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A FOURTH unexploded bomb found near Britain’s Hinkley Point C nuclear site!

Bridgwater Mercury 16th Sept 2017, A FOURTH unexploded bomb thought to date back to the Second World War hasbeen found in the Bristol Channel not far from Hinkley C. Watchet
Coastguard say the 250lb device is partially detonated and is advising
vessels in the area to proceed with caution and stay at least 500m away
from the site. It is likely the device will be dealt with via a controlled
detonation later today (Saturday, September 16).
This is the fourth such device that has been found in the past two months, but EDF, who are
building a jetty for Hinkley C off the coast near Stogursey, say it is
normal practice to check the seabed before construction activity starts on
any marine project.
http://www.bridgwatermercury.co.uk/news/15539798.Yet_another_unexploded_Second_World_War_bomb_found_near_Hinkley_C/

September 22, 2017 Posted by | incidents, UK | Leave a comment

Terrorism danger, as weapons grade nuclear material flown from UK to USA

Energy Voice 18th Sept 2017, A plane carrying weapons-grade nuclear waste to the US left the Highlands
the day after the UK’s terror threat level was raised to “critical”.
Armed police and anti-terrorism specialists stood guard at Wick John
O’Groats Airport as the enriched uranium was loaded onto a US Air Force
C-17 Globemaster transporter jet.

But last night opponents slammed the decision to go ahead with the flight on Saturday, just a day after the
London tube bomb attack. Highlands and Islands MSP (Green) John Finnie
said: “Every avenue should have been considered, including the current
threat level, and it would have been appropriate to set that flight aside.

It is the third such flight under a deal agreed between the UK and US
governments to transfer nuclear material in exchange for a medical grade
uranium from the US used to diagnose cancer. The plane firstly travelled to
RAF Lossiemouth on Saturday – before heading for a nuclear facility in
Tennessee – as the runway at Wick is 1,712ft too short for a fully
fuelled Globemaster to get airborne. Wick’s runway was strengthened, but
not lengthened in preparation for the flights in an £8million upgrade. Up
to 10 more flights are expected in the future as the decommissioning at
Dounreay continues.

Mr Finnie added that terrorists would be seeking
“prestigious targets” such as these flights and that the consequences
of a disaster would be “unthinkable”. Tor Justad, chairman of Highlands
Against Nuclear Transport (HANT), said: “I think everyone is aware of the
heightened security and it does not seem to be an appropriate time to be
adding to the risks when these risks are avoidable. There is no reason why
this flight had to happen on Saturday, just after the third terrorist
incident in London in a few months.”
https://www.energyvoice.com/otherenergy/nuclear/150794/nuclear-waste-flight-takes-off-despite-attack

September 22, 2017 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

UK’s ‘Operation Temperer’ replaces police with military personnel at nuclear power plants

Soldiers on the streets and extra armed police on patrol as Theresa May raises terror level to CRITICAL after ISIS claim Tube bucket-bomb attack was carried out by a cell of several jihadis –IED had timer attached meaning terrorist probably exited at an earlier station but bomb failed to detonate CLG News,  15 Sept 2017 | Soldiers are being deployed on London’s streets as the terror threat level is raised to critical amid fears the Parsons Green bomber could strike again, Theresa May announced tonight.

Operation Temperer will see military personnel replacing police at key sites such as nuclear power plants to free up extra armed police for regular patrols. Scotland Yard said it is making ‘excellent’ progress in hunting the suspected terrorist who set off an improvised bucket bomb on a packed commuter train by Parsons Green tube station in west London at 8.20am. Mrs May said in a statement from Number 10: ‘The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre has now decided to raise the national threat level from severe to critical – this means their assessment is that a further attack may be imminent.’ Minutes later Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley suggested there may have been more than one person involved stating that police were ‘chasing down suspects’.

September 16, 2017 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

A new psychiatry book warns about Donald Trump

“A Duty to Warn” and the Dangerous Case of Donald Trump Renowned psychiatrist says despite “Goldwater Rule,” mental health experts have unique responsibility when someone in power may be dangerous, Common Dreams by Bill Moyers, Robert Jay Lifton , 15 Sept 17 

There will not be a book published this fall more urgent, important, or controversial than than The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, the work of 27 psychiatrists, psychologists and mental health experts to assess President Trump’s mental health. They had come together last March at a conference at Yale University to wrestle with two questions. One was on countless minds across the country: “What’s wrong with him?” The second was directed to their own code of ethics: “Does Professional Responsibility Include a Duty to Warn” if they conclude the president to be dangerously unfit?

As mental health professionals, these men and women respect the long-standing “Goldwater rule” which inhibits them from diagnosing public figures whom they have not personally examined. At the same time, as explained by Dr. Bandy X Lee, who teaches law and psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine, the rule does not have a countervailing rule that directs what to do when the risk of harm from remaining silent outweighs the damage that could result from speaking about a public figure — “which in this case, could even be the greatest possible harm.” It is an old and difficult moral issue that requires a great exertion of conscience. Their decision: “We respect the rule, we deem it subordinate to the single most important principle that guides our professional conduct: that we hold our responsibility to human life and well-being as paramount.”

Hence, this profound, illuminating and discomforting book undertaken as “a duty to warn.”

The foreword is by one of America’s leading psychohistorians, Robert Jay Lifton. He is renowned for his studies of people under stress — for books such as Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima (1967), Home from the War: Vietnam Veterans — Neither Victims nor Executioners (1973), and The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide(1986). The Nazi Doctors was the first in-depth study of how medical professionals rationalized their participation in the Holocaust, from the early stages of the Hitler’s euthanasia project to extermination camps.

The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump will be published Oct. 3 by St. Martin’s Press.

Here is my interview with Robert Jay Lifton — Bill Moyers………

“And that’s what I call malignant normality. What we put forward as self-evident and normal may be deeply dangerous and destructive. I came to that idea in my work on the psychology of Nazi doctors — and I’m not equating anybody with Nazi doctors, but it’s the principle that prevails — and also with American psychologists who became architects of CIA torture during the Iraq War era. These are forms of malignant normality. For example, Donald Trump lies repeatedly. We may come to see a president as liar as normal. He also makes bombastic statements about nuclear weapons, for instance, which can then be seen as somehow normal. In other words, his behavior as president, with all those who defend his behavior in the administration, becomes a norm. We have to contest it, because it is malignantnormality. For the contributors to this book, this means striving to be witnessing professionals, confronting the malignancy and making it known”……..

“the only reality he’s capable of embracing has to do with his own self and the perception by and protection of his own self. And for a president to be so bound in this isolated solipsistic reality could not be more dangerous for the country and for the world. In that sense, he does what psychotics do. Psychotics engage in, or frequently engage in a view of reality based only on the self. He’s not psychotic, but I think ultimately this solipsistic reality will be the source of his removal from the presidency.”………https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/09/15/duty-warn-and-dangerous-case-donald-trump

September 16, 2017 Posted by | politics, psychology - mental health, safety, USA | Leave a comment

The case for closing Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant

US nuclear plants deteriorating as regulators talk doubling life expectancy

Russia Today 30th March 2016, Old but useful: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is again trying to make the
case for closing the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant just north of New
York City. This comes following an inspection that revealed hundreds of
faulty or missing bolts meant to hold reactor plates together. For more on
aging nuclear infrastructure, RT America’s Simone Del Rosario is joined
by investigative journalist Karl Grossman, who has covered nuclear energy
for decades.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcNh7R4Ymk4

September 16, 2017 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Sellafield nuclear site seen as “a great strategic target for terrorists”

Express 13th Sept 2017, NUCLEAR plant Sellafield was yesterday branded a potential “coup for
terrorists” as police who protect it warned against budget cuts. Safety
fears were initially raised last year after an investigation into security
at Britain’s main nuclear decommissioning site in Cumbria. Now
Cumbria’s Police and Crime Commissioner Peter McCall has warned his
constabulary must not lose a penny in any forthcoming shake-up of national
police funding. “In my opinion the number of officers in the county is at
an irreducible limit. “We’ve all seen the tragic terrorism events
across the country this year. Cumbria is not immune to that. “We’ve got
a big strategic target here in Sellafield and that would be a great coup
for terrorists.”
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/853568/Sellafield-nuclear-plant-ltd-cumbria-terrorists-peter-mccall

September 16, 2017 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

U.S. Department of Energy extends contract for management of Nuclear Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

Contract Extended for Management of US Nuclear Dump https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/new-mexico/articles/2017-09-15/contract-extended-for-management-of-us-nuclear-dump

The U.S. Department of Energy has extended a contract for the management of the government’s only underground nuclear waste repository.Sept. 15, 2017CARLSBAD, N.M. (AP) — The U.S. Department of Energy has extended a contract for the management of the government’s only underground nuclear waste repository that will allow the Nuclear Waste Partnership to continue operating the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad through September 2020.

WIPP resumed operations earlier this year following a shutdown that followed a 2014 radiation release caused by inappropriate packaging of waste by workers at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The extension of the contract with Nuclear Waste Partnership will include a new safety focus and cost incentives. It’s good through Sept. 30, 2020, and can be extended beyond that.

September 16, 2017 Posted by | safety, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

EDF warns on Britain’s nuclear safety problems, in the exit from the European Union

Reuters 13th Sept 2017, EDF, the French utility that runs Britain’s nuclear reactors, said on
Wednesday power plants could suffer extended outages if a new safeguard
regime and other measures were not in place when Britain exits the European
Union in 2019.

The regulation chief for EDF’s British unit, EDF Energy,
also said construction of Hinkley Point C – the first nuclear plant to be
built in Britain for more than 20 years – would be delayed unless Britain
had a new regulatory regime to replace the EU‘s.

Angela Hepworth was speaking at a parliamentary hearing on the impact of Brexit on Britain’s
energy security. Her comments illustrate the challenges faced by London as
it attempts to disentangle itself from decades of EU regulations, treaties
and institutions. In the nuclear industry, the race is on for the
government to replicate strict oversight of the industry and strike deals
with other countries or concoct a transition agreement, in time for
Britain’s withdrawal from the union in March 2019.
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-nuclear/uk-nuclear-operator-warns-of-plant-outages-if-brexit-mismanaged-idUKKCN1BO212

September 16, 2017 Posted by | politics international, safety, UK | Leave a comment

EDF has increasing safety problems on its nuclear power stations in France

Europe 1 14th Sept 2017 [Machine Translation] The Belleville-sur-Loire power plant in the Cher
region was placed under surveillance on Wednesday. The Nuclear Safety
Authority wants to control EDF more. Month after month, EDF accumulates
problems on its nuclear power plants.

Last episode: the decision of the
Nuclear Safety Authority to place the site of Belleveille-sur-Loire in Cher
on Wednesday under strong surveillance. According to the ASN, the use of
degraded materials that do not guarantee their proper functioning and a
lack of monitoring of the plant.  http://www.europe1.fr/economie/pourquoi-edf-est-dans-le-collimateur-de-lautorite-de-surete-nucleaire-3435869

September 16, 2017 Posted by | France, safety | Leave a comment

Mystery seismic energy release following North Korea nuclear test

Seismologists stumped by mystery shock after North Korean nuclear test, Nature
A second jolt felt minutes after this month’s detonation continues to confound researchers. David Cyranoski, Eight-and-a-half minutes after North Korea set off a nuclear bomb on 3 September, a second burst of energy shook the mountain where the test had just occurred. More than a week later, researchers are still puzzling over what caused that extra release of seismic energy — and what it says about North Korea’s nuclear-testing site, or the risks of a larger radiation leak. Monitoring stations in South Korea have already picked up minute levels of radiation from the test.

A number of theories have emerged to explain the second event, ranging from a tunnel collapse or a landslide to a splintering of the rock inside Mount Mantap, the testing site. But seismologists can’t agree and say that they may not get enough evidence to pin down the cause.

“This is an interesting mystery at this point,” says Göran Ekström, a seismologist at Columbia University in New York City.   The nature of the first seismic signal is clearer because it matches the profile of a bomb blast. The US Geological Survey (USGS) determined the magnitude of the seismic event associated with the nuclear explosion at 6.3, whereas the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) in Vienna calculated it at 6.1 on the basis of a separate analysis. The explosion was many times the size of past North Korean tests and was the largest seismic signal from a nuclear test ever detected by the international network of seismic monitoring stations used by the CTBTO.

The second event came 8.5 minutes later and registered as magnitude-4.1, reported the USGS. The agency suggested that it was associated with the test and may have been a “structural collapse”. The possibility that the smaller shock was caused by a tunnel collapse inside the testing site has dominated discussion in the media. But Paul Earle, a seismologist at the USGS, told Nature that was just one possibility that was raised in the immediate aftermath of the explosion. The USGS, he said, was “basing that on previous nuclear tests of comparable size that had a collapse”.

Possible signs of a collapse are visible on satellite images taken of the testing site, according to an analysis released on 12 September by 38 North, a partnership of the US-Korea Institute and the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC.

But the seismic signal doesn’t match what would be expected from a collapse, says Lianxing Wen, a geophysicist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. A collapse would produce mostly vertical movement of rock, but his own unpublished work suggests that the seismic clues point to a large horizontal movement as well, something he says would be more consistent with a landslide.

Sliding scale

Although the satellite data do show a lot of landslides on Mount Mantap, other researchers argue that they could not have caused the magnitude-4.1 event. Much larger landslides, such as at Bingham Canyon mine in Utah in 2013, haven’t produced seismic signals close to that size, says Ekström.  He also argues that the seismic signals he has seen do not match the pattern expected from a landslide……https://www.nature.com/news/seismologists-stumped-by-mystery-shock-after-north-korean-nuclear-test-1.22618

September 15, 2017 Posted by | incidents, North Korea | Leave a comment

FLORIDA NUKE PLANT DID NOT MEET FED SAFETY GUIDELINES AS IRMA ROARED

,Newsweek, BY MELINA DELKIC  Operators of a nuclear power plant in the path of Hurricane Irma kept one reactor operating during the cyclone, despite failing to bring the plant up to federal safety code and long-known concerns about the danger faced by nuclear power plants during power outages.

The Turkey Point nuclear plant in Homestead, along the southeast Florida coast, was in the midst of a region with 5 million power outages —”unprecedented,” according to Florida Power and Light CEO Eric Silagy — yet kept operating even though the risk of a serious accident rises significantly in a power outage, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

“When there’s a possibility to lose power, why would you take the risk of increasing that?” Maggie Gundersen, founder of Fairewinds Energy Education and former nuclear industry employee, told Newsweek.

Operators of a nuclear power plant in the path of Hurricane Irma kept one reactor operating during the cyclone, despite failing to bring the plant up to federal safety code and long-known concerns about the danger faced by nuclear power plants during power outages.

The Turkey Point nuclear plant in Homestead, along the southeast Florida coast, was in the midst of a region with 5 million power outages —”unprecedented,” according to Florida Power and Light CEO Eric Silagy — yet kept operating even though the risk of a serious accident rises significantly in a power outage, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

“When there’s a possibility to lose power, why would you take the risk of increasing that?” Maggie Gundersen, founder of Fairewinds Energy Education and former nuclear industry employee, told Newsweek.

….

A VALVE FAILURE AMID DANGEROUS STORM SURGE AND WINDS

The plant dodged a bullet — power outages in the state did not ultimately lead to a disaster. But a part of the reactor’s all-important cooling system, a piece called the steam generator’s feed regulating valve, did fail on Sunday night, prompting engineers to finally shut the lone reactor in operation that night.

Again, disaster was averted. There is “no known primary-secondary steam generator tube leakage” — jargon for radiation — according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The failure of the valve is just one problem at the plant: Turkey Point knew that it had improvements to make…….http://www.newsweek.com/turkey-point-nuclear-plant-hurricane-irma-663188

September 14, 2017 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Shamisen project gives 28 recommendations for nuclear safety

The European Commission-funded Shamisen project has published 28
recommendations to improve preparedness for and response to a nuclear
accident. The recommendations follow an 18-month review of the response to
previous accidents, particularly Chernobyl and Fukushima-Daiichi.

New recommendations include how to improve professional training, establish
disease registries and evacuation protocols. The recommendations say
reliable information about an accident and associated risks should be given
and radiation dose data collected. Following an accident, dialogue needs to
be established between experts and affected communities.

There needs to be support for populations that want to take their own dose measurements so
they can decide what food to eat and when to return to their homes.

Recommendations also include providing voluntary health screening and
adequate counselling. The Shamisen project, coordinated by the Barcelona
Institute for Global Health, or ISGlobal, brought together 19 European and
Japanese organisations, as well as US, Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian
experts. It is funded by the EC’s Euratom programme.

The project began in December 2015 with the objective of producing a set of recommendations that
would contribute to health surveillance and related communication with
affected populations after nuclear accidents. Existing recommendations,
ISGlobal said, had a technical focus, with less attention paid to social,
ethical and psychological issues.
http://www.nucnet.org/all-the-news/2017/09/08/ec-shamisen-project-publishes-28-recommendations-on-nuclear-accident-preparedness

September 11, 2017 Posted by | EUROPE, safety | Leave a comment

Former Nevada nuclear site experiencing wildfire

“It’s being fought by security site fire crews, with help from a helicopter able to detect any aerial release of radiation.” Like monitoring is going to help or they’re going to share their data. Not a peep about the radiation numbers during the fires in and around Los Alamos even though they were “monitoring” – comment by  Helen Helen Mary Caldicott and Henry Peters

Wildfire burning in former Nevada nuclear site, Daily Mail UK By Associated Press 1 September 2017 RENO, Nev. (AP) – The Latest on wildfires burning across the western United States
An official says firefighters are battling a lightning-sparked wildfire in a remote part of the vast former national nuclear proving ground north of Las Vegas. Nevada National Security Site spokeswoman Tracy Bower said Thursday that the fire covers almost 4 square miles (10 square kilometers) in the western part of what used to be the Nevada Test Site.

More than 1,000 nuclear detonations occurred at the 1,360-square-mile (3522-square-kilometer) secure federal reservation from 1951 to 1992. It now hosts non-nuclear experiments and safety training.

Bower didn’t have immediate information about the exact location of the fire or what tests may have taken place in the burn area in the past.

She says the fire started Monday and isn’t considered a threat to people or buildings.

It’s being fought by security site fire crews, with help from a helicopter able to detect any aerial release of radiation. : http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-4842050/The-Latest-Wildfire-burning-former-Nevada-nuclear-site.html#ixzz4s81RPn00

September 9, 2017 Posted by | incidents, USA | Leave a comment

Satellites show landslides and land disturbances at North Korea’s nuclear site

North Korea nuclear test site experiencing landslides: researchers, https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/world/north-korea-nuclear-test-site-experiencing-landslides-researchers-20170907-gycjvb.html, By William Broad, New York: Analysts peering at satellite images of North Korea after the latest nuclear test on Sunday, report they have spotted many landslides and wide disturbances at the country’s test site, in the North’s mountainous wilds. Tunnels for the nuclear blasts are deep inside Mount Mantap, a mile-high peak.

“These disturbances are more numerous and widespread than what we have seen from any of the five tests North Korea previously conducted,” three experts wrote in an analysis for 38 North, a website run by the US-Korea Institute of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

Early readings from global networks that monitor shock waves suggest that the nuclear blast on Sunday had a destructive power equal to 120,000 tons of high explosives. If correct, that is roughly six times more powerful than the North’s test of September 2016, and eight times larger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

The new satellite images of the Punggye-ri nuclear test site were taken Monday, the day after the nuclear detonation. Planet, a company in San Francisco that owns swarms of tiny satellites, reconnoitered the secretive nuclear test site.

The three analysts, Frank Pabian, Joseph Bermudez jnr and Jack Liu, said the wide disturbances appeared to include numerous landslides throughout the rugged site “and beyond”.

They added that they could find no evidence of a surface crater that would have formed if the cavern carved out within the mountain by the blast’s violence and high temperatures had suddenly collapsed.

Sunday’s underground test resulted in two earthquakes, with other analysts suggesting the second could have been a tunnel collapse.

t comes as a nuclear scientist said the mountain could collapse due to the impact of five underground nuclear tests at the same Punggye-ri site, on the southern side of Mount Mantap. China Institute of Atomic Energy’s Wang Naiyan said it could cause an environmental disaster as “many bad things” could leak out.

September 9, 2017 Posted by | North Korea, safety | Leave a comment

Concerns over growing number of live bombs found near Hinkley Point Nuclear Power Plant

Somerset Live 5th Sept 2017, Concerns are growing after numerous Second World War explosives are being
discovered near Bridgwater’s Hinkley Point Nuclear Power Plant. But
according to Watchet Coastguard in a Twitter exchange, the site is being
searched by Hinkley Point C contractors to clear the coastline ahead of the
Nuclear Power Plant developments. Explaining the procedure, contractors
report any ordnances to Royal Navy and Maritime and Coastguard Agency. A
1,000 metre exclusion zone is then set up around the discovered bomb before
a specialised Royal Navy team safely detonate the explosive.  http://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/many-second-world-war-bombs-426055

September 9, 2017 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

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