Radiation leak at nuclear research reactor
Germany: Radiation leak detected at research reactor, DW, 17 May 20,
A research reactor near Munich has emitted excess C-14 radiation, says the Bavarian city’s technical university. The “slight” leak late March had shown up Thursday when monthly readings were collated.
Munich’s technical university (TUM) said Saturday a neutron reactor located at Garchingjust north of the metropole was found to have leaked nuclides into the atmosphere “slightly” above the level permitted annually in its license.
Neither human beings nor the surrounding environment had been endangered, said the TUM and Bavaria’s environmental ministry — responsible for oversight.
Monthly figures collated on Thursday had shown an excess in C-14 particles 15% above the permitted yearly level, with the potential to cause “theoretically” a load for the public of 3 Mikrosieverts at the maximum…….
The facility was put on hold on March 17 because of the current pandemic, leaving many scientists unable to glean results for industry and medicine, said Görg.
The FRMII reactor, inaugurated in 2005, remains controversial among organizations like Germany’s branch of Friends of the Earth (BUND) and opposition Greens in Bavaria’s state assembly……. https://www.dw.com/en/germany-radiation-leak-detected-at-research-reactor/a-53467330
Preventing a climate catastrophe in the middle of a coronavirus catastrophe
Times 17th May 2020, Chris Stark is trying to save the world from his bedroom in the leafy West
End of Glasgow. As chief executive of the Committee on Climate Change, the
independent organisation charged by parliament with holding the British
government to account on greenhouse gas emissions, Stark is attempting to
prevent a future global catastrophe in the middle of a global catastrophe.
“The interesting thing is that, while that is true, even in a moment as
tough as this, it does almost nothing at all for climate change. The
problem is that you have a chronic cumulative problem. It’s like water in
a bath and, even this year, we are adding water to the bath. The CO2 in the
atmosphere is being added to. We are still making climate change worse this
year — we have just turned the tap down a bit.
This doesn’t crack the problem. What you need is long-term structural change that guides those
emissions down permanently. We will see those emissions rebound immediately
as economic activity restarts, but there are interesting questions about
what may or may not last after this period.” In the past few weeks the
committee has sent a letter to the Scottish government, at its request, on
how to rebuild the economy, post-Covid, in a manner that best tackles
climate change.
As Stark explained: “Coming out of this there is a moment
of unfreezing of several things which means you can change the trajectory
of climate-change policy and grow the economy. “The straightforward
question of what you do is that there are four or five priorities coming
out of it. One is to use the government’s ability to invest, to get the
economy going, but in areas that you know you will need in a net-zero
future — and that means renewable energy, electric vehicles, cycling and
walking provision, and digging up the ground to make sure the energy
networks are ready when we need them in the future.
“What will matter most is, when we are able to, going in and improving the fabric of our
housing stock so that we are more energy-efficient and ready for different
sources of heating in our homes. The last thing is tree planting. It is a
really sensible thing for the government to support because it has many
added benefits, and gives lots of new jobs in new areas.”
Nuclear war between India and Pakistan very unlikely
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‘Very dim chances of India, Pakistan nuclear war’
2 neighbors became nuclear power in May 1998 triggering new arms race in region, AA, Aamir Latif |15.05.2020 KARACHI, PakistanPakistan’s top nuclear scientist sees “very dim” chances of a nuclear war with neighboring India despite mounting tensions between the two arch-rivals in recent months. “I won’t say a zero chance but there are very dim chances of a war between the two neighbors involving nuclear arsenal despite escalating tensions,” Samar Mubarakmand, a former chairman of Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), and head of a team of the scientists that conducted six “successful” nuclear tests in remote Chaghi district of southwestern Balochistan province on May 28, 1998……… “The leadership of both countries are fully aware of the catastrophe a nuclear war can cause. They won’t go for that option no matter how tense the situation is,” observed Mubarakmand, who served at PAEC from 1962 to 2007 and played a key role in developing the country’s nuclear program. Conventional provocations, he said, would continue between the two longtime rivals but, he reckoned, both sides would not “cross the limit” to go for nuclear option. Both countries have long been reeling from poverty, illiteracy, and other health and economic issues. Wars or undue competition in arms race are not in the interest of the two nations,” he maintained. Nuclear powers India boasts the world’s third-largest army after the US and China, with an active troop strength of over 1.3 million. Pakistan, meanwhile, stands eighth on the list with a 600,000-man army……… https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/-very-dim-chances-of-india-pakistan-nuclear-war/1841657 |
