safety « nuclear-news

For the nuclear industry, coronavirus is helpful, as nuclear wastes go quietly from Germany to Russia

FoE Europe 25th June 2020, Russia and Germany have taken advantage of the coronavirus crisis to resume
shipping radioactive waste to dump in the Urals and Siberia in northern
Russia.

When Russian environmental groups discovered, in autumn 2019, that
Germany was exporting radioactive waste from it’s nuclear power stations to
Russia, via the harbor of Amsterdam, they directly organized protests in
the three countries.

Those protests had success, and the transport by rail
and sea of uranium – a waste product of nuclear fuel production by Urenco
Germany – was put on hold. That was before the coronavirus crisis hit.

But
in March 2020, when Covid-19 lockdowns restricted people’s right to protest
in Russia even further, the shipments of radioactive waste were set to
resume.

http://www.foeeurope.org/covidsolidarity-russia

August 3, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Russia, safety | Leave a comment

United Arabs Emirate’s nuclear power station cut corners on safety

Al Jazeera 1st Aug 2020, Paul Dorfman, an honorary senior research fellow at the Energy Institute,
University College London and founder and chair of the Nuclear Consulting
Group, has criticised the Barakah reactors’ “cheap and cheerful” design
that he says cuts corners on safety.

Dorfman authored a report (PDF) last
year detailing key safety features Barakah’s reactors lack, such as a “core
catcher” to literally stop the core of a reactor from breaching the
containment building in the event of a meltdown. The reactors are also
missing so-called Generation III Defence-In-Depth reinforcements to the
containment building to shield against a radiological release resulting
from a missile or fighter jet attack. Both of these engineering features
are standard on new reactors built in Europe, says Dorfman.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/08/uae-starts-operations-arab-world-nuclear-power-plant-200801101118964.html

August 3, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, United Arab Emirates | Leave a comment

Who flew drones over the nuclear reactors?

Mystery at Arizona’s Palo Verde nuclear plant: Who flew drones over the reactors? AZ Central,

Ryan RandazzoArizona Republic, Security guards at Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station west of Phoenix noticed something odd on a September night last year.Five or six drones buzzed over the perimeter fence of the nuclear plant— the largest power generator in the United States — 50 miles west of Phoenix. They went across the open desert where security guards practice “force-on-force” simulated combat drills to sharpen their skills to ward off an assault, over heavy-duty gates and arrived at the protected area around the concrete-domed reactors.

They stayed for nearly an hour, and came back the next night for a repeat performance.

Nobody except the drones’ pilots knows whether this was a case of hobbyists touring the plant out of curiosity, or something much more nefarious, intended to disrupt a massive power source for customers from Texas to California. And nobody in any official capacity seems to know who piloted the drones that night or the next………

Security guards at Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station west of Phoenix noticed something odd on a September night last year.

Five or six drones buzzed over the perimeter fence of the nuclear plant— the largest power generator in the United States — 50 miles west of Phoenix. They went across the open desert where security guards practice “force-on-force” simulated combat drills to sharpen their skills to ward off an assault, over heavy-duty gates and arrived at the protected area around the concrete-domed reactors.

They stayed for nearly an hour, and came back the next night for a repeat performance.

Security guards at Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station west of Phoenix noticed something odd on a September night last year.

They stayed for nearly an hour, and came back the next night for a repeat performance.

The Palo Verde incidents are apparently not the first time something like this has happened. One NRC email discusses “several high-speed” drone overflights of the Limerick Generating Station in Pennsylvania approximately eight months prior.

Another indicates there had been 42 drone incidents in three years. APS officials said some of those were at Palo Verde.

What if the pilots meant harm?

At least one person in the NRC was concerned last year that an airspace restriction from the FAA wasn’t sufficient.

“I would point out that restricted airspace will do nothing to stop an adversarial attack and even the detection systems identified earlier in this email chain have limited success rates, and there is even lower likelihood that law enforcement will arrive quickly enough to actually engage with the pilots,” wrote Joseph Rivers, a senior security adviser with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission who recently retired……

A columnist for Forbes went even further, speculating that the drones could have made three-dimensional maps of the power plant to assist a later attack. …… https://www.azcentral.com/story/money/business/energy/2020/07/31/drones-flew-over-palo-verde-nuclear-plant-arizona-pilots-unknown/5551928002/

August 3, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | incidents, USA | Leave a comment

Mystery over drone swarm above America’s largest nuclear power station

the intruders, as well as establishing that Palo Verde lacks effective drone defenses, may now have highly detailed maps of the facility, showing the exact location of every valve, pipe, switch and control. Perhaps they simply aim to sell these on the dark web to anyone who will pay. Or perhaps they have something else in mind. Either way, it is an alarming demonstration of how easily drone intruders can now go anywhere anytime they wish.

‘Drone Swarm’ Invaded Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant Last September — Twice Forbes Jul 30, 2020, David Hambling

Documents gained under the Freedom of Information Act show how a number of small drones flew around a restricted area at Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant on two successive nights last September. Security forces watched, but were apparently helpless to act as the drones carried out their incursions before disappearing into the night. Details of the event gives some clues as to just what they were doing, but who sent them remains a mystery.

Details of the events were obtained from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by Douglas D. Johnson on behalf of the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU) using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The SCU’s main interest is in anomalous aerospace phenomena, what other people term UFOs. In this case though the flying objects were easily identifiable as drones, although their exact mission and origin are unknown. Johnson passed the information to The War Zone who give a detailed account.

Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant is the largest in the U.S., producing over three gigawatts, 35% of Arizona’s total power capacity. It supplies electricity to Phoenix and Tucson, as well as San Diego and Los Angeles. It is a critical piece of strategic infrastructure; during the 2003 Iraq War, National Guard troops were deployed to Palo Verde to defend against a possible terrorist threat. In normal times, as with other nuclear installations, it is protected by armed security guards.

The armed guards, gates, fences and barriers were useless on the night of September 29th. According to the official report:

Officer noticed several drones (5 or 6) flying over the site. The drones are circling the 3 unit site inside and outside the Protected Area. The drones have flashing red and white rights [sic] and are estimated to be 200 to 300 hundred [sic] feet above the site. It was reported the drones had spotlights on while approaching the site that they turned off when they entered the Security Owner Controlled Area. Drones were first noticed at 20:50 MST and are still over the site as of 21:47 MST. Security Posture was normal, which was changed to elevated when the drones were noticed.”

The drones departed at 22:30, eighty minutes after they were first spotted. The security officers estimated that they were over two feet in diameter. This indicates that they were not simply consumer drones like the popular DJI Phantom, which have a flight endurance of about half an hour and is about a foot across, but something larger and more capable. The Lockheed Martin Indago, a military-grade quadcopter recently sold to the Swiss Army, has a flight endurance of about seventy minutes and is more than two feet across. At several thousand dollars apiece minimum, these are far less expendable than consumer drones costing a few hundred. All of which suggests this was not just a prank.

The next night events were repeated:…….

Despite this incident, two months later the NRC decided not to require drone defenses at nuclear plants, asserting that small drones could not damage a reactor or steal nuclear material. It is highly likely that such sites are still vulnerable to drone overflights.

Are such drones a genuine threat to nuclear facilities?…….

their ability to strike pinpoint targets to hit control systems and failsafes. While this would be unlikely to cause a Chernobyl, it might well shut the plant down, taking out 35% of Arizona’s electricity at a stroke. The successful attack on the Abqaiq facility last year, in which about twenty garage-built drones knocked out a heavily-defended oil facility in Saudi Arabia, should be a wakeup call that such unmanned precision strikes are not just the preserve of state actors any more………

August 1, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | incidents, Reference, USA | Leave a comment

Drones could be a real danger to nuclear facilities

What Happens When A Drone Comes For A Nuclear Reactor? Forbes, Kelsey D. Atherton, 31 July 20.
How seriously, exactly, should a nuclear reactor take the threat from a quadcopter?

This question sits at the center of a long investigation by The War Zone, built upon a trove of documents about a curious pair of incidents in September 2019. As the authors report:How seriously, exactly, should a nuclear reactor take the threat from a quadcopter?

This question sits at the center of a long investigation by The War Zone, built upon a trove of documents about a curious pair of incidents in September 2019. As the authors report:

This particular story starts on Sept. 29, 2019. Shortly before 11:00 PM local time at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, Daphne Rodriguez, an Acting Security Section Chief at the plant, called the duty officer at NRC’s Headquarters Operations Center (HOC). Rodriguez reported that a number of drones were flying over and around a restricted area near the nuclear power plant’s Unit 3, which houses one of its three pressurized water reactors.

The observed drone flights on September 29th were followed by multiple reported sightings on the night of September 30th. The full tale, about what action was taken, and what risks were prioritized, is worth reading in full, as it gives a deep sense of prioritization and uncertainty in the face of novel concern.

What I found fascinating reading it is the way this was all foreshadowed, half a decade ago, by a series of incidents in France.

In 2014, a series of drones buzzed nuclear reactors in France. While environmental activists were accused and hobbyists detained, little came of the arrests. At the time, much was made of the unique way drones could threaten nuclear power plants. Cheap, small, and expendable, commercial, hobbyists drones are hard to see on radar, and, especially in 2014, few technologies existed to reliably detect or disable drones. Reactors and power plants are large facilities, and cameras built to record movement on the ground are especially oblivious to flying objects……..

As The War Zone notes, a drone doesn’t have to break a reactor for it to cause problems and disruptions at such a power plant. Drone detection technologies, abundant in 2020 in a way they simply were not in 2014, could provide a start for keeping an eye on weird flights near critical infrastructure. Automated disabling systems, from jammers to directed energy weapons to electronic warfare tools to, even, guns mounted on turrets are all possibilities in hardening reactors specifically against drone intrusions.

Yet the technology most worth watching isn’t the countermeasures so much as it is the kinds of cheap drone available. Presently most drones available for anybody can either be directly piloted or set on a preset path of waypoints. Should drones gain longer flight times, greater route autonomy, and especially, an ability to carry larger, heavier payloads without losing much flight time, those would be the factors that should suggest a rethink of infrastructure hardening. ……..https://www.forbes.com/sites/kelseyatherton/2020/07/31/what-happens-when-a-drone-comes-for-a-nuclear-reactor/#3eba981285d3

August 1, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, safety | Leave a comment

Mysterious case of mass drone incursions over America’s most powerful nuclear power plant

The Night A Drone Swarm Descended On Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant, The Drive, BY TYLER ROGOWAY AND JOSEPH TREVITHICK JULY 29, 2020

The mysterious case of mass drone incursions over America’s most powerful nuclear power plant that only resulted in more questions and no changes.

While the news has been filled with claims that strange unidentified craft with unexplainable capabilities are appearing over highly sensitive U.S. installations and assets as of late, a much less glamorous, more numerous, and arguably far more pressing threat has continued to metastasize in alarming ways—that posed by lower-end and even off-the-shelf drones. Less than a year ago and just days after the stunning drone attacks on Saudi Arabia’s most critical energy production infrastructure deep in the heart of that highly defended country, a bizarre and largely undisclosed incident involving a swarm of drones occurred on successive September evenings in 2019. The location? America’s most powerful nuclear plant, the Palo Verde Nuclear Generation Station situated roughly two dozen miles west to Phoenix, near Tonopah, Arizona.

In a trove of documents and internal correspondences related to the event, officials from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) described the incident as a “drone-a-palooza” and said that it highlighted concerns about the potential for a future “adversarial attack” involving small unmanned aircraft and the need for defenses against them. Even so, the helplessness and even cavalier attitude toward the drone incident as it was unfolding by those that are tasked with securing one of America’s largest and most sensitive nuclear facilities serves as an alarming and glaring example of how neglected and misunderstood this issue is.

What you are about to read is an unprecedented look inside a type of event that is less isolated in nature than many would care to believe.

A Rapidly Accelerating Threat

Continue reading →

July 30, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | incidents, USA | Leave a comment

India’s nuclear power industry – unsafe and shrouded in secrecy

The alarming safety record of India’s nuclear power plants https://tribune.com.pk/article/97109/the-alarming-safety-record-of-indias-nuclear-power-plants In 2016, an emergency was declared when the nuclear plant at Kakrapar was shut down after a major water leak, Syed Zain Jaffery, July 28, 2020

The Indian nuclear power industry is still veiled in confidentiality and opacity while refusing to reveal its safety details. Prominent environmental watchdogs have already voiced apprehensions about safety standards adopted by the nuclear establishment, where technical negligence or poor maintenance is commonplace, and regulatory bodies in India habitually sweep major nuclear accidents under the carpet. The production of nuclear energy is regulated in secrecy by a government body known as the Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL).

It is no mystery as to why India is reluctant to establish a completely autonomous and politically neutral nuclear oversight authority to discretely operate from the industry it oversees. The nuclear disaster in Fukushima demonstrated the significance of independent nuclear oversight. India’s persistent refusal to create an independent regulatory body shows a lack of confidence in maintaining standards which are internationally recognised.

New Delhi constituted the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) to adopt international benchmarks and procedures. In reality, however, the AERB is not functioning independently of the Department of Atomic Energy. According to the Indian constitution, the AERB is an authority subservient to the central government via DAE. AERB, being a subordinate body to DAE, has frequently found it challenging to enforce global safety standards on DAE and NPCIL operations. There is a shortage of technical staff and relevant equipment at the AERB, which partially explains why it never implemented a benchmark nuclear safety policy.

The projects related to nuclear energy in India appear to be controversial, with nuclear scientists strangely dying and thousands of Indians chanting slogans against the unabated growth of the nuclear industry without proper safety checks. Locals are not, in most cases, satisfied with the Indian nuclear establishment’s policies and safeguard measures. In pursuit of ambitious nuclear power generation, the government did not even hesitate to open fire on demonstrators protesting against unsafeguarded nuclear power projects. Several radiation fatalities in hospitals near major nuclear power plants have been reported in the last decade.

Additionally, the Indian auditor general has frequently reported that the country’s nuclear programme is unpredictable and unregulated. A parliamentary report has pointed out “serious organisational flaws and numerous failings relative to international norms.” The most important question underlined in the report was the AERB’s insufficient legal status and authority.

The Fukushima catastrophe was a major eye-opener for the countries operating nuclear technologies to generate electricity, but India downplayed the whole incident. Poignantly, India was the first country to declare that the reactors of Fukushima were secure. After the Fukushima accident when global nuclear industry initiated inclusive studies to find out the circumstances that led to the nuclear plant’s failure, the DAE said that the Indian nuclear expansion will continue.

The former chairman and managing director of Nuclear Power Corporation, S.K. Jain, was of the view that,

“There is no nuclear accident or incident in Japan’s Fukushima plants. It is a well-planned emergency preparedness programme which the nuclear operators of the Tokyo Electric Power company are carrying out to contain the residual heat after the plants had an automatic shutdown following a major earthquake.”

This entire episode shows the lack of awareness in India regarding upholding proper safety procedures through a timely tackling of any evolving threats.

After the Bhopal gas tragedy, India has suffered dozens of mishaps in its nuclear power plants which are installed by foreign companies under a very slack liability framework. Indian citizens have been exhibiting their apprehension on the nuclear industry’s poor reactor safety record, and these anxieties have grown since nuclear power plants installed by foreign franchises often contain substandard parts due to faulty manufacturing. In 2016, an emergency was declared when the nuclear plant at Kakrapar in Gujarat was shut down after a major water leak. The nuclear leak in Kakrapar was far more severe than the Indian government had initially claimed.

Alarmingly, Indian nuclear engineers failed to investigate the exact reason for the leakage. The central government unpublicised the incident and did not even allow ordinary citizens to use geiger-counters to measure radiation. Shockingly, New Delhi has prohibited the use of geiger-counters, which is a global norm, under the vague excuse of national security. An on-site emergency at Kakrapar nuclear power plant and the circumstance that led to the major leakage raises many questions regarding Indian nuclear expertise.

When the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was in the opposition, it was the major opponent to civil nuclear expansion in India by citing credible objections on limiting nuclear liability. It also backed the agitators against the Kudankulam nuclear power plant and demanded a comprehensive study for the safety of nuclear plants in Jaitapur. Now in government, the BJP has changed its stance and taken a complete U-turn on the issue.

The BJP government has pursued nuclear power irrationally, without taking into account its destructive potential and has failed to respond to criticism. Alarmingly, international suppliers of nuclear technology are finalising nuclear deals with India without analysing security issues related to nuclear safety in the Indian nuclear industry. These business-oriented nuclear deals will create disastrous consequences for not only Indian citizens but also for the entire region.

Syed Zain Jaffery The author holds a Masters degree from NUST, Islamabad and writes about current affairs and politics.

July 30, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | incidents, India | Leave a comment

U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard refutes the claim that Marshall Islands nuclear waste site is safe

Gabbard dismisses US claim that Marshall Islands nuclear waste site is safe https://www.westhawaiitoday.com/2020/07/28/nation-world-news/gabbard-dismisses-us-claim-that-marshall-islands-nuclear-waste-site-is-safe/

By Susanne Rust Los Angeles Times | Tuesday, July 28, 2020 One of Hawaii’s high-profile politicians has dismissed a recent Department of Energy report concluding that a leaking U.S. nuclear waste repository in the Marshall Islands is safe for people there.

She called for the department to convene a more independent assessment of the waste site.

“I think it’s time the Department of Energy relied on someone with fresh eyes to examine the situation,” said U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, one of Hawaii’s two Democratic House members, in a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times.

Gabbard, who gained national attention by launching what some called a quixotic campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, has been outspoken in Congress on behalf of the Marshall Islands, which the United States used as a testing site for scores of nuclear weapons during the Cold War.

She’s pushed to reinstate Medicaid eligibility to people from the Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau who are working and living in the United States but lack access to healthcare. She also was instrumental in requiring the Department of Energy to reexamine the safety of Runit Dome, a leaking nuclear waste repository in the Marshall Islands, as part of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act.

“The U.S. government is responsible for this storage site and must ensure the protection of the people and our environment from the toxic waste stored there,” Gabbard said in a news release announcing her amendment to the defense bill.

In calling for “fresh eyes” on the waste site, Gabbard was referring to Terry Hamilton, who has been the Energy Department’s go-to contractor for nuclear issues in the Marshall Islands since 1990.

Hamilton was a contributor to the Department of Energy report, which concluded that while sea level rise could increase storm surge and “lead to wave-induced over-wash of lower sections of the dome,” there is not enough definitive data to determine “how these events might impact on the environment.”

Neither Hamilton nor his employer, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, responded to a request for comment. But in an earlier email, Hamilton said the risk posed by the waste site is low “based on the argument that the total amount of fallout contamination contained in Runit Dome is dwarfed by residual amounts of fallout contamination deposited in marine sediments inside Enewetak lagoon.”

He added that, though he did not write the document, he provided the “reports, publications and data” that informed the Energy Department’s conclusions.

Published at the start of July, the assessment referenced 27 papers and reports, 25 of which were not peer-reviewed, including 13 by Hamilton. All were published by agencies within the U.S. government.

The lack of independent review frustrated both Gabbard and some Marshallese leaders.

“The Department of Energy is well aware of the public mistrust for their research in the Marshall Islands, but they have never demonstrated any interest in doing anything about it, i.e. including independent scientists in their studies or consulting with Marshallese communities for their knowledge on the environment,” Rhea Christian-Moss wrote in an email to The Times.

“I’m not sure credibility is their goal,” she said.

Runit Dome, located in the Marshall Island’s Enewetak Atoll, holds more than 3.1 million cubic feet — or 35 Olympic-sized swimming pools — of U.S.-produced radioactive soil and debris, including lethal amounts of plutonium, produced by 67 bomb tests between 1946 and 1958.

Spurred by “moral obligation,” the U.S. government cleaned the atoll of irradiated debris and soil before handing the islands back to the Marshallese, in 1980. The Marshallese had been involuntarily removed during the 1940s.

The waste — metal and concrete debris, as well as irradiated topsoil — were dumped in an atomic bomb crater on Runit Island, and capped with concrete.

Last year, Hamilton told a small audience of Marshallese and American politicians and regulators that the dome was probably leaking, and that it was vulnerable to rising sea levels and increased storm surge.

Congress, in its approval of last year’s defense bill, ordered the Energy Department to provide a written report on the risks that Runit Dome poses to the people, environment and wildlife of Enewetak lagoon. In addition, the report required an assessment of how climate change could affect the site.

“I think they’d be reacting very differently if it was in their backyard,” she said of the report’s authors.

Gabbard said she would continue to press the issue with the Energy Department “and try to get answers that were not addressed in this report.”

Although outspoken on the Marshall Islands and the U.S. radiation legacy there, Gabbard has often been publicly alone on the issue. Other key Democrats, including Sens. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii and Jack Reed of Rhode Island, ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, declined to comment for this story.

