a watchdog organization headquartered in Maryland, has joined with French environmentalists in demanding closure of Socatri, AREVA's troubled nuclear waste facility in Provence, after it contaminated local rivers and groundwater supplies with radiation

."There has been a cascade of nuclear accidents in France over the last two months," said Beyond Nuclear spokesperson Linda Gunter. "The fact that in both incidents at the Socatri plant there was a delay before the public was informed, raises some serious questions about the corporate behavior of Areva, a company that has multiple nuclear contracts in the U.S."Yesterday brought yet another potentially hazardous incident at Socatri: an "anomaly" during receipt of a shipment from the French radioactive waste management agency..........................." Facing South: Troubled French nuclear firm comes under fire from U.S. safety advocates

How deep will the water be when it gets to the plant? Will the control room survive and if not will the emergency shutdown systems survive long enough to effect a safe shutdown?…………………….. flooding and shaking are the most obvious natural risks, but one should also consider very carefully less well-known events such as an acoustic landslide, much like the Blackhawk slide in California.

Such slides can run for miles out from a mountain front at a slope of as little as 2 ? degrees. A nuke plant should never be where such slides are possible………………..terrorist group backed by a nation-state is going to be well financed, technically astute and will look at the nuke plant as a potential dirty bomb.

It’s rare that I read something in a press release that I agree with, let alone find frightening, but this release from Lumeta scared the heebe geebees out of me.

Security firm Lumeta makes the case that increased connectivity with Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems and TCP/IP networks will increase the risk of IT network-style security incidents.

In that, I have no doubt.

Here’s the real-life incident the release is based on: For example, in March, the Hatch Nuclear Power Plant in Georgia went through an emergency shutdown as a result of a software update that was made on the plant’s business network. The business network was in two-way communication with the plant’s SCADA network and the update synchronized information on both systems. Reset after a reboot, the SCADA safety systems detected a lack of data and signaled that the water level in the cooling systems for the nuclear fuel rods had dropped, which caused an automatic shutdown. Engineers were aware of the two-way communication link, but they did not know that the update would synchronize data between the two networks.

There was no danger to the public, but any time an electric generation plant shuts down, the power company loses millions of dollars in revenue and has to incur the substantial expense of getting the plant back online — no small task for a nuclear facility. And the Hatch incident was only the latest in a string of accidents and unnecessary shutdowns whose cause was due to some problem on the network. The Browns Ferry nuclear plant in Alabama, for example, shut down in 2006 when a network traffic overload locked up pump controls.

In the case of Hatch Nuclear Power Plant, engineers chose to sever all physical connections between the SCADA and business networks……………..

Lumeta advises facilities to regularly check that their SCADA networks are not connected to their business networks. I agree, and that goes without saying. But when it comes to security, like doing regular backups, many organizations Talk The Talk, but don’t Walk the Walk. And all it takes is some nitwit, somewhere, to purposely, or more likely inadvertently, connect SCADA systems to the general LAN and risk to the utility goes up exponentially.

It’s only a matter of time before we witness a nasty close call (hopefully that’s all it is.) Makes you wonder when, not if, there’s ever going to be an incident.

Hacking Nukes - Security Blog - InformationWeek

France’s nuclear ambitions raise concerns over public safety Nuclear companies want to play a central role in the government’s plan to build new reactors. But a series of accidents has some fearing for their lives TAIPEI TIMES By Angelique Chrisafis THE GUARDIAN, BOLLENE, FRANCE Jul 30, 2008, - "................................the leak has shaken French trust in nuclear safety and embarrassed French President Nicolas Sarkozy as he crusades for a French-led world renaissance in atomic power.......................

Sarkozy wants to export French nuclear know-how around the world, including to the UK........................Areva, 90 percent state-owned, is at the heart of foreign cooperation agreements not just with Europe but countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Algeria and Libya.........Areva has been criticized by France’s nuclear safety watchdog over the Tricastin leak for not adequately informing local authorities and for unsatisfactory measures and operational procedures.................."Taipei Times - archives

By STACY SHELTON
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
: 07/25/08 The U.S. Department of Energy is behind schedule to complete environmental and safety analyses at Savannah River Site, the federal facility near Augusta that is preparing to process and dispose of 25 million tons of nuclear materials starting in 2010.

In a study released Friday, the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that some required analyses have been delayed as much as two years due to staffing shortages………………………………….Glenn Carroll, coordinator for Nuclear Watch South, an anti-nuclear activist group, praised the GAO for taking a critical look at the Savannah River Site.

