Robot submarines are to be used to sweep particles of plutonium and other radioactive materials from the seabed near one of Britain's biggest nuclear plants in one of the most delicate clean-up operations ever in this country.
Each submersible will be fitted with a Geiger counter and will crisscross the sea floor to pinpoint every deadly speck close to Dounreay on Scotland's north coast before lifting each particle and returning it to land for safe storage.
Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. has wisely waded into the fray, and from all indications, dealt a knock-out blow to EnergySolutions' plan to import low-level radioactive waste from Italy's nuclear power industry.
Huntsman said he will instruct his representative on the board of the Northwest Interstate Compact on Low-level Radioactive Waste, state Department of Environmental Quality Deputy Director Bill Sinclair, to vote against the plan on May 8. And Sinclair says he will comply with the governor's request.
Croatia must assume half of the waste from the Krsko plant but where will the government store thousands of cubic metres of dangerous waste?
HANOVER, Germany, May 6 (UPI) -- Expanding nuclear power to meet growing energy demand worldwide may be hindered by the lack of repositories for spent nuclear fuel, but planned national underground repositories in some countries and interim storage options could sustain nuclear energy's rapid growth in the short term.
Is nuclear power the answer to the energy crisis? Ian Sample explains how it works - and how we get the awful side-effects of bombs and waste.
KIEV (AFP) — Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko Wednesday inaugurated a nuclear waste storage and processing centre in the contaminated zone around the Chernobyl nuclear station ahead of the catastrophe's 22nd anniversary, his press service said.
The centre's first module, constructed with the European Commission's aid, would be launched by the end of the year, Valentin Melnichenko, a project official, told AFP.
SALT LAKE CITY: Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman says he is reversing his stance and will block the shipment of Italian nuclear waste to a desert dump site in his state.
Huntsman initially said the federal government should decide where to dispose such foreign waste.
It seems like a no-brainer. Make uranium burn stronger, hotter and longer in nuclear reactors, and you'll need less fuel, and there'll be less waste to deal with when it has been exhausted.
For decades, nuclear operators have done just that, but emerging safety and waste-disposal issues are raising questions about this approach. The latest high-efficiency fuel may prove to be unstable in an emergency, and so poses a greater risk of leakage of radioactive material into the environment. What's more, the waste fuel is more radioactive, meaning it could prove even more difficult than existing waste to store in underground repositories.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority on Wednesday will appeal to industry for help in dealing with the UK's 100-tonne stockpile of plutonium, and in deciding whether to treat it as waste or reuse it as fuel for nuclear reactors.
One option being considered is for the highly radioactive plutonium to be used to make fuel for a new nuclear reactor at Sellafield, where the plutonium is currently stored. But the question of whether the plutonium should be used or disposed of could reopen the debate on nuclear reprocessing and whether spent fuel from the next generation of nuclear reactors should be reused.
RIGA, April 1 (RIA Novosti) - Latvia's government made a decision on Tuesday to pay $700,000 to Russia for the removal and burial of spent nuclear fuel from the dismantled Salaspils research reactor.