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Physicians for Social Responsibility Comments on US EPA Proposed Rule; Deadline to Comment is Tomorrow Night at 11.59 PM EDT — Mining Awareness +
Comment by May 18th on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Proposed Rule, which is misnamed “Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science”. Related information, Open Docket Folder and comment here: https://www.regulations.gov/docket?D=EPA-HQ-OA-2018-0259 Comments can be anonymous. Comment and Memo from PSR: “Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) respectfully submits the attached comments regarding the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s […]
US EPA Proposed Rule Comments of the Oregon Health Authority and Oregon Dept of Environmental Quality; Comments Accepted Until Tomorrow Night 11.59 PM EDT — Mining Awareness +
Comment by May 18th on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Proposed Rule, which is misnamed “Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science”. Related information, Open Docket Folder and comment here: https://www.regulations.gov/docket?D=EPA-HQ-OA-2018-0259 Comments can be anonymous. Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science Proposed Rule Comments of the Oregon Health Authority and Oregon Department of Environmental Quality April 16, 2020: […]
Comment from the Endocrine Society on US EPA Proposed Rule; Comments Accepted Until Tomorrow Night 11.59 PM EDT
Comment by May 18th on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Proposed Rule, which is misnamed “Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science”. Related information, Open Docket Folder and comment here: https://www.regulations.gov/docket?D=EPA-HQ-OA-2018-0259 Comments can be anonymous.
“We also note with concern that the supplement provides the Administrator with significant leeway to provide exemptions to the rule without defining the criteria and considerations that the Administrator would use. This creates a de facto loophole that could further decrease transparency by permitting studies submitted by regulated entities to be prioritized above academic studies that must adhere to strict participant confidentiality agreements.” (Excerpted from comment, below.)
Comment from the Endocrine Society:
“The Honorable Andrew Wheeler Administrator
United States Environmental Protection Agency
1200 Pennsylvania Ave, NW Washington, DC 20460
April 6, 2020
Re: EPA-HQ-OA-2018-0259
Dear Administrator Wheeler,
The Endocrine Society appreciates the opportunity to comment on the supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking for…
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Comment from Harvard School of Public Health on US EPA Proposed Rule; Comments Accepted Until Tomorrow Night 11.59 PM EDT
Comment on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Proposed Rule, which is misnamed “Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science” by May 18, 2020. Related information, Open Docket Folder and comment here: https://www.regulations.gov/docket?D=EPA-HQ-OA-2018-0259
“Comment submitted by Ronnie Levin et al., Department of Environmental Health, Harvard School of Public Health
We appreciate the opportunity to provide comments on EPA’s supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking, “Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science”.
We submitted comments opposing the initial proposal in 2018, along with the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology, the National Academies of Sciences, the American Lung Association, the American Association for the Advancement of the Sciences, and other leading public health, medical and scientific organizations.
To date, EPA has yet to respond to those comments or engage with these affected stakeholders. EPA’s supplemental proposal does not address the substantive scientific, technical and legal issues raised in the earlier public comments and the original…
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Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Letter Urging Withdrawal of Proposed EPA Rule; Comments on Rule Accepted Until May 18th, 11.59 PM Eastern
Comment on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Proposed Rule, which is misnamed “Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science” by May 18, 2020, Eastern. Related information, Open Docket Folder and comment here: https://www.regulations.gov/docket?D=EPA-HQ-OA-2018-0259
Excerpts from Keweenaw Bay [American] Indian Community letter: “On April 30, 2018, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a notice of proposed rule that would drastically reduce the types of scientific studies that can be used to inform EPA regulations protecting public health under the guise of improving transparency.
On August 13, 2018, the National Tribal Air Association (NTAA) submitted comments opposing the proposed rule, explaining, among other things, that the rule would undermine EPA’s mission to protect human health and the environment.
