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WHAT ARE SALTED BOMBS?

Daily Mail UK, 17 Feb 18   A ‘salted bomb’ is a type of nuclear weapon that has been branded ‘highly immoral’ by some experts. The device aims to spread deadly radioactive fallout as far as possible rather than maximise explosive force.

The result is lasting environmental damage and vast areas of land left uninhabitable for decades.
Salted bombs take their name from the phrase ‘to salt the earth’, meaning to render soil unable to host life.

They are able to contaminate a much larger area than a traditional ‘dirty’ atomic bomb, like those used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.To increase the radioactive destruction of salted bombs, certain radioactive isotopes are added to the device.

Heavy metals like gold, cobalt or tantalum can be used. Incorporating these metals into an atomic bomb would send high-energy neutrons at the stable element and turn it into a highly radioactive version. The radioactive isotope would then contaminate huge swathes of land.

A salted bomb is believed to be of lesser energy than other bombs due to these changes but could cause more long-term damage.

The idea of a salted bomb was first proposed by Hungarian-American physicist Leo Szilard during the Cold War.

Along with Albert Einstein, the scientist was instrumental in the beginning of the Manhattan Project.

No intentionally salted bomb has ever been atmospherically tested but the UK tested a 1 kiloton bomb incorporating a small amount of cobalt as an experimental radiochemical tracer in 1957. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5400191/China-building-highly-immoral-salted-nuclear-bomb.html

February 17, 2018 Posted by | 2 WORLD, Reference, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Some of the problems with thorium nuclear reactors

Disadvantages of thorium reactors:  High start-up costs: Huge investments are needed for thorium nuclear power reactor, as it requires significant amount of testing, analysis and licensing work. Also, there is uncertainty over returns on the investments in these reactors. For utilities, this factor can weigh on the decisions to go ahead with plans to deploy the reactors. The reactors also involve high fuel fabrication and reprocessing costs.

High melting point of thorium oxide: As melting point of thorium oxide is much higher compared to that of uranium oxide, high temperatures are needed to make high density ThO2 and ThO2–based mixed oxide fuels. The fuel in nuclear fission reactors is usually based on the metal oxide.

Emission of gamma rays: Presence of Uranium-232 in irradiated thorium or thorium based fuels in large amounts is one of the major disadvantages of thorium nuclear power reactors. It can result in significant emissions of gamma rays.  http://nuclear.energy-business-review.com/news/major-pros-and-cons-of-thorium-nuclear-power-reactor-6058445

February 17, 2018 Posted by | 2 WORLD, Reference, thorium | Leave a comment

Japan Post’s delivery vehicles to measure radiation in Fukushima

 https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/02/15/business/japan-posts-delivery-vehicles-measure-radiation-fukushima/#.WodGLVpubGg, JIJI   FUKUSHIMA – Japan Post Co. and the Fukushima Prefectural Government have signed a comprehensive partnership agreement that includes a plan for it to measure radiation in areas tainted by the 2011 nuclear disaster.

“The agreement is very assuring, as we will be able to receive support for efforts on the safety and security of the region,” Gov. Masao Uchibori said during the signing ceremony at the prefecture’s office on the same day.

It is the 15th time the unit of Japan Post Holdings Co. has concluded an agreement with a prefectural government.

Under the plan, Japan Post’s delivery minivehicles will be equipped with radiation gauges. Data will be collected automatically and wirelessly transmitted to the prefectural government. The prefecture’s coast was heavily damaged by the March 2011 mega-quake and tsunami, while much larger parts of it were contaminated by radiation by the subsequent core meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, run by Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.

In addition, the two parties agreed that posters to promote Fukushima goods will be put up at post offices in areas around Tokyo, in Fukushima and five other prefectures in the Tohoku region.

Japan Post’s delivery staff will also alert the prefectural government and others when several days’ worth of newspapers are seen accumulating outside of the homes of elderly people, and when damage to roads is observed.

“We will provide maximum assistance for Fukushima Prefecture’s revitalization,” said Kunio Yokoyama, president of Japan Post.

February 17, 2018 Posted by | environment, Fukushima continuing, radiation | Leave a comment

Earthquake in New Hampshire raises new concerns about safety of Seabrook Station Nuclear Power Plant

Quak e rattles anti-nuclear activists in N.H.http://www.bostonherald.com/news/local_coverage/2018/02/quake_rattles_anti_nuclear_activists_in_nh, Dan Atkinson Friday, February 16, 2018 

Government officials said an earthquake centered less than 10 miles from Seabrook Station Nuclear Power Plant didn’t seem to have caused any damage yesterday, but anti-nuclear activists are worried the tremors could have increased instability in already-cracking containment walls.

