July 6: NRC Safety Meeting at Susquehanna Nuclear

NRC TO DISCUSS ‘SAFETY CONSCIOUS WORK ENVIRONMENT’
AT SUSQUEHANNA NUCLEAR POWER PLANT AT PUBLIC MEETING ON JULY 6

NRC staff will meet with PPL representatives on Monday, July 6, to discuss the Susquehanna nuclear power plant’s “safety conscious work environment” as a follow-up to earlier concerns at the plant. A safety conscious work environment is one in which safety issues are promptly identified and effectively resolved and in which employees feel free to raise safety concerns without fear of retaliation.

The meeting will begin at 4 p.m. at the Susquehanna Energy Information Center, at 634 Salem Blvd. in Berwick, Pa. Prior to the meeting’s adjournment, NRC staff will answer questions from the public. Also, the meeting will be preceded by an hour-long, informal information session for the public on the subject scheduled to start at 3 p.m. at the same location.

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Radioactive subject matter

There is, believe it or not, a publication by the name of Uranium Intelligence Weekly, and Stephanie Cooke is its editor. This esoteric subject is right up her alley, as Cooke covered the nuclear industry for almost 30 years. Cooke, who grew up in Sudbury, has just written a book, “In Mortal Hands: A Cautionary History of the Nuclear Age’’ (Bloomsbury), in which she pierces the secretive society of the players and history of nuclear energy. Cooke now lives in Washington, D.C.

The Boston Globe

Allison Macfarlane: A nuclear expert on life after Yucca.

In 1982, the U.S. government formally accepted the dirty job of finding a place to dispose of highly radioactive nuclear waste, including spent reactor fuel, which will remain radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years. Five years later, Congress directed the U.S. Department of Energy to begin seriously investigating a single site--Yucca Mountain, NV--as a permanent geological repository. But earlier this year, with 60,000 metric tons of spent fuel clogging storage facilities at power plants, the Obama administration announced that it would cut Yucca's funding and seek alternatives.

Allison Macfarlane, a geologist at George Mason University and the editor of Uncertainty Underground: Yucca Mountain and the Nation's High-Level Nuclear Waste, is a leading technical expert on nuclear-waste disposal who recently sat on a National Research Council committee evaluating the Department of Energy's nuclear-power R&D programs. She spoke with David Talbot, Technology Review's chief correspondent, about the future of nuclear waste--and what it means for the future of nuclear power.

MIT Technology Review

NRC to send shortfall letters to 26 atomic plants

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission will notify the owners of 26 nuclear plants Friday that they are not saving enough money to dismantle the reactors once they're no longer operating.

In a memo obtained by The Associated Press on Thursday, the agency told congressional offices it would make a formal announcement of its findings on Friday. It said it would work with the plants on a case-by-case basis to develop remedial savings plans.

"Normally, there are only four to five plants that fall into this category," NRC senior congressional affairs officer Eugene Dacus wrote in the memo. "The NRC believes that the economy may account for the unusually high number this year."

The Boston Globe

Nuclear funds hit with losses

The economic downturn has caused funds set aside for the safe closure of the Three Mile Island and Peach Bottom nuclear plants to drop dramatically in the last two years.

Since 2007, estimates of dismantling costs at the nation's 104 nuclear plants have risen by more than $4.6 billion while the investment funds that are supposed to pay for the closures — or decommissioning as it's called — have dropped $4.4 billion, according to an investigation by the Associated Press.

According to decommissioning fund statements filed by Exelon Corp., owners of the two plants, the balance in the closure fund for Three Mile Island's Unit 1 dropped $69 million from 2007 to 2009.

For Peach Bottom, decommissioning funds dropped $64 million over the last two years for Unit 2 and nearly $70 million for the Unit 3 reactor.

LancasterOnline.com

Costs for closing nuclear plants

Companies that own nearly half the nation's 104 nuclear reactors aren't setting aside enough money as required by law to dismantle the plants and remove radioactive materials when they stop operating, and many may sit idle for decades at the risk of safety and security problems, according to an Associated Press investigation.

Here are the 2009 minimum estimated costs for closing each of the nation's 104 operating nuclear power plants; the 2007 decommissioning fund balances; and the 2009 decommissioning fund balances:

Associated Press

AP IMPACT: Funds to shut nuclear plants fall short

The companies that own almost half the nation's nuclear reactors are not setting aside enough money to dismantle them, and many may sit idle for decades and pose safety and security risks as a result, an Associated Press investigation has found.

The shortfalls are caused not by fluctuating appetites for nuclear power but by the stock market and other investments, which have suffered huge losses over the past year and damaged the plants' savings, and by the soaring costs of decommissioning.

At 19 nuclear plants, owners have won approval to idle reactors for as long as 60 years, presumably enough time to allow investments to recover and eventually pay for dismantling the plants and removing radioactive material.

But mothballing reactors or shutting them down inadequately could pose dangerous health, environmental or security problems. In the worst cases, generally considered unlikely, risks include radioactive waste leaking from idled plants into groundwater, airborne releases or a terrorist attack.

Associated Press