Romandie 7th June 2018,President of the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN), Pierre-Franck Chevet, said
Thursday that EDF should repair the welding defects on the future EPR
Flamanville, a project that will represent “a minimum” few months of job.
“Already for the weld defects identified, it must be repaired.I feel that
on these defects detected – and I did not say it was the end of what we
would ask – nothing it must be a few months of work, “he said. “It is at
least a few months of work,” he added to members of the commission of
inquiry on the safety and security of nuclear facilities.
Defects had been detected at the end of March on welds of the piping of the reactor under
construction at Flamanville, whose start is officially scheduled for the
end of the year. They concern the pipes of the main secondary circuit,
which connect the steam generator and the turbine that produces the
electricity. By inspecting the work of its subcontractors, EDF realized
that the welds that had been declared compliant actually bore “quality
deviations”. The electrician has therefore launched additional controls.
“According to the indications, there are about 35% of welds that have
defects,” said Mr. Chevet.
“There are some for a few weeks … before. EDF
also explained last Thursday that it would take a few more weeks of
discussions with ASN to draw the conclusions of this dossier – and to have
a precise idea of the probable new delays and additional costs. Meanwhile,
the group had mentioned a possible delay of “a few months” from the start
of the nuclear reactor, potentially until the summer of 2019. The president
of the ASN also recalled that there was another problem concerning the weld
material quality, which had already been announced. https://www.romandie.com/news/925225.rom
Another nuclear safety scare at Pelindaba as management fumbles, amaBhungane, 7 June 18
Whistleblowers have accused the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation of sidelining qualified staff in favour of inexperienced technicians.
Another safety incident has shaken the Pelindaba nuclear facility outside Johannesburg, resulting in the total shutdown of the NTP Radioisotopes plant which produces vital supplies of nuclear medicine and radiation-based products.
Senior NTP staff point fingers at parent company the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (Necsa).
The sudden halt in production, which can be lifted only once the National Nuclear Regulator gives the all-clear, threatens global medicine supply.
AmaBhungane understands that the NTP facility was shut down after a dangerous spike in hydrogen gas levels was detected last Thursday (May 31). This, according to a senior technical employee, “could have resulted in an explosion”.
Necsa group chief executive Phumzile Tshelane, speaking on behalf of Necsa and NTP, ignored most questions put to him, saying: “We cannot disclose classified information.”
He did, however, attempt to downplay the incident. “This was a minor incident followed by vigilant safety protocols which ensured that there is no danger as alleged by your source.”
Tshelane cautioned against what he called “dangerous and alarmist allegations”.
This is the latest in a string of setbacks for NTP, the owner of the plant. In November last year, the plant was shuttered by the nuclear regulator after faulty calibrations in an instrument for analysing hydrogen levels.
Several employees claimed that since the November incident the new acting management brought in to get the plant restarted has bungled the recovery process and created unsafe work conditions.
……. AmaBhungane is in possession of correspondence between the regulator and Necsa/NTP from February to May that suggests the recovery process has been far from smooth.
The correspondence paints a picture of a breakdown of safety culture at the plant, where those working on returning the facility to full production are out of their depth.
In their communications with Necsa/NTP, the regulator flags among other things: the submission of falsified results; inaccuracies in tables submitted; the failure to demonstrate repeatability of tests; the unsuitability of a particular individual to provide theoretical training to NTP staff; a lack of due diligence in calibration; failure to submit hydrogen calibration schedules; and a repeated failure to address the poor quality of graphs.
In a letter from March, the regulator writes: “Noting the falsification of information, highlighted by the regulator… and recognising that that similar issue (sic) was previously raised by the regulator… Necsa/NTP Management is required to confirm what action(s) have been taken with regard to this matter.”
The protected disclosure also notes two separate incidents that were incorrectly handled by Necsa deployees.
Greenpeace Belgium 5th June 2018 , Nuclear: Finally a parliamentary debate on the safety of fuel pools. Greenpeace is pleased that the Subcommittee on Nuclear Safety has decided
to discuss the report “The safety of nuclear reactors and fuel storage
pools in France and Belgium and the related reinforcement measures” [1],
commissioned by the environmental protection association to 7 independent
international experts and sent last October to the competent authorities.
Only children close their eyes to remove a danger,” said Eloi Glorieux,
nuclear expert at Greenpeace and one of the three speakers of the
Subcommittee of the day. “That our MPs behave as adults and debate nuclear
security today, we can only rejoice.
It is now necessary for Engie-Electrabel to do the same and to take the appropriate measures to
better protect the power stations against external attacks. ” In October,
for security reasons, Greenpeace sent the full report only to the
Director-General of the Crisis Center, the director of the FANC and the
Minister of the Interior and Security, Mr. Jambon. In order to fuel the
public debate, the association had called for a parliamentary debate on the
content of the report. It will have taken months before it can be done,
after the members of the Subcommittee were able, under strict conditions,
to consult the report. http://www.greenpeace.org/belgium/fr/presse/Nucleaire-Enfin-un-debat-parlementaire-sur-la-securite-des-piscines-de-combustibles/
Montel 31st May 2018 French utility EDF will reveal “in the next few days” whether
sub-standard welding identified at France’s first European pressurised
reactor (EPR) in Flamanville will lead to further start-up delays, a
spokeswoman said on Thursday. However, she refused to comment on Montel’s
interview with a senior official of the ASN watchdog’s technical arm –
the IRSN – who said the commissioning of the unit faced further delays
“of at leastseveral months”. https://www.montel.no/en/story/edf-to-reveal-possible-epr-start-up-delay-in-days/905717
Jeremy Leggett 31st May 2018 French nuclear regulator fears “epidemic” safety-culture collapse at
Flamanville: disaster looms for EDF. Almost 150 more weld failures (beyond
those discovered earlier, as reviewed in the article) mean the nuclear
plant scheduled online in 2012 at a cost of €3.5bn is now delayed to
2020, probably, at a cost of €10.5bn, and counting.
Thierry Charles, deputy director general, Institute for Radiation Protection and Nuclear
Safety (IRSN), the technical arm of the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN):
“The expected high level of quality was not specified (Editor’s note:
by EDF), the conformity of supplies to the specification could not be
attested”, plus “the qualification of the welding procedures […] ]
does not respect all the rules of art. Charles cites concerns over “other
categories of mechanical equipment” than the pipes of the secondary
circuit. He flags “human and organizational failures” and “lack of
rigor of suppliers”.
He ascribes all this to the “inadequacies of the
monitoring system put in place by EDF” to check the conformity of the
work of its subcontractors and he fears “dysfunction potentially damaging
to safety”. He has invited the ASN to summon EDF to thoroughly review its
organization “to improve the quality of realization of welds and make its
monitoring system more effective”. In a final, potentially lethal, blow
to EDF he argues that “additional controls will be requested on other
circuits of the reactor to verify that there is no epidemic.” https://jeremyleggett.net/2018/05/31/french-nuclear-regulator-fears-safety-culture-collapse-at-flamanville-disaster-looms-for-edf/
Liberation 31st May 2018 [Machine Translation] The Flamanville EPR is likely to see its start
postponed to 2020. The weld quality problem detected on the EPR reactor
could differ by almost a year from its commissioning. The nuclear policeman
should demand that the work be redone.
A blow for EDF. A month and a half
after the discovery of new quality defects on 150 welds of the main
secondary circuit of the EPR reactor of the Flamanville power station, in
the Channel , EDF is preparing to post a further delay of several months in
the commissioning of what was to be the new flagship of the atom made in
France.
