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South Korea’s  Kori No. 1 nuclear reactor shut down

Korea’s oldest nuclear reactor ceases operation, http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20170618000190   By Kim Da-sol (ddd@heraldcorp.com), Kori No. 1, South Korea’s oldest nuclear reactor located in Busan, ceased operation Sunday at midnight after four decades.

Its operator Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Co. said that it cut the power supply Saturday and began the cooling-down process of the reactor. It was officially decommissioned, with the temperature of the reactor gradually dropping to 90 degrees Celsius, from its normal operation at 300 degree Celsius, the KHNP said. Officials will then relocate the spent nuclear fuel stored inside the rector to a liquid sodium-cooled reactor for reprocessing.

The actual dismantling of the facilities is expected to start no later than 2022. The KHNP expects that at least 634 billion won ($559 million) is required for the dismantling. They also need to submit a dismantlement plan within five years for the NCCS’ approval.

The state-run Nuclear Safety and Security Commission, which approved earlier this month the permanent shutdown of Kori No. 1, said it will continue to check the safety management of the suspended reactor on a regular basis until the dismantlement.

Following the government’s approval in 2007, Kori No. 1’s operation was extended by 10 years after a 30-year run.

Some experts oppose the planned reprocessing of nuclear waste, saying the technology, though effective in reducing the volume of waste, could complicate waste disposal by creating different types of radioactive waste.

Under President Moon Jae-in, the South Korean government aims to close all nuclear power plants by shutting down aged facilities and eventually phasing out the rest over the next 40 years.

June 19, 2017 Posted by | decommission reactor, South Korea | Leave a comment

Washington subcommittee passes bill on licensing f Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site in Nevada

Bill to expedite Yucca Mountain licensing clears 1st hurdle,  Martin Review-Journal Washington Bureau, June 15, 2017 WASHINGTON — A bill to expedite the licensing and development of Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site in Nevada was passed by a subcommittee Thursday, clearing the first hurdle for legislation expected to be taken up in the House this year.

The House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on environment approved the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act on a voice vote. The bill now goes to the full committee for approval…..

Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., who is not on the committee, attended the hearing and spoke on the House floor later to denounce the bill as one that ignores serious challenges from Nevada, which has denied the federal government water rights to develop the site.

Titus said the bill “usurps the state’s water rights, one of our strongest legal defenses against the repository.”

During the hearing, the ranking Democrat on the panel, Rep. Paul Tonko, D-N.Y., agreed. He said the bill as written would “essentially override the state of Nevada’s objection over its water rights.”

Tonko said that would also draw opposition from lawmakers in other Western states, where water rights have been a long source of contention…..

The House bill mirrors the Trump administration call for a restart of licensing for Yucca Mountain. The president included $120 million in his budget blueprint for fiscal year 2018, which begins Oct. 1.

The Department of Energy first sought an application for a license with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to develop and operate Yucca Mountain in 2008. The DOE tried to withdraw the application in 2010 and President Barack Obama defunded the program in 2012.

More than $15 billion has been spent studying the site and preparing for the licensing procedure, which includes adjudication of legal challenges.

200 challenges

Nevada has filed more than 200 challenges, mostly citing safety over groundwater and transportation issues.

Titus on Thursday handed lawmakers a state-produced research paper that showed moving nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain would cross through 329 congressional districts nationwide by rail or highway.

Yucca Mountain licensing also faces legal challenges in U.S. circuit courts.

Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval this week reiterated his pledge that the state would oppose the Yucca Mountain project.

“The state of Nevada will continue to fight and defeat this dangerous project at every opportunity and in any venue,” Sandoval said in a statement……https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/nevada/bill-to-expedite-yucca-mountain-licensing-clears-1st-hurdle/

June 19, 2017 Posted by | politics, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

South Australians resolutely rejected a plan to be the world’s radioactive trash dump

Australia’s handful of self-styled ‘ecomodernists’ or ‘pro-nuclear environmentalists’ united behind a push to import spent fuel and to use some of it to fuel Generation IV fast neutron reactors. They would have expected to persuade the stridently pro-nuclear Royal Commission to endorse their ideas. But the Royal Commission completely rejected the proposal

Another dump proposal is very much alive: the federal government’s plan to establish a national nuclear waste dump in SA, either in the Flinders Ranges or on farming land near Kimba, west of Port Augusta.

How the South Australians who dumped a nuclear dump may soon have another fight on their hands http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2989048/how_the_south_australians_who_dumped_a_nuclear_dump_may_soon_have_another_fight_on_their_hands.html   15th June, 2017  The rejection of a plan to import vast amounts of high-level nuclear waste from around the world for profit was a significant result for campaigners but that threat is still far from over, writes JIM GREEN

Last November, two-thirds of the 350 members of a South Australian-government initiated Citizens’ Jury rejected “under any circumstances” the plan to import vast amounts of high-level nuclear waste from around the world as a money-making venture.

The following week, SA Liberal Party Opposition leader Steven Marshall said that “[Premier] Jay Weatherill’s dream of turning South Australia into a nuclear waste dump is now dead.” Business SA chief Nigel McBride said: “Between the Liberals and the citizens’ jury, the thing is dead.”

And after months of uncertainty, Premier Weatherill has said in the past fortnight that the plan is “dead”, there is “no foreseeable opportunity for this”, and it is “not something that will be progressed by the Labor Party in Government”.

So is the plan dead? The Premier left himself some wriggle room, but the plan is as dead as it ever can be. If there was some life in the plan, it would be loudly proclaimed by SA’s Murdoch tabloid, The Advertiser. But The Advertiser responded to the Premier’s recent comments, to the death of the dump, with a deafening, deathly silence.

Royal Commission

It has been quite a ride to get to this point. Continue reading →

June 16, 2017 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, Reference, wastes | Leave a comment

The risky jobs of closing down 200 nuclear reactors around the world

Here’s what dismantling a nuclear reactor involves: Robots, radiation, risk  IEA says about 200 nuclear reactors around the world will be shut down over the next quarter century http://www.business-standard.com/article/international/here-s-what-dismantling-a-nuclear-reactor-involves-robots-radiation-risk-117061200298_1.html   Reuters  |  Muelheim-Kaerlich, Germany June 12, 2017 As head of the Muelheim-Kaerlich nuclear reactor, Thomas Volmar spends his days plotting how to tear down his workplace. The best way to do that, he says, is to cut out humans.

About 200 nuclear reactors around the world will be shut down over the next quarter century, mostly in Europe, according to the International Energy Agency. That means a lot of work for the half a dozen companies that specialise in the massively complex and dangerous job of dismantling plants.

Those firms — including Areva, Rosatom’s Nukem Technologies Engineering Services, and Toshiba’s Westinghouse — are increasingly turning away from humans to do this work and instead deploying robots and other new technologies.

That is transforming an industry that until now has mainly relied on electric saws, with the most rapid advances being made in the highly technical area of dismantling a reactor’s core — the super-radioactive heart of the plant where the nuclear reactions take place.

The transformation of the sector is an engineering one, but companies are also looking to the new technology to cut time and costs in a competitive sector with slim margins.

Dismantling a nuclear power plant can take decades and cost up to 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion), depending on its size and age. The cost of taking apart the plant in Muelheim-Kaerlich will be about 800 million euros, according to sources familiar with the station’s economics.

Some inroads have already been made: a programmable robot arm developed by Areva has reduced the time it takes to dismantle some of the most contaminated components of a plant by 20-30 per cent compared with conventional cutting techniques.

For Areva and rival Westinghouse, reactor dismantling is unlikely to make an impact on the dire financial straits they are mired in at present as it represents just a small part of their businesses, which are dominated by plant-building.

But it nonetheless represents a rare area of revenue growth; the global market for decommissioning services is expected to nearly double to $8.6 billion by 2021, from $4.8 billion last year, according to research firm MarketsandMarkets. Such growth could prove important for the two companies should they weather their current difficulties.

“We’re not talking about the kind of margins Apple is making on its iPhone,” said Thomas Eichhorn, head of Areva’s German dismantling activities. “But it’s a business with a long-term perspective.”

When reactors were built in the 1970s, they were designed to keep radiation contained inside at all costs, with little thought given to those who might be tearing them down more than 40 years later.

First, engineers need to remove the spent nuclear fuel rods stored in reactor buildings — but only after they’ve cooled off. At Muelheim-Kaerlich this took about two years in total. Then peripheral equipment such as turbines need to be removed, a stage Muelheim-Kaerlich has begun and which can take several years.

Finally, the reactor itself needs to be taken apart and the buildings demolished, which takes about a decade. Some of the most highly contaminated components are cocooned in concrete and placed in iron containers that will be buried deep underground at some point.

Robots under water

While the more mundane tasks, including bringing down the plants’ outer walls, are left to construction groups such as Hochtief, it’s the dismantling of the reactor’s core where more advanced skills matter — and where the use of technology has advanced most in recent years.

Enter companies such as Areva, Westinghouse, Nukem Technologies, GE Hitachi as well as GNS, owned by Germany’s four nuclear plant operators. They have all begun using robots and software to navigate their way into the reactor core, or pressure vessel.

“The most difficult task is the dismantling of the reactor pressure vessel, where the remaining radioactivity is highest,” said Volmar, who took charge of the RWE-owned Muelheim-Kaerlich plant two years ago. “We leave this to a specialised expert firm.”

The vessel — which can be as high as 13 metres and weigh up to 700 tonnes — is hidden deep inside the containment building that is shaped like a sphere to ensure its 30-centimetre thick steel wall is evenly strained in case of an explosion.

The 2011 Fukushima disaster and the Chernobyl accident of 1986 are imprinted in the world’s consciousness as examples of the catastrophic consequences of the leakage of radioactive material.

France’s Areva recently won the contract to dismantle the pressure vessel internals at Vattenfall’s 806 megawatts (Mw) Brunsbuettel nuclear plant in Germany, which includes an option for the Swedish utility’s 1,402 MW Kruemmel site.

There, the group will for the first time use its new AZURo programmable robot arm. It hopes this will help it outstrip rivals in what is the world’s largest dismantling market following Germany’s decision to close all its last nuclear plants by 2022, in response to the Fukushima disaster.

AZURo operates under water because the liquid absorbs radiation from the vessel components — reducing the risk of leakage and contamination of the surrounding area. The chamber is flooded before its work begins.

Areva’s German unit invests about 5 per cent of its annual sales, or about 40 million euros, in research and development, including in-house innovation such as AZURo. By comparison, the world’s 1,000 largest corporate R&D spenders, on average, spent 4.2 per cent last year, according to PwC.

The robot arm technology helped Areva beat Westinghouse by winning tenders to dismantle pressure vessel internals at EnBW’s Philippsburg 2 and Gundremmingen 2 blocks, industry sources familiar with the matter said.

Areva and EnBW both declined to comment. Westinghouse — whose US business filed for bankruptcy in March — did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Time and money

Britain’s OC Robotics has built the LaserSnake2, a flexible 4.5-metre snake arm, which can operate in difficult spaces and uses a laser to increase cutting speeds — thus reducing the risk of atmospheric contamination. It was tested at the Sellafield nuclear site in west Cumbria last year.

This followed France’s Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), whose laser-based dismantling technology generates fewer radioactive aerosols — a key problem during cutting — than other technologies.

The complexity of the dismantling process is also giving rise to modelling software that maps out the different levels of radiation on plant parts, making it easier to calculate the most efficient sequence of dismantling – the more contaminated parts are typically dealt with first – and gives clarity over what safety containers will be needed to store various components.

GNS, which is jointly owned by E.ON, RWE, EnBW and Vattenfall, is currently helping to dismantle the German Neckarwestheim 1 and Philippsburg 1 reactors, using its software to plan the demolition.

The company also hopes to supply its software services for the dismantling of PreussenElektra’s Isar 1 reactor, which is being tendered, and aims to expand to other European countries.

“Two things matter: time and money,” said Joerg Viermann, head of sales of waste management activities at GNS.

“The less I have to cut, the sooner I will be done and the less I will spend.”

June 14, 2017 Posted by | 2 WORLD, decommission reactor, Reference | 1 Comment

Japan’s struggle to decommission Fukushima nuclear reactors

Japan struggling to decommission Fukushima nuclear reactors http://pulsenews.co.kr/view.php?sc=30800023&year=2017&no=395464 , By Hwang Hyung-gyu, 2017.06.13 It appears that much has changed at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan since the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl six years ago. The ongoing restoration work evidently made progress, but decommissioning is still an uphill battle – posing as a lesson for South Korea as it has recently decided to retire the country’s first nuclear reactor and phase out of commercial nuclear power.

All ordinary visitors, including reporters, must wear a protective gear such as two layers of socks, gloves, a helmet, a filter mask covering the mouth and nose, a safety vest and rubber shoes before approaching a point just 80 meters away from the crippled power station. A hazmat suit which had been required just six months ago was no longer recommended as the radiation level was lowered.

The passage route to the first reactor was flanked by gigantic storage tanks that hold contaminated water.

Reactors still showing skeletal steel frames and roof debris remind a 17-meter-high tsunami which flooded the facility on March 11 in 2011 and caused a hydrogen explosion, bringing the plant to a complete standstill.

Molten fuel rods were completely retrieved from the reactor Unit 4, but progress is much slow in Unit 2, where an internal survey is not even started. The six-year clean-up work for the four nuclear reactors was only a fraction of time.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco), the operator of the plant, has deployed 7,000 workers including its own staff to the site. Their first priority is to tackle the influx of contaminated groundwater. Workers erected a cutoff wall and pumped out upstream groundwater, but still, about 100 to 150 tons of contaminated water is generated every day, according to Tepco. The amount of the contaminated water in storage tanks reaches nearly 1 million tons. It has not yet been decided how to treat the water.

The operation for complete decommissioning is a long way to go. It will take 30 years to finish the job, including the treatment of contaminated water, said Yuichi Okamura, Tepco communication manager.

The Japanese government is going all out to develop advanced robot and drone technology to accurately grasp the internal situation of the reactors to support decommissioning.

