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New Federal investigation into error in shipment of nuclear materials from Los Alamos National Laboratory

‘Absolutely unacceptable’ error in shipment of nuclear materials prompts probe, By Rebecca Moss | The New Mexican, Jun 24, 2017 

Los Alamos National Laboratory is facing a new federal investigation for shipping nuclear materials out of state by aircraft, in violation of federal law, according to the National Nuclear Security Administration, which called the error “absolutely unacceptable.”

The agency released a statement Friday, saying the lab had mislabeled shipments of “special nuclear materials” — a term used for radioactive, weapons-grade plutonium and uranium — that were headed last week to the Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.

The shipments were packaged for ground cargo transportation, but instead were shipped by air, which is “a mode of transportation not authorized by Federal regulations,” according to the statement.

 Matt Nerzig, a spokesman for the Los Alamos National Laboratory, referred questions to the National Nuclear Security Administration.

The incident follows similar violations at the lab this spring involving mislabeled chemicals and hazardous waste, including nuclear materials. It also comes as the lab has faced a fresh wave of scrutiny from federal officials over whether it is capable of handling increasing quantities of plutonium as the nation ramps up its production of plutonium pits — the grapefruit-sized cores that trigger nuclear bombs — over the next 15 years at a Los Alamos facility.

The protocols for shipping sensitive nuclear materials by air are significantly different than those for ground shipments. More sensitive climate and pressure controls must be in place to transport plutonium by air, and special external controls are required to guard against an accident during flight or a radiation release, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The National Nuclear Security Administration said the incident didn’t lead to any loss of radioactive materials or contamination.

The agency said it will investigate “to determine the root cause of this incident, as well as procedures to avoid future incidents of this type,” and said it intends to hold the responsible parties accountable under the full terms of the lab’s management contract, currently held by Los Alamos National Security LLC, a consortium led by the University of California, Bechtel and other corporations.

The contract is currently up for bid, a decision made by the federal government following a series of management and safety issues. The lab is expected to be under new management in 2018.

But significant safety lapses continue.

In April, work was paused at the lab’s plutonium facility after a worker handled an unlabeled waste container that ignited, causing a small fire that gave one worker second-degree burns. In May, the lab failed to accurately document the pH levels of liquid hazardous waste shipped in drums to Colorado — the second time such an incident had occurred in six months. The waste was far more acidic than documented on its labels, which means it was likely more volatile. Those incidents triggered reviews of workplace and emergency protocols.

The lab also informed the New Mexico Environment Department this spring that it had been storing two drums containing nitrate salts in a special containment area for months, believing they were part of a volatile waste stream, only to learn the canisters were not dangerous.

These drums highlight one of the most notorious mispackaging mistakes in the lab’s recent history. A nitrate salt drum containing items laced with radioactive waste was packed with the wrong type of absorbent kitty litter at Los Alamos, causing a chemical reaction that led the drum to burst in the salt caverns of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad in February 2014.

The event led to a low-level radiological release and shut down the underground nuclear waste facility for nearly three years, at a cost of over $1 billion.

At a hearing in Santa Fe earlier this month, federal officials raised questions about how the lab would deal with “unprecedented” levels of plutonium, in order to build as many as 80 pits per year by 2030 as part of the nation’s goals of modernizing its nuclear weapons stockpile.

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, which advises the Department of Energy and the president, asked federal and lab officials about a lack of foresight as the program moves forward, as well as aging infrastructure at the lab. Questions also were raised about the lab consistently failing to meet expectations in its nuclear criticality safety program — which is meant to ensure serious nuclear accidents don’t occur and potentially cause a widespread release of radiation…….http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/absolutely-unacceptable-error-in-shipment-of-nuclear-materials-prompts-probe/article_5c845fee-4b05-51e8-9f19-efa63afee7a9.html

June 26, 2017 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Call for examination, “autopsy” on pressure vessel of dead Crystal River nuclear reactor

   Permanently closed U.S. nuclear reactor should be “autopsied” Paul Gunter, Beyond Nuclear, 25 June 17

Permanently closed U.S. nuclear reactor should be “autopsied” Examination could identify potential safety flaws in operating reactors with parts from same controversial French forge

TAKOMA PARK, MD, June 21, 2017 –

  • A permanently closed nuclear reactor in Florida that, documents show, likely has a manufactured weakness in a vital safety component produced by a controversial French forge that also supplied components to 17 still operating U.S. reactors, should be “autopsied,” says Beyond Nuclear, a leading national anti-nuclear watchdog group.
  • The Crystal River Unit 3 reactor in Red Level, Florida, was permanently closed in 2013 and is in the decommissioning process. Research by Beyond Nuclear staff found that the Florida reactor likely shares an at-risk safety-related component manufactured at the French Le Creusot forge that is currently shut down and under international investigation for the loss of quality control of its manufacturing process and falsification of quality assurance documentation. The Crystal River reactor pressure vessel head was supplied by a factory at Chalon-Saint Marcel that assembles pieces forged at Le Creusot, both Areva-owned factories.

“The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission should seize upon this opportunity and ‘autopsy’ Crystal River 3,” said Paul Gunter, Director of the Reactor Oversight Project at Beyond Nuclear. “A close examination of Crystal River could provide critical safety data to inform the decision-making on whether the seventeen U.S. reactors still operating with at-risk Le Creusot parts should also be materially tested,” Gunter said.

The Le Creusot factory forges large ingots into safety-related components such as reactor pressure vessels, pressure vessel lids and steam generators.

The French industrial facility was discovered to be operating with lax quality control procedures that allowed the introduction of an excessive amount of carbon contamination into its manufacturing process, a problem technically known as “carbon segregation.”

The excess carbon weakens the component’s “fracture toughness” in the face of the reactor’s extreme pressure and temperature. Failure of a weakened component during operation would initiate the loss of cooling to the reactor and a serious nuclear accident.

At-risk safety components potentially containing these flaws, and manufactured at the Creusot Forge, have been delivered to reactors in France, other countries and the United States over a period of decades.

The NRC published Areva’s list in January 2017 identifying the 17 operational U.S. reactors with the at-risk components from the French forge. However, the federal agency did not disclose that Crystal River also installed a Le Creusot-manufactured replacement pressure vessel head during the October 2003 refueling outage and then operated the unit for nearly a decade before permanently closing.

“This information provides the incentive to do material testing on a component here in the U.S. from the suspect forge,” Gunter added. “It is only common sense, when presented in effect with the corpse, that the NRC should autopsy Crystal River before the body is buried,” he continued. ”This is a chance to better understand scientifically what the potential risks are at operating reactors with Le Creusot parts rather than relying on computer modeling, simulation or speculation,” Gunter said. “

For the sake of science and public safety, it is fortuitous that Crystal River, which operated for nearly a decade with a possible Le Creusot replacement component, is now permanently shut down and can be materially examined,” Gunter concluded.

The carbon segregation problem was first discovered at the Areva-designed EPR reactor still under construction, and now well over budget and behind schedule, at the Flamanville Unit 3 in Normandy, France. French safety authorities are investigating and are expected to make a decision in September on whether to continue with the troubled Flamanville reactor which experts say does not meet the fracture resistance standards.

Beyond Nuclear petitioned the NRC on January 24, 2017 to suspend operations at the 17 affected U.S. reactors pending thorough inspections and material testing for the carbon contamination of the at-risk components and to open an investigation into the potential falsification of Le Creusot quality assurance documentation. To date, the NRC has accepted the petition in part for further review and in part referred the potential falsification of documents to the federal agency’s allegations unit.

Only one affected nuclear plant, Dominion Energy’s Millstone 2 in Connecticut, has conducted a visual inspection on a Creusot Forge component at the behest of the state energy authority, but did not observe any defects or cracking.

However, a French newspaper revealed last week that metal specimens harvested from the Flamanville Unit 3 reactor pressure vessel, and subjected to shock resilience testing, fell dramatically below regulatory performance standards. A newly surfaced memo (jn French) from a leading safety physicist at the prestigious Institute of Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety said that, if subjected to violent pressure-thermal shock, the EPR reactor pressure vessel could shatter. Such a rupture could lead to a major loss of coolant accident and subsequently a nuclear meltdown.

