Kansai to start loading fuel at Ohi 3 ahead of restart
Abe, ex-Prime Minister Kan go head to head in nuclear debate
Desperate to save its failing nuclear business, Toshiba looks to Ukraine
Toshiba seeks deal in Ukraine to revive nuclear power business, Asahi Shimbun, By TOSHIO KAWADA/ Staff Writer, February 8, 2018 Toshiba Corp. is planning another foray into an overseas nuclear-power industry, forced in part by the disastrous consequences of its previous failure abroad, sources said.
The Tokyo-based company has started negotiations with Energoatom, a Ukrainian state-run power company, to supply turbine generators for use in its nuclear power plants. The two companies concluded a memorandum in October 2017.
Toshiba in March 2017 said it was withdrawing from the business of designing and constructing entire nuclear power plants overseas following the collapse of its U.S. nuclear arm, Westinghouse Electric Co.
However, Toshiba judged that it would not suffer such a huge deficit again if it only supplies equipment to nuclear power plants abroad, the sources said.
“There will be little concern that we will suffer a huge loss (from an overseas deal),” a source related to Toshiba said.
Energoatom operates 15 nuclear reactors and is building two others in Ukraine. It plans to replace the generators of old reactors to increase output.
Toshiba wants to win a deal with Energoatom to export the replacement generators and provide maintenance services after they go into operation.
If Toshiba succeeds in the equipment supply business in Ukraine, it will consider looking at other markets abroad, the sources said.
Toshiba is desperate for a steady source of income…….
Toshiba plans to earn steady profits from its nuclear business, believing competition with other companies will not be so fierce, the sources said.
But if this endeavor fails to pan out, Toshiba’s management situation could worsen. http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201802080050.html
Taiwan’s problem in searching for geological location for nuclear waste dump
GDF Watch 5th Feb 2018, Taiwan has published a report today on their geological disposal plans. The
country has decided to prioritise looking for granite-based locations for
the disposal of high-level radioactive waste, but acknowledged that such
locations were limited to only a small part of Taiwan.
The proposal is the conclusion of an 11-year study to evaluate suitable host rock suitable for
storing spent fuel. Energy company Taipower, which is responsible for
managing radioactive waste, said it will give priority to assessing the
building of a national geological repository in granite because Sweden and
Finland have also chosen granite-based sites for their waste repositories.
But it has not ruled out other host rock choices.
http://www.gdfwatch.org.uk/2018/02/05/taiwan-opts-geological-disposal/
American companies’plans to market nuclear technology to India have come to nothing
The Hindu 3rd Feb 2018, Watching the Republic Day parade, where 10 ASEAN leaders were chief guests,
it was easy to miss the fact that the dates of their visit also marked the
anniversary of another big visit three years ago: the visit by then U.S.
President Barack Obama, when he announced a “breakthrough” in the
India-U.S. civil nuclear deal, to finally pave the way for a commercial
contract.
“The deal is done,” Sujatha Singh, who was Foreign Secretary
at the time, said as the government issued papers and held briefings
describing the nature of the agreement between India and the U.S. on
supplier liability and tracking requirements, which would enable American
companies to build nuclear power reactors in India.
Today, nearly a decade since the memoranda of understanding were inked, and three years after the
last wrinkles were ironed out, there is no sign yet of any concrete
contract between an American company and the Indian authorities to build a
reactor.
In 2009, both GE-Hitachi and Toshiba-Westinghouse had begun talks
on techno-commercial agreements for six reactors each in India. These
commercial contracts were to be the start of the ‘payoff’ for the U.S.
that had considerably shifted its stand on non-proliferation to give India
the waivers needed, and they were to herald India’s arrival on the global
nuclear power stage in return.
Instead, GE-Hitachi’s plans were shelved after it rejected the Obama-Modi agreement in January 2015, saying GE would
not accept the compromise formula on supplier liability. (While others have
indicated they would accept the liability offer, none of them has put that
on paper.) Toshiba-Westinghouse then carried the baton to actualise the
India-U.S. civil nuclear deal, but ran into a different storm as both
Toshiba and Westinghouse had major financial troubles last year. After a
near-bankruptcy, Toshiba jettisoned Westinghouse for just $4.6 billion to a
Canadian consortium, a deal that is now expected to be cleared by the end
of 2018.
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/forging-a-new-nuclear-deal/article22637628.ece
The mammoth task of cleaning up Fukushima’s radioactive nuclear reactor wrecks has only just begun
Power Engineering 31st Jan 2018, Worst-Hit Reactor at Fukushima May be Easiest to Clean Up. High atop Fukushima’s most damaged nuclear reactor, the final pieces of a jelly-roll shaped cover are being put in place to seal in highly radioactive dust.
