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Waste drum at Westinghouse nuclear fuel factory exploded, caught fire

Waste drum at Westinghouse nuclear fuel factory exploded, caught fire https://www.postandcourier.com/business/waste-drum-at-westinghouse-nuclear-fuel-factory-exploded-caught-fire/article_a0052bf8-a726-11e9-8bc5-b3f9366e8ad3.html, By Andrew Brown abrown@postandcourier.co, Jul 15, 2019

A waste drum at a nuclear fuel factory near Columbia caught fire and exploded last week, according to a federal safety report. 

The workplace accident occurred at a Westinghouse facility in Hopkins, just off of Bluff Road. The plant makes pellets for nuclear power plants.

In a report filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Westinghouse said the drum exploded around 2 a.m. Friday after workers at the plant filled it with uranium-contaminated filters, rags, mops and some paper. The container held just over 70 grams of uranium, which is used in nuclear power plants to create a chain reaction that generates electricity.

Westinhouse said a chemical reaction caused the material to heat up, building pressure in the drum. The container blew off its lid, paper inside caught fire, and some of the contaminated material showered the surrounding area, according to the report.

A spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said the fire essentially put itself out.

No workers at the plant were injured during the accident and testing confirmed that radiation levels didn’t exceed federal safety limits, according to the company. Westinghouse employees also checked the other drums at the facility to ensure they wouldn’t overheat and explode.

“Air samples taken within the area confirmed no impact to plant personnel, the public or the environment,” Westinghouse spokeswoman Courtney Boone.

Boone said Westinghouse was studying what caused the drum to explode. The company plans to set new rules to keep the wrong materials from mixing, and it will let containers of nuclear material vent to keep pressure from building inside. The Hopkins plant isn’t packaging waste in the meantime

NRC spokesman Joey Ledford said federal inspectors would address the explosion when they make a routine inspection later this month.

It’s not the first time the factory has caught the attention of regulators. The NRC reported last year that uranium at the factory leaked out a small hole and into the ground, according to a story in The State newspaper.

Thad Moore contributed to this report.

July 18, 2019 Posted by | incidents, USA | Leave a comment

Fukushima – a nuclear catastrophe that continues

Expert says 2020 Tokyo Olympics unsafe due to Fukushima | 60 Minutes

Fukushima: an ongoing disaster, Red Flag , Jack Crawford, 15 July 2019 In March – on the eighth anniversary of the Fukushima disaster – Time magazine published an article with the headline: “Want to Stop Climate Change? Then It’s Time to Fall Back in Love with Nuclear Energy”. In it, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Hans Blix, evokes the imminent threat of climate catastrophe to argue, “There are paths out of this mess. But on March 11, 2011 [the day of the Fukushima disaster], the world’s course was diverted away from one of the most important. I am talking about nuclear energy”. He continues by criticising public fears of nuclear as irrational: “Plane crashes have not stopped us from flying, because most people know it is an effective means of travelling”. Blix speaks for the global nuclear industry, which is increasingly attempting to present itself as the solution to climate change.

But plane crashes do not kill untold numbers and spread deadly poisons over huge areas of the planet. Fukushima was and still is a horrific and ongoing human and environmental catastrophe, exposing the horrendous risks to which the powerful are willing to subject people and the planet. It should be remembered every time a pro-nuclear bureaucrat or politician exploits genuine concern about climate change to promote this deadly industry. It should never be forgotten.

………..Today, towns such as Futaba, Tomioka and Okuma are nuclear ghost towns. In them you will find a forest of metal gates, decaying buildings, shattered glass and cars wrapped in vines. The only human faces are mannequins in store windows, still dressed in the fashion of 2011. Sprawled across the highway between towns are hundreds of black bags filled with toxic dirt. They are one of the many problems of the clean-up effort. There are about 30 million one-tonne bags of radioactive topsoil, tree branches, grass and other waste. There is no safe, long-term storage place for this material.

The clean-up is undermined by cost cutting. Workers are forced to meet strict deadlines, even if it compromises safety. “There were times when we were told to leave the contaminated topsoil and just remove the leaves so we could get everything done on schedule”, explained Minoru Ikeda, a former worker. “Sometimes we would look at each other as if to say: ‘What on earth are we doing here?’”

The task is mammoth. The government and TEPCO now say that decommissioning the failed nuclear plant will take 40 years, at a cost of ¥22 trillion (or US$200 billion). But there is significant uncertainty about how to remove the hundreds of tonnes of molten fuel from the reactors. “For the removal of the debris, we don’t have accurate information or any viable methodology for that”, admitted the plant’s manager, Akira Ono, in 2015. “We need to develop many, many technologies.”

Beyond the plant itself, the total clean-up is likely to cost between ¥50 trillion and ¥70 trillion (US$460-640 billion), according to the estimates of a right wing think tank, the Japan Center for Economic Research. Thousands of workers continue to make daily trips between the contaminated zones and company accommodation. Dodgy subcontractors recruit largely from Japan’s destitute, including the homeless, migrant workers and asylum seekers. A recent Greenpeace investigation, “On the Frontline of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident: Workers and Children”, found evidence of hyper-exploitation and dangerous radiation exposure. In one case, a 55-year-old homeless man was paid the equivalent of US$10 for a month’s work. “TEPCO is God”, lamented Tanaka, another homeless Fukushima worker. “The main contractors are kings, and we are slaves.”

