THE prolonged closure of an ageing and cracked reactor at Hunterston in North Ayrshire is the beginning of the end for seven nuclear power stations in Scotland and England, experts say.
They doubt whether the reactor will ever restart, and argue that proliferating cracks in other elderly reactors across the country will shorten their expected lives and lead to premature shutdowns. One expert said extending the life of troubled reactors like the one at Hunterston is “gambling with public safety”.
Hunterston’s operator, EDF Energy, however, insisted that it would be able to reopen the reactor. Its other reactors would also run for as long as planned, the company said.
But according to independent nuclear engineer John Large, the new cracks signal the “death knell” for Hunterston reactor three. “This means that reactor four is doomed to the same fate, followed by similar plants at Hinkley Point and Hartlepool, thereafter progressively followed by other advanced gas-cooled reactors,” he said.
EDF announced last week that it was extending the shutdown of reactor three at Hunterston by six months because it had discovered more cracks than expected in its graphite core. Instead of reopening early in May, it is now scheduled to reopen on November 17.
The company said it had found a total of 39 “keyway root cracks” in the reactor and they were “happening at a slightly higher rate than modelled”. The discovery of new cracks was first revealed by the Sunday Herald on April 22.
The integrity of the thousands of graphite blocks that make up the reactor core is vital to nuclear safety. They ensure that the reactor can be cooled and safely shut down in an emergency.
But bombardment by intense radiation over decades causes the blocks to start cracking. If they fail, experts say, nuclear fuel could overheat, melt down and leak radioactivity in a major accident.
Large argued that EDF’s decision to keep reactor three closed until the end of the year was prompted by the UK Government’s safety watchdog, the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR). “ONR’s doubts about the reactor safety have not been satisfied by this most recent inspection,” he said.
“It may simply be a way of saving face and fobbing off the announcement that the plant is to be permanently shut down.”
Hunterston reactor three, which started generating power in 1976, is the oldest in EDF’s fleet. The other working reactor on the site, number four, is 18 months behind, has five cracks and is likely to develop more.
The six other advanced gas-cooled reactor plants in the UK are also likely to crack, including the only other working nuclear power station in Scotland at Torness in East Lothian. The others are: Hinkley Point B in Somerset; Hartlepool in County Durham; Heysham 1 and 2 near Lancaster; and Dungeness B in Kent.
Large also highlighted the uncertainties in tracking cracks, which are mostly modelled rather than measured. “There is little that EDF can do to physically resolve this problem,” he said.
Meanwhile, Edinburgh-based nuclear critic and consultant Pete Roche pointed out that Hunterston is now 42 years old.
“This must surely be the end for reactor three,” he said. “We are gambling with public safety by extending the lives of old reactors.”
He expects Hinkley Point B to close “very soon”, followed by other nuclear stations in England. “Even Torness has passed the 30-year threshold, so may not make it to its expected 2030 closure date,” Roche said.
Rita Holmes, a local resident who chairs the Hunterston site stakeholder group, argued it would be very difficult for the public to have confidence in the safety of reactor three. “It has had its day and should be allowed to bow out gracefully,” she said.
Paul Mummery, a professor of nuclear materials from the University of Manchester, pointed out that the ONR would not allow EDF to restart reactors until it can be demonstrated that they are safe. “This is quite a task for EDF and not something that can be rushed,” he said.
“EDF is undertaking extensive modelling and experimental programmes to demonstrate the safety of the reactors but it will take time to generate and interpret the results. Time is against them as the reactors will continue to age during service.”
The ONR has welcomed EDF’s decision to keep Hunterston reactor three closed as “responsible, conservative, and made in the best interest of public safety”. It confirmed that the reactor could not be restarted without its permission.
One ONR advisor, professor Paul Bowen from the University of Birmingham, argued that the process showed how the regulatory system was working.
“In my technical opinion and noting that I am not at all influential in any decisions, a return to service for Hunterston reactor three will be justified,” he said.
The director of Hunterston B, Colin Weir, told BBC Radio Scotland last week that he was “100 per cent confident” that the reactor would restart.
