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China demands answers on US nuclear submarine accident in South China Sea 

China demands answers on US nuclear submarine accident in South China Sea, SCMP,   Minnie Chan, 8 Oct 21,

Chinese foreign ministry blames freedom of navigation operations as it seeks details on the where and how of collision and the likely nuclear risks. Complex underwater terrain and ongoing nuclear submarine arms race increase risk of accidents in the region, analyst warns

China has demanded further explanation from the United States over a collision involving a US Navy nuclear submarine in the South China Sea last week, slamming the lack of information as “irresponsible” and expressing serious concerns about any “nuclear leak”.

“The United States should clarify more details of the occurrence, including the specific location, the intention of its navigation, what kind of object the sub had struck, whether it caused a nuclear leak that would contaminate marine environment,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Friday.

“It’s irresponsible and displays a lack of transparency on the part of the US to deliberately delay and conceal the details of the accident.”

  • ………  The incident with the Connecticut comes just weeks after Australia, the UK and the US announced a new security arrangement. The so-called AUKUS pact also created a rift with France, which saw a US$66 billion deal to provide Australia conventional submarines voided in favour of a deal for American-made nuclear-powered ships.
  • …………….  A witness on Thursday told an inquest in London into the mysterious sinking of a French trawler that rescuers saw a submarine in the area of the type used by the Dutch navy……………….

more https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3151578/us-nuclear-submarine-hits-underwater-object-south?module=perpetual_scroll&pgtype=article&campaign=3151578—

October 9, 2021 Posted by | China, incidents, politics international | 1 Comment

US nuclear attack submarine hits object in South China Sea, injuring crew

US nuclear attack submarine hits object in South China Sea, injuring crew,  ABC, 8 Oct 21, A nuclear-powered submarine collided with an unknown “object” while submerged in the South China Sea, United States military officials confirmed.

Key points:

  • The submarine’s nuclear propulsion plant was not damaged and is operating normally
  • It is not clear what the sub collided with, but officials say it could have been a sunken vessel 
  • An investigation will be launched into the incident   

The Seawolf-class fast-attack submarine USS Connecticut struck the “object” on October 2 and while about a dozen sailors were hurt, none of the injuries were life-threatening, the US Navy said in a statement.

Officials said the submarine’s nuclear propulsion plant was not impacted and remained fully operational. 

“The submarine remains in a safe and stable condition,” the statement said.

“The extent of damage to the remainder of the submarine is being assessed.” 

US officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the incident took place in international waters in the South China Sea.

They said it was not yet clear what object the sub had struck but that it was not another submarine.

One official said it could have been a sunken vessel, a sunken container or other uncharted object…………….

In 2009, two British and French nuclear subs were damaged after colliding in the Atlantic while in 2019 14 Russian naval officers were killed in a fire on a nuclear-powered submersible near the Barents Sea. …………….. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-08/us-nuclear-sub-hits-object-south-china-sea/100523164

October 9, 2021 Posted by | incidents, USA | Leave a comment

Scottish police alerted to ‘suspicious activity’ of Taliban ally near nuclear weapons base,  


Scottish police alerted to ‘suspicious activity’ of Taliban ally near nuclear weapons base,  
ARAB NEWS, October 08, 2021,

  • Local residents in Scotland said they saw eight men arrive at Waheed Totakhyl’s Scotland home and leave just 20 minutes later
  • He has previously expressed support for the Taliban, sold Osama bin Laden pizzas, and called for the death of US soldiers

LONDON: Residents living near a military complex holding nuclear submarines in Scotland, UK, have alerted police to suspicious activity on land rented by a supporter of the Taliban adjacent to the naval base, Sky News reported.

Waheed Totakhyl once publicly called for the death of US soldiers in Afghanistan and his brother is currently serving as a military commander for the Taliban in Kabul.

He rents a farm less than five miles away from a critical Royal Navy submarine base, which holds submarines equipped with nuclear weapons. 

Local residents said they have witnessed a number of men visiting him in recent weeks. They alerted local police to the activity, telling them that on Aug. 10 eight men arrived on Totakhyl’s farm in two vehicles and then left just 20 minutes later.

Local residents said the men claimed to be Afghans who had traveled there from London — a trip that takes around eight hours each way……….. https://www.arabnews.com/node/1944131/world

October 9, 2021 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

Nuclear security helicopter scours Boston Marathon route for radiation

Nuclear security helicopter scours Boston Marathon route for radiation

Radiation surveys part of beefed-up security around the 125th Marathon. Ars Technica, TIM DE CHANT – 10/9/202   This morning, a Department of Energy helicopter buzzed above cities and suburbs in eastern Massachusetts, scanning for radiation in advance of the 125th Boston Marathon. The sweep is part of security preparations to help first responders pinpoint possible “dirty bombs” and other terrorist activities before they claim any lives.

The flight started with a thorough scan of the starting line in the western suburb of Hopkinton before flying along the 26.2-mile route to the finish line in Boston, where the helicopter performed another comprehensive survey. The craft flew at low altitude the entire time, dipping below 100 feet on several occasions, according to FlightAware.

The twin-engine Bell 412 (tail number N412DE) is operated by the National Nuclear Security Administration, a division of the Department of Energy that is responsible for everything from nonproliferation to maintaining the nation’s nuclear stockpile. The helicopter is part of the agency’s Aerial Measuring System, which routinely performs radiological surveys before major events, including presidential inaugurations, Super Bowls, and New Year’s Eve celebrations in Las Vegas.

The NNSA will fly additional surveys in the Boston area over the next three days, including Monday, when the marathon will be run. Today’s flight is intended to develop a map of background radiation sources, which will help the helicopter and other ground-based sensors detect any unusual radiological activity on race day, including so-called “dirty bombs” that use traditional explosives to scatter radioactive material…………………   https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/10/nuclear-security-helicopter-scours-boston-marathon-route-for-radiation/

October 9, 2021 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

The risks of a catastrophic spent nuclear fuel fire near the Persian Gulf.


How to reduce the risk of a catastrophic spent nuclear fuel fire near the Persian Gulf, Bulletin, By Tara Burchmore, Tom Spence, Ali Ahmad | October 6, 2021  The 2021 operational launch of two reactors at the Barakah power plant in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE) demonstrates the growth of nuclear energy in the Middle East. Over the next two years, there will be five reactors operating in the Persian Gulf­—four reactors at Barakah and Iran’s Bushehr reactor, which has been running since 2013. If Iran and Saudi Arabia fulfill their proposed plans to build new nuclear reactors, the number will rise to at least eight reactors in the gulf by 2030.

There are many reasons for concern about the safety of nuclear facilities in the gulf. Particularly in the region where Bushehr is located, Iran is prone to seismic activity. The UAE has limited experience in operating nuclear facilities. And terrorist groups have identified energy infrastructure as a key target—and even attacked nuclear installations.

It is in this context we raise an alarm about the possibility of a severe nuclear accident in the gulf, driven by a fire in one of the spent nuclear fuel pools of the Bushehr or Barakah power plants. As we explain in detail in our recent paper in Science and Global Security, the local and possibly global economic implications of such an accident are huge.

Since the Fukushima Daiichi disaster more than a decade ago and the “near miss” catastrophe of a fire at the unit 4 spent fuel pool, higher attention has been given to the long-overlooked risks of such densely packed pools, which typically have less fortified containment than a reactor core but may contain much larger amounts of radioactivity. Frank von Hippel and his colleagues have since produced important analyses revising the risks of spent nuclear fuel fires and highlighting their human and economic costs.

Cities at risk. In our paper, we modelled what might happen if a spent nuclear fuel fire was to start at either the Barakah or Bushehr nuclear power plants, using an atmospheric modeling program to simulate how the plume of radioactive smoke from the fire would spread over the gulf region based on probable weather patterns.

Based on thousands of dispersion simulations using real historical weather data, the results show that several major cities in the gulf region could be contaminated by cesium 137 fallout if a spent fuel fire occurred at Barakah or Bushehr. The cities at the highest risk from fires at Barakah are those centered around the Gulf of Bahrain: Doha, Manama, Dammam, and al-Hofuf…………………………

Recommendations. The safest way to mitigate the risk of spent nuclear fuel fires in the Persian Gulf region would be to end the deployment of nuclear energy in the Middle East and rely instead on the region’s natural gas and renewable energy resources. This, of course, will not happen.

However, risks can be reduced by not adding new nuclear capacity beyond what is currently built. Additionally, governments could reduce risks by timely transfer of spent fuel into dry cask storage and ultimately into geological storage, limiting the dense packing of spent fuel pools. Iran has agreed to transfer Bushehr’s spent nuclear fuel to Russia and could seek to do so as soon as it has cooled sufficiently. States also should work to prevent attacks on nuclear facilities. One model could be a multilateral arrangement similar to the bilateral one reached between India and Pakistan. Finally, gulf states should bolster their emergency preparedness and management plans for nuclear accidents and incidents involving potential radiation release in the region. https://thebulletin.org/2021/10/how-to-reduce-the-risk-of-a-catastrophic-spent-nuclear-fuel-fire-near-the-persian-gulf/

October 7, 2021 Posted by | MIDDLE EAST, safety | Leave a comment

Two French nuclear workers affected by contaminated water

Penly nuclear power plant near Dieppe: two employees affected by
contaminated water. Two EDF employees at the Penly nuclear power plant were
affected by contaminated water, on the night from Friday to Saturday,
October 2, 2021.