Scandalously, organised crime has penetrated the clean-up operations. Those with debts to the Yakuza (Japanese organised crime) have found themselves shoved into hazmat suits and set to work. The subcontracting system has allowed TEPCO to turn a blind eye to such human rights abuses.

Despite triumphant optimism from some champions of nuclear, researchers continue to uncover unexpected and unpredictable consequences of the Fukushima disaster. These include the discovery of tiny, glassy beads containing extremely high concentrations of caesium-137 (a radioactive isotope) among polluted dust and dirt particles. These bacterium-sized particles are easily inhaled and persistently insoluble. How they react with our bodies and the environment is not yet clear, but scientists increasingly believe them to be a health risk. The beads have been found as far from the disaster site as Tokyo.

The dangers faced by those returning to Fukushima prefecture have been a central controversy of recent years. Compelled by economic necessity, most have returned. But as of February 2019, 52,000 remain displaced, either unwilling to return or with homes in still-prohibited zones. In a recent press tour, the government repeatedly blamed “harmful rumours” for creating fear of returning as well as the Japanese public’s unwillingness to consume Fukushima’s fish and agricultural products.

“To me”, explained activist Riken Komatsu, “talking about ‘harmful rumours’ sounds like they are making someone else the bad guy or villain, as if they are blaming people for saying negative things because they don’t understand science and radiation. But those who have lost our trust do not have the right”.

Mistrust is justified. Prime minister Shinzo Abe, keen to move on from the crisis, intends to end evacuations by the time Japan hosts the 2020 Olympics. The international and (prior to the meltdowns) Japanese standard of acceptable exposure to radiation, one millisievert per year, has been scrapped. Across Fukushima prefecture, measurements five times that level are now deemed safe. 

Some places measure as high as 20 millisieverts per year. These radiation levels are especially dangerous for children, who are far more sensitive than adults to even low levels of exposure. It will take decades before the cost of the authorities’ carelessness can be measured in increased cancer rates. The loss of happy, healthy human life of course can never be quantified………

those who “benefit” from the powerful nuclear industry are the same people who crave military dominance. The politicians and officials currently fighting to rebuild Japanese nuclear capability are thinking far more about the military tensions surrounding them than tackling climate change. We don’t need to a build a world full of deadly nuclear power plants to combat climate change. We need clean, renewable energy and a system that prioritises people and the planet over money and military might. https://redflag.org.au/node/6838

July 16, 2019 Posted by | environment, Fukushima continuing, incidents | Leave a comment

The dangers of Chernobyl nuclear site being turned into a tourism mecca

The grounds remain coated with plutonium, cesium, strontium and americium — radionuclides (atoms that emit radiation) that could pose potentially serious health risks to those who touch or ingest them. Some areas are more radioactive, and therefore more dangerous, than others.

“Even though the accident occurred over 33 years ago it remains one of the most radiologically contaminated places on earth.”

Chernobyl tourists should avoid plant life, and especially the depths of the forests.

Those areas were not cleaned in the aftermath of the disaster and remain highly contaminated by radiation. Research has showed that the fungus, moss and mushrooms growing there are radioactive. Eating or drinking from the area is not safe.

Those who stay on the paved pathways, which officials cleaned, are much less likely to absorb harmful toxins.

Ukraine wants Chernobyl to be a tourist trap. But scientists warn: Don’t kick up dust. https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2019/07/12/ukraine-wants-chernobyl-be-tourist-trap-scientists-warn-dont-kick-up-dust/?utm_term=.5e82b547ceaf  By Katie Mettler, July 12 2019

The tourists first started flocking to Chernobyl nearly 10 years ago, when fans of the video game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. wanted to see firsthand the nuclear wasteland they’d visited in virtual reality.

Next came those whose curiosity piqued when in 2016 the giant steel dome known as the New Safe Confinement was slid over the sarcophagus encasing nuclear reactor number four, which exploded in April 1986, spewed radiation across Europe and forced hundreds of thousands to flee from their homes.

Then in May, HBO’s “Chernobyl” miniseries aired, and tourism companies reported a 30 to 40 percent uptick in visitors to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, abandoned and eerily frozen in time.

Now the Ukrainian government — capitalizing on the macabre intrigue — has announced that Chernobyl will become an official tourist site, complete with routes, waterways, checkpoints and a “green corridor” that will place it on the map with other “dark tourism” destinations.

“We must give this territory of Ukraine a new life,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said during a visit to Chernobyl this week. “Until now, Chernobyl was a negative part of Ukraine’s brand. It’s time to change it.”

Zelensky, who was inaugurated in May, signed a decree July 10 to kickstart the Chernobyl Development Strategy, which the president hopes will bring order to the 19-mile Exclusion Zone that has become a hotbed for corruption, trespassing and theft. At the nuclear facility and in the nearby town of Pripyat, wildlife has returned and now roams freely. Flora and fauna grow up around decaying homes, playgrounds and an amusement park. Letters, dinner tables and baby dolls remain where their owners abandoned them 33 years ago.

Radioactive dust still coats it all.

“Chernobyl is a unique place on the planet where nature revives after a global man-made disaster, where there is a real ‘ghost town,’” Zelensky said during his visit. “We have to show this place to the world: scientists, ecologists, historians, tourists.”

Though exploiting a historical space like Chernobyl could infuse Ukraine’s economy with tourism dollars and motivate developers to revive the sleepy towns surrounding the “dead zone,” there are significant downsides, experts say.

[Thanks to HBO, more tourists are flocking to the eerie Chernobyl nuclear disaster site]

The grounds remain coated with plutonium, cesium, strontium and americium — radionuclides (atoms that emit radiation) that could pose potentially serious health risks to those who touch or ingest them. Some areas are more radioactive, and therefore more dangerous, than others.

“Chernobyl was the worst nuclear accident in human history,” said Jim Beasley, an associate professor at the University of Georgia who has been studying wildlife in the Exclusion Zone since 2012. “Even though the accident occurred over 33 years ago it remains one of the most radiologically contaminated places on earth.”

More than 30 people were killed in the immediate aftermath of the explosion, and officials are still debating the full extent of the longterm death toll in Ukraine and nearby countries where people grew sick with cancer and other illnesses.

The World Health Organization estimates total cancer deaths at 9,000, far less than a Belarusian study that put the death toll at 115,000, reported Reuters.

Today, radiation levels inside the Exclusion Zone vary widely from location to location, said Dr. T. Steen, who teaches microbiology and immunology at Georgetown’s School of Medicine and oversees radiation research in organisms at nuclear disaster sites. Because of that, she advises anyone visiting to be educated and cautious while inside the Exclusion Zone, and to limit time spent there.

“The longer you’re exposed, the more that future impact is,” she said.

She advises visitors to the Exclusion Zone to wear clothes and shoes they are comfortable throwing away. If they’re going to be touching or disturbing anything, she recommends a mask and gloves. Most importantly, Steen says, Chernobyl tourists should avoid plant life, and especially the depths of the forests.

Those areas were not cleaned in the aftermath of the disaster and remain highly contaminated by radiation. Research has showed that the fungus, moss and mushrooms growing there are radioactive. Eating or drinking from the area is not safe.

Those who stay on the paved pathways, which officials cleaned, are much less likely to absorb harmful toxins.

Generally speaking, Chernobyl can be safe, Steen said, “but it depends on how people behave.”

And so far, the accounts of tourists behaving badly are abundant.

Timothy Mousseau, a biologist and University of South Carolina professor, has been studying the ecological and evolutionary consequences of radioactive contaminants on wildlife and organisms at Chernobyl for 20 years. He just recently returned from his annual, month-long trip to the Exclusion Zone and said he was shocked to see 250 tourists in street clothes wandering Pripyat.

Some hopped in bumper cars at the abandoned amusement park there to take selfies.

“Part of the reason people don’t think twice about it is because there is this highly organized tourism operation,” Mousseau said. “A lot of people don’t give it a second thought.”

He is concerned that the government’s tourism campaign could only make that worse.

“The negative aspects that are being completely ignored are the health and safety issues of bringing this many people, exposing this many people to what is a small risk, albeit a significant risk, to this kind of contamination,” Mousseau said. “The more traffic there is, the most dust there is, and the dust here is contaminated.”

[We’re in the age of the overtourist. You can avoid being one of them.]

But Mousseau’s worries, and the anxieties of his colleagues, extend beyond health factors.

For decades, biologists, ecologists and medical researchers have been studying the mostly undisturbed expanse that is the Exclusion Zone. They’ve studied DNA mutations in plants and insects, birds and fish. As larger mammals, like moose, wolves and fox, have slowly re-occupied the surrounding forests, biologists have searched for clues about the ways short-term and long-term radiation exposure have altered their health.

Scientifically, there is no place on earth like Chernobyl. Beasley, who studies wolves there, calls it a “living laboratory.” An influx of humans — especially reckless ones — could destroy it.

“This is really the only accessible place on the planet where this kind of research can be conducted at a scale both spatial and temporal that allows for important scientific discovery,” Mousseau said. “Given increased use of radiation in technology and medicine, in going to Mars and space, we need to know more about radiation and its effects on biology and organisms.”

“And Chernobyl provides a unique laboratory to do this kind of research,” he said.

Tourism’s negative footprint in the Exclusion Zone is not theoretical, either.

They are leaving behind trash, rummaging through abandoned homes and buildings and, in Mousseau’s experience, stealing his research equipment. Cameras he has hidden in the depths of the most radioactive parts of the zone to capture the wildlife he studies have been vandalized or gone missing, he said.

It’s something that absolutely astounds me,” he said.

Theoretically, more government oversight at Chernobyl could help curb this kind of interference, especially if a financial investment in the zone will help preserve the ghost town there and bring in more guards and checkpoints to patrol who comes and goes.

None of that will prevent tourists from disturbing Chernobyl’s spirit.

“I think it is important to not lose sight of the fact that Chernobyl represents an area of tremendous human suffering,” Beasley said, “as hundreds of thousands of people were forever displaced from their homes or otherwise impacted by the accident.”

