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USA wants nuclear power stations on the moon and on Mars

U.S. eyes building nuclear power plants for moon and Mars    https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/u-s-eyes-building-nuclear-nts-fpower-plaor-moon-and-mars  Nation Jul 24, 2020 BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The U.S. wants to build nuclear power plants that will work on the moon and Mars, and on Friday put out a request for ideas from the private sector on how to do that.

The U.S. Department of Energy put out the formal request to build what it calls a fission surface power system that could allow humans to live for long periods in harsh space environments.

The Idaho National Laboratory, a nuclear research facility in eastern Idaho, the Energy Department and NASA will evaluate the ideas for developing the reactor.

The lab has been leading the way in the U.S. on advanced reactors, some of them micro reactors and others that can operate without water for cooling. Water-cooled nuclear reactors are the vast majority of reactors on Earth.

“Small nuclear reactors can provide the power capability necessary for space exploration missions of interest to the Federal government,” the Energy Department wrote in the notice published Friday.

The Energy Department, NASA and Battelle Energy Alliance, the U.S. contractor that manages the Idaho National Laboratory, plan to hold a government-industry webcast technical meeting in August concerning expectations for the program.

The plan has two phases. The first is developing a reactor design. The second is building a test reactor, a second reactor be sent to the moon, and developing a flight system and lander that can transport the reactor to the moon. The goal is to have a reactor, flight system and lander ready to go by the end of 2026.

The reactor must be able to generate an uninterrupted electricity output of at least 10 kilowatts. The average U.S. residential home, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, uses about 11,000 kilowatt-hours per year. The Energy Department said it would likely take multiple linked reactors to meet power needs on the moon or Mars.

In addition, the reactor cannot weigh more than 7,700 pounds (3,500 kilograms), be able to operate in space, operate mostly autonomously, and run for at least 10 years.

“This may drive or start an international space race to build and deploy new types of reactors requiring highly enriched uranium.”

– Edwin Lyman, director of Nuclear Power Safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists

The Energy Department said the reactor is intended to support exploration in the south polar region of the moon. The agency said a specific region on the Martian surface for exploration has not yet been identified.

Edwin Lyman, director of Nuclear Power Safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit, said his organization is concerned the parameters of the design and timeline make the most likely reactors those that use highly enriched uranium, which can be made into weapons. Nations have generally been attempting to reduce the amount of enriched uranium being produced for that reason.

“This may drive or start an international space race to build and deploy new types of reactors requiring highly enriched uranium,” he said.

Earlier this week, the United Arab Emirates launched an orbiter to Mars and China launched an orbiter, lander and rover. The U.S. has already landed rovers on the red planet and is planning to send another next week.

Officials say operating a nuclear reactor on the moon would be a first step to building a modified version to operate in the different conditions found on Mars.

“Idaho National Laboratory has a central role in emphasizing the United States’ global leadership in nuclear innovation, with the anticipated demonstration of advanced reactors on the INL site,” John Wagner, associate laboratory director of INL’s Nuclear Science & Technology Directorate, said in a statement. “The prospect of deploying an advanced reactor to the lunar surface is as exciting as it is challenging.”

July 27, 2020 Posted by | space travel, USA | Leave a comment

Space archaeology, space junk and weapons, and long-lasting radioactivity

While the nuclear macho men plan more nuclear, and nuclear weapons in space, it seems that it takes a woman, Alice Gorman, to investigate the radioactive pollution on Earth and in space, due to these activities

Nuclear sites still dangerous in 24,000 years, say space archaeologists
Some nuclear tests were conducted also in outer space and nuclear fuel was employed as propellant for rockets.    https://www.jpost.com/health-science/nuclear-sites-still-dangerous-in-24000-years-space-archaeologists-say-636379 By ROSSELLA TERCATIN   JULY 26, 2020   

 In July 1945, a test conducted in the deserts of New Mexico officially propelled humanity into the nuclear era. Only weeks after the Trinity Test, two atomic bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
In the following decades, while no other nuclear device was detonated in an act of war, military tests and studies continued.
Seventy-five years later, space archaeologists are wondering how to warn humanity of the future that the sites where these experiments were carried out are still dangerous, Alice Gorman, associate professor at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, told The Jerusalem Post.
“The type of plutonium used in the Trinity Test, plutonium-239, has a half-life of 24,000 years, meaning that after this time, only half of it will have decayed into a safe, non-radioactive element. How do we communicate to people living then that the site is dangerous?”

Gorman said the issue presents two challenging elements: What materials can survive such a long time, and what form of language can be used to deliver the actual message?

“As for the first difficulty, we know that stones and pottery last a very long time,” she said. “But the second point raises a big archaeological question related to symbolic communication. If we look at rock art from 20,000 years ago, we can see that there are pictures of animals, but we do not know what those pictures mean. Therefore, it is possible that our current symbols to mark radioactive sites, the yellow [and] black sign, will be interpreted as an invitation to explore the area, rather than to keep away from it.”

The issue is especially important for archaeologists of the future because in some cases, while the danger would be very limited or
not even relevant on the surface, the nuclear waste and its radiation are deeper in the ground, and conducting a dig would be
especially risky. For example, such is the case of Maralinga, a remote area in southern Australia where the UK conducted several
nuclear tests.
Some nuclear tests were conducted in outer space, and nuclear fuel was employed as propellant for rockets.
If the UN Outer Space Treaty of 1967 prohibited nuclear weapons in space, the issue of its weaponization remains very relevant.“Recently, Russia tested an anti-satellite weapon, reawakening the debate,” Gorman told the Post.

She began to work in space archaeology following years of work focused on stone-tool analysis and the aboriginal use of bottle glass after European settlement.

Space archaeology deals with the same issues of regular archaeology, understanding material culture, human behavior and the interaction with the surrounding environment, Gorman said.

“However, we are looking at the post-Second World War period, when the very same rockets that had been developed as missiles started to send spacecraft into orbit,” she said. “We are interested in all of what is on earth, like rocket launch sites or tracking antennas and reception development, as well as town or residential areas where people who worked on these projects live, but also satellites, space junk and all the places on other planets where humans have sent spacecrafts.”
“We are asking the same questions other archaeologists are, but we have the limitations that we cannot visit many of the sites in person, and instead, we have to rely on records or images,” she added.

Gorman was drawn to space archaeology by the idea of exploring space junk, those many objects that cannot even be seen in the sky circling the Earth. Currently, she is working on the archaeology of the International Space Station.
The recent attempt by Israel to land a robotic unit on the moon with the Beresheet mission represents a very interesting development for space archaeologists, Gorman said.

“For many decades, the only material cultures present on the moon were the American and the Soviet one,” she said. “As new countries have started to reach the moon, this has changed, bringing more diversity to the field.”

July 27, 2020 Posted by | - plutonium, 2 WORLD, space travel | Leave a comment

Rolls Royce Small Modular Nuclear Reactors: not small, not modular, not cheap, and not going to happen

100% Renewables 16th July 2020, The Government has just announced a £40 million research programme into so-called advanced modular reactor technology that is highly unlikely ever to see any practical use. That is because the so-called small modular reactors (SMRs) are much too expensive for civilian use.

In an important sense it is nonsense to talk about research to develop SMRs as a ‘new’ technology simply because they already exist. They power military submarines and also US aircraft carriers. Their design is simply a smaller
version of the Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR) design that dominates the world nuclear power industry. Indeed PWRs began as small projects housed in submarines which were then developed up in scale so that they could produce electricity more cheaply.

At 450 MW for their proposed plant, the plant is not far off the same order of magnitude as conventional plant – for
example the AGR series that currently generates the bulk of British nuclear plant has units of around 600-660 MW. In fact, as Tom Burke points out, they are close to the size of Britain’s first generation of reactors, the ‘Magnox’ reactors.

