Germany excludes over half of its territory in search for long-term nuclear waste storage
05 Nov 2024, Ruby Russel, GermanyClean Energy Wire / ARD, https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/germany-excludes-over-half-its-territory-search-long-term-nuclear-waste-storage
The BGE (Federal Company for Radioactive Waste Disposal) has published an interim report on the status of Germany’s search for a final storage site for nuclear waste. The report includes an interactive map of Germany showing areas it has tested so far, and those found to be unsuitable for the repository, which must keep around 28,100 cubic metres of radioactive material safe for hundreds of thousands of years. The latest status report detailed the BGE’s assessment of 13 sub-areas, which ruled out sites that failed to meet safety requirements. This narrows the search to 44 percent of the country’s land, public broadcaster ARD reported.
The BGE began its search in 2017, following Germany’s 2011 commitment to phase out nuclear power. Previously planned repositories at sites such as Gorleben were abandoned after fierce protest from residents. The BGE then began its work by viewing Germany as a “blank map” on which any location with the right geological conditions could be identified as a potential storage site.
BGE chair Iris Graffunder said that from now on, the BGE would publish status reports annually, allowing the public to follow its progress. German environment minister Steffi Lemke welcomed the planned yearly updates as an important measure for transparency. “The regular publications will allow everyone in Germany to see that the BGE is on schedule for the end of 2027,” Lemke said. “We can and must find a final repository site by the middle of the century. We owe this to the people who live in the regions with interim storage facilities.”
The government agency is to complete its Phase 1 tests by 2027, when it is scheduled to submit its final proposal to the Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management (BASE), with a shortlist of suitable sites for further exploration in Phase 2 of the search.
Highly radioactive waste is currently held at 16 interim storage facilities close to Germany’s decommissioned nuclear power plants, the last of which went offline in April 2023. Germany had aimed to select a location for the final repository by 2031, but in 2022 the BGE pushed the deadline until at least 2046. A recent report commissioned by the BASE found that the process could take until 2075, but the environment ministry disputed these findings, saying they did not account for recent progress that has accelerated the search.
France wrestles with the idea that nuclear wastes might be useful, “retrievable” for future generations
“measures likely to cause serious and lasting harm to the environment”
CIGEO: REVERSIBILITY AND RECOVERABILITY In the request for creation authorization (DAC)
Saturday, November 2, 2024, by Bernard Laponche
During the first decades of nuclear electricity production in France, the management of radioactive waste produced by this industry, from uranium mines to reprocessing products of irradiated fuel, was not a major concern of the governments and industrialists concerned.
The acceleration of the nuclear program in the early 1970s, particularly the “Messmer Plan” of 1974, made it necessary to take things seriously.
Since the work of the Castaing Commission in the early 1980s, the choice has been oriented towards deep geological storage, with the condition of reversibility, that is to say the possibility for future generations to reverse such a choice and therefore to easily recover any waste that may have already been buried.
This condition of reversibility was subsequently maintained by government decisions and legislative acts leading to the creation of a research laboratory on the Bure site, then to the Cigéo project for deep storage of the most dangerous waste on a site close to that of the laboratory.
Following the declaration of public utility (DUP) of the Cigéo project, the application for authorisation to create (DAC), filed by the organisation responsible for the management of radioactive materials and waste, ANDRA, is currently being examined by the nuclear safety organisations, IRSN and ASN, and should result in an authorisation for commissioning by 2026-27, after a series of consultations.
In 2023, the Constitutional Council, asked by the Council of State to rule on a
priority question of constitutionality (QPC) brought by a group of organizations and private individuals, concluded that “… the legislator, when adopting measures likely to cause serious and lasting harm to the environment, must ensure that choices intended for the needs of the present do not compromise the ability of future generations and other peoples to meet their own needs, while preserving their freedom of choice in this regard”. This decision of historic importance highlights the question of the reversibility of the Cigéo project, which, in its analysis, the Constitutional Council considered to be acquired.
In order to judge this, this report analyses the way in which the reversibility of storage is treated in the various parts of the DAC file to which the reader can refer.
This analysis leads to the following conclusion:
Reversibility, the possibility of removing all packages from storage due to a political decision, would be ensured for the duration of operation, therefore before final closure, if the cells and galleries were not “sealed” and therefore accessible. This situation may therefore arise for generations up to the date of closure of the site, planned by ANDRA towards the end of the 22nd century.
This condition must therefore be imposed as soon as the creation of Cigéo is authorized.
On the other hand, once the galleries, cells and all accesses to the storage are sealed at the end of the storage operation and at final closure, there is no longer any possible reversibility for future generations beyond this date.
NGOs call for more secure interim storage facilities for Germany’s nuclear waste
29 Oct 2024, Jack McGovan, Germany, https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/ngos-call-more-secure-interim-storage-facilities-germanys-nuclear-waste
Clean Energy Wire / Tagesspiegel Background
Many nuclear waste storage facilities in Germany are not up to safety standards with issues like rusting drums and interim sites being used without permits, found a report by anti-nuclear organisation Ausgestrahlt and the NGO Munich Environmental Institute. The organisations are calling on the German government to take the dangers of improper nuclear waste storage seriously and demand a comprehensive and safe nuclear policy.
“We don’t have a single interim storage facility that is sufficiently safe,” said nuclear waste expert Helge Bauer from Ausgestrahlt to Tagesspiegel Background.
29 Oct 2024, 13:22
|
Germany
NGOs call for more secure interim storage facilities for Germany’s nuclear waste
Clean Energy Wire / Tagesspiegel Background
Many nuclear waste storage facilities in Germany are not up to safety standards with issues like rusting drums and interim sites being used without permits, found a report by anti-nuclear organisation Ausgestrahlt and the NGO Munich Environmental Institute. The organisations are calling on the German government to take the dangers of improper nuclear waste storage seriously and demand a comprehensive and safe nuclear policy.
“We don’t have a single interim storage facility that is sufficiently safe,” said nuclear waste expert Helge Bauer from Ausgestrahlt to Tagesspiegel Background.
One issue the activists highlight is the transportation of nuclear waste, which they say is being moved back and forth because nobody wants to be responsible for storing it. The report found that this also makes Germany vulnerable to sabotage. In August, there were drone flights of unknown origin over Brunsbüttel where there is currently an interim storage facility for highly radioactive waste, reports Tagesspiegel Background.
The report looked at 216 nuclear facilities across 71 sites in the country, including 84 that were currently in operation and 56 that were decommissioned or already being dismantled. Other organisations have also shown support for the report, including BUND and Robin Wood.
The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), which advises EU institutions like the Commission and the Parliament, adopted a firm stance after a plenary session in October that civil society groups should receive funding to be able to monitor the management of radioactive waste.
The discussion regarding what to do with nuclear waste has been a big topic in Germany recently as a report in August found that the hunt for a final repository could go on until the 2070s. Germany completed its nuclear phase-out last year and will now have to store around 1,900 large containers, or around 28,100 cubic metres, of high-level radioactive waste by 2080.
Safety analysis is not yet approved for Sweden’s nuclear waste dump plan, despite the hype.
| Brennain Lloyd, 3 Nov 24 |
Sweden’s Land and Environmental Court has granted SKB an environmental permit to build and operate the DGR for nuclear fuel waste …. almost.
This is the last step in the licensing process, and while a political approval had already been issued, this permit from the Lands and Environment Court was still outstanding, and so we were still on sound ground saying that there was no “approved and operating deep geological repository anywhere in the world” (Finland has constructed the underground workings, but still is in the early or mid-stages of the review of their operating license).
Now SKB has “granted” the permit, but there are still two more steps: the Uppsala County administrative board has to approve a “control program”, which sounds from this article like it might be the rough equivalent of the CNSC “License to Prepare a Site” (but it might not be! that’s my speculation based on this description).
The larger point is that “Before SKB can start on the actual mining of the repository tunnels, an approved safety analysis report is required from the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority.”
So, in summary, it seems that the permit has been granted, but the safety analysis report has not been approved, so there is still – as of this moment – still no “approved and operating deep geological repository anywhere in the world”.
Given that the detail of the approval of the safety analysis report might not get media coverage (even nuclear industry media coverage) we’d probably be on sounder ground to now simply say that “there is no operating DGR anywhere in the world, and therefore no operating experience the nuclear industry can point to”.
The Wylfa nuclear power station site needs “better storage facilities for waste”
New Civil Engineer 1st Nov 2024
The Wylfa nuclear power station site needs “better storage facilities for
waste” according to independent experts who visited. The Committee on
Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) shared a diary entry-style update
about a recent visit it made to Ynys Mon (Anglesey) for meetings and to see
the nuclear power plant.
The nuclear power plant on the island has two
reactors but Reactor 2 was shut down in 2012 and Reactor 1 was switched off
on 30 December 2015, ending 44 years of operation at the site .https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/wylfa-nuclear-site-needs-better-storage-facilities-for-waste-01-11-2024/
Technical troubles delay new tests at huge Eastern WA radioactive waste melter
BY ANNETTE CARY, Tri City Herald, June 21, 2024
The Department of Energy is unlikely to meet a deadline set by a federal court for the next step to prepare the Hanford site’s vitrification plant to treat radioactive waste for disposal. On Thursday DOE notified the Washington state Department of Ecology that it was at risk of not meeting the Aug. 1 deadline to start cold commissioning of the plant, a test of vitrification using nonradioactive chemicals to simulate waste before radioactive waste is introduced into the plant.
DOE is asking the Department of Ecology to agree to a four-month extension to Nov. 29 of this year. “The process for commissioning this first-in-kind facility is comprehensive and dynamic,” said DOE Hanford Manager Brian Vance in a message to Hanford employees Thursday…………………..
DOE remains committed to starting treating radioactive waste by the federal court consent decree deadline of August 2025, Vance said, despite the shortened time proposed between the start of cold commissioning and introducing radioactive waste into the plant for hot commissioning. DOE broke ground 22 years ago on the vitrification plant at the Hanford nuclear reservation to turn much of the 56 million gallons of radioactive and hazardous chemical waste stored in underground tanks into a stable glass form for disposal.
The waste is left from chemically processing uranium fuel irradiated at the Hanford site adjacent to Richland in Eastern Washington to produce nearly two-thirds of the plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program from World War II through the Cold War.
The current plan is to begin treating some of the least radioactive tank waste next year as DOE continues to work toward meeting a consent decree deadline to also start treating high level radioactive waste in the tanks by 2033.
The 2010 consent decree resulted from a Department of Ecology lawsuit over legal deadlines that DOE had missed or was near certain to miss. The consent decree deadlines originally called for cold commissioning to treat both low activity radioactive waste and high level radioactive waste to begin in 2018. Consent decree deadlines have been extended several times over the last 14 years, including to allow DOE more time due to work delays caused by the COVID pandemic. The Department of Ecology said Thursday morning that it was reviewing the notification from DOE, which also was sent to Oregon.
If the Department of Ecology agrees to the extension, the federal court must then sign off on the change. TECHNICAL ISSUE AT HANFORD PLANT DOE told the Department of Ecology in its notification Thursday that it has had technical issues with the glass former system at the vitrification plant’s Low Activity Waste Facility.
Glass forming materials are planned to be mixed with waste and then heated to fill canisters with a molten glass mixture. After cooling, the radioactive waste will be immobilized and ready for disposal.
The glass forming material is trucked to 12 vertical tanks outdoors at the vitrification plant in central Hanford. From there horizontal pipes with a screw conveyor are used to move the solid glass forming material into vessels inside the plant before the glass forming material and waste or waste simulant are added to melters.
There have been problems with clogging as the system has been used so far to move 40,000 pounds of glass forming material into the plant. The issue with the glass forming system is the main reason DOE has asked for a deadline extension, but it also has some other issues it is addressing at the vitrification plant that might interfere with the Aug. 1 deadline to start cold commissioning. Other issues are with the thermal catalytic oxidizer, the steam plant Morrison tubes and the overall reliability of the mechanical handling system, DOE told the Department of Ecology.
The delay comes as DOE and its vitrification plant contractor Bechtel National have been making progress on preparing to treat waste at the vitrification plant……….
The first shipment of 10,000 gallons of the simulated waste, which is liquid sodium hydroxide, has been delivered to the vitrification plant for the start of cold commissioning after technical issues with the glass forming system are resolved…….. https://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/hanford/article289415648.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawGQ85pleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHXSOmqPdX05-ob45hMlDtydxbNAUQaYy3hZHsjjJN36uXswbGOitN8vfCw_aem_T6xrJeHnpOhqhMLAvIemaQ
A small amount of nuclear fuel debris retrieved at Tepco Fukushima plant
Japan Times 31st Oct 2024
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2024/10/31/japan/fukushima-debris-catch/
A device has retrieved a small amount of nuclear fuel debris during trial work to remove debris from a reactor at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings’ Fukushima No. 1 plant, the company has said.
It is expected to take about a week to finish collecting the portion of debris.
If successful, it will be the first time for nuclear fuel debris to be removed from any of the three reactors at the plant that experienced meltdowns following the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami.
The trial work began just before 10 a.m. on Wednesday.
A claw-like tool attached to the tip of a telescopic collection device was lowered toward debris at the bottom of the containment vessel of the No. 2 reactor at the plant in Fukushima Prefecture.
The remotely operated device retrieved a small amount of debris at 10:30 a.m.
Tepco was set to pull out the removal device from the containment vessel Thursday or later and put the debris in a transport container.
If radiation levels are higher than expected, the debris may be put back into the containment vessel to avoid workers being exposed to radiation.
If they are not higher than expected, however, the collected debris will be analyzed at a facility of the Japan Atomic Energy Agency.
About 880 tons of nuclear fuel debris are believed to sit inside the meltdown-stricken No. 1 to No. 3 reactors.
Removing the debris is viewed as the most difficult part of the process of decommissioning the Fukushima plant.
Tepco initially planned to begin the removal work in 2021.
It started in September this year about three years behind schedule due chiefly to delays in the development of the device and problems with preparing for the work.
Cost of maintaining decommissioned nuclear submarines
UK Defence Journal 29th Oct 2024
Graeme Downie, Labour MP for Dunfermline and Dollar, recently raised a question regarding the financial burden of maintaining decommissioned nuclear submarines at two key UK facilities: Rosyth and Devonport. Specifically, he inquired about the annual costs associated with these sites.
In response, Defence Minister Maria Eagle provided the figures for the financial year 2023-24, explaining that “the annual cost for maintaining decommissioned submarines varies each year depending on the respective maintenance requirements.”
For the last financial year, £1.7 million was spent at Rosyth, while the maintenance costs at Devonport were significantly higher, totalling £7.1 million.
These figures highlight the ongoing financial commitment required to manage the UK’s decommissioned nuclear submarines, a task dependent on the maintenance needs of each vessel and the infrastructure of the respective facilities.
Additionally, during a recent exchange in the House of Lords, Lord Coaker expressed the urgency for the UK to expedite its nuclear submarine dismantling programme, addressing the slow progress in decommissioning and dismantling outdated submarines.
Responding to a question from Baroness Bryan of Partick, he outlined the current challenges and ongoing efforts to dismantle the aging fleet, currently spread across Scotland and Devonport, and acknowledged that, without significant changes, the timeline could stretch into decades.
Baroness Bryan highlighted widespread concerns, pointing out that many submarines have been out of service for years or even decades without being dismantled. She cited, for example, the case of a Dreadnought-class submarine stationed at Rosyth since 1980, a delay emblematic of the broader issue. “There remains real concern that not one of these submarines has yet been dismantled,” she noted, adding that with the rate of dismantling, “it will take decades to dismantle the boats remaining in both Scotland and Devonport.”……………………………………………………..
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/cost-of-maintaining-decommissioned-nuclear-submarines
South Bruce voters narrowly approve being host to nuclear waste
Scott Dunn Oct 29, 2024 , Horeline Beacon
Teeswater is near one of the two proposed sites for an underground storage facility for the country’s highly radioactive nuclear fuel.
By a thin majority, the answer in South Bruce was yes. Bruce declaring South Bruce to be a willing host for the Nuclear Waste Management Organization’s proposed Deep Geological Repository (DGR)? resulted in 51.2 per cent, or 1,604, of voters saying yes, and 48.8 per cent, or 1,526, saying no, according to unofficial results posted by the municipality Monday night. Eight electors declined their ballot.
Voter turnout was 3,138 of 4,525 electors, or 69.3 per cent. Since turnout was above 50 per cent, the results are binding on municipal council…………………
Teeswater’s residents were divided by the prospect of burying spent nuclear fuel in a deep, underground vault, people said in interviews outside the community’s post office earlier Monday.
Nuclear Waste Management Organization has secured land for a possible DGR site northwest of Teeswater, part of South Bruce. If the area is selected, the NWMO would build and manage the bunker to be some 650 metres underground.
But first NWMO needed to confirm if the community was a willing host. A referendum was chosen as the way to do that, and voting is to end at 8 p.m. today. It would take 50 per cent plus one of eligible voters to signal willingness, as long as at least 50 per cent of South Bruce voters cast ballots. Otherwise the decision was council’s to make.
……………………………….. there’s the risk of a leak, and the implicit requirement to trust officials who say the job can be done safely. Still others said they think government has already decided it will build the nuclear storage facility in South Bruce……………………………………………………………………………… more https://www.shorelinebeacon.com/news/local-news/update-south-bruce-voters-narrowly-approve-being-host-to-nuclear-waste
Japan struggles to find nuclear waste disposal site
Japan is facing difficulties selecting a final disposal site for high-level radioactive waste left from spent fuel at nuclear power plants across the nation.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2024/10/27/japan/nuclear-waste-site-struggles/
First-stage surveys to find locations suited to host an underground storage facility have been conducted in three municipalities — two in Hokkaido and one in Saga Prefecture — despite continuing anxieties among local residents.
With nuclear power plants in Japan gradually going back online, there remains no clear timeline for reprocessing spent nuclear fuel, keeping the government’s goal of a nuclear fuel cycle out of reach.
High-level radioactive waste, which is vitrified after uranium and plutonium are extracted from spent fuel for reuse, presents a significant challenge. Japan’s plan for final disposal involves burying the waste more than 300 meters underground for tens of thousands of years, allowing its radioactivity to diminish over time.
Nuclear power plants in Japan, operating without a designated final dump site for waste, are often criticized for being like “a condominium building without a toilet.”
The Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Japan, or NUMO, responsible for managing final disposal, began inviting municipalities to host surveys for potential dump sites in 2002. To date, however, no location has been selected.
The research process for selecting a final repository site consists of three stages: a literature survey, a drilling survey, and a detailed investigation using an underground facility. Local governments that host such surveys receive subsidies from the central government.
Literature surveys, which involve reviewing geological maps and historical earthquake records, began in the town of Suttsu and the village of Kamoenai in Hokkaido in 2020, and in the town of Genkai, Saga Prefecture, in 2024. No other municipality has agreed to participate in site selection research, however.