July 15, 2019 Posted by | culture and arts, environment, Reference, safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Nuclear clean-up agreements broken for the Santa Susanna Field Laboratory (SSFL) site

60 Years Since the Largest U.S. Nuclear Accident and Captured Federal Agencies  https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/07/13/60-years-largest-us-nuclear-accident-and-captured-federal-agencies

What is needed now is action, by Robert Dodge,   13 Jul 19,

 60 years ago today the largest nuclear accident in U.S. history occurred above the Southern California community of Simi Valley when the Santa Susanna Field Laboratory (SSFL) site suffered a partial nuclear meltdown. That accident, kept secret for two decades, has resulted in ongoing local health effects that persist to this day and has pitted the community health and wellbeing against corporate financial interests and captured government agencies.

SSFL, a 2850 acre site, currently owned by the Department of Energy, NASA and the largest owner being Boeing, is aformer nuclear reactor and rocket engine testing site. It is located in the hills above the Simi and San Fernando Valleys, at the headwaters of the Los Angeles River. Located about 25 miles from downtown Los Angeles, originally far from population areas, the area now has around 500,000 people within 10 miles of the site. Over its years of operation, there were 10 non-contained nuclear reactors that operated on the site as well as plutonium and uranium fuel fabrication facilities and a “hot lab” where highly irradiated fuel from around the U.S. nuclear complex was shipped for decladding and examination. In addition there were tens of thousands of rocket engine tests conducted over the many years of operation.

The Sodium Reactor Experiment or SRE was the first reactor to provide commercial nuclear power to a U.S. city in Moorpark. Then on July 13, 1959, a partial meltdown occurred in which a third of the fuel experienced melting. Dr. Arjun Makhijani estimated the incident released 260 times the amount of radioactive iodine as was released from the 1979 Three Mile Island accident.

As a result of this partial meltdown and numerous other reactor accidents, radioactive fires, massive chemical contamination in handling of the radioactive and chemically contaminated toxic materials that were routinely burned in open pits through the years at the site, it remains one of the most highly contaminated sites in the country. It has widespread contamination with radionuclides such as cesium-137, strontium-90, plutonium-239 and toxic chemicals perchlorate, trichloroethylene (TCE), heavy metals and dioxins.

In 2012, the U.S. EPA released the results of an extensive radiological survey of Area IV and the Northern Buffer Zone at SSFL, and found 500 samples with radioactivity above background levels, in some cases, thousands of times over background.

These toxins are associated with a multitude of health risks. Many are cancer causing, others are neurotoxins causing a host of issues including learning disabilities, birth defects and many other health effects. The most vulnerable tend to be women and children.  Through the years, there have been many health studies performed. In 2006, a cluster of retinoblastoma cases, a rare eye cancer affecting young children, was identified within an area downwind of the site. The retinoblastoma mothers meeting at Los Angeles’s Children’s Hospital ultimately formed a chemo carpool.

The Public Health Institute’s 2012 California Breast Cancer Mapping Project found that the rate of breast cancer is higher in Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, Oak Park and Moorpark than in almost any other place in the state.

In addition, studies by cancer registries found elevated rates of bladder cancer associated with proximity to SSFL.

There have been numerous additional studies including one by the UCLA School of Public Health that found significantly elevated cancer death rates among both the nuclear and rocket workers at SSFL from exposures to these toxic materials. Another study by UCLA found offsite exposures to hazardous chemicals by the neighboring population at levels exceeding EPA levels of concern.

A study performed for the Federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry found the incidence of key cancers, those types known to be associated with the contaminants on site, were 60% higher in the offsite population within 5 miles of the site compared to further away.

Unfortunately, these contaminants do not stay on site. When it rains, they wash off site to the Valleys below. When it blows, they become airborne and migrate offsite. The 2017 Woolsey fire is a most recent example. After initially denials, officials finally admitted the fire actually started on the field lab site burning across almost the entire site and potentially spreading toxic chemicals over the basin. Unfortunately, no adequate monitoring was performed and only began days after the flames had moved on.

Ultimately, the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC), has regulatory oversight of the cleanup and of the responsible parties which include NASA, the Department of Energy (DOE), and Boeing. In 2010, the Department of Energy and NASA signed historic agreements with DTSC that committed them to cleaning up all detectable contamination. The agreements, or Administrative Orders on Consent (AOC), specified that the cleanup was to be completed by 2017. Boeing, which owns most of the SSFL property, refused to sign the cleanup agreements. Nevertheless, DTSC said that its normal procedures require it to defer to local governments’ land use plans and zoning, which for SSFL allow agricultural and rural residential uses. DTSC said SSFL’s zoning would thus require Boeing to conduct a cleanup equivalent to the NASA/DOE requirements.

In response, Boeing, currently under scrutiny after the 737 MAX crashes, launched a massive “greenwashing” campaign in an attempt to convince the public that SSFL’s contamination was minimal, never hurt anyone, and that the site doesn’t need much of a cleanup because it is going to be an open space park. Boeing prefers a re-designation to recreational cleanup standards that are based on someone being on the site infrequently limited to a few hours per week . But people who live near SSFL don’t live in recreational areas, they live in residential areas and as long as the site isn’t fully cleaned up, they will still be at risk of exposure to SSFL contamination.

Recently, both the Dept. of Energy and NASA, following Boeing’s lead, have said that they too want to break out of their legal cleanup agreements and also cleanup to a weak recreational standard. So, all three responsible parties are completely disregarding the state of California’s regulatory authority. In effect they are asserting that they, the polluters, get to decide how much of their contamination gets cleaned up. That violates federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act laws as well as the AOC cleanup agreements. Now more than ever, we need our elected representatives to stand up and demand the existing cleanup agreements be upheld.

