Latest from the friendly nuclear industry

From NASA Running Out of Plutonium

PRB_Ohio takes us to Space.com for a story about NASA's plutonium shortage, and how it may affect future missions to the far reaches of the solar system. The U.S. hasn't produced plutonium since 1988, instead preferring to purchase it from Russia. We discussed the U.S. government's plans to resume production in 2005, but those plans ended up being shelved.

From Recycling uranium and plutonium: where's it heading?

Currently 12 of the countries with nuclear energy programmes are committed to a closed nuclear fuel cycle but there are signs that the number will soon increase. In particular, the USA is reassessing its previous policy, set strongly against reprocessing with subsequent recycling of recovered materials. The decision to introduce MOX fuel from ex-weapons plutonium in civil reactors was an important factor in that country's change of policy and the first assemblies are now in use in reactors operated by Duke Power. In November 2005 the American Nuclear Society released a position statement saying that it “believes that the development and deployment of advanced nuclear reactors based on fast neutron fission technology is important to the sustainability, reliability and security of the world's long-term energy supply.” This will enable “extending by a hundred-fold the amount of energy extracted from the same amount of mined uranium.” The statement envisages onsite reprocessing of used fuel from fast reactors and says that “virtually all long-lived heavy elements are eliminated during fast reactor operation, leaving a small amount of fission product waste which requires assured isolation from the environment for less than 500 years.”

From Nuke waste dump operator pays fines for self-reported violations

A Dallas company operating a radioactive waste storage and disposal site in West Texas said Friday that it has agreed to pay the state $151,000 in penalties for violations in 2005 and 2006.

The penalties stem from incidents in Andrews County, near the New Mexico border, where Waste Control Specialists operates a transfer, treatment, storage and disposal facility for Cold War-era radioactive waste.

Neither of the chemical contamination incidents endangered the public, the company said.

According to an enforcement agreement with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, in 2005 the company allowed radioactive materials, including Plutonium-239 and Americium-241, to get into an administration and laboratory septic system. That system was within a quarter-mile of a well used for drinking water.

From Group calls for more plutonium removal from Livermore lab

A government watchdog group on Monday criticized security standards at Northern California's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and called on the Energy Department to speed up removal of weapons-grade plutonium and uranium from the site.

The Project on Government Oversight released a report saying that Lawrence Livermore poses graver security threats than any other nuclear facility or weapons lab because of its unique location in the heavily populated San Francisco Bay area, near residential neighborhoods and schools.

The group said the government can and should remove nuclear material from the site next year rather than by 2012 as currently planned by the National Nuclear Security Administration, part of the Energy Department.

The Project on Government Oversight also reported that Lawrence Livermore has been granted a "waiver" exempting it from having to meet the latest security standards for national labs. There's about 1 ton of nuclear material at Lawrence Livermore, the group said.