The first-stage surveys concluded that all of Suttsu and most of Kamoenai are suitable for moving forward to the drilling survey phase. NUMO plans to release a report as early as this fall and hold briefing sessions for local residents.
Still, Hokkaido Gov. Naomichi Suzuki has expressed opposition to the drilling surveys, and Saga Gov. Yoshinori Yamaguchi has also voiced objections to conducting such a survey in Genkai. The consent of the prefectural governor is required to proceed with second-stage surveys.
The central government has emphasized its responsibility in its basic policies on the final disposal of nuclear waste and aims to conduct surveys in about 10 additional locations, following international precedents.
In the past, the town of Toyo in Kochi Prefecture and the city of Tsushima in Nagasaki Prefecture considered hosting surveys but ultimately declined. Central government representatives now plan to visit over 100 local governments, increasing opportunities to explain the process to residents.
Japan, which has relied on nuclear power for over half a century, currently holds around 19,000 tons of spent fuel at its nuclear power plants and other facilities, using about 80% of its total storage capacity.
As a resource-scarce nation, Japan has been promoting a nuclear fuel cycle, by which spent fuel is reprocessed and recycled for continued use in power generation. The reprocessing plant that is key to this cycle has yet to be completed, however.
Japan Nuclear Fuel started construction of the country’s first commercial reprocessing facility in Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture, in 1993, but its completion has been delayed 27 times.
In September, an interim storage facility in the city of Mutsu, Aomori Prefecture, took delivery of the first batch of spent fuel from Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings’ Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata Prefecture. This facility, not on the premises of any nuclear power plant site, will store the fuel for up to 50 years before it undergoes reprocessing.
Many local residents see the receipt of spent fuel as premature, given the unfinished reprocessing plant and the lack of a final disposal solution. They worry that storage at the facility may become permanent rather than temporary.
The central government has decided to rebuild nuclear power plants and extend their operational periods. This marks a reversal of the previous policy, which aimed to reduce reliance on nuclear energy following the March 2011 accident at TEPCO’s Fukushima No. 1 plant, caused by severe damage from the earthquake and tsunami the same month.
An official from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said that “as we have used nuclear power plants, we cannot avoid” the issue of final nuclear waste disposal.
Hideki Masui, president of Japan Atomic Industry Forum, emphasized the need for “a national debate” as Japan struggles to conduct surveys in additional areas for potential disposal sites, placing disproportionate burdens on certain regions.
MP seeks answers on Submarine Dismantling Project in Rosyth
26th October, By Ally McRoberts
THE UK Government have been asked what steps they’re taking to keep West Fife safe and mitigate the “potential risks” posed by the Submarine Dismantling Project.
Radioactive waste is being removed from old nuclear subs at Rosyth Dockyard and Babcock have just applied for permission for more hazardous material to be taken out in the next stage.
Christine Jardine, Lib Dem MP for Edinburgh West, submitted a question at Westminster: “To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (John Healey), what steps his department is taking to (a) ensure the safety of and (b) mitigate potential risks posed by the decommissioning of nuclear submarines at Rosyth Royal Dockyard for surrounding residential areas.”
On Mr Healey’s
behalf, Maria Eagle, Minister for Defence Procurement, replied: “All the
submarines currently stored at Rosyth have already been de-fuelled, which
has significantly reduced overall potential risk. “Further, steps include
contractual requirements with Babcock International around safety and
environmental factors. “These include regular sampling of surrounding
waters and beaches, and dismantling one boat as a demonstrator to determine
the safest methods before starting on other boats.
Dunfermline Press 26th Oct 2024, https://www.dunfermlinepress.com/news/24679595.mp-seeks-answers-submarine-dismantling-project-rosyth/
Japan to resume trial removal of Fukushima nuclear debris, reports say
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2024/10/25/japan/fukushima-debris-removal/
The operator of the tsunami-stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant will resume an operation to remove a sample of highly radioactive material next week, reports said Friday, after having suspended the effort over a technical snag.
Extracting the estimated 880 tons of highly radioactive fuel and debris inside the former power station remains the most challenging part of decommissioning the facility, which was hit by a catastrophic tsunami in 2011.
Radioactivity levels inside are far too high for humans to enter, and last month engineers began inserting an extendable device to try and remove a small sample.
However, operator Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings had to halt the procedure after noticing that remote cameras on the apparatus were not beaming back images to the control center.
Tepco on Friday said it would resume the removal on Monday after replacing the cameras with new ones, the Asahi Shimbun daily and other local media reported.
Tepco officials could not immediately be reached to confirm the reports.
Three of Fukushima’s six reactors went into meltdown after a tsunami triggered by the nation’s biggest earthquake on record swamped the facility in one of the world’s worst nuclear accidents.
Japan last year began releasing into the Pacific Ocean some of the 540 Olympic swimming pools’ worth of reactor cooling water amassed since the catastrophe.