Melissa Bumstead, an adjacent West Hills resident whose daughter has twice survived a rare leukemia and who has mapped over 50 other rare pediatric cancers near SSFL, is bringing fresh energy and new voices into the cleanup fight. Her Change.org petition has now been signed by over 650,000 people and is helping to galvanize the community to fight for the full, promised cleanup.

Thus far, almost all local and federal elected officials have voiced concern that the cleanup agreements are being broken, especially in the wake of the Woolsey Fire. What is needed now is action. People ask how to protect themselves. The best thing people can do is fight for the full cleanup of SSFL. Each of has an opportunity to help this effort. We must contact all of our local officials and demand action today for a full cleanup of SSFL.

July 15, 2019 Posted by | environment, safety, USA | Leave a comment

Earthquakes and the danger of Southern Nevada as a nuclear waste dump site

Quakes Shake Up Nuclear Waste Storage Talk in Nevada, VOA, By Associated Press

July 13, 2019 LAS VEGAS — Recent California earthquakes that rattled Las Vegas have shaken up arguments on both sides of a stalled federal plan to entomb nuclear waste beneath a long-studied site in southern Nevada.

Wyoming Republican Sen. John Barrasso said this week that his legislation to jump-start the process to open the Yucca Mountain project was based on studies that take seismic activity into account, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.

Spent nuclear reactor fuel is currently stored at 121 sites in 35 states, and Barrasso, chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said the earthquakes showed the need to move spent radioactive waste from places where it is currently stored above ground to a more secure repository.

Still supportive

“This doesn’t change my view,” Barrasso said. “We need to find a permanent location for the storage of nuclear waste. I think it’s much safer in Yucca Mountain than in a hundred different locations.”

Nevada officials disagree, and the 6.4 magnitude and 7.1 magnitude tremors over the July Fourth holiday appeared to have bolstered arguments by opponents of the radioactive waste repository.

U.S. Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., a longtime Yucca Mountain storage foe, immediately labeled the second shake “yet another reminder of how dangerous it would be to make Nevada the dumping ground for the nation’s nuclear waste.”

U.S. Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., said the temblors “highlight the very real dangers” the state would face with nuclear waste storage.

U.S. Rep. Steven Horsford, a Democrat whose congressional district includes Yucca Mountain and North Las Vegas, cited a state tally of 621 seismic events greater than magnitude 2.5 within a 50-mile (81-kilometer) radius of Yucca Mountain during the past 43 years.

“Earthquakes can be dangerous enough in their own right. Adding the possibility of a nuclear waste spill in the aftermath is not a risk I am willing to take,” Horsford told the Review-Journal.

Yucca Mountain is about 90 miles (145 kilometers) northwest of the Las Vegas Strip and 108 miles (174 kilometers) east of Ridgecrest, Calif., where the Fourth of July earthquakes originated.

Fourth in seismic activity

A recent state-by-state ranking by the U.S. Geological Survey showed Nevada fourth in seismic activity, behind Alaska, Wyoming and Oklahoma, and just ahead of California. ………. https://www.voanews.com/usa/quakes-shake-nuclear-waste-storage-talk-nevada

July 15, 2019 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Safety breaches at Sellafield nuclear waste plant

NUCLEAR FEAR Security scares at Sellafield nuclear waste plant raise fears of disaster ‘worse then Chernobyl’, Sun, John Siddle, 14 Jul 2019,

SECURITY scares at Sellafield raise fears of a disaster “worse than Chernobyl”, campaigners warn.

The Sun on Sunday can reveal there have been 25 safety breaches logged at the massive nuclear waste plant in the past two years. The 6km razor-wired compound stores a 140 tonne plutonium stockpile and handles radioactive waste generated by the UK’s working reactors.

The clean-up site in Cumbria has been dubbed the most hazardous place in Europe. Nuclear bosses insist safety is an “overriding priority”.

Incidents logged at Sellafield include radiation leaking from a water pipe and a nuclear waste container that was not welded completely shut.

Other alerts were triggered when potentially harmful uranium powder was spilled and acid was discovered leaking from a bust pipe

Janine Smith, from the campaign group Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment, said locals lived in fear of a serious incident.

‘COULD BE WORSE THAN CHERNOBYL’She said: “One safety breach is one too many. There just shouldn’t be any. Just one error could be catastrophic.

“It’s not like making a mistake inside a chocolate factory. The buildings at Sellafield are all so close together that if something was to happen at that site it would be a disaster.

“We just keep our fingers crossed, and everything else, that we don’t ever have to witness a nuclear disaster in this country. It could be worse than Chernobyl”.

According to the logs, the bomb squad was called in October 2017 when potentially unstable chemicals sparked an emergency scare.

A month later, in a separate incident, a worker was found to have been exposed to a low level of radiation……

‘ONE ERROR COULD BE CATASTROPHIC’The Environment Agency has taken enforcement action against Sellafield ten times since September over compliance breaches.

A spokesman said: “Nuclear facility operators must adhere to the highest waste control standards.

“Where Sellafield has fallen short of these standards, the impact has generally been extremely small and we have taken firm and appropriate action.”

The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) also hit Sellafield with an improvement notice this year after a high-voltage cable was sliced, causing a power loss……….https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9502371/security-fears-chernobyl-sellafield/

July 15, 2019 Posted by | incidents, UK | Leave a comment

Planetary catastrophe – was not likely from the Russian nuclear submarine accident

Russian Navy Claims Sailors Prevented ‘Planetary Catastrophe’
Was the damaged submarine’s reactor in danger of causing a nuclear accident? https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a28340271/submarine-nuclear-reactor-accident/  By Kyle Mizokami, Jul 10, 2019  A senior Russian Navy official said that accident on the nuclear-powered submarine Losharik was nearly a “planetary catastrophe,” were it not for the fourteen sailors killed in the incident. The submarine, widely believed to be a spy sub capable of operating on the deep ocean floor, was damaged in an accident on July 1st. The Kremlin denied there was risk of such a “catastrophe.”

An aid to the head of the Russian Navy, Sergei Pavlov, stated at a funeral for the sailors lost in the accident, “With their lives, they saved the lives of their colleagues, saved the vessel and prevented a planetary catastrophe.” Pavlov reportedly did not elaborate.

The Kremlin denied that the reactor had been at risk, stating that it had been “totally sealed off” and there were no problems with it. Radiation monitoring stations in Norway relatively near where the incident took place have not reported any spikes in radioactivity.

The accident, according to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, started in the sub’s battery compartment and spread. This suggests a fire that was the result of a buildup of hydrogen gasses inside the ship. Submarines, even nuclear ones, carry banks of batteries to provide a temporary source of power, and hydrogen is produced as a byproduct of the battery charging process. If the gas reaches a critical level of concentration, a spark onboard the ship could set off a fire.

According to Shoigu, the crew battled the fire for an hour and a half. Although the automatic fire extinguishers kicked in, they proved insufficient. The surviving crew managed to initiate an emergency blow procedure and the ship surfaced off the coast of the Kola Peninsula, where the remaining crew members were rescued.

Losharik, named after a cartoon horse made of interconnected juggling balls, got its name because the interior of the ship is made of seven interconnected steel or titanium spheres. The spheres give the ship its deep diving capability, with the sub reportedly capable of reaching depths of at least 1,000 meters (3,280 feet).

It is not clear where Losharik’s 5 megawatt nuclear reactor resides, but the ship is only 230 feet long with all personnel, propulsion systems, and mission equipment inside the seven spheres. The fire could not have been far from the reactor, but if the reactor and batteries resided in different spheres they could have been closed off from one another. Shoigu seems to be stating that was the case.

Even if the fire did reach the reactor it seems unlikely that the ejection of radioactive materials could cause a “planetary catastrophe” on the scale of the 1986 Chernobyl accident. Losharik’s reactor generated just five megawatts, the RBMK reactor at Chernobyl was much more powerful and used much more nuclear material to generate up to 3,200 megawatts.

July 13, 2019 Posted by | incidents, Russia | 1 Comment

Intruders jump fence at U.S. nuclear reactor that uses bomb-grade fuel

Intruders jump fence at U.S. nuclear reactor that uses bomb-grade fuel Timothy Gardner  WASHINGTON (Reuters) 12 July 19,- Two people jumped a security fence at a GE Hitachi research reactor near San Francisco, the U.S. nuclear power regulator said on Thursday, raising concerns over a plant that is one of the few in the country that uses highly enriched uranium, a material that could be used to make an atomic bomb.

The intruders jumped a security perimeter fence at the Vallecitos reactor in Alameda County on Wednesday afternoon, a 1,600-acre (647.5-hectare) site about 40 miles (64 km) east of San Francisco, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said on its website in a security threat notice.

They escaped security at the plant after being detected, but shortly afterwards suspects were detained outside the facility, the NRC said.

The Alameda County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The NRC notice did not mention that the plant is one of the few in the country to use highly enriched uranium, or HEU. Such plants have been under pressure from non-proliferation interests to convert to low-enriched uranium, or LEU, a material that cannot be used to make a bomb…….https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-nuclearpower-security/intruders-jump-fence-at-us-nuclear-reactor-that-uses-bomb-grade-fuel-idUSKCN1U624G

July 13, 2019 Posted by | incidents, USA | Leave a comment

Recycling nuclear waste still itself produces nuclear waste

Recycle everything, America—except your nuclear waste  https://thebulletin.org/2019/07/recycle-everything-america-except-your-nuclear-waste/    By Allison Macfarlane, Sharon Squassoni, July 8, 2019 Americans have come late to the game on responsible consumerism, but they are making up for lost time with a passionate obsession about waste.  It’s no coincidence that Fox News, CNN, YouTube and USA Today have all reported that the deepest solo ocean dive found plastic waste seven miles below the surface, in the Mariana Trench.

Now that Americans are “woke” about waste in general, they may turn to the specific kind produced by the nuclear energy industry. Plans to revitalize US nuclear power, which is in dire economic straits, depend on the potential for new, “advanced” reactors to reduce and recycle the waste they produce.  Unfortunately, as they “burn” some kinds of nuclear wastes, these plants will create other kinds that also require disposal. At the same time, these “advanced” reactors—many of which are actually reprises of past efforts—increase security and nuclear weapons proliferation risks and ultimately do nothing to break down the political and societal resistance to finding real solutions to nuclear waste disposal.