 Actu.fr 2nd Oct 2021

https://actu.fr/normandie/petit-caux_76618/centrale-nucleaire-de-penly-deux-salaries-touches-par-de-l-eau-contaminee_45364830.html

October 4, 2021 Posted by | France, incidents | Leave a comment

Hungary’s nuclear watchdog withholds permits for two new reactors


Hungary watchdog withholds nuclear expansion permits, seeks further info,   BUDAPEST, Oct 1 (Reuters) – Hungary’s nuclear watchdog withheld permits for two new reactors at the Paks nuclear power plant pending additional information from the Russia-led project’s managers, further hampering a planned expansion beset by years of delays………………………

Hungary has amended its nuclear safety protocols to allow some work to begin before the entire expansion – initially planned to start in 2018 and with the first bloc set for completion in 2025 – got the regulatory nod.

It was unclear how much more the latest setback could delay construction of a project still in its preliminary stages and on which Russia this year agreed to delay payments for five years. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/hungary-watchdog-withholds-nuclear-expansion-permits-seeks-further-info-2021-10-01/

October 2, 2021 Posted by | EUROPE, safety | Leave a comment

Australia’s new nuclear submarines will have dangerous Highly Enriched Uranium, not the Low Enriched Uranium of the French ones.

The United States and UK operate naval reactors in their submarines that are fueled with 93.5 percent enriched uranium (civilian power plants are typically fueled with three to five percent uranium-235) in quantities sufficient to last for the lifetime of their ships (33 years for attack submarines).Having resisted domestic efforts to minimize the use of HEU and convert their naval reactors to LEU fuel, the United States and UK have no alternative fuel to offer. France, on the other hand, now runs naval reactors fueled with LEU. The new Suffren-class submarine, from which the French conventional submarine offered to Australia was derived, even runs on fuel enriched below 6 percent.

Until now, it was the US commitment to nonproliferation that relentlessly crushed or greatly limited these aspirations toward nuclear-powered submarine technology. With the new AUKUS decision, we can now expect the proliferation of very sensitive military nuclear technology in the coming years, with literally tons of new nuclear materials under loose or no international safeguards.

It is difficult to understand the internal policy process that led the Democratic Biden administration to the AUKUS submarine announcement.  It seems that just like in the old Cold War, arms racing and the search for short-term strategic advantage is now bipartisan.

The new Australia, UK, and US nuclear submarine announcement: a terrible decision for the nonproliferation regime https://thebulletin.org/2021/09/the-new-australia-uk-and-us-nuclear-submarine-announcement-a-terrible-decision-for-the-nonproliferation-regime/

By Sébastien Philippe | September 17, 2021 On September 15, US President Joe Biden, United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison launched a new major strategic partnership to meet the “imperative of ensuring peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific over the long term.” Named AUKUS, the partnership was announced together with a bombshell decision: The United States and UK will transfer naval nuclear-propulsion technology to Australia. Such a decision is a fundamental policy reversal for the United States, which has in the past spared no effort to thwart the transfer of naval reactor technology by other countries, except for its World War II partner, the United Kingdom.  Even France—whose “contract of the century” to sell 12 conventional submarines to Australia was shot down by PM Morrison during the AUKUS announcement—had been repeatedly refused US naval reactor technology during the Cold War. If not reversed one way or another, the AUKUS decision could have major implications for the nonproliferation regime.


In the 1980s, the United States prevented France and the UK from selling nuclear attack submarines to Canada. The main argument centered on the danger of nuclear proliferation associated with the naval nuclear fuel cycle. Indeed, the nonproliferation treaty has a well-known loophole: non-nuclear weapon states can remove fissile materials from international control for use in non-weapon military applications, specifically to fuel nuclear submarine reactors. These reactors require a significant amount of uranium to operate. Moreover, to make them as compact as possible, most countries operate their naval reactors with nuclear-weapon-usable highly enriched uranium (HEU) fuel.

With tons of weapons-grade uranium out of international safeguards, what could go wrong?

The United States, UK, and Australia are giving themselves 18 months to hammer out the details of the arrangement. This will include figuring out what type of submarine, reactors, and uranium fuel will be required. Similarly, questions about where to base the submarines, what new infrastructure will be needed, how maintenance will be conducted, how nuclear fuel will be handled, and how crews will be trained—among many others—will need to be answered.

Australia has no civilian nuclear power infrastructure beyond a 20 megawatt-thermal research reactor and faces a rough nuclear learning curve. It will need to strengthen its nuclear safety authority so it has the capability to conduct, review, and validate safety assessments for naval reactors that are complex and difficult to commission. 

How long this new nuclear endeavor will take and how much it will cost are anyone’s guesses. But the cancelled $90 billion (Australian) “contract of the century” with France for conventionally powered attack submarines will most likely feel like a cheap bargain in retrospect. Beyond these technical details, the AUKUS partnership will also have to bend over backwards to fulfill prior international nonproliferation commitments and prevent the new precedent created by the Australian deal from proliferating out of control around the world.

Continue reading →

September 19, 2021 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, safety, Uranium | Leave a comment

Nuclear-powered submarines have ‘long history of accidents

Nuclear-powered submarines have ‘long history of accidents’, Adelaide environmentalist warns,  ABC By Daniel Keane 17 Sept 21,

The plan to build nuclear-powered submarines in South Australia has alarmed anti-war and environmental campaigners, one of whom says the vessels have a “long history” of involvement in accidents across the globe.

Key points:

  • Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the nuclear submarines would be built in Adelaide
  • The Greens and other environmental groups say that raises serious public safety concerns
  • SA’s former nuclear royal commissioner says the risks can be managed

Prime Minister Scott Morrison unveiled a deal to construct the new fleet of at least eight submarines, declaring a new era of strategic alignment with the United States and United Kingdom, and a new trilateral security partnership called AUKUS.

All Australians benefit from the national interest decisions to protect Australians and to keep Australians safe,” Mr Morrison said.

But Friends of the Earth Australia’s anti-nuclear spokesperson Jim Green said the plan was more likely to compromise public safety than enhance it.

I’m worried about the security and proliferation aspects of this, I’m deeply concerned as an Adelaidean. A city of 1.3 million people is not the place to be building nuclear submarines,” he said.

“North-western Adelaide could be a target in the case of warfare. Of course, that’s a very low risk but if it does happen, the impacts would be catastrophic for Adelaide.

“You should build hazardous facilities away from population centres, partly because of the risk of accidents and partly because of the possibility that a nuclear submarine site could be targeted by adversaries.”

Dr Green said the question of what would become of the spent fuel remained unanswered, and there was “a long history of accidents involving nuclear submarines”.

Many — but not all — of those occurred in submarines built in the former Soviet Union, including the infamous K-19, which was subsequently dubbed “The Widowmaker” and became the subject of a Hollywood film.

After its reactor suffered a loss of coolant, members of the crew — more than 20 of whom died in the next two years — worked in highly radioactive steam to prevent a complete meltdown.

Two US naval nuclear submarines — USS Thresher and USS Scorpion — currently remain sitting at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, at depths of more than two kilometres, after sinking during the 1960s.

More than 200 mariners died in the disasters, and neither vessels’ reactors, nor the nuclear weapons on board the Scorpion, have ever been recovered.

Two years ago, 14 Russian naval officers were laid to rest after they were killed in a fire on a nuclear-powered submersible in circumstances that were not fully revealed by the Kremlin.

Dr Green said Australia’s “nuclear power lobby” had “been quick off the mark”, and was already using the Prime Minister’s announcement to push for further involvement with the nuclear fuel cycle, including atomic energy and waste storage.

“The South Australian Nuclear Fuel Cycle [Royal] Commission, in its 2016 report, estimated a cost of $145 billion to construct and operate a nuclear waste repository,” he said.

“No country in the world has got a repository to dispose of high-level nuclear waste, and the only repository in the world to dispose of intermediate-level nuclear waste, which is in the United States, was shut for three years from 2014 to 2017 because of a chemical explosion.”…………….https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-17/nuclear-submarines-prompt-environmental-and-conflict-concern/100470362

September 18, 2021 Posted by | incidents, oceans, technology, weapons and war | Leave a comment

France: questionable rush to start Flamanville nuclear reactor despite its defects

 By a decree of August 30, 2021, EDF was authorized to operate the Flamanville EPR, under an extremely questionable consultation procedure. This is just one of the many administrative authorizations that the company
must still receive to commission the reactor, but this decision is nonetheless irresponsible. Even though the reactor is still affected by numerous defects, EDF continues its forced march to prepare for its start-up at all costs. We strongly denounce this irresponsible headlong rush.

 Sortir du Nucleaire 9th Sept 2021

https://www.sortirdunucleaire.org/EPR-de-Flamanville-une-scandaleuse-autorisation-d

September 18, 2021 Posted by | France, safety | Leave a comment

Turkey Point nuclear station vulnerable to hurricanes, sea level rise, as climate change continues


Safety concerns at Turkey Point are rising, along with the sea level https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/article253692763.html

BY RACHEL SILVERSTEIN AUGUST 24, 2021 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) recently granted the world’s first 80-year operating license to Miami’s Turkey Point nuclear reactor – that’s 40 years longer than the plant was ever meant to operate. While there are environmental concerns, this is, first and foremost, an issue of safety.

In the past year alone, three staff members were fired for forging safety inspections, and the plant experienced four unplanned shutdowns, or “scrams” — a disconcerting series of events that led the NRC to take the rare step of downgrading Turkey Point’s safety rating. Turkey Point is now one of only three reactors (out of almost 100 operating nationwide) to have received that ignominious distinction. As Turkey Point’s neighbors, this should alarm us.

Built in the 1970s by Florida Power & Light (FPL) — at a time when the world’s most powerful computers contained about as much storage capacity as a Casio watch — Turkey Point is the NRC’s first foray into this high-stakes game of nuclear roulette. The NRC’s extended license will allow the Turkey Point reactor to continue limping along through 2052. No nuclear plant anywhere in the world has ever operated that long, and the plant — with its Cold War technology, Cold War design and Cold War engineering — was never intended to do so.

If you live in South Florida, you likely know all about the crippling deficiencies that have hampered this aging plant for the past decade or so. It is uncontested, even by FPL, that the reactor’s cooling system — a giant, radiator-like series of unlined canals that’s not used in any other plant in the United States — has been leaking into Miami’s drinking-water supply; this contamination, in turn, has made it difficult for the reactor to tap into a reliable source of fresh water — without which the scalding reactor cannot properly cool itself.

South Florida, of course, gets hurricanes, and Turkey Point — like the Japanese reactor at Fukushima — sits precariously right on the water’s edge, with a growing population of more than 3 million people living less than 25 miles away. Now layer on the NRC’s refusal to consider realistic sea-level rise projections. Instead of trusting federal government recommendations to plan critical infrastructure for at least 6 feet of sea level rise by 2100, the NRC, instead, is accepting FPL’s own internal estimate: just one foot of sea-level rise by 2100.

Even the least severe government projections (as calculated by University of Florida mapping tools) predict that the cooling system will be underwater by 2040 — 12 years before this new license is set to expire.

Given the lessons of Chernobyl and Fukushima —that the costs of nuclear meltdowns are essentially infinite — should this unaccountable administrative agency really get to ignore key science from other federal agencies? This is why citizen groups such as mine and our partners have been challenging this license through the NRC’s administrative court system.

But the NRC granted this unprecedented license to FPL before our appeal had even been decided, let alone heard by a federal judge.

In doing so, the agency has seriously curtailed judicial oversight of the executive branch. Considering the close relationship between the nuclear industry and the NRC, it’s no surprise that the NRC has never — not once — refused to extend a nuclear reactor’s operating license.

Our community deserves to have all the facts about Turkey Point and its safety considerations. Reach out to our representatives to get answers to these important questions:

Who is in charge of a cleanup if the canals or the plant is inundated? What is FPL’s plan for dealing with sea-level rise? What is Plan B for providing energy to this region if the plant can no longer operate? What does this alarming safety-rating downgrade mean for us?

Our country, in short, doesn’t need limitless license extensions for flood-prone, leaking, vulnerable nuclear plants. What we need instead is to unleash American scientific and technical ingenuity to engineer the renewable-energy solutions of the future — and the regulatory support to foster the emergence of these new solutions.

Rachel Silverstein, Ph.D., is executive director and waterkeeper of Miami Waterkeeper, a South Florida-based non-profit organization with a mission to ensure swimmable, drinkable, fishable, water.

“The Invading Sea” is the opinion arm of the Florida Climate Reporting Network, a collaborative of news organizations across the state focusing on the threats posed by the warming climate.

September 14, 2021 Posted by | climate change, safety, USA | Leave a comment

The Cold War near disasters at RAF Lakenheath could have left Suffolk as a nuclear wasteland

Boeing B-47B rocket-assisted take off on April 15, 1954. (U.S. Air Force photo)

The Cold War near disasters at RAF Lakenheath could have left Suffolk as a nuclear wasteland https://www.suffolknews.co.uk/mildenhall/go-anywhere-just-get-away-from-here-how-suffolk-almost-9215663/ By Dan Barker – dan.barker@iliffepublishing.co.uk , 13 September 2021  During the height of the Cold War nuclear bombs were dotted across the country, ready to wipe the USSR off the face of the map at a moment’s notice: but, on two separate occasions, Suffolk almost became victim to the very weapons which were meant to protect it.

July 27, 1956 was like any other summer’s day. Across the country attention was glued to the Ashes fourth test at Old Trafford, and four American airmen were in a B-47 bomber, on a routine training mission from RAF Lakenheath.  But, as they were practising touch-and-go landings, their bomber careered out of control and went off the runway.

it ploughed into an igloo containing three Mark-6 nuclear weapons, tearing the building apart.

The plane then

exploded, killing all four men on board, and showered the world-ending weapons with burning aviation fuel.

Most of A/C [Aircraft] wreckage pivoted on igloo and came to rest with A/C nose just beyond igloo bank which kept main fuel fire outside smashed igloo. “Preliminary exam by bomb disposal officers says a miracle that one Mark Six with exposed detonators sheared didn’t go. Firefighters extinguished fire around Mark Sixes fast.” – Telegram from RAF Lakenheath to Washington DC

Fortunately the atomic power of the bomb was missing that day, with the cores un-installed in all three for storage, but the explosives needed to trigger the deadly nuclear reaction were still in place.

With 8,000 pounds of high explosives combined with depleted uranium-238, they were a nuclear ticking time bomb as firefighters fought to put out the blaze.

Had they exploded the radioactive uranium would have been scattered over a wide area, and, depending on the wind, tens of thousands of people would have been at risk from the toxic dust across Suffolk.

Knowing the enormity of the situation base fire chief Master Sgt L. H. Dunn ordered his crew to ignore the burning wreckage of the bomber, and the airman inside, and douse the flames engulfing the nuclear storage building.

At the time it had been shrouded in secrecy, but decades later one senior US officer made it very clear how lucky Suffolk was to have narrowly missed out on a nuclear disaster.  “It is possible that part of Eastern England would have become a desert,” the then former officer told Omaha World Herald in Nebraska, who revealed the potentially catastrophic incident in November 1979.

Another said that “disaster was averted by tremendous heroism, good fortune and the will of God”.

A top secret telegram sent to Washington DC from the base, which has since been revealed, told of the near miss. “Most of A/C [Aircraft] wreckage pivoted on igloo and came to rest with A/C nose just beyond igloo bank which kept main fuel fire outside smashed igloo.

Another said that “disaster was averted by tremendous heroism, good fortune and the will of God”.

A top secret telegram sent to Washington DC from the base, which has since been revealed, told of the near miss. “Most of A/C [Aircraft] wreckage pivoted on igloo and came to rest with A/C nose just beyond igloo bank which kept main fuel fire outside smashed igloo.

Suffolk was lucky this time, but the incident caused great alarm in the British government, and it was decided it would try and block US authorities from ordering base evacuations because of the concern of causing mass panic in the country.

But what would happen if word got out that its most important ally had, almost, accidentally, made a huge part of the United Kingdom a nuclear wasteland?

Simple: Its policy for decades, if the press ever caught wind of the near miss, was to just deny it. After the news was broken in the American press in 1979, only then was it acknowledged something happened.

On November 5 that year the US Air Force and the Ministry of Defence would only admit the B-47 did crash.

In fact it took until 1996, some four decades after the near disaster, for the British state to accept the true scale of the accident in public.

But that near miss wasn’t the only one.

For on January 16, 1961, an F-100 Super Sabre, loaded with a Mark 28 hydrogen bomb caught on fire after the pilot jettisoned his fuel tanks when he switched his engines on.

As they hit the concrete runway the fuel ignited and engulfed the nuclear weapon – a 70 kilotons – and left it “scorched and blistered”.

Suffolk was saved again by the brave work of base firefighters who brought the blaze under control before the bomb’s high explosive detonated or its arming components activated.

T

errifyingly it was later discovered by American engineers that a flaw in the wiring of Mark 28 hydrogen bombs could allow prolonged heat to circumvent the safety mechanisms and trigger a nuclear explosion.

Had it gone, thousands of people would be dead within seconds, and thousands more would have been injured. As with the first incident, as well as the immediate blast, radioactive debris could have fallen in towns as far away as Ipswich and Lowestoft, given the right wind direction, spreading the toxic dust across Suffolk.

Since Clement Attlee ordered the scientists to investigate the creation of a nuclear bomb in August 1945, the British state has known that being a nuclear power comes with risk as well as reward.

It also knew it paid to be part of a nuclear alliance,

NATO, and with it came American nuclear bombs and the risk they brought.


Beyond the maths of working out how large the explosion would have been, it is impossible to know the true implications.

RAF Lakenheath was listed as a probable target for Soviet attack according to now released Cold War era documents, and intelligence agencies and war planners expected two 500 kiloton missiles to hit the site if the West was under attack.

Disaster creates uncertainty. Nobody would have known it was an accident within the minutes and hours after a blast, they would have just been dragged into a nuclear bunker and told of a large explosion at an airbase in Suffolk.

Where would that have left a British prime minister, an American president, and the rest of NATO, thinking they have come under attack?

In July 1956, and again in January 1961, those firefighters didn’t just save Suffolk … they might have saved the world.

September 14, 2021 Posted by | history, incidents, Reference, UK | Leave a comment

Earthquakes Stopped Fracking – So Why the Monstrous Silence On “Likely” Induced Seismicity Five Miles From Sellafield? Exactly Who is Protecting Who? — RADIATION FREE LAKELAND

Originally posted on Keep Cumbrian Coal in the Hole: The following letter has been sent to Cumbria County Council and the Planning Inquiry. Our trembling earth was the reason fracking was halted – the siesmic impacts from the Cumbrian Coal Mine are set to be far worse than that from fracking and yet there is…

Earthquakes Stopped Fracking – So Why the Monstrous Silence On “Likely” Induced Seismicity Five Miles From Sellafield? Exactly Who is Protecting Who? — RADIATION FREE LAKELAND

September 14, 2021 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

Nuclear ballistic missile submarine meltdown, 1961

Ki19 Russianballistic missile submarine

August 24, https://www.quora.com/Has a nuclear submarine ever had a meltdown? Laurence Schmidt, Worked at Air Liquide America (1975–2010,

In the early Cold War Era, many Russian nuclear submarines had catastrophic engineering plant failures. These failures were caused by the soviet’s rush to equal the USN in its nuclear submarine ballistic missile program; they were poorly design and constructed, lack safety system redundancy and had haphazardly trained crews. But the crews of these boats were heroic in risking their lives to save their boats in stark life and death emergencies at sea.

One example is the case of the K-19, the first Russian nuclear powered ballistic missile submarine, nicknamed the “Hiroshima” boat, because of her numerous incidences.

On July 4, 1961, while at sea, one of its two nuclear reactors SCRAMMED. The primary cooling system had failed, flooding the reactor spare with radioactive water, and there was no backup system to cool the reactor core. As the reactor rods overheated, the engineering staff try a desperate plan to improvise a cooling system; to tie into the sub’s drinking water system. But it would require several men entering the highly radioactive reactor compartment to weld new piping to pumps and valves. The first jury-rigged attempt failed with 8 crewmen being horribly burnt by the high temperatures and exposed to lethal doses of radiation. They all soon died. After other attempts, the jury-rigged system finally worked, but other crew members too close to the reactor compartment would also soon die. The crew was evacuated to a nearby submarine, and the K-19 was towed back to base for repair. In total, 22 of the crew of 139 died of radiation sickness.

A section of the radiation contaminated hull was replaced, and a new power reactor unit was installed. The two original reactors, including their fuel rods, were dumped in the Kara Sea in 1965. A favorite dumping ground for Russian navy nuclear waste, including damaged nuclear reactors to whole ships.

Did the K-19 reactor meltdown? I would say yes.

September 14, 2021 Posted by | incidents, Reference, Russia | 1 Comment

Vested interests — controlling the news about nuclear safety

Who controls the truth about a nuclear disaster?

The end of the monopoly of these experts would allow a proper debate on the risks of nuclear energy. At a time when many voices are speaking out in favor of the development of atomic energy as the lesser evil in the face of climate change, such a debate is urgent.

How monolithic institutions decide what is safe for the rest of us, Beyond Nuclear, By Christine Fassert and Tatiana Kasperski, 12 Sept 21,

In December 2020, twenty years after the final closure of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine announced its intention to prepare an application to include certain objects in the exclusion zone around Chernobyl in the UNESCO World Heritage List….

The Chernobyl site would symbolize the long history of accidents that have marked the atomic age, from Kychtym and Windscale (1957), to Three Mile Island (1979) and Fukushima (2011), whose tenth anniversary we commemorated this year.

Moreover, the Chernobyl accident constitutes a particular moment in this history, namely the beginning of the institutionalization of the international management of the consequences of nuclear accidents, whose impact became fully apparent at the time of the Fukushima accident.

A small group of organizations

If the origins of accidents are most often explained by factors related to the development of the nuclear industry and its regulatory bodies at the national level, the “management” of their consequences gradually extends beyond national borders

In this respect, Chernobyl established the monopolization of the authoritative knowledge of ionizing radiation by a small group of organizations — the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) and the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR).

Through a series of alliances and co-options, these organizations formed a monolithic bloc on the issue of radiological risk.

Relegated to a militant marginality

From that moment on, divergent points of view were de-legitimized and relegated to a form of militant marginality. These included the positions of such individuals as “dissident” scientist Keith Baverstock who directed the radiation protection program at the World Health Organization’s Regional Office for Europe, and those of such organizations as the International Association of Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW).

This monopoly translates into an internationalization of accident management that relies on a series of tools designed to establish a “normalization” of the post accident situation through the depoliticization of the management of risks related to radioactive fallout. They enshrine the power of experts close to international nuclear organizations to determine what sacrifices in terms of health and the environment are acceptable.

As physicists Bella and Roger Belbéoch point out:

“Far from calling into question the power they have secured for themselves in society, the nuclear disaster allows them to constitute themselves into a unified international body with even greater powers. It is at the moment when the scientific experts can no longer promise anything other than disaster management that their power inevitably takes hold.”

Fukushima

This monopoly over knowledge and management of an accident was very much present in Japan in 2011, when the Japanese authorities put in place measures, which, by largely referring to international standards, warded off objections: the accident was dealt with by the experts.

However, a shift occurred in this monopoly when a UN rapporteur, Anand Grover, severely criticized Tokyo’s management of the disaster. 

At the same time, new conceptual tools proposed by the social sciences, such as the “production of ignorance”, offer a framework for analysis that makes it possible to extend the criticisms beyond the domain of a purely expert debate, opening the way to a re-politicization of the accident and its consequences.

Making nuclear accidents manageable

But, first of all, how can you make a nuclear accident manageable when, as was the case at Chernobyl and Fukushima, it causes very large releases of radioactive particles, spreading around the globe and causing long-term contamination of tens of thousands of square kilometers?

Hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated or relocated from these territories, and hundreds of thousands of others continue to live in an environment affected by radioactivity.

Zoning, that is, the division of these territories into several “zones” according to the density of contamination and the necessary protective measures, was the first instrument that made it possible, in Japan and in the former Soviet Union, to make the accident manageable……

This zoning mechanism set up by the Japanese government is part of a regulatory framework established by the two major international nuclear institutions, the IAEA and the ICRP. The ICRP sets the dose limit for the public at 1 millisievert (mSv)/year. Since 2007, the ICRP has authorized  government authorities to raise this threshold (from 1 to 20 mSv/year) in the case of a nuclear accident.

When the Japanese authorities, like the Soviet authorities in 1986, chose to raise the threshold following the accident, they justified it in terms of the virtual absence of any health risks.

The radiological threshold

The mechanism is based in particular on the choice of a radiological threshold from which the population will be evacuated.

In Japan, government officials consider that the risk of developing cancer from exposure to a dose of 100mSv or less is so low according to “the international (scientific) consensus, (that) it is made undetectable by the carcinogenic effects of other factors.”

Limiting evacuations and compensations

The sociologist and historian of science Sezin Topçu shows how this zoning mechanism, which has become an indispensable element of nuclear accident management, is above all a way of limiting evacuation and compensation for damage caused by an accident, since its costs (economic, political or social) would be prohibitive for the nuclear industry and the State.

This optimization approach is also enshrined at the international level in the recommendations issued by the IAEA and the ICRP.

For example, in the case of Japan, the threshold of 20 mSv/year appears to have been chosen in part to avoid evacuating the Naka Dori region and its major cities: the established zone borders made it possible to exclude such cities in the center of the prefecture, including Fukushima, from evacuation orders…………………………..

Mechanisms of ignorance production

More recently, however, various social scientists have proposed an analysis of the promotion of a reassuring stance on these dangers as part of the mechanisms of ignorance production.

The production of ignorance, which can be both involuntary and intentional, was initially studied for a number of risks, such as tobacco.

Approaching radiological risks in terms of the production of ignorance makes it possible to break with the “exceptionalism” with which the nuclear issue has long been associated, and to consider the dangers of ionizing radiation within the broader field of health risks and its banal issues of power.

Minimizing gravity

The internationalized management of nuclear disasters is in fact based on various mechanisms of ignorance production. For instance, the sociologist of science, Olga Kuchinskaya,- describes the “politics of invisibility” that were adopted after the Chernobyl disaster.

She points out that the public visibility of the effects of ionizing radiation depends on the existence of material infrastructures – such as measuring devices, information systems and equipment — but also institutional infrastructures (for example, following a cohort of people in order to make health effects visible depends on this articulation between material and institutional elements).

This infrastructure is very costly and, in the case of Chernobyl, has not been maintained over time. Moreover, the assessment of the effects of radiation was essentially taken care of by international institutions, while local doctors and researchers, for their part, revealed a completely different and much more alarming picture of the health situation.

Kate Brown describes how various international bodies, primarily the IAEA and WHO, worked to redefine the health effects of Chernobyl, to minimize their severity, and thus actively to produce “ignorance” about the impact of the disaster.

This non-knowledge was in fact a crucial instrument that made the disaster “manageable” and allowed, as Adriana Petryna points out, “the deployment of authoritative knowledge, especially when applied to the management of the exposed population”.

The monopoly of international experts, until when?

By addressing the “exceptional” character of nuclear energy and ionizing radiation, these criticisms, whether they are made within UN bodies or by social science researchers, open the way to questioning the monopoly of international nuclear institutions in assessing radiological risk and framing so-called “post-accident” policies.

A re-politicization of the management of accident consequences that brings the “management” of a nuclear accident into the broader framework of human rights therefore becomes possible.

When the next nuclear accident occurs, it is not a given that citizens will accept the “inevitability” of the power of international experts to decide, on their behalf, what constitutes an acceptable risk.

The end of the monopoly of these experts would allow a proper debate on the risks of nuclear energy. At a time when many voices are speaking out in favor of the development of atomic energy as the lesser evil in the face of climate change, such a debate is urgent.

This article was first published in The Conversation in French on April 26, 2021, as well as on Beyond Nuclear International. English translation provided by the authors.

Christine Fassert is a social anthropologist at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. Tatiana Kasperski is a research associate– Department of Humanities at Universitat Pompeu Fabra   https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2021/09/12/vested-interests/

September 13, 2021 Posted by | 2 WORLD, media, radiation, safety, spinbuster | Leave a comment

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