Increasing danger of nuclear terrorism
Nuclear Terrorism: A Clear Danger, NYT, By KENNETH C. BRILL and KENNETH N. LUONGO, March 15, 2012 Terrorists exploit gaps in security. The current global regime for
protecting the nuclear materials that terrorists desire for their ultimate weapon is far from seamless. It is based largely on unaccountable, voluntary arrangements that are inconsistent across borders. Its weak links make it dangerous and inadequate to prevent nuclear terrorism. Continue reading
USA’s nuclear safety regulations inadequate
Chief Nuclear Regulator Admits Safety Goals Are ‘Insufficient’, Aol Energy, By Margaret Ryan, March 15, 2012 US nuclear safety goals are insufficient, and don’t address effects like those seen after the Fukushima disaster in Japan, the head of the US nuclear regulator says. Continue reading
No end of problems for San Onofre nuclear power plant
San Onofre’s Unit 3 reactor shut indefinitely while US regulators probe tube problems Washington Post, By Associated Press, March 15 LOS ANGELES — A nuclear reactor on the California coast will remain shut down indefinitely while a team of federal inspectors determines why several relatively new tubes became so frail that tests found they could rupture and release radioactive water, a federal official said Thursday….
The Unit 3 reactor at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, located about 45 miles north of San Diego, was shut down as a precaution on Jan. 31 after a water leak from another tube in a massive steam generator. Traces of radiation escaped, but officials say there was no danger to workers or neighbors.
Since then, investigators have been looking into excessive wear found on steam generator tubes in the seaside plant and its twin, Unit 2, which has been off line for maintenance and refueling. The two huge steam generators at Unit 2, each containing 9,700 tubes, were replaced in fall 2009, and a year later in Unit 3 as part of a $670 million overhaul.
The NRC dispatched a special, five-member team to Unit 3 on Thursday after pressure tests showed three of the metal-alloy tubes had become so degraded that they could rupture under some circumstances. Such ruptures can require a plant to shut down, if spewing water reaches 150 gallons a day……
San Onofre’s Unit 1 reactor operated from 1968 to 1992, when it was shut down and dismantled. The utility’s plan to ship the 600-ton reactor vessel on a 15,500-mile voyage around South America to a disposal site in South Carolina was thwarted and it remains at San Onofre, encased in concrete and steel….
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/federal-regulators-to-investigate-tube-failures-at-califs-san-onofre-nuclear-power-plant/2012/03/15/gIQAn3lIES_story.html
The USA’s radioactive waste time bomb
U.S. pools are generally more densely packed than in Japan. Vermont Yankee’s pool contains two to three times the amount of spent fuel as Fukushima Daiichi’s Reactor 4
Alvarez estimated a meltdown of spent fuel in the Indian Point pool, which has three times the radioactivity of four Fukushima spent fuel pools, would kill 5,600 people, do $461 billion in damage and render a large area uninhabitable.
The U.S. has 65,000 metric tons of nuclear waste, which we leave to our children in perpetuity…don’t make more nuclear waste until we safely dispose of what we have made.
No more Fukushimas: US plants still face risks, BY GWEN L. DUBOIS, The Baltimore Sun, 14 March 12, “…..Our nuclear plants are no better designed than those in Japan. Twenty-three are Mark 1 boiling water reactors, identical to Fukushima Daiichi reactors 1-5. This includes Peach
Bottom, 36 miles from Baltimore in York County, Pa.; and Vermont Yankee, notorious for pipes leaking radioactive tritium, which was relicensed for 20 years on March 10, 2011, over the objection of Vermonters.
Nor are our plants immune from natural or manmade disasters. Nearly half of the 104 reactors in the U.S. are near major fault lines. In August, a 5.8 earthquake 11 miles from Virginia’s North Anna nuclear power plant, which is 70 miles from Washington D.C., rattled nerves in
Baltimore and far beyond. The quake caused twice the amount of ground movement for which North Anna was designed. Continue reading
Japan’s former P.M. insisted on workers staying to prevent Fukushima total meltdown
“If the workers abandoned the plant, all the reactors and fuel rods in the fuel pools would have melted down, causing many times more fall-out than Chernobyl. “I called the TEPCO president and told him a withdrawal was unthinkable “
Ex-PM reveals meltdowns almost crippled Japan Mark Willacy, ABC South West Radio March 15, 2012 A year on from the meltdowns at the Fukushima nuclear plant, Japan’s prime minister at the time has told the ABC that the disaster came close to crippling the nation, with the evacuation of tens of millions from Tokyo a real possibility.
