‘400 irregularities’ in nuclear power plant parts – admits France’s nuclear firm AREVA
France’s nuclear giant Areva admits to ‘400 irregularities’ in nuclear power plant parts, with 50 still in operation, Telegraph, UK, Henry Samuel, Paris 3 MAY 2016
France’s ailing nuclear giant, Areva, faced a major scandal on Tuesday after the country’s nuclear watchdog confirmed there have been “irregularities” in 400 parts produced in its reactors since 1965, and that “around 50 are currently in service in France’s nuclear power plant fleet”.
France’s independent Nuclear Safety Authority, ASN, said the “irregularities” were listed in an audit it had ordered from Areva after it detected a “very serious anomaly” in a reactor vessel in the country’s Flamanville EPR nuclear plant, the same model Britain plans to use for two new plants at Hinkley Point.
The fault in the vessel destined to house the plant’s nuclear fuel and confine its radioactivity was detected last year.
“These irregularities consist in incoherencies, modifications or omissions in manufacturing dossiers,” ASN said in a statement.
The revelation came hours after Areva’s director general admitted that 400 documents assessing whether parts of nuclear plants met required standards may have been “falsified”.
The doubts over documents supposed to rubber-stamp the quality of parts destined for new-generation nuclear power reactors will be a cause for serious concern for the British government as it is poised to finalise a controversial, multi-billion pound contract to build reactors at Hinkley Point designed by Areva.
Areva launched an audit late 2015 into anomalies at the Le Creusot Forge site, which specialises in highly complex moulded parts for new-generation nuclear reactors. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/03/frances-nuclear-giant-areva-admits-to-400-irregularities-in-nucl/
No to Nuclear Energy in Nigeria
Nigeria: Say No to Nuclear Energy in Nigeria AllAfrica, 1 May 16“…..Nigeria’s history of disaster management or maintenance culture in the past and the present has much to be desired of, so how can it want to project into a future of nuclear energy with all the attendant risk.
It does not take an expert in Nuclear energy to be able to state basic obvious facts that are glaring. Any major mishap involving radiation leaks from nuclear energy can lead to a disaster of catastrophic proportion that could lead to thousands of death, long term health problems, spikes in cancer incidents and birth defects. The devastation of a nuclear disaster in a highly populated country like Nigeria would send shock waves around the world. A breach in the nuclear containers of a nuclear reactor or a nuclear meltdown would release nuclear materials into the atmosphere and ground and could literally obliterate parts of the country and turn them into waste lands and “ghost lands”.
No matter how prepared even the extremely prepared and efficient countries are, in a case of a nuclear disaster they can only try to mitigate the damage, so what chance would Nigeria have if a nuclear melt down were to occur in the country. Even if the argument is that the likelihood of a nuclear disaster is minuscule, should Nigeria of today, the way it is, subject its people to that risk? The risk out weighs the benefit.
Was it not in Koko, Delta State, that someone shipped in containers of nuclear waste?
Countries try to get rid of their radio-active waste, yet a Nigerian shipped it into his country and dumped it amongst his people. The community, struggling under their daily routine for survival did not sense the eminent danger and instead opened up the containers, used them to collect water and for other domestic use. By the time the government brought it to public knowledge, the people in the affected area of Koko had been exposed to radiation. When scientist came with Geiger counters to measure the amount of radiation in the area and also on the people, a lot of them did not understand what was going on and had little understanding of the dangers of nuclear radiation. Have the people of Koko been followed? Have longitudinal studies been done on their health status? Were children born in that area since the episode monitored? Is the soil in that area still being tested regularly or have the people of Koko been forgotten? These are but a few of the questions…….
Nigeria is blessed with sunshine; it can invest in solar energy. It has vast areas of empty flat land so it can invest in wind energy by using turbines……..http://allafrica.com/stories/201605010001.html
Netherlands anxious about Belgian nuclear reactors: now handing out more anti-radiation pills
The Dutch government has ordered 15m iodine pills to protect people living near nuclear plants in case of an accident, as concerns rise over ageing reactors across the border in Belgium.
The iodine pills, which help reduce radiation build-up in the thyroid, would be given first to children under 18 and pregnant women living within a 100-kilometre (62-mile) radius of a plant, health ministry spokeswoman Edith Schippers said.