June 14, 2017 Posted by | decommission reactor, Japan | Leave a comment

A warning to Norway, on Russia’s bad history of nuclear waste disposal

For Nadezhda Kutepova, fighting for the rights of people living in the villages along the Techa river came with a price. First, the organization she founded in the 1990s, Planeta Nadezhd (Planet of Hopes), was declared «foreign agents» by the Justice Ministry in April 2015. The law labeling NGOs as «foreign agents» aims to close down activities of groups working with political questions and get funding from abroad. Recently afterwards, the federal TV channel Rossiya 1 aired the news that Planeta Nadezhd used American money to conduct industrial espionage.

Nadezhda’s group is one of 11 environmental NGOs to end up on the «foreign agents» list since the law was introduced in 2012.

Activist in exile says Norway’s nuclear waste support is irresponsible, Barents Observer, Thomas Nilsen,  June 07, 2017

Nadezhda Kutepova was forced to flee Russia after fighting for the rights of the residents in radioactive contaminated villages near Mayak, the site where all spent nuclear fuel from Andreeva Bay will be sent.

On June 27, the first shipment of containers with highly radioactive spent fuel elements will leave Andreeva Bay on the Kola Peninsula. Destination: Mayak reprocessing plant in the South-Ural.

For 20 years, Norway has financed infrastructure upgrades aimed at shipping spent nuclear fuel away from Andreeva Bay. The rundown facility is located 55 kilometers from the border to Norway on the Barents Sea coast and is considered to be the worst storage facility for Cold War nuclear waste in the Russian Arctic.

When the nuclear waste shipment sails away with the first few of an estimated 3,000 containers, Norway’s Foreign Minister Børge Brende and State Secretary Marit Berger Røsland will be on site and wave farewell.

This landmark event, though, is not welcomed by activists fighting for the rights of the people effected by radioactive contamination in the vicinity of Mayak.

«I think it is a irresponsible decision by Norway,» says Nadezhda Kutepova to the Barents Observer. She says out of sight, doesn’t mean out of mind.

I’m sure the Norwegian government knows about the situation in Mayak only from officials represented by Rosatom.» 

Rosatom is Russia’s state nuclear corporation in charge of operating the reprocessing plant in Mayak where all accumulated naval spent nuclear fuel from the fleet of submarines will be treated. In total, some 22.000 spent fuel elements are to be shipped from Andreeva Bay, first with boat to Murmansk, then by rail to the Mayak plant north of Chelyabinsk. Both the vessel to sail in shuttle between Andreeva Bay and Atomflot in Murmansk and the railwagons are special designed to assure best possible safety. Each container takes seven fuel assemblies. In total, 3.143 container transports will be needed before the storage tanks are empty. In other words, the containers will be shuttling back and forth between the Kola Peninsula and the Chelyabinsk region for years to come.

«Mayak’s reprocessing activities are dangerous. It is a very bad idea to send more waste. In reality, Norway can never check what happens there,» says Nadezhda Kutepova.

«Supporting the activities of Mayak, like reprocessing, Norway increases violations of human rights for the people who are living in the vicinity of the nuclear waste storages. Especially those living along the Techa river,» Kutepova explains.

Techa river became heavily contaminated by radioactive waste products from the production of plutonium for nuclear weapons that started at Mayak in 1949. Other accidents, like the 1957 Kyshtym disaster, have contaminated other areas in the neighborhood where tens of thousands of people were living.

Radioactive water from Mayak goes to a system of reservoirs. «Mayak can’t prevent leakages from the reservoirs into the Techa river. Espesially in the spring. They are lying,» Kutepova claims and says there are still some 5000 people living in four villages downstream the contaminated Techa river.

For Nadezhda Kutepova, fighting for the rights of people living in the villages along the Techa river came with a price. First, the organization she founded in the 1990s, Planeta Nadezhd (Planet of Hopes), was declared «foreign agents» by the Justice Ministry in April 2015. The law labeling NGOs as «foreign agents» aims to close down activities of groups working with political questions and get funding from abroad. Recently afterwards, the federal TV channel Rossiya 1 aired the news that Planeta Nadezhd used American money to conduct industrial espionage.

Nadezhda’s group is one of 11 environmental NGOs to end up on the «foreign agents» list since the law was introduced in 2012. Others working with nuclear safety in northern Russia are Ecodefense, Kola Eco Centre and Bellona Murmansk. The last played a key-role as whistleblower and solution seeker for radiological safety projects at Andreeva Bay. Like many other NGOs, Bellona Murmansk decided to close down the organization after being branded  «foreign agents.»

When accused of treason in media Kutepova fled to France seeking asylum. She is afraid the accusations presented on federal TV were just the beginning of what could be formal prosecution.

Talking to the Barents Observer from Paris, Nadezhda Kutepova explains how people die from cancer in the area polluted by Mayak. She should know. Growing up in the closed town of Ozyorsk – formerly known as Chelyabinsk-65 – her father and grandparents were victims of the nuclear industry they worked for. They died of cancer.

