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5.5 tons of radioactive water leaked from Fukushima nuclear plant: media

China Daily, Xinhua 2024-02-07

TOKYO — Approximately 5.5 tons of water containing radioactive materials have leaked from an equipment at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, local media reported Wednesday.

At about 8:53 am local time on Wednesday, workers discovered water leaking from the outlet of a device used to purify nuclear-contaminated water during the inspection of the equipment, Fukushima Central Television reported, citing the plant’s operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO).

TEPCO estimates that the amount of water that leaked was approximately 5.5 tons, which may contain 22 billion becquerels of radioactive materials such as cesium and strontium, the report said.

Most of the leaked water appeared to have seeped into the soil, but monitoring of a nearby drainage channel did not show any significant radiation level changes, it added.

TEPCO has made the area where the water was leaked a no-go area……………………………. more https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202402/07/WS65c35af9a3104efcbdaea423.html

February 9, 2024 Posted by | Fukushima continuing, incidents | Leave a comment

Nuclear secret: India’s space program uses plutonium pellets to power missions

Rt.com 5 Feb 24

New Delhi is experimenting with radioisotopes to charge its robotic missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond.

Indians are ecstatic over their space program’s string of successes in recent months. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has a couple of well-kept tech secrets – one of them nuclear – that will drive future voyages to the cosmos.

In the Hollywood sci-fi movie ‘The Martian’, astronaut Mark Watney, played by Matt Damon, is presumed dead and finds ways to stay alive on the red planet, mainly thanks to a big box of Plutonium known as a Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG). 

In the film, Watney uses it to travel in his rover to the ‘Pathfinder’, a robotic spacecraft which launched decades ago, to use its antenna to communicate with his NASA colleagues and tell them he’s still alive. Additionally, the astronaut dips this box into a container of water to thaw it.

In real life, the RTG generates electricity from the heat of a decaying radioactive substance, in this case, Plutonium-238. This unique material emits steady heat due to its natural radioactive decay. Its continuous radiation of heat, often lasting decades, made it the material of choice for producing electrical power onboard several deep-space missions of the erstwhile USSR and the US.

For short-duration voyages, Soviet missions used other isotopes, such as a Polonium-210 heat source in the Lunokhod lunar rovers, two of which landed on the Moon, in 1970 and 1973. 

NASA has employed Plutonium-238 to produce electricity for a wide variety of spacecraft and hardware, from the science experiments deployed on the Moon by the Apollo astronauts to durable robotic explorers, such as the Curiosity Mars rover and the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft, which are now at the edge of the solar system.

The ISRO first used nuclear fuel to keep the instruments and sensors going amid frigid conditions during a successful lunar mission, Chandrayaan-3. A pellet or two of Plutonium-238 inside a scaled-down version of the RTG known as the radioisotope heating unit (RHU) made its way to space aboard the rocket. It was provided by India’s atomic energy experts.

RHUs are similar to RTGs but smaller. They weigh 40 grams and provide about one watt of heat each. Their ability to do so is derived from the decay of a few grams of Plutonium-238. However, other radioactive isotopes could be used by today’s space explorers……………………………………………………………………………………..

Meanwhile, the Indian space agency has also kept under wraps two critical technologies developed for future missions by a Bengaluru-based space tech startup, Bellatrix Aerospace. 

These unique propulsion systems – engines that utilize electricity instead of conventional chemical propellants onboard satellites – were tested in space aboard POEM-3 (PSLV Orbital Experimental Module-3), which was  launched by PSLV on January 1, 2024. The crew also tried replacing hazardous Hydrazine with a non-toxic and environment-friendly, high-performing proprietary propellant. 

Hydrazine, an inorganic compound that is used as a long-term storable propellant has been used in the past by various space agencies; even for thrusters on board NASA’s space shuttles. However, it poses a host of health hazards; engineers wear space suits  to protect themselves while loading it before the launch of a satellite or a deep-space probe. 

In 2017, the European Union recommended banning its use as a satellite fuel, prompting the European Space Agency (ESA) to research alternatives to Hydrazine. The US administration has proposed a ban on the use of Hydrazine to propel satellites in outer space by 2025……… https://www.rt.com/india/591138-india-space-program-plutonium-pellets/

February 6, 2024 Posted by | - plutonium, India, space travel | Leave a comment

Chinese nuclear fuel engineer Li Guangchang caught in anti-corruption net targeting ‘high-risk’ areas

  • Li, former nuclear fuel director at China National Nuclear Corporation, is suspected of serious violations of discipline and law, CCDI says
  • Communist Party’s top corruption watchdog says he is undergoing disciplinary inspection and supervision, but website post offers no details

Amber Wang in Beijing, 4 Feb, 2024

A leading Chinese nuclear fuel engineer has been placed under investigation, becoming the latest case in Beijing’s sweeping crackdown on corruption in “high-risk” areas such as energy and state-owned enterprises.