The NTAA explained that the proposed rule was vague, purported to addresss a non-existent and unsubstantiated problems, and would result in EPA failing to rely on the best available science in…
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The American Statistical Association Says That Proposed EPA Rule Should Be Withdrawn; You Can Oppose The Rule Until May 18 11.59 PM — Mining Awareness +
Comment on the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s Proposed Rule, which is misnamed “Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science” by May 18, 2020 at 11.59 pm Eastern (night). Related information, Open Docket Folder and comment here https://www.regulations.gov/docket?D=EPA-HQ-OA-2018-0259 While his uncle, John Trump, was a scientist, Donald John Trump’s dangerous aversion to science is no longer a […]
The absolutely UNAFFORDABLE NUCLEAR industry – theme for June 2020
How many $trillions is the American government putting into the nuclear industry, especially nuclear weapons? With the USA essentially bankrupt, and the pandemic ushering it into an even more dire financial state – it’s a joke! Or, it would be a joke, if not for the hardship, suffering, poverty, brought upon its people, by this foolish financial extravaganza on behalf of a corrupt, dangerous and useless industry.
Russia, China, UK France, and soon Middle Eastern nations mindlessly follow this suicidal nuclear path.
The banking industry and other financial institutions join in the frenzy to feed this rapacioua evil of the nuclear industry.
Sadly so many jobs and community “benefits” are attached to it. It is going to take an enormous effort of brains, integrity, some sacrifice – to unravel the nuclear financial mess,.
But the world had better start unravelling it. Even without the worst outcome – nuclear war, this foul nuclear industry is going to devastate the finances of nations. and prevent action to stall global heating.
In this Covid-19 pandemic era, it is absolutely time to phase nuclear out, and help populations to transition to a cleaner world, where public money is spent on the things that people really need.
Profiteering from the pandemic, the Pentagon and nuclear industry exploit the situation
Beware the Pentagon’s Pandemic Profiteers, Hasn’t the Military-Industrial Complex Taken
enough of Our Money? POGO, BY MANDY SMITHBERGER | FILED UNDER ANALYSIS | MAY 04, 2020 This piece originally appeared on TomDispatch.com.
At this moment of unprecedented crisis, you might think that those not overcome by the economic and mortal consequences of the coronavirus would be asking, “What can we do to help?” A few companies have indeed pivoted to making masks and ventilators for an overwhelmed medical establishment. Unfortunately, when it comes to the top officials of the Pentagon and the CEOs running a large part of the arms industry, examples abound of them asking what they can do to help themselves.
It’s important to grasp just how staggeringly well the defense industry has done in these last nearly 19 years since 9/11. Its companies (filled with ex-military and defense officials) have received trillions of dollars in government contracts, which they’ve largely used to feather their own nests. Data compiled by the New York Times showed that the chief executive officers of the top five military-industrial contractors received nearly $90 million in compensation in 2017. An investigation that same year by the Providence Journal discovered that, from 2005 to the first half of 2017, the top five defense contractors spent more than $114 billion repurchasing their own company stocks and so boosting their value at the expense of new investment.
To put this in perspective in the midst of a pandemic, the co-directors of the Costs of War Project at Brown University recently pointed out that allocations for the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health for 2020 amounted to less than 1% of what the U.S. government has spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan alone since 9/11. While just about every imaginable government agency and industry has been impacted by the still-spreading coronavirus, the role of the defense industry and the military in responding to it has, in truth, been limited indeed. The highly publicized use of military hospital ships in New York City and Los Angeles, for example, not only had relatively little impact on the crises in those cities but came to serve as a symbol of just how dysfunctional the military response has truly been.
Bailing Out the Military-Industrial Complex in the COVID-19 Moment
Demands to use the Defense Production Act to direct firms to produce equipment needed to combat COVID-19 have sputtered, provoking strong resistance from industries worried first and foremost about their own profits. Even conservative Washington Post columnist Max Boot, a longtime supporter of increased Pentagon spending, has recently recanted, noting how just such budget priorities have weakened the ability of the United States to keep Americans safe from the virus. “It never made any sense, as Trump’s 2021 budget had initially proposed, to increase spending on nuclear weapons by $7 billion while cutting Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funding by $1.2 billion,” he wrote. “Or to create an unnecessary Space Force out of the U.S. Air Force while eliminating the vitally important directorate of global health by folding it into another office within the National Security Council.”
In fact, continuing to prioritize the U.S. military will only further weaken the country’s public health system. ……..
How Not to Deal With COVID-19
Along with those military-industrial bailouts came the fleecing of American taxpayers. While many Americans were anxiously awaiting their $1,200 payments from that congressional aid and relief package, the Department of Defense was expediting contract payments to the arms industry. Shay Assad, a former senior Pentagon official, accurately called it a “taxpayer rip-off” that industries with so many resources, not to speak of the ability to borrow money at incredibly low interest rates, were being so richly and quickly rewarded in tough times. Giving defense giants such funding at this moment was like giving a housing contractor 90% of upfront costs for renovations when it was unclear whether you could even afford your next mortgage payment.
Right now, the defense industry is having similar success in persuading the Pentagon that basic accountability should be tossed out the window. ……..
Unfortunately, as COVID-19 spread on the aircraft carrier the USS Theodore Roosevelt, that ship became emblematic of how ill-prepared the current Pentagon leadership proved to be in combatting the virus. Despite at least 100 cases being reported on board—955 crewmembers would, in the end, test positive for the disease and Chief Petty Officer Charles Robert Thacker Jr. would die of it—senior Navy leaders were slow to respond. Instead, they kept those sailors at close quarters and in an untenable situation of increasing risk. When an emailed letter expressing the concerns of the ship’s commander, Captain Brett Crozier, was leaked to the press he was quickly removed from command. But while his bosses may not have appreciated his efforts for his crew, his sailors did. He left the ship to a hero’s farewell. ……… https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2020/05/beware-the-pentagons-pandemic-profiteers/
THE ATOM: A LOVE AFFAIR – nuclear dream to global nightmare
Going plant potty in story of nuclear power, The Atom: A Love Affair chronicles an energetic journey through the 20th century to the modern day http://islingtontribune.com/article/going-plant-potty-in-story-of-nuclear-power 15 May, 2020 — By Dan Carrier THE ATOM: A LOVE AFFAIR Directed by Vicki Lesley Certificate: 12a
WITHIN a lifetime, the nuclear power industry has gone from being the golden future of energy generation to the dirty fuel that illustrates a blind race to make profit at any cost, the strength of industrial lobbying, and the inability of government to listen to those it supposedly represents – nor arguments based on empirical evidence that do not fit in with an economic philosophy.
In The Atom: A Love Affair, a wide-ranging, deeply researched, non-judgemental documentary, we are taken on a journey through the 20th century to the modern day to consider how we generate electricity and what role nuclear power has, and can, play.
Split into decades, film-maker Vicki Lesley charts how governments thought they had cracked the lode-stone problem of clean, efficient, renewable energy for all: the power needed for the post-war consumer boom, the eras of new white goods in each house, of labour-saving devices that would make the human race a species not of toil but of leisure and learning.
But, of course, a dream so good can’t be true: and as this film shows, nuclear is not only dirty, expensive and dangerous, it also crosses over into the realm of nuclear reprocessing plants, dealing with weapons-grade plutonium for mass destruction. Not a pretty look.
The difference between Germany and France are used as examples of how an approach to nuclear is based on what the state wants to believe.
France has 58 nuclear plants and cannot afford to replace them. The state-run energy firm EDF has to find new income streams so it is now building these eye-wateringly expensive plants elsewhere – including in the UK.
Germany’s anti-nuclear movement has grown in strength since the 1970s.
Post Fukushima, the Germans decided enough was enough and they would cease to use nuclear energy from 2022. They decided they would use the tax produced by the sale of nuclear energy to pay for other non-nuclear, carbon-free energy production.
“In Germany today, the atom is finished,” says one engineer.
“It is, they say, the last step on a very long goodbye dating from the 1970s. You cannot find any political party in Germany prepared to go anywhere near nuclear power.”
US politician Ralph Nader sums it up nicely (and the footage of him as a young man saying basically the same thing is inspiring).
“Atomic energy is unnecessary,” he says.
“It is uneconomical. It is unsafe. It is uninsurable. It is undemocratic and it is a travesty on our descendants who will curse us if we do not stop the menace of atomic energy.”
- View at www.curzonhomecinema.com
As Germany transitions to renewables, massive nuclear cooling towers are demolished
WATCH GERMANY BLOW UP TWO NUCLEAR COOLING TOWERS AS MINISTER SAYS ‘THE FUTURE LIES IN RENEWABLE ENERGIES‘ NEWSWEEK, BY JASON MURDOCK ON 5/15/20 Drone footage shows the moment when two massive cooling towers at a former nuclear power plant in Germany were demolished in a controlled explosion.
Operator EnBW confirmed a demolition at the Philippsburg site, in southwest Germany, was initiated by targeted blasts in lower area of the towers and took place shortly after 6 a.m. yesterday, a scene which lacked spectators due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Officials described the change as being an “important milestone” in the nation’s energy transition, moving it one step closer to a greater reliance on renewables. Germany aims to see all nuclear plant reactors taken offline by the end of 2022.
The Philippsburg power plants’ reactors were previously shuttered in 2011 and 2019 as part of those plans, the Associated Press reported.
According to EnBW, the land will soon be used by TransnetBW, a subsidiary managing the state’s electricity grid, to house a converter that will bring power generated from renewable energies from the north to the south.
“Two relics of the nuclear power era are gone: a visible sign that the nuclear phase-out is progressing in Germany,” tweeted environment minister Svenja Schulze. “The last nuclear power plant will also be switched off by 2022. The future lies in renewable energies that are safer, cheaper and more sustainable.”……..
The Baden-Württemberg ministry explains on its website the move posed challenges for its industrial region, as its energy supply was once 50 percent from nuclear. Officials are now investing in renewable sources, including wind, solar and hydro. ……. https://www.newsweek.com/europe-germany-philippsburg-nuclear-power-cooling-towers-demolition-explosion-video-1504280
Raising dangerously radioactive Russian submarines from the bottom of Arctic oceans
Russia plans to raise radioactive wrecks in the Arctic https://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2020-05-russia-plans-to-raise-radioactive-wrecks-in-the-arctic
By 2030, the Russian government will raise seven pieces of radioactive debris – including two nuclear submarines – from the bottom of Arctic oceans, where they were intentionally scuttled during the Soviet era, documents received by Bellona confirm. May 12, 2020 by Charles Digges
By 2030, the Russian government will raise seven pieces of radioactive debris – including two nuclear submarines – from the bottom of Arctic oceans, where they were intentionally scuttled during the Soviet era, documents received by Bellona confirm.
The documents identify this debris as the most dangerous of the items the Soviet Union discarded in polar waters, and say that six of them contain more than 90 percent of the radioactivity to be found on the Arctic seabed.
Of particular importance, the documents say, are the K-159 and K-27 nuclear submarines, the nuclear reactors of which were still full of nuclear fuel when they went down.
Both submarines, say experts, are in a precarious state. In the case of the K-27, which was scuttled intentionally in 1982, the sub’s reactor was sealed with furfural, before it was sunk. But experts say this seal is eroding. The K-159, which sank while it was being towed to decommissioning in 2003, poses similar threats. Some 800 kilograms of spent nuclear fuel remained in its reactor when it went down in some of the most fertile fishing grounds in the Kara Sea.
In both cases, experts fear that a nuclear chain reaction could occur should water leak into the submarines’ reactor compartments.
Russian scientists have kept a close eye on the K-159, launching regular expeditions to monitor for potential radiation leaks. According to their data, should the submarine depressurize, radionuclides could spread over hundreds of kilometers, heavily impacting the local fishing industry.
Anatoly Grigoriev, who heads up the international programs department of Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear corporation, says that raising the wrecks will cost some €123 million.
“Should the K-159 depressurize, it could cause €120 million of damage per month,” Grigoriev told Bellona at an earlier meeting.
Both submarines, say experts, are in a precarious state. In the case of the K-27, which was scuttled intentionally in 1982, the sub’s reactor was sealed with furfural, before it was sunk. But experts say this seal is eroding. The K-159, which sank while it was being towed to decommissioning in 2003, poses similar threats. Some 800 kilograms of spent nuclear fuel remained in its reactor when it went down in some of the most fertile fishing grounds in the Kara Sea.
In both cases, experts fear that a nuclear chain reaction could occur should water leak into the submarines’ reactor compartments.
Russian scientists have kept a close eye on the K-159, launching regular expeditions to monitor for potential radiation leaks. According to their data, should the submarine depressurize, radionuclides could spread over hundreds of kilometers, heavily impacting the local fishing industry.
Anatoly Grigoriev, who heads up the international programs department of Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear corporation, says that raising the wrecks will cost some €123 million.
“Should the K-159 depressurize, it could cause €120 million of damage per month,” Grigoriev told Bellona at an earlier meeting.
The majority of this debris was left in the eastern bays of the Kara Sea near the Novaya Zemlya Archipelago. Still, the exact location of some of these sunken objects is still unknown. The whereabouts of the reactor compartment from the K-140 nuclear submarine remains unaccounted for.
And there are other radiation hazards that are farther afield. The K-278, or Komsomolets, nuclear submarine lies at the bottom of the Norwegian Sea.
“A quarter of all the radioactive waste that has been sunk in the oceans belongs to us,” says Sergei Antipov, director of strategic planning and project management at the Nuclear Safety Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Since the early 2000s, massive projects to decommission Soviet-era nuclear submarines have been ongoing with the assistance of numerous western partners. Moscow has shared information about these radioactive hazards with nations of the G-7 and has worked with the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development and other donors.
This international cooperation has brought significant results. Military bases have been cleared of most radioactive contamination and nearly 200 rusted-out nuclear submarines have been safely dismantled, as a review of the last 25 years of Bellona’s work clearly shows.
Russia, moreover, has the necessary infrastructure to deal with whatever discarded radiation hazards are brought to the surface of Arctic waters. And while Russia lacks the necessary vessels for such undersea rescues, the international partners it has developed while cleaning up other pieces of the Soviet nuclear legacy certainly do.
Next year, Russia assumes the rotating chairmanship of the Arctic Council, and we hope that Moscow will be able to announce upon the first meeting that these projects are underway. Bellona, which is already involved in discussing this important work, has high hopes.
Nuclear fraud in Norway could affect nuclear safety in other countries
 Faked-data scandal might jeopardize safety at unknown number of nuclear power plantsAn investigation at Norway’s now-closed Halden research reactor reveals that results from a number of nuclear fuel experiments were tampered with in an effort that was “planned and well hidden,” according to the facility’s operator — a discovery that could have consequences for numerous nuclear power utilities around the world. Bellona, May 15, 2020 by Charles Digges
Many of Halden’s former customers are foreign governments and nuclear utilities that relied on Halden’s data to make decisions about how to fuel their own nuclear reactors. The purpose of research facilities like Halden is to simulate how various nuclear fuels behave under different circumstances, thus allowing nuclear power companies a greater margin of safety in their operations. While officials have not revealed which nuclear operators might have been impacted by the falsifications, the say the report casts doubt on seven fuel experiments that took place between 1990 and 2005. “What scares us is that companies around the world operating nuclear reactors may have relied on data from the Halden reactor,” says Frederic Hauge, Bellona’s president. “If data has been manipulated, security can be jeopardized, because the research is used to make decisions about how the reactors are operated.” The Halden reactor, which is one of four research reactors run in Norway, began operations in 1955 and was shuttered in 2018 after a long period of financial difficulties and technical problems. Kvamme Associates, an Oslo-based anti-corruption research group, led the investigation into the suspect data. The group provided its results to the Institute of Energy Technology, or IFE, Halden’s operator, earlier this week. According to investigators, the IFE’s suspicions about data manipulation arose last summer. The ensuing inquiry revealed fraud so serious that the IFE reported it to Norway’s economic crimes unit. The investigation report, which IFE released to Bellona this week, shows that a number of fuel tests were fabricated either because researchers failed to meet test requirements, or because they ran up against deadlines they were unable to meet. “We have found that data was changed,” IFE director Nils Morten Huseby, told Norway’s national broadcaster, NRK. “What was reported to customers is not what the tests actually showed. It can potentially be serious, but we need to know more about how the customers used the data.”……. Three other projects carried out at Halden are also under suspicion and are currently under review, NRK said. Bellona’s Hauge questioned the IFE’s oversight of the experiments in question, and called for a broader investigation into the institute’s management practices……… According to NRK, the Kvamme Associates report states that four international projects conducted at the Halden reactor were found to contain fabricated data. Independent experts found that two of the cases involved no security or safety risks, the broadcaster reported, while two other cases have not been fully evaluated. Three other projects carried out at Halden are also under suspicion and are currently under review, NRK said. ……The revelations come as a blow to the IFE, which until Halden’s closure had struggled with criticism that the reactor was too costly to the Norwegian public and had battled allegations that it was unsafe following a 2016 iodine leak. “The fact that IFE’s reputation as a research institution is at stake here is one thing,” said Hauge. “But that it may have affected the safety of an unknown number of nuclear power plants in an unknown number of countries – that’s very, very serious.”….. Bellona’s Hauge questioned the IFE’s oversight of the experiments in question, and called for a broader investigation into the institute’s management practices. https://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2020-05-faked-data-scandal-might-jeopardize-safety-at-unknown-number-of-nuclear-power-plants |
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23 April – WEBINAR – Why new nuclear reactors are the wrong tools for decarbonization Thursday, April 23 • 1 AM – 2 AM AEST
Pine Ridge Uranium is the real threat, not Tehran- Tell Burgum: Stop the Extraction.
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
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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