Until now, the tablets have been available within 20km of a plant, to everyone aged 40 and under.
The Netherlands has only one nuclear power plant – at Borssele in the southwest – but the expansion will provide pills for people living in border areas near Germany’s Emsland plant and two Belgian facilities, Doel and Tihange……..http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/30/netherlands-to-hand-out-iodine-pills-in-case-of-nuclear-accident
New kinds of nuclear dangers, with China’s plan for floating reactors
Fukushima at sea? China wants a fleet of floating nuclear power plants, CNN, By Tony Roulstone, 29 Apr 16
- China has ambitious plans to build a fleet of 20 floating nuclear reactors
- Russia is already building a floating nuclear power plant
- But storms, waves, maintenance all pose safety concerns<
CNN)China is planning to build nuclear reactors that will take to the sea to provide power in remote locations, possibly including the controversial man-made islands in the contested waters of the South China Sea.
These small power plants will be built in Chinese shipyards, mounted on large sea-going barges, towed to a remote place where power is needed and connected to the local power grid, or perhaps oil rig…….The plans have raised eyebrows and many are asking: Why are they being planned? Will they be safe? Will they be economic?
Seven floating nuclear power plants are planned by Russia. The first, the Akademik Lomonosov, should be completed this year at the high cost of $740m, according to World Nuclear News.
The next nuclear disaster will probably be an intentional one
Unfortunately, we may have to await an intentional Chernobyl to take place first to galvanize this sort of preventive action.
The next nuclear disaster may be intentional http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2016/04/28/commentary/world-commentary/next-nuclear-disaster-may-intentional/#.VyJ1ktR97Gh BY BENNETT RAMBERG REUTERS LONDON – Chernobyl’s 30th anniversary on Tuesday came against the backdrop of growing apprehension that nuclear reactors may become a terrorist target.
Serious concern arose during the recent Islamic State attacks in Brussels. Evidence suggested that the assailants were considering a nuclear-related incident. The terrorists had a senior Belgian nuclear official under surveillance, and two former nuclear power plant employees were reported to have joined Islamic State.
This may help explain why Belgian authorities rushed military forces to protect its nuclear plants.
The scare provided a reminder that nuclear reactors are radiological mines that terrorists could exploit. Destruction of a plant would mark a zenith of terrorist violence. Radioactive elements would spread across national boundaries. It would endanger the lives of many, while creating economic and environmental havoc mimicking the Chernobyl or Fukushima explosions.
How concerned should the West and other regions be? And if the peril remains so serious, why doesn’t the international community impose mandatory security standards?
Actually, Washington has tried to do just that. On June 14, 1946, the United States proposed the Baruch Plan at the United Nations. It called for an International Atomic Development Authority that would maintain “managerial or ownership of all atomic energy activities potentially dangerous to world security” and “the power to control, inspect and license all other atomic activities.”
Had Cold War politics not intervened, reactors would likely be safer and more secure today. Instead, the international community now faces a patchwork of national regulations. The result leaves open a terrorist nuclear Pandora’s Box.
Certainly, enforcement of robust security standards — including adequately manned, trained and armed guard forces; physical barriers to vital areas; detection, alarm and communication systems; a careful vetting of all plant employees to ensure against infiltration of terrorists and criminals, along with other measures — are but a small price to pay to avoid yet another intentional or accidental Chernobyl or Fukushima.
Unfortunately, given inertia, we may have to wait for the intentional Chernobyl to take place to get action. Consider that nuclear critics have been concerned for decades that reactors are likely terrorist targets and not enough is being done to protect them.
They insisted that terrorists could breach the containment structures of nuclear power plants using sophisticated hand-held weapons, rocket-propelled grenades, vehicular bombs and water-based or airborne attack. They also warned about insider sabotage of vital plant life lines, which could release the core’s deadly radioactive contents.
But with no serious attack so far, complacency has set in. Belgium finally put armed guards at its plants only after last year’s Paris terrorist attacks. How many other nations among the 30 with power reactors have been equally complacent? But smugness has been revealed to be an embarrassment. In 2012, Greenpeace activists broke into a Swedish nuclear installation. The environmental activists scaled fences surrounding two nuclear power reactors and hid four of its party overnight on the roof of one. In 2014, another group of Greenpeace activists broke into a French nuclear power plant near the German border and hung a large banner from the reactor building.
These stunts demonstrate there is something seriously wrong with power-plant security practices in the two countries, and in perhaps many others. The International Atomic Energy Agency, the World Association of Nuclear Operators and the European Union all press for reactor security and safety by offering guidelines. They send survey teams to evaluate plant security at the request of the host country. But they cannot force countries to change their security habits.
Generally, such mindsets don’t change easily. It takes events, not hypotheticals, to do that.
It took the 1993 truck bombing of the World Trade Center in New York, for example, to push the U.S. into setting tougher standards for protecting reactors against vehicular bombings. Then, the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks prompted the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to boost defenses against ground attacks because members believed that better airport security would protect against a 9/11-style air attack on reactors.
But even in the U.S., which purports to apply the security gold standard, mock attacks have repeatedly found holes in reactor security.
We should expect that only an intentional Chernobyl incident will get complacent countries to dramatically change their security culture. Here is where international groups, if given authority, can do some planning to address the issue.
The plan should lay out mandatory security and safety requirements for all nuclear plants worldwide, to be administered by the International Atomic Energy Agency or other authorized body to license plant operations. Were the security at a licensed plant found to be inadequate, the authorized agency would suspend the plant’s license until operators made the required fixes.
Unfortunately, we may have to await an intentional Chernobyl to take place first to galvanize this sort of preventive action.
Most of Belgium’s population to be given potassium iodide pills
Belgium Considers New Steps to Confront Nuclear Radiation Fears More people near nuclear plants could receive potassium iodide pills under government plan, WSJ, By NATALIA DROZDIAK April 28, 2016, BRUSSELS—Belgium is considering handing out potassium iodide pills to large swaths of its population to help protect them from diseases caused by radioactivity in the event of a nuclear accident, a spokeswoman at the health ministry said on Thursday.
The review comes as neighboring countries including Germany and the Netherlands have complained about the poor safety standards at Belgium’s nuclear plants.
Concerns have centered on the discovery several years ago of thousands of tiny cracks in the steel walls of pressure vessels in some of Belgium’s reactors.
Potassium iodide pills can minimize radiation risks, including preventing thyroid cancer, the most common serious outcome of a major nuclear accident.
The Belgian federal government is considering recommendations by the national health council this year to expand the radius for potassium iodide distribution to those living within 100 kilometers (60 miles) of each of the country’s nuclear plants, covering most of the population……http://www.wsj.com/articles/belgium-mulls-mass-iodide-handout-to-settle-nuclear-fears-1461862403
The real menace of the Chernobyl nuclear situation
30 Years After the Chernobyl Disaster, a Nuclear Menace Still Hides in Plain Sight, THE WORLD POST, Ioana Moldovan Freelance Photojournalist and Documentary Videographer 04/25/2016 “……..The highlight of the tour is getting near Chernobyl plant’s reactor no. 4, some 200 meters from its remains. That’s as close as tourists can get. From the other side of the tall fence surrounding the complex, they can see the new “sarcophagus” shining in the sun. The old “sarcophagus,” or containment, was assembled back in 1986 and was intended to be temporary. The New Safe Containment is meant to cover reactor no. 4 and offer protection from still dangerous radiation for a century to come.
Aleksandr Kupny, one of the most outspoken critics of the slow-movingsarcophagus project, is not that confident that it will last this long.
“The sarcophagus is not hermetic, was not designed to be,” he said. “If, God forbid, something collapses in there, it will equal a 3 to 4 level tornado of dust. … There are already 35 tons of dust accumulated there and it is radioactive.”
………“There are two realities,” says Bozhenko Vadim Borisovich, medical director at the hospital for radiation diseases in Kiev. “The official one of the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine saying there is no more danger related to the Chernobyl accident, and the one I get to witness every day in this hospital.”
The medical center was opened on Aug. 1, 1986, accepting all “Chernobyl status” persons. Ever since, it has treated over 60,000 children and 600,000 adults, according to Borisovich. About a year ago when I was there, 100 children were hospitalized due to reactions from radiation.
There aren’t completely accurate figures about the number of people affected by Chernobyl. The data that Borisovich has shows that, on Jan. 15, 2015, the number affected by the power plant disaster was 2,011,799. Out of those, 453,391 were children.
“There are lots of children living in polluted areas that ingest radiation through food and water,” Borisovich says. “Children and grandchildren of Chernobyl victims present inborn malformations. Every child living there is sick. They all suffer from four to five diseases because of low immunity.”………
When people need to worry about everyday life, about making a living in an eroded economy, thinking about the danger of nuclear reactors does not even come second.
“There are no safe nuclear reactors. There is no economic stability that allows safe operation,” says Vladimir Ivanovich, former Chernobyl liquidator and former lawmaker. “Recession means lower operational quality so reactors become dangerous. Most terribly, unstable situations often occur. Right now we have Russia’s aggression and for the first time we have a continuing armed conflict next to nuclear reactors.”
Zaporizhia nuclear plant sits only 200 kilometers away from the front line in the east.
“Putin must connect Crimea by land and this goes through Zaporizhia region, through Berdiansk, Melitopol and on to Crimea,” says Bilitsky, the environmental activist. “Energodar [the small town in which the plant is actually located] is only a stone’s throw away from Melitopol [another town in Zaporizhia region]… Shoot a powerful cannon and you’re there.”
But the war in Ukraine has seen much more than a cannon shot. It has seen heavy artillery fire and even Grad missiles. People are scared that Russian troops are close and have weaponry that can hit the power plant.
“This should never happen here,” says Sergei Shygyn, chief specialist for nuclear reactors at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant. “Both Ukraine and the international community should prevent military actions here.” He continues: “The media asked me if Zaporizhia NPP can withstand military action. It can’t. NPP’s were not designed for war.”
Having military action just around the corner, one of the main concerns is that spent fuel is kept in containers standing under the open sky, without any terror-proof cover……….http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ioana-moldovan-/chernobyl-nuclear-menace_b_9774040.html
Covering shattered Chernobyl nuclear reactor – a financial problem for Ukraine
Nuclear comeback: Funding fears for hi-tech lid on Chernobyl, The Australian, NATHAN HODGE, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL APRIL 26, 2016″………
A workforce of about 2500 people is finishing a massive steel enclosure that will cover Chernobyl’s reactor 4, where the radioactive innards of the nuclear plant are encased in a concrete sarcophagus hastily built after the disaster. The zone is now aglow with the reflective safety vests of construction workers.
If all goes to plan, the new structure — an arch 260m wide, 165m long and 110m high — will be slid into place late next year over the damaged reactor and its nuclear fuel, creating a leak-tight barrier designed to contain radioactive substances for at least the next 100 years.
The project, known as the New Safe Confinement, is a feat of engineering. It will take two or three days to slide the 36,000- tonne structure into place. The arch, which looks something like a dirigible hangar, is large enough to cover a dozen football fields.
“You could put Wembley Stadium underneath here, with all the car parks,” said David Driscoll, the chief safety officer for the French consortium running the construction site.
- …….
Nicolas Caille, project director for Novarka, the consortium of Vinci and Bouygues, the French contractors running the project, said about 1000 people worked on a typical shift at the construction site, keeping to a schedule of 15 days in and 15 out.
The €2.15 billion ($3.1bn) shelter installation plan has been funded by international donors and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, a non-profit lending institution. But the Chernobyl clean-up faces a shortfall: €100 million is needed to finish a storage facility for highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel from the other three reactors, all now offline
The EBRD’s spent fuel facility contract is with a US-based energy technology firm. When the dollar-denominated contract was signed, the euro was stronger against the greenback; with the two currencies approaching parity, the bank faces a shortfall.
“This has dug a huge euro hole,” said Vince Novak, director of the nuclear safety department for the EBRD. “Our income is in euros.”
Mr Novak said donors would meet by the end of this month to discuss financing to finish the project, which is financed separately from the Chernobyl shelter fund.
Spent fuel rods are stored in an ageing facility.
Completion of the project, Mr Novak said, “has always been somehow in the shadow of the New Safe Confinement because it is not as attractive, not as sexy. But it is equally important in terms of nuclear safety.
Even if donors plug the gap, Chernobyl will continue to pose a financial challenge for Ukraine.
More than 40 countries and the EBRD have contributed to the Chernobyl containment work, and international donors say it will be years before the Kiev government can take on the larger share of the burden. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/wall-street-journal/nuclear-comeback-funding-fears-for-hitech-lid-on-chernobyl/news-story/1df7b13de774a981f1063ac3c62e9a36
Computer viruses have infected German nuclear power station
German nuclear plant infected with computer viruses, operator says http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/reuters/article-3560358/German-nuclear-plant-infected-computer-viruses-operator-says.html , 27 April 2016 FRANKFURT, – A nuclear power plant in Germany has been found to be infected with computer viruses, but they appear not to have posed a threat to the facility’s operations because it is isolated from the Internet, the station’s operator said on Tuesday.
The Gundremmingen plant, located about 120 km (75 miles) northwest of Munich, is run by the German utility RWE.
The viruses, which include “W32.Ramnit” and “Conficker”, were discovered at Gundremmingen’s B unit in a computer system retrofitted in 2008 with data visualisation software associated with equipment for moving nuclear fuel rods, RWE said.
Malware was also found on 18 removable data drives, mainly USB sticks, in office computers maintained separately from the plant’s operating systems. RWE said it had increased cyber-security measures as a result.
W32.Ramnit is designed to steal files from infected computers and targets Microsoft Windows software, according to the security firm Symantec.
First discovered in 2010, it is distributed through data sticks, among other methods, and is intended to give an attacker remote control over a system when it is connected to the Internet.
Conficker has infected millions of Windows computers worldwide since it first came to light in 2008. It is able to spread through networks and by copying itself onto removable data drives, Symantec said.
RWE has informed Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), which is working with IT specialists at the group to look into the incident.
The BSI was not immediately available for comment.
After Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster five years ago, concern in Germany over the safety of nuclear power triggered a decision by the government to speed up the shutdown of nuclear plants. Tuesday was the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. (Reporting by Christoph Steitz, Eric Auchard and Joseph Nasr; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
European Union and other global donors pledge more money for Chernobyl nuclear safety effort
Global donors pledge more money for nuclear safety on Chernobyl anniversary, DW 26 Apr 16 Ukraine has commemorated the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Global donors have used the occasion to pledge additional funds to help keep the area safe for generations to come………A UN report in 2005 estimated that “up to 4,000” people could eventually perish from the invisible poison in Ukraine and neighboring Russia and Belarus.
The exact number of dead remains a subject of intense debate because the Soviet authorities kept most of the information about the disaster hidden.
Global donors
The EU was among the global donors that promised an additional 87.5 million euros ($99 million) to help secure the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, as the Ukrainian government began marking 30 years since the disaster.
The money will go toward the construction of a new spent nuclear waste storage facility, adding to the 2 billion euros already donated to helping clean up and secure the site. Ukraine still needs 15 million additional euros to be able to safely store hazardous materials underground.
“It’s an important project for the world as well as, of course, for Ukraine and Ukrainians,” said Suma Chakrabarti, chief of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the organization in charge of the project…….http://www.dw.com/en/global-donors-pledge-more-money-for-nuclear-safety-on-chernobyl-anniversary/a-19214334
Ukraine’s nuclear industry remains a time bomb
But the nuclear danger in Ukraine does not go away with the conflict in the east quieting down this year, the scale and intensity of the war reduced to a shadow of what it was during 2014 and the beginning of 2015. The country, already facing economic depression, a war and a PTSD epidemic, has to deal with the lifetime of its nuclear reactors going to an end.
Ukraine has 15 nuclear reactors divided between four nuclear power plants. Built during Soviet times, 12 of them have a designed lifetime that ends before 2020. As the government in Kiev together with the operating company Energoatom are determined to keep all reactors running for at least 10 years beyond their expiry date, four units have already received licenses for their expanded lifetime.
“The situation is that the reactors are in a bad shape and always have been,” says Patricia Lorenz, nuclear safety expert with Friends of the Earth, an organization that campaigns for solutions to environmental problems. “They lag 15 years in safety level and they are definitely not catching up. The general problem is aging, maintenance — that is always a big topic, especially with power plants here where they admit they don’t have enough money for keeping them.”
But Ukraine got a loan for bringing its reactors up to international standards. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is providing 300 million euro in a project that will cost 1.4 billion euro in total and is scheduled for completion by the end of 2017. The European Atomic Energy Community, or Euratom, iscontributing another 300 million euro.
According to Bankwatch, an NGO that monitors the activities of international financial institutions in order prevent them from financing environmentally and socially harmful investments, the lifetime of the four reactors was prolonged without completing necessary safety upgrades and without properly assessing all risks. This means disregarding the legal conditions attached to the EBRD loan.
The same NGO is concerned that this European financial support is nothing else but “cementing Ukraine’s dependence on an outdated and highly unsafe nuclear sector” — and with that, its dependence on Russia, as all of Ukraine’s nuclear reactors use Russian technology and are almost entirely dependent on nuclear fuel from Russia. Furthermore, Ukraine has yet to make long-term investments in infrastructure and safe disposal of radioactive waste, which is also sent back to Russia.
No peaceful atom
With the Chernobyl disaster still casting its long shadow, Ukraine’s decision to base its long-term energy policies on the lifetime extension of its Soviet-era nuclear reactors is at least worrisome. Between 2010 and 2015 alone, three different unitswere forced to shut down due to accidents, while severe safety issues wereidentified in two more units. The reality is that Ukraine’s nuclear power plants currently supply over half the country’s electricity. But some say that this comes more from a political choice of the government, rather than necessity or lack of options.
The problem with a nuclear disaster is that it doesn’t give a damn for borders. So this is not only Ukraine’s problem, it is a European one and the danger lurks on at least all of its neighboring countries. And there are questions that still need answering: Is the lifetime extension process performed so that it can ensure the safety of not only Ukrainians but all Europeans as well? Are all the measures being taken to avoid another Chernobyl? Because in the end, says Oleksandr Galuh, “there is no such thing as the peaceful atom.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ioana-moldovan-/chernobyl-nuclear-menace_b_9774040.html
Over 1,500 defects at aging Israeli nuclear plant
Report finds more than 1,500 defects at aging Israeli nuclear plant April 26, 2016 by JNS.org.A recent examination of Israel’s nuclear reactor site in Dimona has revealed signs of 1,537 defects to the site’s aging aluminum core, according to a study released at a scientific forum held in Tel Aviv, Haaretz reported.
According to the report, the reactor core, which houses the fuel rods where nuclear fission takes place, has absorbed a great deal of heat and radiation over the years, raising questions over its ability to operation.
Israel’s nuclear reactor was supplied by France in the late 1950s and became active in 1963. According to manufacturer standards, the reactors were intended to be operational for only 40 years. …..http://www.jns.org/news-briefs/2016/4/26/report-finds-more-than-1500-defects-at-aging-israeli-nuclear-plant#.VyAwOdR97Gg=
Danger of Chernobyl nuclear reactor wreck will remain for thousands of years
Ruined Chernobyl nuclear plant will remain a threat for 3,000 years @mattschodcnews BY MATTHEW SCHOFIELD mschofield@mcclatchydc.com , Miami Herald, 24 Apr 16,
- 30 years since Chernobyl may seem like a long time, but it’s really just the start
- Below reactor’s ruins is a 2,000-ton radioactive mass that can’t be removed
- How do you protect a site for as long a time as Western civilization has existed?
….It will be 30 years ago on 26 April that Pripyat and the nearby Chernobyl nuclear plant became synonymous with nuclear disaster, that the word Chernobyl came to mean more than just a little village in rural Ukraine, and this place became more than just another spot in the shadowy Soviet Union.
Even 30 years later – 25 years after the country that built it ceased to exist – the full damage of that day is still argued.
Death toll estimates run from hundreds to millions. The area near the reactor is both a teeming wildlife refuge and an irradiated ghost-scape. Much of eastern and central Europe continues to deal with fallout aftermath. The infamous Reactor Number 4 remains a problem that is neither solved nor solvable………..
All told, about 4,000 people would eventually die from the accident, according to a report by the World Health Organization and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Others say those numbers are wildly low. Alexey Yablokov, a former environment adviser to Russian President Boris Yeltsin, estimated the global death toll to be 1.44 million. Other reports placed the cancer death totals at 30,000 to 60,000. Belarusian physicist Georgiy Lepin, a vice president of the association of liquidators of Chernobyl, the men brought in to fight the fire and clean up, estimated that within a few years, 13,000 rescue workers had died and another 70,000 were left unfit for work. The official number of disabled Chernobyl rescue workers today in Ukraine is 106,000.
A United Nations study says that “5 million people currently live in areas of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine that are contaminated with radionuclides due to the accident; about 100,000 of them live in areas classified in the past by government authorities as areas of ‘strict control.’ ”……….
What they figured out was the worst nuclear-energy disaster in human history, far worse than the explosion at Kyshtym nuclear complex in 1957 in what was then the Soviet Union, which released 70 tons of radioactive material into the air, or the 1957 fire at the Windscale Nuclear Reactor in northwestern England, which forced a ban on milk sales for a month, or the Three Mile Island disaster in Pennsylvania on March 29, 1979, where a cooling malfunction led to a partial meltdown.
All of central and eastern Europe was at risk. Even today, in Bavaria in southern Germany, wildlife officials warn hunters not to eat the meat of wild boars, which continue to show high levels of radiation contamination……..http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/article73405857.html
The intractable thousands of years problem of Chernobyl’s radioactive debris
Ruined Chernobyl nuclear plant will remain a threat for 3,000 years @mattschodcnews BY MATTHEW SCHOFIELD mschofield@mcclatchydc.com , Miami Herald, 24 Apr 16, “…………When the steam burst through the roof of Reactor Number 4 in 1986, it took with it 5 percent of the enriched uranium. That means 10 tons vanished. It also means 95 percent, or 190 tons, remained. They’re still there.
After the blasted reactor partially collapsed into the nuclear material, it created a radioactive blob of uranium, concrete, steel and assorted junk weighing about 2,000 tons. Ideally, Ukraine would remove the material. Sergiy Parashyn grabs a pen and paper as he talks about the problems with that.
“We do not know how to do this,” he explains. “We do not have the technology to do this. It must be something new.”……
“One problem is that the material is decaying and is brittle, and when we cut it up to transport it to disposal bins, it will very likely fill the air with radioactive dust,” he explains. So the tractor has to be able to operate in a radioactive environment, it has to be able to control and eliminate any dust and it has to operate in an area that will not be at all safe for humans. “Maybe something like this would work, maybe it wouldn’t. We don’t know. That’s a problem.”
It’s a problem because while 5 percent of the radioactive material caused problems that continue 30 years later and will continue to cause problems for eons to come, the other 95 percent of the material could represent about 20 times the problems.
For instance, if mistakes are made and the brittle material is released into the atmosphere, they’re back to square one. If the material gets into the Pripyat River, it will flow into the Dnieper River. The Dnieper River is the water source for Kiev. The Dnieper is the primary water source for much of Ukraine.
This is why Ukrainian officials are counting on what they call a sarcophagus to contain the site, a massive structure that looks like a Quonset hut being assembled behind a wall that is intended to deflect radiation from the decaying plant from workers.
When finished, it will be rolled across the crumbling concrete of the surrounding ground to cover and further seal the dangerous reactor. The work is expected to be completed in 2018, though that is just a guess. It’s expected to last 100 years. It’s not nearly long enough.
Reactor Number 4 today is essentially an unplanned nuclear-waste dump. To serve in that role requires it to last for 3,000 years. That means the area surrounding Chernobyl will be safe to inhabit by people again in the year 4986.
How likely is that? To get an idea of what it means to contain and control a deadly and potentially devastating radioactive pile in Ukraine for 3,000 years, consider what the world looked like 3,000 years ago:……
Detlef Appel, a geologist who runs PanGeo, a Hamburg, Germany, company that consults on such nuclear storage issues, notes that 3,000 years probably isn’t long enough. He suggests that truly safe radioactive waste storage needs to extend a million years into the future. Think back to when man’s earliest relative began to walk the Earth.
“We can trust human endeavor, perhaps, for a few hundred years, though that is doubtful,” he said. “Storage implies a way to retrieve the materials. It requires trained personnel, maintenance, updating and security. Clearly, nothing man made is more than temporary, and therefore it isn’t adequate.”
Even the continents will have moved in a million years.
Tetiana Verbytska, an energy policy expert at the National Ecological Center of Ukraine, worries that people are far too easygoing about Chernobyl. Among government officials right now, mindful of the 30-year anniversary, there is a movement to shrink the radius of the highly contaminated no man’s land from 18 miles to 6.
“The move to reduce the highly contaminated zone has nothing to do with science and everything to do with public relations,” she says. “In Ukraine, each April we make wonderful speeches about our commitment to dealing with this problem, and the rest of each year we hope the problem will just go away.”
There are other reasons to worry. Ukraine is creaking under a civil war against insurgents backed by Russia and scraping by with an economy that in the decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union has been looted by a series of oligarchs. It doesn’t have the money to fund an educational system that can be expected to create legions of top scientists and engineers.
Officials speak very proudly of the new sarcophagus roof that is being put into place. But the finish date on that has been repeatedly backed up, and there’s no guarantee that its 2018 date won’t be moved again.
A variety of disasters could still strike. The site’s existing covering, built in haste after the accident, could collapse, shattering the brittle mix of radioactive materials below and sending nuclear dust into the atmosphere to mix with rain. There could be an earthquake. The entire site is fragile.
Olga Kosharna, the lead scientist at the Ukrainian Department of Energy and Nuclear Safety in Kiev who oversaw safety at Chernobyl in the 1990s, recalls walking the roof above the shattered reactor and being horrified to find holes that had been burned through the concrete.
The shoes she wore that day were highly contaminated and had to be destroyed.
Alexandre Polack, a spokesman for the European Union, notes in an email that the date to begin removing radioactive material from the site is still 20 to 30 years away. “The current shelter covering destroyed Reactor 4 was reinforced in recent years and seems stable,” he writes. “However it was built in haste after the accident and never intended as a long-term solution.”
Verbytska emphasizes that the mass of uranium debris inside Reactor Number 4 is now a mess that goes beyond human ability to clean up. Others dismiss the situation as a problem, but one that technology can fix.
“We don’t have the technology to fix the problem,” she says. “We don’t have the process to develop the technology to fix the problem, and we don’t have the money to support the process to develop the technology to fix the problem. The solutions for our Chernobyl problems are very much ‘seal it for now.’ We will have smart children and smart grandchildren who in 100 years or so will figure out what to do.”
After the disaster, radiation burned off the tops of the trees. Soviet officials ordered the trees cut down and buried deep. But they failed to properly encase the buried wood. As a new forest grew unchecked above the radioactive remains of the old forest, the new wood was also highly radioactive. The whole thing will have to be dug up and encased and buried again, properly. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/article73405857.html
EDF wants to extend depreciation period for nuclear plants this year, but nuclear watchdog may not be willing
EDF to extend depreciation period for nuclear plants this year – CEO https://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/31423313/edf-to-extend-depreciation-period-for-nuclear-plants-this-year-ceo/ Reuters on April 23, 2016 PARIS – French utility EDF will extend the depreciation period for its nuclear plants this year, its CEO said in a newspaper interview, an accounting move that will free up cash for costly investment projects in France and Britain.
“By the closing of our first-half results, we will draw the accounting consequences of our intention to extend the lifespan of our existing nuclear plants beyond 40 years,” EDF CEO Jean-Bernard Levy said in Saturday’s Le Figaro newspaper.
EDF had said before it intended to extend the lifespan of its French nuclear plants to 50 or 60 years, beyond the 40 years they were initially built for. Energy Minister Segolene Royal said in February that the government was willing to give the go-ahead for such a move.
But French nuclear watchdog ASN is the only authority allowed to grant such an extension, and it has said a decision on the matter would not come before 2018-2019. To make the accounting change, which would automatically boost EDF’s profits, the company must convince its auditors that there is a good chance of the extension being granted.
In 2003, EDF extended the depreciation schedule for nuclear reactors in its accounts to 40 years from 30 years – six years before the ASN agreed to the move.
The utility, 85 percent-owned by the French government, said on Friday it would seek to raise 4 billion euros ($4.5 billion), amid concerns that a 23 billion euro nuclear plant project at Hinkley Point in Britain would put a strain on its finances.
(Reporting by Michel Rose; Editing by Toby Chopra and Hugh Lawson)
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Time: 11:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada) / 2:00 PM Eastern / 7:00 PM UK / 8:00 PM CET
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Shut down the radiation-damaged Heysham nuclear reactors now
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Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
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