“The report emphasizes ongoing problems bedeviling the million-gallon high-level radioactive waste tanks which have been groaning at the seams for the last 50 years and lack of planning and analysis for future [radioactive] waste by DOE,” she said.

Nuclear power still not safe The Register Guard By Ed Fadeley July 14, 2008 - "The news account of John McCain's plan to build or remodel 100 atomic plants stated that the Republican presidential candidate regards nuclear power as a "clean, safe alternative to traditional sources of energy." That is not true ...................................

WPPSS No. 2 is located on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Eastern Washington, an area already contaminated by nuclear waste. Hanford is near the Columbia River, upstream from Portland and other heavily populated areas in Oregon and Washington.

The dead Trojan plant rests above a waste storage reservoir that was expanded many times because there was no other place to put the plant's radioactive nuclear waste.

The waste generated by a nuclear power plant has a half-life of 10,000 years - that is, in 10,000 years the waste will still be half as dangerous as it is today. It will take many half-lives for the deadly or dangerous atomic emissions to slowly reduce in intensity, nuclear physicists tell us.
The Bible proclaims that the sins of the fathers shall be visited on the children, even unto the seventh generation. The danger of nuclear waste will be visited on our offspring even unto the thousandth generation.

............................Nuclear power fell far short of its original ambitions in the Northwest for three reasons. One was the relatively high cost of the electricity to be produced. Second was the lack of any real need for the plant's output by the electric users of the Northwest. The overarching reason, however, was the lack of long-term safety, including anywhere to put the dangerous waste. Nuclear power still not safe: The Register-Guard, Eugene, Ore.

Nuclear Recycling Fails the Test FPIF Commentary Robert Alvarez | July 7, 2008 - "................To promote nuclear energy, the Bush administration is seeking to establish international spent nuclear fuel recycling centers that are supposed to reduce wastes, recycle uranium, and convert nuclear explosive materials, such as plutonium to less troublesome elements in advanced power reactors...............

.............Nuclear Recycling and the Environment
In order to recycle uranium and plutonium in power plants, spent fuel has to be treated to chemically separate these elements from other highly radioactive byproducts. As it chops and dissolves used fuel rods, a reprocessing plant releases about 15 thousand times more radioactivity into the environment than nuclear power reactors and generates several dangerous waste streams.

If placed in a crowded area, a few grams of waste would deliver lethal radiation doses in a matter of seconds. They also pose enduring threats to the human environment for tens of thousands of years.

In Europe reprocessing has created higher risks and has spread radioactive wastes across international borders. Radiation doses to people living near the Sellefield reprocessing facility in England were found to be 10 times higher than for the general population. Denmark, Norway, and Ireland have sought to close the French and English plants because of their radiological impacts.

Discharges of Iodine 129, for example, a very long-lived carcinogen, have contaminated the shores of Denmark and Norway at levels 1000 times higher than nuclear weapons fallout. Health studies indicate that significant excess childhood cancers have occurred near French and English reprocessing plants...................................................

the experience with "fast reactors" over the past 50 years is laced with failure. At least 15 "fast" reactors have been closed due to costs and accidents in the U.S., France, Germany, England, and Japan. There have been two fast reactor fuel meltdowns in the United States including a mishap near Detroit in the 1960's. Russia operates the remaining fast reactor, but it has experienced 15 serious fires in 23 years.
The unsuccessful history of fast reactors has created a plutonium legacy of major proportions. Of the 370 metric tons of plutonium extracted from power reactor spent fuel over the past several decades, about one third has been used.

Currently, about 200 tons of plutonium sits at reprocessing plants around the world - equivalent to the amount in some 30,000 nuclear weapons in global arsenals............................".

Nuclear worries increase as German dump mine floods Indymedia UK Diet Simon | 26.06.2008 An old potash mine in north Germany containing nuclear waste is flooding at a rate of 12 cubic metres a day and throwing up all sorts of questions about safe keeping of nuclear leftovers for a million years.

The design for nuclear waste storage in the now flooding Asse II potash mine near Wolfenbüttel, about 80 kms southeast of Hannover, is the same as for the specially dug salt mine at Gorleben, seen as the likely permanent repository.

Forty years after dumping in Asse II started, massive problems are appearing, though nuclear waste storage was researched there from 1967 to 1992.....................
Many local residents and nuclear opponents fear that the contaminated brine will get into drinking water supplies....."

Uranium ore ferried through Naxal belt sans security
THE FINANCIAL EXPRESS Pranbihanga Borpuzari
June 17, 2008 "Jaduguda (Chhattisgarh) Every day, around 400 trucks ferry about 3,000 tonne of uranium ore 12 km between the Narwapahar and Bhatin mines around Jaduguda in Chhattisgarh to the nearby Uranium Corporation of India Ltd (UCIL) processing plant. Nothing unusual, except there is a conspicuous absence of security as the ore-laden dumper trucks traverse one of India's most Naxal-infested districts.

