Sizewell C in Suffolk granted nuclear site licence
Campaigners ‘appalled’ as French energy company EDF gets go-ahead for next stage of project
Jillian Ambrose, 8 May 24, https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/may/07/sizewell-c-suffolk-granted-nuclear-site-licence-edf
A planned nuclear power station at Sizewell in Suffolk has been granted the first site licence in more than a decade as investors and government officials race to finalise a deal for the multibillion-pound project this year.
The licence from the nuclear regulator is considered a milestone for EDF, which plans to build Sizewell C as a replica of its Hinkley Point C project in Somerset, which has been dogged by delays and cost overruns.
The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) has granted only two site licences to build new nuclear plants in more than 35 years: the first for Hinkley Point C in 2012, and the second for Sizewell.
It was granted as EDF works to reach a final investment decision on the Sizewell C project by the end of this year, depending on a government framework to finance the project and fresh investment to cover its construction costs.
EDF holds just under 50% stake in the project, while the UK government holds just over 50%. They are searching for further investment after EDF’s partner at Hinkley Point, China’s CGN, was barred from the successor project over security concerns.
Mina Golshan, a director at Sizewell C, said the licence was a “show of confidence” from the UK’s nuclear regulator that the company had a suitable site and was ready to begin large-scale construction work on a safe design replicated from Hinkley Point C.
“It’s a huge milestone and demonstrates that this project is firmly on track,” Golshan said.
EDF has blamed inflation, Covid and Brexit for a four-year delay and cost overruns at the Hinkley Point C site. It believes that by learning the lessons from Hinkley it will be able to build Sizewell C in about nine years.
Mark Foy, the ONR chief nuclear inspector and its chief executive, said the licence was granted after “extensive engagement and review” by the ONR team and would allow the regulator to take greater regulatory oversight and challenge the company as it progressed its plans.
“The licensing process is fundamental in confirming that operators of a nuclear site are ready and able to meet their obligations under the nuclear site licence, to protect their workforce and the public,” Foy said.
A group campaigning against the nuclear plant, Stop Sizewell C, said it was “appalled that a nuclear site licence has been issued when matters critical to the future safety of the site remain unresolved.
“There isn’t even a final design of the sea defences, which will be necessary to keep this vulnerable site safe for the next century and a half, at the very least. This seems to us like kicking the can down the road, on the assumption that some future generation will be able to clear up the mess,” the group said.
12 years behind schedule, EDF’s Flamanville 3 nuclear plant gets regulatory approval for trial period
Electricite de France SA got regulatory approval to start up its new
nuclear reactor 12 years behind schedule after the utility faced
construction problems ranging from concrete weakness to faulty pipe welds.
The green light for commissioning of the Flamanville 3 nuclear plant
located in Northwestern France allows EDF to load the fuel in the reactor,
proceed with trials, then begin operations, the Autorite de Surete
Nucleaire said in a statement on Tuesday.
Further approvals will be
required when reaching key milestones during the trial phase, the regulator
added said. Once connected to the grid, the 1.6-gigawatt plant called a
European Pressurized Reactor will join EDF’s fleet of 56 reactors in
France, which accounted for about two-thirds of the country’s power
production last year.
Bloomberg 7th May 2024
Fears raised over Wales accident risk involving aircraft carrying nuclear materials
An air crash involving an RAF aircraft carrying US nuclear materials over South Wales may be the stuff of nightmares, but the Chair of the Welsh Nuclear Free Local Authorities has just written to the First Minister of Wales asking him to contemplate just that possibility.
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Nukewatch have just published a disturbing briefing titled ‘Special nuclear flights between the UK and US: the dangers involved’. The briefing references the transport of nuclear materials made by RAF C-17 Globemaster flying between RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire and airbases in the United States. Around ten such round-trips are made every year to transport nuclear materials utilised for the maintenance of Britain’s nuclear arsenal.
The report says of the route taken by these flights: ‘Aircraft fly from Brize Norton out into the Atlantic, overflying the Cotswolds and then the northern edges of Bristol and Cardiff to reach the Bristol Channel, flying south of Ireland to cross the Atlantic. A variation of this route takes the plane further to the north where it overflies Gloucestershire and the South Wales valleys, heading out to sea over Swansea and the Gower, and, again, South of Ireland.’
