NRC Says Mox Plant Is Safe Same Day Worker Is Electrocuted

August 27th, 2010 | Environment | | Leave a comment

The same week a construction worker was electrocuted the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has given the green light to the safety of a controversial plant under construction at the Savannah River Site. The the Department of Energy the plant claims will fabricate nuclear fuel from weapons grade plutonium now accumulating at the Savannah River Site.

The $5 billion dollar Mox plant is being built by the French government supported company Areva in partnership with a New Orleans based company Shaw. The construction effort has been marred by serious accidents, charges of racial discrimination and use of sub-standard steel and cement at the facility which is supposed to begin production 2016. But the biggest setback for the would be plant is that it has no utility customers willing to buy its fuel. Duke Power, once a partner in the project, dropped out when a fuel array tested in a company reactor failed. .

Read more at http://www.hss.energy.gov/CSA/Analysis/ll/occur/080910-081310.pdf

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/08/26/1644704/nrc-allows-mox-construction-to.html

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New York State Senate Moves Closer to Temporarily Banning Natural Gas Drilling

August 4th, 2010 | Environment | | Leave a comment

The New York Senate approved a measure late Tuesday by a vote of 49 to 9 that would suspend drilling until May 15 in the Marcellus Shale formation in New York pending further environmental studies. The Assembly has not yet taken up the measure. The Senate vote puts New York a step closer to a temporary state ban on drilling for natural gas from shale. According to Bloomberg Businessweek, a representative for the New York-based Independent Oil and Gas Association, which includes Chesapeake Energy and Talisman Energy Inc., said that New York will miss out on new jobs, tax revenue and drilling fees if the suspension is approved. New York representatives say they want to learn from Pennsylvania where gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale is proceeding with little environmental oversight and hundreds of complaints.

See Bloomberg Businessweek story

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All That Nuclear Waste And No Hole to Bury It In

July 28th, 2010 | Environment | | Leave a comment

Jim Rosen of McClatchy’s DC Bureau reports that Congress is worried that the Obama Administration’s decision to shutter Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste repository could delay a new generation of nuclear reactors from coming on line.

Obama has come out for nuclear power in a big way by offering up hefty govertment guaranteed loans to power companies that want to build new nuclear plants. Now another Obama policy, largely designed by the West Wing politicos to keep Harry Reid in the Senate by abandoningYucca Mountain as a waste storage site despite large amounts of Department of Energy money being put into the facility.  For more go here.

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Reuters: Canada to phase out high-emitting coal-fired energy plants

June 29th, 2010 | Environment | | Leave a comment
Photo: Arnold Paul
Photo: Arnold Paul
Canada announced last week that it will be issuing new standards that will require both new and aging energy plants to meet the same stringent greenhouse-gas emissions standard.

“Our regulation will be very clear,” Environment Minister Jim Prentice said at a press conference. “When each coal-burning unit reaches the end of its economic life, it will have to meet the new standards or close down. No trading, no offsets, no credits.”

Canada has 55 coal-burning energy plants. By 2025, 33 of these facilities will have reached the end of their economic lives. They will need to make costly upgrades to meet the anticipated new standards or be forced to shut down.

The new regulations are expected to become effective on July 1, 2015, according to an Environment Canada press release. Draft regulations should be issued early next year.

READ THIS STORY AT REUTERS.COM

Continue reading Reuters: Canada to phase out high-emitting coal-fired energy plants