THE EXPRESS TRIBUNEBy AFP, June 30, 2018 ISLAMABAD:
Pakistani atomic scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan is hailed as a national hero for transforming his country into the world’s first Islamic nuclear power but regarded by the West as a dangerous renegade responsible for smuggling technology to rogue states.
Revered as the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, Khan was lauded for bringing the nation up to par with arch-rival India in the atomic field and making its defences “impregnable”.
But he found himself in the crosshairs of controversy when he was accused of illegally proliferating nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea.
Khan was placed under effective house arrest in the capital Islamabad in 2004 after he admitted running a proliferation network to the three countries. ……. A court ended his house arrest in February 2009, but Khan has to inform authorities of his movements in advance, even within Islamabad, with security accompanying him on his every step. …. https://tribune.com.pk/story/1746448/3-q-khan-nuclear-hero-pakistan-villain-west/
Toronto’s public school board — and its elementary teachers — are urging officials to provide schools within 50 kilometres of the Pickering nuclear plant with a supply of anti-radiation pills in case of an incident.
The boundary would encompass almost all of the city’s schools and goes well beyond the current distribution radius of 10 kilometres, said Trustee Jerry Chadwick, who was part of committee that made the recommendation recently approved by the Toronto District School Board.
“All of our schools east of Morningside Ave. have had the potassium pills for years,” said Chadwick, who represents Ward 22 in the southeast end of Scarborough. “The TDSB did not have to request them, they were provided as part of the range covered by Pickering.
“Now we are asking them to cover schools in the 50-kilometre radius, which covers most of our schools.”
The issue of schools being provided with stockpiles of potassium iodide, or “KI” pills — which protect the thyroid in case of radiation exposure — dominated hearings held on the future of the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station, said attendee Shawn-Patrick Stensil of Greenpeace.
In Greater Toronto, there are two plants — Pickering, about 30 kilometres from Toronto’s Yonge St., and Darlington, which is about 60 kilometres away.
Bellona 27th June 2018 , In a major victory for radiation safety in Europe, the Norwegian government announced Wednesday that it would be permanently shutting down the financially and technically troubled Halden research reactor, which experienced a leak in 2016. The 25 megawatt installation, which is the world’s oldest heavy-water reactor, is located in a mountain cave in the southern Norwegian town of Halden, and has been under a temporary closure since March due to a valve failure. It is the second of Norway’s two reactors, the first of which is the Kjeller reactor, near Oslo, which began operations in 1951.
Whitehaven News 26th June 2018 , Firefighters were called to deal with a chemical spill at the Sellafield
nuclear plant. Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service was called to the spillage,
which involved about 25 litres of nitric acid, at 3.13pm yesterday. The
service sent three crews, who joined two Sellafield fire service engines
already at the scene. Two CFRS and two Sellafield firefighters wearing
gas-tight suits and breathing apparatus applied sodium bicarbonate to
neutralise the acid. They were at the scene for about two hours. A
Sellafield spokesman said the spill did not involve any radioactive
chemicals, the material stayed within a bund designed to contain spillages
and the incident posed no risk or harm to anybody. http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk/news/firefighters-called-to-Sellafield-4731973a-e10d-480c-8b3f-222c18dfc449-ds
Irish Times 25th June 2018 , Cllr Mark Dearey, Cllr John Trainor, Co-Chairmen, Nuclear-Free Local Authorities All-Ireland Forum: … on nuclear safety after
the UK leaves the Euratom arrangements, it is clear that Minister for the
Environment Denis Naughten must do more than simply accept cosy platitudes
from his UK counterpart. While the Border issue is a pivotal part of the
negotiations of Brexit, the parallel decision to leave the Euratom Treaty
arrangements is still of real importance.
The treaty oversees all external safety and security checks at UK nuclear sites, particularly Sellafield, as
well as monitoring the UK’s duties in not proliferating nuclear materials
that could be converted into a nuclear weapons programme.
