The Flagstaff City Council officially opposed the transportation of uranium ore and other radioactive materials through the city and neighboring communities at its meeting Tuesday night.
The resolution, however, will have no ability to control the route trucks hauling the material will take. At a meeting last month, City Attorney Sterling Solomon and Assistant to the City Manager Caleb Blaschke said the city is preempted from regulating the transportation of uranium ore and all hazardous materials by the U.S. Department of Transportation.
The council voted 6-1 on a resolution stating the city’s opposition to the transportation of uranium ore and reaffirming Flagstaff as a “nuclear free zone.” Councilman Scott Overton was the lone “no” vote on the resolution.
At Tuesday’s meeting, 15 members of the public, including a representative from the Havasupai Tribal Council and state Representative Wenona Benally, spoke. All public speakers voiced their support for the resolution and some asked the council to take the move a step further and craft a legally binding ordinance to stop the transportation of uranium ore through Flagstaff…….
The council also directed the city staff to lobby the federal government to change its policy preempting local control over the material’s transportation.
Members of the public, including many from a group called “Haul No,” filled the council chambers Tuesday evening and erupted into thunderous applause when the resolution passed.
Evans said other towns and cities in northern Arizona look to Flagstaff to set an example as the largest city in northern Arizona.
“I believe the legacy of uranium mining in northern Arizona is unjust,” she said.
The comments from Nuclear Regulation Authority Chairman Toyoshi Fuketa suggest Japan may not make headway in meeting its electricity generation targets. By 2030, the country was expecting nuclear to power about one-fifth of its generation. However, utilities are having difficulty grappling with tougher rules on protecting reactors from natural disasters in the earthquake-prone country.
Following the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, the world’s worst since Chernobyl in 1986, the NRA was set up in 2012 to draft new safety standards that have been described as among the world’s toughest.
Since then, 12 reactors at six nuclear plants have passed the safety requirements needed to restart, but only four reactors are currently operating. One more reactor that resumed operations after meeting the requirements has been shut down for scheduled maintenance.
Most of the approvals have been for reactors in western Japan and not on the east coast where Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.’s Fukushima No. 1 station is located. The plant suffered multiple reactor meltdowns after an earthquake on the northeast coast caused a tsunami that swamped the site.
“We have accumulated experience in safety reviews, but comparatively speaking, many of the plants in eastern Japan that we are reviewing now have difficult natural conditions,” Fuketa, 60, said in the interview. “It’s doubtful the pace of approvals would quicken.”
A majority of Japanese oppose nuclear power after Fukushima, and restarts are a delicate political issue rather than just a matter of meeting technical safety requirements.
When asked if he could place a number of how many reactors may be approved for a resumption of operations in the next five years, Fuketa said: “I honestly do not know.”
About a dozen other reactors are going through safety checks as part of a relicensing process under the new rules.
Fuketa is known for taking tough positions during safety reviews of reactors and has been instrumental in directing the clean-up of the wrecked Fukushima plant.
The government set an energy mix plan in 2015 that forecasts relying on nuclear power to generate between 20 to 22 percent of the country’s electricity in 2030. That requires having about 30 reactors operating by then.
The nation’s nine regional power utilities and a wholesaler, Japan Atomic Power Co., have 42 nuclear reactors for commercial use, with a total generating capacity of 41,482 megawatts.
TV5Monde 4th Nov 2017, [Machine Translation]The French nuclear power plant Bugey is located only
70 km from Geneva. The Swiss Federal Government of Geneva is concerned
about the obsolescence of the cooling circuits of the four reactors of this
nuclear power plant, one of the oldest in the French park. Interview with
Antonio Hidgers, Minister of Energy of Geneva. http://information.tv5monde.com/info/surete-nucleaire-geneve-s-inquiete-de-la-centrale-de-bugey-201543
I’ve always wondered: do nuclear tests affect tectonic plates and cause earthquakes or volcanic eruptions? The Conversation, Jane Cunneen Do underground nuclear tests affect Earth’s tectonic plates, and cause earthquakes or volcanic eruptions? – Anne Carroll, Victoria
Apart from escalating global fears about conflict, North Korea’s recent nuclear tests have raised questions about geological events caused by underground explosions.
Some media reports suggest the tests triggered earthquakes in South Korea. Others report the explosions may trigger a volcanic eruption at Paektu Mountain, about 100km from the test site.
So can an underground test cause an earthquake? The short answer is yes: a nuclear explosion can cause small earthquakes. But it is unlikely to affect the earth’s tectonic plates or cause a volcanic eruption.
Although a nuclear explosion releases a lot of energy in the immediate region, the amount of energy is small compared to other stresses on tectonic plates………
Earthquakes from nuclear testing
The 3 September 2017 North Korean nuclear test generated shock waves equivalent to a magnitude 6.3 earthquake. Eight minutes later, a magnitude 4.1 event was detected at the same site. This may have been linked to a collapse of a tunnel related to the blast.
Several small earthquakes measured since the event may have been induced by the nuclear test, but the largest is only a magnitude 3.6. An earthquake of this size would not be felt outside of the immediate area.
The largest induced earthquake ever measured from nuclear testing was a magnitude 4.9 in the Soviet Union. An earthquake of this size can cause damage locally but does not affect the full thickness of the earth’s crust. This means it would not have any effect on the movement of tectonic plates.
Historical data from nuclear testing (mostly in the USA) shows that earthquakes associated with nuclear testing typically occur when the explosion itself measures greater than magnitude 5, 10–70 days after the tests, at depths of less than 5km, and closer than around 15km to the explosion site. More recent studies have concluded that nuclear tests are unlikely to induce earthquakes more than about 50km from the test site……..
Monitoring nuclear tests
The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organisation (CTBTO) has a global monitoring system to detect nuclear tests, including seismometers to measure the shock waves from the blast and other technologies.
Seismologists can analyse the seismic data to determine if the shock waves were from a naturally occurring earthquake or a nuclear blast. Shock waves from nuclear blasts have different properties to those from naturally occurring earthquakes.
Testing was much more common before the CTBTO was formed: between 1945 and 1996 more than 2,000 nuclear tests were conducted worldwide, including 1,032 by the USA and 715 by the Soviet Union.
Last month, the Norwegian Nobel Committee handed a group dedicated to abolishing nuclear weapons its Peace Prize. Now, the Swedish government is looking into expanding its existing network of nuclear fallout shelters, according to news website the Local. A first proposal was included in a report released several weeks ago and followed a review of existing shelters this year, Swedish officials confirmed Friday, saying that the proposed changes were still under consideration by the government.
Sweden has 65,000 shelters, which would provide space for up to 7 million people, but that leaves an estimated 3 million inhabitants without protection.
At least one European country takes the risk of a nuclear war even more seriously: Switzerland may have fewer people than Sweden, but it has built about four times as many nuclear shelters — easily enough for the country’s entire population and then some.
In Sweden and elsewhere, the nuclear shelters are also supposed to protect the population from other hazards, like a biological weapons attack or more-conventional warfare. Often located in publicly accessible buildings, such as schools or shopping centers, they can usually also be used as storage sites or garages and are funded with taxpayer money.
In contrast, in Switzerland all houses above a certain size must include shelters in the basement, putting the financial burden on citizens themselves. That rule was abolished in 2011 by the Swiss parliament, but reintroduced months later after the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan.
The accident brought back memories of Chernobyl in 1986, and led to a renewed public debate in Europe over the risk of radiation. In Germany — where public shelters are far less common than in Sweden or Switzerland — Chancellor Angela Merkel decided to abandon nuclear energy entirely, despite having championed it for decades. It was her biggest political U-turn in her now 12 years in office.
Such preparations and protective measures may appear strange to Americans. Public nuclear shelters are practically nonexistent in the United States, although there have been recent reports of an increase in demand.
Until recently, few Swedes knew the location of the closest nuclear shelter in their neighborhood. (The government now offers an online map.) Sweden stopped expanding its shelter network almost two decades ago, when nonproliferation supporters appeared to be on the winning side of history. Then came Iran’s nuclear program, the Fukushima accident, Russian military operations, North Korea’s missile tests — and President Trump.
Whereas confidence among Europeans that President Barack Obama would “do the right thing regarding world affairs” ranged between 70 and 90 percent in a number of surveyed nations during his term, those numbers plummeted after Trump’s inauguration and have only gone down since. Only 7 percent in Spain and 11 percent in Germany now say they have confidence in Trump. Top officials in Germany have also directly contradicted Trump’s North Korea policies, and have voiced concerns that the White House may overreact to nuclear provocations and escalate the war rhetoric being exchanged with North Korea.
Europeans are similarly worried that decades-long nonproliferation efforts could be dismantled virtually overnight, leading to a new arms race. In 2009, the Obama administration negotiated a treaty with Russia in which both countries agreed to cap the number of deployed warheads. Trump reportedly called the agreement a bad deal in his first phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this year, although administration officials have since backtracked.
Sweden’s new shelter locations indicate that at least some of the concerns are connected to Russia. One of the regions where most new shelters are expected to be constructed in the coming years is the island of Gotland, where military defenses were recently expanded with the declared aim of stopping a possible Russian invasion.
Asia Times 30th Oct 2017, Shaun Burnie: The global nuclear industry developed over the past fifty
years dependent upon vast quantities of steel components supplied by a relatively small number of specialized manufacturers. One of them is Kobe Steel Ltd.
The steelmaker, a pillar of corporate Japan, is embroiled in the early days of disclosure of falsification of steel manufacturing data that extends to products used in planes and trains, to motor vehicles and spacecraft.
And nuclear power plants. Kobe Steel and its broad collection of subsidiaries have supplied products to the nuclear industry both in Japan and around the world since the 1960’s. It’s a fair bet that every one of the 60 nuclear reactors operated in Japan since 1966 had some component supplied by Kobe Steel. http://www.atimes.com/article/nuclear-tentacles-kobe-steel/
Washington Post 1st Nov 2017, About 20 miles from Armenia’s capital city of Yerevan sits the antiquated
Metsamor nuclear power plant. The plant (located in a town also called
Metsamor) has long been a cause for concern for at least two reasons: It
was built without containment vessels, and it sits in a seismic zone.
In fact, it was closed in 1989 after a devastating earthquake hit nearby. In
2011, National Geographic even suggested that it might be the world’s
most dangerous nuclear plant. According to a 1995 Washington Post article,
the plant was reopened because Armenia was desperate to have energy after
its neighbor, Azerbaijan, imposed an energy blockade. According to the
article, back then, “As many as one-third of Armenia’s 3.6 million
people have left, for months at a time or longer, because winters are
unbearable and factories stand idle.”
The collapse happened at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site in the northeast of the country on October 10, according to Japan’s TV Asahi. The disaster has prompted fears of a massive radioactive leak which could spark a Chernobyl- or Fukushima-style disaster, The Sun reported.
A North Korean official said the collapse happened during the construction of an underground tunnel, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reports.
Some 100 people are said to have been trapped by the initial tunnel collapse, with a further 100 lost in a second collapse during a rescue operation, Asahi reported.
Lee Eugene, a spokeswoman at South Korea’s unification ministry, said: “We are aware of the report but do not know anything about it.”
The accident is believed to have been caused by Kim Joing-un’s sixth nuclear test which weakened the mountain, according to the report. It was reported earlier this year that the mountain under which the base is believed to be hidden was at risk of collapsing and leaking radiation into the region.
Experts said if the peak crumbles, clouds of radioactive dust and gas would blanket the region, the South China Morning Post reported.
The Punggye-ri test site is carved deep into the side of Mount Mantap. Geophysicist Wen Lianxing and his team at the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei, Anhui province, said they were “confident” underground detonations were occurring underneath the mountain.
They posted an analysis of data collected from more than 100 seismic monitoring sites across China.
This has narrowed down the location of Pyongyang’s nuclear tests with a margin of error of just 100m. They’ve all been under the same mountain.
Seismic data showed the underground test triggered an earthquake of magnitude 6.3, around 10 times more powerful than the fifth test a year ago.
Satellite images showed the blast caused numerous landslides around the Punggye-ri test site, according to the Washington-based 38 North monitoring project.
But Chinese nuclear weapons researcher and chair of the China Nuclear Society Wang Naiyan told the Morning Post a collapse could spark a major environmental disaster.
He said: “We call it ‘taking the roof off’. If the mountain collapses and the hole is exposed, it will let out many bad things.
“A 100 kiloton bomb is a relatively large bomb. The North Korean government should stop the tests as they pose a huge threat not only to North Korea but to other countries, especially China.”
Satellite photos taken just a day after the blast reveal new gravel and scree fields shaken loose by the blasts at an elevation of about 2205m.
Analysts said these appeared more numerous and widespread than those caused by previous detonations — which would be in keeping with the increased size of the bomb.
Wang said there are limited mountains in North Korea that are “suitable” to conduct a nuclear test.
He said if the North had simply drilled into the side of the mountain, this increased the risk of “blowing the top off”.
News of the tunnel collapse comes after it emerged Russia and the US have both flown nuclear bombers near the country as tensions grow over Kim’s nuke threats.
Nuclear devices are often tested underground to prevent radioactive material released in the explosion reaching the surface and contaminating the environment.
This method also ensures a degree of secrecy.
A test site is carefully geologically surveyed to ensure suitability — usually in a place well away from population centres.
The nuclear device is placed into a drilled hole or tunnel usually between 200-800m below the surface, and several metres wide.
A lead-lined canister containing monitoring equipment is lowered into the shaft above the chamber.
The hole is then plugged with gravel, sand, gypsum and other fine materials to contain the explosion and fallout underground.
The release of radiation from an underground nuclear explosion — an effect known as “venting” — would give away clues to the technical composition and size of a country’s device.
IT’S known as the birthplace of the atomic bomb. But a letter written to the bomb’s laboratory has us all extremely concerned. Matt Young@MattYoung, IN 2011 something alarming happened at a United States nuclear weapons laboratory that was deliberately kept quiet.
According to The Centre for Public Integrity, a pair of workers with “cavalier attitudes” at the Los Alamos National Laboratory stuffed “so much plutonium into a small space that they came close to triggering an accidental nuclear chain reaction, all to get some photos”.
“Plutonium is the unstable, radioactive, man-made fuel of a nuclear explosion, and it isn’t amenable to showboating,” it said. “When too much is put in one place, it becomes ‘critical’ and begins to fission uncontrollably, spontaneously sparking a nuclear chain reaction, which releases energy and generates a deadly burst of radiation.”
And it gets much, much worse.
Los Alamos National Laboratory in Santa Fe, New Mexico — responsible for the design of nuclear warheads — was a top secret facility during World War II and the birthplace of the atomic bomb.
But it is in a state of chaos — in fact, it has been for years.
A damning letter by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, released this week and seen by news.com.au, said it had found “numerous weaknesses” in the lab’s safety standards dating back to 2014.
It had also failed recent safety tests indicating how it would respond to an emergency including radioactive leaks or earthquakes.
Referred as Project Y after it was established in 1943, the laboratory was one of a series of top secret labs in the United States given codewords to maintain secrecy at the time.
It was known as the “heart” of the nuclear project and was primarily responsible for the Manhattan Project, which developed the first ever nuclear weapons. The scientists within its labs were responsible for the creation of several atomic bombs, including the Fat Man, which was detonated in the Japanese city of Nagasaki in August, 1945.
It is also responsible for the hydrogen bomb.
Since the end of WWII, the lab continued its focus on bomb designs. It is still open today and is one of the largest science and technology institutions in the world with a focus on national security, space exploration and nuclear fusion, among other “non-war” technology.
“Though the world is rapidly changing, this essential responsibility (nuclear) remains the core mission,” it states on its website.
It is also “responsible for the safety, security, and effectiveness of the nuclear explosive packages in the stockpile”.
But over the years, more and more mistakes have begun to leak from its labs, with critical, radioactive material breached, dumped and mishandled.
Last week, the US Department of Energy, which is responsible overseeing the United States’ nuclear arsenal, put out a final request for proposals to manage the site.
British navy sailors on nuclear Trident submarine fired after failing drug tests, ABC News, 29 Oct 17,Britain’s navy has fired nine sailors serving on a nuclear-armed submarine after they tested positive for cocaine, the country’s defence ministry says.
The crew were from HMS Vigilant, one of four Royal Navy submarines which operate the Trident nuclear missile system.
“We do not tolerate drugs misuse by service personnel. Those found to have fallen short of our high standards face being discharged from service,” a Royal Navy spokesman said.
Bomb disposal experts are continuing controlled explosions of chemicals at
the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant. It follows a routine audit of
chemicals stored in a laboratory. The Army’s explosive ordnance disposal
team have been on-site since last weekend dealing with a canisters of
solvents present since 1992.
Sellafield Ltd said there were concerns they
could become hazardous if exposed to oxygen. A spokeswoman said the
solvents are “widely used in industry” but “extreme caution” is being
exercised. The disposal will continue over the weekend with the site
operating as normal with the exception of the laboratory. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-41783748
Operator set to request 20 years extra for Tokai nuclear plant http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201710270036.html, THE ASAHI SHIMBUN, October 27, 2017 Japan Atomic Power Co. is preparing to apply for a 20-year extension to operate the aged Tokai No. 2 nuclear plant beyond its 40-year life span, sources said.
Such an extension would be the first among Japan’s aged boiling-water reactors, which include those at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
Tokai No. 2 nuclear plant’s reactor, which went into service in 1978, is in a heavily populated area not far from Tokyo.
The company deems the 20-year extension of the plant in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, as imperative to securing a stable revenue stream, the sources said.
However, the plan is expected to bring a host of challenges to the operator.
One is how to secure funds so as to cover the costs to improve safety at the old facility required under the more stringent nuclear regulations set after the 2011 Fukushima disaster.
Another is to ease concerns of local governments of the area where nearly 1 million residents could be affected in the event of a serious accident.
The move toward the extension comes as the Nuclear Regulation Authority is set to rule that the plant has met standards set in the new regulations necessary for a restart, the sources said.
The Tokai No. 2 plant, about 120 kilometers from the heart of the capital, houses one unit capable of generating 1.1 gigawatts.
If Japan Atomic Power proceeds with its plan to apply for the extension, it needs to submit the application to the NRA by Nov. 28.
The Tokai No. 2 plant narrowly escaped a catastrophe like the one at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant when it was struck by the magnitude-9.0 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011.
It took Japan Atomic Power three and a half days to shut the reactor down when the disaster knocked out power. One of the three emergency generators installed there became dysfunctional after they were submerged by tsunami.
Some experts said it could have become impossible to keep cooling the reactor if the tsunami had been 70 centimeters higher.
Japan Atomic Power is keen to extend the operation of the Tokai No. 2 nuclear plant as the facility is the only venue that will feasibly bring it revenue. It has no option but to apply for the extended operation,” said an official familiar with the management of the company.
Apart from the Tokai No. 2 nuclear plant, Japan Atomic Power owns three other reactors: one at the Tokai nuclear plant, also in Tokai, and two at the Tsuruga nuclear plant in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture.
The one at the Tokai nuclear plant and one unit at the Tsuruga nuclear plant are on their way to being decommissioned.
Prospects for whether the company can win approval for a restart of the remaining reactor at the Tsuruga nuclear plant are bleak, as it has been reported that the facility was likely built on an active seismic fault.
If the company pulled the plug on the Tokai No. 2 nuclear plant, it would mean that it would be left with no revenue sources.
That expected management crisis could likely affect the bottom line of utilities such Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, which has a stake in Japan Atomic Power.
The Tokai No. 2 nuclear plant supplies power to TEPCO and Tohoku Electric Power Co., and although extending its operation would keep those revenue sources open, it would also come with a huge price tag.
The company said Oct. 26 that the estimated costs of the safeguarding measures for a restart of the plant will balloon to about 180 billion yen ($1.58 billion), more than double the 78 billion yen projected initially.
The total sum is expected to further increase if Japan Atomic Power chooses to operate the plant beyond the 40-year limit, according to the sources.
The plant’s extended operation could prove to be a big headache for local governments nearby.
Municipalities within a 30-kilometer radius are required to draw up evacuation plans to prepare for a contingency in the post-Fukushima crisis years.
Hammering out workable plans for close to 1 million residents in the area is expected to be difficult, the sources said.
Even the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, which oversees the nuclear industry, is cautious about the extension.
“The consequences would be too enormous if an accident did occur,” said a ministry official.
(This story was written by Tsuneo Sasai and Yusuke Ogawa.)
Kobe Steel sent products with tampered data to nuclear companies, Cars, trains, planes … and nuclear facilities. REUTERS, Oct 27th 2017 TOKYO— Kobe Steel supplied parts with false specifications for nuclear equipment owned by Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd, JNFL said on Friday, adding that the products were not used.
The parts were destined for use in centrifuges to enrich uranium, a JNFL spokesman said by phone. Citing security reasons, he declined to provide further details.
Kobe Steel has not told JNFL whether there are any safety issues with the parts, the spokesman said.
A Kobe Steel spokesman confirmed the firm fabricated data about specialized coatings used on the parts and had not identified any safety issues.
JNFL is the second company in the nuclear power industry to receive components affected by the steelmaker’s data tampering.
Tokyo Electric Power Co said this month it had taken delivery of pipes from Kobe Steel that were not checked properly.
Japan’s atomic regulator has asked nuclear operators to check whether they are using Kobe Steel products at nuclear plants, it said on Wednesday, adding it had received no reports that Kobe Steel’s data tampering scandal had affected safety.
No deadline has been given for nuclear operators to report back to the Nuclear Regulation Authority, a spokesman said by phone on Friday.
The unfolding data tampering scandal has spread from Kobe Steel’s copper and aluminum business to most areas of the company and sent companies at the end of complex supply chains across the world scrambling to check whether the safety or performance of their products has been compromised.
While no safety issues have been identified, Japan’s third-largest steelmaker is likely to face claims for replacement parts and other costs.
Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd would ask Kobe Steel to cover any costs for replacement of parts or other expenses related to the data tampering, President Yoshinori Kanehana told reporters on Friday at an earnings briefing…….
Kobe Steel said on Thursday 88 out of 525 affected customers had yet to confirm its products were safe in the light of widespread tampering of specifications, but that it had not received any requests for recalls.
