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Norwegian officials cool about Sellafield shutdown
Politicians in Norway are hesitantly optimistic following Britain’s announcement to close parts of its Sellafield nuclear fuel reprocessing plant.
Norwegian officials have been concerned about the possible effects of any nuclear accidents at Sellafield. Norway’s state Radiation Protection Authority (NRPA) published a report at the beginning of the year claiming an accident at the plant would release radiation seven times worse than that of the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe

This prompted Minister of the Environment Erik Solheim to visit the facility together with other politicians. Further high-level meetings were subsequently held at the British Embassy in Oslo, which Norwegian officials and environmentalists criticised for being inconclusive.

Liberal Party (V) politician Helge Solum Larsen thinks this week’s MOX plant closure does not go far enough.

“We are, of course, happy about this, but finding a permanent and secure storage solution for the plant’s entire stocks of waste is extremely urgent,” he tells The Foreigner in an email.

“There are between . These amounts represent a major threat to Sellafield’s surroundings.”

“The closure probably means that the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel and production of liquid, high-radioactive waste at Sellafield will cease in the long-run. In the meantime, the British have considerable amounts of Magnox fuel from old reactors that require reprocessing because this waste is unstable. Shutting down the MOX facility will not affect this,” says Audun Garberg, political advisor at the Ministry of the Environment.

“The British are also contractually bound to reprocess foreign nuclear fuel already stored at Sellafield. Therefore, the decision to close the MOX plant will hardly make a difference to the amount of liquid, high-radioactive waste short-term. Current plans show waste reprocessing will not be completed for about 15 years.”
More: theforeigner.no[id]=1&width=55

@lillymunster There is indeed a gov't agency tasked with investigating other gov't departments, but Congress has to ask for their involvement: Our Work is done at the request of congressional committees or subcommittees or is mandated by public laws or committee reports. We also undertake research under the authority of the Comptroller General. We support congressional oversight by
auditing agency operations to determine whether federal funds are being spent efficiently and effectively;
investigating allegations of illegal and improper activities;
reporting on how well government programs and policies are meeting their objectives;
performing policy analyses and outlining options for congressional consideration; and
issuing legal decisions and opinions, such as bid protest rulings and reports on agency rules.
www.gao.gov

@lillymunster Lay out for me the specific beef and I'll email my reps. They hate me already!! :)

But that's where we saw it. It may be a common dodge.

@Ian It certainly looks like something splattered and dripped.

@RadioGuy @lilymunster Vermont Yankee. TY. I'll shoot the yet another email their way, fwiw.

@Ian Something popped with force.

Hutton fears nuclear industry has lost confidence of the public
Britain's nuclear operators face the gravest challenge for years to persuade the public that new power plants will be safe in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, the new head of the industry admitted yesterday.

Lord Hutton, chairman of the Nuclear Industry Association, said the Fukushima disaster had "changed the game" for atomic energy and called for a new approach around the safety of nuclear generation.
More: www.independent.co.uk

@Ian If the filter got clogged and the pressure built up it could have caused the piping to explode. I think you're on the right track with this.

Australians in nuclear protest at Hiroshima events
HUNDREDS of Australians turned out on Saturday to rally against nuclear power following Japan's Fukushima reactor crisis, at events to commemorate the atomic bombing of Hiroshima during World War II.

Denis Doherty, from Australia's Hiroshima Day Committee, said about 400 people turned out to mark the 66th anniversary of the Hiroshima strike in Sydney and there were similar events at major cities across the nation.

Mr Doherty said the event saw its biggest crowds in several years and had special relevance, given the ongoing nuclear crisis in Japan which was triggered by March's earthquake and tsunami.

'I think people are coming to the realisation that (nuclear) is not the answer to climate change,' Mr Doherty told AFP.

'On all sorts of levels I think something is dawning, and if not it should be.' Mr Doherty said the Fukushima incident had rattled the world, evoking memories of Hiroshima with images of 'ordinary people' suffering. 'People are starting to think, the cost of 30 years of electricity - was it worth giving a whole lot of people radiation-induced cancer and destroying large sections of Japanese countryside?' he said.
www.straitstimes.com

@lillymunster That does not bode well. Who's running the place - teenagers?

@elainekirk I bet he's too tired to drink in excess:)