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Japan, to make the biggest mistake in history: nuclear energy with water, and risk of explosion

by Jessica A., 09/15/2024,  https://www.ecoticias.com/en/nuclear-energy-japan-hydrogen/6246/

Japan has a traumatic history with nuclear power, but that’s not stopping the country from taking new risks

The Fukushima nuclear disaster of 2011 devastated Japan and left the rest of the world terrified of nuclear power. While it wasn’t as horrific as the Chernobyl nuclear reactor explosion of 1986, it still traumatized both the Japanese people and the government. Yet now, Japan is facing an energy crisis, and nuclear energy may be the only realistic solution.

Japan is one of the countries at the forefront of the green energy revolution. The Japanese government understands that solar, wind, and hydroelectric energy can only produce a portion of the fuel and electricity the country and the world need. Hydrogen will have to make up some of the difference in the industrial sector, for uses in shipping, aviation, and manufacturing. Japan wants to use next-generation nuclear reactors to produce hydrogen with zero emissions.

Next-generation nuclear reactors have lower energy outputs and marginally better safety records

To make hydrogen a viable option for industrial fuel needs, Japan plans to use nuclear reactors

Many companies are already producing hydrogen for the industrial sector, but they often use natural gas or fossil fuels to do it. These methods result in at least some greenhouse emissions, and Japan wants to have a zero-emissions hydrogen production process in place by 2040 to help meet the world’s energy needs.

Nuclear reactors seem to offer a good solution to this problem because they generate a lot of heat, and that heat can be used to break down water for hydrogen harvesting. Hydrogen is the only clean fuel that scientists know of that can power industrial shipping vessels, planes, and large machinery.

To avoid making the climate crisis worse, governments need to commit to making the production of hydrogen a green process, meaning releasing zero emissions. Japan is looking at innovative ways of designing nuclear reactors to keep them safe so that they can power homes and produce hydrogen.

Many people are skeptical of nuclear energy, and Japan could be courting disaster with its plans to use high temperatures to break down water. One more nuclear explosion could mean the end of nuclear power forever. Only time will tell if the next-gen reactors pass all the safety tests required to go online.

September 17, 2024 Posted by | Japan, safety | Leave a comment

‘Its been a battle’: Neighbors worry about Palisades Nuclear Plant restarting


Fox News , By: Daren Bower, Sep 12, 2024

In May of 2022, Palisades Nuclear Power Plant shut down its reactor. Now Holtec International is in the process of restarting the facility, but neighbors are concerned that the process is being rushed and want to make sure the plant is restarted and operated safely.

Just up the beach from Tom and Jody Flynn’s house is the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant.

“Its been a battle having them as a neighbor,” said Jody Flynn.

The facility was commissioned in 1971 and stopped operating two years ago.

Now, new owner Holtec International is in the process of making Palisades the first nuclear power plant to ever be restarted in the country.

May of 2022 Palisades Nuclear Power Plant shut down it’s reactor. Holtec International is in the process of restarting the facility, but neighbors say the process is being rushed.

Holtec disagrees, saying the plant won’t be operational until December of 2025 at the earliest…………

On Sept. 9, residents filed a petition with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) arguing that Palisades is not meeting the standards for a safe start-up.

Palisades Neighborhood spokesperson Alan Blind said, “We’re not sure that anything we say could stop the NRC from approving Palisades. But please, please, please NRC, take the time to do it right.”

Blind adds, since this has never been done before, the NRC needs to have more guidelines in place for the restart to happen safely.

“It’s the NRC’S responsibility to decide what the rules are, and they haven’t done that yet,” said Blind. https://www.fox17online.com/news/local-news/its-been-a-battle-neighbors-worry-about-palisades-nuclear-plant-restarting

September 14, 2024 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Letter to New First Minister over South Wales Nuclear Overflights

 https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/letter-to-new-first-minister-over-south-wales-nuclear-overflights/ 10th September 2024

With the recent election of Dame Eluned Morgan, the NFLA Secretary has written to the new Welsh First Minister to ask for action on the flights carrying nuclear materials over South Wales.

Cardiff City Councillor Sue Lent, Chair of the Welsh NFLAs, first wrote to Dame Eluned’s predecessor Vaughan Gething at the end of April drawing attention to the carriage of nuclear materials by

RAF aircraft passing over the heavily populated cities of South Wales enroute from the USA to Brize Norton.

In that letter we asked First Minister Gething, as Chair of the Wales Resilience Forum, with responsibility for emergency planning across the nation, to seek a reassurance from the MoD / RAF that such flights will be diverted out to sea, well away from South Wales municipalities and revisit emergency planning arrangements for any accident involving these special nuclear materials.

After two reminders were sent to the First Minister’s Office, a reply was finally received on 5 August, the day before Dame Eluned replaced him in office. Unfortunately, that letter stated that whilst some preparation for the possibility of an aircraft accident had been made by first responders, ‘the issues you raise with respect to flight paths and nuclear related policies are reserved matters for the UK Government’

We also wrote to the Defence Nuclear Organisation asking them whether any emergency planning exercises had been held in Wales since Exercise Astral Bend in 2011, and we also requested any assessments of those exercises. As per usual the military denied our Freedom of Information requests suggesting that the Welsh NFLAs had a nefarious purpose in seeking to undermine national security and the efficiency of our armed forces when our concern was for the safety of the people of Wales. The only thing they would tell us is that a further exercise had been held on 21 September 2023, ironically the UN International Day of Peace.