The EPR was due to start no later than early 2019. But according to
a source very familiar with the file questioned by Libération, the start
of the EPR Flamanville could outright “suffer a year late and be postponed
to the end of 2019 or early 2020” ! Severely taxed by the gendarme of the
atom, EDF would indeed be forced to resume one by one “Almost all 150
welds” whose quality is not up to what was expected by the nuclear
policeman for this type of equipment under nuclear pressure. http://www.liberation.fr/france/2018/05/31/l-epr-de-flamanville-risque-de-voir-son-demarrage-reporte-a-2020_1655448
Major challenges remain for nuclear transportation in America
Perhaps the most pressing issue is nuclear waste and in particular, excess plutonium, most of which remains at Amarillo’s Pantex plant and will need to be moved to secure disposal facilities in the years to come.
public fears endure about whether moving such materials can ever truly be “safe.”
The Secret ‘White Trains’ That Carried Nuclear Weapons Around the U.S. History, BRIANNA NOFIL 31 May 18 At first glance, the job posting looks like a standard help-wanted ad for a cross-country trucker. Up to three weeks a month on the road in an 18-wheel tractor-trailer, traveling through the contiguous 48 states. Risks include inclement weather, around-the-clock travel, and potentially adverse environmental conditions. But then the fine print: Candidates should have “experience in performing high-risk armed tactical security work…and maneuvering against a hostile adversary.”
The U.S. government is hiring “Nuclear Materials Couriers.” Since the 1950s, this team of federal agents, most of them ex-military, has been tasked with ferrying America’s 6,800 nuclear warheads and extensive supply of nuclear materials across the roads and highways of the United States. America’s nuclear facilities are spread out throughout the country, on over 2.4 million acres of federal real estate, overseen by the Department of Energy (DOE)—a labyrinth of a system the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists called “highly scattered and fragmented…with few enforceable rules.”
Some sites are for assembly, some are for active weapons, some are for chemicals, some are for mechanical parts. What this means in practice is that nuclear materials have to move around—a lot.
For as long as the United States has had nuclear weapons, it has struggled with the question of how to transport America’s most destructive technology throughout the country without incident. “It’s the weak link in the chain of nuclear security,” said Dr. Edwin Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Today the United States relies almost entirely on million-dollar, Lockheed Martin tractor-trailers, known as Safeguard Transporters (SGTs) and Safe Secure Trailers (SSTs) to move nuclear material. But from the 1950s through the 1980s, the great hope for safe transit was so-called “white trains.”
These trains looked entirely ordinary, except for a few key details. They featured multiple heavily armored boxcars sandwiched in between “turret cars,” which protruded above the rest of the train. The turrets had slit windows through which armed DOE guards peered out, prepared to shoot if they needed to defend the train. Some guards had simple rifles, while others reportedly had automatic machine guns and hand-grenade launchers. Known in DOE parlance “safe, secure railcars,” or SSRs, the white trains were highly resistant to attack and unauthorized entry. They also offered “a high degree of cargo protection in event of fire or serious accident,” the DOE assured a wary Congress in 1979.
…….. Today’s nuclear infrastructure—much of which is focused on decommissioning rather than building weapons—is reliant on Safeguard Transporters and their armed drivers. Much like the rest of the America’s nuclear arsenal, many of the trucks are antiquated; about half of the SSTs are over 15 years old. The trucks, which log over three and a half million miles each year, are accompanied by unmarked escort vehicles and their only easily recognizable feature is their U.S. Government license plates.
Transportation of nuclear materials is currently overseen by the Office of Secure Transportation (OST), an agency that has attracted only minimal attention in the years since the fall of the Soviet Union. But a 2017Los Angeles Times investigation suggested problems may lurk beneath the surface. OST is understaffed, with the average courier working about 75 hours a week. Turnover is extremely high. In 2010, a DOE investigation found “widespread alcohol problems” within the agency, including incidents that occurred while couriers were on secure transportation missions. The DOE conceded that these episodes “indicate a potential vulnerability in OST’s critical national security mission.”
Major challenges remain for nuclear transportation in America. Plans to “modernize” America’s nuclear arsenal, supported by both the Obama and Trump administrations, mean that weapons will be taking more trips than ever on American roads. Beginning in 2010, around one thousand W76 warheads traveled from Bangor, Washington back to Amarillo, Texas, for upgrades to extend the life of the weapon by 30 years—a massive undertaking, entirely dependent on the OST’s fleet of Safeguard Transporters. Perhaps the most pressing issue is nuclear waste and in particular, excess plutonium, most of which remains at Amarillo’s Pantex plant and will need to be moved to secure disposal facilities in the years to come.
Whether waste or weapons, trains or trucks, the United States has been remarkably fortunate in avoiding major transportation mishaps. Since the days of the white trains, the government has insisted that nuclear materials are being moved across the American landscape in the safest possible way, persisting through crashes, fires, and interfering nuns. Yet public fears endure about whether moving such materials can ever truly be “safe.”
In a drill, fake terrorists take over Arctic radioactive waste storage site
Russian officials have said they thwarted a terrorist attack at a facility storing old radioactive components from nuclear vessels located in the Arctic — but don’t worry. It was just a drill. Bellona, by Anna Kireeva
Russian officials have said they thwarted a terrorist attack at a facility storing old radioactive components from nuclear vessels located in the Arctic — but don’t worry. It was just a drill.
The simulated siege was part of a large-scale exercise called Atom-2018, and was meant to prepare workers at the Sayda Bay for the worst – an armed incursion into a sensitive facility within Russia’s vast but fragile nuclear waste storage industry, complete with bombs, hostages and political demands.
According to reports, staff at the facility were alerted to the fact that the exercise was a drill. The purpose of the fake crisis, rather than scaring workers at a radioactive materials storage site, was to prepare officials from Russia’s security services to map out countermeasures specifically designed for the Sayda Bay site.
Sayda Bay is a part of the Murmansk branch of RosRAO, the state operator responsible for the management and storage and handling of non-nuclear radioactive waste, as well as decommissioning nuclear vessels, especially submarines.
Located 60 kilometers from Murmansk, Sayda Bay is itself an old Soviet-era military base. Since 2004, it has been tasked with storing reactor compartments from the dismantled submarines of Russia’s once overwhelming Northern Fleet of nuclear submarines.
Later, facilities were built at Sayda Bay to handle and condition radioactive waste. Currently it houses about 80 single unit reactor blocks and has space for 40 more. Eventually, the site will hold the irradiated remains of the Lepse, a nuclear icebreaker refueling vessels that is carefully being pulled apart at the Nerpa Shipyard near Murmansk.
Officials with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) plan to hold a public hearing May 31 on the safety record of the Arkansas Nuclear One power plant in Arkansas, whose two units are among three cited by the agency for poor performance and other problems in its annual assessment of the nation’s nuclear fleet.
The NRC ranks nuclear facilities in five categories, with Category 1 designating a safe-performing plant, down to Category 5, which requires a plant to close until NRC inspectors sign off on corrective actions. Victor Dricks, senior public affairs officer with the NRC, told POWER the agency has never placed a unit in Category 5……..
The Arkansas meeting is one of a number of upcoming public sessions scheduled by the NRC at plants across the country to discuss the group’s safety reports. The agency this week said it would continue with additional oversight of TVA’s Sequoyah Nuclear Power Plant in Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee, after an undisclosed security violation at the plant last fall. …….
Container problem spurs evacuation at nuclear waste site http://www.kristv.com/story/38282972/container-problem-spurs-evacuation-at-nuclear-waste-site May 26, 2018 ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) – Workers had to evacuate the U.S. government’s only underground nuclear waste repository after finding a container of waste misaligned inside its packaging, but officials confirmed Friday that no radiation was released.
It marked another problem for the New Mexico facility where a drum of radioactive waste leaked in 2014 and shut down operations for nearly three years. The leak highlighted safety concerns and resulted in a costly recovery and sweeping changes in the way low-level nuclear waste destined for the dump is treated and handled.
