Japanese govt trying to entice people by money grants, to come and live in Fukushima
 Japan government planning grants for those willing to reside in Fukushima Prefecture, https://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0006996690, December 13, 2020
The Yomiuri ShimbunGovernment grants of up to ¥2 million will be provided next fiscal year to people who move to one of 12 municipalities surrounding the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, where meltdowns occurred following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, according to sources. The 12 municipalities — all in Fukushima Prefecture — are Futaba, Okuma, Tomioka, Namie, Iitate, Kawamata, Minami-Soma, Katsurao, Naraha, Kawauchi, Tamura and Hirono. Next March will mark 10 years since the nuclear accident at the plant operated by Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Inc., but the population of these municipalities still hovers around 20% of the number in the basic resident register. Evacuation orders were issued at the time of the accident but have since been gradually lifted. The government aims to promote the reconstruction and revitalization of the area by not only encouraging evacuees to return, but also by getting people from outside the area to move in. The grants will be offered, likely next summer or later, to people who did not live in the 12 municipalities at the time of the 2011 accident. A family moving in from outside Fukushima Prefecture will receive ¥2 million, and a family from within the prefecture will be offered ¥1.2 million. For a single-person household, the grant will be ¥1.2 million for a newcomer to the prefecture and ¥800,000 for someone from Fukushima Prefecture. Recipients would be required to live in the region for at least five years and to have a job. People who live in the 12 municipalities and telework for firms outside the region will also be eligible for a grant. Those who start businesses within five years of moving to one of the municipalities will also receive three-quarters of the necessary expenses, with a maximum limit set at ¥4 million. The grants will be paid from resources including subsidies to accelerate the revitalization of Fukushima Prefecture, provided to the Fukushima prefectural government and the 12 local governments by the Reconstruction Agency. |
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Beware the nuclear road to nowhere
Nuclear power is the slowest and most expensive way to reduce carbon emissions, per kilowatt hour. Choosing new nuclear therefore impedes and supplants renewable energy development, which would save more carbon far sooner and faster and at a lower cost.
Beware the nuclear road to nowhere
Dear people of Anglesey:
The announcement that a US consortium, consisting of American companies Bechtel, Southern Company and Westinghouse, could take over the Wylfa B nuclear power project in North Wales, may sound like a much-needed jobs panacea, but it is another cruel joke on the people of Anglesey.
Horizon/Hitachi’s legacy of broken promises, destroyed homes and landscapes, and a 100% failure to deliver the promised two-reactor Wylfa B project, is already a bitter pill. Inking a new nuclear deal with the American consortium would turn it into a poison one. Trust me, we know. We’ve already swallowed it.
Here in the US, the track record of Bechtel, Southern Company, Westinghouse and the AP1000 reactor design, now being proposed for Wylfa B, should send a dire warning to Wales.
Westinghouse’s AP1000 two-reactor project at the V.C. Summer site in South Carolina ballooned to $9 billion in costs and bilked ratepayers of $2 billion before it was abandoned in 2017 after a 9-year debacle. The project’s director, Stephen Byrne, pled guilty to a massive nuclear conspiracy that defrauded ratepayers, deceived regulators and misled shareholders, but not before pocketing a tidy $6 million for himself.
The company’s former CEO, Kevin Marsh, has agreed to plead guilty to federal conspiracy fraud charges, will go to prison for at least 18 months, and will forfeit $5 million in connection with the $10 billion nuclear fiasco.
Southern Company’s “flagship” nuclear project at Plant Vogtle in Georgia, where two AP1000 reactors are still under construction, is now five years behind schedule with costs soaring to at least $28 billion, more than double the original projection. The site has recently suffered an epidemic of Covid-19, as the company rushes to meet completion deadlines and save additional costs.
Even $12 billion in federal loan guarantees wasn’t enough to keep the Georgia project afloat, so ratepayers are helping to foot the bill in advance under a law similar to the UK’s regulated asset base scheme, with no guarantee that the reactors will ever be finished.
Bechtel is no more reliable and was caught up in a 2016 lawsuit that led to a $126 million settlement for subpar work while building a nuclear waste treatment facility at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.
