Uranium at lowest price since 2007
Uranium Week: Struggling With Low Prices
FN Arena Weekly Reports By Mark Woodruff May 25 2021, As the uranium spot price rose 2% for the week and 9% for the month, an EIA report revealed the lowest price paid since 2007 by owners and operators of US commercial nuclear plants
The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) released both its 2020 US Uranium Marketing Annual Report and its 2020 Domestic Uranium Production Report last week.
Despite covid roiling energy markets during 2020, the reports pointed to nuclear energy being a fundamental source of base load electricity generation (20%) with capacity factors steady at 94%, explains Canaccord Genuity. The broker believes coverage of future demand will continue to provide an impetus for a more active term market over 2021.
The EIA is responsible for collecting, analysing and disseminating energy information to inform policy making and efficient markets. It also adds to the public understanding of energy and its interaction with the economy and the environment.
The released reports in 2020 quantify developments in the US uranium industry, including decreased inventories, explains industry consultant TradeTech. They also showed an elevated aggregated contractual coverage rate among owners and operators of US civilian nuclear power reactors. Additionally, lower weighted average uranium prices and historically low uranium production were reported.
The Uranium Marketing Annual Report showed owners and operators of US commercial nuclear plants in 2020 purchased nearly 49mlbs uranium from US and foreign suppliers. These were transacted at a weighted-average price of US$33.27/lb, which represents a 1% increase in volume and a -7% decline in price compared to 2019 data. The weighted average price is the lowest price paid by owners and operators of US civilian power reactors since 2007.
Of the US deliveries, 76% were through longer-term contracts, averaging US$34.74/lb. As Canaccord notes, it’s always darkest before the dawn, with pricing failing to represent the marginal cost of production let alone the incentivisation price for restarts or new developments.
During 2020, 11.7mlbs or 24% of sales were on a spot basis, up from 10.5mlbs in 2019 and the highest since 2014. This illustrates that long-term contracts signed post-Fukushima (2011-2015) are starting to expire, explains Canaccord.
The report showed Australian and Canadian-origin uranium combined accounted for 42% of reported volumes by country of origin. Uranium purchased by owners and operators of US civilian power reactors from Russia again was the lowest weighted average price paid at US$25.73/lb, while purchases from Australia occupied the highest cost position at US$39.86/lb.;;;;;;;;;;;;;; https://www.fnarena.com/index.php/2021/05/25/uranium-week-struggling-with-low-prices/
In 1958, U.S military had plans to use nuclear weapons against China, in a crisis over Taiwan.
US military considered using nuclear weapons against China in 1958 Taiwan Strait crisis, leaked documents show https://edition.cnn.com/2021/05/24/china/us-china-taiwan-1958-nuclear-intl-hnk/index.html
By Ben Westcott, CNN, May 24, 2021 Hong Kong, Military planners in Washington pushed for the White House to prepare plans to use nuclear weapons against mainland China during the Taiwan Strait crisis in 1958, newly leaked documents appear to confirm.The documents, first reported on by the New York Times Saturday, reveal the extent of Washington’s discussions about using nuclear weapons to deter a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, including the acceptance by some US military leaders of possible retaliatory nuclear strikes on US bases.
The new information was provided to the Times by Daniel Ellsberg, the whistleblower who in 1971 leaked the Pentagon Papers that detailed the US government’s duplicity in its handling of the Vietnam War.”US first use of nuclear weapons should not be contemplated, prepared, or threatened anywhere, under any circumstances, including the defense of Taiwan,” Ellsberg said in a post to his Twitter on Sunday.
The Taiwan leak comes from previously classified sections of a 1966 report by think tank Rand Corporation on the 1958 Taiwan Straits crisis, written by M. H. Halperin for the Office of the then-Assistant Secretary of Defense.After the Communist Party took power in mainland China in 1949, following a brutal civil war, the Nationalist government fled to Taiwan. But Beijing viewed the island as part of its territory, and the two sides clashed intermittently over the following decades.
