nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

Dungeness B nuclear station – safety problems, reactors still shut down

January 19, 2019 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

In Scotland, over 700 ‘safety events’ recorded at nuclear bases

More than 700 ‘safety events’ recorded at nuclear bases, News and Star, 14th January 19. More than 700 nuclear safety events have been recorded at Scotland’s nuclear bases since 2006, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has said.

Defence Minister Stuart Andrew revealed the figures in letters to SNP MP Deidre Brock.

A total of 789 nuclear safety events were recorded at HM Naval Base Clyde at Faslane and nearby Royal Naval Armaments Depot Coulport in the 12 years between 2006 and 2018.

Earlier the MoD disclosed 505 incidents had taken place at Faslane, where the majority of the UK’s nuclear submarine fleet is based.   Now, a further letter shows 284 incidents took place at Coulport, where the nuclear warheads are stored and loaded onto the submarines, in the same period

………A Category A incident took place in 2008 when water overflowed from a now-decommissioned primary effluent barge.

Category A events have “actual or high potential for radioactive release to the environment of quantities in excess of IRR99 notification limits”.

……….In response to parliamentary questions from Ms Brock, the MoD also disclosed there have been 22 fires on its nuclear armed or nuclear powered submarines since June 2015.

“It’s a shocking record of accidents and incidents in places where the most dangerous weapons on the planet are,” Ms Brock said.

“We already knew that there were 505 nuclear safety events on board submarines while they were berthed at Faslane and now we find that there have been another 284 in other locations at Faslane and at Coulport where weapons are handled.”

She added: “One bad accident would be enough to wipe Scotland out and the safety record is appalling.

“Even the risks from the nuclear reactors on board submarines is too high – as the spillage from the effluent barge shows.”   https://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/national/17355193.more-than-700-safety-events-recorded-at-nuclear-bases/

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

Russia’s Rosatom to manage accident plan at the Fukushima NPP

Russia’s Rosatom wins two bids for accident management at Fukushima NPP http://tass.com/world/1039631, January 12, 2019, MOSCOW, Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom has been engaged in the nuclear control plan at Japan’s stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant and has already won two bids in that project, Rosatom CEO Alexei Likhachev said in a televised interview with Rossiya’24 news channel on Saturday.

“We have been engaged by Japan to implement the nuclear accident management plan at the Fukushima NPP. We have won two tenders and are getting ahead,” he said.

In September 2017, Rosatom’s First Deputy CEO Kirill Komarov said that Rosatom offered help to Japanese counterparts in handling the crippled Fukushima NPP.

The nuclear disaster at the Fukushima-1 power plant in March 2011 was triggered by an earthquake-induced tsunami that knocked out vital reactor cooling systems. This resulted in three nuclear meltdowns, hydrogen explosions and a massive release of radioactive waste, which contaminated the surrounding area. Clean-up operations continue at the power plant and adjacent territories. According to the current action plan, full decommissioning of the station may take place only around 2040.

January 14, 2019 Posted by | Fukushima continuing, Russia, safety | Leave a comment

Dr Gordon Edwards explains the background to former NRC chairman’s opposition to nuclear power

