April 11, 2012 - CBS 4 WCCO -
Good Question: Do We Get Too Many X-Rays? - We’ve all been at the dentist with the round X-ray machine shoved against our jaw, biting down on plastic pieces of film with a lead apron on our chests. Now researchers have identified a possible connection between a brain tumor and dental X-rays. So are we being X-rayed too much? At ADT Dental in Minneapolis, first- and third-graders Kelly and Adrian Contreras both got their teeth cleaned, and neither of them had an X-ray. "We don’t do it as often as we used to," said their mother Laura. It’s no accident. Dr. Adele Della Torre said she’s made a conscious effort to cut down on radiation exposure for her patients. "Of course we all worry about it, we want to keep it as low as possible," said Della Torre. "When I was a kid, it was every time you went to the dentist." Now the equipment has gotten more sensitive, requiring lower doses of radiation. Della Torre spent the money to outfit her office with a digital X-ray system. The manufacturer told her it uses 90 percent of the radiation compared to the older X-ray machines, and about half the radiation of the current film X-ray machines. "You place [a digital sensor] in the mouth instead of the film, it’s very sensitive to the radiation, and you see the image on the screen," she said.
April 11, 2012 - Plant Engineer - Dounreay has completed the destruction of one of the most hazardous legacies of Britain's earliest atomic research - A purpose-built chemical plant processed the last of 57,000 litres of liquid metal lifted from the primary cooling circuit of the Dounreay plant's original experimental fast breeder reactor. The coolant – an alloy of sodium and potassium (NaK) - was a major chemical and radiological hazard. Around 1,000 trillion becquerels of caesium-137 was removed from the coolant during the chemical process that turned the 57 tonnes of liquid metal into 20,000 tonnes of salty water and took four years to complete. "This is a tremendous achievement and another example of how the highly skilled Dounreay workforce is delivering a world-class clean-up operation at one of the most complex nuclear sites in Europe," says Scotland's Cabinet Secretary for the Environment Richard Lochhead, who saw the last batches being processed. "This was very high on the list of hazards we wanted reduced across our whole estate," comments Nigel Lowe, head of the NDA's (Nuclear Decommissioning Agency) Dounreay programme. "It's a significant achievement for Dounreay and joins a long list of examples whereby the site has delivered on key objectives and technical challenges."
April 11, 2012 - Baltimore Sun - Safety violation charged at Calvert Cliffs - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has charged Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant with a safety violation after an employee "deliberately became inattentive" — meaning he was caught napping — last year in the room housing diesel generators for use in an emergency. Kory Raftery, spokesman for Constellation Energy Nuclear Group, said Tuesday the employee was promptly dismissed after a supervisor discovered him, and the company does not intend to challenge the NRC's findings. The federal agency said it appeared to be an isolated incident and classified the infraction as of very low safety significance.
April 11, 2012 - Reuters - NRC fines NextEra for Florida Turkey Pt nuclear violation - The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on Tuesday fined a unit of Florida power company NextEra Energy $140,000 for failing to properly maintain the onsite emergency response facility at the Turkey Point nuclear power plant in Florida. NextEra's Florida Power and Light Co's (FPL) failed to report that the plant's technical support center was not fully functional during a seven-month period in 2010-2011, the NRC said in a release. NRC regulations require licensees to report a major loss of emergency assessment capability within eight hours. The NRC said its staff determined the violation was of low to moderate safety significance that may require additional NRC inspection and oversight. Turkey Point is located about 25 miles (40 km) south of Miami near Homestead, Florida.
April 11, 2012 - Omaha World-Herald - Regulators uphold nuke plant citation - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has concluded that it was correct in proposing that the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station be dealt a so-called "red finding" for a June 2011 electrical fire in its emergency equipment. A red finding is the most severe of four color-coded citations the commission metes out after problems at a nuclear plant. This is the seventh red finding the commission has issued against a nuclear reactor since 2001. The nation has more than 100 reactors. Elmo E. Collins, regional administrator for the commission, said in a statement Tuesday that the fire was of "high safety significance" because it affected multiple systems and needed to be addressed to prevent it from happening again. The nuclear plant, about 20 miles north of Omaha, is owned and operated by the Omaha Public Power District. Jeff Hanson, spokesman for OPPD, said the utility accepts the NRC's decision. "This is something we take seriously," he said.