Li Guangchang, a member of the science and technology committee of China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), is suspected of committing serious violations of discipline and law, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) said in a statement on its website…………… https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3250877/chinese-nuclear-fuel-engineer-li-guangchang-latest-corruption-net-clean-drive-high-risk-areas?campaign=3250877&module=perpetual_scroll_0&pgtype=article

February 5, 2024 Posted by | China, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Japan’s Nuclear Follies

Nuclear energy may make sense in places where reactors can be operated safely, but Japan is a seismically active archipelago.

By Jeff Kingston, February 03, 2024,  https://thediplomat.com/2024/02/japans-nuclear-follies/

A nuclear energy love fest surfaced at COP28 in the United Arab Emirates, where nuclear power was touted as the only option to save the planet from climate change. Yet, the 7.6 magnitude Noto earthquake on January 1 provided a stark reminder that operating nuclear power plants is risky business, especially in Japan. The powerful quake shook the idled Shika nuclear plant on the Noto Peninsula beyond design specifications. Fortunately, there was no major damage reported, but two of the back-up generators failed and there was temporary loss of power in one of the cooling pools.

Japan has been celebrating its recent moon landing, but it took a month to restore electricity on the quake-stricken Noto Peninsula and thousands will not have water until mid-March. Meanwhile, at the end of January some 14,000 residents remain displaced in evacuation shelters where conditions are grim.

Shika has been shut down since the Fukushima disaster in 2011, but electricity is essential for cooling the spent fuel rod pools; if cooling is interrupted the water evaporates and the rods could explode, releasing plumes of radiation into the windy skies. In such a scenario, Kanazawa – population 465,000, just over 60 km away – would have to be evacuated. This would not only devastate the regional economy but also put the brakes on incoming tourism, just as it ground to a halt nationwide following the three meltdowns at Fukushima 13 years ago.

Plans to build another reactor on the Noto Peninsula are now shelved, but it was always a puzzling site given major quakes and tsunami in 1964, 1983, and 1993. The area has experienced an earthquake swarm over the past three years. The 2024 peak ground acceleration was almost the same as during the 2011 Tohoku quake that triggered the the Fukushima disaster.

Problematically, the utility initially reported that there were no changes in water levels at coastal intake valves but later corrected this to a rise of 3 meters, the height of the tsunami that devastated coastal towns on the peninsula. Apparently, this was a communication glitch rather than a gauge fault, but the snafu prompted the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) to admonish the utility for not learning key lessons from the Fukushima accident.

The NRA should look in the mirror.

According to NHK, the NRA acknowledged that its disaster response guidelines failed to anticipate a complex disaster as happened in Fukushima. In a nuclear accident, the NRA calls on residents to shelter in place, but that is not an option for those in Noto whose homes were destroyed by the combination of the earthquake, tsunami, and related fires. The 2011 triple disaster in Tohoku should have ensured that a cascading disaster is integrated into the emergency response plan. NHK also reported that most radiation monitoring devices on the peninsula failed to function, leaving authorities in the dark about radiation levels and dispersal. This would make it difficult to manage evacuation of the 150,000 residents within the 30 km evacuation zone around the plant.

The current disruptions to Noto’s transport and communication networks have slowed emergency relief efforts and would be further compromised in the event of a radiation release or one of the region’s epic snowfalls.

The NRA guidelines require towns in that zone to conduct evacuation drills because the Fukushima experience demonstrated that improvising an exodus can be catastrophic. Yet, over the past decade there have been no comprehensive evacuation drills anywhere and only nine staged exercises in the nation’s 15 nuclear plant zones.

One of these limited exercises was conducted in the Shika zone, but it was a fiasco. There is nothing more disconcerting than watching a botched evacuation drill aimed at reassuring residents. Authorities assumed the road leading to the plant would be impassable and planned to evacuate local residents by ship, but waves were too high, so they reverted to a time consuming and embarrassing bus evacuation by the road. 

The implications for TEPCO, Japan’s biggest utility, are huge as it hoped to restart the world’s largest nuclear complex in neighboring Niigata, but anxieties and opposition have spiked and delayed that plan. Back in 2007 a major quake there jammed the emergency control room door, forcing the plant manager to manage the six reactors in the parking lot using whiteboards and mobile phones. Due to extensive revelations about a culture of lax safety practices and its shambolic disaster response in 2011, TEPCO has since discovered that trust is not a renewable resource.

