EDF plans to build a giant nuclear garbage pool in Belleville-sur-Loire instead of stopping producing unmanageable waste!http://www.sortirdunucleaire.org/EDF-projette-de-construire-une-piscine-poubelle February 13, 2018
On February 13, 2018, the Reporterre site revealed the new EDF project. In view of the prolongation of the operation of nuclear reactors and to unclog the four basins of the La Hague plant where used fuel is stored, the electrical firm wants to build a giant new “pool of deactivation” near the Belleville plant -sur-Loire (Cher). We strongly condemn this imposed, dangerous and expensive project. Rather than create a new trash, EDF must turn off the tap and dry up the production of unmanageable radioactive waste!
In France, spent fuel is stored in “deactivation pools” for the time needed to cool them (between 3 and 5 years). If each nuclear power plant has its own pool adjoining the reactor building, the La Hague plant (Manche) hosts 4 pools in which are immersed more than 10,000 tons of spent fuel, representing a hundred reactor cores waiting for a improbable “reprocessing”. Supposedly temporary, storage in these pools has been going on for 40 years. Consequences: the pools are full and the space is running out. Instead of starting a decline in spent fuel stocks by stopping the production of electricity from nuclear power, EDF is stubborn and plans to build an additional pool in Belleville-sur-Loire. But the experience of La Hague shows that the use of these pools goes hand in hand with disproportionate risks.
Vulnerable pools and potentially dramatic accidents The 4 cooling pools at the La Hague plant concentrate the largest volume of radioactivity in Europe. Belleville-sur-Loire could soon compete with this facility. Oversized, the giant basin that EDF plans to build in Belleville-sur-Loire could accommodate up to 8,000 tons of spent fuel, the equivalent of 93 cores of reactors.
This project is all the more worrying because EDF is never very concerned about the protection of the reactor deactivation pools it operates. Will the centralized Belleville pool be protected as recommended by nuclear safety authorities around the world since Fukushima? Nobody can say it. And the risk increases even if EDF chooses not to bunkerize the building that contains the pool, as is the case at the Orano factory in La Hague, where the basins are protected by a vulgar tin roof
… But even with a concrete hull, in the event of an accident, the amount of radioactivity released into the atmosphere would be incommensurate with the releases resulting from an accident in the core of a reactor: to concentrate in the same place such a quantity of radioactive material has intrinsic risks. And what about the dangers of transporting such large quantities of radioactive waste across France?
The Belleville-sur-Loire swimming pool project poses even more safety problems because it is supposed to house the assemblies of MOX – a mixture of uranium and plutonium oxides – a particular fuel that, when it is used, releases much more radioactivity than “normal” uranium assemblages. And since MOX can not be reprocessed or reused, temporary storage in this pool could well become permanent storage.
Finally, in normal operation, these pools are allowed to reject radioactivity. If a new bin of this kind were built, dangerous radioelements like tritium or krypton 85 would inevitably end up in the environment.
An opaque and expensive project EDF led this project with complete opacity. At the time Greenpeace submitted a report that points to the fragility and dangerousness of the 62 cooling pools scattered over the hex, EDF plans to build a 63rd, size XXL. Discussed on the sly, well protected from democratic choices and far from energy issues, the project was kept secret by EDF.
Once again, citizens and residents of the region are faced with a fait accompli. Still, the idea is in the pipes for a long time. Urged by ASN – which invited it in 2013 to “revise its spent fuel management and storage strategy, by proposing new storage methods” – EDF, to comply with the National Plan management of radioactive materials and waste, once again chose the worst option.For EDF and the promoters of the atom, the construction of such an installation is only one way of guaranteeing new outlets for a declining nuclear industry and of claiming to ensure the management of spent fuel for a new period.
The “Sortir du nucléaire” Network strongly denounces this project and, alongside the associations of the region, will resolutely oppose its implementation. In no case this pool is a “solution” to the problem of the accumulation of radioactive waste. In order not to generate new risks and to put the costs of a disproportionate installation on the citizens, the only solution is to dry up the production of this unmanageable waste. Press contacts: Martial CHATEAU: 06 45 30 74 66 Catherine FUMÉ: 06 62 84 13 88
February 16, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
France, safety, wastes |
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The West risks missing a chance at peace if it continues to treat North Korea’s change of heart with cynicism Could it be that Trump’s bombast over the airwaves cut through in Pyongyang in a way that conventional diplomacy had failed to do? The Independent UK, Mary Dejevsky @IndyVoices 16 Feb 18
“”…………The mixed messages about the North Korean skaters, however, highlighted – or so it seemed to me – something else: a reluctance on the part of the foreign policy establishment, including the media, to look good news in the face, especially when it has not been expected.
How long ago was it –in fact, a bare six weeks – that Kim Jong-un and the US President were trading very public, very macho, insults, culminating in Donald Trump’s memorable boast that his nuclear button was “much bigger and more powerful” than Kim’s and, what is more, “my button works”.
Even the most hardened pessimist would have to admit that between then and now there has been something of a mood swing. Less than three weeks after the “big button” exchange, North Korea suddenly acted on overtures in Kim’s New Year address to broach talks with the South, and even participated in the Olympics. The IOC delayed its deadline for entries, permitted North Korea’s participation, and the next thing we knew was that North and South were concocting a joint ice hockey team, the North’s nonagenarian de facto head of state was on his way to Seoul, and Kim announced that his sister – his sister – would be going to the opening ceremony, too.
Far from hailing these developments as the possible start of a North-South thaw, however, the Western response seemed – to me, at least, – both fearful and curmudgeonly. Kim Jong-un was suspected of the basest of motives. Might he not be deviously stringing the South along, it was asked, just waiting to demand all sorts of impossible concessions at the last moment that would cast the Seoul government as the villain if it refused?
And was Kim not also staging a vast military parade in Pyongyang on the eve of the official Olympic opening? Well, of course, he was. No self-respecting national leader, least of all an autocrat in the mould of Kim, can be seen to be weak in front of his own people. Shows of strength have a habit of going hand in hand with diplomatic U-turns.
As the North Korean nuclear threat vanished from the headlines, however, it was only to be replaced with another menace from the North. Kim’s very presentable little sister, Kim Yo-jong, was accused of stealing the limelight, diluting the world’s attention that should have been Seoul’s, and presenting an image of the North that was scandalously at odds with the cruel and earth-scorched reality. Don’t allow yourself to be fooled, was the message.
That she was received in Seoul at the highest level and filmed handing over an invitation to President Moon Jae-in to visit Pyongyang was also somehow seen as out of order, another trick to gain diplomatic advantage. Surely it would all turn sour even before the Olympic glow over the South had faded. The North Korean threat was still there.
Far from hailing these developments as the possible start of a North-South thaw, however, the Western response seemed – to me, at least, – both fearful and curmudgeonly. Kim Jong-un was suspected of the basest of motives. Might he not be deviously stringing the South along, it was asked, just waiting to demand all sorts of impossible concessions at the last moment that would cast the Seoul government as the villain if it refused?
And was Kim not also staging a vast military parade in Pyongyang on the eve of the official Olympic opening? Well, of course, he was. No self-respecting national leader, least of all an autocrat in the mould of Kim, can be seen to be weak in front of his own people. Shows of strength have a habit of going hand in hand with diplomatic U-turns.
As the North Korean nuclear threat vanished from the headlines, however, it was only to be replaced with another menace from the North. Kim’s very presentable little sister, Kim Yo-jong, was accused of stealing the limelight, diluting the world’s attention that should have been Seoul’s, and presenting an image of the North that was scandalously at odds with the cruel and earth-scorched reality. Don’t allow yourself to be fooled, was the message.
That she was received in Seoul at the highest level and filmed handing over an invitation to President Moon Jae-in to visit Pyongyang was also somehow seen as out of order, another trick to gain diplomatic advantage. Surely it would all turn sour even before the Olympic glow over the South had faded. The North Korean threat was still there.
Nor should the use by potentates – and not just potentates – of close relatives as personal representatives and trusted go-betweens – be discounted as a ploy. Rather than being designed to detract from the South’s Olympic show, Kim Jong-yo’s trip to Seoul might rather be seen as evidence of her brother’s serious intent and esteem.
And what might have changed the equation? How about the US Secretary of State’s low-key offer of direct talks without preconditions that he made in December? Repeated in Seoul by Vice-President Mike Pence this week (once he had done cold-shouldering the North Koreans for the benefit of the US audience back home), this is what first broke the deadlock. There have been concessions on all sides.
So while the doomwatchers see the Olympic thaw as, at best, a deceptive interlude before the nuclear stand-off inevitably resumes, I would argue, for more optimism. A basis has been laid for detente; there is a real chance now to step back from the brink. The risk now is less that the North is insincere, than that suspicion and cynicism everywhere cause this chance to be missed. http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/north-korea-war-nuclear-us-uk-europe-world-peace-conflict-a8212656.html
February 16, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
North Korea, politics international, USA |
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US wasting billions on nuclear bombs that serve no purpose and are security liability – experts https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/15/us-nuclear-bomb-risks-security-report
Washington to spend billions upgrading cold war era B61 bombs
NTI report says weapons are potentially catastrophic liability, Guardian. Julian Borger , 15 Feb 18,
A third of the B61 bombs in Europe under joint US and Nato control are thought to be kept at Incirlik base in Turkey, 70 miles from the Syrian border, which has been the subject of serious concerns.
The threat to the base posed by Islamic State militants was considered serious enough in March 2016 to evacuate the families of military officers.During a coup attempt four months later, Turkish authorities locked down the base and cut its electricity. The Turkish commanding officer at Incirlik was arrested for his alleged role in the plot.
A report on the future of the B61 bombs by arms control advocacy group the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) , and made available to the Guardian, said the 2016 events “shows just how quickly assumptions about the safety and security of US nuclear weapons stored abroad can change.”
Since then US-Turkish relations have soured further, largely over Washington’s support for Kurd forces in Syria. The national security adviser, HR McMaster, and secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, have both made trips to Turkey this week to try to heal the rift.
There have been reports that the bombs have been quietly moved out because of safety concerns, but that has not been confirmed.
The remaining B61 bombs are stored at five other locations in four countries: Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, according to the Federation of American Scientists, which tracks the weapons. The NTI report said it “should be assumed that they are targets for terrorism and theft”.
The bombs are the remnants of a much larger cold war nuclear arsenal in Europe, and critics have said they serve no military purpose, as the nuclear deterrent against Russia relies largely on the overwhelming US strategic missile arsenal.
Using the B61s in any conflict would involve an agreement between the US and the host country in consultation with other Nato members.
“It is hard to envision the circumstances under which a US president would initiate nuclear use for the first time in more than 70 years with a Nato [dual-capable aircraft] flown by non-US pilots delivering a US B61 bomb,” said the NTI report, titled Building a Safe, Secure and Credible Nato Nuclear Posture.
Since the cold war, the B61 has played a symbolic role, as reassurance for some Nato members of US commitment to defending Europe. They are also considered potential bargaining chips against Russia’s much greater arsenal of nearly 2,000 tactical nuclear weapons.
However, the NTI report argues they are also serious liabilities, because of the threat of terrorism or accident, and because they could become targets in the early stages of any conflict with Russia.
“Forward-deployed US nuclear weapons in Europe increase the risk of accidents, blunders, or catastrophic terrorism and invite pre-emption. Given these added risks, it is past time to revisit whether these forward-based weapons are essential for military deterrence and political reassurance” the Obama administration’s energy secretary Ernest Moniz and former Democratic senator Sam Nunn, both NTI co-chairmen, argue in the preface to the report.
The Obama administration considered withdrawing the B61s from Europe as part of the president’s nuclear disarmament initiative but the idea lost support as relations with Russia deteriorated. Instead, the administration approved a Pentagon programme to upgrade the bombs over the next decade with a tailfin assembly to make them more accurate.
The plan has been embraced by the Trump administration’s nuclear posture review, despite the fact that the estimated cost of the 460 new model bombs, the B61-12, has doubled in recent years to $10bin, a part of a huge increase of overall defence spending.
February 16, 2018
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EUROPE, USA, weapons and war |
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Japan, IAEA agree to cooperate on Tokyo 2020 nuclear counterterrorism, Nikkei Asian Review, 16 Feb 18, VIENNA (Kyodo) — The Japanese government and the International Atomic Energy Agency signed an agreement on Thursday to work together to keep the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympics safe from the threat of terrorism involving nuclear materials.
According to the Japanese Foreign Ministry, the agreement includes measures to support IAEA experts’ participation in events relating to the Tokyo games, the exchange of information on nuclear security issues and the loan to Japan of equipment to detect radiation.
Foreign Minister Taro Kono and IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano observed the signing in Vienna before holding a meeting at which Kono said they agreed to flesh out cooperation in thwarting nuclear terrorism.
“We want to thoroughly cooperate with the IAEA to make sure the Olympics are safe,” Kono said at the outset of the meeting……..https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Economy/International-Relations/Japan-IAEA-agree-to-cooperate-on-Tokyo-2020-nuclear-counterterrorism
February 16, 2018
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Japan, safety |
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Has North Korea’s week at the Winter Olympics diminished the nuclear threat? Guardian, Tania Branigan, 15 Feb 18, “……Pyongyang has no intention of giving up its nuclear programme, as Washington demands. Although it has in the past committed itself to peaceful reunification, no one believes it is willing to change in the way that it would be needed. The real issue is that the doomsday clock is ticking closer to midnight since the election of Donald Trump – and any attempt to halt the hands is welcome.
The North is increasingly close to developing a nuclear-tipped ICBM that can hit the continental US. Washington knows it cannot destroy all the country’s capabilities – so hawks are now arguing for a “bloody nose” strategy to warn Kim Jong-un off threatening the US (though he must know any attack would be suicidal). Seoul, just 35 miles from the border, would bear the brunt of any retaliation. A conflict could kill tens of thousands and potentially draw in other regional powers, including China.
“There’s a real concern that for the first time there is a US administration that could take unilateral action against
North Korea without consulting the South,” says Professor Hazel Smith of the centre of Korean studies at Soas Univeristy of London. “People are pushing, virtually preparing, for a so-called ‘surgical strike’ – even though the majority of US and South Korean military planners argue that it would be risky to the point of likely catastrophe for the South, and US troops there.
“The Olympic initiative was never going to solve the nuclear question overnight, but I think it has stopped the mad escalation of the conflict that was going on.”
The task of Kim Yo-jong and the bevy of cheerleaders has been to normalise the image of a country that looks utterly abnormal to outsiders. ………
Kim has cemented his position, in part through tighter control. He purged and executed his uncle Jang Song-thaek; and he is believed to have ordered the killing of his self-exiled brother, Kim Jong-nam, a year ago. There have been repeated crackdowns on smuggled – especially South Korean – media.
On the other hand he has promised his people a return to prosperity, and though this has mostly been signalled by totemic projects such as a ski resort, there have been some broader economic shifts, such as an increase in marketisation, apparently producing modest improvements in the economy. And, in dispatching the Olympic delegation, and then inviting the South Korean president Moon Jae-in to visit him, he has shown he can reduce tensions as well as increase them.
Sending his sister was doubly inspired. A family member is a more intimate representative than a high-ranking official. And for a patriarchal culture, Kim Yo-jong and the cheerleaders are – by virtue of gender – not only charming and unthreatening but somehow morally elevated, detached from worldly, manly concerns of power (never mind that, in reality, Kim is at the heart of her brother’s regime). ……..
Is the North’s participation in Pyeongchang a first step to denuclearisation and eventual reunification? No. Events in Iraq and Libya hardened the regime’s beliefs that hanging on to WMDs is a matter of survival. The thaw may not even be a precursor to substantive reengagement with the South, or broader talks, let alone a breakthrough (although the North might freeze its programme if offered a cast-iron US security guarantee, it is hard to see that happening under Trump). But if the softening of the North’s image and approach make it harder for US hawks to strike, then Seoul – and the rest of us – should be grateful for those synchronised chants and armwaves.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/14/what-north-koreas-week-at-the-winter-olympics-tells-us-about-the-nuclear-threat
February 16, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
North Korea, politics international, USA |
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For 2 weeks in September and October last year, traces of the humanmade isotope ruthenium-106 wafted across Europe, triggering detectors from Norway to Greece and Ukraine to Switzerland. The radioactive cloud was too thin to be dangerous, containing no more than a few grams of material, but its origin posed an outsize mystery.
Now, scientists at the French Institute of Radioprotection and Nuclear Security (IRSN) in Paris say the isotope may have been released from the Mayak nuclear facility near Ozyorsk in southern Russia. IRSN argues that the leak could have taken place when Mayak technicians botched the fabrication of a highly radioactive component for a physics experiment at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in L’Aquila, Italy.
The Russian government and state nuclear operator Rosatom have vehemently denied that an accident took place, however. Meanwhile, an international committee set up by the Russian Academy of Sciences’s Nuclear Safety Institute (IBRAE) in Moscow that met on 31 January is divided over the origins of the pollution.
Based on a computer model that used the air-sampling data and weather patterns, IRSN concluded in early October 2017 that the ruthenium most likely originated in the southern Urals; its German counterpart agreed. The French team went on to rule out a number of potential sources, including a mishap at a nuclear reactor. Such an incident would have spewed many other radioactive pollutants besides ruthenium.
The southern Urals are home to the secretive Mayak facility, the scene of one of the world’s worst nuclear accidents 60 years ago, and speculation soon turned to a possible accident at its reprocessing plant, which extracts isotopes from spent nuclear fuel. The IRSN report, made public on 6 February, says Mayak’s attempt to manufacture a capsule of cerium-144 destined for Gran Sasso “should be investigated” as a possible cause. Scientists at Gran Sasso needed the cerium for a search—now called off—for hypothetical particles called sterile neutrinos.
The estimated amount of radioactive ruthenium released could only have come from processing several tons of spent nuclear fuel, IRSN says. What’s more, the ratio of ruthenium-106 to the faster-decaying isotope ruthenium-103, detected in smaller amounts last autumn, reveals that the fuel must have been removed from its reactor only a year or two earlier. Spent fuel is normally cooled for up to a decade before it is reprocessed, so it seems the plant was preparing material for an application requiring high levels of radioactivity, IRSN says.
That fits the description of the sterile neutrino experiment at Gran Sasso, known as SOX and supported by Italy’s National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN) and the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission. It required a source that was both extremely radioactive and very small, says SOX spokesperson Marco Pallavicini, a particle physicist at the University of Genoa in Italy. He says Mayak Production Association, the only company able to supply it, signed a contract in fall 2016 to produce a cerium capsule, expected to arrive in early 2018.
But in December 2017 the company stated it could not reach the desired radioactivity level. (“The Russians said absolutely nothing” about a radiation leak, Pallavicini says.) That meant SOX would lack the required sensitivity, and on 1 February, INFN announced it had axed the experiment, in what Pallavicini described as “a big blow” for scientists.
Jean-Christophe Gariel, IRSN’s director of health, says an uncontrolled temperature rise during the separation of cerium from the spent fuel at Mayak might have converted some of the ruthenium in the waste to gaseous ruthenium oxide. That gas would have escaped through the facility’s filters and solidified in the cool outside air, he says, turning into small solid oxide particles that could have wafted across Europe.
IBRAE Director Leonid Bolshov calls IRSN’s scenario “a good hypothesis,” but says it’s incorrect. For one thing, he says, the separation process never reached “the hot phase.” And in any case, he adds, “major operations” on the spent fuel at Mayak were done in late October 2017, after the ruthenium release. Bolshov says that a “rather rare meteorological event” might have transported the ruthenium from an as-yet-unidentified place to the southern Urals, from which it then appeared to spread.
Non-Russian members of IBRAE’s international panel, which is due to meet again in April, support IRSN’s conclusion that the southern Urals is the likely source of the leak, says IRSN physicist Jean-Luc Lachaume, a panel member, although some argue that the region is too large to pinpoint an exact location. Russian members claim the leak could have arisen “in the eastern part of the Russian federation,” Lachaume says. He says a representative of the Russian nuclear regulator Rostechnadzor who inspected Mayak in November 2017 told the panel that he saw no anomalies from a month earlier, but didn’t supply data to support that statement.
Princeton University physicist Frank von Hippel, a nonproliferation expert, says he doesn’t see “anything wrong with the IRSN analysis.” He notes that the amount of ruthenium-106 that the French team estimates was emitted—between 1 gram and 4 grams—matches the 30 grams of cerium-144 required for SOX, given that spent fuel contains the two isotopes in a ratio of about one to 14. And although the cloud over Europe was harmless, an accident at Mayak could mean that people living close by took in “potentially significant lung doses,” Von Hippel says.
February 16, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
environment, EUROPE |
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Kobe Steel firm suspected of nuclear waste data falsification http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/photo/AS20180215003253.html, By MASANOBU HIGASHIYAMA/ Staff Writer,February 15, 2018
A subsidiary of Kobe Steel Ltd. may have falsified test data on highly radioactive waste disposal, the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) announced on Feb. 14.
Kobelco Research Institute Inc. is suspected of tampering with data it gathered on behalf of the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA), which is contracted to carry out tests by the NRA.
The aim of the tests is to help form a regulatory standard for final disposal sites for nuclear waste, but a report the NRA received from the JAEA said that figures in the original data and those in reports Kobelco submitted to it did not match. Furthermore, some original data could not be located.
The NRA has instructed the JAEA to confirm details about the possible data falsification in response to the report.
A Kobelco source said, “Why data inconsistencies occurred remains unknown at the moment,” but that the research institute “will examine the case with data falsification in mind.”
The tests are designed to examine what happens to metal cladding tubes that had previously contained spent nuclear fuel when they are disposed of deep underground, including possible corrosion and by-products of gas, according to the NRA.
The nuclear watchdog outsourced the testing to the JAEA in fiscal 2012 through fiscal 2014 at a cost of about 600 million yen ($5.59 million).
Kobelco was subcontracted to undertake some of the tests for about 50 million yen.
February 16, 2018
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Japan, secrets,lies and civil liberties |
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Is Japan About to Hit Its Nuclear Tipping Point? Tokyo almost built a bomb in 1945 and now has enough plutonium stockpiled for 5,000 nukes. North Korea may give its hawkish government an excuse to build them. The Daily Beast, JAKE ADELSTEIN 02.15.18 TOKYO—“Don’t be fooled by North Korea’s smiley-face diplomacy,” Japan’s foreign minister, Taro Kono, warned last week in the middle of the Winter Olympics’ warm fuzzy photo ops with Hermit Kingdom emissaries.
Kono’s skepticism was quite serious, as is the confrontation he sees looming. Earlier this month he shocked Japan by broaching the idea that the Japanese should gain access to “usable” nuclear weapons, and he lavished praise on U.S. President Donald Trump’s Nuclear Posture Review.
While much of the rest of the world was entranced by North Korean cheerleaders and Kim Jong Un’s baby sister, Japan was quietly considering if and when to build its own nuclear missiles to discourage North Korea from so much as contemplating a missile strike.
The hawkish government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his ruling coalition are exploiting real and unreal fears of a North Korean nuclear attack to drum up support for a Japan that can wage war, and possibly as a prelude to pushing harder for nuclear weapons development.
At a minimum, it should be apparent to the world that this administration has no interest in nuclear disarmament, and is preparing for a possible showdown.
This week, The Ministry of Culture, Education and Science announced that in the Risk Management manual distributed to schools nationwide, it would be urging teachers to conduct missile evacuation drills. That should ratchet up the paranoia a few notches.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un announced last year that his country’s nuclear program is now complete, after the “successful” launch of a new missile that threatens all of the continental United States. But Japan has been in the crosshairs of the hermit kingdom for some time, and the storm over Kim’s atomic posturing has reignited a simmering, almost taboo, debate about nuclear weapons here.
The question isn’t whether Japan could become a nuclear weapons power. There’s really no doubt about that. But should it? And when? And if so, politically, how?
Japan As A Nuclear Power
Japan’s consumer nuclear energy industry has generated enough plutonium to make an estimated 5,000 nuclear warheads, this has long stood as an implicit threat. As former Defense Minister Satoshi Morimoto once declared, Japan’s commercial nuclear power reactors have “very great defensive deterrent functions.” He was implying that the plants Japan has built to make reactor fuel could be used to make fuel for nuclear arms, if Japan ever decides to do so.
In case anyone missed the point, in the spring of 2016, the Abe government explicitly stated that there is nothing in the nation’s Constitution that forbids pacifist Japan from possessing or using nuclear weapons……… https://www.thedailybeast.com/is-japan-about-to-hit-its-nuclear-tipping-point
February 16, 2018
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Japan, weapons and war |
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NASA Is Bringing Back Nuclear-Powered Rockets to Get to Mars Fortune, By BLOOMBERG , 15 Feb 18, In the race to land humans on Mars, NASA is blowing the cobwebs off a technology it shelved in the 1970s — nuclear-powered rockets.
Last year, NASA partnered with BWXT Nuclear Energy Inc. for an $18.8 million contract to design a reactor and develop fuel for use in a nuclear-thermal propulsion engine for deep-space travel. While that small start is a long way from the the heady days of the Space Race of the Cold War, it marks the U.S. return to an idea that is also being pursued by Russia and China.
Unlike conventional rockets that burn fuel to create thrust, the atomic system uses the reactor to heat a propellant like liquid hydrogen, which then expands through a nozzle to power the craft……..
While the system would be a niche market in the global nuclear industry, it could be highly lucrative for the company that cracks the technology, especially for nations like the U.S., where the atomic energy sector has been in the doldrums for decades. …….
Russia’s Rosatom Corp. has said it plans this year to test a prototype nuclear engine for a spacecraft that can go to Mars. Russia so far has led research in the field and has deployed more than 30 fission reactors in space, according to the World Nuclear Association. China aims to use atomic-powered shuttles as part of its space exploration plans through 2045, according to state Xinhua News Agency.
NASA faces competition in the race to Mars from industrialists like Elon Musk, who have also vowed to get people to the red planet. Space Exploration Technologies Corp., founded by Musk, is developing a liquid oxygen and methane fueled engine. Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is testing an engine that uses liquid oxygen and liquefied natural gas.
NASA also has its eye on atomic technology to power human colonies once they get to Mars. The agency and the Department of Energy are developing a space-ready nuclear fission reactor, known as Kilopower, that could provide up to 10 kilowatts of power and be deployed on other planets and moons. NASA has employed radioisotope thermoelectric generators — batteries that run off the heat from radioactive materials — on previous space missions, including the Mars Curiosity rover.
……… Nuclear propulsion may be the favored option for deep space travel, but the intricacies of the technology and the testing mean that development costs could be a major barrier, said Claudio Bruno, a professor at the University of Connecticut. Using technology developed by NASA decades ago could help speed up the process, he said.Getting to Mars is no small task — it requires a 55 million-kilometer (34 million-mile) space flight, more than 100 times the distance from Earth to the Moon. NASA probably won’t send humans to orbit the planet until at least the early 2030s.
Ground testing would require a costly system that captures and scrubs exhaust to remove tiny radioactive materials, according to Purdue University’s Heister.
“Space exploration is a captivating passion that many folks have – they are not necessarily motivated by profit,” said Heister. “In our business, we joke that the best way to become a millionaire in the space propulsion industry is to start out as a billionaire.” http://fortune.com/2018/02/15/nasa-nuclear-rockets-mars/
February 16, 2018
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technology, USA |
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Nuclear submarine commander ‘took eye off ball’ before collision
Justin Codd pleads guilty to negligently hazarding HMS Ambush during training course Guardian, 15 Feb 18, A senior naval officer in charge of teaching future submarine captains “took his eye off the ball”, leading his nuclear submarine to collide with a tanker, a court martial has heard.
Cdr Justin Codd, 45, was sentenced to forfeiting a year of seniority after pleading guilty at Portsmouth naval base to negligently hazarding the £1.1bn submarine HMS Ambush.
The Astute-class submarine was taken out of service for three months to undergo repairs costing £2.1m. ………https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/feb/15/nuclear-submarine-commander-admits-hazarding-ship-after-collision
February 16, 2018
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Russia and Congo to cooperate in nuclear power, WNN, 14 February 2018 Rosatom and the Ministry of Scientific Research and Technological Innovations of the Republic of Congo have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.
The document was signed yesterday in Moscow by the Russian state nuclear corporation’s deputy director general for international relations, Nikolay Spassky, and the ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of the Republic of the Congo in Russia, David Maduka.
The document establishes a legal basis for the implementation of bilateral cooperation in a wide range of areas, Rosatom said. These include the development of nuclear infrastructure in the Republic of Congo and programmes aimed at increased awareness of nuclear technologies and their applications…..http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NP-Russia-and-Congo-to-cooperate-in-nuclear-power-14021801.html
February 16, 2018
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AFRICA, marketing, Russia |
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Nikkei Asian review 14th Feb 2018, American
concerns about potential diversion of idle fuel leave the agreement at
risk.
The decision Jan. 16 to automatically extend a nuclear agreement with
the U.S. came as a relief to a Japanese government worried about the
prospect of renegotiating the basis for a cornerstone of its energy policy.
But friction remains over a massive store of plutonium that highlights the
problems with the nation’s ambitious nuclear energy plans. The nuclear fuel
cycle pursued by Japan’s government and power companies centers on
recovering uranium and plutonium from spent fuel for reuse in reactors.
This is made possible by the unique agreement with the U.S. that lets Japan
make plutonium. The radioactive element can be used in nuclear weapons, so
its production is generally tightly restricted. Japan has amassed roughly
47 tons of plutonium stored inside and outside the country — enough for
some 6,000 nuclear warheads. With the nation’s nuclear power plants
gradually taken offline after the March 2011 Fukushima Daiichi disaster,
and progress on restarting them sluggish, Japan has been left with no real
way to whittle down a pile drawing international scrutiny.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Economy/International-Relations/Japan-s-plutonium-glut-casts-a-shadow-on-renewed-nuclear-deal
February 16, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
- plutonium, Japan |
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How Trump budget would boost Yucca project, cut Nevadans’ safety net Las Vegas Sun, By Yvonne Gonzalez (contact), Feb. 14, 2018 “…….Yucca Mountain. The administration is also again seeking money for the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, though not nearly the amount that would be required to see the project through. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is proposing $48 million for work related to Yucca Mountain, and the Department of Energy is asking for $120 million for the project and interim storage.
Robert Halstead, executive director of the state’s Agency for Nuclear Projects, says both agencies are pursuing licensing using leftover funds from the 2010-2011 fiscal year. The commission has about a half-million dollars and DOE has more than $10 million that they were court-ordered in 2013 to use to continue the licensing process. The commission expects the process to cost $330 million, but the state pegs the pricetag at about $1.6 billion.
Lawmakers say the whole process would cost at least $96 million, and the requested appropriations are just a small fraction of that total.
“That sum would be a tiny down payment on a project that will cost $100 billion and ship nuclear waste through hundreds of congressional districts across the country,” said Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev……….
It has now been 20 years since the federal government was mandated by law to start accepting nuclear waste for safe long-term storage in a deep geological repository,” Nye County Commission Vice Chairman Dan Schinhofen said in a statement. “Not only is the repository not complete, but we haven’t been allowed to see if the proposed site, at Yucca Mountain, is even safe for its construction.”
Nevada’s Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval said the state will fight the proposal. Nevada has committed millions of dollars over the years to lawsuits and efforts related to stopping the project.
“Yucca Mountain is incapable of safely storing the world’s most toxic substance and Nevada will continue to oppose any efforts to dump nuclear waste in our state,” Sandoval said in a statement. “I am disappointed that the administration’s budget appears to resurrect this dormant project and we will leave no stone unturned in fighting any attempt to revive this failed idea.”……..https://lasvegassun.com/news/2018/feb/14/how-trump-budget-would-boost-yucca-project-cut-nev/
February 16, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
general |
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Seattle Times 14th Feb 2018, Sorry, Hanford: Your radiation leaks aren’t as important as tax cuts.
Probably no place in America shows more acutely how incoherent politics has
become than our own Hanford nuclear reservation.
Consider this recent sequence of events at the Western Hemisphere’s most polluted spot:
First, in November, a board that oversees Hanford nuclear-waste cleanup warned
that the effort is so underfunded it has become shoddy and dangerous. More
spending for better work and expertise “is the only way to help avert a
major catastrophe.”
Then on cue, in December, plutonium particles again
contaminated dozens of workers and cars because of shoddy demolition work
at a defunct bomb factory.
Then the federal government put out the most
eye-popping cost revision I’ve ever seen. It found that the cost of
cleaning up tanks of old radioactive waste — the most serious pollution
problem at Hanford — will now run to $111 billion, an extraordinary $61
billion more than predicted just three years earlier.
Then on Monday the president’s budget recommended … slashing Hanford clean-up spending by
10 percent. “It’s a big disconnect with reality, probably as big I’ve
seen,” says Tom Carpenter, of the watchdog group Hanford Challenge.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/sorry-hanford-your-radiation-leaks-arent-as-important-as-tax-cuts/
February 16, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
USA, wastes |
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VT Digger, By Mike Faher, Feb 12 2018 State regulators will consider the testimony of two prominent nuclear power critics in deciding whether a cleanup company should be allowed to buy Vermont Yankee.
The Vermont Public Utility Commission has ruled that the majority of testimony offered by Ray Shadis and Arnie Gundersen is admissible. In doing so, the commission overruled most objections filed last fall by Entergy and NorthStar Group Services, the idled nuclear plant’s current and prospective owners.
In a key finding, the commission ruled that Shadis should be allowed to weigh in as an expert. Commissioners noted that Shadis – a longtime adviser to the Brattleboro-based New England Coalition – testified when Entergy bought Vermont Yankee 16 years ago.
“Mr. Shadis’ experience constitutes sufficient knowledge of matters that could assist the commission in understanding the issues before us as much today as it did in 2002, and the level of Mr. Shadis’s experience will go to the weight that we give his admitted testimony,” the commission’s Feb. 8 decision says.
Entergy stopped producing power at Vermont Yankee in late 2014, and the company had been planning an extended decommissioning process that could have lasted until 2075…….. https://vtdigger.org/2018/02/12/nuclear-power-critics-to-testify-vermont-yankee-case/
February 16, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
legal, USA |
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