Moreover, trucks carrying the radioactive ore have only thin tarpaulin sheets to cover their precious cargo from the Narwapahar and Bhatin mines………

……..Of course, transportation by road has its own accompanying problems. Firstly, only small vehicles can be employed for better security and must be under escort at all times. Last year, a truck carrying 62 drums of yellow cake from Jaduguda overturned on NH5 at Narsannapeta in Srikakulam district in Andhra Pradesh. ".

Japan's nuclear facilities face quake risk By HIROYUKI KOSHOJI (UPI) June 12, 2008 Tokyo, Japan - A controversial spent nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in the northern region of Aomori prefecture in Japan may be built directly above an active fault at least 10 miles in length, according to some geologists.

This warning comes ahead of the expected opening of the plant this coming autumn.
The plant, operating under the terms of Japan's nuclear fuel cycle policy has faced a number of obstacles such as technical problems as well as an environmental safety risks which could further delay operations.

According to Mitsuhisa Watanabe, a professor at Toyo University, "A reverse fault, which could cause a giant earthquake, is reaching just under the uranium-enrichment factory within the plant, while the reprocessing facility is a little apart from the fault.

In Watanabe's opinion, "such a plant should not have been established on such soft ground." He also found an active fault under Tsuruga Nuclear Power Plant in Fukui prefecture, and announced his findings at the end of May at the annual Japan Geoscience Union meeting in Chiba prefecture and in Tokyo Tuesday...............................

Nuclear reactors that require huge amounts of water to cool their facilities are typically built along a coastline, which is usually unstable. Electric power companies and safety review agencies tend to underestimate risk or neglect unfavorable data; doing otherwise would prevent the building of such facilities in Japan, one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries. "I guess that they create the story that a potential building site is safe by deliberately ignoring active faults in order to facilitate the construction of nuclear reactors at that site," said Watanabe..............................

The negligence of safety review agencies was exposed when the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Station north of Tokyo, the world's largest rated nuclear power plant, was damaged by the tremors of a 6.8-magnitude earthquake last July. An undiscovered active fault was found directly below the plant. All seven reactors remain inactive......................"

Trouble in the Air
Slate By Daniel Politi
June 6, 2008
"The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal's world-wide newsbox all lead with Defense Secretary Robert Gates firing the Air Force's top two officials for failing to adequately secure the nation's nuclear arsenal. It marked the first time that a defense secretary ousted both the military and civilian leaders of a service simultaneously. The stated reason for requesting the resignations of Michael Wynne, the Air Force secretary, and the service's chief of staff, Gen. T. Michael Moseley, was the recent disclosure that the Air Force mistakenly sent nuclear warhead fuses to Taiwan. An inquiry into the incident found a "pattern of poor performance" and "an overall decline in nuclear weapons stewardship." …………

……….Gates made it clear that he sees the lack of oversight of the country's nuclear arsenal as a deep problem and appointed a former defense secretary, James Schlesinger, to head a task force to look into the issue..................................".

Yucca Mountain safety plan is 'doomed,' nuclear company says In an earthquake, casks of radioactive waste could bounce and roll in a 'chaotic melee,' Holtec International says of the Energy Department proposal.
By Ralph Vartabedian, Los Angeles Times June 6, 2008
The Energy Department's safety plan for handling containers of radioactive waste before they are buried at the proposed Yucca Mountain dump has become a "fool's errand," according to a major nuclear equipment supplier.

Under current plans, the casks of nuclear waste material awaiting burial at Yucca Mountain could be sent into a "chaotic melee of bouncing and rolling juggernauts" in an earthquake, according to Holtec International, one of the nation's largest manufacturers of nuclear waste storage systems.

The blistering critique of safety standards is in a newsletter that Holtec sent last week to its customers and suppliers, warning that the project has become a "doomed undertaking." Holtec supplies storage casks to power plants around the country.

Nevada officials say the harsh comments deepen their concerns about the site of the repository.

Japanese nuclear plant in quake risk Nature News David Cyranoski 4 June 2008 - "Reprocessing facility may be built on active fault. A nuclear reprocessing plant in northern Japan is sited directly above an active geological fault line that could produce a magnitude 8 earthquake ...........earth scientists say.