Blown apart by a hydrogen explosion in 2011 after an earthquake and tsunamihit Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, reactor Unit 3 is undergoing painstaking construction ahead of a milestone that is the first step toward dismantling the plant. The operating floor — from where new fuel rods
used to be lowered into the core — has been rebuilt and if all goes as planned, huge cranes will begin removing 566 sets of still-radioactive fuel
rods from a storage pool just below it later this year.
It has taken seven years just to get this far, but now the real work of cleaning up the Tokyo Electric Power Co. plant can begin. “If you compare it with mountain climbing, we’ve only been preparing to climb. Now, we finally get to actually start climbing,” said Daisuke Hirose, an official at the plant’s decommissioning and decontamination unit.
Cleaning up the plant’s three reactors that had at least partial meltdowns after the earthquake and tsunami is a monumental task expected to take three to four decades. Taking out the stored fuel rods is only a preliminary step and just removing the ones in Unit 3 is expected to take a year. Still ahead is the uncharted challenge of removing an estimated 800 tons of melted fuel and debris inside the cracked containment chambers — six times that of the 1979 Three Mile Island accident. http://www.power-eng.com/articles/2018/01/worst-hit-reactor-at-fukushima-may-be-easiest-to-clean-up.html
Artificial intelligence to enhance the thinking skills of nuclear submarine commanding officers,
China’s plan to use artificial intelligence to boost the thinking skills of nuclear submarine commanders
Equipping nuclear submarines with AI would give China an upper hand in undersea battles while pushing applications of the technology to a new level, SCMP, Stephen Chen, 05 February, 2018, China is working to update the rugged old computer systems on nuclear submarines with artificial intelligence to enhance the potential thinking skills of commanding officers, a senior scientist involved with the programme told the South China Morning Post.
A submarine with AI-augmented brainpower not only would give China’s large navy an upper hand in battle under the world’s oceans but would push applications of AI technology to a new level, according to the researcher, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the project’s sensitivity.
“Though a submarine has enormous power of destruction, its brain is actually quite small,” the researcher said.
While a nuclear submarine depends on the skill, experience and efficiency of its crew to operate effectively, the demands of modern warfare could introduce variables that would cause even the smoothest-run operation to come unglued.
For instance, if the 100 to 300 people in the sub’s crew were forced to remain together in their canister in deep, dark water for months, the rising stress level could affect the commanding officers’ decision-making powers, even leading to bad judgment.
An AI decision-support system with “its own thoughts” would reduce the commanding officers’ workload and mental burden, according to the researcher……….
Up till now, the “thinking” function on a nuclear sub, including interpreting and answering signals picked up by sonar, a system for detecting objects under water by emitting sound pulses, has been handled almost exclusively by human naval personnel, not by machines.
Now, through AI technology, a convolutional neural network undergirds so-called machine learning. This structure underpins a decision support system that can acquire knowledge, improve skills and develop new strategy without human intervention.
By mimicking the workings of the human brain, the system can process a large amount of data. On a nuclear submarine, data could come from the Chinese navy’s rapidly increasing observation networks, the submarine’s own sensors or daily interactions with the crew…….. http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2131127/chinas-plan-use-artificial-intelligence-boost-thinking-skills
China wants USA to drop its “Cold War mentality
The US military believes its nuclear weapons are seen as too big to be used and wants to develop low-yield bombs.
Russia has already condemned the plan.
Iran’s foreign minister claimed it brought the world “closer to annihilation”……….
China said on Sunday it “firmly” opposed the Pentagon’s review of US nuclear policy.
The defence ministry in Beijing said Washington had played up the threat of China’s nuclear threat, adding that its own policy was defensive in nature.
“We hope that the United States will abandon its Cold War mentality, earnestly assume its special disarmament responsibilities, correctly understand China’s strategic intentions and objectively view China’s national defence and military build-up,” its statement said. …..http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42935758
Pre-emptive strike on North Korea – “tempting” “a rational argument” -says Kissinger
A nuclear first strike of North Korea is ‘tempting’, says legendary U.S. diplomat Henry Kissinger as Kim 
Jong-un warns Trump is pushing towards war, Daily Mail, 2 Feb 18
- Kissinger, 94, warned that North Korean denuclearization was vital
- He said that relations with Kim Jong-un’s country have reached a key juncture
- The U.S. must now choose between pre-emptive military action or increasingly tighter sanctions, he said
- His warning came before North Korea warned that the U.S. is pushing the whole world towards a ‘nuclear war’
By Alastair Tancred For Mailonline and Afp 3 February 2018
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has said that the temptation to launch a pre-emptive strike on North Korea ‘is strong and the argument rational’.
He told a meeting of the Senate Armed Services Committee last week that North Korea poses the most immediate threat to global security, arguing that denuclearization of the regime must be a ‘fundamental’ American foreign policy goal.
The veteran diplomat was speaking before North Korea warned that the U.S. is pushing the whole world towards a ‘nuclear war’ in its latest letter submitted to the UN.
Former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger), former secretary of state George Shultz, and former deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage, were testifng before the Senate Armed Services Committee on global security challenges
It said that joint military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea – coupled with American rhetoric in the Korean peninsula region – were bound to derail improving relationships between the two Koreas.
Mr Kissinger said that relations between the U.S, and north Korea had reached ‘a fork in the road’ in which the Trump administration may consider pre-emptive military action or increasingly tighter sanctions against Kim Jong-un’s regime.
‘We will hit that fork in the road, and the temptation to deal with it with a pre-emptive attack is strong, and the argument is rational, but I have seen no public statement by any leading official,’ President Nixon’s secretary of State told members of the Committee.
Kissinger, who at 94 continues to advise on foreign policy matters, joined two other foreign policy heavyweights – former Secretary of State George Shultz, 97, and ex-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, 72 — in testifying to the Committee about global security challenges.
The elder statesmen presented a picture of mounting international threats, including nuclear proliferation, Chinese authoritarianism, and Russia’s interference in US elections and its interventions in Eastern Europe.
‘The most immediate challenge to international security is posed by the evolution of the North Korea nuclear program,’ Kissinger told the Senate Armed Services Committee, describing an ‘unprecedented’ scenario………… http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5344473/Kissinger-Nuclear-strike-North-Korea-tempting.html
History of rare earths processing disaster in Malaysia
A factory processing radioactive materials in Perak gave the people living nearby leukemia.
Bukit Merah’s rare earth metal processing site cleanup had been the largest radiation cleanup so far in the world’s rare earth industry. Dr. Yoshihiko Wada’s report revealed that Mitsubishi Chemical came up with ARE in Bukit Merah after being one of the main companies that caused severe asthma in Nagoya, Japan. Also, 100% of the rare earth products processed in Bukit Merah were exported back to Japan, so it’s not like we gained anything but money from the venture, which puts forth the question of whether it’s worth endangering the lives of local residents for rare earth metals.
30 YEARS AGO, A HUGE RADIOACTIVE INCIDENT HAPPENED IN PERAK. AND THEY’RE STILL CLEANING IT UP https://cilisos.my/30-years-ago-a-huge-radioactive-incident-happened-in-perak-heres-the-story-behind-it/ 21 Jan 2018,
Earlier this year, Lynas Corporation had been popping up in the news again. For those of who have no idea who or what Lynas is, a few years back there had been a hullabaloo when Lynas set up a rare-earth processing plant in Gebeng, Kuantan, called the Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (LAMP). But what’s the big deal with that?
Well, in very simple words, concerns about radioactive waste. Continue reading
Top U.S. nuke envoy says Washington wants talks with N.K. for denuclearization
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/northkorea/2018/02/02/0401000000AEN20180202008700315.html SEOUL, Feb. 2 (Yonhap) — The top U.S. nuclear envoy said Friday that Washington wants to open dialogue with North Korea for its denuclearization.
After meeting with South Korean Vice Unification Minister Chun Hae-sung in Seoul, Joseph Yun also told reporters that he sees the resumed inter-Korean talks and easing tensions after the North’s decision to join the upcoming Winter Olympics as a “good opportunity” for denuclearization efforts.
“We want to open dialogue with North Korea, we want to have a credible dialogue, a dialogue that could lead steps towards denuclearization,” he said. “That is our goal and of course President Moon has also emphasized that goal too.”
China reorganising its nuclear companies in order to export nuclear technology
China goes nuclear with latest state-brokered power deal, Josephine Mason, David Stanway
BEIJING (Reuters) 2 Feb 18, – China National Nuclear Corp (CNNC), China’s No. 2 nuclear power producer, will take over the country’s top nuclear power plant builder to create a company worth almost $100 billion, the latest state-orchestrated marriage in the nation’s vast power sector.
Approval for the tie-up between CNNC and China Nuclear Engineering & Construction (CNEC) was announced by the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) on Wednesday in a one-line statement posted on its website…….
Beijing wants to overhaul its nuclear sector in order to create globally competitive firms and reduce overcapacity across its broader power market. The nuclear industry is struggling with project delays and a slowdown in approvals for new domestic projects.
By creating a unified home-brand series of reactors, and combining firms, China will be better positioned to bid for and finance overseas projects, experts say.
Both companies have built nuclear plants overseas, including in Pakistan, and developing Chinese nuclear technology abroad is a key goal of China’s Belt and Road initiative…… https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-power-nuclear/china-goes-nuclear-with-latest-state-brokered-power-deal-idUSKBN1FK0S4
Britain’s new nuclear build – a profitable “golden era” for China’s State-owned nuclear companies
Xinhuanet 1st Feb 2018, China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN), a major Chinese nuclear
power operator, said Wednesday that nuclear projects in Britain were
proceeding well. He Yu, chairman of the board of CGN, said since the deals
were inked in 2016 with French energy company EDF and the British
government, CGN has invested 1.7 billion British pounds in order to advance
the projects. CGN signed agreements in 2016 for Hinkley Point C (HPC), a
nuclear project in Somerset, and a suite of agreements relating to the
Sizewell C (SZC) in eastern England and Bradwell B projects (BRB) in Essex.
“A total of 15 Chinese suppliers and contractors have passed a preliminary
qualification assessment for the HPC project,” He said. “HPC, which is
Britain’s first new nuclear power station in a generation, is the largest
construction in Europe.”
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-02/01/c_136940068.htm
Reuters 31st Jan 2018, Notable Chinese investments in Britain include the Hinkley C nuclear power
station which is being built by China General Nuclear Power Corp and the
British arm of France’s EDF (EDF.PA), while British firms, such as Rolls
Royce (RR.L), have won large deals from Chinese firms to supply items like
plane engines. Both May and senior Chinese officials have restated their
commitment to the “golden era” in ties but a row over May’s decision
to delay approval for the Chinese-funded Hinkley nuclear plant in late 2016
chilled relations. However, Britain was the first Western country to sign
up to the China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and it sent
Finance Minister Philip Hammond to a Beijing summit last year about
President Xi Jinping’s flagship ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ – a
trillion-dollar infrastructure-led push to build a modern Silk Road.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-britain/chinas-li-says-ties-with-britain-to-stay-unchanged-through-brexit-idUSKBN1FK023
Japan Should Clarify its Plutonium Usage Plans
Like USA’s, Russia’s etc – China’s macho men need more nuclear warheads
China needs more nuclear warheads to deter US threat, military says, Commentary says the existing stockpile is big enough to prevent ‘bullying’ but should be expanded as Washington changes strategy, SCMP, Minnie Chan, 30 January, 2018 China must expand its nuclear stockpile so it can better deter and hit back at an enemy strike as geopolitical uncertainties mount and the US appears bent on a nuclear build-up, according to the Chinese military’s mouthpiece.
In the PLA Daily on Tuesday, a commentary said China had enough nuclear weapons to prevent “bullying” by other nuclear powers but still needed to respond to changes in US strategy.
“To enhance China’s strategic counterbalance in the region and maintain China’s status as a great power, and protect national security, China has to beef up and develop a reliable nuclear deterrence capability,” it said.
It also said China would still stick to the “no first use” doctrine, meaning there were no circumstances in which it would be the first to use nuclear weapons.
The commentary comes as the administration of US President Donald Trump is expected to unveil its new military weapons policy later this week.
A leaked draft of the document says Washington will ramp up new nuclear projects and deploy more “low yield” nuclear bombs, according to the Huffington Post.
Military analysts said China was poised to increase its own arsenal of nuclear warheads but there were no plans to rival the United States.
Beijing-based military analyst Zhou Chenming said China only needed to add about 100 warheads to its stockpile to counter threats from the US and India.
“Nuclear weapons are hugely expensive to maintain and China is very pragmatic. Beijing will not spend too much money on an arms race,” Zhou said.
China has never declared the scale of its nuclear stockpile but the Washington-based Arms Control Association puts the country’s total at 270 warheads, the fourth-biggest of the five main nuclear states. Russia has 7,000, the US 6,800, France 300 and Britain 215, the association estimates. ……http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2131261/china-needs-more-nuclear-warheads-deter-us-threat
1 This Month
23 April – WEBINAR – Why new nuclear reactors are the wrong tools for decarbonization Thursday, April 23 • 1 AM – 2 AM AEST
Pine Ridge Uranium is the real threat, not Tehran- Tell Burgum: Stop the Extraction.
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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