Romania to explore NuScale SMR deployment, WNN, 19 March 2019 An agreement between US small modular reactor (SMR) developer NuScale Power and Romanian energy company Societata Nationala Nuclearelectrica SA (SNN SA) to explore the use of SMRs in Romania has been welcomed by the US Department of Energy (DOE). The two companies have signed a memorandum of understanding covering the exchange of business and technical information on NuScale’s nuclear technology, with the goal of evaluating the development, licensing and construction of a NuScale SMR for a “potential similar long-term solution” in Romania……… NuScale has also signed MOUs to explore the deployment of its SMR technology in Canada and Jordan. http://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Romania-to-explore-NuScale-SMR-deployment
March 21, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
marketing, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors |
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Britain will pay £60 million to keep the Joint European Torus near Oxford running if negotiations to continue EU funding stall. Nature, Elizabeth Gibney, 20 Mar19,
The UK government has said that it will step in to pay for a European Union-funded nuclear-fusion laboratory near Oxford after 29 March, if European cash cannot be agreed in the next ten days.
The Joint European Torus (JET) laboratory currently has only a short-term funding contract with the European Commission, which will run out on 28 March, the day before Britain is scheduled to leave the European Union. Until now, JET has received around 88% of its funding from EU sources, and the remainder from the United Kingdom. Negotiations with the EU to agree a new contract to fund the facility until the end of 2020 are ongoing, but have stalled in part because of uncertainty over Brexit.
In a statement to Parliament on 13 March, UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond promised to front up to £60 million (US$80 million) to run the JET in 2019–20, should no new agreement be reached in time.
The £60 million would cover the whole of the lab’s 2019–20 budget, says Ian Chapman, chief executive of the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy near Oxford, which hosts JET. Chapman says that the pledge is effectively an “insurance policy”: he is still optimistic that a contract with the EU will be signed in time, and that the commission will continue to fund JET in the long term. “It’s not the intention on either side for [JET] to become a UK facility. This is to make sure we’re covered and operations continue in every eventuality,” he says. ……
Unless the deal is passed by Parliament, or Brexit is delayed, the United Kingdom will leave the EU without a deal. Although it would be possible for the bloc to keep funding JET in a ‘no deal’ Brexit, it is unclear whether this would happen. A UK government spokesperson said that the funding for JET would come from existing funds earmarked for science. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00930-3
March 21, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
politics international, technology, UK |
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US pursuing mini-nuclear reactors to support military expeditionary capabilities, Defence Connect, 20 Mar 19, The US military is conducting research into the development of rapidly deployable, container mounted nuclear reactors to support deployed American and allied forces, reducing threats to traditional supply and support convoys…….
The US has initiated a series of programs to develop, test and deploy alternatives to traditional petrol-based fuel systems, particularly for power generation and small-scale manufacturing of key materials like munitions at forward operating bases operating in close proximity to peer-competitors, limiting supply line and convoy exposure to enemy interdiction. ….. Enter the development of very small modular nuclear reactors (vSMRs), designed to deliver between one and 10 megawatts (MW) for years without refuelling in a rapidly-deployable (road and/or air) package. Both the US Department of Defense and NASA have collaborated on the development of such reactors for use in military and space exploration contingencies. ………The HOLOS reactor in particular has been designed to support deployed military requirements……..
March 21, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, USA |
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Nina Chestney, Reuters LONDON (20 Mar 19, – EDF Energy, owned by France’s EDF, has extended outages at two nuclear reactors at its Hunterston B plant in Scotland while it waits for Britain’s nuclear regulator to assess their safety cases.
- Hunterston B-8 reactor is now expected to restart on April 30, a month later than previously forecast. Hunterston B-7 is scheduled to restart on June 29, compared with a previous date of April 30, according to EDF Energy’s website.
- In March last year, the two reactors were taken offline to carry out inspections of the graphite core. These confirmed the presence of cracks and showed these were happening at a higher rate than modelled……… https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-nuclear-outages-idUKKCN1R01Q1
March 21, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
safety, UK |
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Campaigning in Vegas, Gabbard calls for end of ‘wasteful wars,’ nuclear tension, http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2019/03/19/campaigning-vegas-gabbard-calls-end-wasteful-wars-nuclear-tension/March 19, 2019 at 4:48 AM HST – Updated March 19 at 4:48 AM
LAS VEGAS (AP) – Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard says her top priorities if she’s elected to the White House in 2020 would be to end military action in countries like Iraq and Syria and to de-escalate tensions with nuclear-armed countries like Russia and China.
The Hawaii congresswoman told a small but diverse crowd in Las Vegas on Monday afternoon that she wants to end what she called “wasteful regime change wars” that are costing the country trillions of dollars and instead spend that money on health care, education and other needs in the U.S.
Gabbard, a 37-year-old combat veteran, was making her first foray into early-nominating state Nevada as a presidential candidate.
She planned to hold a “meet and greet luau” west of the Las Vegas Strip later in the evening.
March 21, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
politics, USA |
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By Justine Calma on Mar 15, 2019 Former President of Ireland Mary Robinson is a bonafide international environmental badass. Not only was she the first female president of her country, but she has also made climate justice the focus of her foundation.
Grist was invited to listen in on a taping of her podcast, Mothers of Invention, co-hosted by comedian Maeve Higgins. Their banter, along with stories from guests who brought a feminist approach to climate solutions around the world, was exactly the shot of espresso I needed for a midweek morning. Robinson, who served as the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights, is not completely free of controversy, but she is relentless in her work on climate.
The podcast is just the most recent of Robinson’s ongoing efforts to ensure that women and others who disproportionately bear the burdens of what she calls, the “injustice of climate change” are heard. Now in its second season, the podcast has already taken on “ghosting the planet” and “the white man [who] stole the weather.”
Before a recent taping, Robinson sat down with Grist’s Justine Calma to talk feminism, the Green New Deal, and her own carbon footprint.
Q. Are you feeling a shift globally in how we’re prioritizing climate?
A. Climate change has really come up on the agenda. It’s partly because of young people and even school children saying, ‘We want to have a future. You’re not protecting us.’ That’s a very powerful message. When I talked about the injustice [of climate change] — focusing on small island states, indigenous peoples, poor vulnerable countries, and even poor communities in developed countries — a lot of people sort of said, ‘Well that’s not me.’ But ‘children’ [is a group that involves] everyone………. https://grist.org/article/mary-robinson-international-climate-badass-on-why-green-solutions-require-a-feminist-lens/
March 21, 2019
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 Daniel Ellsberg Calls Chelsea Manning “an American Hero” Marjorie Cohn, Truthout, March 20, 2019 Two years after being released from prison where she had served seven years for exposing U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, Chelsea Manning was jailed once again for refusing to answer questions before a grand jury investigating WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange.
“I will not comply with this, or any other grand jury,” Manning declaredin a written statement. “Imprisoning me for my refusal to answer questions only subjects me to additional punishment for my repeatedly-stated ethical objections to the grand jury system.”
Noted whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg praised Manning. “Chelsea Manning is in jail again, this time for resisting a grand jury system whose secrecy and lack of witness rights makes it prone to frequent abuse,” Ellsberg told Truthout. “She is also resisting its current abuse, as it is used to attack freedom of the press by pursuing criminal charges for publication of the very war crimes and corruption she courageously revealed to WikiLeaks nine years ago.”
Manning wrote, “The grand jury’s questions pertained to disclosures from nine years ago, and took place six years after an in-depth computer forensics case, in which I testified for almost a full day about these events. I stand by my previous public testimony.”
Prosecutors inadvertently disclosed last summer that they had a sealed indictment against Assange. Since 2010, when WikiLeaks published the documents Manning leaked, the U.S. government has been gunning for Assange. “The Obama administration had decided against trying to charge him because of fears that establishing a precedent that his actions were a crime could chill investigative journalism,” Charlie Savage wrotein The New York Times.
Manning told the judge at her guilty plea hearing that no one at WikiLeaks asked or encouraged her to give them documents. “No one associated with WLO [WikiLeaks Organization] pressured me into sending any more information,” she said.
Before contacting WikiLeaks, Manning tried to interest The Washington Post in publishing the documents, but she received no response. She was also unsuccessful in contacting The New York Times.
At the age of 22, Pfc. Manning, who was an Army intelligence analyst, gave hundreds of thousands of classified Pentagon and State Department documents about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to WikiLeaks. In 2013, Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison. She ultimately served seven years, including time in pretrial custody, after Obama commuted the remainder of her sentence as he was leaving office.
Manning, a transgender woman, suffered in a male military prison and attempted suicide on two occasions in 2016. She was held in solitary confinement and was humiliated by being subjected to forced nudity during inspection for the first 11 months of her incarceration. United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Méndez characterized her treatment as cruel, inhuman and degrading. He couldn’t determine whether it amounted to torture because he was not permitted to visit her under acceptable conditions……… https://truthout.org/articles/daniel-ellsberg-calls-chelsea-manning-an-american-hero/
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March 21, 2019
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civil liberties, USA |
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The Ferret 19th March 2019 Plans to restart two cracked and ageing reactors at Hunterston in north Ayrshire have again been delayed as operators struggle to convince regulators they are safe.
EDF Energy, the French company that runs Hunterston B nuclear power station, has postponed the restart date for reactor three by two months to 30 June 2019. The restart of reactor four has been postponed a month until 30 April 2019.
Some 370 major cracks have been found in the graphite core of reactor three, which has been closed down for more than a year since 9 March 2018. There are estimated to be around 200 similar cracks in reactor four, which was closed down on 2 October 2018.
The operational safety limit for cracks imposed by the UK government’s Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) is 350. EDF is now trying to convince ONR that reactors should be allowed to operate with up to 700 cracks.
The proposed restart dates for both reactors have been repeatedly delayed over the last six months. They started generating electricity in 1976 and were originally due to close in 2006 – but EDF wants to keep them going until at least 2023.
Critics, however, reiterated calls for the reactors to shut down permanently. “It really is time for EDF to admit that these stations are well past their sell-by date and need to close,” said nuclear consultant, Peter Roche. “They should start talking to the Scottish Government about providing alternative employment opportunities in Ayrshire, preferably by bringing forward decommissioning and dismantling and developing robot technology.”
Rita Holmes, chair of the Hunterston site stakeholder group chair, said that personally she had no doubt that ONR would take time to scrutinise EDF’s safety cases. “Some people find the delays reassuring because EDF is sparing no expense, leaving no stone unturned, consulting the experts in order to build a robust safety case,” she said.
“Some feel the opposite – if it takes EDF that long to provide a robust safety case then maybe there is something far wrong. The safety case might or might not satisfy the regulator……….
https://theferret.scot/cracked-reactors-force-further-delays-at-hunterston/
March 21, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
safety, UK |
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