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In 2023, the risky part of Andreyeva Bay nuclear cleanup starts

Donor countries agree to fund an additional study on how to extract the damaged spent nuclear fuel from Tank 3A.

 https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/ecology/2017/12/2023-risky-part-andreeva-bay-nuclear-cleanup-starts by Thomas Nilsen

Read in Russian | Читать по-русски

Take a closer look at this photo and you will understand the scoop of the most challenging and risky work to be done at the Cold War storage site for submarine nuclear fuel on Russia’s Kola Peninsula. For 35 years, highly radioactive fuel assemblies have been stored in these rusty, partly destroyed steel pipes where concrete of poor quality was filled in the space between. Some of the fuel assemblies are stuck in the canisters, while some of the canisters are stuck in the cells.

Message is clear: Do not try to lift any of the assemblies before you are sure nothing falls out.

At a recent meeting in London, donor countries discussed the progress after the first nuclear fuel assemblies were shipped away from the other tanks in Andreeva Bay towards Mayak in June.


The experts all agree it is necessary to conduct a whole range of work to prepare Tank 3A for unloading. Additional €100,000 was granted for the study. Another €675,000 was granted to study another messy challenge in Andreeva Bay; the smashed spent fuel assembles on the floor of the former water-pool storage in Building No. 5, the information portal Russian Atomic Community reports.

Unloading work at Tank 2A and 2B will go on until 2023 before possible work on unloading the dangerous mess at Tank 3A can start.

Andrey Zolotkov, a nuclear expert with the environmental group Bellona says YES with capitalized letters when asked by the Barents Observer via Skype whether Tank 3A poses the biggest risk in the cleanup work.

Equal to Chernobyl

The British nuclear engineering company Nuvia has calculated the total radionuclide inventory in the three tanks to be equal to the remains of Reactor No. 4 inside the Chernobyl sarcophagus. Some 22,000 spent fuel assemblies are stored in the tanks, coming from 90-100 reactor cores powering the Soviet Navy’s Cold War submarines sailing out from the Kola Peninsula from the late 1950s till 1982. Nuvia says it is some six tonnes of fissile uranium-235 in the fuel, about two times the amount of fissile material inside the exploded Chernobyl reactor in Ukraine.

Tank 3A does also pose the highest risk for radiation doses to working personell and ways to do the job with robotics has to be developed. Nobody want people to stay too long near the destroyed assemblies and get exposed.

Another deemed challenging job ahead is to locate and secure the six damaged spent fuel elements on the floor of Building No. 5 in Andreeva Bay. The building served as a storage-pool for the spent fuel assemblies before 1982, but due to a water-leak and rusty wires, many fuel assemblies fell to the floor. That was the reason why the assemblies were hastily moved over to the tanks 2A, 2B and 3A. In that process, however, six damaged fuel assemblies and some uranium powder from others were left on the floor. Today, they pose a serious radiation hazard risk.

Funding from Europe and Canada 

The nuclear cleanup work in Andreeva Bay on the Barents Sea coast is financed by the so-called Northern Window of the Northern Dimension Environmental Partnership (NDEP), a cooperative program with Russia’s State Nuclear Corporation Rosatom.

Norway has over the last two decades financed infrastructure improvements in Andreeva Bay making the removal of spent nuclear fuel possible.

The NDEP’s funded work started in 2003. Additional to the European Union, nuclear legacy cleanup work in North-West Russia is funded by Sweden, Finland, Belgium, France, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Italy and the United Kingdom.

Andreeva Bay is located about 55 kilometers from Russia’s border to Norway in the north.

September 19, 2023 Posted by | Russia, wastes | Leave a comment

September 14, 2023: Dounreay decommissioning end date that proved to be unachievable

 By Alan Hendry – alan.hendry@hnmedia.co.uk, 14 September 2023

 The end of an era for Caithness… the last chapter in a pioneering
industrial story that began in the black-and-white world of the 1950s… a
final farewell to our great atomic age… Or at least, it would have been
if a prediction made 11 years ago had proved to be accurate.

It was in May 2012 that Roger Hardy, then managing director of Dounreay Site Restoration
Ltd (DSRL), announced a target for the demolition of the nuclear site that
had transformed the county’s socio-economic landscape over the course of
six decades. Dounreay’s operators were setting a specific end date of
September 14, 2023.

That was when all redundant facilities needed to be
flattened and the waste sorted, segregated and made safe for the long term,
according to Mr Hardy. It was a big ask, he acknowledged at the time, but
staff were responding to the challenge: “No-one seems hugely surprised by
what we think is achievable.”

It was destined not to be achievable after
all. The current deadline for the clean-up is 2033, a full decade beyond
that 2012 forecast – although questions have been raised as to whether
even this revised schedule is a realistic one. Earlier this year,
ex-councillor Roger Saxon, a former chairman of Dounreay Stakeholder Group,
expressed the view that 2033 would be unachievable. He was concerned that
momentum had been lost on the decommissioning programme.

 John O’Groat Journal 14th Sept 2023

https://www.johnogroat-journal.co.uk/news/september-14-2023-dounreay-end-date-that-proved-to-be-unac-326495/

September 18, 2023 Posted by | decommission reactor, UK | Leave a comment

Don’t underestimate ravages of climate crisis when storing nuclear waste:

Meg Sears, 11 Sept 23, https://preventcancernow.ca/dont-underestimate-ravages-of-climate-crisis-when-storing-nuclear-waste/

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission should heed Mother Nature’s warning and deny the present proposal. In today’s weather, much less the future, the commission is unlikely to meet its goal to keep nuclear waste secure for hundreds of years.

What happens when a federal Environmental Impact Assessment is fundamentally flawed? Will authorities pause for a rethink when a key assumption and design limitation of the assessment is wrong, risking catastrophic failure? 

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission is facing this late-day reality test as it is poised to rule whether the Chalk River can go ahead as planned.

The 2021 Environmental Impact Statement for near-surface nuclear waste disposal lists severe rainfall as the top risk for stability of the hillside site. Excessive rain could result in the nuclear waste being swept down the hill and into Perch Lake, Perch Creek, and the Ottawa River a kilometre away. Chemicals would pollute the ecosystem and food sources, as well as drinking water for millions of people in smaller towns, as well as in Ottawa and cities downstream. 

On Aug. 10, 2023, where the Rideau, Ottawa and Gatineau rivers tumble together, chiefs of Kebaowek, Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg and Mitchibikonik Inik First Nations, elders and other experts, made final submissions to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. As they spoke against the nuclear waste disposal site at Chalk River, attendees heard the roar of rain drumming on the roof. 

During this event, Ottawa streets and basements flooded, traffic stopped, power failed, sewers backed up, and more than 300 million litres of untreated water flowed into the Ottawa River. At least, unlike nuclear waste, untreated sewer water degrades within weeks—not years or generations. 

The Environmental Impact Statement weather severity estimates are out of date. It defines “heavy rainfall” to be more than 0.7 cm per hour—one seventh of what fell during the hearing. The statement also cites a 2013 estimate of low tornado risks—an insult to fresh memories of catastrophic tornadoes and derechos in Eastern Ontario.

The acceleration of climate disasters is boggling Canada’s long-term predictions of the scale of extreme weather. The nuclear waste disposal facility was designed to withstand end-of-the century estimates of less than five cm of precipitation in a day for Deep River, and over five cm in a day—not an hour—for Ottawa. 

Ottawa’s not alone in breaking rainfall records. July 2023 brought rainfall disasters to Nova Scotia, with rainfall up to 50 cm per hour measured in one location. Much of the province experienced 20 cm in a day, causing widespread damage. The climate predictions from the federal government call for much less—up to 9 cm in a day by the end of the century.  

If an Environmental Impact Assessment for a bridge was discovered to be flawed—that the bridge would not withstand a storm as severe as what occurred just last month—it would be pause for thought and a good reason to reconsider the plans. The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission should heed the warning from Mother Nature and deny the present proposal. In today’s weather, much less the coming years’, the Commission is unlikely to meet its objective to keep nuclear waste secure for hundreds of years.

September 13, 2023 Posted by | Canada, climate change, wastes | Leave a comment

Are They Already Cutting Corners on Worker Protection at DOE’s New Plutonium Processing Plant?

plutonium is toxic at the scale of micrograms, deadly at the scale of milligrams, and useable in nuclear weapons of mass destruction at the scale of kilograms. This is why plutonium work requires rigid, intensive safety systems, referred to as “defense in depth,” to protect workers and the surrounding people and landscape; as well as extreme levels of security and material accounting.

CounterPunch, BY DON MONIAK 11 Sept 23

As of this past Labor Day, there are strong indications that future workers at the planned, new Savannah River Plutonium Processing Plant (SRPPF) may face unnecessary, increased risks of exposure to radiological hazards inherent in plutonium toxicity and chemical complexity.

According to an August 3, 2023  letter from the Defense National Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) to the Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Nuclear Security Agency (NNSA), the SRPPF project leadership team does not consider vital plutonium processing safety equipment as “safety significant controls.”

According to the letter, NNSA’s project leadership team believes a reliance on worker sense of sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch is sufficient to detect and/or prevent accidents such as plutonium fires and dispersal of plutonium oxide powder.

In the hierarchy of nuclear safety,  the Department of Energy standards place “Safety Significant Controls” above administrative controls that are reliant upon the absence of human error.

The motive for SRPPF project team’s preference for administrative controls is unknown.

The New Plutonium Processing Plant. 

The plutonium/MOX (Pu/MOX) fuel facility was a massive, multi-billion dollar endeavor designed to help dispose of dozens of tons of surplus nuclear weapons plutonium (Pu). This Savannah River Site(SRS) project was abandoned in the late 2010’s, following a chronic array of technical issues, mismanagement, major cost overruns, cutting of corners, and the lack of commercial Pu/MOX fuel customers.

After the project was abandoned, the Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Nuclear Security Agency (NNSA) decided to repurpose the unfinished facility into a new “plutonium pit”production plant. The Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) was then renamed the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Plant (SRPPF).  This $11 billion plus repurposed facility is already burdened by cost overruns—-the original estimate was $3.7 billion.

Plutonium pits are referred to as the primary nuclear explosives, or triggers,” (1) that dominate the known U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal. Pits acquired their quaint nickname by virtue of the resemblance of the configuration of high explosives surrounding the primary nuclear explosive to stone fruit like peaches and plums—an example of early nuclear weaponeers’ inside humor.

The Pu pits are pressure vessels with nested shells of material, comprised of other non-nuclear parts, including the metal cladding, welds, a pit tube, neutron tamper(s) and initiator, as well as the usually hollow-cored plutonium hemispheres. In most pit designs, a sealed pit tube carries deuterium-tritium gas into the hollow-core to boost the nuclear explosive power of weapons.

But unlike the sweet, fruity, and and delectable flesh surrounding plum and peach pits, a Pu pit is surrounded by a high explosives package powerful enough to implode the plutonium metal sphere contained in the pit. This is not like compressing a tin can, as plutonium is the most durable of the transuranic heavy metals.

The current plan is to annually produce at least eighty new plutonium pits in the SRPPF. Pit fabrication was once the exclusive task at the long-closed Rocky Flats plant in Colorado, and the work processes constitute the most dirty—in terms of waste production—and dangerous workplace in the national nuclear weapons complex. In this century, Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) has failed miserably to reconstitute a tiny fraction of the Rocky Flats pit production rate.

Pit production is unlikely to be the only task at the SRPPF.  An estimated ten to twelve-thousand surplus plutonium pits, containing a sum of 30 to 34-metric tonnes of plutonium, could also be processed at a plutonium pit disassembly and conversion line at the SRPPF. The resulting plutonium oxide powder would then be sent to the SRS K-Area’s Pu waste production facility, where the powder is diluted to a three to five percent level within a larger mixture of inert materials………………………….

Some Plutonium Processing Hazards

There is a negligible level of debate that plutonium is toxic at the scale of micrograms, deadly at the scale of milligrams, and useable in nuclear weapons of mass destruction at the scale of kilograms. This is why plutonium work requires rigid, intensive safety systems, referred to as “defense in depth,” to protect workers and the surrounding people and landscape; as well as extreme levels of security and material accounting.

The most hazardous plutonium operations involve plutonium pit fabrication. After pit disassembly, the plutonium within pits is converted to a finely dispersed powder form (2), made up of sticky grains containing energetic alpha particles that easily damage soft lung tissues. Sticky plutonium oxide particles clinging to ductwork can also hinder ventilation systems over time.

Recycling plutonium for pit production then requires difficult and dangerous processes to remove impurities and undesirable decay products such as intensely radioactive Americium-241. (3) The resulting plutonium form is transferred to the next step, the plutonium foundry.

The foundry work involves a complex ten-step process, summarized as melting, casting, and heat treating of plutonium metal. Gallium is added at a one-percent ratio to produce an alloy that is considered almost as easy to machine as aluminum or silver. The risk from explosion, criticality, and spill hazards must be rigidly controlled; while contaminated parts such as crucibles pose unique waste management measures.

The final plutonium processing step is machining the foundry product into a precise sub-critical configuration. Like any machining, Plutonium metal work casts tiny shavings and creates fine dust.

These shavings can ignite upon exposure to air and lead to larger fires that can destroy glove boxes and ventilation systems, and cause large releases of plutonium into the atmosphere. The Rocky Flats experience suggests that fires of any size are not a remote possibility, they are a probability.

The task is to keep Pu metal fires small and nondestructive, while preventing injury and harmful exposures to workers. A small fire can render costly equipment useless. A large fire can lead to a countryside contaminated with particles that become more intensely radioactive for decades.

Extreme care must also be taken to keep plutonium metal in a non-critical configuration at all times. The wrong geometry or placement of metal pieces in the wrong configuration can produce the deadly blue light that signifies criticality accidents. In 2009, a number of Los Alamos criticality engineers walked off the job at the lab’s pit production line, citing a casual approach to criticality safety.

The final step is assembly, where the parts that make pits tick are introduced. The making of these parts pose their own toxic hazards, such as the fine dust from machining beryllium metal.

Those are just several aspects of the safety issues involved with the plutonium pit fabrication.

The True, and False, Necessity for New Pit Fabrication and Production. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

The Pit Plant’s Initial Design: One Less Layer of Safety Depth?

Because of all these factors, new pit production is considered essential, and a new, smaller scale—by Cold War Standards—plutonium pit fabrication capacity is presently in the preliminary design phase at the SRPPF complex.

The highest standards of safety are expected to prevent accidents or mitigate the impacts of spills, fires, leaks, and dispersion of fine radioactive dust. A less rigid approach to safety is quite unexpected for a high hazard, hardened nuclear facility that would only be the second its kind in the weapons complex—-the last being the Rocky Flats plant built in the 1950’s.

But according to the August 3, 2023  letter from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB), the DOE/NNSA’s project leadership team does not consider vital plutonium processing safety equipment as “safety significant controls.”…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….more https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/09/11/are-they-already-cutting-corners-on-worker-protection-at-does-new-plutonium-processing-plant/

September 12, 2023 Posted by | - plutonium, employment, safety, USA | Leave a comment

Japan’s Insane Immoral, Illegal Radioactive Dumping

CounterPunch, BY ROBERT HUNZIKER 8 Sept 23

Japan cannot possibly outlive the atrocity of dumping radioactive wastewater into the Pacific Ocean. In fact, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) is an example of how nuclear meltdowns negatively impact the entire world, as its toxic wastewater travels across the world in ocean currents. The dumping of stored toxic wastewater from the meltdown in 2011 officially started on August 24th, 2023. Meanwhile, the country restarts some of the nuclear plants that were shut down when the Fukushima Daichi Nuclear Power Plant exploded.

Fukushima’s broken reactors are an example of why nuclear energy is a trap that can’t handle global warming or extreme natural disasters. Nuclear is an accident waiting to happen, for several reasons, including victimization by forces of global warming.

According to Dr. Paul Dorfman, chair of the Nuclear Consulting Group, former secretary to the UK Scientific Advisory Committee on Internal Radiation, and Visiting Fellow, University of Sussex: “It’s important to understand that nuclear is very likely to be a significant climate casualty. For cooling purposes nuclear reactors need to be situated by large bodies of water, etc. …” Essentially, global warming is nuclear energy’s Waterloo; it has already seriously endangered France’s 56 nuclear reactors with partial shutdowns because of extreme global warming. Nuclear reactors cannot survive global warming. See “the nuclear energy trap” link at the end of this article.

TEPCO’s treacherous act of dumping radioactive water into a wide-open ocean is a deliberate violation of human decency, as it clearly violates essential provisions of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) General Safety Guide No. 8 (GSG-8).

Japan should be forced to stop its diabolical exercise of potentially destroying precious life. Shame on the IAEA and shame on the member countries of the G7 for endorsing this travesty. They’ve christened the ocean an “open sewer.” Hark! Come one, come all, dump your trash, open toxic spigots, bring chemicals, bring fertilizers, bring plastic, bring radioactive waste that’s impossible to dispose… the oceans are open sewers. It’s free! Yes, it’s free but only weak-minded people would allow a broken-down crippled nuclear power plant to dump radioactive waste into the world’s ocean. It is a testament to human frailty, weakness, insipience, not courage.

According to Arjun Makhijani, Ph.D. Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, TEPCO’s ALPS-treated Radioactive Water Dumping Plan Violates Essential Provisions of IAEA’s General Safety Guide No. 8 (GSG-8) and Corresponding Requirements in Other IAEA Documents, June 28, 2023: “The IAEA is an important United Nations institution. Like the rest of the Expert Panel, the author of this paper has been reluctant to criticize the IAEA. Yet, its outright refusal to apply its own guidance documents in full measure is stark. Its constricted view of the dumping plan has allowed it to evade its responsibilities to many countries. Its eagerness to assure the public that harm will be “negligible” has been carried to the point of grossly overstating well-known facts about tritium. The serious lapses of the IAEA in the Fukushima radioactive water matter have made criticism unavoidable.”………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

“At high doses, ionizing radiation can cause immediate damage to a person’s body, including, at very high doses, radiation sickness and death. At lower doses, ionizing radiation can cause health effects such as cardiovascular disease and cataracts, as well as cancer. It causes cancer primarily because it damages DNA, which can lead to cancer-causing gene mutations.” (Source: National Cancer Institute)

How is it possible to justify dumping any amount of radioactive wastewater into the Pacific Ocean? Is the world’s consciousness so low, so lacking a moral compass, that it’s okay to dump the most toxic material on the planet into the oceans?

Stop destroying the oceans!

And please contemplate the dire ramifications of the nuclear energy trap. more https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/09/08/japans-insane-immoral-illegal-radioactive-dumping/?fbclid=IwAR0IaIETBoTgZeDUmJ3caeJAlFFWGPrdCtsqt5oR0A7XP8NEl1fKqLJwu54

Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

September 12, 2023 Posted by | Japan, oceans, Religion and ethics, wastes | Leave a comment

UK / ‘No Easy Options’ For Disposal Of Plutonium Stockpile, Says Report

“simpler and cheaper to consider it a waste material alongside the other legacies from the nuclear industry, and safely dispose of it.”

NUCNET, bBy David Dalton, 6 September 2023

There are no easy options when it comes to the “unavoidably complex” task of managing the UK’s plutonium stockpile, but more research, development and innovation is needed to underpin any decision, a report says.

The report, prepared by the Dalton Nuclear Institute at Manchester University, calls for a national dialogue led by “trusted voices” and based on a clear view of the government’s thinking of the role, if any, plutonium might play in meeting future UK energy needs.

The stockpile could be used as fuel for existing or future thermal reactors. It could also be combined with the UK’s 100,000 tonne supply of depleted, natural and low-enriched uranium to fuel new fast reactors, which has the potential to power the UK for centuries. Both options could lead to the reduction of the UK’s nuclear legacy burden.

Another option is to dispose of the stockpile in the planned UK deep geological repository.

Professor Clint Sharrad, acting director of the Dalton Nuclear Institute, said while this all sounds promising, successfully delivering such outcomes would take time, money, organisation, and commitment.

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, a government body, is in the process of repackaging the plutonium stocks, stored at Sellafield in northwest England, into more robust containment.

“Being wary of the current global political and economic climate, it may be that extracting the energy from UK plutonium in the not-too-distant future becomes unnecessarily expensive and political barriers may be too difficult to overcome,” Prof Sharrad said.

“Therefore, it might be simpler and cheaper to consider it a waste material alongside the other legacies from the nuclear industry, and safely dispose of it.”

The stockpile originates from reprocessing spent fuel from the UK’s reactor fleets, plus some material derived from outside the UK…..  https://www.nucnet.org/news/no-easy-options-for-disposal-of-uranium-stockpile-says-report-9-3-2023

September 11, 2023 Posted by | - plutonium, UK | Leave a comment

UK and Japan’s governments funding research on problem of nuclear waste

Two projects have been awarded a share of £1 million, delivered by the
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), part of UK
Research and Innovation (UKRI), to address challenges in: radioactive waste
treatment, packaging, and storage; remote handling, robotic, and autonomous
systems in decommissioning; environmental behaviour of radionuclide release
and management of risk and degraded infrastructure.

The UK-Japan Civil Nuclear Research programme is a partnership between UKRI and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. The research
projects are being led by academics at the universities of Strathclyde and
Sheffield.

UK Research & Innovation 8th Sept 2023

https://www.ukri.org/news/uk-japan-partnership-to-develop-new-tech-for-nuclear-waste-disposal/

September 10, 2023 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

Biden’s horse-trading on nuclear technology and fuels is an unprecedented proliferation risk

he is funding not just prudent nuclear research, but also their boondoggles to expand use of plutonium and HEU fuel. To ensure US military support for the trilateral Australia-United Kingdom-United States (AUKUS) deal, he is acquiescing to Navy insistence on using weapons-grade uranium reactor fuel, even in exported submarines. However, recent spikes in demand for nuclear weapons, among friends and foes alike, suggests this is a dangerously short-sighted approach.

Bulletin, By Alan J. Kuperman | September 6, 2023

News media in the United States rarely report on nuclear proliferation until it reaches the crisis stage—as in North Korea and Iran. By then, however, it is typically too late to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. Effective nonproliferation must begin much earlier, not only by suppressing demand for nuclear weapons but also by restricting supplies of the fissionable materials necessary to build them in the first place. Sadly, the Biden administration is bungling this latter responsibility.

To acquire the bomb, nuclear aspirants must first obtain its key ingredient: plutonium or highly enriched uranium (HEU). So, as demand for nuclear weapons grows in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, one would expect the US government to do everything it can to clamp down on supply. Instead, President Joe Biden is actually doing just the opposite, by promoting commerce in weapon-usable nuclear materials as a bargaining chip for other issues. Unless the president reverses course, one of his greatest foreign policy legacies could wind up being global nuclear proliferation.

The spike in demand for nuclear weapons has been driven by several key events over the past two decades………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Considering this growing demand for nuclear weapons, an essential policy to avert proliferation is to block the supply of the necessary fissionable materials. Regrettably, the Biden administration instead has taken four steps that would foster proliferation of both plutonium and weapons-grade uranium.

First, President Biden is funding US companies like Oklo that want to reprocess used reactor fuel—how plutonium is obtained in the first place, by separating it from nuclear waste—and then deploy its fuel recycling technology “on a global scale.” This would reverse nearly half a century of bipartisan US policy opposing such activity at home and abroad, which has succeeded at restricting commercial reprocessing to only two countries, France and Russia, both of which already have nuclear weapons.

Second, the Biden administration is providing a $2 billion subsidy to Bill Gates (currently the fifth richest person in the world) to develop exotic “fast” nuclear reactors, which originally were designed explicitly to increase supplies of plutonium. Gates’s nuclear energy startup Terrapower promises not to use them this way, but the reactors are so expensive that countries importing them could cite economics to justify turning them into plutonium factories.

Third, the president is pursuing construction of a civilian US research reactor using weapons-grade HEU fuel for the first time since the 1960s, thereby threatening to undermine decades of progress in delegitimizing this dangerous fuel globally.

Fourth, the White House has agreed to export tons of weapons-grade uranium—an amount sufficient for hundreds of nuclear bombs—to fuel Australia’s forthcoming SSN-AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines. This announcement already has prompted at least one other country, Iran, to suggest that it too may produce HEU for naval fuel—a well-known back door to nuclear weapons. The good news is that Australia’s submarines likely could be redesigned to use low-enriched uranium that is unsuitable for nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, the Biden administration recently canceled funding for the eight-year-old program to develop such proliferation-resistant naval fuel.

Why is President Biden doing all this? The US president seems to think he can prevent proliferation solely by quashing demand—using carrots and sticks to persuade countries not to seek the bomb—despite evidence to the contrary. So, he feels free to relax supply restrictions in political horse-trades. For example, to persuade legislators to support solar and wind power, he is funding not just prudent nuclear research, but also their boondoggles to expand use of plutonium and HEU fuel. To ensure US military support for the trilateral Australia-United Kingdom-United States (AUKUS) deal, he is acquiescing to Navy insistence on using weapons-grade uranium reactor fuel, even in exported submarines. However, recent spikes in demand for nuclear weapons, among friends and foes alike, suggests this is a dangerously short-sighted approach.

Of course, the United States should continue trying to reduce demand for proliferation, including by avoiding attacking any more countries that have halted their nuclear weapons programs like Iraq and Libya. But if President Biden imagines that demand-suppression is a silver bullet that gives him license to expand civilian commerce in nuclear weapons-usable materials, he is deeply mistaken. Unless Biden changes course, his promotion of such dangerous nuclear technologies will enable supply to meet demand—in the market of mass destruction.  https://thebulletin.org/2023/09/bidens-horse-trading-on-nuclear-technology-and-fuels-is-an-unprecedented-proliferation-risk/

September 8, 2023 Posted by | - plutonium, business and costs, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Taiwan’s ‘clear and present’ spent nuclear fuel danger

Above-ground storage pools at Chinshan and Kuosheng nuclear power plants would be vulnerable to missiles in a Chinese attack

ASIA TIMES, By JORSHAN CHOI, SEPTEMBER 6, 2023

The war in Ukraine has drawn concerns that there is potential for a conflict to happen across the Taiwan Strait.

In Ukraine, the attack and occupation of nuclear facilities, including the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant by the Russian military, initiated a dangerous situation for the safe and secure operation of civilian nuclear power plants, including the spent fuel facilities. It also hindered the International Atomic Energy Agency’s effort to ensure the proper accounting and control of nuclear materials in these facilities.

If a military conflict were to happen across the Taiwan Strait, there would be similar concerns. There are six operating or shut-down nuclear reactors in Taiwan: two pressurized water reactors and four boiling water reactors in Taiwan. Of the six, the four BWRs situated on the northern tip of Taiwan pose the biggest safety, security, and safeguards concerns.

Taiwan’s first nuclear power plant, Chinshan 1 & 2, consisted of BWRs similar to Fukushima Daiichi 1, which was involved in the 2011 accident in Japan, with spent fuel pools that are high up above ground.

Taiwan’s second plant, Kuosheng 1 & 2, featured a later BWR design, with spent fuel pools at a lower elevation. The two pressurized water reactors have spent fuel pools at ground level.

When Chinshan 1 & 2 went offline in 2018-2019, more than 6,000 spent fuel assemblies were stored in the two elevated spent fuel pools. At Kuosheng 1 & 2, the capacities of both ground-level spent fuel pools have become insufficient to support reactor operation.

To free up space in the pools for newly discharged spent fuel, TAIPOWER, the utility company, moved those 15-year-old spent fuel assemblies for storage in the upper (refueling) pools, which are well above the ground level.

According to the US National Academies of Sciences, the vulnerability of a spent fuel pool depends in part on its location with respect to ground level as well as its construction. In a potential military conflict across the Taiwan Strait, the spent fuel pools built above ground in Chinshan and Kuosheng may thus be susceptible to accidental attacks from misfired or stray missiles.

Significantly, to protest the Pelosi visit to Taiwan in August 2022, two missiles fired by the Chinese military landed in water about 50 km north of the Chinshan plant.

The Fukushima accident highlighted the vulnerability of elevated spent fuel storage. The explosion that occurred in the reactor building of Fukushima Daiichi 4 destroyed the roof and most of the walls on the fourth and fifth (refueling) floors……………………………………………………………………..

A sense of urgency

Spent fuel has accumulated in the Chinshan and Kuosheng plants over the 40 years of their operating lives. Due to objections from the local public over moving the spent fuel to dry cask storage and the lack of suitable storage or disposal sites on the geographically limited island, spent fuel discharged from Chinshan 1 & 2 reactors has remained in the refueling-turned-into-storing pools adjacent to the reactor wells, high above ground……………………………………………..

The war in Ukraine and rockets/missiles landing in or around the Zaporizhzhia plant (with all six pressurized water reactors’ spent fuel pools situated at ground level) should have given TAIPOWER another warning that spent fuel in high-elevation pools should be moved to ground-level pools or dry cask storage.

TAIPOWER should have a sense of urgency for this “clear and present” danger in Taiwan, especially given that it has the technology and resources to accomplish the task. Taiwan’s internal politics and objection of the local public are the primary causes for the procrastination.

The longer-term problem with moving the spent fuel off the island centers around something called “consent rights,” which is complicated given US involvement in the installation of the nuclear power plants in Taiwan…………………………………………………………………….

The US rights over Taiwan’s nuclear activities are so extensive that Washington instructed the German government in the 1980s that any nuclear items supplied to Taiwan by a German exporter would be subject to US “control rights,” which included US “fallback safeguards rights” if deemed necessary.

Nowhere else does the United States have as much leverage over a foreign nuclear program. Yet whenever Taiwan has requested the United States to take back the spent fuel, Washington has declined…………………………………………….

Removing the spent fuel from Taiwan would eliminate its “clear and present” spent fuel danger, while fulfilling the goal of ensuring a “nuclear-free” Taiwan. This should be a priority.  https://asiatimes.com/2023/09/taiwans-clear-and-present-spent-nuclear-fuel-danger/

September 7, 2023 Posted by | safety, Taiwan, wastes | Leave a comment

The deep roots of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste fight — and why it continues to this day

Sep 05, 2023, By: Paulina Bucka,  https://www.ktnv.com/news/the-deep-roots-of-the-yucca-mountain-nuclear-waste-fight-and-why-it-continues-to-this-day?mibextid=2JQ9oc&fbclid=IwAR2n8wFDd8P4EIq0HqFMPy2ASLEGa_caRDfN8zyxddED3YKpB-bNpPAV8H4

YUCCA MOUNTAIN (KTNV) — For Nevada, it’s the question that doesn’t go away.

The fight to stop Yucca Mountain from becoming a nuclear waste repository has gone on for more than three decades now. Despite an official halt to the project in 2010, that fight continues for Nevada’s Congressional delegation and the Western Shoshone people.

For the Western Shoshone, it’s a cause large than themselves — a calling to preserve their identity for generations to come.

“For the Shoshone people, our identity is the land,” said Ian Zabarte, principal man of the Shoshone Nations. “We developed our language in relation to the land — to be able to talk about it, to be able to share it.”

For decades, those ties have been threatened by the radioactive fallout of nuclear testing.

“You used to be able to drink the water from any of the springs around you,” Zabarte said. “Now, you can’t do that any more because of the pollution.”

One hundred miles northwest of the bright lights of Las Vegas, miles past Mercury, Nevada, sits Yucca Mountain — a 60-million-acre formation made up of mostly fractured volcanic tuffs.

It’s almost home to the Western Shoshone Nation people — a home Zabarte says he hopes to see restored to its most natural form within his lifetime.

Some of the big pollution is radioactive fallout from the nuclear weapons testing,” Zabarte said. “We cannot just pick up and leave in the event of the radiation, the fallout — we lose our identity.”

Zabarte has spent his life on the front lines of the fight to keep nuclear waste out of his ancestral home.

“We would walk all the way across the valley to the main gate at the Nevada Test Site doors and have our protests there,” Zabarte said. “I received a letter in 2001 that said I’m at risk of developing silicosis because of the number of hours I spent underground at Yucca Mountain.”

While the U.S. no longer performs nuclear testing, nuclear advances continue, and questions about what happens to the nation’s nuclear waste remain.

“After testing, Nevada was angry enough about what had happened because of nuclear weapons testing that it said, ‘Never again. We’re not going to be the high-level waste dump for this country,'” said Kevin Kamps, a radioactive waste specialist.

Kamps has walked alongside the Shoshone Nation people for decades in protest of nuclear testing and the proposed repository that would have sat roughly 1,000 feet under Yucca Mountain.

“What happened in our state was Nevada never had consent, and in 1982, when the bill was passed that designated Nevada as the nation’s nuclear storage waste disposal area, that didn’t come with any of our consent,” said Rep. Susie Lee, a Democrat representing Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District.

The late U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid spent his career leading the battle against the project, which began in the 1980s, during President Ronald Reagan’s administration.

President Barack Obama called the Yucca Mountain project “unworkable” in 2010 and made good on his campaign promise to Nevadans to end it and cut funding for the project.

“This was a political cartoon that ran in the Las Vegas Review-Journal back in 2010, and it really celebrated the end of the Yucca Mountain Project, this attempt by the U.S. government to attempt to dump all the country’s high radioactive waste here in Nevada,” Kamps said.

Ten years later, President Donald Trump — a supporter of nuclear energy — initially called for the licensing process of Yucca Mountain to restart. But in 2020, Trump announced that he would reverse his policy and halted his support of the project.

Today, the question still remains: Where should the nation’s nuclear waste be stored? It’s a near-constant fight for members of Nevada’s congressional delegation to this day.

“The fact of the matter is, there are 27 states that have nuclear waste, spent fuel from nuclear reactors, and those states want a solution,” Lee said.

Lee says the bipartisan position from Nevada lawmakers is clear: Nevadans don’t want to see any funding go back into the Yucca Mountain project.

“There will need to be a long-term solution for this,” she said. “I’m working with my counterparts to try and come up with a solution, how we can reprocess that waste, but most importantly, how and where it can be put where there is consent.”

For the Shoshone Nation lineage, the Yucca Mountain fight goes beyond politics. Its members say it’s a race to preserve what’s left of the mountain to leave behind for future generations.

“They say that we are as naive as Native Americans because of our holistic conservation of the land for future generations,” Zabarte said. “They don’t see that as value, that the land is somehow being wasted.

“We’re trying to protect this land so our future generations can live a good quality of life,” he said.

September 7, 2023 Posted by | indigenous issues, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Nuclear Waste Dump Threatens Kichi Sìbì (Ottawa River)

Indigenous Climate Action, August 23

Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) is pushing forward construction of a Near Surface Disposal Facility (NSDF), otherwise known as a nuclear waste dump, less than 1 kilometre away from the Kichi Sìbì (the Ottawa River) without the Free, Prior, and Informed Consent of the Algonquin Nations whose territory they are on.

On June 20, impacted nations spoke out against the project during a news conference where they also made public an Indigenous-led Assessment of the Canadian Nuclear Laboratories Near Surface Disposal Facility And Legacy Contamination Of Algonquin Aki Sibi.

The chiefs made it clear that this project is a direct threat to the rights of Indigenous peoples and the project would pose serious threats to culture, land, water and wildlife. It is important to understand that this is not just a risk to Indigenous communities; it is a risk to everyone who lives along the Ottawa River, including residents in Ottawa who rely on the river for their water and livelihood.

Nuclearization of Indigenous Land

Beginning nearly eighty years ago with the establishment of the Chalk River Laboratories along the Kichi Sìbì, sitting on unceded Algonquin territory, Indigenous nations have been facing the expansion of so-called Canada’s nuclear industry. The Chalk River Laboratories sits across the river from a noted community spiritual site, Oiseau Rock, near the lumbering town of Chalk River.

The Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) is a branch of the federal crown corporation, the Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL). Chalk River Laboratories are owned by CNL, and operated by the Canadian National Energy Alliance, a private-sector holding company—that is not under direct control of the government—overseen by SNC-Lavalin.

“This nuclear site is already leeching radioactive pollution into the Ottawa River in the form of Tritium, which is radioactive hydrogen, and it’s only going to get progressively worse. And there’s no treatment for Tritium. So CNL and CNSC (Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission) will tell you that they are going to build a treatment plant, but you know in our world we know that you never build your treatment plant above where you collect your drinking water—and this is precisely what CNSC is going to do.” — Chief Lance Haymond (Kebaowek First Nation)

While CNSC claims that it had signed an agreement and received consent from the Algonquins of Pikwàkanagàn, in truth, they consulted only one voice of the Algonquin nation, the remaining ten communities oppose the project and have not given their consent.

“The Canadian government has failed its duty to consult with us. We also point out that approving this dump would violate UNDRIP… we do not consent with the construction of the NSDF in our territory. We believe that consultation has been inadequate, and our Indigenous rights are threatened by this proposal.”

— Chief Dylan Whiteduck (Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation)…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. more https://www.indigenousclimateaction.com/entries/nuclear-dump-threatens-kichi-sibi

September 7, 2023 Posted by | Canada, wastes | Leave a comment

Germany facing up to its nuclear waste problem

German nuclear phaseout leaves radioactive waste problem

Klaus Deuse, August 30, 2023  https://www.dw.com/en/german-nuclear-phaseout-leaves-radioactive-waste-problem/a-66661614?maca=en-Facebook-sharing&mibextid=2JQ9oc&fbclid=IwAR1xPxzvz3kfLoNV1JbUx70rWCRa5tiML4tl2jffIm0ILDquq2-av2j7bxw

While Germany searches for a permanent storage facility for its nuclear waste, it risks sitting on piles of dangerous waste for decades. The problem drains public finances by hundreds of millions of euros every year.

Germany ended the era of nuclear energy in Europe’s biggest economy when it decommissioned the last three remaining nuclear power plants on April 15 this year. Decades of nuclear power generation, however, have left a legacy that is unlikely to go away as smoothly as the phaseout: nuclear waste.

Since a permanent German storage facility is out of sight in the near future, the spent fuel rods, packed into specialized containers called Casks for Storage and Transport of Nuclear Material (CASTOR), will likely remain in interim storage for decades.

About 1,200 CASTOR containers are currently stored at 17 interim sites in Germany. A state-owned company, the Bundeseigene Gesellschaft für Zwischenlagerung mbH (BGZ), is tasked with operating the sites.

BGZ spokesperson Janine Tokarski told DW that the company finally expects “about 1,800 containers from across Germany to be designated for final disposal.”

Another state company, the Federal Company for Radioactive Waste Disposal (BGE), is exploring sites in Germany for the final disposal of the dangerous waste. According to Tokarski of BGZ, experts plan to find a site and, more importantly, reach a political consensus on it “in the 2040s at the earliest.”

From then on, another 20 to 30 years are likely to be spent on planning and construction, said Tokarski. She anticipates the beginning of final storage “in the 2060s at the earliest.” The shipping of all the waste from the various interim sites will probably take another 30 years, she added.

The century-long operation is expected to cost hundreds of billions of euros. Last year alone, BGZ spent €271 million ($292 million) just to ensure Germany’s nuclear waste is safely stored — €191 million of the sum on operating the interim sites and €80 million on investments in them.

A nuclear fortress

In 1992, the first CASTOR containers with highly radioactive fuel rods were stored in the interim storage site of Ahaus in northwestern Germany.

The 200-meter-long (218-yard-long) central storage building towers 20 meters high above the flat landscape of the Münsterland region and is protected by a wire fence surrounding the sprawling 5,700-square-meter (61,354-square-feet) site.

Bisected by a reception and maintenance area, the building currently holds more than 300 yellow casks containing burned fuel rods. Additionally, six CASTOR containers, each 6 meters long and weighing 120 tons, are stored in one of the two halls, keeping the waste leak-tight for a calculated 40 years.

Leak tightness is achieved through a pressure switch installed in the double-wall sealing system of these containers, said David Knollmann from BGZ in Ahaus.

“A gas is inserted between the two walls, specifically helium gas, at a certain pressure. This switch ensures the pressure doesn’t fall below a certain level,” he told DW.

David Knollmann proudly added that in 30 years, there hasn’t been a single case of a container requiring repairs.

The nuclear safety at the Ahaus interim storage site is not only overseen by German nuclear authorities but also by Euratom, an independent nuclear energy organization run by European Union member states, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Their auditors inspect the site regularly but without advance notice.

Pressure of time

In addition to the two central interim storage facilities in Ahaus and Gorleben, Germany operates other decentralized temporary storage facilities at the sites of all former German nuclear power plants.

Moreover, additional waste, shipped for reprocessing to France and the UK, will eventually return to Germany. Knollmann said this will only happen “when all the necessary regulatory conditions are met.”

Much of the waste, he explained, comes from “dismantled nuclear power plants” and includes contaminated pumps and filters. Those would eventually be stored at the Schacht Konrad site near the town of Salzgitter, a former iron ore mine proposed as a deep geological repository for medium- and low-level radioactive waste.

The Schacht Konrad mine, said Tokarski, is expected to become operational as a nuclear waste storage “around the early 2030s.”

All German interim storage sites are subject to limited operating permits of 40 years. For example, the permit for the Ahaus site will be up for renewal by 2028 at the latest. As all experts agree that a final central repository for Germany’s nuclear waste won’t be fully operational before 2090 at the earliest, the country faces the problem of what to do with the radioactive material until then.

Without political consensus on the issue, Ahaus residents fear that their neighborhood’s storage facility might secretly become “a final repository solution.”

September 4, 2023 Posted by | Germany, Reference, wastes | Leave a comment

Federal appeals court blocks plan to ship nuclear waste to West Texas.

Marfa Public Radio | By Travis Bubenik,  August 30, 2023  https://www.kut.org/energy-environment/2023-08-30/federal-appeals-court-blocks-plan-to-ship-nuclear-waste-to-west-texas

A federal appeals court last Friday blocked a company’s long simmering plan to ship highly radioactive nuclear waste to West Texas, a ruling that further complicates the country’s search for a long-term home for its growing stockpile of waste from nuclear power plants.

The company, Interim Storage Partners, has for years pursued the idea of using an existing site in Andrews County, on the Texas border with New Mexico, as a long-term home for much of the nation’s “high-level” nuclear waste.

In 2021, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted the company a license for the plan, despite a move by state lawmakers that same year to ban the proposal. The State of Texas responded with a lawsuit arguing that the NRC didn’t have authority to issue the license.

On Friday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the state, ruling that federal law does not give the commission the power to issue such licenses.

“The Atomic Energy Act doesn’t authorize the Commission to license a private, away-from-reactor storage facility for spent nuclear fuel,” U.S. Circuit Judge James Ho wrote for the majority. “And issuing such a license contradicts Congressional policy expressed in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.”

“This is an important ruling for Texas against a federal agency attempting to overstep its authority,” said Paige Willey, a spokesperson for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

September 1, 2023 Posted by | Legal, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Brink of catastrophe: Japan as Pacific polluter

True, the IAEA (the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency) has provided helpful cover for the Government of Japan (and the TEPCO power company) by taking the view that the environmental impact of discharge of polluted (but “processed” to remove most of the major radio-active materials) cooling water would be “negligible.” That, however, is neither surprising nor decisive.

The IAEA, founded in 1957, is an organisation devoted to the propagation of “safe” civil nuclear energy; the state of Japan is its third largest source of its funds; and the future of the global nuclear industry depends on there being seen to be a “final solution” to the problems posed by Fukushima.

 https://johnmenadue.com/brink-of-catastrophe-japan-as-pacific-polluter/ By Gavan McCormack, Aug 30, 2023

In 2011, Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, roughly 250 kilometres north of Tokyo, was hit by a magnitude 9.0 quake and tsunami. Three reactors stopped immediately but the loss of electricity supply led in the days and months that followed to breakdown of the cooling system and to a series of hydrogen explosions and meltdowns of the cores of Reactors 1 to 3.

Prime Minster Kan Naoto feared for the worst. He faced the possible need to evacuate the whole Kanto region, including the Tokyo metropolitan area. Japan itself, its state and society, stood on the brink of catastrophe. That fate was only narrowly averted.

To this day the flow of water to cool the debris polluted with various forms of radioactivity has had to be maintained. Over the past twelve years some 1.34 million tons of water has accumulated and is being held in a vast array of over 1000 tanks along the coast of Fukushima prefecture. Those tanks are about 98 per cent full, but the flow of contaminated water will have to be continued for at least the next three decades, or till such time as the site can be cleaned up. Nobody today can say with any confidence when that might be.

The polluted waters contain 64 radioactive elements, or radionuclides, of greatest concern being carbon-14, iodine-131, caesium-137, strontium-90, cobalt-60 and hydrogen-3, also known as tritium. Some have short life and might already have ended, but others take longer to decay, with a half-life of more than 5,000 years in the case of carbon-14 (Nature, 29 June 2023). Tritium, which focuses most attention, has a half-life of 12.3 years. Its concentrations may be low, but one hundred years will have to pass before its threat to humans and the ocean becomes truly negligible

The government has yet to find additional sites for expansion, and each day it has to put about 90 tons of newly polluted water somewhere. And, while the people of Japan remain steadfast in opposing any return to the pre-2011 vision of a nuclear-powered, energy self-reliant, superpower Japan future, government and bureaucracy are increasingly open about their determination to pursue just such a goal.

In 2016, the Japanese government considered multiple methods of treating the water. Ruling out simple continuation of the status quo – more and more tanks along an already crowded sea-front – there seemed to be three options: ocean discharge, atmospheric discharge, and underground burial. The cost differential was estimated at 34.9 billion yen to release the problem materials as gas into the atmosphere, 24.3 billion to dig a deep hole and bury it, but just 3.4 billion to pour it out gradually into the sea.

The logic of such math was inescapable. The chosen option was the one that was cheaper by a factor of 7 or more. Time, and the recuperative, regenerative powers of the sea, would come to humanity’s rescue. The materials would be released into the ocean (channelled by giant pipes to a point about one kilometre offshore). That process began on 24 August 2023.

Anxiety, alarm, and increasingly anger, spread, both within Japan (and especially in the Fukushima vicinity that bore the brunt of the initial 2011 disaster) and on the part of Japan’s Pacific neighbour states – China (including Hong Kong), Korea (north and south), Russia, Philippines,  and the mini-states of the South Pacific (its 18 countries and regions). In Japan just 44 per cent of people said they had “no worries” over the release, but about 75 per cent said the government had not properly explained what it was doing.

The Japanese government, having promised it would take no step without duly consulting all concerned parties, proceeded to ignore that principle both in regard to its own citizenry (especially those employed in its once vibrant fishing industry) and its Pacific neighbours, whose shores are washed by the same Pacific waters.

True, the IAEA (the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency) has provided helpful cover for the Government of Japan (and the TEPCO power company) by taking the view that the environmental impact of discharge of polluted (but “processed” to remove most of the major radio-active materials) cooling water would be “negligible.” That, however, is neither surprising nor decisive. The IAEA, founded in 1957, is an organisation devoted to the propagation of “safe” civil nuclear energy; the state of Japan is its third largest source of its funds; and the future of the global nuclear industry depends on there being seen to be a “final solution” to the problems posed by Fukushima.

Though given little attention in media coverage of the problem, a small but significant body of scientific opinion has begun to express severe criticism of IAEA for its failure to apply its own fundamental principles, being in some important respects “at least 10,000 times in error,” neglecting to give proper consideration to the non-dumping solutions, “grossly over-stating” well known facts in its “eagerness to assure the public that harm will be ‘negligible’.” (Arjun Makhijani, “TEPCO’s ALPS-treated Radioactive Water Dumping Plan Violates Essential Provisions of IAEA’s General Safety Guide No. 8 and Corresponding Requirements in Other IAEA Documents, Institute for Energy and Environmental Research [IEER], 28 June 2023.

In this view, the IAEA should, starting with Japan, provide assistance to nuclear-possessing countries to stop dumping so that the oceans that have been much abused in so many ways for so long can at least have a chance to begin recovering.

When then Prime Minster Abe Shinzo told the world in September 2013 that Fukushima was “under control,” he lied. Till 2018, all attempts to locate the missing reactor cores, let alone to place them “under control,” had failed. Only in 2021 did it become possible at least to locate the debris in one reactor. But knowing the location is but the start. Now we know where it is, we are no closer to knowing how to deal with it. The recovery effort for two of the reactors will not commence until 2024. If they succeed in locating the debris, estimated to be about 880 tons, it will then have to be extracted, gram-by-gram. Meanwhile, as of 2023, between 4,000 and 5,000 workers are mobilised each day to perform various (high-risk) tasks in the disaster zone.

To the peoples of the small states of the Pacific, serial victims of waves of nuclear testing, first American, then French, the blow coming from nuclear-victim country Japan was especially bitter. To the shock and harm caused by the initial massive radioactivity release of 2011 has now to be added that of the deliberate, premeditated dumping of nuclear wastes from 2023. The “great powers” in the past had given Island peoples repeated assurances that there would be no risk to health or environment from testing or dumping. Those peoples watch sadly now as nuclear victim country Japan does likewise, engaging in intense propaganda efforts to line up regional states to endorse its wastewater dumping campaign.

Japanese words today rings as hollow to Pacific Island peoples as did once American or French words. Even the Japanese people themselves, when it comes to Fukushima wastewater dumping “have little trust in TEPCO or the Japanese Government.” (Suzuki Tatsujiro, former Vice-Chairman of Japan’s Atomic Energy Commission, quoted in Makhijani, p. 3)

by the current administration and by the process launched on 24 August. The support given Japan’s ocean dumping by prominent Western industrial countries strikes Pacific Islanders as hypocritical (Kalinga Seneviratne, “To the Pacific islands, the West’s support for Japan’s Fukushima nuclear waste ocean dumping is hypocrisy,” South China Morning Post, 20 July 2023,) Motarilavoa Hilda Lini, chief of the Turaga nation of Pentacost Island, Vanuatu, and activist of the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) movement, puts it this way, “We are people of the ocean. We must stand up and protect it.” She went on,

“We need to remind Japan and other nuclear states of our Nuclear Free and independent Pacific movement slogan: if it is safe, dump it in Tokyo, test it in Paris, and store it in Washington, but keep our Pacific nuclear-free.” (Guardian, 26 April 2023).

Brushing aside the pleas of neighbour states, especially those of the long-suffering peoples of the Pacific Islands, Japan has pressed ahead to dump its nuclear wastes into the ocean, ensuring that in due course a third wave of nuclear pollution will wash over Pacific shores.

August 31, 2023 Posted by | oceans, wastes | 2 Comments

More countries take actions to handle Japan’s nuclear-contaminated water dump, while US ‘double-standard exposed hypocrisy’

Global Times, By Yang Sheng Aug 27, 2023

In order to prevent any impact caused by Japan’s dumping of Fukushima nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the Pacific Ocean, more countries, especially those in the Asia-Pacific like China, Thailand and Russia, are taking actions, including strengthened testing of aquatic products imported from Japan, while more people and organizations from South Korea and the Pacific Island countries are voicing their opposition and concern over Tokyo’s decision.

Although the US said it is “satisfied” with Japan’s act, which has caused fury and concern worldwide, the US is in fact the country that has seen the greatest reduction in imports of Japanese seafood and rice wine, media reported, citing data published by Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries………………………………………………………

In some other countries, concern and opposition against Japan’s actions have increased, despite their governments remaining silent or exhibiting tolerance toward Tokyo. 

In the Pacific Island Country of Fiji, the Suva Fish Market Association came out strongly on Thursday and stated that it does not agree with the dumping of the Fukushima nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the Pacific Ocean, and they are also concerned over the Fijian government’s attitude that “the discharged water is safe,” according to Fiji media fijivillage.com.

Samu Maraiwai, president of the association, said the nuclear-contaminated wastewater to be dumped into the Pacific Ocean poses “a risk of massive destruction to our marine ecosystem and our source of livelihood.” Maraiwai said the nuclear-contaminated waste will be toxic to a certain level and it will affect the marine ecosystem including fish, seaweeds, corals and other sources of livelihood.

According to South Korean media Yonhap News, about 50,000 people rallied in Seoul on Saturday to “protest Japan’s release of radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant,” with the participation of some 90 civic groups which have formed a coalition to protest the dumping of nuclear-contaminated water and members of four opposition parties, including the main opposition Democratic Party (DP). ………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. more https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202308/1297053.shtml

August 29, 2023 Posted by | wastes | Leave a comment

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