At Fukushima the backup generators were inundated in the 2011 tsunami and failed to function, a key factor in the three meltdowns. Regulators had urged TEPCO to relocate the generators to higher, safer, ground behind the plant, but they were left in the lower vulnerable location between the plant and the ocean. This is an example of regulatory capture in which regulators kowtow to the regulated. Thirteen years ago, the Fukushima meltdowns displaced more than 450,000 people in the vicinity and even now there are still nearly 30,000 nuclear refugees and many people remain barred from returning to their homes due to radiation. Once vibrant communities have become ghost towns. Subsequently, across the nation everyone understands that in a nuclear disaster the government and utilities can’t be relied on.

Despite this stark situation, in December 2022, Prime Minister Kishida Fumio announced plans to restart Japan’s aging fleet of nuclear reactors, extend their operating licenses from 40 years to 60 years and build new reactors.

Back in 2012, The Economist determined that nuclear energy is not financially viable and that remains true. But generating costs can be reduced if corners are cut on safety in operating and maintaining nuclear reactors. The energy crisis triggered by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine created a window of opportunity for Kishida to overturn the safety regime established in the wake of Fukushima. In light of Japan’s backsliding on safety issues, China’s and Russia’s  ambitious nuclear energy plans further cautions against the COP28’s nuclear exuberance, especially given these nations’ track records on transparency. 

Japan’s nuclear renaissance confronts the lack of a permanent storage site for its nuclear waste. There is also no evidence that mothballed reactors approaching the 40-year operating limit are now safer, but without the benefit of stress tests the government has yet again wished risk away. By ignoring the lessons of Fukushima, the government is shortchanging public safety. Nuclear energy may make sense in places where reactors can be operated safely, but Japan is a seismically active archipelago and as we learned from Fukushima, human error in operating safety systems amplifies such risks. It is time for Japan to retire its nuclear reactors and invest more in renewable energy and smart grids. 

February 4, 2024 Posted by | Japan, safety | Leave a comment

Residents ask for full examination of damage to nuclear plant caused by quake

Japan Today, By MARI YAMAGUCHI, TOKYO, 3 Feb 24

A group of residents of towns near Japanese nuclear plants submitted a petition on Friday asking regulators to halt safety screening for the restart of idled reactors until damage to a plant that partially lost external power and spilled radioactive water during a recent powerful earthquake is fully examined.

The magnitude 7.6 quake on New Year’s Day and dozens of strong aftershocks in north-central Ishikawa prefecture left 240 people dead and 15 unaccounted for and triggered a small tsunami.

Two idled reactors at Shika nuclear power plant on the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa suffered power outages because of damage to transformers. Radioactive water spilled from spent fuel cooling pools and cracks appeared on the ground, but no radiation leaked outside, operator Hokuriku Electric Power Co. said.

The damage rekindled safety concerns and residents are asking whether they could have evacuated safely if it had been more severe. The earthquake badly damaged roads and houses in the region.

All Japanese nuclear power plants were temporarily shut down after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster for safety checks under stricter standards. The government is pushing for them to be restarted but the process has been slow, in part because of lingering anti-nuclear sentiment among the public. Twelve of the 33 workable reactors have since restarted.

Residents of Ishikawa and other towns with nuclear plants gathered in Tokyo on Friday and handed their petition to officials at the Nuclear Regulation Authority. They are asking officials to freeze the screening process while damage at the Shika nuclear plant is fully examined and safety measures are implemented.

Susumu Kitano, a Noto Peninsula resident, said there would be no way to escape from his town in case of a major accident at the plant.

Nuclear safety officials have noted that the extensive damage suffered by houses and roads in the area of the Shika plant make current evacuation plans largely unworkable. The damage, including landslides, made many places inaccessible, trapping thousands of people on the narrow peninsula.

Experts say current nuclear emergency response plans often fail to consider the effects of damage from compounded disasters and need to be revised to take into account more possible scenarios.

Takako Nakagaki, a resident of Kanazawa, about 60 kilometers (35 miles) south of the Shika plant, said the current evacuation plan is “pie in the sky.” Under the plan, residents closer to the plant are advised to stay indoors in case of a radiation leak, but that would be impossible if houses are damaged in an earthquake.

The Noto quake also sparked fear in neighboring Fukui prefecture, where seven reactors at three plants have restarted, and in Niigata prefecture, where the operator of the tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear plant is preparing to restart its only workable nuclear plant, the world’s largest seven-reactor Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant.

Hundreds of other residents of towns hosting nuclear plants submitted similar requests to regulators and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida earlier this week……………………. more https://japantoday.com/category/national/residents-ask-for-a-full-examination-of-damage-to-a-japanese-nuclear-plant-caused-by-a-recent-quake

February 4, 2024 Posted by | Japan, safety | Leave a comment

Man suffered most painful death imaginable after horror accident made him ‘cry blood’ and ‘skin melted’

Joshua Nair 30 Jan 24,  https://www.ladbible.com/news/world-news/tokaimura-nuclear-disaster-japan-366945-20240130

A man died in excruciating pain, ‘crying blood’ as his ‘skin melted’, reportedly begging doctors to stop treating him.

Hisashi Ouchi was a technician at the Tokaimura Nuclear Power Plant, about 90 miles northwest of Tokyo.

Disaster struck in 1999 when three workers attempted to pour uranium into a huge metal vat.

Ouchi was helping a colleague with the dangerous task, but due to a miscalculation, the harmful liquid reached ‘critical point’, releasing dangerous neutron radiation and gamma rays into the building.

Unfortunately, none of the men involved in the delicate process were trained to carry it out, as it was later discovered that it involved 16kg of uranium, 13.6kg over the limit.

Reports state that, due to the fact that workers were manually carrying out the procedure, there was no way of measuring how much was being transferred.

Ouchi got exposed to more radiation than the other workers, suffering burns, becoming dizzy, and violently vomiting.

The 35-year-old’s nightmare was only getting started though.

It was discovered that Ouchi had absorbed 17 Sieverts (sv) of radiation, which is still the highest amount of radiation taken on by a single living person, around twice the amount that should kill someone.

For comparison, emergency responders at Chernobyl were exposed to just 0.25 sv.

After he was rushed to the University of Tokyo Hospital, the area surrounding the plant was put into lockdown.

Doctors discovered that there were no white blood cells in Ouchi’s body, and that he was in desperate need of extensive skin grafts and multiple blood transfusions.

Exposure to the dangerous substance reportedly left him ‘crying blood’, bleeding from his eyeballs.

Doctors desperately tried to keep him alive, but Ouchi begged them to stop just a week into treatment.

Ouchi reportedly yelled: “I can’t take it any more! I am not a guinea pig!”

However, at the request of his family, doctors were able to get it started again.

But on 21 December that year, Ouchi’s body eventually gave out and he died as a result of multiple organ failure.

The technicians’ supervisor, Yutaka Yokokawa, also received treatment, but was released after three months with minor radiation sickness, before going on to face charges of negligence in October 2000.

Nuclear fuel company JCO later paid $121 million to settle 6,875 compensation claims from people and businesses who had suffered from or been exposed to radiation from the accident.

February 1, 2024 Posted by | health, Japan | Leave a comment

Still no end in sight for Fukushima nuke plant decommissioning work

January 27, 2024 (Mainichi Japan), https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20240127/p2a/00m/0na/003000c

OKUMA, Fukushima — Nearly 13 years since the triple-meltdown following the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, it is still unclear when decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station’s reactors will be completed.

Operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) Holdings Inc. showed the power plant to Mainichi Shimbun reporters on Jan. 26 ahead of the 13th anniversary of the nuclear accident. Radiation levels in many areas are almost normal, and people can move in ordinary work clothes. However, the most difficult part of the work, retrieving melted nuclear fuel, has been a challenge. The management of solid waste, which is increasing daily, also remains an issue. The decommissioning of the reactors, which is estimated to take up to 40 years, is still far from complete.

Meltdowns occurred in reactor Nos. 1, 2 and 3. The start of nuclear fuel debris removal at reactor No. 2, which had been scheduled to begin by the end of fiscal 2023, has just been postponed for the third time. Reactor buildings are still inaccessible due to high radiation, meaning the work has to be done remotely.

More than 1,000 tanks for storing treated wastewater are lined up next to reactor Nos. 1 through 4, and new facilities to stably store and process approximately 520,000 cubic meters of existing solid waste are being built by reactor Nos. 5 and 6.

Treated wastewater began being discharged into the ocean in 2023, and the tanks are gradually being removed, but there is no timetable for the disposal of the solid waste. A TEPCO representative said, “The final issue that remains is how to deal with the radioactive waste that continues to be produced even as the decommissioning of the plant progresses.”

Japanese original by Yui Takahashi, Lifestyle, Science & Environment News Department)

January 30, 2024 Posted by | decommission reactor, Fukushima continuing | Leave a comment

Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant: further delays for removal of melted fuel debris

About 880 tons of highly radioactive melted nuclear fuel remain inside the three damaged reactors. Critics say the 30- to 40-year cleanup target set by the government and TEPCO for Fukushima Daiichi is overly optimistic. The damage in each reactor is different and plans need to be formed to accommodate their conditions.

NewsDay, By The Associated Press, January 25, 2024

TOKYO — The operator of the tsunami-hit nuclear plant in Fukushima announced Thursday a delay of several more months before launching a test to remove melted fuel debris from inside one of the reactors, citing problems clearing the way for a robotic arm.

The debris cleanup initially was supposed to be started by 2021, but it has been plagued with delays, underscoring the difficulty of recovering from the plant’s meltdown after a magnitude 9.0 quake and tsunami in March 2011.

The disasters destroyed the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant’s power supply and cooling systems, causing three reactors to melt down, and massive amounts of fatally radioactive melted nuclear fuel remain inside to this day.

The government and the Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, or TEPCO, initially committed to start removing the melted fuel from inside one of the three damaged reactors within 10 years of the disaster.

In 2019, the government and TEPCO decided to start removing melted fuel debris by the end of 2021 from the No. 2 reactor after a remote-controlled robot successfully clipped and lifted a granule of melted fuel during an internal probe.

But the coronavirus pandemic delayed development of the robotic arm, and the plan was pushed to 2022. Then, glitches with the arm repeatedly have delayed the project since then.

On Thursday, TEPCO officials pushed back the planned start from March to October of this year.

TEPCO officials said that the inside of a planned entryway for the robotic arm is filled with deposits believed to be melted equipment, cables and other debris from the meltdown, and their harder-than-expected removal has delayed the plan.

TEPCO now is considering using a slimmer, telescope-shaped kind of robot to start the debris removal.

About 880 tons of highly radioactive melted nuclear fuel remain inside the three damaged reactors. Critics say the 30- to 40-year cleanup target set by the government and TEPCO for Fukushima Daiichi is overly optimistic. The damage in each reactor is different and plans need to be formed to accommodate their conditions.

TEPCO has previously tried sending robots inside each of the three reactors but got hindered by debris, high radiation and inability to navigate them through the rubble, though they were able to gather some data in recent years.

Getting more details about the melted fuel debris from inside the reactors is crucial for their decommissioning. TEPCO plans to deploy four mini drones and a snake-shaped remote-controlled robot into the No. 1 reactor’s primary containment vessel in February to capture images from the areas where robots have not reached previously……… more https://www.newsday.com/news/nation/Japan-Fukushima-nuclear-plant-melted-fuel-decommissioning-v83291

January 27, 2024 Posted by | Fukushima continuing, wastes | Leave a comment

A new ‘Cold War’ on a deadly hot planet?

China and the US must cut war-like posturing and face a world in desperate danger

By Tom Engelhardt, Tom Dispatch/Common Dreams

Tell me, what planet are we actually on? All these decades later, are we really involved in a “second” or “new” Cold War? It’s certainly true that, as late as the 1980s, the superpowers (or so they then liked to think of themselves), the United States and the Soviet Union, were still engaged in just such a Cold War, something that might have seemed almost positive at the time. After all, a “hot” one could have involved the use of the planet’s two great nuclear arsenals and the potential obliteration of just about everything.

But today? In case you haven’t noticed, the phrase “new Cold War” or “second Cold War” has indeed crept into our media vocabulary. (Check it out at Wikipedia.) Admittedly, unlike John F. Kennedy, Joe Biden has not actually spoken about bearing “the burden of a long, twilight struggle.” Still, the actions of his foreign policy crew — in spirit, like the president, distinctly old Cold Warriors — have helped make the very idea that we’re in a new version of just such a conflict part of everyday media chatter.

And yet, let’s stop and think about just what planet we’re actually on. In the wake of August 6 and August 9, 1945, when two atomic bombs destroyed the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there was little doubt about how “hot” a war between future nuclear-armed powers might get. And today, of course, we know that, if such a word can even be used in this context, a relatively modest nuclear conflict between, say, India and Pakistan might actually obliterate billions of us, in part by creating a — yes, brrr — “nuclear winter,” that would give the very phrase “cold” war a distinctly new meaning.

These days, despite an all too “hot” war in Ukraine in which the U.S. has, at least indirectly, faced off against the crew that replaced those Soviet cold warriors of yore, the new Cold War references are largely aimed at this country’s increasingly tense, ever more militarized relationship with China. Its focus is both the island of Taiwan and much of the rest of Asia. Worse yet, both countries seem driven to intensify that struggle.

In case you hadn’t noticed, Joe Biden made a symbolic and much-publicized stop in Vietnam (yes, Vietnam!) while returning from the September G20 summit meeting in India. There, he insisted that he didn’t “want to contain China” or halt its rise. He also demanded that it play by “the rules of the game” (and you know just whose rules and game that was). In the process, he functionally publicized his administration’s ongoing attempt to create an anti-China coalition extending from Japan and South Korea (only recently absorbed into a far deeper military relationship with this country), all the way to, yes, India itself.

