nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

Small nuclear reactors may produce more, and more toxic, wastes than large ones do – new research

Mini nuclear power stations may produce more waste than large ones. Small modular nuclear reactors may produce higher volumes and greater complexity of radioactive waste because they are naturally less efficient, researchers find, New Scientist, 30 May 2022, By Adam Vaughan,   A much-vaunted first wave of mini nuclear power stations may produce more radioactive waste than traditional large-scale ones when generating the same amount of power.

Small modular reactors (SMRs) have been mooted by their developers and proponents as a cheaper and faster way to build new nuclear power capacity, with UK prime minister Boris Johnson claiming they could be generating electricity by 2030. The US government has provided financial support to the firm NuScale Power to develop its version of the technology.

But to date there has been little independent assessment of how the radioactive waste produced by SMRs would compare with that from their large-scale peers.

Lindsay Krall at Stanford University in California and her colleagues used data NuScale Power has shared publicly with US authorities to assess the technology, and extrapolated to model the waste from three different SMR technologies. They compared the SMR technology with a conventional 1.1 gigawatt nuclear reactor, roughly a third of the capacity of a new nuclear plant being built in south-west England.

They have found that SMRs could increase the volume of short-lived low and intermediate level waste – the two lowest of three categories – by up to 35 times compared to a large conventional reactor, when looking at waste produced per unit of electricity generated.  For the long-lived equivalent waste, SMRs would produce up to 30 times more and for spent nuclear fuel, up to 5 times more. The variation in these figures reflects expected variation in the SMR designs now being developed.

“The information right now being put out by reactor developers can be seen as promotional,” says Krall. “SMR performed worse on nearly all of our metrics compared to standard commercial reactors.” Those metrics included the heat from radioactive decay and the radiochemistry of the spent fuel.

The study suggests that SMRs produce higher volumes and greater complexity of waste because they are naturally less efficient. Nuclear power generation involves a nuclear chain reaction, in which one single nuclear reaction in the reactor core creates neutrons that then go on to cause an average of one or more subsequent nuclear reactions. However, according to Krall’s team, SMRs leak more neutrons out of their core than a larger reactor, meaning they cannot maintain the self-sustaining reaction for as long. Even a small difference in neutron leakage results in a substantial impact on the composition of the waste, says Krall………………………https://www.newscientist.com/article/2322252-mini-nuclear-power-stations-may-produce-more-waste-than-large-ones/

Advertisement

May 31, 2022 Posted by | Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Japan Court Bars Hokkaido Nuclear Reactors From Operating 

Japan Court Bars Hokkaido Nuclear Reactors From Operating  https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-31/japan-court-bars-hokkaido-nuclear-reactors-from-operating-nhk

  • Sapporo court rules in favor of anti-nuclear citizens group
  • Tomari reactors have been offline for more than a decade

By Shoko Oda, 31 May 22,

A Japanese court ruled in favor of an anti-nuclear citizens group in Hokkaido, saying that a nuclear power plant cannot operate. 

The Sapporo District Court said in a ruling on Tuesday that Hokkaido Electric Power Co.’s Tomari nuclear plant isn’t safe to operate due to the earthquake and tsunami risk. A separate request to permanently decommission the plant was rejected by the court, according to court documents. The Tomari facility, which houses three reactors, has been fully offline since 2012.

By

Shoko Oda

A Japanese court ruled in favor of an anti-nuclear citizens group in Hokkaido, saying that a nuclear power plant cannot operate. 

The Sapporo District Court said in a ruling on Tuesday that Hokkaido Electric Power Co.’s Tomari nuclear plant isn’t safe to operate due to the earthquake and tsunami risk. A separate request to permanently decommission the plant was rejected by the court, according to court documents. The Tomari facility, which houses three reactors, has been fully offline since 2012.

The ruling comes amid calls by some Japanese politicians to quickly restart its fleet of shuttered nuclear reactors, as the nation faces a power supply crunch this summer and the upcoming winter. The country closed its nuclear power plants following the 2011 Fukushima disaster, and only a handful have restarted under new safety rules. 

While Hokkaido Electric applied to restart the Tomari reactors nearly a decade ago, the arduous review process has dragged on and it isn’t clear when the regulator will approve the facility to resume operations. 

The court ruled that the Tomari nuclear reactors don’t have a safeguard facility against tsunamis, and that the utility hasn’t shown adequate safety measures for its spent atomic fuel. 

The ruling means that Hokkaido Electric won’t be able to immediately restart the facility. The company said that it will file an appeal on today’s decision. 

May 31, 2022 Posted by | Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Members of European Parliament and experts condemn plan to label nuclear as ”green”

MEPs, experts criticise green label for gas and nuclear  https://euobserver.com/green-economy/155087

By WESTER VAN GAAL BRUSSELS, 30. MAY, 

European lawmakers are gearing up for a July vote which could scupper EU Commission plans to classify gas and nuclear energy projects as sustainable investments until 2030.

On Monday (30 May), MEPs from the environmental (ENVI) and economy (ECON) committees held a public hearing with experts, with some calling on the lawmakers to block the inclusion of gas and nuclear as a green investment.

“This act will heavily damage the credibility of the taxonomy, and I recommend MEPs to reject it,” Sebastian Godinot, an economist at the World Wildlife Fund and a member of the commission’s scientific advisory body, said. “The current EU taxonomy will do worse than current [private sector] green bond standards.”

He also said the labelling of gas as a green energy source would “increase energy insecurity” and boost gas use when the EU is trying to quit Russian gas.

Representatives from the European Investment Bank (EIB), the Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the Dutch Pension Fund (DPF) also attended the meeting.

In January, the commission controversially included nuclear and gas in the so-called EU Taxonomy for green investment, against the explicit advice of its own science experts.

Hartwig Liesch, chief investment officer at DPF, said on Monday that including gas and nuclear in the green taxonomy is “not helpful” as it makes sustainable investment more complex.

Likewise, EIB director Werner Hoyer said at the bank’s annual media conference in Brussels in January this year that the complexity of proposed rules left investors feeling “drowsy.”

Undemocratic

The inclusion of gas and nuclear has been widely seen as a compromise pushed through by an alliance of French pro-nuclear forces and mainly eastern European countries wanting to incentivise EU investments in gas infrastructure.

“This proposal is not science-based but political,” Godinot said.

Another point of contention among MEPs and many experts was the commission’s use of the delegated act, a non-legislative procedure that excluded parliament.

“The parliament has been sidelined. The process is at best sloppy, if not undemocratic,” ECON chair Paul Tang (S&D) said on Monday.

In a comment to Reuters, green MEP Bas Eickhout said the inclusion of gas and nuclear “violated the spirit and letter of the [taxonomy”].

Simple majority

A simple majority vote in parliament — at least 353 MEPs — can still block the current proposal, which is set for early July.

So far the Socialists & Democrats, the Left and the Greens, which together hold 256 seats, have committed to blocking the proposal.

In May, a group of 16 MEPs from groups representing a majority of the European Parliament drafted a motion to block the inclusion of gas and nuclear, but the overall level of support is still unclear.

If the proposal gets blocked, it would end the commission’s efforts to include gas in the taxonomy.

“It simply won’t exist anymore and therefore won’t apply,” said Daniel Ferrie, a spokesperson for the commission, told EUobserver.

May 31, 2022 Posted by | Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Weapons designed to mass murder civilians, terrorize the world, and enable impunity for war crimes can no longer be relied on to “prevent war.”

Ban Nuclear Weapons Now

Project Syndicate,May 30, 2022, ANNE-MARIE SLAUGHTER, SUSI SNYDER

Weapons designed to mass murder civilians, terrorize the world, and enable impunity for war crimes can no longer be relied on to “prevent war.” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine and his willingness to brandish the threat of nuclear weapons will spur a renewed drive to rid the world of them.

WASHINGTON, DC – The events of the past three months in Ukraine – like Russia’s annexation of Crimea and incursion into eastern Ukraine in 2014, the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the long proxy war in Syria – have given the lie to the claim that nuclear weapons prevent war. Nuclear deterrence might stop nuclear-armed countries from directly engaging in war with each other, just as it might stop proxy wars from escalating and spreading to the North Atlantic or the Pacific. But it is equally possible that nuclear eterrence has caused war and enabled national leaders to act with impunity.

Nuclear weapons have certainly not stopped Russia from waging aggressive war against Ukraine. On the contrary, President Vladimir Putin is using nuclear threats as a shield behind which to commit flagrant, grave, and systematic war crimes – and possibly crimes against humanity.

States that possess nuclear weapons have frequently gone to war with states that lack them. The erroneous belief that Iraq had developed nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons led the United States and its allies to invade the country against the will of the United Nations Security Council, triggering a humanitarian catastrophe and two decades of insecurity in the region and beyond. The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), by suggesting that the status quo of nuclear haves and have-nots should be maintained at all costs, has provided some cover for these actions, as well as for attacks on suspected nuclear facilities in Iraq, Iran, and Syria…………………………………………………………

Nuclear weapons, like all weapons of mass destruction, can never be used within the bounds of the laws of war. Fortunately, the same determined efforts that almost completely ended the deployment of landmines and cluster munitions resulted in the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons entering into effect in January 2021.

The TPNW – the only treaty that makes the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons illegal – was brought about by all those countries whose security was shattered through decades of proxy wars between nuclear-armed powers. Adopted by 122 countries, it constitutes a recognition that the laws of war apply equally to all states, no matter what is in their national arsenal.

Weapons designed to mass murder civilians, terrorize the world, and enable impunity for war crimes can no longer be relied on to “prevent war.” Another legacy of Putin’s aggression in Ukraine and his willingness to brandish the threat of nuclear weapons will be a renewed drive to rid the world of them. https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/ban-nuclear-weapons-now-by-anne-marie-slaughter-and-susi-snyder-2022-05

May 31, 2022 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Nuclear news as May ends – the problems keep getting worse 

Some bits of good news –  INDIGENOUS INSIGHTS ON HEALING LAND AND SKY.       Cuban Farmers Fight Land Degradation with Sustainable Management.

It’s a worrying thought that everyone might just get ”Ukraine fatigue” and let this cruel war grind on.  In the meantime, the global nuclear industry is suffering all sorts of upsets, while Elon Musk and the rest of the space war enthusiasts are carrying on, as if there were no problems at all.   Hard to single out the most significant nuclear failure, but I think that it would have to be France, where the financial and safety problems just keep getting worse.  

INTERNATIONAL.

What to do about humanity entering “a spiral of self-destruction” – a UN Summit now on in Indonesia.   The U.N. “Sustainable Development Goals”- just ”greenwashing” – claim experts.   Why nuclear power can’t solve climate crisis – in fact makes it worse- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7rG7-P7E5M&t=306s

When Henry Kissinger gives advice on ending the Ukraine conflict, the West should listen.     Ukraine, Taiwan: Biden trip designed to recruit S. Korea, Japan into global anti-Russia/China bloc. They’re Just Outright Telling Us That Peace In Ukraine Is Not An Option.

 Book Review: ”Atoms and Ashes’‘ – A Timely History of Nuclear Catastrophes.

Asianization of NATO: China, Russia react to Biden visit   War for Taiwan, nuclear war for Japan: Biden pushes two-front campaign against China, Russia.       Like the rest of Europe’s few remaining non-members, Ireland being prepped for NATO .         Expanding NATO – it’s a $quillion bonanza for the U.S. weapons industries!!     Why environmentalists are pushing back against nuclear energy .

Nuclear is already well past its sell-by date.    After the meltdown.

Billionaires from USA and Denmark have inordinate influence on public opinion about molten salt nuclear reactors’.     Caitlin Johnson, rogue journalist, on corporate control of the media.

“Don’t work for climate wreckers:” UN chief warns young people off fossil fuels.

Curbing other climate pollutants, not just CO2, gives Earth a chance.

Experts call on governments to start including animal welfare in sustainable development governance.

UKRAINE. For the first time in history, nuclear sites have been caught up in the middle of warfare. Ukrainian negotiator rules out deal with Russia.

USA. 

CANADA. Canada can achieve 100% zero-emission electricity by 2035 – with renewable energy, storage. energy efficiency , and interprovincial transmission

UK. 

JAPAN. Japan ratchets up rhetoric against Russia, China re air patrols, Ukraine . Japan’s new ‘green economy’ bond may fund nuclear projects.   

Fukushima.  A 5.5 Magnitude Earthquake Shakes Area Near the Fukushima Disaster Site. Fukushima reactor sitting on shaky base raises quake concerns. 

Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, work to remove contaminated pipes suspended again due to detection of high radiation dose at level of “death by exposure for several hours. Debris in sediment, bottom of Fukushima Unit 1 Neutron radiation detected at high levels. Hiroshima man’s anime sheds light on Fukushima nuclear project. 

Cancer Patients Seek Damages from Fukushima Nuclear Plant. Plaintiff diagnosed with thyroid cancer after the Fukushima nuclear accident: “I have suffered without telling anyone. Lawsuit by evacuees from nuclear power plant accident: Supreme Court to rule on June 17 for the first time on the government’s responsibility. 

