Staff working for Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. lost a metal part they removed from a reactor at the Bruce nuclear power station in April, and didn't tell anyone until an employee from the station found it in June when it triggered the alarm on his radiation monitor.Bruce Power immediately notified the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission that one of its workers received a radiation dose, as is required under safety rules.

Critics say the incident highlights a serious loophole in Canada's nuclear regulations. AECL is a contractor at the site, refurbishing the aging Bruce 1 station, and isn't immediately required to divulge when it loses track of highly radioactive materials pulled from reactors.

The missing part – a piece of metal about 10 centimetres in size – came to light only because a worker inadvertently received a radiation dose, which is considered such a serious incident that it must be reported to regulators either “immediately” or by the end of the next business day.

Bruce Power was miffed by the incident, and has informed AECL that, from now on, it wants to be informed if radioactive material goes missing.

“We do expect that if material is unaccounted for, we want to be told about it,” said Steve Cannon, a Bruce spokesman. “We talked to AECL about that. … They understand that it's important.”

The missing piece was emitting high amounts of radiation, and would have given any worker holding it the maximum yearly allowed dose of this form of energy – feared because it can cause cancer – in only a few minutes.

But workers in the plant didn't come near the dangerous part because they handled it using remote-control devices, and the employee who made the discovery got only a chest X-ray type dose by quickly backing away.

The regulatory report filed by Bruce on June 24 indicates that AECL “became aware on April 23” that the piece was missing, but “they failed to notify” the station's radiation protection department. “The increased hazard would have existed from that time,” it said.

Greenpeace nuclear critic Shawn-Patrick Stensil said “it's amazing that you can lose a major radioactive component and not have an obligation to report it.”

He contended that the incident, which he said “shows a culture of secrecy,” will undermine AECL as it tries to sell new reactors in Ontario, where the government wants new atomic power plants built to meet future electricity needs.

Dale Coffin, a spokesman for Crown-owned AECL, played down the events, saying no one was harmed over the two-month period that the piece was missing because workers weren't in the area. Once it was found, the location, in the reactor vault, was safely cordoned off. “There is no requirement on our behalf to notify the CNSC because nobody was in there working,” Mr. Coffin said.

The Bruce nuclear station is located on Lake Huron near Kincardine, Ont.

The lost piece was known as a calandria tube insert ring. The regulatory report on the incident said no other rings are missing. “It has also been reinforced with staff that should any items that could significantly change radiological hazards be unaccounted for radiation protection staff are to be immediately notified,” it said.

'It feels like a sci-fi film' - accidents tarnish nuclear dream

The Guardian - SaturdayJuly 26-2008

French nuclear companies are hoping to play a central role in the government's plan to build a new generation of reactors. At home, however, the industry has been buffeted by a series of mishaps. Angelique Chrisafis reports from Bollène

Sylvie Eymard's Provence farmhouse kitchen should be the picture of French rural calm. But the stockpiles of bottled water, disinfectant rinse and disposable paper plates hint at something strange.

For the past two weeks, Eymard, 41, and her children, 13 and seven, have had a phobia of taps. To wash up, they go out to the yard and fill a bowl from a specially delivered plastic tank of purified water on a fork-lift tractor. They carry the water up to the bathroom to wash. Even the dog drinks bottled water, and it is left out for the birds.

"I feel as if everything's constantly dirty," Eymard said, her hands deep in soapy lather scrubbing plates.

The view from the house over the fields is dominated by the nearby cooling towers of the Tricastin site, a nuclear power plant run by EDF, the company which is poised to buy British Energy and take control of most UK nuclear stations.

Next to the plant is a nuclear treatment centre run by a subsidiary of Areva, the nuclear group which hopes to design many of the new British reactors. Last month an accident at the treatment centre during a draining operation saw liquid containing untreated uranium overflow out of a faulty tank. About 75kg of uranium seeped into the ground and into the Gaffiere and Lauzon rivers which flow into the Rhône. Eymard's house is 100 metres from one of these streams.

Like a handful of rural homes near the nuclear site, hers is plumbed into the local groundwater from wells. For 20 years she has drunk from the tap. But after the incident there was a ban on drinking the groundwater, using it to water fields - as all local farmers do - or swimming or fishing in local lakes and streams. Since then, Eymard feels like she is in an episode of The Simpsons, in a Springfield where people's trust has been abused by haphazard mistakes. "It feels like a science fiction film where experts constantly come to examine and film the people who've been exposed."

At the centre for adults with learning disabilities where she works, some have seen her on the TV news and innocently asked for her autograph. At 10.30am on the dot, two men in green overalls from the nuclear site appear at her door to collect the daily sample of water from her tap to analyse it for uranium. Levels have fluctuated daily.

Even after the official ban was lifted this week and the families' urine samples tested normal, Eymard won't drink from the tap. "I always trusted that nuclear was totally secure. But now I wonder, have there been other accidents in the past we haven't been told about?"

The nuclear site at Bollène sits in a picturesque corner of Provence between the lavender fields and cypress trees that stretch north to the nougat capital of Montélimar and to the historic town of Avignon 30 miles to the south, which was hosting its famous theatre festival when the spillage occurred.

Until now most locals have accepted the plant as a risk-free part of everyday life in nuclear-dependent France. More than 80% of France's electricity is generated by the country's 58 nuclear reactors - the world's highest ratio. But the leak has shaken French trust in nuclear safety and embarrassed Nicolas Sarkozy as he crusades for a French-led world renaissance in atomic power.

The president wants to export French nuclear know-how around the world, including to Britain where nuclear power supplies 19% of electricity, and London and Paris are to cooperate on a new generation of nuclear power plants. Areva, 90% state-owned, is at the heart of foreign cooperation agreements not just with Europe but countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Algeria and Libya. Last year it clinched the biggest commercial nuclear power contract on record, worth €8bn (£6.3bn), to supply China with two reactors and provide nuclear fuel for nearly two decades.

Areva has been criticised by France's nuclear safety watchdog over the Tricastin leak for not adequately informing local authorities and for unsatisfactory measures and operational procedures. The leak rated at level one of the seven-stage scale of nuclear incidents.

It was detected on the night of July 7 but the town hall and locals who continued to drink water contaminated with uranium were not informed until the following afternoon. Areva's chief executive, Anne Lauvergeon, called the leak an "anomaly" which posed no danger to humans or the environment. The treatment plant has been shut and the subsidiary's director removed.