Of course, that’s just the tip of Bechtel’s ugly iceberg. It, too, has seen company executives convicted of crimes, and was a key player in Iraq, before, during and after the US war there, helping to bring about the war in the first place, then scoring more than $680 million in contracts to help rebuild what it was complicit in destroying.
Efforts to find a new buyer for Wylfa B now that Hitachi, which owns the land, has decided to withdraw, are also rife with hollow promises. One such claim, that a revived Wylfa B would deliver electricity at a “market competitive price”, really means that Welsh electricity customers and British taxpayers will pay, because nuclear by itself isn’t competitive. That’s already borne out by the financial collapse of the AP1000 Moorside project in Cumbria, where weeds now obscure the NuScale sign at the abandoned site.
The false narrative put forward to justify resumption of nuclear construction at Wylfa B — that it is essential in order to reach a 2050 net zero emissions target — is disproven by reality: new nuclear power plants are by far the most expensive option, especially compared to the rapidly falling cost of renewables, and take far too long to tackle climate change, which is here, now.
Nuclear power is the slowest and most expensive way to reduce carbon emissions, per kilowatt hour. Choosing new nuclear therefore impedes and supplants renewable energy development, which would save more carbon far sooner and faster and at a lower cost.
Fortunately there are alternatives for the region, whose young people should not feel forced to leave to find work; whose farmers should be able to maintain their way of life; whose families should not have to watch their ancestral homes torn down; and whose local businesses could once again thrive.
Sustainable, Wales-based projects that employ local people in the long-term, while preserving language, culture and landscape, are abundantly possible. Many of these can be found in a new report from SAIL, which outlines a foundational economy for Ynes Môn — as Anglesey is more properly known in Welsh — and Gwynedd.
Reclaiming the Wylfa site to re-wild it would do more for climate change than a nuclear power plant and would attract visitors to its natural wonders, Heritage Coastline and extraordinary wildlife. More visitors in turn helps stimulate local businesses.
The island is even primed for new renewable energy projects, especially offshore wind, which again would provide much-needed, longterm employment.
There is no need for the people of Anglesey to be deceived once again by foreign corporations bearing false nuclear gifts that fail to materialize. Opening the door to Bechtel and co. will only lead to yet more environmental damage, and to more despair and disillusionment as, once again, promised nuclear jobs fail to materialize.
Anglesey can avoid being led down another garden path, soon to be overgrown with weeds, on the nuclear road to nowhere. It’s time for Anglesey Council to step up and say no to nuclear and commit to projects that will deliver safe, long-term jobs to the region without stealing money from the pockets of ratepayers and without wrecking the precious landscape they call home.
Linda Pentz Gunter is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear and writes for and edits Beyond Nuclear International.
Pathway of the peacemakers — Beyond Nuclear International
Denouncing the immorality of nuclear weapons also means to jail for some
Pathway of the peacemakers — Beyond Nuclear International
Dr Helen Caldicott on the nuclear lessons of the past – time to take note of them
HELEN CALDICOTT: Time to learn lessons of the past on nuclear, Independent Australia, 13 Dec 20, By Helen Caldicott | 13 December 2020
“………What rained down on those two Japanese cities seventy-five years ago was destruction on a scale never seen before or since. People exposed within half a mile of the atomic fireball were seared to piles of smoking char in a fraction of a second as their internal organs boiled away. The small black bundles stuck to the streets and bridges and sidewalks of Hiroshima numbered in the thousands.
A little boy was reaching up to catch a red dragonfly with his hand against the blue sky when there was a blinding flash and he disappeared. He turned into gas and left his shadow behind on the pavement, a haunting relic later moved to the Hiroshima Museum. A woman was running while holding her baby; she and the baby were turned into a charcoal statue.
In all, about 120,000 people were killed immediately by the two bombs and tens of thousands more died later due to radiation exposure………..
in medical school I learned about radiation biology — the classic experiments of Hermann J. Muller, who in the 1920s irradiated Drosophila fruit flies inducing genetic mutations and morphological abnormalities. Concurrently, the United States and the Soviet Union were testing nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, bombarding huge populations with radioactive fallout.
In my naiveté, I couldn’t understand what these men thought they were doing because the mutagenic and carcinogenic effects of ionizing radiation were well known in scientific circles. Madame Curie had died of aplastic anaemia secondary to radium, an alpha emitter polluting her bones; her daughter died of leukemia, and many of the early radiologists who exposed themselves randomly to X-rays died from malignancies.
Einstein wrote:‘The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.’
Robert Oppenheimer, watching the world’s first nuclear explosion in Alamogordo, New Mexico, in 1945, muttered to himself: “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds” from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita.
The scientists knew that they had discovered the seeds of human destruction.
So, in full awareness of its newfound ability to destroy the human race, what did the world do next?
The United States and the Soviet Union decided to outdo each other by conducting a nuclear arms race, building tens of thousands of nuclear weapons. Between 1945 and 1998, the United States conducted more than 1,000 nuclear tests, producing cancer in tens of thousands of people. It has built more than 70,000 atomic and hydrogen bombs; the Soviets and later the Russian Federation had tried to keep up, building at least 55,000 of their own.
Arms control agreements over the years have managed to reduce stockpiles to about 14,000 nuclear weapons today, in the possession of nine nations: the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea. The United States and Russia still lead the pack, each with more than 6,000 total weapons, including about 1,600 each that are actively deployed.
A nuclear “exchange” between these two superpowers would take little over one hour to complete. A twenty-megaton bomb (the equivalent of twenty million tons of TNT) would excavate a hole three-quarters of a mile wide and 800 feet deep, converting all buildings and people into radioactive fallout that would be shot up in the mushroom cloud.
Within six miles in all directions, every living thing would be vaporised. Twenty miles from the epicentre, huge fires would erupt, as winds of up to 500 miles per hour would suck people out of buildings and turn them into missiles travelling at 100 miles per hour. The fires would coalesce, incinerating much of the United States and causing most nuclear power plants to melt down, greatly exacerbating radioactive fallout.
Potentially billions of people would die hideously from acute radiation sickness, vomiting and bleeding to death. As thick black radioactive smoke engulfed the stratosphere, the Earth would, over time, be plunged into another ice age — a “nuclear winter,” annihilating almost all living organisms.
Seventy-five years after the dawn of the nuclear age, we are as ready as ever to extinguish ourselves. The human race is clearly an evolutionary aberrant on a suicidal mission. Our planet is in the intensive care unit, approaching several terminal events.
Will we gradually burn and shrivel life on our wondrous Earth by emitting the ancient carbon stored over billions of years to drive our cars and power our industries, or will we end it suddenly by creating a global gas oven?
The International Energy Agency said recently that we only have six months left to avert the effects of global warming before it is too late. Earlier this year, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved its Doomsday Clock to 100 seconds to midnight, the closest it’s ever been.
Australia’s coal and nuclear lobbies have just recruited a new puppet, Mining Council CEO Tania Constable has been championing nuclear power at a time when we should be discussing renewables.
In truth, the U.S. Department of Defense is a misnomer; it is actually the Department of War, Death and Suicide. Hundreds of billions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer money are spent annually by corporations such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, BAE Systems and Raytheon Technologies Corporation to create and build the most hideous weapons of destruction.
Brilliant people employed by these massive corporations, mostly men, are deploying their brainpower to devise better and more hideous ways of killing.
President Donald Trump is right when he says we need to make friends with the Russians, for it is Russian bombs that might well annihilate the United States. Indeed, we need to foster friendship with all nations and reinvest the trillions of dollars spent on war, killing and death, saving the ecosphere by powering the world with renewable energy including solar, wind, and geothermal and planting trillions of trees.
Such a move would also free up billions of dollars that could be reallocated to such purposes as providing free medical care for all U.S. citizens, along with free education, housing for the homeless and care for those with mental illness.
The United States needs to rise to its full moral and spiritual height and lead the world to sanity and survival. I know this is possible because, in the 1980s, millions of wonderful people rose up, nationally and internationally, in opposition to the arms race and the Cold War.
But what is the present reality in the United States?
There are 450 Minuteman III missiles operational on the Great Plains — in Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming. In each missile silo are two missileers, who control and launch the missiles which contain one or two hydrogen bombs. Planes armed with hydrogen bombs stand ready to take off at any moment, and nuclear submarines silently plough the oceans ready to launch.
Both the United States and Russia have nuclear weapons targeted at military facilities and population centres. Nuclear war could happen at any time, by accident or design. The late Stephen Hawking warned in 2014 that artificial intelligence, now being deployed by the military, could become so autonomous that it could start a nuclear war by itself.
This threat is largely ignored by politicians and the mainstream media, who continue to practice psychic numbing as we stumble blindly toward our demise.
How come the physicists, engineers and military personnel who have laced the world with nuclear weapons ready to launch never factored into their equations the probability that an immature, petulant man-baby could hold the trigger for our destruction in his hands? https://independentaustralia.net/article-display/helen-caldicott-time-to-learn-lessons-of-the-past-on-nuclear,14614
You can follow Dr Caldicott on Twitter @DrHCaldicott. Click here for Dr Caldicott’s complete curriculum vitae.
Biden’s opportunity to make much needed changes on nuclear weapons policy
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Biden’s First Move on Nuclear Weapons, https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2020/12/bidens-first-move-nuclear-weapons/170652/
When Putin calls to congratulate the new U.S. president, Biden should seize the opportunity. By GLENN NYE and JAMES KITFIELD, At some point in the coming weeks President-elect Joe Biden will likely receive a call from Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulating him on his election victory. Biden should seize the opportunity to provide an overdue reality check on nuclear weapons.Tensions between the two nations that possess roughly 90 percent of the world’s nuclear warheads are reaching levels not seen since the darkest days of the Cold War, even as the edifice of arms control agreements that kept Cold War dangers in check teeters on the verge of collapse. Under the guise of weapons modernization both nations are also engaged in an incipient nuclear arms race. Little wonder that the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has reset its Doomsday Clock to just one hundred seconds to midnight, the closest it’s ever been to Armageddon. When he takes office on Jan. 20, Biden can help arrest that dangerous spiral by fulfilling his campaign pledge to extend the New START Treaty before it expires in early February, and to use it as a foundation to pursue new arms control agreements. Recent jockeying between U.S. and Russian negotiators on a one-year extension of New START highlight just how complex and difficult arms control negotiations have become. In an era of renewed major power competition, destabilizing new technologies, and rising international tensions and distrust, managing U.S.-Russian relations already are difficult. They only will become more so as Moscow comes to terms with a new Biden administration unwilling to overlook, as President Donald Trump has, Russia’s history of cyber and disinformation attacks on the American political system. Before the election, talks between U.S. and Russian negotiators on extending New START bogged down over the Trump administration’s insistence that a one-year extension include a freeze on strategic nuclear weapons that are currently covered by the treaty, as well as tactical nuclear weapons that are not. As is often the case in arms control talks the devil was in the details of a verification regime to monitor such a “freeze.” But the goal of constraining shorter-range tactical nuclear weapons was laudable and should be pursued in follow-on talks. |
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Iran clearly wants to maintain the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)
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Iran will not accept new nuclear deal: MP, Tehran Times December 13, 2020 “Iran’s position on the JCPOA is quite clear. There is a consensus in the establishment in its entirety on the nuclear deal that Iran demands that all JCPOA parties should return to the deal and implement it unconditionally,” the lawmaker said, according to the Parliament’s news agency ICANA.
Rahimi Jahanabadi also referred to the upcoming meeting of the JCPOA Joint Commission, which is scheduled to be held on Wednesday, saying that during the meeting the two issues should be discussed. “It is expected that Mr. Araghchi, as Iran’s representative, underlines two issues in the JCPOA Joint Commission meeting. First of all, he should reiterate that the JCPOA is the best deal. Second, Iran will not accept a new deal and negotiations,” the lawmaker said, adding that Iran should tell the 4+1 that it will return to its past activities if the Westerners fail to implement their commitments. 4+1 refers to France, Britain, Russia and China as four permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany. First it was referred to as 5+1, before Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the multilateral agreement. On Saturday, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, the deputy foreign minister of Iran for political affairs, announced in a statement that the Joint Commission will hold a meeting at the level of deputy ministers and political directors. The meeting will be held via videoconference. Araghchi said he will represent Iran in the meeting……… https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/455734/Iran-will-not-accept-new-nuclear-deal-MP |
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U.S. House Armed Service Committee calls for new National Defense Strategy, including “no first use” nuclear policy.
HASC Chair Smith Calls For New National Defense Strategy, Nuclear Policy Review, USNI News, By: John Grady
As part of that strategy, “I think we should have a no-first-use policy” because “nuclear weapons are a special case. They are “weapons that could destroy the planet.” Rep. Adam Smith, (D-Wash.) said while speaking at a Center for Strategic and International Studies online forum Friday said he also wants the United States to maintain “robust deterrence” but delivered with “a more cost-effective approach.”
mith recognized the strong opposition he has from progressives in the Democratic Party and also among some Republicans to spending on military projects, modernization, basing and operations. Left-leaning Democrats see these efforts “as pivoting to a new Cold War” that will “come into conflict with Russia and China.”
Smith said later that “there are plenty of other ways of deterring our adversaries” other than engaging them in war.
He said three questions needed to be asked when building a “robust” and “cost-effective” defense:
What is the goal; what is the objective; and what are the tools you need to get there.
mith recognized the strong opposition he has from progressives in the Democratic Party and also among some Republicans to spending on military projects, modernization, basing and operations. Left-leaning Democrats see these efforts “as pivoting to a new Cold War” that will “come into conflict with Russia and China.”
Smith said later that “there are plenty of other ways of deterring our adversaries” other than engaging them in war.
He said three questions needed to be asked when building a “robust” and “cost-effective” defense:
What is the goal; what is the objective; and what are the tools you need to get there………… https://news.usni.org/2020/12/11/hasc-chair-smith-calls-for-new-national-defense-strategy-nuclear-policy-review
Iran Awards Military Medal To Nuclear Scientist Assassinated Last Month
Iran Awards Military Medal To Nuclear Scientist Assassinated Last Month NDTV 13 Dec 20, Tehran:
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday posthumously awarded a prestigious military decoration to top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was assassinated last month, state television reported.
Fakhrizadeh was killed on a major road outside Tehran in late November in a bomb and gun attack that the Islamic republic has blamed on its arch foe Israel……. https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/iran-awards-military-medal-to-nuclear-scientist-mohsen-fakhrizadeh-assassinated-last-month-2338031
NUCLEAR-ARMED RIVALRY IN SOUTHERN ASIA
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NUCLEAR-ARMED RIVALRY IN SOUTHERN ASIA, Arms Control Wonk,by Michael Krepon | December 13, 2020 “……….. Deterrence alone doesn’t make nuclear-armed rivals safer because nuclear deterrence is based on credible threats and because these threats generate counter-measures. Nonetheless, rivals continue to compete, either in search of advantage or to avoid disadvantage.The threat of escalation is inherent in nuclear deterrence since threats that do not convey the potential for greater violence cease to deter. Herein lies an insoluble problem for nuclear deterrence strategists. How can escalation be controlled when it is premised on seeking advantage?
o resolve this conundrum, deterrence strategists must on truly heroic assumptions. One assumption is that nuclear-armed rivals can signal each other effectively because they have sufficient information and are on the same page. Another assumption is that command and control remains intact and that there will be no panic and unauthorized use of nuclear weapons. A third assumption, most heroic of all, is that the disadvantaged side will accept loss without resorting to spasm attacks that seek to destroy cities that are the repositories of world history. These are the unspoken and mostly unexamined assumptions behind the deterrence constructs of escalation control and escalation dominance. These are the rationales behind the fielding of counterforce capabilities that target opposing nuclear capabilities. These intellectual constructs can collapse like a house of cards after first use. After first use, nuclear-armed rivals may not be on the same page. Even if a rival chooses escalation control instead of escalation dominance, this targeting strategy has to be backed up by the threat of further escalation. And then what? This systemic problem applies to all nuclear-armed rivals, but is even more pronounced on the subcontinent because one of the rivals — India — has declared a policy of massive retaliation in the event of first use by Pakistan. This declaration is meant to deter, but if deterrence fails, this nuclear posture skews decisions toward a cataclysmic outcome whether or not this declaratory doctrine is a ruse. After first use, massive retaliation looses its deterrent value, becoming instead an existential threat to both rivals. India’s embrace of massive retaliation is as dangerous as Pakistan’s embrace of first use. The intellectual constructs of escalation control, escalation dominance, and massive retaliation work on the printed page and in war plans but are likely to fail catastrophically once the nuclear threshold is crossed and retaliation begins. Once nuclear deterrence dies, escalation takes over……….. Washington and Moscow have accomplished much by way of treaties in part because they accepted roughly equivalent capabilities. Essential equivalence is harder to imagine or to accept in bilateral accords between India and Pakistan or between India and China. A numbers-based, bilateral India-Pakistan or India-China treaty requires not only rough equality or an acceptable hierarchy but also acceptable and effective monitoring arrangements. These are significant hurdles. Trilateral China-India-Pakistan accords also seem very unlikely, since India would be outnumbered and since triangular nuclear competitions are prone to instability. Other treaty-based avenues to stabilize the triangular competition in Southern Asia also face long odds. Multilateral diplomacy on a fissile material cut-off treaty is moribund. India and Pakistan have not signed or ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; China has signed but not ratified. The United States could prompt a cascade of stabilizing ratifications, but this seems a tall order in the Biden administration, given the partisan divide on Capitol Hill. ……………. Because deterrence dies with first use, the most essential responsibility for those who possess nuclear weapons is not to use them in warfare. The stigma attached to nuclear testing reaffirms the norm of non-use. Diplomacy can be resurrected atop these norms, which are the fundamental building blocks for other measures of reassurance. As numbers grow, norms become even more important. At a time when political relations are sour and diplomacy is dormant in Southern Asia, extending the 75-year-long norm of non-battlefield use and the norm against testing, now over two decades long, are absolutely central. https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1210453/nuclear-armed-rivalry-in-southern-asia/ |
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British government’s “perpetual” lack of knowledge about £130bn clean-up of 17 old nuclear sites.
Public accounts committee calls for ‘clearer discipline’ in managing sites, Nathalie Thomas in Edinburgh Ft.com NOVEMBER 27 2020 MPs have warned there is a “perpetual” lack of knowledge in government about the state of Britain’s 17 earliest nuclear power sites, which are expected to cost taxpayers about £130bn to clean up over the next 120 years.
Nuclear developers keenly await UK government support for new reactors large and small
Nuclear Developers Dust Off Plans for More Reactors in U.K. Bloomberg,By Rachel Morison, 11 December 2020,
Industry sees shift to allow more reactors to be built
Government is due to release a paper on financing projects. Nuclear power developers are refreshing plans for new reactors in the U.K. after speculation that the government could be willing to support building more plants than the industry had been expecting.
A little-noticed paper issued by the Treasury on Nov. 25 said it is important that the U.K. can “maintain options by pursuing additional large-scale nuclear projects,” assuming they can be done in a cost-effective way. That wording, with a notable plural on the word “projects,” went beyond a recommendation made two years ago that Britain should build only one more major atomic facility.
After years of waiting for a signal, the document was read by nuclear industry executives as evidence that energy policy could be shifting their way. They anticipate the government may soon look more favorably on nuclear after more than a decade of tilting toward renewables. Electricite de France SA, Hitachi Ltd. and China General Nuclear Power Corp. are looking at ways to revive designs that were shelved in the past few years.
“Large-scale projects have a bright future in Britain if the government backs a financing model to cut the cost of capital,” said Tom Greatrex, chief executive officer of the Nuclear Industry Association. “There are a number of viable sites.
For its part, government insists its policy on nuclear hasn’t changed — even with all the debate about exiting the European Union. It’s allowing EDF to seek planning permission for the Sizewell plant in east England, but ministers have been quiet about what, if any, further plants might win favor.………
China’s Bid
One of the biggest question marks is whether China will be able to move ahead with a long-planned reactor in the U.K. despite a political chill toward investment from that nation. Under pressure from the U.S., the government has clamped down on the spread of 5G mobile technology from Huawei Technologies Ltd.
China General Nuclear’s Chief Executive Officer Rob Davies said the company is willing to self-finance the Bradwell B project in southeast England. His remark suggests the company would take a market power price for electricity sold from the plant, a break from EDF’s move at Hinkley Point to secure a long-term contract before moving ahead.
The project would be a Chinese-designed reactor, called HPR1000. It would showcase the nation’s technical skill in Europe. Davies said CGN is committed to nuclear development in the U.K. regardless of the political winds.
We plan to maintain our support for Hinkley Point C, to help Sizewell C to reach a Final Investment Decision, to complete the general design assessment for the HPR1000 and to continue with Bradwell. That’s our plan and that’s our offer to the U.K. And we’ll self finance,” he said at an industry event this month.Hitachi in Wales
The CEO of Hitachi Ltd.’s Horizon Nuclear Power Ltd. subsidiary said he’s lining up a project for the Wylfa site in Wales. His remark is an indication that the project may still be revived even after Hitachi exited it in September after failing to agree on financing.EDF’s Work in Moorside
In June, EDF revamped plans for the Moorside site in Cumbria that Toshiba Corp. pulled out of in 2018. The proposed Clean Energy Hub includes a large nuclear plant, the same design as Hinkley Point and Sizewell, small modular reactors and advanced modular reactors…….
Not all of these projects will be built. In the U.K., EDF is building the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant in Somerset and next in line is the Sizewell site in Essex northeast of London. The government is keen on small modular reactors that are quicker [?} to build and cheaper [?]. If it gets enough of those, there may not be a need for any more large scale stations. That’s what policy makers will hope to avoid tying themselves into. ……https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-11/nuclear-developers-dust-off-plans-to-build-more-reactors-in-u-k
More Countries Ratified Nuke Ban Treaty & Next Step — limitless life
Another country just ratified the TPNW and here’s what we’re planning to do next Hi — Did you think we’d slow down when we reached 50 ratifications of the Treaty on the Prohibitions of Nuclear Weapons? No chance – here’s what just happened this last week: On 4th December, Zimbabwe signed the Treaty On 9th […]
More Countries Ratified Nuke Ban Treaty & Next Step — limitless life
Tokyo 2021 Radioactive Olympics – Newsletter December 2020 — limitless life
Tokyo 2021 – The Radioactive Olympics – Newsletter December 2020 Dear Friends, I am sending you my message sent to President Thomas Bach of the IOC , transmitting the mail sent to me from Dr. Alex Rosen, IPPNW. With warmest regards, Mitsuhei Murata Sent: Friday, December 11, 2020 3:31 PMTo: ‘Boîte […]
Tokyo 2021 Radioactive Olympics – Newsletter December 2020 — limitless life
Trying to test for cracks in nuclear waste containers that have to last for over a million years
Waste from nuclear fuel must be stored for more than a million years/
“Salt can be present in the ambient air and environment anywhere, not just near the ocean. We need to be able to plan for extended long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel at nuclear power plants for the foreseeable future — it’s a national reality,”
Sandia to put nuclear waste storage canisters to the test, https://www.newswise.com/articles/sandia-to-put-nuclear-waste-storage-canisters-to-the-test, Scientists will explore science of cracks caused by corrosion, 10-Dec-2020 , by Sandia National Laboratories Newswise — ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories is outfitting three 22.5-ton, 16.5-feet-long stainless-steel storage canisters with heaters and instrumentation to simulate nuclear waste so researchers can study their durability.
The three canisters, which arrived in mid-November and have never contained any nuclear materials, will be used to study how much salt gathers on canisters over time. Sandia will also study the potential for cracks caused by salt- and stress-induced corrosion with additional canisters that will be delivered during the next stage of the project.
Currently there is not an operating geologic repository in the U.S. for the permanent disposal of spent nuclear fuel. As a result, spent fuel is being stored at commercial nuclear power plants in both storage pools and dry storage canisters. The storage canisters currently holding the spent nuclear fuel were designed to have a useful life of a few decades but will now likely need to be used longer than planned, said Tito Bonano, Sandia’s nuclear energy fuel cycle senior manager.
Data is urgently needed to validate and guide how industry should manage storage canisters for longer than originally anticipated, Bonano said.
“Salt can be present in the ambient air and environment anywhere, not just near the ocean. We need to be able to plan for extended long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel at nuclear power plants for the foreseeable future — it’s a national reality,” he said.
The researchers expect the project could have long-reaching implications for public health and safety, industry practices, regulatory framework and defining future research paths, said Bonano.
The three-year project is funded by the Department of Energy’s Nuclear Energy office. Overall, fifteen never-used, never-irradiated DOE-owned canisters are being distributed for large scale testing to Sandia and two other national laboratories, an industry research institute and an independent storage facility at an existing nuclear power plant.
Waste from nuclear fuel must be stored for more than a million years
Nuclear power plants use uranium pellets inside a metal-cladded tube, called a fuel rod, to power reactors to create the heat needed to make electricity. After the fuel rods can no longer be used in the reactor, they need to be stored onsite until they are taken offsite to another facility and eventually permanently disposed because they will be radioactive for a long time, said Samuel Durbin, a mechanical engineer and Sandia’s canister project lead.
“When fuel is removed from a reactor, it’s very hot, both in temperature and radioactivity” Durbin said. “The utility loads it into a pool for about five years to cool down. After that, the spent fuel can be offloaded into a dry storage canister.”
A storage canister starts as a flat piece of stainless steel that is rolled into a cylinder and then welded where the seams come together. The heat from the welding creates heat-affected zones in the seams of the canister that experience tensile, or pulling, stress. This stress makes these areas around the welds more susceptible to corrosion from salt over time, said Durbin.
Research will test how much salt deposits on canisters over time
Sandia received three canisters Nov. 13. The research team will outfit each of them with 32 electrical heaters to simulate the decay heat, which is heat released as a result of radioactive decay, from the 32 spent fuel assemblies that would typically be stored in this type of canister. No radioactive materials will be used in the testing, Durbin said.
Instruments called thermocouples, which measure temperature, and other sensors for diagnostic testing and surface sampling also will be added, he said.
Once the outfitted canisters have been tested and repacked for transport at Sandia, the team plans to move them to a storage pad at an independent spent fuel storage installation on the West Coast where they will experience the same real-life conditions of in-use canisters. The Sandia team, led by managers Sylvia Saltzstein and Geoff Freeze, Durbin, and chemists/corrosion scientists Charles Bryan and Rebecca Schaller, along with partners from other national laboratories will monitor the test canisters and record surface deposits, especially chloride-bearing salts, for three to more than 10 years, depending on how much the data varies over time.
“Sodium-chloride, or salt, that settles on the surface of spent nuclear-fuel canisters can lead to chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking, and right now there is inadequate data on these surface deposits,” said Durbin.
In real-life storage of nuclear waste, Durbin said the decay heat from the spent fuel creates natural convection around the storage canisters, causing outside air to be drawn over the canister surface. This process helps cool the spent fuel over time. As ambient air is drawn in, salt and other particulates in the air are drawn in as well and can settle on the canister surface. During the test, the electrical heaters installed inside the canisters at Sandia will replicate this decay heat-driven convection without using nuclear materials.
In hot, dry conditions, Durbin said salt deposits alone don’t cause any issues, but over time, as the decay heat decreases and the canister cools, water can condense on the canister surface and a brine can form.
“These conditions can occur nationwide and are seen as precursors to chloride-induced, stress-corrosion cracking. Back when these canisters were being designed, people weren’t thinking about this as an issue because we had a plan for permanent disposal. The current national nuclear waste situation forces canisters to be stored onsite for the foreseeable future, which could be 100 years or longer, so stress corrosion cracking becomes more of a concern,” Durbin said.
In addition to the long-term heating and surface deposition test, Sandia will use up to another three canisters for laboratory-based tests to conduct fundamental research on cracking caused by salt and stress, especially on the welded seams and intersections of the canisters. Researchers will measure the effectiveness of commercially available crack repair and mitigation coatings.
To test these seams, the team will cut the canisters into small segments and test pieces with and without welded seams to study the pre-cursor conditions for salt and stress to cause the corrosion that leads to cracks, he said.
Shutdown of 3 uranium mines in midst of dispute could lead to ecological disaster in Ukraine
World Socialist Web 10th Dec 2020, Three uranium mines have been shut down in the Kirovohrad region of central Ukraine over disputed payments between the state nuclear energy company Energoatom and the state-owned enterprise operating the mine, Eastern Mining and Processing. As a result of the alleged nonpayment, approximately 5,000 miners have been placed on unpaid leave. They are still owed approximately $5 million in months of back pay.
The shuttering of the mines could also lead to an ecological catastrophe if the mines lose power and water pumps fail to operate, creating a toxic mixture of radioactive uranium-contaminated groundwater that could spread throughout the vast river systems of central Ukraine.
1 This Month
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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