Is operation of the H-Canyon reprocessing plant safe as long as it remains a question if the radiation exhaust tunnel can perform its safety function?
Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board for February 23, 2018
“Justification for Continued Operations (JCOs): H-Canyon has implemented the JCO associated with the indeterminate nature of whether the H-Canyon Exhaust Tunnel can perform its safety class safety function (see 10/27/17 report). The JCO allows H-Canyon personnel to accept limited types of spent nuclear fuel into H-Canyon for the first time since June (see 6/30/17 report). They are not planning to charge the dissolver until late next week due to a steam leak.”
DNFSB weekly report linked here
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Nuclear weapons madness aims to blow hole in SRS budget – massive budget request unjustified
Fiscal Year 2018 amount for “weapons activities” at SRS: $256 million
Fiscal Year 2019 request for “weapons activities” at SRS: $329 million
See DOE’s “Laboratory Tables Preliminary,” February 2018 – posted on March 13, 2014
See page 105 pdf for “weapons activities:”
https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2018/03/f49/DOE-FY2019-Budget-Laboratory-Table.pdf
(linked at DOE’s Fiscal Year 2019 budget site.)
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Report in German: “Das Chaos um die Kugelcastoren – Hintergründe und Lösungsansätze”
“The chaos around the graphite balls in castor casks – Backgrounds and solutions”
Article on front page of Strahlentelex, March 1, 2018 – linked here
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With the MOX boondoggle slated for termination, recalculating the volume of waste containers going into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico could make it easier to dispose of downblended plutonium from SRS:
“WIPP: Volume tracking adjustment could ensure plant’s future”
Carlsbad (New Mexico) Current-Argus, March 7, 2018 – article linked here
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S.C. utilities knew of big problems 6 months into nuclear project but didn’t tell customers
Charleston (South Carolina) Post & Courier, March 5, 2018
photo: VC Summer nuclear site, 25 miles north of Columbia, South Carolina, with one operating reactor & two scrapped Westinghouse AP1000 experimental design reactors, January 31, 2018, ©High Flyer, more photos from that date linked here
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The hard lesson of spent fuel reprocessing at West Valley: the US continues to pay the price for the aborted pursuit of that proliferation-prone, waste-producing technology
The United States had a disastrous flirtation with reprocessing of commercial nuclear reactor fuel at the West Valley, New York reprocessing plant – for removal of weapon-usable plutonium – from 1966 to 1972. Thankfully that failed plutonium-proliferation project did not continue but the environmental impacts linger 50 years later.
The West Valley Demonstration Project – a clean-up venture of US DOE and the New York State Energy Research and Development Agency (NYSERDA) is subject to inspection by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The February 22, 2018 NRC inspection report – “U. S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION MONITORING VISIT REPORT
NO. 05000201/2017001, WEST VALLEY DEMONSTRATION PROJECT, WEST
VALLEY, NEW YORK”
How long will this environmental disaster drag on? In any event , we do not want reprocessing of spent fuel in the US.
Photo: Old reprocessing plant at West Valley, just west of Lake Erie (in lake-effect snow country); the SRS Watch director has visited the site
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“Putin boasts of new Russian nuclear weapons”
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia has tested an array of new strategic nuclear weapons that can’t be intercepted, President Vladimir Putin announced Thursday, marking a technological breakthrough that could dramatically increase Russia’s military capability, boost the Kremlin’s global position and also raise Western concerns about a potential renewed arms race in the 21st century. 2018.
article of March 1, 2018 linked here
See Putin’s scary speech on preparing for nuclear war, March 1, 2018:
“Putin presented the latest strategic missiles: no anti-missile systems are no obstacle for us” -(Google translate of Russian title)
For animated videos, during speech, of new weapons systems, such as submarine-launched cruise missile, go to 2’10” (BOOM goes Florida, with multiple warheads!) – 5’40” – 8’30” – 13′ – 18’50” – 21’20” – video linked here
“Putin’s Nuclear Weapons Announcement Ratchets up Arms Race,” statement by Union of Concerned Scientists, March 1, 2018 – linked here
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The focus at SRS must remain on dealing with existing nuclear waste already at the site and not bringing in more waste or plutonium, such as high-level nuclear waste from Germany, Canada or other DOE sites and not building plutonium nuclear weapons components (pits) for a renewed nuclear arms race.
DOE is seeking a new SRS lead contractor when the contract of Savannah River Nuclear Solutions expires on July 31, 2018. Solicitation says “SRS cleanup is expected to be completed in fiscal year (FY) 2065.” (Don’t bet on that date.)
Feb 28, 2018 solicitation – “F–Savannah River Site Operations (Post FY 2018) Procurement Solicitation Number: 89303318REM000016”
“The new contract resulting from this acquisition will replace the Savannah River Nuclear Solutions LLC Contract, which will expire July 31, 2018. This contract will provide the services DOE needs to continue to: eliminate or minimize nuclear materials, Spent Nuclear Fuel, and waste through safe stabilization, treatment, and/or disposition; reduce the costs of continuing operations and surveillance and maintenance; decommission facilities; and remediate surface water, groundwater and contaminated soils consistent with regulatory agreements and permits. SRS cleanup is expected to be completed in fiscal year (FY) 2065.”
see Federal Business Opportunities website for “Savannah River Site Operations (Post FY 2018) Procurement,” February 28, 2018: –www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=ca27ac9b510866555aeff583f30d321b&tab=core&_cview=0
cartoon: by Robert Ariail, “Nuclear Trash Can,” April 5, 2016: http://robertariail.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/aria160405_cmyk.jpg
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Rub it in: DOE again says NIX MOX boondoggle:
DOE report to Congress on MOX fiasco at SRS, November 2017:
https://fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/mox-rept.pdf
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He’s raising the weapons budget and looks to boost plutonium [pit] production” [at SRS or at Los Alamos National Lab]
Salon, Feb. 23, 2018 – linked here
SRS boosters and their corporate sponsors looking to make a buck off taxpayers by planning for a new nuclear arms race and nuclear war. Why not?! After all, SRS is largely about funneling money to contractors, especially for bungled, dead-end projects like MOX.
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SRS Watch in WJBF-TV report: “Department of Energy budget proposes eliminating MOX”
WJBF-TV, Augusta, Georgia, February 15, 2018
COLUMBIA, S.C. (WJBF)- President Trump’s Department of Energy proposes eliminating the MOX project, which employs more than a thousand people in Aiken.
The future of the over-budget, behind schedule project has been brought to the table again. President Trump’s Department of Energy’s budget proposal suggests cutting the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication, or MOX, project. Like it did last year. And like President Obama’s did in 2016.
report: http://wjbf.com/2018/02/16/department-of-energy-budget-proposes-eliminating-mox/
photo: MOX construction debacle at SRS, Jan. 31, 2018, by High Flyer; more photos of the MOX construction fiasco & SRS:
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1SZ9lqOqb-50HOuJJ9IHVwa_t8DYvfP13
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“Exclusive: DOE filed appeal of MOX judgment during Perry visit to Savannah River Site”
Aiken (South Carolina) Observer, February 15, 2018
Federal Court “Notice of Appeal” filed by DOE linked here
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“China nuclear reactor delayed again on ‘safety concerns'”
Reuters, February 12, 2018 – article linked here
“Fuel loading at the world’s first Westinghouse-designed AP1000 nuclear reactor on China’s east coast has been delayed due to “safety concerns” — the latest in a long line of setbacks for the project.
Officials with the U.S.-based Westinghouse had expected fuel loading to start last year, and it would have been followed by around six months of performance tests before the reactor could go into full operation in 2018.”
photo: Vogtle mismanaged construction site, January 31, 2018, ©High Flyer – more Vogtle photos ©High Flyer posted here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1dE4TZkJsiyJc_jX2VzSZAOyEvZIrh__5
VC Summer nuclear scrapyard photos of Jan. 31, 2018, ©High Flyer, posted here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1wnTF-cA9ruwXN_hGFEPmTGiVmiqzGq20
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Even friends can’t overlook a massive, costly, dead-end boondoggle (known as MOX)…
“S.C. nuclear project backers thought they had friends in the White House. They were wrong.”
McClatchy news, DC Bureau, February 13, 2018
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We’ve been sounding the alarm for over 20 years about Japan’s program to stockpile weapon-usable plutonium….
“Japan’s plutonium glut casts a shadow on renewed nuclear deal”
Nikkei, February 14, 2018
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SRS Watch in “DOE budget seeks money to close MOX”
Augusta (Georgia) Chronicle, Feb. 12, 2018
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page 374:
“Nonproliferation Construction – The budget proposes to terminate the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication project and transition to the dilute and dispose strategy to fulfill the United States’ commitment to dispose of 34 metric tons of surplus U.S. weapon-grade plutonium.”
$279 million requested to terminate MOX (see page 373) – below the current $340 million shut-down amount
DOE budget link:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/doe-fy2019.pdf
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Mark Fiore in The Progressive, February 8, 2018
“Buster the Little Nuke” video animation posted here:
http://progressive.org/dispatches/buster-the-little-nuke/
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Terminate MOX
“I am aware that the Administration proposes to terminate the MOX project. I believe the dilute and dispose approach is a proven, less costly, alternative to the MOX facility.”
See “Advance Policy Questions for Lisa Gordon-Hagerty
Nominee for Under Secretary for Nuclear Security, Department of Energy” – February 8, Senate Armed Services
see various responses about MOX in QA:
https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Gordon-Hagerty%20APQ%20Responses_02-08-18.pdf
Hearing link – archived webcast & testimony: https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/hearings/18-02-08-nominations_–ney—fahey—ayres—gordon-hagerty
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by
Center for Public Integrity, February 8, 2018SRS Watch supports the important oversight work of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) at SRS and other DOE facilities and calls on Congress to fully fund the board
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DOE’s project to increase production of radioactive tritium gas – used in all US nuclear weapons and processed at SRS – has run into snags due to problems with inefficient production of the material in the Watts Bar Nuclear Bomb Reactors (WBNBRs), operated by the federally owned Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). Production of a nuclear weapons material in commercial nuclear power reactors crosses a bright red line in violation of sound nuclear non-proliferation policies.
“The U.S. Program to Produce Tritium Using Commercial Light Water Power Reactors: An Update”
– by Gregory Jones, Proliferation Matters, February 7, 2018
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Announcement of Public Comment
Period and Information Meetings
Requested Modification to the
Hazardous Waste Facility Permit for the
Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Carlsbad Field Office and Nuclear Waste Partnership LLC (NWP).
DOE and NWP (Permittees) will conduct public meetings to provide information on the following
Class 2 Permit Modification Request for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP)
Hazardous Waste Facility Permit (Permit):
• Clarification of TRU Mixed Waste Disposal Volume Reporting
see full notice here: http://www.wipp.energy.gov/rcradox/rfc/Volume_of_Record.pdf
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