The MoD Has Blown £500m on Storing Old Nuclear Subs http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2019/04/the-mod-has-blown-500m-on-storing-old-nuclear-subs/, By Gary Cutlack on 04 Apr 2019
Fans of the history of the UK’s submarine fleet will be pleased to know we have numerous classic old nuclear-powered subs in various storage sites around the country, although government financial watchdogs aren’t best pleased about it, as the lifetime cost to the Ministry of Defence for storing these ancient subs has now breached the £500m mark.
They’re not being stored for the greater good or to teach future generations about war etc. — they’re being stored because decommissioning 1960s and 1970s nuclear technology is extremely hard. Hence, 20 of our retired nuclear-powered subs have been sitting around, some since 1980, waiting to be dismantled and have their insides made safe.
This collection also includes all four of the Resolution class submarines that were designed and built in the 1960s to carry the Polaris nuclear missiles, and continued notionally defending us until the 1990s. The National Audit Office says nine of the 20 decaying subs in long-term storage still contain some nuclear material, and suggests there’s a total decommissioning cost of £96m to be found to make them all safe and recycle the clean bits into drones. [NAO via BBC]
April 4, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
UK, wastes, weapons and war |
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UK and EU agree contract that buys more time for Jet nuclear fusion lab, Chemistry World, BY EMMA STOYE 3 Apr 19, An agreement between the UK and European commission will guarantee the future of the Joint European Torus (Jet) nuclear fusion facility in Oxfordshire, regardless of the UK’s Brexit plans.
Both parties have signed an extension to Jet’s contract that secures an additional €100 million (£86 million) of EU funding over the next two years and ensures the continuation of research until the end of 2020. The future of Jet has been uncertain for some time following the result of the UK referendum, especially as, when it leaves the EU, the UK is due to pull out of Euratom – the organisation that coordinates nuclear research around Europe, including work at Jet.
The contract will enable the facility to push ahead with planned fusion tests in 2020, and offers job security for its staff of more than 500. It also contains the option to extend operations until 2024, a measure which may be necessary in the run-up to the new international experimental fusion reactor Iter in southern France, which is planned to open in 2025. 1 APRIL 2019….. https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/uk-and-eu-agree-contract-that-buys-more-time-for-jet-nuclear-fusion-lab-/3010319.article
April 4, 2019
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politics international, technology |
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SIXTH TONE, Li YouApr 02, 2019 Energy official’s announcement comes after the Fukushima disaster in Japan led to new nuclear power projects in China being halted.
China will begin construction on several new nuclear power projects this year, according to Liu Hua, deputy minister of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and head of the National Nuclear Safety Administration.
Liu’s announcement — made Monday during the China Nuclear Energy Sustainable Development Forum in Beijing and later reported by Economic Information Daily — marks an end to the country’s three-year halt to approving new nuclear projects. Since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, China has been circumspect in approving new projects. From 2016 to 2018, the country did not greenlight a single one…….
treating spent nuclear fuel and disposing of nuclear waste raise concerns for both the environment and public safety. In August 2016, thousands of residents protestedagainst a planned nuclear waste facility in Lianyungang, Jiangsu province, that led to the project being halted. ….https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1003796/china-to-resume-approving-nuclear-power-plants
April 4, 2019
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China, politics |
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Euractiv 29th March 2019 The European Parliament voted on a proposed classification for sustainable
assets on Thursday (28 March), voting to exclude nuclear power from
receiving a green stamp of approval on financial markets.
The text voted in Parliament also excludes fossil fuels and gas infrastructure from the
EU’s proposed green finance taxonomy, which aims to divert investments
away from polluting industries into clean technologies. In a bid to prevent
“green-washing”, the Parliament text also requires investors to
disclose whether their financial products have sustainability objectives,
and if they do, whether the product is consistent with the EU’s green
assets classification, or taxonomy.
While activists applauded the move, they said the classification voted by the European Parliament was too
narrow and applies only to a limited set of recognisable green assets, such
as wind and solar power companies.
https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/news/nuclear-power-excluded-from-eus-green-investment-label/
April 4, 2019
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climate change, EUROPE |
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ACROnique of Fukushima 26th March 2019 25 people from Fukushima, who resettled in Ehime Province on Shikoku
Island, took legal action for better compensation. They claimed a total of
137.5 million yen (1.1 million euros) with the main argument that this
disaster could have been avoided if preventive measures had been taken to
protect the plant following the re-assessment of the earthquake risks. and
tsunami in 2006.
They believe that the compensation received is
insufficient in view of the harm suffered which has separated families and
cut ties with the community. They claimed 5.5 million yen (€ 44,000) per
person to cover stress, loss of property and relocation.
https://fukushima.eu.org/tepco-et-letat-japonais-condamnes-a-indemniser-des-personnes-deplacees/
April 4, 2019
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Japan, Legal |
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ACROnique of Fukushima 31st March 2019 According to the Asahi , Orano is preparing to send MOx fuel to Japan from
2020. It is intended for the Takahama power plant , operated by Kansai Electric in Fukui province. The previous shipment dates from 2017. There are 32 nuclear assemblies that should sail to Japan. The amount of plutonium contained in these fuels is one tonne.
KEPCo will have yet to repatriate 10 tons of plutonium in the form of MOx fuel to clear its stock.
And Japan must also drastically reduce its stock in order to hope to start its reprocessing plant in Rokkashô mura, which is already 24 years behind schedule . However, only four reactors currently operate with MOx in Japan: Takahama 3 and 4, Genkai-3 and Ikata-3 ( see the state of the Japanese nuclear fleet ).
https://fukushima.eu.org/nouvel-envoi-de-mox-vers-le-japon-en-preparation/
April 4, 2019
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Japan, reprocessing |
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https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/55817-rsn-three-mile-islands-murderous-legacy-still-threatens-us-al, By Harvey Wasserman, Reader Supported News, 02 April 19
orty years ago this week, the Three Mile Island nuke began pouring lethal radiation into our air and water, lungs and livers.
Throughout central Pennsylvania and beyond, people, animals, plants, and the planet began to die en masse.
In 1980, a mile from the plant, I interviewed many of the immediate victims. It was the worst week of my life.
Today 98 US reactors could repeat the slaughter. Worldwide there are about 450. Many are falling apart. Each could deliver a lethal dose of apocalyptic proportions. All heat the planet, emit carbon, kill nearby newborns, suck up public money, hinder renewables, and threaten fresh catastrophes.
None are “zero emission” or “carbon free.” None can compete with the solar, wind, battery storage, and LED/efficiency technologies that can save us from a fried planet.
If we’re to live on this Earth, King CONG (Coal, Oil Nukes & Gas) must die.
Since TMI, Solartopian costs have become far cheaper than fully amortized reactors.
And nuke costs have soared. Last week Trump slipped in another $3.7 billion in federal loans for two reactors under construction at Vogtle, Georgia. They may ultimately cost $25 billion or more and still never open.
They’re bankrupting the state, having already helped gut Westinghouse and Toshiba. They’ll never come close to competing with wind, solar, batteries or LED/efficiency, which will create far more jobs.
A quarter-million Americans now work in solar energy alone, with another hundred thousand in wind. More Californians work in solar than dig coal nationwide.
Two nukes in South Carolina were recently canceled at a cost of billions. Two more being built in France and Finland are years behind schedule and billions over budget.
The current crop of nuke fanatics wants more. They’ll waste billions of public dollars. But proposed new reactors are so much more expensive than renewables that except for a few big boondoggles, they’ll never be built.
The real threat is the reactors that still operate … the Three Mile Islands in progress.
All heat the planet with massive steam and hot water emissions. Their cooling towers kill thousands of bats and birds. The heat, radiation, and chemicals spewed by their out-take pipes destroy entire marine ecosystems, including millions of fish. The radiation from Fukushima still pours into the Pacific.
Most reactors are losing huge amounts of money. In New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Ohio (for starters) owners are demanding billions in bailouts.
Nuke operators in Ohio and California are bankrupt. Pacific Gas & Electric is under criminal parole for killing eight people in a 2010 San Bruno fire. It’s being sued for more than $10 billion by residents of northern California, where PG&E started fires that killed 80 people, incinerated 12,000 structures and destroyed one of Earth’s most precious ecosystems.
The predecessor to Ohio’s bankrupt FirstEnergy blacked out the entire northeast in 2003. But First Energy now runs the crumbling Davis-Besse and Perry reactors.
All nukes worldwide are embrittled to some degree. If cold water is poured in to stop an out-of-control chain reaction, their pressure vessels will shatter like glass, causing an apocalypse.
But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission does not want to inspect these reactors. With one exception, all US reactors are more than 20 years old. Some are more than forty.
Citizen activists have asked California Governor Gavin Newsom to inspect the two reactors at Diablo Canyon, which could send a radioactive cloud pouring over the ten million people in downwind Los Angeles. Nationwide, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is rubber-stamping new reactor licenses without inspecting to see if they’re embrittled, cracked, properly maintained, earthquake-vulnerable, handling their nuke wastes properly … or if the companies that own them are capable of actually running these giant, aging, insanely complex reactors.
Diablo Canyon is surrounded by active earthquake faults. So is New York’s Indian Point, north of NYC. Ohio’s Perry and Virginia’s North Anna have already experienced seismic damage.
Forty years after TMI, the question is: How many more operating nukes will blow up like Fukushima and Chernobyl, or partially melt like Three Mile Island, pouring heat and radiation into the ecosphere?
As the existing reactors fry the planet, we have no excuses. We saw what happened at TMI forty years ago.
We can’t let it happen again, especially when the Solartopian alternatives are so cheap and ready to go.
And especially knowing the nightmares that will ensue after the next one explodes.
April 4, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
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As safety board cites quakes, Perry says Nevada nuke sites safe By Gary Martin / Las Vegas Review-Journal, April 2, 2019
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 WASHINGTON — Energy Secretary Rick Perry acknowledged Tuesday that the Nevada National Security Site — where weapons-grade plutonium is being stored — and the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository are located in an area considered a seismic hazard.
But he insisted that the facility where the half metric ton of plutonium is being held is secure and that Yucca Mountain would be a safe site to store waste…….
Safety board report
Perry told Cortez Masto the facility was secure. Cortez Masto raised concerns by the Air Force and other entities about the safety of storing plutonium at the facility and opening a nuclear waste repository in a region with current seismic activity.
Cortez Masto grilled Perry on a report first revealed by the Review-Journal in which the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board outlined risks to workers and the “offsite public” because of seismic hazards to structures at the Device Assembly Facility at the security site, located about 90 miles north of Las Vegas.
“This facility continues to operate without accounting for the increase in seismic hazard and without evaluating whether the credited structures, systems and components can perform their safety function during and after a seismic event,” wrote Bruce Hamilton, chairman of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, in the board’s report.
The board noted that concerns about seismic hazards at the Device Assembly Facility in Nevada were first raised in 2007.
Earthquake faults near Yucca
Cortez Masto raised the most recent U.S. Geological Survey report, issued in 2008, which lists the area that includes the Nevada security site and nearby Yucca Mountain as one of moderate to high seismic hazard.
Two faults, the Northern Death Valley and the Black Mountains, are located west of the Nevada security site and the proposed nuclear waste storage facility. According to the USGS, one of the strongest recent earthquakes in the state occurred on June 29, 1992, at Little Skull Mountain in the southwest portion of the Nevada security site and about 12 miles east of Yucca Mountain. That earthquake registered magnitude 5.6.
The safety board report noted that the Device Assembly Facility has “high explosives co-located with special nuclear material.”
Cortez Masto said the seismic hazards cited in the report should also be taken into account in the administration’s attempt to restart license hearings on the Energy Department’s application for Yucca Mountain.
Site is unsafe
Sisolak agreed with Cortez Masto in a statement.
“As the Defense Nuclear Facilities Board — a federal safety board — pointed out recently, earthquake risks make the Nevada National Security Site unsuitable for plutonium and make Yucca Mountain unsuitable for nuclear waste,” he said.
Cortez Masto also asked Perry about President Donald Trump’s flip-flop on Yucca Mountain during a campaign event in Nevada last year, where he said he agreed that a nuclear waste dump should not be located in the state if the residents don’t want it.
“What we all have to recognize here is that Yucca Mountain is the law,” Perry answered. “I’m going to follow the law. The president is going to follow the law. His opinion of whether or not the people of Nevada like it or not doesn’t have anything to do with what the statute says.”
Cortez Masto replied that the Obama administration had taken a different approach, preferring a consent-based plan to store nuclear waste in an area where residents didn’t oppose it.
And she told the secretary the 1987 law that focused only on Yucca Mountain to store waste was a decision that “shows extreme political influence was used to scapegoat the state of Nevada.”……….. https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/as-safety-board-cites-quakes-perry-says-nevada-nuke-sites-safe-1631919/
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April 4, 2019
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politics, USA, wastes |
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David Lowry’s Blog 1st April 2019 Last night I submitted my latest (of dozens) of responses to a Government
or nuclear industry sector public consultation on nuclear policy, this time
on the flawed machinations of trying to find site or sites where nuclear
waste can be disposed of.
I strongly complained that previous submissions
had been entirely ignored, which had reduced the incentive to commit to
researching and preparing detailed submission this time. The same complaint
was included in the Cumbria Trust submission, which asserted: “BEIS and its
predecessors have a track record of issuing consultation documents and
choosing to ignore responses that go against their preconceived plans.” My
own submission was very short, but appended the very long evidence I
submitted year ago, which was ignored, with the demand it be heeded this
time.
http://drdavidlowry.blogspot.com/2019/04/nuclear-waste-very-long-term.html
April 4, 2019
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politics, UK |
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First Minister Questions: “No talks, no sites identified” regarding nuclear waste burial – Wrexham could rule itself out as site, Wrexham.com 3rd April 2019 Apr 3rd, 2019
The below is the another in our now regular summaries of this week’s First Minister Questions session from Cardiff Bay. First Minister Questions takes place every Tuesday ……..
“No sites identified” for nuclear waste burial
The opening question was from Llyr Gruffydd AM (Plaid, North Wales) who asked for a statement on nuclear waste burial. Radiological waste disposal is a devolved matter, but there was questions from another document that Mr Gruffydd said was ‘silent on nuclear’.
Mark Isherwood AM (Con, North Wales) later added the decision as to where to bury the waste would ultimately be determined by geology and asked if there been any discussion with six locations identified in England?
“The Welsh Government has not identified any sites or communities where geological disposal of radioactive waste could take place, and there is no intention to do so. A facility can only be built in Wales if there is a community willing to host it, and it secures full planning, safety and environmental consents.”
– First Minister, Mark Drakeford……
http://www.wrexham.com/news/first-minister-questions-no-talks-no-sites-identified-regarding-nuclear-waste-burial-wrexham-could-rule-itself-out-as-site-166254.html
April 4, 2019
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nuclear-news 