Although the C-17 Globemasters involved in these flights are four-engine aircraft, and are subject to an enhanced maintenance regime, so catastrophic mechanical failure is less likely, Welsh Forum Chair Councillor Sue Lent wants Welsh emergency planning authorities to properly consider the likely impact of any accident involving nuclear materials. Cllr Lent serves on Cardiff City Council, one of the municipalities flown over, and one of several South Wales local authorities who are members of the NFLAs.
The First Minister acts as Chair of the Wales Resilience Forum. The Forum ‘supports good communication and improves emergency planning across agencies and services’ acting as a coordinating body for local resilience forums across Wales. These ‘bring together all responder organisations that have a duty to co-operate under the Civil Contingencies Act. The groups also include other organisations who would respond to an emergency. Together, they ensure they prepare for emergencies by working in a coordinated and effective way.’[i]
The Minister of Defence hosts annual Astral Bend exercises ‘to practice and test the emergency response to an accident involving an RAF aircraft transporting special nuclear materials’, but investigative reporter Rob Edwards uncovered evidence that such an exercise held in February 2011 at the Caerwent military base in South Wales identified several failures in the actions of first responders which would have led to ‘“avoidable deaths” in a real-life situation’. The MoD has refused to release details of recent exercises held after 2012 in response to Freedom of Information requests; nonetheless the NFLA Secretary has just submitted one.
Councillor Lent asks First Minister Gething to ‘seek a reassurance from the MoD / RAF that such flights will be diverted out to sea, well away from our South Wales municipalities, and revisit emergency planning arrangements should an accident involving these special nuclear materials occur’ and suggests that as the last exercise conducted at Caerwent appears to be that held in 2011 a follow-up exercise to test the preparedness of Welsh emergency service agencies is ‘long overdue.’
IAEA’s top nuclear salesman-cum-watchdog to visit Iran
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has confirmed that its Director-General, Rafael Grossi, will travel to Iran on May 6 to engage with high-ranking officials.
He will attend the International Conference on Nuclear Science and Technology during the visit, taking place in Isfahan, just months after officials in Iran claimed to be within reach of nuclear weapons. Grossi just days ago also claimed Iran was “weeks not months” from a nuclear weapon.
Im February Grossi admitted a “drifting apart” in relations between the agency and an increasingly defiant Iran.
Grossi noted in the same month that although the rate of uranium enrichment in Iran had decreased slightly since the previous year’s end, Iran continued to enrich uranium at a significant rate of approximately 7 kg per month to 60 percent purity, near weapons grade.
Under the terms of a 2015 agreement with world powers, Iran was only permitted to enrich uranium up to 3.67 percent.
However, after former President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the agreement in 2018 and reinstated sanctions, Iran exceeded the limits. As a result, the IAEA has stated that the 2015 nuclear deal has “all but disintegrated”.
Five Things the “Nuclear Bros” Don’t Want You to Know About Small Modular Reactors
1. SMRs are not more economical than large reactors.
2. SMRs are not generally safer or more secure than large light-water reactors.
3. SMRs will not reduce the problem of what to do with radioactive waste.
4. SMRs cannot be counted on to provide reliable and resilient off-the-grid power for facilities, such as data centers, bitcoin mining, hydrogen or petrochemical production.
5. SMRs do not use fuel more efficiently than large reactors.
Ed Lyman, April 30, 2024 https://blog.ucsusa.org/edwin-lyman/five-things-the-nuclear-bros-dont-want-you-to-know-about-small-modular-reactors/
Even casual followers of energy and climate issues have probably heard about the alleged wonders of small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). This is due in no small part to the “nuclear bros”: an active and seemingly tireless group of nuclear power advocates who dominate social media discussions on energy by promoting SMRs and other “advanced” nuclear technologies as the only real solution for the climate crisis. But as I showed in my 2013 and 2021 reports, the hype surrounding SMRs is way overblown, and my conclusions remain valid today.
Unfortunately, much of this SMR happy talk is rooted in misinformation, which always brings me back to the same question: If the nuclear bros have such a great SMR story to tell, why do they have to exaggerate so much?
What are SMRs?
SMRs are nuclear reactors that are “small” (defined as 300 megawatts of electrical power or less), can be largely assembled in a centralized facility, and would be installed in a modular fashion at power generation sites. Some proposed SMRs are so tiny (20 megawatts or less) that they are called “micro” reactors. SMRs are distinct from today’s conventional nuclear plants, which are typically around 1,000 megawatts and were largely custom-built. Some SMR designs, such as NuScale, are modified versions of operating water-cooled reactors, while others are radically different designs that use coolants other than water, such as liquid sodium, helium gas, or even molten salts.
To date, however, theoretical interest in SMRs has not translated into many actual reactor orders. The only SMR currently under construction is in China. And in the United States, only one company—TerraPower, founded by Microsoft’s Bill Gates—has applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for a permit to build a power reactor (but at 345 megawatts, it technically isn’t even an SMR).
The nuclear industry has pinned its hopes on SMRs primarily because some recent large reactor projects, including Vogtle units 3 and 4 in the state of Georgia, have taken far longer to build and cost far more than originally projected. The failure of these projects to come in on time and under budget undermines arguments that modern nuclear power plants can overcome the problems that have plagued the nuclear industry in the past.
Developers in the industry and the US Department of Energy say that SMRs can be less costly and quicker to build than large reactors and that their modular nature makes it easier to balance power supply and demand. They also argue that reactors in a variety of sizes would be useful for a range of applications beyond grid-scale electrical power, including providing process heat to industrial plants and power to data centers, cryptocurrency mining operations, petrochemical production, and even electrical vehicle charging stations.
Here are five facts about SMRs that the nuclear industry and the “nuclear bros” who push its message don’t want you, the public, to know.
Continue readingAlarm over nuclear safety lapses on the Clyde
The Ferret Rob Edwards, April 28, 2024
The number of safety incidents that could have leaked radiation at the Trident nuclear base on the Clyde has risen to the highest in 15 years, according to information released by the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
One incident in 2023 at the Faslane base, near Helensburgh, was given the MoD’s worst risk rating. This is the first time this has happened since 2008.
Another four incidents at the base in 2023, and one in 2024, were given the second worst rating. The number in 2023 was the highest since 2006.
According to the MoD’s definitions, all six incidents had “actual or potential for radioactive release to the environment”. In total the MoD logged 179 nuclear safety incidents on the Clyde in 2023 and 2024, though most of them were deemed to be less serious.
The MoD insisted that there had been no “radiological impact” or harm to health from any of the incidents. But it declined to provide any further details for national security reasons.
Campaigners described the rise in serious safety incidents as “alarming” and “chilling”. They condemned the secrecy surrounding the incidents, and called for the MoD to give a “full account” of what happened.
The MoD has released new figures to MPs summarising the number of “nuclear site events” in 2023 and 2024 at Faslane and the nearby nuclear bomb store at Coulport.
A total of 158 incidents of all kinds were recorded for 2023, plus 21 so far in 2024. All but six of the incidents were in three less serious categories, suggesting they posed lower risks.
According to the MoD, the incidents included “equipment failures, human error, procedural failings, documentation shortcoming or near-misses”. But it gave no further descriptions of any of the six more serious incidents.
One incident at Faslane in 2023 was rated as “category A”, the highest risk rating used by the MoD. It has defined such incidents as having an “actual or high potential for radioactive release to the environment” in breach of safety limits.
The last category A incident reported by the MoD was in 2008 when radioactive waste leaked from a barge at Faslane into the Clyde. There were also spillages from nuclear submarines at the base in 2007 and 2006.
The MoD’s figures disclosed four “category B” incidents at Faslane in 2023. This is the highest number of such incidents at the site since 2006, when there were five.
There was another category B incident at Faslane in the first four months of 2024, as well as two in 2022 and three in 2021. The MoD has defined such incidents as having an “actual or high potential for a contained release”, or an “actual or potential for radioactive release to the environment” below safety limits.
Nuclear weapons infrastructure ‘dangerously rotting’
“If you watch media followup, you’ll see NO reporting on the substance, e.g the fact that our nuclear weapons infrastructure is dangerously rotting & is tens of billions secretly in the hole, with huge knockon effects beyond its destructive effects on MoD which has got *even worse* & *even more lying* during the war.
The entire puerile election debate will be based on fake budget numbers that will then be given to Starmer on above-STRAP3 yellow paper, with him given the same nudge to classify, punt and lie. Nobody will report on all this & MPs will continue to ignore it...Dominic Cummins, Substack 31 Dec 2023
The latest figures were released in response to a parliamentary question by the SNP MP for Edinburgh North and Leith, Deidre Brock. In previous questions, she has obtained information on nuclear safety events at Faslane and Coulport back to 2006.
“My annual questions to UK ministers have exposed steadily declining nuclear safety standards at Faslane and Coulport, but the increase in the severity of incidents last year is particularly alarming,” she told The Ferret.
“Reports detailing these incidents should be made public again so that people of Scotland – including those who live near the bases – can weigh up for themselves the risks created by the storage of these nuclear warheads.”
She accused the MoD of “playing down” the safety breaches, pointing out that in December 2023 the former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s senior advisor, Dominic Cummins, described the UK’s nuclear weapons infrastructure as “dangerously rotting”.
Brock said she would be submitting further parliamentary questions asking for details of the more serious incidents in 2023 and 2024. “But it shouldn’t take the digging of individual MPs or journalists to get piecemeal bits of information from the MoD,” she argued.
The Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament branded the category A incident at Faslane as “chilling”. The UK’s nuclear weapons were a “catastrophe in waiting”, said the campaign chair, Lynn Jamieson.
She accused the UK government of wanting to suppress “bad news” about nuclear weapons.
The Nuclear Information Service, which researches and criticises nuclear weapons, called for the MoD to give a “full account” of what happened. “This is very concerning, and shows there are clearly problems with safety standards at Faslane,” said the service’s director, David Cullen.
He pointed out that there had been another “serious workplace safety failure” on a Trident submarine at Faslane in August 2021. The UK Office for Nuclear Regulation issued an improvement notice after an “electrical overload”………………………………………………… https://theferret.scot/nuclear-safety-lapses-clyde-alarm/
IAEA clears Japanese reactor for 60-year lifetime
Following a review, unit 3 at the Mihama nuclear power plant (NPP) has been deemed fit for further operation.
Alfie Shaw, April 26, 2024
Ateam of experts from the International Atomic Agency (IAEA) has found that Japanese utility Kansai Electric Power Company is implementing timely measures for the safe long-term operation of unit 3 at its Mihama NPP.
Under regulations that came into force in July 2013, Japanese reactors have a nominal operating period of 40 years; 20-year extensions can be granted once, but this is contingent on exacting safety requirements.
Kansai’s Mihama unit 3, a 780MW pressurised water reactor that entered commercial operation in 1976, was granted an extension by Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) in November 2016, giving the unit a licence to operate until 2036. Unit 3 at Mihama was the third Japanese unit to be granted a licence extension enabling it to operate beyond 40 years under the revised regulations, following Takahama units 1 and 2, which received NRA approval in June 2016.
Following the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in 2011, Mihama shut down, lying idle until restarting in June 2021. It became the first Japanese reactor to operate beyond 40 years…………………………………………….
Power Technology 26th April 2024 https://www.power-technology.com/news/mihama-nuclear-unit-sees-extension-to-60-year-lifetime/
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Grim nuclear anniversary: Zaporizhzhia must not repeat Chornobyl
Shaun Burnie, Jan Vande Putte and Daryna Rogachuk, 26 April 2024 https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/66648/grim-nuclear-anniversary-zaporizhzhia-chornobyl-ukraine/
Chornobyl is one of the most recognised synonyms for disaster in the world. Its legacy is a universal reminder of the horrific consequences of nuclear power when things goes wrong: on this day in 1986, a test procedure produced explosions at the power plant in Pripyat, Ukraine, causing a chain reaction that blew a colossal release of radioactive contamination across Europe and eventually much of the Northern Hemisphere.
Millions of Ukrainians have been affected by the destruction of reactor unit 4 and the radiation it released into the environment, either directly or through their families, friends and colleagues and its impact is still felt across generations.
Today, 38 years later, the spectre of nuclear catastrophe looms large – and not only in the abandoned region around Chornobyl: the ongoing illegal Russian military occupation of the south-eastern Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe and one of the 10 biggest in the world, installed by force the Russian state nuclear authority Rosatom. In doing so, Moscow placed in danger not only Ukraine, but most of Europe – and with chilling echoes of a Soviet era mentality that prioritised domination over life and safety and produced the catastrophe in Chornobyl.
Chornobyl’s RBMK reactor design had evolved out of the Soviet Union’s 1950s military reactors used for producing plutonium for nuclear weapons, and were known even then to be unsafe. Scientists warning of integral instabilities, including a ‘positive steam coefficient’ which could lead to an explosion, were ignored. Twenty years later, that design flaw and others led to two massive explosions that destroyed the Chornobyl unit 4 reactor and shook the world.
In the years between 1986-1990, over 600,000 firefighters, soldiers, janitors, and miners – collectively known as ‘liquidators’ – were sent to the Chornobyl site after the explosion in an attempt to respond to the disaster. Many tens of thousands have suffered long term health consequences and death.
The Russian threat at Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant
By sidelining Zaporizhzhia’s Ukrainian engineers at gunpoint, and by deliberately firing missiles at Ukraine’s wider energy infrastructure, the Kremlin risks repeating terrible lessons from history. The Russian invasion presence places Ukraine’s four nuclear power plants – South Ukraine, Rivne, Khemelnitsky and especially Zaporizhzhia – at risk of an emergency power loss and station blackout.
Despite heroic efforts by Zaporizhzhia workers and citizens of nearby Energodar to barricade the main access road with vehicles, tyres and sandbags to block the advancing Russian troops, they were overwhelmed and the resulting assault damaged the plant, including its vital electricity infrastructure for maintaining the cooling function of the hot nuclear fuel. One reactor core producing heat for the electricity has the power of two million water cookers: if cooling stopped after shutdown, it would take only hours for the cooling water to boil off, expose the hot nuclear fuel to the air and melt down, leading to a new major nuclear disaster. In peacetime, power plant workers still have several options to restore cooling in an emergency, but in a war zone this is severely and constantly compromised.
There is a long list of dangerous incidents caused by the Russian invasion, including the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam on 6 June 2023, which not only led to an enormous damage and suffering below the dam, but also emptied the Kakhovka reservoir providing cooling water for the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.
Nuclear history repeating itself?
The ultimate blow to nuclear safety however is the plan of Rosatom and Moscow to attempt to restart one or more reactors at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. The existing cooling water resources are far from sufficient to cool an operational reactor. Rosatom would have to build a new pump system, which would not be as reliable, and it does not have the workforce and expertise to control an operational reactor, especially in a warzone. Nuclear energy is incompatible with a world marred by conflict and instability.
Russia might have launched a disinformation campaign to pave the way for blaming Ukraine in case something goes very wrong. Hiding behind false flag attacks might make it easier for them to take higher risks. That is why it is so important to remember Chornobyl today, and how it happened, through irresponsible deliberate decisions and acts by the Soviet system.
Greenpeace Germany has written to Rafael Mariano Grossi, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General calling on him to make clear to Rosatom and the Russian government that restart of Zaporizhzhia under Russian control is unconscionable. The IAEA must do all it can to prevent restart and not cooperate with Rosatom, nor seek to accommodate the interests of the nuclear industry, or it risks repeating the grave mistakes of the past.
Decrepit nuclear reactors operate without meaningful inspections or insurance.
Convicted of 92 federal felony manslaughter counts, Diablo’s Pacific Gas & Electric is a criminal operation. Its 2010 negligence at San Bruno gas lines incinerated eight people. Its faulty transmission lines killed 84 people in northern California’s infamous 2017 Camp Fire. No PG&E executive went to prison any of those killings. In 2021 its CEO was paid $51.2 million.
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Nuclear Power’s Lethal, Larcenous End Game, BY HARVEY WASSERMAN, 26 Apr 24
“………………………………………………………………………………………………………..Thus Congress has just extended the 1957 Price-Anderson Act which exempts reactor owners from liability for a major disaster, an official vote of no confidence in the industry’s ability to guarantee the public safety.
With the February 29 passage of the Advanced Atomic Reactor Act, the industry stands to grift billions in public subsidies for decrepit reactors whose licenses they want to extend for 60-80 years while fighting basic safety inspections from federal regulators.
Thus the Nuclear Regulatory Commission—whose financial support comes from the operation of the reactors it supposedly regulates—is infamous for its blind eye to the deep structural and operational holes that could soon doom the aging US fleet.
The NRC is currently green-lighting operations at Diablo’s 40-year-old Unit One despite a dangerously embrittled core that could irradiate all of downwind California. Ohio’s Davis-Besse is riddled with mismanagement and decay. Ohio’s Perry, Virginia’s North Anna and Diablo have all been recently shaken earthquakes. California’s San Onofre shut in 2014 because its newly-installed unfixable steam turbines leaked radiation.
Convicted of 92 federal felony manslaughter counts, Diablo’s Pacific Gas & Electric is a criminal operation. Its 2010 negligence at San Bruno gas lines incinerated eight people. Its faulty transmission lines killed 84 people in northern California’s infamous 2017 Camp Fire. No PG&E executive went to prison any of those killings. In 2021 its CEO was paid $51.2 million.
For the public, the costs in health, ecological and economic damage at any US reactor could climb into the trillions, with radioactive clouds and multiple bankruptcies leaving countless victims dead, destroyed, destitute.
According to the US Government Accountability Office, from 2001 to 2006 alone, more than 150 reactor incidents violated acceptable safety guidelines. A 2010 survey of US nuclear accidents showed least 56 by then involved loss of human life or more than $50,000 in property damage.
Said former Vice President Al Gore in 2009:
“Of the 253 nuclear power reactors originally ordered in the United States from 1953 to 2008, 48 percent were canceled, 11 percent were prematurely shut down, 14 percent experienced at least a one-year-or-more outage, and 27 percent are operating without having a year-plus outage. Thus, only about one fourth of those ordered, or about half of those completed, are still operating and have proved relatively reliable.[53]
Yet New York is dumping $7.6+ billion into keeping four decrepit reactors on line (one of which opened in 1969). Ohio’s legislature recently pocketed $61 million in bribes to scam a $1 billion taxpayer bailout for two 40 and 50-year old nukes irradiating Lake Erie. Michigan wants $8 billion to revive the 51-year-old Palisades reactor—which shut two years ago—even though Holtec (the waste management company designated to revive Palisades) has no experience building or operating any nuclear power reactor. Pieces of the reactor have already been sold off for scrap.………………………………………..more https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/04/26/nuclear-powers-lethal-larcenous-end-game/
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New Nuclear Energy: Assessing the National Security Risks
https://blogs.gwu.edu/elliott-iistp/research-2/ 26 Apr 24
IISTP Research Professor Sharon Squassoni publishes a comprehensive report assessing the risks of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons.
Read the complete report: “New Nuclear Energy: Assessing the National Security Risks“.
GWU REPORT: NATIONAL SECURITY RISKS GROW WITH NEW NUCLEAR ENERGY
Drone strikes against Ukraine’s nuclear reactors highlight risks
WASHINGTON, DC – April 23, 2024 – Proliferation of nuclear weapons, nuclear terrorism, sabotage, coercion and military operations – these risks associated with nuclear energy can all be expected to grow as countries seek to implement their new nuclear energy objectives, according to a new report published today by George Washington University’s (GWU) Sharon Squassoni. The aim of 22 countries to triple nuclear energy capacity by 2050, announced on the margins of COP-28, was adopted with little thought to the national security implications. The promotion of small modular reactors (SMRs)– specifically tailored to developing countries – will heighten, not diminish risks.
The report by GW professor Sharon Squassoni, “New Nuclear Energy: Assessing the National Security Risks,” comes as drone strikes against Ukrainian nuclear power plants highlight nuclear reactor vulnerabilities. Other national security risks will accompany significant nuclear growth as renewed interest in nuclear energy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions sparks programs across the globe. Squassoni, a professor at GWU’s Elliott School of International Affairs, now researches risk reduction from nuclear energy and nuclear weapons after serving in the State Department, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and the Congressional Research Service.
Proliferation and nuclear terrorism are the top two national security risks, but sabotage, coercion and military operations pose other risks. An attempt to reduce dependence on foreign suppliers – a national security risk itself — using nuclear energy could worsen the risk of proliferation by motivating fuel cycle independence. SMRs are still in development, with few restrictions on designs. Reactors fueled with highly enriched uranium or plutonium will increase risks of proliferation and terrorism because those materials are weapons-usable. Reactors designed to include lifetime cores will build up plutonium over time. Fast reactor designs that require reprocessing, especially continuous recycling of fuel, could ultimately confer latent nuclear weapons capabilities to many more states. In sum, the kinds of reactors now under consideration do nothing to reduce known risks, and some pose heightened risks. There appears to be no attempt to forge agreement among suppliers or governments to restrict reactor choices that pose greater proliferation risks.
If the mass production of small modular reactors lowers barriers to entry into nuclear energy, there will be many more states deploying nuclear power reactors, including those with significant governance challenges. Russian and Chinese programs to promote nuclear energy target many of those states. Cooperation among key states essential to minimize the safety, security and proliferation risks of nuclear energy is at an all-time low. The call to triple nuclear energy coincides with the disintegration of cooperation, the unraveling of norms and the loss of credibility of international institutions that are crucial to the safe and secure operation of nuclear power.
Nuclear-waste dams threaten Central Asia heartland
Dams holding large amounts of nuclear waste can be found in Kyrgyzstan’s
scenic hills. However, following a 2017 landslide they have become
unstable, threatening a possible Chernobyl-scale nuclear disaster if they
collapse.
Reuters 24th April 2024
Unstable nuclear-waste dams threaten fertile Central Asia heartland
- Summary
- Dams unstable following a landslide in 2017
- 22-25 million euros needed to move the waste to safer areas
- 16 million could be displaced from region in event of disaster
MAILUU-SUU, Kyrgyzstan, April 23 (Reuters) – Dams holding vast amounts of uranium mine tailings above the fertile Fergana valley in Central Asia are unstable, threatening a possible Chernobyl-scale nuclear disaster if they collapse that would make the region uninhabitable, studies have revealed.
Dams holding some 700,000 cubic meters (185 million gallons) of uranium mine tailings in Kyrgyzstan have become unreliable following a 2017 landslide. A further landslide or earthquake could send their contents into a river system used to irrigate Kyrgyz, Uzbek and Tajik farmlands, the studies at the Soviet-era radioactive waste disposal facility showed. That event would possibly displace millions in those three countries.
The studies, part of a project by the European Commission and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to reinforce the facilities, show that the type of waste involved cannot be safely contained in their current locations and needs to be moved away from the banks of the Mailuu-Suu river.
The Fergana valley, where the contaminated water would go, is the most densely populated area in Central Asia with 16 million people, many of whom are involved in the cultivation of cotton, rice, grains, fruit and vegetables.
“If a landslide causes the river to burst, the waste from two mine dumps will enter the water,” says Gulshair Abdullayeva, a manager of the Mailuu-Suu radiology lab.
“The environmental disaster would almost be comparable with Chernobyl.”
Studies have shown that the waste in those dumps is liquid, making it more hazardous, and it could flow into the river in the event of a strong earthquake, says Sebastian Hess, an engineer with German firm G.E.O.S. contracted by the Kyrgyz government.
“That would be a horrible catastrophe,” he said. “This water is used to irrigate fields which means agricultural produce would be contaminated.”
The dams’ foundations were weakened by water during a 2017 landslide which raised the river’s water level, bring it closer to the tailings, engineers have said.
The Bishkek government and G.E.O.S. estimate that 22-25 million euros would be needed to move the waste from the two unsafe locations to one further away from the river.
The area near the town of the Mailuu-Suu, one of the world’s biggest uranium ore dumps, was developed by the Soviet Union between the 1940s and 1960s. A factory in the town also processed uranium ore from other nearby mines.
Paul Dorfman: “In Ukraine or the Middle East, the risk of a nuclear accident is real”
Nuclear safety . For nuclear safety expert Paul Dorfman, a military attack on a nuclear power plant would be disastrous, both humanly and environmentally.
Comments collected by Baptiste Gauthey, 04/21/2024
Two conflicts, and the same fear. On April 15, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, sounded the alarm about threats posed to infrastructure by the war in Ukraine and tensions in the Middle East nuclear power plants in these regions. “We are getting dangerously close to a nuclear accident [in Zaporizhia, a Ukrainian power plant ],” he even declared on the sidelines of the UN Security Council.
Paul Dorfman, chairman of the Nuclear Consulting Group and a member of the Irish government’s Environmental Protection Agency’s radiation protection advisory committee, says these concerns are entirely justified. According to him, a military attack on a nuclear power plant would lead to catastrophic consequences. To the point, even, of calling into question the development of civil nuclear power in the world? Interview.
In your opinion, is there a risk that the conflict in Ukraine could trigger a nuclear accident?
Paul Dorfman Of course, no nuclear power plant in the world is safe from military attack. These attacks could target either the reactor or the storage basins for highly radioactive spent fuel, which are significantly less protected.
There is no doubt that a military attack on the Ukrainian Zaporizhia power plant would trigger a catastrophe, with radioactive releases that would have a serious impact on the surrounding environment and human health. Additionally, if weather conditions are unfavorable, such as a wind blowing towards Central Europe or Russia, the consequences could extend well beyond Ukraine.
According to an article published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists by Jungmin Kang and Eva Lisowski, the effects of such an attack could be comparable, if not greater, to those of Chernobyl ?
L’Express 21st April 2024
04/21/2024
Corrosion found in treated radioactive water tanks at Fukushima plant
Apr. 21 , https://japantoday.com/category/national/corrosion-found-in-treated-radioactive-water-tanks-at-fukushima-plantTOKYO
Corrosion has been found on the inside of tanks used to store treated radioactive water at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, its operator has revealed.
Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc said there are no problems with the strength of the tanks, but added that some of the more than 1,000 containers at the plant were installed over 10 years ago and have aged over time.
A TEPCO official said the operator will continue to inspect the tanks.
The firm began releasing the treated water containing tritium from the plant into the Pacific Ocean in August 2023 despite backlash from local fisheries and China.
In March, corrosion and peeling paint were spotted in three empty tanks that have been in use since 2016 at the plant, which suffered meltdowns following the devastating earthquake and ensuing tsunami in March 2011.
As it is impossible to check the inside of tanks currently containing treated water, other than with the use of underwater robots, TEPCO conducts annual exterior inspections to detect any abnormalities.
Tanks that have been used for more than 10 years also have the thickness of their steel plates measured using ultrasonic waves to assess their strength, TEPCO said.
The Japanese government and TEPCO have said that the treated water released from the Fukushima plant is diluted to reduce the levels of tritium to less than one-40th of the country’s national safety standards.
I’ve seen Iran’s nuclear HQ – these are the risks if Israel tries to destroy it.
The fortified Natanz uranium enrichment facility is thought to
be a top target if Israel attacks Iran. The uranium enrichment plant in the
Iranian desert has long been a centre of geopolitical controversy.
“Don’t take any photos. The guards will be watching. If they see you holding a camera, they’ll probably shoot us.”
That was my guide’s strict instruction as our mini-bus slowly approached
the Natanz uranium enrichment plant in the heart of the Iranian desert,
during my trip to the country in 2014. Despite growing optimism back then
about international negotiations over Iran’s nuclear programme, security
for Iran’s biggest and most controversial nuclear facility remained as
tight as ever.
You might think it odd that a public road would run within a
few hundred metres of such a sensitive area. We were driving on Freeway 7
from the city of Esfahan to the ancient village of Abyaneh, and the
quickest route happened to pass by Natanz.
One thing I remember from that
journey is the sight of anti-aircraft guns pointing towards the sky. If
Israel attacks Iran in vengeance for its drone and missile assault at the
weekend – following Israel’s own strike on the Iranian consulate in
Damascus – then Natanz is likely to be among the top desired targets for
its jets.
Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic
Energy Agency, revealed on Monday that the extreme Islamic regime in Tehran
closed its nuclear sites over the weekend because of “security
considerations”. Asked if he believed that Israel might attack the
facilities, the head of the UN watchdog replied: “We are always concerned
about this possibility.” Mr Grossi called for “extreme restraint”.
Natanz has long been central to Iran’s nuclear programme. It is where
centrifuges spin uranium gas at extremely high speed to separate a lighter
form – uranium-235- from a heavier variant. It is the uranium-235 isotope
that can be split to produce energy. Even if Israel succeeded in blowing up
Natanz, the Washington-based Arms Control Association has warned: “Tehran
may have already diverted certain materials, such as advanced centrifuges
used to enrich uranium, to covert sites.
” If the Israeli prime minister
Benjamin Netanyahu decides to strike Natanz, or any other site in Iran,
then it’s hard to know where this crisis might end – with worries about a
wider regional conflict or even World War Three suddenly seeming realistic.
iNews 17th April 2024
https://inews.co.uk/news/world/iran-nuclear-hq-israel-risks-3010773
1.This Month
Small Nuclear Reactors Education Task Force: https://stop-smrs.weebly.com/bulletins.ht
24 May. The Vow from Hiroshima film is coming on PBS, this month https://www.thevowfromhiroshima.com/
6-7 July A summit and a rally in Washington D.C. https://nonatoyespeace.org/
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