Neither is the plant proposed by Rolls Royce modular in the sense that such plant can be rolled off a production line. What Rolls Royce claims is that some parts can be produced in a ‘modular’ fashion. This is not the same as producing whole units off a production line, and in fact the developers of the nuclear plant Vogtle in the USA also claim to produce parts in a ‘modular ‘fashion (although this plant is now hopelessly behind schedule with very large cost overruns).

https://100percentrenewableuk.org/blog

July 18, 2020 Posted by | Reference, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, UK | Leave a comment

Fear and loathing and deception in the world of nuclear fusion research

I was disappointed that the New Energy Times had the DCMA take down a post on this site. It was- “Nuclear fusion: American Association for the Advancement of Science deceived by ITER propagandists”.  But of course, they had every right to do so, as it was their article.

Here at nuclear-news, we strive to get out all the information we can, on the often weird and wonderful, not to say dangerous and secretive, world of the nuclear industry.

When it comes to nuclear fusion, the story is extra muddied, because the ordinary peasant, including myself, has trouble trying to understand the ins and outs of this extraordinary technology, which has great promise for clean energy, – or maybe not.

What I did glean from the now-disappeared article, was that the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) program, or some of its proponents have misled non-experts about the potential power output of the ITER experimental nuclear fusion reactor.   It’s a complicated story, involving various people, including Professor Ian Chapman, Chief Executive Officer of the UK Atomic Energy Agency.  And  – it’s a story of widespread, consistent, and long-standing deception, repeated in many prestigious websites and reputable journals.

Anyway – this story of murky competition in the nuclear fission drive, is detailed in another article in the New Energy Times – more http://news.newenergytimes.net/2017/12/11/evidence-of-the-iter-power-deception/

It doesn’t increase our faith in costly nuclear high tech research.

July 14, 2020 Posted by | Christina's notes, secrets,lies and civil liberties, technology | 2 Comments

Alarm at USA plan to exempt NuScam etc new nuclear reactors from emergency planning

Proposed Emergency Plan Exemption for New Nuclear Designs Raises Concerns, https://www.publicnewsservice.org/2020-07-13/energy-policy/proposed-emergency-plan-exemption-for-new-nuclear-designs-raises-concerns/a70806-1  July 13, 2020  Eric Tegethoff, Public News Service – ID

BOISE, Idaho — A proposal from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission exempting emergency planning for new nuclear plant designs is raising alarms.

The NRC proposal would allow facilities to end emergency preparedness zones at their boundaries.

That zone is currently set at a 10-mile radius around plants and a 50-mile ingestion zone to protect against contaminated food and water.

Timothy Judson, executive director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, says emergency zones have been required since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979.

“Having the emergency evacuation plans and emergency response plans is part of the social contract with nuclear power and has been in the U.S. for over 40 years now,” he points out.

One NRC commissioner says it’s a radical departure from past practices.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has expressed concerns about the proposal to exempt the agency from evaluating evacuation plans.

In support of the proposal, the Nuclear Energy Institute says NRC is modernizing the rules for new nuclear power designs that don’t have the same risks as old designs.

The NuScale small modular reactor project at the Idaho National Laboratory could benefit from these new rules. But Judson says exempting this project from emergency planning regulations exposes why these rules are a bad idea.

“They’re designed to have 12 of these reactors all built in the same building and together, those 12 reactors would be larger than many commercially operating nuclear reactors in the country right now,” he points out.

Judson says the proposal would keep everyone, including utility companies to nearby communities, in the dark on nuclear safety plans.

“Whether you support nuclear power or don’t support nuclear power, everyone supports nuclear safety,” he stresses.

The NRC is accepting public comment on the proposal through July 27.

 

July 14, 2020 Posted by | safety, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors | Leave a comment

UK Ministers losing enthusiasm for small nuclear reactors developed with China

Ministers cool on Chinese nuclear reactors  John Collingridge

Sunday July 12 2020,, The Sunday Times A Chinese-backed plan to build small nuclear reactors in Britain has been snubbed, in the latest sign of the chill in Anglo-Sino relations.

DBD, a Cheshire-based engineering firm, was working with China’s Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology to build a fleet of gas-cooled small reactors, and had hoped to win government funds. However, ministers have awarded £10m each to three rival projects — including an experimental plan for a fusion reactor. A version of the DBD reactor has already been built in China. DBD declined to comment……. (subscribers only)  https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ministers-cool-on-chinese-nuclear-reactors-k2m8j76qf

July 13, 2020 Posted by | China, politics international, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, UK | Leave a comment

Small modular nuclear reactors fraught with problems

‘Many issues’ with modular nuclear reactors says environmental lawyer 
Jordan Gill · CBC News ·Dec 03, 2019   Modular nuclear reactors may not be a cure for the nation’s carbon woes, an environmental lawyer said in reaction to an idea floated by three premiers.

Theresa McClenaghan, executive director of the Canadian Environmental Law Association, said the technology surrounding small reactors has numerous pitfalls, especially when compared with other renewable energy technology.

This comes after New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe and Ontario Premier Doug Ford agreed to work together to develop the technology……..

The premiers say the smaller reactors would help Canada reach its carbon reduction targets but McClenaghan, legal counsel for the environmental group, disagrees

“I don’t think it is the answer,” said McClenaghan. “I don’t think it’s a viable solution to climate change.”

McClenaghan said the technology behind modular reactors is still in the development stage and needs years of work before it can be used on a wide scale.

“There are many issues still with the technology,” said McClenaghan. “And for climate change, the risks are so pervasive and the time scale is so short that we need to deploy the solutions we already know about like renewables and conservation.”

Waste, security concerns: lawyer

While nuclear power is considered a low-carbon method of producing electricity, McClenaghan said the waste that it creates brings its own environmental concerns.

“You’re still creating radioactive waste,” said McClenaghan.

“We don’t even have a solution to nuclear fuel waste yet in Canada and the existing plans are not taking into account these possibilities.”

McClenanghan believes there are national security risks with the plan as well.

She said having more reactors, especially if they’re in rural areas, means there’s a greater chance that waste or fuel from the reactors could be stolen for nefarious purposes.

“You’d be scattering radioactive materials, potentially attractive to diversion, much further across the country,” said the environmental lawyer.  https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/many-issues-modular-nuclear-1.5381804

June 27, 2020 Posted by | Canada, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors | Leave a comment

Outer space beginning to look like a new area of nuclear conflict, according to Pentagon

THE PENTAGON IS WORRIED A SPACE NUKE WILL FRY ITS SATELLITES,   https://futurism.com/the-byte/pentagon-worried-space-nuke-fry-satellites   JUNE 18TH 20__DAN ROBITZSKI__

Space Nukes

The U.S. Department of Defense released a new space strategy report on Wednesday. In it, the military revealed that it’s concerned that nukes detonated in space could wipe out its fleet of satellites.

It’s not a new concern, since space nukes were originally banned in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. But all the same, Business Insider reports that the Pentagon is particularly concerned that China and Russia might strike — a dire warning for the future of combat.

The report specifically identified China and Russia as immediate threats. Such an attack could potentially devastate military communication networks as well as the myriad other systems that depend on satellites.

“The challenge of a nuclear detonation is that it creates an electromagnetic pulse and a signal that could then take out indiscriminately many satellites in space and essentially fry the electronics,” Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy Stephen Kitay said at a press conference on the report, according to BI.

“That is a threat that we have to potentially be prepared for — a nuclear detonation in space,” he added.

If nothing else, the report is yet another sign that the idea of space remaining peaceful seems to be slipping away.

“I wish I could say that space is a sea of tranquility, but the fact of the matter is that space is contested,” Kitay said. “Outer space has emerged as a key arena of potential conflict in an era of great power competition.”

June 27, 2020 Posted by | space travel, USA | Leave a comment

USA financing nuclear projects abroad – but what if Small Nuclear Reactors are a flop?

Daily on Energy, presented by API: Inside the new US policy on financing nuclear abroad, Washington Examiner, by Josh Siegel, Energy and Environment Reporter & Abby Smith, Energy and Environment Reporter | June 22, 2020 

INSIDE NEW POLICY ON FINANCING NUCLEAR ABROAD: The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation mostly had small nuclear reactors in mind when it proposed this month lifting its ban on funding nuclear projects overseas. But a senior official from the DFC – a greatly expanded successor to the Overseas Private Investment Corporation – says the agency also envisions select situations for funding traditional large reactors, despite recent projects being delayed or canceled by cost overruns……..

The official cited a move by Congress a year after lawmakers passed the BUILD Act in 2018, which authorized the DFC, that called on the U.S. government to support energy diversification projects in Europe as a counter to Russia’s “energy dominance.”

It’s worth noting that some European Union member states, like Germany, are strongly anti-nuclear. Nuclear plant construction is currently underway in only three EU member states — Finland, France and Slovakia — according to the World Nuclear Association).
Opening the door for SMRs: Small modular nuclear reactors, meanwhile, are still under development and a decade or so from becoming widely operational. This has critics of the DFC’s move questioning the timing of it. The DFC official countered the new policy puts the U.S. in the game with China and Russia, which are already aggressively promoting their advanced nuclear technologies in developing countries……..
the policy shift commits DFC to nothing if small reactors end up being a flop. The DFC met with small reactor developers such as NuScale, an Oregon-based company seeking to be the first to have its license approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, that were pushing for the agency to change its policy……

The DFC offers direct equity financing, loans, and political risk insurance, while Ex-Im can only offer credit or lending. The DFC has a total investment limit of $60 billion, amounting to about a $1 billion maximum per project, the official said.

He acknowledged the DFC does not have in-house expertise on nuclear power at the moment, but he said it’s not uncommon for the young agency to work with independent engineers and experts from other agencies to assess financing opportunities.

“I am not aware we have anyone on staff who has built a nuclear power plant,” the official said. “What we do have is very strong policies and procedures and frameworks to look at big complicated projects.”  https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/energy/daily-on-energy-presented-by-api-inside-the-new-us-policy-on-financing-nuclear-abroad

June 23, 2020 Posted by | business and costs, politics international, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, USA | Leave a comment

How much did USA’s failed plutonium project cost? Now a giveaway sale of MOX equipment

Failed Federal Plutonium Project Ends in Fire Sale on Parts https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2020-06-18/costly-u-s-nuclear-project-ends-with-online-fire-sale-for-parts?fbclid=IwAR1IMM-ZpF0NECPbroKYMtUNWlKhSgpcUnzhsT9F9CvyG5u8N00obxapov0  

By

 
  • U.S. conversion factory’s equipment is on the auction block
  • After $8 billion spent, critics see sale at ‘giveaway prices’

Need some parts for a nuclear plant? The government has a few to spare.

Electrical transformers, motors, and pieces of special glove boxes designed to safely handle radioactive material are available as the government auctions off equipment from a now-abandoned nuclear project that was supposed to turn weapons-grade plutonium into fuel for commercial nuclear reactors.

The online fire sale, which ended Thursday evening, is part of an effort to recoup some of the nearly $8 billion taxpayers spent on the so-called Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility in Aiken, South Carolina, which sits partially finished.

The Trump administration pulled the plug on the project in 2018 following years of ballooning cost estimates and delays. Envisioned in 1999 with a price-tag of $620 million, it swelled to nearly $48 billion with an estimated completion date in the 2040s. Metric tons of plutonium transferred to the site for conversion remain there.

The thousands of items up for grabs are in their original packaging and “present a rare opportunity to acquire brand new equipment that is top nuclear grade,” said Diana Peterson, president of the auction company AW Properties Global, which has been awarded the subcontract to sell off the goods.

Plutonium Handling

Among the items are 101 pallets of glove box assembly kits — sealed boxes with two arm-length gloves attached to holes in the side, used to handle plutonium and other radioactive materials. The high bid was $20,000 as of Thursday afternoon.

A pair of 3,750 kilo-volt-ampere transformers is going for $70,000. Also available are 300,000 pounds of ventilation equipment, as well as reams of switches, control panels, valves, and electrical equipment.

To critics, the sale is a fitting capstone to a project they say has been beset by waste from the start.

“This give-away sale of equipment from the MOX debacle highlights the massive waste of money spent on equipment that was stockpiled willy-nilly just to spend annual budgets and enrich contractors,” said Tom Clements, director of Savannah River Site Watch, a non-profit public-interest group that monitors work at the sprawling site that made nuclear bomb materials in the 1950s.

There should be a “full accounting to the public about how much was spent on stockpiled MOX equipment, how much has been given away or scrapped, and how much is being sold at pennies on the dollar,” Clements said.

The National Nuclear Security Administration, the Energy Department arm responsible for the site, said the auction was being held in accordance with all government property regulations.

“Any inventory that could not be reused by our government, is going to auction as part of our commitment to recapitalize project value,” the agency said in a statement.

(Adds comment from NNSA in final two paragraphs.)

June 22, 2020 Posted by | - plutonium, business and costs, reprocessing, USA | Leave a comment

U.S. nuclear industry looks for salvation to hydrogen production – clutching at straws?

June 13, 2020 Posted by | business and costs, technology, USA | Leave a comment

Russia has nuclear-powered icebreakers. Trump wants USA to have them, too

June 11, 2020 Posted by | technology, USA | Leave a comment

Radioactive waste imported from Estonia for iconic Bears Ears, Utah?

Radioactive Waste May Be Dumped Near Bears Ears—Public Comments Requested https://www.adventure-journal.com/2020/06/radioactive-waste-may-be-dumped-near-bears-ears-public-comments-requested/    BY JUSTIN HOUSMAN   |   JUNE 3, 2020

June 6, 2020 Posted by | reprocessing, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

The claim that nuclear power is needed for national security is a masked money-grab

 that price won’t only be paid by emptying our wallets . It will also be paid in health and safety. State senators with dollar signs twinkling in their eyes are lining up for relief handouts that will do nothing to fix our healthcare crises — laid bare under the coronavirus crisis — nor our economy. But they are playing the Russia card to get the money.

Make Nuclear Great Again?   https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2020/05/31/make-nuclear-great-again/, May 31, 2020 by beyondnuclearinternational  By Linda Pentz Gunter

The claim that nuclear power is needed for national security is a masked money-grab

The US Department of Energy’s assertions about Russian and Chinese supremacy in the nuclear sector is reminiscent of the “Commie plot” rhetoric of the 1950s. But it’s a thinly disguised ploy to feed at the federal subsidies trough and revive a moribund industry.

A few years ago I attended two days of the Nuclear Deterrence Summit, held just outside Washington, DC. In my defense, I’ll say it was a necessity. I really wanted to get inside how these people think. There was plenty of talk about the need for nuclear weapons, their range and potency, all done with a calm equilibrium devoid of conscience. It was chilling.

But it was also the theatre of the absurd. At one point there was actually talk about a “missile gap.” The Russians were getting ahead. This must be stopped. Was I on the set of a remake of Dr. Strangelove? Was this General ‘Buck’ Turgidson railing about “commie plots” and “mineshaft gaps”?

Life, as it turns out, is routinely stranger than any fiction. Turgidson is still with us, and he has extended his brief to include “civilian” nuclear power plants in the competition with the “Ruskies” and now, the Chinese. Continue reading →

June 1, 2020 Posted by | politics, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Green light for Rokkasho nuclear reprocessing plant, but is it viable?

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Aomori’s Rokkasho nuclear plant gets green light but hurdles remain,   Japan Times, BY ERIC JOHNSTON, STAFF WRITER, MAY 31, 2020, OSAKA – On May 13, the Nuclear Regulation Authority announced that the nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture, had met new safety standards created after the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami.

The NRA’s approval means the long-troubled and controversial plant has moved closer to going into operation. Here’s a look at the Rokkasho plant and the problems it has faced.

What is the Rokkasho reprocessing plant?    The plant at Rokkasho is a 3.8 million square meter facility designed to reprocess spent nuclear fuel from the nation’s nuclear reactors.

Construction began in 1993. Once in operation, the plant’s maximum daily reprocessing capacity will be a cumulative total of 800 tons per year.

During reprocessing, uranium and plutonium are extracted, and the Rokkasho plant is expected to generate up to eight tons of plutonium annually. Both are then turned into a mixed uranium-plutonium oxide (MOX) fuel at a separate MOX fabrication plant, also located in Rokkasho, for use in commercial reactors. Construction on the MOX facility began in 2010 and it’s expected to be completed in 2022.

The Rokkasho reprocessing plant can store up to 3,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel from the nation’s power plants on-site. It’s nearly full however, with over 2,900 tons of high-level waste already waiting to be reprocessed.

Why has it taken until now for the Rokkasho plant to secure approval from the nuclear watchdog?  Decades of technical problems and the new safety standards for nuclear power that went into effect after the 2011 triple meltdown at the power plant in Fukushima Prefecture have delayed Rokkasho’s completion date 24 times so far. It took six years for the plant to win approval under the post-3/11 safety standards.

There has also long been concern and unease over the entire project — and not just among traditional anti-nuclear activists — which the government has been forced to address. Japan is the only non-nuclear weapons state pursuing reprocessing. But as far back as the 1970s, as Japan was debating a nuclear reprocessing program, the United States became concerned about a plant producing plutonium that could be used for a nuclear weapons program.

The issue was raised at a Feb. 1, 1977, meeting between U.S. Vice President Walter Mondale and Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda.

“Reprocessing facilities which could produce weapons grade material are simply bomb factories,” noted a declassified U.S. State Department cable on the meeting. “We want to cooperate (with Japan) to keep the problem under control.”

…….. technical mishaps led to plans being made and then scrapped for many years, while arms control experts continued to worry that Japan could end up stockpiling plutonium that could lead to proliferation problems.

After the 2011 disaster, the NRA created tougher measures to minimize damage from natural disasters, forcing more construction and upgrades at the plant, leading to higher costs.

The Tokai plant halted operations in 2007. The decision to scrap it was made in 2014, as it was judged to be unable to meet the new safety standards. But little progress is being made, due to uncertainty over where to store all of the radioactive waste.

Safety concerns over the Rokkasho plant have remained, especially since 2017 when it was revealed that Japan Nuclear Fuel had not carried out mandatory safety standards for 14 years

By the time of the NRA announcement on May 13, the price tag for work at the Rokkasho plant had reached nearly ¥14 trillion.

What happens next?  The NRA is soliciting public comment on its decision until June 12, but the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry is expected to formally approve the decision. After that, the Aomori governor would be asked to give his approval, though that is not a legal requirement. The last bureaucratic hurdles would then have been cleared to start operations at the plant by the spring of 2022.

However, there are other issues that could force a delay to the start of reprocessing. Japan had originally envisioned MOX fuel powering between 16 and 18 of the nation’s 54 commercial reactors that were operating before 2011, in place of conventional uranium.

But only four reactors are using it out of the current total of nine officially in operation. MOX fuel is more expensive than conventional uranium fuel, raising questions about how much reprocessed fuel the facilities would need, or want…….

Japan finds itself caught between promises to the international community to reduce its plutonium stockpile through reprocessing at Rokkasho, and questions about whether MOX is still an economically, and politically, viable resource — given the expenses involved and the availability of other fossil fuel and renewable energy resources. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/05/31/national/social-issues/aomoris-rokkasho-nuclear-plant-gets-green-light-hurdles-remain/#.XtQfrTozbIU

June 1, 2020 Posted by | Japan, Reference, reprocessing | Leave a comment

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