But in recent days there have been other, lesser incidents at nuclear sites. In Romans-sur-Isère, north of Tricastin, at another site run by an Areva subsidiary, officials discovered a burst underground pipe which had been broken for years and did not meet safety standards. A tiny amount of lightly enriched uranium leaked but not beyond the plant. This week, about 100 staff at Tricastin's nuclear reactor number four were contaminated by radioactive particles that escaped from a pipe. EDF described the contamination as "slight".

The French government has now ordered tests on the groundwater around all nuclear sites in France. The environment minister, Jean-Louis Borloo, said there were 86 level-one nuclear incidents in France last year and 114 in 2006.

People living near the Tricastin plant remain concerned. In basil and coriander fields farmed by the extended Eymard family not far from the nuclear site, part of the crop was ruined after wilting during the ban on using contaminated water. The herbs, which are sold to make frozen seasoning, have been tested for radioactivity and cleared.

Roger Eymard, 69, a retired farmer, now washes by pouring purified water into the shower fitting of his camper van parked in a stable. "Nuclear was progress and we wanted that. We thought people were competent. Now we ask, were there previous incidents we weren't told about?"

France's IRSN nuclear safety institute has pinpointed high levels of uranium in the groundwater that it said could not have been caused by the recent leak alone. A separate commission raised the possibility that this contamination could be linked to military nuclear waste at the Tricastin plant from 1964 to 1976.

The area's image has been so dented that the nearby Rhône Valley wine makers whose label is Coteaux du Tricastin want to change their name. In nearby Bollène, sales of bottled water have soared despite assurances that the tap water is unaffected. Some people have even asked chemists for iodine tablets, recommended for a nuclear emergency.

Not far from the nuclear site, Emilie Dubois, 61, sat by her luxury swimming pool framed by fig trees, poolside bar, shower and designer outdoor kitchen. But for two weeks the cover has been on as the family ordered tests on radioactivity levels in the pool water.

The day the emergency water ban was announced, more than 50 people swimming in a local lake were ordered out and fled. "It was as if there was a shark attack," one said.

Dubois was in her pool with her grandchildren when a town hall official arrived to tell her of a ban on watering with groundwater. He said he had orders not to give an explanation. She assumed it was a drought warning and got back in the pool. Only from television that night did the family learn of the leak. The pool, filled with local groundwater, was a potential contamination zone. It has now tested safe to swim in.

Her husband is a retired engineer from the plant and her sons work in the industry. "I've never questioned the safety of nuclear," she said. She has resumed watering her vegetable patch and ate freshly picked salad for lunch. "It's organic but it's been watered with the groundwater after the leak. Why would I eat anyone else's tomatoes that weren't organic? Although there are thoughts at the back of my mind as I'm eating."

Sarkozy recently announced that France will build a second new-generation nuclear reactor, a European pressurised water reactor or EPR. He said nuclear power was France's best answer to soaring energy prices and global warming. The Green party attacked the EPR as "useless, dangerous and expensive", saying: "France is becoming a nuclear showroom for Sarkozy the sales rep and Areva."

Not far from the stream that was contaminated from the Tricastin leak, Joel Bernard sat in his farmhouse tallying the loss to his carrots, radishes, turnips and cherries which couldn't be watered during the ban. "Until last week, it was paradise here," he said. "I don't want to return to the rural past. But something like this creates a kind of suspicion."

Deadly denial: Navajo miners in a different kind of Cold War

By Laura Frank, Rocky Mountain News Wednesday, July 23, 2008

TUBA CITY, Ariz. This spring, officials from the U.S. Department of Labor sat around a small fire, touching sweet corn pollen to their tongues and inhaling spicy cedar smoke in a traditional Navajo ceremony.

Larry Martinez, who manages the Office of Navajo Uranium Workers, had organized the ceremony hoping to improve a working relationship that he described as "difficult and getting worse" between the Navajo and the labor department, which manages a federal program to compensate sick nuclear weapons workers.

Ten thousand Navajo men mined uranium for America's atomic bombs. The U.S. government knew early on that uranium could cause lung damage. But instead of warning the Navajo miners, the government decided to study what happened to them.

Now those who survived and the families of those who didn't are having trouble proving that they qualify for compensation.

"I'd like to have you understand this ceremony is going to create this coordination," Martinez said in English during the mostly Navajo-language ceremony. "We're all in this together, to make sure the Cold War patriot, the person who sacrificed his health to protect his country, is taken care of. When you leave here, you'll be part of what happened here."

But less than two hours after the ceremony, the spirit of cooperation appeared to have worn off.

At a public meeting to explain the benefits of the compensation program to sick Navajo uranium workers, the lead DOL official ejected some of the people he had just participated with in the cooperation ceremony.

Booted out were representatives of an in-home health care company from Denver authorized to provide care for gravely sick uranium workers.

Martinez was seething.

"Did that ceremony mean nothing to them?" the usually calm Martinez said.

Wall of opposition

Most of the uranium workers whom Martinez helps are by law supposed to be compensated automatically through a program created eight years ago. It compensates workers who sacrificed their health, and sometimes their lives, as they labored amid highly toxic and top-secret materials used to build nuclear weapons.

Many of the Navajo were compensated $100,000 by a previous program created in 1990 and were to be automatically eligible for the new one, so their total benefits would rise to the current standards.

Instead, the Navajos have joined other former nuclear workers in fighting a different cold war, this time against their own government.

A Rocky Mountain News investigation found that the compensation program has become so complex and adversarial that even claims that by law were to be automatically approved the Navajo being a striking example are being stonewalled.

Only one in four sick workers or their survivors has been compensated, while millions of tax dollars have been spent redoing faulty work, including repeatedly rewriting technical reports, re-examining old exposure records that workers say are wrong and reopening denied claims only to deny them again.

Meanwhile, top officials running the compensation program have collected tens of thousands of dollars each in bonuses. In all, program officials have been given more then $3.2 million in bonuses since the program began. That includes $116,000 in bonuses for Shelby Hallmark, the program's top official.

Sick workers believe that their government is intentionally thwarting them. They are not alone.

"It's an ideological issue," said Bill Richardson, the former energy secretary who persuaded the Clinton administration to enact the compensation program. "When the Bush administration came in, they saw this as an entitlement program they didn't believe in. They had to comply with it, but they did so by putting up barriers so it wouldn't work properly."

A White House spokesman declined to comment, saying that the labor department would speak for the administration.

