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Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage
World Nuclear News – new website
Staff, World Nuclear News
The About Us page says:
WNN is an online information service that covers the latest developments related to nuclear power. Our aim is to combine accessibility with accuracy.
We seek to serve a broad audience that includes not only nuclear professionals but also journalists, researchers, opinion leaders, policy-makers, and the general public.
WNN stories are supplied free of charge and may be freely reproduced.
The WNN service is supported, administratively and with technical advice, by the World Nuclear Association and the World Nuclear University.
The WNN draws on a global network of contacts in industry, academia, research institutes and inter-governmental agencies. Our industry contacts include key personnel in enterprises that account for virtually all of the world’s uranium mining, nuclear fuel manufacture, equipment production and nuclear power generation.
The goal of WNN reporting is to provide comprehensive coverage and to place worldwide nuclear developments in context – by supplying background information, expert commentary and links to relevant authoritative sources.
(April 2007)
An industry lobbying effort. On the positive side, the site is clearly labeled and looks professional. On the negative side, I wouldn’t expect objective or in-depth reporting on problems. For that reason, I tend to ignore such sites, except to find out the industry position or to get information on non-controversial subjects.
The editor of the website writes that he hopes WNN will be a better source of information than my suspicions led me to believe (I hope so too). He writes::
In all the World Nuclear Association’s information efforts, the goal is to put the facts fully in context and let them speak for themselves, so to that end we fill in background information from the knowledge we have in the office. We’re also able to avoid the mistakes mainstream journalists make.
World Nuclear News is our attempt to upgrade our longstanding industry-only news to a modern service to be used both by the industry and the general public. We’d like everyone, from politicians to Green groups to the guys at the power stations to know they can go to WNN for the simple truth on what’s been going on, good news or bad. We well
recognise that we could never achieve that if WNN was ‘spinny’.
-BA
Nuclear foes see danger in waste
Harris plant starts relicensing process
John Murawski, News Observer USA
The Shearon Harris nuclear plant has long drawn scrutiny over the safety of atomic power. But safety concerns are shifting to an emerging issue: the buildup of radioactive waste at the site in volumes never anticipated when the plant began operating 20 years ago.
Longtime nuclear critics plan to highlight the nuclear waste quandary during a two-year safety review as Progress Energy seeks to extend the Shearon Harris operating license into the middle of the century. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will hold the first public meeting on the Shearon Harris relicensing on Wednesday in Apex.
The nuclear waste issue is gaining momentum nationwide amid growing concerns that nuclear plants are potential targets for terrorism and sabotage. With no long-term solution in sight for disposing of nuclear waste, many nuclear plants are storing three times as much waste as the temporary pools were originally expected to hold. Unlike the nuclear reactors themselves, the storage sites usually are not heavily fortified against attack.
“There’s a growing recognition from the point of view of terrorism that the pools are much more vulnerable,” said Robert Alvarez, a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington who has studied nuclear waste security. “These pools have some of the highest concentrations of radioactivity on the planet.” ..
(15 Apr 2007)
Handling nuclear waste is a persistent problem
Katherine Bouma, Birmingham News USA
A few barrel-like objects stand outside Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant. Officials would prefer that any other information about their appearance or whereabouts be kept secret.
Similar casks sit outside all of the United States’ 103 nuclear electricity reactors. Lead-lined and designed to withstand any natural disaster, those casks hold the waste that is so thermally and radioactively hot, no one wants to handle it.
Nuclear waste is the most intractable problem of the nuclear power program. It remains radioactive for thousands of years, and there’s not a central repository where it can be stored permanently. ..
(15 Apr 2007)
See also As number of nuclear plants increase, so do disaster worries.
G7 ministers give nuclear energy a nod
Veronique Dupont, Agency France Presse
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Finance chiefs from the G7 industrialized countries have endorsed nuclear energy, an increasingly attractive power source as governments confront global warming and over-dependence on fossil fuels.
The Group of Seven, following a meeting here Friday, described energy diversification as an important priority for both rich and poor nations.
Nuclear advocates had already gained some ground with a recent resolution adopted by the European Union calling for a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 20 percent between now and 2020.
The resolution, adopted by EU leaders at a summit last month, mentioned nuclear power as a legitimate means of meeting the reduction target. ..
(14 Apr 2007)