The current nuclear dream is really no different from previous ones of the last 70 years: the next generation of reactors, nuclear power advocates insist, will be safer, cheaper, more reliable, less prone to produce nuclear bomb-making material, and more versatile (producing electricity, heat, and perhaps hydrogen), without creating the wastes that have proved almost impossible to deal with in the United States.  The Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act specifically describes the advanced reactors it seeks to support as having all those positive characteristics.  This newest burst of enthusiasm for advanced reactors is, however, largely fueled by the idea that they will burn some of their long-lived radioisotopes, thereby becoming nuclear incinerators for some of their own waste.

Many of these “advanced” reactors are actually repackaged designs from 70 years ago.  If the United States, France, the UK, Germany, Japan, Russia, and others could not make these reactors economically viable power producers in that time, despite spending more than $60 billion, what is different now?  Moreover, all of the “advanced” designs under discussion now are simply “PowerPoint” reactors: They have not been built at scale, and, as a result, we don’t really know all the waste streams that they will produce.

It’s tempting to believe that having new nuclear power plants that serve, to some degree, as nuclear garbage disposals means there is no need for a nuclear garbage dump, but this isn’t really the case. Even in an optimistic assessment, these new plants will still produce significant amounts of high-level, long-lived waste. What’s more, new fuel forms used in some of these advanced reactors could pose waste disposal challenges not seen to date.

Some of these new reactors would use molten salt-based fuels that, when exposed to water, form highly corrosive hydrofluoric acid. Therefore, reprocessing (or some form of “conditioning”) the waste will likely be required for safety reasons before disposal. Sodium-cooled fast reactors—a “new” technology proposed to be used in some advanced reactors, including the Bill Gates-funded TerraPower reactors—face their own disposal challenges. These include dealing with the metallic uranium fuel which is pyrophoric (that is, prone to spontaneous combustion) and would need to be reprocessed into a safer form for disposal.

Unconventional reactors may reduce the level of some nuclear isotopes in the spent fuel they produce, but that won’t change what really drives requirements for our future nuclear waste repository: the heat production of spent fuel and amount of long-lived radionuclides in the waste. To put it another way, the new reactors will still need a waste repository, and it will likely need to be just as large as a repository for the waste produced by the current crop of conventional reactors.

Recycling and minimizing—even eliminating—the waste streams that many industries produce is responsible and prudent behavior. But in the context of nuclear energy, recycling is expensive, dirty, and ultimately dangerous.  Reprocessing spent nuclear fuel—which some advanced reactor designs require for safety reasons—actually produces fissile material that could be used to power nuclear weapons.  This is precisely why the United States has avoided the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel for the last four decades, despite having the world’s largest number of commercial nuclear power plants.

Continuing research on how to deal with nuclear waste is a great idea. But building expensive prototypes of reactors whose fuel requires reprocessing, on the belief that such reactors will solve the nuclear waste problem in America, is misguided. At the same time, discounting the notion that a US move into reprocessing might spur other countries to develop this same technology—a technology they could secretly exploit to produce nuclear weapons—is shortsighted and damaging to US national and world security.

July 11, 2019 Posted by | 2 WORLD, Reference, safety, wastes | Leave a comment

What are the risks at closed San Onofre nuclear plant during a big earthquake?

July 9, 2019 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Holtec’s dodgy nuclear waste canisters

RC admits San Onofre Holtec nuclear waste canisters are all damaged   https://sanonofresafety.org/2018/11/29/11-29-2018-nrc-admits-san-onofre-holtec-nuclear-waste-canisters-are-all-damaged/ November 29, 2018 by Donna Gilmore

The Holtec nuclear waste storage canisters at San Onofre are lemons and must be replaced with thick-wall casks. 11/29/2018 Oceanside:   The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) admits in their November 28, 2018 NRC Inspection Report and Notice of Violation, ML18332A357 (page 8 and 9) every Holtec canister downloaded into the storage holes is damaged due to inadequate clearance between the canister and the divider shell in the storage hole (vault).  The NRC states canister walls are already “worn”.  This results in cracks. Once cracks start, they continue to grow through the wall.

The NRC stated Southern California Edison (and Holtec) knew about this since January 2018, but continued to load 29 canisters anyway. Continue reading →

July 9, 2019 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Danger of grid blackout to California’s Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant

How Safe Is Diablo Canyon in a Station Blackout? https://www.independent.com/2019/07/01/how-safe-is-diablo-canyon-in-a-station-blackout/   by Harvey Sherback Jul 01, 2019 PG&E’s Nuclear Power Plant Is Tied to the Grid  In the wake of Pacific Gas & Electric’s bankruptcy due to the devastating wildfires, death, and destruction caused by its aging and vulnerable transmission lines, the big question is, how safe and secure is its “grid tied” Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant?

Diablo is dependent upon the electric grid to function. Without electricity, the operator would lose instrumentation leading to the inability to cool both reactor cores. Unfortunately, out-of-control forest fires and damaged power lines could cause a “station blackout” in which all off-site power is lost.

Every nuclear power plant has emergency diesel generators to counter off-site power loss. Now, especially because of President Trump’s threat to cut back on inspections at atomic power plants, including the Diablo Canyon Power Plant, my main concerns are whether Diablo’s emergency generators are in good working order and will there be enough on-site diesel fuel to power the facility if the regional electric grid goes down for a couple of weeks or longer? In the event of a station blackout, core damage is estimated to begin in approximately one hour if the auxiliary feed-water system and high pressure injection flow aren’t reestablished in time.