While DOL didn't respond to the Rocky's inquiries, it sent a statement responding to Richardson: "The Department of Labor has paid out nearly $4 billion dollars to energy worker claimants, well in excess of estimates provided by then-Secretary Richardson's Department of Energy, which led to the official Congressional Budget Office report. In just eight years, DOL has already issued payments to almost three times as many workers and their families (6,500 vs 15,000) as the CBO estimated would be paid in ten years. We remain committed to making sure that energy workers receive the compensation to which they are entitled."

The DOL's Web site says that more that 42,000 claims have been paid. The department did not respond to questions about the discrepancy between 15,000 paid versus 42,000.

Counting the cost

The controversial method of determining which workers deserve compensation has been fraught with problems, but program officials have clung to the process. Government scientists at the National Institute for Occupation Safety and Health continually change the way they estimate how much radiation workers absorbed.

More than two thirds of these estimates involving more than 12,000 sick Cold War veterans have had to be reviewed or completely reworked because of changes in the methods scientists say will give the best estimates. And because the scientific understanding of how toxic substances cause disease continues to evolve, virtually no case can ever be closed for good.

Larry Elliott, who directs dose reconstruction at NIOSH, declined to say how much each of nearly 18,000 dose reconstructions cost taxpayers. But since the program began, his office has spent more than $280 million in administrative costs.

Too much of that has been wasted, said U.S. Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., cousin to Colorado Congressman Mark Udall.

"Nothing could be more irresponsible than to spend taxpayer dollars fighting claimants rather than compensating them," Tom Udall said. "When claimants are forced to submit to unnecessary tests or when NIOSH spends time and resources hunting for records that simply don't exist taxpayer money is wasted and sick workers are forced to bear additional suffering."

One key government contractor was paid for completion of essential reports, and got paid more when those reports proved faulty and had to be fixed.

One of the key documents used in the dose reconstruction is called a site profile. This report attempts to list the kinds of toxic exposures workers in different jobs at different sites might have encountered. But not one of the site profiles for any of the major weapons sites was correct the first time, the Rocky found in reviewing various versions of the reports.

A big part of NIOSH's administrative expense went to Oak Ridge Associated Universities, the Tennessee-based consortium that won the original $70 million contract to do the profiles and estimate worker radiation doses. As of last year, the contract, still going after nine extensions that include new dose reconstruction work, had nearly tripled to $200 million.

As one result, the administrative costs for the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program are 15 times higher than similar programs.

While the government declined to detail its spending in response to the Rocky's questions, labor department officials acknowledged earlier this year that administrative costs for the program reach about 33 percent of its payments to claimants.

That is a stunning figure for administrative costs when compared with the 2 percent for a sister program that compensates uranium miners and people exposed to atomic bomb testing. Administrative costs for Social Security Disability Insurance are about 2.5 percent of payments.

Officials say part of the reason is that the nuclear workers program is much more complex than the other compensation programs. But that, says Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., whose district includes the former Rocky Flats weapons site near Denver, is exactly the problem.

"It's putting the onus and the burden on the people who are already carrying significant burdens," Udall said. "I think it's an outrage."

Double dose of rejection

DOL has had to reopen thousands of cases it had already denied, citing changes in the scientific methods it uses to determine who receives compensation.

Government scientists discovered, for example, that Rocky Flats contained a previously unknown kind of plutonium "Super-S" that had not been monitored or studied. They spent two years working on a scientific method to estimate the radiation wallop that the Super-S might have given Flats workers. Some were notified by letter that their denials were being overturned and their cases reconsidered.

But many former workers found their new dose estimates lower than before.

Shelby Hallmark, the labor department executive who oversees the program, predicted workers' dismay with these so-called reworks earlier this year.

"More people are going to go back through reworks and get a second denial," he said. "It's not going to be pleasant for these folks."

Hallmark knew even then that the reworks were unlikely to result in more workers being compensated. That is because the original method used more claimant-friendly assumptions in estimating radiation doses. But the newer methods are more exact, Hallmark said.

The original estimates were "claimant-favorable ... overestimates," said Larry Elliott, who oversees the work at NIOSH.

But the original estimates apparently weren't favorable to all claimants. Elliott acknowledged some reworks came back higher than the original "overestimates."

The constantly changing methods have not benefited most workers, Mark Udall said, but the changes have benefited the contractors.

"It keeps those folks employed," Udall said.

Questions pile up

Among all of the complicated claims of illness related to half a century of nuclear weapons production, two kinds were supposed to be slam-dunks. If you were a uranium worker compensated in an earlier program, or a beryllium worker or uranium worker with lung damage, your claim was supposed to slide right through the system.

But that isn't happening because laws and rules are not being followed.

A 90-year-old Navajo woman who lost her uranium miner husband is still waiting for federal compensation from the new program, even though the law says that compensation should be automatic.

A 48-year-old beryllium worker tried for five years to get compensation that was supposed to be automatic, given his diagnosed lung disease.

An 86-year-old uranium miner is too sick to complete the breathing test required to prove that he qualifies for compensation.

But some workers never even make it into the system to be considered. DOL calls these "non-covered" applications because they failed to prove the employee worked at one of the more than 300 covered sites or had one of some two-dozen covered illnesses.

But the Rocky found evidence that the failure to prove information was sometimes the labor department's fault. For example, a uranium miner in New Mexico was rejected because DOL said he didn't submit medical records to prove his illness. But Jarvina Lee, a caseworker at the Navajo office of uranium miners in Shiprock, N.M., said she personally had sent 1,600 pages of medical records to DOL's Denver office on behalf of the worker.

DOL eventually found the box of records six months later at its Seattle office, after the worker had died.

"I don't know how someone could lose 1,600 pages of medical records," Lee said. "But we have had lots of horror stories like that."

The federal compensation program is so difficult to navigate for sick workers or their survivors that both the Navajo Nation and the state of New Mexico have established offices to help claimants file for their benefits.

"It's a sham," Richardson, the former Energy Secretary who is now governor of New Mexico, said of the program. "It's an insult to our workers, and it's wrong."

Vera Begay lives in a home on the Navajo reservation in eastern Arizona that was made from smooth, square stones her husband brought home from the uranium mines. The mines were so close by that blasted rock sometimes rained down on the three-room house, which even now is slightly radioactive.

Begay's husband died of lung cancer 24 years ago. She was given a "compassionate payment" for his lost life years ago, through the earlier program specifically for miners. That should have made her automatically eligible for additional compensation.

But the 90-year-old Begay whose grandson is Martinez, the man who oversees the Navajo Uranium Workers office has been waiting three years.

"I don't know why," Begay said in English, though she speaks mostly in Navajo.

Even Martinez is not sure why his grandmother has not received the compensation.

"She should already have been paid," he said.

Talk of reform so far just talk

Congress has the authority to change the compensation program, but so far, its efforts to do so haven't had much impact. A series of hearings in 2006 and 2007 resulted in little change. At least a dozen bills are pending that would improve the compensation program, but none has gone anywhere. There is talk of holding more hearings and submitting more bills to reform the law.

"The bottom line is we want to protect and help the most needy and most deserving folks," said U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo. "I think we have to continue to push on this."

U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., said he is working on new legislation to relieve the workers' plight.

"More and more evidence is surfacing that former workers have had their claims lost or ignored, that claims examiners were encouraged to deny claims, and that bureaucratic red tape is tying the program in knots," Salazar said.

"This is an absolutely unacceptable way to treat those who have sacrificed for our country."

Dr. Laurence Fuortes is a physician and University of Iowa professor who studies occupational illness. He has helped some sick workers with lung disease try to get compensation.

When he began to suspect that workers were being wrongly rejected, he filed a Freedom of Information Act request to see more examples of lung disease claims that had been denied. Of the first 19 cases he reviewed, he found five of them contained medical evidence that they should have been approved instead.

Fuortes said he told program director Peter Turcic that the cases suggested a larger problem that needed further review.

"He seemed to agree," Fuortes said, adding that it was not clear what DOL might do about it.

"This system has been designed with maximum complexity," Fuortes said. "To me, it's setting things up for disaster."

That is exactly what's happened, said former DOL claims examiner Anne Block.

Block, a Seattle attorney who said she was fired from her job because she too helpful to claimants, said that mistakes are rampant in the system.

When a case goes through the years-long dose reconstruction process, DOL sends it to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health for an estimate of how much radiation the worker absorbed.

"I would send half the claims back to NIOSH because there would be something wrong with them," Block said.

Other times, claims examiners would be given "pre-screened" files marked as "accept" or "deny."

"I'd say 90 percent of the time, they were wrong," Block said.

She described cases that should have been approved automatically but were instead sent to NIOSH for the dose reconstruction process, cases sent off for review when a final decision already had been issued, and meetings where senior managers encouraged claims examiners to deny claims to close out cases more quickly.

"It's a complete mess," she said of the program. "And a complete waste of taxpayers' money."

DOL officials declined earlier this year to address Block's allegations.

Standing their ground

Mike Chance oversees DOL's resource centers, 11 offices across the country that are designed to help sick nuclear weapons workers file claims for compensation and medical coverage. Chance was the lead DOL official at the Navajo cooperation ceremony.

After the ceremony, Chance was about to start a "town hall" meeting at the Navajo chapter house in Tuba City, Ariz., to describe benefits available to sick workers and their families.

One of those benefits is home health care, if a doctor orders it for a gravely ill worker. Although Chance did not mention this benefit during the meeting, the labor department has approved Denver-based home health care company Professional Case Management as one provider. The company had been invited by the Navajo Nation to participate. But when employees of the company tried to set up a table to display their services, Chance ousted them from the public meeting.

Chance said he was not allowed to comment to the media, but he was overheard saying that he ousted Professional Case Management because DOL did not want to appear to endorse the company, which is suing DOL for failure to pay covered medical expenses of some of its clients.

Chance held a second town hall meeting on the Navajo reservation the next day in Kayenta, Ariz., near the Four Corners area. Again, he ejected the Professional Case Management employees. Martinez, who was setting up an information table with staff from his Office of Navajo Uranium Workers, confronted him.

Martinez told Chance that he and his entire staff also would leave if the home health care display was not allowed. Chance let them put the display in the hallway of the Kayenta Recreation Center, outside the auditorium where the meeting was being held.

The memories of the cooperation ceremony fiasco were still burning in Martinez's mind as he stood outside the century-old, eight-sided mud and log Hogan where his grandmother grew up, amid the red sands of eastern Arizona, just over the border from Colorado.

Years of frustration fueled the fire inside him.

"Time doesn't mean anything to the Department of Labor," he said. "They're not thinking about the individuals out there who are suffering. Congress is the only one that can do anything about this. And if we keep pushing them, maybe they will."

New Nukes Not Ready for Prime Time Nuclear Regulatory Commission Deals Devastating Blow to Nuclear Power Industry

By HARVEY WASSERMAN July 25-2008 http://www.counterpunch.org/wasserman07252008.html

A devastating blow to the much-hyped revival of atomic power has been delivered by an unlikely source---the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NRC says the "standardized" designs on which the entire premise of returning nuclear power to center stage is based have massive holes in them, and may not be ready for approval for years to come.

Delivered by one of America's most notoriously docile agencies, the NRC's warning essentially says: that all cost estimates for new nuclear reactors---and all licensing and construction schedules---are completely up for grabs, and have no reliable basis in fact. Thus any comparisons between future atomic reactors and renewable technologies are moot at best. And any "hard number" basis for independent financing for future nukes may not be available for years to come, if ever.

These key points have been raised in searing testimony before state regulators by Jim Warren of the North Carolina Waste and Awareness Reduction Network and Tom Clements of the South Carolina Friends of the Earth, and by others now challenging proposed state-based financing for new Westinghouse AP-1000 reactors. The NRC gave conditional "certification" to this "standardized" design in 2004, allowing design work to continue. But as recently as June 27, the NRC has issued written warnings that hundreds of key design components remain without official approval. Indeed, Westinghouse has been forced to actually withdraw numerous key designs, throwing the entire permitting process into chaos.

The catastrophic outcome of similar problems has already become tangible. After two years under construction, the first "new generation" French reactor being built in Finland is already more than two years behind schedule, and more than $2.5 billion over budget.

The scenario is reminiscent of the economic disaster that hit scores of "first generation" reactors, which came in massively over budget and, in many cases, decades behind promised completion dates.

In North and South Carolina, public interest groups are demanding the revocation of some $230 million in pre-construction costs already approved by state regulators for two proposed Duke Energy reactors. In both those states, as well as in Florida, Alabama and Georgia, Westinghouse AP-1000 reactors have been presented to regulatory commissions to be financed by ratepayers as they are being built.

