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| | | published Wednesday, May 22, 2013 | 25 Views :: 0 Comments |
By Frank Munger From the Knoxville News Sentinel May 21, 2013
 | | From B&W Y-12: The latest conceptual image of the Uranium Processing Facility released by the National Nuclear Security Administration. |
For the past couple of years, the government has stood behind a cost range of $4.2 billion to $6.5 billion for the Uranium Processing Facility, but that range may not be able to contain the giant project's growing costs as the schedule gets pushed into the future and funding gets stretched out.
Todd Jacobson of Nuclear Weapons & Materials Monitor this week reported that, based on a Government Accountability Office briefing prepared for congressional committees, the cost of UPF could go beyond the $6.5 billion estimated cap and perhaps go well beyond it.
According to information in the GAO's 27-page briefing package, the "space/fit" problem that forced the UPF team to re-do the building's design to accommodate more equipment is a big part of the cost escalation. The GAO cited NNSA documents that say the space problem will add $540 million to the project's cost, delay the start of construction and delay the start of facility operations by 13 months.
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| | | published Friday, April 26, 2013 | 317 Views :: 0 Comments |
Legislation would establish new agency to find storage for high-level radioactive waste.
| | Gregory Bull | Associated Press file photo FILE - This Sept. 13, 2012 file photo shows the San Onofre nuclear power plant along the Pacific Ocean coastline in San Onofre, Calif. Two years after Japan's nuclear crisis, Alison Macfarlane, the top U.S. regulator, says American nuclear power plants are safer than ever, but not trouble-free. |
By Thomas Burr From the Salt Lake Tribune April 25, 2013
A bipartisan group of senators wants to form a federal agency responsible for finding homes for the nation’s scattered stockpile of nuclear waste — but only if the eventual storage sites would welcome the radioactive leftovers.
The draft legislation, unveiled Thursday, would implement plans from a blue-ribbon commission that sought to end a stalemate over what to do with tens of thousands of tons of high-level nuclear waste piling up around the nation at nuclear reactors since the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada was shelved.
The proposal would allow for temporary storage until a permanent facility is constructed. There are no plans at present to house either in Utah. A consortium of utilities backing a nuclear storage site on the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation has surrendered its license.
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| | | published Monday, April 22, 2013 | 343 Views :: 0 Comments |
Plan to spend $10bn on updating nuclear bombs goes against 2010 pledge not to deploy new weapons, say critics
April 21, 2013 By Julian Borger From the Guardian (UK)
Nearly 200 B61 gravity bombs would be given new tail fins that would turn them into guided weapons delivered by stealth F35 fighter-bombers. Photograph: EPA Barack Obama has been accused of reneging on his disarmament pledges after it emerged the administration was planning to spend billions on upgrading nuclear bombs stored in Europe to make the weapons more reliable and accurate.
Under the plan, nearly 200 B61 gravity bombs stockpiled in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Turkey would be given new tail fins that would turn them into guided weapons that could be delivered by stealth F35 fighter-bombers.
"This will be a significant upgrade of the US nuclear capability in Europe," said Hans Kristensen, a nuclear weapons expert at the Federation of Nuclear Scientists. "It flies directly in the face of the pledges Obama made in 2010 that he would not deploy new weapons."
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| | | published Monday, April 22, 2013 | 533 Views :: 0 Comments |
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 19, 2013
CONTACT: Snake River Alliance Liz Woodruff, Executive Director 208-344-9161 (w); 208-871-4597 (c)
BOISE – If Thursday’s complaint by two Idaho National Laboratory workers exposed to plutonium shows anything, it is that the Department of Energy and its INL contractor must be more vigilant about the hazards of the materials handled at the Idaho site but also more transparent when dangerous accidents occur and more responsible in helping injured workers, the Snake River Alliance said Friday.
INL workers Ralph Stanton and Brian Simmons say INL contractor Battelle Energy Alliance (BEA) not only created a dangerous work environment but also retaliated against the two when they raised concerns about their exposure to plutonium in a November 2011 accident that affected more than a dozen workers.
On Thursday, Seattle attorney Jack Sheridan filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor alleging the retaliation but also that BEA downplayed the significance of the workers’ plutonium exposure, transferred them to lower level jobs and took various forms of disciplinary actions against them.
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| | | published Wednesday, April 03, 2013 | 398 Views :: 0 Comments |
4/2/2013
By Annette Cary
Tri-City Herald
Flammable gases in Hanford's underground tanks holding radioactive waste continue to pose a possible risk of an explosion, according to a letter from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, asked the defense board for a rundown of current issues at Hanford as he prepares for a confirmation hearing Tuesday for Ernest Moniz, the energy secretary nominee. Wyden is the new chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Read more here: http://www.tri-cityherald.com/2013/04/02/2339343/wydens-concerns-renewed-over-hanford.html#storylink=cpy#storylink=cpy
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| | | published Wednesday, March 20, 2013 | 508 Views :: 0 Comments |
3/19/2013
By Shannon Dinny Associated Press
YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) — Pink slips went out Monday to nearly 250 workers and more than 2,500 others were notified that they face furloughs of several weeks at the nation's most contaminated nuclear site, where cleanup is likely to be slowed because of automatic federal budget cuts.
About 9,000 people work at south-central Washington's Hanford Nuclear Reservation, which produced plutonium for the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal beginning in World War II and through the Cold War.
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| | | published Wednesday, March 20, 2013 | 500 Views :: 0 Comments |
3/15/2013
By Greg Rohloff
The Amarillo Independent
During a daylong hearing on concerns over safety at Pantex, Dr. Peter S. Winokur, chairman of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, addressed an array of National Nuclear Security Administration officials on Thursday and noted that, of all the facilities in the nuclear weapons complex, Pantex is the one he considered to be the gold standard for safety.
That a safety procedure review last summer would indicate employees felt undervalued by Pantex managers, that rocking the boat at the plant could lead to retaliation and possibly threaten the progress of a career, that meeting production schedules was valued more than meeting safety requirements, puzzled Winokur and other board members.
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| | | published Monday, March 11, 2013 | 860 Views :: 2 Comments |
Fee Award Assessments Show Nuclear Weapons Complex in Disarray; Untested Changes to Reliable Stockpile Planned and Encouraged; NNSA Head Increased Profits For Contractors Despite Poor Performance; Greater Federal Oversight of Taxpayers’ Money Needed
3/07/2013
By Jay Coghlan
Nuclear Watch New Mexico
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has recently released Fiscal Year 2012 Performance Evaluation Reports on its contractors at its eight nuclear weapons sites, following Nuclear Watch New Mexico’s successful lawsuit for FY 2011 Reports. These assessments are the scorecards for Performance Evaluation Plans negotiated between the government and its nuclear weapons contractors, which awards the contractors hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ dollars. Public access to these reports is of increasing importance as federal oversight is being continuously diminished. The trend of soaring contractor profits paired with decreasing accountability should be reversed, especially given sequester budget cuts that will further handicap federal oversight.
Nuclear Watch New Mexico has released an analysis and selected excerpts of the FY 2012 NNSA Performance Evaluation Reports. In summary:
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| | | published Friday, March 01, 2013 | 614 Views :: 0 Comments |
2/28/2013
By Matthew Daly
The Associated Press
It was not clear Thursday whether cleanup of the leaking tanks would be affected by the spending cuts. Overall cleanup efforts at Hanford — one of the nation’s most contaminated sites — would be curtailed, Energy Department spokesman Dan Leistikow said.
A report by Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee said more than 1,000 mostly private workers at Hanford could be furloughed. Hanford and other Energy Department defense sites where radioactive waste is stored would be forced to suspend or delay cleanup activities and even shut down some facilities, the report said.
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| | | published Thursday, February 28, 2013 | 951 Views :: 0 Comments |
By Douglas P. Guarino
Global Security Newswire
The head of the National Nuclear Security Administration acknowledged on Tuesday that the $4.8 billion cost estimate to build a facility to convert surplus nuclear-weapon plutonium into reactor fuel is “no longer valid” and that the actual price will likely be much higher.
When construction on the mixed-oxide fuel facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina began in 2007, the project was projected to cost $4.8 billion and to be completed in 2016. The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office this month confirmed rumors that it would likely cost an additional $2 billion to finish construction.
Speaking at a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing, acting NNSA Administrator Neile Miller said her agency was in the process of re-evaluating costs for the plant and could not yet provide an updated projection.
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