BRC Backs Away From Reprocessing, Focuses on Temporary Fuel Rod Storage Solutions

May 18th, 2011 | Natural Resources News Service | | One comment

Storage for vitrified waste at SRS in South Carolina. Photo: DC Bureau
Storage for vitrified waste at SRS in South Carolina. Photo: DC Bureau

The Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future is leaning toward recommending the establishment of one or more temporary nuclear waste disposal sites to store used reactor fuel. The idea would delay a controversial decision to embrace reprocessing as a means disposal.

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Nuclear Industry Still Skeptical of MOX fuel

May 9th, 2011 | Natural Resources News Service | | One comment
The Byron Nuclear Generating Station near Byron, Illinois. Photo: Bill Tracey
The Byron Nuclear Generating Station near Byron, Illinois. Photo: Bill Tracey

A $5 billion American-taxpayer-funded plant being built by the French-government-controlled company AREVA has no buyer yet for the controversial fuel

In the quest to convert plutonium from 170,000 nuclear warheads into usable forms of mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has a vexing political problem on its hands. Virtually no commercial nuclear power company wants to touch the stuff.

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California Turns to Mexico for Cheap Water, Little Regulation

April 26th, 2011 | Natural Resources News Service | | One comment

Up to half of the water produced in Rosarito is expected to stay in Mexico to meet local demand. But the rest would be pumped north of the border to American households, said Halla Razak of the San Diego County Water Authority.

“We were happy to find out that we should continue looking into this, that no fatal flaws were found,” Razak said.

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Voice of San Diego: Mexico’s Ocean Could Become U.S.’s Drinking Water

April 25th, 2011 | Environment | | Leave a comment

From the Voice of San Diego:

“Just before the toll road stretching south from Tijuana enters Rosarito Beach, it veers inland, away from beautiful blue-water views, swinging wide around an industrial power plant complex, all filled with metal smokestacks and white fuel tanks, a major source of Baja California’s electricity.

There, water suppliers from across the Southwest are studying what would be the first project of its kind: tapping Mexico’s ocean as a source of the United States’ drinking water.

Together with the Mexican government, the agencies supplying San Diego, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Tucson are studying whether to build a seawater desalination plant in Mexico capable of producing 50 million gallons of water daily, enough to supply 112,000 homes, as a way of reinforcing water reliability in both countries. Water would either be pumped to the United States or swapped for the rights to some of Mexico’s share of the Colorado River.”

Continue reading at Voiceofsandiego.org

Continue reading Voice of San Diego: Mexico’s Ocean Could Become U.S.’s Drinking Water