In our view, the UK government needs to grow up on the issue of the jurisdiction of the
European Court of Justice on matters of nuclear safety. The UK government
has compromised all over the place on Brexit, and by refusing to do so on
this subject, it is putting all of our safety at risk on a point of
political expediency.
As The Irish Times has correctly noted, the transfer
of these duties to the domestic nuclear regulator is not without risk, and
there is real concern that there may not be enough inspectors recruited in
sufficient time and that key and complicated IT systems to verify such work
are put in place by March 2019.
Last month the Oireachtas Joint Planning
Committee heard of detailed concerns over the UK’s approach to assessing
the transboundary impacts of plans to develop new nuclear plants like
Hinkley Point and Wylfa.
Any accident from an existing or new nuclear plant
could have devastating health, economic and social impacts on Ireland, so
it is important not just to receive assurances, but to properly audit them
and to be satisfied that a new nuclear safety regime remains fit for
purpose.
Ireland is extensively doing that with other impacts of Brexit on
the country, and in our view, this should be a core part of that detailed
discussion. We also want to know how both governments will prioritise
nuclear safety and energy policy in a post-Brexit world, where we see a
real lack of forward thinking in addressing the energy needs of both the UK
and Ireland. https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/brexit-and-nuclear-safety-treaty-1.3541656
Hunterston B NO2NuclearPower 22 June 18 THE prolonged closure of reactor 3 at Hunterston B in North Ayrshire is the beginning of the end for seven nuclear power stations in Scotland and England. The reactor is scheduled to stay offline until 17th November according to EDF’s website, but experts doubt whether it will ever restart, and argue that proliferating cracks in other elderly reactors across the country will shorten their expected lives and lead to premature shutdowns. EDF Energy, however, insist that it will be able to reopen the reactor.
Independent nuclear engineer John Large says extending the life of troubled reactors like the one at Hunterston is “gambling with public safety”. He says the new cracks signal the “death knell” for Hunterston reactor three. “This means that reactor four is doomed to the same fate, followed by similar plants at Hinkley Point and Hartlepool, thereafter progressively followed by other advanced gas-cooled reactors”.
EDF says it has found a total of 39 “keyway root cracks” in the reactor and they are “happening at a slightly higher rate than modelled”. The integrity of the thousands of graphite blocks that make up the reactor core is vital to nuclear safety. They ensure that the reactor can be cooled and safely shut down in an emergency. Large argues that EDF’s decision to keep reactor three closed until the end of the year was prompted by the UK Government’s safety watchdog, the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR). “ONR’s doubts about the reactor safety have not been satisfied by this most recent inspection,” he said. “It may simply be a way of saving face and fobbing off the announcement that the plant is to be permanently shut down.”
Large also highlighted the uncertainties in tracking cracks, which are mostly modelled rather than measured. “There is little that EDF can do to physically resolve this problem,” he said.
Rita Holmes, a local resident who chairs the Hunterston site stakeholder group, argued it would be very difficult for the public to have confidence in the safety of reactor three. “It has had its day and should be allowed to bow out gracefully,” she said. (1) “The local communities are unhappy that the reactor has any cracks, and certainly not happy that one with a growing number of cracks could be allowed to continue generation.”
If the graphite blocks fail and become misshapen, nuclear fuel could get stuck overheat, melt down and leak radioactivity in a major accident. Cracks could also prevent control rods from being inserted causing the nuclear fuel to overheat, potentially resulting in a nuclear accident. An ONR spokesperson said: “Before we grant permission to EDF to restart reactor three we will require that an adequate safety case justifying further operation.”. John Large said “The core at Hunterston may now be in such a poor structural state that its collapse during a relatively modest earthquake could result in a nuclear fuel meltdown and significant radioactive release.”
EDF says “We have prepared well for this; we have a £100 million graphite research programme.”” Professor Paul Bowen, a metallurgist from the University of Birmingham who advises the ONR, thought that the body was likely to insist on more frequent inspections rather than reactor closure. “I’m absolutely confident that the regulator will take a very conservative position,” he said. (2)
“The thing which will close (these reactors) down in the end will be the cost of ensuring safety. It is possible to make a safety case for a significant amount of cracked bricks but it takes time and costs money,” said Barry Marsden, professor of nuclear graphite technology at the University of Manchester. (3)
Local communities should be given a say in the future of Hunterston, according to Green MSP Ross Greer. He says the lack of public consultation has been unacceptable, while highlighting that European law says all ageing nuclear power stations should have an environmental impact assessment. He said: “This is obviously of major safety and economic concern to the local community. Last year I published a report urging the Scottish Government to review safety conditions at the site following earlier reports of cracks and the repeated granting of lifetime extensions to the plant. The local community currently has no say in decisions to extend a plant’s lifetime as an Environmental Impact Assessment with a public consultation is not required. The government must reconsider its position on the need for an Environmental Impact Assessment to accompany decisions on the granting of lifetime extensions to ageing nuclear power stations and commit to a renewed transition plan for North Ayrshire which will prevent the community being left behind, as so many others have been, by the closure of aging power stations.” (4)
A Committee of the Aarhus has just published a report which says the Netherlands “failed to comply” with Aarhus Convention by refusing to organise a public consultation on the 20 year lifetime extension of an old nuclear plant at Borssele. This has important implications for Torness which is due to submit its next Periodic Safety Review to the Office for Nuclear Regulation in January 2019.
(5) Experts estimate the 40% cut in the power station’s output – it normally supplies enough electricity for 1.8m homes – will cost the French state-owned firm £100m-120m in lost revenue. That is small compared with the impact of temporary safety closures at EDF’s French plants, which led profits to fall 16% last year, but it is still a blow the company could do without as it ramps up construction of the £20bn Hinkley Point C nuclear power station in Somerset. (6)
As things currently stand the UK’s remaining 8.9 GW of nuclear capacity will close over a 12-year period, starting in 2023. However, rather than wondering if the AGRs could be given further life extensions, questions should now be asked about the supply implications if some, or all, of the AGRs are unable to operate as envisaged, says Anthony Froggatt of Chatham House. With Brexit raising questions about the financing and schedules for some interconnections, government policies slowing down the deployment of onshore renewables despite their tumbling costs, and the existing plans for the closure of the remaining coal stations, urgent consideration must be given to ensure supply, energy efficiency and flexibility from now on.
Onshore and offshore renewables need to be at the heart of the future system. This would be good for the environment and competitiveness, as the last few years have seen a remarkable change in economics of renewable energy and it is now recognized that by 2020 electricity from renewables will be ‘within the fossil fuel-fired cost range, with most at the lower end or undercutting fossil fuels’ and are already significantly lower than the current prices offered for nuclear new build. (7 http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/SafeEnergyNo78.pdf
‘Vague assurances’ on post-Brexit nuclear safety ‘not worth much’
Fianna Fáil expresses concerns about Britain’s capacity to maintain standards, Brian Hutton
Britain’s energy minister has written personally to Minister for Environment Denis Naughten offering “significant assurances” there would be no threat to Ireland from any changes in nuclear safety standards after Brexit.
The UK is planning to pull out of Euratom, the body which regulates the nuclear industry across Europe, including the safe transport of radioactive materials across borders, after it leaves the EU next March.
Although the watchdog is legally separate from the bloc, membership requires being subject to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, which British prime minister Theresa May’s government is opposed to.
Leaked documents last month show Britain is missing deadlines for putting post-Brexit nuclear safeguards in place, including the delivery of an IT system to track nuclear material and the recruitment of qualified inspectors.
The UK’s Office for Nuclear Regulation has identified five “high-level risks” – categorised as “red” on a red, amber, green alert scale – that remain outstanding………
Earlier this year, Environmental Pillar, a coalition of 26 environmental organisations in Ireland, warned of “alarming deficiencies” in the UK’s approach to assessing impacts of plans to expand its nuclear power programme.
Nuclear supply chain fraud: The elephant in the room Lloyd’s Register 19 June 18, Our head of nuclear inspection discusses the fact topic few people want to acknowledge about CFSI in the nuclear industry.Simon Emeny
Our voice on nuclear regulatory and supply chain assurance
The subject of counterfeit, fraudulent and suspect items (CFSI from here on in) is a big topic in the nuclear industry in light of some high profile incidents in the past few years. Civil nuclear plant owners and operators mostly focus on detection to fight this; enhanced levels of inspection, supply chain audits, and repeat inspections are among their weapons.
These additional measures are implemented to prevent CFSI from happening again, and deep investigations and analyses are undertaken to find root causes.
A recent review at a long-time manufacturer of high integrity forgings found, among other items:
The ISO 9001 and ASME management systems may detract from a comprehensive management system, through focussing on compliance issues rather than a system for the management of regulatory and other aspects related to the production application.
There is a risk that the cumulative effect of a series of “minor” changes are considered acceptable without requalification, since revisions to qualification documents were not reviewed against original specifications and qualifications.
The metallurgical aspects of the process are well understood, but it is not clear if they are documented in a way that can be applied by those operating the processes and carrying out tests…………
An old management adage goes, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” In the world of nuclear supply chains, you could say, “Culture eats fraud detection systems for dinner.”
This could mean there is a culture of deliberate falsification. A culture of not caring. A culture of concentrating on cost or delivery without considering the wider, unintended consequences. A culture of assumption, or unconscious incompetence.
Bold statements? Yes, and certainly they don’t apply broadly across the industry. However, they should provoke thought and reflection, especially as the risk of CFSI increases as nuclear supply chains lengthen, become more diverse, and we move toward using standard items in facilities………https://www.lr.org/en/insights/articles/nuclear-supply-chain-fraud-the-elephant-in-the-room/
A strong earthquake shook the northern part of the Kanto region on the afternoon of June 17, the Meteorological Agency said.
The quake registered a lower 5 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale of 7 in Shibukawa, Gunma Prefecture, when it hit at 3:27 p.m. with a focus 14 kilometers from the ground surface. It originated in southern Gunma Prefecture. No injuries have been reported.
The agency said this is the first time a quake originating in the prefecture and measuring a lower 5 or stronger has been recorded since 1923.
The magnitude of the temblor is estimated at 4.6. No tsunami is expected, according to the agency.
A FORUM to discuss nuclear transportation and how councils can deliver low carbon energy instead will be held in Oxford today.
The Nuclear Free Local Authorities organisation will hold its summer seminar on nuclear transports – as nuclear weapons currently travel up and down the A34 – nuclear transparency and promoting low carbon energy.
The local government voice on nuclear issues wants authorities to adopt anti-nuclear policies and encourage them to be part of a mixed energy supply over the next 40 years.
Currently around 50 local councils – including Oxford City – support the organisation’s policies.
The city council’s NFLA representative, John Tanner, said: “I am thrilled that Nuclear Free Local Authorities are meeting in Oxford to discuss nuclear safety and local energy scheme.
“Lots of people don’t know that nuclear weapons regularly travel up and down the A34.”
He added: “It’s also important to remember that green energy, produced locally, can be a lot more economical than large-scale nuclear power.”
The forum will take place at Oxford Town Hall from 10.30am to 1pm.
Navy Releases Plan to Retest Hunters Point Shipyard for Radiation
Officials encourage members of the public to comment on the first of its work plans to collect new radiological data at the shipyard. NBC Bay Area By Liz Wagner and Rachel Witte, 16 June 18
The Navy released the first of its work plans on Friday to retest the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard for radiation after it found workers from Tetra Tech, the contractor it hired to identify and remediate contamination, likely falsified part of the cleanup.