China and Russia banned Japanese seafood imports as a result, although Tokyo insists the discharge is safe, a view backed by the U.N. atomic agency.
Beijing last month said it would “gradually resume” importing seafood from Japan after imposing the blanket ban.
In a Tepco initiative to promote food from the Fukushima area, swanky London department store Harrods began selling peaches grown in the region last month.
Isotopic signature of plutonium accumulated in cryoconite on glaciers worldwide
Science Direct, Volume 951, 15 November 2024,
Edyta Łokas a, Giovanni Baccolo b, Anna Cwanek a, Jakub Buda c, Katarzyna Kołtonik a, Nozomu Takeuchi d, Przemysław Wachniew e, Caroline Clason f, Krzysztof Zawierucha c, Dylan Bodhi Beard g, Roberto Ambrosini h, Francesca Pittino i, Andrea Franzetti i, Philip N. Owens j, Massimiliano Nastasi kl, Monica Sisti i, Biagio Di Mauro m
Highlights
- •Cryoconite samples show larger deposition of 239+240Pu, but not of 238Pu, in the Northern than in the Southern Hemisphere
- •Isotopic signatures of Pu in cryoconite show that besides the global fallout the regional contributions may be significant
- •First evidence of 238Pu contamination from the crash of Interplanetary Station “Mars’96”
Abstract
Glaciers are recognized as repositories for atmospheric pollutants, however, due to climate change and enhanced melting rates, they are rapidly transitioning from being repositories to secondary sources of such apollutants. Artificial radionuclides are one of the pollutants found on glaciers that efficiently accumulate onto glacier surfaces within cryoconite deposits; a dark, often biogenic sediment. This work provides information about the accumulation, distribution and sources of plutonium (Pu) isotopes in cryoconite samples from glaciers worldwide.
Plutonium is an artificial radionuclide spread into the environment in the last decades as a consequence of nuclear test explosions, accidents and nuclear fuel re-processing. Samples collected from 49 glaciers across nine regions of Earth are considered. Activity concentrations of plutonium in cryoconite are orders of magnitude higher than in other environmental matrices typically used for environmental monitoring (e.g. lichens, mosses, soils and sediments), particularly in the Northern Hemisphere.
Isotopic ratios indicate that plutonium contamination of cryoconite is dominated by the global signal of stratospheric fallout related to atmospheric nuclear tests. However, specific glaciers in Svalbard reveal a signature compatible with a contribution from the re-entry of the SNAP-9A satellite in 1964, which was equipped with a 238Pu radioisotope thermoelectric generator. Similarly, an excess of 238Pu is observed in cryoconite from the Exploradores Glacier (Chile). This could be associated with the November 1996 crash of the automatic Interplanetary Station “Mars ’96” which was carrying a 238Pu thermoelectric generator. This is the first time ever that an isotopic evidence for this event is reported. These findings highlight the role that cryoconite can play in reconstructing the radioactive contamination history of different glaciated regions of the Earth.
Introduction
Atmospherically derived radioactivity is the component of environmental radioactivity that is deposited on the Earth’s surface through wet and dry deposition from the atmosphere. The deposited radionuclides are also named fallout radionuclides (FRNs). Some FRNs have a natural origin, such as cosmogenic 7Be and 14C, or are decay products of primordial isotopes. This is the case for 210Pb, which derives from 238U.
However, most FRNs are artificial and occur globally as a result of atmospheric nuclear tests and unintentional nuclear accidents (UNSCEAR, 1982, UNSCEAR, 2000). A key requirement when dealing with environmental radioactivity is the assessment of contamination levels, including the reconstruction of contamination histories, the identification of transport pathways, and of the fate of the radioactivity released into the diverse environmental compartments (Engelbrecht and Schwaiger, 2008).
Glaciers are especially important for studying atmospheric fallout history (Jaworowski et al., 1978). First, glaciers consist of deposits of atmospheric precipitation and intrinsically accumulate fallout species, including FRNs. Under specific conditions (i.e. no melting, low horizontal ice flow), by studying the stratigraphy of ice and snow layers, it becomes possible to reconstruct the depositional history of FRNs (Gabrieli et al., 2011; Olivier et al., 2004). In addition to glacier ice, attention has recently turned to another environmental matrix typical of glaciated landscapes which accumulates radioactivity; cryoconite that is a type of sediment found on the surface of glaciers worldwide (Cook et al., 2016). …………………………………..
Plutonium (Pu) is a toxic, radioactive and predominately anthropogenic element produced through neutron irradiation of uranium in nuclear reactors and during nuclear weapon detonations (Zhong et al., 2019). The most significant releases of plutonium in the Northern Hemisphere were associated with global fallout (GF) resulting from atmospheric nuclear weapon tests carried out between 1945 and 1980, with a peak in the 1960s (UNSCEAR, 1982, UNSCEAR, 2000).
Other important sources are related to catastrophic events such as the 1978 crash of the Cosmos-954 satellite, which had a nuclear reactor on board (Krey et al., 1979; Tracy et al., 1984), as well as the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster in 1986 (UNSCEAR, 2010) and the Fukushima Daiichi accident in 2011 (Povinec et al., 2013a; Povinec et al., 2013b). Moreover, from 1964 to 1980, China conducted atmospheric nuclear testing at the Lop Nor test site in north-western Chi
The Northern Hemisphere has received two-thirds of global plutonium deposition (Clark et al., 2019). Fig. 1 illustrates the most significant atmospheric nuclear testing and accident sites in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, including those near the Equator.
The tests conducted in the Northern Hemisphere have received significant interest but much less is known regarding the deposition that took place in the Southern Hemisphere. The United Kingdom (UK) was at the forefront of the atmospheric nuclear testing program in the Southern Hemisphere between 1952 and 1957 in Australian territory (Johansen et al., 2019), while France conducted extensive open-air nuclear testing in French Polynesia in the South Pacific Ocean from 1966 to 1974 (Bouisset et al., 2021). The UK tests resulted in a substantial amount of regional fallout (i.e., tropospheric fallout), compared to the higher-yield French tests, which contributed to the stratospheric fallout.
In 1964, the Transit 5BN3 satellite carrying a SNAP 9A radioisotope thermoelectric generator, launched by the United States of America (USA), failed to achieve orbit. The satellite burned up when descending into the upper atmosphere over Madagascar. The 238Pu load (1 kg) was dispersed worldwide and was detected globally in the environment, even in remote areas. Most of the fallout of 238Pu from this satellite occurred in the Southern Hemisphere (Hardy et al., 1972, Hardy et al., 1973).
Another important event, although not well-documented, was reported by the International Atomic Energy Agency (Radiation and Safety, 2001) in their inventory of accidents and losses at sea involving radioactive material. According to the report, it involved the atmospheric re-entry of the automatic Interplanetary Station “Mars ’96”, which was launched on November 16th, 1996. The station fell off the coast of Chile near the border with Bolivia and has not been located to date.
Plutonium isotope deposition after weapons testing can be local, regional and global, depending on detonation height, yield and meteorological conditions ………………….
This study, for the first time, presents a comprehensive global analysis of the variation in activity concentrations of 238Pu and 239+240Pu, along with activity (238Pu/239+240Pu) and atomic (240Pu/239Pu) ratios, observed in cryoconite on glaciers from both hemispheres.
…………………………….Conclusions
This study provides new insights into the provenance of Pu isotopes (238Pu, 239Pu, 240Pu) in glaciers based on cryoconite samples collected from nine glaciated regions of six continents. The 239+240Pu activity concentrations are significantly higher in the Northern Hemisphere than in the Southern Hemisphere, which reflects the uneven deposition of global fallout between hemispheres. Within the Northern Hemisphere the highest concentrations occur in Scandinavia and the European Alps…………………………………………….. more https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969724055062
Has Canada’s Nuclear Waste Management Organization earned the public’s trust?
by Gordon Edwards, Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, October 24 2024.
http://www.ccnr.org/NWMO_and_Public_Trust_2024.pdf
The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) represents Canada’s nuclear waste producers. For 14 years, NWMO has been searching for a “willing host community” to accept all of Canada’s high-level radioactive waste (used nuclear fuel) for burial in a Deep Geological Repository (DGR). In 2010, NWMO promised “the industry’s plan will only proceed in an area with informed and willing hosts.”
The residents of South Bruce are now voting on whether or not to lock themselves into the NWMO plan. I am deeply disappointed to find that, for more than a dozen years, NWMO has been consistently misleading these residents about the true nature of the hazards from used nuclear fuel. In fact, NWMO has systematically withheld the most relevant scientific information from candidate host communities.
Each candidate community has a Community Liaison Committee (CLC) that meets with NWMO 10 times a year under a program called “Learn More”. Despite more than a hundred meetings over a dozen years, NWMO has never called attention to the dozens of varieties of human-made radioactive materials – the very thing that makes used fuel so dangerous. These toxic materials include radioactive varieties of commonly occurring non-radioactive elements like iodine, cesium , and strontium.
All reactor-created radioactive waste materials are known carcinogens. Most of them are not found in nature. They are particularly dangerous when ingested, inhaled or otherwise absorbed into the body. To get into the environment, they must leak out of the used fuel – something that happens regularly in reactor cooling systems, including the used fuel storage pools.
Does NWMO think that Canadians are not entitled to know about these materials and their dangers to humans and the environment?
When I spoke to the South Bruce Community Liaison Committee (CLC) in 2020, one man who had already served for seven years on the CLC for South Bruce was caught completely off-guard when I spoke about these things.
He said, “You mentioned about radioactive materials. I guess that’s the first I’ve heard of them. There are names I have not heard of before – strontium [radioactive strontium], iodine [radioactive iodine]. That’s the first I’ve heard of it. How are they created, or generated? How do they come about?”
from a South Bruce CLC member, November 4 2020
I was stunned. This man had met with NWMO at least 60 or 70 times to “Learn More”, yet he knew nothing about the nature of these radioactive waste materials that will almost certainly be released into the local environment when six million individual fuel bundles are repackaged for burial. Even tiny cracks or pinholes in the metallic fuel cladding will allow radioactive iodine and cesium to be released in the form of a gaseous vapour that is difficult to contain completely. These gases turn back into a solid on contact with any cool surface.
In particular, radioactive iodine contaminates cattle feed such as hay or alfalfa, and then re-concentrates in the cow’s milk. When children drink that milk, the radioactive iodine concentrates even further in the thyroid gland. The iodine in the thyroid is typically 10,000 times more concentrated than the iodine released in the air. In Belarus, 5000 children had to have their thyroid glands surgically removed as a result of radioactive iodine from the 1986 Chernobyl accident. Do the dairy farmers in the South Bruce area not deserve to be informed of such facts?
Radioactive cesium released from Chernobyl contaminated sheep meat in Northern England and Wales for twenty years after the accident. Even today, when hunters kill a wild boar in Germany or Eastern Europe, the meat is unfit for human consumption due to radioactive cesium contamination from Chernobyl. Radioactive cesium concentrates in the soft tissues, hence the meat of farm animals. On the other hand, radioactive strontium goes to the bones, where it can cause bone cancer and/or leukemia.
NWMO has insisted that the used fuel is completely solid, implying that there can be no leakage. On the NWMO web site we are told that, in order to prevent leakage, “the first barrier in the multiple-barrier system is the fuel pellet … a ceramic material, which is baked in a furnace to produce a hard, high-density pellet.”
But NWMO does not reveal that used fuel pellets are always badly cracked and fractured. About 2 percent of the radioactive iodine and cesium vapours have already escaped from the used pellet and are available for immediate release as soon as there is the slightest penetration of the cladding.
Iodine-129 has a half-life of 16 million years, so when it is released into the environment it is there to stay. Cesium-135 has a half-life of 3.5 million years, so it too will be a permanent threat. Cesium-137 has a half-life of only 30 years, so half of it is already gone by the time the used fuel arrives at its final destination, but the amount released into the local environment will stick around for several centuries.
As a science educator, I find NWMO’s failure to highlight these facts unforgivable. They are asking the public to trust them for countless generations to come. I do not believe they have earned that trust.
P.S. Here is a video of my presentation to the residents of Teeswater and South Bruce on October 5, 2024. Other speakers included David Suzuki, Brennain Lloyd of Northwatch, Dale Dewar of IPPNW-Canada, and Theresa McClenaghan of the Canadian Environmental Law Association.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sM1kfDsS9Uc -a video of the entire event:
Last German nuclear power plant to receives decommissioning and dismantling permit
WNN Thursday, 24 October 2024
The Schleswig-Holstein Ministry for Energy Transition, Climate Protection, Environment and Nature has issued the first decommissioning and dismantling permit to PreussenElektra for the Brokdorf nuclear power plant. Brokdorf is the last German nuclear power plant to receive this approval and begin dismantling.
PreussenElektra – a subsidiary of EOn Group – applied for approval to decommission and dismantle the 1410 MWe pressurised water reactor in December 2017. The plant was shut down on 31 December 2021.
Phase 1 of the plant’s decommissioning and dismantling has now been approved. This includes the decommissioning and dismantling of the plant components that are no longer required and subject to nuclear regulatory supervision, with the exception of the reactor pressure vessel and the biological shield.
Since Brokdorf’s closure, the conditions for dismantling the plant have been created in close coordination with the authorities. These include the decontamination of the primary cooling circuit, systems and plant components that are no longer required have been taken out of service, and the workforce has been adjusted. A large proportion of the fuel elements still present in the plant have already been moved to the interim storage facility on site and replacement systems for the plant’s energy supply have been installed.
…………….. The next steps will be to create new logistics routes within the control area and set up a waste processing centre for the dismantled masses. In addition, systems and plant components that are no longer required will be prepared for dismantling.
A second dismantling permit is required to dismantle the reactor pressure vessel and the biological shield. This requires the removal of all fuel elements and special fuel rods, which are expected to be transported to the interim storage facility at the site in 2025. PreussenElektra submitted the application for the second dismantling permit on 30 August this year. This is currently being examined by independent experts.
………………………………. In December last year, PreussenElektra, together with EOn group companies, announced plans for the construction at the Brokdorf site of the largest battery storage facility in the EU to date. The facility – to store electricity from renewable sources – is to be expanded in two stages to up to 800 MW of power and a storage capacity of up to 1600 MWh. Commissioning could begin as early as 2026. https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/decommissioning-permit-granted-for-brokdorf-plant
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