We have now written to Dame Eluned Morgan asking her to take up the two ‘asks’ that we made of her predecessor. When we have her reply then the correspondence will be published in full in a future NFLA Briefing.

September 13, 2024 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

Former Palisades engineering director has misgivings about the plant’s historic restart effort

Tom Henry, The Blade, 9 Sept 24,

A former nuclear industry executive has emerged as a surprise critic of the historic effort to restart the Palisades nuclear plant in southwest Michigan.

Alan Blind, 71, who lives on a 16-acre farm in Baroda, Mich., said during a 75-minute interview with The Blade last week that Palisades, in his opinion, is “not a good selection as a role model for expanding the nuclear industry.”

Holtec International, of Jupiter, Fla., which originally was hired to decommission the plant, has instead bought it from its previous owner, New Orleans-based Entergy, and has put together an unprecedented plan to restart it.

Bringing a mothballed nuclear plant back into service has never been tried before in nuclear history.

The project has received huge government support, including a $1.52 billion commitment from the U.S. Department of Energy.

The outcome is expected to have huge ramifications for the industry worldwide, given the prohibitive cost of building new plants from scratch and continued issues over less-expensive units known as small modular reactors. 

Mr. Blind has special insight into Palisades because he served as its engineering director for nearly seven years under Entergy’s ownership, from May of 2006 through February of 2013.

Decades in industry

Palisades was the last stop in Mr. Blind’s career, which included time as a vice president at two other sites.

Mr. Blind began working in the nuclear industry in December of 1975 at a plant about 35 miles south of Palisades, the D.C. Cook nuclear plant near Bridgman, Mich.

That job came shortly after he graduated from Purdue University.

He he worked his way up to site vice president for D.C. Cook’s owner, American Electric Power.

After 21½ years at D.C. Cook, Mr. Blind went to New York to be vice president of nuclear power at the former Indian Point nuclear complex, which at the time was owned by Consolidated Edison Company of New York Inc.

He said he believed Palisades was operating on a thin safety margin while he was there, that he “saw a lot of red flags,” and never expected it to become the first test case of whether a mothballed plant can be put back in service.

“I put Palisades out of my mind and was comforted by the decision to shut it down and put it into decommissioning,” Mr. Blind said.

The plant was shut down and entered its decommissioning phase in May of 2022, a little more than two years ago……………………………………………………………

Palisades history……

Palisades began operating March 24, 1971, meaning that much of the engineering behind it occurred in the mid to late-1960s.

The NRC itself didn’t begin as a government agency until 1975, although it grew out of one called the Atomic Energy Commission, which had a much broader mission. The NRC is solely focused on safety. The AEC was created after World War II to promote and develop peaceful use of atomic science and technology. 

The “defense in depth” concept that promotes use of multiple backup safety systems, as well as the NRC’s general design criteria, were not well-developed during the era Palisades was built, Mr. Blind said.

He said it’s akin to not having an old house brought up to modern building codes.

“Overall, I was concerned about the lack of safety systems and design in depth,” Mr. Blind said.

He said he wanted to see more done as Palisades — like many other nuclear reactors — went to longer fuel cycles and higher outputs.

“They started off with very little margin because of the age of the plant,” Mr. Blind said. “Those margins were razor thin.”

His concerns have made their way into three formal petitions he filed with the NRC last month, imploring the agency to slow down and think harder about the pros and cons of restarting Palisades.

Each are undergoing a lengthy review process the NRC uses when it receives such detailed petitions. One petition challenges the rulemaking process, citing the unprecedented nature of what Holtec is trying to do. Another claims there is a lack of quality assurance, and the third petition raises questions about the existing state of steam generators.

Mr. Blind said he expects to file a fourth petition with the NRC within the next 10 days, making a technical argument for a public hearing more extensive than what’s been held to date…………………………………..  https://www.toledoblade.com/business/energy/2024/09/08/former-palisades-engineering-director-has-misgivings-about-the-plant-s-historic/stories/20240908054/?fbclid=IwY2xjawFMkQxleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHR1G0iCbJRiP0yk2X0kR5WGv88UE6xH5Fsi9ycAnPz2Oo1TQWtlbaFI6DA_aem_-0oAmUfm0HdWnMUniKDfaA

September 11, 2024 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

New images raise concerns over state of UK nuclear submarines

The National By Xander Elliards 8th September 24

CONCERNS have been raised that the deteriorating state of the UK’s nuclear submarines is “potentially putting the vessel and her crew at risk”.

Alarm bells were rung after the Ministry of Defence (MoD) announced last week that Defence Secretary John Healey had joined one of the UK’s four Vanguard-class submarines as it returned to dock at Faslane.

An image shared by the MoD showed Healey looking at the submarine, which appeared covered in algae, slime and rust along its entire length.

Further photos taken by locals living near the HM Naval Base Clyde showed the submarine was missing numerous patches of anechoic tiles – which line the exterior to help hide the submarine from sonar.

The submarine is thought to have been on patrol since mid-March, meaning it had spent around 160 days underwater.

In March, HMS Vengeance returned to Faslane after 201 days underwater – reported to be the second-longest patrol ever – directly following a mission which lasted 195 days. Patrols on the previous Polaris generation of nuclear submarines averaged 60-70 days, according to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND)

HMS Vengeance is one of four Vanguard-class submarines, which were each built with a 25-year lifespan – a limit imposed by the lifespan of major components – and either commenced sea trials or saw their reactor go critical in 1992, 1994, 1996, and 1999. The UK Government noted in 2007 that it “should be possible” to extend these lifespans by five years to a total of 30.

At least one submarine is meant to be patrolling the oceans at any time in order to deliver a nuclear strike if the UK Government orders it. However, the ageing fleet meant that essential works had to be carried out to keep the submarines seaworthy, placing higher pressure on the remaining boats.

In January, alarm bells had been rung after Dominic Cummings, a key adviser during Boris Johnson’s time in Downing Street, said there was a hidden “scandal of nuclear weapons infrastructure” which he called a “dangerous disaster and a budget nightmare of hard-to-believe and highly classified proportions”.

Issues with ageing equipment nearly led to a major disaster in 2022 after a broken depth gauge meant one nuclear submarine was continuing to descend despite unknowingly approaching “crush depth”.

On Saturday, the Daily Mail reported that none of the UK’s attack submarines are currently at sea, and the majority (16 out of 25) of the country’s warships are broken down, being modified, or undergoing trials. Retired rear admiral Chris Parry called the situation “utterly dire”.

In May 2023, HMS Vanguard finally completed a seven-and-a-half-year refit, and in March 2024, work on HMS Victorious was also completed. The final boat in the fleet is called HMS Vigilant, but it is not clear which of the four were greeted by Defence Secretary Healey at Faslane last week.

Responding to the nuclear-armed submarine returning to Faslane, Chris McEleny, Alba Party’s general secretary and a former MoD employee, said: “The latest sight of a Vanguard-class submarine returning to base caked in algae is very concerning. And, yet again we see anechoic tiles are missing, potentially putting the vessel and her crew at risk.

“The lengthy patrols should also spark concerns as to whether or not subs are going out on patrol with increased payloads due to concern over the half-life.

“The MoD have, as usual, failed to provide basic guarantees in regards to the safety-critical implications of these prolonged patrols.”…………………………..

Lynn Jamieson, the chair of the Scottish CND, claimed that the “UK’s nuclear weapons system is a shambles but that does not capture the absurdity and seriousness of its dangers”.

“The longer at sea, the more mental and physical stress on the crew and the more chance of accidents,” she went on. “The older the submarine the more the risks of unplanned radioactive leaks and other such incidents.

“The cost of keeping the ageing nuclear weapon system going and simultaneously building a replacement grows while public services are drastically cut. In 2023 alone, it cost £6.5 billion [according to a report from the independent Nuclear Information Service] and it will be even more this year.”……….

Jamieson said the UK Government should show “true leadership [and] scrap the old system and its replacement rather than continuing to valorise a capacity for genocide that puts the world in peril, a target on our backs and risks in our backyard”.

SNP MSP Bill Kidd, the co-president of Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (PNND), said Scotland was the “dumping ground for nuclear leaks and discharges into our waters and coasts and we are the target for any potential nukes an enemy would fire at”.

“Nothing is planned to change in all this as far as Westminster is concerned – and that means Labour every single bit as much as Tories”, he said……………………………….. https://www.thenational.scot/news/24568990.new-images-raise-concerns-state-uk-nuclear-submarines/

September 9, 2024 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

Seismic Showdown Coming at Diablo Canyon

September 5, 2024, https://beyondnuclear.org/seismic-showdown-coming-at-diablo-canyon/?fbclid=IwY2xjawFHUBlleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHd1KN9_YArhpEY7noEIMlUObMIhIq1aTPraNc69ycfsmRsK-fExjT7WWYQ_aem_CcF-daweJmC13_jfyrDbBA

Environmental groups have successfully petitioned for “enforcement action” by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to conduct a review of the earthquake risks and the potential nuclear accident threat with the continued operation of California’s two-unit Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant near San Luis Obispo.

The March 4, 2024 petition  was filed to the NRC Commissioners’ Office calling for the revocation of the nuke’s operating license by Mothers For Peace, the Environmental Working Group and Friends of the Earth. The May 15, 2024 initial assessment by an impaneled NRC Petition Review Board (under 10 CFR 2.206) was that the petition should be denied because it did not present significant new information. Enough information was provided however that the Board offered the Petitioners the opportunity for a pre-hearing meeting to supplement their request.

On July 17, 2024, the Petitioners’ presented their seismic expert, Dr. Peter Bird, Professor Emeritus of Geosciences at UCLA, who in testimony to the NRC argued that Pacific Gas & Electric’s (PG&E) most recent publicly-cited seismic risk analysis was seriously deficient. Dr. Bird’s testimony finds that PG&E’s 2018 Seismic Probabilistic Risk Assessment for Diablo Canyon’s “seismic core damage frequency” (SCDF) is currently estimated to be 3×10-5, when it should be 1.4×10-3 per year.

Dr. Bird warns that PG&E has significantly underestimated the earthquake-related nuclear accident frequency because of flawed assumptions that the Diablo Canyon meltdown risk chiefly comes from strike-slip earthquakes.  Dr. Bird charges that PG&E’s analysis disregards the more recent January 1, 2024 earthquake in Japan.  He asserts that the earthquake centered on the Noto Peninsula (7.5 Magnitude) is a dramatic demonstration and analogous to the significant risk contribution from the “thrust fault” earthquake potential underneath the Diablo Canyon reactor site and in the adjacent Irish Hills.

Based on Dr. Bird’s supplemental information and testimony, the NRC Petition Review Board announced on August 27, 2024 that it reconsidered its preliminary judgment and “As provided by 10 CFR 2.206, we will take action on your request within a reasonable time.”

September 8, 2024 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

IAEA’s Grossi says Zaporizhzhia cooling tower likely to be demolished

WNN 05 September 2024

International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi has inspected the cooling tower affected by fire last month at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and says it is “not usable in the future, so it will probably be demolished”. 

Grossi, on his fifth visit to the six-unit nuclear plant which has been under Russian military control since early March 2022, said that the security situation remains “very fragile … so our work continues … we will be analysing, assessing what we saw today – until the conflict is over or it enters a phase where there is no more active military activity … the possibility of something serious cannot be excluded”.

The IAEA has had a team of experts stationed at Zaporizhzhia for two years – with 23 rotations of staff during that time. Their presence is intended to boost nuclear safety and security at the plant which is on the front line of Russian and Ukrainian forces.

Ukraine and Russia each blame the other side for putting nuclear safety and security at risk. After the fire at the cooling tower Russia accused Ukraine of causing it with drone attacks, while Ukraine accused Russia of causing it deliberately, or by negligence………………………………….. https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/IAEA-s-Grossi-says-Zaporizhzhia-cooling-tower-set

September 8, 2024 Posted by | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

A crisis at Kursk?

IAEA chief, Rafael Grossi, duly went off to visit the Kursk site, to remind whoever is listening from either side that having a war around nuclear power plants is frightfully inconvenient when your agency is busy telling the world how safe the technology is and how badly we need more of it. 

  Linda Pentz Gunter,  2024 https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2024/09/01/a-crisis-at-kursk/

The Russian war against Ukraine now threatens to envelop one of its own nuclear power plants, writes Linda Pentz Gunter

IAEA chief, Rafael Grossi, visited the threatened Kursk nuclear power plant in Russia last week, but continues to promote nuclear power expansion.

The trouble with nuclear technology, of any kind really, is that it depends on sensible and even intelligent decisions being made by supremely fallible human beings. The consequences of even a simple mistake are, as we have already seen with Chornobyl, catastrophic.

To add to the danger, nuclear technology also relies on other seemingly elusive human traits, beginning with sanity but also something that ought to be — but all too often isn’t —fundamentally human: empathy. That means not wanting to do anything to other people you wouldn’t want to endure yourself. But of course we see humans doing these things every day, whether at the macro individual level or on a geopolitical scale. We just have to look at events in Congo, Gaza, Haiti, Sudan; the list goes on.

And of course we cannot ignore what is playing out in Ukraine and now Russia. Because of the war there, dragging on since Russia’s February 24, 2022 invasion of Ukraine, we remain in a perpetual state of looming nuclear disaster.

Currently, the prospects of such a disaster are focused on Russia, where that country’s massive Kursk nuclear power plant is the latest such facility to find itself literally in the line of fire as Ukrainian troops make their incursion there in response to Russia’s ongoing war in their country. 

But we cannot forget the six-reactor site at Zaporizhzhia in Ukraine either, embroiled in some of the worst fighting in that country, the plant occupied by Russian troops for more than two years and also perpetually one errant missile away from catastrophe.

Ukraine relies heavily on nuclear power for its electricity supply, with 15 reactors in all at four nuclear power plants, when all are fully operational. In 2023, even as the war raged around the nuclear sites, Ukraine was still providing a little over half of the country’s electricity from nuclear power.

Russia is far more dependent on natural gas, a product it also exports, and only draws just over 18 percent of its electricity needs from its estimated 37 reactors, situated at 11 nuclear sites.

There are also some fundamental technological differences between the Zaporizhzhia and Kursk nuclear power plants themselves. Kursk, like Zaporizhzhia, is also a six-reactor site, one of the three largest nuclear power plants in Russia. (Zaporizhzhia is not only the biggest nuclear power plant in Ukraine but also Europe’s largest.) 

But while Zaporizhzhia is made up of six Russian VVER reactors, more akin to the pressurized water reactors used in the United States and much of Europe, the Kursk reactors are of the old Soviet RBMK design. 

This is the same model as the Chornobyl unit that exploded in 1986, irradiating land across Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and much of Europe, contamination that persists in many areas today. 

Alarmingly, because the Kursk RBMK reactors lack a secondary containment dome, they are even more vulnerable to war damage than Zaporizhzhia’s.

Furthermore, unlike Zaporizhzhia, where all six reactors are fully shut down — making a meltdown less likely but not impossible — two of Kursk’s reactors are still running. And the Russians have already told the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that they found the remains of a drone just over 300 feet away from the Kursk nuclear plant. Ukraine has of course denied responsibility for any attempted assault on the plant just as Russia has disavowed accusations it tried to attack the Zaporizhzhia nuclear site.

IAEA chief, Rafael Grossi, duly went off to visit the Kursk site, to remind whoever is listening from either side that having a war around nuclear power plants is frightfully inconvenient when your agency is busy telling the world how safe the technology is and how badly we need more of it. 

However, like a helpless pre-school teacher with naughty toddlers, Grossi’s only recourse appears to be to tell both the Russians and Ukrainians repeatedly to stop. And since he can’t exactly take away their candy, and in fact has no “or else” to implement, they simply ignore him.

Most of us do still feel empathy for those whose lives we watch extinguished each night as ever more horrific news reports pour in from the countries where war and strife have become a seemingly endless and unstoppable ordeal.

Most of us don’t want another Chornobyl, either, for Ukrainians, for Russians or for anyone. And since we can’t rely on human beings to use nuclear power responsibly, this is one “toy” we have to take away.

Linda Pentz Gunter is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear and writes for and edits Beyond Nuclear International. Her forthcoming book, Hot Stories. Reflections from a Radioactive World, will be published in autumn 2024.

September 5, 2024 Posted by | Russia, safety | Leave a comment

Chernobyl Roulette by Serhii Plokhy review – gripping account of wartime chaos at Ukraine’s nuclear plant

Luke Harding, Mon 2 Sep 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/sep/01/chernobyl-roulette-by-serhii-plokhy-review-gripping-account-of-wartime-chaos-at-ukraines-nuclear-plant

The Ukrainian historian compellingly chronicles the singular courage and selflessness of atomic power station employees held hostage by Russian troops in 2022

Luke Harding, Mon 2 Sep 2024

On 24 February 2022, workers at the Chornobyl nuclear power station in Ukraine woke to the sound of explosions. A battle was going on, not far from the contaminated exclusion zone. By late afternoon, the Russians had arrived. A column of military vehicles pulled up at a checkpoint and an officer got out. Moscow, he said, was now in charge.

The plant’s 300 personnel – specialist operators and firefighters, plus troops from Ukraine’s national guard – became prisoners. Over the next few weeks, they kept the station’s systems going, working in cramped conditions and living side by side with their armed Russian masters. The enemy had invaded from Belarus. Its main force trundled onwards towards Kyiv.

Chernobyl Roulette by the Ukrainian historian Serhii Plokhy is a gripping account of the extraordinary events inside the plant (Plokhy spells the power station with an “e”). It is a tale of bravery and selflessness, reminiscent of the sacrifice demonstrated by the Chornobyl employees who went through the 1986 nuclear disaster, when reactor No 4 blew up. Some of those on duty in 2022 were involved in the original Soviet-era clean-up.

They included Valentyn Heiko, the 59-year-old shift foreman who was taken hostage with his colleagues. He proved to be a subtle and resilient leader. Heiko met the Russian commanders and told them they would have to follow Ukrainian safety rules and behave in a “civilised manner”. If they didn’t, he promised to unleash a radiation incident, killing them and everyone else. This was blackmail. And a bluff. It worked.

According to Heiko, some of the Russians were polite and rational. About a third of the soldiers, though, were brainwashed and often drunk. The occupiers moved into the fourth floor of the administration building. The station got crowded. There was a shortage of food, cigarettes and razors. The captive nuclear operators – unable to go home to the nearby town of Slavutych – grew beards and puffed on butts.

There were small acts of resistance. Liudmyla Kozak – one of 17 imprisoned women – refused a demand to wear a white armband. The Russians warned her she might be shot. Kozak found a white medical cap, embroidered it with a blue and yellow patch and wore that instead. An order was given to turn off the radio, which brought news of the Russian army’s setbacks around Kyiv. Staff switched it on anyway.

After three weeks, Heiko and his stressed and exhausted workmates could scarcely function. Astonishingly, 46 colleagues volunteered to replace them. The old shift exited the plant, travelled by bus through Belarus and crossed the Dnipro River in a fishing boat. Heiko carried the station’s Ukrainian flag with him. The new team went in the same way – uncertain if or when they would return.

The Kremlin’s occupation of the nuclear plant was an act of astounding recklessness. Soldiers dug trenches in the red forest, one of the world’s most toxic places. It is unclear if they suffered lasting health damage, their heads “full of sawdust”, as one gleeful Ukrainian official put it. Plokhy suggests this might be wishful thinking. Overall, though, radiation levels went up, as thousands of tracked Russian vehicles churned up deadly dust.

In the south of the country, meanwhile, another Russian unit captured the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, Europe’s biggest. The attackers fired rocket-propelled grenades at civilian infrastructure and damaged a reactor. Two and a half years on, the Russians are still there. Its turbine halls are stuffed with military kit and weapons. From the territory, they regularly bombard nearby Ukrainian towns with Grad missiles.

Last month, Russian soldiers started a fire in a cooling tower – an apparent warning, after Ukraine’s surprise counter-invasion of Russia’s Kursk region. Since the beginning of Moscow’s all-out attack, Vladimir Putin and his minions have issued a string of mass destruction threats directed at Kyiv and the west. State TV hosts talk about nuking London, Berlin and Paris.

The Chornobyl 2 story at least had a happy ending. On 30 March 2022, Russian servicemen fled north, as part of a pull-out from the Kyiv region. They departed with numerous items stolen from the plant: radiation dosimeters, computers and cars. In the town of Chornobyl, military looting parties carried off sacks of household goods. They even took ancient stuff: black-and-white TVs and video recorders.

The Ukrainian workers who put duty before personal survival narrowly averted another Chornobyl crisis. In Plokhy’s view, Moscow’s 2022 violent takeover of two atomic energy stations should serve as a “wake up call to the world”. It was, he argues, an act of nuclear terrorism carried out by a large nuclear power – a rogue one. The distinction between tactical nuclear weapons and civil nuclear facilities looks increasingly blurred, he says.

How the international community should respond to these alarming developments is less clear. Plokhy calls for a reform of the laws governing nuclear state behaviour and of the body that is supposed to administer them – the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). When Russian tanks entered Chornobyl, the IAEA, led by Rafael Grossi, issued no condemnation of the Kremlin. Nor did it call on the occupiers to get out, appealing instead to “both sides”.

Plokhy is the author of several previous nonfiction books on Ukraine. These include Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy, which won the 2018 Baillie Gifford prize, and The Russo-Ukrainian War, an account of the conflict and its origins, published last year. Chernobyl Roulette is equally compelling. It salutes the singular men and women who stepped up – as their predecessors did before them – when protocols and governments failed.

September 4, 2024 Posted by | media, PERSONAL STORIES, safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Acid discharge and risk assessment shortfall at Cheshire nuclear-site

Companies on a nuclear site were served improvement notices following an
acid leak and a risk assessment shortfall. Watchdog, the Office for Nuclear
Regulation (ONR), told a tenant and contractor on the Urenco UK site they
must improve the safety of its operations.

It follows two separate and
unconnected issues on the site in Capenhurst, near Ellesmere Port, in May
and July which were investigated by ONR inspectors. The first improvement
notice was issued to Urenco ChemPlants, a tenant organisation on the site,
after acid was discharged from a pipework leak at the Tails Management
Facility in May.

 Liverpool Echo 30th Aug 2024

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/toxic-acid-leak-nuclear-site-29831937

September 1, 2024 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

Fears of ‘serious consequences’ if ‘extremely exposed’ Russian nuclear plant is attacked.

Gergana Krasteva Aug 28, 2024, https://metro.co.uk/2024/08/27/extremely-exposed-russian-nuclear-plant-protected-just-normal-roof-21499930/

Fears of a nuclear accident are rising in western Russia weeks after Ukraine began its incursion there.

Russian president Vladimir Putin claimed a power plant came under fire, and the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog chief warned of heightened risk at the facility in the Kursk region.

International Atomic Energy Agency director general Rafael Grossi, who inspected the site outside the town of Kurchatov, said the reactor is ‘extremely exposed’ to attack and the consequences of a drone strike on the facility would be ‘extremely serious’.

He said the RBMK-type facility – the same model as Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear plant – is protected by ‘just a normal roof’.

Ukrainian troops currently control territory which is ‘the size of Los Angeles’ around the nuclear plant.

The site lacks the containment dome and protective structure typical of modern power plants.

‘The core of the reactor containing nuclear material is protected just by a normal roof,’ Grossi told a news conference earlier today.

‘This makes it extremely exposed and fragile, for example, to an artillery impact or a drone or a missile.

‘This is like the building across the street, all right? With all this nuclear material.’

Grossi continued: ‘There is no specific protection. And this is very, very important. If there is an impact on the core, the material is there and the consequences could be extremely serious.’

He added that during his visit of the plant he saw evidence of drone strikes in the area.

The Kremlin has accused Ukrainian forces of attacking the area around the plant, but the army has denied this.

‘I was informed about the impact of the drones. I was shown some remnants of them and signs of the impact they had,’ Grossi said, without actually saying who was responsible.

Despite the ongoing fighting, the nuclear facility is operating in ‘close to normal conditions’.

At the same time, the IAEA is monitoring the Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia plant, which has been occupied by Russian forces since the start of the full-scale invasion.

Grossi will travel to Ukraine next week to meet with Volodymyr Zelensky about the situation at the facility.

The operation in Kursk, the largest incursion into Russia since World War II, has resulted in the occupation of about 500 square miles.

Putin has sent reinforcements into the region but it was not clear to what extent these movements might be weakening his position in eastern Ukraine, where his soldiers were making slow advances in efforts to gain ground in Kharkiv region.

Russia’s defence ministry said that Ukraine has suffered heavy casualties in Kursk – some 6,600 troops either killed or injured – and that more than 70 tanks have been destroyed along with scores of armoured vehicles.

August 30, 2024 Posted by | Russia, safety | Leave a comment

Advocates for nuclear power should heed the lessons from Kursk

By Richard Broinowski, Aug 29, 2024,  https://johnmenadue.com/advocates-for-nuclear-power-should-heed-the-lessons-from-kursk/

On 22 August, Rafael Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, warned of the deadly effect a military attack on Russia’s nuclear power complex at Kursk would have on civilian communities in Russia, Ukraine and potentially across Europe. He had previously warned of the consequences of such attacks on Ukraine’s nuclear reactors at Zaporizhzhia.

The Kursk nuclear complex is approximately 30 kilometres from a fluid military situation between invading Ukrainian forces and Russian defenders. The complex has six Russian designed RBMK reactors, the same type as at Chernobyl. Two are shut down, two are in construction mode, and two are hot. None have protective domes. The easiest and most effective military action would be destruction of the complex’s power supply, which as with flooded generators at Fukushima, would halt cooling pumps, overheat the reactors, cause a melt-down of fuel rods, and the uncontrolled venting of radioactive materials into the atmosphere.

People have short memories, and tend to forget the dimensions of previous nuclear disasters and near disasters, particularly at Windscale, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima. Chernobyl was arguably the worst, followed closely by Fukushima. At Chernobyl, reactor number four exploded, not due to military action, but an experiment by Russian engineers to see how long turbines would spin and supply power to cooling pumps if the reactor’s main electric supply failed. In the reactor, the collision of incandescent nuclear fuel with cooling water created an explosion which blew apart the reactor vessel and spread radioactive dust including xenon gas, short-lived Iodine 131 (eight days) and Caesium 137 (30 years) across much of Ukraine and Belarus, as well as parts of Russia, and Scandinavia. The nearest town of Pripyat was evacuated and a no-go zone of 30 kilometre radius, later expanded to 4,300 square kilometres, was declared.

Subsequent reports by the UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation found that immediate deaths caused by radiation from Chernobyl could be calculated, most certainly deaths from thyroid cancer, but not of long-term stochastic deaths. The precise number is unknown and there are wildly different estimates, including among the medical profession. Because of fears about radiation damage to foetuses, over one million abortions were performed across Europe in the year following the disaster.

And now, two warring countries dice with death over Zaporizhzhya, Europe’s largest nuclear power complex and one of the 10 largest in the world.  Most recent attacks occurred between 2022 and 2024. Fighting in 2022 led up to Russia wresting management of the complex. While it was going on, a large calibre bullet pierced the outer wall of reactor number four and an artillery shell hit a transformer in reactor number six.

In April 2024, the IAEA reported the plant was attacked by a swarm of drones, three of them torching surveillance and communication equipment. There were three direct hits on containment structures. On 11 August, fire broke out in one of two cooling towers. Zelensky blames Putin for the attacks, Putin blames Zelensky. Putin is probably right. Why would Russia attack the complex it now managed? Both tend to downplay the disastrous consequences an attack on the reactors or their electricity and cooling systems would have on civilian populations across Europe. They would be similar if not worse than the results of the Chernobyl fiasco.

Although badgered by journalists following his 22 August address, Grossi refused to attribute blame for the attacks at Zaporizhzhia and who might initiate them at Kursk. He said the IAEA was not a political organisation, and blame would be up to the UN Security Council. He would not get into speculation. When pressed, however, he said if his investigations led to clear evidence of the perpetrators, he would call them out. Meanwhile, he was about to go to Kursk and examine the situation in conjunction with the managers and engineers of the nuclear complex there. He then planned to separately see both Putin and Zelensky.

What the whole situation should bring home to Australian politicians and their backers in the nuclear industry, who so blithely recommend the construction of a dozen-odd nuclear reactor complexes here, is the widespread lethal damage a kinetic attack on any one of them would cause in this country. We already see that US military and surveillance installations would become natural targets for China if ever war breaks out over Taiwan. Nuclear reactors would pose a much wider damage to the civilian population.

August 30, 2024 Posted by | safety | Leave a comment

Central Japan nuclear reactor fails to pass safety review

Tsuruga plant’s No. 2 reactor may lie above active fault in Fukui, watchdog says

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Energy/Central-Japan-nuclear-reactor-fails-to-pass-safety-review— 28 Aug 24

TOKYO (Kyodo) — Japan’s nuclear watchdog on Wednesday decided that a reactor in Fukui Prefecture failed to pass its restart safety review, marking the first such case since the regulatory body’s founding after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear crisis.

The No. 2 reactor at the Tsuruga plant, operated by Japan Atomic Power, fell short of the safety requirements due to a possible active fault underneath the offline unit. The Nuclear Regulation Authority plans to seek public comments on its assessment report before making its decision official, possibly in October.

In quake-prone Japan, building reactors or other important safety facilities directly above active faults is prohibited.

Japan Atomic Power first applied for the safety screening with the hope of restarting the reactor in November 2015.

But a safety review team of the NRA concluded in July it could not rule out that an active fault located around 300 meters north of the reactor building could potentially stretch right beneath the facility.

The assessment process for the reactor had been rocky, with proceedings suspended twice after it was revealed that Japan Atomic Power had submitted documents that included inaccuracies and data rewritten without approval. It reapplied in August last year.

The Tsuruga nuclear plant is a two-unit complex, with the No. 1 reactor set to be scrapped.

The No. 2 reactor, which started commercial operations in February 1987, went offline in May 2011.

Japan revamped its regulatory setup by launching the NRA in 2012 and has also introduced a set of new safety requirements to reflect the lessons learned from the disaster at Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings’ Fukushima Daiichi plant, triggered by a huge earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.

August 30, 2024 Posted by | Japan, safety | Leave a comment

Russia says UN watchdog must be ‘more objective’ after trip to nuclear plant near fighting

By Reuters, August 28, 2024

MOSCOW, Aug 28 (Reuters) – Russia said on Wednesday it wanted the International Atomic Energy Agency to take a “more objective and clearer” stance on nuclear safety, a day after the agency head visited a Russian nuclear plant near where Ukraine has mounted an incursion into the country.

Separately, Russia said its forces had defused unexploded U.S.-supplied munitions fired by Ukraine that were shot down just 5 km (3 miles) from the Kursk nuclear plant.

IAEA chief Rafael Grossi toured the Kursk facility on Tuesday and warned of the danger of a serious nuclear accident there. He said he had inspected damage from a drone strike last week, which Russia had blamed on Ukraine, but did not say who was responsible.

Russian state news agency RIA quoted Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying in a radio interview that Moscow wanted the IAEA to speak out more clearly on issues of nuclear security, although she denied it was demanding that the agency take a pro-Russian line.

“We see both the assessments and the work of this structure (the IAEA), but each time we want a more objective and clearer expression of the position of this structure,” Zakharova said.

“Not in favour of our country, not in favour of confirming Moscow’s position, but in favour of facts with one specific goal: ensuring safety and preventing the development of a scenario along a catastrophic path, to which the Kyiv regime is pushing everyone.”

The IAEA could not immediately be reached for comment…………………………

Ukraine has not responded to Russian accusations that it attacked the plant near where its forces launched a surprise incursion on Aug. 6 that Russia is still trying to repel. There has been fighting about 40 km (25 miles) from the facility.

Russia’s National Guard said in a statement on Wednesday that its sappers had found a shell from a U.S.-supplied HIMARS multiple launch rocket system 5 km from the plant, and a rocket fragment which it said was stuffed with 180 unexploded munitions.

There was no immediate comment from Ukraine on the purported Russian find, and Reuters could not independently verify the location of the video.

Grossi said during his visit that the plant, built to a Soviet design, was especially vulnerable because – unlike most modern nuclear power stations – it lacked a containment dome that might offer protection in the event of a strike by drones, missiles or artillery………………………. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-criticises-un-nuclear-watchdog-after-trip-plant-close-fighting-2024-08-28/

August 30, 2024 Posted by | Russia, safety | Leave a comment

UN fears nuclear incident possible at Russia’s ‘vulnerable’ Kursk plant after drone strikes

International Atomic Energy Agency raises the alarm about the Kursk plant’s vulnerable nuclear reactor as war rages nearby.

August 27, 2024 By Csongor Körömi  https://www.politico.eu/article/un-international-atomic-energy-agency-rafael-grossi-nuclear-incident-russia-kursk-plant-drone-strikes-war-in-ukraine/?fbclid=IwY2xjawE7xONleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHYsv1ZIaZ4vYeP7K4rKYHQMLy03ZNTz8FBhh11Vv7C3OjzmKz-vJZUlyQA_aem_UFL5Vx9yHAwB2AVR6omFyA

The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog chief warned on Tuesday of heightened risk at the nuclear power plant in Kursk, Russia, where Ukraine has been conducting a military counteroffensive.

International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi led the mission to the nuclear site after Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed it came under fire following Ukraine’s incursion into the region. Kyiv has denied accusations that it targeted the plant.

“The danger or the possibility of a nuclear accident has emerged near here,” Grossi told reporters, according to Reuters. He added that during his visit of the plant he saw evidence of drone strikes in the area.

“I was informed about the impact of the drones. I was shown some of the remnants of them and signs of the impact they had,” Grossi said, without saying who was responsible.

He warned that the nuclear reactor at the Kursk plant doesn’t have a protective dome, unlike most nuclear facilities, making its core very vulnerable to artillery or drone strikes. 

“The core of the reactor containing nuclear material is protected just by a normal roof, he said during his visit. “This makes it extremely exposed and fragile, for example, to an artillery impact or a drone or a missile.”

“A nuclear power plant of this type, so close to a point of contact or a military front, is an extremely serious fact that we take very seriously.”

Despite the ongoing conflict, the power station is operating “in very close to normal conditions,” according to Grossi.

“My message is the same for everyone: no nuclear accident can happen. It is our responsibility to make sure of that,” Grossi said at the news conference, adding that the agency won’t take sides in the Russian-Ukrainian war. “This conflict, this war, is not the responsibility of the IAEA.”

The war that reignited following Russia’s all-out military assault on Ukraine, now in its third year, has been fraught with nuclear risks, with numerous instances of nuclear weapon saber-rattling and recklessness near energy-generating nuclear facilities.

After the start of the conflict, Grossi worked to establish five principles to be respected by both Russia and Ukraine to ensure nuclear safety and avert an atomic catastrophe.

Russia captured Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant at the start of its invasion and has repeatedly endangered the plant’s safety, drawing condemnation from Grossi.

Grossi will travel to Ukraine next week to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and discuss “a number of things,” including the situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant and the presence of IAEA experts at other sites in Ukraine. 

The effects of world’s worst nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, Ukraine, in the 1980s are still felt to this day. Hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of land in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine were contaminated, and an area of around 30 kilometers around the plant remains essentially uninhabitable. Soviet authorities initially denied the scale of the disaster.

August 29, 2024 Posted by | Russia, safety | Leave a comment

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