The Sörmland County Council in central Sweden ‘accidentally’ hired a convicted criminal who had served a long prison sentence for threatening to blow up oil storage tanks and had to pay 1million kronor in severance pay to get rid of him. … Read More
Third underground tank leaking at Fukushima nuclear plant
Seven storage tanks were built to store contaminated water, which is in turn used to keep reactor cores and spent fuel pools stable during the decades-long decommissioning process.The facility’s No. 2 tank was found to be leaking on April 5 and released some 120 tons of contaminated water, and the No. 3 tank began to leak on April 7. TEPCO has been urged to prevent the toxic runoff from reaching the ocean, which thus far seems to have been avoided. … Read More
Women and children killed in shelling near Damascus: report
AFP – At least 15 civilians, including a child and three women, died on Sunday in shelling of towns east of Damascus, a monitoring group said, while tanks pounded rebel enclaves on the Syrian capital’s edges. The army said it had laid siege to rebels east of Damascus, although the…
Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant leaks contaminated water
Though the contaminated water is not expected to reach the sea, as it is located 800 meters inland, Saturday’s incident is yet another reminder to Japan that it will still take decades to fully decommission the facility. A total of seven water storage tanks were excavated at Fukushima following a massive 9.0 earthquake in 2011, which triggered a tsunami that crippled the plant’s ability to cool its fuel rods. At the time, an all-out effort was made by TEPCO to flood the plant’s reactors with seawater to cool them, though that did not prevent three of the reactors from melting down. Hydrogen reactions also badly damaged the reactors’ housing structures. This latest incident comes on the heels of failures in the cooling system – only two weeks ago a massive power outage caused the plant’s cooling system to fail for 29 hours. The incident was later attributed to a small animal that had entered an electrical switchboard. In addition, TEPCO conceded that on Friday they had lost the ability to cool the rods at one of the reactors for some three hours following a technical glitch. Officials with the power company recently admitted that, although it has excavated seven holding tanks, it has struggled to contain groundwater from flooding into the plant’s damaged reactors, and it may take up to four years to correct that issue. TEPCO is as of yet uncertain what caused one of its seven tanks to leak, though it plans to pump the remaining 13,000 cubic meters of water into other tanks within the next two weeks. Japan’s government believes a full cleanup of the Fukushima site will take some 40 years, and the cleanup of contaminated areas will cost at least $13 billion. … Read More
Hanford Nuclear Waste Site at Risk of Hydrogen Explosion, Report Warns
The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board expressed these concerns in a briefing letter to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. … Read More
Hanford nuclear waste tanks under risk of explosion
After Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DFNSB) about the risks posed by the nuclear site, board members relayed their concerns about the potential for hydrogen gas buildup within the walls of a tank – particularly those with double walls.”All the double-shell tanks contain waste that continuously generates some flammable gas,” the board said in a letter received by Wyden on Monday. “This gas will eventually reach flammable conditions if adequate ventilation is not provided.”The safety board had previously issued a warning about their concerns, which have not yet been addressed. In September, the board sent a letter to the Department of Energy, claiming that there were no adequate safeguards to protect against the buildup of flammable gasses inside Hanford’s waste storage tanks. The letter, which outlines the concerns shared with Sen. Wyden on Monday, was declassified on Tuesday.If the tanks were to explode, there would be flammable releases that would “have considerable radiological consequences, endanger personnel, contaminate portions of the Tank Farms, and seriously disrupt the waste cleanup mission,” the previously classified DFNSB report states.Hanford’s double-shelled tanks contain some of the deadliest mixtures of nuclear and chemical waste left over from World War II and Cold War-era plutonium production. The Hanford Nuclear Reservation has been a serious cause of concern, since six of the facility’s tanks were found to be leaking about 1,000 gallons of nuclear waste each year. The Department of Energy discovered the leaks years ago, but has failed to address the problem.Last September, the safety board recommended that state and federal officials more closely monitor the tanks and increase ventilation. Federal officials have allegedly taken those recommendations into consideration and are working on a plan to address the board’s concerns, the Associated Press reports.But despite continuous problems and public health risks associated with the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, construction of a waste treatment plant has been delayed. Such a plant would make the toxic chemicals safe for long-term disposal and would be crucial in preventing all of the radioactive waste from leaking into the ground.The DFNSB hopes that discussing the very real possibility of an explosion will alarm Department of Energy officials and prompt them to take action. The Hanford site currently holds 56 million gallons of radioactive toxic waste that is leaking into the soil. Wyden, who chairs the Senate Energy and National Resources Committee, believes there is no time to waste in regards to the cleanup process.”The next Secretary of Energy – Dr. Moniz – needs to understand that a major part of his job is going to be to get the Hanford cleanup back on track, and I plan to stress that at his confirmation hearing next week,” Wyden said in a statement Tuesday.The US government spends about $2 billion each year cleaning up the waste generated by the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, about one third of which goes towards the flawed design and construction of the plant. The $2 billion also makes up about one third of the federal government’s nuclear cleanup budget, and costs are only expected to rise.Although the DFNSB and Sen. Wyden have long been emphasizing the risks created by the plant, the Department of Energy has long failed to acknowledge the severity of the problem. And after the latest warnings about the very possible risk of a nuclear explosion, the department countered the report.“All DSTs are actively ventilated, which means they have blowers and fans to prevent hydrogen gas build-up,” the Department of Energy said in a statement. “These ventilation systems are monitored to ensure they are operating as intended.”Wyden said he plans to ask tough questions during Moniz’s confirmation hearing regarding the future of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. … Read More
Hanford Nuclear Reservation Has Leaking Waste Tanks
Inslee said he was informed on Friday by outgoing US Energy Secretary Steven Chu that a total of six of the aging, single-walled tanks were leaking radioactive waste. … Read More