The loss of off-site power could also cause a failure of the spent-fuel-rod cooling systems. When the spent-fuel cooling pumps stop working, the water in the pools starts to boil off. Once the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant’s overcrowded spent-fuel assemblies become uncovered, the fuel rods cladding will start to melt. As bits of the melting fuel fall into what’s left of the water, the water will flash to steam causing the pressure in the buildings to increase. Radioactive particles carried in the steam would then begin to exit the buildings through non-sealed portals and doors.

Exposing hot zirconium fuel-rod cladding to the air causes an exothermic reaction; the cladding will actually catch fire at about 1,000 degrees centigrade causing toxic radioactive isotopes to be released into the atmosphere. Even the Nuclear Regulatory Commission concedes that this type of fire cannot be extinguished.

Another reason why PG&E is caught between a rock and a hard place is because of its mandatory power cut-offs during hot, dry, and windy weather. Will Pacific Gas & Electric have to choose between power outages to curb the possibility of raging wildfires and the threat of a “station blackout” at its more-than-hazardous Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant? What if a major Fukushima-like-earthquake were to occur during a “station blackout” during which all off-site electricity is lost due to a mandatory power cut-off? This definitely is a lose-lose situation!  Why must we continue to live with this unnecessary danger?

Now more that ever, it’s time to Close Diablo Down!

July 8, 2019 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

California governor declares state of emergency after earthquakes

California governor declares state of emergency after earthquakes

Earthquake-rattled Southern California braces for more aftershocks: ‘Like an atom bomb going off’   abc news, By EMILY SHAPIRO

Jul 6, 2019, Southern California is bracing for more aftershocks after a powerful 7.1 magnitude earthquake shook the region late Friday, one day after a 6.4 magnitude quake struck…….

Friday’s massive 7.1 magnitude quake hit at 8:19 p.m. local time near Ridgecrest and the Searles Valley, along the same fault line as the July Fourth quake, authorities said. …….

The 7.1 quake was the strongest in Southern California since one of the same magnitude hit Hector Mines in 1999, officials said.

It also became one of only 13 earthquakes in more than 60 years to measure over 7.0 magnitude…….
https://abcnews.go.com/US/powerful-aftershocks-shake-southern-california-massive-earthquake-panic/story?id=64147691

July 8, 2019 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Was Russian nuclear submarine accident close to a planetary catastrophe?

Russian servicemen ‘averted planetary catastrophe’ during nuclear submarine accident, military official claims at funeral https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-submarine-accident-fire-nuclear-reactor-catastrophe-sailors-dead-a8991531.html

Kremlin refuses to reveal mission of vessel, citing state secrets Tom Embury-Dennis   8 July 19, Families of the 14 Russian servicemen who were killed after a fire broke out on a nuclear submarine have reportedly been told that their relatives averted a “planetary catastrophe” before they died.

A high-ranking military official is said to have made the comment at a funeral for the crew in St Petersburgh days after the accident in the Barents Sea earlier this week.

The incident remains shrouded in mystery after the Russian government refused to reveal the submarine’s name and its mission, claiming them as state secrets.

However, the Kremlin has said the accident was sparked by a fire in the battery compartment of the submarine.

Defence minister Sergei Shoigu said earlier this week that the onboard nuclear reactor was “operational” after the crew took “necessary measures” to protect it.

  • His deputy Andrei Kartapolov also claimed the “hero” submariners sealed a hatch to contain the blaze.
  • The Kremlin has not revealed what exactly occurred, or whether a major incident was averted by the servicemen’s actions.Paying tribute to the crew at the memorial, the unnamed military official said the submariners had prevented a much bigger tragedy, Russian news outlet Open Media reported.

July 8, 2019 Posted by | incidents, Russia | Leave a comment

Chernobyl’s $1.7B nuclear confinement shelter finally revealed

Chernobyl’s $1.7B nuclear confinement shelter revealed after taking 9 years to complete,  By Paulina Dedaj | Fox News  4 July 19  A new structure built to confine the Chernobyl reactor at the center of the world’s worst nuclear disaster was previewed for the media Tuesday.

Reactor No. 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine exploded and burned April 26, 1986.

The complex construction effort to secure the molten reactor’s core and 200 tons of highly radioactive material has taken 9 years to complete under the auspices of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. It was built to cover the temporary concrete and steel Shelter Structure, which was built immediately after the disaster, but which had begun to deteriorate in the 1990s.

The structure itself cost 1.5 billion euros (almost $1.7 billion) and the entire shelter project cost 2.2 billion euros. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development managed a fund with contributions from 45 countries, the European Union and 715 million euros in the bank’s own resources.

The shelter is the largest moveable land-based structure ever built, with a span of 843 feet and a total weight of over 36,000 tonnes.

“This was a very long project,” said Balthasar Lindauer, director of the bank’s Nuclear Safety Department. He noted that preliminary studies began in 1998 and the contract for the structure was placed in 2007.

He said Ukraine was a big contributor, contributing 100 million euros in cash along with expertise and personnel. ……. https://www.foxnews.com/world/chernobyl-nuclear-confinement-shelter-revealed

July 8, 2019 Posted by | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

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