Safecast’s revolution in radiation data collection
Safecast’s software and devices are all open source, and anyone can use the data. Franken says it’s being used by researchers around the world and even by the government in some Japanese cities.
you can tie specific medical symptoms to radiation levels.”
In Japan, Citizen Radiation-Tracking Project Goes Big Time, PRI’s The World, BY CATHERINE WINTER ⋅ MAY 21, 2013 ⋅ON A SUNNY SPRING MORNING JUST OUTSIDE TOKYO, JOE MOROSS HOOKS A RADIATION DETECTOR OUTSIDE THE BACK WINDOW OF A LITTLE RED CAR. HE LOOKS AT A MAP OF THE AREA ON HIS LAPTOP COMPUTER, TRYING TO FIND A ROUTE HE HASN’T DRIVEN BEFORE, SO HE CAN TAKE NEW RADIATION READINGS.
“We want to cover every street so people who look at our maps can drill down and zoom in and find out what the measurement is right in front of their house,” Moross says.
Moross is taking measurements for Safecast. Since the nuclear accident at Fukushima Daichi two years ago, volunteers like him have been driving around Japan, testing radiation and adding their readings to online maps.
When The World last checked in on Safecast, in May of 2011, the group had just formed and had posted a handful of radiation measurements.
Now, Safecast volunteers have taken close to 10 million separate readings……. Continue reading
Super expensive nuclear fusion project cancelled
MIT to cut nuclear fusion program, Boston Business Journal, 20 May 13, A program that explores nuclear fusion at the Massachusetts Institute of Technologyis shutting down, after its U.S. funding was cut….. it will leave only two fusion experiments in the U.S. – one at Princeton University, the other at General Atomics, a San Diego firm, according to the Globe. Nuclear fusion is seen as a potential clean alternative to nuclear fission, which is used in today’s nuclear reactors. http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/mass_roundup/2013/05/mit-to-cut-nuclear-fusion-program.html
Japan’s Monju nuclear reprocessing plant not safe to restart
AUDIO Japan’s nuclear safety record criticised by regulator http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/radio/program/connect-asia/japans-nuclear-safety-record-criticised-by-regulator/1132464 17 May 2013, Japan’s nuclear watchdog has refused to give the go-ahead to commission an experimental fast-breeder reactor due to safety concerns. The Monju reactor in the Fukui prefecture has been closed for almost two decades after a leak and a fire in 1995.
The head of the Nuclear Regulation Authority has blasted Monju’s operator for its lack of a safety culture, saying it deserved severe action.
The decision comes as dealing with Japan’s stockpile of nuclear waste becomes more urgent. Reporter: Karon Snowdon Speakers: Professor Andrew O’Neil, Director of the Griffith University Asia Institute; Hajime Matsukubo, International relations director of Tokyo’s Citizens Nuclear Information Centre
The Japan Nuclear Crowd Map reveals local radiation levels
ECS researchers at Southampton University develop new tool to provide radiation monitoring in Japan http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/news/4237 17 May 13, People living in Japan after the Fukushima nuclear disaster can find out the radiation level in their area thanks a new tool designed by a team of researchers from the ECS research group Agents, Interaction and Complexity Group (AIC). Continue reading
Good news- radiation type scanners replaced by safe “millimetre wave” airport scanners
The reporting here didn’t show much knowledge about radiation, more’s the pity. Because this is a good news item. The new “millimetre wave” scanners, (at left) using sound waves, do not pose the radiation danger that did exist in using the “backscatter” method of airport scanning.
A pity that the mainstream media does not seem to bother informig itself, or the public, about
the differences between types of radiation. A great pity, because ionising radiation [as in ‘backscatter’ – at right) is a proven cause of cell damage – leading to mutations, cancer, other diseases, birth deformities, and inherited genetic instability. Christina Macpherson
Video New Airport Scanners Reduce Radiation Risk, TSA Says KTLA by Micah Ohlman. 17 May 13 “…..The TSA says that the new millimeter-wave scanners can not only catch the bad guys better, but the radiation emitted is well below safety standards.
So what can you expect? Ticket holders still have to “assume the position” like the old backscatter machines.
But the new machines don’t use X-ray, but rather radio-frequency waves that are considered safer….”
The danger of Rokkasho Nuclear Reprocessing Plant
Concern in US as Japanese nuclear reprocessing plant completed http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2013/s3760280.htm Mark Willacy reported, May 16, 2013 TONY EASTLEY: It’s taken more than 20 years and $20 billion to build, and in a few months time Japan’s state-of-the-art nuclear reprocessing plant will be ready for operation.
The Rokkasho plant in far northern Japan will be capable of turning used nuclear fuel into eight tonnes of plutonium a year, although the Japanese say this weapons-grade plutonium will be used for power generation only.
That hasn’t soothed American concerns though. It’s worried about the security of the plutonium stockpiles and the risk that the new plant could stoke a nuclear race in the region.
North Asia correspondent Mark Willacy was given an exclusive look inside the Rokkasho nuclear complex. MARK WILLACY: In the spring sunshine, Keiko Kikukawa tends to her daffodils. The winter snow has finally melted up here in Japan’s far north and her fields are beginning to burst with colour.
When Keiko Kikukawa isn’t selling her flowers, she’s campaigning to uproot what she sees at the biggest pest in this district – the Rokkasho nuclear complex a few kilometres down the road.
“First of all, Rokkasho village has become a dump for radioactive waste from around Japan,” she tells me. “If there was an accident it’d be catastrophic,” she says.
Keiko Kikukawa is talking about the sprawling Rokkasho nuclear re-processing plant.
Its operator, Japan Nuclear Fuel Limited, has spent two decades and $28 billion building the facility……Japan has 17,000 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel sitting in pools across the country. If Rokkasho is given the green light to begin operation, it can turn this fuel into eight tonnes of plutonium every year.
The problem is, this eight tonnes of plutonium will be weapons-grade – meaning it could theoretically be used to make nuclear bombs…..
Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority wants Monju reprocessing plant to stay shut
NRA wants Monju to remain shut downhttp://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/05/14/national/nra-wants-monju-to-remain-shut-down/#.UZQmBqJwpLt Lapses seen in JAEA checks of key reactor components KYODO, STAFF REPORT MAY 14, 2013 The Japan Atomic Energy Agency committed grave safety errors in managing the troubled Monju prototype fast-breeder reactor in Fukui Prefecture, and top officials at the Nuclear Regulation Authority said Monday they plan to make sure it stays closed.
The closure order to the government-linked JAEA will effectively dash any hope of trying to restart the reactor by year’s end, dealing another setback to Japan’s long-stalled plan to set up a nuclear fuel recycling system.
In September, the now-defunct Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency carried out surprise inspections and determined that JAEA failed to regularly check key components of the experimental 280,000-kw reactor, as required by internal rules. Continue reading
Rokkasho nuclear reprocessing plant could lead to nuclear weapons for Japan
Is Japan Developing a Nuclear Weapons Program? By Peter Symonds Global Research, May 07, 2013 Huge reprocessing plant could be used to stockpile plutonium for the future manufacture of nuclear weapons.The Wall Street Journal published an article on May 1 entitled “Japan’s nuclear plan unsettles US.” It indicated concerns in Washington that the opening of a huge reprocessing plant could be used to stockpile plutonium for the future manufacture of nuclear weapons.
The Rokkasho reprocessing facility in northern Honshu can produce nine tonnes of weapons-grade plutonium annually, or enough to construct up to 2,000 bombs. Continue reading
Getting ready for nuclear disasters – radiation-proof vehicles
Japan Launches Radiation-proof Vehicles To Deal With Nuclear Disasters http://www.rttnews.com/2109025/japan-launches-radiation-proof-vehicles-to-deal-with-nuclear-disasters.aspx?type=gn&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=sitemap 5/3/2013 Japan’s National Police Agency has launched radiation-proof vehicles at its headquarters in Tokyo and the nuke accident-hit Fukushima prefecture to better prepare for nuclear-related trouble.
The vehicles have lead on their bodies and windows, air-pressurized, and can monitor atmospheric radiation levels. The 10.5-meter-long vehicle weighing 21 tons costs more than $1.5 million, Japanese media reported on Friday citing the Agency.
It said the vehicles would be mobilized in the event of terror attacks on nuclear facilities or nuclear accidents.
Since the September, 2001 terror strikes on the United States, Japan has been deploying police units at 22 of its nuclear facilities. Police stepped up their alert for possible attacks on nuke facilities after the Fukushima nuclear disaster that contaminated food and water after radiation leak from the tsunami-crippled nuclear power plant of the Tokyo Electrical Power Company.
The Agency said one of the vehicles would be used at the Fukushima plant, while one in Tokyo would be put on standby for use in emergencies across Japan.
9 tons of plutonium yearly from Japan’s Rokkasho nuclear reprocessing plant
Tokyo’s ability to both enrich uranium and reprocess spent reactor
fuel has allowed it to amass roughly nine tons of weapons-usable
plutonium on its soil. Activating the Rokkasho plant would produce
that much each year, said officials and industry experts.
Japan’s Nuclear Plan Unsettles U.S, WSJ, By JAY SOLOMON and MIHO INADA
2 May 13, TOKYO—Japan is preparing to start up a massive nuclear-fuel
reprocessing plant over the objections of the Obama administration,
which fears the move may stoke a broader race for nuclear technologies
and even weapons in North Asia and the Middle East.
The Rokkasho reprocessing facility, based in Japan’s northern Aomori
prefecture, is capable of producing nine tons of weapons-usable
plutonium annually, said Japanese officials and nuclear-industry
experts, enough to build as many as 2,000 bombs, although Japanese
officials say their program is civilian…… Continue reading
Serious obstacles to any development of Small Modular Nuclear Reactors
The Next Nuclear Reactor May Arrive Hauled by a Truck NYT By MATTHEW L. WALD April 24, 2013 WASHINGTON “…….The Obama administration, with nuclear power aims that have received less attention than its alternative energy initiatives, began a five-year program to develop reactors in 2012, planning to spend $452 million.
The budget outlook for the final three years is uncertain, but the incoming energy secretary, Ernest J. Moniz, speaking at his confirmation hearing on April 9, said of small modular reactors: “I think that it’s a very promising direction that we need to pursue. It’s where the most innovation is going on in nuclear energy.”
But new approaches to nuclear power have been forecast far more often than they have been realized, and some worry that small modular reactors could fall into that category. Joyce L. Connery, an Energy Department nuclear expert assigned to the National Security Council, remarked at a nuclear power conference in March, “I hope that soon we populate the world with S.M.R.’s as much as we populate the world with conferences about S.M.R.’s.”
The economics may still be challenging even if the price tag is smaller, she said. …. the environment for nuclear energy is not so great right now,” she told a gathering of several hundred experts organized by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Cheap natural gas in North America and global political fallout from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan are not helping, experts say.
And the regulatory structure is not so great for small reactors. Regulatory commission rules for control-room staff levels, emergency planning zones and security are all predicated on large, aboveground reactors. A small one built mostly underground might logically have smaller requirements, but a potential buyer would be reluctant to build one under the current regulatory regime, experts say.
Also, small reactors still face serious scrutiny for safety. David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said that the nice thing about reactors that existed only on paper was that the worst damage risk is paper cuts; their weaknesses do not become evident until the design or construction is further along…..
They’re untested, they’re just as expensive – small nuclear reactors
Nuclear energy: Flexible fission, Ft.com, By Sylvia Pfeifer 14 Feb 13, At the Baltic Shipyard in St Petersburg squats the hull of the Akademik Lomonosov. It is no ordinary ship. Once it is finished in three years’ time, it will be Russia’s first floating nuclear power plant.Two reactors, similar to those used in Russia’s nuclear-powered ice breakers, will each provide 35 megawatts of power. The floating power plant is one of several planned by the Kremlin to be anchored near towns or industrial sites……
Critics are wary, warning that floating atomic power stations would make an ideal terrorist target and be vulnerable to stormy weather and earthquakes. Others point out that even if smaller reactors had less fuel and were partly buried underground, there would be an increasing number of small facilities dotted across emerging markets, sometimes in places that lack the infrastructure to cope with emergencies….
multiple challenges remain.
There are questions over whether the regulatory regime and siting criteria should be relaxed for these reactors? There are also suggestions the plants could be run with fewer staff, helping to cut the costs even further.
Dame Sue Ion, a nuclear fuel expert and fellow at the UK’s Royal Academy of Engineering, says the first small modular reactors will, realistically, be sited on existing nuclear-licensed sites.
“It may be that the physical characteristics make it safer but you would still have to have all the safety arrangements and emergency planning in place,” she adds.
“You still have the same safety, proliferation and accident concerns,” says Doug Parr, chief scientist and policy director at campaign group Greenpeace UK. “You need capacity and supportive infrastructure to respond if there is an emergency.”
Then there is the issue of public acceptance. “To expect the general public to just accept them because they are small is pushing the point. It does not seem obvious to me,” Kevin Hesketh, senior fellow at Britain’s National Nuclear Laboratory, told an industry conference last month…….. “Licensing and public acceptance – both have to be addressed. ..
The biggest challenge facing the model is simply that no one has done it. Nuclear also has a bad record on cost. At the same time, competition from renewables, which are becoming cheaper, is growing.
Dominic Holt, associate director, nuclear advisory, at KPMG, says “none of the positives have been tested yet”. Claims of cost and programme certainty are still unproven. Analysis of a range of available data show that the “levelised cost” – per MW/hour – of SMRs is still similar to that of a large reactor…
Precious groundwater now threatened by fracking for uranium, too
When it comes to fracking for yellowcake, even more pressing than shaky economics is the obvious potential for environmental contamination. The process is not only extremely water intensive, as is typical of fracking, but it’s also happening at a shallow depth. Unlike the Eagle Ford’s oil and gas reserves, which are miles underground, the in situ uranium mining is taking place at the same level as local groundwater supplies.
Fracking for Yellowcake: The Next Frontier? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-rubin/fracking-for-yellowcake-t_b_2612418.html Jeffrey Rubin 02/04/2013 It works for oil and natural gas, so why not frack for uranium too? After all, America relies on foreign uranium just like it depends on foreign oil.
In the U.S. these days, it seems like you can sell almost anything if you spin it as part of the pursuit of energy independence. Enter Uranium Energy Corp. A junior mining company with Canadian roots, UEC is developing the newest uranium mine in the U.S. And it’s counting on fracking to do it.
Texans, in general, are no strangers to fracking. UEC is operating in the heart of fracking country, south Texas’s Eagle Ford basin, one of the most prolific shale plays in the country. Instead of oil and gas, though, UEC (recently profiled by Forbes Magazine) is fracking for yellowcake.
The technology is basically the same. It involves injecting a mixture of highly pressurized water and sand into an underground formation in order to break open fissures in the rock that allow the energy riches within to be extracted. In this case, it’s a slurry of uranium ore that’s then dried and processed into powdery yellowcake, an intermediate product that eventually becomes fuel for nuclear reactors.
Of course, the very idea of fracking for yellowcake begs the question–just because you can do something, should you? The world isn’t exactly running short of uranium. Prices tell you that much. Uranium prices have plunged from more than $90 a ton before the last recession to just more than $40 a ton following the Fukushima disaster. Friendly countries like Canada and Australia are able to ramp up supply, as can less friendly countries like Kazakhstan. Yellowcake is also exported by Niger (part of the reason, according to some, that nuclear-powered France is taking such an interest in neighbouring Mali right now.)
What’s more, the emergence of cheap natural gas from shale plays is making nuclear energy less attractive to U.S. power utilities. Many are considering shuttering some high cost nuclear stations and switching to cheaper natural gas, just as they’ve been doing with a number of coal plants in recent years.
When it comes to fracking for yellowcake, even more pressing than shaky economics is the obvious potential for environmental contamination. The process is not only extremely water intensive, as is typical of fracking, but it’s also happening at a shallow depth. Unlike the Eagle Ford’s oil and gas reserves, which are miles underground, the in situ uranium mining is taking place at the same level as local groundwater supplies.
According to the International Energy Agency, the amount of fresh water used for global energy production will double over the next twenty-five years. Whether it’s Alberta’s oil sands that run on water from the Athabasca River or the countless gallons used to frack underground stores of oil, gas and now even uranium, it’s easy to see why.
Thorium – an irrelevant distraction from the gloomy facts about nuclear power
— time. It is going to take many decades to get the thorium fuel cycle happening. The global nuclear industry has the twin goals of prolonging the life of currently operating nuclear reactors, and of building new ones. Their rationale for this is often that, eventually, the energy solution will be nuclear fusion. So in the meantime, the world needs nuclear power — or so they argue.
The thorium advocates usually promote thorium reactors as a solution to both climate change and energy needs. But in reality, thorium nuclear energy is irrelevant to both.
Again, the first reason is time. Although there are current designs that could be established in 10 to 15 years, the most favoured design – the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) – is estimated to have, for a significant deployment, a lead time of 40 to 70 years.
Don’t believe thorium nuclear reactor hype, Independent Austtralia 28 Jan 13, Thorium reactors are the latest big thing in nuclear spin. Noel Wauchope says: don’t believe the hype.
The explanation becomes clearer, when you consider that the nuclear industry has sunk $billions into new (uranium or plutonium fuelled) large nuclear technologies, as well as into lobbying governments and media. Would big corporations like Hitachi, EDF Westinghouse, Toshiba, Areva, Rosatom be willing, or indeed able, to withdraw from the giant international operations that they already have underway? Would they, could they, tolerate a mass uptake of the new thorium nuclear reactors — which is what would be needed, to make the thorium market economical?…. Continue reading
Uranium mining: In situ leaching not the same as fracking
A spokesperson for Uranium Energy disputes the similarities to fracking that is made in the article.
“By contrast, ‘in-situ recovery’ is the process of injected-solution mining that reverses the natural process of deposited uranium in sandstones. On-site groundwater fortified with oxygen is introduced into the ground through a pattern of injection wells. The solution dissolves uranium from the sandstone host rock, and the uranium-bearing solution is brought back to surface through vacuum-suction production wells, where the uranium is concentrated on resin beads for trucking to a nearby processing plant where it is concentrated further and dried into yellowcake.”
Opponents of in situ uranium extraction start throwing around the F word MINING.com Editor | January 25, 2013 A US company is extracting underground uranium reserves in Texas using in situ methods, but opponents are comparing it to another process that is drawing high-profile protests.
Forbes reports that Texas-based Uranium Energy Corp (UEC) uses the in situ method for extracting underground uranium by pumping oxygenated water into porous rock layers via deep-drilled wells.
Forbes notes the process is raising concerns among some in Texas who compare the process to hydraulic fracturing, which has some celebrity opponents.”By design it’s much worse than fracking,” says Houston attorney Jim Blackburn, who is interviewed by Forbes.
“This is intentional contamination of a water aquifer liberating not only uranium but other elements that were bound up with the sand. We know this process will contaminate groundwater; that’s the whole point of it.” Continue reading
1 This Month
19 November – Webinar – The Reality of Reprocessing
Time: 11:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada) / 2:00 PM Eastern / 7:00 PM UK / 8:00 PM CET
Register for the Zoom Event Here
Shut down the radiation-damaged Heysham nuclear reactors now
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
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