Nuclear Regulatory Commission ex-Chairman Gregory Jaczko is adamantly opposed to the idea of keeping existing nuclear reactors running as a way to offset climate change, because each reactor is like a time bomb ready to explode if the cooling is cut off by a total station blackout, by equipment failure, by major pipe breaks, or by acts of warfare, sabotage, or terrorism. The societal dislocation caused by the spread of radioactive material over wide areas, affecting drinking water, food and habitation for decades or centuries, is as bad as the ravages of climate change for the communities so affected.
As Chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission at the time of the Fukushima disaster, Jaczko has a unique insight into the factors that make nuclear power plants dangerous even after so-called “safe” shutdown. The Ex-NRC regulator argues against nuclear energy as a tactic to fight climate change 4 knows, too, that the arguments levied against renewables are ultimately incorrect, as technology to store energy and to rechannel it is growing by leaps and bounds. Investing tens or hundreds of billions of dollars into maintaining old nuclear reactors, which are becoming increasingly dangerous as they age, is simply stealing money away from investments in the renewable revolution that is our best hope for a sustainable energy future.     
Ex-NRC regulator argues against nuclear energy as a tactic to fight climate change 1 Background:  by Dr Gordon Edwards, http://www.ccnr.org/Jaczko_nixes_nukes_2019.pdf January 11, 2019 Commercial nuclear power plants are water-cooled. They are fuelled by ceramic uranium fuel pellets stacked inside long narrow rods made of zirconium metal. A number of these rods are bound together into a fuel assembly — in Canada such an assembly is called a fuel bundle.
Heat is produced by splitting uranium atoms. That heat is transported by the liquid water coolant which flows past the zirconium tubes containing the fuel. The heat is used to produce steam that will turn the blades of a steam turbine to generate electricity.
As the uranium fuel undergoes nuclear fission (splitting uranium atoms), hundreds of varieties of intensely radioactive byproducts build up inside the fuel. These are (1) broken fragments of uranium atoms, called “fission products”; (2) heavier-than-uranium elements, including plutonium, called “transuranic actinides”. These byproducts are millions of times more radioactive than the original fuel.
  Loss of Cooling During a severe nuclear accident, the cooling is lost. Even if the reactor has been safely shut down just beforehand, and the fission process has been totally arrested, the temperature of the fuel will still soar to destructive levels without adequate cooling.
 The problem is that radioactivity cannot be shut off. The radioactive byproducts created during nuclear fission remain in the fuel, and they continue to generate heat. In the case of a 1000 megawatt reactor, immediately following shutdown, over 200 megawatts of heat continue to be generated by the ongoing atomic disintegrations of the radioactive waste byproducts. After one hour this drops to about 30 megawatts of heat, which is still a tremendous rate of thermal energy release.
If the coolant is no longer circulating — perhaps because of a station blackout, as at Fukushima, or due to a large pipe break followed by a failure of emergency cooling — that “residual heat” or “decay heat” will not be removed from the core of the reactor.
Make no mistake, even 30 megawatts is a lot of heat — unless it is rapidly removed, that heat is more than enough to melt the fuel and surrounding structural materials of a nuclear reactor at a temperature of 2800 degrees C (5000 degrees F). That’s more than twice the melting point of steel. It’s the beginning of a partial or total core meltdown.
Hydrogen Gas Buildup At about 1800 degrees C (3300 degrees F), long before the fuel melts, the solid zirconium “cladding” surrounding the fuel starts to melt. Any failure of the zirconium cladding allows the escape, under high pressure, of dozens of radioactive waste byproducts that were previously trapped inside the fuel. The superheated steam that now fills the reactor vessel is suddenly infused with a multitude of radioactive gases, vapours, aerosols and ashes, all ready to be expelled into the atmosphere if there is any failure of containment.
