2019 August 24 « nuclear-news

As Trump trashed nuclear weapons treaty, Putin promises ‘symmetrical response’ to US missile test

Putin promises ‘symmetrical response’ to US missile test after end of nuclear treaty Telegraph UK Alec Luhn, moscow, 23 AUGUST 2019

Vladimir Putin has promised a “symmetrical response” to the US test of a missile banned under a nuclear weapons treaty rubbished this month by the Trump administration amid fears of a new arms race.A new land-based version of the navy’s Tomahawk cruise missile fired from an island in California struck a target more than 310 miles away on Sunday, according to the Pentagon. The recently defunct 1987 US-Russian intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty banned land-based missiles with ranges between 310 and 3,410 miles.

On Friday, Mr Putin told his security council that the test just 16 days after the treaty’s demise proved that the United States had long been developing weapons in violation of the agreement, while accusing Russia of the same as part of a “propaganda campaign”……

He ordered the defence and foreign ministries to “analyse the level of the threat to our country created by the aforementioned actions of the United States and take exhaustive steps to prepare a symmetrical response”. While he did not say exactly what that would be be, it was reported in February that Russia could begin producing a land-based version of its Kalibr cruise missile with a range of 1,600 miles by the end of the year.

“For a symmetrical response, it would be enough to take Kalibr and put it on land and conduct a launch,” defence analyst Alexander Golts told The Telegraph. “That wouldn’t take a huge effort.”

Donald Trump’s announcement in February that he would withdraw from the INF treaty, which ended the deployment of US ballistic missiles to Europe and of Soviet nukes targeting them, raised fears of a new arms race. …… https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/08/23/putin-promises-symmetric-response-us-missile-test-end-nuclear/

August 24, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international, weapons and war | 3 Comments

South Korea might make own food arrangements for Fukushima Olympic events

South Korea concerned over food safety at Olympics with events slated for Fukushima
Talks to take place over food provision at Tokyo Games
Fukushima to host baseball and softball games next year, Guardian Justin McCurry in Tokyo, Thu 22 Aug 2019 South Korea is considering making its own arrangements to feed its athletes at next year’s Tokyo Olympics, citing concerns over the safety of food from Fukushima, media reports said.

In addition, South Korean sports authorities have requested that international groups be permitted to monitor radiation levels during the 2020 Games.

Food safety concerns in South Korea have grown since Fukushima city was chosen to host six softball games and one baseball game next summer. Fukushima prefecture will also be the location for the start of the domestic leg of the Olympic torch relay, beginning next March.

Tokyo Olympics organisers said South Korea’s National Olympic Committee had sent a letter expressing concern at the possibility of produce grown in Fukushima prefecture being served to athletes in the Olympic village. ……

Bloomberg reported that the Korea Sport and Olympic Committee is to request international organisations such as Greenpeace be allowed to monitor radiation levels at Olympic venues. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/aug/22/south-korea-concerned-over-food-safety-at-olympics-with-events-slated-for-fukushima

August 24, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Japan, South Korea | 2 Comments

Radioactive patients – a concern following Russian nuclear accident

Russian nuclear accident: Medics fear ‘radioactive patients’, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49432681 23 Aug 19, Russian medics who treated radiation victims after a military explosion in the Arctic had no protection and now fear they were irradiated themselves.

Two of the medics in Arkhangelsk spoke to BBC Russian about the victims’ evacuation, on condition of anonymity.

Five nuclear engineers died on 8 August when an “isotope-fuel” engine blew up at the Nyonoksa test range, officials said. Two military personnel also died.

President Vladimir Putin said the test involved a new weapon system.

Six people were injured in the accident, but officials gave few details about it.

On 14 August Russia’s weather service Rosgidromet revealed that radiation levels had spiked 16 times above normal, in Severodvinsk, a city 47km (29 miles) east of Nyonoksa.

According to the official data, the radiation that reached Severodvinsk was not heavy enough to cause radiation sickness.

