nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

DOE wanted to quadruple plutonium pit production. For now, activists have stopped them

 https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2023/03/05/new-nuclear-weapons-plan-faces-scrutiny/From SRS Watch, Tri-Valley CAREs, Nuclear Watch New Mexico and the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition 13 Mar 23,

In a win for public participation and environmental protection, the United States District Court of South Carolina denied the Department of Energy’s motion to dismiss a 2021 legal action filed by multiple citizen groups. 

The suit was prompted by the agency’s failure to take the “hard look” required by the National Environmental Policy Act at its plans to more than quadruple the production of plutonium pits for new nuclear weapons and split their production between the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Savannah River Site. 

In her ruling, Judge Mary Geiger Lewis thoroughly rejected the defendants’ arguments that the plaintiffs lacked standing, saying it was “not a close call”.

“We were able to defeat yet another attempt to use standing as a weapon to keep members of the public out of the government’s decision-making process,” said Leslie Lenhardt, Senior Managing Attorney at the South Carolina Environmental Law Project (SCELP). 

To date, the Department of Energy (DOE) has refused to fully examine the environmental and safety impacts of their cross-country plan, which would create massive quantities of dangerous radioactive materials, put hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on the line, risk a new nuclear arms race, and violate the nation’s foundational environmental law. 

The Savannah River Site has never produced plutonium pits, the explosive cores of all U.S.nuclear weapons, and currently stores 11.5 metric tons of plutonium, which poses a daunting management and disposal challenge. Pit production will only increase its plutonium burden, along with more waste that needs to be treated, stored and disposed of.

“The ruling is a significant loss for the DOE in its efforts to dodge its legal obligations under NEPA,” said Tom Clements, Director of SRS Watch. “We will push forward in court to make sure that the DOE conducts the mandated environmental analysis of impacts of plutonium pit production at all involved DOE sites, including sites at which plutonium waste would be disposed.”

Despite outdated analyses failing to account for significant changes in circumstances, the U.S. government has ignored the repeated calls from the public, including the plaintiffs specifically, to conduct the legally required “hard look” at this major shift in policy that will only exacerbate the already documented waste of taxpayers’ money.

“It’s critical that the public understands that no future pit production is to maintain the safety and reliability of the existing nuclear weapons stockpile,” said Jay Coghlan, Executive Director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico. “Instead, it is for speculative new designs that can’t be tested because of the international testing moratorium. Or worse yet, it could prompt the U.S. to resume testing, which would have severe proliferation consequences. This is the kind of needed public discussion that the Department of Energy seeks to shut down while spending enormous sums of  taxpayers’ money on expanding nuclear weapons production.”

SCELP filed the lawsuit on behalf of Savannah River Site Watch, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Tri-Valley CAREs and the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition in June of 2021 after the DOE’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) concluded it was unnecessary to conduct a broad, nationwide review of this two-site strategy. Instead, the agency is relying on a supplemental analysis of an outdated Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) completed more than a decade ago, along with a separate review done for SRS alone.

“We are thrilled that the Court ruled in our favor and that this landmark environmental case can now proceed toward a final decision,” said Marylia Kelley, Executive Director of the Livermore-based Tri-Valley CAREs. “What’s at stake in our litigation is nothing less than the question of whether the federal government will be allowed to run roughshod over affected communities like mine all across the country. 

“We believe the Court will ultimately agree with Plaintiff groups that the National Nuclear Security Administration must produce a nationwide Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement and hold public hearings at all of the locations that will be actively involved in these dangerous plutonium bomb core activities, including Livermore, CA. The analysis of risks must precede implementation of the project in order to forestall serious environmental degradation and potential loss of life, “Kelley concluded.

March 12, 2023 Posted by | - plutonium, USA | Leave a comment

Graphite – deadly dirt or dusty diamonds?

Blackwater Against New Nuclear Group , 8 Mar 23, BANNG’s Coordinator Peter Banks exposes the hidden danger lurking on the Blackwater in the March 2023 column for Regional Life.   https://www.banng.info/news/regional-life/radioactive-graphite/

On the Southern shore of the Blackwater Estuary the shiny, grey/blue reactor buildings of the former Bradwell nuclear power station are now a landmark visible for many miles. The power station ceased operating in 2002 and now, in a state of ‘care and maintenance’, remains a visible monument to the early nuclear age.

Contained within the Bradwell buildings (and within all but one of the UK’s civil nuclear power stations) are blocks of graphite forming the very heart of the reactors, called the ‘core’. Once the reactor goes critical the graphite becomes impregnated (technically ‘irradiated’) with a range of radioactive isotopes such that it will remain dangerously contaminated for decades.

Back in the 1960s when Bradwell was commissioned, little forethought was given to the future when these behemoth plants would be taken out of service and decommissioned. The irradiated graphite was far too dangerous for humans to remove as stations were being demolished. Furthermore, the blocks were highly inaccessible as they were at the core of the sealed reactor vessel.

And the reactor chamber metalwork itself had also been irradiated. Recently the process of dismantling was given the new, self-explanatory name of ‘deferred decommissioning’ by the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency (NDA). Whilst this is totally understandable from a health and safety perspective, it does mean that the promises made when Bradwell closed in 2002 that the site would soon be cleared and returned to unrestricted land use were ridiculous.

And diamonds? If the graphite had also been subjected to great pressure as well as heat it would have converted to, amazingly, diamonds! But never think of the contents as precious diamonds, they are actually nasty radioactive wastes – a deadly dirt indeed.

Regardless, irradiated graphite and diamonds both need to be robustly protected. Therefore, expect to see the shiny reactor buildings of Bradwell for at least another 60 years. And, with nowhere else to go, they could remain on our shores into the unknown future.

March 12, 2023 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

Twelve years after 3/11, dispute grows over Fukushima’s radioactive soil

BY TOMOKO OTAKE, STAFF WRITER, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/03/10/national/dispute-fukushima-radioactive-soil/

OKUMA, FUKUSHIMA PREF. – On the surface, everything seems to be under control at the expansive site storing radioactive soil collected from across Fukushima Prefecture in the aftermath of the 2011 core meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

Since 2015, the Interim Storage Facility, which straddles the towns of Okuma and Futaba and overlooks the crippled plant, has safely processed massive amounts of radioactive soil — enough to fill 11 Tokyo Domes — in an area nearly five times the size of New York’s Central Park. The soil was collected during decontamination procedures in Fukushima’s cities, towns and villages that were polluted by the disaster.

Here, black plastic bags full of contaminated soil are put on conveyor belts and unpacked. The contents are sifted through to remove plastic, leaves, twigs and other nonsoil waste. Then the soil is taken to dump zones, where it’s buried in 15-meter-deep pits with protective sheeting and a drainage pipe at the bottom so that radioactive cesium won’t leak into the ground. Finally, the soil is covered with noncontaminated soil and topped with a lawn. Areas where the work has been completed look like soccer fields.

The level of radiation here is about 0.2 microsieverts per hour (uSv/h), explained Hiroshi Hattori, an official at the Environment Ministry’s local office, during a recent tour of the areas where the polluted soil is buried. The radiation level there is harmless to humans, though higher than an average of 0.04 uSv/h elsewhere in Japan.

“It’s higher not because of the soil, but because of surrounding forests (which have not been decontaminated).”

The problem is that, as smooth and orderly as its operations are, the site is only a temporary home for the radioactive soil. Nobody knows where this massive pile of dirt will eventually end up. All that is certain is that the central government has pledged to — and is legally obliged to — move all of the soil out of Fukushima Prefecture by 2045.

This unresolved soil issue — along with the lingering dispute over the planned ocean release of tritium-laced wastewater from Fukushima No. 1 — is a sour reminder of the enormous toll the nuclear disaster in Fukushima has inflicted on the country and beyond.

Opposition from residents

The soil is a product of years of state-funded measures to bring radiation levels down in communities affected by the disaster. The government drew up a “decontamination road map” soon after the accident, in the hopes of a speedy return of residents to their hometowns.

The desire to avoid moving the massive amount of soil again — and to make it easier to find a final destination for it — has also led the Environment Ministry to try to reduce its volume first by reusing some of the less contaminated mud for public works projects across the nation. That way, only a quarter of the total amount that contains over 8,000 becquerel per kilogram of cesium will be subject to final disposal, the ministry says.

But it’s a tough sell. In December, the ministry held its first round of meetings with residents in areas of greater Tokyo where pilot projects to utilize the soil under the 8,000 Bq/kg threshold are planned: the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden in Tokyo, the National Environmental Research and Training Institute in Tokorozawa, Saitama Prefecture, and the National Institute for Environmental studies in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture.

Nearby residents vehemently opposed the plan. Last month, they formally demanded that the ministry cancel the pilot projects, under which the ministry plans to bury radioactive soil underneath a 50 cm layer of cover soil, for flower beds and parking lots.

Roads, tidal walls and dams

Though little known until recently, the ministry released a policy document in 2016 that outlined the “safe use” of radioactive soil with radiation levels of 8,000 Bq/kg or less. According to the document, the government will divert such soil to embankments in public works projects “whose management entities and responsibilities are clearly defined.”

Roads, tidal walls, seaside protection forest and earthfill dams are some of the projects where use of the soil is envisioned, the document says.

The plan has raised the eyebrows of not just residents but also experts.

“Japan is very seismic and we have (harsh) weather and typhoons,” said Azby Brown, architect and lead researcher for Safecast, a citizen science group that has independently measured and publicized radiation levels in Fukushima and elsewhere.

“The half-life of cesium-137 is 30 years. It’s going to stay radioactive for a long time. What happens when these embankments get old?… It is not a very rational or sound decision, from the sense of certainly the perception of safety.”

Kenichi Oshima, professor of energy policy at Ryukoku University in Kyoto, questions the rationale of treating the soil of 8,000 Bq/kg or less as safe, pointing to a “double standard” between the ministry’s policy and the rigorous control of waste required for other nuclear power plants under the Nuclear Reactor Regulation Law. That law states only waste with radiation levels under 100 Bq/kg is considered safe enough to be reused.

All of the radioactive waste produced by the Fukushima disaster is covered by a separate “special law” that went into force in 2012. This says that Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings (Tepco), the operator of Fukushima No. 1, is responsible for the handling of the radioactive waste and soil within its property, while the Environment Ministry is responsible for the disposal of the 3/11-borne radioactive waste outside the plant, though the law itself does not mention the reuse of soil that has been decontaminated.

The ministry has explained that the 8,000 Bq/kg threshold keeps it consistent with the level of “designated waste materials” stipulated in that special legislation. When people are exposed to waste below 8,000 Bq/kg, the additional radiation exposure is limited to less than 1 millisievert per year, not a level that causes health concerns, according to the ministry.

“Granted, soil with 8,000 Bq/kg of radioactive materials is not one that immediately kills people who touch it,” Oshima said. “But it is low-level radioactive waste nonetheless, and so should be managed properly as such, just like low-level radioactive waste from other nuclear power plants is. It’s just inconceivable that it would be utilized as materials for infrastructure that people will be using often.”

Public support elusive

On Feb. 24, Environment Minister Akihiro Nishimura reiterated the ministry’s stance, telling a news conference that utilization of soil outside the prefecture is “important to realize its final disposal outside the prefecture (of Fukushima).”

“We would like to continue explaining our stance in detail so as to nurture public understanding,” he said.

But to nurture this understanding about an issue as serious as radioactive waste, everyone who has a stake should be involved in the decision-making process, Brown says.

“The strong consensus internationally regarding where to put things like radioactive waste requires full agreement and participation by all of the stakeholders, all of the citizens, everyone who’s involved,” Brown said. “What we usually see often in Japan in general, and certainly regarding the Fukushima issues, is that a decision is made at the top. It’s decided, it’s announced and then they try to persuade people to go along with it. This is the case with the water release issue (as well as) the soil issue.”

Around this spring or summer, the government and Tepco hope to begin discharging water that has all the radioactive nuclides except tritium removed. Construction work is already under way at the seaside plant to install an undersea tunnel, through which the water will be released 1 kilometer offshore.

The so-called JESCO law, which went into effect in 2014, gives legal grounds for the creation of the government-funded entity that runs the interim storage site, as well as the obligation for the central government to move the soil out of Fukushima by 2045. The obligation was written into law following a political compromise with the Fukushima Prefectural Government, with officials from the national government saying they “considered the excessive burden” being shouldered by the people of Fukushima.

Both Oshima and Brown, however, say they find the government’s plan to recycle the dirt out of line.

In fact, Oshima says the best solution would be to set aside an area and make it a controlled zone for all the polluted soil for 50 years until the radioactive cesium decays, which is how waste from other nuclear plants is handled, and is what the final disposal site is going to look like.

He cites a 2017 report by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency that estimated the size of the area needed for final disposal, which should be ready by 2045. If the volume of the soil is estimated at 20 million cubic meters, a subsurface ground facility for its final disposal will need to measure about 1.3 km by 1.3 km, the report concluded.

“It may sound like a huge space, but both the national government and Tepco have vacant land plots of that size,” Oshima said. Once the soil’s use as construction materials is greenlighted, however, it would be transported nationwide, and it would be impossible to track and measure its radiation doses, he argued.

“If the soil is properly stored in a controlled area, it would make the public feel so much more at ease.”

March 10, 2023 Posted by | Fukushima continuing, Reference, wastes | Leave a comment

Pacific island leaders urge Japan to stop dumping nuclear waste into ocean: report

 https://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202303/08/WS64082341a31057c47ebb314e.html SYDNEY – Leaders from multiple Pacific island countries are calling upon the Japanese government to immediately stop its plans for dumping nuclear waste into the Pacific Ocean, a news agency of the International Press Syndicate Group has reported.

Papua New Guinea’s Minister for Fisheries and Marine Resources Jelta Wong said that there is little doubt that the nuclear wastewater will find its way into ecosystems and food chains to contaminate people and harm Pacific fisheries industries, according to a report published by InDepthNews on Monday.

Fiji’s Acting Prime Minister Manoa Kamikamica said that Fiji has been on a very high alert after Japan said it planned to discharge the Fukushima nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the Pacific Ocean.

If the water treated by the Advanced Liquid Processing System is so safe, “why not reuse it in Japan for alternative purposes, in manufacturing and agriculture for instance?” he asked.

March 9, 2023 Posted by | politics international, wastes | Leave a comment

Nuclear Waste Is Piling Up. Does the U.S. Have a Plan?

The present U.S. policy of indefinite storage at a centralized site is not a viable solution, as it shifts the cost and risk to future generations.

We need a permanent national nuclear waste disposal site now, before the spent nuclear fuel stored in 35 states becomes unsafe

Scientific American By Allison Macfarlane, Rodney C. Ewing  March 6, 2023

As small modular nuclear reactors come closer to reality in the U.S., managing and disposing of their highly radioactive waste should be a national priority. Forty years after the passage of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, there is, “no clear path forward for the siting, licensing, and construction of a geologic repository” for nuclear waste, according to a recent U.S. National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine report.

The good news is that there is already a clear strategy for managing and disposing of this highly radioactive material. The bad news is that the U.S. government has yet to seriously follow that plan.

The National Academies report tells us that new or advanced reactor designs—the hoped-for saviors of the nuclear industry—will not save us from the need to build geologic repositories, deep-mined facilities for permanent nuclear waste disposal. In some cases, these new reactors may make it worse by creating more waste that’s more costly to manage, new kinds of complex waste, or just more waste, period. Before we face that onrush, we first need to deal with the large volume of waste we’ve already produced.

The U.S., which led the way on managing nuclear waste in the 1980s and 1990s, has now fallen to the back of the pack. About 88,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel from commercial reactors remain stranded at reactor sites, and this number is increasing by some 2,000 metric tons each year. These 77 sites are in 35 states and threaten to become de facto permanent disposal facilities. Without a geologic repository, there is no way forward for the final disposal of this highly radioactive material. Storing it in pools and dry casks at reactor sites is a temporary solution; it is safe for decades, but not the millennia needed to isolate this radioactive material from the environment. The present U.S. policy of indefinite storage at a centralized site is not a viable solution, as it shifts the cost and risk to future generations.

Beginning now, the nation needs to follow a pathway already set out for a national nuclear waste repository. Both a 2012 presidential Blue Ribbon Commission and an international expert panel organized by Stanford and George Washington Universities in 2018 recommended a new, independent, waste management and disposal organization with funding outside of the annual Congressional appropriations and restrictive budgetary rules. The Blue Ribbon Commission called for creation of a new federal corporation, like the Tennessee Valley Authority, for this organization, while the Stanford/GWU panel looked to replicate not-for-profit, utility-owned, but independent, organizations modeled on successful programs in other countries, such as Sweden and Finland.

Charges to nuclear-power-produced electricity fund these organizations, and they remain regulated by independent nuclear regulators. Both panels agreed on the need for an independent organization and finances………………………………………………………………

Assured finances are also key. In the U.S., Congress hasn’t appropriated funds for its Yucca Mountain nuclear waste program since 2010. In fact, Congress has so badly mangled the process of collecting and appropriating the ratepayers fund, now over $40 billion, that it has rendered these funds essentially inaccessible. Outrageously, this money, actually collected from electricity ratepayers, not taxpayers, is being used to offset the national debt.

Even if the U.S. starts today, it will take decades to site, design and build a facility for disposal of its nuclear waste stockpile. That process must accelerate now, before the reactors we need for their electricity run out of room for their growing inventories of highly radioactive waste.  https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nuclear-waste-is-piling-up-does-the-u-s-have-a-plan/

March 7, 2023 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

The nuclear war for Lincolnshire – a toxic nuclear waste plan for a bucolic village

There are certain English villages, wrote Bill Bryson, “whose very names
summon forth an image of lazy summer afternoons”. One example was
Theddlethorpe All Saints. Lying on the quiet Lincolnshire coast north of
Skegness, Theddlethorpe’s approximately 500 residents are served by a
thatched pub and two handsome medieval churches, which stand out against
huge skies.

Yet storm-clouds are building on the horizon; soon, this
obscure corner of England could be the backdrop to a dystopian tale.
Theddlethorpe has always had an industrious underbelly. Between 1972 and
2018, it was known for the Theddlethorpe Gas Terminal, where natural gas
gathered from beneath the North Sea was collected, then fed into the
National Grid. At its peak, Theddlethorpe handled around 5% of the UK’s gas
supply, but with the shift away from fossil fuels, the plant became
redundant.

