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Premier of New Brunswick Higgs suggests N.B.’s SMRs may not win race to commercialization.

COMMENT , David Geary, Ha ha     –  wow, some fancy ‘politico-speak’ there from Higgs. Real world translation:  ‘Whoopsie, we screwed up Big Time!’ – Rolls Royce SMR division, UK, is currently going under also. No sales. They’ll be out of cash before the end of 2024.- Jim Green has a good recent article about other SMR failures. Here  –

Small modular nuclear reactors: a history of failure | RenewEconomy

COMMENT continued . – Does anybody have an up to date list?  Because I’ve been composing (for a whilenow)  a letter-to-the-editor, to Sask. papers, about the many SMR failures – – failures while they’re still on the drawing board!Anybody have inside info on the progress of GE-Hitachi’s SMR? I can’t see that one ever happening. Too many inherent design flaws…and ‘design is destiny’, as they say.Oddly, most or all SMRs seem almost designed to fail, for many reasons…. …the reverse ‘Economies of scale’  factor is but one obvious inherent problem.- SMR reactor cores being underground set up a novel and risky vulnerability too,  re. groundwater inflow, earthquakes, etc.- As well as numerous other FOAK (First Of A Kind) issues & unknowns.-  Dave G. Saskatoon

In addressing his government’s $20-million bet on the industry, Higgs says province couldn’t just sit on the sidelines

Adam Huras, Jul 16, 2024   https://tj.news/new-brunswick/higgs-suggests-n-b-s-smrs-may-not-win-race-to-commercialization

Premier Blaine Higgs suggests that New Brunswick’s two small modular reactor companies might not be the ones that successfully prevail amid a race to commercialize.

But in addressing his government’s $20-million bet on the industry, Higgs contends that New Brunswick couldn’t just sit on the sidelines and needed to do its part in a global race toward cleaner energy.

That said, it means the province must continue to look at all other options to meet its electricity needs, according to the premier.

In an interview with Brunswick News, Higgs was questioned on the sudden departure of ARC Clean Technology Canada’s president and CEO amid layoffs made by what is one the of two SMR companies enticed to set up in New Brunswick.

It’s a company the Higgs government gave $20 million now three years ago to help develop its prospective technology, after the previous Liberal Gallant government gave it $10 million.

Last October, the federal government also awarded ARC another $7 million.

“I haven’t got any assurances one way or the other on whether they keep going or whether they’re not,” Higgs said. “As far as I’m aware, their program continues.

“The changes they’ve made, we’re seeing that in many different companies.”

He added: “I’ll remain optimistic until I know otherwise, but I don’t want to take away from the fact that we have to be prepared to look at all aspects of technology that is being presented to us.”

Higgs made reference to “some pull back” in the race towards electric car and battery manufacturing as a parallel, where some leaders have emerged.

He then referenced how the race to commercialize small modular nuclear technology now includes companies and countries around the world.

He suggested that the race is still on.

“I don’t rule any of the current ones that we have right now as being out of the game, but are there more players in the game? Yes. And do we need to understand the best one? We certainly do,” Higgs said.

As ARC rationalizes its workforce, some of its competitors are hiring.

American manufacturing company Westinghouse has opened a new engineering hub in Kitchener, Ont., that aims to support both Canadian-based and international nuclear power projects with a new 13,000-square-foot office and plans to hire 100 engineers to staff it by next year.

That’s as a partnership between Ontario Power Generation and GE-Hitachi to build a small modular reactor at Ontario’s Darlington nuclear station is closer to maturity than similar plans in New Brunswick.

At a New Brunswick Energy and Utilities Board hearing last month into a recent power rate hike, NB Power vice president Brad Coady testified he doesn’t expect the province-backed SMRs will be ready by an original target date of 2030.

The utility now believes they’ll be ready by 2032 or 2033.

But SMRs are still part of the plan.

“Our integrated resource plan says we need small modular reactors on our system by the early 2030s and we’re still confident that we can have those,” NB Power CEO Lori Clark told reporters at the hearings.

Asked if his government has now wasted $20 million in taxpayer money, Higgs disagreed, instead stating the province’s efforts are part of a larger goal.

“We know a lot of money has been spent to convert to cleaner forms of energy in the world and research and development is a big component of what is the next best thing, and so we can’t just sit by and wait,” Higgs said.

“We have to be participants in developing the technology or working with others to do so.

“Here in New Brunswick, we’re doing our part for the next generation of clean energy, and part of that is research and development. We can’t just stand by and say ‘I hope somebody figures it out.’”

July 19, 2024 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Expansion of LANL and WIPP are Major Public Concerns for Monday, July 22nd DOE Meeting at Buffalo Thunder Resort

How long will WIPP remain open?  DOE is saying WIPP would operate for 60 more years, or at least until 2083, or essentially FOREVER.

July 17th, 2024,  https://nuclearactive.org/

On Thursday, July 18th at 8 am Mountain Time, you will have an informative opportunity to hear from two experts, Don Hancock and Myrriah Gómez, when they discuss the major public concerns regarding the plans of the Department of Energy (DOE) to expand operations at two of their facilities in New Mexico.  Those sites are Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP)

Host of KUNM-FM’s Let’s Talk New Mexico show, Megan Kamerick will facilitate the conversation about DOE’s plans to increase the number of nuclear weapons fabricated at LANL resulting in more plutonium-contaminated nuclear waste destined for WIPP.  https://www.kunm.org/show/lets-talk-new-mexico/2024-07-12/nuclear-waste-wipp-lanl

Then on Monday, July 22nd from 6 to 7:30 pm, key officials from DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and Office of Environmental Management (EM) will make short presentations at their in person and virtual town hall.  The town hall will be held at the Buffalo Thunder Resort, located 13 miles north of downtown Santa Fe on U.S. 84 / 285 from 6 to 7:30 p.m., in the Pueblo Ballroom on the second floor.   Parking is available on the north side of the building.  https://www.energy.gov/em/events/northern-new-mexico-town-hall-july-2024

NNSA Administrator, Jill Hruby, and EM Senior Advisor, Candice Robertson, will host the town hall and be available to answer your questions.

To register, go to:  https://www.energy.gov/em/events/northern-new-mexico-town-hall-july-2024  You also email your questions ahead of time.  external.engagements@nnsa.doe.gov

It is essential that the federal agencies hear your concerns!

Your questions could include:  What is the future of WIPP, which was supposed to be a pilot project, and closed in March 2024?  https://wipp.energy.gov/  How much waste will be generated by the proposed increase during the fabrication of plutonium pits, or the triggers, for nuclear weapons at LANL?  https://discover.lanl.gov/publications/national-security-science/2021-winter/pit-production-explained/  How long will WIPP remain open?  DOE is saying WIPP would operate for 60 more years, or at least until 2083, or essentially FOREVER.

In the 1970s through the 1990s, DOE promised the People of New Mexico that if WIPP were opened, it would be able to cleanup and dispose of all the plutonium-contaminated waste at its sites across the country, including LANL, in 25 years and then close.  But that did not happen.  DOE now claims WIPP must stay open for at least six more decades to dispose of waste from LANL and other sites.

There are many resources to help you develop your comments at http://nuclearactive.org/ ; https://stopforeverwipp.org/ ; and https://nukewatch.org/ .

July 19, 2024 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Mounting evidence of cancer risk from low dose radiation in childhood, or in the uterus.

Cancer risks among studies of medical diagnostic radiation exposure in early life without quantitative estimates of dose

Science Direct, 1 August 2022, Mark P. Little a1, Richard Wakeford b1, Simon D. Bouffler c, Kossi Abalo d, Michael Hauptmann e, Nobuyuki Hamada f, Gerald M. Kendall g

Highlights

  • •There is mounting evidence of cancer risk from low dose radiation in childhood.
  • •A review was conducted of cancer after exposure in utero/childhood of studies without individual radiation dose estimates.
  • •There were excess cancer risks associated with radiation exposure in utero.
  • •There were excess cancer risks associated with radiation exposure in childhood, but also substantial variability in effect.
  • •These data suggest excess risk following diagnostic radiation exposure in utero, but not after postnatal exposure.

Abstract

Background

There is accumulating evidence of excess risk of cancer in various populations exposed at acute doses below several tens of mSv or doses received over a protracted period. There is also evidence that relative risks are generally higher after radiation exposures in utero or in childhood.

Methods and findings

We reviewed and summarised evidence from 89 studies of cancer following medical diagnostic exposure in utero or in childhood, in which no direct estimates of radiation dose are available. In all of the populations studied exposure was to sparsely ionizing radiation (X-rays). Several of the early studies of in utero exposure exhibit modest but statistically significant excess risks of several types of childhood cancer. There is a highly significant (p < 0.0005) negative trend of odds ratio with calendar period of study, so that more recent studies tend to exhibit reduced excess risk. There is no significant inter-study heterogeneity (p > 0.3). In relation to postnatal exposure there are significant excess risks of leukaemia, brain and solid cancers, with indications of variations in risk by cancer type (p = 0.07) and type of exposure (p = 0.02), with fluoroscopy and computed tomography scans associated with the highest excess risk. However, there is highly significant inter-study heterogeneity (p < 0.01) for all cancer endpoints and all but one type of exposure, although no significant risk trend with calendar period of study.

Conclusions

Overall, this large body of data relating to medical diagnostic radiation exposure in utero provides support for an associated excess risk of childhood cancer. However, the pronounced heterogeneity in studies of postnatal diagnostic exposure, the implied uncertainty as to the meaning of summary measures, and the distinct possibilities of bias, substantially reduce the strength of the evidence from the associations we observe between radiation imaging in childhood and the subsequent risk of cancer being causally related to radiation exposure……………………..

“In the present paper we review studies of early life medical diagnostic exposures, both 61 antenatal and postnatal, in which quantitative radiation dose estimates are lacking, though general indications of the magnitude of the doses are likely to be implicit. The present study complements  a parallel and contemporary review that evaluated studies in which quantitative estimates of radiation risk with respect to doses are available (Little et al., 2022b).”…………….. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969722018162

July 19, 2024 Posted by | radiation | Leave a comment

Nuclear Free Local Authorities challenge UK government on New Cleo’s application for “justification” of its small nuclear “fast” reactor

2 In April 2024, the Nuclear Industry Association applied for
‘justification’ on behalf of NewCleo and its lead-cooled LFR-AS-200 fast
reactor to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA).
The department will support the future Secretary of State in their role as
the authority responsible for the ‘justification’ decision.

This was the first application for ‘justification’ for a so-called advanced modular
design in the UK. In its media release, NewCleo oozed confidence its
reactor design will meet with approval:

‘Justification’ is a regulatory
process which requires a Government decision before any new class or type
of practice involving ionising radiation can be introduced in the UK. A
justification decision is one of the required steps for the operation of a
new nuclear technology in the UK, but it is not a permit or licence that
allows a specific project to go ahead.

Instead, it is a generic decision
based on a high-level evaluation of the potential benefits and detriments
of the proposed new nuclear practice as a pre-cursor to future regulatory
processes.

The design failed the government’s readiness test to be entered
into the Generic Design Assessment (GDA). Even if justification is
forthcoming, with the design not selected for the GDA, it would surely have
to undergo an equally rigorous, but more uncertain, process.

Furthermore, the reactor operates using MOX (mixed uranium and plutonium reprocessed
fuel). Although, the press has previously reported NewCleo’s plan ‘to
take advantage of the UK’s massive stockpile of waste at Sellafield, where
it wanted to invest £2bn in a waste reprocessing factory and advanced
modular reactors that would have created around 500 jobs’, the government’s
recently published Civil Nuclear Roadmap makes clear that this material
will not be forthcoming: ‘We are providing clarity to vendors by
committing not to support the use of plutonium stored at Sellafield by
Advanced Nuclear Technologies whilst high hazard reduction activities are
prioritised at Sellafield’.

The other puzzle is X-Energy, which was given
£3.4m by government, but seemingly, like NewCleo, has been turned down for
consideration for a GDA. X-Energy have previously announced plans to deploy
its reactor design at a site in Hartlepool.

In response to the news, NFLA
Scotland Advisor Pete Roche and Emeritus Professor of Energy Policy at the
University of Greenwich Stephen Thomas put together a question set
exploring and challenging the justification and Generic Design processes.
This was sent by the NFLAs to Nuclear Minister Andrew Bowie. On receiving
the Minister’s response, a second letter with supplementary questions was
drafted and sent, and this has just been replied to by a senior Department
of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) official. The correspondence is
reproduced in this briefing for your information.

NFLA 16th July 2024

https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/wp/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/A416-NB302-Correspondence-with-DESNZ-and-EA-over-nuclear-design-justification-Jun-2024.pdf

July 19, 2024 Posted by | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, UK | Leave a comment

Nuclear convoys travelling to Coulport should be peacefully stopped

The National, Brian Quail, Glasgow, 17 July 24

IN this time of post election soul-searching, I would like to present your readers with two simple but vital facts. First, there are two roads by which heavy-duty vehicles can cross the border between England and Scotland, and two only. Secondly, to stop vehicles is a routine matter for Police Scotland

The MoD frequently sends convoys carrying Trident warheads from Aldermaston in Berkshire to Coulport in Scotland. They have to do this regularly to make sure that when they are fired, they will actually work and kill thousands of innocent people (this is called “integrity verification”, I kid you not). Indiscriminate slaughter is the one and only thing they are designed to do.

But the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) entered into force in January 2021 at the United Nations and is supported by 122 states. Thus, the highest court in the world has specifically condemned nuclear weapons as illegal. This ruling is “jus cogens” or compulsory law; that is, a peremptory norm from which there is no derogation (like FGM, piracy, genocide, or enslavement), as opposed to customary law, where parties make mutual agreement.

A Trident warhead is a hydrogen bomb. and by the TPNW, undeniably illegal. To stop these convoys at the border and refuse to allow them to continue their criminal enterprise requires nothing more than normal police procedures; in fact, those guilty could also be arrested and charged with criminal conspiracy. This is enforcement of the law.

Humanity has at last “banned the bomb”, and we must act accordingly.

The appreciation of the logic of this is axiomatic for both the demand for independence and the praxis of self-governance. As long as we cravenly accept this criminal imposition on our land, we do not have independence because we do not deserve it.

As long as we continue with our present craven acceptance of our abject role playing Tonto to the British Lone Ranger in his lunatic nuclear fantasies, we can forget about independence. Marches and demonstrations have their place in this campaign but total commitment demands much more. This demands action.

This direct action is something we can and should do, now. The nuclear convoys should be peacefully and non-violently stopped. This would be an effective technique to obtain independence, and an unambiguous expression of being a normal legal state.

https://www.thenational.scot/politics/24456586.nuclear-convoys-travelling-coulport-peacefully-stopped/

July 19, 2024 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, UK | Leave a comment