That time Northern California had a near nuclear accident
by: Matthew Nobert, Feb 11, 2023 https://fox40.com/news/local-news/sutter-county/that-time-northern-california-had-a-near-nuclear-accident/
KTXL) — The Sacramento region has a rich history of United States Air Force aviation, but on a Tuesday in 1961 that history turned dark as an aircraft armed with nuclear bombs crashed in Sutter County.
Following World War II the United States Air Force was looking to add a modern bomber to its fleet and in 1955 the B-52 Stratofortress began its military service.
Between 1960 and 1968, the USAF would run Operation Chrome Dome, which would have B-52’s armed with nuclear weapons remain continuously airborne on the border of the Soviet Union.
On March 14, 1961, a B-52F-70-BW armed with two nuclear weapons departed Mather Air Force Base, now Mather Airport, when the cabin pressure in the crew compartment began to fail, according to Department of Defense records.
The crew dropped the plane to 10,000 feet but the increased fuel consumption caused “fuel exhaustion” before an air tanker could refuel the B-52.
The crew bailed out at 10,000 feet, but the commander stayed until 4,000 feet in order for the massive bomber to be steered away from a populated area.
The bomber crashed into Sutter County farmland near the intersection of Moroni Road and Drexler Road, about 17.5 miles southwest of Yuba City.
When the bomber crashed, the two nuclear weapons it was carrying were stripped away from the body of the plane, but their explosives did not detonate. No nuclear contamination was detected either.
This recounting of events by the Department of Defense was challenged years later in a 2013 book written by Retired USAF Lt Col Earl McGill, a B-47 and B-52 pilot during the Cold War.
His book “Jet Age Man: SAC B-47 and B-52 Operations in the Early Cold War” recounts the Strategic Air Commands (SAC) Operation Chrome Dome and the events of March 14, 1961.
“Whatever the cause, SAC crews were briefed on every B-52 accident….we were summoned to the alert shack briefing room where we were told that a B-52 returning from a 24-hour CHROME DOME mission ran out of fuel and dumped four Mk-28’s on Northern California,” McGill writes.
McGill’s recounting of the crash also puts into question how safe the nuclear weapons actually were when the plane went down.
“The safety devices barely worked as designed,” McGill writes. “Apparently three weapons chutes did not fully deploy, which prevented detonation. The one that hung up (in a tree), we were briefed, had ‘rung in’, a term we used to indicate ‘armed’….”
McGill’s book was Nominated as Best Military History Book 2013 by Air Power History, published by the US Air Force Historical Foundation.
Northern California was not the only area of the United States or the world that saw crash landings by B-52’s armed with nuclear bombs.
Operation Chrome Dome would come to an end in 1968 after five B-52 crashes in the United States and abroad.
Japan: Cabinet adopts policy of using nuclear reactors beyond 60-year limit
Japan Times 10 Feb 23
The Cabinet formally adopted a policy on Friday that will allow for the operation of nuclear reactors beyond their current 60-year limit alongside the building of new units to replace aging ones as part of efforts to cut carbon emissions while ensuring adequate national energy supply.
The government’s “green transformation” [whaaa..aat?] policy features extensive use of nuclear power along with renewable energy and marks a major policy shift for the country, which suffered a devastating nuclear disaster in 2011. The Cabinet decision follows a meeting in late December at which the policy was agreed upon.
The government also plans to raise about ¥20 trillion ($152 billion) through the issuance of green transformation bonds to boost investment in decarbonization projects, as it estimates public and private investment of over ¥150 trillion will be necessary over the next 10 years……… (Subscribers only] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/02/10/national/reactor-limit-extended//
Fears of ‘catastrophic’ nuclear horror as Turkey’s reactor rocked by horror earthquake
Turkey’s Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant is facing a major risk, an expert has
warned, as the death toll of the disastrous earthquake racks up. The
disaster in Turkey and Syria has so far left 11,224 confirmed dead, with
the World Health Organisation warning that the final death toll could be as
high as 20,000.
Rescue teams in Turkey and Syria worked through the night
to recover more bodies from the rubble of thousands of buildings destroyed.
Following the disaster, an expert told Express.co.uk that Turkey’s nuclear
power plant, which lies just 16 miles away from an earthquake fault and is
currently under construction, could be at risk.
Express 8th Feb 2023
Australia radioactive capsule: Missing material more common than you think
By Antoinette Radford, BBC News, 5 Feb 23
The world watched as Australia scrambled to find a radioactive capsule in late January.
Many asked how it could have been lost – but radioactive material goes missing more often than you might think.
In 2021, one “orphan source” – self-contained radioactive material – went missing every three days, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The not-for-profit Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) lists lost and found nuclear and radiological material, and its records include a person in Idaho who stumbled across a radioactive gauge lying in the middle of a road.
The organisation also listed a package containing radioactive material falling off the back of a truck onto a nearby lawn in an undisclosed location – the resident who found it then delivered it to its intended recipient later that day.
And, in 2019, a tourist was detected in St Petersburg airport wearing a radioactive watch, according to the list.
Of the nearly 4,000 radioactive sources that have gone missing since the International Atomic Energy Agency started tracking them in 1993, 8% are believed to have been taken for malicious reasons, and 65% were lost accidentally. It is unclear what happened to the rest.
When properly maintained and handled, radioactive material does not pose a significant threat to humans.
But if a person is directly exposed to the radiation without protection, they can fall severely ill – or even die.
For example, four people died after a canister containing radioactive material was stolen from an abandoned hospital in the Brazilian city of Goiânia in 1987.
A group of men took the canister that contained Caesium-137 (Cs-137) – a radioactive material commonly used in medical settings – thinking it may have some value as scrap metal. As they took it apart, they ruptured the Cs-137 capsule, spilling its radioactive contents onto the rest of the metal.
A junkyard owner who bought the contaminated metal then exposed dozens of friends and family to the radiation after he brought them to see it glow blue in the dark. This included a six-year-old who ate the radioactive powder.
Dozens required urgent medical attention and two nearby towns were evacuated once doctors established their sudden illness was caused by radiation exposure.
The incident was described by the IAEA as among “the most serious radiological accidents to have occurred”.
In 2020, radioactive waste was also found at the home of a former nuclear energy agency employee in Indonesia.
And in 2013, six men were arrested – apparently unharmed – in Mexico for stealing radioactive material from a cancer treatment machine……………………………… https://www.bbc.com/news/world-64512297
France approves study on extending nuclear reactors’ life.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/french-presidency-green-light-looking-into-extending-lifespan-existing-nuclear-2023-02-03/
PARIS, Feb 3 (Reuters) – France has approved looking into the possibility of extending the lifespan of nuclear reactors to 60 years and beyond if safety rules allow it, the French Presidency said.
The Presidency announced the move in a statement after President Emmanuel Macron, who has announced plans to build at least six new reactors by 2050, on Friday chaired the first of a series of meetings on nuclear policy.
France historically has relied on nuclear power for around 70% of its energy, although the share is likely to have fallen last year as the nuclear fleet suffered repeated outages.
A public debate about the six new EPR2 nuclear reactors is set for the end of February.
The commissioning schedule for the new reactors will be established by a bill that will determine the speed of the procedures near the existing nuclear sites and the operation of the existing facilities, the statement said.
The bill is expected to reduce delays in administrative procedure and allow for progress on the construction sites.
The statement also announced plans for the construction of the first pilot of a small advanced nuclear reactor by the 2030s.
The extension of the plants will also require the launch of an examination of the issue of the fuel cycle, including the waste management, the statement said.
Several studies are set to be launched on the matter and presented at the next meeting of the nuclear council in June 2023, the statement said. The presentation of the studies is expected to be followed with a debate in Parliament on the development of energy and climate laws.
Belgium looks to extend lives of oldest nuclear reactors.
DW. 3 Feb 23,
The Belgian government is assessing whether to extend the life of three nuclear reactors that had been due to close in 2025, citing a need to “reduce risks in the energy supply” in lieu of the war in Ukraine.
…………………………… Operational since 1975, the three reactors were initially set to be decommissioned in 2015 but had their lifetime extended until 2025 after Belgium held a review of its phase-out plan.
A delayed phase-out
Belgium has two nuclear plants, operated by French utility company Engie, with five reactors still working.
Belgium first decided on its nuclear phase-out in 2003 and it was scheduled to be completed by 2025. However, it decided last year to keep the newest plants open until 2035.
Belgium took one nuclear reactor, Tihange 2, off its power grid after 40 years on Tuesday evening as part of the country’s planned nuclear phase-out. The winding down of nuclear power began with the closure of a reactor at Doel, near the Belgian port city of Antwerp in September.
Those two reactors were known for repeated safety issues, having been shut down on previous occasions after the discovery of cracks in reactor pressure vessels. The Belgian government had considered keeping those two reactors online because of energy concerns.
……………. The German government and the German city of Aachen, which lies near the Belgian border have repeatedly called for the reactors to be decommissioned in the past.
In 2019, the European Court of Justice found that Belgium infringed European Union law by failing to carry out the required environmental assessments before prolonging the life of Doel 1 and 2 nuclear reactors…….. https://www.dw.com/en/belgium-looks-to-extend-lives-of-oldest-nuclear-reactors/a-64606438
Incompetence in the nuclear submarine industry
A nuclear engineer glued broken submarine bolts back together in an
“unforgivable” error. The unsatisfactory repairs to HMS Vanguard’s
cooling pipes were discovered after a bolt fell off whilst being tightened
during checks inside the reactor chamber.
It is understood that the bolts,
which were providing insulation onto elements of the pipework, snapped off
after being over-tightened and were then glued back on by staff at Babcock,
a defence contractor. However, Navy sources criticised the nuclear
engineering company for a lack of “transparency” for having reported an
issue, but failing to disclose all the details. They said: “Nuclear
engineering is meticulously managed and while the effect of this failure is
insignificant, the actual act is unforgivable. “Instead of replacing the
bolt, they glued it back on and that’s not right,” they said.
Telegraph 31st Jan 2023
Times 31st Jan 2023
Missing radioactive capsule found in Western Australia
Authorities in Australia say they have found a tiny radioactive capsule
which went missing last week. Emergency services had “literally found the
needle in the haystack”, authorities in Western Australia said. A huge
search was triggered when the object was lost while being transported along
a 1,400km (870-mile) route across the state.
Mining giant Rio Tinto
apologised for losing the device, which could have posed a serious danger
if handled. The capsule – which is 6mm (0.24 inches) in diameter and 8mm
long – contains a small quantity of Caesium-137, which could cause skin
damage, burns or radiation sickness.
Emergency services used specialised
equipment including radiation detectors during their hunt. Announcing their
find on Wednesday, the state emergency services paid tribute to
“inter-agency teamwork in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds”. The
capsule was found when a vehicle equipped with specialist equipment, which
was travelling at 70 km/h, detected radiation, officials said. Portable
detection equipment was then used to locate the capsule, which was found
about 2 metres from the side of the road, they added.
BBC 1st Feb 2023
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-64481317
Times 1st Feb 2023
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/missing-radioactive-capsule-found-australia-search-vk5crqk03
Blasts near Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant
The UN nuclear watchdog reported Thursday (26 January) that there were
powerful explosions close to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine.
This prompted renewed calls for a zone of security around the facility.
Russian officials dismissed comments made by Rafael Grossi (head of the
International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA), claiming that they suggested
Moscow couldn’t uphold nuclear safety.
EU Reporter 31st Jan 2023
Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) sends specialist team to Western Australia in search for missing radioactive capsule
Nuclear safety agency joins radioactive capsule hunt
By Michael Ramsey, January 31 2023 https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8067912/nuclear-safety-agency-joins-radioactive-capsule-hunt/
Federal authorities are set to join the massive search for a dangerous radioactive capsule missing in Western Australia.