The 9:28 a.m. quake, which shook the ground in northern Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire but only hit 2.7 on the Richter scale, didn’t trigger any emergency procedures at Seabrook Station, Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Neil Sheehan said. The station is just down the road from the earthquake’s epicenter in East Kingston.

Sheehan said workers walked through the plant yesterday in search of any signs of damage, but stressed Seabrook Station is built to withstand much stronger earthquakes.

But activists said many of the plant’s walls — including in the spent fuel pool and the reactor dome — are already weakened. And though they’re several feet thick, they’ve been damaged by water mixing with compounds in the walls’ concrete and cement, creating a gel that expands and cracks the walls.

Paul Gunter, a director at activist group Beyond Nuclear and a former member of the Clamshell Alliance that led large protests against Seabrook coming online in the 1970s, said activists have long been concerned by the power plant’s proximity to an earthquake zone. He said yesterday’s tremor was a “wake-up call.”

“Even these small earthquakes are a wake-up call to look at the broader issues of vulnerability at the plant and the inherent danger of the operation,” Gunter said. “These are legitimate reasons to question the continued operation of Seabrook Station.”

Natalie Hildt Treat, executive director of C-10, a Newburyport-based group that monitors emissions at the plant, agreed.

“You would think a measurable earthquake would put further stress on that,” she said. “Little cracks can lead to bigger cracks … it’s definitely a safety concern.”

But Seabrook Town Manager William M. Manzi III said he wasn’t concerned that the quake caused any structural damage, saying, “We’re confident that the plant will be able to withstand any seismic event.”

Plant owner NextEra Energy didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment. The company is seeking to extend its license to operate from 2030 to 2050, and Sheehan said the NRC is currently reviewing NextEra’s plans to address deterioration before it considers an extension.

“The real issue here is longer-term,” Sheehan said. “In terms of the earthquake today, we don’t believe it poses a safety issue.”

February 17, 2018 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Another six workers tested positive for radiation at Hanford nuclear reservation’s Plutonium Finishing Plant.

More workers tested positive for Hanford radiation, The 6 people are added to 31 who tested positive for inhaling or ingesting contamination in June, February 15, 2018 By Annette Cary / Tri-City Herald

Another spread of radioactive contamination has been confirmed at the Hanford nuclear reservation’s Plutonium Finishing Plant.

In addition, more central Hanford workers have tested positive for inhaling or ingesting radioactive contamination from demolition of the plant.

For the second time since workers were moved in January to offices away from the plant, contamination has been found on the steps of the newly assigned offices.

Most recently, a spot of radioactive contamination described as about the size of a 50-cent piece was found on the step outside an office on Feb. 8. The step has been removed.

In some cases radiation detected at Hanford is determined to have come from naturally occurring radon, but in this case it appears to be related to demolition of the heavily contaminated plant.

Demolition and the packing and hauling away of the debris has been stopped at the plant since mid-December after a spread of particles of radioactive contamination was discovered.

  • Most of the demolition of the Plutonium Reclamation Facility, the most contaminated portion of the plant, had just been completed when the spread was found.

    Several steps have been taken since December, including bringing in new contractor management for the project, widely expanding the area where access is controlled and moving workers from offices near the plant to offices outside the control area.

    Workers take shuttles to and from the plant, as needed for work assignments, from their newly assigned offices.

    In response to the first discovery of a spot of contamination outside the new offices in late January, more stringent rules were instituted for checks of workers leaving radiologically contaminated demolition areas.

    In response to the Feb. 8 spread, the radiological buffer around areas where radioactive material is expected to be present has been expanded. Workers have their hands and feet checked for radiation when they leave that area to board a shuttle to offices.

    The number of workers known to have inhaled or ingested radioactive particles has increased to six.

    Some 212 workers who requested checks had no contamination, with about 60 checks pending. Bioassays, or checks of body waste, are being done to determine if workers have radioactive contamination inside their bodies.

    The amount of internal contamination is small. The largest estimated radiation dose for the six workers is 10 to 20 millirem over 50 years.

    In comparison, the average person in the United States receives about 300 millirem a year annually from natural background radiation, including radon or radiation bombarding the Earth from outer space.

    The six workers with positive bioassay results are in addition to 31 workers who tested positive for inhaling or ingesting radioactive contamination from Plutonium Finishing Plant demolition in June. The highest estimated dose from June was 10 millirem total over 50 years.

    No radioactive contamination has been found on vehicles at the plant for several weeks……..http://www.heraldnet.com/northwest/more-workers-tested-positive-for-hanford-radiation/

February 17, 2018 Posted by | health, USA | Leave a comment

The not very rosy future for Small Modular Nuclear Reactors

A year in review: the trends in nuclear construction, Global Construction, By DAN BRIGHTMORE . Feb 12, 2018 “……Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and other kinds of so-called ‘advanced reactors’ continue to be positioned as a solution to the problems confronting nuclear power and the still costly renewal requirements of monolithic reactors. SMRs are nuclear power reactors with an electrical output below 300MWe and distinguishable from large reactors by modular design, with prefabrication in offsite factories and the potential for multiple reactors to be deployed at the same site to create bigger power plants. Proponents claim they will be faster, cheaper and less risky to build while safer to operate than large nuclear plants.

NuScale has claimed that “once approved, global demand for SMR plants will create thousands of jobs during manufacturing, construction and operation” and “re-­establish US global leadership in nuclear technology, paving the way for NRC approval and subsequent deployment of other advanced nuclear technologies”. It predicts “about 5,5­75GWe of global electricity will come from SMRs by 2035, equivalent to over 1,000 NuScale Power Modules”.

However, Danny Roderick, former president and CEO of (now bankrupt nuclear services market leader) Westinghouse, once countered: “The problem I have with SMRs is not the technology, it’s not the deployment – it’s that there’s no customers… The worst thing to do is get ahead of the market.” Currently there are no operational NPPs in the world that can be considered fully-fledged SMRs. Several countries and companies are at different stages in the development of SMR technologies. NuScale is the frontrunner to deliver a SMR in Idaho with the initial operational date of 2024. Meanwhile, mPower (another previous beneficiary of Department of Energy funding to the tune of $80m per year) has been struggling to advance a similar project mooted in Tennessee which was terminated in March last year. Elsewhere, South Korea’s System-Integrated Modular Advanced Reactor (SMART) is the first land based SMR to receive regulatory approval anywhere in the world. However, SMR’s are often found to be too expensive on a per-unit generating-capacity basis which has led to this project being shelved. The words of incoming South Korean premier President Moon echo the sentiments of many world leaders now exploring other forms of energy creation: “We will scrap the nuclear-centred policies and move toward a nuclear-free era. We will eliminate all plans to build new nuclear plants.”….  http://www.constructionglobal.com/infrastructure/year-review-trends-nuclear-construction

February 17, 2018 Posted by | 2 WORLD, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors | Leave a comment

The untold story of Algeria’s victims of French nuclear bomb tests

How 1960’s French Nuclear Tests Are Still Claiming Lives in Algeria (PHOTOS) https://sputniknews.com/world/201802151061681243-1960-france-nuclear-tests-algeria/

On February 13, 1960, France carried out its first nuclear test in Algeria’s southern Reggane region. According to official statistics, 17 nuclear tests were carried out in total over the next 6 years. The area remains affected, and local scientists say that radioactive contamination has caused genetic mutations and irreversibly changed the region.

There are no official statistics on the number of victims. The only figures can be found in the records kept by the French representative of the local church, which lists 42,000 victims of nuclear tests. Three years ago, the French Ministry of Defense issued a statement, putting the number at 27,000 people. The victims include French soldiers as well as local Algerians who lived in the surrounding areas.

However, these figures do not take into account the untimely deaths of the descendants of these people, who were affected by cancer and other nuclear radiation-related illnesses. To this day, the contaminated areas pose a danger to life and health.

A representative of the ‘Desert Detainees’ (a community of people who served sentences in prisons located in the desert regions of Algeria from 1992 to 1996), Nureddin Mauhub, said that many prisoners were exposed to radiation while serving their sentences in jails in the desert.

Nuclear engineer Ammar Mansuri told the newspaper Arabi al-Jadid, that in fact, there were more nuclear tests carried out in Algeria.

“France conducted 13 underground nuclear tests, 4 ground tests, 4 plutonium tests and 35 other tests,” he said.

According to him, the nuclear tests documentation was passed on to the Algerian government only 10 years ago.

Some of the documents are still classified. For these reasons, no systematic observations or studies have been conducted in the area in the past century. Therefore, no timely measures were taken to reduce the negative impact on the environment. It is difficult to say how the level of contamination has changed over the past decades and what to expect in the future.

The Algerian government claims that the contaminated area is more than 100 square km, according to the Al-Arabi al-Jadid website. However, problems aren’t limited to this exclusion zone. The desert winds carry contaminated particles to formally clean areas. There’s now a need to study the level of radiation in the desert to accurately determine the boundaries of the contaminated area.

February 17, 2018 Posted by | EUROPE, France, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Holtec and GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) are going to try to market Small Modular Nuclear Reactors

World Nuclear News 15th Feb 2018, Holtec International and GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) are to collaborate
on accelerating the commercialisation of Holtec’s SMR-160 small modular
reactor (SMR). Their cooperation will initially include nuclear fuel
development and control rod drive mechanisms. Under a memorandum of
understanding, GEH, Global Nuclear Fuel (GNF), Holtec and SMR Inventec LLC
(SMR LLC) have agreed to enter into a “procompetitive collaboration” to
progress the SMR-160. GNF, a GE-led joint venture with Hitachi and Toshiba,
is primarily known as a supplier of boiling water reactor fuel. SMR LLC is
a wholly-owned subsidiary of Holtec established in 2011 to manage the
development of the SMR-160.
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-Holtec-and-GEH-team-up-on-advancing-SMR-160-1502184.html

February 17, 2018 Posted by | Japan, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, USA | Leave a comment

A Misguided Nuclear Reactor Project -The “Versatile Fast Neutron Source”

The “Versatile Fast Neutron Source”: A Misguided Nuclear Reactor Project, UCS, 

ED LYMAN, SENIOR SCIENTIST | FEBRUARY 15, 2018The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) supports a moderate level of Department of Energy (DOE) research funding to make nuclear power safer and more secure—for example the agency’s program to develop accident tolerant fuels for nuclear reactors. Conversely, UCS does not support programs that not only would cost a lot of money, but also could make nuclear power more dangerous and less secure. That’s why the organization is troubled by a bill that was passed by the House of Representatives on February 13.

The bill in question, H.R. 4378, authorizes the secretary of energy to spend nearly $2 billion over the next seven years to build what’s called a “versatile reactor-based fast neutron source.” As its name indicates, the primary purpose of this facility would be to provide a source of high-energy neutrons to help researchers develop fuels and materials for a class of advanced nuclear reactors called fast reactors.

What is it?

What may not be clear from the name is that this facility itself would be an experimental fast reactor, likely fueled with weapon-usable plutonium.

Compared to conventional light-water reactors, fast reactors are less safe, more expensive, and more difficult to operate and repair. But the biggest problem with this technology is that it typically requires the use of such weapon-usable fuels as plutonium, increasing the risk of nuclear terrorism. Regardless, the House passed the bill with scant consideration of the risks and benefits of building it. Hopefully, the Senate will conduct a due diligence review before taking up a companion bill. Caveat emptor.

Based on what little public information there is available about the plans for this facility, it would be a fast reactor of at least 300 thermal megawatts (or about 120 MW of electricity if it is also used for power generation). This power level is the minimum necessary to achieve the desired rate of neutron production. This would make the reactor about five times larger than the last experimental fast reactor operated in the United States, the EBR-II, which shut down in 1994. One proposed design, called FASTER, would have a peak power density three times higher than the EBR-II, making it much more challenging to remove heat from the core. This design would require about 2.6 metric tons of metallic fuel containing about 500 kilograms of plutonium per year. One third of the reactor fuel would be replaced every 100 days. (The DOE also is apparently considering a different fast reactor design that would use high-assay, low-enriched uranium fuel, but this material is in short supply and a new production source would have to be established. In any case, the DOE has not yet determined if it is feasible to use low-enriched uranium.)

Cost?

The amount of funding authorized by H.R. 4378 for designing and constructing this fast reactor is less than 60 percent of its estimated cost of $3.36 billion, and the aggressive timeline mandated by the bill, which calls for full operation by the end of 2025, is significantly shorter than the optimistic 11- to 13-year schedule anticipated by its designers. By low-balling the initial authorization and construction time, H.R. 4378’s sponsors may have been trying to make it more palatable, but they are also undermining their project.

It’s also important to keep in mind that the estimated cost of $3.36 billion is just a fraction of the project’s total cost. ……….

Finally, what agency will oversee the safety and security of this risky project? The DOE. By designating this reactor as a neutron source, and building it at a DOE site, it will be exempt from licensing and oversight by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. While NRC licensing is far from perfect, it would be far superior to DOE self-regulation.

To summarize, H.R. 4378 authorizes constructing a fast reactor without assessing the need or evaluating its costs and benefits. It compels the DOE to build an experimental fast reactor, using an experimental fuel, at a scale and power density that has never been demonstrated, on a rushed schedule, with insufficient funding.

This is simply the wrong way to pursue nuclear energy research and development. Instead, DOE should undertake projects only if they pass a rigorous peer review and make safety and security a priority. https://allthingsnuclear.org/elyman/a-misguided-nuclear-reactor-project

February 17, 2018 Posted by | technology, USA | Leave a comment

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