The closest the US and China came to armed conflict was during the Taiwan Strait crisis in 1958, when the People’s Republic of China fired artillery at Taipei’s outlying islands. Washington worried the shelling could be a precursor to a full invasion.he shelling focused on the Quemoy and Matsu island groups, which lie between Taiwan and mainland China and are described by Rand Corporation as “the first line of defense” for Taipei.Although it is already public knowledge that the Eisenhower administration debated whether to use nuclear weapons to deter China from attacking Taiwan, the documents appear to reveal the extent of the planning for the first time.According to the leaked documents, some US Defense and State department officials were concerned the loss of the outlying islands in 1958 could lead to a full “Chinese Communist takeover of Taiwan.”
In the event of an air and sea attack on the islands, US Air Force Gen. Nathan Twining said the US would have to use nuclear weapons against Chinese air force bases “to prevent a successful air interdiction campaign,” beginning with “low-yield ten to fifteen kiloton nuclear weapons.”If this didn’t lead to a break in the assault from mainland China, “the United States … would have no alternative but to conduct nuclear strikes deep into China as far north as Shanghai.”According to the documents, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs acknowledged this would “almost certainly” lead to nuclear retaliation against Taiwan and the US military base at Okinawa in Japan. “But he stressed that if national policy is to defend the offshore islands then the consequences had to be accepted,” the document said.Given China had yet to develop its own nuclear capabilities, any nuclear retaliation would have come from the Soviet Union, possibly sparking an even more devastating global conflict. The report said it isn’t clear where the nuclear retaliation would have originated.
The document said the US Joint Chiefs, and Twining in particular, saw the use of atomic weapons as “inevitable.” In one section, Gen. Laurence S. Kuter, the top Air Force commander for the Pacific, “flatly” states that any US air action against a Chinese attack on the outlying islands “had no chance of success unless atomic weapons were used from the outset.”In the end, Eisenhower was hesitant to use nuclear weapons and pushed for the US troops to stick to conventional arms. Joshua Pollack, editor of the Nonproliferation Review, said on Twitter Sunday that the idea the US would have risked a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union over islands with “no military value” was “jarring.”“It’s no surprise the White House said no,” he said.A ceasefire was reached in the Taiwan Strait on October 6, 1958, although there have been ongoing tensions between Beijing and Taipei.
In January 2019 speech, Chinese President Xi Jinping warned he would take “all means necessary” and not “renounce the use of force” to rejoin Taiwan to the Chinese mainland.Beijing claims full sovereignty over Taiwan, a democracy of almost 24 million people located off the southeastern coast of mainland China, even though the two sides have been governed separately for more than seven decades.With military tensions rising again between the US and China, whistleblower Ellsberg said in his interview with the Times that he had supplied the documents due to his concerns over the possibility of a new war over Taiwan.
On Sunday, Ellsberg took to Twitter to call for both sides to exercise restraint.“Note to @JoeBiden: learn from this secret history, and don’t repeat this insanity,” he said.
China says Japan ‘repeatedly betrayed public trust’ in Fukushima response
 |
China says Japan ‘repeatedly betrayed public trust’ in Fukushima response
Beijing says Tokyo’s handling of Fukushima disaster casts doubt over ‘so-called safe methods, credibility of data’ https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/china-says-japan-repeatedly-betrayed-public-trust-in-fukushima-response/2253463
Riyaz Ul Khaliq |25.05.2021 ANKARA
China on Tuesday repeated its criticism of Japan’s plan to dump treated nuclear waste from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea.
“Japan has repeatedly betrayed public trust over its handling of the Fukushima nuclear accident,” Lijian Zhao, spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry, said at a news conference in Beijing, according to state-run daily Global Times.
He said Japan’s response to the Fukushima disaster of 2011 has left “a big question mark over the rationality and scientific nature of its so-called safe methods, as well as authenticity and credibility of the data it had provided.”
Apart from China, South Korea, North Korea, the island nation of Taiwan, and other international bodies, including the UN, have previously voiced concern over Tokyo’s idea to release treated wastewater from the destroyed nuclear plant into the ocean in the next two years.
The US, however, has backed Japan’s proposal, which come after years of talks on how to get rid of more than 1 million tons of water accumulated at the Fukushima nuclear complex since the meltdown triggered by a massive earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has vowed to play a “central and permanent role in monitoring the discharge.”
Tokyo has said it aims to have an action plan by the end of 2021.
“We will proactively take swift measures to deepen understanding of people in Japan and overseas,” Katsunobu Kato, Japan’s chief Cabinet secretary, said last month.
| Virus-free. www.avast.com |
Russia’s plans for nuclear-powered spacecraft to Jupiter
Russia Wants To Send A Nuclear-Powered Spacecraft To Jupiter This Decade, IFL Science 26 May 21,Russia is planning to send a nuclear-powered spacecraft to the grand gas giant of the Solar System, Jupiter, in 2030.
Roscosmos, Russia’s federal space agency, announced the plan for the mammoth 50-month journey last week. The journey will take it on a mini tour of the Solar System, taking pit stops around the Moon and Venus, dropping off spacecraft along its way, before heading on to Jupiter.
More specifically, a “space tug” with a nuclear-based transport and energy module dubbed Zeus will head towards the Moon where a spacecraft will separate from it. It will then pass by Venus to perform a gravity assist maneuver and drop off another spacecraft, before venturing towards Jupiter and one of its satellites.
“Together with the Russian Academy of Sciences, we’re are now making calculations about this flight’s ballistics and payload,” Roscosmos Executive Director for Long-Term Programs and Science Alexander Bloshenko told reporters, according to TASS news agency.
Most spacecraft use solar panels that convert the Sun’s energy into electricity. However, the deeper a spacecraft goes into the Solar System, the further it strays from the Sun and less solar energy is available. While batteries can be used for backup, some missions – such as Cassini and Voyager – have been powered from a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG), which is a bit like a nuclear battery that uses heat from the radioactive decay of isotopes. RTGs are not nuclear reactors, however, as a chain reaction does not take place.
The new Zeus project, by comparison, is a whole nuclear reactor that will use fission reactions to drive the propulsion. In the words of Russian state media, it’s a “secrecy-laden project in development since 2010” that involves a 500-kilowatt nuclear reactor, weighing around 22 tons….
The Soviet Union launched a bunch of nuclear reactors into space during the Cold War as part of the RORSAT missions, a set of Soviet nuclear spy satellites launched between 1967 and 1988. On the other hand, the US has launched just one: SNAP-10A or SNAPSHOT, a nuclear-reactor power system launched in 1965.
The US has regained interest in nuclear-powered space travel over the past few decades. Just recently, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has commissioned three private companies – Blue Origin, Lockheed Martin, and General Atomics – to develop nuclear fission thermal rockets for use in lunar orbit, with the goal of demonstrating the technology above low Earth orbit in 2025. https://www.iflscience.com/space/russia-wants-to-send-a-nuclearpower-spacecraft-to-jupiter-this-decade/
Fission reactions have been spiking in an inaccessible Chernobyl chamber since 2016 – possibility of a runaway nuclear reaction
Chernobyl Alert and The Doomsday Clock The Conversation, BY ROBERT HUNZIKER 21 May 21, Like the mythical Phoenix, Chernobyl rises from the ashes.
A recent… “Surge in fission reactions in an inaccessible chamber within the complex” is alarming scientists that monitor the ruins of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine. (Source: Nuclear Reactions at Chernobyl are Spiking in an Inaccessible Chamber, NewScientist, May 11, 2021).
It is known that this significant renewal of fission activity is located in Sub-Reactor Room 305/2, which contains large amounts of fissile material from the initial meltdown. The explosion brought down walls of the facility amongst tons of fissile material within the reactor as extreme heat melted reactor wall concrete and steel combined with sand used to control the explosion to form a lava-like intensely radioactive substance that oozed into lower floors, e.g., Room 305/2. That room is so deadly radioactive that it is inaccessible by humans or robots for the past 35 years.
Since 2016, neutron emissions from Room 305/2 have been spiking and increased by 40% over the past 5 years. It signals a growing nuclear fission reaction in the room. According to Neil Hyatt/University of Sheffield-UK: “Our estimation of fissile material in that room means that we can be fairly confident that you’re not going to get such rapid release of nuclear energy that you have an explosion. But we don’t know for sure… it’s cause for concern but not alarm,” Ibid.
If it is deemed necessary to intervene, it’ll require robotically drilling into Room 305/2 and spraying the highly radioactive blob with a fluid that contains gadolinium nitrate, which is supposed to soak up excess neutrons and choke the fission reaction. Meanwhile, time will tell whether the monster of the deep in Room 305/2 settles down on its own or requires human interaction via the eyes and arms of a robot, which may not survive the intense radioactivity. Then what?
Meanwhile, an enormous steel sarcophagus, a $1.8bn protective confinement shelter, the New Safe Confinement (NCS) was built in 2019 to hopefully prevent the release of radioactive contamination. NCS is the largest land-based object ever moved, nine years construction in Italy delivered via 2,500 trucks and 18 ships. It is expected to last for 100 years. Thenceforth, who knows?
Nevertheless, according to nuclear professionals, the question arises whether this recent fission activity will stabilize or will it necessitate a dangerously difficult intervention to somehow stop a runaway nuclear reaction.
Inescapably, the bane of nuclear power, once dangerously out of control, remains dangerously out of control, forever and on it goes, beyond human time. Unfortunately, one nuclear accident is equivalent to untold numbers, likely thousands, of non-nuclear accidents.
“We thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” (Albert Einstein) https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/05/21/chernobyl-alert-and-the-doomsday-clock/
1st U.N. nuclear ban meeting may be postponed until after Non Proliferation Treaty review
1st U.N. nuclear ban meeting may be postponed until after NPT review, https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2021/05/7809e5aa594f-1st-un-nuclear-ban-meeting-may-be-postponed-until-after-npt-review.html
The first meeting of parties to a U.N. treaty banning nuclear weapons, set to be held next January, may be pushed to the spring so that it takes place after a rescheduled U.N. conference on nuclear nonproliferation, diplomatic sources said Tuesday.
The review conference on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, held every five years in New York, has already been pushed back multiple times from its original date of April last year to August this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, but there are talks of postponing it again to the beginning of next year.
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which is the first international pact outlawing the development, testing, possession and use of nuclear weapons, came into effect in January this year with the support of many non-nuclear states.
Its first meeting, which must be held within one year of coming into force, is currently scheduled for January next year in Austria. Japanese survivors of the 1945 atomic bombing are also expected to attend.
With the momentum for nuclear disarmament waning due to the pandemic, the international community stands at a critical juncture concerning whether nuclear-armed states will curb their nuclear expansion.
As it will be unrealistic to hold both conferences in January next year, proposals have been made to postpone the first meeting of the nuclear ban treaty by several months or hold the meeting in January as scheduled but postpone substantive discussions until after the NPT review conference.
There are strong calls among countries supporting the nuclear weapon ban treaty to hold the NPT conference as soon as possible, with many likely eager to also observe the discussions at the review conference attended by the nuclear powers
Costs of upgrading USA’s nuclear arsenal has jumped up by $140 billion in just 2 years.
Surprise! Upgrading America’s Nuclear Arsenal Will Be Stupefyingly Expensive
The cost jumped $140 billion in just 2 years. Here’s why. Popular Mechanics, BY KYLE MIZOKAMIMAY 26, 2021
- The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) now says the cost of updating the U.S.’s nuclear weapons is $140 billion more than it estimated just 2 years ago.
- The increase is largely due to inflation and the inclusion of new, expensive projects the CBO didn’t cover 2 years ago.
- The new estimate comes as a proposal in Congress seeks to trim the nuclear budget.
- The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) estimate of nuclear weapon expenditures over the next decade has jumped a staggering $140 billion in just 2 years………………………. https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a36534316/cost-upgrading-us-nuclear-arsenal-increases/
EDF’s report on silo collapse at Hinkley Point C nuclear construction raises more questions than answers
Stop Hinkley 24th May 2021, EDF Energy has published its report on the Ground Granulated Blast-furnace Slag (GGBS) silo collapse which took place on the Hinkley Point C construction site on 10th June last year. The report’s headline conclusion on the sudden silo collapse – that it was caused by the overloading of a bolted joint due to inadequate design, raises more questions than it answers.
May 26 Energy News — geoharvey
Opinion: ¶ “To Understand Its Energy Future, The US Should Look Down To Australia.” • One of the issues in the US regarding transition from fossil fuels to renewables has been whether the country accepts the loss of oil and gas and coal production, and the jobs associated with it. Americans might look at a […]
May 26 Energy News — geoharvey
US military running a massive undercover army and conducting warrantless surveillance of Americans
US military running a massive undercover army and conducting warrantless surveillance of Americans, WSW
Kevin Reed21 May 2021 Two reports over the past week have revealed that the Pentagon is carrying out secret operations within the US and internationally without congressional oversight and in violation of basic constitutional rights.
An exclusive report by Newsweek on Monday explained that the US military is operating “[T]he largest undercover force the world has ever known.” The secret army of 60,000 people works under “masked identities and in low profile” and is part of a special program called “signature reduction.”
The Newsweek report—written by journalist William M. Arkin following a two-year investigation of the program—says that the secret military force is “more than ten times the size of the clandestine elements of the CIA, carries out domestic and foreign assignments, both in military uniforms and under civilian cover, in real life and online, sometimes hiding in private businesses and consultancies, some of them household name companies.”
Arkin examined “over 600 resumes and 1,000 job postings, dozens of Freedom of Information Act requests, and scores of interviews with participants and defense decision-makers” to uncover the “completely unregulated practice” of the US military. The giant clandestine operation has never been the subject of a hearing in Congress, and Arkin says that it “challenges U.S. laws, the Geneva Conventions, the code of military conduct and basic accountability.”
The infrastructure of the Pentagon’s covert “signature reduction” program is based upon 130 private companies with the support of dozens of “little known and secret government organizations” that award “classified contracts” and “oversee publicly acknowledged operations.”
Among the functions of these private businesses are creating false documentation; paying the taxes of individuals operating under assumed identities; manufacturing disguises and other devices used to avoid identification; building invisible devices used to photograph and listen in on the conversations and activity of people around the world…………….
The fact that the Pentagon has been conducting warrantless surveillance of Americans was exposed in a May 13 letter from Senator Ron Wyden (Democrat from Oregon) to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin that was published by Vice’s Motherboard Tech.
Wyden asked the Department of Defense (DoD) for detailed information about its data purchasing practices after Motherboard revealed special forces were buying location data last February. The initial DoD responses—which revealed that the military or intelligence agencies were using internet browsing and other types of data—prompted Wyden to demand more answers about warrantless spying on American citizens.
Wyden wrote that his investigation had confirmed that the Internal Revenue Service, Customs and Border Protection, the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency were all purchasing from private companies the location data of Americans without a warrant…………..https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/05/22/cong-m22.html
Corrosion in the fuel cladding at France’s Chooz and Civaux nuclear stations
An investigation is underway at the Chooz and Civaux nuclear power plants
(6 GW) following the discovery of corrosion on the fuel cladding, in order
to prevent any radioactive leakage, announced EDF and the Nuclear Safety
Authority (ASN).
Montel 25th May 2021
The Doomsday Clock
Chernobyl Alert and The Doomsday Clock The Conversation, BY ROBERT HUNZIKER 21 May 21, ” ……………..The Doomsday Clock
Along those lines, the world-famous Doomsday Clock, initially based upon the threat of nuclear warfare, measures humanity’s nearness to utter annihilation: The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (“BAS”) a global organization of science and policy experts, has set the famous clock at 100 seconds to midnight: “The bad news is that we’re still closer to midnight than we’ve been at any time since the clock was introduced more than 60 years ago because: (1) widespread mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic in nations worldwide (2) little progress in eliminating nuclear weapons (3) insufficient mitigation of destructive climate change, and (4) threats to national security by rightwing extremists, the BAS decided to hold the clock at the present unsettling time slot, as a warning and “wake-up call.” (Source: Do0msday Clock Stands at 100 Seconds to Midnight, LiveScience)
The perilous setting of the clock so close to midnight is warranted on several counts, e.g., COVID pulled back the wizard’s curtain, revealing a cartoonish figurine of irresponsibility by governments of the world to handle emergencies: “An historic wakeup call that governments are woefully unprepared to handle pandemics,” Ibid.
Throughout history, political parties that rely upon lies bring society down to its knees with shameless destruction, for example, the fall of Rome, the 5th century AD: “By the time of Augustine (354-430 AD), the Roman Empire had become an Empire of lies. It still pretended to uphold the rule of law, to protect the people from the Barbarian invaders, to maintain the social order. But all that had become a bad joke for the citizens of an empire by then reduced to nothing more than a giant military machine dedicated to oppressing the poor in order to maintain the privileges of the rich. The Empire itself had become a lie: that it existed because of the favor of the Gods who rewarded the Romans because of their moral virtues. Nobody could believe in that anymore: it was the breakdown of the very fabric of society; the loss of what the ancient called the auctoritas, the trust that citizens had toward their leaders and the institutions of their state.” (Source: Cassandra’s Legacy, The Empire of Lies, February 8, 2016).
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com. https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/05/21/chernobyl-alert-and-the-doomsday-clock/
USA’s $634Billion nuclear weapons budget
CBO: US nuclear arsenal to cost $634B over 10 years, https://thehill.com/policy/defense/555142-cbo-us-nuclear-arsenal-to-cost-634b-over-10-yearsBY REBECCA KHEEL – 05/24/21 Updating and maintaining the U.S. nuclear arsenal over the next 10 years is projected to cost $634 billion, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said in a report published Monday.
The cost estimate for the nuclear forces from 2021-2030 represents a 28 percent increase compared to the last CBO 10-year cost estimate two years ago.
About half of the $140 billion increase comes from the fact that the new estimate now includes 2029 and 2030 when nuclear modernization is expected to be further along and “more expensive,” CBO said.
Of the CBO’s $634 billion estimates, about $551 billion is what would be needed to fulfill the Defense and Energy departments’ current nuclear plans. The remaining $83 billion is what CBO projects could be cost overruns based on how much costs have grown for similar programs in the past, according to the report.
Of the $551 billion, about $188 billion is projected to go toward modernizing nuclear weapons and their delivery systems, the report said.
The United States is in the midst of plans to modernize all three legs of the nuclear triad that the Government Accountability Office has projected could cost $1.7 trillion over 30 years. The triad refers to delivering nuclear weapons by sea, air and land.
“Over the coming years, the Congress will need to make decisions about what nuclear forces the United States should field in the future and thus about the extent to which the nation will continue to modernize its nuclear forces,” the CBO report said.
The report could also inform the Biden administration’s expected review of U.S. nuclear policy and programs, with CBO noting “the Biden Administration is widely expected to undertake a nuclear posture review to determine the nuclear policies and forces it will pursue.”
The new CBO estimate is likely to fuel calls from some Democrats to curb the costly nuclear modernization plans, which were largely started during the Obama administration. In particular, some Democrats have frequently targeted plans to replace aging intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), arguing it would be more cost-efficient to extend the life of the current arsenal.
Earlier Monday, a group of Democrats in the Senate and House, led by Sen Ed Markey (Mass.) and Rep. Earl Blumenauer (Ore.), introduced a bill to cut $73 billion from the nuclear budget.
The bill, dubbed the Smarter Approach to Nuclear Expenditures (SANE) Act, would do that by barring the development of new ICBMs, air-launched cruise missiles and submarine-launched cruise missiles. It would also cap the number of Columbia-class submarines the Pentagon can buy at eight, cut the existing ICBM fleet from more than 400 to 150 and reduce deployed strategic warheads from about 1,500 to 1,000.
Another former Westinghouse executive pleads guilty to lying in South Carolina nuclear power scandal
3rd official to plead guilty in SC nuclear debacle, https://www.wistv.com/2021/05/24/rd-official-plead-guilty-sc-nuclear-debacle/ By Associated Press| May 24, 2021
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) – Court documents show a former official for the contractor hired to build two South Carolina nuclear reactors that were never completed will plead guilty to lying to federal authorities.
Carl Churchman was the Westinghouse Electric Co. project director for the failed plant that cost ratepayers and investors billions of dollars.
Authorities say Churchman lied about whether he communicated with utility executives on completion dates for the reactors.
Utility executives swore construction was on track to keep regulators approving rate increases and maintain support from investors, even though the project fell behind.
Two top-level executives have already pleaded guilty in the multi-year federal fraud investigation.
TEPCO’s history of covering up radioactive water risks
Japan’s TEPCO a repeat offender in concealing nuclear wastewater risks: FM, By Global Times May 24, 2021 Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has been a repeat offender in the manipulation of data and in concealing risks, and is always reluctant to admit until the incidents are exposed, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said on Friday’s routine press conference, in response to reports by Japanese media which said the company has admitted the gel-like objects previously found on the ground of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant are caused by the leakage of a radioactive.
The company said that some of the leakages are suspected to have been carried into the sea by rain as drainage close to the area that has been detected as having elevated levels of radioactivity, but it still insists that the accident has had no impact on the environment, according to reports.
No matter how shocking the results are, the incident has simply been attributed to negligence which might have catastrophic consequences for innocent people, Zhao commented on the above claims.
As a matter of fact, the gel-like substance was found in March, according to media reports. TEPCO didn’t respond until late April with information that the storage tank containing radioactive waste at the Fukushima nuclear power plant may have leaked……..https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202105/1224311.shtml
-
Archives
- February 2026 (228)
- January 2026 (308)
- December 2025 (358)
- November 2025 (359)
- October 2025 (376)
- September 2025 (258)
- August 2025 (319)
- July 2025 (230)
- June 2025 (348)
- May 2025 (261)
- April 2025 (305)
- March 2025 (319)
-
Categories
- 1
- 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES
- business and costs
- climate change
- culture and arts
- ENERGY
- environment
- health
- history
- indigenous issues
- Legal
- marketing of nuclear
- media
- opposition to nuclear
- PERSONAL STORIES
- politics
- politics international
- Religion and ethics
- safety
- secrets,lies and civil liberties
- spinbuster
- technology
- Uranium
- wastes
- weapons and war
- Women
- 2 WORLD
- ACTION
- AFRICA
- Atrocities
- AUSTRALIA
- Christina's notes
- Christina's themes
- culture and arts
- Events
- Fuk 2022
- Fuk 2023
- Fukushima 2017
- Fukushima 2018
- fukushima 2019
- Fukushima 2020
- Fukushima 2021
- general
- global warming
- Humour (God we need it)
- Nuclear
- RARE EARTHS
- Reference
- resources – print
- Resources -audiovicual
- Weekly Newsletter
- World
- World Nuclear
- YouTube
-
RSS
Entries RSS
Comments RSS
nuclear-news 