nuclear hazards
Geological hazards of nuclear plants
“………………………………………The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission is also very worried because loss of pool water could cause the zirconium alloy cladding of the most recently discharged spent fuel assemblies to combust spontaneously. The fire would then ignite adjacent fuel assemblies. Spraying the fire with water would make it worse because steam and zirconium react to produce even more heat.Just like a fire in a reactor core, one in a spent fuel storage pool would release huge volumes of radioactive gases to the atmosphere, including much Cesium-137, which is water-soluble and extremely toxic, even in minute quantities.Pool water could be lost in many ways such as pump valve or piping failures or a simple brownout. At Natib, an earthquake could simply slosh the water out of the pool. In an eruption, a pyroclastic flow could evaporate the water instantaneously…………………………”
Kelvin Rodolfo is concurrently professor emeritus with the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois in Chicago, and an adjunct professor with the National Institute of Geological Sciences, University of the Philippines-Diliman. He is currently a DOST Balik Scientist.
Bloomberg.com: Japan
Japanese Company Accused of Exporting Nuclear Enrichment Parts
By Shigeru Sato and Yuji Okada
March 4 (Bloomberg) — Horkos Corp., a Japanese machinery maker, is accused of violated national security laws for exporting devices that can be used for nuclear fuel enrichment plants to China and South Korea, Japan’s trade ministry said.
Horkos Corp., which was founded in 1940 and is based in Hiroshima, produced and exported the unspecified devices to China and South Korea since 2001 without permission from the ministry, it said in a statement.
Police arrested four Horkos employees………………Investigations, which started in July last year, are continuing, the trade ministry said.
The geological hazards of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant
The geological hazards of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (Third of a series)STAR SCIENCE By Kelvin S. Rodolfo, PhD Updated March 05, 2009
New earthquake data
Since 1973, many more earthquakes have occurred around and even under Mt. Natib; one on June 24, 1991 with a magnitude of 4.6 occurred directly under Napot Point. Since 1981, six have occurred within 25 kilometers of the BNPP. Note that the largest nuclear complex in the world, the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in Japan, was shut down by a magnitude 6.6 earthquake in July 2007 only 19 kilometers away. It is still inactive today.
The Lubao lineament
In 1997, Prof. Fernando Siringan, his students and I began to study land subsidence in coastal Bataan, Pampanga, Bulacan and Camanava. Very early, we noticed a sharp lineament in Lubao, Pampanga that trends southwest to Mt. Natib, where it abruptly disappears. Many earthquake epicenters plot along the lineament which, if extended farther, trends to Napot Point. The possibility that the lineament is a fault, and the possibility that it extends under Mt. Natib need urgently to be explored by scientists of Phivolcs and other institutions.
Professor Mahar Lagmay has established genetic relationships between faults and volcanoes, including Mt. Pinatubo and the volcanoes in Bicol.
Spent fuel pools
No country in the world has yet solved the problem of how to store nuclear waste permanently and safely for tens and hundreds of thousands of years. In the meantime, spent fuel is stored next to the plants, in pools of water that absorb the radiation and disperse the heat. The need for huge volumes of water to absorb excess heat from the reactor and from spent fuel is why the BNPP was built on the coast.
Yucca Mountain Is Dead. Now What?
Yucca Mountain Is Dead. Now What? THE NEW REPUBLIC 4 March 09 So what does this mean for the future of nuclear power in the United States? Not much in the short run, says Allison MacFarlane, a George Mason University professor and author of Uncertainty Underground, a book on Yucca Mountain and the long-term storage of high-level nuclear waste. The nation’s nuclear power plants, MacFarlane told me, will continue storing their spent fuel rods onsite—first in cooling pools and then in slightly more permanent dry-cask storage containers. The Energy Department is still contractually obligated to remove that waste and store it in some sort of permanent repository eventually, so it’s not as if utility companies are worried they’ll be left holding the bag………………………It will be important to construct a permanent geological repository at some point in the next few decades, especially if nuclear power production expands further as part of the push to curb carbon emissions. What’s more, the oft-mentioned option of reprocessing high-level nuclear waste and using it as fuel for fast-breeder reactors won’t make building a storage site any easier. Reprocessing may reduce the volume of high-level nuclear waste that needs to be stored, but it won’t reduce the amount of heat that the remaining waste actually produces—and that’s the main concern in finding a suitably sized repository, since you don’t want to keep hot waste too close together…………………….even if it is situated in a closed basin, there are still people who drink the basin’s groundwater.
‘Keep out nuclear ships’:
‘Keep out nuclear ships’04/03/2009 News 24 (SA)
Cape Town – An anti-nuclear group has urged the South African government to make sure that two vessels carrying what is reportedly the biggest ever shipment of plutonium stay out of its waters.
“What we don’t want is an accident at sea where we as a country have to carry the consequences,” said Mike Kantey, chairman of the Coalition Against Nuclear Energy, on Tuesday.
The heavily armed Pacific Pintail and the Pacific Heron left Barrow-in-Furness in the north-west of England last week.
They will collect their freight – a load of MOX nuclear fuel containing what environmentalists say are 1800kg of plutonium – at Cherbourg in France, then head for Japan.
The route around the Cape is one of a number of possible routes the ships – which have been barred from the Suez Canal – may use.
In previous years the Pintail has used the Cape route when carrying nuclear materials……………………….The MOX on the two ships is intended for use at reactors of three Japanese power companies.
Greenpeace brings Nuclear lies, green truths speaking tour to Lindsay
Greenpeace brings Nuclear lies, green truths speaking tour to Lindsay |VIDEO mykawartha.com 2009-03-04
By Barbara-Ann MacEachern
The executive director of Greenpeace Canada, Bruce Cox, visited Fleming College in Lindsay Feb. 27 as part of the ‘Nuclear lies, green truths speaking tour.’
Mr. Cox spoke about climate change and possible alternatives to nuclear power in the Auk Lodge of the Albert Street campus.
“We need global agreements to battle a global problem,” Mr. Cox said.
A World Climate Conference is scheduled for Sept. 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark, which will decide the immediate future of climate change, he predicted.
“We are either going to come out with a global, legally binding agreement, or we are in big trouble.”…………………..Nuclear power was a major topic in Mr. Cox’s climate change discussion. Its use takes money away from other potentially cleaner technology, including wind and solar. It is also expensive, unsafe, unreliable and, “we are left with a million years of nuclear waste,” said Mr. Cox.
“If you are in favour of nuclear power, are you willing to store the nuclear waste in your backyard?” Mr. Cox challenged…………………………….“The McGuinty government’s Green Energy Act is an exercise in green washing if they proceed with their nuclear expansion plans,” said Mr. Cox. “Tonnes of radioactive waste, that will be toxic for thousands of years are stockpiled now at the Pickering reactor site on the shores of Lake Ontario. What is green about that?”
He dropped off a list of 10 reasons why nuclear power should be replaced with green power sources.
When money is poured into nuclear power production, Mr. Cox argued, it puts a cap on funds available for the development of green energy, and scares off investment in this sector.
Greenpeace brings Nuclear lies, green truths speaking tour to Lindsay |VIDEO – myKawartha
Not yet clear what Belarus will do with waste from nuclear power plant, researcher says | BELARUS NEWS
Not yet clear what Belarus will do with waste from nuclear power plant, researcher says /naviny.by 4 March 09
It is not yet clear what will be done with nuclear waste from Belarus’ would-be nuclear power plant, Valyantsina Brylyova, a senior researcher at the Sosny nuclear research center, said at Wednesday’s meeting with local resident in Astravets, Hrodna region, where the plant is scheduled to be built.
There will be two options to deal with the waste if the plant is built by Russia, the researcher said.
“Either we will give nuclear waste to Russia for processing and storage or will store it in special containers at the plant’s site. The latter is the most common practice,” she said, adding that “modern technologies allowed storing waste in containers for up to 100 years.
33 Towns Support Closing Of Nuke Plant – News- msnbc.com
33 Towns Support Closing Of Nuke Plant msnbc 4 March 09 Non-Binding Resolution Speaks To Bigger Picture Thirty-nine communities around the state voted on whether or not they think the nuclear power plant’s license should be extended, and most of those communities voted an overwhelming “no.”
Towns Weigh In On VT Yankee Future Organizers of a campaign to close Vermont Yankee nuclear plant say 33 towns voted in favor a measure urging state lawmakers to pull the plug on it.
The non-binding resolution was passed Tuesday at town meetings in Brattleboro, Brookline, Calais, Charlotte, Corinth, Charleston, Craftsbury, Dummerston, Duxbury, East Montpelier, Greensboro, Guilford, Halifax, Hinesburg, Holland, Lincoln, Marshfield, Middlesex, Marlboro, Montpelier, Newfane, Plainfield, Putney, Richmond, Shrewsbury, Townshend, Tunbridge, Warren, Westfield, Westminster, Windham, Woodbury and Worcester……………………….The vote was an advisory vote, which means that the Legislature has no obligation to act on its results.
Leadership: Nuclear Pressure
Nuclear Pressure STRATEGY PAGE March 4, 2009: For the second time in three years, the U.S. Navy has had to discipline sailors who maintain nuclear power plants. Back in 2007, several members of the nuclear power department on a nuclear submarine were disciplined for not maintaining logs properly………….
…….A similar situation arose recently in the nuclear power department of the carrier Eisenhower. There, seventeen senior NCOs and a junior officer were punished for cheating on a requalification examination.
Nuclear reactor from HMS Vanguard being dismantled in Plymouth’s Devonport Dockyard
Nuclear reactor being dismantled in Devonport The Herald (UK) March 04 2009
A massive section of the reactor from HMS Vanguard – which was refitted and refuelled at Devonport dockyard between 2002 and 2004 – is being dismantled at the city dockyard.
Royal Navy sources have said it was the first time a submarine reactor had been cut up in the UK.
And campaigners against the storage of nuclear waste at the naval base claimed they knew nothing of the scheme and accused the Ministry of Defence of ignoring public opposition to reactor disposal work in the city.
They fear it is a precursor to the reactors aboard seven redundant submarines stored in the naval yard being cut up at Devonport…………………….an Avent, of the Campaign Against Nuclear Storage and Radiation (Cansar), said: “This is the first phase in Plymouth becoming a nuclear scrapyard.
“The Ministry of Defence are going to use this project to justify doing all the other submarines here. What makes it worse is that they are doing it behind our backs.”………………………Five years ago, the public rejected any plans to manage or store nuclear waste at Devonport after consultation on the Ministry of Defence’s controversial Interim Storage of Laid Up Submarines (ISOLUS) project.
Nuclear reactor from HMS Vanguard being dismantled in Plymouth’s Devonport Dockyard
AREVA in trouble?
Areva May Sue Siemens on Nuclear Deal With Rosatom, Figaro Says
By Francois de Beaupuy
March 4 (Bloomberg) — Areva SA may sue Siemens AG because it agreed to create a venture with Rosatom Corp. to design, build and operate nuclear power plants, Le Figaro said, citing people close to Areva it didn’t name.
Siemens, which decided earlier this year that it would sell its 34 percent stake in a nuclear reactor building venture with Areva, must respect a clause that prevents it from competing with the French company on nuclear issues until 2020, the newspaper said.
UPDATE 1-IAEA approves extra nuclear inspection pact for India | Reuters
IAEA approves extra nuclear inspection pact for India – “………..
VIENNA, March 4 (Reuters) – U.N. nuclear watchdog governors on Tuesday approved a deal allowing extra inspections of India’s atomic industry, a condition of a U.S.-led deal allowing New Delhi to import nuclear technology after a 33-year freeze.
Passage of an “Additional Protocol” somewhat expanding the International Atomic Energy Agency’s monitoring rights in India came a month after New Delhi signed a basic nuclear safeguards accord opening its civilian nuclear plants to U.N. inspections……………………………..
Sceptics felt that while heightened U.N. safeguards were a net gain for a country outside the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), they could have been stronger had there been more time for negotiations, they added.
“Switzerland, Ireland, Cuba and South Africa protested that the agreement was handed to the board only two days ago, too late to thoroughly assess whether it will really contribute to disarmament,” one diplomat in the closed-door meeting said.
“It doesn’t because there are no provisions to ensure India cannot divert into its military nuclear sector nuclear materials and know-how it obtains abroad for the civilian sector.”
The protocol, entitled “Nuclear Verification — The Conclusion of Safeguards Agreements and Additional Protocols” — would give inspectors wider access to India’s programme but not as much as in countries that have signed the NPT.
UPDATE 1-IAEA approves extra nuclear inspection pact for India | Reuters
Iran Says Its Missiles Can Reach Israel Nuclear Installations
Iran Says Its Missiles Can Reach Israel Nuclear Installations
By Ladane Nasseri
March 4 (Bloomberg) — Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps said Israeli nuclear sites are within the range of its missiles and warned that the Persian Gulf country will defend itself in the eventuality of military strikes.
“All of the facilities in different areas of the land occupied by the Zionist regimes are within reach of Iran’s missile defenses,” the Corps’ head, Mohammad Ali Jafari, was quoted as saying by the state-run Iranian Students News Agency………………….
Israel has indicated that it may hit Iran’s nuclear sites to cut short Iran’s progress in the nuclear field. The U.S. and Israel claim that Iran’s atomic program is aimed at developing weapons while the Middle-Eastern country says it only seeks to produce electricity.
Iran has missiles with a range of more than 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) putting all of Israel’s land including its nuclear sites within reach, Jafari said. Iran doesn’t recognize the legitimacy of the Jewish state.
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