In an exclusive interview on ABC’s 7.30, Naoto Kan said the loss of the world’s biggest metropolis would have been like losing a war, leaving Japan without a political and economic capital. He has also confirmed that he confronted the operator TEPCO and rejected its request for its workers to abandon the crippled plant. Continue reading
Luckily, Japan’s latest earthquake and tsunami were smaller
Magnitude 6.8 earthquake strikes Japanese coast, tsunami wave hits coast THE AUSTRALIAN, BY: BY SHINGO ITO IN TOKYO From: AFP March 14, 2012 A small tsunami wave has hit Japan’s northeastern coastline, officials say, after a strong earthquake rocked the region a year on from the country’s worst post-war natural disaster. Continue reading
Serious concerns about safety of aging nuclear reactors
UN nuclear body says ageing reactors fuel safety concerns, Google News, 14 March 12, VIENNA — Eighty percent of nuclear power plants are more than 20 years old, raising safety concerns, the UN atomic agency warned in a draft report seen by AFP on Tuesday, a year after Japan’s Fukushima disaster.
This “could impact safety and their ability to meet member states’ energy requirements in an economical and efficient manner,” the International Atomic Energy Agency’s draft annual Nuclear Safety Review said.
Countries opting for what it called “long term operation (LTO) must thoroughly analyse the safety aspects related to the ageing of ?irreplaceable’ key components,” said the report, due to finalised and published in mid-2012.
The IAEA, which promotes the peaceful use of nuclear technology, said that five percent of the world’s 435 nuclear facilities have been in operation for more than 40 years and 32 percent for more than 30 years.
It said that there were “growing expectations that older nuclear reactors should meet enhanced safety objectives, closer to that of recent or future reactor designs.”
“There is a concern about the ability of the ageing nuclear fleet to fulfil these expectations and to continue to economically and efficiently support member states’ energy requirements,” it said.
It also said that 70 percent of the world’s 254 research reactors — for producing medical isotopes and other uses — have been in operation for more than 30 years, many of them “exceeding their original design life.”
This has raised “serious concerns” amongst research reactor operators, regulators and the public, it said…… http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jmno_YFxU-9xDAwd–lhSvHCM0kw?docId=CNG.f9ffe8f8ebfdfa8a7979295ffada5054.311
Dangerous fire at Fort Calhoun nuclear plant
NRC: Nebraska nuclear plant fire was serious threat, Boston Globe, By Josh Funk | ASSOCIATED PRESS MARCH 13, 2012, OMAHA – A fire that briefly knocked out the cooling system for used fuel at an idled Nebraska nuclear plant last June represented a serious safety threat, federal regulators said Monday. Continue reading
North Korea’s unsafe nuclear reactor
Shortcuts to another nuclear disaster SF Gate, Philip Yun, 9 Mar 12, “……Fukushima cautions us that nuclear technology is inherently dangerous. It also reminds us that accidents are always possible, despite the best of precautions. Right now there is a potential nuclear disaster in Asia that is under the radar: the construction of an unsafe light-water reactor in Yongbyon, North Korea. Continue reading
Move to close Mühleberg atomic plant, then Beznau
Future of nuclear plant on shaky ground by Clare O’Dea, swissinfo.ch Mar 7, 2012 The Mühleberg atomic plant near Bern will lose its operating licence at the end of June 2013 on security grounds, the Federal Administrative Court has ruled…. In its judgment on Mühleberg, the court said various factors imposed a limit on the plant’s viability, including the condition of the reactor’s core shroud, which has fissures in it.
Other security questions cited were the inconclusive evaluations on security in the event of an earthquake and the absence of a cooling system independent of the Aare river…. The court’s decision has been hailed as a victory by anti-nuclear campaigners who swiftly called for the same action to be taken for Switzerland’s and the world’s oldest nuclear power plant Beznau.
Greenpeace called it “a stage victory for the safety of the Swiss population”, while the anti-nuclear organisation Swiss Energy Foundation (SES) said the verdict was a slap in the face for the federal authorities, whose work had clearly been called in
question…. the lawyer for the group that pursued the case against BKW – more than 100 local residents and an environmental group – said the decision spelled the end of Mühleberg. “I do not think that BKW is going to make such an investment within a year,” Rainer Weibel told Swiss television.
Shaky ground With the future of Mühleberg now on shaky ground, the focus will shift to the Beznau I plant in canton Aarau, commissioned in 1969.
Critics say safety issues prove Beznau’s time is up, claiming the emergency power supply is unreliable, the reactor cover has corrosion problems and the steel container has cracks….
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/politics/Future_of_nuclear_plant_on_shaky_ground.html?cid=32250844
UK and the world under threat of radioactive ‘dirty bomb’
WHAT IS A DIRTY BOMB?
A dirty bomb combines normal explosives (such as dynamite or Semtex)and radioactive materials.
The bomb blast rapidly spreads the radioactive particles, creating a
major contamination hazard.
The blast itself is as forceful as any other type of high-explosive
device but would boost radiation levels in the detonation area,
causing long-term damage. It could increase the risk of cancer and
kill people several years in the future.
Nuclear-armed terrorists are a real threat to Britain, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg will warn
Police ‘unable to contain’ nuclear threat
Spectre of nuclear attack ‘impossible to ignore’
Countries must ‘work together’ to prevent destruction
Maol Online, By MATT BLAKE, 7th March 2012 Stateless terrorists are closer to unleashing a nuclear attack on Britain than ever before, Nick Clegg will warn today.
The Deputy Prime Minister will say materials and internet instructions on how to make a ‘dirty bomb’ have become so readily available in recent years that police forces are unable to contain such a threat.
Al Qaeda are already known to be actively trying to amass nuclear material and recruit rogue scientists to build a radioactive ‘dirty bomb’ while diplomatic temperatures between Iran and the West are at boiling point.
Mr Clegg will issue a plea for more co-operation between countries to fight the spectre of terrorism, crime and economic collapse Continue reading
Santa Susanna’ s radiation pollution from 1959 nuclear accident
Santa Susanna pollution data raises more questions about long term radiation than it answers, 89.3 KPCC, March 6, 2012 | By Molly Peterson I did a short story today about the former Santa Susanna Field Laboratory site, where Rocketdyne and others once had operations, and where in 1959 a nuclear accident released far more radioactive material than Three Mile Island. I don’t just hang out on the EPA’s website, or at the gates of that property. Instead, I heard about the data release from State Senator Julia Brownley’s release yesterday :
“This confirms what we were worried about,” said Assemblywoman Julia Brownley, D-Oak Park, a long-time leader in the fight for a complete and thorough cleanup of this former Rocketdyne rocket engine testing laboratory. “This begins to answer critical questions about what’s still up there, where, how much, and how bad?”
Brownley’s release asserts that the new samples collected are up to 1000 times higher than the “radiation trigger levels” approved by state and federal officials in 2010, when state officials reached agreements deemed, at the time, “historic,” with NASA and the Department of Energy for cleanups. Continue reading
Japan’s Tsuruga nuclear plant over an active earthquake fault
Fault under Tsuruga nuclear plant could trigger M7.4 quake: research TOKYO Mainichi Daily News, 6 March 12, (Kyodo) — An active fault running under the Nos. 1 and 2 reactors at Japan Atomic Power Co.’s Tsuruga nuclear plant in Fukui Prefecture is at least 35 kilometers long and could trigger an earthquake with a magnitude of around 7.4, much higher than previously anticipated, a team of government-affiliated researchers said Monday. Continue reading
USA’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission dragging on safety improvements
Nuclear Chief: Safety Moves Behind Schedule, WSJ, By RYAN TRACY March 6, 2012, WASHINGTON—Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko said
Tuesday the agency wasn’t on pace to meet its own timeline for improving safety at U.S. nuclear plants in response to the meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant a year ago. Continue reading
Danger of uranium and plutonium use by terrorists
Resolution on the use of uranium, plutonium to be tackled at summit, Business World, Philippines, 5 Mar 12, THE GOVERNMENT will be pushing for an international resolution that would tighten security measures and prevent nuclear resources such as uranium and plutonium from being used for terrorist activities, a high-ranking Executive official said late last week.
Mr. Binay remarked that with the pressing threat of nuclear terrorism, member states of the IAEA — a specialized United Nations body comprising 153 countries and aims to promote safe and peaceful nuclear technologies — “should not only focus on the possibility of terrorists being able to use nuclear bombs in the future, but should urgently improve their respective security and safety measures in the storing and keeping of their uranium and plutonium resources.”…. http://www.bworldonline.com/content.php?section=Nation&title=Resolution-on-the-use-of-uranium,-plutonium-to-be-tackled-at-summit&id=47788
1 This Month
of the week– Nuclear Reactor Information Task Force
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
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