The massive Rokkasho plant for uranium enrichment, spent fuel reprocessing and nuclear-waste storage is built on an uplifted marine terrace of sloping sedimentary rock layers on the northeast coast of the island of Honshu. According to Mitsuhisa Watanabe, an earth scientist at Toyo University in Tokyo, there is an active fault lying directly under the plant. Watanabe presented his findings on 27 May at the annual meeting of the Japan Geoscience Union in Chiba………

………….Seismology and earthquake-safety specialist Katsuhiko Ishibashi, emeritus professor at Kobe University, agrees with Watanabe that there is probably a 15-kilometre fault directly below the plant. The idea of a longer fault needs further investigation, he says. Either way, Ishibashi worries that an earthquake larger than expected could inflict serious damage on the plant.'In the worst-case scenario, the whole of northern Japan and even as far as the wider Tokyo area could suffer a serious radiation disaster,' he says..........".

WOT isn't getting into the news this week? - well - in China

There are two nuclear reactors, two integrated works nuclear facilities and two sites with nuclear weapons in Sichuan province situated just 60-145 kilometers from the epicentre of the earthquake.

China's ambitious plan for more nuclear power International Herald Tribune Emma Graham Harrison (Reuters) 27 May 08

Nuclear power companies in China aim to join automobile and electronics makers as export powerhouses, but big domestic expansion plans may not leave them the capacity to make an overseas push for more than a decade, analysts say.

…………………………..The speed of the expansion is tying China to the second-generation models that have faced teething troubles rather than the safer third-generation plants it has begun buying..."

Concern over radioactive materials in Sichuan Shanghai Daikly.com By Li Xinran 2008-5-23 - "PROFESSIONAL teams have found 50 sources of radioactive materials with safety problems in earthquake-hit Sichuan Province, Xinhua news agency reported today.

Experts have safely contained and stored 35 of the radioactive sources and are working on the other 15, Xinhua said. ................"

Nuclear dominated forum aims to weaken Europe's nuclear safety standards 7th Space Prague, International 22 May 08 - "Greenpeace activists projected messages, including 'Nuclear Undermines Climate Protection' and 'Energy [R]evolution Now!', against the backdrop of the illuminated Prague Castle, drawing attention to the dangers of weakening European nuclear safety standards and the risk of seriously biased discussions in advance of today's opening of the second meeting of the European Nuclear Energy Forum.

Largely away from public scrutiny, the Forum will consider a proposal to lower nuclear safety standards across Europe to those of the lowest level applied in any Member State. This could place a stranglehold on national authorities wishing to impose stricter standards. And by artificially lowering the costs of any future nuclear plants, lenient safety standards would help open the door for an expansion of nuclear power and expose the environment and public safety to greater nuclear risks.

.................the Forum is proving to be a trade fair for the nuclear lobby. The Forum's opening session offers a privileged position to the CEO of the French nuclear company AREVA to promote the supposedly cheaper and safer 'European Pressurised Reactor' (EPR). Greenpeace argues that placing faith in new nuclear reactors undermines energy security and the chances of successfully combating climate change.......

........The Forum was set up after EU Heads of State and Government in March 2007 endorsed a European Commission proposal "to organise a broad discussion among all relevant stakeholders on the opportunities and risks of nuclear energy". However, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth each with one seat in the Forum, are the sole attendees from civil society. .

..................'What is happening here is a mockery of a supposedly open process. The nuclear industry is arguing for yet more financial support at the expense of safety, transparency and respect for public opinion,' said Jan Beranek, nuclear energy campaigner from Greenpeace International.

A Eurobarometer survey of public opinion on energy technologies, published in 2007, found that only 20 percent of people in the European Union support the use of nuclear power.........

...........'It is time for politicians to stop listening to nuclear industry propaganda,' said Beranek. 'Problems of safety, nuclear waste and soaring costs remain unsolved. Every Euro wasted on nuclear power is a Euro better invested in clean, renewable energy and energy savings.

The world can ill afford to waste time ironing out the complexities of nuclear power when these simpler and safer energy options have long been proven to deliver quicker'.............."

China Earthquakes Cause Nuclear Safety Concern

ChinaStakes May 19th,2008 "Nuclear facilities located in the mountainous area around Wenchuan, the epicenter of the recent savage earthquake that shook southwest China, are causing concerns among local residents and government officials about the possibilities that they may have been damaged.

The 8 Richter magnitude quake leveled one city after another, obliterated roads, and slid mountainsides down, blocking deep valley rivers.

The locations of these nuclear facilities have been kept secret, so that even local communities have for decades had no idea of their existence.
.....................Sichuan has been planning to build nuclear power plants. "The central government may become cautious on the sites of nuclear power projects due to the quake," says an expert of the Association of Power Enterprises of China

Iran Earthquake safety of Nuclear power plants

Iranian.ws Morteza Aminmansour May 12 2008 - "The reactor plants at Iran-Bushehr were initially built by a German, Siemens and were built to a plan closely resembling that of the Biblis A unit in Germany………

………Wiring of emergency electrical system and reactor- protection system does not meet western standards for separation-control and safety functions for separation-control and safety functions are inter connected in ways that may allow failure of a control system to prevent operation of a safety system.Quality-control, design and construction significantly deficient by U.S standards. Fire-protection systems that do not appear to differ substantially from earlier VVER modes , which do not meet western standards. …………………The Germans who designed the Bushehr plant and Russians who are building it assure everyone that it could withstand tremors of up to 7.2 on the Richter Scale………….But there is no guarantee that a higher- intensity tremor will not strike in the future…………Earthquake Danger at Slovenian nuclear plant The Slovenian nuclear plant Krsko is not designed for stronger earthquake shocks. The new report reveals that the danger of earthquakes for the site of the plants has been underestimated against better knowledge. The plant is not designed for earthquake of a size that already happened in the region around Krsko at earlier dates

The plant is designed for earthquake in the magnitude of 5,8(on Richter-scale) ; in 1976 two earthquake with a magnitude of 6(on Richter-scale) took place .. . …………Turkish government and foreign reactors vendors are engaged in a mutual conspiracy of silence to conceal the real risk of earthquake damage to a nuclear plant at Akkuyu . Earthquake can simultaneously accident and destroy multiple operating and safety systems in nuclear reactors

The other reason for concern is that government corruption and the failure to enforce building standards may be an indicator of future accident in nuclear safety regulation. , .

Livermore lab fails terror test Contra Costa Times By Betsy Mason 13 May 08 - "Lawrence Livermore Laboratory's protective force failed to deter a mock terrorist attack during a recent security drill, according to a Time magazine report online Monday.
During the simulated night-time attack several weeks ago, a team posing as terrorists was able to defeat the lab's defenses and get hold of their target of pretend nuclear material, according to unnamed sources.
.......................'Failing an exercise like a mock terrorist attack highlights serious and unacceptable security shortcomings,' said Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo. 'I have insisted that the plutonium housed at Livermore be consolidated and moved away from Livermore to a safe location away from population centers as soon as possible.'..............

..........National Nuclear Security Administration director Thomas D'Agostino told the Times that it makes sense to move Livermore's plutonium to its sister nuclear weapons lab in New Mexico because "you don't have communities growing up around Los Alamos."

Nuclear Regulatory Commission avoids answer to terror question RUTLAND HERALD By Susan Smallheer May 13, 2008 - "BRATTLEBORO - Officials from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Monday refused to tell residents whether the new waste storage facility on the grounds of Vermont Yankee nuclear plant could withstand an attack without releasing deadly radiation.

NRC officials were in town Monday to discuss Vermont Yankee's annual assessment for 2007, a year in which Entergy Nuclear and the Vernon reactor was the top news story in Vermont for the partial collapse of its cooling tower, among other problems at the reactor.Residents peppered officials with questions about the long-term implications of the cooling tower collapse,...............

.........Newfane resident Michael Granger asked NRC officials repeatedly whether the new steel and concrete casks that will hold the old nuclear fuel from the plant could withstand an attack, such as a plane hitting them.

The more Granger politely asked the question, the less direct a response he got....................................................".

22 years after Chernobyl disaster construction of new shelter underway KYIV POST May 05 2008, Ukraine (AP) -" Twenty-two years after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, work is under way on a larger, stronger shelter to cover the ruins of the exploded Soviet power plant …………

…………..The UN health agency estimates that about 9,300 people will eventually die from cancers caused by Chernobyl's radiation. Some groups, such as Greenpeace, insist the toll could be 10 times higher................................................. Officials say that were a tornado or an earthquake to hit the area the shelter could collapse, releasing clouds of poisonous radioactive dust.
……………………..The new structure will be big enough to house the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris or the Statue of Liberty in New York. The project is designed and built by the French-led consortium Novarka, which includes the companies Bouygues SA and Vinci SA.
Workers wearing protective suits and respiratory masks will build the arch at a site about 120 meters (yards) away from the reactor, to minimize exposure to radiation. Specialists who need to be closer to the reactor will work in shifts as short as several minutes…………………………..In 50 years, the melted nuclear fuel will be extracted from the reactor, although it is unclear where it will be stored.......................

.........Experts still debate how much radioactive material remains inside the reactor. The EBRD says 95 percent of the reactor's nuclear inventory remains inside the ruins, but some experts believe most of the radiation was released in the days after the accident……………

……………President Viktor Yushchenko has called for expanding Ukraine's nuclear power industry, but environmentalists oppose that. They point to the shelter's colossal price and say the lesson of Chernobyl is that nuclear power carries hidden costs and dangers.
"Nuclear energy has shown how expensive it is," said Vladimir Chuprov, of Greenpeace Russia...................................".
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German atomic waste transport cancelled for 2009
Ther Local - Germany 1 May 08
- "Transport of radioactive waste to an interim storage facility in the German city of Gorleben from a reprocessing plant in La Hague in France has been cancelled for the coming year, German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung reported on Tuesday.
Citing anonymous government sources, the newspaper said the transport planned for 2009 would not happen because of a delay in gaining approval for a new type of radioactive waste transport container, called a castor.

The 2009 transport was to be the second to last time highly radioactive waste originating in Germany is shipped from reprocessing in France to the Gorleben facility, in the German state of Lower Saxony. But now another transport will be necessary in 2011, according to the Süddeutsche................................................"

Great power with great risks Al Ahram Al Ahram 3 May 08 3 May 08 - "………..In 2006, Egypt announced its nuclear programme for peaceful purposes to meet growing energy demands.

………………………But the question of nuclear safety has been underlined by other experts, who strongly believe that other alternatives have to be reconsidered before tapping the nuclear issue.

'Looking at the two largest nuclear accidents, the 1979 Three Mill Island in the USA and the world's worst of Chernobyl in the Ukraine in 1986, it becomes evident that a safety culture was the critical outcome of these two massive accidents,' asserted Hatem El-Ayat, professor of mechanical engineering at the American University in Cairo.According to El-Ayat, the consequences of both accidents are both massive and incurable

. 'Over 99 per cent of Belarus is still radioactive and there have been immense agricultural and environmental impacts,' he continued. 'Children suffer the most and the destroyed reactor, encased in a massive concrete structure, still represents a potential risk'

Ukrainian nuclear safety at stake MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti commentator Tatyana Sinitsyna)8/ 04/ 2008 - "Global utility giant Westinghouse Electric Co. and Ukraine's power utility Energoatom have signed a deal to supply Ukraine's nuclear power plants with fuel from 2011-2015.

……………….Both companies signed the contract in the run-up to the visit by U.S. President George W. Bush to Ukraine. However, public concerns are reflected in the following joke that became popular during the visit: 'The U.S. President thanked the people of Ukraine for their brave decision to agree to test the substandard and more expensive American fuel inside the country's nuclear reactors' ......

.........Although the more mature nuclear industry has experienced various disasters, the Kiev establishment wants to disregard nuclear risks once again. By staking on incorrect diversification, Ukrainian authorities now want to try out Westinghouse fuel assemblies as an alternative to their Russian equivalents…………….Disrespect for nuclear safety standards, as well as insufficient knowledge of reactor operations and nuclear fuel specifics, have resulted in 50 nuclear accidents all over the world, proving that NPP personnel has no right to violate such standards. .

…………………the Russian-built Loviisa NPP in Finland has refused to purchase U.S. fuel because of its inferior technical and economic parameters. Another NPP in Temelin, the Czech Republic, had to remove Westinghouse fuel ahead of schedule because it did not function properly inside its Soviet-designed reactors.

The Austrian Mothers organization, which is concerned about dangerous experiments at the nearby Temelin NPP, has triggered massive protests in the country........".

Safety fears over French nuclear technology Telegraph.co.uk 31/03/2008 By Peter Allen in Paris - 'Nuclear reactors of the kind France wants to sell to Britain suffer from "potentially catastrophic" problems, it was claimed yesterday.
News of the structural flaws came days after President Nicolas Sarkozy used a state visit to Britain to boast about his nation's nuclear expertise.
...................a letter from France's nuclear safety watchdog, ASN, leaked on a website yesterday, highlighted weaknesses that could undermine the £2.8?billion project.
Pointing out "numerous malfunctions" in the building of the reactor at Flamanville, it calls for them to be corrected in a month. These include weaknesses in steel grids reinforcing the concrete base supporting the reactor.
Such damage could lead to nuclear accidents, threatening the population of northern France, the Isle of Wight and possibly the coast of England.

The Prime Minister and Mr Sarkozy pledged last week to co-operate "on a new generation of nuclear power plants by sharing information on safety, security and waste disposal."

' Shambolic' Sellafield in crisis again after damning safety report
THE INDEPENDENT By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
3 February 2008
"Britain's most notorious nuclear installation was plunged into crisis last week, when vital equipment broke down just as it was recovering from an accident that shut it for two years. Sellafield's Thorp reprocessing plant has been closed again, while starting only its second job since the shutdown.