She says Norwegian authorities should talk to NGOs that have worked in the area. They can tell another story than officials from Rosatom will tell.

«They should visit the villages along the Techa river where peoples should have been evacuated long ago but still live there.»

«It would be better not to waste the money. They should have supported another storage from the first moment, but I know this isn’t an easy decision. But they need to study the issue better,» Kutepova argues.

Norwegian officials are well aware of the troubles in Mayak. Ingar Amundsen is head of section for international nuclear safety with the Radiation Protection Authorities. …..

The reprocessing plant in Mayak, named RT-1, started operation in 1977 and has until now only processed spent nuclear fuel from the first and second generation of Russian designed water cooled reactors from nuclear power plants. Recent upgrades, however, now make it possible to reprocess fuel also from submarine and icebreaker reactors……

At the reprocessing plant in Mayak, the spent nuclear fuel will be chemically separated, a process where plutonium and uranium will be recovered. Reprocessing, though, does not reduce the volum of high-level waste. It creates an increased volum in liquid form. Also, radiation from the remaining isotopes is high and therefore does not eliminate the need for a highest possible technical and security storage options. At Mayak, limited information is available in public domains about technical solutions for both the reprocessing itself and storage solutions for the waste products.

Ph. D. Natalia Mironova, a former Member of the Regional Duma in Chelyabinsk, has earlier told the Barents Observer that there are better options than reprocessing.

«Alternative to reprocessing is well known; dry storage.»

«Legacy of reprocessing spent nuclear fuel at Mayak has been a heavy burden for many generations. It is a big injustice for the local people,» Mironova says.

«Reprocessing is dangerous. We have bad experience in handling liquid radioactive waste,» she argues.

Mironova also points to the risks of transport and reloading the containers with fuel.

«Transportation is a risky process. Minimization of the risk is best strategy. Safe storing with less transport and far away from Mayak would be the best strategy.»

Most other nuclear power countries in the world chose to store the waste and not reprocess it.

On June 28, the joint Norwegian-Russian commission on nuclear and radiation safety will meet in Kirkenes, Norway’s border town to the Kola Peninsula in the north. Ingar Amundsen informs that future project cooperation related to Andreeva Bay will be discussed.

With project funding from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, some 2 billion kroner are granted by Norway to nuclear safety projects in northern Russia over the last two decades. ……..

The storage dump in Andreeva Bay was built soon after the Soviet navy got its first nuclear powered submarine in the early 1960s. A pool type storage, given the code-name Building No. 5, had a leakage in the early 80s and the lethal fuel elements were urgently transferred to the three dry storage tanks. Supposed to be temporary, the totally run-down tanks have now served for more than 30 years. The 22.000 fuel elements in the tanks are equal to around 100 reactor cores.

In addition comes thousands of cubic meters of solid and liquid radioactive waste that one day will be removed.

Speaking at a seminar in Oslo devoted to Putin’s Year of Ecology, Bellona’s Frederic Hauge said the removal of the spent nuclear fuel from Andreeva Bay likely are the most risky part in the Post Cold War history of nuclear waste clean-up in the north. https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/node/2460

June 12, 2017 Posted by | EUROPE, Russia, wastes | Leave a comment

Accidential exposure to Plutonium: what this means for Japanese nuclear workers

Increase in Cancer Risk for Japanese Workers Accidentally Exposed to Plutonium http://allthingsnuclear.org/elyman/cancer-risk-for-japanese-exposed-to-plutonium#.WTxxNdgMNK8.twitter, ED LYMAN, SENIOR SCIENTIST | JUNE 9, 2017, 

 According to news reports, five workers were accidentally exposed to high levels of radiation at the Oarai nuclear research and development center in Tokai-mura, Japan on June 6th. The Japan Atomic Energy Agency, the operator of the facility, reported that five workers inhaled plutonium and americium that was released from a storage container that the workers had opened. The radioactive materials were contained in two plastic bags, but they had apparently ripped.

We wish to express our sympathy for the victims of this accident.

This incident is a reminder of the extremely hazardous nature of these materials, especially when they are inhaled, and illustrates why they require such stringent procedures when they are stored and processed.

According to the earliest reports, it was estimated that one worker had inhaled 22,000 becquerels (Bq) of plutonium-239, and 220 Bq of americium-241. (One becquerel of a radioactive substance undergoes one radioactive decay per second.) The others inhaled between 2,200 and 14,000 Bq of plutonium-239 and quantities of americium-241 similar to that of the first worker.

More recent reports have stated that the amount of plutonium inhaled by the most highly exposed worker is now estimated to be 360,000 Bq, and that the 22,000 Bq measurement in the lungs was made 10 hours after the event occurred. Apparently, the plutonium that remains in the body decreases rapidly during the first hours after exposure, as a fraction of the quantity initially inhaled is expelled through respiration. But there are large uncertainties.

The mass equivalent of 360,000 Bq of Pu-239 is about 150 micrograms. It is commonly heard that plutonium is so radiotoxic that inhaling only one microgram will cause cancer with essentially one hundred percent certainty. This is not far off the mark for certain isotopes of plutonium, like Pu-238, but Pu-239 decays more slowly, so it is less toxic per gram.  The actual level of harm also depends on a number of other factors. Estimating the health impacts of these exposures in the absence of more information is tricky, because those impacts depend on the exact composition of the radioactive materials, their chemical forms, and the sizes of the particles that were inhaled. Smaller particles become more deeply lodged in the lungs and are harder to clear by coughing. And more soluble compounds will dissolve more readily in the bloodstream and be transported from the lungs to other organs, resulting in exposure of more of the body to radiation. However, it is possible to make a rough estimate.

Using Department of Energy data, the inhalation of 360,000 Bq of Pu-239 would result in a whole-body radiation dose to an average adult over a 50-year period between 580 rem and nearly 4300 rem, depending on the solubility of the compounds inhaled. The material was most likely an oxide, which is relatively insoluble, corresponding to the lower bound of the estimate. But without further information on the material form, the best estimate would be around 1800 rem.

What is the health impact of such a dose? For isotopes such as plutonium-239 or americium-241, which emit relatively large, heavy charged particles known as alpha particles, there is a high likelihood that a dose of around 1000 rem will cause a fatal cancer. This is well below the radiation dose that the most highly exposed worker will receive over a 50-year period. This shows how costly a mistake can be when working with plutonium.

The workers are receiving chelation therapy to try to remove some plutonium from their bloodstream. However, the effectiveness of this therapy is limited at best, especially for insoluble forms, like oxides, that tend to be retained in the lungs.

The workers were exposed when they opened up an old storage can that held materials related to production of fuel from fast reactors. The plutonium facilities at Tokai-mura have been used to produce plutonium-uranium mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel for experimental test reactors, including the Joyo fast reactor, as well as the now-shutdown Monju fast reactor. Americium-241 was present as the result of the decay of the isotope plutonium-241.

I had the opportunity to tour some of these facilities about twenty years ago. MOX fuel fabrication at these facilities was primarily done in gloveboxes through manual means, and we were able to stand next to gloveboxes containing MOX pellets. The gloveboxes represented the only barrier between us and the plutonium they contained. In light of the incident this week, that is a sobering memory.

June 12, 2017 Posted by | - plutonium, health, Japan, radiation, Reference | Leave a comment

Permanent shutdown of unit 1 of South Korea’s Kori nuclear power plant

World Nuclear News 9th June 2017, The permanent shutdown of unit 1 of the Kori nuclear power plant has been approved by the South Korea’s nuclear safety regulator. The unit – the country’s oldest operating reactor unit – will be taken offline on 19 June.

Kori 1 is a 576 MWe pressurized water reactor that started commercial operation in 1978. A six-month upgrading and inspection outage at Kori 1 in the second half of 2007 concluded a major refurbishment program and enabled its relicensing for a further ten years. A subsequent relicensing process could have taken Kori 1 to 2027, but Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) announced in August 2015 that it had withdrawn its application to extend the unit’s operating licence. In June last year, the company applied to decommission the reactor.  http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/C-Final-shutdown-approaches-for-Koreas-oldest-reactor-0906175.html

June 12, 2017 Posted by | decommission reactor, South Korea | Leave a comment

Secrecy on highly radioactive uranium in the nuclear waste dump in Parks Township.

Amount of nuclear waste in Parks Township could remain unknown until 2031, TRIB Live, MARY ANN THOMAS  | Sunday, June 11, 2017  Secrecy, lack of documentation and inattention to warnings may have led the Army Corps of Engineers to grossly underestimate the amount of highly radioactive uranium in the nuclear waste dump in Parks Township.

Estimates that the Corps’ aborted cleanup effort at the site along Route 66 near Kiskimere Road in 2011 uncovered about 30 kilograms of highly enriched uranium would mean, if accurate, that as much uranium was found in just one portion of the site as the Corps thought it would find during the entire project.

Known as the Shallow Land Disposal Area, the dump was created in the 1960s by the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp. (NUMEC) behind its then-plutonium processing facility. The company also operated a uranium processing facility in nearby Apollo, which produced much of the waste buried at the dump.

KEY TO A MYSTERY

What’s in that dump could be key to solving the more than 50-year-old mystery of what happened to about 200 pounds of highly enriched uranium NUMEC couldn’t account for in a 1965 inventory of nuclear material at its plants…….http://triblive.com/local/valleynewsdispatch/12353545-74/amount-of-nuclear-waste-in-parks-township-could-remain-unknown-until-2031

June 12, 2017 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

1979 Three Mile Island nuclear accident – where to put the radioactive trash?

The license to store the material in Idaho now expires in 2019. In a separate agreement with Idaho made in 1995, the agency is required to remove the waste from the state by 2035.

Federal officials currently have nowhere to send it.

Extension Sought for Storing Three Mile Island Debris   https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/idaho/articles/2017-06-09/extension-sought-for-idaho-storing-nuclear-meltdown-debris Federal officials requested a 20-year extension involving the storage in Idaho of reactor core debris from the partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant.  June 9, 2017,By KEITH RIDLER, Associated Press  BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Federal officials requested a 20-year extension involving the storage in Idaho of reactor core debris from the partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant.

The U.S. Department of Energy in a document made public Friday asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to renew a license allowing storage until 2039 at an 890-square -mile site that includes the Idaho National Laboratory.

The debris from the 1979 nuclear accident was shipped from Pennsylvania to Idaho between 1986 and 1990. Research on the material was performed to improve nuclear fuel design and reactor safety.

The material also includes intact fuel assemblies.

The license to store the material in Idaho now expires in 2019. In a separate agreement with Idaho made in 1995, the agency is required to remove the waste from the state by 2035.

Federal officials currently have nowhere to send it.

“DOE remains committed to meeting its obligations to the state of Idaho,” the federal agency said in a March 9 letter to Idaho officials.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission received a letter dated March 6 from the Energy Department requesting the license renewal.

Anyone interested in requesting a hearing or who wants to intervene must file a petition with the commission within 60 days starting Friday.

Susan Burke, oversight coordinator of the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, said federal officials told her that an additional four years for removal will allow them to decommission the area after the debris is taken away.

“They obviously can’t close the facility a day after they remove the fuel,” she said. “There’s not an intent to not meet the 2035 deadline.”

The Idaho Attorney’s General Office declined to comment about the request for a license renewal. Attorney General Lawrence Wasden and the Energy Department have been at an impasse on another nuclear waste issue for more than a year.

 Wasden is refusing to allow research quantities of spent nuclear fuel to be shipped to Idaho National Laboratory — considered the nation’s top nuclear research lab — until the Energy Department demonstrates it can process 900,000 gallons of high-level nuclear waste.

The Energy Department initially had a 2012 deadline to deal with the liquid waste that’s stored in tanks above a giant aquifer that supplies water to cities and farms in the region.

That deadline has been extended multiple times and was most recently missed in September after the federal agency announced scientists couldn’t achieve a stable operation at a $600 million facility to treat the waste.

June 10, 2017 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Planning for new phase in getting rid of Dounreay – UK’s 1950s nuclear reactor complex

BBC 7th June 2017 A planning application is being prepared for a new phase in the decommissioning of the Dounreay nuclear power complex in Caithness.
Buildings on the experimental nuclear energy site, which dates to the 1950s, are being emptied of radioactive material and demolished. Starting in 2018, the planned next stage would involve dismantling reactors.

New temporary buildings would also need to be built to aid the new phase. The new buildings would include facilities for handling the clean up and demolition of areas of the site called the Silo and The Shaft. Also included are plans for restoration and landscaping work to restore areas of land to close to how they looked before the construction of Dounreay. The phase would take the site near Thurso to what is called its interim end state. Dounreay Site Restoration Limited has notified Highland Council that it expects to submit the planning application later this year.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-40188815

June 10, 2017 Posted by | decommission reactor, UK | Leave a comment

South Australia’s plan to import nuclear wastes is now dead in the water

Nuclear dump idea dead in SA June 7, 2017 Australian Associated Press, news.com.au
Conservation groups have welcomed Premier Jay Weatherill’s move to abandon any plans to establish a high-level nuclear waste dump in South Australia. The premier has indicated the government won’t now proceed to hold a referendum on the issue, even if it is returned at next year’s state election.

Conservation SA chief executive Craig Wilkins says it’s great news the dump is dead. “This is a win for the many South Australians who stood up and demanded a better option for our state than as a home for the world’s radioactive waste,” Mr Wilkins said.

The state government floated the idea of SA having an increased involvement in the nuclear fuel cycle after the last state election and held a royal commission into the idea. The commission recommended the state consider building a high-level dump to earn billions of dollars by taking the world’s nuclear waste, while a citizen’s jury firmly rejected that proposal late last year.

At the time Mr Weatherill indicated the government would still put the question to a referendum at some time in the future.
But asked about the future of a dump at a community cabinet meeting earlier this week he declared the idea “dead”.
“There’s no foreseeable opportunity for this,” he said. The premier later reaffirmed Labor had dropped the proposal, telling internet news site InDaily that it was not something that would be progressed by Labor if the government was returned in March.
“This is great news. We are delighted the premier has announced that he has no intention to re-visit the divisive debate on a global nuclear waste dump,” Mr Wilkins said… http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/nuclear-dump-idea-dead-in-sa/news-story/c4c10d44ab0ac71056efd337cfbb0244 

June 7, 2017 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, wastes | Leave a comment

Dangerous cargo of radioactive trash flying from Scotland to South Carolina

Toxic cargo of nuclear waste leaves Scotland for US under armed guard https://www.sundaypost.com/fp/toxic-cargo-of-nuclear-waste-leaves-for-us/  Jim Lawson, 04 June 2017 AN American military plane carrying a deadly cargo of radioactive waste has taken off from Scotland for the second time.

Dozens of armed police stood guard yesterday as highly-enriched uranium was loaded on to a giant American Air Force transport jet at Wick John O’Groats Airport. The secretive operation – signed off by David Cameron and Barack Obama last year – aims to clear a backlog of nuclear waste stored at Dounreay power station in Caithness.

But critics have blasted the high-security flights as unsafe and “morally reprehensible”.

Independent nuclear consultant John Large said: “This is pretty toxic stuff. It is weapons grade material. It is quite active. It’s ticking away and it does not turn itself off. “In the States, you cannot overfly with this type of material. The plane will put down on the east coast and the shipment will continue under armed escort by rail or by road.”

He said the risks in transporting nuclear waste by aircraft included “in the event of a crash, the fuel being engulfed in fire, the packages breaking down and the fuel igniting”.

Yesterday’s operation got underway at 10am, with the US C-17 Globemaster arriving in the early afternoon to pick up its dangerous cargo. Armed police guarded two trucks carrying the uranium – a critical component in nuclear weapons – in re-inforced steel flasks as they travelled the 32 miles from Dounreay to Wick airport. Roads around the airport were closed and sealed off as the deadly waste was delivered at 2pm.

Its cargo on board, the giant jet lumbered along the runway and took off at 4.25pm for the short hop across the Moray Firth to RAF Lossiemouth, where it topped up with fuel under armed RAF guard.

The runway at Wick is 1,712 feet too short for a fully fuelled Globemaster to get airborne.

It then took off for South Carolina, where the uranium will be transported to a nuclear facility in Tennessee.

A further 10 transatlantic flights – each costing around £1 million – are expected, but bosses remain secretive over the details. A spokesman for Dounreay, which is currently being decommissioned, said: “We can confirm nuclear materials are being removed from the site ahead of its closure.

“Compliance with the regulations includes protecting any information about the routes, times, dates and location”.

A police spokesman said: “We are supporting a partner agency’s operation and cannot comment further.” And a spokesman for Wick John O’Groats airport said it didn’t comment on “specific aircraft movements”.

June 5, 2017 Posted by | safety, UK, USA, wastes | 3 Comments

Serious flaws in the spent fuel pools method of storing nuclear radioactive trash

Facing South 2nd June 2017, As the United States continues to grapple with long-term storage of highly radioactive spent fuel from the nation’s nuclear power plants, science watchdogs are warning of serious flaws with the current storage method, which involves densely packing the combustible spent fuel assemblies under at least 20 feet of water in pools located at individual plants while awaiting creation of a permanent repository.
https://www.facingsouth.org/2017/06/nuclear-regulators-flawed-analysis-leaves-millions-risk-radioactive-fires

June 5, 2017 Posted by | safety, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Radioactive waste storage plans

Nuclear Insider 31st May 2017 Holtec’s two-phase licensing approach for its $280 million consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) project in New Mexico allows the company to use recent learnings in U.S. and Ukraine to accelerate approval for all
storage canisters.

In April, Holtec started the second phase of a CISF licensing program which would make it the first company to store all
canisters types currently used at U.S. plants. Holtec and Waste Control Services (WCS) are competing to build the U.S.’ first CISF facility, ahead of a proposed state-owned permanent repository at Yucca Mountain,
Nevada.

There is currently around 78,620 metric tons (MT) of used nuclear fuel stored at decommissioned and active reactor sites across 35 states. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has proposed a pilot facility for consolidated storage be in place by 2021, followed by a larger storage facility by 2025 and a permanent repository by 2048.

Holtec plans to build a $280 million CISF to host 10,000 storage canisters, representing 120,000 MT of spent fuel, between the cities of Carlsbad and Hobbs. The company has launched a two-phased licensing approach, initially seeking to store Areva-supplied 24PT1-DSC canisters using Holtec’s HI-STORM UMAX dry spent fuel storage system. In a second phase, the company will file a series of license amendment requests to include all canisters currently in use at
U.S. plants– supplied by Areva, Pacific Nuclear, Vectra, NAC, Sierra Nuclear and BNFL Solutions & Westinghouse.
http://analysis.nuclearenergyinsider.com/holtec-builds-first-kind-learnings-race-license-us-storage-facility

June 3, 2017 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

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