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Fukushima recovery plagued with setbacks

    by beyondnuclearinternational

Perhaps the most significant stumbling block, acknowledged by Tepco on July 29, is the “unprecedented” technical complexity of locating, contacting, removing, and containerizing 880 tonnes of highly radioactive melted reactor fuel still smoldering at the bottom of the three devastated reactors.

In 14 years’ time, engineers managed to design, build, test, and rebuild a one-of-a-kind robot that removed less than one-gram of the waste fuel from reactor No. 2 last year. That November “breakthrough” was three years behind schedule, “and some experts estimate that the decommissioning work could take more than a century,” CBS News and Mainichi Japan reported.

Melted fuel, radioactive soil and a struggling fishing industry are some of the lingering legacies of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, writes John LaForge

Japan is one of the most earthquake-prone areas in the world, and the regular quakes raise traumatic memories of the March 11, 2011, record-breaker that left 19,000 dead and smashed the six-reactor Fukushima-Daiichi site. This summer, a magnitude 5.5 quake struck just off Japan’s southeast Tokara coast on July 3; a mag. 4.2 quake hit east of Iwaki, in Fukushima Prefecture July 12; and a mag. 4.1 quake shook the same area July 25.

In late July, a mighty 8.8-magnitude quake struck Avacha Bay in Russia’s Far East, triggering tsunami warnings and evacuations across the entire Pacific Rim. The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake was one of the strongest ever recorded.

The owner/operator of the wrecked reactor complex, Tokyo Electric Power Co., evacuated its entire staff of 4,000 in response to warnings of a possible nine-foot tsunami, after first halting its pumping of radioactive wastewater into the Pacific.

Elsewhere in Japan, over 1.9 million people were urged to evacuate the eastern seaboard, and a 4-foot tsunami wave did strike north of Fukushima at Iwate Prefecture, some 1,090 miles from Avacha Bay, site of the major Russian earthquake.

China partially lifts ban on Japanese seafood imports

China “conditionally resumed” the importation of Japanese seafood products on June 30 ⸺ except from the 10 prefectures closest to the Fukushima disaster site ⸺ after conducting water sample inspections off the coast of the site. Beijing had banned all such imports from Japan as a protest and precaution, following the 2023 start of deliberately discharging large volumes of radioactively contaminated cooling water into the Pacific Ocean.

The 2023 ban was imposed to “comprehensively prevent the food safety risks of radioactive contamination caused by the discharge of nuclear wastewater from Fukushima into the sea,” China’s General Administration of Customs said then. Shocked by Japan’s action, Beijing’s Foreign Ministry added that the discharge was an “extremely selfish and irresponsible act,” which would “push the risks onto the whole world (and) pass on the pain to future generations of human beings,” the Agence France-Presse reported.

Chinese customs officials said June 30 the seafood import ban would continue for ten prefectures, namely Fukushima and its nine closest neighboring states. Products from other regions will need health certificates, radioactive substance detection qualification certificates, and production area certificates issued by the Japanese government for Chinese customs declarations, the government said.

Relatedly, Hong Kong announced that it will maintain its ban on Japanese seafood, sea salt, and seaweed imports from the same ten prefectures still targeted by mainland China ⎯ Fukushima, Gunma, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Miyagi, Niigata, Nagano, Saitama, Tokyo, and Chiba ⎯ citing ongoing concerns about the risks associated with the discharge of radioactive wastewater.

Tepco Lost $6 Billion as Meltdown Recovery Falters

Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings corporation (Tepco) lost $5.8 billion (903 billion yen) between April and June this year as the owner and operator of the triple reactor meltdown at Fukushima became overrun with the costs of inventing, designing, building, and testing robotic machines with which to remotely extract the ferociously radioactive melted reactor fuel from deep inside the earth-quake and tsunami-wrecked reactors.

There are a total of over 880 metric tonnes of “corium” or melted and rubblized uranium and plutonium fuel in three reactors that Tepco claims it will extract. Nikkei-Asia reported August 1 that Tepco says it has $4.7 billion “earmarked for future demolition work” (700 billion yen), which doesn’t even cover this spring’s one-quarter loss. Tepco has said that its preparations for the extraction are “expected to take 12 to 15 years.”

The quarterly financial loss makes a mockery of announced plans by the government and TEPCO to fully complete decommissioning of the rubbished reactors by 2051.

Two out of 14-to-20-million tonnes of radioactive soil buried on PM’s office grounds, in “safety” parody 

In a surreal display of political slapstick on July 19th, the office of Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba buried on his office’s garden grounds two cubic meters of radioactive soil scraped up during Fukushima clean-up operations (in which some 14-to-20 million cubic meters of topsoil and debris were collected) ⎯ “to show it is safe to reuse.”

Nippon Television reported that “The radioactive cesium concentration in the soil being buried is 6,400 Becquerels per kilogram” (Bq/kg). “Becquerels” are a standard measuring unit of radioactivity. The 6,400 is below the legally permitted limit of 8,000 Bq/Kg.

The radiation emitted by the soil originates from cesium-137, which was released in large amounts by Fukushima’s melting and exploding reactors and subsequently fell to the ground as fallout. Cesium fallout continues to contaminate vast areas of forest and farmland in the region.

The millions of tons of collected soil now in storage are being tested and sorted to identify material with cesium at 8,000 Bq/Kg or less. Several million tons of it may then be used as fill in construction projects, road-building, and railway embankments all around Japan. Asphalt, farm soil, “or layers of other materials should be used to seal in the radioactivity,” Akira Asakawa, an Environment Ministry official with the soil project, told the Agence France-Presse.

The PM’s demonstration plot is the first “reuse” of the poisoned waste, while experiments elsewhere have been halted due to public protest. The PM’s contaminated dirt was covered up with about eight inches of normal soil to provide some radiation shielding.

Any radiation exposure is unsafe, but adverse effects like radiation sickness, immune disorders, or cancers caused by contact with the radioactive soil would take years or decades to appear, owing to the latency period between radiation exposure and the onset of induced health problems. The joke seems to be that since Prime Minister Ishiba hasn’t dropped dead after walking by, low-dose exposure must be harmless.