Earlier this year Navy officials determined they needed to redo Tetra Tech’s radiological work to be sure the shipyard is clean.
…….. San Francisco supervisor Malia Cohen announced Friday morning that the Navy has also agreed to test another parcel at Hunters Point, Parcel A, for hazardous material. Parcel A is a section of the shipyard where people are already living in new condos……….
Two former Tetra Tech employees were sentenced to prison last month for falsifying radiation data. The company acknowledged the falsification of those records, but stands by its work at the shipyard before and since that time. ……
Absent from any oversight plans are local community members. For years the environmental justice group Greenaction has been calling on a comprehensive community engaged cleanup. While the Navy plans to continue to hold community meetings on the status of the shipyard cleanup, officials said they have no plans for a community oversight board.
Russia puts priority to safety and doesn’t want any potential lethal substances moving around during the four weeks with World Cup when tens of thousands of football fans are commuting by railway to different cities.
In the north, the ban now delays a shipment of nuclear waste that otherwise would be on its way to Mayak north of Chelyabinsk in the South Urals.
Head of Rosatom State Nuclear Corporation’s international technical assistance project, Anatoly Grigoryev, says three railway sets already have departed to Mayak this year. «The fourth is ready, but we can’t send it because transport of dangerous goods during the World Cup is prohibited,» Grigoriyev says to Interfax in an interview reposted by Rosatom.
From Andreeva Bay near Russia’s border to Norway, the containers with old uranium fuel from Cold War submarines are shipped to Murmansk, where they are loaded over to a set of special rail-wagons. From Murmansk, the train follows Russia’s railway lines south through Karelia towards St. Petersburg and Yaroslav before heading east towards the Urals, a distance of more than 1,600 kilometers.
Mayak reprocessing plant is located between the cities of Chelyabinsk and Yekaterinburg. The last is one of the cities where football matches will be played.
Anatoly Grigoryev assures that the load of nuclear waste containers from the Murmansk region will be shipped to Mayak as soon as the World Cup is over by mid-July.
Last June, a top brass of Russian and Norwegian politicians, diplomates and nuclear safety experts cheered and waved as the first load of containers set out to sea from Andreeva Bay. Since the 1990s, Norway has spent tens of millions of euros to support preparing for the nuclear waste removal from the site to start.
In Murmansk, nuclear safety expert with the Bellona Foundation, Andrey Zolotkov, says this is the first time to his knowledge transport of nuclear waste has been put on break for such reason as a international tournament.
«I don’t recall any such thing. This is most likely due to keeping the railway routes free from such cargos because of all the [football] fans on the move,» Zolotkov says to the Barents Observer. Additional to Bellona, Zolotkov has for many years been working on board the Russian nuclear icebreaker fleet’s transport- and storage vessel «Imandra».
From Murmansk, the nuclear waste cargo-train follows the same tracks, and through the same big cities, as ordinary passenger trains.
«After all, we are just talking about a one month delay,» Andrey Zolotkov explains pointing to the many-years it will take to remove all spent nuclear fuel elements from Andreeva Bay.
A total of about 22,000 such uranium fuel elements where stored in three rundown concrete tanks. That is equal to about 100 submarine reactor cores.
Anatoly Grigoryev with Rosatom estimates it will take about 10 years to remove it all from the Kola Peninsula to the Mayak plant.
Since the Cold War, the US has kept an estimated 900nuclear weapons on “hair-trigger alert,” meaning the president could decide to launch them in just a few minutes.
Reports have not indicated that the policy was discussed during President Donald Trump’s meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Tuesday.
Some global-security experts and scientists say hair-trigger alert endangers US cities because the US could inadvertently start a nuclear war if it launched the weapons in error.
A senior scientist from the Union of Concerned Scientists proposed turning the missiles’ hair-trigger-alert setting off as a temporary solution.
At a highly anticipated summit in Singapore on Tuesday, US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un discussed the future of the two nations’ nuclear programs and ultimately agreed to work toward the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
Leading up to the summit, Trump argued that North Korea’s secretive nuclear program threatened US security. After the meeting, a joint statement said the two countries would “join their efforts to build a lasting and stable peace regime.”
While the meeting seemed optimistic, global-security experts say there is another domestic nuclear policy that it most likely did not address – one just as dangerous as North Korea initiating nuclear war with the US.
Since the end of the Cold War, the US has had 450 land-based missiles and hundreds more on undetectable submarines on “hair-trigger alert,” a policy that allows for the launch of nuclear weapons in minutes. Only the president’s permission is required to launch these weapons, according to the Department of Defence.
But a growing number of experts believe the US should consider retiring this policy.
The Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group comprising hundreds of scientists, engineers, and economists, published a report in 2016 on the dangers of hair-trigger alert. The same year, more than 90 prominent American scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, sent a letter to President Barack Obama urging him to take the nation’s land-based nuclear missiles off hair-trigger alert.
Lisbeth Gronlund, a co-director and senior scientist at the UCS’s Global Security Program, argued that keeping nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert endangers US cities and towns more than it protects them.
“The president would have 10 minutes to make a decision whether or not to launch the weapons,” she told Business Insider. “That’s a tremendous amount of time pressure.”
The argument for being able to launch 900 nuclear missiles in under 10 minutes
Besides the US, Russia is the only other country known to have a hair-trigger launch status. It’s unclear whether Israel, China, and North Korea have similar policies, meaning it’s possible Kim could have the same nuclear power as Trump.
The US’s land-based-missile arsenal is siloed in five states, including Nebraska and Colorado, hundreds of miles from residential communities. It’s believed that, in total, the US keeps roughly 900 weapons on hair-trigger alert. The locations and the exact number on submarines, located deep in the ocean, are confidential.
The US military also keeps about 40 special missiles, called interceptors, on hair-trigger alert as well. It would take three or four of these to ram into and destroy foreign missiles in outer space, in a protocol dubbed “hit to kill.” When nuclear missiles are launched into space, they follow a more predictable path, making it easier for interceptors to strike them, though it’s still unclear how well these interceptor missiles would work in an emergency situation.
Across the US, the military has installed infrared and satellite sensors that can detect the hot gas a missile expels as it flies through the air. If Russia launched one of these long-range weapons, it would take about 25 minutes to reach the continental US, Gronlund said, and it would take the sensors just a few minutes to identify it.
As the sensors track each missile’s movement, an automated system estimates whether it’s a legitimate attack on the US. The president then has about 10 minutes to decide whether to launch nuclear weapons.
When the US adopted the hair-trigger-alert policy during the Cold War, the idea was that if the Soviet Union attacked American military bases with nuclear power, the US could quickly retaliate.
The policy is still in effect today. These days, it’s used as an intimidation strategy for other countries, like Russia and North Korea, that have revealed some of their nuclear capabilities, Gronlund said.
Some proponents of hair-trigger alert also say the US needs those land-based missiles to act as “sponges” for foreign nuclear weaponry. For example, if Russia launched a full attack, it would need to use hundreds of weapons to destroy the US’s land arsenal, Gronlund said, meaning it would have fewer weapons left to strike where people actually live.
Others say that abandoning hair-trigger alert would cut jobs at the military bases that monitor the missiles, something that could have consequences for local economies.
But USC scientists argue that the risks of false alarms still far outweigh the advantages.
The US has had several close calls with hair-trigger-alert weaponsIf the US were to experience a nuclear attack, it probably wouldn’t come from North Korea or Russia, Gronlund said, but from our own missteps. (Though a large-scale nuclear terrorist attack is less likely, it’s still one of 15 major disaster scenarios planned for by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other US agencies.)
“The danger is that a system detects an incoming attack and it’s not real,” Gronlund said, then “the president makes the wrong decision and inadvertently starts a nuclear war.”
The US has a history of these kinds of close calls, caused by both human error and technical error.
In November 1979, US military computers indicated a large-scale Soviet attack was underway. The military quickly responded by preparing nuclear bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles for takeoff and launching at least 10 interceptor planes.
But within 10 minutes, they realised it was a false alarm. Investigators later discovered that a technician accidentally inserted a training tape containing a drill for a nuclear attack into a computer.
In another close call, in 2010, a rapid-launch control center at Wyoming’s Warren Air Force Base lost contact with all 50 of its ICBMs on hair-trigger alert. For nearly an hour, the crew was unsure whether the missiles – carrying nuclear warheads – would accidentally launch.
The base later regained contact with the missiles. The cause of the problem was later found to be an electronic circuit card malfunction in one of the computers.
Most recently, in January, a state employee in Hawaii mistakenly triggered an emergency alert warning that a ballistic missile was coming at the island. If the state had not soon realised it was a false alarm, other bases containing high-alert missiles might have unleashed them.
“If we launched an attack based on a false warning, you better believe Russia or North Korea would respond,” Gronlund said.
A danger to cities across the US
Even though the land-based missiles on high alert are siloed far from major population centres, Gronlund said, keeping such a policy still endangers cities, in which more than 80% of Americans live.
Simply put, hair-trigger alert increases the likelihood of the president accidentally starting a nuclear war.
“Even if [another country] wasn’t directly targeting Boston, they would target things near Boston,” causing a widespread nuclear fallout, she said.
Each land-based missile on hair-trigger alert has an on-off switch, used when workers perform maintenance on them. Gronlund said that keeping the weapons off could be a quick, temporary solution that wouldn’t immediately require negotiations with other nations.
Federal nuclear weapons facilities are getting systems to disable drones or any other unauthorized unmanned aircraft systems flying over restricted airspace.
Officials at the Los Alamos National Laboratory say they’re testing a new system that could serve as a model for other federal installations, the Los Alamos Monitor reported Wednesday.
The technology is coming to the federal government’s Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, a spokesman said.
“The Y-12 National Security Complex and its sister site at the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas, are among the national security facilities around the nation where this capability will be employed,” said Steve Wyatt, a spokesperson for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), told the USA TODAY NETWORK -Tennessee on Thursday.. “At this point, we have no further comment.”
The airspace over the New Mexico lab received an additional no drone zone designation by the Federal Aviation Administration.
All airspace over the laboratory is protected right now against unauthorized drone or UAS flights (unmanned aircraft systems),” said Michael Lansing, head of the lab’s security operations. “We can detect and track a UAS and if it poses a threat we have the ability to disrupt control of the system, seize or exercise control, confiscate, or use reasonable force to disable, damage or destroy the UAS.”
The lab worked with the National Nuclear Security Administration and the FAA to implement the system. The NNSA received authorization from Congress last year to implement enhanced security measures to protect its sites from drones.
“Implementation guidance by NNSA focuses on high-level actions to be taken to detect, identify, track and mitigate drones that pose a threat to NNSA covered facilities,” said Lewis Monroe, director of NNSA’s Office of Security Operations and Programmatic Planning.
The lab’s Counter-UAS program will serve as a blueprint for other programs planned for the Pantex Plant in Texas, the Y-12 facility in Tennessee and the National Nuclear Security Site in Nevada.
The NNSA has defined drone activity as threatening “if unabated, could inflict or otherwise cause physical harm to a person; inflict or otherwise cause damage to property or systems; interfere with the operational mission of a covered facility or asset; conduct unauthorized surveillance or reconnaissance; or result in unauthorized access to, or disclosure of, classified or otherwise lawfully protected information.”
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