This astounding pro-utility scheme forces electric consumers to pay billions of dollars for nuclear plants that may never operate, and whose costs are indeterminate. Sometimes called Construction Work in Progress, it lets utilities raise rates to pay for site clearing, project planning, and down payments on large equipment and heavy reactor components, such as pressure vessels, pumps and generators, that can involve hundreds of millions of dollars, even before the projects get final federal approval. The process in essence gives utilities an incentive to drive up construction costs as much as they can. It allows them to force ratepayers to cover legal fees incurred by the utilities to defend themselves against lawsuits by those very ratepayers. And the public is stuck with the bill for whatever is spent, even if the reactor never opens---or if it melts down before it recoups its construction costs, as did Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island Unit Two in 1979, which self-destructed after just three months of operation.

According to Warren and Clements, Duke Energy and its cohorts have "filed some 6,500 pages of Westinghouse's technical design documents as the major component of applications" to build new reactors. "Of the 172 interconnected Westinghouse documents," say NCWARN and FOE, "only 21 have been certified." And most of what has been certified, they add, rely on systems that are unapproved, and that are key to the guts of the reactor, including such major components as the "reactor building, control room, cooling system, engineering designs, plant-wide alarm systems, piping and conduit."

In other words, despite millions of dollars of high-priced hype, the "new generation" of "standardized design" power plants actually does not exist. The plans for these reactors have not been finalized by the builders themselves, nor have they been approved by the regulators. There is no operating prototype of a Westinghouse AP-1000 from which to draw actual data about how safely these plants might actually operate, what their environmental impact might be, or what they might cost to build or run.

In fact, as the NRC's June 27 letter notes, Westinghouse has been forced to withdraw key technical documents from the regulatory process. The NRC says this means design approval for the AP-1000 might not come until 2012.

The problem extends to other designs. According to Michael Mariotte of the Nuclear Information & Resource Service, the "Evolutionary Power Reactor" proposed for Calvert Cliffs, Maryland, "is way behind in certification" causing delays in the licensing process. Similar problems have arisen with the "Economic Simplified Boiling War Reactor" design proposed for North Anna, Virginia and Fermi, Michigan. "All of these utilities seem to want standardization for the other guy, not for themselves, so most of them are making changes to the 'standardized' designs, says Mariotte. "Even the ABWR," being planned for a site in south Texas, which has actually been built before, "has design issues" that have caused delays.

The problem, says Mariotte, "is that the NRC is still trying to go ahead and do licensing even with the designs not certified. This is going to lead to a big mess later on."

But in the meantime, Public Service Commissions like the one in Florida, have given preliminary approval to reactor proposals whose projected costs have more than doubled in just one year. Florida Power & Light's two proposed reactors at Turkey Point, on the border of the Everglades National Park, are listed as costing somewhere between $6 billion and $9 billion. FP&L refuses to commit to a firm price, and is demanding south Florida ratepayers foot an unknowable bill for gargantuan projects whose costs are virtually certain to skyrocket long before the NRC approves the actual reactor designs. By contrast, the "huge" preliminary deal just reached between Florida, environmentalists and U.S. Sugar to buy some 180,000 acres of land to save the Everglades is now estimated at less than $2 billion, less than one-sixth the minimum estimated cost of the two reactors proposed for Turkey Point.

In the larger picture, the depth of this scam is staggering. With no finalized design, and no firm price tag, a second generation of nuclear power plants is now being put on the tab of southeastern citizens whose rates have already begun to skyrocket. These reactor projects cannot get private financing, and cannot proceed without either massive federal subsidies and loan guarantees, or a flood of these state-based give-aways. They also cannot get private insurance against future melt-downs, and have no solution for their radioactive waste problem. Current estimates for finishing the proposed Yucca Mountain national waste repository, also yet to be licensed, are soaring toward $100 billion, even though it, too, may never open.

By contrast, firm costs for proposed wind farms, solar panels, increased efficiency and other green sources are proven and reliable. These projects are easily financed by private investors lining up to become involved. Some $6 billion in new wind farms are under construction or on order in the United States alone. They are established and profitable, and can in many cases can be up and running in less than a year.

The high-profile campaign to paint atomic energy as some kind of answer to America's energy problems has hit the iceberg of its economic impossibilities. The atomic "renaissance" has no tangible approved design, and no firm construction or operating costs to present. There are no reliable new reactor construction schedules, except to know that it will be at least ten years before the first one could conceivably come on line, and that its price tag is unknowable.

In short, the "nuclear renaissance" is perched atop a gigantic technical and economic chasm that looms larger every day, and that could soon swallow the entire idea of building more reactors.

Total U.S. nuke dump cost to top $90-billion

by Erica Werner - Associated Press - July 15, 2008

WASHINGTON — Turns out, it's going to cost U.S. taxpayers $32-billion

(U.S.) more than first thought to open and operate the nation's first nuclear waste dump.

The Bush administration's latest calculation — made public Tuesday — is that the facility will cost over $90-billion. It's the first official estimate since 2001, when the figure was $58-billion.

Ward Sproat, the energy department official in charge of managing the controversial Yucca Mountain repository project in Nevada, disclosed the new number to reporters after a congressional hearing Tuesday.

The estimate includes $9-billion already spent and covers about 100 years of operation until the dump, 145 km northwest of Las Vegas, is sealed up forever.

Some of the increase is due to inflation, Mr. Sproat said. Also, energy department officials now expect the dump will hold more radioactive waste than the 77,000 tons initially approved by Congress.

A report with precise cost breakdowns will be released to Congress in the next several weeks, Mr. Sproat said.

Already, some 64,000 tons of radioactive spent fuel rods are stored at commercial reactor sites in 33 states, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute. Most of it is stored in vault-like pools, while some has been moved into dry-cask storage – where Nevada lawmakers, who oppose Yucca Mountain, would like it to stay.

Mr. Sproat opposes that plan as impractical. He also objected to other interim storage options raised Tuesday by frustrated lawmakers, who reported hearing from constituents about the need for new energy sources.

Commercial nuclear power plants now produce some 20 per cent of U.S.

electricity, but concern about waste disposal has hampered the industry's growth.

Yucca Mountain was originally supposed to open in 1998 but has been beset by lawsuits and political and scientific controversies. The best- possible opening date is now 2020, Mr. Sproat told lawmakers at an energy and commerce subcommittee hearing.

Even that is contingent on a steady money stream, something that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, (D, Nev.), has blocked.

The energy department did succeed in submitting a required construction license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last month. The commission has up to four years to decide whether to approve it – but that timeline, too, is dependent on congressionally approved budgets.

Too Many French Nuclear Workers Contaminated

http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKL2465085020080724

By Muriel Boselli - July 24, 2008

PARIS - Too many French nuclear workers are being contaminated with low doses of radiation, an independent research group on atomic safety said on Thursday, a day after the latest incident in southern France.

The Independent Commission on Research and Information on Radiocactivity (CRIIRAD) also said a growing number of French nuclear workers were complaining about worsening working conditions and their likely impact on safety.

"In less than 15 days, the CRIIRAD has been informed of four malfunctions in four nuclear plants, leading to the accidental contamination of 126 workers," CRIIRAD head Corinne Castanier told Reuters in an interview.

"This is the first time I have seen so many people being contaminated in such a short period of time."

On Wednesday alone, some 100 staff at the nuclear power plant of Tricastin in southeastern France were contaminated with low doses of radiation.

The incident followed another on July 7 at the same site, which shook public confidence in the safety of France's nuclear industry, the largest in Europe, at a time when President Nicolas Sarkozy has pledged to expand it.

The French nuclear safety body, ASN, said that in 2007, less than 100 nuclear workers had been contaminated by radiation in France, where 80 percent of power is produced by atomic energy.

The CRIIRAD also criticised French state-owned nuclear operator EDF for saying the latest contamination incident had no impact on people's health or on the environment because the radiation doses were below the regulatory limits set by international standards.

"The regulatory limits for radiation... do not mean there is no risk but relate to a maximum risk level that can be permitted," the CRIIRAD said in a note published on its website on Thursday.

The CRIIRAD was created in 1986 to give independent nuclear expertise after the French government wrongly claimed the Chernobyl radioactive cloud had stopped at the Italian border and told the population no safety measures were needed.

Castanier added that the morale of staff at nuclear power plants was especially low and the number of calls her organisation had received in the last year had soared.

The calls came from staff and temporary workers at nuclear sites, who informed them about the worsening working conditions.

Pressure was especially acute during maintenance periods at reactors, which have considerably shortened, the CRIIRAD added.

French nuclear firm admits uranium leaks at two plants

by Angelique Chrisafis in Paris

The Guardian - July 19, 2008

The French nuclear giant Areva yesterday confirmed there was a radioactive leak from a broken pipe at a nuclear fuel plant in south-eastern France, a week after a uranium spill at another of its plants polluted the local water supply.

The latest incident comes as an embarrassment to the French government as it struggles to contain environmentalists' anger and reassure residents near its nuclear plants that they are safe.

Earlier this week the government ordered safety tests on the water table around all of France's 59 nuclear reactors. Areva is at the forefront of President Nicolas Sarkozy's quest to export French nuclear technology around the world, including to Britain. France is one of the world's

biggest atomic energy nations, generating more than 80% of its electricity from nuclear power.

The newly discovered leak at a plant in Romans-sur-Isère in the Drôme region came from a damaged pipe which safety authorities said might have ruptured a number of years ago. Areva, a state-controlled firm which makes nuclear reactors and deals with uranium, said the leak came from a buried pipe transporting liquid uranium and that the crack in the tubing was "several years old".

France's nuclear safety authority, the ASN, said the leak did not reach the ground water and that there was no sign of contamination. It said

initial tests showed no impact on the environment because the quantity of uranium was very small, around a few hundred grams. Areva is also responsible for running the Tricastin power plant, in the nearby Vaucluse area, where a uranium leak occurred last week when a tank

was being cleaned. Drinking well water, swimming and water sports in the area were banned, as well as irrigating crops with the potentially

contaminated water. Both leaks ranked as a level-one incidents on the seven-point scale of nuclear accidents.

The ASN criticised Areva for the handling of the Tricastin leak, saying it delayed communication of the problem and its security measures were unsatisfactory. After admitting the safety lapse, Areva this week sacked the director responsible for the site and announced an internal audit.

Nuclear Power Crawling Forward http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5447?utm_campaign=vital_signs_online&utm_medium=email&utm_source=nuclear

by Jim Riccio

In 2007, global installed capacity of nuclear power grew by less than 2,000 megawatts to 372,000 megawatts.¹ (See Figure 1.) The slight growth in nuclear power is attributable to the addition of three new reactors in India, China, and Romania.² The new nuclear capacity is equi valent to just one tenth of the new wind power installed globally in 2007.³

Rising gas prices and concern about the carbon dioxide emissions from coal plants have fueled growing interest in nuclear power in many nations.⁴ But only four countries began building new nuclear reactors in 2007: China, France, Russia, and South Korea.⁵ The seven new reactors being built in those countries will account for 5,190 megawatts of new nuclear capacity-about 100 megawatts less than was added in 2006.⁶ (See Figure 2.)

No nuclear reactors were permanently shut down in 2007.⁷ Since 1964, however, the commercial nuclear industry has retired 124 reactors, amounting to a total of 36,800 mega watts of generating capacity.⁸ (See Figure 3.)

By the end of 2007, some 34 reactors were under construction worldwide, but 12 of these units have been under construction for 20 years or more.⁹ In the Americas, only two reactors are being built, in the United States and Argen tina; both began construction in the 1980s.¹⁰ In Western Europe two reactors are being built, in Finland and France.¹¹ In Eastern Europe, reactors are under construction in Bulgaria and Ukraine (two each), Slovakia (two), and Romania (one).¹²

In Russia, seven reactors-totaling 4,585 megawatts of electric capacity-are being built; four of these have been in construction for two decades.¹³ Russia is completing a fast-breeder reactor, which produces more nuclear fuel that it consumes and which uses plutonium, highly enriched uranium, or even mixed oxide fuel rather than the conventional fuel, uranium.¹⁴ In addition, construction has begun on two 30-megawatt reactors that will be placed on barges to provide power to remote regions.¹⁵

The U.K. government has indicated interest in resuming its long-dormant nuclear construction pro grams, but it will have to navigate long, uncertain regulatory processes before any new plants can be started.¹⁶

Asia accounts for the most nuclear power plant construction, with 20 new reactors cur rently under way.¹⁷ India and China each have six reactors under construction.¹⁸ These 12 plants account for 8,130 megawatts-or more than a quarter of the nuclear capacity currently being built worldwide.¹⁹ South Korea is building three units, while Japan, Iran, and Pakistan are each building a single nuclear plant.²⁰

Some nuclear projects are being delayed by construction problems. The expected delivery date of the Olkiluoto Finnish plant has been pushed back by at least two years because of concerns about concrete in the foundation and flawed welds for the reactor's steel liner, among other problems.²¹ Analysts estimate the prob lems at this reactor could add another 1.5 bil lion euros to the final price tag, increasing by 50 percent the initial projected cost of 3 billion euros.²²