June 26, 2017 Posted by | Reference, safety, USA | Leave a comment

Students and researchers at research reactors should have background checks, warns Japan’s nuclear regulator

NRA urging background checks on students using Japan’s research reactors, Japan Times, 23 June 17 KYODO Japan’s nuclear regulator has urged universities to conduct background checks on students and researchers working at research reactors, as a step to ensure the proper handling of nuclear materials and prevent terrorism, a source said Thursday.

The check items include mental disorder and criminal records and those who have access to strictly controlled nuclear material storage areas at research reactors owned by universities will be subject to the new rule.

But the decision will likely raise concerns about privacy and human rights, legal experts say. University officials are concerned that the inquiries could also discourage students from becoming researchers in the nuclear industry.

The Nuclear Regulation Authority’s request comes after the International Atomic Energy Agency recommended the Japanese government conduct background checks on workers at nuclear power plants and those involved in decommissioning work at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, crippled by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

Based on the recommendation, the nuclear safety watchdog decided last year to conduct background checks on workers at nuclear plants. Plant operators plan to start the checks as early as this fall.

A total of 17 check items also include students’ and researchers’ names, nationalities, employment history and addiction to alcohol, the source said……..http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/06/23/national/nra-urging-background-checks-students-using-japans-research-reactors/#.WU14LpKGPGg

June 24, 2017 Posted by | Japan, safety | Leave a comment

Defects in pressure vessel of Flamanville nuclear reactor could stall EPR’s global nuclear industry

France Info 22nd June 2017 [Machine Translation] Defects on the pressure vessel of the EPR of Flamanville: “EDF and Areva were not transparent,” denounces Greenpeace. Greenpeace believes that EDF and Areva have not sufficiently communicated on the defects of the pressure vessel of the EPR of Flamanville.

“The origin of the anomalies and the history of the design” have not been made\ public, denounces the association in particular. The NGO is based on a report to which it has had access and which is due to be published onThursday by the High Committee for Transparency and Information on Nuclear Safety (HCTISN) on anomalies in the Flamanville EPR tank ( Handle). The HCTISN is an expert committee on nuclear safety. It decided in June 2015 totake the matter of the anomalies on the tank of the EPR of Flamanville.

According to Greenpeace, the report states that EDF and Areva “did not explain to the public the origin of the anomalies and the history of the design and manufacture of the EPR reactor vessel.” The report also notes that “no alternative technical scenario has been made public, in the event of the rejection of the tank and its lid by the Nuclear Safety Agency
(ASN)”.

“Since the beginning of the case, EDF and Areva have put the ASN before the fait accompli: they refuse to communicate a plan B to force it to accept that the EPR starts with pieces veined,” explains Yannick Rousselet, in charge of Campaign for Greenpeace France. “The rejection of the tank by the ASN would trigger a ‘domino effect’ by questioning the
feasibility of all EPR projects sold by EDF and AREVA in the UK, China and inland, says Yannick Rousselet. Industrialists put an intolerable pressure on the ASN, making the future of the nuclear sector on its shoulders.” http://www.francetvinfo.fr/sante/environnement-et-sante/defauts-sur-la-cuve-de-lepr-de-flamanville-edf-et-areva-nont-pas-ete-transparents-denonce-greenpeace_2248675.html

June 24, 2017 Posted by | France, safety | Leave a comment

Los Alamos National Laboratory safety problems endanger U.S. arsenal

Report says LANL safety problems endanger U.S. arsenal https://www.abqjournal.com/1021327/reports-slam-lanl-for-criticality-violations.html, By Associated Press, June 21st, 2017 SANTA FE, N.M. — A new report by the Center for Public Integrity highlights a history of safety and reliability problems involving plutonium work at Los Alamos National Laboratory – particularly in the area of “criticality,” the prevention of spontaneous nuclear chain reactions – as the lab is under orders to ramp up production of the plutonium “pits” that serve as triggers for nuclear bombs.

The CPI, a nonprofit investigative news group, reported that Los Alamos last year violated nuclear industry rules for guarding against criticality accidents three times more often than the U.S. Energy Department’s 23 other nuclear installations combined.

