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Belgian nuclear reactor shut down due to a leak

RTBF 28trh April 2018 , The reactor at the Doel 1 nuclear power plant in Beveren was shut down
earlier this week . The reason given at that time was a ” maintenance at
the level of the cooling circuit ” . Engie Electrabel confirmed to local TV
TV Oost that a leak was detected in the nuclear section during this review.
The reactor will be shut down at least until October 1st.
https://www.rtbf.be/info/belgique/detail_

April 30, 2018 Posted by | EUROPE, incidents | Leave a comment

Nuclear leaks at North Korean test site ARE a radiological mess

Nuclear Leaks At Nth Korean Test Site – real or “a Furphy” according to Broinowski ? Real, says Langley 

I have been following the story of radiological dangers posed by the increasing stressed geology of the North Korean nuclear test site for some months. Over the last week the story was again raised by the Australian newspaper. This motivated me to find the closest Chinese authority. The story was, as far as I can gather, published this week in The South China Morning Post on Wednesday 25 April 2018. The article, written by Stephen Chen, is entitled “North Korea’s nuclear test site has collapsed … and that may be why Kim Jong-un suspended tests“. The first paragraph explains further: “The mountain’s collapse after a fifth blast last fall has led to the creation of a massive ‘chimney’ that could leak radioactive fallout into the air, researchers have found….” before I go any further, there are two questions to ask: 1. How credible is Stephen Chen’s reporting and 2. Who are the researchers involved? eg are they retired diplomats only or are they qualified to comment in a scientific manner? If so have their findings been peered reviewed?

(what journalists say is irrelevant to me except when the articles lead me to find the peer reviewed papers published by scientists. Newspapers seem not to put relevant links to source documents up which is a crying shame.)

1. Stephen Chen: his bio on the SCMP site states: “Stephen covers breakthoughs in science and their impact on society, environment, military, geopolitics, business – pretty much all aspects of life. His stories often travel across the globe. Stephen is an alumnus of Shantou University, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and the Semester at Sea programme which he attended with a full scholarship from the Seawise Foundation. In his spare time, Stephen reads and writes novels. He lives in Beijing with a beautiful wife and two lovely kids.”

fair enough, signs look hopeful that the article is not reporting a scientific “furphy”, as Broinowski described the generic story on the Australian ABC TV this morning. But let’s dig a nanometer deeper. Who are the researchers Chen is referencing? Does he name them and are they famous? (fame = mass readership and lots of grant money):

“A research team led by Wen Lianxing, a geologist with the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei, concluded that the collapse occurred following the detonation last autumn of North Korea’s most powerful thermal nuclear warhead in a tunnel about 700 metres (2,296 feet) below the mountain’s peak.

The test turned the mountain into fragile fragments, the researchers found….” end quote from the SCMP/Chen.

Further, Chen reports: “A research team led by Wen Lianxing, a geologist with the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei, concluded that the collapse occurred following the detonation last autumn of North Korea’s most powerful thermal nuclear warhead in a tunnel about 700 metres (2,296 feet) below the mountain’s peak.

The test turned the mountain into fragile fragments, the researchers found. ” source: ibid.

Describing these findings and the dangers posed by the scientific observations as reported by Chen does not smack of “Furphy” or fantasy Richard B. (No I don’t mind who your sister is, you should know better).

Wen Lianxing et al have been tracking North Korean nuclear tests, as far as I can find (hamstrung as I am, because I cannot speak or read Chinese), from at least 2006, and certainly since 2009, when the team became the first in the world to precisely locate the location of a North Korean nuclear test. : “High-precision Location of North Korea’s 2009 Nuclear Test”
Article in Seismological Research Letters 81(1):26-29 · January 2010 authors: Lianxing Wen, University of Science and Technology of China (Hefei, China); Hui Long, Stony Brook University (Stony Brook, United States).

Have a read of it Mr Broinowski. You might find it sensible and not a furphy.

Ok, on with the real matters at hand. Underground nuke tests invariably leak radionuclides into the biosphere. The US underground nuclear test regime has created a legacy of cost and risk, to put it mildly, which continues to this day. Name a US underground shot, and go to DOE Opennet and enter the shot’s code name. Up pops reams of documents detailing the test, the immediate result, and the long term consequences in terms of risk and costs.

There is no reason to suspect that the risks and costs of North Korea’s underground will be any more “furphy” ridden that the US underground tests were. And continue to be.

So without any further ado, even if I have to drag Richard B kicking and screaming into 1954, is some more non furphy from Chen and the SCMP:

“It is necessary to continue monitoring possible leaks of radioactive materials caused by the collapse incident,” Wen’s team said in the statement.

The findings will be published on the website of the peer-reviewed journal, Geophysical Research Letters, likely next month.

North Korea saw the mountain as an ideal location for underground nuclear experiments because of its elevation – it stood more than 2,100 metres (6,888 feet) above sea level – and its terrain of thick, gentle slopes that seemed capable of resisting structural damage…..

“The mountain’s surface had shown no visible damage after four underground nuclear tests before 2017.

But the 100-kilotonne bomb that went off on September 3 vaporised surrounding rocks with unprecedented heat and opened a space that was up to 200 metres (656 feet) in diameter, according to a statement posted on the Wen team’s website on Monday. ….

“As shock waves tore through and loosened more rocks, a large section of the mountain’s ridge, less than half a kilometre (0.3 mile) from the peak, slipped down into the empty pocket created by the blast, leaving a scar visible in satellite images.

Wen concluded that the mountain had collapsed after analysing data collected from nearly 2,000 seismic stations. ….

“Three small earthquakes that hit nearby regions in the wake of the collapse added credence to his conclusion, suggesting the test site had lost its geological stability.

Another research team led by Liu Junqing at the Jilin Earthquake Agency with the China Earthquake Administration in Changchun reached similar conclusions to the Wen team. ….

“The “rock collapse … was for the first time documented in North Korea’s test site,” Liu’s team wrote in a paper published last month in Geophysical Research Letters.

The breakdown not only took off part of the mountain’s summit but also created a “chimney” that could allow fallout to rise from the blast centre into the air, they said. …

“Zhao Lianfeng, a researcher with the Institute of Earth Science at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, said the two studies supported a consensus among scientists that “the site was wrecked” beyond repair.

“Their findings are in agreement to our observations,” he said.

“Different teams using different data have come up with similar conclusions,” Zhao said. “The only difference was in some technical details. This is the best guess that can be made by the world outside.” ….

“Speculation grew that North Korea’s site was in trouble when Lee Doh-sik, the top North Korean geologist, visited Zhao’s institute about two weeks after the test and met privately with senior Chinese government geologists.

“Although the purpose of Lee’s visit was not disclosed, two days later Pyongyang announced it would no longer conduct land-based nuclear tests.”

” Hu Xingdou, a Beijing-based scholar who follows North Korea’s nuclear programme, said it was highly likely that Pyongyang had received a stark warning from Beijing.

““The test was not only destabilising the site but increasing the risk of eruption of the Changbai Mountain,” a large, active volcano at China-Korean border, said Hu, who asked that his university affiliation not be disclosed for this article because of the topic’s sensitivity.

“The mountain’s collapse has likely dealt a huge blow to North Korea’s nuclear programme, Hu said.

Hit by crippling international economic sanctions over its nuclear ambitions, the country might lack sufficient resources to soon resume testing at a new site, he said.

“But there are other sites suitable for testing,” Hu said. “They must be closely monitored.”

Guo Qiuju, a Peking University professor who has belonged to a panel that has advised the Chinese government on emergency responses to radioactive hazards, said that if fallout escaped through cracks, it could be carried by wind over the Chinese border.

“So far we have not detected an abnormal increase of radioactivity levels,” Guo said. “But we will continue to monitor the surrounding region with a large [amount] of highly sensitive equipment and analyse the data in state-of-the-art laboratories.”

“Zhao Guodong, a government nuclear waste confinement specialist at the University of South China, said that the North Korean government should allow scientists from China and other countries to enter the test site and evaluate the damage.

“We can put a thick layer of soil on top of the collapsed site, fill the cracks with special cement, or remove the pollutants with chemical solution,” he said.

“There are many methods to deal with the problem. All they need [to do] is ask.” end quote . source: ibid.

For the sake of ignorant ex diplomats everywhere, let me list all the qualified scientists Chen gives as sources for his article:

1. Wen Lianxing
2. Liu Junqing
3. Zhao Lianfeng
4. Hu Xingdou
5. Guo Qiuju
6. Zhao Guodong

The above qualified people consider that North Korean nuclear tests have, and do, pose a continuing radiological risk to North Korea and to China. This is due to the geologic damage the test series have caused. As any rational person with knowledge of the US underground test era knows, such risks are extremely well documented in the case of the US tests and appalling documented in the case of North Korea.

Dissenters from my point view and the content of Chen’s reported based upon his 6 expert sources are: 1. Richard Broinowski, retired diplomat. Not a scientist.

blows rasberry at RD. so sue me.

P.S. and another thing Richard B. You won’t close the South Korean nuclear plants down by going on TV and denying the North Korean radiological mess, which is probably an undisclosed actual disaster for the people there. Underground nuke test sites have many ways of leaking radionuclides. Over the years a test site’s hydrology is main vector, but anything can happen at the time, and, in the US experience has happened. The chances of uncontained radionuclides let loose into the biosphere is very high in North Korea and no ideology can successfully hide that fact. Your comments on the ABC TV this morning were damaging to the movement and frankly, in my opinion, bloody ignorant. Would you accept the facts of the matter if the scientists Chen cites were all born in London and were named “Watt”?

