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Nuclear fusion – a very unlikely development for Bradwell, UK

 Bradwell is no soft touch for Nuclear Fusion’s fantasy. Bradwell looks
an unlikely bet for fusion whoever is behind the scheme. And it will not
happen anytime soon – the 2040s at the very earliest – far too late to
save the planet. Even if the experiment goes ahead it is far more likely to
go to a more welcoming site.

 Maylands Mayl July Edition 7th July 2021

Latest Edition

July 8, 2021 Posted by | technology, UK | Leave a comment

EDF launches the “EPR2” After the Flamanville and Finland fiascoes, what could go wrong?

After the Flamanville and Finland fiascoes, what could go wrong?

EDF launches the “EPR2” — Beyond Nuclear International The politics of “fait accompli” will ensure a new industrial and financial disaster
Editor’s note: Despite the latest safety failures at the Taishan EPR in China; the endless delays and cost over-runs at the EPR projects in France and Finland; the technical fiascos and do-overs at the EPR construction sites in France, Finland and the UK; and the ongoing reckless plans for 6 EPRs in India, the French nuclear sector has far from abandoned its hubris. Instead, incredibly, and as Stéphane Lhomme tells us in a recent new blog on the topic, here translated into English, EDF has announced plans to begin construction of the “EPR2”. What could possibly go wrong?

By Stéphane Lhomme. 4 July 21,

Despite the fact that it has proven incapable of properly carrying out the construction of the EPR reactor at the never-ending Flamanville site underway since 2008, EDF leadership has nevertheless decided — according to the media outlet, Contexte — to allocate hundreds of millions of Euros to launch a construction program for new reactors, called “EPR2”.

Despite being fiercely pro-nuclear, President Macron has declared on several occasions that the EPR at Flamanville would need to be operational before any decision to build other reactors could be made.

However, it’s very likely that Mr. Macron is perfectly well aware of — and complicit in — this decision by EDF management to move forward with a new project.

Just as it has often done in the past, in its contempt for democracy and the interests of the French public, the leadership of EDF intends to use the politics of fait accompli: it proposes to spend hundreds of billions to start one or several “EPR2” reactor construction projects in order to then proclaim that the ship has sailed so the program cannot be stopped…. under threat of wasting hundreds of billions.

But it’s precisely by building nuclear reactors that EDF is already wasting astronomic sums, just as Areva did before that, going bankrupt due to the disastrous EPR construction project in Finland (which began in 2005, was supposed to come on line in 2009….but is still not complete)!

EDF claimed to have EPR construction under control despite Areva’s setbacks in Finland, but the construction at Flamanville is also a total catastrophe. So how can we possibly believe that, miraculously, EDF would be capable of building new EPR reactors, and moreover modified ones (hence the concept “EPR2”)?

For sure, from the anti-nuclear point of view, it is reassuring to be able to count on the incompetence and manifest inability of EDF to build nuclear reactors. But there is no justification for wasting incredible sums of money that are so needed for energy efficiency and renewable energy development.

On the contrary, EDF is guaranteeing failure with these delusional nuclear projects, and, as is the case for Areva (renamed Orano), it is the public who will pay for the steep losses. If this “EPR2” program is not stopped as quickly as possible, it will end in a new industrial and financial disaster.


The least that the President of the Republic can do, assuming that he has a good grasp on democracy, is to prohibit EDF (which is 85% state-owned) from launching this new nuclear program before the startup of the Flamanville EPR.

But obviously the best decision would be to cancel all the new reactor projects and immediately to begin a rapid closure of the 56 reactors that pose a daily threat to the lives of French citizens and a majority of Europeans; reactors that produce radioactive waste for which there is no existing solution and that serve as a pretext for the totalitarian repression of citizens who oppose waste burial at the Cigéo at Bure in the Meuse.

Stéphane Lhomme is a longtime French anti-nuclear campaigner and runs the anti-nuclear network, Nuclear Observatory (Observatoire Du Nucléaire).

Headline photo of EPR protest in Colmar, France, by Linda Pentz Gunter.

July 5, 2021 Posted by | France, technology | 2 Comments

The space tourism plans of Bezos, Musk and Branson are morally reprehensible,

Ben Bramble sets out a problem that ought to be so obvious – that this space travel push is a wasteful, and even childish example of the rich boys club doing its thing –   Bezos, Musk, Gates, Branson  etc trying to outdo each other  

     
But there is a more sinister side to space travel and space research –   the national rivalries, started with Donald Trump’s plan for a Space Force –     nuclear reactors, nuclear-powered rockets, and nuclear weapons in space.   Those billionaires are all too well connected with NASA and this space military push. The thought of a nuclear war in space is horrendous.   But what else could possibly go wrong?

The space tourism plans of Bezos, Musk and Branson are morally reprehensible, The Age, Ben Bramble, 5 July 21.

With billionaires Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Richard Branson soon to send paying customers into space, members of US Congress are askingwhether and how to regulate commercial spaceflight. But there is a more basic question: Should there be such an industry in the first place?

Supporters of such an industry, such as Republican Kevin McCarthy, cast these billionaires as modern-day Wright brothers, innovating commercialspaceflight in a way governments either can’t or won’t. While billionaires will be the first in space, they say, soon everyone will get their chance.

But this is clearly not feasible any time soon, given Earth’s environmental crises. It is unsustainable for humans to keep consuming resources at the rate we currently are, let alone if space tourism were to become commonplace. The fact that a product can be made cheap enough for many people to afford it does not show that it is environmentally sustainable for many people to actually consume it.

Still, you might say, what could be wrong with commercial spaceflight reserved for the ultra-wealthy? This wouldn’t significantly worsen our environmental crises.–

But there is something morally distasteful in the extreme about space tourism exclusively for the ultra-wealthy when so many people on Earth are in such great need. Going into space, in full view of the many billions of humans who are struggling on a daily basis, is a little like enjoying a pop-up Michelin star meal in front of a homeless shelter.

This is not to decry all luxury goods. But there is something particularly objectionable about spending so much money on a fleeting experience for oneself and others, who are already among the best off on the planet, when so many cannot even make ends meet (through no fault of their own).

At present, there seems a clear tendency to reserve moral criticism for people who cause bad things or who set out to harm others. Such behaviour is certainly bad and merits criticism. But we should feel grumpy also at people for failing to help others when they easily can. Those who display an indifference to the plight of others or who are too wrapped up in themselves and their own self-serving projects are morally criticisable even if they are not the cause of others’ suffering. While it is true that Bezos has recently become a major sponsor of the environment, much more is needed. Every dollar spent on sending billionaires into space is money that could have been used instead to help save the planet or bring others out of poverty.

It is worth adding that many billionaires have contributed to Earth’s problems. Our environmental crises are largely due to excessive consumption, something that companies such as Amazon have played a major role in making possible, affordable and accepted……….

Bezos has said that one of his reasons for founding his company Blue Origin is that “we’re now big compared to the size of the planet”. Like Musk, he thinks we need to look beyond Earth to survive our present crises. But this is far too premature. We can still save the Earth. But to save it, we’re going to have to re-engineer our consumer cultures and economies. This, and not space tourism, is the great engineering challenge of the 21st century. I’d like to see these billionaires use their brilliant minds to help save the Earth, rather than flee it. If this means smaller growth for their own companies, so be it. ….. https://www.theage.com.au/national/the-space-tourism-plans-of-bezos-musk-and-branson-are-morally-reprehensible-20210704-p586o1.html


July 5, 2021 Posted by | 2 WORLD, Religion and ethics, space travel | 1 Comment

NASA pretending that space radiation is sort of OK for women, but it’s not

New NASA radiation standards for astronauts seen as leveling field for women, Science, By Anil OzaJun. 29, 2021 

A blue-ribbon panel has endorsed NASA’s plans to revise its standard for exposing astronauts to radiation in a way that would allow women to spend more time in space.


A report by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine released on 24 June encourages NASA to proceed with its plans to adopt a new standard that limits all astronauts to 600 millisieverts of radiation over their career. The current limit is the amount of radiation that correlates with a 3% increase in the risk of dying from a cancer caused by radiation exposure—a standard that favored men and older astronauts whose cancer risk from radiation was lower. The proposed standard would limit all astronauts to the allowable dosage for a 35-year-old woman.

The changes are in line with current data and puts women on an equal footing, says Hedvig Hricak, a radiologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and chair of the committee that wrote the report. “There’s no evidence for significant gender difference in the radiation exposure, and associated risk of cancer,” she says.

The new standard comes as NASA gears up for renewed exploration of the Moon and, eventually, a mission to Mars. The change should remove gender from the list of factors used to decide who gets chosen for those missions, says Paul Locke, an environmental health expert at Johns Hopkins University who was not on the committee. “Women will not be penalized because they are, under the old model, at higher risk,” he says.

Whereas some experts lauded NASA’s intentions, others worry the proposal ignores the complexities and uncertainties of deep space travel. “I think they’ve pulled together the best data they have. But again, I think, more research is going to be needed,” says Albert Fornace, a radiobiologist at Georgetown University. With so few people having traveled beyond low-Earth orbit, most of the data for setting radiation exposure limits in space come from survivors of the atomic bombs in Japan and studies of people, like uranium miners, who work in conditions with high exposure to radiation. The long lead time for voyages to Mars also gives scientists time to develop ways to shield astronauts from higher levels of radiation, Fornace adds.

Francis Cucinotta, a biophysicist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, doesn’t agree with the report’s backing of a single dosage level. Instead, the former chief scientist for NASA’s radiation program thinks equity should come in the form of equal risk rather than equal dosages of radiation.

“[It] sounds like they’re just going to ignore the science and try to make it comfortable for everybody,” Cucinotta says, arguing that age, sex, and race affect an individual’s risk of developing cancer and should be factors when determining the amount of time astronauts can spend in space. “When they’re selected to be astronauts, there’s a lot of things where it’s not equal—it’s based on performance capability. But they’re not applying that model here.”

Cucinotta would stick with the 3% increase in the risk of dying of cancer. For a Mars mission, which is expected to expose astronauts to 1000 millisieverts, he proposes raising that maximum risk to 5% after conducting research on countermeasures and weighing genetic markers that lower an astronaut’s risk of developing cancer………..    https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/06/new-nasa-radiation-standards-astronauts-seen-leveling-field-women

July 1, 2021 Posted by | space travel, women | Leave a comment

Bradwell anti-nuclear campaigners may face fight against nuclear fusion plan

CAMPAIGNERS battling proposals for a new nuclear power station at Bradwell
could have to fight on a second front. The UK Atomic Energy Authority has
put Bradwell on a ‘long-list’ of 15 possible sites for the UK’s prototype
fusion energy plant – STEP. Others include Sellafield, north Wales and
Dounreay, together with other nuclear and former coal-fired power station
sites. The UKAEA says the successful site will become a “global hub” for
fusion energy and associated, industries and create thousands of highly
skilled jobs during the construction and operation of the plant, while
attracting investment that will enable the development of a new UK science
and technology centre of excellence”.

 Essex Gazette 28th June 2021

https://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/19399659.bradwell-earmarked-fusion-power-plant/

July 1, 2021 Posted by | technology, UK | Leave a comment

Serious questions about government funding Bill Gates’new confidence-trick, the NATRIUM nuclear reactor

Can we be sure that we will not end up with plutonium-fueled reactors coupled with reprocessing? 

Dangerous Decisions about Advanced Nuclear Reactors Could Lead to New Threats   https://portside.org/2021-06-27/dangerous-decisions-about-advanced-nuclear-reactors-could-lead-new-threats

Congress should have answers to tough questions before giving the Energy Department’s Advanced Reactor Development Program additional funding. June 27, 2021 Victor Gilinsky, Henry Sokolski

The Department of Energy’s recently launched Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP) is slipping by without any close Congressional oversight, which is unfortunate as there are some serious questions that should be answered, including ones related to national security. The program was launched with an award of $160 million to TerraPower for its Natrium design and X-energy for its Xe-100. Each is to build a full-scale nuclear reactor within the next seven years, one that could be duplicated and sold commercially. While not a huge sum, it is intended to be the down payment on over $3 billion, a sum that is supposed to be cost-shared by the companies, with more for other projects.

At a March 25 Senate Energy Committee hearing on “advanced” reactors, executives of the two companies described a future with almost unlimited opportunities worldwide for their reactors, hundreds, maybe thousands. They got an enthusiastic reception from both sides of the aisle, summed up by Chairman Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) final observation that while wind and solar power were OK, “nuclear really does the job.” No one asked how the reactors will be fueled. Will they be fueled with nearly highly enriched uranium, or with plutonium? And what will be the security consequences of selling and encouraging reactors fueled with such fuels around the world?

Despite the enthusiasm for new technology, the “advanced” label is misplaced. These are re-engineered versions of old designs, some over fifty years old. “Advanced small modular reactors” trips off the tongues of people who think they are talking about the nuclear future, whereas in fact, they are talking about reviving the past.  

“Small” is also an inaccurate label. Yes, there are lots of projects for small reactors, but they are a sideshow, for niche applications. The real action, the main ring, concerns larger units. TerraPower’s CEO, Chris Levesque, told the senators at the March 25 hearing that the company was pursuing a 300-megawatt (electric) unit because that was what today’s market would accept. But as it gained experience, TerraPower anticipated “growing Natrium output back up to gigawatt scale,” the size of current large light water reactors. The obvious conclusion is that TerraPower doesn’t think the smaller units would be economic, despite the current ballyhoo about the economic advantages of such units. Levesque thought there was a market for hundreds of the large units domestically and more abroad. As much of the talk was on competing with Russia and China, it is clear that the nuclear industry business plan centers on exporting the technology around the world. 

Above – a different model – NuScale, but see the person indicated – this ”small” reactor is not small

The Natrium reactor TerraPower has promised to build with DOE funds is not, as many people think, the highly advertised “traveling wave” reactor design that TerraPower pursued when started by Bill Gates. That idea involved the active (fissioning) reactor region slowly “traveling” from the center of the reactor core over the life of the reactor, “breeding” plutonium from uranium and fissioning it in place, therefore with no need for reprocessing. That Bill Gates was assumed to be a shrewd investor boosted the company’s credibility. The traveling wave idea didn’t work, but TerraPower retained the label for a different design, apparently because it aids marketing. 

The Natrium reactor is a scaled-up version of a General Electric design for a small sodium-cooled, plutonium-fueled fast breeder reactor (natrium is German for sodium, and “fast” means it relies on energetic neutrons). This is the reactor the nuclear enthusiasts have wanted to build since Congress canceled the Clinch River Fast Breeder Reactor in 1983. The Atomic Energy Commission, the DOE’s predecessor agency, pushed the liquid metal fast breeder (LMFBR) reactors in the 1970s as the energy solution in what was thought to be a uranium-poor world. But it turned out we live in a uranium-rich world so the expensive LMFBR made no economic sense.

It also made no sense to flood the world with untold tons of plutonium when a few kilograms is enough for a bomb. That’s why Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter made it U.S. policy to discourage commercializing of plutonium-fueled reactors. Enthusiasts tried but failed to revive fast reactors as part of the second Bush administration’s Global Nuclear Energy Partnership program. It appears they are trying again. 

TerraPower’s CEO told the senate hearing that the Natrium reactor would be fueled with uranium enriched to just short of 20 percent U-235 (a level that America is trying to prevent Iran from enriching to). It’s the borderline between low and highly enriched uranium. That choice seems to be related to DOE’s interest in developing a large enrichment market for the DOE-created Centrus Corporation, which is a story in itself. 

Widespread use of reactors in this mode would dramatically increase demand for enriched uranium. Will 20 percent enriched uranium remain the preferred fuel for Natrium, or will it revert to plutonium with reprocessing to meet foreign customer interest? (The original GE design included an onsite reprocessing plant.) So configured, the reactor would make and reuse massive quantities of material that could be used to create a bomb. Recently, the Senate armed Services Committee raised this worry with regard to China’s fast reactor program. Congress should nail down the answer to this key question with regard to DoE’s programs.

There is a natural tendency to loosen the financial reins on projects that fall into the research and development category. But the two ARDP projects are prototypes for the commercial market. Congress should have answers to tough questions before giving the Energy Department’s ARDP additional funding. A good start would be to ask: Can we be sure that we will not end up with plutonium-fueled reactors coupled with reprocessing? 

June 29, 2021 Posted by | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear fusion’s unlikely future, – too late for climate action

Fusion- next steps for the UK, 26 June 21, Nuclear fusion is being talked up as the next big energy thing- although it remains some way off and there are many technical and economic question marks. But Boris Johnson is evidently a fan. The UK government, keen to maintain headway in this field after the UK’s exit from Euratom, has set aside £222m for the development of new fusion technology. 

It has also asked local authorities to nominate potential sites for a prototype fusion plant, based on the MAST Tokamak developed at Culham in Oxfordshire. The Atomic Energy Authority will assess the sites before making recommendation to the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Candidate sites for the ‘Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production’ (STEP) project include Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station, Nottinghamshire and Aberthaw Power Station, near Barry, in Wales. With there being concerns about local job as coal plants close, new projects like this are obviously attractive, but the STEP programme is fairly leisurely, with a commercial-scale plant not being expected until 2040. 

The basic requirement for a viable fusion plant is to be able to sustain fusion reactions between relatively easily obtained hydrogen isotopes in a plasma of superhot gas for long enough to get more energy out than is needed to run the system. ITER, a very big 500MW rated conventional helical tokamak prototype, is being built with international support in France, but the STEP programme offers a possibly faster route using a much smaller spherical device. To make that viable you need higher power superconducting magnets to sustain/contain the plasma. The STEPs team have come up with a way to put thin layers of superconducting rare-earth barium copper oxide (ReBCO) on metal tape. The team says that the technology should be deployable in a test fusion pilot plant ‘in the early 2030s’. 

However, they are not alone. First Light, an Oxford University spin off company based in an industrial park in Oxford, are developing a novel inertia confinement system. And Canadian company General Fusion is to build and operate a demonstation Magnetised Target fusion plant plant at UKAEA’s Culham Campus near Oxford. It involves injecting hydrogen plasma into a liquid metal sphere, where it is compressed and heated so that fusion occurs. The company, which is backed by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, says its goal is to bring fusion energy to the world by the early 2030s. There are also pioneering projects underway in the USA and elsewhere – some with 2030 targets. Though there is some debate over target criteria and what counts as operational success- presumably a real total energy gain. And also debates over safety, security, environmental impacts and of course costs. 

It is very early days for these novel technologies, but there have been assessments made of health and safety risk factors in relation to ITER-type reactors, a key one being the creation of X and gamma ray activated containment materials from the powerful internal radiation fluxes.  So, as a Nature paper explained, even though they will be shorter lived than the waste produced by fission reactors, ITER-type plants will produce wastes that have to be dealt with, and will need shielding and careful access control to protect workers and the public. All of which will add to the cost. 

It is rare to see much in the way of convincing analysis of costs – with so many different still developing technologies and little work done yet on exactly how the neutron energy released by fusion reactors would be converted to electricity, it’s too early to say. ITER’s web site says that the average cost per kilowatt of electricity is expected to be similar to that from a nuclear fission plant ‘slightly more expensive at the beginning, when the technology is new, and less expensive as economies of scale bring the costs down’. 

However, there are other views: one study in 2018 put the estimated mid-range capital cost of an ITER-type commercial plant at roughly twice that from on shore wind, although it claimed that the average cost of energy would be similar, while it would be cheaper than wind when external (impact) costs were added. That is very surprising and seems to be based on the assumption that fusion plants’ external impacts would be tiny, whereas it has been argued that there could be significant issues e.g. from the release of radioactive tritium. 

The smaller inertia confinement systems may of course turn out to be cheaper since they do not need large complex energy-hungry magnetic containment systems. First Light has claimed that it could deliver a Levelised Cost Of Energy (LCOE) as low as $25/MWh compared with $100/MWh for conventional nuclear energy and up to $50/MWh for onshore wind. However, that is all very speculative, whereas one thing has been clear, year by year renewables like wind and especially solar PV are getting cheaper.

Despite all these uncertainties and concerns over technical and operational viability, there is a lot of optimism about fusion, for both ITER and for the national programmes going on in parallel. However, it sometime involves over-egged media attention alluding to imminent breakthroughs. In reality, ITERs development programme stretches out decades ahead, with the first test run maybe in 2035, but, even if all goes well, it seems from project planning reports that a commercial-scale ITER follow up is not likely to be available to feed power to the grid until well after 2050!  

However, some of smaller rival projects may beat it to the market. In that regard, the UK and USA are reputedly in something of a race and China and South Korea are also in the game. It will be interesting to see how it plays out. There have been some perhaps rather optimistic claims by developers. For example, in 2014 Lockheed claimed that for their ‘compact fusion’ programme they were aiming for a ‘prototype in 5 years, defence products in 10, clean power for the world in 20 years’. That raised some eyebrows.  It will probably take longer that that for any of the schemes. Possibly much longer. In which case there is no way that fusion can help deal with the urgent problem of climate change, which raises the question – why is so much being spent on it?  Perhaps $20 billion globally so far and at least that again now likely to be invested in new research programmes. 

It may be reasonable to mount smallish long-term programmes, since, at some point in the future, we may need a power source for deep space travel, not least to get access to the helium 3 from the asteroids in order to run fusion reactors: given its use for electric vehicles, we may run out of lithium for tritium production. But why bother with the huge effort to get fusion plants running on earth? We have the sun, a free fusion reactor in the sky, that delivers all the energy we could ever need, without charge. And the technology needed to use it is available now, not, at the very best for fusion, in a decade or two, and more likely not until 40 years on… 

Renew Extra Weekly 26th June 2021

https://renewextraweekly.blogspot.com/2021/06/fusion-next-steps-for-uk.html

June 28, 2021 Posted by | 2 WORLD, technology | 1 Comment

NASA wants to increase allowable radiation exposure for astronauts – women affected most.

“As missions go deeper into space, we need to communicate why astronauts are being asked to take on that risk and offer explicit ethical justifications. This report offers a framework for accomplishing that,”

Report backs NASA proposal to change astronaut radiation exposure limits, Space News, by Jeff Foust — June 25, 2021  WASHINGTON — A National Academies committee has endorsed a NASA proposal to change the radiation exposure limits the agency sets for its astronauts but cautioned that the revised limit is still insufficient for human Mars missions.

The June 24 report by a committee established by the National Academies and sponsored by NASA backs the agency’s proposal to set a single lifetime radiation exposure limit for astronauts, rather than different limits based on age and gender.

Currently, lifetime exposure limits range from 180 millisieverts for a 30-year-old woman to 700 millisieverts for a 60-year-old man. Those limits are based on models intended to set a limit of no more than a 3% risk of radiation exposure-induced death (REID) at the 95% confidence level.

NASA proposed changing that to a limit of about 600 millisieverts, regardless of age or gender. That limit is based on the mean 3% risk of REID for a 35-year-old woman, the most conservative case but measured to a different standard than the earlier calculation.

The change, the committee noted, will allow more opportunities for female astronauts given the higher radiation limits. “Taken together, the proposed standard creates equality of opportunity for spaceflight with the trade-offs of somewhat higher allowable exposure to radiation for a subset of astronauts (primarily women) and limiting exposures below otherwise acceptable doses for others (primarily older men),” the committee’s report stated………

While the revised levels will increase flight opportunities for many NASA astronauts, the levels are still more conservative than many other space agencies. Roscosmos, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency all set lifetime exposure limits of 1,000 millisieverts for their astronauts and cosmonauts, without any age or gender differences. The Japanese space agency JAXA does have age and gender differences, varying between 500 and 1,000 millisieverts.

Even those higher levels fall short of projected radiation exposures for round-trip Mars missions, which the report noted would exceed 1,000 millisieverts. Any astronauts who fly on a Mars mission would need a waiver to NASA’s radiation exposure limits, which raises ethical questions. “NASA should develop a protocol for waiver of the proposed space radiation standard that is judicious, transparent, and informed by ethics,” the committee recommended.

“As missions go deeper into space, we need to communicate why astronauts are being asked to take on that risk and offer explicit ethical justifications. This report offers a framework for accomplishing that,” said Julian Preston of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, vice-chair of the committee, in a statement.https://spacenews.com/report-backs-nasa-proposal-to-change-astronaut-radiation-exposure-limits/

June 26, 2021 Posted by | radiation, space travel, USA | Leave a comment

Scientists say New Brunswick’s plutonium plan is undermining the global nuclear weapons non-proliferation regime

Scientists say New Brunswick’s plutonium plan is undermining the global nuclear weapons non-proliferation regime,    https://nbmediacoop.org/2021/06/14/scientists-say-nbs-plutonium-plan-is-undermining-the-global-nuclear-weapons-non-proliferation-regime/ by Susan O’Donnell and Gordon EdwardsJune 14, 2021  The company Moltex Energy wants to extract plutonium from the thousands of used nuclear fuel bundles stored at Point Lepreau on the Bay of Fundy. They plan to use the plutonium as fuel for a new nuclear reactor, still in the design stage. If the project is successful, the entire package could be replicated and sold to other countries.

However, American scientists and non-proliferation experts say that Canadian government support for the Moltex plutonium-extraction project is undermining the global nuclear weapons non-proliferation regime. Plutonium is the primary nuclear explosive material in the world’s arsenals of nuclear weapons.

On March 18 this year, federal Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc announced a $50.5 million grant for the Moltex project, adding to the $5 million the New Brunswick government gave the company in 2018. During the announcement, LeBlanc and Premier Blaine Higgs described the Moltex project as “recycling” nuclear waste, although less than one percent of the used nuclear fuel is potentially available for use as new reactor fuel, leaving a lot of radioactive waste leftovers.

On May 25, nine US non-proliferation experts sent an open letter to Prime Minister Trudeau expressing concern that by “backing spent-fuel reprocessing and plutonium extraction, the government of Canada will undermine the global nuclear weapons non-proliferation regime that Canada has done so much to strengthen.”

The nine signatories to the letter include senior White House scientist appointees and other US government advisors who worked under six US presidents: Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and Obama; and who hold professorships at the Harvard Kennedy School, University of Maryland, Georgetown University, University of Texas at Austin, George Washington University and Princeton University.

Plutonium is a human-made element created as a byproduct in every nuclear reactor. India exploded its first nuclear weapon in 1974 using plutonium extracted from a “peaceful” Canadian nuclear reactor given as a gift many years earlier. In the months afterwards, it was discovered that South Korea, Pakistan, Taiwan and Argentina – all customers of Canadian nuclear technology – were well on the way to replicating India’s achievement.

The US and its allies acted swiftly to prevent these countries from acquiring the necessary plutonium extraction facilities. To this day South Korea is not allowed to extract plutonium from used nuclear fuel on its own territory due to proliferation concerns.

Several years after the Indian explosion, the US Carter administration ended federal support for civil reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel in the US out of concern that making plutonium more available would contribute to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. At that time, Canada’s policy on reprocessing also changed to accord with the US policy.

Moltex is proposing extract plutonium at Point Lepreau using “pyroprocessing,” in which the solid used reactor fuel is converted to a liquid form, dissolved in a very hot bath of molten salt. What happens next was described by Moltex Chairman and Chief Scientist Ian Scott in a recent article in Energy Intelligence. “We then — in a very, very simple process — extract the plutonium selectively from that molten metal. It’s literally a pot. You put the metal in, put salt in the top, mix them up, and the plutonium moves into the salt, and the salt’s our fuel. That’s it … You tip the crucible and out pours the fuel for our reactor.”

From an international perspective, the federal support of the Moltex project can be seen as Canada sending a signal – giving a green light to plutonium extraction and the reprocessing of used nuclear fuel.

The US experts are concerned other countries could point to Canada’s support of the Moltex project to help justify their own plutonium acquisition programs. That could undo years of efforts to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of countries that might want to join the ranks of unofficial nuclear weapons states. The Moltex project is especially irksome since its proposed pyroprocessing technology is very similar to the one South Korea has been trying to deploy for almost 10 years.

Despite the alarm raised by the nine experts in their letter to Trudeau, the government has not yet responded. The only response has come from the industry, Moltex CEO Rory O’Sullivan. His reply to a Globe and Mail reporter: the plutonium extracted in the Moltex facility would be “completely unsuitable for use in weapons.”

But the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has stated that “Nuclear weapons can be fabricated using plutonium containing virtually any combination of plutonium isotopes.” All plutonium is of equal “sensitivity” for purposes of IAEA safeguards in non-nuclear weapon States.

Similarly, a 2009 report by non-proliferation experts from six US national laboratories concluded that pyroprocessing is about as susceptible to misuse for nuclear weapons as the original reprocessing technology used by the military.

In 2011, a US State Department official responsible stated that pyroprocessing is just as dangerous from a proliferation point of view as any other kind of plutonium extraction technology, saying “frankly and positively that pyroprocessing is reprocessing. Period. Full stop.”

And, despite years of effort, the IAEA has not yet developed an approach to effectively safeguard pyroprocessing to prevent diversion of plutonium for illicit uses.

Given that history has shown the dangers of promoting the greater availability of plutonium, why is the federal government supporting pyroprocessing?

The answer: the Canadian nuclear lobby wants it. In the nuclear industry’s report released in March, “Feasibility of Small Modular Reactor Development and Deployment in Canada,” reprocessing (which they call “recycling”) spent nuclear fuel is presented as key to the industry’s future plans.

To date however, there has been no democratic open debate or public consultation over the path Canada is charting with nuclear energy. Important national and international issues are at stake, and conscientious New Brunswickers and all Canadians should sit up and take notice. Political representatives in the Canadian Parliament and the New Brunswick Legislature owe it to their constituents to demand more accountability and ask why our governments are supporting a plutonium-extraction project that raises such serious international concerns.

Susan O’Donnell, a Fredericton-based researcher specializing in technology adoption and environmental issues, is the lead researcher for the RAVEN project at the University of New Brunswick. Gordon Edwards is a Montreal-based mathematician, physicist, nuclear consultant, and President of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility. 

June 24, 2021 Posted by | Canada, reprocessing | Leave a comment

UK government’s fantasy of a nuclear fusion energy plant at Bradwell

**Fusion** The announcement by the Government that Bradwell is on the long list of
fifteen possible sites for the UK’s prototype fusion energy plant has
come out of the blue. Chair of the Blackwater Against New Nuclear Group
(BANNG) Professor Andy Blowers, described the idea to develop fusion
(essentially the process that goes on inside the sun and in hydrogen bombs)
to produce electricity as ‘yet another nuclear fantasy, like the
philosopher’s stone full of golden promise but impossible to realise.


Bradwell is not a soft touch for such speculative and dangerous
experimentation’.The Government has committed £400M to the fusion
programme and the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) put out a call for
sites to host STEP (the Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production), the
prototype fusion plant. The fifteen sites include the usual suspects –
Sellafield, North Wales, Dounreay – together with other nuclear sites,
former coal-fired power station sites and, at the end of the list, Bradwell
nominated by Belport Ltd., an entrepreneurial property and asset management
company.

 BANNG 22nd June 2021

https://www.banng.info/category/news/press-releases/

June 24, 2021 Posted by | technology, UK | Leave a comment

U.S. Space Force wants to use directed-energy weapons for space superiority,

The Space Force wants to use directed-energy weapons for space superiority,

https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/space/2021/06/16/the-space-force-wants-to-use-directed-energy-weapons-for-space-superiority/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=C4ISRNET%206.17&utm_term=Editorial%20-%20Daily%20Brief

Nathan Strout, 17 June 21, WASHINGTON — The head of the Space Force acknowledged that the U.S. is developing the “appropriate” directed-energy systems to maintain American space superiority, although he declined to provide details in the unclassified setting of a June 16 congressional hearing.

Noting that directed-energy systems could be a possible defensive tool for American satellites, Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., asked Chief of Space Operations Gen. Jay Raymond whether the United States was adequately developing a directed energy portfolio “to be an effective capability for space dominance.”

“Yes sir, we are,” Raymond responded, suggesting that they discuss the issue in more detail in a classified setting. “We have to be able to protect these capabilities that we rely so heavily on.”

n a statement to C4ISRNET, a Space Force spokesperson said, “General Raymond has stated many times that China and Russia have directed energy capabilities that are designed to damage or destroy our satellites. His response to Congressman James Langevin’s question was confirming that our architecture developments in the face of these threats are appropriate.”

The Missile Defense Agency has explored using space-based lasers to intercept ballistic missiles in the past, and other nations have fielded ground-based laser dazzling weapons that can blind on orbit sensors. However, the Space Force has been effectively mum on what weapon systems — conventional or directed energy — it is developing to protect its satellites or defeat enemy satellites. Raymond’s acknowledgement at the hearing might be the first time he’s publicly confirmed the directed energy systems are under development.

The government cited the development of anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons by China and Russia as a justification for the creation of Space Command and the Space Force, and since their establishment military space leaders have been quick to criticize ASAT development and testing. U.S. Space Command’s Gen. James Dickinson has heavily criticized direct-ascent missile tests by Russia, which demonstrated the ability to take out satellites in low Earth orbit and the potential to cause dangerous space debris. Perhaps more concerning is a mysterious Russian satellite that has shown the ability to fire a projectile in space. Raymond refers to the spacecraft as an on-orbit weapon system.

Russia has made space a war-fighting domain by testing space-based and ground-based weapons intended to target and destroy satellites. This fact is inconsistent with Moscow’s public claims that Russia seeks to prevent conflict in space,” said Dickinson after a Russian ASAT test in December. “Space is critical to all nations. It is a shared interest to create the conditions for a safe, stable and operationally sustainable space environment.”

However, the Space Force — and the Air Force before it — have always been secretive about what ASAT weapons the U.S. military has or is developing. The one with the most public details is the Counter Communications System, a transportable system that can jam enemy satellites. And while the Air Force is developing laser weapons, it’s not clear what plans — if any — there are to attach them to space systems or direct them at enemy satellites. The U.S. also has missiles that can reach satellites in low Earth orbit.

Reports from the intelligence community and observers have highlighted the development of kinetic weapons — such as those mentioned above — as well as non-kinetic weapons — such as ground-based jammers or laser systems that can effectively blind satellite sensors — by nations deemed American adversaries.

In a report earlier this year, the Center for Strategic and International Studies suggested that the Space Force develop orbital laser weapons to defend American satellites. Titled “Defense Against the Dark Arts in Space,” the report lays out the various types of ASAT weapons and describes several ways the Space Force could defend against them. That includes passive defenses, like building a redundant space architecture that could survive the loss of one or even multiple satellites, and active defenses, such as satellite-mounted lasers that could blind incoming threats.

The U.S. has invested heavily in building passive defenses, such as a distributed architecture like the one described in the report, but it’s less forthcoming on its active defenses. Other nations are less secretive. Most notably, France has stated that it could equip its satellites with weapons — possibly lasers — to defend themselves from adversaries.

While Raymond’s brief comments didn’t give any insight into what the U.S. is developing in regards to directed energy systems for space, they didn’t rule out the types of weapons laid out in the CSIS report.

“It was a limited exchange, but the context of the statements and the statements themselves certainly leave the door open to nonkinetic defensive space capabilities of some kind,” said Todd Harrison, director of the CSIS Aerospace Security Project. “As we noted in our report, on-board electronic countermeasures, such as laser dazzlers and radar jammers, can be an effective way to defend satellites against certain types of kinetic attacks. And it has the advantage of protecting satellites without producing space debris, which is important to the long-term viability of the space domain for all users, not just the U.S. military.”

June 19, 2021 Posted by | space travel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

”Advanced” nuclear reactor designs – the latest version of nuclear wishful thinking



 Clean Technica 16th June 2021, Some nuclear energy developers are now promoting what they call “advanced” reactor designs as a solution. Unlike light-water reactors, these non-light-water designs rely on materials other than water for cooling, including liquid sodium, helium and molten salt.

Some developerscontend these reactors, which are still in the concept stage, will solve all the problems that plague light-water reactors and be ready for prime time by the end of the decade. The siren song of a cheap, safe and secure nuclear reactor in the offing has attracted the attention of Biden administration officials and some key members of Congress, who are looking for any and all ways to curb carbon emissions.

But are so-called advanced reactors merely the latest version of nuclear wishful thinking? A comprehensive Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) analysis of non-light-water reactor concepts in development suggests they are. Published in mid-March, the 140-page report found that these designs are no better — and in some respects significantly worse — than the light-water reactors in operation today. The report, “Advanced” Isn’t
Always Better, assesses the pros and cons of three main types of non-light-water reactors: sodium-cooled fast reactors, high-temperature gas-cooled reactors and molten salt–fueled reactors.

It rates each type on three broad criteria: safety; nuclear proliferation and terrorism risks; and sustainability, which refers to how efficiently they use uranium and how much long-lived nuclear waste they generate.

 https://cleantechnica.com/2021/06/16/when-it-comes-to-nuclear-power-advanced-isnt-always-better/

June 19, 2021 Posted by | 2 WORLD, technology | Leave a comment

The Pentagon’s Project, Pele Military micro-reactors – creates more problems than it solves.

Military micro-reactors: Waging yesterday’s wars while losing the future’s   https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2021/06/15/military-micro-reactors-waging-yesterdays-wars-while-losing-the-futures/By: Bryan Clarkand Henry Sokolski With its withdrawal from Afghanistan and decision to end programs that typified America’s conflicts of past two decades, the Biden administration’s Pentagon is planning for long-term competitions against China and Russia. But for the Pentagon’s mobile micro-reactor effort, Project Pele, it’s still 2007.

Designed to supply energy to remote troops, Pele is geared for fighting the last war, which lacked high-end threats and during which vulnerable fuel convoys were a significant source of American casualties.

The Pentagon is asking Congress to spend $60 million next year on Pele. Congress should hit the brakes. Not only is Pele rooted in anachronistic military scenarios, but against Chinese, Russian, North Korean or Iranian militaries, it would be a prime target for precise missiles and drones as well as a source of friction with nuclear-skeptic U.S. allies expected to host the reactors.

With its withdrawal from Afghanistan and decision to end programs that typified America’s conflicts of past two decades, the Biden administration’s Pentagon is planning for long-term competitions against China and Russia. But for the Pentagon’s mobile micro-reactor effort, Project Pele, it’s still 2007.

Designed to supply energy to remote troops, Pele is geared for fighting the last war, which lacked high-end threats and during which vulnerable fuel convoys were a significant source of American casualties.

The Pentagon is asking Congress to spend $60 million next year on Pele. Congress should hit the brakes. Not only is Pele rooted in anachronistic military scenarios, but against Chinese, Russian, North Korean or Iranian militaries, it would be a prime target for precise missiles and drones as well as a source of friction with nuclear-skeptic U.S. allies expected to host the reactors.

To address the threat of attack, Pele’s fuel is intended to be inherently stable and resistant to meltdown.

Perhaps, but a large attack could bury the fuel in debris, preventing it from dissipating heat and causing it to exceed its design temperature. And even if the fuel remains intact, it is radioactive and would create a contamination risk once released from the reactor by an attack.

Count on our allies being unwilling to host Pele reactors that opponents are sure to strike. Unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, where the governments were beholden to the United States and guided-weapons threats were nonexistent, U.S. troops facing China would have to operate on Japanese, Australian or Philippine soil — nations that harbor strong anti-nuclear sentiments. U.S. governments in Guam or the Northern Mariana islands may have less choice in the matter, but residents there will hardly welcome new radioactive targets for Chinese missiles.

U.S. forces could reduce the threat to mobile reactors by taking them off the front lines. However, this reduces their value in solving logistical problems. More important, moving Pele away from the front will place it closer to civilian populations worried about Pele’s everyday radiological footprint. Consider instead of platoons of diesel mechanics and convoys of fuel, the Army needs squads of nuclear power plant operators and pallets of testing supplies and water treatment equipment. The return trip will also be full. Every glove, paper towel and sample bottle would likely be considered low-level waste and require specialized disposal, possibly back in the United States.

Bottom line: Pele creates more military challenges than it solves.

Mobile reactors might make sense for powering remote settlements and polar or moon stations, which is why NASA and the Energy Department are backing the project. But Pele is the wrong answer for tomorrow’s power-hungry military sensors, electric combat vehicles and directed-energy weapons. To supply these systems, the Pentagon should take a broader approach. Instead of advancing a comfortable solution from the past, the Defense Department should drive energy innovation through competition, such as the prize challenges that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency successfully used to advance new robotics and semiconductor designs.

New energy technologies are available. Solar and wind generation are being advanced and fielded today by commercial industry. Developments in batteries, capacitors and flywheels are already revolutionizing energy storage. A combination of these and other as-yet unidentified technologies could address the U.S. military’s expeditionary energy needs and be more feasible to deploy than Pele. Congress should reallocate Pele’s proposed budget to fund competitions to surface and exploit these new approaches rather than picking a winner today that is likely to lose tomorrow.

Bryan Clark, a retired U.S. Navy nuclear submarine officer, is currently a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and the director of its Center for Defense Concepts and Technology. Henry Sokolski is the executive director at the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. He served in the U.S. Defense Department’s Office of Net Assessment and as the department’s deputy for nonproliferation policy under then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney

June 17, 2021 Posted by | safety, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Why Utah really does not need Bill Gates’ small nuclear reactors

What Bill Gates and co. would like us to forget is that even the these geewhiz new small reactors are still based on that old carbon-releasing fuel chain –

Yes, there is a need to clean up our power generation to curb climate change — the sooner the better. But Williams points to a recent study that determined the lifecycle emissions with nuclear — mining, milling, transporting and storing the fuel and building and decommissioning the plants — far exceed other alternative energy sources.

Cox is eager for a nuclear future. Utahns should tell him why we’re not, says Robert Gehrke,  https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2021/06/14/cox-is-eager-nuclear/ With safer, cleaner, cheaper alternatives, nuclear power may not make the most sense for Utah,   By Robert Gehrke , June 15, 2021,

In Wyoming last week, an announcement was made that could mark a resurgence in the long-stymied nuclear energy industry.

Officials announced plans to build a new 345 megawatt nuclear power plant in the state that could, at its peak, generate enough electricity for all of the households in Wyoming with room to spare.

What makes this announcement different is the array of power players behind the project. It’s a partnership between Warren Buffett-owned Pacificorp and Bill Gates-owned Terrapower that has the backing of President Joe Biden’s Energy Department and Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon.

It also has the support of Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, who praised the project as “a huge announcement” that “will have big implications for Utah in the future.”

“We look forward to similar partnerships in the years to come,” the governor said.

It’s not necessarily a new position. Cox’s predecessor, Gov. Gary Herbert, supported nuclear energy, as did his predecessor, Gov. Jon Huntsman.

But the Wyoming announcement ups the stakes dramatically, moving it from concept to something more concrete and forcing Utahns to confront critical questions nagging nuclear power: Is it safe? Is it cost-effective? And is it right for Utah?

Safety has always been the issue dogging nuclear power. Whether it’s Three Mile Island or Chernobyl or Fukushima, you surely have some nuclear disaster as a touchstone framing you perception of the energy.

The good news, according to Michael Simpson, chair of the Material Science and Engineering department at the University of Utah, is that the Natrium reactors that Terrapower hopes to build in Wyoming are generally safer than the old water-cooled reactors.

The Terrapower plant would be cooled with sodium, which transfers heat better than water, meaning it is less likely to melt down (like Chernobyl) or explode (like Fukushima).

Years ago, Simpson said, researchers at the Idaho National Laboratory did an experiment with a sodium-cooled reactor where they shut off the sodium coolant and instead of heating, the reactor slowly cooled and the reaction stopped.

Others dispute the safety claims, however. Earlier this year, the Union of Concerned Scientists issued a report that said the sodium reactors are unproven and raise other safety issues — for example, the sodium can burn if exposed to air.

“When it comes to safety and security, sodium-cooled fast reactors and molten salt-fueled reactors are significantly worse than conventional light-water reactors,” said Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety for UCS.

Then there is the waste issue. The proponents of the sodium reactors contend that they would burn more of the fuel, producing less waste. Again, UCS disputes that and argues the waste that would be generated would pose nuclear proliferation and possible terrorism risks.

Then there’s the economics of nuclear power.

Recently, South Carolina completely scrapped a water-cooled nuclear plant that had been in the works for years. Some $9 billion was squandered sparking lawsuits by investors and ratepayers demanding their money back.

Rocky Mountain Power’s own figures released in 2019 put the cost of nuclear power at $95 per megawatt hour, compared to around $25 to $30 per hour for solar. Some cost projections are lower, some are higher, but none put nuclear in the same ballpark as solar, raising the obvious concern that we’ll be on the hook for the added expense one way or another — either as ratepayers or as taxpayers subsidizing the more costly power source.

There’s also a larger question, according to Scott Williams, executive director of HEAL Utah, an environmental group that has opposed nuclear power: Do we need it?

Yes, there is a need to clean up our power generation to curb climate change — the sooner the better. But Williams points to a recent study that determined the lifecycle emissions with nuclear — mining, milling, transporting and storing the fuel and building and decommissioning the plants — far exceed other alternative energy sources.

But the TerraPower reactor isn’t expected to come online until 2028 and, as we saw in South Carolina, when it comes to building nuclear power plants, the projections often are unrealistically optimistic.

With battery technology improving and rooftop solar expanding and getting cheaper, there’s no reason to gamble on nuclear, Williams said, other than centralized generation benefits Rocky Mountain’s shareholders.

“It just doesn’t make sense,” he said. “If you’re looking at it objectively, to say it’s better to put a bunch of money into a technology that not only isn’t proven, but has been proven to fail time and time again.”

And we have to take into account our state’s history with nuclear energy that is nothing short of radioactive itself, from the miners and uranium mill workers sickened by their exposure to radiation, to the thousands upon thousands of Utah Downwinders stricken with various cancers as a result of nuclear weapons testing in Nevada, to the decade-long battle to beat back a nuclear waste storage facility in Utah’s desert.

So do we scrap the whole nuclear idea? Not necessarily.

But if Utah wants to venture down the nuclear energy path, these questions and a host of others have to be thoroughly researched and addressed. We’re not there yet and until we are, the cheerleading from the Biden administration and Gov. Cox feels premature.

June 15, 2021 Posted by | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, USA | Leave a comment

NFLA report on UK plutonium policy amid new concerns over plutonium dumped in the Irish Sea

 

   

NFLA publishes report on UK plutonium policy amid new concerns over plutonium remobilisation in the Irish Sea     https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/nfla-report-uk-plutonium-policy-concerns-plutonium-remobilisation-irish-sea/

The UK & Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA) publishes today on its website an expert overview of national plutonium policy and recent concerns over the potential for plutonium remobilisation in the Irish Sea. (1)

The report was developed by the NFLA Policy Advisor, Pete Roche, and was first published on the website ‘No2nuclearpower.org.uk’. (2) Recent research on this area was also presented by Pete to the most recent meetings of the NFLA English Forum and NFLA All Ireland Sustainable Energy Forum. (3)

The report notes that the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) expects the Magnox Reprocessing Plant at Sellafield to close this year (2021) – one year later than previously planned. This follows on from the closure of the Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (THORP) in November 2018. Reprocessing, which NFLA has always argued has been completely unnecessary, is the chemical separation of plutonium and unused uranium from spent nuclear waste fuel.

When reprocessing ends there will be around 140 tonnes of separated civil plutonium stored at Sellafield – the world’s largest stockpile. Since 2008, the NDA has been discussing how to deal with this embarrassment, given that it is highly toxic, poses a permanent risk of proliferation, and will cost taxpayers around £73 million a year to store for the next century. (3) 13 years later, after much dithering, the UK Government has failed to make any decisions, but still appears to favour the re-use option, which would probably involve transporting weapons-useable plutonium or Mixed Oxide Fuel (MoX) fuel to reactor sites, such as Hinkley Point C and Sizewell B (and C if it is ever built) with an armed escort.

The report looks at this sorry saga and the options for dealing with this stockpile. NFLA believe that the plutonium should be immobilised and stored safely. NDA is continuing to investigate how immobilisation and reuse might be implemented, arguing that using the material as MOX fuel in light water reactors is the most mature option from a technical and licensing perspective. The UK government says it can only make a decision when it can be underpinned with sufficient evidence.

When reprocessing ends there will be around 140 tonnes of separated civil plutonium stored at Sellafield – the world’s largest stockpile. Since 2008, the NDA has been discussing how to deal with this embarrassment, given that it is highly toxic, poses a permanent risk of proliferation, and will cost taxpayers around £73 million a year to store for the next century. (3) 13 years later, after much dithering, the UK Government has failed to make any decisions, but still appears to favour the re-use option, which would probably involve transporting weapons-useable plutonium or Mixed Oxide Fuel (MoX) fuel to reactor sites, such as Hinkley Point C and Sizewell B (and C if it is ever built) with an armed escort.

The report looks at this sorry saga and the options for dealing with this stockpile. NFLA believe that the plutonium should be immobilised and stored safely. NDA is continuing to investigate how immobilisation and reuse might be implemented, arguing that using the material as MOX fuel in light water reactors is the most mature option from a technical and licensing perspective. The UK government says it can only make a decision when it can be underpinned with sufficient evidence.

The NFLA report also highlights its concerns that plutonium particles dumped in the Irish Sea from Sellafield could remobilise. Low-level aqueous radioactive waste has been discharged from the Sellafield site into the Irish Sea for more than 50 years.

Unfortunately, it has since emerged that a proportion of such sediment associated radioactivity has remobilised, and is being actively transported around the Irish Sea, while the remainder is temporarily “sequestered” in the seabed but subject to any future disturbance mechanisms such as storm, wave and seismic activity. In addition, a proportion of dissolved nuclides did not necessarily remain dissolved in liquid form in the water column, but it could become incorporated into organic particles and deposited into sedimentary environments where they could be temporarily sequestered, but subsequently recycled back into the environment by dredging, trawling storm and seismic activity.

For NFLA, there remains real concern that this ‘Sellafield Mudpatch’ in the Irish Sea could be disturbed if either a deep-underground coal mine is developed off the coast of Cumbria, or similarly if a deep-underground radioactive waste repository is built under the Irish Sea again off the Cumbrian coast. It calls for the NDA and Radioactive Waste Management (RWM) to study these issues urgently before any such development is ever considered to be developed.

FLA Steering Committee Chair Councillor David Blackburn said:

“This report on the NFLA policy outlines one of the most embarrassing and perplexing elements of UK nuclear policy – what to do with its world record plutonium stockpile. The NFLA report highlights there are no easy answers, but delays on pursuing sensible immobilisation options have cost money and lead to further storage challenge. This report also highlights ongoing scientific and environmental alarm about building deep-underground facilities off the Cumbria coast that could remobilise plutonium and other dangerous particles that lie on the Irish Sea. Real caution and detailed research are required before any decisions are made. I urge councillors and council waste management officers to reads this important report.”

Ends – for more information please contact Sean Morris, NFLA Secretary, on 07771 930196.

June 12, 2021 Posted by | oceans, technology, UK | Leave a comment

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