The search for an underground storage site for high-level nuclear waste is likely to go ahead in Cumbria after a poll showed residents are in favour.

In Copeland, the local authority area encapsulating Sellafield, 68% of people backed entering formal talks with government on hosting the repository.

Across Cumbria as a whole, 53% are in favour and 33% opposed.

West Cumbria is the only region to show an interest in the repository; if talks fail, the UK has no "Plan B".

A 1,300-acre dump to bury low-level radioactive waste has opened in a remote corner of west Texas, the fourth U.S. site to allow such waste, despite concerns about water seepage at the site, which sits above the huge and vital Ogallala aquifer.

In a letter to Waste Control Specialists LLC of Dallas, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality granted approval to the company's dump near Andrews, Texas, about 45 miles northwest of Midland and close to the New Mexico border.

The Kudankulam nuclear project is both viable and eco-friendly, said Daniel Chellappa, senior scientist, Advanced Nuclear Fuels, Department of Atomic Energy, here on Thursday.

Delivering a lecture on ‘Kudankulam nuke project: safe and eco-friendly' organised by the Rotary Clubs of Tiruchi Fort, Tiruchi Midtown and Tiruchi Rockcity, he said that the depleting reserves of coal, expensive outlay for tapping solar energy, and uncertainty in wind have all made energy generation a great challenge .

Responding to chief minister J. Jayalalithaa’s repeated demand for 100 per cent allocation of power from the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP), Atomic Energy Commission chairman, Sreekumar Banerjee and NPCIL chairman, S.K. Jain assured at a joint press conference on Thursday that they would recommend an increase in Tamil Nadu’s share of power from KKNPP.

Upset with the Tamil Nadu government for going back on its assurances, the People's Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE) on Monday announced that it would resume an indefinite hunger strike from May 1 against the two 1,000 MW plants at Kudankulam.

"We have decided to go on hunger protest once again from May 1 onwards as the state government has gone against its assurances given to us. A large number of women will be participating in the hunger protest," PMANE leader M. Pushparayan told agencies over phone from Idinthakarai, a fishing village near the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KNPP).

Shillong, April 19: The preliminary report on the cause of the death of fishes in Kynshi and Rilang rivers, West Khasi Hills, has ruled out the possibility of radiation from uranium ore exploration. The report said the two possible reasons are coal mining and spread of toxic substances in the rivers by some individuals.

Briefing reporters on the interim report today, deputy chief minister Bindo Lanong, who also holds the mining and geology portfolio, said two geologists — K.B. Surong and E. Nongbri — visited the spot on April 17 and tested the waters of both the rivers.

Claims to contrary nonsensical: Nobel Peace laureate

At a time when the debate over nuclear energy is on the boil in Tamil Nadu, German physicist and Nobel Peace laureate Hans-Peter Duerr is as clear on his anti-clear standpoint as his advocacy of solar and other alternative sources for energy security.