Experts in Russia and the West say the test was most likely linked to the new 9M730 Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile, called “Skyfall” by Nato. Last year Mr Putin said the technology would give the missile “unlimited” range.

The Arkhangelsk medics, who spoke to the BBC’s Pavel Aksenov, said at least 90 people came into contact with the casualties, but the military did not warn them of any nuclear contamination risk.

Contamination fears

The medics were at the civilian Arkhangelsk regional hospital, which treated three of the injured, while three other casualties were taken to an Arkhangelsk hospital called Semashko, which is equipped for radiation emergencies.

The medics said they were speaking out now because they feared for their own health and did not want any similar “[safety] violations” to recur.

“We don’t want them to bring us next time not three, but ten people, God forbid, and hide the information from us again,” said one.

The degree of secrecy surrounding the explosion has drawn comparisons with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, when Soviet officials were slow to admit the truth.

The Arkhangelsk medics said it was clear that the three brought to their regional hospital were very sick. Doctors examined them in the emergency room, then sent them to an operating theatre.

But the emergency room continued to admit other patients for about an hour, the medics said, until the doctors realised that the three “had received a very high radiation dose”. The hospital handles pregnancy complications and other difficult medical conditions.

“The radiation picture was developing by the hour. Blood tests were being done, and every hour you could see that this or that cell count was plunging. That signified a very high radiation dose,” they said.

The hospital staff kept treating the victims despite knowing about the radiation dose. The staff had to improvise some self-protection – for example, they took face masks from the helicopter crews’ emergency kit.

The next day the three victims were transferred to a hospital in Moscow which has radiation specialists. Their condition now is unknown.

Nuclear decontamination

A military team later carried out decontamination work in the Arkhangelsk hospital.

The medics said the casualties’ clothing was removed, along with stretchers and a “highly radioactive bath”.

“Our cleaners should have been advised, they’re just simple country folk, they were just picking up sacks and bundles and carrying them out,” said one.

The other medic said hospital staff were now mentally stressed, knowing that radiation safety information had been withheld from them during the emergency.

Two weeks after the explosion the Russian health ministry said none of the medics at the Arkhangelsk hospitals had received a hazardous radiation dose. Its conclusion was based on medical examination of 91 staff.

Incomplete data

On Monday an international nuclear agency reported that the two Russian radiation monitoring stations nearest to Nyonoksa had gone offline soon after the explosion. The revelation fuelled suspicions that the radiation could have been heavier than officially reported.

The Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) said the technical failure at those sites was then followed by a failure at two more. It tweeted an animation showing the potential radiation plume from the explosion.

Russia said the weapons test was none of the CTBTO’s business, and added that handing over radiation data was voluntary. Two of the monitoring stations have since started working again.

August 24, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | health, Russia | Leave a comment

Massive wildfires are burning across the world- July was hottest month ever

July was the hottest month ever on Earth. Now massive wildfires are burning across the globe. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/08/21/wildfires-july-hottest-month-ever-fires-rage-across-globe/2070418001/ Trevor Hughes, USA TODAY Aug. 23, 2019 DENVER – Wildfires are burning across the globe, clogging the sky with smoke from Alaska to the Amazon, and scientists say it’s no coincidence that July was the warmest-ever month recorded on Earth.…

The fires have forced evacuations worldwide, most recently on Spain’s Canary Islands, where more than 8,000 people have been forced to flee. Smoke from some of the fires is so bad satellites can see it from space, blanketing large portions of South America and the Arctic.

Climate scientists say the fires are partly the result of a world growing warmer, making it easier for flames to spread.

“In these conditions, it is easier for wildfires to grow and to be more long-lived,” said Mark Parrington, a senior scientist in the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.

The average global temperature in July was 1.71 degrees F above the 20th-century average of 60.4 degrees, making it the hottest July in the 140-year record, according to scientists at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information.