CPI’s article, which has gained national attention this week, highlights a previously unreported 2011 incident in which LANL technicians placed eight rods of plutonium side by side for a photograph to celebrate the crafting of the rods. But placing the rods so close together could have led to a criticality accident and violates “Physics 101 for nuclear scientists,” the report says.

Between 2005 and 2016, the lab’s lapses in criticality safety have been criticized in more than 40 reports by government oversight agencies, teams of nuclear safety experts and the lab’s own staff, the CPI found……

LANL is currently the only place in the country that plutonium pits can be made, and new pits are part of a hugely expensive plan to improve the nation’s nuclear weapons in coming years.

Los Alamos is under orders to make as many as 80 pits a year by 2027. The United States hasn’t made any new ones since 2011, when LANL completed the last of 29 plutonium cores for Navy submarine missiles. The most ever made at Los Alamos in a year is 11.

As the Journal first reported last week, an NNSA official said at a recent public hearing in Santa Fe that moving plutonium work away from LANL to some other site within the nation’s nuclear weapons complex is among the options now under consideration in an ongoing study.

June 23, 2017 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Los Alamos National Laboratory’s poor handling of plutonium rods – near disaster

A near-disaster at a federal nuclear weapons laboratory takes a hidden toll on America’s arsenal, Repeated safety lapses hobble Los Alamos National Laboratory’s work on the cores of U.S. nuclear warheads, Center For Public Integrity , by Patrick Malone, June 19, 2017

Key findings
  • Technicians at Los Alamos National Laboratory placed rods of plutonium so closely together on a table in 2011 that they nearly caused a runaway nuclear chain reaction, which would likely have killed all those nearby and spread cancer-causing plutonium particles.
  • The accident led to an exodus of key engineers from Los Alamos who had warned the lab to take better precautions, and this led in turn to a nearly four-year shutdown of key plutonium operations at Los Alamos.
  • A similar incident in Japan in 1999 provoked a burst of radiation that caused two agonizing deaths, a mass evacuation and an order that 310,000 seek shelter. Three workers have died from such radiation bursts at Los Alamos in the past.
  • Los Alamos’s handling of plutonium — a key component of all U.S. nuclear weapons — has been criticized in more than 40 official government reports stretching over a decade, but the lab has repeatedly struggled to meet federal safety requirements.
  • Officials in Washington proposed to fine the lab more than a half-million dollars for its record of poor nuclear safety dating back a decade, but in the end chose not to do so, exemplifying what critics say is a climate of impunity for nuclear weapons contractors.
by Patrick Malone Technicians at the government’s Los Alamos National Laboratory settled on what seemed like a surefire way to win praise from their bosses in August 2011: In a hi-tech testing and manufacturing building pivotal to sustaining America’s nuclear arsenal, they gathered eight rods painstakingly crafted out of plutonium, and positioned them side-by-side on a table to photograph how nice they looked.

Eight rods of plutonium within inches — had a few more rods been placed nearby it would have triggered a disaster. Los Alamos National Laboratory/U.S. Department of Energy

At many jobs, this would be innocent bragging. But plutonium is the unstable, radioactive, man-made fuel of a nuclear explosion, and it isn’t amenable to showboating. 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.

The resulting blue glow — known as Cherenkov radiation — has accidentally and abruptly flashed at least 60 times since the dawn of the nuclear age, signaling an instantaneous nuclear charge and causing a total of 21 agonizing deaths. So keeping bits of plutonium far apart is one of the bedrock rules that those working on the nuclear arsenal are supposed to follow to prevent workplace accidents. It’s Physics 101 for nuclear scientists, but has sometimes been ignored at Los Alamos……

Workplace safety, many of the reports say, has frequently taken a back seat to profit-seeking at the Los Alamos, New Mexico, lab — which is run by a group of three private firms and the University of California — as managers there chase lucrative government bonuses tied to accomplishing specific goals for producing and recycling the plutonium parts of nuclear weapons.

And these safety challenges aren’t confined to Los Alamos. The Center’s probe revealed a frightening series of glaring worker safety risks, previously unpublicized accidents, and dangerously lax management practices. The investigation further revealed that the penalties imposed by the government on the private firms that make America’s nuclear weapons were typically just pinpricks, and that instead the firms annually were awarded large profits in the same years that major safety lapses occurred. Some were awarded new contracts despite repeated, avoidable accidents, including some that exposed workers to radiation….

George Anastas, a past president of the Health Physics Society who analyzed dozens of internal government reports about criticality problems at Los Alamos for the Center, said he wonders if “the work at Los Alamos [can] be done somewhere else? Because it appears the safety culture, the safety leadership, has gone to hell in a handbasket.”

Anastas said the reports, spanning more than a decade, describe “a series of accidents waiting to happen.” The lab, he said, is “dodging so many bullets that it’s scary as hell.”https://apps.publicintegrity.org/nuclear-negligence/near-disaster/

June 21, 2017 Posted by | Reference, safety, USA | Leave a comment

Mystery drone flew over French nuclear power plant

Le Parisien  19th June 2017 A drone flew over a nuclear power plant located in the commune of Avoine, a
few kilometers from Chinon, Sunday evening in the early evening. An
investigation is underway. The Chinon nuclear power plant was overflown
by a drone on Sunday night. At around 8:20 pm, a small flying object was
observed by a station employee. Thirty minutes later, the specialized
gendarmes go to the scene, view the video surveillance images and confirm
the employee’s testimony. A research device was launched by the soldier. No
results so far. A complaint must be filed by the plant manager. The inquiry
is conducted by the Chinon Research Brigade.   http://www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/indre-et-loire-un-drone-survole-la-centrale-nucleaire-de-chinon-19-06-2017-7066137.php

June 21, 2017 Posted by | France, incidents | Leave a comment

Fire in roof of French nuclear reactor

Reuters 19th June 2017, A fire that broke out on the roof of a nuclear reactor at the Bugey plant
in central-eastern France has been extinguished, operator EDF said on
Monday, citing fire brigade officials. The fire began at the plant’s
nuclear reactor number 5, some 35 kilometers from the city of Lyon, nuclear
regulator ASN said earlier in a statement. EDF said in a separate statement
there were no injuries or fatalities, while safety body IRSN said on
Twitter that sensors had not picked up any increase in radiation.  http://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-power-nuclearpower-idUSKBN19A2AH

June 21, 2017 Posted by | France, incidents | Leave a comment

Nuclear plant was kept operating although backup equipment had exploded

Palo Verde nuclear plant still ran after backup equipment exploded, Ryan Randazzo , The Republic | azcentral.com   June 13, 2017 For 57 days last year and early this year, one of the nuclear reactors at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station west of Phoenix kept running after an explosion knocked a backup generator out of service.

Experts at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission disagreed strongly over whether the plant should have been allowed to keep running during the repairs, according to documents leaked to the Union of Concerned Scientists, a watchdog group.

The NRC usually allows a nuclear plant 10 days to make such repairs. In this case, the agency granted the plant’s operator, Arizona Public Service Co., two extensions. NRC officials said the decision came after a careful review of the risks.

But not everyone at the agency agreed with the decision. NRC employees filed three dissents that were given to The Arizona Republic by the scientist watchdog group. The NRC subsequently released one of the documents, a petition asking for the time extensions to be revoked.

“The NRC’s action is inconsistent with the NRC mission, NRC vision, NRC safety objectives, NRC regulatory effectiveness strategies, NRC openness strategies and the principles of good regulation,” said Roy Mathew, a longtime agency employee, in his Jan. 23 petition to his employer……

Among Mathew’s concerns were that if the nuclear plant lost power from the grid and had a similar failure in its other diesel generator, it would not have been able to cool nuclear fuel in a timely manner. If the fuel can’t be cooled, it can lead to radiation releases……

David Lochbaum, director of the nuclear safety project at the Union of Concerned Scientists, questioned whether the FLEX equipment could have restored power soon enough to prevent the fuel from overheating……. http://www.azcentral.com/story/money/business/energy/2017/06/13/palo-verde-nuclear-plant-reactor-still-ran-after-backup-generator-exploded/385951001/

June 21, 2017 Posted by | incidents, USA | Leave a comment

More nuclear mishaps at Hanford are to be expected

Official says more Hanford nuke mishaps likely, By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS Associated Press,  RICHLAND, Wash. 18 June 17,  — Future accidental radiation releases at the largest U.S. site of waste from nuclear weapons production are likely following back-to-back emergency evacuations of workers in May and June because aging infrastructure is breaking down, the top Energy Department official at the site told The Associated Press.

Adding to the likelihood of more nuclear mishaps at the sprawling Hanford Nuclear Reservation is inadequate government funding to quickly clean up the millions of gallons of toxic nuclear waste at the site, said Doug Shoop, who runs the department’s operations office at Hanford.

Hanford has an annual budget of $2.3 billion for cleanup but Shoop said it will cost at least $100 billion to clean up the highly toxic radioactive and chemical wastes on the 580-square mile (1,502 square kilometer) site which produced up to 70 percent of the plutonium for the U.S. nuclear arsenal since it was established in World War II.

“The infrastructure is not going to last long enough for the cleanup,” Shoop said in an interview this week. “It will be another 50 years before it is all demolished.”

Shoop made the comments after hundreds of Hanford workers were evacuated May 9 when the roof of a 1950s rail tunnel storing a lethal mix of waste from plutonium production collapsed. Tests show no radiation was released.

Then, on June 8, demolition work at a 1940s plutonium plant sent 350 workers seeking cover inside. Radiation was emitted but not deemed at a level harmful to people.

More money would lead to a faster cleanup, Shoop said. But President Donald Trump’s proposed budget for next year includes a $120 million cut for Hanford.

The official deadline for cleaning up Hanford is 2060, but Shoop said so much infrastructure at the site is deteriorating that “some facilities are not going to withstand that time.”

The site’s cleanup began in 1989 and critics have accused regulators of allowing the U.S. government to delay cleanup deadlines by decades, putting lives and the environment at risk.

“Every year that we don’t have an earthquake … has been just luck,” said Gerry Pollet, a Washington state legislator who represents a liberal Seattle district, about 200 miles (320 kilometers) from Hanford.

Shoop said about half of the site is free of pollution. And parts of Hanford make up the new Manhattan Project National Historical Park, where visitors can learn about the development of the atomic bomb.

But Hanford’s most dangerous contaminated waste has not been cleaned up, and the two recent evacuation incidents illustrated problems that could become more frequent in the future……..http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_HANFORD_NUCLEAR_WASTE_WAOL-?SITE=WHIZ&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

 

June 19, 2017 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Flamanville nuclear reactor: EPR pressure vessel does not comply with safety regulations

Capital 15th June 2017, [Machine Translation] Documents from the Institute of Radiation Protection
and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) show that the EPR pressure vessel does not pass a strength test. It would therefore not be in compliance with the regulations, contrary to what is being said.

Areva and EDF play a major part of their economic future this month. First session today: As the Echos recall, the High Committee for Transparency and Information on Nuclear Safety meets to discuss the safety of the EPR nuclear reactor vessel built by Areva on behalf of a group of companies, EDF in Flamanville.

At the end of June, it will be up to the Permanent Expert Group on Nuclear Pressure Equipment (GPESPN) to assess its working. It will examine the findings of another body: the Institute of Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN), the
technical expert of the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN).

A technical note published by IRSN last April, but until now completely unnoticed, shows that the pressure vessel does not comply with the regulation of nuclear equipment under pressure. And poses a major safety problem. Hidden in the
middle of a mass of documents put online, it is dated September 2015 and signed by Gérard Gary, a nuclear physicist, research director emeritus ex-CNRS attached to the laboratory of solid mechanics of the Ecole
http://www.capital.fr/entreprises-marches/epr-de-flamanville-cette-note-d-expert-qui-pointe-le-danger-de-la-cuve-1232494

June 19, 2017 Posted by | France, safety | Leave a comment

Review of safety of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant will mean along delay in restart

Reuters 14th June 2017, Tokyo Electric Power Co will work with local government to review the
safety of its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant, which could mean a later
restart date than planned originally, the company’s incoming CEO said.

The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, the world’s biggest nuclear power plant, has been
completely offline since 2012 while its safety procedures are reviewed.

Ryuichi Yoneyama, the governor of Niigata prefecture in north west Japan
where the plant is located, has said he will not discuss the restart until
the review is completed. This includes a review of the plant’s safety,
evacuation plans, plus the impact on health of the radiation released from
Fukushima, which could take until 2020 at the earliest.  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-tepco-idUSKBN1952HU

June 16, 2017 Posted by | Japan, safety | Leave a comment

Concern in UK over cuts to police who guard nuclear weapons

Cuts to police who guard nuclear weapons could be ‘catastrophic’ http://news.sky.com/story/cuts-to-police-who-guard-nuclear-weapons-could-be-catastrophic-10916066 It is claimed national security could be compromised as fewer firearms officers would be available for an emergency. Further cuts planned for the police force which guards the UK’s nuclear arsenal could be “catastrophic”, according to a leading police officer.

The Ministry of Defence Police (MDP) guards the country’s Trident nuclear deterrent, among other responsibilities.

The force is already understaffed with about 2,300 officers, according to the Defence Police Federation (DPF).

DPF chairman Eamon Keating will use a speech later to warn that plans to “reset” its strength to below that level will “harm national security”.

The MDP’s officers are all trained to use firearms and Mr Keating says cutting numbers means fewer available to help in a national emergency as part of Operation Temperer.

Temperer kicked in after the Manchester terror attack, when the threat risk was deemed critical. In that case, the military were deployed to help police.

“After a decade of budget and personnel cuts, it beggars belief the MoD would demand a further £12.5m from the police force entrusted with guarding Trident,” Mr Keating will tell the DPF’s annual conference.

“This ‘reset’ is an ill-considered decision that prioritises cost over security, and makes no sense given the financial value of the assets we protect,” Mr Keating will say.

Just a year ago the MDP had 2,600 officers – that was already a third down on previous levels after budget cuts in 2010.

The federation will also demand more detail on Conservative manifesto plans for an “Infrastructure Policing Force” by merging the MDP, the Civil Nuclear Constabulary and British Transport Police.

Mr Keating will add: “The Government must urgently rethink this catastrophic decision that further undermines police officers hamstrung by fitness tests inappropriate to the job they do, and a pension age different to the Home Office and Armed Forces.”

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: “We are confident that the strength of our force keeps our people, sites and equipment safe.

“It also enables us to play our part in protecting the public, as we did when we supported the armed police response to the tragic events in Manchester last month.”

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

Nuclear Leaks: The Back Story the NRC Doesn’t Want You to Know about Palo Verde

UCS, DAVE LOCHBAUM, DIRECTOR, NUCLEAR SAFETY PROJECT | JUNE 14, 2017, As described in a recent All Things Nuclear commentary, one of two emergency diesel generators (EDGs) for the Unit 3 reactor at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generation Station in Arizona was severely damaged during a test run on December 15, 2016. The operating license issued by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) allowed the reactor to continue running for up to 10 days with one EDG out of service. Because the extensive damage required far longer than 10 days to repair, the owner asked the NRC for permission to continue operating Unit 3 for up to 62 days with only one EDG available. The NRC approved that request……..http://allthingsnuclear.org/dlochbaum/back-story-on-palo-verde

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

Chernobyl nuclear station – smoke detected at crippled Unit 3

Smoke detected at crippled Chernobyl power plant – Ukraine nuclear watchdog, Rt.com  13 Jun, 2017 Ukraine’s nuclear regulatory body reported smoke at one of the rooms at Unit 3 in Chernobyl, adding that it was briefly “liquidated” by the state emergency personnel and the radiological situation at the site has not changed following the incident.
“At 15:57 pm we’ve received information from Chernobyl nuclear power plant about smoke in room 509 of Power Unit Three. At 16:00 the smoke was liquidated by the State Emergency Service staff,” a statement issued by the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine reads.

“The radiological situation in the third power unit and the station’s territory has not changed,” it added.

No further details were immediately available……..https://www.rt.com/news/392114-smoke-chernobyl-nuclear-plant/

June 14, 2017 Posted by | incidents, Ukraine | Leave a comment

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