This post has been posted on Mr Stephen Chen’s facebook page. with thanks to him and his sources.

April 27, 2018 Posted by | incidents, North Korea | Leave a comment

Report from China that North Korea’s “nuclear mountain” test site has collapsed

 

North Korea radiation WARNING as shock report deems nuclear test site UNUSABLE https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/951489/north-korea-news-kim-jong-un-nuclear-test-site-punggye-ri-radiation

NORTH Korea’s main nuclear test site has collapsed after multiple explosions and could be vulnerable to radiation leaks, according to a team of Chinese geologists.By SIMON OSBORNE

Scientists at the University of Science and Technology of China said the partial collapse of a mountain containing test tunnels, as well as the risk of radiation leaks, have potentially rendered the site unusable. Their study was published soon after Kim said his country would stop testing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles and close down Punggye-ri before his meeting with Moon.

The Chinese scientists collected data after the most powerful of the North’s six nuclear tests last September.

The controlled explosion, which caused a magnitude 6.3 tremor, is believed to have triggered four more earthquakes over the following weeks.

The study found there was “a near-vertical on-site collapse towards the nuclear test centre” about eight minutes after the test.

The report said: “In view of the research finding that the North Korea nuclear test site at Mount Mantap has collapsed, it is necessary to continue to monitor any leakage of radioactive materials that may have been caused by the collapse.”

North Korean nuclear tests have caused seismic events in Chinese border towns and cities, forcing evacuations of schools and offices, sparking fears of wind-borne radiation and leading to a backlash among some Chinese against their country’s unpredictable traditional ally.

On Saturday, Kim announced North Korea would close its nuclear testing facility and suspend nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests – a move welcomed by US president Donald Trump as “big progress” – and which comes ahead of a planned summit between the leaders in late May or early June.

But Kim stopped short of promising to give up his nuclear weapons, and the missile test ban does not include shorter-range weapons capable of reaching Japan and South Korea.

April 27, 2018 Posted by | incidents, North Korea | Leave a comment

The accidental dropping of two nuclear bombs, on North Carolina

The U.S. Once Dropped Two Nuclear Bombs on North Carolina by Accident https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/nuclear-bombs-dropped-on-north-carolinaBy sheer luck, neither detonated., BY SARAH LASKOW , APRIL 26, 2018

This week we’re telling the stories of five nuclear accidents that burst into public view. Previously: The “demon core” that killed two scientists, missing nuclear warheads, what happens when a missile falls back into its silo

IN 1961, AS JOHN F. Kennedy was inaugurated, Cold War tensions were running high, and the military had planes armed with nuclear weapons in the air constantly. These planes were supposed to be ready to respond to a nuclear attack at any moment. If the planes were already in the air, the thinking went, they would survive a nuclear bomb hitting the United States.

 But one of the closest calls came when an America B-52 bomber dropped two nuclear bombs on North Carolina.

In January, a jet carrying two 12-foot-long Mark 39 hydrogen bombs met up with a refueling plane, whose pilot noticed a problem. Fuel was leaking from the plane’s right wing. The wing was failing and the plane needed to make an emergency landing, soon. But before it could, its wing broke off, followed by part of the tail. The plane crash-landed, killing three of its crew. (Five other men made it safely out.)

In the plane’s flailing descent, the bomb bays opened, and the two bombs it was carrying fell to the ground.

As it fell, one bomb deployed its parachute: a bad sign, as it meant the bomb was acting as if it had been deployed deliberately. It started flying through the seven-step sequence that would end in detonation. The last step involved a simple safety switch. When a military crew found the bomb, it was nose-up in the dirt, with its parachute caught in the tree, still whole. As the Orange County Register writes, that last switch was still turned to SAFE.

The second bomb had disappeared into a tobacco field. Only “a small dent in the earth,” the Register reports, revealed its location.

It took a week for a crew to dig out the bomb; soon they had to start pumping water out of the site. Though the bomb had not exploded, it had broken up on impact, and the clean-up crew had to search the muddy ground for its parts. When they found that key switch, it had been turned to ARM. To this day, it’s unclear why the bomb did not go off.

The crew didn’t find every part of the bomb, though. The secondary core, made of uranium, never turned up. Today, the site where the bomb fell is safe enough to farm—but the military has made sure, using an easement, that no one will dig or erect a building on that site.

April 27, 2018 Posted by | history, incidents, USA | Leave a comment

How the diabolically dangerous plutonium cores killed two nuclear scientists

The Nuclear ‘Demon Core’ That Killed Two Scientists https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/demon-core-that-killed-two-scientistsAfter World War II ended, physicists kept pushing a plutonium core to its edge. BY SARAH LASKOW 
APRIL 23, 2018 

Since the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, the world has been in a state of readiness for nuclear combat. In this secretive domain, mistakes and mishaps are often hidden: This week we’re telling the stories of five nuclear accidents that burst into public view.
THE WAR WAS OVER—JAPAN HAD surrendered. The third plutonium core created by the United States, which scientists at Los Alamos National Lab had been preparing for another attack, was no longer needed as a weapon. For the moment, the lab’s nuclear scientists were allowed to keep the sphere, an alloy of plutonium and gallium that would become known as the demon core.

In a nuclear explosion, a bomb’s radioactive core goes critical: A nuclear chain reaction starts and continues with no additional intervention. When nuclear material goes supercritical, that reaction speeds up. American scientists knew enough about the radioactive materials they were working with to be able to set off these reactions in a bomb, but they wanted a better understanding of the edge where subcritical material tipped into the dangerous, intensely radioactive critical state.

 One way to push the core towards criticality involved turning the neutrons it shedback onto the core, to destabilize it further. The “Critical Assembly Group” at Los Alamos was working on a series of experiments in which they surrounded the core with materials that reflected neutrons and monitored the core’s state.

The first time someone died performing one of these experiments, Japan had yet to formally sign the terms of surrender. On the evening of August 21, 1945, the physicist Harry Daghlian was alone in the lab, building a shield of tungsten carbide bricks around the core. Ping-ponging neutrons back the core, the bricks had brought the plutonium close to the threshold of criticality, when Daghlian dropped a brick on top. Instantly, the core reacted, going supercritical and Daghlian was doused in a lethal dose of radiation. He died 25 days later.

His death did not dissuade his colleagues, though. Nine months later, they had developed another way to bring the core close to that critical edge, by lowering a dome of beryllium over the core. Louis Slotin, another physicist, had performed this move in many previous experiments: He would hold the dome with one hand, and with the other use a screwdriver to keep a small gap open, just barely limiting the flow of neutrons back to the bomb. On a May day in 1946, his hand slipped, and the gap closed. Again, the core went supercritical and dosed Slotin, along with seven other scientists in the room, with gamma radiation.

In each instance, when the core slipped over that threshold and started spewing radiation, a bright blue light flashed in the room—the result of highly energized particles hitting air molecules, which released that bolt of energy as streams of light.

The other scientists survived their radiation bath, but Slotin, closest to the core, died of radiation sickness nine days later. The experiments stopped. After a cooling-off period, the demon core was recast into a different weapon, eventually destroyed in a nuclear test.

April 25, 2018 Posted by | - plutonium, incidents, USA | Leave a comment

In the 1950s, military accidents meant that nuclear warheads went missing.

When the U.S. Kept Losing Nuclear Bombs https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/has-america-ever-lost-nuclear-bombs  In the 1950s, military accidents meant that nuclear warheads went missing, BY SARAH LASKOW ,APRIL 24, 2018

Since the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, the world has been in a state of readiness for nuclear combat. In this secretive domain, mistakes and mishaps are often hidden: This week we’re telling the stories of five nuclear accidents that burst into public view.
THERE ARE OBJECTS THAT WILL inevitably get lost: socks, hats, cheap headphones, attachments to households appliances. But some things you try harder to keep hold of: your wallet, your keys, America’s nuclear warheads.

It doesn’t always work out.

 In 1956, for instance, a B-47 bomber was flying from Florida to an overseas base, with two nuclear cores on board. After meeting up with another plane to refuel, it disappeared. The U.S. military never found any trace of the plane, its crew, or the nuclear materials.

When the military does lose nuclear weapons, it’s rare that their location is so mysterious. More often, planes have jettisoned weapons during in-flight emergencies, for the safety of the crew, and the high explosives built into the bombs have gone off. (Conventional explosives set off a bomb’s nuclear reaction; in early designs, the radioactive cores of nuclear bombs were often kept separate, as a safety measure.) But on occasion the weapons do disappear.

Two years after the bomber went missing over the ocean, another B-47 was flying a simulated combat mission on the coast of Georgia, when a fighter plane collided with it. Both planes were damaged; the fighter pilot bailed out of his plane and landed in a nearby swamp. Before landing their busted plane, the crew of the B-47 dropped the nuclear weapon they were carrying into the water.

There was no explosion. But when the military searched the three-mile area around where the bomb was thought to land, they could find no trace of it. It’s thought that the weapon dove through about 15 or 20 feet of water and landed, nose-first, in the sandy bottom of the Wassaw Sound, near Georgia’s Tybee Island, a popular vacation spot.

It’s presumed to be there still, buried in the silt and sand. While a Congressional document from the 1960s indicates that the lost weapon had its plutonium core with it, the military says that it’s only a partial weapon. Even in that case, though, the lost warhead contains radioactive material: By the late 1950s, some weapons included a “secondary stage” of highly enriched uranium, meant to be set off by the initial reaction in the bomb’s core. The amount of uranium in this type of bomb isn’t publicly known.

Early in the 2000s, in response to local interest and Congressional prodding, a group of military agencies looked again for the bomb’s remains and considered what to do if they found it. The conclusion: Best to leave it in place. Unmoved, it should remain harmless; an attempt to remove it would put the clean-up crew in danger. If it did happen to go off by accident, “Even boats going over it would not even notice. They might see some bubbles coming out around them,” an Air Force representation told the Los Angeles Times.

April 25, 2018 Posted by | incidents, USA | Leave a comment

Future Nuclear-Powered Spaceships (oh by the way, one crashed to Canada in the past)

Interstellar for Real: Meet the Nuclear-Powered Spaceships of the Future Sputnik news,  22 Apr 18, Spaceships using conventional hydrogen-oxygen fuel will be able to take people to the moon, Mars or Venus. But human exploration of other planets in our solar system, and beyond it, will require the creation of ships harnessing the power of nuclear fission and nuclear fusion, including via the concept of nuclear pulse propulsion.

………Icarus envisions sending multiple probes across multiple solar systems within 15 light years of Earth to carry out detailed studies of stars and planets. Like Daedalus, the project requires helium-3 for fuel, which can be found in ample quantities on Neptune or Jupiter, but which is scarce on Earth. Based on the current pace of technological development, such foreign-planet mining, and hence such a mission, may not be possible until the year 2,300.Ultimately, Anton Pervushin believes that so long as the nuclear test ban treaty remains in force, nuclear pulse propulsion will inevitably remain a theoretical concept. Furthermore, as Pichugina explained, in addition to legal issues, a number of technical questions remain unresolved. These include how to apply fuel to the combustion chamber, how to amortize acceleration, how to protect crews from cosmic radiation, and in general determining the most efficient types of spacecraft.

Still, as Pervushin noted, if humanity wants to escape the bonds of our solar system and send large spacecraft to those close by, nuclear pulse propulsion remains the only realistic option.Postscriptum: Nuclear Fission for Electrical Propulsion

In addition to the ambitious proposals for interstellar nuclear fission and nuclear fusion propulsion, Soviet scientists worked intently from the 1960s to the 1980s on nuclear fission electric power propulsion systems, which transform nuclear thermal energy into electrical energy, which is then used to power conventional electrical propulsion systems.

The Soviet space program pioneered and worked to improve the technology with the Kosmos series of satellites, which, while generally successful, had their reputation somewhat marred following the emergency descent of Kosmos 954 in 1978, which spread radioactive debris over northern Canada.

The Soviets continued to experiment with these technologies well into the late 1980s, and even envisioned the use of nuclear fission-based energy as a realistic means to reach Mars. https://sputniknews.com/science/201804221063803318-nuclear-powered-spaceships-of-the-future/

April 22, 2018 Posted by | 2 WORLD, incidents, technology | Leave a comment

Radioactive Sludge Barrel Ruptures at Idaho Nuclear Site

U.S. News U.S. officials say a barrel of radioactive sludge has ruptured at an Idaho nuclear site., April 12, 2018, By KEITH RIDLER, Associated Press, 

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — A barrel containing radioactive sludge ruptured at an Idaho nuclear facility, federal officials said Thursday, resulting in no injuries and no risk to the public but possibly slowing progress in shipping waste out of the state.

The U.S. Department of Energy said the 55-gallon (208-liter) barrel ruptured late Wednesday at the 890-square-mile (2,305-square-kilometer) site that includes the Idaho National Laboratory, one of the nation’s top federal nuclear research labs.

The rupture triggered a fire alarm, and three Idaho National Laboratory firefighters extinguished the smoldering barrel and pulled it away from a dozen other barrels nearby.

When the firefighters left the building, emergency workers detected a small amount of radioactive material on their skin, said department spokeswoman Danielle Miller………

Federal officials said it’s the first known rupture of a barrel containing radioactive sludge at the site but might not be the last.   https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/idaho/articles/2018-04-12/incident-reported-at-idaho-nuclear-site-crews-responding

April 14, 2018 Posted by | incidents, USA | 1 Comment

March 28 – anniversary of Three Mile Island nuclear disaster and the lies about “no-one died”

Too little information clouds real impact of TMI, https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2018/03/25/too-little-information-clouds-real-impact-of-tmi/ By Beyond Nuclear staff

The disaster at Unit 2 of the Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear power plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, began on March 28, 1979. Today, 39 years later, the reality, of what really happened, and how many people it harmed, remains cloaked in mystery and misinformation. Unlike the popular catchphrase, TMI is a story of too little information.

What happened?

The two unit Three Mile Island nuclear power plant sits on an island in the middle of the Susquehanna River, just ten miles southeast of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. TMI Unit 2 was running at full power, but had been commercially operational for just 88 days when, at 4 A.M. on Wednesday, March 28, 1979, it experienced either a mechanical or electrical failure that caused the turbine-generator and the nuclear reactor to automatically shut down.

The pressure and temperature in the reactor began to increase, but when a relief valve on top of the reactor’s primary coolant pressurizer stuck open, malfunctioning instrumentation indicated that the valve had shut. While cooling water emptied out of the reactor, operators mistakenly reduced the amount of cooling water flowing into the core, leading to the partial meltdown.

Workers deliberately and repeatedly vented radioactive gas over several days to relieve pressure and save the containment structure. Then came fears of a hydrogen explosion. But by April 1, when President Jimmy Carter arrived at the site, that crisis had been averted, and by April 27 the now destroyed reactor was put into “cold shutdown.” TMI-2 was finished. But its deadly legacy was to last decades.

How much radiation got out?

Within hours of the beginning of the nuclear disaster, onsite radiation monitors went off the scale because radiation levels exceeded their measurement capacity. There were only a few offsite radiation monitors operating that day. Subsequent examination of human blood, and of anomalies in animals and plants, suggest that significant levels of radiation were released.

In the days following the TMI meltdown, hundreds of local residents reported the same acute radiation exposure symptoms as victims of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings — nausea and vomiting, severe fatigue, diarrhea, hair loss and graying, and a radiation-induced reddening of the skin. For example, Marie Holowka, a dairy farmer near TMI, recalled as she left the milkhouse that morning that, outside, “it was so blue, I couldn’t see ten feet ahead of myself.” There was a “copper taste” in the air. She was later treated for thyroid problems. Given the absence of monitors and the paucity of evidence, the only real radiation meters were the people of Three Mile Island.

“No one died:” The biggest lie


Given that exposure to ionizing radiation is medically understood to cause diseases like cancer which can be fatal, there is no way to definitively state that “no one died at TMI” or later developed cancers. The opposite is far more likely to be true.

Estimates can be complicated by the long latency period for illnesses caused by exposure to radiation. Sometimes exposed populations move away and cannot be tracked. Nevertheless, long after a catastrophic radiation release, disease can still manifest, both from the initial radiation exposure and from slow environmental poisoning, as the radionuclides released by the disaster are ingested or inhaled for many generations.

The only independent study that looked at the aftermath of TMI was conducted by the late Dr. Stephen Wing and his team at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. They looked at radiation-specific markers in residents’ blood, called biomarkers, to assess dose rather than relying solely on industry measured (or mis-measured as the case was) radiation emissions. The team concluded that lung cancer and leukemia rates were two to 10 times higher downwind of the Three Mile Island reactor than upwind.

Harm to animals and plants

After the radiation release from Three Mile Island, a number of plants exhibited strange mutations including extra large leaves (gigantism), double-headed blossoms and other anomalies. These plant anomalies were documented over decades by Mary Osborn, a local resident who conducted meticulous plant research and is a founder of Three Mile Island Alert. (Her deformed rose is pictured at the top of this story.)

Robert Weber, a Mechanicsburg veterinarian, reported a 10% increase in stillbirths, and a marked increase in the need for Cesarean Sections among sheep, goats and pigs in 1979, 1980, and 1981 in a 15-mile area around the TMI site. Dr. Weber also reported significant increases in the cancer rate among animals with shorter life spans such as dogs and cats. These findings are consistent with research around Chernobyl.

Evacuation failure

During the licensing phase of the construction and operation of TMI, a nuclear disaster was considered unthinkable. Consequently, emergency plans were practically non-existent when TMI began its meltdown. Emergency planning officials were repeatedly misinformed by TMI owner, Metropolitan Edison, on the disaster’s progression, and kept in the dark about the need for public protective actions in the early days at TMI.

On March 30, Pennsylvania Governor Richard Thornburgh finally “advised” that pregnant women and pre-school age children voluntarily evacuate a five-mile perimeter around TMI, an anticipated target population of 3,500 people. Instead, approximately 200,000 people spontaneously evacuated from a 25-mile perimeter.

TMI demonstrated that managing human responses during a nuclear catastrophe is not realistic and provokes unique human behavior not comparable to any other hazard.

Competing loyalties between work duty and personal family caused a significant number of staffing problems for various emergency response roles. As the crisis intensified, more emergency workers reported late or not at all.

Doctors, nurses and technicians in hospitals beyond the five-mile perimeter and out to 25 miles, spontaneously evacuated emergency rooms and their patients. Pennsylvania National Guard, nuclear power plant workers, school teachers and bus drivers assigned to accompany their students, abandoned their roles for family obligations. A similar response could be expected in the same situation today.

You can find our full investigation — The Truth About Three Mile Island — on our website. It is free to download and reprint.

 

March 27, 2018 Posted by | history, incidents, Reference | Leave a comment

U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation confirm Russian hackers targeting U.S. nuclear plants

Union of Concerned Scientists 16th March 2018, Yesterday, the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation officially confirmed that Russian hackers have been targeting US nuclear power plants and other critical facilities since at least 2016.

Regardless, the US nuclear industry has been pressuring the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to relax its cyber security standards. Below is a statement by Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

“The Department of Homeland Security alert is a stark
reminder that nuclear power plants are tempting targets for cyber
attackers. Although the systems that control the most critical safety
equipment at US nuclear plants are analog-based and largely immune to cyber
attacks, many other plant systems with important safety and security
functions are digital and could be compromised. For instance, electronic
locks, alarms, closed-circuit television cameras, and communications
equipment essential for plant security could be disabled or reprogrammed.
And some plants have equipment, such as cranes that move highly radioactive
spent fuel, that utilize computer-based control systems that could be
manipulated to cause an accident.”
https://www.ucsusa.org/press/2018/russian-cyber-attacks-call-stringent-security-standards-us-nuclear-plants-plant-owners

March 19, 2018 Posted by | incidents, Russia, USA | 2 Comments

Radiation monitors failed at Hanford nuclear station – spread of contamination was not detected

Report says radioactive monitors failed at nuclear plant, abc news, By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS RICHLAND, Wash. — Mar 9, 2018,   A new report says mistakes and mismanagement are to blame for the exposure of workers to radioactive particles at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state.

Contractor CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. on Thursday released its evaluation of what went wrong in December during demolition of the nuclear reservation’s highly contaminated Plutonium Finishing Plant.

The Tri-City Herald reports the study said primary radioactive air monitors used at a highly hazardous Hanford project failed to detect contamination. Then, when the spread of contamination was detected, the report said steps taken to contain it didn’t fully work……..https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/report-radioactive-monitors-failed-nuclear-plant-53639672

March 9, 2018 Posted by | incidents, USA | Leave a comment

Radioactive leaks from Bugey nuclear power plant, near Lyon, France

Sortir du Nucleaire 7th March 2018,  In December 2017, a radioactive leak was detected at the Bugey nuclear
power plant, 35 km from Lyon. Four associations complain and call for the
immediate shutdown of the plant, which combines risks of all kinds.

On December 20, 2017, EDF detected an abnormal concentration of tritium in a
piezometer (tube allowing access to the water table) on the site of the
Bugey nuclear power station. The concentration of this radioactive
substance, which can cause serious damage to the DNA, reached 670
Becquerels per liter.

Larger concentration peaks (up to 1600 Bq / l) were
detected on subsequent days and at other locations on the site. This
presence of tritium in the Rhône water table suggests the release into the
environment of other radioelements and probably chemical elements.
Contaminated water has also certainly reached the Rhône.
http://www.sortirdunucleaire.org/Fuite-radioactive-a-la-centrale-nucleaire-du

March 9, 2018 Posted by | France, incidents | Leave a comment

Unknown – whether there were nuclear missiles on Russian ship that was ravaged by fire

Bellona 27th Feb 2018, A Russian official has admitted there were missiles aboard the
Yekaterinburg nuclear submarine when it was ravaged by fire during repair
work at a shipyard near Murmansk in late 2011, reviving a six year old
mystery about what specific dangers faced the Russian public when the
accident occurred.

And while many Russian media rushed to report the
official’s remarks as conclusive proof that the submarine was armed with
nuclear missiles when it was swept by the blaze, it remains unclear whether
they, in fact, had been topped with their warheads at the time the fire
swept through the sub, injuring 19.
http://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2018-02-russian-officials-offhand-remark-about-nuclear-submarine-fire-ignites-fresh-speculation-and-new-denials

March 2, 2018 Posted by | incidents, Russia | Leave a comment

A forgotten nuclear disaster? 1985 Russian submarine accident

In 1985, a Russian Submarine Created an Atomic Disaster. The Radiation Lingers to This Day.  Kyle Mizokami, 27 Feb 18, 

According to Nuclear Risks, the accident scene was heavily contaminated with radioactivity. Gamma ray radiation was not particularly bad; at an exposure rate of five millisieverts per hour, it was the equivalent of getting a chest CT scan every hour. However, the explosion also released 259 petabecquerels of radioactive particles, including twenty-nine gigabecquerels of iodine-131, a known cause of cancer. This bode very badly for the emergency cleanup crews, especially firefighters who needed to get close to the explosion site, and the nearby village of Shkotovo-22. Forty-nine members of the cleanup crew displayed symptoms of radiation sickness, ten of them displaying acute symptoms.

In 1985, a Soviet submarine undergoing a delicate refueling procedure experienced a freak accident that killed ten naval personnel. The fuel involved was not diesel, but nuclear, and the resulting environmental disaster contaminated the area with dangerous, lasting radiation. The incident, which remained secret until after the demise of the USSR itself, was one of many nuclear accidents the Soviet Navy experienced during the Cold War.

The Soviet Union’s nuclear war planners had a difficult time targeting the United States. While the United States virtually encircled the enormous socialist country with nuclear missiles in countries such as Turkey and Japan, the Western Hemisphere offered no refuge for Soviet deployments in-kind.

One solution was the early development of nuclear cruise missile submarines. These submarines, known as the Echo I and Echo II classes, were equipped with six and eight P-5 “Pyatyorka” nuclear land attack cruise missiles, respectively. Nicknamed “Shaddock” by NATO, the P-5 was a subsonic missile with a range of 310 miles and 200- or 350-kiloton nuclear warhead. The P-5 had a circular error probable of 1.86 miles, meaning half of the missiles aimed at a target would land within that distance, while the other half would land farther away.

The missiles were stored in large horizontal silos along the deck of the submarine. In order to launch a P-5 missile, the submarine would surface, deploy and activate a tracking radar, then feed guidance information to the missile while it flew at high altitude. The system was imperfect—the command link was vulnerable to jamming, and the submarine needed to remain on the surface, helpless against patrol aircraft and ships, until the missile reached the target. Eventually the P-5 missiles were withdrawn and the P-5 missile was replaced with the P-6, a similar weapon but one with its own radar seeker for attacking U.S. aircraft carriers.

The introduction of the P-6 gave the Echo II a new lease on life.  ……

On August 10, the submarine was in the process of being refueled. Reportedly, the reactor lid—complete with new nuclear fuel rods—was lifted as part of the process. A beam was placed over the lid to prevent it from being lifted any higher, but incompetent handling apparently resulted in the rods being lifted too high into the air. (One account has a wave generated by a passing motor torpedo boat rocking the submarine in its berth, also raising the rods too high.) This resulted in the starboard reactor achieving critical mass, followed by a chain reaction and explosion.

The explosion blew out the reactor’s twelve-ton lid—and fuel rods—and ruptured the pressure hull. The reactor core was destroyed, and eight officers and two enlisted men standing nearby were killed instantly. A the blast threw debris was thrown into the air, and a plume of fallout 650 meters wide by 3.5 kilometers long traveled downwind on the Dunay Peninsula. More debris and the isotope Cobalt-60 was thrown overboard and onto the nearby docks.

According to Nuclear Risks, the accident scene was heavily contaminated with radioactivity. Gamma ray radiation was not particularly bad; at an exposure rate of five millisieverts per hour, it was the equivalent of getting a chest CT scan every hour. However, the explosion also released 259 petabecquerels of radioactive particles, including twenty-nine gigabecquerels of iodine-131, a known cause of cancer. This bode very badly for the emergency cleanup crews, especially firefighters who needed to get close to the explosion site, and the nearby village of Shkotovo-22. Forty-nine members of the cleanup crew displayed symptoms of radiation sickness, ten of them displaying acute symptoms. …….

 The K-431 incident was one of several involving Soviet submarine reactors. Ten Soviet submarines experienced nuclear accidents, and one other, K-11, also suffered a refueling criticality….http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/1985-russian-submarine-created-atomic-disaster-the-radiation-24669

 

February 27, 2018 Posted by | history, incidents, Russia | Leave a comment

Chinese and USA officials scuffled over the “nuclear football”

Nuclear football’ scuffle broke out during Donald Trump’s visit to China , ABC News 20 Feb 18 

A scuffle broke out between Chinese and US officials over the “nuclear football” — the briefcase containing the US nuclear launch codes — during a visit to Beijing by US President Donald Trump last year, according to media reports.

Key points:

  • Report says Chinese official tackled to ground
  • Secret Service confirms scuffle but not tackle
  • Chinese not believed to have taken possession of briefcase

US news website Axios said multiple sources confirmed an incident in which Chinese officials tried to block a military aide with the briefcase from following Mr Trump into the Great Hall of the People, despite the aide being required to stay close to the President at all times.

The report said when Mr Trump’s chief of staff Mike Kelly attempted to intervene, a Chinese official tried to grab him before a US Secret Service agent tackled the Chinese official to the ground.

The Secret Service did not initially deny the incident took place, but in a tweet said reports that a host nation official was “tackled” to the ground were “false”.

The federal law enforcement agency later confirmed an incident had taken place……..

The “nuclear football” is a leather briefcase that contains the codes needed to launch a nuclear strike while away from fixed command centres.

It is carried by a rotating group of military officers near the President whenever he is travelling. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-20/scuffle-broke-out-over-nuclear-football-during-trumps-china-trip/9463976

 

February 21, 2018 Posted by | China, incidents | Leave a comment

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