The 8mm by 6mm item fell out of a density gauge while being trucked from a Rio Tinto mine in the Pilbara to Perth.
Emergency services are searching a 1400km route amid warnings the Caesium-137 in the capsule could cause radiation burns or sickness if handled and potentially dangerous levels of radiation with prolonged exposure.
The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) on Tuesday said it had sent a deployment team with specialised car-mounted and portable detection equipment to join the search.
Led by WA’s Department of Fire and Emergency Services, the hunt is expected to take five days with vehicles travelling at 50km/h.
Radiation services specialists and detection and imaging equipment are also being sent to WA by the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation.
Rio Tinto has apologised and ordered an investigation into what went wrong during the haul, which was carried out by a contractor.
Emergency Services Minister Stephen Dawson flagged the WA government was likely to also probe the incident.
“How these are transported does need to be looked at,” he told ABC radio.
“It does puzzle me how such a thing can fall off the back of a truck.”
Rio said a bolt that secured the capsule within the gauge appeared to have sheared off, creating a hole just big enough for the item to escape.
The truck arrived in the Perth suburb of Malaga on January 16 but it wasn’t until nine days later that a technician realised the capsule was missing.
The capsule is smaller than a 10 cent coin but the amount of radiation it emits is equivalent to receiving 10 X-rays in an hour.
Drivers have been warned it could have become lodged in their car’s tyres.
Takahama nuclear reactor in Fukui halted after alert goes off
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/01/30/national/takahama-nuclear-plant-halt/ 30 Jan 23, FUKUI – A reactor at Kansai Electric Power Co.’s Takahama nuclear power station in Fukui Prefecture was automatically halted Monday after an alert went off warning of a rapid decrease in the number of neutrons within the unit, the complex’s regulator and operator said.
The No. 4 reactor was halted at 3:21 p.m., the Osaka-based utility said, adding that there has been no indication of the incident causing environmental contamination. The reactor’s cooling function is normal, according to the Nuclear Regulation Authority.
The No. 4 reactor restarted in November after being shut down for routine inspections.
The seaside plant has four reactors and faces the Sea of Japan.
Clear and present danger- Ukraine’s reactors remain at risk
Grossi and others insist that the nuclear plants themselves are not the problem. “It’s very simple, the problem in Ukraine and in Russia is they are at war. The problem is not nuclear energy,” he told the BBC in an interview.
Except that it IS the nuclear plants that are the problem. After all, if Ukraine was powered by renewables and not nuclear plants, this wouldn’t even be an issue.
Bombardments in Ukraine keep reactors in the crosshairs
Ukraine’s reactors remain at risk as one-year anniversary of war looms
Clear and present danger, Beyond Nuclear, By Linda Pentz Gunter 29 Jan 23
A year ago, even before Russia invaded Ukraine, we ran our first article about the very real dangers of commercial nuclear power plants being caught up in a war.
A year later, we can thank only luck that what we predicted could happen, hasn’t. And the pinnacle — or, more accurately, nadir — of that “could” would be a catastrophic attack resulting in a major radioactive release.
Since the war began, the 15 Ukraine reactors situated at four sites, along with the defunct Chornobyl nuclear plant, have been at the center of media attention, once again bringing to light the inherent and extreme dangers of nuclear power plants at any time, let alone during an armed conflict. And, on a few occasions, all of those sites have also been in the crosshairs of actual fighting, most notably the six-reactor Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest both in Ukraine and all of Europe.
Despite pleadings by the International Atomic Energy Agency and its director, Rafael Grossi, not to engage in combat close to the nuclear plants, no effective deterrent or peaceful protective measure has been found or implemented, even as the IAEA continues to urge the creation of safe zones around the nuclear sites.
Grossi and others insist that the nuclear plants themselves are not the problem. “It’s very simple, the problem in Ukraine and in Russia is they are at war. The problem is not nuclear energy,” he told the BBC in an interview.
Except that it IS the nuclear plants that are the problem. After all, if Ukraine was powered by renewables and not nuclear plants, this wouldn’t even be an issue. As an Austrian government briefing paper, collected under “Fairy tales by the nuclear lobby,” said: “A ‘successful’ attack on a nuclear power plant in densely populated Europe would have radiological and economic consequences far beyond those experienced after Chernobyl or Fukushima. So far, no terrorist attacks on wind turbines or solar panels have been reported.”
An attack or other precipitating events caused by the war in Ukraine, could still result in such a disaster. Sadly, with the war raging on, nothing has really changed since the February 24, 2022 invasion.
Since it’s the most dangerous, being the largest, and also the closest to the worst of the fighting, let’s take Zaporizhzhia as our test case.
There are approximately 200 different radioactive isotopes contained in any given nuclear reactor and its waste inventories. Zaporizhzhia houses at least 2,204 tons of highly radioactive waste within the reactors and the irradiated fuel pools, according to a March 2022 Greenpeace analysis, looking at 2017 figures, the latest data available. At least 855 tons of those wastes are in the pools. The quantities are so high because the reactors have been in operation for several decades. The first unit came on line in 1985, the sixth in 1996.
Among those 200 isotopes are iodine-131, which attacks the thyroid, cesium-134 that accumulates in muscle and strontium-90 which acts like calcium in the body and is easily incorporated into bone. Since all reactors also make plutonium-239 — with a half-life of 24,000 years — as part of the fission process, it, too, could be propelled into the environment. As an alpha-emitting particle, it is most dangerous when inhaled, attacking lungs, kidneys and other organs.
As we have written frequently at Beyond Nuclear since our first article appeared and the Russian war on Ukraine followed, there are a number of scenarios that could precipitate such a catastrophe. It could involve a full or partial reactor meltdown, an irradiated fuel pool fire or hydrogen explosion, or a breach of the radioactive waste storage casks.
The specific scenarios for this are described with essential detail and great clarity in the special section on “Nuclear Power and War” in the 2022 edition of the World Nuclear Industry Status Report.
“Unlike all other types of power plants, the safety of a nuclear power plant depends on continuously functioning cooling systems,” the WNISR authors write in the chapter introduction. “The physical reason for this is the radioactive decay of the fission products and transuranic elements produced by neutron capture on uranium. During this decay, considerable amounts of heat are generated, so-called decay heat. If it is not continuously removed by cooling, this leads to strong heat buildup, which can cause melting, fires, or other events that can cause major releases of radioactive materials. During operation and directly after a reactor shutdown, cooling requirements are particularly high.”
This also means that even when the reactors are shut down, as at least four have been at Zaporizhzhia, they are not out of danger. And the fuel pools present the greatest threat, as the radioactive waste inventory they contain is more radioactive than the fresh fuel before it is loaded into the reactor.
But it need not take a full blown attack to cause at least some of these disastrous outcomes. It could be as simple as a loss of power, or human error. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
As we ponder this in the context of the perils of war, we must also remember that war just makes this outcome [a Chornobyl type disaster] more likely. A major nuclear disaster is still possible — and even probable — on a daily basis at any nuclear power plant anywhere and at any time. Loss of power and human error remain key causes, along with violent weather events — occurrences that will continue to become more frequent and more severe as the climate crisis worsens. Sabotage and terrorism are an ever-present possibility as well.
This means that striving for the unrealistic goal, as the IAEA does, of ensuring nuclear reactors are not caught up in a war zone, doesn’t make us all that much safer. Only the complete elimination of nuclear power as an energy source will achieve that.
Linda Pentz Gunter is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear and writes for and curates Beyond Nuclear International. https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2023/01/29/clear-and-present-danger/
Cracking Under Pressure: Inside the Race to Fix France’s Nuclear Plants
Macron’s government wants to help EDF build six new large reactors and begin preparatory studies on another eight units by 2050.
But building 14 new reactors is “absolutely not within EDF’s reach with its current balance sheet,” said Celine Cherubin, a senior credit officer at Moody’s Investors Service………..
“The plan to fix seven safety cooling systems in 2023 is “not the end of the story,”… “It’s possible that we have to carry long and complex works. I think that 2023, ’24 and ’25 will continue to entail issues related to the stress corrosion.”
Yahoo News, Francois De Beaupuy, Sat, January 28, With assistance from Samuel Dodge and Patricia Suzara.
(Bloomberg) — Behind layers of security and a thick concrete wall, a team of welders work in shifts to fix the crippled Penly nuclear plant in northern France. Sweating under protective gear, they’re replacing cracked pipes in the emergency cooling system which protects against a reactor meltdown.
Each weld takes at least three days to complete, with workers often on their knees or backs to reach for the correct angle. Even in radiation suits, health regulations limit work in that environment to a maximum 40 hours a year.
The complicated procedures, replicated across sites this winter, have hampered the ability of Electricite de France SA to get its reactors back online after lengthy shutdowns.
Deadlines have slipped. The two Penly reactors were scheduled to be back online this month and next. Instead, EDF has been forced to delay the restarts to May and June.
“These are complex situations, in a noisy and radioactive environment,” Laurent Marquis, a manager at Altrad Group-Endel which is coordinating the repairs for EDF at Penly, said last month, before the restarts were pushed back. “Workers can sometimes only hold their position for just a few minutes before they need to be replaced.”
The power station, below a cliff on France’s northern coast, normally provides electricity for about 3.6 million households. Its two reactors have been, in effect, grounded by faulty plumbing — the same cracked pipes first discovered by EDF at another plant in late 2021. That reactor, at Civaux in central France, only came back online on Wednesday after extensive repairs.
The discoveries plunged the operator into a crisis with repercussions for all of Europe. EDF called it an “annus horribilis,” and from early May to late October, about half of its 56 reactors sat idle due to the repair and maintenance backlog.
It flipped France from Europe’s biggest electricity exporter into a net importer last year, just as the continent needed it more than ever. After gas imports from Russia dried up, energy prices soared, governments spent billions helping consumers with their bills and Europe was threatened with shortages and blackouts.
So far, Europe has avoided the worst-case scenario, thanks to efforts to conserve energy and a relatively mild winter that reduced heating demand
But the crisis is far from over, and EDF needs to find a way to avoid a repeat next winter. That challenge — finding problems, fixing them, doing checks — is already a mammoth task, and it’s being compounded by financial issues and staff shortages………………………………………………………….
By May, the utility had concluded that 16 of its reactors had pipes more prone to stress corrosion. Significantly, they were actually the group’s newest reactors, where the French nuclear plant builder Framatome — a unit of EDF — had modified the original Westinghouse Electric Co. design used for the 40 older units………………………………….
EDF has a history of missed maintenance deadlines, which an external audit published in June blamed on inadequate management of data, staff shortfalls and inexperienced teams in charge of turnarounds.
The company is still trying to figure out the speed at which cracks progress through pipes once they appear, meaning it faces tighter, more frequent monitoring of its reactors. Future setbacks can’t be ruled out.
The plan to fix seven safety cooling systems in 2023 is “not the end of the story,” Cedric Lewandowski, EDF’s senior executive vice-president for nuclear and thermal production, said at a parliamentary hearing this month. “It’s possible that we have to carry long and complex works. I think that 2023, ’24 and ’25 will continue to entail issues related to the stress corrosion.”
If that caps nuclear output, that means less power for France, and less to export to Europe.
Compounding the pipe issues is the broader maintenance work needed on what’s an aging fleet. Most of EDF’s reactors were built from the late 70s to the mid-90s, and now require longer down time. The utility wants to coincide the corrosion repairs with the other halts to maintain production, Lewandowski said.
On top of that, the utility is still repairing 122 faulty welds at a new flagship reactor in Flamanville in Normandy, which it wants to commission in the first half of 2024. The project is already over a decade behind schedule, and about €10 billion over budget.
All of which raises significant questions for EDF and the French government……………..
Macron’s government wants to help EDF build six new large reactors and begin preparatory studies on another eight units by 2050.
But building 14 new reactors is “absolutely not within EDF’s reach with its current balance sheet,” said Celine Cherubin, a senior credit officer at Moody’s Investors Service………………………..
The bigger question is whether EDF and the government can now reverse the sense of decline in France’s nuclear industry.
The dirty secret of US nuclear energy
JOHN GREEN recommends an exposé of dangerous malpractice at the oldest and largest nuclear site in the US
Atomic Days: The Untold Story of the Most Toxic Place in America
By Joshua Frank
A DESCRIPTION of Hanford in Washington state — the place where the US stores much of its plutonium waste — sounds like something out of a dystopian novel by Kurt Vonnegut.
The town of Richland, a stone’s throw from Hanford’s boundary fence and where many of the workers’ families live, is an odd place. No rich mineral deposits, no surrounding agricultural landscape, no ski slopes or well-heeled tourists.
Richland was established by the atom bomb project and celebrates that history. The local pub is called Atomic Ale Brewpub. It showcases beers like Plutonium Porter, half-life Hefeweizen and Atom Bustin’ IPA.
The local school coat of arms boasts an exploding mushroom cloud. There is “a fervent mystifying patriotism” running deep in Richland, says Frank. The town also boasts more PhDs than any similar sized town in the state but voted overwhelmingly for Trump in recent elections.
Hanford’s B reactor has been designated a National Historic Landmark and was the first full scale plutonium production plant in the world. Those acting as guides do not appear to reflect on its legacy or suggest, perhaps, a moment of silence for the victims of nuclear bombs; for them it is a reason to rejoice at the ingenuity and superiority of the US war machine
Atomic Days reads at times like a political thriller, involving government lying and cover-ups, corruption, private-sector rapaciousness, spying on union “troublemakers” or anyone concerned about health and safety, and even the attempted murder of a whistleblower. There is no transparency and little accountability.
Many Hanford workers and their families have suffered serious illness as a result of radioactive contamination, from hyperthyroidism to miscarriages, disabilities and cancers, and numbers of unexplained deaths.
All this has been largely ignored by the national media, despite the fact that Hanford poses not only a danger to local people but to the whole country.
While focusing on Hanford, Frank encompasses the nuclear story on a global scale, from the US army injecting unsuspecting human guinea-pigs with plutonium in the 1940s, to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Chernobyl, Fukushima and the air crash over Spain involving nuclear weapons, to the legacy of nuclear bomb testing.
During the Cold War, the project expanded to include nine nuclear reactors and five large plutonium processing complexes, the last of which was decommissioned in 1987.
Once home to the US largest plutonium production site, the Hanford Nuclear complex is laced with 56 million gallons of radioactive waste. There have been numerous releases of radioactive isotopes into the ground water and into the atmosphere, but it has all been shrouded in secrecy. Today, the EPA has designated Hanford the most toxic place in America; it is also the most expensive environmental clean-up job the world has ever seen, with a soaring price tag of £553 billion.
At present, Hanford’s radioactive waste is stored in 177 waste tanks, 149 of them with just a single wall. The facility sits over a huge aquifer, above which 53 million gallons of radioactive and chemically hazardous waste are stored in leaky underground tanks.
These tanks are well past their life expectancy and full of boiling radioactive gunk. They are leaking, infecting groundwater supplies and threatening the nearby Columbia River. It also sits on around 750,000 cubic metres of buried solid waste, spent nuclear fuel and leftover plutonium.
The threat of an explosive accident at Hanford is all too real and could be more catastrophic than Chernobyl. There have already been numerous accidents, mostly unregistered and unknown to the public. It is one of the most radioactive wastelands on Earth.
It used to be home to several indigenous groups who once fished in the fish-rich Columbia River and hunted the deer and other animals in the surrounding woods. They were resettled from their ancestral lands once the US government determined to use the land to build the biggest plutonium production plant and waste dump in the country.
Frank’s chilling account should certainly disabuse the illusions of anyone out there who still views nuclear energy as a means of producing clean energy and saving the planet.
Joshua Frank is co-editor of the radical magazine, Counterpunch.
Missing radioactive capsule: Western Australia officials admit it was weeks before anyone realised it was lost
Fire and Emergency Services official says capsule left Rio Tinto mine site on 10 January but was not found missing for 15 days
Guardian, Mostafa Rachwani, 28 Jan 23
Western Australian authorities are scrambling to find a missing radioactive capsule that is a fraction of the size of a 10c coin, conceding it was not found missing until more than two weeks after it left a Rio Tinto mine site.
The 8mm by 6mm capsule is a 19-gigabecquerel caesium 137 ceramic source, commonly used in radiation gauges, and was supposed to be contained in a secure device which had been “damaged” on a truck which travelled from the mine site north of Newman in the Pilbara to a depot in Perth.
Authorities are now searching along the 1,400km stretch of the Great Northern Highway for the capsule, which they warn can cause skin burns, radiation sickness and cancer.
At a news conference on Saturday, Darryl Ray, the acting superintendent for Western Australia’s Department of Fire and Emergency Services, said authorities were largely searching for the capsule at “strategic sites”.
He said an incident management team including the Department of Health and police had been formed.
“We have continued the search on strategic sites along the route that the vehicle had taken, concentrating on sites close to high-population areas within the metropolitan suburbs,” he said. “The search involves the use of radiation survey meters to detect the radiation levels which will help us locate the small device.
“What we are not doing is trying to find a tiny little device by eyesight. We are using the radiation detectors to locate the gamma rays, using the meters, that will help us then locate the small device.
“We have secured the GPS data from the trucking company to determine the exact route and stops that the vehicle has taken on its journey.
“We will continue to use specialist equipment to help us search the remaining known locations … in particular, the Great Northern Highway between Perth and Newman.”
The WA chief health officer, Andrew Robertson, said there were screws missing from the protective gauge holding the capsule when it was discovered missing.
“These gauges are designed to be robust and to be used in industrial settings where they may be exposed to weather and vibration, so it is unusual for a gauge to come apart like this one has,” Robertson said.
“We are conducting an investigation on all of the circumstances from when it was originally transported from the mine site, the whole of the transport route, and then its handling on arrival in Perth.”
Robertson urged anyone who found the capsule not to handle it.
“People could end up developing redness of the skin and eventually burns of the skin from the beta radiation,” he said. “If it were kept long enough and they were exposed long enough, they could also have some acute effects, including impacts on their immune system and the gastrointestinal system.”
Robertson said the capsule was “most dangerous if it is handled or if it is close to the body”.
“If you are further than five metres away from the source, certainly if you are more than 20 metres away from the source, it will pose no danger to you,” he said. “If it is closer than that, and we strongly discourage people from picking it up, certainly don’t put it in your pocket or put it in your car, don’t put it on your sideboard, it will continue to radiate.
“While you may not have immediate health effects, they can occur relatively rapidly over a short period of time if it is close to the body………………
Robertson said officials did not know the date the capsule fell off the truck.
Ray said the capsule was placed on to the pallet on 10 January at the mine site, transited and arrived at the radiation service company in Malaga on 16 January.
“It was not until the 25th, late morning, when they opened it up to reveal that the device had fallen apart, was damaged in transit, and that the actual capsule was discovered missing, which is when authorities were first notified.” ………… more https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jan/28/missing-radioactive-capsule-wa-officials-admit-it-was-weeks-before-anyone-realised-it-was-lost
1 This Month
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18 March Webinar @ 1 PM EST: An Assessment of SMR Projects: The Case of Canada
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of the week – STOP SMALL MODULAR REACTORS IN CANADA
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