In 2021, just as locals were feeling grateful for the site’s
long-promised return to agricultural use, came news that the terminal might
have an unwelcome afterlife — as the landward end of an undersea nuclear
waste dump. It is one of four sites being considered by the government for
a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF), the others all being on the far side
of the country, near Sellafield, a huge nuclear site in Cumbria.

The idea s that vast storage caverns would be blasted into bedrock up to 1,000
metres under the sea, several miles offshore. “Higher activity”
radioactive waste would then be transported to Theddlethorpe from 23
surface storage locations across the UK, and trundled out along a tunnel,
to be walled up and forgotten. The immediate vicinity of Sellafield is
already unfit for many other purposes; why contaminate hitherto unaffected
areas?

Especially because it would clearly be much cheaper to store waste
close to its sources. NWS admits: “The transport provisions to the
Theddlethorpe GDF Search Area are currently limited” and “significant
works” would be required. The Government proposal suggests these works
would cost between £20 and £53 billion — although as the tale of HS2
shows, the cost of extending transport networks is liable to gross
underestimation. This throws up a question considered taboo in the
discourse around large infrastructure projects: would expansion of either
railways or roads really “benefit” an area whose residents generally
value its rural character?

Unherd 6th March 2023
https://unherd.com/2023/03/the-nuclear-war-for-lincolnshire/

https://unherd.com/2023/03/the-nuclear-war-for-lincolnshire/

March 7, 2023 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

Little progress seen in removing fuel debris at Fukushima plant

By RYO SASAKI/ Staff Writer,  https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14854929, March 6, 2023

Tokyo Electric Power Co. has little to show in removing fuel debris at its Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in the 12 years since the nuclear disaster started.

The company, in fact, has postponed the work.

An estimated 880 tons of fuel debris remain in the No. 1, 2 and 3 nuclear reactors at the plant.

Remote-control operations must be used to remove the fuel debris because radiation levels in the reactor buildings could kill a person within one hour.

TEPCO had initially planned to start removing fuel debris at the No. 2 reactor, where the level of radiation is comparatively low, by the end of 2022.

However, the company announced in August 2022 that it had abandoned this target, citing delays in developing a robotic arm that could be used to remove the debris.

The company set a new target to start the removal work in the second half of fiscal 2023.

The government and TEPCO aim to complete the decommissioning of the stricken plant between 2041 and 2051.

However, the company’s first goal is to test the retrieval of only several grams of fuel debris. It still hasn’t decided how it will conduct larger-scale removal.

TEPCO has also not explained when it will start removing fuel debris at the No. 1 and No. 3 reactors.

A “submergence method” is under consideration to remove fuel debris from the No. 3 nuclear reactor, but it’s still unclear whether it will be implemented.

With the submergence method, workers would cover the building that houses the No. 3 reactor with a metal structure, fill the inside of the structure with water to submerge the reactor, and then remove fuel debris from the upper part of the building.

Another worrying factor about the Fukushima nuclear power plant is that the foundation, or “pedestal,” supporting the No. 1 reactor’s pressure vessel has deteriorated so much that the reinforcing bars are now exposed.

Concerns have been expressed about the earthquake resistance of the pedestal.

March 6, 2023 Posted by | Fukushima continuing, wastes | Leave a comment

‘David and Goliath’ – legal case, as indigenous group fights the Australian government to stop a nuclear waste dump on their traditional land

Stephanie Richards, 6 March 23,  https://indaily.com.au/news/2023/03/06/david-and-goliath-kimba-nuke-waste-fight-heads-to-federal-court/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=InDaily%20Lunchtime%20%206%20March%202023&utm_content=InDaily%20Lunchtime%20%206%20March%202023+CID_654499187b614fa7e1f09bd8ceb7100e&utm_source=EDM&utm_term=READ%20MORE

Barngarla Traditional Owners’ fight to stop a nuclear waste facility being built near Kimba on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula has reached the Federal Court, with the first substantive case hearing in Adelaide today.

They were supporting the Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation, which has applied for judicial review in an attempt to thwart construction of the federal government’s planned radioactive waste storage facility at Napandee near Kimba.

“We’re fighting against injustices that have been happening to the Barngarla people regarding this waste dump in Kimba,” Barngarla Traditional Owner Harry Dare told InDaily outside court.

“We’re actually fighting for a seven sisters and women’s dreaming site and we’re fighting for a vote in our local governance.

“The Australian Government has given back our Native Title, but they haven’t given us a voice in those Native Title areas, so we’re fighting for equality and for all of Australia to be nuclear free.”

The Napandee site was selected by the former Morrison Government, with then Resources Minister Keith Pitt saying the government had secured “majority support” from the local community after more than “six years of consultation”.

But Barngarla Traditional Owners opposed the project and argued they were not included in the consultation.

During today’s hearing,  the Federal Court was told of how the decision to locate the dump at Napandee, near Kimba, played out.

After beginning the process to select the site through its administrative powers, the then Coalition Government changed tack and decided to legislate, partly to avoid delays through legal challenges.

However, when the legislation failed in the Senate, the government restarted the administrative process.

Counsel for the Barngarla told Justice Natalie Charlesworth that raised questions over whether Pitt, who ultimately named the Napandee location and who strongly supported the legislative approach, could properly carry out his administrative role.

“That, of itself, would excite a reasonable apprehension that the minister might be unable or unwilling to approach the matter with an open mind,” he said.

“Because, effectively, the decision had already been made.”

The court was also told that the Barngarla disagreed with the former government’s view that the dump had wide community support in Kimba and would also argue the decision on the dump was unreasonable given the lack of proper consultation with the Indigenous owners.

Given Pitt’s correspondence with the Barngarla people and his other statements, the impression that might arise was that consultation would largely amount to “matters around the edges”.

“In terms of identifying culture and the like in the implementation of the site, which had already been selected and to which the minister was committed,” counsel said.

With the case listed for several days, the federal government is expected to argue that much of the material to be relied on by the applicants is subject to parliamentary privilege.

The Barngarla launched their action in 2021 after being denied the right to participate in a community ballot to gauge local support for the Napandee site because many did not live in the Kimba council area.

The community ballot returned about 61 per cent in favour of the dump.

But when the Barngala conducted their own ballot among their community members, 83 voted no and none voted yes.

They argue they were denied the right to participate in a community ballot to gauge local support for the site, because many did not live in the Kimber council area.

Traditional Owner Linda Dare told protestors ahead of this morning’s hearing that the proposed location for the nuclear waste facility was near an important women’s site for the Barngarla people.

“It just seems to be that every time the government wants to put something it’s always around a women’s site,” she said.

“We need to fight as women around Australia to protect our sites.

“We need to say ‘no’ because it’s going to affect the waterways, not just in South Australia but everywhere.”

InDaily reported in September that the federal government was spending three times more than Barngarla Traditional Owners fighting the project in the Federal Court.

Information released to SA Greens Senator Barbara Pocock showed that between December and July, the government had spent $343,457.44 on legal fees.

That compares to the approximate $124,000 spent by the Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation over the same period.

The Native Title group estimates that the total cost incurred by the federal government would run into the millions.

Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation chairperson Jason Bilney told InDaily the judicial review was a “David and Goliath battle”.

“But, we’re dedicated. It took us 21 years to win our Native Title, come out of Native Title six months later and we’re fighting a nuclear waste dump on our country,” he said.

“What does that tell you about truth telling, the Statement From The Heart or the Voice?

“Our Voice isn’t being heard, truth telling isn’t being told and they’re going to break the First Nations’ heart – Barngarla – and put it (the nuclear waste dump) on our country.”

Bilney said Traditional Owners expected the Federal Court would take months to reach a decision, with hearings scheduled each day this week.

“It could take a year, but we would like it to have it sooner than later,” he said.

It comes after the Barngarla Native Title group last month won a separate Supreme Court bid to overturn former Premier Steven Marshall’s decision to allow a mineral exploration company to drill at Lake Torrens in the state’s outback.

At the time, Bilney said the group was buoyed by the win as they continued their legal fight to stop the Napandee nuclear waste facility from going ahead.

South Australian Labor has long called for Barngarla people to have the right to veto the project, with Premier Peter Malinauskas previously saying that the state government had expressed its views to the federal government.

March 6, 2023 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, indigenous issues, Legal, wastes | Leave a comment

Canada’s Nuclear Waste Management Organization looks to First Nations to back waste storage, AND small nuclear reactors

Ontario sites short-listed for nuclear waste storage, The organization developing a place to store spent nuclear fuel in Canada has settled on two potential sites in Ontario. The move rules out 20 other potential sites across Canada, including three in northern Saskatchewan.

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization recently announced the Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation-Ignace area in northwestern Ontario, and the Saugeen Ojibway Nation-South Bruce area in southern Ontario, are both under consideration.

“These communities are now working through their timelines to determine willingness,” Russell Baker, manager of media relations for the NWMO, said in an e-mail.

Baker said the NWMO hopes to settle on one of the two Ontario sites by the fall of 2024, but only “with informed and willing hosts, where the municipality, First Nation and Métis communities are working together to implement it.”

Disposing of spent nuclear fuel has been an issue for the nuclear industry for decades. A variety of countries, including Canada, are looking at deep geological repositories, where the waste can be safely stored for thousands of years within stable rock formations, like the Precambrian Shield. Finland is already building one.

Back in 2010, the NWMO announced there were 22 potential sites for underground storage across Canada, including sites near Pinehouse, English River First Nation, and Creighton, in northern Saskatchewan.

According to Guy Lonechild, executive director of the First Nations Power Authority (FNPA), coming up with a shortlist of potential sites is another step.

“There were some previous sites looked at in northern Saskatchewan but there’s been a lot of time and energy put into a deep geological repository in the province of Ontario. And those are the two viable options that that we would support for further study,” Lonechild, who is also a former FSIN chief, said.

Lonechild added the FNPA has been looking seriously at the possibility of Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMNR) for Indigenous and northern communities for several years.

……………. However, even though SMR’s are relatively small, the cost could easily be a billion dollars or more. Which is why FNPA would be looking for partnerships to help Indigenous communities get involved.

“So it is going to take a significant amount of capital. And so we’re looking at developing consortium groups to participate on an equity basis.”

………………….. “The only way we’re going to get there is if First Nations that are informed, that give free prior informed consent. And they identify ways that they want to participate in, in clean energy jobs and in the nuclear industry,” he said.

February 28, 2023 Posted by | Canada, indigenous issues, wastes | Leave a comment

Japan postponing its controversial plan for trials to reuse radioactively contaminated soil

 Japan’s government is postponing trials in the Tokyo area to reuse soil
that was decontaminated following the 2011 nuclear accident due to
complaints from residents. They would have been the first of their kind
outside Fukushima Prefecture.

The trials were set to start by the end of
March in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward and Tokorozawa City in neighbouring Saitama
Prefecture. But Environment Ministry officials say residents complained and
raised concerns at briefing sessions in December. They say some people
questioned why their neighbourhood was chosen, and that others complained
about a lack of information. The mayor of Tokorozawa has also been
hesitant, as the majority of a local community group opposes the plan.

 NHK 24th Feb 2023

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20230225_01/

February 27, 2023 Posted by | Japan, wastes | Leave a comment

Spreading the Bomb – Will Ottawa revisit Canada’s support for plutonium reprocessing?

Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility 

February 21, 2023

Today, the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility and researchers from five universities are urging Ottawa to reconsider its financial and political support for reprocessing in Canada – extracting plutonium from used nuclear fuel.

Plutonium is one of the key materials needed to make nuclear weapons—the other alternative is highly enriched uranium. Plutonium is created as a byproduct in nuclear reactors. Once extracted, plutonium can be used either as a nuclear fuel or as a nuclear explosive. The chemical process used to separate plutonium from other radioactive substances produced in nuclear reactors is called reprocessing

In 1974 India used plutonium from a Canadian reactor to explode an atomic bomb in an underground test. The entire world was shocked to realize that access to plutonium and the making of an atomic bomb may be separated only by an act of political will.

Last week, a House of Commons committee released a report recommending that the government “work with international and scientific partners to examine nuclear waste reprocessing and its implications for waste management and [nuclear weapons] proliferation vulnerability.

The recommendation by the House of Commons committee echoes numerous calls by civil society groups and by U.S. and domestic researchers after Canada announced a $50.5 million grant to the Moltex corporation in March 2021 for a New Brunswick project to develop a plutonium reprocessing facility at the Point Lepreau nuclear site on the Bay of Fundy.

Allowing plutonium reprocessing in Canada sends a dangerous signal to other countries that it is OK to for them to extract plutonium for commercial use. Such a practice increases the risk of spreading nuclear weapons capabilities to countries that currently do not possess the means to make nuclear weapons. The risk is that much greater if Canada sells the technology, as is currently envisaged.

“By supporting the implementation of reprocessing technology intended for export, in connection with a plutonium-fuelled nuclear reactor, without regard for the weapons implications, Canada may be once again spreading the bomb abroad,” says Dr. Gordon Edwards, President of the Canadian Coalition on Nuclear Responsibility.

Reprocessing is often justified as a solution to the problem of dealing with nuclear waste, but in reality, it only makes the challenge even harder. Instead of having all the radioactive materials produced in solid spent fuel, these get dispersed into multiple solid, liquid and gaseous waste streams.

­­­

Researchers from the University of British Columbia, Princeton University and three New Brunswick universities are supporting the call for an international review. “We’re heartened that the House of Commons Committee listened to the concerns about plutonium reprocessing raised by numerous experts and concerned citizens,” says Dr. Susan O’Donnell, Adjunct Professor at the University of New Brunswick.

Dr. Edwards cited three letters written to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau by nine prominent nonproliferation experts, including plutonium expert Dr. Frank von Hippel. “The Prime Minister’s failure to respond indicates an appalling lack of good governance on the proliferation of nuclear weapons,” said Dr. Edwards.

To date the government has not responded to the letters or even acknowledged the monumental significance of the nuclear weapons connection with reprocessing. The House of Commons Science and Research Committee cited the letters by Dr. von Hippel and others as rationale for their recommendation to conduct the review.

Commercial reprocessing has never been carried out in Canada but in the past, Canada has been complicit in the production of nuclear weapons. During the Cold War some reprocessing was done at the federal government’s Chalk River Nuclear Laboratory, at a time when Canada sold both uranium and plutonium to the US army for use in nuclear weapons. These operations resulted in a permanent legacy of nuclear waste and radioactive contamination in Canada.

The first reactors were built to produce plutonium for bombs. The first reprocessing plants were built to extract plutonium to be used as a nuclear explosive. Following India’s use of plutonium from a nuclear reactor supplied by Canada in its 1974 weapon test, the United States banned commercial plutonium reprocessing in 1977 to reduce the danger of weapons proliferation.

Canada has had an informal ban on reprocessing since the 1970s. A 2016 Canadian Nuclear Laboratories report stated that reprocessing used CANDU fuel would “increase proliferation risk.” That CNL admission was fully confirmed in a major report (330 pages) released three months ago by a U.S. National Academy of Sciences. The expert panel reached a consensus that the reprocessing technology proposed for New Brunswick by the Moltex corporation “does not provide significant proliferation resistance.”

The need for an independent international review is urgent, as Moltex announced just last week that the company is seeking an additional $250 million in government funding.

The researchers supporting the call for an international review of plutonium reprocessing in relation to the spread of nuclear weapons are:


Dr. Gordon Edwards, President, Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility

Dr. Susan O’Donnell, Adjunct Professor and Principal Investigator of the Rural Action and Voices for the Environment [RAVEN] project, University of New Brunswick

Dr. Janice Harvey, Assistant Professor, Environment & Society Program, St. Thomas University

Dr. Jean-Philippe Sapinski, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, Université de Moncton

Dr. M.V. Ramana, Professor and Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security, School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia

Dr. Frank von Hippel, Senior Research Physicist and Professor of Public and International Affairs Emeritus, Program on Science & Global Security, Princeton University 

February 23, 2023 Posted by | - plutonium, Canada | Leave a comment

Dumping 1M gallons of radioactive water in Hudson is ‘best option,’ per Indian Point nuclear plant owner

Gothamist, Rosemary Misdary, Feb 18, 2023 

The owner of the defunct Indian Point nuclear facility says it’s planning to dump about 1 million gallons of radioactive water into the Hudson River. The move, which the company describes as the “best option” for the waste, could happen as early as August.

A Feb. 2 meeting of the Indian Point Decommissioning Oversight Board heated up when the plant’s owner Holtec International disclosed the plan as part of its lengthy closure process. The contaminated water could just naturally — and safely — decay in storage onsite.

Environmental groups and residents are also concerned this could harm their community, as the Hudson River is already a federally designated toxic Superfund site. Rich Burroni, Holtec’s site vice president for Indian Point, agreed to give the community at least a month’s notice before any radioactive discharge into the Hudson River begins.

But Holtec is well within its legal rights and permits to discharge waste at the same rate as it did when operating, and it does not need federal, state or local approval to dump the contaminated water. This practice is standard for nuclear plants.

Nearly two years have passed since Indian Point shut down its third and final reactor in the village of Buchanan, located on the Hudson’s east bank about 30 miles north of Midtown. Toward the end of its 59-year lifespan, the plant had more than a 2,000 megawatt capacity — providing electricity to more than 2 million homes, or 13% of the state’s power demand.

Holtec received about $2.4 billion in funds, shouldered by ratepayers, to decommission the plant. And it wants to do so in 12 years, which is in accordance with town’s wishes to repurpose the site. But Holtec and the surrounding community are still debating what to do with Indian Point’s radioactive remnants.

“Yes, you can do it [discharge radioactive water]. It’s normal practice. But should you when you have other options that might avoid this additional release of radioactivity to the environment?” said Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit science advocacy organization. “It may only cause a low risk to the environment as far as we know, but there are other options here, and why not try to minimize the harm?”……………………………………………

Options are limited when it comes to disposing of radioactive waste, and only three methods are typically used for tainted water. ……………………………………………………..

Lyman said a fourth option would be leaving the radioactive water onsite to decay over time into non-harmful helium. “Keep storing indefinitely and eventually the problem will solve itself,” he said.

For tritium, this process would take just over 24 years. Lyman considers this the best option because it minimizes the effects on the environment. It’s also viable because other radioactive material — spent fuel generated from operating the plant — remains onsite and will take hundreds of thousands of years to decay. This material includes plutonium and uranium.

Lyman said this waste has no place to go and will be there for a long time, so there’s no rush to deal with the radioactive water while spent fuel continues to sit on the property. Most radioactive waste is stored where it is generated. And federal regulations allow 60 years for decommissioning. That spent fuel could remain at the site even after the decommissioning is completed, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

“In the long term, it’s going to degrade, and the only way to protect the environment from that degradation is to bury it in a deep geological repository,” Lyman said…………………………………..

The next meeting for the Indian Point Decommissioning Oversight Board will take place on April 27 at 6 p.m. at Cortlandt Town Hall. Participants have the option to attend virtually.  https://gothamist.com/news/dumping-radioactive-water-hudson-river-best-option-indian-point-nuclear-plant-owner-holtec

February 18, 2023 Posted by | environment, USA, wastes | 1 Comment

The World’s Dumping Ground for Nuclear Waste Doesn’t Want Fukushima’s Wastewater

Japan’s plan to discharge more than 1,000 tanks of nuclear wastewater into the Pacific has incensed island nations.

VICE, By Hanako Montgomery 17 Feb 23,

TOKYO — In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, a group of tropical islands has never seen winter. But one morning 70 years ago, a loud bang followed by a flash of light made it “snow” for the first time.

Fluttery and white, the powdery material sank into the Marshall Islands’ deep blue lagoons. It lightly covered the palm trees that lined Rongelap Atoll, astounding those who came out of their thatched homes to watch it settle on roofs. Children played with it, scooping the dust into their mouths. 

But within hours, the atoll’s residents mysteriously began falling ill. Hair fell out in clumps. Skin burned. People vomited. They were evacuated two days later, but the damage was already done. Years later, the Rongelapese would suffer heightened cases of cancer, miscarriages, and birth deformities. 

This was the fallout of Castle Bravo, the U.S.’ largest-ever thermonuclear bomb test that sprinkled radioactive debris on that warm March day. Now, residents of the island nations that include Fiji, the Marshall Islands, and French Polynesia invoke the nuclear accident and its subsequent contamination to oppose Japan’s plan to release its nuclear wastewater into the Pacific.

“We have a legacy of being the dumping ground when it comes to the issue of nuclear waste,” James Bhagwan, a Fijian anti-nuclear activist and secretary-general of the Pacific Conference of Churches, told VICE World News. 

“Pacific Islanders have a spiritual bond with both land and ocean. So this again speaks to the issue of poisoning a part of us, our family,” he said. 

The comparison Bhagwan drew between the controlled release of treated wastewater and an atmospheric nuclear test gone wrong may sound like a stretch. But it speaks to how much Pacific Island nations fear Japan’s planned discharge in the coming months of more than 1.3 million metric tons of contaminated water into the world’s largest ocean. 

The nuclear waste sits in over 1,000 water tanks in Japan’s northeastern prefecture of Fukushima, the product of the meltdown of the Daiichi nuclear reactors there in 2011. …………………………………….

In objecting to the release, Motarilavoa Hilda Lini, a Vanuatu stateswoman, has cited the slogan of the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific movement: “If it is safe, dump it in Tokyo, test it in Paris, and store it in Washington, but keep our Pacific nuclear-free.”…………………………………………………………..

Ken Buesseler, a marine radiochemist and one of five experts on the Pacific Islands Forum’s panel of independent scientists, questioned TEPCO’s ability to sufficiently remove radioactive material from the liquid. He cited how, in 2020, the company had to retreat about 70 percent of the stored wastewater because it was found to contain amounts of radioactive substances exceeding standards. 

“That doesn’t give me a lot of confidence,” he told VICE World News. Monitoring the wastewater after it was released into the ocean would be too late, Buesseler added, as once it’s in the ocean, TEPCO can’t get it back. 

He also faulted the company for analyzing only about a quarter of the 1,061 tanks and providing testing results on just seven radioactive substances out of the dozens TEPCO said it would monitor. This, he said, ignored the possibility that there would be variation among the tanks, potentially overlooking harmful levels of more radioactive substances such as cesium-137 and strontium-90………………………………………………

Though the deadline for Japan’s release of the treated wastewater is fast approaching, the country is yet to fully convince Pacific Island nations that its plan won’t be harmful. The tanks fill up day by day, swelling to their 1.3 million ton limit. 

Now, the Pacific Islands are running out of time to defend their oceans, the environmentalist Bhagwan said, warning Japan of the consequences that could lay ahead. 

“The culture of shame will be laid upon the Japanese government and the people of Japan in years to come. Do they want that to be part of their legacy?” he said. https://www.vice.com/en/article/4axjk9/japan-nuclear-disaster-fukushima-wasterwater-pacific-islands

February 18, 2023 Posted by | OCEANIA, wastes | Leave a comment

US takes another step toward gearing up nuclear plutonium pit factory

SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN, Sat, February 11, 2023

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) —

The U.S. agency in charge of producing key components for the nation’s nuclear arsenal has cleared the way for new equipment to be installed at a New Mexico laboratory as part of a multibillion-dollar mission, but nuclear watchdog groups say the project already is behind schedule and budgets have ballooned.

Approval for moving equipment into place at Los Alamos National Laboratory was first outlined in an internal memo issued by the deputy secretary of energy in January. The National Nuclear Security Administration, which is overseen by the U.S. Department of Energy, made a public announcement Thursday.

SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN

Sat, February 11, 2023 at 8:42 AM GMT+11·3 min read

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) —

The U.S. agency in charge of producing key components for the nation’s nuclear arsenal has cleared the way for new equipment to be installed at a New Mexico laboratory as part of a multibillion-dollar mission, but nuclear watchdog groups say the project already is behind schedule and budgets have ballooned.

Approval for moving equipment into place at Los Alamos National Laboratory was first outlined in an internal memo issued by the deputy secretary of energy in January. The National Nuclear Security Administration, which is overseen by the U.S. Department of Energy, made a public announcement Thursday.

The work will include the design, fabrication and installation of gloveboxes and other special equipment needed to make the plutonium cores. The work will be split between Los Alamos in northern New Mexico and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, with the locations facing a congressional mandate to make at least 80 of the cores each year by 2030.

The deadline for meeting that capacity has been pushed back, with the memo being the latest evidence that the minimum equipment necessary will be in place at Los Alamos by August 2030, or four years later than expected…………………………………………..

Greg Mello, director of the watchdog Los Alamos Study Group, said the NNSA has made contradictory statements about the delays and what they mean for the overall plutonium pit project. He pointed to NNSA statements in 2017 and 2018 in which the agency predicted problems if it were producing pits while also replacing gloveboxes and other equipment at the same time.

“There is more they aren’t saying,” Mello said. “We believe NNSA and LANL will struggle mightily, with further setbacks, failures and accidents in a misguided attempt to produce any meaningful number of pits in that cramped, aging facility.”

SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN

Sat, February 11, 2023 at 8:42 AM GMT+11·3 min read

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) —

The U.S. agency in charge of producing key components for the nation’s nuclear arsenal has cleared the way for new equipment to be installed at a New Mexico laboratory as part of a multibillion-dollar mission, but nuclear watchdog groups say the project already is behind schedule and budgets have ballooned.

Approval for moving equipment into place at Los Alamos National Laboratory was first outlined in an internal memo issued by the deputy secretary of energy in January. The National Nuclear Security Administration, which is overseen by the U.S. Department of Energy, made a public announcement Thursday.

The work will include the design, fabrication and installation of gloveboxes and other special equipment needed to make the plutonium cores. The work will be split between Los Alamos in northern New Mexico and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, with the locations facing a congressional mandate to make at least 80 of the cores each year by 2030.

– ADVERTISEMENT –

https://s.yimg.com/rq/darla/4-10-1/html/r-sf-flx.html

The deadline for meeting that capacity has been pushed back, with the memo being the latest evidence that the minimum equipment necessary will be in place at Los Alamos by August 2030, or four years later than expected.

The nuclear agency contends that installation of the equipment isn’t necessary for Los Alamos to produce 30 pits per year, and that the lab will be building war reserve pits using existing equipment as the project proceeds.

Agency spokeswoman Shayela Hassan said in an email to The Associated Press that the NNSA expects an increasing number of pits to be produced each subsequent year until the new equipment is installed. She said that’s when the capability will be in place to produce 30 pits each year “with moderate confidence.”

The long-shuttered Rocky Flats Plant outside Denver was capable of producing more than 1,000 war reserve pits annually before work stopped in 1989 due to environmental and regulatory concerns. In 1996, the DOE provided for limited production capacity at Los Alamos, which produced its first war reserve pit in 2007. The lab stopped operations in 2012 after producing what was needed at the time.

Greg Mello, director of the watchdog Los Alamos Study Group, said the NNSA has made contradictory statements about the delays and what they mean for the overall plutonium pit project. He pointed to NNSA statements in 2017 and 2018 in which the agency predicted problems if it were producing pits while also replacing gloveboxes and other equipment at the same time.

“There is more they aren’t saying,” Mello said. “We believe NNSA and LANL will struggle mightily, with further setbacks, failures and accidents in a misguided attempt to produce any meaningful number of pits in that cramped, aging facility.”

The memo provides formal cost and schedule estimates for getting equipment in place at Los Alamos, but it’s unclear when construction will begin. The cost has been pegged at roughly $1.85 billion.

More details about spending and schedules are expected when the NNSA submits its budget request to Congress next month.

In January, the Government Accountability Office said in a report that NNSA plans for reestablishing plutonium pit production do not follow best practices and run the risk of delays and cost overruns.

The GAO described the modernization effort as the agency’s largest investment in weapons production infrastructure to date, noting that plutonium is a dangerous material and making the weapon cores is difficult and time consuming.  https://news.yahoo.com/us-takes-another-step-toward-214207395.html

February 11, 2023 Posted by | - plutonium, USA | 2 Comments

Russia closes down the world’s largest nuclear-powered strategic submarine (they don’t say where the radioactive wastes go)

Russia Loses World’s Largest Nuclear Submarine, NewsWeek, BY BRENDAN COLE ON 2/6/23

The Russian Navy has confirmed it has decommissioned its nuclear-powered strategic submarine Dmitry Donskoy, which formed part of Moscow’s formidable Cold War weapon system.

There had been speculation for months about the fate of the submarine, which had been launched in 1980 and whose NATO reporting name was Typhoon.

In 2021, Russia’s state news agency Tass reported that the vessel would stay in service until 2026.

It was the first of six Akula-class Northern Fleet submarines laid down at the Sevmash shipyard in Severodvinsk on the White Sea which were commissioned in the 1980s.

At 574 feet long, Dmitry Donskoy‘s status as the world’s largest submarine was overtaken by the 608-feet-long Belgorod nuclear submarine, which was commissioned in July 2022. Dmitry Donskoy had a displacement of around 53,000 tons and was modernized and re-equipped in 2002 with the “Bulava” missile.

While it was reported in July 2022 that the vessel had been terminated, no official confirmation was expected until the end of the year. The vessel’s last reported activity was in the sea trials of SSN Krasnoyarsk in September 2022.

On Monday, Vladimir Maltsev, head of the Russian Movement for Navy Support, told TASS that the vessel had been “decommissioned” and would “await utilization at a naval base in Severodvinsk together with two other units of this project.”

The class was the backbone of the Soviet Union’s second-strike nuclear deterrent, with 20 massive R-39 “Rif” SLBMs (submarine-launched ballistic missile) having up to 200 warheads in total. The Drive described it as the “most deadly single weapon system” Russia had designed in the Cold War. Newsweek has contacted the Russian defense ministry for comment.

Russia suffered problems with another of its vessels recently, the 1000-foot flagship Admiral Kuznetsov, which is reportedly unable to move under its own power. Russia’s only aircraft carrier has been out of service and in dry dock for repairs for more than five years and has been beset by technical setbacks……………….. https://www.newsweek.com/donskoy-submarine-russia-nuclear-donskoy-1779194

February 8, 2023 Posted by | decommission reactor, Russia | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »