nuclear-news

The Russian Nuclear Company The West Can’t Live Without

When European countries want to decommission aging nuclear plants, they often call Nukem. There’s only one catch.

Jonathan Tirone and Petra Sorge, May 13, 2023 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-13/the-russian-nuclear-company-the-west-can-t-live-witho

Cutting the heart out of a nuclear power plant is a surgical procedure that only a few specialists are equipped to handle.

The process begins by launching plasma-torch-wielding robots into an empty pool surrounded by thick concrete walls. From there, the remote-controlled machines make circular cuts, as if slicing pineapple rings, through a 600-ton steel vessel that contains radiation generated over decades of splitting atoms. These rings are then diced into meter-long pieces and transported via secure convoy to radioactive waste repositories, where they are left to cool down — indefinitely.

Behind the scenes, scores of nuclear engineers, radiation safety experts and state regulators monitor this operation, which can cost upwards of a billion dollars and take years to plan and execute. The expertise needed to pull this off without error is why “there are only a handful of players” in the high-radiation decommissioning business, said Uniper SE’s Michael Baechler, who is supervising the dismantling of Sweden’s Barsebaeck Nuclear Power Plant.

Among the oldest and most experienced is Germany’s Nukem Technologies Engineering Services GmbH, which for decades has offered its unique services in Asia and Africa and across Europe. Nukem engineers helped contain radiation from the destroyed reactors in Chernobyl and Fukushima. They helped lead the clean-up of an atomic-fuel factory in Belgium. In France, the company devised ways to treat waste from the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor.

With researchers predicting that cleaning up after aging nuclear power plants will evolve into a $125 billion global business in the near future, Nukem should be ideally positioned to capitalize on the moment.

Except for one thing: the company is wholly owned by Rosatom Corp., the Kremlin-controlled nuclear giant, putting it in the center of an uncomfortable standoff. 

While Germany has been vocal in urging EU countries to stop importing Rosatom’s nuclear fuel, a highly specialized commodity used for power plants, of which Rosatom is the world’s biggest exporter, authorities do not want to prevent Nukem from doing business in Germany, according to three government officials who asked not to be identified in return for discussing private deliberations. As sanctions have not been implemented, doing so would violate EU competition laws, they said.

Located in the rolling hills and orchards just east of Frankfurt, Nukem is a niche player in Rosatom’s global empire. At the same time, it exposes the fault line running through the EU’s approach to nuclear power. Unlike Russia, which has cultivated expertise across all of the industrial processes needed to convert and enrich uranium atoms into forms usable for generating energy, Europe’s hodgepodge development of nuclear technologies has left states dependent on outside providers to fill gaps in production and services. Experts estimate it would take at least four or five years before the EU could match Rosatom’s fuel-manufacturing capacity, but even if that process were sped up, it would require more time still to replicate its global reach and array of services. 

Pressure to cut Rosatom out of European supply chains has mounted since Russian forces seized Europe’s biggest nuclear power station outside the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia and sent in Rosatom engineers to run it. The fact that it or Nukem, a subsidiary, haven’t been sanctioned, “should raise some serious questions,” said Darya Dolzikova, a researcher at the Royal United Services Institute. But more than a year later, it’s still up to individual companies to decide whether to continue doing business with the energy giant. So far, many are proceeding as usual: Rosatom saw exports surge more than 20% in the year after Russia invaded Ukraine.

Unlike Germany’s seizure of Russian storage and refining assets after the war, Nukem doesn’t have as much fixed infrastructure to go after. If sanctions were to be imposed, Rosatom might simply close shop or move Nukem’s headquarters to a friendlier jurisdiction.

This has left Nukem stuck in a strange kind of limbo, as customers interested in tapping its expertise are now faced with the choice of whether to work with a Kremlin-controlled company. Its experience is particularly valuable as its 120 mostly German engineers can work across the nuclear supply chain, a huge advantage in light of the fact that more young nuclear engineers study to build new installations than tear down existing ones. The International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna has warned of an acute shortage of decommissioning workers.

“In Europe,” said Mark Hibbs, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who has been tracking the company for more than three decades, “Nukem presides over a large pool of know-how.”

But even without sanctions, traditional markets such as Lithuania and Finland have stopped working with Nukem and Rosatom, respectively. Others, including the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Bulgaria are diversifying away from Russian suppliers. On a day-to-day level, it’s gotten trickier to do business since the Russian invasion, said Nukem Chief Executive Officer Thomas Seipolt. Money transfers take longer, as does securing the authorizations needed to ship technologies across borders, and some customers have been hesitant to sign contracts, he said. A consulting arrangement “was paused and then cancelled following the start of the Ukraine conflict,” said Boris Schucht, chief executive officer of the fuel consortium Urenco. Due to the political situation, Nukem’s Seipolt noted, “the further development of the company” has “become uncertain.”

To avoid continued decline, “the owner is trying to sell Nukem to a strategic investor by around the middle of the year,” Seipolt said. “We are already in talks with interested parties,” he added, without elaborating on how a buyer might skirt EU financial sanctions to take a stake in the company. 

If that doesn’t happen, however, the company’s future may lie outside of Europe. While sanctions against Rosatom and Nukem could choke off the immediate supply of fuel and services within the EU bloc, they’d be harder to enforce in the company’s biggest growth markets. Rosatom is already building new nuclear plants in Bangladesh, China, Egypt in Turkey, with another dozen supply contracts under negotiation. Those deals potentially lock in cash flows and political clout for decades ahead.

For now at least, Nukem is finding some of its new projects further afield. At the Xudabao Nuclear Power Plant northeast of Beijing, Nukem specialists are currently designing a waste treatment center to accommodate the two new Rosatom reactors that will go online by 2028.

“We have already signed contracts,” Nukem announced last month. Next year, Rosatom’s German subsidiary will start shipping components to China.

May 16, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

A reader bemoans the disastrous mediocrity of America’s leaders

Sarah 13 May 23

Our government is run by second-raters. Mediocrities in the state department and national security apparatus have seized the political steering wheel, because president Joe Biden, like senator Dianne “No Show” Feinstein and many others in our extensive gerontocracy do not inspire confidence. And the results are disastrous for Americans. De-dollarization across much of the planet and the possibility of a two-front, conceivably radioactive war against China and/or Russia. You think these two developments sound far-fetched? Well, the former is already underway, and as for the latter, rabid neo-cons and jingoistic four-star generals have stepped into the vacuum at the top and on your TV screen, and these dimwits can’t imagine losing, so now we move closer than ever before, even during the Cuban Missile Crisis, to igniting nuclear Armageddon.

Just picture the Ukrainian drone that struck the Kremlin May 3 and ask yourself what would have happened had a Russian drone collided with the roof of the white house? The U.S. might well have launched nuclear missiles – amirite? We denizens of planet earth are all very lucky, and especially those of us who reside in American cities, that Russian leaders were rational enough not to target western metropolises with nuclear warheads. They have made clear that they won’t be further provoked, even by preposterous U.S. media claims that the Kremlin droned itself, claims that reveal yet again two sorry facts: first, our press outlets think we are morons and second, they parrot CIA talking points.

That’s the hot war. Then there’s the economic one. Dollar boosters like Treasury secretary Janet Yellen like to note that it would be very difficult for any other country’s money to replace the greenback as the world’s reserve currency. True enough. But who says the world has to HAVE a reserve currency? What China, Russia and the Global South show, as they stop trading in dollars and dump U.S. Treasuries, is that they can conduct business in their own currencies and will do so, having witnessed Washington’s idiotic sanctions on numerous nations and thus having been terrorized by the imbecilic weaponization of the dollar. So most of the world, aside from the west, now takes steps to abandon the U.S. financially. The dollar’s reign is ending, and soon we Americans will face a radically altered and indisputably grimmer future. All thanks to the stupidity of the very pedestrian people at the top in Washington, starting back in the Clinton administration.

As for the China-Russia alliance, anyone with a brain could see that coming. But not our congressmembers. And those forewarned had not a care in the world. As long ago as 1997, senator Joe Biden proclaimed: “And then the Russians say to me ‘You keep expanding NATO, we’re going to make friends with China.’ I almost burst out laughing. I could barely contain myself, I said ‘Good luck to you guys. If China doesn’t work out, try Iran.’” Well, who’s laughing now? Not the U.S. president, who can’t even get China’s leader to answer his phone calls. Not the American people, who, according to some polls (58 percent, said a Reuters-Ipsos poll in October), worry that this administration of very unexceptional people will enrage the Russia-China colossus and thus stumble into a nuclear holocaust.

Meanwhile congress throws gasoline on this political dumpster fire with its Ukrainian Victory Resolution. In the House, Tennessee Dem Steve Cohen and South Carolina Republican Joe Wilson sponsored this bill. A companion resolution, introduced by senators – Connecticut Dem Richard Blumenthal, liberal darling and Rhode Island Dem Sheldon Whitehouse, and South Carolina Republican Lindsay “Bombs Away” Graham – now percolates through that chamber of the capitol. This very unfortunate and wildly provocative legislation mandates “the restoration of Ukraine’s 1991 borders and to bring Ukraine into NATO after the war is over,” according to Daniel Larison in Responsible Statecraft April 28.

This is called asking for trouble. Because these are precisely the points that led to Russia’s invasion in the first place. Moscow tried to negotiate over Kiev joining NATO, but Washington turned up its nose. And as far as the Russians who populate the Donbas are concerned, well, it looked like Ukraine had ethnic cleansing for them on the schedule, and the west didn’t object. So Russia invaded. In short, congress now actively touts its own recipe for nuclear World War III, since that is what the Ukrainian Victory Resolution will bring.

That same last week in April, NATO delivered depleted uranium weapons to Kiev. Over to the east, the U.S. declared it would dock nuclear warheads in South Korea for the first time in 40 years, despite long-established promises to denuclearize the Korean peninsula. Not surprisingly, Beijing responded with fury. Has ruthless Washington decided that if it can’t rule the world, it will destroy it? Hard to tell, because it’s even harder to tell who really controls the North American ship of state – but whoever it is, we need a change, pronto, because the current inside the Beltway gang appears poised to sink it to the ocean floor.

But back to money. In 2022 “the dollar share of reserve currencies slid 10 times faster than the average in the past two decades,” wrote Pepe Escobar in the Cradle April 27. “Now it is no longer far-fetched to project a global dollar share of only 30 percent by the end of 2024.” For this economic catastrophe besetting the United States, blame falls squarely on the white house.

At the Biden administration’s behest, $7 billion in Afghan money was sanctioned, that is, stolen, and $300 billion in Russian assets. You can’t pull nonsense like this without blowback. But the Biden clique thought you could, since Washington has been sanctioning the bejesus out of everybody and their grandmother starting back during the Clinton regime. The Biden coterie was wrong, however. They overplayed their hand, and now the dollar is on its long, slow way to becoming kaput, as we Americans traipse down the primrose path to penury. According to Escobar, the trigger “was in February 2024, when over $300 billion in Russian foreign reserves were ‘frozen’ by the collective west, and every other country on the planet began fearing for their own dollar stores abroad.” That’s a heckuva job from the white house.

Once the dollar’s global share drops to 30 percent, it is no longer truly the reserve currency. And then we Americans start to sink in a sea of hyperinflation. “Demand for dollar-denominated bonds is slowly but surely collapsing. Trillions of U.S. dollars will inevitably start to go back home – shattering the dollar’s purchasing power and its exchange rate.” Quite an accomplishment for the president who crowed “the ruble will be rubble!” Well, it isn’t. But the prognosis for OUR currency ain’t rosy – with this decline coming sooner than any Beltway bigwigs or economists predicted.

There’s a bright side to this calamity, however, namely the end of the empire and the possible restoration of some semblance of a republic. “The fall of a weaponized currency will end up smashing the whole logic behind the U.S.’ global network of 800+ military bases and their operating budgets.” Hey, the fall of the dollar could even sideline humanity’s date with nuclear annihilation, fast-tracked by China hawks in the U.S. congress. So we’ll be poor for a while, here in the heart of the formerly Exceptional Empire, but, defying the lousy odds created for us by our rulers, we’ll still be alive.
Ottenberg

There are 1500 people a day in the usa dying of homelessness . The wretched ruler mediocraties dont care

May 16, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Japan’s nuclear contaminated wastewater dump plan a cause of concerns even for New Caledonia

By Global Times: May 14, 2023 

Japan’s plan to dump nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the ocean has been strongly condemned by the international community. Nonetheless, Tokyo is still going its own way and speeding up the plan to make the rest of the world pay for it. What harm will it cause to the Pacific island countries and local residents if the contaminated water is discharged into the Pacific Ocean by Japan? What efforts has the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) made to stop Japan? Global Times (GT) reporter Wang Wenwen discussed these issues with Johanito Wamytan (Wamytan), the vice-president of the association of friendship between New Caledonia and foreign countries.

GT: What do you think of Japan’s decision to dump nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the Pacific Ocean? If it is carried out, how will it affect Japan’s regional and international image?

Wamytan: Twelve years after the Fukushima disaster, the nuclear power plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), is preparing to dump more than 1 million tons of contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean. The plan has caused concerns among fishermen and angered Japan’s neighbors.

Storage was the solution put in place at Fukushima. The affected nuclear power plant produces hundreds of cubic meters of contaminated water each week. To cool the fuel in the affected reactors, TEPCO is forced to inject water permanently. Add to that the rainwater and groundwater that is sitting in the basements of buildings. This water loaded with radioactive isotopes is then pumped to be partially treated and placed in tanks.

According to a TEPCO count in February 2021, 1,061 tanks were piled up at the Fukushima site, containing 1.25 million cubic meters of wastewater. In a document dated April 2020, the IAEA reiterated its position that storage “can only be a temporary measure and a more sustainable solution is needed.”

OPINION / VIEWPOINT

Japan’s nuclear contaminated wastewater dump plan a cause of concerns even for New Caledonia

By Global TimesPublished: May 14, 2023 07:21 PM

A view of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Photo: VCGEditor’s Note:

Japan’s plan to dump nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the ocean has been strongly condemned by the international community. Nonetheless, Tokyo is still going its own way and speeding up the plan to make the rest of the world pay for it. What harm will it cause to the Pacific island countries and local residents if the contaminated water is discharged into the Pacific Ocean by Japan? What efforts has the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) made to stop Japan? Global Times (GT) reporter Wang Wenwen discussed these issues with Johanito Wamytan (Wamytan), the vice-president of the association of friendship between New Caledonia and foreign countries.

This is the fifth piece of the series.

GT: What do you think of Japan’s decision to dump nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the Pacific Ocean? If it is carried out, how will it affect Japan’s regional and international image?

Wamytan: Twelve years after the Fukushima disaster, the nuclear power plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), is preparing to dump more than 1 million tons of contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean. The plan has caused concerns among fishermen and angered Japan’s neighbors.

Storage was the solution put in place at Fukushima. The affected nuclear power plant produces hundreds of cubic meters of contaminated water each week. To cool the fuel in the affected reactors, TEPCO is forced to inject water permanently. Add to that the rainwater and groundwater that is sitting in the basements of buildings. This water loaded with radioactive isotopes is then pumped to be partially treated and placed in tanks.

According to a TEPCO count in February 2021, 1,061 tanks were piled up at the Fukushima site, containing 1.25 million cubic meters of wastewater. In a document dated April 2020, the IAEA reiterated its position that storage “can only be a temporary measure and a more sustainable solution is needed.” Tanks were filled by 2022 and TEPCO needs room for further dismantling. 

The accumulation of these open-pit tanks also raises the risk of accidents. It is likely that Japan’s decision will have a negative impact on the country’s image in terms of nuclear safety and environmental management. The decision can also lead to boycotts or trade restrictions by countries in the region which oppose it.

So far, this decision has been widely criticized by countries in the region, as well as by fishermen and some Japanese. Like them, we in Kanaky-New Caledonia are concerned about the long-term effects of the contamination of the Pacific Ocean on human health and the environment……………………………………………………………………..

GT: New Caledonia is a member of the PIF. What efforts has the PIF made to stop Japan and how effective are they?

Wamytan: The PIF has publicly expressed concern about Japan’s decision to dump contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean, calling on Japan to work closely with Pacific countries to develop an appropriate and environmentally friendly solution to water management. The PIF also requested Japan to provide detailed information on the composition of the contaminated water and on measures taken to minimize risks to human health and the environment……………………………………………………………………… https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202305/1290677.shtml

May 16, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

May 14 Energy News — geoharvey

Opinion: ¶ “Can Tesla’s Price War Accelerate Electrification?” • Tesla’s price reductions in the first quarter of the year have sent some waves through the auto industry. As legacy automakers and startups both try to catch up to Tesla’s EV dominance, some wonder whether the automaker’s price cuts could actually spur on a quicker transition […]

May 14 Energy News — geoharvey

May 16, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment