A nuclear expert has serious concerns about safety, in South Africa’s nuclear project
Serious Nuclear oversight concerns, News 24, Desmund Bernardo , 3 Jan 16 I started my career within the South African Nuclear industry at Koeberg Nuclear Power Station in 1992. The country was going through a serious transition at the time that brought with it excitement as well as trepidation. I had a bright future ahead of me with continuous growth and opportunity. ………I now ask myself if the NNR is in itself, as an independent government body, skilled enough and have the qualified staff to license current and future licensed staff at Koeberg and future Nuclear Power stations?
To answer this question I had to use common sense and world-best practice. In the USA the NRC is their equivalent of the South African National Nuclear regulator. Within the NRC you find experts and highly skilled professionals that have reached the highest echelons of the American Nuclear industry. These people are accomplished and the Licensees in the industry treat them with utmost respect. The people that oversee and administer exams have at some stage also received a license to manipulate reactor controls. They know what to look out for…….
Today however the invaluable industry experience is sorely lacking within the NNR. Most of the staff in the NNR has never worked within the Nuclear industry at all. Very few have spent time at a Nuclear Power station never mind holding a license to operate from a control room……
Is the Government honest with us when they say that SA is ready to build more Nuclear power stations? Do the Government and the NNR understand their true duty to public safety? Can the President of South Africa assure the public that the employees within the NNR are capable and skilled? Can the NNR assure the public that they will ensure their safety as a watch-dog?
If you are concerned about the oversight issues in the Nuclear industry, the nuclear new build public participation process is a great opportunity for you to raise your concerns and hold the government accountable. Make your voice heard. http://www.news24.com/MyNews24/serious-nuclear-oversight-concerns-20160103
Rain-sodium reaction caused fire in nuclear waste dump
Beatty waste dump fire blamed on rain-sodium reaction By Wesley Juhl Las Vegas Review-Journal, December 31, 2015 A fire at a low-level radioactive waste dump in Nye County that shut down a 140-mile stretch of Nevada’s main north-south highway for almost 24 hours in October was caused by rainfall that seeped through a compromised cover and reacted with metallic sodium, according to a report released Thursday.
On Oct. 18, during heavy rainfall, the now-closed, state-owned landfill at the US Ecology dump near Beatty roared to life with explosions and fire. Beatty is about 115 miles northwest of Las Vegas, off of U.S. Highway 95.
A state probe of the incident was launched to consider if the fire was related to the wet weather, and if disposal records kept by the state in Carson City and at the site list any materials that could have reacted with water to cause the fire. Monday’s report details how corrosion of the steel drums containing the metallic sodium allowed the packing fluid to seep out, leaving the metallic sodium exposed to underground elements.
The 305-page report released Thursday collects statements from staffers who were there, aerial maps, results of laboratory analyses and a 195-page study on low-level radioactive waste management from 1981 as an attachment……..
Recommendations for long-term fixes from the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection include setting up enhanced monitoring of the waste facility capable of handling remote video surveillance and radioactivity measurement. The agency suggested an evaluation of the various types of wastes placed in the site and a redesign of a more protective cover cap…….. http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/nevada/beatty-waste-dump-fire-blamed-rain-sodium-reaction
Underground wall ordered by EPA to prevent fire reaching nuclear waste landfill in Bridgestone
EPA orders barrier for nuclear waste landfill in Bridgestone http://www.bignewsnetwork.com/news/239881975/epa-orders-barrier-for-nuclear-waste-landfill-in-bridgestone Big News Network.comThursday 31st December, 2015 LENEXA, Kansas – The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has ordered the installation of a physical isolation barrier separating the radioactively contaminated West Lake Landfill Superfund Site from the smoldering Bridgeton Landfill to make sure that the underground fire does not reach the buried nuclear waste.
The barrier will consist of an underground wall. The decision also calls for the installation of additional engineering controls, such as cooling loops, to prevent potential impacts that could result if the subsurface smoldering were to come into contact with the radioactive materialscontained in the West Lake Landfill, Mark Hague, EPA regional administrator, said Thursday.
For years landfill owner Republic Services and state and federal regulators have considered a subterranean firebreak separating the smoldering Bridgeton Landfill from the adjacent West Lake Landfill, just a few hundred feet away.
But uncertainty over the location and extent of West Lake’s radioactive contamination has prompted more studies of West Lake, contaminated in 1973 with nuclear weapons processing waste from the Manhattan Project .
Now, EPA says those assessments, conducted with assistance from the US Army Corps of Engineers, are nearly complete. “We now have a better understanding of where those materials are located,” EPA spokeswoman Angela Brees said. “We’re at a point now where we had enough data where we needed to make a decision about a wall.”
The latest report on the radioactive contamination’s location is under final review and will be released soon, she said.
The worrying part is that the underground fire is now within 1,200 feet from the West Lake landfill.
“Finding a solution to mitigate the potential impacts of a subsurface smoldering event is a top priority for the community, and a top priority for EPA,” said Hague. “Today’s announcement is the first step in moving forward with the installation of a physical barrier and other engineering controls to address this issue.”
“We are now working through the highly complex details of implementing our decision and the associated legal steps. Once the plan is finalized, we are committed to providing this information to the public.”
The work of creating an underground barrier will be paid for by Republic Services, owner of both landfills. A spokesman for Republic Services said the company is ready to proceed with the barrier installation work. The company insists there is no risk of the fire reaching the nuclear material, but environmentalists disagree.
Ed Smith of the Missouri Coalition for the Environment said the barrier is not enough. “The only way to ensure a smoldering or surface fire doesn’t impact the radioactive wastes is to remove them,” Smith said, reported abc News.
West Lake was declared a Superfund site in 1990. In 2008, the EPA announced a remediation plan to cap the nuclear waste with rock, clay and soil. Opposition from the environmentalists however forced that the EPA to reconsider its decision.
No new plan has been worked out despite criticism from some lawmakers and residents who feel the agency is moving too slowly.
Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority is by no means confident of nuclear energy safety
No endorsement of nuclear safety, Japan Times, DEC 30, 2015 Power companies and the government should not be under the illusion that the safety of nuclear power plants under the new standards of the Nuclear Regulation Authority has been endorsed by the judiciary. While last week’s decision by the Fukui District Court paves the way for Kansai Electric Power Co. to restart reactors No. 3 and 4 at its Takahama Nuclear Power Plant as early as next month, the court urged the utility and the NRA to make constant efforts to aim higher for safety in the operation of nuclear plants.
The Fukui court reversed the decision given by the same court eight months ago under a different judge, who has since been transferred to another court. In April, the court ordered an injunction banning the restart of the Takahama plant on the Sea of Japan coast in Fukui Prefecture on the grounds that the NRA’s plant safety regulations, tightened after the Tepco plant meltdowns to make nuclear power plants resilient against bigger quakes and tsunami as well as severe accidents, were too lax to secure the plant’s safety. If the logic behind the decision was to be upheld, it would have dealt a crushing blow to the restart bid by the power industry and the administration because it negates the validity of the NRA regulation itself.
In its Dec. 24 decision on a complaint filed by Kepco against the April decision, the Fukui court said the NRA’s regulations are based on the latest scientific and technological knowledge and therefore rational. There’s nothing irrational in the NRA’s approval of Kepco’s plans to restart the Takahama plant, the court said in lifting the ban on reactivating the reactors that have cleared the NRA’s safety screening.
The two opposite decisions by the same court appear to symbolize the shakiness of legal judgments on the safety of nuclear power plant operation just four years after the nation experienced the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. Residents in areas around the Takahama plant who sought the injunction banning its restart plan to take the case to a higher court, but Kepco, which started loading nuclear fuel to the No. 3 Takahama reactor the day after the court decision, is ready to reactivate it as early as next month……..
public concern over the safety of nuclear power remains strong. ………In lifting the ban on the Takahama plant’s restart, the Fukui court urged the utility, the national and local governments involved to take multi-layered measures to protect against severe accidents at nuclear power plants, including more effective evacuation plans. The court decision should serve as a reminder that merely clearing the NRA standard does not vouch for the safety of a nuclear power plant. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2015/12/30/editorials/no-endorsement-nuclear-safety/#.VoWP0LZ97Gh
Danger of moving plutonium from Dounreay to Sellafield after major flooding in Cumbria
Concerns over moving of Dounreay material by rail after flooding 14 December 2015 by David Kerr A campaign group has raised new concerns about the movement of waste materials from Dounreay by rail after major flooding in Cumbria.
Spent “exotic fuels” are being moved from the Caithness site to Sellafield in the north of England by rail, as part of the decommissioning process.
The first of a series of loads of unirradiated plutonium fuel from Dounreay’s Prototype Fast Reactor arrived at Sellafield last Monday.
Around 13 tonnes is due to be moved between the north of Scotland and Sellafield over the next few years……
Core spokesman Martin Forwood said: “It beggars belief that the decision to risk the plutonium fuel transport was taken despite the widely-trailed storm evidence and rail warnings.
“We condemn the perverse decision as being dangerously irresponsible and as a blatant breach of the stringent safety and security rules required for such transports.
“Those responsible have shown a level of incompetence that verges on criminal and should be weeded out, so that public and rail safety is not similarly endangered again.
“If any public confidence at all in such transports is to be salvaged, answers on the decisionmaking process must be given and lessons learned.”
The unirradiated plutonium is the latest fuel to be removed from Dounreay as part of a decommisioning program which started in 2001 when the site was closed. ………..https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/highlands/778884/concerns-raised-by-campaigners-over-moving-dounreay-material-by-rail-after-flooding/
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Fukushima evacuees stay away: population at lowest level since 1945
Fukushima population at postwar low, down 5.7%, as nuclear disaster evacuees steer clear: census http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/12/28/national/fukushima-population-postwar-low-5-7-nuclear-disaster-evacuees-steer-clear-census/#.VoL85rZ97Gg FUKUSHIMA 29 DEC 15 – The population of Fukushima Prefecture fell by 115,458, or 5.7 percent, from 2010 to stand at 1,913,606 as of Oct. 1, marking the lowest level since the end of World War II, the prefecture has said.
The size of the drop, shown in a preliminary report on the census for 2015 released Friday, was the largest on record, due mainly to the evacuation of residents after the nuclear disaster at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s disaster-crippled Fukushima No. 1 plant in March 2011.
The population was zero in the towns of Okuma, Futaba, Tomioka and Namie, all of which were evacuated.
The prefecture’s population fell for the fourth consecutive time in the census, which is conducted every five years.
By municipality, the population plunged 87.3 percent to 976 in the town of Naraha, where the government’s evacuation advisory was mostly lifted in September.
The population dropped 28.3 percent to 2,021 in the village of Kawauchi, where the evacuation advisory for its eastern part was removed in October 2014.
The figures indicate a lack of progress in the return of residents to the two municipalities.
By contrast, the population grew 0.6 to 2.1 percent in the cities of Fukushima, Iwaki and Soma, as well as the town of Miharu, as they accepted evacuees from areas close to the Tepco plant and workers involved in reconstruction-related projects, such as the decontamination of areas tainted by radioactive materials from the plant.
The number of households in Fukushima Prefecture rose 2.2 percent to 736,616, up for the 19th time in a row since the first census.
JIJI
St. Louis and the Radiation problem – recommendation – Just get out of town!
Fukushima Update: “Your Radiation This Week BEFORE IT’S NEWS, Dec 19 to Dec 26, 2015″ By Bob Nichols “………St. Louis and the Rad problem: St. Louis, now and forever more, will be remembered as a Manhattan Project nuclear garbage dump. It was for the most poisonous, flammable elements in the universe that just happen to also be radioactive. What will happen to the pieces of the rocks that incinerated Hiroshima, Japan and turned former people into mere shadows on the concrete? Nagasaki was blown away by Plutonium, manufactured by all reactors.My recommendation remains the same for healthy,
able-bodied people in St. Louis – Just leave, get out of town……
Underwater drones becoming a threat to UK’s Trident nuclear submarines
Trident: Nuclear deterrent under threat from underwater drones, expert warns, The Independent 27 Dec 15 Advances in technology may turn Britain’s £31bn nuclear submarine programme into an expensive liability. Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent could be torpedoed by an increasingly sophisticated breed of underwater drone, a leading defence expert has warned.
Rapid advances in underwater drone technology – autonomous underwater vehicles that can be controlled by ship- or land-based operators – threaten to make the controversial Trident nuclear submarines vulnerable, according to Paul Ingram, the chief executive of the British American Security Information Council (Basic).
Submarines have traditionally been seen as capable of providing stealth and invulnerability to pre-emptive attacks. The current requirement for Trident replacement subs is for them to operate as near to silently as possible.
However, a revolution in underwater drones, as well as advances in sonar, satellite and other anti-submarine warfare systems, mean that even totally silent submarines are likely to become detectable. Some sensor technologies can detect large submerged objects by monitoring small movements of surface water.
Experts warn that as the capabilities of detecting systems improve and their cost falls, large-scale remote and potentially autonomous sensor deployments become possible. The result is that the world’s oceans will become increasingly transparent, seriously calling into question the UK’s heavy reliance upon the Trident submarine programme for its nuclear deterrence………
In January, Carol Naughton, of the non-proliferation group British Pugwash, will launch a research project into the appropriateness of Trident as a platform for the UK’s nuclear weapons capability.
“We are in danger of embarking on a major spend that will not only fail to deliver the invulnerability required of the proposed deterrent system, but is also likely to add a worrying degree of instability into the nuclear weapons situation,” she said.
Last month the Prime Minister revealed that the strategic defence and security review (SDSR) had put the cost of the four subs at £31bn, up from £25bn nine years ago. The review said a contingency fund of £10bn would be set aside, suggesting the MoD anticipates the costs could rise still further.
The first sub is not due to come into service until the early 2030s. http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/trident-nuclear-deterrent-under-threat-from-underwater-drones-expert-warns-a6786946.html
Dangerous to evaporate Fukushima’s radioactive water
Fukushima: Evaporating tank contents is not the solution http://www.ianfairlie.org/news/fukushima-evaporating-tank-contents-is-not-the-solution/ April 10, 2015 Recent news stories are suggesting that TEPCO is considering evaporating the 280,000 tonnes of highly radioactive water held in the 1,500 tanks at Fukushima. See http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/08/us-japan-fukushima-water-idUSKBN0MZ0WC20150408 and
http://rt.com/news/248041-fukushima-waters-evaporate-tepco/
Disposing large volumes of highly tritiated water is a serious problem for TEPCO but its evaporation proposal is quite dangerous. It is based on several misconceptions.
First, evaporating this radioactive water will NOT isolate the radioactivity: all it would do is convert liquid tritiated water to tritiated water vapour which would be emitted to the air at Fukushima and result in high exposures to those downwind of the plumes.
Second, evaporation would make the problem worse as, contrary to what many people assume, aerial emissions are more hazardous than liquid discharges to sea. Briefly, this is because you can avoid drinking tritiated water and food to a large degree, but you can’t avoid breathing in tritiated water vapour or absorbing it through skin.
Third, tritium is not “relatively harmless” as alleged. This is a common misconception: in fact, tritium is a relatively dangerous nuclide. For example, its beta particle inside the body is more harmful than most X-rays and gamma rays. But that’s just one aspect: tritiated water vapour has several other dangerous properties, and organically bound tritium (ie attached to lipids, carbohydrates and proteins) inside us is even more dangerous. See “Tritium- risks not properly assessed” in http://www.ianfairlie.org/lectures/
A complicating factor is the very high tritium levels in the tanks. From Japanese Government Meti fileshttp://www.meti.go.jp/earthquake/nuclear/pdf/140424/140424_02_008.pdf
– see slides 5 and 21- it can be seen that the tritium concentration in March 2014 was about 500,000 Bq per litre.
This is a very high level. As far as I’m aware, no internationally agreed limits exist for discharging tritium to water. But as a yardstick, the limit used by Ontario Power Generation (a nuclear utility in Canada) is 4,000 Bq/L.
TEPCO is facing a storage problem with its tanks on site now full, and no space to build more. But neither evaporating the tank contents nor discharging them to sea appears to be a solution. http://www.ianfairlie.org/news/fukushima-evaporating-tank-contents-is-not-the-solution/
The dangerous deception of ‘nuclear safety’ – Limerick Nuclear Plant
Nuclear safety a ‘dangerous deception’ http://www.pottsmerc.com/article/MP/20151226/NEWS/151229801— Dr. Lewis Cuthbert ACE President 12/26/15,
It is dangerous deception to suggest safety is first for Limerick Nuclear Plant (Mercury, Nov. 18). No emergency plan or drill can make Limerick safe.
A body of evidence shows why “safety first” is not Exelon’s policy for Limerick Nuclear Plant.
Examples:
1. Without continuous high-intensity flashing lights (day and night), Limerick’s cooling towers are considered a height safety hazard by FAA.
• Any structure over 200 feet is a safety hazard. Limerick’s cooling towers are 507 feet high, • A structure less than three miles from a public-access airport must be marked. Limerick’s Heritage Airport is about one mile from Limerick’s cooling towers.
Exelon, an electric company, should have no difficulty immediately restoring lights on Limerick’s cooling towers, yet Exelon failed to do that.
Safety first? Hardly! The fact is, lights onoth cooling towers remained out for at least 24 days, despite increased air traffic over the holidays and occasional dense fog (reported Dec. 2). Even worse:
• Unit 2 cooling tower lights were left out for over six months. May 2015 residents informed NRC, yet it was December before Exelon restored Unit 2 lights.
• November 9 Exelon reported that Unit 1 cooling tower lights went out too. Unit 1 lights will remain out until spring 2016 (Mercury Dec. 10).
The only reason Limerick’s cooling tower height safety hazard designation was waived in the first place during construction was the promise that Limerick’s cooling towers would have continuous flashing lights. Now, they remain out for as long as six months at a time because Exelon, an electric company, won’t fix them immediately. This is reckless negligence!
2. Four Years after Fukushima, Limerick’s Fukushima-like reactors are no safer.
• Exelon is making a mockery of NRCs 2012 Post-Fukushima Safety Recommendations to minimize meltdowns risks at Limerick Nuclear Plant. Exelon is using dangerous delay tactics to avoid costs for minimizing catastrophic meltdowns risks. NRC negligently lets them get away with it.
• Despite requesting compliance without delay in 2012, NRC’s 2015 reports show that Exelon’s “PLANS” for compliance aren’t even complete.
Some important Limerick safety compliance issues have been delayed until 2019, despite dramatically increasing meltdown risks at Limerick. Examples of dangerous delays to avoid and/or eliminate Exelon’s costs:
• Vent installations – to avoid hydrogen explosions. In 2015, Exelon still has no workable plan.
• No filters for vents – to minimize radiation releases after meltdowns. Exelon refused to install filters, despite NRC staff stating, “Vents without filters become radioactive hoses into the sky. Vents are vital, regardless of costs to the industry.”
• Spent fuel pool instrumentation – still not installed, despite risk of fuel pool meltdowns.
• Emergency equipment still not guaranteed to be deployable – during earthquakes and tornadoes. Despite stronger and more frequent threats at Limerick, Exelon’s timeline to finalize procedures and designs remains open. Despite earthquake fault fractures under Limerick’s reactors, fuel pools, control room, turbine building, and rad-waste building, Exelon is planning to delay its self-serving seismic “study” for Limerick until 2019.
3. Exelon makes no effort to reduce public exposure to limerick’s routine and accidental radiation releases or cooling tower pollution.
Despite documented cancer rates far higher than the national and state average, especially in children, Exelon failed to:
• Filter routine radioactive discharges into the Schuylkill River, a vital drinking water resource.
• Notify the public until 23 days after the March 19, 2012 radioactive spill into the river.
• Stop using high-burn fuel (up to 30 percent more radioactive gas releases).
• Filter massive, toxic cooling tower pollution.
• Clean up water and soil from Limerick’s radioactive spills.
It’s far too dangerous for Exelon to avoid costs for Limerick’s safety. That further jeopardizes our health, safety, and financial interests. If safety was actually first, Limerick would close now. Agree? E-mail aceactivists@comcast.net.
Leningrad Nuclear Plant accident: radiation spike: mass panic
Mass panic as radioactive cloud pours from nuclear plant — Radiation levels reportedly spike near reactor after emergency shutdown — Traffic jams as people evacuate area — “Everyone got very worried and rushed to get iodine” (PHOTOS) http://enenews.com/mass-panic-radioactive-steam-pours-nuclear-plant-radiation-levels-spiked-area-plant-traffic-jams-people-evacuate-area-everyone-very-worried-rushed-iodine-photos?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ENENews+%28Energy+News%29
Express, Dec 21, 2015 (emphasis added): Russians flee Chernobyl-style plant over fears of radioactive leak — Russians took iodine and caused traffic jams… amid fears officials were covering up a radioactive leak. The panic followed the emergence of pictures showing a cloud of vapour pouring from Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant, some 50 miles from St Petersburg. The authorities insisted that the was no radioactive leakage… but people did not believe the “no danger” claim. Radio Svoboda reported that in the wake of the incident on Friday locals in Sosnovy Bor started withdrawing money from their credit cards. They said locals were in panic mode despite statements from officials that the radiation level was normal… One local said: “Everyone got very worried and rushed to get iodine.”… There were traffic jams as residents left the area and headed for St Petersburg… The plant manager (not pictured) insists there are no reasons for evacuation. [Oleg Bodrov, chairman of Green World ecological group] said: “They know well that the officials’ first task is to say all is normal but not to report about danger, even if there is one. All those who understand a bit about nuclear energy know that it was an attempt to mistake the wish for the reality… this vapour is surely radioactive… Bodrov called for medical checks for staff at the power plant. Interfax reported that a special commission was working at the nuclear station aiming to find out the reasons for the emission.
Daily Mail photo captions: A cloud of vapourpouring out of Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant in St Petersburg caused mass panic… Russian radio reported St Petersburg residents rushing out to buy iodine to protect against radiation poisoning after spotting the steam flowing out of the power station… The billowing vapour spreads across buildings
QHA, Dec 19, 2015: Accident occurred at Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant (PHOTO) — Eyewitnesses of the accident and theinhabitants of the Russia’s northern capital are scared. The second unit was stopped at the station… The accident occurred at the second power unit when a pipe with steam cracked in turbine hall yesterday. The steam filled the room, and leaked beyond the power plant. The employees of the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant (LNPP) had to go home… According to specialists, the release was radioactive, because the waste steam entered the so-called loop reactor coolant. However, the population was encouraged not to panic.
Baltic Newsletter of the Green World, Dec 20, 2015: An emergency stop of the second power unit of Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant took place… The reason for the stop and cooling of the reactor was a sudden leak of radioactive steam from a faulty pipe in one of the rooms of the turbine shop… During the cooling – down step, the reactor steam was ejected through the pipe into the environment. A south – southeast wind of 5 meters per second (not typical for this area) blew the radioactive steam toward the Gulf of Finland… Thus, the five millionth city of St. Petersburg, located 40 km east of the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant was fortunate this time. According to some sources , the radiation level rose a few times higher than the background radiation only in the NPP area.
Accident at The Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant
Another Accident at Russian Nuke http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/12/20/1462217/-Another-Accident-at-Russian-Nuke Just a heads-up. The Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant west of St. Petersburg on the Gulf of Finland suffered an accident on December 18th, according to the Crimean News Agency. A pipe carrying steam from the reactor in the second BWR [Boiling Water Reactor] plant apparently “cracked” [burst, failed] in the turbine hall, releasing radioactive steam and forcing an evacuation of the facility after the reactor was manually scrammed. This would be unit-2 of at the 4-unit facility.
The accompanying photo [on original] was taken of the Leningrad unit-2 plant today (December 20, 2015), showing that radioactive steam is still being emitted in bulk to the atmosphere. Officials at the facility did say they don’t “think” the situation will develop into another Chernobyl. That does not sound particularly reassuring to me, but so far so good.
The four reactors at LNPP are the RBMK-1000 design of Chernobyl type graphite moderated plants. Two more reactors of the newer VVER-1200 type were granted construction license in 2009 and 2010, the first scheduled to go into commercial operation in 2016, and two more are planned in the future.
The population near the plant was encouraged not to panic, as winds are carrying the plume of radiation toward Estonia and Finland. A Latvian news source reported that the government assured citizens there was no danger from the release, the Finnish monitoring stations aren’t showing a spike at present, 3 stations did mark one on the coast east of Helsinki (likely plume path), reaching up to .3µSv/hr on the 18th/19th. Which is .03mr/hr, just above background average.
Measurements of radiation in downtown Sosnovy Bor, 5 km [~3 miles] from the plant, were up to 20mr/hr* (a level about twice the average daily dose most non-grunt workers on the Island at TMI2 absorbed in the days/weeks after that meltdown), so let’s at least hope the residents were warned to “shelter in place” for the duration of this ongoing accident. And have some idea of how to do that properly. Area and regional pharmacies are reported to have ordered potassium iodide, so residents could be getting that. Radiation levels in St. Petersburg, a city of 5 million ~40 miles west of the nuclear facility, are reported to be normal.
The reactors at Leningrad have been plagued with accidents on a semi-regular basis since 1975, most never reported to the media or public. Including one accident at unit-1 in 1975 that came dangerously close to the very same accident later experienced at Chernobyl.
* The reported peak figure of 20mr/hr in the nearest town — which is indeed suspiciously high — is pointed out in the comments to be a mistranslation of µR (microrem) as mR (millirem). Which isn’t enough radiation to register above the considerably higher background. If indeed the Russians have taken to measuring and reporting radiation dose exposures in Rem/Rad instead of the internationally used Sievert. A very odd thing for them to do all of a sudden with this accident when they never did before, but technical deception is a regular art form with nukes of all nationalities. No surprise there.
Vulnerability of India’s nuclear materials to theft
India’s nuclear explosive materials are vulnerable to theft, U.S. officials and experts say. But Washington has chosen not to press for tougher security while its trade with India is booming, Center For Public Integrity, By Adrian Levy
R. Jeffrey Smith 17 Dec 15 “…….. officials here and outside India depict as serious shortcomings in the country’s nuclear guard force, tasked with defending one of the world’s largest stockpiles of fissile material and nuclear explosives.
An estimated 90 to 110 Indian nuclear bombs are stored in six or so government-run sites patrolled by the same security force, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, an independent think tank, and Indian officials. Within the next two decades, as many as 57 reactors could also be operating under the force’s protection, as well as four plants where spent nuclear fuel is dissolved in chemicals to separate out plutonium to make new fuel or be used in nuclear bombs.
The sites are spread out over vast distances: from the stony foothills of the Himalayas in the north down to the red earth of the tropical south. Shuttling hundreds of miles in between will be occasional convoys of lightly-protected trucks laden with explosive and fissile materials — including plutonium and enriched uranium — that could be used in civilian and military reactors or to spark a nuclear blast.
The Kalpakkam shooting as a result alarmed Indian and Western officials who question whether this country — which is surrounded by unstable neighbors and has a history of civil tumult — has taken adequate precautions to safeguard its sensitive facilities and keep the building blocks of a devastating nuclear bomb from being stolen by insiders with grievances, ill motives, or in the worst case, connections to terrorists.
Although experts say they regard the issue as urgent, Washington is not pressing India for quick reforms. The Obama administration is instead trying to avoid any dispute that might interrupt a planned expansion of U.S. military sales to Delhi, several senior U.S. officials said in interviews.
The experts’ concerns are based in part on a series of documented nuclear security lapses in the past two decades, in addition to the shooting:
- Several kilograms of what authorities described as semi-processed uranium were stolen by a criminal gang, allegedly with Pakistani links, from a state mine in Meghalya, in northeastern India, in 1994. Four years later, a federal politician was arrested near the West Bengal border with 100 kilograms of uranium from India’s Jadugoda mining complex that he was allegedly attempting to sell to Pakistani sympathizers associated with the same gang. A police dossier seen by the Center states that ten more people connected with smuggling were arrested two years after this, in operations that recovered 57 pounds of stolen uranium.
- In 2008, another criminal gang was caught attempting to smuggle low-grade uranium, capable of being used in a primitive radiation-dispersal device, from one of India’s state-owned mines across the border to Nepal. The same year another group was caught moving an illicit stock of uranium over the border to Bangladesh, the gang having been assisted by the son of an employee at India’s Atomic Minerals Division, which supervises uranium mining and processing.
- In 2009, a nuclear reactor employee in southwest India deliberately poisoned dozens of his colleagues with a radioactive isotope, taking advantage of numerous gaps in plant security, according to an internal government report seen by the Center.
- And in 2013, leftist guerillas in northeast India illegally obtained uranium ore from a government-run milling complex in northeast India and strapped it to high explosives to make a crude bomb before being caught by police, according to an inspector involved in the case. Continue reading
Los Alamos National Security loses contract to manage nuclear weapons lab after 2017
Contract to manage federal nuclear weapons lab up for grabs after 2017 http://www.nwherald.com/2015/12/21/contract-to-manage-federal-nuclear-weapons-lab-up-for-grabs-after-2017/apybmgs/ By The Associated Press LOS ALAMOS, N.M. – The $2 billion contract to manage one of the federal government’s premier nuclear weapons laboratories will be up for grabs after 2017. The National Nuclear Security Administration has decided not to grant an extension of Los Alamos National Security’s contract to run the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation say the reasons cited by the agency include a serious safety incident involving a worker, and the handling of enriched uranium at a Nevada facility in 2014.
The lab also has shared blame for errors that led to the indefinite closure of the federal government’s only underground nuclear waste repository in 2014.
The current contract expires in September 2017.
Lab Director Charlie McMillan told employees the lab’s latest review was better than the previous two but not good enough to ensure an automatic contract extension.
Transfer of Vermont Yankee’s dangerous nuclear used fuel trash to dry storage
Vermont Yankee to start moving spent nuclear fuel into dry storage in 2017 http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2015/12/vermont_yankee_to_start_moving.html By Mary Serreze | Special to The Republican On December 20, 2015 Entergy plans to start moving Vermont Yankee’s spent nuclear fuel into dry cask storage in 2017, two years earlier than originally anticipated, reports the online Vermont Digger.
The Louisiana-based Entergy announced the decision Wednesday, but the idea was first introduced in an October filing with the Vermont Public Service Board, as part of the company’s bid for approval to build a second concrete pad for spent fuel storage at the Vernon, Vermont site, located on the banks of the Connecticut River.
The 620-megawatt Vernon plant, which began operations in 1972, stopped producing power Dec. 29, but most of its spent fuel remains in wet storage in a pool inside the plant’s reactor building.
While dry storage is considered safer than wet storage, concerns have been raised about the transfer process, in which fuel is pulled from the pool, placed in casks, loaded onto a large, tracked vehicle nicknamed “Cletus” and moved slowly to the spent fuel pad, Vermont Digger reports.
Entergy remains under a 2020 deadline to move the fuel into dry cask storage. Under the federally-sanctioned SAFSTOR process, full decommissioning could take up to 60 years. Under SAFSTOR, Vermont Yankee would be “mothballed” until its decommissioning fund reaches the level necessary to clean up the entire site.
State and regional officials, as well as critics of the plant, have raised concerns about the overall decommissioning project’s financing, as well as the presence of non-radiological and radiological waste at the site. The dry cask storage plan will be funded with a $145 million line of credit, which Entergy plans to repay by suing the U.S. Department of Energy for breach of its contract to remove spent nuclear fuel from the Vermont Yankee site.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved the use of the plant’s decommissioning trust fund to pay for long-term fuel storage, although the state has challenged that decision in federal appeals court.
Mary Serreze can be reached at mserreze@gmail.com
1 This Month
4 May -West Suburban Peace Coalition to discuss Iran war at May Educational Forum
Monday, May 4, 7:00 – 8:00 PM Central Standard Time
Title: : How Trump’s Narrative Tries to Shape the Reality of the War on Iran.
Contact Walt Zlotow, zlotow@hotmail.com 630 442 3045 for further information
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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