Engineering challenges are also slowing the Chinese and Taiwanese nuclear programs. China's newest reactor was two years behind schedule when it went into commercial operation in 2007. Construction was delayed for almost a year as Chinese regulators examined the welds of the steel liner of the reactor core.²³ Despite these setbacks, the government continues to forge ahead with nuclear power. French nuclear giant Areva and the Chinese govern ment will cooperate on future nuclear reactors as well as the reprocessing of nuclear waste.²⁴

In Taiwan, the Lungman reactors have fallen five years behind schedule, due in part to welds that failed inspection in 2002 and had to be redone.²⁵ In addition, the Taiwan Power Company acknowledged that "the rising cost of steel, concrete and other commodities has gutted subcontractor profits, causing them to stop work to renegotiate fixed price contracts."²⁶

In Japan, nuclear power suffered a setback in July 2007 when a major earthquake struck the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant on the northwest coast, the largest nuclear complex in the world.²⁷ The earthquake, measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale, required operators to shut down the plant's seven nuclear reactors, which account for 8,000 megawatts of Japan's nuclear capac ity.²⁸ Officially, the complex is slated to remain inactive for at least one year. However, because the quake caused ground motion two and a half times more powerful than the reactors were designed to withstand, questions have been raised about whether they should ever be returned to service.²⁹

In the Middle East and Africa, there is only one nuclear reactor currently under construction: a Russian-designed 1,000-megawatt reactor in Iran.³⁰ But the Iranian nuclear program has spurred interest in the region. In the past year, more than a dozen Middle Eastern countries have announced they intend to pursue the development of nuclear power.³¹ The interest expressed by majority Sunni Muslim states is viewed by U.S. officials as a direct response to the nuclear ambitions of Shiite Iran.³²

In the United States, no new nuclear construction was initiated in 2007, though one reactor was restarted after a 22-year shutdown, and construction resumed on a reactor that had been stalled since 1988.³³ Nuclear corporations submitted applications for seven new reactors in 2007, the first ones proposed in at least 30 years, and government regulators expect applications for another 22 reactors in 2008.³⁴ Yet even nuclear industry officials have questioned whether new reactors are economically viable without government subsidies. The president of Constellation Generation Group, an energy company that is planning to build a reactor in the state of Maryland, has stated that it will not build nuclear plants without loan guarantees.³⁵

Wall Street has yet to be sold on new nuclear investments in the United States. Moody's, a credit rating agency, has stated that it "believes that many of the current expectations regarding new nuclear generation are overly ambitious," raising questions about the industry's cost estimates and its schedule for bringing the next U.S. nuclear reactor online.³⁶ Moody's noted that the costs associated with next-generation nuclear plants could be significantly higher than the estimates of approximately $3,500 per kilowatt cited by the industry.³⁷Moody's noted that its estimates were $6,000 per kilowatt, and it cautioned that nuclear investment could affect corporations' credit ratings.³⁸

Moody's concerns seem well placed. By the end of 2007, new nuclear plant cost estimates for identical Westinghouse-designed nuclear plants had soared, more than doubling to $12-18 billion.³⁹ MidAmerican Energy Holdings, a sub sid iary of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc., became the first U.S. company to postpone plans for a new reactor when it withdrew its letter of intent to government regulators in late 2007.⁴⁰ MidAmerican's spokesperson stated that it does not currently make economic sense to pursue this project.⁴¹

Jim Riccio is a Nuclear Policy Analyst at Green peace in Washington, DC.

FRANCE: Pipe Break Causes Leak Of Uranium at French Plant

Associated Press - July 21st, 2008

PARIS -- Uranium-bearing liquid has leaked from a broken underground pipe at a nuclear site in southeastern France, the national nuclear-safety authority said Friday in the second leak discovered at a French site this month.

Experts are working to determine how much leaked uranium is present at nuclear company Areva SA's plant in the town of Romans-sur-Isere, the Nuclear Safety Authority said. Specialists will work to clean up the site.

The statement said the pipe is believed to have ruptured several years ago. It added that the pipe "was not in line with the applicable regulations, which require shock resistance ability sufficient to avoid rupture."

Areva spokesman Charles Hufnagel said the leak of lightly enriched uranium didn't spread outside the site and had "absolutely no impact on the environment."

He said the factory hoped the leak would be classified as a level 1 problem -- the most minor of seven possible rankings.

Still, the announcement was the latest blow for Areva after an incident earlier this month when a liquid containing traces of unenriched uranium leaked from a factory in Tricastin in southern France. Areva said that problem "did not affect either the health of employees and local populations, or their environment."

France is the most nuclear-dependent country in the world, with 59 reactors churning out nearly 80% of its electricity. The French state owns Areva.

Nuclear waste site threatens Lake Huron

Times Herald (Port Huron, Mich.) June 20 2008

http://www.thetimesherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080620/OPINION01/806200324/1014/&source=nletter-news

Kay Cumbow isn't the only one alarmed by a possible nuclear waste repository dangerously near one of our Great Lakes, but she is right to raise her voice.

The Lynn Township resident is chairwoman of Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination. Her mission is to stoke opposition to a plan to bury radioactive waste in an underground receptacle less than a mile from Lake Huron in Kincardine, Ontario.

Ontario Power Generation is the project's leader. The public power utility, which owns all 20 nuclear power plants in the Canadian province, wants to see a 2,150-foot deep landfill created beneath the Bruce Nuclear Site near Kincardine. The facility would receive all the low- and medium-level waste Ontario nuclear plants generate.

The health of the Great Lakes is a critical concern to Americans and Canadians. Because we share this precious natural resource, potential threats, such as this proposal, must be taken seriously.

Cumbow's group has taken the lead in organizing opposition on Lake Huron's American side. Those efforts must increase.

Although the period for public comment on the project's draft Environmental Impact Statement and draft Joint Review Panel agreement expired earlier this week, that doesn't mean the voices of Canadians and Americans no longer are important. Residents of Michigan and Ontario must urge their state and provincial and federal representatives to press the Canadian government to abandon the radioactive waste repository.

The landfill's advocates insist it won't be constructed unless it's safe. Making that determination demands the highest degree of scrutiny and accountability -- to citizens of the United States and Canada.

Reasonable people may concede that some area might be appropriate to store nuclear waste. Locating such a facility so close to Lake Huron, however, is extremely difficult to justify.

US energy department faulted for mishandling Hanford nuclear waste

Source: Environment News Service (ENS)
Published Jul. 15, 2008

The US Department of Energy doesn't know enough about the condition and contents of millions of gallons of radioactive and hazardous wastes stored in tanks at its Hanford Site in Washington state to make good decisions about cleanup and costs, according to a new report by Congress's investigative agency. The findings issued by the US General Accountability Office are the latest in a string of critiques finding fault with the way the Department of Energy is handling Hanford, which GAO natural resources and development director Gene Aloise called 'one of the most contaminated places on Earth.' Situated on 586 square miles along the Columbia River in southeastern Washington, upstream from the cities of Richland, Pasco and Kennewick, the Hanford Site was established in 1943 to produce plutonium for atomic bombs, as part of the government's top-secret Manhattan Project.

Hanford manufactured nuclear materials through 1989, a mission that left in its wake the world's largest environmental cleanup project.

Now, the Department of Energy is responsible for managing more than 56 million gallons of radioactive and hazardous waste stored in 149 single-shell and 28 double-shell underground tanks.

Of those, 67 are confirmed or presumed to have already leaked about one million gallons of waste into the ground. In 2000, the estimated cost of tank waste cleanup was estimated at nearly $50 billion.

One of the agency's plans is to convert some of the most perilous radioactive waste into glass, a process called vitrification. But the process of conversion is stymied by the fact that some of the radioactive elements have formed 'unknown compounds' while in storage.

The Energy Deparment has an agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and state of Washington's Department of Ecology to remove waste from single-shelled tanks by the fall of 2018 and 'immobilize' all tank waste by the end of 2028.

But the department is far behind schedule. By its latest estimate, according to the GAO report, waste treatment will not begin until late 2019 and it could continue to 2050 and beyond.

In its report issued June 30, the GAO recommended that the Department of Energy give priority to assessing the integrity of single-shelled tanks; quantify specific risks of continuing to use the tanks; and work with state and federal agencies on a realistic cleanup schedule.

In response, DOE said the recommendations were consistent with what it is already doing or plans to do, but disagreed that it lacks the knowledge to make informed decisions about the integrity of the tanks and retrieving and treating the waste.

Previous investigations by the GAO concluded that flaws in the Department of Energy's management of Hanford have led to higher costs, construction delays and safety concerns.

The Department of Energy's own inspector general found the department's oversight of the contaminated site to be disorganized and disjointed.

'Without a complete and integrated planning, budgeting, and management approach to the tank waste remediation project, the Department may be unable to control, predict, explain, or defend future changes to cost and schedule,' the Office of Inspector General predicted in January 2000.

NUCLEAR POWER SPEEDING UP GLOBAL WARMING

Much has been made of the power contained in a single uranium fuel bundle used in Ontario's CanDU reactors to produce electricity. It is supposed to be able to generate as much electricity as 380 tonnes of coal or 1,800 barrels of oil (Canadian Nuclear Association website "Nuclear Facts".) Compared to the burning of fossil fuels to produce the steam to generate electric power the fuel bundle undergoes a fission process, splitting the uranium atoms to produce heat to fabricate the steam to drive turbines connected to the generators in a complicated process of electricity generation.
Matter-of-fact so much heat is produced by the fission-activated neutrons that to keep the fuel from uncontrolled meltdown there need to be huge amounts of cooling water drawn from Lakes Huron and Ontario.

The 6 operating Bruce Power reactors, by the way, are drawing close to 17 million litres of lake water A MINUTE(!) to keep the process from overheating (Golder Associates Ltd. Consultants). What happens to this cooling water? Most of it is discharged back to the lake, but not in the same condition; it goes back out up to 12 degrees Celsius warmer. This so-called thermal plume has been heating up the Lakes for decades, 24/7, 365 days a year.

Very little ice has been forming on Lake Huron and Georgian Bay over successive, even colder, winters, resulting in lake water evaporation over the full 12 months instead of the normal 8 months of ice-free water. Without ice cover solar irradiation will also have the effect of additional warming of the open waters, while ice cover would have reflected the suns rays! No wonder lake levels continue to drop, now at record low levels, affecting the economy of shipping companies and marinas, with waters getting warmer, resulting in increased evaporation and cloud forming.

That powerful fuel bundle, and there are 5760 of them in each reactor, can remain productive for just over 12 months, at which time it has to be removed BY REMOTE CONTROL because the fission has made it so highly radioactive that it would kill a person, standing as close as 3 metres, instantly. When it is removed it still contains over 99% of potential energy, but to extract it out costs a lot more than just to take it out and put it under water, (Jeremy Whitlock, past President, Canadian Nuclear Society, quoted on New Media Journalism website). That spent fuel bundle is so hot (37,000 watts AECL 1994, NWMO Study "Choosing a Way Forward" 2005) that it, together with its compatriots, has to be kept in huge swimming pools, called irradiated fuel bays, for at least 10 years to bring the heat down to 5 watts, at which point it is supposed to be safe to store it above ground in heavy concrete containers. So this impressive energy contained in the fuel bundle creating all the heat, how much electricity does it actually produce? Figures quoted generally pertain to primary power generation only.

This writer has toured the Bruce Power plant several times, also the huge Waste Management Facility adjacent to the reactors. There are a large number of auxiliary buildings absorbing lots of power, huge pumps sucking the cooling water from the Lake, stand-by power yards, fire fighting equipment, of course computers are running all the functions on site, all these together consume about one third of the electric power generated. Together with transformer and transmission line losses and with the THERMAL POLLUTION HEAT LOSS, only about 33% of the heat released by that fuel bundle, while in the reactor, reaches the end user as electricity. ("Nuclear Heat", Issue Brief, Union of Concerned Scientists, August 2006.)

Talking about efficiency EFFICIENTLY HEATING UP OUR ENVIRONMENT WITH A HUGE AMOUNT OF WASTE HEAT!

IS NUCLEAR POWER REALLY THE SOLUTION TO GLOBAL WARMING?

Ziggy Kleinau, Coordinator for non-profit organization Citizens For Renewable Energy (CFRE) has taken part in Environmental Assessment and licensing hearings before the Atomic Energy Control Board (AECB) and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) for over 12 years.

July 2008; link to Nuclear News Aug - 08 link to Sustainable energy News

'It feels like a sci-fi film' - accidents tarnish nuclear dream

by Jim Riccio