The previous hottest month on record was July 2016. Nine of the 10 hottest recorded Julys have occurred since 2005; the last five years have ranked as the five hottest. Last month was also the 43rd consecutive July and 415th consecutive month with above-average global temperatures.

Parrington said it’s not possible to draw direct connections between hotter weather and more wildfires, citing human activity. For instance, although there are big fires currently burning in the Amazon, the past 20 years have generally seen a reduction in forest fires there, he said. But now the fires are the worst they’ve been since at least 2010, based on initial data, he said.

Climate experts say there’s always going to be regional variations – the U.S. has had a below-average wildfire year following 2018’s deadly blazes across California – but the overall trend is toward more extreme weather fueled by a hotter climate.

The Arctic’s boreal forests are particularly at risk, said Rick Thoman, a climate specialist with the Fairbanks-based Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy. Like Parrington, he said it’s not a simple connection between hotter weather and more fires, but said the conditions for fires are growing more frequent in the north.

“It’s a reinforcing loop: The more fires you have, the more land you open up, so in future years you’re going to warm that land more because the trees aren’t there to shade it, which will in turn melt permafrost, which will then release carbon and methane, which are greenhouse gases, which contribute to warmer summers and more fires,” Thoman said.

ALASKA: Smoke has once again blanketed Anchorage

Multiple fires are burning near the state’s biggest city, and firefighters have called in assistance from the Lower 48. More than 400,000 acres are currently burning, and one of the biggest concerns is the McKinley Fire, which has destroyed at least 50 structures about 100 miles north of Anchorage. Officials with the Matanuska-Susitna Borough declared a state of emergency, and firefighters hoped that calmer weather predicted for Wednesday could permit evacuees to return.

Experts this spring predicted a long fire season in Alaska because the snow melted several weeks earlier than usual in many parts of the state.

Alaska has had a sweltering summer. July was the state’s hottest month ever, and the long-smoldering Swan Lake Fire roared back up over last weekend, clogging the area with smoke and forcing officials to use pilot cars to lead vehicles through the smoky area on the Kenai Peninsula. Lightning sparked the 138,479-acre fire in June, officials said, and there’s little chance of it being put out until heavy fall rains arrive.

Statewide firefighting costs have already topped $150 million, officials said.

Thoman said Alaskans have become somewhat jaded since this year’s fires have “only” burned 2.5 million acres of land, compared with the 6.6 million acres burned during the worst season on record in 2004. But because this year’s fires burned so close to populated areas, they’ve gotten more attention: “With one-mile visibility in smoke, you can’t get away from it.”

AMAZON: Forest fires are generating smoke that can be seen from space

The sky above São Paulo turned black Monday as wildfires raging more than 1,000 miles away sent smoke pouring over Brazil’s largest city. The smoke resulting from some of these wildfires was also captured in satellite images released by NASA last week.

The Amazon rainforest is burning at a record rate. The fires are no accident, and we need to face it. How does this affect our planet? Just the FAQs, USA TODAY

“The smoke did not come from fires from the state of São Paulo, but from very dense and wide fires that have been going on for several days in Rondônia and Bolivia. The cold front changed the direction of the winds and transported this smoke to São Paulo,” Josélia Pegorim, Climatempo meteorologist, told Globo.

The Twitter hashtag #PrayforAmazonas has been trending as horrified Amazon-watchers share pictures of the devastation.

U.S. scientists say the Amazonian rain forest is typically resistant to fire, but climate changes have left it drier than usual. And while this is the time of year when farmers often set fires in the area to clear off areas for agriculture, Reuters reported the Amazon rain forest has experienced a record number of fires this year, citing new data released by the country’s space agency, the National Institute for Space Research (INPE). The agency said its satellite data detected more than 72,000 fires since January, an 83% increase over the same period of 2018.

The Amazon rain forest fires can be seen from space, and NASA can see these fires from space. Veuer’s Keri Lumm reports. Buzz60

According to an analysis by Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service, the August emissions for the Amazonas area are the highest since 2003, and for the overall Amazonia areas are the highest since 2010.

CANARY ISLANDS: Huge flames force widespread evacuations

A raging wildfire forced large-scale evacuations of residents this week on Gran Canaria, a mountainous volcanic island off northwest Africa. Authorities said the fire burning in forested areas was generating flames up to 160 feet tall in the area of Tamadaba Natural Park, and about 8,000 people had been evacuated. The island is popular with tourists, but officials said the resort areas were so far unaffected, although smoke was widely visible.

Gran Canaria emergency chief Frederico Grillo said recent blazes now are much worse – “nothing like those we used to have” – when families worked in the countryside and forests were kept more orderly, private news agency Europa Press reported.

The Arctic: Areas of normally snow-covered Greenland are burning

The Arctic as a whole has seen unusually high wildfire activity this summer, Parrington said, including areas such as Greenland that typically don’t see fires. One estimate found that the amount of carbon dioxide emitted from fires burning within the Arctic Circle in in June 2019 was greater than all of the CO2 released in the same month from 2010 through to 2018 put together.

While it isn’t uncommon for these areas to see wildfires, there is cause for concern now, Thomas Smith, an assistant professor in environmental geography at the London School of Economics, told USA TODAY last month.

“The magnitude is unprecedented in the 16-year satellite record,” Smith said. “The fires appear to be further north than usual, and some appear to have ignited peat soils.” Peat fires can smolder for months.

August 24, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | ARCTIC, Brazil, climate change | 1 Comment

“ZATO” Russia’s many closed cities, – some site of nuclear accidents

Russia’s closed cities hold the secrets to global nuclear disasters you’ve never heard of https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-24/russia-closed-cities-hold-secrets-to-global-nuclear-disasters/11437734

By Lauren Beldi The lack of information from the Russian Government following the deadly explosion on August 8 has some questioning whether the situation might be worse than originally thought.

Key points:

There are at least 40 closed cities in Russia, officially known by the acronym ZATO
Some have also been home to some of the world’s worst nuclear incidents
President Vladimir Putin is trying to encourage more Russians to move to closed cities

But it makes sense why Russia might be vague on the detail.

Both the city near the accident site, Severodvinsk, and the one where the victims were buried, Sarov, are “closed cities” — highly controlled areas that house the country’s most important weapons sites.

The Government does not want outsiders knowing what goes on there, especially when accidents happen.

And when accidents do happen in closed cities, like a radioactive explosion or an outbreak of anthrax, Russia has a long history of covering them up.

Russia is far from the only country to have closed cities, but it does have a lot of them.

It’s thought there are about 40 closed cities in Russia, though it’s suspected there are others whose very existence is highly classified.

First established in the 1940s, closed cities — officially known by the acronym ZATO in Russian — are most often associated with either military installations or major research centres and are used to house employees and their families.

For example, Sarov, where the five scientists killed in the explosion were buried, is the site of a nuclear weapons design facility.

It’s been a closed city since 1946, when it was renamed Arzamas-16 and its location was removed from all unclassified maps.

The movement of people and information in and out of these cities is highly restricted, and residents are often not allowed to disclose where they live to outsiders.

“There’s levels of security inside levels of security, it’s like a series of concentric circles,” Kate Brown, MIT Professor of Science, Technology and Society, told the ABC.

“And when you have those it is easy to gloss over problems, perhaps cover up accidents, there’s not a lot of ways for information to get out.”

The nuclear disaster you probably haven’t heard of

While Chernobyl and Fukushima might be synonymous with nuclear disasters, that might not be the case for Kyshtym.

It was the third most-serious nuclear accident ever recorded, and it happened at the Mayak facility in the closed city of Ozyorsk, in Russia’s Ural Mountains, in 1957.

A cooling system in a radioactive waste tank broke down and the rise in temperature resulted in an explosion that released an estimated 20 million curies of radioactivity into the environment.

During the Chernobyl explosion, about 50–200 million curies of radioactivity was estimated to have been released.

The Kyshtym disaster contaminated an area up to 20,000 square kilometres, known as the East-Ural Radioactive Trace, and thousands of people near the plant were evacuated.

But the Soviet government didn’t publicly acknowledge the accident until 1989.

The incident was happening at the time of the Cold War so it was also an attempt by the Soviet authorities to prevent the news from reaching the outside world,” Alexey Muraviev, a specialist in Russian strategic and defence policy at Curtin University, told the ABC.

But the area had been contaminated even before the Kyshtym disaster, when high-level radioactive waste from the production of plutonium at Mayak had been intentionally dumped into the nearby Techa river.

“They put about 3.2 million curies into that small river, and the people who lived downstream drank from it, swam in it, ate from it, fished in it, watered their crops in it,” Professor Brown said.

Twenty-eight communities live down that river, several tens of thousands of people, and they didn’t tell anybody that they were putting high-level waste [in the river].”

Mayak now serves as a reprocessing plant for spent radioactive fuel.

In October 2017, a network of monitoring sites picked up a cloud of radioactive material, Ruthenium-106, above Europe.

In a report published just last month, a team of scientists say the most likely source was a fire or explosion at Mayak that occurred during the reprocessing of spent fuel to create enriched caesium for an Italian laboratory.

Russia’s nuclear energy agency continues to deny anything happened at Mayak in 2017, but at the time, the Russian Meteorological Service admitted there was “extremely high contamination” in the air around the Ural mountains.

And it’s not just nuclear accidents that happen at closed cities.

In 1979, spores of anthrax leaked from a biological weapons facility in the closed city of Sverdlovsk and killed at least 68 people, many of whom were civilians from a nearby ceramics plant.

The Soviet government blamed the deaths on the consumption of contaminated meat, and it was only in 1992 that then-president Boris Yeltsin publicly linked the anthrax outbreak with the military facility.

While some have a bad safety reputation, there’s a big reason why Russians might want to move to a closed city: they’ve historically gotten the best of everything.

As part of the privileges of working on important, secret and dangerous processes, residents are promised a higher standard of living and better resources.

During the Soviet era, those who lived in closed cities were spared the austerity of other parts of the country.

“So there were no problems with, for example, food supplies; people could buy anything they wanted,” Dr Muraviev said.

“They also provided better living conditions, so people who would work at closed cities would be guaranteed state funding accommodation and so on.”

The reputation of the living standards and privileges of those cities meant the jobs that would allow you to move to one were highly sought after.

“This is an important element, otherwise it sounds like [closed cities] are like a giant concentration camp,” Dr Muraviev said.

And according to Dr Muraviev, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been actively trying to restore the glamour of the country’s remaining closed cities.

“Back in the 1990s those privileges kind of really lapsed, so there were no incentives anymore, but now they’re sort of back on the agenda and the Government is really pumping funds into these cities,” he said.

“That’s part of [Mr Putin’s] strategy to rebuild Russia’s national security as well as rebuild Russia’s national defence capability.”

And as far as the risks go of moving to a secretive town next to a nuclear facility or a military installation?

Dr Muraviev said the people who chose to move to closed cities knew what came with the job.

“They understand risks associated with it and they’re not just doing it for money; they’re also doing it for the idea of making Russia safe,” he said.

August 24, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Reference, Russia, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Iran working productively with France, to save nuclear deal

Iran’s Zarif: Nuclear talks with Macron were ‘productive’
Mohammad Javad Zarif says they could work with new French proposals, to save nuclear deal. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/08/irans-zarif-nuclear-talks-macron-productive-190823161529602.html Iran’s foreign minister has hailed “positive” talks with French President Emmanuel Macron, on salvaging the 2015 nuclear deal.Mohammad Javad Zarif says they could work with new French proposals, to save the nuclear deal.

Speaking to reporters after meeting Macron, Zarif says both countries have made suggestions on how to move forward after the United States pulled out of the nuclear deal last year.

Macron has previously said he will either try to soften the effect of the US sanctions or come up with a way to compensate the Iranian people.

August 24, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | France, Iran, politics international | Leave a comment

Trumped Up: Wiki cables show Australia thinks Iran is not the aggressor,

Trumped Up: Wiki cables show Australia thinks Iran is not the aggressor, Michael West, by Prof. Clinton Fernandes — 23 August 2019 Wikileaks cables reveal Iran presents no threat to Australia and little threat to the US. Instead, clear intelligence from the US, Australia and Iran confirms Iran, although portrayed as aggressive, has pursued a defensive military strategy. Clinton Fernandez reports.

This week, Australia announced it would send military forces to patrol the Persian Gulf alongside Bahrain, Britain and the United States. “Iran’s unprovoked attacks on international shipping,” required nothing less, according to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

The US had previously withdrawn from the so-called “Iran nuclear deal,” known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, and imposed sanctions against Iran. Iran went to the International Court of Justice, asking it to rule on the legality of these sanctions. In a unanimous decision, all 15 judges of the International Court of Justice – including American judge ad hoc Charles Brower – ordered the United States to ease some sanctions against Iran………

Iran: a Clayton’s threat

Exactly what kind of threat does Iran pose? And how does the United States view its own conduct? Diplomatic cables leaked to Wikileaks in 2010 provide revealing insights into these questions. The cables written by American diplomats in Australia are especially revealing because the two countries have a very close relationship in a number of spheres.

This doesn’t mean the US sees Australia as vital; the relationship is heavily asymmetrical, with Australia going out of its way to demonstrate its relevance, as its decision to send military forces to the Persian Gulf illustrates. Combined with evidence given by the Pentagon and US intelligence agencies to the US Congress, a clearer picture of Iranian motives emerges…….

US intelligence confirmed that Iran’s defence was low in comparative terms, was aimed specifically at defence rather than aggression, and sought to deter an invasion long enough for diplomacy to set in. If it ever developed nuclear weapons, they would be remain part of a deterrence strategy. ……

Australian cables show Iran no rogue state

The leaked cables show that Australia’s intelligence agencies also acknowledge that Iran seeks a deterrent. During discussions with the United States in 2008, Australia’s intelligence analysts appeared to take a calm view of Iran’s nuclear program, saying it fell “within the paradigm of ‘the laws of deterrence.’” It was “a mistake to think of Iran as a ‘Rogue State,’” according to Peter Varghese, then the Director-General of the Australian Office of National Assessments……… https://www.michaelwest.com.au/trumped-up-wiki-cables-show-australia-thinks-iran-is-not-the-aggressor/ Clinton Fernandez is Professor of International and Political Studies, UNSW Canberra, and author of “Island off the Coast of Asia: Instruments of Statecraft in Australian Foreign Policy”.

August 24, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, Iran, politics international, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

UK Office of Nuclear Regulation seems to have increased the number of cracks permitted in Hunterston nuclear reactor.

Scottish CND 21st Aug 2019 Scottish CND condemn Office of Nuclear Regulation’s decision to restart
Hunterston nuclear reactor 4. The meeting between ONR, Dr Ian Fairlie and
NFLA (notes available) stated that while the cracking in Reactor 4 is not
as extensive as Reactor 3 there is an issue of some cracks openings that
are greater than 1.2cm wide (i.e. 1/2 inch). Scottish CND chair Arthur
West:

“This news about the Hunterston reactor is very disappointing. It is
very worrying that the Office of Nuclear Regulation seems to have increased
the number of cracks permitted in the reactor. This move seems to be a
clear case of moving the goalposts to allow the closed reactor to reopen.
It really is time to think about a future beyond nuclear energy. The best
response to the current situation at Hunterston is to continue the
development of safer and cleaner forms of renewable energy.”

http://www.banthebomb.org/index.php/news/2042-scottish-cnd-condemn-onr-decision-to-restart-huntertston

August 24, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, UK | Leave a comment

Massachusetts Attorney General objects to transfer of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station license to Holtec

Regulators approve nuclear transfer over governor, AG protests, MASS LIVE, By Colin A. Young / STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICESTATE HOUSE, BOSTON, AUG. 23, 2019…..Despite the objections of Attorney General Maura Healey, the Baker administration and local advocacy groups, federal regulators approved the transfer of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station license to a company that plans to decommission the plant on an “accelerated basis.”

Entergy, which bought the Plymouth plant from Boston Edison in 1999, is selling it to Holtec International, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been reviewing the requested license transfer since last year. The NRC approved the transfer Friday, announcing that Holtec International will be the owner of the plant and that its subsidary Holtec Decommissioning International will serve as the decommissioning operator.

The NRC said its order approving the license transfer is effective immediately but that the transfer will not actually take place until the sale of the plant is finalized. The transfer includes the dry cask spent fuel storage installation at Pilgrim.

……… The approval comes as Attorney General Maura Healey, Gov. Charlie Baker’s energy and environment secretariat and members of the state’s Congressional delegation mounted an effort to block the transfer until the NRC held a full hearing on concerns over Holtec’s ability to safely decommission the nuclear plant, the company’s financial stability and its alleged involvement in a kickback scheme.

“The Commonwealth does not believe that Holtec has met the NRC’s financial and technical qualification requirements for license transfer approval,” Healey’s office wrote to the NRC this week. “Indeed, the Commonwealth has serious concerns about Holtec’s financial and technical capacity to complete the work at Pilgrm. At a minimum, this history requires a heightened degree of scrutiny by the NRC and its Staff.” ……..

On Friday, Healey’s office said it will review the options it still has to rectify what it called a “misguided decision” by the federal regulators.

“We are deeply disappointed in the NRC’s misguided decision to approve the license transfer and trust fund exemption requests, and its failure to meaningfully consult with our state prior to doing so. We continue to have serious concerns about Holtec’s financial capacity, technical qualifications, and judgment to safely and properly clean up the site, and store and manage Pilgrim’s spent nuclear fuel,” Healey spokeswoman Chloe Gotsis said. “We are reviewing all of our available options to ensure the health, safety and interests of our residents and the environment are protected.”

U.S. Sen. Edward Markey, who sits on a Congressional committee with jurisdiction over the NRC, said the agency “is abdicating any responsibility for protecting public health and safety with its rushed and uninformed license transfer for the Pilgrim nuclear power plant.”

“The opaque process that disregarded local resident and state input reflects the Commission’s choice to prioritize industry timelines over due diligence and transparency. Holtec’s math on how it will pay for decommissioning does not add up. Holtec’s unwillingness to even negotiate an agreement with local stakeholders — the ones who will be living next door to nuclear waste for years to come — is unacceptable,” Markey said. “I have repeatedly called on Holtec to be a good neighbor and for the Commission to be a good regulator, but those calls of concern were ignored.”

The Baker administration said it “believes the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff should not have made the decision to approve the license transfer prior to the Commission ruling on the concerns raised by the administration and Attorney General.”

“Both offices remain deeply committed to ensuring the Pilgrim Nuclear Power station is decommissioned in a manner that protects the safety of the public and environment,” Energy and Environmental Affairs spokeswoman Katie Gronendyke said.

Late Thursday, four state senators and six state representatives — Sens. Viriato deMacedo, Julian Cyr, John Keenan and Patrick O’Connor along with Reps. William Crocker, Josh Cutler, Dylan Fernandes, Sarah Peake, Kathleen LaNatra and Tim Whelan — issued a statement in support of Healey and the administration. They asked the NRC to give the issue a full hearing before acting on the license transfer application……… https://www.masslive.com/news/2019/08/regulators-approve-nuclear-transfer-over-governor-ag-protests.html

August 24, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment

White House new system guidelines for nuclear power in space includes weapons grade materials

White House Overhauls Launch Approval Process for Nuclear Spacecraft, AIP, 23 Aug 19, The White House has announced a new launch authorization process for spacecraft that use nuclear-powered systems, instituting a tiered framework that delegates decision-making for less risky missions and provides explicit guidance on acceptable risk levels……

The memo categorizes missions into three tiers based on the amount and type of nuclear material they contain as well as the estimated probability that a launch accident would result in a certain level of exposure to any member of the public. Unlike the prior policy, it also lays out criteria specific to fission reactor systems and non-federal missions.

The least risky missions fall in Tier 1, where the director of the sponsoring agency can approve the launch. In Tier 2, an interagency review process is triggered, though the sponsoring agency director maintains authority over the launch decision. The memo directs NASA to establish a standing Interagency Nuclear Safety Review Board to perform this function, which formerly was handled by an ad hoc committee empaneled on a mission-by-mission basis.

Spacecraft that use fission reactors automatically fall in at least Tier 2, and the memo requires NASA to identify additional safety guidelines for “safe non-terrestrial operation of nuclear fission reactors, including orbital and planetary surface activities.”

Tier 3 missions require presidential authorization, which for non-defense missions is delegated to the OSTP director, who may opt to forward the decision to the president. Due to nuclear nonproliferation considerations, missions that use highly enriched uranium automatically fall in Tier 3.

The memo also establishes a set of safety guidelines that apply to spacecraft across all tiers. It specifies that the probability a launch accident would result in any individual receiving a total effective dose between 0.025 rem and five rem should be no greater than 1 in 100. The probability for exposures between five rem and 25 rem should not exceed 1 in 10,000, and above 25 rem the probability should not exceed 1 in 100,000. For comparison, the average effective doseindividuals receive from natural background radiation in the U.S. is about 0.3 rem per year, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s dose limit for radiation workers is five rem per year…….

According to a 2015 study, the U.S. has launched 47 nuclear power systems and hundreds of heater units on 31 missions since 1961. The most recent scientific missions to employ an RPS were New Horizons, a Pluto fly-by mission launched in 2006, and the Mars Curiosity Rover, launched in 2011. The follow-on Mars 2020 Rover and the recently selected Dragonfly rotorcraft mission to Saturn’s moon Titan are currently the only two approved NASA spacecraft in development that will use an RPS.

The relatively infrequent use of nuclear systems on spacecraft is in part attributed to the complexity and cost of the safety review process, which generally has limited them to flagship-class missions. Low availability of plutonium for civilian uses has also constrained the mission cadence…….

NASA has recently emphasized the potential value of fission reactors for human deep space exploration missions. At the National Space Council meeting this week, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said nuclear thermal propulsion technologies could significantly reduce transit time to Mars. He also pointed to other potential applications, such as using fission to power a space-based laser that could deflect asteroids and deorbit space debris.

NASA is also exploring how nuclear reactors could meet the power demands of planetary bases. One such concept, called Kilopower, could provide up to 10 kilowatts per reactor using highly enriched uranium. Bridenstine visited members of the Kilopower team this week at NASA’s Glenn Research Center.

The concept is not without critics. Rep. Bill Foster (D-IL), a former Fermilab physicist who advocates using alternatives to highly enriched uranium, pressedBridenstine on the subject at a hearing this year.

“A future where every space-faring nation has a big inventory of weapons-grade material to service the reactors that they are using all over the Moon and all over Mars is not a very safe space environment,” Foster said. “There will be some small performance compromises in going with low enriched non-weapons grade material, but I really urge you to look hard at keeping alive the prospect of having an international collaboration to develop workable non weapons grade-based materials that the whole world will use.” …….https://www.aip.org/fyi/2019/white-house-overhauls-launch-approval-process-nuclear-spacecraft

August 24, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | space travel, USA | Leave a comment