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France’s EDF may have to shut down 4 nuclear reactors because of the heatwave

France’s EDF may halt four nuclear reactors due to heatwave, Reuters Staff, 2 Aug 18   PARIS (Reuters) – French utility EDF on Wednesday said that forecasts of high temperatures in the Rhone River could lead to the shutdown from Aug. 3 of four nuclear reactors which depend on its waters for cooling. EDF said it could be forced to halt electricity production at two reactors at St. Alban with an installed capacity of 2,300 megawatts (MW), and at the 900 MW Bugey 2 and 3 reactors.

EDF’s nuclear plants along the Rhone use the river’s waters to regulate the temperature of their reactors, discharging warm water back into the waterway. Curbs are placed on the volume of water its plants can use as the river’s temperature rises.

The utility did not say if the four reactors at its Tricastin nuclear plant, further downriver, might also be affected. Three reactors at Tricastin are on planned maintenance outages….. https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-france-nuclearpower-weather/frances-edf-may-halt-four-nuclear-reactors-due-to-heatwave-idUKKBN1KM56C

August 3, 2018 Posted by | climate change | Leave a comment

Nordic nuclear power plants hit by unprecedented heat wave

 

 

 

HOW SUMMER HEAT HAS HIT NORDIC NUCLEAR PLANTS http://ewn.co.za/2018/08/02/how-summer-heat-has-hit-nordic-nuclear-plants   Reuters  2 Aug 18

OSLO – This year’s unusually warm summer in the Nordic region has increased sea water temperatures and forced some nuclear reactors to curb power output or shut down altogether, with more expected to follow suit.

The summer has been 6-10 degrees Celsius above the seasonal average so far and has depleted the region’s hydropower reservoirs, driving power prices to record highs, boosting energy imports from continental Europe and driving up consumer energy bills.

Nuclear plants in Sweden and Finland are the region’s second largest power source after hydropower dams and have a combined capacity of 11.4 gigawatts (GW).

Reactors need cold sea water for cooling but when the temperature gets too high it can make the water too warm for safe operations, although the threshold varies depending on the reactor type and age.

Unscheduled power output cuts in Swedish and Finnish reactors could push prices even higher, said Vegard Willumsen, section manager at Norway’s energy regulator NVE.

“If nuclear reactors in the Nordics shut down or reduce power due to the heatwave, it could also put pressure on the supply and consequently on the Nordic power prices,” he added.

WHY IS WATER TEMPERATURE AN ISSUE?

The Nordic region’s nuclear plants comprise either pressurised water reactors (PWR) or boiling water reactors (BWR) – and both can be affected by warm sea water.

Typically, power would be reduced at the 12 reactors after a certain temperature threshold has been reached and then fully shut down at a higher threshold.

BWRs can keep operating for longer and would only shut down after a several-degree rise in water temperatures from the moment power reductions are triggered.

However, PWRs require a shorter time to shut down after they start reducing power.

Utility Vattenfall, which operates seven reactors in Sweden, shut a 900-megawatt (MW) PWR unit – one of the four located at its Ringhals plant – this week as water temperatures exceeded 25 degrees Celsius.

The firm’s second plant at Forsmark consists of three BWRs and Vattenfall had to reduce output by 30-40 megawatt per reactor earlier in July as the sea water in the area exceeded 23 degrees Celsius.

Finland’s Fortum reduced power at its Loviisa plant last week when water temperatures reached 32 degrees C, close to a threshold of 34 degrees.

The extent to which water temperature affects nuclear plants also depends on the depth that they receive water from. Colder water is deeper.

It also depends on how warm the water is after being used in the reactors and released back into the sea. If used water exceeds 34 degrees Celsius, it can cause major output reductions or shutdowns for certain plants due to safety regulations.

Sweden’s biggest reactor – 1.4 GW Oskarshamn 3 – should be less vulnerable to very hot summers due to the depth of water, said a spokesperson for operator OKG, a unit of Uniper Energy.

“Water intake (is) at a depth of 18 metres where the water naturally is cooler than on the surface … should it be too hot, we would, of course, reduce the capacity accordingly,” he said.

Oskarshamn 3 will reduce power if sea water reaches 25 degrees but it was below 20 degrees on Tuesday.

Similarly, Teollisuuden Voima’s Olkiluoto plant in Finland has deeper water which is colder than a 27-degree threshold.

TVO has also built an additional safety mechanism – a canal – which it can use under certain conditions to release used warm water on the other side of the Olkiluoto island.

 

August 3, 2018 Posted by | climate change, EUROPE | Leave a comment

Japanese children will pass on the history of Nagasaki’s horror nuclear bombing on 9 Aug 1945

Mini-storytellers’: Japanese children pass on horror of Nagasaki bombings, As more and more survivors who directly witnessed the nuclear attack die, students are taking on responsibility for telling their stories, Guardian    Daniel Hurst in Nagasaki, 2 August 18 

The 500 students at Shiroyama Elementary School gather in the assembly hall on the ninth day of every month to sing a song. This is no ordinary school anthem, however.

Dear Children’s Souls deals with the most traumatic chapter in the school’s long history: the moment 1,400 students and 28 staff members died when the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the southern Japanese city of Nagasaki in the closing stages of the second world war.

Nearly 73 years have passed since the bombing of Nagasaki on 9 August 1945 – and Hiroshima three days earlier – but the school feels a special responsibility to keep the memories alive.

“Shiroyama Elementary School is situated closest to the ground zero of the A-bombing compared to other municipal elementary schools in Nagasaki,” explains the softly spoken principal, Hiroaki Takemura, adding that the hypo-centre was just 500m away.

“The feelings for peace are very strong here.”The task is becoming increasingly vital as more and more of the survivors who directly witnessed the events pass away. The ranks of these survivors, known as hibakusha, have halved over the past two decades and their average age is now 82. As they become less mobile, they find it more difficult to travel and give first-hand accounts of the horrors of nuclear war in the hope of preventing any repeat amid growing global tensions. Continue reading →

August 3, 2018 Posted by | history, Japan, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Large retrospective study shows the connection between low level radiation and leukemia

Low-dose radiation exposure linked to leukemia in large retrospective study  https://dceg.cancer.gov/news-events/research-news-highlights/2018/low-dose-rad-leukemia  National Cancer Institute. Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics July 20, 2018  Using data from nine historical cohort studies, investigators in the Radiation Epidemiology Branch and colleagues from other institutions, led by senior investigator

Mark Little, D.Phil., were able to quantify—for the first time—excess risk for leukemia and other myeloid malignancies following low-dose exposure to ionizing radiation in childhood. More than two-fold increased risk and higher was observed for cumulative exposures less than 100 milliSieverts (mSv); excess risk was also apparent for cumulative doses of less than 50 mSv for some endpoints. The findings were published online July 16, 2018 in Lancet Haematology.

Because these diseases are rare, the excess absolute risk in the population is estimated to be small. Nevertheless, given the ubiquity of exposure, primarily from medical procedures like computed tomography

CT) scans, every effort should be made to minimize doses, especially for children.

Although substantial evidence links exposure to moderate or high doses of ionizing radiation, particularly in childhood, to increased risk of leukemia, prior to this study the association of leukemia with exposure to low-dose radiation was not well-established. Evaluating risks at low-doses, under 100 mSv, is crucial since this is the range most relevant to the general population. Additionally, some have suggested that this level, about 100 mSv, may represent a threshold dose of radiation below which there is no excess risk of leukemia. Evidence from this study suggests, on the contrary, that there is significant risk even at these lower doses, and that the current system of radiological protection is prudent and not overly protective.

Data for this analysis came from more than 250,000 individuals aged 21 or younger at the time of first exposure and were contributed from nine cohort studies (from Canada, France, Japan, Sweden, the UK, and the US) enrolled between June 4, 1915, and December 31, 2004.

Reference: Little, M. et al. Leukaemia and myeloid malignancy among people exposed to low doses (<100 mSv) of ionizing radiation during childhood: A pooled analysis of nine historical cohort studies. Lancet Haematology. DOI: 10.1016/S2352-3026(18)30092-9

August 3, 2018 Posted by | health, radiation, Reference | Leave a comment

Climate change will bring sea level rise – bringing danger to Hinkley Point C nuclear site.

Burnham-on-sea.com 1st Aug 2018 , EDF reject fears Hinkley C will be vulnerable to sea level rise. T

The Stop
Hinkley Campaign has written to the Office for Nuclear Regulation to
express concern about recent reports that we could be heading for a
sea-level rise of as much as 6 metres during the lifetime of the Hinkley
Point C site.

Some researchers say sea levels could rise by six metres or
more even if the 2 degree target of the Paris accord is met.

Sustained warming of one to two degrees in the past has been accompanied by
substantial reductions of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and sea
level rises of at least six metres – several metres higher than what
current climate models predict could occur by 2100.
http://www.burnham-on-sea.com/news/2018/hinkley-c-rising-sea-levels-01-08-18.php

August 3, 2018 Posted by | climate change, UK | Leave a comment

An honest accountant – had to leave SCANA nuclear project rather than tell lies

SC nuclear project’s top accountant says she quit ‘because I wasn’t going to lie’ Post and Courier, By Andrew Brown and Thad Moore abrown@postandcourier.com tmoore@postandcourier.com, Jul 30, 2018

A top SCANA accountant says the company’s most powerful executives pressured her to lie and she was given altered information to share with state regulators about how much it would cost to finish the utility’s faltering nuclear project, according to a transcript of her sworn testimony.

If the estimates were lower, that could have made the project appear healthier than it was. Leaders at SCANA, which owns South Carolina Electric & Gas, have been accused of painting a rosy picture to regulators, customers and investors about the health of the $9 billion project before it failed a year ago.

Carlette Walker, who managed the nuclear project’s finances, testified under oath that she left her $565,000-a-year job in 2016, “Because I wasn’t going to lie.”

“And who do you feel was pressuring you to lie?” an attorney representing SCE&G customers asked.

Walker answered with the names of the power company’s top officials: Kevin Marsh, its CEO throughout the nuclear project’s final years; Steve Byrne, who had been its operations chief; and Jimmy Addison, the finance chief who was her boss and is now SCANA’s chief executive.

SCANA and attorneys representing Addison, Byrne and Marsh did not respond to requests for comment Monday. Marsh and Byrne resigned from the company last year after the project went bust and state lawmakers called for them to step down.

Walker was in SCANA’s inner circle and was repeatedly called to testify about its budget to South Carolina’s utility regulators and her work won her raises year after year as one of the project’s leaders.

Now, her legal testimony is central to a series of lawsuits and regulatory cases that will decide if SCE&G ratepayers should get a refund for the $2 billion they’ve already poured into the unfinished reactors at the V.C. Summer nuclear power plant. The work costs them $37 million a month, nearly a fifth of their electric bills. ………https://www.postandcourier.com/business/sc-nuclear-project-s-top-accountant-says-she-quit-because/article_66d8c638-940c-11e8-bb6e-5b2933e6631d.html

August 3, 2018 Posted by | Legal, USA | Leave a comment

Wylfa nuclear power to be very expensive for both taxpayers and consumers

Wind Power Monthly 31st July 2018 , David Milborrow:

In a complete policy reversal, the UK government has
announced it will consider direct investment in a proposed new nuclear
power station, Wylfa in North Wales.

This will enable the electricity price
to be brought down below the level agreed for the Hinkley Point C nuclear
plant, which attracted criticism from many quarters, including the
government’s own spending watchdog, the National Audit Office.

The UK government’s stake in Wylfa is likely to be around £5 billion, or around
30% of the total, although estimatesof the total cost vary between £12
billion and £20 billion. The government has not put a figure to the
expected electricity price for the Wylfa project, but speculation suggests
that it will be around £75-77/MWh, payable for 35 years.

The UK’s Guardian newspaper points out that the £75/MWh price (payable for 35
years) for nuclear power is significantly higher than the £62/MWh average
(payable for 15 years awarded for offshore wind projects due to come online
about the same time. The £13/MWh difference is higher than the cost of
backup for wind, which most studies putat around £5-£10/MWh.
https://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/1489040/windeconomics-uk-government-steps-support-nuclear-power

August 3, 2018 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment