Happy Friday, nuke-watchers. Before we head into the weekend, here are some other stories from across the civilian nuclear power space that RadWaste Monitor was tracking this week.
Pilgrim community votes to oppose Holtec wastewater discharge
Communities surrounding a Massachusetts nuclear power plant under decommissioning voiced their displeasure during local elections this week with Holtec International’s plan to discharge wastewater from the site into a nearby bay.
Residents of Bourne, Mass., and Yarmouth, Mass., voted on two similar ballot initiatives Tuesday urging the local government to press Holtec on its decommissioning plans for Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, the Cape Cod Times reported this week. Bourne and Yarmouth are both located within 20 miles of the Plymouth, Mass., Pilgrim plant.
Holtec, which purchased Pilgrim from operator Entergy in 2018, has said that it plans to release irradiated wastewater from the plant into the nearby Cape Cod Bay, a practice that it has said is safe and normal for decommissioning nuclear power.
Despite that, the plan has come under fire from both Boston and Washington. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) has been a vocal opponent of the proposed wastewater discharge — during a May 6 hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Markey secured a commitment from Holtec CEO Kris Singh that the company would not take such an action without stakeholder consent. Meanwhile, a bill making its way through the Massachusetts state house would block Holtec from discharging any wastewater from Pilgrim, if it became law.
Camden, N.J.-based Holtec has said it could finish decommissioning Pilgrim by 2027 or so.
Orano to transport steam generators for French utility
Orano is working with a French multinational utility company to transport a bevy of used steam generators to a processing facility from a nuclear site in Germany, the company announced this week.
According to its deal with Cyclife, the nuclear waste management subsidiary of Electricité de France (EDF), Paris-based Orano will transport the generators “from their operating site in Germany to Sweden to be processed at the EDF Cyclife industrial site,” the company said in a statement Monday.
The contract includes extracting the generators as well as preparation and execution of road, river and sea transport of the components, Orano said.
“We are happy with EDF Cyclife’s confidence in us,” said Thibault Louvet, director of Orano’s nuclear packaging and services division. “With this contract, Orano NPS confirms its strong commitment to supporting its customers with its comprehensive nuclear waste transport solutions at the international level, combining expertise and an optimal logistics approach.”
In the U.S., Orano provides spent fuel management services to commercial nuclear plants, such as California’s San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. The company’s joint venture with Waste Control Specialists, known as Interim Storage Partners, plans to build a consolidated interim storage facility for U.S. spent fuel in the country’s southwest.
Ukrainian music artist performs for Chernobyl workers
It may not have been a sold-out house, but the lead singer of Ukrainian band Okean Elzy put on a concert for the crew working at the infamous Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant last week, Reuters reported.
During a solo performance in the control room of the plant, where in 1986 a reactor meltdown caused one of the worst radiological releases in history, Sviatoslav Vakarchuk May 13 thanked Chernobyl’s crew for preventing a similar disaster when invading Russian forces seized the facility Feb. 24.
Chernobyl, located under 10 miles from the Belarusian border, has been back in Ukrainian hands since late March, when Russian forces withdrew from the site amid reports that some soldiers had been contaminated with radiation while digging defensive trenches.
An April report from the International Atomic Energy Agency found that while there had been no major radiological releases at Chernobyl owing to the Russian invasion, “Efforts are needed to restore safe and secure management” at the plant “and to better characterize the current radiological situation within the exclusion zone.”