A spokesperson for EDF said: “We are confident that we have accurately predicted the behaviour of the core and this continues to underpin the lifetime dates for all our reactors, including reactor three at Hunterston.”
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “We expect ONR will exercise its duties diligently to ensure the nuclear industry controls its hazards effectively and maintains the highest nuclear safety and security standards.”
Nuclear deal a challenge for Rouhani as Iran hardliners close in, Parisa Hafezi, ANKARA (Reuters) 4 May 18 – Iran’s hardliners are preparing to bring President Hassan Rouhani to heel if U.S. President Donald Trump scraps Tehran’s nuclear deal with major powers, officials and analysts believe.
Trump has threatened to abrogate the 2015 agreement by not extending sanctions waivers when they expire on May 12, if Britain, France and Germany do not “fix” its “terrible flaws”.
This sets the stage for a resurgence of political infighting within Iran’s complex power structure, Iranian officials said.
Annulment of the accord could tip the balance of power in favor of hardliners looking to constrain the relatively moderate Rouhani’s ability to open up to the West.
While the spotlight is on Trump’s eventual decision there will be a display of unity in Tehran, a senior Iranian official told Reuters, on condition of anonymity.
“But when the crisis is over, hardliners will try to weaken and sideline the president,” the official said.
Nor can the president expect any weakening of Iran’s system of clerical rule as a result of the uncertainty surrounding the nuclear deal, meaning “Rouhani will be in a no-win situation”, said a relative of Khamenei.
For Rouhani the stakes are high. If the deal falls apart, he could become politically vulnerable for promoting the 2015 accord, under which non-nuclear sanctions were lifted in return for Tehran curbing its nuclear program.
“It will also lead to a backlash against the moderates and pro-reformers who backed Rouhani’s detente policy with the West … and any hope for moderation at home in the near future will fizzle out,” said political analyst Hamid Farahvashian.
It is a delicate balance. Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei knows that Iranians, many of whom took to the streets earlier this year to protest against high food prices, can only take so much economic pressure.
Donald Trump has told the NRA convention in Dallas that Second Amendment rights ‘will never, ever be under siege’ as long as he remains in the White House.
Jeff Mason and Daniel Trotta President Donald Trump has enthusiastically embraced the National Rifle Association, vowing not to tighten US firearms laws despite suggesting after a Florida school shooting that he would take on the powerful gun-rights group.
At the NRA’s annual convention in Dallas, Trump called again for arming teachers and increasing school security to head off future mass shootings like the one in Parkland, Florida in February that killed 17 people. Such measures are supported by the NRA.
With Republican control of Congress up for grabs in November’s midterm elections, Trump used the NRA platform to return to rhetoric he used in 2016 to excite pro-gun voters, warning that Democrats are determined to take away Americans’ guns.
Trump made no mention of gun-control proposals he tentatively floated in the past, such as raising the age limit for buying rifles. The NRA opposes that and other limits on gun sales as a violation of the right to gun ownership under the Second Amendment to the US Constitution.
Democratic lawmakers generally support tighter gun laws, but specific proposals that they favour, such as universal background checks and a ban on military-style “assault” rifles, would not alter the Second Amendment.
“Your Second Amendment rights are under siege. But they will never, ever be under siege as long as I’m your president,” Trump told the cheering crowd. “We’ve got to get Republicans elected.
“The one thing that stands between Americans and the elimination of our Second Amendment rights has been conservatives in Congress.
The Parkland massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on February 14 seemed to have marked a turning point in America’s long-running gun debate, sparking a youth-led movement for tighter gun controls.
Days after the shooting, Trump promised action on gun regulation and at a gathering of state officials, he said of the NRA: “We have to fight them every once in a while.”
But since then, no major new federal gun controls have been imposed, although the administration is pursuing a proposed regulatory ban on “bump stocks,” which enable a semi-automatic rifle to fire a steady stream of bullets. The devices were used in an October 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas that killed 59 people.