July 30, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | OCEANIA, safety | Leave a comment

U.S. Nuclear Agency Workers Say Cost-Cutting Is Hurting Safety

U.S. Nuclear Agency Workers Say Cost-Cutting Is Hurting Safety, Charlie McGee, Bloomberg News, July 30, 2020,

NRC inspector general survey shows worry among employees
Shrinking resources, fewer inspections cited in report

Employees of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission fear that cost cutting has reduced that agency’s commitment to safety, according to a survey by a government watchdog.

The NRC’s Inspector General polled more than 2,100 employees at the agency, which is charged with overseeing safety at the nation’s nuclear power plants……. (subscribers only) https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/u-s-nuclear-agency-workers-say-cost-cutting-is-hurting-safety

July 30, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, USA | Leave a comment

The Santa Susana site – America’s Secret Chernobyl

Inside America’s Secret Chernobyl — The Abandonded Cold War Compound Outside Suburban LA, more https://medium.com/@lukejacobs/inside-americas-secret-chernobyl-the-radioactive-dump-that-started-la-s-recent-wildfire-663b9bd0430e BY Luke Jacobs, Independent Journalist & Videographer, 27 July 20,

“……….The Santa Susana Field Laboratory was a sprawling industrial research complex located on over 2,000 acres of rocky hillside in Simi Valley, California. Widely recognized as being one of America’s most vital facilities during the space race, scientists from NASA, Boeing, and Rocketdyne contributed significantly in developing the following projects for the US government.

Engines for the Atlas Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM).
The Engine for Explorer 1, America’s first satellite.
The F-1 engine that powered the Apollo booster.

And…

The world’s first sodium nuclear reactor — which experienced a meltdown dubbed one of the worst radioactive disasters in US history.

Worst in US history?

Most Americans know about Three Mile Island, the 1979 meltdown which brought anti-nuclear politics into the mainstream and resulted in worldwide outrage. But how many have heard of the 1959 Rocketdyne Meltdown?

It’s Rocketdyne.

Residents had tremendous pride for the facility. To them, it represented a greater purpose that most Americans only connected with by way of television reports and radio broadcasts. Locals businesses fed Rocketdyne workers, washed their clothes, repaired their cars, and built their homes. They were helping their country with its most important goals: defeating the Soviets and sending men to the moon.

The reactor that leaked in 1959 was located in an area of SSFL dubbed “Sector IV”, which was classified as experimental and given lax environmental restrictions. This allowed engineers to speedily build the reactor, but with a deadly tradeoff: it had no containment structures. The reactor and its highly radioactive components were housed without the large concrete domes that surround modern power reactors.

When the meltdown occurred, a decision was made by higher-ups to downplay the incident. Engineers were told to run the reactor as normal over the next few days. As it became more and more obvious that radiation was spreading throughout the surrounds hills and communities, the plug was pulled. A few weeks later, Atomics International released a memo alerting residents of a “slight mishap” with their reactor, and that no dangerous radiation was released.

Employees at SSFL were directed not to tell anyone about the incident, and it was not publicly disclosed for 20 years, until 1979. A series of academic and journalistic reports between 1989–2010 helped to reveal the true scale of the disaster. Testifying before Congress in 2008, Daniel Hirsch, President of an NGO dedicated to nuclear safety, referred to the meltdown as “one of the worst accidents in nuclear history.”

Subsequent reports revealed other toxic decisions Boeing made at SSFL. Instead of safely shipping hazardous materials to a licensed facility, workers shot barrels of the toxic chemicals with rifles and dumped the waste into nearby streams. This has led to multiple ongoing studies on the groundwater quality of the area, including an expensive multi-billion dollar legal battle between Boeing and local governments over a cleanup agreement. …….

Aside from the high levels of radiation in the soil and crumbling infrastructure, the site has pretty intense security. From my online conversations with the few people who managed to sneak in, the process is grueling: requiring a 6-mile hike in and out which almost necessitates overnight camping at the site.

July 28, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, secrets,lies and civil liberties, wastes | Leave a comment

U.S. Navy’s safety culture’s deficiencies

Faults Cited After A 2008 Nuclear Carrier Fire Exacerbated The Bonhomme Richard Conflagration, Forbes,
Craig Hooper, Senior Contributor, 27 Jul 20, In the aftermath of the disastrous fire aboard the USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6) the U.S. Navy is cracking down on lax waterfront safety practices. This is not enough. Unless the U.S. Navy wants to risk a repeat of the Bonhomme Richard fire at sea, the Navy’s safety standup must extend beyond the pier, encompassing fire safety across the entire Navy enterprise.

As the USS Bonhomme Richard fire—and as at least 4 other major pier-side fires have demonstrated since a shipyard arsonist torched the attack submarine USS Miami (SSN-755) in 2012—the pier is a dangerous place for any naval vessel. Earlier in the month, as the wrecked amphibious assault ship still smoldered, the Navy’s waterfront chronic safety culture shortcomings were re-emphasized and emphasized again after workers inexplicably sparked two minor fires aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge (LHD-3) and America’s undelivered super carrier, the John F. Kennedy (CVN-79).

The Navy’s pier-side safety standup is as welcome as it is overdue. . But the Navy also needs to take a closer look at fire safety at sea and throughout the enterprise. In the past month, far too many have sought to minimize safety culture,……………

Conclusion:

The fact that the Navy is moving so quickly to address almost exactly the same deficiencies as those identified after the 2008 fire aboard the USS George Washington is concerning. At a minimum, it suggests that most of the firefighting deficiencies and lax pier-side safety culture that contributed to the demise of the USS Bonhomme Richard are well-known and widely disseminated across the Navy enterprise.

The fact that exactly the same firefighting and safety deficiencies still exist little more than decade after a fire sidelined an underway and strategically critical U.S. Navy platform is inexplicable. The lack of urgency in driving and sustaining a solution to the Navy’s lax fire safety culture is mind-boggling. This is a massive vulnerability. And with Navy’s fire safety proven to be a large—and systemic—national security risk, America must assume sophisticated rivals have noted the Navy’s lax safety culture and are currently targeting these vulnerabilities at individual, command and enterprise levels.

If a rival knows that the persistent encouragement of bad safety practices and the deliberate minimization of real safety risks can effectively sink a carrier for less than the cost of a single carrier-killing missile, there is no reason not to try it.

July 28, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, USA | Leave a comment

A series of accidents and near misses between surface vessels and submarines in the waters round Scotland.

The National 26th July 2020, IN a crowded field for shocking headlines this past month, readers may not
have noticed news of an alarming near-miss between a Royal Navy nuclear
submarine and a ferry on the Belfast-Cairnryan crossing.

The Maritime Accident Investigation Branch’s recently published analysis of this
incident makes for worrying reading and follows on from a series of
similarly dangerous accidents between surface vessels and submarines in the
waters round Scotland.

https://www.thenational.scot/news/18607663.scots-deserve-free-nuclear-sub-risks/

July 27, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | incidents, UK | Leave a comment

Cause of blast at Iran nuclear site – still shrouded in mystery

OREIGN REPORTS HAVE ATTRIBUTED THE ATTACK TO ISRAEL

Iranian MP: Blast at nuclear site was ’caused by a security breach’ https://www.timesofisrael.com/iranian-mp-blast-at-nuclear-site-was-caused-by-a-security-breach/ Javad Karimi Qoddousi rules out a strike ‘by an external object’ as the cause of a fire that damaged an advanced centrifuge plant at Natanz
By TOI STAFF 22 July 20,

A building damaged by a fire, at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility some 200 miles (322 kilometers) south of the capital Tehran, Iran, in a photo released on July 2, 2020. (Atomic Energy Organization of Iran via AP)

An Iranian lawmaker said Wednesday that a recent blast and fire at the Natanz nuclear site was caused by a “security breach.”

MP Javad Karimi Qoddousi, a member of the Iranian parliament’s National Security Committee, ruled out “a strike on the complex by an external object” as the cause of the blast, appearing to deny the possibility of a missile attack or airstrike.

“If it was from the outside, we should have seen shrapnel, but there are absolutely no remnants left on the site,” he said, according to Radio Farda.

Qoddousi did not elaborate on what he meant by a “security breach.” Radio Farda noted the Persian term he used can also be translated as an infiltration of security, suggesting the blast came from inside the building.

The blast, which US media reports have attributed to Israel, damaged an advanced centrifuge development and assembly plant.

According to a New York Times report earlier this month, the blast was most likely the result of a bomb planted at the facility, potentially at a strategic gas line, but that it was not out of the question that a cyberattack was used to cause a malfunction that led to the explosion.

The July 2 Natanz explosion was one of a series of mysterious blasts at Iranian strategic sites in recent weeks, which have once again been largely attributed to either Washington, Jerusalem, or both.
The substantial damage done by an explosion and a fire at an advanced centrifuge assembly plant at Iran’s Natanz nuclear site. (satellite image from Planet Labs Inc. via AP)

Intelligence officials who assessed the damage to the Netanz centrifuge facility told The Times they believed it may have set back the Iranian nuclear program by as much as two years.

A spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry has said that the cause of the Natanz explosion was not yet known, but warned that the country would retaliate severely if it emerges that a foreign entity was involved.

Iran has also called for action against Israel following the damage to the Natanz facility. “This method Israel is using is dangerous, and it could spread to anywhere in the world,” government spokesman Ali Rabiei said, during a press conference on July 7.

July 23, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | incidents, Iran | Leave a comment

In the event of a nuclear bombing, electromagnetic pulse would be the least of our worries

Last Thing You Need to Worry About in a Nuclear Explosion, One of America’s weirdest strategic obsessions won’t go away. Foreign Policy, BY KELSEY D. ATHERTON, JULY 21, 2020,It is hard to pinpoint what, specifically, the electromagnetic pulse did to the electronic infrastructure of Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945. In the days and months after the blast, the first use of a nuclear weapon in war, electrical power remained out in the city. If no specific attention was paid to the particular way that part of a nuclear blast interacts with the electrical grid, it is because the effect of the weapon was total and horrific. Amid the rubble, the radiation, the fire and ruin and mass death, fried electronics were barely noticed.

The electromagnetic pulse that comes from the sundering of an atom, potentially destroying electronics within the blast radius with some impact miles away from ground zero, is just one of many effects of every nuclear blast. What is peculiar about these pulses, often referred to as EMPs, is the way the side effect of a nuclear blast is treated as a special threat in its own right by bodies such as the Task Force on National and Homeland Security, which, despite the official-sounding name, is a privately funded group.

These groups continue a decadelong tradition of obsession over EMPs, one President Donald Trump and others have picked up on. These EMP-specific fears are wholly divorced from the normal risk calculations of a war between nuclear-armed states and the threat of nuclear oblivion. Doing so obscures the history—and misunderstands the dangers.

EMPs were anticipated before they existed. Enrico Fermi of the Manhattan Project hardened sensors at the Trinity test site so that the detonation would remain useful science. Later nuclear tests would look at the way this pulse risked disabling other warheads in flight, and what would happen if a warhead was detonated so high above Earth that the pulse was its primary effect.

For the early planners of the apocalypse, the greatest risk posed by an EMP was to nuclear warheads themselves. Strategic planning called for multiple warheads to obliterate a city, and the engineers were worried about what might happen if the first nuke to explode disabled the electronics inside the other warheads, causing them to land inert instead. This was called “warhead fratricide,” and researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory ran Monte Carlo simulations to estimate the odds.

Once understood, the problem of nuclear weapons disabling other nuclear weapons was solved, primarily, by engineering around the known parameters of EMPs. Hardening electronics, with special shielding that directs current around sensitive parts of machines, has been a staple of nuclear weapon design for decades. It is a known, solvable problem. The U.S. Department of Defense absolutely requires hardening for military electronics critical to nuclear command and control, while standards exist to harden other electronics, as well as civilian infrastructure that the military depends on for non-nuclear threats.

That hasn’t stopped it becoming a perpetual bugbear of strategists. …………..

at a time when the primary concern of the U.S. nuclear enterprise was preparing for, and deterring, a war with the Soviet Union. That arsenal, now Russian, remains the primary concern of nuclear forces. Russia, like the United States, maintains a standing arsenal of over 1,500 deployed nuclear weapons. That’s the scale where, should either country decide to launch a nuclear attack, a warhead or three could be spared to create a high-altitude EMP effect against another country without significantly reducing the total harm caused by the more familiar blasts and pressure waves of nuclear detonation. The destruction to electronics, as in Hiroshima, would be a very low-level concern compared to the charred bodies of children and cities on fire.

For the rest of the nuclear-armed world, with total arsenals estimated at between 35 to 320 warheads, using one of them for an EMP effect makes even less strategic sense.

What is known about nuclear weapons is the damage they cause to people, to cities, and to physical objects from physical force. These are the effects that haunt our understanding of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A nuclear blast is an unsubtle form of harm. Focusing on EMPs outside the context of a broader nuclear war assumes a wholly unique strategic calculus, one that sits outside any understanding of war or even terrorism. It ascribes nearly supernatural powers to electronics and the threatened loss thereof. And it assumes that detonating a nuclear weapon in orbit over a country would not be met with the same immediate and hostile reaction as detonating a nuclear weapon in a city.

To fear the EMP is to look at the vast military strength of the United States, and see, as Franks did, that strength as a surrogate for a unique vulnerability. It is to imagine that the United States has built itself an Achilles’ heel, one that when pricked will lead to the collapse of all of Western civilization…………

Nuclear war is a serious threat. It has been for decades, however much we might want to forget about it. But the idea of a nuclear weapon creating an EMP without immediately sparking a nuclear war is entirely laughable. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/07/21/electromagnetic-pulses-emp-weapons-nuclear-explosion/

July 23, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, safety | Leave a comment

The Fukushima Diiachi Accident Chain, Part 6

The Fukushima Diiachi Accident Chain, Part 6, Nuclear Exhaust, 22 July 20

A Discussion of Official Reports Describing the Fukushma Diiachi Nuclear Disaster

The references used for this discussion are:

“The Official report of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission Executive Summary”, The National Diet of Japan, 2012.

“FUKUSHIMA DAIICHI: ANS Committee Report”, A Report by The American Nuclear Society Special Committee on Fukushima, March 2012.

“The Fukushima Daiichi Accident, Technical Volume 1/5 Description and Context of the Accident, IAEA, Vienna, 2015.

“FACT AND CAUSE OF FUKUSHIMA NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS ACCIDENT”, Hideki NARIAI, Proceedings of the International Symposium on Engineering Lessons Learned from the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, March 1-4, 2012, Tokyo, Japan.

Other sources, such as press reports, industry and authority regulations and technical bulletins will also be used.

The very great complexity of the disaster and of the human and systems responses to the challenges which confronted, and confront, the Fukushima Diiachi nuclear plant and the people operating and tending to the plant is obvious. The aim of this discussion is to attempt to produce, in review, a coherent picture of the events as reported by the authorities given above.

While the nuclear industry and permanent nuclear authorities – the IAEA – tend to agree closely in their reports of the events, the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission, appointed by the Japanese national Parliament (Diet) reports various aspects of the disaster with pointedly local questioning of events based upon witness accounts and the Committee’s own findings. And these perceptions, based on local knowledge of both the plant and witness statements actually challenge, in aspects, the findings of the other authorities.

As a preamble to the discussion of the disaster, a central consideration to all nuclear power plants in use today has to be included. The long term, intermediate term and short term safety of nuclear power plants depends upon the availability of electrical grid connection and power to the reactors and the entire plant. This is not an opinion, it is a technical fact which nuclear authorities have repeatedly reported upon.