And the Cumbrian complex's crisis is compounded by an excoriating report which shows that its facilities for handling nuclear waste are a shambles and that its safety procedures for preventing accidents - which could kill hundreds of thousands of Britons - are 'not fully adequate'
The latest incident, which took place on Monday, could not have happened at a worst time for Sellafield or for the nuclear industry as a whole as it tries to generate the confidence needed to persuade investors to build a new generation of atomic power stations
......................................

...................The stinging report, by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, reveals the extent of the mess. After reprocessing, highly dangerous radioactive liquid waste is concentrated through evaporation and stored above ground in 21 giant steel tanks before being 'vitrified' - bound into glass for disposal. But the report shows that every stage of this process is in crisis.
Two of the three evaporators have been shut due to safety problems, and there are continuing 'difficulties' with vitrification.

But the most alarming issue is the failure of equipment needed to cool the waste, which could, at worst, lead to an explosion, scattering radioactivity across much of the country. Studies suggest that for every tank that exploded 210,000 people would die from cancer................................................"

Safety issues cloud nuclear renaissance Developing nations' track record gives cause for concern San Francisco Chronucle George Jahn, Associated PressGeorge Jahn, Associated Press January 20, 2008 - "....................................some countries hopping on the nuclear bandwagon have abysmal industrial safety records and corrupt ways that give many pause for thought...................

...........Of the more than 100 nuclear reactors now being built, planned or on order, about half are in China, India and other developing nations. Argentina, Brazil and South Africa plan to expand existing programs; and Vietnam, Thailand, Egypt and Turkey are among the countries considering building their first reactors...............

...............The concerns are hardly limited to developing countries. Japan's nuclear power industry has yet to recover from revelations five years ago of dozens of cases of false reporting on the inspections of nuclear reactor cracks.

The Swedish operators of a German reactor came under fire last summer for delays in informing the public about a fire at the plant. And a potentially disastrous partial breakdown of a Bulgarian nuclear plant's emergency shutdown mechanism in 2006 went unreported for two months until whistle-blowers made it public.

Nuclear transparency will be an even greater problem for countries such as China that have tight government controls on information.

Those who mistrust the current nuclear revival are still haunted by the 1986 meltdown of the Chernobyl reactor and the Soviet Union's attempts to hide the full extent of the catastrophe. Further back in the collective memory is the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979...............

..........worries persist that bad habits of the past could reflect on nuclear operational safety.
In China, for instance, thousands die annually in the world's most dangerous coal mines and thousands more in fires, explosions and other accidents often blamed on insufficient safety equipment and workers ignoring safety rules.
Chinese state media on Saturday reported that nearly 3,800 people died in mine accidents last year. While that is about 20 percent less than in 2006, it still leaves China's mines the world's deadliest..................................

Countries with nuclear power are obligated to report all incidents to the IAEA. But the study said most Asian governments vastly underreport industrial accidents to the U.N.'s International Labor Organization - fewer than 1 percent in China's case

Separately, China and India shared 70th place in the 2006 Corruption Perceptions Index, published by the Transparency International think tank that ranked 163 nations, with the least corrupt first and the most last. Vietnam occupied the 111th spot, and Indonesia - which, like Hanoi, wants to build a nuclear reactor - came in 130th...................................

....Hans-Holger Rogner, head of the IAEA's planning and economic studies section, says he is 'suspicious when people say the next (reactor) generation will be safer than the one we have'................."

Will it shake Jakarta's NUCLEAR DREAM? Yesterday's quakes throw spotlight on plant's position within Pacific Ring of Fire
Electric News September 14, 2007
"WHEN Indonesia recently announced plans to build a nuclear plant in Java, experts said it was a bad idea. Yesterday, Indonesians got another reminder of how potentially bad an idea it could be.
Two massive earthquakes - one measuring 8.4 in magnitude and the other, 6.6 - shook the Sumatra region in the evening, killing at least 10 people and injuring dozens of others.
A 3m-high wave reportedly hit Padang about 20 minutes after the quake. Buildings also collapsed and communication lines broke down.

The quakes prompted Indonesian authorities to issue two tsunami alerts................

................RUPTURE POSSIBLE A quake like the one that happened yesterday could rupture a reactor and cause a radiation leak that could spread to densely-populated areas, such as Jakarta, which is about 450km away from the proposed site.
In the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine, scientists estimated that radioactive fallout from the damaged plant affected areas more than 2,000kmaway......................................."
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Next Tokai quake could be massive
BY TAKASHI SOEDA, THE ASAHI SHIMBUN 09/05/2007
"The heavily populated Tokai region, which experts say is due for a major earthquake within 30 years, has experienced at least three 'super' temblors of unimaginable destruction during the past 5,000 years, according to a study.
Unlike so-called Tokai earthquakes that occur every 100 years or so, a 'super' earthquake is one that causes dramatic change to the landscape through shifts in the Earth's crust.
The envisaged Tokai quake, whose epicenter would be in the Bay of Suruga facing Shizuoka Prefecture, has an anticipated 87-percent likelihood of hitting by 2037, according to a government taskforce.........................

...............The team drilled more than 10 meters at eight sites in an area about 2 kilometers east of the Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant............................".

Worse than Chernobyl: 'dirty timebomb' ticking in a rusting Russian nuclear dump threatens Europe - 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. - The Independent, Rachel Shields, 10 June 2007 - "A decaying Russian nuclear dump inside the Arctic Circle is threatening to catch fire or explode, turning it into a 'dirty bomb' that could impact the whole of northern Europe, including the British Isles.

Experts are warning that sea water and intense cold are corroding a storage facility at Andreeva Bay, on the Kola Peninsula near Murmansk. It contains more than 20,000 discarded fuel rods from nuclear submarines and some nuclear-powered icebreakers. A Norwegian environmental group, Bellona, says it has obtained a copy of a secret report by the Russian nuclear agency, Rosatom, which speaks of an "uncontrolled nuclear reaction"........................

.......The three storage tanks contain more than 32 tons of radioactive material. But the Kola Peninsula is littered with relics of Soviet nuclear facilities, housing more than 100 tons of nuclear waste - the largest concentration in the world.Experts predict that a major explosion at Andreeva Bay could destroy all life in a 32-mile radius, including Murmansk and a sliver of Norway, whose border is only 28 miles away. But a much wider area of Norway, north-west Russia and Finland would be rendered uninhabitable for at least 20 years, and huge quantities of radioactive material would be dumped into the Barents Sea......................................................"

Key radiological sites still unsecured - WASHINGTON, March 14 (UPI) -- "Just four of 20 nuclear waste storage sites in Russia and Ukraine have been secured, making the remainder vulnerable to thieves and terrorists. The U.S. Energy Department has spent more than $108 million since 2001 helping secure 368 radiological sites in 40 foreign countries.

However, some 70 percent of them are medical sites with a single source of radiation to be secured rather than the higher risk commercial, industrial and waste sites that are more expensive to secure, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office.

Meanwhile, 16 of 20 nuclear waste sites in the former Soviet Union are not secured, and some high-risk countries have not given DOE permission to undertake security upgrades at all. There are also more than 700 highly radioactive radioisotope thermoelectric generators -- which power lighthouses and weather stations -- in the former Soviet Union that are either operational or abandoned, but not secured. 'DOE says this probably represents largest supply of unsecured radioactive material in the world,'states the report.

Loose radioactive materials pose a security concern because with little technological expertise they can be packed in a bomb with conventional explosives and detonated. The radiological fallout could kill additional people beyond the radius of the initial blast, render areas uninhabitable for long periods of time and cause economic devastation.

THE UNTHINKABLE - Can the United States be made safe from nuclear terrorism? - The New Yorker …by STEVE COLL - 6/3/07 (This is a long article exploring the complicated problem of the safety, and safety precautions, regarding radioactive materials)

" ............................................The term "dirty bomb" can refer to a wide variety of devices, but generally it describes one that would use a conventional explosive such as dynamite to release radioactive material into the air. The initial explosion and its subsequent plume might kill or sicken a dozen or perhaps as many as a few hundred people, depending on such factors as wind and the bomb-maker's skill. If the weapon was particularly well made, employing one of the most potent and long-lived types of radioactive materials that are used in medicine and in the food industry, it might also cause considerable economic damage-perhaps rendering a number of city blocks uninhabitable. Radioactive ground contamination cannot easily be scrubbed away, so it might be necessary to tear down scores of buildings and cart the rubble to disposal sites. It's easy to imagine what the impact of such an attack would be if the contaminated area was, say, a quarter of the East Village, or the Seventh Arrondissement of Paris………………………

The available evidence suggests that while jihadi leaders might like to acquire a proper fission weapon, their pragmatic plans seem to run to dirty bombs-a more plausible ambition.Among other things, the international nuclear black market holds more promise for dirty-bomb builders than for those who are interested in fission weapons. In all the cases of nuclear smuggling reported to the International Atomic Energy Agency since the collapse of the Soviet Union, none have involved significant amounts of fissionable materials………………..