In the latest incident, the contractor that runs the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant activated its emergency operations center after discovering the misaligned container Thursday night. Officials later determined conditions were stable and deactivated emergency operations.
Donavan Mager, a spokesman with Nuclear Waste Partnership LLC, said Friday that officials are investigating how the problem occurred.
In disposing the waste, seven 55-gallon drums are wrapped together in a tight formation to go deep inside the ancient salt formation where the repository is located. The idea is that the shifting salt will eventually entomb the waste.
Workers found one drum wasn’t aligned with the six others that made up the waste package. Work was immediately halted.
Procedures call for officials to develop a plan to re-enter the underground portion of the repository to deal with the pack of drums. It was not immediately known how long that would take.
“The plan is developed with extreme conservatism to ensure workers are protected,” Mager said.
Shipments to the repository resumed in 2017 following the lengthy closure stemming from the container of waste that was improperly treated at Los Alamos National Laboratory, also in New Mexico.
The repository has been receiving several shipments a week of waste that includes gloves, clothing, tools and other debris contaminated by plutonium and other radioactive elements. The Cold War-era waste was generated over years of bomb-making and nuclear weapons research.
The shipments are coming from Los Alamos lab and installations in Idaho, Tennessee, South Carolina and Texas.
Security Troops on US Nuclear Missile Base Took LSD Reader Supported News, By Robert Burns, Associated Press, 25 May 18ne airman said he felt paranoia. Another marveled at the vibrant colors. A third admitted, “I absolutely just loved altering my mind.”
Meet service members entrusted with guarding nuclear missiles that are among the most powerful in America’s arsenal. Air Force records obtained by The Associated Press show they bought, distributed and used the hallucinogen LSD and other mind-altering illegal drugs as part of a ring that operated undetected for months on a highly secure military base in Wyoming. After investigators closed in, one airman deserted to Mexico.
“Although this sounds like something from a movie, it isn’t,” said Capt. Charles Grimsley, the lead prosecutor of one of several courts martial.
A slipup on social media by one airman enabled investigators to crack the drug ring at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in March 2016, details of which are reported here for the first time. Fourteen airmen were disciplined. Six of them were convicted in courts martial of LSD use or distribution or both.
None of the airmen was accused of using drugs on duty. Yet it’s another blow to the reputation of the Air Force’s nuclear missile corps, which is capable of unleashing hell in the form of Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs. The corps has struggled at times with misbehavior, mismanagement and low morale.
Although seen by some as a backwater of the U.S. military, the missile force has returned to the spotlight as President Donald Trump has called for strengthening U.S. nuclear firepower and exchanged threats last year with North Korea. The administration’s nuclear strategy calls for hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending in coming decades.
The service members accused of involvement in the LSD ring were from the 90th Missile Wing, which operates one-third of the 400 Minuteman 3 missiles that stand “on alert” 24/7 in underground silos scattered across the northern Great Plains.
Documents obtained by the AP over the past two years through the Freedom of Information Act tell a sordid tale of off-duty use of LSD, cocaine and other drugs in 2015 and 2016 by airmen who were supposed to be held to strict behavioral standards because of their role in securing the weapons.
“It’s another black eye for the Air Force — for the ICBM force in particular,” says Stephen Schwartz, an independent consultant and nuclear expert.
In response to AP inquiries, an Air Force spokesman, Lt. Col. Uriah L. Orland, said the drug activity took place during off-duty hours. “There are multiple checks to ensure airmen who report for duty are not under the influence of alcohol or drugs and are able to execute the mission safely, securely and effectively,” he said.
Airman 1st Class Tommy N. Ashworth was among those who used LSD supplied by colleagues with connections to civilian drug dealers.
“I felt paranoia, panic” for hours after taking a hit of acid, Ashworth said under oath at his court martial. He confessed to using LSD three times while off duty. The first time, in the summer of 2015, shook him up. “I didn’t know if I was going to die that night or not,” he said as a witness at another airman’s drug trial. Recalling another episode with LSD, he said it felt “almost as if I was going to have like a heart attack or a heat stroke.”
Airman Basic Kyle S. Morrison acknowledged at his court martial that under the influence of LSD he could not have responded if recalled to duty in a nuclear security emergency.
In prosecuting the cases at F.E. Warren, the Air Force asserted that LSD users can experience “profound effects” from even small amounts. It said common psychological effects include “paranoia, fear and panic, unwanted and overwhelming feelings, unwanted life-changing spiritual experiences, and flashbacks.”
It’s unclear how long before being on duty any of the airmen had taken LSD, which stands for lysergic acid diethylamide. The drug became popularized as “acid” in the 1960s, and views since then have been widely split on its mental health risks. Although illegal in the U.S., it had been showing up so infrequently in drug tests across the military that in December 2006 the Pentagon eliminated LSD screening from standard drug-testing procedures. An internal Pentagon memo at the time said that over the previous three years only four positive specimens had been identified in 2.1 million specimens screened for LSD.
Yet Air Force investigators found those implicated in the F.E. Warren drug ring used LSD on base and off, at least twice at outdoor gatherings. Some also snorted cocaine and used ecstasy. Civilians joined them in the LSD use, including some who had recently left Air Force service, according to two officials with knowledge of the investigation. The Air Force declined to discuss this.
Airman 1st Class Nickolos A. Harris, said to be the leader of the drug ring, testified that he had no trouble getting LSD and other drugs from civilian sources. He pleaded guilty to using and distributing LSD and using ecstasy, cocaine and marijuana.
He acknowledged using LSD eight times and distributing LSD multiple times to fellow airmen at parties in Denver and other locations from spring 2015 to early 2016.
NASA looks to send a small nuclear reactor to the moon and MarsSanDiego Union-Tribune, 23 May 18 ………. some aren’t exactly over the moon with the prospect of nuclear power in space.
Among other incidents, the group points to a Russian nuclear-powered satellite that crashed into the Indian Ocean in 1982 and chunks of another that fell into a remote area of the Northwest Territories of Canada in 1978.
Gagnon also worries about launch accidents, contamination and whether projects like Kilopower may “serve as a Trojan horse” that could lead to using nuclear to power weapon systems in space.
“It’s not the kind of thing we can play games with,” Gagnon said. “One thing we know is technology is not invincible — the Titantic, the Challenger, Fukushima, there are a whole host of examples in the modern age. And when you start mixing nuclear power into the equation, it’s a very dangerous thing.”
Philippines mulls nuclear revival, SBS News, 23 May 18 Phillipines holds the only nuclear power plant in Southeast Asia, and some in the power hungry country are looking at reviving the mothballed facility.
…….Opposition to reviving Manila’s nuclear ambitions remains strong, with advocates citing a reliance on imported uranium, high waste and decommissioning costs, as well as safety concerns.Geologist Kelvin Rodolfo has repeatedly warned against the activation of the Bataan plant, saying it sits on an active earthquake fault that runs through a volcano, currently dormant.
Remembering A Near Disaster: U.S. Accidently Drops Nuclear Bombs On Itself And Its Allies WUNC91.5, ByJAY PRICE 24 May 18
During the Cold War, U.S. planes accidentally dropped nuclear bombs on the east coast, in Europe, and elsewhere. “Dumb luck” prevented a historic catastrophe.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of a decision that ended a perilous chapter of the Cold War.
In 1968, the Pentagon halted a program that kept military bombers in the air, loaded with nuclear weapons to deter a Soviet attack.
The problem was the jets kept having near-catastrophic accidents.
“If you go through some of the archival evidence publicly available, it seems like once a week or so, there was some kind of significant noteworthy accident that was being reported to the Department of Defense or the Atomic Energy Commission or members of Congress,” said Stephen Schwartz, a long-time nuclear weapons analyst.
Schwartz singled out 1958 as a particularly notorious year.
“We’re actually celebrating − celebrating is probably the wrong word − but we’re marking the 60th anniversary of no fewer than eight nuclear weapons accidents this year,” Schwartz said.
Every couple of weeks, Maurice Sanders gets a reminder of one of those 1958 accidents when a car with out-of-state tags parks in front of his house just outside Florence, South Carolina. Strangers pile out and tromp around to the scrub oak forest just behind his back yard to gaze down at an odd tourist attraction.
“It’s the hole from where the bomb had dropped, years ago,” Sanders said. “I think it’s on some kind of map or something.”
The circular pit is as big around as a small house, with a pond of tea-colored water at the bottom. A fading plywood cutout that someone put up − apparently to lure more tourists − is the size and shape of the Mark 6 nuclear bomb that was dropped there by accident.
The core containing the nuclear material was stored separately on the B-47 bomber it fell from, but the high explosives that were used to trigger the nuclear reaction exploded on impact, digging the crater estimated at 35 feet deep. The blast injured six members of a nearby family and damaged their home beyond repair.
Earlier that same year, just one state farther south, a jet fighter collided with a bomber during a training exercise, and the crew jettisoned a bomb into coastal waters near Savannah, Georgia.
Two years later, in 1961, a B-52 bomber flying out of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base near Goldsboro came apart in the sky, and the two armed nuclear bombs it was carrying fell into a farming community northeast of the base. One buried itself so deeply into a tobacco field that some of its parts were never found. The other floated down on a parachute, planting its nose in the ground beside a tree.
The parachute bomb came startlingly close to detonating. A secret government document said three of its four safety mechanisms failed, and only a simple electrical switch prevented catastrophe. It was 260 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima and could have instantly killed thousands of people. The radioactive fallout could have endangered millions more as far north as New York City.
Safety takes back seat to readiness
The military’s name for serious nuclear weapons mishaps is “broken arrow.” The Pentagon has only officially acknowledged 32 broken arrows, but evidence compiled by the government shows there were thousands more accidents involving nuclear weapons, Schwartz said.
“Most of which were not that as serious as the 32 we know about, but some of them were quite bad,” he said.
Schwartz said a wave of serious accidents in the late 1950s through 1968 was partly due to programs that kept the U.S. on a war footing. A few planes were kept aloft 24 hours a day, ready to drop bombs on Russia.
And then there was the sheer number of weapons being made, which created more opportunities for things to go wrong.
Schwartz said by the year after the bomb fell on South Carolina, the U.S. was making almost 20 nuclear weapons a day……..
“Everything associated with nuclear weapons the nuclear weapons delivery system, the command-and-control systems that make sure they go off when they’re supposed to and most importantly that they don’t go off when they’re not supposed to − all of these things are designed, built, operated, and maintained by human beings,” Schwartz said. “And human beings are fallible.”
Overseas accidents bring program’s end
It wasn’t the bombs the U.S. dropped on itself that finally ended the program. Rather, it was two accidents over friendly nations.
In 1966, a B-52 bomber – also flying out of Seymour Johnson – broke apart in the sky near the coast of Spain. One of its bombs dropped into the sea, and three fell on land where conventional explosives scattered radioactive material.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has published a £6m tender for a private company to deliver what it calls a National Security Culture Programme. It is part of a wider push to make sure that chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear materials are out of reach to terrorist groups or hostile states.
The successful company will be sent to overseas nuclear facilities to deliver training on attack prevention by helping organisations to increase security and better protect sensitive information. According to the tender documents, found by procurement company Tussell, the job will be aimed at overseas civil nuclear sites.
It will also cover a range of organisations, including those holding radioactive material, such as hospitals, and sensitive knowledge or information, such as academic or scientific institutions, as well as regulators and government departments.
The contract is expected to start in July 2018 and will run until March 2022. This work is the first external tender relating to the Government’s global threat reduction programme, hinting at the level of concern among top officials about the possibility of an attack on nuclear power plants.
Nuclear facilities have long been considered a target for groups looking to disrupt power supplies.
Last year, Britain’s nuclear power stations were told to tighten their defences against terrorist attacks after concerns were raised that terrorists had worked out how to bypass electronic security systems.
A spokesman for BEIS said the tender was part of “a continuing education programme about encouraging greater awareness of nuclear security issues and best practice overseas”.
Minot Air Force Base loses explosives on North Dakota road –The security forces of the 91st Missile Wing are responsible for protecting the intercontinental ballistic missile silos that Minot Air Force Base operates across the Great Plains. | 15 May 2018 | The Air Force is offering $5,000 for leads on the whereabouts of a box of explosive grenade rounds that its personnel accidentally dropped [!?!] on a road in North Dakota while traveling between two intercontinental ballistic missile silos — the facilities scattered across the U.S. heartland that stand ready to launch nuclear warheads at a moment’s notice. Airmen from the 91st Missile Wing Security Forces team were traveling on gravel roads May 1 in North Dakota when the back hatch of their vehicle opened and a container filled with the explosive ammunition fell out, according to a statement from Minot Air Force Base. On May 11, the Air Force sent more than 100 airmen to walk the entire six-mile route where the grenades were probably lost, according to a statement from the local Mountrail County sheriff. But two weeks after it was lost, the box of explosives still hasn’t been found.
Floating nuclear power plant reaches the Arctic, Greenpeace demands strict safety controls by Greenpeace International Vienna, Austria – As Russia’s state-run corporation Rosatom prepares to celebrate the arrival of its first purpose-built floating nuclear power plant in the Arctic city of Murmansk, campaigners are warning of threats to people and nature and calling for a full environmental impact assessment and independent nuclear oversight.
The controversial Akademik Lomonosov barge, dubbed ‘nuclear Titanic’ by some, arrived in Murmansk today where it will be loaded with nuclear fuel and tested. The Rosatom welcoming party is scheduled to take place on 19 May.
“It is now that one of the riskiest parts of the project begins,” said Jan Haverkamp, nuclear expert with Greenpeace Central and Eastern Europe.
“The barge will be fuelled and tested near a city of 300,000 people, then towed with two reactors full of irradiated fuel along the Northern Sea Route. Its installation in the harsh environment of the Russian Arctic will pose a constant threat to people of the North and the pristine Arctic nature,” he added.
Greenpeace CEE together with Russian environmental organisations Ecodefense andRussian Socio-Ecological Union (Friends of the Earth Russia) has sent a letter to Rosatom and relevant authorities demanding full and unrestricted regulatory oversight by the Russian nuclear regulator Rostechnadzor, with peer-review by nuclear regulators from other Arctic countries, as well as a transboundary Arctic Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).[1]
“The incident-ridden history of Russian nuclear icebreakers and submarines shows the need for strict, independent oversight with international peer review. This must start now, before the reactors are loaded, and span the plant’s entire risky operation – including transport, decommissioning and waste management,” said Haverkamp.
Initial plans to load and test the floating nuclear plant in the centre of St. Petersburg were abandoned after pressure from Nordic and Baltic countries and a public petition organised by Greenpeace Russia. While being towed to Murmansk, the barge was escorted and peacefully protested in Danish waters by the Greenpeace Ship Beluga II.
In 2019, the Akademik Lomonosov will be towed 5,000 km through the Northern Sea Route and put to use near Pevek, in Russia’s Chukotka Region.
According to Russian media, 15 countries, including China, Algeria, Indonesia, Malaysia, Argentina and Sudan, have shown interest in hiring floating nuclear plants that – among other purposes – are intended to provide power for fossil fuel exploration.
Notes:
[1] The letter was sent today to the acting Minister of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation, the CEO of Rosatom, the chairperson of the Russian nuclear regulator Rostechnadzor and the international cooperation body for the Arctic, the Arctic Council.
Recent press releases with more information available here and here.
ne airman said he felt paranoia. Another marveled at the vibrant colors. A third admitted, “I absolutely just loved altering my mind.”