The surprising fact is, that although nuclear reactors can supply electrical power to the world’s largest cities and nations, when the grid goes down, there is no ability for any nuclear reactor to power itself and its systems on any long term basis. There is nothing integral to the reactors which allows the energy resident in the reactors’ cores and pressure vessels to be controlled and managed so as to manage the cooling of the reactors.

While the nuclear industry and nuclear authorities have touted the virtues of nuclear power plant emergency cooling systems for over 50 years. However:

“The emergency cooling systems started. However, they did not work for so long time, and the fuels became to heat up and melt down, resulting the severe accident. “ Source: English translation of “FACT AND CAUSE OF FUKUSHIMA NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS ACCIDENT , Hideki NARIAI, Proceedings of the International Symposium on Engineering Lessons Learned from the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, March 1-4, 2012, Tokyo, Japan.

As we shall see later, the workers at the Fukushima Diiachi site during the early stages kept the emergency cooling systems going for many hours longer than the systems were designed to last. And these systems are designed to work for 8 hours only. (See the ANS report)..……….

It is beyond me why the nuclear industry, for more then 50 years, has been so wilfully dumb, ignorant and arrogant in the design of its emergency systems. And everything else. It seems to me the main aim of the industry is to sell reactors by any means. Whereas the industry should have the main aim of assuring safety in the context of the modern world and the modern world energy market. The problem is, though solar panels mounted on the Fukushima Shima Diiachi reactor building roofs could have save the day by keeping cooling pumps going, the obvious thought is this: why not just replace the Fukushima Diiachi with a solar and wind farm?

No danger of meltdown at all. As soon the 2009 scientific assessment came in demonstrating that an earthquake and tsunami was due “within the next 30 years”. that is precisely what should have been down. Perhaps Barry Brook and Pam Sykes, two academic non nuclear experts in Australia, were right. No human skill could have saved Fukushima Diiachi. So why leave it there? Pity the authorities in the nuclear industry hid and suppressed the scientific warnings of 2009, including TEPCOs own confirmation of the growing threat. This is standard procedure for the nuclear industry. It is not a particularly Japanese culture. It is nuclear norm.

The IAEA requirements for electricity grids which supply Nuclear Power Plants.

The following text is a straight quote from : ” “ELECTRIC GRID RELIABILITY AND INTERFACE WITH NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS” IAEA NUCLEAR ENERGY SERIES No. NG-T-3.8, IAEA, ….

Quote: ““The safe and economic operation of a nuclear power plant (NPP) requires the plant to be connected to an electrical grid system that has adequate capacity for exporting the power from the NPP, and for providing a reliable electrical supply to the NPP for safe startup, operation and normal or emergency shutdown of the plant.

“Connection of any large new power plant to the electrical grid system in a country may require significant modification and strengthening of the grid system, but for NPPs there may be added requirements to the structure of the grid system and the way it is controlled and maintained to ensure adequate reliability.

“The organization responsible for the NPP and the organization responsible for the grid system will need to establish and agree the necessary characteristics of the grid and of the NPP, well before the NPP is built, so that they are compatible with each other. They will also need to agree the necessary modifications to the grid system, and how they are to be financed.

“For a Member State that does not yet use nuclear power, the introduction and development of nuclear power is a major undertaking. It requires the country to build physical infrastructure and develop human resources so it can
construct and operate a nuclear power plant (NPP) in a safe, secure and technically sound manner. ” end quote. Source: “ELECTRIC GRID RELIABILITY AND INTERFACE WITH NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS” IAEA NUCLEAR ENERGY SERIES No. NG-T-3.8, IAEA,

Hmm. very interesting. NPPs require a specifically designed and modified baseload capable grid network before they can be expected to safely start up, operation and shut down. Further the grid is needed, according to the world nuclear authority, for SAFE EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN.

The Earthquake and the Grid in Japan on the day of the disaster

One would have thought the following information would have been clearly discussed by the nuclear authorities from the day of the disaster. It’s nearly 10 years and still no word from them:

““Vibrations from the magnitude 9.0 earthquake triggered an immediate shut down of 15 of Japan’s nuclear power stations. Seismic sensors picked up the earthquake and control rods were automatically inserted into the reactors, halting the fission reaction that is used to produce electricity. This sudden loss of power across Japan’s national power grid caused widespread power failures, cutting vital electricity supplies to Fukushima Daiichi. There were three reactors, one, two and three, operating at the time when the earthquake hit while reactors four, five and six had already been shutdown as part of routine maintenance work.” “Japan earthquake: how the nuclear crisis unfolded”. Richard Gray, Science Correspondent, The Telegraph, 20 March 2011. end quote.

The first thing the earthquake did was to cause the shutdown of nuclear power feed into the grid. 15 Nuclear Power Plants threw in the towel because they cannot safely operate during an earthquake. Apparently. Nuclear power guarantees black out in an earthquake.

more https://nuclearexhaust.wordpress.com/2020/07/23/the-fukushima-diiachi-accident-chain-part-6/

July 23, 2020 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Fukushima continuing, Reference, safety | Leave a comment

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23 April – WEBINAR – Why new nuclear reactors are the wrong tools for decarbonization Thursday, April 23 • 1 AM – 2 AM AEST

Pine Ridge Uranium is the real threat, not Tehran- Tell Burgum: Stop the Extraction.

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The Fukushima Diiachi Accident Chain, Part 6

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