At an even lower temperature, 700-800 degrees C, steam reacts chemically with the zirconium metal. Recall that water molecules are combinations of hydrogen and oxygen atoms (H2O). The blistering hot zirconium metal strips the oxygen out of the steam, forming zirconium oxide, while releasing all the left-over hydrogen. Hydrogen gas mixes with the steam-filled radioactively contaminated air to form an explosive mixture. Any spark will detonate the hydrogen in a devastating blast, more powerful than a natural gas explosion.
Such hydrogen gas explosions almost always accompany a nuclear meltdown. There were several such explosions during the partial meltdown of the NRX reactor at Chalk River, Ontario, in 1952; during the Three Mile Island partial meltdown in Pennsylvania in1979; and during the triple meltdown at Fukushima Dai-ichi in Japan in 2011. Such explosions will often damage the containment envelope of the nuclear reactor, spewing highly radioactive materials into the outer atmosphere.
Radioactive Exposures People, animals and plants are irradiated from above by “skyshine” from gamma-radiation-emitting gases passing overhead. Metallic radioactive vapours such as cesium-137, iodine-131 and strontium-90 will condense on vegetation, soil, buildings, skin, clothing, and surfaces of all kinds, leaving a lasting legacy of radioactive contamination, irradiating living things by “groundshine”. And these radioactive materials gradually work their way into the food chain, sometimes re-concentrating along the way, yielding contaminated crops, meat, fish, water, milk, mushrooms, berries, and much else besides. Ingesting or inhaling such materials will lead to the internal irradiation of people and animals by radioactive materials that lodge in the lungs, the bones, the blood, or the soft organs of the body.
For example, radioactive iodine condenses on pastureland, and the concentration of radioactive iodine in the grass becomes about 100 times greater than in the air above the pasture. The concentration of radioactive iodine in cow’s milk is about 100-1000 times greater than it is in the grass they eat. Then, when a young child drinks the cow’s milk, the concentration of radioactive iodine in the child’s thyroid gland is about 7-10 times greater than it is in the contaminated milk. So, a child’s thyroid can be exposed to radioactive iodine levels that are several orders of magnitude greater than that found in the contaminated air that they might breathe.
Radioactive cesium accumulates in meat and fish, often making them unsuitable for human consumption. Even today, hunters in Germany and the Czech Republic are compensated by their respective governments if they kill a wild boar, because they cannot eat the meat due to radioactive cesium contamination from the Chernobyl accident 33 years ago. In Japan, wild boars in the Fukushima forested areas have levels of radioactive cesium in their bodies that are 10 to 150 times greater than the maximum permissible levels for human consumption. Boars love mushrooms, and fungi are especially adept at concentrating radioactivity.
 Nuclear Regulatory Commission ex-Chairman Gregory Jaczko is adamantly opposed to the idea of keeping existing nuclear reactors running as a way to offset climate change, because each reactor is like a time bomb ready to explode if the cooling is cut off by a total station blackout, by equipment failure, by major pipe breaks, or by acts of warfare, sabotage, or terrorism. The societal dislocation caused by the spread of radioactive material over wide areas, affecting drinking water, food and habitation for decades or centuries, is as bad as the ravages of climate change for the communities so affected.
As Chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission at the time of the Fukushima disaster, Jaczko has a unique insight into the factors that make nuclear power plants dangerous even after so-called “safe” shutdown. The Ex-NRC regulator argues against nuclear energy as a tactic to fight climate change 4 knows, too, that the arguments levied against renewables are ultimately incorrect, as technology to store energy and to rechannel it is growing by leaps and bounds. Investing tens or hundreds of billions of dollars into maintaining old nuclear reactors, which are becoming increasingly dangerous as they age, is simply stealing money away from investments in the renewable revolution that is our best hope for a sustainable energy future.

