nuclear-news

Obama pledges to protect Japan against any potential nuclear attacks

Thu Feb 14, 2013 6:39AM GMT
Press TV

US President Barack Obama has vowed his ‘firm commitment’ to protect Japan against a potential nuclear attack in light of the fact that his nation is the only one that has ever used atomic bombs, which leveled two Japanese cities in 1945 and killed nearly 180,000 people.

In a telephone conversation with new Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Wednesday, Obama pledged the US military’s “steadfast” resolve to offer Japan protection against threats, including a nuclear one, according to a White House statement.

Obama further “reaffirmed that the United States remains steadfast in its defense commitments to Japan, including the extended deterrence offered by the US nuclear umbrella,” says the official statement, also released on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the Japanese prime minister is due to pay a visit to Washington later this month for major talks with the US president and other top officials and lawmakers.

During the telephone call, Obama and Abe also discussed ways to respond to what the White House statement referred to as “highly provocative violation of North Korea’s international obligations,” according to press reports.

The development comes following a reported underground nuclear test conducted by North Korea on Tuesday, triggering the usual strong reaction by the US and its major allies in the region, namely South Korea and Japan.

American and South Korean monitors claimed that the underground nuclear test was much more powerful than previous tests by North Korea in 2006 and 2009.

This is while the US, along with Russia, possesses the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world and persistently seeks to upgrade existing supplies and develop newer ones.

Obama and Abe further agreed to collaborate at the United Nations to impose stronger UN sanctions against North Korea.

MFB/MFB

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/02/14/288879/obama-vows-nuclear-protection-of-japan/

February 14, 2013 Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

UN declares humanitarian disaster in Mali as violence grip tightens

Published: 13 February, 2013

The UN plans to deploy about 6,000 peacekeepers in Mali to avoid ‘a catastrophic spiral of violence’. The international peacemaking organization has admitted a humanitarian disaster in the country.

The UN Security Council should reach an agreement in two or three weeks to ground the troops, according to Reuters citing an unnamed, senior UN official.

“As the situation evolves, attacks and reprisals risk driving Mali into a catastrophic spiral of violence,” the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay told the UN Security Council meeting on protecting civilians in conflict on Tuesday.

She also called on all sides of the ongoing armed conflict in the West African nation to “abide by international human rights and humanitarian law, and to prevent retaliation”.

The French invasion of Mali took a troubling turn, as Islamists started a campaign of guerrilla fighting using suicide attacks and landmines.

Local journalist Gonzalo Wancha, who is in the thick of things in Mali, told RT that some of the key areas in this conflict are still off-limits to international journalists, with the French army “denying us passage saying it was for our own security”.

The Islamists have been accused of brutal abuses during their 10 month-old rule over northern Mali, but Malian forces have also been accused of reprisal killings.

“The insurgency in Mali is aggravated by ethnic clashes. An RT camera crew saw evidence of executions and brutalities perpetrated by the Malian army in Sevare. The military are not the only ones engaged in hunting down people of Arab or Tuareg origin, who are believed to be part of the insurgency. The locals are going after them as well, and for some time it has been difficult to find people from either of those ethnic groups anywhere in Mali. This brings us back to the fact that more than 330,000 people have been forced to flee from their homes because of the crisis,” Wancha told RT.

Meanwhile Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has reportedly called for jihad in Mali. The call to holy war from AQAP, the global network’s Yemen-based branch, which was labeled by US officials as Al-Qaeda’s most dangerous franchise, came as troops sought to tighten a security lock-down in Gao, which is the largest city in northern Mali and the target of a string of Islamist attacks.

“Supporting the Muslims in Mali is a duty for every capable Muslim with life and money, everyone according to their ability,” AQAP’s Sharia Committee said in a statement reported by a US-based site, which monitors extremist Internet forums.

“The last straw for all those refugees, and indeed for all of Mali, has been a statement by Al Qaeda coming out of the Arabian Peninsula, which calls upon every Muslim to join the “holy war” against France – a war that is being fought in Mali, against the will of its people,” Wancha added.

France’s military intervention of Mali against Islamist groups started four weeks ago, after the interim government asked for help against Islamist insurgents who had captured the north for 10 months and were advancing into southern territory.

Paris sent in 4,000 troops backed by fighter jets and helicopters, racking up a string of early successes as the rebels were forced into desert and mountain hideouts by French and Malian forces in the north of the country.

Link to video here

http://rt.com/news/mali-humanitarian-disaster-un-140/

February 14, 2013 Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Huge section of roof covering Chernobyl nuclear reactor which exploded collapses under the weight of snow

February 14, 2013 Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Greenpeace expresses concern about a meltdown in Chernobyl

“Even if they have not increased the levels of radiation it is very worrying,” said Churov, who warned of the danger that represents the radioactive dust caused by the collapse.

February 14, 2013 4:26 am

The Delta World

The environmental organization Greenpeace expressed concern on Wednesday by a landslide in the engine room of the closed nuclear power station at Chernobyl, scene in 1986 of the greatest catastrophe in the history of the peaceful use of the power of the atom.

“It is a bad sign: If a few panels fell in the engine room, there is no guarantee that it could not start to collapse the built sarcophagus (over the damaged reactor) in 1986, told the Agency Interfax Vladímir Chuprov, leader of Greenpeace-Russia.

The Ukrainian authorities reported that Eve was the partial fall of a wall and the roof of the engine room, which did not have any impact in radiation levels recorded plant.

According to the inspection of Nuclear Regulation of Ukraine, the roof, a lightweight construction, not part of the “sarcophagus” that contains the damaged reactor.

The engine room is located between the fourth and the third reactor of the plant.

“Even if they have not increased the levels of radiation it is very worrying,” said Churov, who warned of the danger that represents the radioactive dust caused by the collapse.

He added that the useful life of the “sarcophagus”, bucket of concrete covering the fourth reactor of the plant, comes to an end and that, precisely for this reason began the construction of a new, designed for a period of one hundred years.

Russian health Chief, Guennadi Onischenko, said for his part that the fall of concrete panels in the engine room “is not cause for alarm”.

http://www.deltaworld.org/international/Greenpeace-expresses-concern-about-a-meltdown-in-Chernobyl/

February 14, 2013 Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Radiological Hazards at the Chernobyl Shelter Site

irpa11.irpa.net/pdfs/7c13.pdf

February 14, 2013 Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment

THE CHERNOBYL SARCOPHAGUS PROJECT OF THE FRENCH-GERMAN INITIATIVE

	THE CHERNOBYL SARCOPHAGUS PROJECT OF THE FRENCH-GERMAN INITIATIVE – ACHIEVEMENTS AND PROSPECTS	Chornobyl Center for Nuclear Safety, Radioactive Waste and Radioecology
	Gunter G. Pretzsch, GRS, Berlin, Germany Veronique Lhomme, IRSN, Fontenay-Aux-Roses, France Alexander N. Seleznev, Chornobyl Centre, Kiev, Ukraine Eugene S. Seredynin, ECOMM, Ukraine

ABSTRACT

At the Vienna Chernobyl Conference in April 1996 Germany and France declared to support the international cooperation in view of a solution of the Chernobyl related issues.

In 1998 the multinational Sarcophagus Project was launched in the frame of this initiative.

The aim of the project was the collection, analysis, selection and verification of all safety relevant data concerning building constructions, systems and equipment, radiological situation, nuclear fuel, radioactive waste and environmental impact in a comprehensive data base.

ArcView® GIS, ArcView® Spatial AnalystT and ArcView® 3D AnalystT serve as a navigation system to retrieve the information from the data base using different cross sections of the Sarcophagus.

1. INTRODUCTION

After the declaration of Germany and France at the Vienna Chernobyl Conference in April 1996 to support the international cooperation of institutions of the Ukraine, Belarus and Russia in view of a solution of the Chernobyl related issues, three projects were identified, i.e. the safety state of the Chernobyl Sarcophagus, the radioecological consequences due to the radioactive contaminated areas and the health consequences to the liquidators and the population in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia after the Chernobyl accident. The projects have been funded by the governments and by the electricity utilities of Germany and France, respectively. In this paper the Sarcophagus project will be presented.

Figure 2: General view of the object Shelter and the industrial site from the west

Sixteen years after the accident of unit 4 of the Chernobyl NPP the Sarcophagus still remains one of the most dangerous nuclear facilities in the world. The ruin of the destroyed unit 4 and its surrounding Sarcophagus together are termed object Shelter.

The Sarcophagus was erected in a relatively short time period of several months on the basements of old structures of unknown stability of the former unit 4. Inside the Shelter remained about 96 % of the irradiated nuclear fuel inventory of the reactor of unit 4 before the accident, i.e. 180 t of Uranium of total radioactivity 7 x 10¹⁷ Bq. The radioactive releases to the industrial site of 500 m radius around the Chernobyl NPP during the first ten days after the accident were estimated to amount 0,5 – 1,0 % of the fuel inventory.

The spent fuel inside the Shelter and the radioactive contamination at the industrial site have an essential impact on all human activities concerned with investigation work, maintenance and stabilization measures which are presently under progress e.g. in the framework of the Shelter Implementation Plan because of the radiation exposure.

For planning of any actions towards a stabilization of the unstable building constructions of the Shelter and of measures to retain the radioactive materials inside the Sarcophagus a unified and comprehensive data base of all safety relevant technical data describing the present safety state of the Shelter is required.

Hence, the main aim of the Shelter project was the collection, analysis and selection as well as verification of all existing safety relevant data of the Shelter and the creation of an appropriate data base.

2. PROJECT ORGANISATION

The project management is being carried out by GRS and IRSN on behalf of the German and French governments and utilities, respectively. The local project coordination in Ukraine is carried out by the Chornobyl Centre which will also be the beneficiary of the work. The work is being performed by local contractors in Ukraine and Russia. The progress of work is being frequently estimated and ruled by the project review group from the above mentioned organizations together with the contractors.

During a preparation phase after the declaration of the initiative in 1996 the main tasks of the project were identified and the terms of references including detailed technical specifications of the work were elaborated. These main tasks are Building Constructions, Systems and Equipment, Radiological Situation, Fuel Containing Materials and Radioactive Waste and Environmental Impact. In May 1998 the first sub-projects with the local contractors were launched.

The project duration was three years, the total budget amounts to 2 Million Euro. The technical organization of the project is the following. For each technical task, in a first step, the main sources of information, i.e. technical documents, publications etc., were identified and described in a bibliography. In the next steps the technical quantities of interest were extracted from theses documents and input into the data base. The input of data is being performed by the contractors using especially designed interfaces, which address the kind and the total amount of data for the given task. The development of interfaces, the structure and the configuration of the data base as well as the data integration are subject to a separate contract. This work is being performed by ECOMM, which is the main Esri distributor for Ukraine.

Besides internal quality control of the technical data, performed by each of the contractors, additionally an independent expert team of Atomaudit (AA), Kiev, Ukraine, was involved in external quality control of the work. The configuration of the data base and data integration was also subject to independent control by a GRS supervisor.
3. CONTENTS OF WORK

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February 14, 2013 Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Confirmed! – Centrica will not take part in UK nuclear new-build

Thursday, 14 February 2013

UK energy company Centrica said today it will not take part in the country’s programme of nuclear new-build.

In 2009, Centrica acquired a 20 percent interest in EDF Energy’s eight operational nuclear power plants in the UK. The group also took an option for a 20 percent interest in the construction of planned nuclear plants at Hinkley Point and Sizewell.

The acquisition was funded through a GBP 2.2 billion (about 2.5 billion euros; 3.4 billion US…

http://www.onenewspage.co.uk/n/Business/74vpdiekw/Centrica-will-not-take-part-in-UK-nuclear.htm

February 14, 2013 Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized | Leave a comment