Hitachi requests British PM’s support for nuclear plant construction, (Mainichi Japan)
LONDON (Kyodo)— Hitachi Ltd. on Thursday requested British Prime Minister Theresa May provide support for the company’s nuclear power plant construction operations in Britain amid swelling costs for a project in Wales, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Meeting with May at her office in London, Hitachi Chairman Hiroaki Nakanishi requested more support from the British government, including direct investment, the sources said. ……
In 2016, Japan and Britain signed a memorandum of understanding to closely cooperate in the nuclear field, a move that would help Japanese companies build nuclear reactors in Britain.
A coalition of business, consumer, labor and environmental groups have asked Gov. Phil Murphy to conditionally veto the nuclear subsidy bill that passed the New Jersey legislature last month.
The bill, which passed both houses of the Legislature and now sits on the governor’s desk, gives the Board of Public Utilities a set amount of time to examine the finances of the owners of nuclear power plants in the state. If the owners can show subsidies are needed to keep the plants open, they will receive $300 million a year from ratepayers.
Public Service Enterprise Group, which owns the Salem and Hope Creek nuclear power plants in Salem County, has said the plants will soon become unprofitable because of competition from cheaper natural gas plants.
The groups said S2313 “fails to strike a proper balance between utility consumers and the nuclear power industry, fails to protect New Jersey’s economy from unfair competition, is counter to the principles of open and transparent government and will compromise New Jersey’s clean energy future,” in a May 2 letter to the governor.
………The amount of subsidy is set in the legislation, and critics have questioned how lawmakers can know what level of subsidy is needed when they don’t have documentation of the companies’ financial status.
Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in Lacey Township, owned by Exelon Corp., is the oldest operating nuclear plant in the country and is set to permanently close in October.
The state’s remaining two nuclear power plants in operation are in Salem County and owned by Public Service Enterprise Group, the parent company of Public Service Gas & Electric. One is co-owned by Exelon.
The groups that signed the letter opposing the subsidies are AARP New Jersey, NJ Working Families Alliance, Health Professionals & Allied Employees, New Jersey Large Energy Users Coalition, NJ Citizen Action, the Main Street Alliance, Blue Wave NJ, NJ Policy Perspective, GreenFaith, Clean Water Action, Environment New Jersey, NJ Sierra Club, Koubiadis Anti-Poverty Network, UU Faith Action, Banking on New Jersey and the Chemistry Council of New Jersey.
They oppose the bill as written because the plant owners have not proven subsidies are needed and the amounts were “established behind closed doors by the interested parties and without ratepayer participation,” the letter said.
They want these changes in the legislation:
• Require nuclear power corporations to satisfy a burden of proof of financial distress rather than allowing considerations of “cost of capital,” “market risk” and assumed minimum returns on equity to determine whether a bailout is appropriate.
• Guarantee the full inclusion and participation of the state Division of Rate Counsel to protect ratepayers and avoid setting an anti-consumer precedent.
• Establish a process for an annual financial review, with ratepayer refunds as needed, of each nuclear plant receiving subsidies. S2013 could provide windfall profits to PSEG over a 10-year period or longer.
• Require a ten-year sunset provision similar to the ones includes in both the New York and Illinois Zero Emission Credit programs.
• Deduct from the subsidy any payments the plants may receive from PJM, FERC, DOE, RGGI or other entities for fuel diversity, baseload, reliability value or other things. S2313 does not ensure such deductions will be made.
• Credit back to ratepayers any financial gain to the plants or increases in market prices due to the pricing of carbon that result from the state rejoining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
• Include clawback provisions to protect consumers. The subsidies should not be irrevocable as the bill provides.
• Ensure that no state-funded subsidies are paid to out-of-state nuclear facilities owned by PSEG or Exelon, such as the Peach Bottom, Limerick or Three Mile Island facilities.
Regulators terminate Duke Energy’s Levy County nuclear licenses, Malena Carollo, Tampa Bay Times staff writer, 4 May 18
ST. PETERSBURG — Regulators have finally closed the books on the Levy County nuclear project that never was. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission terminated Duke Energy Florida’s licenses last week for the proposed nuclear reactors at the utility’s request — more than a decade after the project was first proposed.
“Southern Alliance for Clean Energy applauds Duke Energy Florida for formally terminating the licenses for the Levy site,” said Sara Barczak, regional advocacy director for the alliance, in a statement.
The action comes nine months after Duke announced it would no longer make customers pay for the nuclear facility. Duke customers had already paid $800 million on the plant that was never built. The St. Petersburg utility decided to shoulder the remaining $150 million for the project instead of passing it on to customers, saving rate payers about $2.50 on their monthly bills.
Instead of nuclear, the utility will turn its focus to solar and natural gas
We anticipate an increase in solar energy in Florida and have included plans for the addition of over 700 megawatts of solar capacity in the next 10 years,” Ana Gibbs, spokesperson for Duke, said in an email. …..Progress Energy had asked customers to pay up front for the facility, promising the plant would reduce energy costs down the line. But after nearly $1 billion was sunk into the nuclear project, it was never built. In 2013, the venture was canned.
Nuclear panel chair: ‘I remain adamantly opposed’ to Yucca Mountain Las Vegas Sun, By Sun Staff (contact) May 3, 2018
The chairman of the state interim legislative Committee on High-Level Radioactive Waste says he’ll continue to support a 2017 legislative resolution stating opposition to the proposed national nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.
“I remain adamantly opposed to the development of Yucca Mountain as a repository for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste, as well as the storage or disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste anywhere in the state of Nevada,” the chairman, Assemblyman Edgar Flores, D-Las Vegas, said in a statement. “I will continue to monitor the actions taken on the federal level to ensure that Nevadans’ voices are heard.” …..
Funding for the project was cut off during the Obama administration, but President Donald Trump signaled support for restarting the licensing process by including funding for it in his proposed budget last year. Congress rejected the funding, opting not to include it in the omnibus spending bill, so the project remains in limbo. However, opponents remain concerned that Trump and congressional delegates from other states that support Yucca Mountain will continue trying to revive it. https://lasvegassun.com/news/2018/may/03/nuclear-panel-chair-i-remain-adamantly-opposed-to/
Vote likely next week on bill to resume Yucca Mountain licensing process , By Gary Martin/Las Vegas Review-Journal, May 4, 2018, PAHRUMP— Legislation that would allow the Department of Energy to resume its license application process to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain could see a House vote this week — a prospect that was met Thursday with mixed reaction in Nevada.
A bill approved last year by the House Energy and Commerce Committee to jump-start the licensing process is being reviewed by the Rules Committee, and the legislation will move to the floor next week when Congress returns from a weeklong recess.
The legislation would streamline the process to open Yucca Mountain to store nuclear waste and address the stockpile of spent fuel being stored at power plants across the country……..
The legislation authorizes spending to restart the licensing process. The Senate blocked the spending last year.
Federal plans to store spent fuel rods and other nuclear waste have been met with stiff opposition in Nevada from most elected officials, except those from rural counties, including Nye County, where Yucca Mountain is located……
Gov. Brian Sandoval, a Republican, has vowed to spend millions in state money to stop the nuclear repository from opening. He is backed by most lawmakers in the state’s congressional delegation.
Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., said nothing has changed since the delegation testified against the bill last year.
“Bringing this legislation to the floor is nothing more than a show for the nuclear industry and its campaign cash recipients in Congress,” Titus said.
Rep. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., has filed legislation that would prohibit the DOE from taking any action to license Yucca Mountain as a nuclear repository until the federal government studies alternative uses for the Nevada site.
……..Sens. Dean Heller, R-Nev., and Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., have worked through the committee process to halt licensing of Yucca Mountain.
The Japanese conglomerate behind plans to build a new reactor at the Wylfa nuclear site in Wales is expected to call on the Government to take a direct stake in the new plant, or risk the £27bn project falling through.
The last-ditch talks between Hitachi chairman Hiroaki Nakanishi and the prime minister were scheduled for the same day that fresh cracks in one of the UK’s oldest nuclear plants underlined the need for new investment in low-carbon power.
A string of power plants, including the faltering Hunterston nuclear plant, are set to close by 2025.
Hitachi’s 2.9 gigawatt nuclear project could help to fill the gap created by the closures, but the group is not willing to take on the full risk burden without the backing of other private investors and government involvement.
The conglomerate is planning to back away from the project entirely unless the UK agrees to help finance it or take a stake in the plant alongside investments from the Japanese government, according to local media reports.
The nuclear exit would be a major blow to the UK’s struggling ambitions to build a fleet of low-carbon, nuclear power plants to replace the ageing coal and nuclear plants.
EDF Energy said the new cracks in its 42-year old Hunterston reactor mean that the plant will be closed for much of 2018, meaning more expensive gas-fired power may be required to fill the gap in the UK’s power supplies this summer. Hunterston is scheduled to shut entirely by 2023.
Number 10 has remained tight-lipped over its negotiations with Hitachi, and a spokesman declined to comment on the latest talks.
Hannah Martin, of Greenpeace, said the “information blackout” is “unjustifiable” because of the high costs to be paid by energy users to support the projects.
“The public have a right to know what the government is planning to do with their money and why,” she said.
“Major Western economies are reducing their exposure to nuclear, so why is Britain doing the exact opposite? It would make no sense to waste yet more on expensive and outdated nuclear when technologies such as offshore wind can do the same job faster and cheaper,” Ms Martin added.
Times 2nd May 2018 , The boss of Hitachi is expected to meet the prime minister tomorrow in an
attempt to secure UK government investment in its proposed nuclear plant on
Anglesey. Hiroaki Nakanishi is scheduled to meet Theresa May as the clock
ticks on the company’s deadline to agree the outlines of a financial
support package by the middle of this year.
Hitachi, the Japanese conglomerate, has spent £2 billion so far on its Horizon venture, which is
developing plans for a new power station at Wylfa. It has threatened to
withdraw funding unless it receives assurances that financial support can
be agreed. The 2.9-gigawatt power station is due to start generating in the
mid-2020s, becoming Britain’s second new nuclear plant after the £19.6
billion Hinkley Point plant being built in Somerset. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/business/hitachi-seeks-to-clear-clouds-over-horizon-hpfk9gpjd
Scotsman 30th April 2018, The Scottish Government will this week face calls to hold a review into
concerns over nuclear weapons “convoys” travelling through towns and cities
in Scotland. The Greens have said the SNP government, which opposes nuclear
weapons, is responsible for community safety and emergency planning and
cannot dismiss the issue as being reserved to Westminster.
MSPs are preparing to debate the issue at Holyrood on Wednesday, where Green MSP
Mark Ruskell will call for a review.
Up to eight times a year, a convoy of heavy trucks containing weapon materials and nuclear warheads travels
between the Aldermaston and Burghfield atomic weapon plants in Berkshire to
the Royal Navy base at Coulport on Loch Long where the UK’s nuclear weapons
are stored. These trucks will often be carrying weapons materials for
maintenance or replacement. But a Freedom of Information request by Green
MSPs last year found that none of the relevant local authorities the trucks
pass through has conducted risk assessments in relation to the convoys. https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/greens-seek-review-of-nuclear-convoy-safety-1-4732236
Times 29th April 2018, New nuclear power plants are likely to blow their budgets and arrive late unless their designs are completed before construction starts, a report has warned. Ministers, wary of cost hikes and delays, are wrestling with how to financially support replacements for ageing coal-fired and nuclear plants across the UK.
Hitachi is trying to strike a deal with ministers to build a £10bn-plus plant at Wylfa on Anglesey, where taxpayers are likely to take a stake.
Researchers at Energy Technologies Institute found that most high-cost projects had started construction with incomplete designs, whereas work on low-cost plants had begun only once design and planning had been finalised.
TOKYO — Hitachi will ask the U.K. government to take a direct stake in the company that is to build and operate a nuclear power plant in Wales which is now 100% owned by the Japanese industrial company. Hitachi expects the U.K. government will invite private British companies to participate and hopes to reduce its own stake to less than 50%.
Nikkei has learned that Hitachi Chairman Hiroaki Nakanishi will shortly travel to the U.K. to discuss the ownership issue and other project terms with British Prime Minister Theresa May.
Hitachi has recently concluded that the risk of proceeding with the Anglesey project, at an estimated cost of more than 3 trillion yen ($27.5 billion), is too great to manage on its own as a private company. It plans to withdraw from the project if restructuring negotiations fall through. Such a move would have significant repercussions for nuclear power policy for both Britain and Japan.
Hitachi acquired complete ownership of the U.K.’s Horizon Nuclear Power in 2012 for 89 billion yen as part of its plan to expand its nuclear business from Japan to foreign markets. It has spent about 200 billion yen preparing for Horizon’s first project, the construction of a plant on the Isle of Anglesey in Wales.
Hitachi hopes to lower its stake in Horizon to less than 50% before construction begins at Anglesey. It has requested that the British government take a direct stake in Horizon and then invite local enterprises to invest.
In response to Hitachi’s concerns, the British government earlier this month proposed that U.K. interests and Japanese public and private interests join with Hitachi to move Anglesey forward. The three sets of shareholders would each put 300 billion yen into the project, giving each a one-third stake. According to sources, the company and the Japanese government see it as too risky for Japanese interests to retain a majority shareholding and hope that British interests will acquire a controlling stake.
London has been leery up to now of taking a direct stake in any new nuclear construction. Hitachi will likely seek in direct talks a commitment to U.K. government investment as well as to additional support that may be necessary to sustain the operation.
Other key project terms also remain unsettled, including the degree to which London would guarantee the 2 trillion yen in loans Hitachi sees as needed to finance the Anglesey development and the price to be paid to Hitachi for the electricity from the plant. London’s proposed price is 20% lower than what Hitachi has requested. The Japanese government plans to guarantee the project’s loans.
The U.K. in December approved the design of the reactor that Hitachi plans to use in Anglesey. The project is now in its final pre-construction phase. The company has targeted to begin construction next year.
With its domestic nuclear industry still crippled by the legacy of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident, Japan has been eager to promote nuclear exports. The drive for overseas orders however has struggled as many governments reconsider nuclear power’s merits.
On the 32nd anniversary of the most destructive man-caused disasters in history, the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine, Sputnik discussed the liquidation of nuclear incidents throughout the world with Majia H. Nadesan, Risk Innovation Fellow in the Graduate Faculty of Hugh Downs.
Sputnik: In your view, how do politics affect such disasters as the Fukushima incident?
Majia H. Nadesan: Politics is an inevitable dimension of social life. Unfortunately, consolidated political power over critical decision-making can have catastrophic consequences, particularly when decision-makers are driven by singular logics that are intolerant of dissent.
We see in the case of nuclear energy how centralization of decision making power legitimized by symbolic appeals to national and economic security have produced never-ending catastrophes, illustrated best by Hanford in the US, Chernobyl in the Ukraine, Mayak in Russia, and Fukushima Daiichi in Japan.
Each of these catastrophes poisons air, soil, and water as toxic radionuclides migrate, bio-accumulate, and bio-magnify in biological life.
Although no authority will deny the hazards of radioactive activity and the challenges of nuclear waste management, the institutionally vested logic of nuclear, what Gabrielle Hecht referred to as “nuclearity,” routinely seeks to contain and trivialize representations of radiation risk. We saw this tendency toward trivialization in the WHO’s rush during the early stages of the Fukushima Daiichi disaster to declare no long-term health risks.
It is relatively easy to contain and trivialize representations of radiation risk because effects for all but the most extreme exposures are protracted and do not manifest equivalently across exposed populations because of variations across exposure forms and conditions and the contingencies of biological vulnerabilities. Most troubling, the transgenerational genetic and epigenetic effects of elevated exposure to chemically toxic and radioactive elements are studied least frequently of all and yet may pose the greatest risk to biological life.
Containment and trivialization of radiation risk are foundational to the symbolic logic of nuclear security, yet blind us to the hazards we’ve engineered into our infrastructures, as observed by Ulrich Beck.
Sputnik: What measures need to be taken to prevent these catastrophes from happening?
Majia H. Nadesan: Efforts to redress catastrophic risks must first and foremost acknowledge the scope and severity of hazards. Powerful governmental and corporate organizations vested in the nuclear industry and its symbolic logic of national security are often unwilling to take this first step and so we see efforts in the US to extend the operations of antiquated reactors and in Japan efforts to return Fukushima refugees to areas with still-elevated radiation levels.
Failure to acknowledge infrastructural hazards across the nuclear supply, utilization, and waste cycles promises more disasters and each one will contribute to the genotoxic load of radionuclides circulating and concentrating in the biological life upon which we depend.
Sputnik: What are your thoughts on the way the previous catastrophes were handled?
Majia H. Nadesan: It is quite instructive to compare how Chernobyl was managed as compared to Fukushima. There is little doubt that the Soviet deployment of hundreds of thousands of liquidators was on a scale that has not yet been surpassed. The Soviets also set the exposure level at a fraction (5 millisieverts) of the up-to-twenty millisieverts of annualized exposure now allowed by Japan’s government. However, many observers note that the autocratic nature of the Soviet system and the availability of space for relocating refugees contributed to the more aggressive mitigation and evacuation in Chernobyl as compared to Japan.
Containment and trivialization of radiation risk are foundational to the symbolic logic of nuclear security, yet blind us to the hazards we’ve engineered into our infrastructures, as observed by Ulrich Beck.
Sputnik: What measures need to be taken to prevent these catastrophes from happening?
Majia H. Nadesan: Efforts to redress catastrophic risks must first and foremost acknowledge the scope and severity of hazards. Powerful governmental and corporate organizations vested in the nuclear industry and its symbolic logic of national security are often unwilling to take this first step and so we see efforts in the US to extend the operations of antiquated reactors and in Japan efforts to return Fukushima refugees to areas with still-elevated radiation levels.
Failure to acknowledge infrastructural hazards across the nuclear supply, utilization, and waste cycles promises more disasters and each one will contribute to the genotoxic load of radionuclides circulating and concentrating in the biological life upon which we depend.
Sputnik: What are your thoughts on the way the previous catastrophes were handled?
Majia H. Nadesan: It is quite instructive to compare how Chernobyl was managed as compared to Fukushima. There is little doubt that the Soviet deployment of hundreds of thousands of liquidators was on a scale that has not yet been surpassed. The Soviets also set the exposure level at a fraction (5 millisieverts) of the up-to-twenty millisieverts of annualized exposure now allowed by Japan’s government. However, many observers note that the autocratic nature of the Soviet system and the availability of space for relocating refugees contributed to the more aggressive mitigation and evacuation in Chernobyl as compared to Japan.
suspect that although the incidents of severe accidents will increase, the public will hear less about these accidents. Driven by the logic of adaptation, governments across the globe are re-thinking allowable exposure levels. In addition to increasing exposures standards, governments may censor or otherwise limit access to data on measured pollutants. For example, we see in the US how the EPA’s Radnet System shutdown monitors and limited access to beta data in the months and years following the Fukushima disaster. The public’s right to know appears to be faltering.
Since radiation detection requires access to specialized equipment, controlling perceptions of radiation risk may be easier to achieve than controlling actual exposures.
Whitehaven News 26th April 2018 , Search to find nuclear waste storage site is ‘flawed’, Cumbria council chiefs claim. Cash incentives are being offered to communities that step forward to host an underground waste bunker.
A NEW search to find a community willing to host an underground nuclear waste storage bunker is based on ‘fundamentally flawed’ government policy, council officials in Cumbria have said.
The nationwide scheme to identify a location for a £12 billion geological disposal facility buried at least 200 metres below the surface was relaunched by the government in January and is expected to take
20 years to secure. It promises incentives including £1m per year for five
years for the five communities that volunteer to be on the shortlist – with
£2.5m a year for the two that go forward to the testing stage, which would
see deep boreholes dug underground.
But experts within Cumbria County Council have instead called for more clarity on how the high level waste -the majority of which is currently kept in storage vessels in west Cumbria
– will be kept safe if a suitable location is not identified within the time frame.
They also state the right of willing communities to withdraw from the process is not clear enough within the proposal.
The authority’s official response, expected to be adopted by members of its cabinet
committee in Carlisle today, states: “The county council believes the
policy on which this consultation is based is fundamentally flawed.
nuclear-news 