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Uranium leak found at French nuclear plant
CNN
PARIS, France (AP) — Uranium-bearing liquid has leaked from a broken underground pipe at a nuclear site in southeastern France, the national nuclear safety authority said Friday. It was 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’s plant in the town of Romans-sur-Isere, the Nuclear Safety Authority said in a statement. Specialists are to work to clean up the site.
…Still, the announcement was a new blow for Areva after a similar incident last week, 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.”…
…The incidents have prompted questions about the still-secretive state-run nuclear industry, and the French government ordered a check of the groundwater around all the nuclear sites in France.
(18 July 2008)
Bill for Britain’s nuclear clean-up increases by another £10bn
Terry Macalister, The Guardian
The credibility of the nuclear industry was shaken last night after the estimated cost of cleaning up Britain’s atomic waste was raised by a further £10bn.
The latest clean-up estimate from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) suggests the commonly accepted figure of £73bn should rise to £83bn. But the agency insisted that £10bn of income from generating and fuel reprocessing plants should also be taken into account.
It said the most accurate estimate of the clean-up bill over the next 130 years was £73bn, which included £10bn for the future construction of a high level waste depositary. The NDA’s estimates for that project have not been revealed before…
(18 July 2008)
The Atomic Age enters a new dawn
Michael Sauga, Der Speigel International
Germany may still be debating whether to abandon its nuclear phase-out plans, but the rest of the world is already moving full steam ahead into expanding the use of nuclear technology. SPIEGEL ONLINE examines a glowing comeback, from Switzerland to China.
It was seen as risky, dangerous and uneconomical. Less than 10 years ago nuclear energy was still being treated as yesterday’s news.
After the devastating Chernobyl reactor disaster, hardly any countries were interested in placing their bets on nuclear technology, and not even the energy companies believed that electricity from nuclear power plants had much of a future.
Today the sinister technology, still more unpopular than almost any other, is experiencing an unexpected comeback. Thirty-six new reactors are currently being built worldwide, while another 81 are in the planning stages. And it has not escaped the attention of Germans that new nuclear power plants are not just being planned in the emerging nations of Asia and Eastern Europe, but are also back on the drawing board in the United States and Great Britain…
(11 July 2008)