Japan’s plan to release toxic water into sea irresponsible.

MARSHALL ISLANDS. Nuclear tragedy in the Marshall Islands.

SOUTH KOREA. South Korea to keep import ban on Japan seafood due to Fukushima concern.

FRANCE. A warning from France, about nuclear delusions of grandeurl France’s Nuclear Industry Slides Into Crisis. Global heating is affecting France’s nuclear reactors, as water temperatures rise in the rivers. EDF Nuclear Failures Undermine Europe’s Push to Exit Russian Gas.

RUSSIA. Putin Ready For “Serious Negotiations” With Zelensky, But Says Western Arms ‘Destabilizing’ Situation/ Energy sanctions on Russia – Russia’s nuclear supply chain should be sanctioned, too.

EUROPE. Nuclear dependence. Europe remains economically dependent on Russia as long as it has nuclear energy. Where will Europe store its radioactive waste?

CROATIA. Mounting opposition from Bosnia, to Croatia’s nuclear waste dump plan.

AFRICA. Climate Summit failed to support African communities on the front lines of the climate crisis.

ISRAEL. No Iran nuclear deal ‘worse’ than even a bad one: Israel sources.

IRELAND. Ireland’s Environment Minister Eamon Ryan rules out nuclear power as option in transition from fossil fuel dependence

PHILIPPINES. Philippines’ Marcos in nuclear plant revival talks with S.Korea.

INDIA. France is offering 6 new nuclear reactors to India, even though India’s nukes are not within the IAEA safety regulatory framework. Russia’s Outsized Role in India’s Nuclear Power Program.

FINLAND. Fennovoima withdraws from its new nuclear reactor application.

PACIFIC ISLANDS. Vulnerable island ecology threatened as developed countries dump waste, conduct nuclear test in Pacific.

AUSTRALIA. Julian Assange’s family says Australia’s election result brings renewed hope for WikiLeaks founder’s release. Labor urged to act to prevent Julian Assange extradition. Australia’s new Prime Minister backs the UN Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty.

May 30, 2022 Posted by | Christina's notes | Leave a comment

A warning from France, about nuclear delusions of grandeur,

Nuclear: ”  Industrialists are in denial, politicians know nothing about it  “

France had the madness of grandeur in wanting to build more and more powerful reactors.

Gaspard d’Allens and Émilie Massemin (Reporterre)  Reporterre 28th May 2022

Nuclear ”  unacceptable  “, ”  industrial disaster  ” of the EPR , France and its ”  delusions of grandeur  “… Pillar of the fight against the atom, the engineer Bernard Laponche warns of the dangers of this technology.

You are reading Bernard Laponche’s great interview. The first part is here .

Reporterre — How do you analyze the return to grace of the nuclear industry by Emmanuel Macron, with the construction of six  EPR2s and the study of eight additional ones  ?

Bernard Laponche — It’s communication  ! This operation is part of the mythology that goes back to General de Gaulle, and that Emmanuel Macron has taken over, according to which civil and military nuclear power is the basis of France’s independence.

EDF ‘s nuclear fleet is going through its worst crisis since its birth. The stalemate of the Flamanville EPR site , the chain shutdowns of reactors due to problems of corrosion and cracks, the problems at the Orano reprocessing plants in La Hague and the manufacture of Mox  [1] in Marcoule, EDF on the verge of bankruptcy … This is unheard of. Between 2010 and 2020, nearly a hundred incidents occurred throughout the park. Bernard Doroszczuk, president of the Nuclear Safety Authority ( ASN ), recognized this on April 7, 2021 during a hearing in the Senate  : “  A nuclear accident is possible in France.  »

In this situation, it seems very difficult to hold a triumphant speech on nuclear power. But the industrialists are in denial, the politicians who promote it know nothing about it. All are surfing on the argument of the fight against climate change to promote the sector.

Why nuclear won’t save the climate  ?

Greenhouse gas emissions are far from negligible. Nuclear fissions in an operating reactor, the source of the energy produced, do not effectively emit CO₂ . But all nuclear activities in a plant in operation – 800 employees on average – or during shutdowns for maintenance work, yes. These activities also very often cause leaks of gases that are very active in global warming, such as refrigerants (1,000 times warmer than CO₂) and especially sulfur hexafluoride (23,500 times more warming). The extraction of uranium from the mines of Canada, Niger and Kazakhstan, the construction of nuclear plants and power stations, the manufacture of nuclear fuels, the transport and storage of radioactive materials and waste also emit considerable quantities of CO ₂ and other greenhouse gases. For example, the work for each fourth ten-year inspection of a 900 megawatt ( MW ) reactor — there are thirty-two of them — mobilizes 5,000 workers, between six months and a year.

…………………………………..  Take the case of the Flamanville EPR : very high CO₂ emissions during construction — several thousand cubic meters of concrete, hundreds of tons of steel and thousands of workers since 2007 — and we do not know still not sure if it will start one day, or when.

Today, nuclear represents only 10 % of the world’s electricity production and only makes it possible to avoid 2.5 % of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. For it to contribute significantly to the fight against climate change, its share in the global electricity mix would have to be multiplied by at least five. Which, given the duration of construction of a plant, is absolutely technically impossible, even in fifty years.

Finally, due to accelerating global warming, power stations on the banks of the river will increasingly be confronted with warming waters and the reduction of this resource, and those on the seashore with rising ocean waters, caused by melting ice.

But above all, the nuclear issue cannot be reduced to greenhouse gas emissions. Other factors must be taken into account when choosing the electricity mix: the risk of a serious or major accident , the radioactive waste which accumulates for thousands of years, the proliferation of nuclear weapons through the enrichment uranium and the production of plutonium, via the reprocessing of irradiated fuel. This technique is unacceptable for the threat it poses to humanity.

As you remember, the setbacks accumulate for the sector. Which do you think is the most serious ?

The management of radioactive waste is very problematic. In the other nuclear-powered countries, irradiated fuel is considered waste as soon as it leaves the reactors. France, on the other hand, reprocesses its irradiated fuel to produce plutonium, initially for the atomic bomb. Nearly 70 tons of this radioactive material are currently stored at La Hague. The plutonium produced is now used to manufacture Mox fuel. Used in about twenty 900  MW reactors , it is more radioactive and more dangerous than ordinary enriched uranium fuel and is not reprocessed once it is irradiated.

The La Hague plant is one of the most dangerous installations in the world. It stores in its pools, unprotected against external attacks, the equivalent of 100 reactor cores in irradiated fuel. And she is aging. Some evaporators are down, preventing the site from operating at full capacity. The risk of bottling the fuels to be reprocessed and saturation of the storage pools is increasing.

It is urgent to stop reprocessing. The Nuclear Safety Authority recently mentioned the difficulties that are accumulating in the management of irradiated fuels. But the sector is stubborn, and prefers to mitigate the risk of saturation by asking to build a new large storage pool .

Even if we stopped reprocessing, the question of waste would still arise. What do you think of the only seriously studied project in France to bury them 500 meters underground in Bure (Meuse) ?

………………….. There are many criticisms and questions about this project, in particular from the Environmental Authority , independent experts, environmental organizations and local populations: on the legacy to future generations of hazardous waste for hundreds of thousands of years, on the risks during the 150-year period of construction and operation, on the choice of clay, on the risks of fire, hydrogen production, water pollution, etc. Such experiences abroad of deep burial of chemical or nuclear waste have proven to be catastrophic: Stocamine in France , Asse in Germany , WIPP in the United States. In addition, the cost of Cigéo, not yet estimated [4] , would be considerable, not to mention the CO ₂ emissions of such a project………………………………..

The number of reactors currently shut down is historically high. How do you assess the state of the park  ?

France had the madness of grandeur in wanting to build more and more powerful reactors.

After the French natural uranium graphite gas ( UNGG ) model was abandoned in 1969, France bought the American Westinghouse license for pressurized water reactors. Framatome  [5] was tasked with implementing the 1974 Messmer plan and delivered the first 900  MW reactors under Westinghouse license. EDF has thus built 34 reactors in less than ten years, which is a performance.

Framatome then developed a 1,300  MW model , then achieved a further power jump of around 1,450  MW . This latest model presented design problems from the start. The Civaux and Chooz plants were delivered two years late.

The difficulties continued with the EPR , of 1,650  MW , a veritable industrial disaster. The Flamanville EPR began construction in 2007 and was due to start in 2012. It has accumulated failures: concrete of its platform, welds to be redone several times, refusal of control command, falsification of equipment certificates, delivery of a non-compliant tank… The cost of the EPR , initially established at 3 billion euros, is now estimated at 19 billion euros by the Court of Auditors . The two Taishan reactors in China, built faster and commissioned in 2018 and 2019, are shut downsince the discovery of radioactive leaks from damaged fuel sheaths – without the cause of this phenomenon being understood yet.

……….. Every time you increase the power of a reactor, you have to redesign everything. The calculations to be performed are extremely complex. But if these leaks turned out to be linked to a design problem, it would be catastrophic for EDF , because all the EPRs would be affected.

Finally, for several months, EDF has been faced with a problem of corrosion and cracks on the emergency cooling circuits connected to the primary circuit of several reactors in the fleet, primarily its most powerful reactors (1,450 megawatts) at Civaux and Chooz, but also those of 1,300  MW and probably those of 900  MW . The Civaux, Chooz and Penly reactors have been shut down for several months and will perhaps remain so for years, for inspections after cutting and examination of the parts concerned in the safety cooling circuits ( RIS ) and the cooling circuits at the stop ( RRA), for repair. All reactors must be checked by the end of 2023. The cause of these faults is still poorly explained  [6] and would be multifactorial: quality of the steel of the parts, method of welding, layout of the circuits…

Currently, between a third and a half of EDF ‘s reactors are shut down due to these difficulties and almost daily incidents on such and such a reactor.

During the war in Ukraine, civilian nuclear power became a military target with the seizure of the Chernobyl and Zaporijia power plants. How do you view this new risk  ?

In Ukraine, the Chernobyl power plant, located on the northern border with Belarus, was equipped with four Soviet RBMK reactors commissioned between 1974 and 1983. After the 1986 disaster on reactor 4, the other three were definitively stopped between 1991 and 2000. There now remains on the site the destroyed reactor containing the molten core protected by a sarcophagus, a new arch intended to confine the radioactivity, but not at all designed to withstand strikes ; three reactors to be dismantled ; as well as storage facilities for irradiated fuel and radioactive waste. Many workers remain on site. The entry of Russian tanks into the prohibited fenced area of ​​​​2,600 km 2produced significant resuspension of radioactive aerosols and air contamination. Russian soldiers who dug trenches were irradiated. On March 30, the Russian army began to evacuate the Chernobyl site.

( Zaporizhia)…………………………………..The reactors, even shut down, and the storage facilities for irradiated fuels, must be supplied with cooling water and therefore constantly supplied with electricity. They are therefore extremely fragile vis-à-vis any external aggression in a situation of armed conflict or terrorist attack. Even if the reactor itself is not targeted, any bombardment, missile or shell can lead to a loss of water, by the piercing of a pipe for example, or of electricity by loss of the network or lack of fuel for emergency diesels. With the key to a risk of serious accident as in Three Mile Island (United States), even major as in Fukushima and Chernobyl. This intrinsic fragility is a warning for all nuclear plants and power stations in the world.

 Reporterre 28th May 2022  https://reporterre.net/Nucleaire-Les-industriels-sont-dans-le-deni-les-politiques-n-y-connaissent-rien

https://reporterre.net/Nucleaire-Les-industriels-sont-dans-le-deni-les-politiques-n-y-connaissent-rien

May 30, 2022 Posted by | France, politics, Reference | 2 Comments

After the meltdown

Because many health impacts appear years or decades after the radiological catastrophe, this allows governments, media and nuclear power proponents to claim minimal health impacts, and thereby to misrepresent the true state of affairs. This downplays the significant long-term health impacts of accidents, including among those who were not alive when the initial radioactive fallout occurred. 

The most effective, and precautionary, approach, is the prompt phaseout of nuclear power and its supporting industries, which would be beneficial for both health and the climate.

 https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2022/05/29/after-the-meltdown/  by beyondnuclearinternational, Reactors in a war zone and potential health consequences, By Cindy Folkers, Beyond Nuclear (US) and Dr Ian Fairlie, CND (UK)

Nuclear power plants are vulnerable to meltdown at any time, but they are especially vulnerable during wars, such as we are seeing in Ukraine, as evidenced by Russian attacks on the six-reactor Zaporizhizhia nuclear power facility and on the closed nuclear facility at Chornobyl in March 2022. 

Media articles often dwell on the conditions that could spark a meltdown, but attention should also be paid to the possible human health consequences. We answer some questions about the short-term and long-term consequences for human health of a radiological disaster at a nuclear power plant.

What happens at a reactor during a major nuclear power disaster?

The main dangers would arise at the reactor and at its irradiated fuel pool. Loss of power can result in both of these draining down, as their water contents leaked or boiled away. This would expose highly radioactive fuel rods, resulting in meltdowns and explosions as occurred at Fukushima in Japan in 2011, where large amounts of radioactivity were released into the environment. 

Explosions, as happened at both Chornobyl and Fukushima, eject radioactive nuclides high into the atmosphere, so that they travel long distances downwind via weather patterns, such as winds and rain. The result is radioactive fallout over large areas, as occurred at Chornobyl and Fukushima. The map below, from the European Environment Agency, shows that the dispersion and deposition of caesium-137 (Cs-137) from the Chornobyl catastrophe in Ukraine in 1986 was far-reaching — covering 40% of the land area of Europe, as it followed weather patterns over the 10-day period of the accident.

Contrary to what many people think, the radioactive fallout from Chornobyl reached the UK (2,500 km away) in 1986 as also shown in the above map [on original].

In Japan, radiation deposition from Fukushima in 2011 also fell in selective areas of Japan, with some radioactive particles traveling as far as 400 km. It is estimated that about 7% of Japan was seriously contaminated.

What is released during a major nuclear power accident?

In the first few days and weeks after the disaster, the first releases are generally short-lived radioactive gases and vapors including tritium (i.e. as tritiated water vapor), xenon, krypton, and iodine. These gases and vapors deliver harmful exposures to people living downwind of the nuclear plant when they are inhaled.

Later, hundreds of non-volatile nuclides can be released. These are non-gaseous, generally longer-lived radionuclides which can nevertheless travel long distances. They include strontium, caesium and plutonium. These pose dangers over longer time periods, contaminating the trees, farms, fields and urban areas where they settle and recirculate for decades afterwards. 

Although media reports usually talk about the half-lives of radionuclides (defined as the time it takes for half of the substance to decay), this is misleading, as the hazardous longevity of these nuclides is often 10 to 20 times longer than their radiological half-life. For example, nuclear waste consultants routinely use 300 years (i.e. 10 x the 30-year half-life of Cs-137) as a benchmark for the required longevity of waste facilities.

What are the harmful health effects?

Both short-lived and long-lived nuclides are dangerous.

Although short-lived radionuclides, for example, iodine-131 (I-131) with a half-life of 8.3 days, decay relatively quickly, this means that their doses-rates are high. Therefore during their short times they still give high doses. These cause (a) immediate impacts (e.g. skin rashes, metallic taste, nausea, hair loss, etc.) and (b) diseases years later, such as thyroid cancer, long after the nuclide has decayed away. As they decay, they result in exposures both externally (e.g. to skin) and internally, by inhalation or ingestion.

Longer-lived nuclides in the environment, such as caesium-131 (Cs-137) with a half-life of 30 years, also pose dangers. These occur both initially during the first phases of a catastrophe when they are inhaled or ingested but also decades later when soils and leaf litter are disturbed by storms or forest fires. They can continually expose subsequent generations of people and animals, especially those unable to evacuate from contaminated areas or who lack access to clean food. 

Can I protect myself and my family?

The main responses to a nuclear disaster are shelter, evacuation and stable iodine prophylaxis. The most important, in terms of preventing future cancer epidemics, is evacuation, in other words, reducing exposure time as much as possible.

However unless evacuations are properly planned and executed, they can add to the death toll. For an accurate account of what happened during the poorly planned evacuations after the Fukushima see Ian Fairlie’s article, Evacuations After Severe Nuclear Accidents.

Shelter means staying indoors and closing all doors and windows tightly, blocking any areas where air might enter. 

Potassium iodide (KI) tablets are proven to be effective in protecting against the harmful effects of fast-traveling iodine-131, as radioactive gases are the first to arrive in the event of a nuclear disaster. This protection is particularly important for pregnant women and children. However KI ONLY protects the thyroid and does NOT provide protection against exposures to the other nuclides commonly released during nuclear accidents, such as caesium-137, strontium-90 and tritium.

Harm down the generations and continuing recontamination

The contamination released by nuclear reactors doesn’t stay in one place. Through forest fires, heavy rains, snowmelt, and human activities such as war, radioactivity in plants and soils can be resuspended later on, becoming available for yet more inhalation or ingestion, ensuring ongoing exposures.

Much of the impact in populations in radioactively contaminated areas could be avoided if people were assisted in moving away in order to stop breathing contaminated air and eating contaminated food. In addition, Korsakov et al., (2020) showed that babies in contaminated areas suffered raised levels of birth defects and congenital malformations. 

Studies have also shown that animals living on contaminated lands show an increased sensitivity to radiation compared to their parents (Goncharova and Ryabokon, 1998) and accelerated mutation rates (Baker et al., 2017, Kesäniemi et al., 2017). 

What we already know about health effects from nuclear accidents

The radioactive plumes from the Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear catastrophe near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania US in 1979 resulted in local people complaining of skin rashes, metallic tastes in their mouths, hair loss (Wing, 1997) and the deaths of their pets. These are all deterministic (i.e. cell killing) effects due to exposures to the very high concentrations of the radioactive gases iodine, krypton, xenon and tritium vapor released during the TMI accident. Radiation levels were so high they overwhelmed radiation monitors, which then failed to measure levels, or erroneously registered them as zero.

At TMI, Chornobyl, and Fukushima, children exposed to radioactive iodine in the initial release experienced thyroid problems, including thyroid cancer. At Chornobyl, the link between this exposure and thyroid cancer was definitively made and even accepted by radiation authorities – see UNSCEAR (2008). After Fukushima, the incidence of thyroid cancer has increased to 20 times the expected number of thyroid cancers among those exposed as children. However the Japanese Government and its agencies have refrained from accepting these figures.

Because many health impacts appear years or decades after the radiological catastrophe, this allows governments, media and nuclear power proponents to claim minimal health impacts, and thereby to misrepresent the true state of affairs. This downplays the significant long-term health impacts of accidents, including among those who were not alive when the initial radioactive fallout occurred. 

For example, the Torch 2 report in 2016 showed a long list of other health effects apart from thyroid cancer after the Chornobyl disaster.

Women, especially pregnant women and children are especially susceptible to damage from radiation exposure. This means that they suffer effects at lower doses. Resulting diseases include childhood cancers, impaired neural development, lower IQ rates, respiratory difficulties, cardiovascular diseases, perinatal mortality and birth defects — some appearing for the first time within a family in the population studied (Folkers, 2021).

Animals are also harmed: they have been found to suffer from genetic mutations, tumors, eye cataracts, sterility and neurological impairment, along with reductions in population sizes and biodiversity in areas of high contamination. 

What needs to happen

During the confusion and upheaval of past nuclear catastrophes, authorities have invariably attempted to downplay the dangers, deny the risks, and even raise allowable levels of radiation exposures. In all cases, they have comprehensively failed to protect the public. This needs to change.

Officials need to acknowledge the connection between radiation exposures and negative health impacts, particularly among women and children, so that early diagnoses and treatments can be provided. Independent, rather than industry-funded, science is needed to fully understand the cross-generational impact of radiation exposures. 

Ultimately, the best protection is the elimination of the risk of exposure, whether from routine radioactive releases or from a major disaster. The most effective, and precautionary, approach, is the prompt phaseout of nuclear power and its supporting industries, which would be beneficial for both health and the climate.

Read the report with full references — Possible health consequences of radioactive releases from stricken nuclear reactors — and a second report by Dr. Fairlie — A Primer on Radiation and Radioactivity—here.

Cindy Folkers is the radiation and health hazards specialist at Beyond Nuclear. Dr. Ian Fairlie is an independent consultant on radioactivity in the environment.

May 30, 2022 Posted by | 2 WORLD, radiation, Reference | Leave a comment

Caitlin Johnson, rogue journalist, on corporate control of the media

The report says that toward this end the US government has deliberately circulated false or poorly evidenced claims about impending chemical weapons attacks, about Russian plans to orchestrate a false flag attack in the Donbass…………………. So they lied. They may hold that they lied for a noble reason, but they lied. They knowingly circulated information they had no reason to believe was true, and that lie was amplified by all the most influential media outlets in the western world.

Nowadays the CIA collaboration happens right out in the open, and people are too propagandized to even recognize this as scandalous. Immensely influential outlets like The New York Times uncritically pass on CIA disinfo which is then spun as fact by cable news pundits. The Washington Post has consistently refused to disclose the fact that its sole owner has been a CIA contractor when reporting on US intelligence agencies as per standard journalistic protocol.

Ten Times Empire Managers Showed Us That They Want To Control Our Thoughts

 https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2022/05/29/ten-times-empire-managers-showed-us-that-they-want-to-control-our-thoughts/ Caitlin Johnstone, 30 May 22,

The single most overlooked and under-appreciated aspect of our society is the fact that immensely powerful people are continuously working to manipulate the thoughts we think about the world. Whether you call it propaganda, psyops, perception management or public relations, it’s a real thing that happens constantly, and it happens to all of us.

And its consequences shape our entire world.

This should be at the forefront of our attention when examining news, trends and ideas, but it hardly ever gets mentioned. This is because the mass-scale psychological manipulation is succeeding. Propaganda only works if you don’t know it’s happening.

To be clear, I am not talking about some kind of wacky unsubstantiated conspiracy theory here. I am talking about a conspiracy fact. That we are propagandized by people with authority over us is not seriously in dispute by any well-informed good faith actor and has been extensively described and documented for many years.

More than this, the managers of the US-centralized empire which dominates the west and so much of the rest of the world have straightforwardly shown us that they propagandize us and want to propagandize us more. They have shown us with their actions, and they have at times come right out and told us with their words.

Here are just a few of those times.

1. Operation Mockingbird

Let’s start with maybe the best-known example. In 1977 Carl Bernstein published an article titled “The CIA and the Media” reporting that the CIA had covertly infiltrated America’s most influential news outlets and had over 400 reporters who it considered assets in a program known as Operation Mockingbird.

It was a major scandal, and rightly so. The news media are meant to report truthfully about what happens in the world, not manipulate public perception to suit the agendas of spooks and warmongers.

But it only got worse from there.

2. Intelligence operatives now just openly working in the media

Continue reading →

May 30, 2022 Posted by | 2 WORLD, media, Reference | Leave a comment

Nuclear dependence

Europe must cut off Russian nuclear supply routes, From Ecodefense, Russia, Beyond Nuclear 30 May 22

Europe needs a plan in place for cutting ties with Russia’s nuclear giant Rosatom, says 2021 Right Livelihood Award winner and co-chairman of Ecodefense Vladimir Slivyak.

With the European Union tightening its sanctions against Russia, banning Russian imports of oil, gas, and coal has emerged as one powerful tool to starve the Kremlin’s war machine of funding it needs to continue its brutal aggression in Ukraine.

But one other major source of Russia’s revenue in Europe has largely remained unnoticed: Russia’s supplies of nuclear fuel and services to European nuclear power plants.

Seeking to close this gap in Europe’s concerted action against the war in Ukraine and to provide a comprehensive picture of the union’s reliance on Russian nuclear technology, environmentalists Patricia Lorenz, of Friends of the Earth Europe, and Vladimir Slivyak, a 2021 Right Livelihood Award laureate and co-chairman of the Russian environmental group Ecodefense, jointly presented over Zoom Russian Grip on EU Nuclear Power – an overview of Russia’s businesses and supply chains serving the European nuclear market. 

The report comes on the heels of the European Parliament’s resolution demanding a full embargo on Russian nuclear fuel as well as oil, gas, and coal, and as Moscow’s war reveals the terrifyingly irresponsible actions at the hands of Russian troops at or near the sites of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants.

Through its uranium-producing mines, the fuel manufacturing subsidiary TVEL, and a number of other enterprises – including the German firm NUKEM and the Czech-based Škoda JS – as well as ties with France’s Framatome, Russia’s nuclear giant Rosatom earns billions supplying uranium, fuel assemblies, and maintenance, storage and transport services to nuclear companies and power plants in European countries. This includes fuel deliveries to Soviet-built nuclear power plants in Ukraine.

According to a late April report carried by Rosatom’s corporate outlet Strana Rosatom, the corporation’s total foreign revenue in 2021 rose 20.3% year on year, reaching $8.9 bn. In the first three months of 2022, Rosatom’s foreign earnings grew by 13%. TVEL’s revenue from nuclear fuel exports stood at $0.7 bn in 2020, said the corporation’s annual report for that year.…………………………………..

……….. Ecodefense’s Slivyak:

“Europe must stop its cooperation with Rosatom – stop participating in joint projects, including building nuclear power plants. Stop buying nuclear fuel from Rosatom,” he said.

…………. “A plan to replace nuclear energy with energy from other sources must be created, and the [Russia-dependent] operating reactors must be shut down,” Slivyak said.  https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2022/05/29/nuclear-dependence/   

May 30, 2022 Posted by | EUROPE, politics international | Leave a comment

Palisades atomic reactor’s shutdown for good, leaving high risk radioactive wastes

No More Risk of Reactor Core Meltdown, No More Radioactive Waste Generation, but Significant Waste and Contamination Risks Continue

Beyond Nuclear, Kevin Kamps, COVERT TOWNSHIP, MI and TAKOMA PARK, MD, MAY 21, 2022–“We are thankful that Palisades shut down before it melted down. The 51-year old atomic reactor has the worst embrittled reactor pressure vessel in the U.S., which was at increasing risk of catastrophic failure due to pressurized thermal shock. To accommodate Palisades’ operation, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) simply weakened and rolled back the safety standards, multiple times over decades. Palisades also has a severely degraded reactor lid, and worn out steam generators that needed replacement for the second time in the reactor’s history. All three were major pathways to core meltdown, which an NRC commissioned report, CRAC-2 (short for Calculation of Reactor Accident Consequences, also known as the 1982 Sandia Siting Study or as NUREG/CR-2239) estimated would have caused a thousand peak early fatalities (acute radiation poisoning deaths), 7,000 peak early radiation injuries, 10,000 peak cancer deaths (latent cancer fatalities), and $52.6 billion in property damage. When adjusted for inflation alone, property damages would have surmounted $150 billion in Year 2021 dollar figures.  

And as Associated Press investigative reporter Jeff Donn wrote in his four-part series “Aging Nukes,” shortly after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe began in Japan in 2011, populations have soared around U.S. atomic reactors, so casualties would now be even higher. Donn cited reactor pressure vessel embrittlement and pressurized thermal shock risk as the top example of NRC regulatory retreat. Thank goodness no such nuclear nightmare unfolded at Palisades during its operations, but Consumers Energy (from 1971 to 2007) and Entergy (from 2007 to 2022) were willing to take those risks on the shoreline of the Great Lakes, drinking water supply for more than 40 million people in eight U.S. states, two Canadian provinces, and a very large number of Native American First Nations downstream and downwind, as well as up the food chain. Now, by definition, once the irradiated nuclear fuel is removed from the core, a reactor meltdown cannot happen at Palisades.

But the likely more than 700 metric tons of forever deadly irradiated (euphemistically called spent or used) nuclear fuel, containing more than 1,800 pressurized water reactor assemblies, and comprising more than 150 million curies of hazardous radioactivity, still represent a very significant risk. The vast majority is still stored in the indoor wet storage pool, at risk of a loss of cooling water leading to a catastrophic radioactivity release to the environment. While transfer of irradiated nuclear fuel into dry cask storage represents an increase in safety, it involves the movement of very heavy loads over the pool, and must be done very carefully. In October 2005, a 107-ton transfer cask containing irradiated nuclear fuel dangerously dangled over the pool for two days, and was nearly dropped from its crane by operator error. Had that happened, the ensuing pool fire could have dwarfed even CRAC-II’s casualties and property damage figures cited above, as Palisades’ pool is not even located in a radiological containment structure. Recently, in its careless rush job to empty a storage pool, Holtec, which plans to takeover at Palisades by the end of June, with NRC’s complicit rubber-stamp, caused a radioactive water spill that doused and dosed a worker at its Oyster Creek, New Jersey decommissioning project. In 2018, Holtec’s flawed dry cask storage design at San Onofre, California nearly caused a 50-ton loaded canister to fall nearly 20-feet. For these and many other reasons, Beyond Nuclear, Don’t Waste Michigan, and Michigan Safe Energy Future have legally challenged Holtec’s takeover of Palisades. But the NRC has refused for 15 months to grant us our day in court. We do call for expedited transfer of irradiated nuclear fuel out of the vulnerable pool, but not into Holtec’s dubious and defective dry casks, but rather into safe and secure Hardened On-Site Storage, in order to protect health and environment for the decades the irradiated nuclear fuel will likely be stuck at Palisades with nowhere to go. But Palisades’ shutdown for good means no more high-level radioactive waste will be generated there, which is a very good thing.

Due to all the risks above, Governor Whitmer and Energy Secretary Granholm’s unwise last-second scheme to bail out Palisades with many hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money, and keep it operating for nine more years, must be stopped. So too is Holtec CEO Krishna Singh’s bait and switch to construct and operate a so-called Small Modular (Nuclear) Reactor at the Palisades site an outrageous, high-risk non-starter.

It is now time to safeguard and secure the high-level radioactive waste stored on-site, to clean up the widespread radioactive contamination of the property before it further threatens Lake Michigan and adjacent groundwater aquifers, and to carry out a just transition for the workforce and host region, into the long overdue clean, safe, and affordable renewable and efficient energy system of the future.”e a so-called Small Modular (Nuclear) Reactor at the Palisades site an outrageous, high-risk non-starter.

May 30, 2022 Posted by | decommission reactor, USA | Leave a comment

Elon Musk’s satellites for the war in Ukraine

From CNGNN Italy, 29 May 22, Elon Musk, the richest man in the world whose wealth nearly doubled in the two pandemic years, offered $ 44 billion to buy Twitter, which he says would become “the platform for free speech across the country world“. Elon Musk owns SpaceX, an aerospace company based in California.

SpaceX makes rockets and satellites to build Starlink, a broadband Internet system that once is completed will cover the entire world. SpaceX has so far put 2,500 satellites into orbit with rockets carrying 50 satellites at a time and plans to place 42,000 Starlink satellites in low orbit occupying 80% of this space.

Starlink was presented as a commercial satellite system but has fundamental military applications. In fact, satellites in low orbit transmit signals at a much higher speed than those in geosynchronous orbit around the equator. The US Army and Air Force fund and test Starlink to use its military capabilities. For example, last March, the US Air Force reported that conventional and nuclear dual-capacity F-35A fighters had carried out data transmission using Start link satellites at speed 30 times faster than traditional connections.SpaceX’s Starlink satellites are already being used by the Ukrainian military to guide drones, artillery shells, and missiles into Russian positions. This is confirmed by General Dickinson, head of the US Space Command, who declared to the Senate that “Elon Musk’s Starlink demonstrates in Ukraine what the mega-constellations of satellites can do“. Elon Musk’s SpaceX is part of the group of ten largest commercial satellite operators collaborating with US Space Command at the Vandenberg military space base in California.

May 30, 2022 Posted by | space travel, USA, weapons and war | 1 Comment

Ukrainian negotiator rules out deal with Russia

 RT Sat, 28 May 2022  Presidential adviser Mikhail Podoliak said that any agreement with Moscow “isn’t worth anything

 Despite Russian advances in the Donbass, Ukrainian presidential adviser and peace talks negotiator Mikhail Podoliak declared on Saturday that Kiev would not look for a peace agreement with Moscow. His statement contradicts earlier overtures toward diplomacy by President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“Any agreement with Russia isn’t worth a broken penny,” Podoliak declared in a Telegram post. “Russia has proved that it is a barbarian country that threatens world security.”

“Ukraine will fight with Russia until the victorious finale,” he continued, concluding that “A barbarian can only be stopped by force.”

Podoliak led the Ukrainian delegation during several rounds of unsuccessful peace talks during the initial weeks of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine. Now, his denunciation of talks with Moscow stands in stark contrast to President Volodymyr Zelensky’s acknowledgement earlier this week that he “may try and go the diplomatic way,” should Russian President Vladimir Putin be willing to talk directly………

A similar pattern has played out since the conflict began in February, with Zelensky periodically expressing interest in negotiating a settlement with Russia, only for his officials, the US State Department, or Zelensky himself to express the opposite sentiment shortly afterwards. After he announced his willingness to enter negotiations earlier this week, Zelensky came out on Friday and told his citizens that “there will be no alternative to our Ukrainian flags” flying over the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk – primarily Russian-speaking areas that declared independence from Ukraine in February…………..

Only a handful of dissenting voices – former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger among them – have urged the Ukrainians to sue for peace. Meanwhile, UK PM Johnson has instead called on the UK’s allies to send heavier weapons to Kiev, while the Biden administration reportedly gave the green light to deliver long-range rocket artillery systems to Ukraine   https://www.rt.com/russia/556242-ukraine-negotiator-rejects-talks/

May 30, 2022 Posted by | politics international, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Putin Ready For “Serious Negotiations” With Zelensky, But Says Western Arms ‘Destabilizing’ Situation

 https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/russia-ready-serious-negotiations-zelensky-western-arms-are-destabilizing-situation. BY TYLER DURDEN, SUNDAY, MAY 29, 2022 –

Russian President Vladimir Putin in a Saturday phone call with his French and German counterparts Emmanuel Macron and Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Moscow stands “ready” to re-engage in peace talks with the Ukrainian government. The phone call came as some Western officials have belatedly admitted that Russian forces are making steady gains in the Donbas, also as the Luhansk is about to come under total Russian control.

The focus of the call included Macron and Scholz urging the Russian leader to immediately hold “serious negotiations” with President Zelensky; however the European leaders reportedly requested that captured Azov battalion members from Mariupol must be released, which the Kremlin balked at, also given the group’s neo-Nazi identity.

A follow-up Kremlin statement said of the call that “Special attention was given to the state of affairs on the negotiating track, which is frozen because of Kiev. Vladimir Putin confirmed Russia is open to resuming the dialogue.”

But neither side as yet appears willing to make serious concessions. For example, while Zelensky has in past days admitted an increasingly “difficult” situation for Ukrainian forces fighting in Donbas, he’s still pledging that he’ll never recognize Russian authority over any Ukrainian territory, even including Crimea.

In his latest statements in a Friday night speech, he vowed that Donbas will be “Ukrainian again”… 

“That’s why we have to increase our defense, increase our resistance, and Donbas will be Ukrainian again. Even if Russia will bring all suffering and ruination to Donbas, we will rebuild every town, every community. There’s no real alternative,” Zelensky stressed. 

Putin, for his part, appears unwilling to get serious about negotiations so long as huge quantities of Western weapons are pouring into the Ukrainian side. He warned Macron and Scholz in the Saturday call that continuing the arms flow is “dangerous”, saying the situation “risks of further destabilization of the situation and aggravation of the humanitarian crisis,” according to a Kremlin statement.

The Russian leader condemned the dangerous “ongoing pumping of Ukraine with Western weapons…” as the conflict continues to slide into a full-blown proxy war between Russia and NATO.

This as the Biden administration is widely reported to be readying authorization of long-range missiles for Ukraine, also as it appears Stinger anti-air rockets are being transported to Kiev in larger numbers.

Putin also discussed with Macron and Scholz the growing global food and wheat supply crisis due to Black Sea port blockages… “Based on specific data, Vladimir Putin explained the real reasons for the difficulties with food supplies, which were the result of the misguided economic and financial policies of Western countries, as well as the anti-Russian sanctions they imposed,” the Kremlin readout said. Russian officials have also laid central blame on Ukrainian forces mining their own ports as well.

The Kremlin statement emphasized, “Russia is ready to help find options for unhampered exports of grain, including exports of Ukrainian grain from the Black Sea ports”. And further: “Increasing supplies of Russian fertilizers and agricultural products will also help reduce tension on the global food market, which, of course, would require removing the relevant restrictions.” 

May 30, 2022 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

”Commercial” nuclear power in space? – it’s all about weapons and war.

US military wants to demonstrate new nuclear power systems in space by 2027,By Elizabeth Howell , Space.com , 29 May 22,

That’s just one year after DARPA plans to test out its own nuclear power prototypes.Add the Defense Innovation Unit to a growing list of U.S. government organizations furthering their work in nuclear power in pace.

The organization, which seeks to get the military ready to use emergent commercial products, announced two prototype contracts on May 17 “to demonstrate the next generation of nuclear propulsion and power capability for spacecraft.” The ultimate aim is an orbital flight demonstration in 2027, DIU officials said in a statement(opens in new tab). 

The contracts went to two companies, Ultra Safe Nuclear and Avalanche Energy,  to demonstrate nuclear propulsion and power capabilities for small spacecraft that would operate in cislunar (Earth-moon) space. (The values of the contracts were not disclosed in the release.)

It’s part of the U.S. military’s pressing focus on cislunar activities to keep an eye on commercial and government activities that will ramp up there in the coming decades, including the international NASA-led Artemis program that seeks to put people on the moon in the 2020s…………………………   https://www.space.com/nuclear-power-propulsion-space-defense-innovation-unit-contracts

May 30, 2022 Posted by | space travel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Nuclear safety warning threatens to derail Boris Johnson’s energy revolution

Austria objects to Sizewell C plant in its latest attack on British energy policy, Telegraph, By Helen Cahill 29 May 2022 . Boris Johnson’s plans for a nuclear energy revolution are facing a fresh hurdle after the Austrian government officially raised concerns about the safety of a new reactor design.

In a letter to the Business Department, Austria’s energy ministry raised the spectre of “severe accidents with high releases” at the Sizewell C plant to be built in Suffolk.The warning, made under the Espoo convention in which nearby countries are allowed to comment on nuclear projects, raises the prospect of legal action to derail Sizewell and will be considered by the Government as part of a planning decision in coming months.

…………………… The Austrians said that it is “questionable” whether the Sizewell design could guarantee that radioactivity will be retained within the reactor’s core.

They warned that the high power of the EPR reactor reduces the time available for an operator to react to any fault and prevent a major accident, and added: “At this time, it cannot be proven beyond doubt that severe accidents with high releases cannot occur.”

The intervention comes after Britain put nuclear power at the heart of its long-term energy strategy. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/05/29/nuclear-safety-warning-threatens-derail-johnsons-energy-revolution/ 

May 30, 2022 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries