NNSA, TVA agree to ‘down-blend’ uranium to produce tritium for weapons, Oak Ridge Today AUGUST 29, 2018, BY JOHN HUOTARI The National Nuclear Security Administration and the Tennessee Valley Authority announced last week that they intend to enter into an agreement to “down-blend” highly enriched uranium to low-enriched uranium in order to help produce tritium, a key “boosting” component in nuclear weapons.The highly enriched uranium used for the “down-blending” is processed, packaged, and shipped from the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, according to the NNSA. Y-12 is the main storage facility for certain categories of highly enriched uranium, which can be used in nuclear weapons and in naval reactors.
Low-enriched uranium, or LEU fuel, is used in a commercial power reactor run by TVA at the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant Unit 1 near Spring City in Rhea County, southwest of Oak Ridge. Tritium is produced there by irradiating lithium-aluminate pellets with neutrons in rods known as tritium-producing burnable absorber rods, or TPBARs.
The irradiated rods are then shipped to the Savannah River Site, an NNSA production facility near Aiken, South Carolina. The Savannah River Site extracts the tritium from the irradiated rods, purifies it, and adds it to the existing inventory, according to the NNSA’s Fiscal Year 2018 Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan.
Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that has two neutrons and one proton. It has been described as an essential component in every nuclear weapon in the U.S. stockpile. It occurs naturally in small quantities but must be manufactured to obtain useful quantities. It enables weapons to produce a larger yield while reducing the overall size and weight of the warhead in a process known as “boosting,” the U.S. Department of Energy said in an environmental impact statement about 20 years ago.
But unlike other nuclear materials used in nuclear weapons, tritium decays at a rate of 5.5 percent per year—its half-life is about 12 years—and it must be replenished periodically…….
The new agreement follows a determination by U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry on August 21 that allows the NNSA to continue transfers of enriched uranium from DOE’s inventories in support of national security, the NNSA said in a press release.
The rest of this story, which you will find only on Oak Ridge Today, is available if you are a member: a subscriber, advertiser, or recent contributor to Oak Ridge Today. https://oakridgetoday.com/tag/tritium-production/
August 31, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, USA, weapons and war |
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https://www.militarytimes.com/veterans/2018/08/29/lawmaker-presses-for-quicker-action-to-help-clean-up-crews-of-a-deadly-military-nuclear-accident/, By: Leo Shane III WASHINGTON — Veterans exposed to radioactive debris more than five decades ago haven’t made much progress in the courts to have their illnesses recognized by the Department of Veterans Affairs, so now they’re hoping Congress can intervene.
“These veterans were exposed to nuclear materials without any warning or protection that today would be considered routine,” Blumenthal said. “The quickest way to get them what they deserve now is for Congress to act.”
Veterans involved in the accident have been unsuccessfully petitioning VA on their case since the mid-1970s, after a host of strange cancers and other illnesses began appearing among individuals involved in the Palomares incident.
In January 1966, seven airmen were killed and four more injured when a B-52 crashed into a KC-135 during a refueling mission off the coast of Spain. The B-52 was carrying four nuclear weapons at the time of the accident, and two of them exploded near the town of Palomares, spreading radioactive plutonium over hundreds of acres.
U.S. officials quickly ordered military personnel into the area to collect contaminated debris, crops and soil in an effort to repair the damage.
But veterans involved in that clean up say they were given no protective clothing or respiratory devices, and told very little about the potential long-term health effects about exposure to the nuclear material.
John Garman, one of the first airmen on the scene, said he remembers loading thousands of 55-gallon drums with contaminated top soil that was sent back to the United States for safe disposal.
“The civilians who buried those barrels in South Carolina were covered under federal law, but not us,” said Garaman, who developed bladder cancer at age 35 and multiple respiratory problems in later years. “Since I first filed in 1981, the VA has denied all of my claims.”
Department officials have long insisted that not enough scientific evidence exists to classify all of the health problems as service-related illnesses, and spotty Air Force records of the work and contamination levels have added to the problem.
Last December, the Veterans Legal Services Clinic at Yale Law School filed suit against VA to force recognition of the illnesses and benefits payouts, but that case has yet to move forward. Officials from Vietnam Veterans of America said many of the affected troops are elderly or deceased, meaning further delays could prove tragic.
Blumenthal called VA’s refusal to address the Palomares issue the latest in a long line of controversial decisions related to wartime exposure.
Recently, VA has come under criticism for its opposition to grant presumptive benefits status to so-called “blue water veterans” who served in ships off the coast of Vietnam and claim extensive Agent Orange contamination in their daily work. Several veterans groups have also accused the department of not doing enough to document illnesses connected to the use of burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan.
VA officials have warned that deivating from long-held scientific standards for benefits awards could create financial problems for the department, by opening up support payments to tens of thousands of additional veterans.
Blumenthal said he does not believe this group presents a significant new financial burden for the department. But, he also called the cost issue irrelevant.
“This is about the principle of helping these veterans,” he said.
August 31, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
health, USA, weapons and war |
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Ken Raskin 31 Aug 18 They detonated 5 nuclear bombs under parachute Colorado and Rangley. Not so far from Aspen Colorado. The radionuclides have been pouring into the headwaters of the Colorado river and Colorado for years. Rangely and Parachute have 15 times normal average for cancer.
Following the Project Gasbuggy test, two subsequent nuclear explosion fracturing experiments, 5 nuclear bombs total, were conducted in western Colorado in an effort to refine the technique. They were Project Rulison in 1969 and Project Rio Blanco in 1973. In both cases the gas radioactivity was still seen as too high and in the last case the triple-blast rubble chimney structures disappointed the design engineers. Soon after that test the ~ 15-year Project Plowshare program funding dried up. The underground aquifer and gas still radioactive
These early fracturing tests were later superseded by hydraulic fracturing technologies.
August 31, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
environment, USA |
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Global warming is intensifying El Niño weather https://www.skepticalscience.com/gw-intensifying-el-nino-weather.html 29 August 2018 by John Abraham,
As humans put more and more heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere, the Earth warms. And the warming is causing changes that might surprise us. Not only is the warming causing long-term trends in heat, sea level rise, ice loss, etc.; it’s also making our weather more variable. It’s making otherwise natural cycles of weather more powerful.
Perhaps the most important natural fluctuation in the Earth’s climate is the El Niño process. El Niño refers to a short-term period of warm ocean surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific, basically stretching from South America towards Australia. When an El Niño happens, that region is warmer than usual. If the counterpart La Niña occurs, the region is colder than usual. Often times, neither an El Niño or La Niña is present and the waters are a normal temperature. This would be called a “neutral” state.
The ocean waters switch back and forth between El Niño and La Niña every few years. Not regularly, like a pendulum, but there is a pattern of oscillation. And regardless of which part of the cycle we are in (El Niño or La Niña), there are consequences for weather around the world. For instance, during an El Niño, we typically see cooler and wetter weather in the southern United States while it is hotter and drier in South America and Australia.
It’s really important to be able to predict El Niño/La Niña cycles in advance. It’s also important to be able to understand how these cycles will change in a warming planet. Fortunately, a study just published in Geophysical Research Letters helps answer that question. The authors include Dr. John Fasullo from the National Center for Atmospheric Research and his colleagues.
El Niño cycles have been known for a long time. Their influence around the world has also been known for almost 100 years. It was in the 1920s that the impact of El Niño on places as far away as the Indian Ocean were identified. Having observed the effects of El Niño for a century, scientists had the perspective to understand something might be changing.
For example, in 2009–2010, intense drought and heat waves gripped the Amazon region – far greater than expected based on the moderate El Niño at the time. In addition, from 2010 to 2011, severe drought and heat waves hit the southern USA, coinciding with a La Niñaevent. Other extreme weather in the US, Australia, Central and Southern America, and Asia stronger than would be expected from El Niño’s historical behavior have raised concerns that our El Niño weather may be becoming “supercharged.”
To see if something new was happening, the authors of this paper looked at the relationship between regional climate and the El Niño/La Niña status in climate model simulations of the past and future. They found an intensification of El Niño/La Niña impacts in a warmer climate, especially for land regions in North America and Australia. Changes between El Niño/La Niña in other areas, like South America, were less clear. The intensification of weather was more prevalent over land regions.
So, what does this mean? It means if you live in an area that is affected by an El Niño or La Niña, the effect is likely becoming magnified by climate change. For instance, consider California. There, El Niño brings cool temperatures with rains; La Niña brings heat and dry weather. Future El Niños will make flooding more likely while future La Niñas will bring more drought and intensified wildfire seasons.
Unsurprisingly, we’re already seeing these effects, with record wildfires in California fueled by hot and dry weather. We are now emerging from a weak La Niña, so we would expect only a modest increase in heat and dryness in California. But the supercharging of the La Niña connection is likely making things worse. We would have California wildfires without human-caused global warming, but they wouldn’t be this bad.
Dr. Fasullo nicely summarized the findings of the paper:
Click here to read the rest
August 31, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
2 WORLD, climate change |
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Archived’ heat has reached deep into the Arctic interior, researchers say https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180829143836.htm August 29, 2018
- Source:
- Yale University
- Summary:
- Arctic sea ice isn’t just threatened by the melting of ice around its edges, a new study has found: Warmer water that originated hundreds of miles away has penetrated deep into the interior of the Arctic.
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Arctic sea ice isn’t just threatened by the melting of ice around its edges, a new study has found: Warmer water that originated hundreds of miles away has penetrated deep into the interior of the Arctic.
That “archived” heat, currently trapped below the surface, has the potential to melt the region’s entire sea-ice pack if it reaches the surface, researchers say.
The study appears online Aug. 29 in the journal Science Advances.
“We document a striking ocean warming in one of the main basins of the interior Arctic Ocean, the Canadian Basin,” said lead author Mary-Louise Timmermans, a professor of geology and geophysics at Yale University.
The upper ocean in the Canadian Basin has seen a two-fold increase in heat content over the past 30 years, the researchers said. They traced the source to waters hundreds of miles to the south, where reduced sea ice has left the surface ocean more exposed to summer solar warming. In turn, Arctic winds are driving the warmer water north, but below the surface waters.
“This means the effects of sea-ice loss are not limited to the ice-free regions themselves, but also lead to increased heat accumulation in the interior of the Arctic Ocean that can have climate effects well beyond the summer season,” Timmermans said. “Presently this heat is trapped below the surface layer. Should it be mixed up to the surface, there is enough heat to entirely melt the sea-ice pack that covers this region for most of the year.”
The co-authors of the study are John Toole and Richard Krishfield of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
The National Science Foundation Division of Polar Programs provided support for the research.
August 31, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
ARCTIC, climate change |
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Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele hits out at climate change sceptics during fiery speech, ABC News 31 Aug 18
By Pacific affairs reporter
Stephen Dziedzic Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele has lashed out at climate sceptics and urged Australia to make deeper cuts to carbon emissions to help save Pacific Island nations from the “disaster” of climate change.
Key points:
- Mr Sailele says “greater ambition” is needed to stop impact of climate change
- He warns geostrategic competition is creating uncertainty for small Pacific countries
- Australia, New Zealand and the US have been scrambling to reassert influence in the Pacific
Mr Sailele told the Lowy Institute in Sydney that climate change posed an “existential challenge” to low lying islands in the Pacific, and developed countries needed to reduce pollution in order to curb rising temperatures and sea levels.
“We all know the problem, we all know the solutions, and all that is left would be some political courage, some political guts, to tell people of your country there is a certainty of disaster,” Mr Sailele said.
The Prime Minister’s intervention came as some Coalition MPs press the new Prime Minister Scott Morrison to abandon Australia’s promise to cut carbon emissions under the Paris agreement.
New Foreign Minister Marise Payne is also expected to face questions about Australia’s climate change policies at the Pacific Islands Forum leader’s meeting in Nauru next week.
Senator Payne and Pacific leaders are set to sign the “Biketawa Plus” security agreement, which declares that climate change remains the “single greatest threat to the livelihoods, security and wellbeing of the peoples of the Pacific”.
Several other leaders — including Fiji’s Prime Minster Frank Bainimarama and the Marshall Island’s President Hilda Heine — have also called on Australia to do more to cut emissions.
Mr Sailele told the audience that “greater ambition” was needed to stop the destructive impact of climate change.
“While climate change may be considered a slow onset threat by some in the region, its adverse impacts are already being felt by Island communities,” he said……… http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-31/samoan-prime-minister-hits-out-at-climate-change-sceptics/10185142
August 31, 2018
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AUSTRALIA, climate change, OCEANIA |
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Second Hanford radioactive tunnel collapse expected. And it could be more severe, BY ANNETTE CARY, acary@tricityherald.com, August 28, 2018 RICHLAND, WA
The possible collapse of a second Hanford tunnel storing radioactive waste is both more likely than thought a year ago and the effects potentially more severe, according to Hanford officials.
The risk of failure, based on Department of Energy nuclear safety standards, has increased from “unlikely” to “anticipated,” and the potential severity has been increased from “low” to “moderate,” according to the ranking.
The severity of the possible collapse is still not ranked as “high,” but it would be a significant event with the potential for the airborne release of radioactive particles, said Dan Wood, chief operating officer of the CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co., a Hanford contractor.
After the partial collapse in May 2017 of the older of two tunnels storing radioactive waste at Hanford’s PUREX processing plant, an initial structural analysis of the second and longer tunnel was conducted.
The analysis concluded that the second tunnel, built in 1964, needed to be stabilized.
But concerns increased after a video inspection of the interior of the tunnel was done this spring, Wood said. At a hearing Monday night, he explained the risks posed by the nuclear reservation’s second tunnel……..
The first tunnel, which is 360 feet long and stores eight railcars loaded with contaminated equipment, was filled with grout by November 2017. Ecology allowed the grouting under emergency conditions without a public hearing.
A second public hearing is planned at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 5 at the University of Washington Center for Urban Horticulture, 3501 NE 41st St., Seattle. https://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/hanford/article217470425.html
August 31, 2018
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safety, USA |
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Nucnet 28th Aug 2018 , BGE, Germany’s state-owned radioactive waste disposal company, is to
cooperate with the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources
(BGR) on the selection process for a national deep geologic repository
site, BGE said. According to a statement, BGE and BGR, which provides
scientific advice to the government, will also cooperate on the management
of existing waste repositories, including the Asse, Konrad and Morsleben
sites. The agreement will remain valid until the final repository site
selection process is complete, BGE said.
Under the agreement BGR will carry
out R&D on behalf of BGE, the statement said. The Gorleben salt mine in
Lower Saxony, northern Germany, has been under investigation as a potential
final repository site.
A moratorium on the evaluation of Gorleben was
introduced in 2000 by a former Social Democrat and Green Party
administration, but ended in 2010 and exploration at the site was
restarted. However, work was discontinued again at the end of 2012 to allow
for a political compromise on site selection and then ended in July 2013.
August 31, 2018
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Germany, wastes |
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Pregnant Flight Crewmembers Face Unique Hazard: Cosmic Radiation https://ehsdailyadvisor.blr.com/2018/08/pregnant-flight-crewmembers-face-unique-hazard-cosmic-radiation/
Working as a flight crewmember can put a pregnancy at risk, particularly during the first trimester, notes the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). NIOSH points to three hazards that could imperil a pregnancy—circadian rhythm disruption (jet lag) or shiftwork, physical job demands, and cosmic ionizing radiation.
While pregnant workers in many occupations do shiftwork and heavy lifting, exposure to high levels of cosmic ionizing radiation is probably an occupational hazard that is unique to flight crews. The problem for pregnant flight attendants is that it cannot be avoided while flying.
What Is It?
Cosmic ionizing radiation comes from outer space with a very small amount reaching the earth. At flight altitudes, passengers and crewmembers are exposed to higher levels on every flight. The World Health Organization says that ionizing radiation causes cancer as well as reproductive problems, but NIOSH believes the issue warrants additional study.
“We don’t know what causes most health problems that could be linked to radiation, including some forms of cancer and reproductive health issues like miscarriage and birth defects,” states NIOSH. “If you are exposed to cosmic ionizing radiation and have these health problems, we can’t tell if it was caused by your work conditions or something else. We don’t know what levels of cosmic radiation are safe for every person.”
Unsafe Levels
Despite these reservations, NIOSH does not dismiss the risk. For example, one NIOSH study found that exposure to 0.36 millisievert (mSv) or more of cosmic radiation in the first trimester may be linked to an increased risk of miscarriage. If this estimated is accurate, the risk to flight crewmembers is high. The National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements report that aircrew have the largest average annual effective dose (3.07 mSv) of all U.S. radiation-exposed workers. Other estimates of annual aircrew cosmic radiation exposure range from 0.2 to 5 mSv per year.
There are no official radiation dose limits for aircrew in the United States; however, there are national and international guidelines. For example, the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) recommends a dose limit of 20 mSv/year averaged over 5 years for radiation workers and 1 mSv/year for the public. For pregnant radiation workers, the ICRP recommends a dose limit of 1 mSv throughout pregnancy. The National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements has a 0.5 mSv recommended monthly radiation limit during pregnancy.
Solar Particle Events
Flying through a solar particle event doesn’t happen often; pilots fly through about 6 solar particle events in an average 28-year career. Still, a pregnant crewmember who flies through a solar particle event can receive more radiation than is recommended during pregnancy by national and international agencies. Also, avoiding exposure to solar particle events is difficult because they often happen with little warning. One helpful resource is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Nowcast of Atmospheric Ionizing Radiation System ((NAIRAS), which was developed to report potentially harmful flight radiation levels to flight crews and passengers.
Recommendations
NIOSH says it recognizes that controlling one’s flight crew responsibilities to reduce exposure to high-altitude radiation is not a simple solution and one that can be constrained by job seniority, lifestyle, and personal issues. However, there are several actions pregnant crewmembers can consider:
- Try to reduce time working on very long flights, flights at high latitudes, or flights over the poles. Calculate usual cosmic radiation exposures. The Federal Aviation Administration has developed a tool to estimate the effective dose from galactic cosmic radiation (not solar particle events) for a flight (https://www.faa.gov/data_research/research/med_humanfacs/aeromedical/radiobiology/cari6).
- If pregnant or planning a pregnancy, consider work exposures, including cosmic radiation. If pregnant and aware of an ongoing solar particle event when scheduled to fly, consider trip-trading or other rescheduling actions if possible.
More information on the risks of cosmic ionizing radiation to pregnant flight crewmembers is at https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/aircrew/reproductivehealth.html.
August 31, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
2 WORLD, radiation, women |
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nuclear-news 