And (yes, as well!) the Biden administration has upped military aid to Japan, Taiwan (including $85 million previously meant for Egypt), Australia (including a promise to supply it with its own nuclear attack submarines), and beyond. In the process, it’s also been reinforcing the American military position in the Pacific from Okinawa, Guam, and the Philippines to — yes again — Australia. Meanwhile, one four-star American general has even quite publicly predicted that a war between the U.S. and China is likely to break out by 2025, while urging his commanders to prepare for “the China fight”! Similarly, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines has called China the “leading and most consequential threat to U.S. national security” and the Biden foreign policy team has been hard at work encircling — the Cold War phrase would have been “containing” — China, both diplomatically and militarily.

On the Chinese side, that country’s military has been similarly ramping up its air and naval activities around and ever closer to the island of Taiwan in an ominous fashion, even as it increases its military presence in places like the South China Sea (as has the U.S.). Oh, and just in case you hadn’t noticed, with a helping hand from Russia, Beijing is also putting more money and effort into expanding its already sizable nuclear arsenal.

Yes, this latest version of a Cold War is (to my mind at least) already a little too hot to handle. And yet, despite that reality, it couldn’t be more inappropriate to use the term “new Cold War” right now on a globe where a previously unimagined version of a hot war is staring us all, including most distinctly the United States and China, in the face.

As a start, keep in mind that the two great powers facing off so ominously against each other have long faced off no less ominously against the planet itself. After all, the United States remains the historically greatest greenhouse gas emitter of all time, while China is the greatest of the present moment (with the U.S. still in second place and Americans individually responsible for significantly more emissions than their Chinese counterparts). The results have been telling in both countries…………………………………………………………… more https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2024/01/21/a-new-cold-war-on-a-deadly-hot-planet/

January 22, 2024 Posted by | China, climate change, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

US urges discussions with China on practical nuclear risk reduction steps

Reuters, January 19, 2024

WASHINGTON, Jan 18 (Reuters) – The United States does not expect formal nuclear arms-control negotiations with China anytime soon, but does want to see a start of discussions on practical risk-reduction measures, a senior White House official said on Thursday.

Pranay Vaddi, the senior White House official for arms control and non proliferation, told a Washington think tank it had been important to have initial arms-control talks in November with China, but stressed the need for them to involve key Chinese decision makers or influencers on the country’s nuclear posture………………………..

The U.S. and China held their first talks on nuclear arms control in nearly five years on Nov. 6, amid growing U.S. concerns about China’s nuclear build up, but the meeting produced no specific results…………………………………………..

The U.S. and China held two days of military talks in Washington last week, their latest engagement since agreeing to resume military-to-military ties.

In its annual report on the Chinese military in October, the Pentagon said China has more than 500 operational nuclear warheads and will probably have over 1,000 warheads by 2030.

The U.S. has a stockpile of about 3,700 nuclear warheads, of which roughly 1,419 strategic nuclear warheads were deployed.

Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Sandra Maler,  https://www.reuters.com/world/us-urges-discussions-with-china-practical-nuclear-risk-reduction-steps-2024-01-18/

January 21, 2024 Posted by | China, politics international, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

North Korea says it tested underwater nuclear attack drone in response to rivals’ naval drills

By Associated Press Jan 19, 24,  https://www.9news.com.au/national/north-korea-says-it-tested-underwater-nuclear-attack-drone-in-response-to-rivals-naval-drills/c2549630-f1b1-47f9-a510-0c1352a6ca97

North Korea vows to back Russia after meeting between leaders

North Korea said on Friday it had tested a purported underwater nuclear attack drone in response to a combined naval exercise between South Korea, the United States and Japan this week, as it continues to blame its rivals for raising tensions in the region.

The alleged drone test came days after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declared he would scrap his country’s long-standing goal of a peaceful unification with South Korea and that his country would rewrite its constitution to define South Korea as its most hostile foreign adversary.

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have risen to their highest point in years, with Kim accelerating his weapons testing activity and threatening nuclear conflict.

The United States and its Asian allies have responded by strengthening their combined military exercises, which Kim calls rehearsals for invasion.

North Korea’s alleged nuclear attack drone, which the North first tested last year, is among a broad range of weapon systems demonstrated in recent years as Kim expands his arsenal of nuclear-capable weapons.

South Korea’s military has insisted the North has exaggerated the capabilities of the drone, which is supposedly designed to carry out strikes on enemy vessels and ports.

The North’s military said it conducted the test in the country’s eastern waters in response to the US, South Korean and Japanese joint naval drill, which ended on Wednesday in waters south of Jeju island.

“Our army’s underwater nuke-based countering posture is being further rounded off and its various maritime and underwater responsive actions will continue to deter the hostile military maneuvers of the navies of the US and its allies,” the North’s Defence Ministry said in a statement.

“We strongly denounce the US and its followers for their reckless acts of seriously threatening the security of the DPRK from the outset of the year and sternly warn them of the catastrophic consequences to be entailed by them,” it said, using the initials of North Korea’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The North in recent months has also tested various missile systems designed to target the United States and its Asian allies, and announced an escalatory nuclear doctrine that authorises the military to conduct preemptive nuclear strikes if the leadership in Pyongyang is under threat.

The North conducted its first ballistic missile test of 2024 on Sunday, which state media described as a new solid-fuel, intermediate-range missile tipped with a hypersonic warhead, likely intended to target US military bases in Guam and Japan.

At an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Thursday, South Korea called on the council “to break the silence” over North Korea’s escalating missile tests and threats. Two of the council’s permanent members, Russia and China, have blocked US-led efforts to increase sanctions on Pyongyang over its recent testing activity, underscoring a divide deepened over Russia’s war on Ukraine. South Korea is serving a two-year term on the council

January 20, 2024 Posted by | North Korea, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Fukushima Nuclear Waste Water Disputes Continued: International Law in Japanese Court?

Written by Grace Nishikawa and Dr. Marlies Hesselman, https://www.ejiltalk.org/fukushima-nuclear-waste-water-disputes-continued-international-law-in-japanese-court/ 16 Feb 24

On 24th August 2023, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) started releasing the ALPS-treated waste water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean over a period of 30 years. As discussed on this blog before, here and here, the decision led to strong international responses from neighbouring States, such as China and South Korea, as well as reactions by several UN human rights bodies. One legal question currently attracting attention in several fora, is whether Article 4 of the Protocol to the London Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matters forbids the ‘dumping’ of the waste water into the sea, because it still contains radioactive matter, such as tritium.

This blog post draws attention to the interpretative controversy under the Londen Protocol by noting that the question is not only on the agenda of the Governing Bodies of the London Convention (LC) and its Protocol (LP), but also of the Fukushima District Court. In September, a group of Japanese citizens initiated a domestic lawsuit calling for an injunction to stop the release of the waste water. Their complaint is in large part based on personal rights under the constitution, but also invokes various international environmental law provisions, including Article 4 LC/LP. This post considers the interpretative controversy at hand, including whether the Japanese courts could play a role in addressing it.

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January 18, 2024 Posted by | Japan, Legal | Leave a comment

Nuclear Continues To Lag Far Behind Renewables In China Deployments

China can’t scale its nuclear program at all. It peaked in 2018 with 7 reactors with a capacity of 8.2 GW. For the five years since then then it’s been averaging 2.3 GW of new nuclear capacity, and last year only added 1.2 GW between a new GW scale reactor and a 200 MW small modular nuclear reactor.

Michael Barnard 13 Jan 24,  https://cleantechnica.com/2024/01/12/nuclear-continues-to-lag-far-behind-renewables-in-china-deployments/

Since 2014 I’ve been tracking the natural experiment in China regarding the ability to scale nuclear generation vs renewables. My hypothesis was that the modularity and manufacturability of wind and solar especially meant that it would be much easier for them to scale up to massive sizes.

That hypothesis was strongly confirmed when I first published the results in 2019, and again in 2021 and 2022 when I updated them. In what is becoming a dog bites man annual article, here are the 2023 results. Once again, China’s nuclear program barely added any capacity, only 1.2 GW, while wind and solar between them added about 278 GW. Even with the capacity factor difference, the nuclear additions only mean about 7 TWh of new low carbon generation per year, while wind and solar between them will contributed about 427 TWh annually, over 60 times as much low carbon electricity.

As a note, there were no new hydroelectric dams commissioned in China, so that continued acceleration of deployment is solely due to wind and solar. That’s going to change when the absurdly massive Tibetan Yarlung Tsangpo river dam is commissioned, likely in the mid 2030s. That dam will generate three times the energy annually as the Three Gorges Dam, making it by far the biggest dam in the world by every measure.

A few points. First, what’s a natural experiment? It’s something which is occurring outside of a laboratory or research setting in the real world that coincidentally controls for a bunch of variables so that you can make a useful comparison. An often referenced example was of a specific region where half was without electricity for a few months. Researchers posited that the blackout region would have seen more pregnancies starting in that period, and sure enough, that’s what they found.

So why is China a natural experiment for scalability of wind and solar? Well, it controls for a bunch of variables. Both programs were national strategic energy programs run top down. I started the comparison in 2010 because the nuclear program had been running for about 15 years by then and the renewables program for five years, so both were mature enough to have worked out the growing pains.

One of the things that western nuclear proponents claim is that governments have over-regulated nuclear compared to wind and solar, and China’s regulatory regime for nuclear is clearly not the USA’s or the UK’s. They claim that fears of radiation have created massive and unfair headwinds, and China has a very different balancing act on public health and public health perceptions than the west. They claim that environmentalists have stopped nuclear development in the west, and while there are vastly more protests in China than most westerners realize, governmental strategic programs are much less susceptible to public hostility.  And finally, western nuclear proponents complain that NIMBYs block nuclear expansion, and public sentiment and NIMBYism is much less powerful in China with its Confucian, much more top down governance system.

China’s central government has a 30 year track record of building massive infrastructure programs, so it’s not like it is missing any skills there. China has a nuclear weapons program, so the alignment of commercial nuclear generation with military strategic aims is in hand too. China has a strong willingness to finance strategic infrastructure with long-running state debt, so there are no headwinds there either.

Yet China can’t scale its nuclear program at all. It peaked in 2018 with 7 reactors with a capacity of 8.2 GW. For the five years since then then it’s been averaging 2.3 GW of new nuclear capacity, and last year only added 1.2 GW between a new GW scale reactor and a 200 MW small modular nuclear reactor.

So what’s going on? As I noted late in 2023, nuclear energy and free market capitalism aren’t compatible, but China isn’t capitalist, according to a lot of westerners. But it very definitely is a market and export capitalist economy, albeit with more state intervention and ownership, and the nuclear program is suffering as a result. That lone small modular reactor is a clear signal of that.

January 14, 2024 Posted by | China, ENERGY | Leave a comment

Japanese nuclear plant admits 20,000 litres of oil leaked when it was hit by 10ft tsunami sparked by New Year’s Day earthquake – as officials call for drones to monitor radiation levels

  • Hokuriku Electric Power reported second oil leak at Shika nuclear power station

Daily Mail, By JAMES CALLERY, 12 January 2024

A Japanese nuclear power station has admitted that 20,000 litres of oil leaked when 10ft tsunami waves slammed into the plant after the 7.6-magnitude New Year’s Day earthquake.

Shika nuclear power plant, which contains two reactors, was hit by the huge waves shortly after the powerful earthquake struck the central Ishikawa region on January 1.

Around 19,900 litres of insulating oil leaked after the transformers in the two nuclear reactors were damaged in the quake, Hokurika Electric Power, which runs the facility, said. A second oil leak was reported yesterday, raising yet more safety fears.

Water used to cool spent fuel rods was spilt and the plant’s electricity power was temporarily knocked out as a result of the 7.6-magnitude quake, which killed more than 200 people.

Though Hokuriku Electric claims that no that radiation leaked from the plant, a small number of nearby monitoring stations were taken offline by the earthquake, raising fears that there could in fact be more damage.

Nobuhiko Ban, a safety panel member at Japan’s nuclear watchdog NRA, said this is a ‘huge problem’ and proposed utilising drones and aircraft to measure radiation levels until the operator’s monitoring stations could be repaired………………………………………………………………………. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12951991/Japanese-nuclear-power-station-admits-10ft-tsunami-waves-slammed-plant-7-6-magnitude-New-Years-Day-earthquake-facility-battles-contain-oil-leaks-amid-fears-safety.html

January 14, 2024 Posted by | Japan, safety | Leave a comment

Japan’s NRA orders probe on quake damage at Shika nuclear power plant

Japan Times, 11 Jan 24

The Nuclear Regulation Authority has ordered its secretariat to thoroughly investigate the cause of damage to a nuclear power plant from the 7.6 magnitude earthquake that struck the Noto Peninsula on Jan. 1.

The regulatory watchdog gave the order at a regular meeting on Wednesday.

According to Hokuriku Electric Power, the quake measured an upper 5 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale at the basement of the No. 1 reactor building of its Shika nuclear power plant in Ishikawa Prefecture.

The temblor caused oil to leak from two transformers. The company also could no longer measure radiation levels at up to 18 of its 116 monitoring posts around the plant after the earthquake.

At Wednesday’s meeting, the NRA secretariat presented data from Hokuriku Electric showing ground movements resulting from the quake at the plant’s two reactors had experienced sharper accelerations than the maximum levels expected for the facilities, although it did not find any immediate threats to safety.

Both reactors have been idled since 2011, the company said, adding that the quake did not cause any radiation leaks or have any effect on cooling operations in their spent fuel pools……………………………………………………………. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2024/01/11/japan/science-health/japan-regulator-probe-on-nuke-plant/

January 12, 2024 Posted by | Japan, safety | Leave a comment

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