January 12, 2019 Posted by | radiation, Reference, safety | Leave a comment

Five of France’s EDF nuclear reactors shut down, awaiting regulatory approval

Creusot: 5 EDF reactors still without ASN green light. Five nuclear
reactors are still waiting for an operating license from the Nuclear Safety
Authority (ASN) as part of the investigation of the manufacturing records
of the Creusot plant, while the other 53 have already received fire green,
Creusot’s spokesperson said .

“We are still waiting for elements of answers from EDF,” she said to explain the delay of the
investigation which was to end on December 31, 2018. The five reactors
concerned are Cattenom 4 (1,300 MW ), Fessenheim 1 (880 MW), Flamanville 2
(1,330 MW), Golfech 1 (1,310 MW) and Tricastin 2 (915 MW). All five
reactors will be shut down for maintenance in the coming weeks, as follows:
Cattenom 4 (January 19th to April 11th), Fessenheim 1 (January 19th to
March 20th), Flamanville 2 (January 10th to July 10), Golfech 1 (February
16 to March 23) and Tricastin 2 (January 26 to April 1). The reactors will
not be able to restart without prior approval from ASN.

January 12, 2019 Posted by | France, safety | Leave a comment

Russian blogger reveals photo of venting cloud of radioactive dust from 1987 nuclear test gone wrong

Photo shows venting radioactivity from 1987 nuclear bomb tests at Novaya Zemlya https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/security/2019/01/photo-shows-venting-radioactivity-nuclear-bomb-tests-novaya-zemlya

The photo of a nuclear bomb test going terribly wrong in August 1987 is revealed by a Russian blogger. By Thomas Nilsen– January 08, 2019

It is two hours past midnight on August 2nd 1987 when the Soviet nuclear weapons scientists push the button triggering a series of five nuclear devises inside a tunnel at the Matochkin Shar nuclear testing site.

A load boom follows and the ground is shaking like an earthquake. A huge dust cloud blows out from the tunnel supposed to be hermetical sealed by meters thick stone- and concrete walls.

The radioactive dust cloud came as a big surprise to the personnel witnessing.

Now, more than 30 years later, a photo from the accident is published by Russian blogger who focuses on nuclear thematic and also posts photos on twitter.

Leakage of radioactivity from the August tests in 1987 is known from before, listed in a 2005 publication by Science and Global Security. Now, the photo from the site gives the public a better understanding of the size of tunnel collapse.

The photo is taken no more than a kilometer from the tunnel entrance and shows a military helicopter parked in in front. Each of the tunnels in the area where underground nuclear weapons testing took place from 1964 to 1990 has its own code number. The one collapsing on this photo is known as tunnel A-37A.

According to a list of all underground nuclear weapons tests at Novaya Zemlya, published by Science and Global Security, the total yield of the five devises exploded on August 2nd were 150 KT, ten times the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

The leakages of radioactivity was estimated to 56 TBq. The gamma radiation near the entrance to the tunnel was measured to more than 500 R/h. First radioactive gases were detected 90 seconds after the blast.

500 R/h is about 1000 times the annual dose for an average human. Exposed directly, such dose could be lethal within an hour or two.

In the book USSR Nuclear Explosions about the northern test site at Novaya Zemlya, published in 1991, a group of Soviet radiation experts writes about the accident. «A powerful burst of a radioactive gas-jet.stream occurred just above the mouth of the adit, just 1,5 minutes after the explosion. It was later established that gas penetrated along a geologic fault that extended along the adit axis and hot gases melted the surface ice.»

The authors describe how an emergency program was immediately instituted evacuating all staff within a period of a few minutes. No cases of radiation sickness occurred amon the test site personnel at Novaya Zemlya.

Mountian Moiseev, where the nuclear weapons tests took place, is located about 10 kilometers south of Severny, the military settlement on the shores of the Matochkin Shar serving as the centre for the nuclear test site.

The last real nuclear weapon test at Novaya Zemlya took place on October 24th 1990. Today, only subcritical nuclear weapon tests are conducted on the Russian Arctic archipelago.

January 10, 2019 Posted by | incidents, Russia | Leave a comment

Vermont-based New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution will participate in NRC conference on wastes regulation

Local nuke group going to regulatory meeting https://www.recorder.com/Group-to-attend-NRC-meeting-on-casks-22611857 Brattleboro, Vt.-based New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution will participate in this week’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission enforcement conference on design failures in radioactive-waste storage containers like those at Vermont Yankee and several other nuclear plants. Wednesday’s conference at the federal regulator’s Bethesda, Md. headquarters follows its complaint against Holtec International for its adopted design of steel and concrete spent-fuel casks without federal approval.

NRC officials say the company made changes after discovering a loose “bolt” last March at the San Onofre nuclear power plant in California. The small threaded posts connect to the bottom of shims in the canister of the cask to create space between multiple aluminum shims and the bottom of the canister to keep the basket stabilized in each of the casks.

The nuclear watchdog group’s technical adviser, Raymond Shadis, along with and board member Clay Turnbull, plan to monitor and offer comments on the canisters.

The coalition twice intervened before Vermont’s public utilities commission on using the Holtec steel canister-in-a-concrete-cask design at the Vernon plant, where 58 spent-fuel casks are now in place awaiting eventual transfer to a federal repository. It says its involvement helped result in more frequent radiation and temperature reporting, more conservative cask spacing, a protective line-of-site barrier wall and prohibition of using corrosive de-icing salts.

The coalition, which has repeatedly advocated for partially buried cask or earthen berm protection for the shuttered Vermont plant’s spent fuel, also commented on a previous Holtec design change, which it says resulted in a more in-depth NRC staff safety analysis.

NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said Holtec altered the cask design without a written evaluation, violating federal safety regulations.

January 10, 2019 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, safety, USA | Leave a comment

Increasing major cracks in Hunterston nuclear reactors: call to close them permanently

Ferret 9th Jan 2019 Pressure is mounting to keep two nuclear power reactors at Hunterston in
North Ayrshire closed after the company that runs them, EDF Energy, said it
had found more cracks and was again postponing plans to restart.
The French company now estimates that there are 370 major cracks in the graphite core
of reactor three and 200 cracks in the core of reactor four.  Reactor three has been closed down since 9 March 2018, and reactor four since 2 October.
The day after The Ferret revealed in November that 350 cracks had been
discovered in reactor three in breach of an operating safety limit, EDF
postponed restarting both reactors to January and February.
On 9 January the group of nuclear-free local authorities is holding a safety briefing on
Hunterston for MSPs in the Scottish Parliament. Experts will call for the
reactors to stay closed rather than risking a nuclear accident, and for new
jobs to be created in Ayrshire. Nuclear policy consultant, Dr Ian Fairlie,
will argue that the increasing number of cracks in the ageing reactors
spelled their end. “There is only one thing you can do and that is close
them, as they cannot be repaired,” he told The Ferret.
https://theferret.scot/cracks-hunterston-reactors/

January 10, 2019 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

Extreme weather shuts down Dounreay nuclear site: all 1,200 staff have been evacuated

Dounreay nuclear site closed due to high winds https://www.energyvoice.com/otherenergy/nuclear/190151/dounreay-nuclear-site-closed-due-to-high-winds/ David McPhee,  7 Jan 19The Dounreay nuclear site has been closed due to extremely high winds, according to a spokeswoman.

The site was officially closed at 1pm after the bosses took advice from the Met Office.

All 1,200 staff have been evacuated after winds had battered the nuclear site for a couple of hours.

A spokeswoman for Dounreay Site Restoration (DSRL) said “the safety of staff was paramount”, adding that DSRL “take their lead from the Met Office, resulting in us officially closing the site at 1pm this afternoon.”

DSRL are decommissioning the site at a cost of £2.32 billion. – 07/01/2019

January 8, 2019 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

Unusual damage to UK nuclear submarine

January 8, 2019 Posted by | incidents, UK | Leave a comment

Closer inspection of Peach Bottom nuclear plant following violation notice

Peach Bottom nuclear plant issued violation notice, will come under closer scrutiny from regulators https://lancasteronline.com/news/local/peach-bottom-nuclear-plant-issued-violation-notice-will-come-under/article_a147a194-105e-11e9-8b99-a32817bc8be2.htmlAD CRABLE | Staff Writer, Jan 4, 2019 

      The Peach Bottom nuclear plant will come under closer inspection from federal regulators following damage to an emergency diesel generator during a test in June.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Peach Bottom owner Exelon committed a violation in the low to moderate safety range for the incident.

The violation notice comes after plant staff and NRC regulators twice found problems on one of the four generators. The problems were fixed but during a test of the generator in June, a fit pin became dislodged and damaged compressor blades. Debris from the blades contaminated other parts of the generator, the NRC said.

The NRC said that “Exelon failed to take adequate corrective actions to address the adverse conditions involving the (generator), leading to the problems that surfaced on June 13.

The violation means that the NRC will focus more scrutiny on Peach Bottom. The agency will perform an inspection at the plant in coming months to review the company’s root-cause evaluation of the issues and any corrective actions, the NRC said.

Exelon did not contest the findings.

Exelon has asked the NRC for permission to extend the license of the York  County nuclear plant for 20 years, to 2053 and 2054 for its two units.

The NRC is reviewing the request.

January 6, 2019 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Putin puts shipping safety regulation in the Arctic into the hands of the nuclear industry!

It’s a law – Russian Arctic shipping to be regulated by Rosatom https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2019/01/its-law-russian-arctic-shipping-be-regulated-rosatom

President Putin signs the bill that makes the country’s state nuclear power company top regulator of the Northern Sea Route.By Atle Staalesen, January 02, 2019

Rosatom has officially been granted the leading role in the development of the vast Russian Arctic. The company that employs more than 250,000 people and engages in a multitude of activities related to nuclear power development and production is now formally Russia’s management authority for the Northern Sea Route.

The law was adopted by the State Duma on the 11th December and on the 28th signed by Vladimir Putin.

The new legislation comes as Russian Arctic shipping is on rapid increase. In 2018, about 18 million tons of goods was transported on the sea route, an increase of almost 70 percent from 2017. And more is to come. According to Vladimir Putin so-called May Decrees, the top national priorities, shipping on the Northern Sea Route is to reach 80 million tons already by year 2024.

Rosatom’s new powers in the Arctic include development and operational responsibilities for shipping, as well as infrastructure and sea ports along the northern Russian coast.

The responsibilities of the Northern Sea Route Administration, that until now has operated under the Ministry of Transport, will now be transferred to Rosatom.

It was Putin himself who in early 2017 made clear that a coordinating government agency for the Northern Sea Route was needed. A battle between Rosatom and the Ministry of Transport followed. In December 2017, it became clear that the nuclear power company had won that fight.

A central person in the new structure will be Vyacheslav Ruksha, the former leader of nuclear icebreaker base Atomflot.

The nuclear power company has since 2008 operated the fleet of nuclear-power icebreakers. Currently, five icebreakers are based in Atomflot, Murmansk, and several more ships are under construction, including four powerful LK-60 vessels.

Rosatom is also in the planning process of the «Lider», the 120 MW capacity super-powerful ship that can break through two meter thick ice at an unprecedented 10-12 knot speed.

January 5, 2019 Posted by | politics, Russia, safety, secrets,lies and civil liberties | 10 Comments

Earthquakes still being set off due to North Korea’s September 2017 nuclear test

September 2017 nuclear test triggers 2019 earthquake in North Korea https://edition.cnn.com/2019/01/01/asia/north-korea-earthquake-intl/index.html, By Jake Kwon and Joshua Berlinger, CNN January 2, 2019  North Korea’s sixth nuclear test was so powerful that it’s still triggering earthquakes more than a year later.

South Korea’s Meteorological Administration (KMA) said a small quake that hit in North Korea’s North Hamgyong province Wednesday was induced by the September 2017 underground detonation of a nuclear device.
That nuclear test was North Korea’s most powerful to date, with an estimated explosive yield of 160 kilotons, according to Japan’s Defense Ministry. The blast created an initial 6.3-magnitude tremor, caused a series of aftershocks and reportedly an on-site collapse.
The agency said the 2.8-magnitude temblor recorded Wednesday was shallow — only about 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) deep — and struck about 11 kilometers (6.8 miles) east of the Punggye-ri nuclear test site, the only known facility of its kind in North Korea.
The site has since been shuttered, North Korea says. The country invited members of the international media, including CNN, to a ceremonial closing of Punggye-ri during which the North Koreans destroyed entrances to at least three tunnels used for nuclear tests, observation buildings, a metal foundry and living quarters.
However, there were no independent weapons experts present at the event and it is still unclear whether the explosions rendered the tunnels inoperable, or only caused limited damage.
A seismologist at the KMA told CNN that the activity measured Wednesday was almost certainly a natural earthquake rather than an explosion based on the seismic waves detected and the fact that no sound waves were observed.
Because no major fault lines run through North Korea and the quake was recorded so close to the Punggye-ri site, the seismologist said it must be assumed that the quake was a result of the sixth nuclear test.
The quake comes one day after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un affirmed his apparent commitment to denuclearization during an annual New Year’s address, in which he reiterated that his country would not “create, test, use, or proliferate nuclear weapons.”

January 5, 2019 Posted by | incidents, North Korea, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Regulators File Complaint Against Holtec about its nuclear waste casks

Regulators File Complaint Against Maker Of Nuclear Fuel Cask https://www.wamc.org/post/regulators-file-complaint-against-maker-nuclear-fuel-cask By PAT BRADLEY • DEC 29, 2018 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has filed a complaint against the manufacturer of casks used at the closed Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.

NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan tells the Brattleboro Reformer that Holtec International adopted a new design for its steel and concrete casks without a written evaluation, violating federal safety regulations. Officials say the company made changes after it discovered a loose bolt at San Onofre nuclear power plant in California.

Holtec said Friday that the NRC has confirmed the safety of the canisters. It says it doesn’t agree with the severity level of the apparent violation.

The casks are used at other nuclear plants to store spent fuel.

Last month, regulators approved the sale of Vermont Yankee to NorthStar. The company plans to start decommissioning the plant no later than 2021.

December 31, 2018 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

After years of controversy, China’s massive Taishan NuclearPower Plant , goes online (all too close to Hong Kong)

Controversial nuclear reactor goes live in southern China

Reactor at Taishan Plant goes online, after five years of delays, debate and controversies about safety and other issues

By ASIA TIMES STAFF DECEMBER 18, 2018 massive Chinese nuclear power plant a mere 130 kilometers from Hong Kong that has been dogged by controversy over safety and other issues went online last week after a five-year delay.

The plant is in China’s southern Guangdong province, an economic dynamo whose annual gross domestic product is now on par with that of Russia and South Korea. The province has been intent on harnessing nuclear power to feed more electricity into its grid for its sprawling cities and manufacturing clusters.

Four nuclear plants along Guangdong’s coastline are already up and running and now a colossal new reactor at the Taishan Power Plant quietly went online last week. The plant has been plagued by bickering between technicians and Chinese officials as well as their French counterparts concerning safety and contingency measures, controversies that resulted in a five-year delay.

A joint venture by the state-owned China General Nuclear Power Corp (CGN) and Électricité de France, the Taishan plant is a mere 130 kilometers west of Hong Kong. It is home to the world’s first operational reactor of the novel third-generation European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) configuration, arguably the world’s largest electrical generator as measured by nameplate capacity……

Meanwhile, France’s Flamanville EPR project is still years behind its original commission target, the same as another plant in Finland.

Xinhua notes that the generator stator – the stationary part of a rotary system – at the Taishan reactor weighs almost 500 tonnes, and its double layer concrete dome is said to be strong enough to withstand a direct hit by a plane and can contain the fallout in a Chernobyl-like scenario, with improvements also made in light of the 2011 Fukushima incident.

CGN admitted that the Taishan reactor was “challenging to construct.” Environmentalists were also fuming at the elusive nature of the plant’s planning and project supervision, amid widespread skepticism about its safety and system redundancy.

Many opposed to the new EPR design demanded that the new reactor remain off the grid before every part could be checked by a third party, to which CGN and China’s National Energy Administration never  acceded.

In 2015, France’s Nuclear Safety Authority admitted there were safety concerns about an EPR being built in Flamanville. The watchdog also warned that Taishan, which shared the same design and whose pressure vessels were procured from the same supplier, could also suffer from the same safety issues.

There were also reports alleging that the Taishan rector “did not receive the latest safety tests before installation,” as the French manufacturer said its tests detected faults that could lead to cracks in the reactor shell.

In December 2017, Hong Kong media blew the lid on a cover-up involving a cracked boiler found during test runs.

But CGN insisted that all design and quality issues had been ironed out throughout the years of delays and the pair of reactors in Taishan were indeed safer than the old units at the Daya Bay Plant built in Shenzhen in the late 1980s.

The Daya Bay project once triggered a massive outcry in Hong Kong when many rallied and petitioned against having a nuclear plant on the city’s doorstep. http://www.atimes.com/article/controversial-nuclear-reactor-goes-live-in-southern-china/

 

December 20, 2018 Posted by | China, politics, safety | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »