Deadly blast at French radioactive waste incinerator and "recycling" facility

News is coming in about an explosion at Marcoule, a nuclear processing plant in southern France. One worker has died and four have been injured according to official reports. The explosion appears to have occurred in a furnace at Marcoule in a radioactive waste treatment plant at the Centraco center which is owned by Socodei, a subsidiary of EDF. Beyond Nuclear is following developments. Officials claim there has been no release of radioactivity although reports say there is a possibility for releases. Given "official" statements during the French Tricastin accident and, of course, Fukushima, Beyond Nuclear is conferring with colleagues in France to learn more and break through any opacity. Marcoule processes radioactive waste. It is also the site of a MOX (mixed oxide plutonium-uranium) fuel manufacturing facility - MELOX.

Update on September 12, 2011 by admin

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CRIIRAD, the independent radiological French monitoring laboratory already had monitors in place and so far is not seeing unusual levels of radioactive aerosols as a result of the explosion. Beyond Nuclear is monitoring their updates (in French) here.

Update on September 13, 2011 by admin

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No further updates on the aftermath of the explosion at the Marcoule facility have come in. The explosion took place in one of the ovens of the incinerator that melts low-level radioactive detritus mostly emanating from the country's 58 reactors. Nevertheless, the concerns - and the potential for a devastating outcome as a result of an accident at the multi-facility nuclear site, serve as a reminder of the risks that continue to be taken by prolonging the use of nuclear energy as an electricity source.

Update on September 17, 2011 by admin

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The Independent of London also reported on this story.

Yucca's cancellation one major step closer to final

Yucca Mountain's western face, as seen through the frame of a Western Shoshone Indian ceremonial sweat lodge. Photo by Gabriela Bulisova, 2004.As reported by KTVN of Reno, Nevada, today the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission -- by the narrowest of margins -- approved an order mandating that its Atomic Safety and Licensing Board conclude and close out all Yucca Mountain repository proceedings by the end of the fiscal year -- September 30, 2011. This is a major victory for opponents of the Yucca dump, as celebrated by U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Democrat-Nevada), who has devoted his quarter century long Senate career to blocking the dump. Yucca Mountain, a sacred site belonging to the Western Shoshone Indian Nation as acknowledged by the Treaty of Ruby Valley, signed by the U.S. government in 1863, has been the sole target of the nuclear establishment for a national high-level radioactive waste dump since the "Screw Nevada" bill of 1987. More than $10 billion of ratepayer and taxpayer money has been wasted on the project.

Update on September 12, 2011 by admin

As the title implies, E&E's article "Nuclear waste: Confusion reigns in wake of deadlocked NRC's Yucca vote," paints a much more murky picture of what Friday's 2-2 split decision amongst the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commissioners means for Yucca's future. Yucca dump proponents, from NRC Commissioner Ostendorff to U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) and the Nuclear Energy Institute, view the tied NRC vote as a new lease on life for the dump, while Senate Majority Leader Reid portrays it as yet another nail in the dump's coffin lid.

Urge BRC to secure risky radioactive wastes!

Radioactive wastes are at risk of accidents, attacks, and leaks. Please urge the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future to recommend to Congress, the Energy Secretary, and the President hardened on-site storage as a vital interim measure of homeland security and public health and environmental protection.

Please take action. Cut and paste the sample "BRC public comment" below into an email, and email it in to: brc@nuclear.energy.gov. Be sure to sign it with a full contact address. Feel free to change it however you see fit, by adding your own thoughts and concerns. Thanks! 

BRC public comment:

Dear Members of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future,

High-level radioactive wastes are at risk of accidents, attacks, and leaks. In your final report due out by January 29, 2012, please recommend to Congress, the Energy Secretary, and the President that hardened on-site storage be required as a vital interim measure of homeland security and public health, safety, and environmental protection.

The on-going Fukushima nuclear catastrophe in Japan has dramatically shown the risks of storing highly radioactive irradiated nuclear fuel in indoor water pools. Pool cooling water circulation systems were damaged or destroyed by the ravages of the earthquake, tsunami, reactor meltdowns, and explosions that began on March 11^th. For months now, desperate and dangerous efforts to cool the high-level radioactive wastes have continued, including failed helicopter water drops, and refilling the pools from afar with fire engines, riot control water cannons, and other ad hoc pumps. The thermally hot wastes have then boiled the water away, forcing these efforts to be repeated. If the pools boil dry, the wastes could catch fire and unleash catastrophic amounts of hazardous radioactivity directly into the environment, to blow downwind, flow downstream, and contaminate the food chain over a vast region.

The same could happen all of a sudden if a large after-shock topples the listing Unit 4, or causes the bottom to drop out of the Unit 4 high-level radioactive waste storage pool, which is being shored up with steel jacks.

Such boil down or drain down accidents could happen here. So too could a terrorist attack. A number of pools at commercial atomic reactors have already sprung leaks in the U.S., releasing hazardous radioactivity into soil, ground- and surface waters, including Indian Point, NY; Connecticut Yankee; Hatch, GA; and Salem, NJ. Many individual pools in the U.S. hold more waste than all 4 units at Fukushima Daiichi put together, including at the identically designed (General Electric Mark 1 Boiling Water Reactors) Vermont Yankee, Oyster Creek in NJ, Ferm 2 in MI, etc.!

For a decade, hundreds of environmental groups have been calling for hardened on-site storage, as an interim alternative to pool risks, as well as to current “overflow parking,” outdoor dry casks at reactor sites, themselves vulnerable to accidents, attacks, and eventual leaks.

In your final report due out before January 29, 2012, I strongly urge you to recommend hardened on-site storage as a vital matter of homeland security, as well as public health, safety, and environmental protection.

Sincerely,