Readers may remember a very similar high-level comedy sketch performed by former President Barack Obama, who traveled to Flint, Michigan in May 2016. Drinking water supplies there had been contaminated with lead and to calm the public uproar, Obama sat before the cameras and theatrically downed a glass of water. The straight-faced routine was proof positive and rock-solid confirmation beyond a doubt that Flint’s tap water was safe to drink. Bottom’s up!

Fukushima Disaster Response to Last Eons

Countless dilemmas and setbacks have plagued the now 14-year-long emergency response to the triple reactor meltdown and widespread radiation releases that began on March 11, 2011, at Fukushima on Japan’s northeast coast.

Perhaps the most significant stumbling block, acknowledged by Tepco on July 29, is the “unprecedented” technical complexity of locating, contacting, removing, and containerizing 880 tonnes of highly radioactive melted reactor fuel still smoldering at the bottom of the three devastated reactors.

Unprecedented is the key word here, since the industry has never before had to contain such a large mass of wasted and unapproachable radioactivity. All the work of dealing with the wasted fuel must be done robotically and remotely, since the waste’s fierce radioactivity kills living things that come near. Just planning and preparing to remove the “corium” material will take at least another 12 years.

Toyoshi Fuketa, head of a regulatory body overseeing the site, said at a press conference earlier that “The difficulty of retrieving the first handful of debris has become apparent,” the Kyodo News agency reported.

In 14 years’ time, engineers managed to design, build, test, and rebuild a one-of-a-kind robot that removed less than one-gram of the waste fuel from reactor No. 2 last year. That November “breakthrough” was three years behind schedule, “and some experts estimate that the decommissioning work could take more than a century,” CBS News and Mainichi Japan reported.

The torturously slow process has made Tepco’s early prediction of complete cleanup by 2051 (40 years’ time) appear to have been made up for PR reasons.

Tepco said July 29 that it would need another 12 to 15 years’ worth of preparation ⎯ until 2040 ⎯ “before starting the full-scale removal of melted fuel” at the No. 3 reactor. Tepco earlier claimed that “full-scale” extraction would begin four years ago, in 2021 according to the daily Asahi Shimbun August 1.

Of an estimated 880 tons of debris, only 0.9 grams have been recovered to date. With one million grams in a tonne, Tepco has only 879 million-plus grams to go, and “A simple calculation based on the time since the accident suggests the removal process could take another 13.6 billion years to complete,” the Asahi Shimbun smirked.

China’s reactor report card omits embarrassing emission info’

China issues annual reports on its extensive nuclear power operations known as “China Nuclear Energy.” The 2024 edition, its latest, made headlines by omitting for the first time information on the routine radioactive gases and liquids released from its operating reactors.

Kyodo News reported that the omission may be a way to avoid accusations of hypocrisy, as China has strenuously condemned Japan’s discharge of radioactively contaminated wastewater into the Pacific. At the same time China’s domestic reactors in 2022 reportedly “released wastewater containing tritium at levels up to nine times higher than the annual discharge limit” set by Japan’s discharge authorities. ###

John LaForge is a Co-director of Nukewatch, a peace and environmental justice group in Wisconsin, and edits its newsletter. This article first appeared on Counterpunch.

September 23, 2025 Posted by | Japan, wastes | Leave a comment

Quake less alarming than tsunami threat to China’s coastal nuclear power plants

REACTORS: A tremor yesterday posed minimal danger to Kinmen, but a greater risk would come from tsunamis striking Chinese coastal nuclear plants, an expert said

Taipei Times, By Wu Liang-yi and Jake Chung / Staff reporter, with staff writer, 21 Sept 25, https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2025/09/21/2003844164

Taiwan’s nuclear engineers and the Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said that an earthquake near Kinmen County was less concerning than the potential risk posed by earthquake-triggered tsunamis striking nuclear power plants along China’s coast.

A magnitude 5.0 quake on the Richter scale, the strongest recorded in the Kinmen region in 32 years, struck at 6:56am yesterday.

The CWA said its epicenter was in the Taiwan Strait, about 93.9km east of Kinmen County Hall, at a depth of 17.2km.

Nuclear engineer Ho Li-wei (賀立維) said that while nuclear power plants are designed to withstand strong earthquakes, their cooling systems are more vulnerable.

Ho cited the 2011 Fukushima Dai-ichi disaster, where the plant’s cooling system was damaged by a tsunami triggered by the Tohoku earthquake, ultimately leading to hydrogen explosions that destabilized the facility.

If the same happened to Chinese coastal nuclear power plants, irradiated water could seep into underground aquifers or be carried into the sea, posing a devastating threat to Taiwan’s fisheries, he said.

Kinmen and Lienchiang counties would face particular risk due to their proximity to China, he said.

On the issue of spent fuel pools, Ho said that used fuel rods are stored in pools to dissipate heat and radiation, often requiring years of cooling before they can be transferred to dry storage.

The number of spent fuel rods in pools far exceeds those in active reactors, making them a significant security risk, he said.

CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) said that the Kinmen earthquake was not on a fault line and carried little risk of causing a major quake.

Tsunami-generating earthquakes must reach at least magnitude 7 on the Richter scale and occur at depths of less than 30km, Wu said, adding that the likelihood of such conditions arising in the Taiwan Strait is not high.

While the Strait’s shallow waters make it theoretically vulnerable to tsunamis, Wu said that even waves generated by distant quakes would be greatly diminished by the time they reached the area.

Additional reporting by CNA

September 22, 2025 Posted by | China, safety | Leave a comment

Can the US, Russia and China break their nuclear talks impasse?

With a key US-Russia arms treaty due to expire in February, the world is at risk of entering a new era of strategic instability, analysts warn.

Shi Jiangtao, SCMP, 21 Sep 2025

US President Donald Trump’s summit in Alaska last month with Russian leader Vladimir Putin failed to revive long-stalled nuclear negotiations or advance efforts to preserve the last major arms control pact between Washington and Moscow, which is set to expire in February.

Trump’s subsequent push for trilateral “denuclearisation” talks involving China elicited a firm refusal from Beijing, underscoring challenges to extending the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) amid fears of a fresh nuclear arms race, analysts said.

Following the summit, Beijing, with its long-standing policy of “no first use” and a nuclear strategy rooted in self defence, spurned Trump’s proposal, with Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun calling it “neither reasonable nor realistic”…………………………(Subscribers only) https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3326243/can-us-russia-and-china-break-their-nuclear-talks-impasse?module=perpetual_scroll_0&pgtype=article

September 22, 2025 Posted by | China, politics international, Russia, USA | Leave a comment

Saudi Arabia, nuclear-armed Pakistan sign mutual defence pact

Saudi Arabia and nuclear-armed Pakistan signed a formal mutual defense pact on Wednesday, in a move that significantly strengthens a decades-long
security partnership amid heightened regional tensions. The enhanced
defense ties come as Gulf Arab states grow increasingly wary about the
reliability of the United States as their longstanding security guarantor.
Israel’s attack on Qatar last week heightened those concerns.

Reuters 17th Sept 2025,
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/saudi-arabia-nuclear-armed-pakistan-sign-mutual-defence-pact-2025-09-17/

September 20, 2025 Posted by | Pakistan, politics international, Saudi Arabia | Leave a comment

The Building of the First Atomic Bombs Impacted Workers and Residents, Too

Eighty years after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, workers who mined the uranium and people who lived near the test sites are still dying from exposure to radiation.

by Jim Carrier, August 7, 2025, https://progressive.org/magazine/the-building-of-the-first-atomic-bombs-impacted-workers-and-residents-too-carrier-20250807/

The road to Nagasaki was littered with radiation. 

Eighty years after an atomic bomb called Fat Man was dropped, killing and poisoning about 100,000 people in Nagasaki, at least a dozen sites around the world—sites that contributed to the bomb’s creation—are still dealing with its deadly legacy. 

Under the pressure to win World War II, U.S. military leaders pulled out all stops to prioritize the creation and testing of an atomic bomb, indifferent to the cost on the lives and livelihood of everyday people. Landscapes were polluted, workers were exposed to radiation, and civilian neighbors to the nuclear test sites—the first “downwinders”—were ignored or lied to.

The Manhattan Project—a top-secret research and development program created by the U.S. government during World War II to develop a nuclear bomb—sourced nearly all of its much-needed uranium from the Belgian Congo’s Shinkolobwe mine. Located in the modern-day Haut-Katanga province in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Shinkolonwe mine was the world’s richest source of high-grade uranium, radium, and other valuable minerals. First opened in 1921, the Belgian-owned mine employed artisanal miners who dug the radioactive ore with handheld tools and carried it out in sacks on their shoulders, further exposing them to the toxic substance. While the environmental impact was visible and more difficult to conceal, any known records of lasting health impacts were disappeared by the authorities or never recorded at all.

In 1939, fearing Adolf Hitler and  the German discovery of nuclear fission in uranium—with its potential to create a bomb—the mine’s manager shipped more than 1,000 tons of ore from Katanga to a warehouse on Staten Island, New York. Spilled ore contaminated a portion of the site where it sat for three years. A 1980 study later determined that the site might harm trespassers beneath the Bayonne Bridge, but by that time the site had already been demolished.

President Franklin Roosevelt’s January 19, 1942, decision to build an atomic bomb touched off the $2 billion Manhattan Project with its extraordinary mix of secret research at Los Alamos, New Mexico, and massive construction projects at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Hanford, Washington. All of these needed hundreds of tons of uranium to make a few pounds of plutonium. 

In November 1942, the U.S. Army discovered and bought the Staten Island uranium stockpile and shipped 1,823 drums by barge and railroad to the Seneca Army Depot in Romulus, New York, where it was put into large concrete igloos before being shipped to various refineries. Now part of an Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site, the depot stored all kinds of munitions and even some classified military equipment that was burned and buried. Most of the site was cleaned up in the early 2000s and opened for recreation and industrial warehousing.

The Army’s search for uranium ore also uncovered 500 tons among vanadium tailings in western Colorado, and 300 tons at Port Hope, Ontario, Canada, where the Eldorado Gold Mines refinery processed ore into more pure concentrations. Eldorado’s own mine, on Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories of Canada, employed First Nations Dene workers who would later suffer cancers and die from handling sacks of ore. Their community of Délı̨nę became known as a “village of widows.” Without contemporary health records, a re-created exposure study found that overall cancer rates for Délı̨nę were “not statistically significantly different from the Northwest Territories.”

Port Hope, on the northern shore of Lake Ontario, which processed all the African and North American uranium ore for the Manhattan Project, spread tailings in neighborhoods and in the lake, eventually requiring a $1.3 billion cleanup that did not begin until 2018. Residents blame the contamination for cancers, although a 2013 study found no statistical evidence of greater radiosensitive cancers.

An enduring and poetic legend links the labors of Délı̨nę villagers to the Japanese bombs, a story told in A Village of Widows, a documentary film that followed ten Dine to Hiroshima in 1998 where they paid their respects and shared mutual sorrow with hibakusha, the Japanese word for the survivors of the atomic bombs. The uranium ore from Great Bear Lake did, in fact, contribute to the Manhattan Project—a U.S. government history found that Great Bear Lake ore amounted to one-sixth of the uranium used in the Manhattan Project, Colorado ore contributed one-seventh, and the rest came from the Belgian Congo. However, a detailed 2008 analysis of the ore’s movements concluded that “the fissile material in the Nagasaki weapon was almost certainly derived from oxide processed by Eldorado which would have been mostly of Belgian Congo origin. The same is probably true for the Hiroshima weapon. It is also possible that there was some uranium of U.S. origin in both of these weapons.”

After Port Hope, the uranium was further refined at nineteen industrial sites including: Linde Air in Tonawanda, New York; Dupont’s Deepwater Works in New Jersey; Metal Hydrides Inc. in Beverly, Massachusetts; Harshaw Chemical in Cleveland, Ohio; and at Mallinckrodt Chemical Company in St. Louis, Missouri. All of these sites have undergone expensive remediation. Mallinckrodt, whose radiation contamination caused numerous cancers in children and adults, has yet to be scrubbed clean.

Uranium salts were then delivered to either Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where the Y-12 refinery produced enriched uranium for the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, or to Hanford, Washington, where refineries produced the plutonium used in both the Trinity test bomb and the Nagasaki bomb. Both reactor sites deliberately released radioactive material into the air and water. Cleaning the mess has cost much more than the original Manhattan Project. The cost to clean Hanford, considered the most radioactive spot in the world, is estimated at $640 billion. Oak Ridge’s cleanup won’t be finished until 2050. Hanford’s effort to meld radioactive sludge into glass containers and bury them in salt caves is only beginning.

The first atomic bomb blast in history, the Trinity test of the plutonium implosion “gadget” in the Alamogordo, New Mexico, desert on July 16, 1945, left permanent marks on the land and the people downwind. The airborne plume from Trinity drifted across the Tularosa Basin, landing on vegetables, cattle, and water, poisoning residents who would later report leukemia, cancers, and heart disease. Subsequent studies have found Trinity fallout reached forty-six states, Canada, and Mexico. After five years of lobbying, the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium won a two-year window—until December 31, 2028—to be included in the federal Radiation Exposure Compensation Act which covers U.S. uranium workers and downwinders exposed at the Nevada Test Site during the Cold War. As of June 24, 2025, 42,575 people have received $2.7 billion dollars. Tourists can visit the test site one day a year, on the third Saturday in October. Radiation at ground zero is ten times the region’s natural radiation.

The area around Los Alamos, where brilliant physicists and world-class machinists created the bombs that fell on Japan eighty years ago, has realized that the work of those scientists also left plutonium contamination close to home. Wartime practices that dumped raw radioactive waste into Acid Canyon continued until 1951, and despite several cleanup efforts, measurable plutonium remains. The Los Alamos National Laboratory says the risks to humans walking the canyon are “tiny.” However, plutonium has a half-life of 24,000 years.

For more on the story of Nagasaki, Japan, today, see Jim Carrier’s article “The Bombs Still Ticking” from the August/September 2025 issue of The Progressive.

September 10, 2025 Posted by | health, India, Uranium, USA | Leave a comment

Pakistan nuclear weapons, 2025

Bulletin, By Hans M. Kristensen, Matt Korda, Eliana Johns, Mackenzie Knight-Boyle | September 4, 2025


Pakistan continues to slowly modernize its nuclear arsenal with improved and new delivery systems, and a growing fissile material production industry. Analysis of commercial satellite images of construction at Pakistani army garrisons and air force bases shows what appear to be newer launchers and facilities that might be related to Pakistan’s nuclear forces, although authoritative information about Pakistan’s nuclear units is scarce.

We estimate that Pakistan has produced a nuclear weapons stockpile of approximately 170 warheads, which is unchanged since our last estimate in 2023 (see Table 1). The US Defense Intelligence Agency projected in 1999 that Pakistan would have 60 to 80 warheads by 2020 (US Defense Intelligence Agency (1999, 38), but several new weapon systems have been fielded and developed since then, which leads us to a higher estimate. Our estimate comes with considerable uncertainty because neither Pakistan nor other countries publish much information about the Pakistani nuclear arsenal.

With several new delivery systems in development, four plutonium production reactors, and an expanding uranium enrichment infrastructure, Pakistan’s stockpile has the potential to increase further over the next several years. The size of this increase will depend on several factors, including how many nuclear-capable launchers Pakistan plans to deploy, how its nuclear strategy evolves, and how much the Indian nuclear arsenal grows. We estimate that the country’s stockpile could potentially grow to around 200 warheads by the late 2020s. But unless India significantly expands its arsenal or further builds up its conventional forces, it seems reasonable to expect that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal will not grow significantly, but might level off as its current weapons programs are completed.

………………………………….. Analyzing Pakistan’s nuclear forces is particularly fraught with uncertainty, given the lack of official state-originating data. The Pakistani government has never publicly disclosed the size of its arsenal and does not typically comment on its nuclear doctrine. Unlike some other nuclear-armed states, Pakistan does not regularly publish any official documentation explaining the contours of its nuclear posture or doctrine. Whenever such details emerge in the public discourse, they usually originate from retired officials commenting in their personal capacities. The most regular official source on Pakistani nuclear weapons is the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR), the media wing of the Pakistan Armed Forces, which publishes regular press releases for missile launches and occasionally couples them with launch videos.

Occasionally, other countries offer official statements or analysis about Pakistan’s nuclear forces. ……………………………………………………………………

Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine

Pakistan has historically maintained a deliberately ambiguous nuclear doctrine, including through refusal to endorse or reject a no-first-use policy. 

…………………………..Within its broader philosophy of “credible minimum deterrence,” which seeks to emphasize a defensive and limited but flexible nuclear posture, Pakistan operates under a nuclear doctrine that it calls “full spectrum deterrence.” This posture is aimed mainly at deterring India, which Pakistan identifies as its primary adversary. 

…………………………..Pakistan’s nuclear posture—particularly its development and deployment of tactical nuclear weapons—has created considerable concern in other countries, including the United States, which fears that it increases the risk of escalation and lowers the threshold for nuclear use in a military conflict with India.

…………………………..Nuclear security, command-and-control, and crisis management

Over the past decade-and-a-half, the US assessment of nuclear weapons security in Pakistan appears to have changed considerably from confidence to concern, particularly because of the introduction of tactical nuclear weapons in the Pakistani arsenal. ……………………………………………………………………..

2025 India-Pakistan conflict

In May 2025, India and Pakistan engaged in a brief conflict, during which India launched conventional missile strikes against several Pakistani military facilities. The conflict, which lasted days, included an escalatory exchange of fire from both sides following the April 22 terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Indian-administered Kashmir.

In the aftermath of the conflict, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) and the Military Engineer Services—which conducts construction and maintenance operations for all branches of the Pakistani military—issued a series of public procurement contracts for post-strike repairs at a variety of military bases, indicating which facilities suffered damage due to the conflict (Mishra 2025). ……………………

……………………….One study concluded that although the “mutual possession of nuclear weapons heavily conditioned the response of both sides” and “overt nuclear signaling was lower than in many prior India-Pakistan crises, … the crisis underscores that South Asia is one of the most likely theaters for nuclear war, even if that prospect was not imminent in this instance” (Clary 2025).

Fissile materials, warheads, and missile production

Pakistan has a well-established and diverse fissile material production complex that is expanding. This includes four heavy-water plutonium production reactors at the Khushab Complex, three of which were completed in the past 15 years. ………………………………………….

We estimate that Pakistan currently is producing sufficient fissile material to build 14 to 27 new warheads per year, although we estimate that the actual warhead increase in the stockpile probably averages around 5 to 10 warheads per year.[2]…………………………………………..

Nuclear-capable aircraft and air-delivered weapons…………………………………………………………………………………..
Land-based ballistic missiles…………………………………………………………………………….

Land-based missile garrisons…………………………………………………………………………..

Ground- and sea-launched cruise missiles…………………………………………………………………….. https://thebulletin.org/premium/2025-09/pakistan-nuclear-weapons-2025/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Pakistan%20s%20nuclear%20arsenal&utm_campaign=20250904%20Thursday%20Newsletter%20%28Copy%29

September 10, 2025 Posted by | Pakistan, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Is fishmeal from Fukushima-affected fish the source of Indonesian shrimp’s radioactive contamination?

J. P. Unger, 8 Sept 25

It just hit me earlier, while thinking about the recently exposed case of radioactive shrimp being recalled in the US, and in particular why one Indonesian shrimp farming business’s harvests would be contaminated with radioactive Cesium and not those from other Indonesian shrimp farms: it’s probably the feed they used!

Cheap, radioactive fishmeal, perhaps made from fish impacted by contamination from Fukushima, I suspect could well be the source. This is why:

Shrimp farming has traditionally used fishmeal as a high-protein source to feed the shrimp -with fishmeal normally consisting of smaller fish, fishing “by-catch” and fish-processing byproducts, all shredded and ground to a texture like coarse sand or pellets to feed farm animals and aquaculture operations. 

As ocean fish populations become increasingly strained and global demand for fish keeps increasing, fishmeal has become increasingly expensive and in shorter supply

Therefore, it’s quite likely that fishmeal from contaminated fisheries -for example, with high levels of radioactive pollution- would be offered at a comparatively low price. That would be quite attractive for a business that’s more concerned with profit margins than with what happens to consumers down the line.

If this was the case, and given that many businesses around the world likely prioritize profit margins over long-term effects in far-removed consumers (or might not even be aware of the contamination of the feed), this case could be the tip of a very worrisome iceberg and open up a big can of worms…. 

It certainly demands a careful inspection of food imports AND of food “precursors”, in particular imported fishmeal and food from animals raised on it. Also, international cooperation and vigilance, to know who might be selling contaminated fishmeal and where, who has been buying and using it, and what land- or water-farmed meat production it might be affecting.

Unless I hear concerns or suggestions to the contrary, I’ll prepare and send a slightly different articulation of these thoughts to a handful of government officials and media here and in the US who might be interested in investigating, as precautions should probably be ramped up for a variety of food products…

 This would not be the first time radioactively contaminated foodstuff circulates at bargain prices… When I was starting as a science and environment journalist in Peru in the 1980’s I wrote about the post-Chernobyl arrival of radioactive powdered milk from Europe (a “generous” 12,000 ton donation from the European Community…), and radioactive meat from Germany (sold at a bargain price!). I received brush-offs, threats and warnings from corrupt government officials profiting from it, as well as ignorance and disinterest among other journalists and the general population, all with other “more immediate concerns” at the time, as the country faced five-digit inflation and the expansion of a brutally violent Maoist insurgency -nobody wanted to hear about yet more dangers then, and everywhere I was met by a frustrating fatalistic denial or avoidance mantra along the lines of “one has to die from something anyway.” Anyways… JPU

September 9, 2025 Posted by | environment, Indonesia | Leave a comment

Japan shocks the world — Solar panels as strong as 20 nuclear reactors unveiled.

by Beatriz T.,  September 6, 2025.EcoNews,

Imagine a country with limited space, a large population, and an urgent need for clean energy. That’s Japan, a nation that, since the Fukushima disaster in 2011, has been burdened with rethinking its entire energy system. This is because the catastrophe not only shook confidence in nuclear energy but also accelerated the race for sustainable and safe alternatives. More than a decade later, Japan surprises the world again with revolutionary perovskite solar cells, a light, thin, and flexible material that can be installed in places unimaginable until recently, like windows, walls, and even car roofs.

There are several important advantages
of these cells, and some of these are: Superior efficiency; application
flexibility; strategic security; export potential. Japanese companies like
Sekisui Chemical are already investing heavily in research (and other
companies are investing in the first typhoon turbine).

Internationally, Swedish company Exeger has successfully applied flexible panels to consumer products like headphones and keyboards, demonstrating that the future may be closer than we imagine. The dilemma lies in Japan seeking not only clean energy but also economic security. Essentially, the question remains: invest billions in a still-immature technology or risk losing its global leadership once again?

For a country dependent on energy imports and
vulnerable to international crises, investing in perovskites is both a
necessity and a strategic move. The country’s plan is clear: by 2040,
Japan aims to generate 20 gigawatts of power with perovskites, the
equivalent of 20 nuclear power plants.

Achieving this goal will not only be
a technological victory but a historic milestone in the global energy
transition. Essentially, this advancement could transform Japan into an
exporter of energy technology, offering the world a more efficient
alternative that’s less dependent on large areas. For densely populated
countries like South Korea, Singapore, or even parts of Europe, the
Japanese experience could serve as a model.

 Eco News 6th Sept 2025,
https://www.ecoticias.com/en/japan-shocks-the-world-solar-panels/19817/

September 8, 2025 Posted by | Japan, renewable | Leave a comment

Russian engineer-physicist Ozharovsky spoke about deportation from Mongolia.

Andrey Ozharovsky was detained in Mongolia while exploring the Gobi Desert. He was trying to find out if there was radiation contamination where the French were mining uranium. Metro asked the Russian nuclear scientist what happened to him.

Metro Moscow 27th Aug 2025, https://www.gazetametro.ru/articles/rossijskij-inzhener-fizik-ozharovskij-rasskazal-chto-proizoshlo-s-nim-v-mongolii-27-08-2025

The media reported on the detention of the Russian activist on August 19. As Ozharovsky himself said, in Mongolia he was deprived of his freedom, passport and the opportunity to talk to his relatives. At the same time, Mongolian security forces behaved correctly with him. 

Why Russian Researcher Deported from Mongolia

“I came to help local activists figure out whether there is radioactive contamination in the part of the Gobi Desert where the French company Orano mines uranium using the underground solution method,” Ozharovsky told Metro.

According to him, Mongolian activists invited him to participate in the research of the area because the scientist’s equipment had previously detected similar contamination in Russia. During three days of research in Mongolia, Ozharovsky found deviations – the consequences of uranium mining by the French.

“Apparently, those who mine uranium in the Gobi did not like this. And perhaps the French nuclear scientists are behind my deportation,” the scientist concluded.

Suddenly a jeep with three security officers and a female employee of the migration service arrives. After that they take my passport for inspection and give it back only a week later.— deported nuclear physicist Andrei Ozharovsky

Ozharovsky believes that the circumstances of his arrest were extremely strange.

“We finished taking measurements in the desert, then moved to a new location, the Maradai mine. That’s where the immigration service detained me. Before that, we had only met one shepherd the previous day,” he explained.

According to the researcher, he was first taken under guard for interrogation to the provincial capital, the city of Choibalsan. And only after that was he sent to Ulaanbaatar. 

“Russian spy” and “Rosatom saboteur”

As Ozharovsky says, shortly before his arrest, an active campaign against him began in the local media. The scientist emphasizes that in their materials, Mongolian journalists called him a spy and intelligence officer who was in Mongolia “in the interests of Rosatom.”

— After completing the measurements in Gobi, we traveled for more than a day to a new location. And during this time, as if on command, several articles were published in which journalists called on the Mongolian authorities to take decisive action, because “a Russian spy is driving around the country’s uranium mines,” the nuclear physicist explains.

At the same time, after his arrest, representatives of Mongolian intelligence stated that they had no claims against Ozharovsky. And his case was forwarded to the police. 

However, the nuclear physicist emphasizes that Mongolia is now allegedly trying to hide a major environmental problem that he and local activists managed to discover.

“I found three areas in Mongolia where the usual Gobi dose rate of 0.1 microsievert per hour was exceeded by 20-50 times. In problem areas, the pollution level reached 5 microsievert per hour,” he said.

Microsieverta unit of measurement that can be used to determine how much radiation a person has received

According to the researcher, such indicators can already have serious consequences for humans. And the nomads living in the region can make specific assumptions about what caused the increase in cancer cases.

“One nomad we spoke to had a father who died of cancer. And his young wife was diagnosed with breast cancer,” the scientist said.

Deportation and its consequences

The nuclear physicist fully admits that he could have violated Mongolian law. But he emphasizes that this happened due to ignorance of its subtleties.

— In Mongolia, it is prohibited to measure the radiation environment with devices that have not been accredited in the country. That is, even if you have proof of the functionality of the equipment in other countries, you must bring your device to the authorities, pay money for the inspection, and only then receive the right to conduct research, he explained.

In addition, the country has very specific restrictions for Russians. And Ozharovsky could have accidentally violated one of them.

— According to Mongolian law, Russians can stay in the country without a visa only if they are tourists. After the dosimeter was turned on, according to the law enforcement officers who deported me, I ceased to be one, — the nuclear scientist added.

According to the researcher, he plans to contact lawyers to assess the legality of the punishment. He also emphasized that he does not plan to abandon his research in Mongolia, but will now conduct it in other ways.

August 31, 2025 Posted by | Mongolia, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Japan exploring whether AI could help inspect its nuclear power plants.

 Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority has requested extra funds to
experiment with AI-powered nuclear plant inspectors. Japanese media report
that the authority wants to explore AI inspection because many nuclear
plants operated by Japanese energy companies are already old and will
likely need more oversight as they continue operating. Decommissioning
those plants will also create a need for extra supervision. The regulator
reportedly said it doesn’t have sufficient staff to handle the
inspections needed for extended operations and decommissioning of old
plants.

 The Register 28th Aug 2025, https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/28/japan_ai_for_nuclear_inspectiona/

August 30, 2025 Posted by | Japan, safety | Leave a comment

Indonesia Bets On Thorcon’s Molten Salt Reactor, But History Suggests Trouble Ahead.

Indonesia has none of the ingredients that historically led to nuclear success. It has no prior nuclear fleet, no experience operating reactors, no large-scale nuclear workforce, no plans to build nuclear weapons and no tradition of standardized reactor builds.

Michael Barnard, Clean Technica, 27 Aug 25

Indonesia has taken a bold and likely problematic step with the announcement of its first, early stage regulatory approval for a nuclear power project. Thorcon International, a Singapore-based developer of molten salt reactors, has received permission from Indonesia’s regulator to evaluate a site for a demonstration plant on Kelasa Island. For a country of more than 270 million people with electricity demand that is still growing rapidly, this might appear to be a turning point. Yet if one examines history, technology, and the context in which this project is being launched, the chances of it succeeding look vanishingly small.

Indonesia is the world’s largest archipelago, stretching across more than 17,000 islands, with only about 6,000 of them inhabited. This geography creates enormous challenges for the national grid, which is fragmented into multiple regional systems rather than a single interconnected backbone. Java and Sumatra host most of the country’s transmission infrastructure, while many outlying islands depend on small isolated grids. Remote communities often rely on diesel generators for electricity, which are expensive to operate and create significant local pollution…………………………………………………………….

 the government has announced a target of 10 GW of nuclear capacity by 2040, marking its first commitment to nuclear power.

If delivered, these additions would lift renewables to roughly 35% of the national mix while also introducing nuclear into the system for the first time. Looking further ahead, Indonesia targets 75 GW of new renewable capacity by 2035, supported by more than 10 GW of storage, reflecting the scale of investment needed to diversify away from coal and meet climate commitments.

Nuclear power has only succeeded when certain conditions were in place. In the mid-twentieth century, large economies aligned nuclear energy programs with nuclear weapons programs. They standardized on one design, built dozens of gigawatt-scale plants in sequence, trained workforces through government-led programs, and maintained focus for decades. Those programs were not efficient by today’s standards, but they were coherent and well-resourced.

Countries that did not follow that formula, such as Canada’s stop-start approach with CANDUs or the the last couple of decades of western nuclear reactor builds, ended up with mixed results and rising costs. Even China, which has mastered megaproject delivery, is struggling with nuclear because it has spread effort across too many designs and has not locked into the necessary standardization. While nuclear advocates in the west point to China’s build out as impressive, it is years behind on targets and falling further behind. It only achieved its 2020 target in 2024, is still well under its 2% of grid capacity target for 2025 and its scheduled construction through 2030 will leave it tens of GW off that target.

Indonesia has none of the ingredients that historically led to nuclear success. It has no prior nuclear fleet, no experience operating reactors, no large-scale nuclear workforce, no plans to build nuclear weapons and no tradition of standardized reactor builds. It’s not building dozens of standard and proven GW-scale reactors, but only 10 GW in total, starting with a 500 MW unproven design, and not necessarily repeating that one solution multiple times. So far they appear to have little political opposition to nuclear, but that doesn’t mean the bipartisan support required for a two to four decade strategic national construction program. The country is signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has eliminated highly enriched uranium that might be transferable to nuclear weapons from the countyr, so there is military strategic alignment and discipline to call upon.

The choice of a molten salt reactor adds another layer of difficulty. Molten salt designs were first tested at Oak Ridge in the 1960s. They worked in the lab but ran into issues with corrosion, material embrittlement, plugging of salt lines, and complex chemistry that had to be actively managed. They never scaled beyond a few megawatts of thermal output. In recent years, startups from North America to Scandinavia have revived the concept, promising walk-away safety and lower costs. Yet not a single one has delivered a commercial plant. Thorcon itself has never built or operated a reactor, anywhere. It is proposing to build large sealed modules in shipyards and tow them to Indonesia, an approach that exists only on paper.

……………………………..Germany tried thorium in its pebble-bed reactor, and India built an entire nuclear strategy around its domestic thorium reserves, planning a three-stage cycle that would eventually rely on advanced heavy water reactors fueled with uranium-233 bred from thorium. Yet in every case, thorium stopped short of commercial deployment. The complexity of fuel handling, the need for an initial fissile inventory of uranium or plutonium, and the sheer momentum of the uranium-fueled reactor fleet kept thorium in the category of “promising but not delivered.”

Thorcon’s original vision was built on thorium’s promise. Its very name, short for “Thorium Concept,” signaled an intention to commercialize molten salt reactors running on a thorium cycle. Early designs envisioned dissolving thorium in molten fluoride salt, breeding uranium-233 in situ, and demonstrating the fuel’s long-touted advantages. But as the company moved from concept to trying to build an actual plant in Indonesia, pragmatism set in. For a first-of-a-kind power reactor, relying on thorium would mean untested chemistry, uncertain licensing pathways, and even greater risk.

Indonesia’s proposed demonstration plant is therefore designed to run on conventional low-enriched uranium fuel dissolved in molten salt, not thorium. Thorium remains a potential long-term option in the design, but the Indonesian reactor will take the easier, more familiar path to get the project off the ground. In other words, while Thorcon began as a bet on thorium, its first potential real-world deployment has been scaled back to uranium, underscoring how thorium continues to hover at the edge of nuclear power rather than forming its core.

Bent Flyvbjerg’s work on megaprojects should be a warning. He has shown repeatedly that nine out of ten large projects go over budget and over schedule, and nuclear projects are consistently among the very worst. The average nuclear build is more than 100% over budget and about a decade late. Add in the fact that this is a first-of-a-kind reactor by a company with no track record, in a country with no nuclear infrastructure, and the probability of delivering on time, on budget, and at promised cost of electricity falls close to zero. Even if the project is eventually completed, it will almost certainly take much longer and cost much more than advertised, and the benefits to Indonesia will not match the rhetoric.

The alternative paths are clearer and less risky. Indonesia sits on some of the world’s richest geothermal resources and has significant hydro potential. Solar costs continue to fall and the archipelago has ample land and rooftops for deployment. With investment in storage, interconnections, and grid modernization, these resources could supply reliable and cheap electricity without the risks of nuclear. International partnerships like the Just Energy Transition Partnership are already funneling billions into renewables and grid upgrades. Building out this system is not trivial, but it does not carry the weight of unproven technologies, uncertain regulation, and the specter of megaproject failure that Thorcon does.

……………………..A better bet would be to double down on renewables, expand storage, and build the transmission backbone to connect islands and balance supply. That path has its own challenges but rests on proven technologies already delivering results worldwide. Indonesia has made a bold gesture toward nuclear. The sober assessment is that it will not pay off. https://cleantechnica.com/2025/08/26/indonesia-bets-on-thorcons-molten-salt-reactor-but-history-suggests-trouble-ahead/

August 28, 2025 Posted by | Indonesia, politics, thorium | Leave a comment

Wastewater release from Fukushima nuclear plant enters third year.

By Ian Stark, Aug. 25 (UPI) — 

The Japanese utility that keeps the nuclear fuel inside the damaged Fukushima plant cool reports its release of treated wastewater has entered its third year.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company announced Monday that it has completed its third discharge of Advanced Liquid Processing System treated water into the sea on Monday…………………

According to TEPCO, the ALPS is designed to remove 62 types of radioactive materials from the affected sea and dilute the water to lower the tritium levels. The water is considered “treated” to distinguish it from water yet to be decontaminated…………………………..

Around 70 tons of radioactive wastewater is produced daily at the plant, which cools the nuclear fuel that melted inside the reactor buildings at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. As of the first week of August, around 102,000 tons of treated water have been released. https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2025/08/25/Japan-Fukushima-nuclear-wastewater-TEPCO-radioactive/9871756140747/

August 27, 2025 Posted by | Fukushima continuing, wastes | Leave a comment

German experience shows transition to renewables possible for Taiwan and the world.


https://tcan2050.org.tw/en/nonuke-2/ 2025-08-19, Dr. Ortwin Renn |Professor emeritus of Environmental Sociology and Technology Assessment, Stuttgart University; Scientific Director emeritus, Research Institute for Sustainability at GFZ, Potsdam , Germany (RIFS)

I am writing to express my full support for your initiative to keep Taiwan’s nuclear power reactors permanently shut down and to accelerate the transition toward renewable energy. This position is not only grounded in scientific evidence but also in practical experience from countries such as my home country Germany that have successfully advanced toward a sustainable energy future.

In 2011, I served as a member of the German Federal Government’s Ethics Committee on a Safe Energy Supply, established after the Fukushima disaster. Our task was to assess the future role of nuclear energy in Germany. After extensive consultations with leading scientists, economic stakeholders, and civil society organizations, the Committee reached a consensual recommendation: to phase out nuclear energy within ten years while investing heavily in renewable energy sources. This decision was not only an ethical imperative but also based on sound economic and technological reasoning.

The results speak for themselves. Between 2011 and 2025, Germany’s share of renewable energy in electricity generation rose from 23% to over 54%—an increase of 230%. Nuclear power, which contributed less than 18% in 2011, was more than compensated for by renewables. In addition, the expansion of renewables significantly reduced reliance on fossil fuels, thereby contributing to climate protection and energy sovereignty.

Today, renewable energy is not only clean but also cost-competitive. The production of electricity from wind and solar power is now cheaper than generating electricity from coal or gas and even cheaper than nuclear power when comparing the costs of building new facilities. It is true that the transition requires substantial upfront investment in grid upgrades, storage systems, and backup solutions. However, once this infrastructure is in place, the long-term costs of renewable energy generation are lower than those of fossil or nuclear alternatives.

Germany’s relatively high electricity prices are not a consequence of renewables, but largely due to global gas price spikes and the cost of imported electricity. The long-term trend is clear: renewable energy is becoming the most economical, environmentally sound, and politically stable source of power.

The lessons for Taiwan are evident. A transition to renewable energy is possible, economically viable, and ultimately beneficial for society. It contributes to climate protection, environmental quality, and public health. It reduces dependence on imported fuels and avoids the long-term risks and costs associated with nuclear energy, including waste management and potential catastrophic accidents. Most importantly, it enables a decentralized and resilient energy system that benefits local communities.

Achieving this transformation requires significant investment and strong political will, but the German experience demonstrates that it is both feasible and advantageous. I strongly encourage Taiwan to seize this opportunity and prioritize a renewable-based energy future over a return to nuclear power.
https://tcan2050.org.tw/en/nonuke-2/

August 26, 2025 Posted by | Germany, renewable, Taiwan | Leave a comment

Older reactors more susceptible to accidents; Nuclear is not a viable climate solution.

 TCAN 19th Aug 2025, Statements of support from international energy scholars for Taiwan’s nuclear phase-out, Dr. M.V. Ramana | Professor; Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security, School of Public Policy and Global Affairs (SPPGA), University of British Columbia

There is a debate in Taiwan about possibly extending operations of its nuclear reactors that have been shut down. Doing so poses risks and will not help with mitigating climate change.

Risks Associated with Nuclear Power Plant Extensions 

As they age, nuclear plants become more susceptible to accidents. The likelihood of failures at reactors is often described by something called the bathtub curve. The failure rate is initially high due to manufacturing problems and operator errors associated with new technology. Then curving like a tub, the failure rate declines with experience. But then eventually it starts rising again as aging related wear and tear starts increasing. So, after some point in time, the dangers of continuing operations at nuclear reactors start increasing. As the examples of Chernobyl, Ukraine in 1986 and Fukushima, Japan in 2011 show, the consequences of a nuclear accident can be catastrophic with long-lasting and financially expensive impacts.

Nuclear Power is not a Solution to Climate Change

Nuclear energy is one of the most expensive ways to generate electricity. This is the reason the share of the world’s electricity produced by nuclear power plants has been declining consistently since the mid 1990s. If one were to think about nuclear power as a solution to climate change, that share should be increasing while the share of fossil fuels must be decreasing. That is simply not happening. Investing in cheaper low-carbon sources of energy will provide more emission reductions per dollar. Second, it takes about a decade to build a nuclear plant. If you add the time needed for all the necessary preparatory steps—obtaining environmental and safety clearances, getting consent from a community that has to live near a hazardous facility for decades, and raising the huge amounts of funding necessary—you’re looking at 15-20 years.  This timeline is incompatible with the urgent demands of climate science. Thus, nuclear power fails on two key metrics for evaluating any technology claiming to deal with climate change.
https://tcan2050.org.tw/en/nonuke-2/

August 26, 2025 Posted by | safety, Taiwan | Leave a comment

Taiwan nuclear plant re-opening vote fails as approval threshold missed

By Ben Blanchard, August 23, 2025

TAIPEI, Aug 23 (Reuters) – A referendum to push for the re-opening of Taiwan’s last nuclear plant failed on Saturday to reach the legal threshold to be valid, though the president said the island could return to the technology in the future if safety standards improve.

The plebiscite, backed by the opposition, asked whether the Maanshan power plant should be re-opened if it was “confirmed” there were no safety issues. The plant was closed in May as the government shifts to renewables and liquefied natural gas.

The small Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) proposed the referendum earlier this year, and with the backing of the much larger Kuomintang (KMT) passed the legislation for the vote, saying Taiwan needs reliable power supplies and not to be so reliant on imports.

Around 4.3 million people voted in favour of the plant’s re-opening in the referendum, a clear majority over the 1.5 million who voted against, figures from the Central Election Commission showed.

But the motion needed the backing of one quarter of all registered electors – around 5 million people – to get through under electoral law, meaning the plant on Taiwan’s southern tip will not re-open.

Taiwan’s government says there are major safety concerns around generating nuclear power in earthquake-prone Taiwan and handling nuclear waste………………………..https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/taiwan-nuclear-plant-re-opening-vote-fails-approval-threshold-missed-2025-08-23/

August 25, 2025 Posted by | politics, Taiwan | Leave a comment

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