2015 January 19 « nuclear-news

US Department of Defense – the Global Polluter

This article might be 4 years old, but nothing has changed. My only question about it, is that Russia is surely equal with USA at the top of the military pollution list?

US Department of Defense is the Worst Polluter on the Planet Project
Censored October 2, 2010 The US military is responsible for the most egregious and widespread pollution of the planet, yet this information and accompanying documentation goes almost entirely unreported. In spite of the evidence, the environmental impact of the US military goes largely unaddressed by environmental organizations and was not the focus of any discussions or proposed restrictions at the recent UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. This impact includes uninhibited use of fossil fuels, massive creation of greenhouse gases, and extensive release of radioactive and chemical contaminants into the air, water, and soil. Continue reading →

January 19, 2015 Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, environment, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

America’s dangerous, aging, nuclear arsenal

The dangers of our aging nuclear arsenal The Week Staff 18 Jan 15 How bad is the situation? The Pentagon recently admitted there are “systemic problems across the nuclear enterprise.” Thanks to arms-control treaties and the end of the Cold War, the U.S. has reduced its stockpile of nuclear weapons from 31,000 to about 4,800 over the last 48 years. But as fears of nuclear war eased, the government failed to adequately maintain and update this immensely dangerous arsenal, which still contains enough collective destructive force to lay waste to every country on Earth. The U.S.’s 450 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) are stored in decaying 60-year-old nuclear silos in Montana, North Dakota, and Wyoming that look like a poorly maintained Cold War museum. The demoralized Air Force personnel safeguarding the weapons have been plagued by scandals reaching to the very top of the command structure — including drug rings, mislaid missiles, and widespread cheating on readiness tests. Today, the real nuclear threat to America isn’t an enemy strike, says Air Force Lt. Gen. James Kowalski. It’s “an accident. The greatest risk…is doing something stupid.”

How old are America’s nukes?
The average age of a U.S. nuclear warhead is 27 years. Many of the buildings where the nuclear missiles and bombs are stored date back to the 1950s — and it shows. Blast doors on the country’s nuclear missile silos are too rusty to seal shut. The roof of a security complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., that houses most of the U.S. supply of enriched uranium collapsed in March. ……

Is the staff demoralized?
That’s an understatement…….. The institutional rot has led to a number of frightening near-misses.

Such as?
In 2007, six nuclear missiles went missing from a North Dakota facility for 36 hours. It turned out they’d been accidentally attached to a plane’s wings and flown over several states to Louisiana, where they were left sitting unprotected on the tarmac for hours. A year before, four missile nose cones were accidentally sent to Taiwan instead of helicopter batteries. The most serious near-disaster occurred back on Jan. 21, 1961, when two nuclear bombs slipped from the belly of a B-52 flying over the North Carolina city of Goldsboro. Both bombs were set to detonate, and failed to do so after suffering minor damage to the parts needed to initiate an explosion — a stroke of luck that saved the city from annihilation……….http://theweek.com/articles/533721/dangers-ouraging-nuclear-arsenal

January 19, 2015 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Small rally in uranium price didn’t last long

Uranium Rally Running Low on Juice After shooting higher, prices have come back down amid questions about how much more of the radioactive metal China needs to buy. BARRON’S

Jan. 16, 2015 When uranium futures stormed higher last November, some analysts and investors were optimistic that a multiyear slump in yellowcake prices had ended. But it appears those hopes may have been premature: Prices are now cooling and concerns are being raised about how long it may take to work off massive stockpiles of the radioactive metal.

Uranium bulls have long pointed to China’s nuclear-industry expansion as a catalyst for a recovery in the market. In mainland China, there are 22 nuclear reactors currently operating, 26 being built and more about to start construction, according to the World Nuclear Association.

However, Australian investment bank Macquarie thinks there are now “serious question marks” about how much uranium the world’s No. 2 economy will need. “China is clearly the most positive story globally when it comes to nuclear-power-capacity expansion,” according to Macquarie analysts. “The concern, however, is that China has already procured a substantial amount of uranium well in excess of what it has consumed and that this advance purchasing might limit its need to enter the market to source material over the next few years,” they add in a note.

Uranium prices have mostly languished since the 2011 Fukushima disaster………with uranium prices rising 37% from August through November as Japan moved closer to restarting its idled reactors. Consultants Ernst & Young said they thought the market had bottomed. Analysts at Australian brokerage Bell Potter agreed.

BUT THAT RECOVERY HAS STALLED…….While the revival of Japan’s nuclear sector is positive for prices, China’s potential demand is more important……..But Macquarie’s analysts say China’s growing store of uranium may be bigger than anyone previously thought. Their latest analysis suggests China increased its stockpiles by 17% last year and now has enough uranium to meet domestic demand for about seven years at forecast 2020 consumption rates. China doesn’t provide data on its uranium inventories…. JPMorgan expects uranium prices to average $30.70 a pound this year, down from last year’s $31.70…….http://online.barrons.com/articles/uranium-rally-running-low-on-juice-1421462807

January 19, 2015 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, business and costs, Uranium | Leave a comment

Robot technology for Fukushima nuclear clean-up operations

British robot maps radiation at Fukushima, Ft.com Tanya Powley, Manufacturing Correspondent , 18 Jan 15 A robot developed by a UK start-up is helping to locate hazardous radiation sources at the scene of the Fukushima disaster, the world’s worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.

Createc, a small imaging company based in Cumbria, has developed camera technology called N-Visage for robots that can detect and draw a 3D map of high radiation locations that are too contaminated for human workers……..

Nuclear companies are turning to robotics as they look to deliver safer, faster and more cost-effective solutions for the £250bn worth of global nuclear decommissioning that is forecast to take place by 2030.

Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy, which is leading the clean-up at Fukushima, deployed Createc’s N-Visage camera technology in stair-climbing robots to reach inaccessible areas deep inside the nuclear site. Fukushima was badly damaged by a tsunami in March 2011.

N-Visage is the only technology that has the right weight, speediness and capability for high radiation, said a spokesman for International Nuclear Services Japan. “N-Visage is very likely to be deployed not necessarily only at Fukushima but also at other nuclear facilities in Japan,” he said.

The N-Visage technology was first used at Britain’s Sellafield, western Europe’s largest nuclear waste site.

Operators at Fukushima are now using the N-Visage technology to understand where radioactive material is coming from inside damaged reactors and help plan clean-up strategies…….

Sylvain Du Tremblay, chief technical and engineering officer at Sellafield, believes the adoption of N-Visage at Fukushima shows the UK can lead in robotics technology for the nuclear industry. “We are using Sellafield facilities that are waiting to be dismantled to test and validate new technologies,” he said. http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/d2ca4690-85d9-11e4-a105-00144feabdc0.html#slide0

January 19, 2015 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Fukushima 2015, technology | Leave a comment

Nuclear meeting between USA and North Korea

North Korea, US have nuclear meeting, SBS News, 18 jan 15

North Korea’s chief nuclear negotiator has met with US academics and former senior officials in Singapore. US academics and former senior officials have met with North Korea’s chief nuclear negotiator in Singapore.

The meeting was set to get a feel for each other’s positions amid a years-long standoff over the North’s nuclear weapons buildup. Leon Sigal, director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project at the Social Science Research Council, a US-based nonprofit, told reporters that the meeting will cover the North’s nuclear missile programs.

He said “it’s two ways of taking each other’s temperature.”

The US and North Korea have no formal diplomatic ties, but former US officials occasionally meet the North’s diplomats in a bid to settle the impasse over Pyongyang’s pursuit of a long-range nuclear-armed missile that could hit the US mainland. North Korea’s team was led by Ri Yong Ho, the chief negotiator for six-party denuclearisation talks……http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2015/01/18/north-korea-us-have-nuclear-meeting

January 19, 2015 Posted by Christina Macpherson | North Korea, politics international | Leave a comment

USA: Number of solar energy jobs equals number of coal industry jobs

There are about as many solar jobs as coal jobs in the US, Vox January 18, 2015 Rooftop solar power is fairly labor-intensive. You need people to design and manufacture panels. Then people to market the panels to households. Then people to come and install them on rooftops…..the solar industry employed roughly 174,000 people in 2014, according to a survey from the non-profit Solar Foundation. And the industry is expected to add another 36,000 jobs this year, as rooftop installations keep rising at a rapid clip.

To put this in perspective, 174,000 is pretty comparable to the number of workers employed by the US coal industry, if you add up everyone employed in coal mining (about 80,000), plus coal transportation and coal power plants.

January 19, 2015 Posted by Christina Macpherson | renewable, USA | Leave a comment

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