Russian forces now control Chernobyl, inviting speculation and uncertainty
Russian forces now control Chernobyl, inviting speculation and uncertainty, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, By Susan D’Agostino | February 25, 2022 Yesterday, Russian forces seized control of the defunct Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, the still-radioactive site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster. The plant, along with the approximately 1,000-square mile radius around it known as the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, supports ongoing work focused on nuclear waste management and storage…
Though the International Atomic Energy Agency, a United Nations watchdog, reported that there have been “no casualties nor destruction” at Chernobyl, experts and the public are now at work attempting to understand the potential risks posed by the takeover. While some offer measured responses concerning the potential for human and ecological disaster, others express alarm. Many posit theories for why Russia sought to seize control of Chernobyl, including using the site as a base, for a potential act of terrorism, or for the symbolic “win” it may represent.
Igor Konashenkov, a spokesperson for Russian Military of Defense, said in a statement that the Ukrainian staff “continues to service the facilities in a routine mode and monitor the radioactive situation.” Konashenkov did not indicate that Russian soldiers were holding the workers hostage, as Kateryna Pavlova, Chernobyl’s Head of the Department for International Cooperation and Public Relations, told the Bulletin yesterday.
“The most dangerous part is that we lost control,” Pavlova said. “Some part of the staff from Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and National Guard have been kidnapped. They can’t connect. They can’t report.”
White House Press Secretary, Jen Psaki, later expressed similar concern: “This unlawful and dangerous hostage-taking, which could upend the routine civil service efforts required to maintain and protect the nuclear waste facilities, is obviously incredibly alarming. We condemn it, and we request their release.”
Expert views of the potential risk have changed since the news broke. For example, yesterday the American Nuclear Society wrote in a tweet that the hostilities in the region “have not resulted in any additional radiological risk.” And Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, said, “I can’t imagine how it would be in Russia’s interest to allow any facilities at Chernobyl to be damaged.”
Yet this morning, the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine reported that radiation levels in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone were “exceeded at a significant number of observation points” since Russian forces assumed control. The Ukrainian regulatory body attributed the excessive levels to the “disturbance of the top layer of soil from movement of a large number of radio heavy military” and an “increase of air pollution.”
“But now it is currently impossible to establish the reasons for the change in the radiation background in the exclusion zone because of the occupation and military fight in this territory,” the agency’s website said.
A Russian defense ministry official has disputed the claim of excessive radiation levels……..
Chernobyl sits along a short path from the Russia-Ukraine border to Ukraine’s capital. Pavlova, who described the takeover as a “psychological and humanitarian disaster,” notes that Chernobyl’s facilities and location might have been part of the allure. “We have houses where they can stay and leave. It could be their base,” Pavlova said. “It’s very close to Kyiv—only 140 kilometers. The airport is also nearby. It’s a very good location to bring their troops.”
The stricken reactor has been entombed in a sarcophagus—a steel and concrete coffin-like structure—since 1986. In 2016, another structure—known as New Safe Confinement, which is “strong enough to withstand a tornado” and designed to last 100 years, according to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development—was placed over the sarcophagus. The New Safe Confinement was funded by more than 30 countries at a cost of $1.5 billion.
Still, the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned that the Russian takeover “may cause another ecological disaster” and that if the war continues, Chernobyl “can happen again in 2022.”
Others were less concerned. “[T]he bigger risk comes from the potential for fighting around Ukraine’s four active nuclear power plants, which contain 15 separate reactors and generated over half the country’s electricity in 2020,” James M. Acton, co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote in a post………
Despite divergent early takes on the potential risks of this unfolding situation, Pavlova, who once served as Acting Head of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone during a time when wildfires were rampant, is alarmed. “Not so many people understand how dangerous nuclear power plants are in the case of war,” Pavlova said. “I want the world to know that we are one little step—a few millimeters—from destroying our world.” https://thebulletin.org/2022/02/russian-forces-now-control-chernobyl-inviting-speculation-and-uncertainty/
The U.K. Wanted to Extradite Assange to the U.S. From the Start
The attempt to extradite Assange to the United States is a clear breakdown of the rule of law, which is continuing in the post-Trump era. The yearn to punish and send a warning to others has been given precedence over human rights, rule of law, and freedom of expression. The persecution must end now.
The U.K. Wanted to Extradite Assange to the U.S. From the Start https://theintercept.com/2022/02/24/julian-assange-extradition-uk-alan-duncan/?fbclid=IwAR0amsrpPJTxuZn_xL12PcO73aDgmjXquIKJvMujvG_m0nDkXY37f5j_7eg
In a 2016 meeting, Britain’s deputy minister of foreign affairs removed the diplomatic mask. Guillaume LongFebruary 25 2022, THE U.K. HIGH COURT ruling that Julian Assange should be extradited to face trial in the United States — a decision that Amnesty International has called a “travesty of justice” — came as no surprise to me. It’s what the U.K. government always wanted. I know because the British deputy minister of foreign affairs told me.
Many pundits and politicians talk of the extradition proceedings against Assange as if they were an unforeseen legal outcome that came about as Assange’s situation unfolded. This is not true. My experience as the foreign minister of Ecuador — the South American country that granted Assange asylum — left me in no doubt that the U.K. wanted Assange’s extradition to the United States from the very beginning.
One encounter I had with Alan Duncan, the former British minister of state for Europe and the Americas, in October 2016 really let the cat out of the bag. At our meeting in the Dominican Republic, Duncan went on extensively about how loathsome Assange was. While I didn’t anticipate Duncan to profess his love for our asylee, I had expected a more professional diplomatic exchange. But the most important moment of the meeting was when I reiterated that Ecuador’s primary fear was the transfer of Assange to the United States, at which point Duncan turned to his staff and exclaimed something very close to, “Yes, well, good idea. How would we go about extraditing him to the Americans?”
His advisers squirmed in embarrassment. They had spent the last four years trying to reassure Ecuador that this was not what the U.K. was after. I responded that this was news indeed. I then wondered whether Duncan left the meeting feeling he had made a mess of it.
I was particularly surprised by Duncan’s candor because my June 2016 meeting with his predecessor, Hugo Swire, in Whitehall, had been quite different. It’s not that Swire wasn’t equally contemptuous of the irritating South American country that had granted Assange asylum; it is more that Swire actually knew the case well.
Swire stuck to the U.K.’s position: Nobody wanted to extradite Assange to the United States. The Ecuadorian government was “deluded” and “paranoid.” This had nothing to do with the issue of freedom of expression or even WikiLeaks. The case was all about accusations in Sweden against Assange. Ecuador should stop protecting a potential sex offender.
Events since have demonstrated that the British argument that Assange was “holed up” in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid facing sexual assault allegations in Sweden was deceitful. The case was always about Assange’s publishing activities as the head of WikiLeaks. In fact, my government had made it clear to both its British and Swedish counterparts that if Ecuador received guarantees of nonextradition from Sweden to the United States, Ecuador would have no problem with Assange traveling to Sweden to face questioning. Assange himself agreed to this. But Sweden refused to offer such guarantees, which obviously further heightened Ecuador’s suspicions that Assange was being persecuted.
Had Swire been telling the truth, the Swedish prosecutor’s decision not to press charges against Assange in May 2017 would have enabled Assange to walk free from the embassy. The remaining claim that he breached his bail by successfully applying for political asylum should have been easily resolved after the European arrest warrant was dropped. But the U.K. refused to let Assange slip away, and he remained in the Ecuadorian Embassy for two more years before a new Ecuadorian government, heavily leaned on by the Trump administration, consented to having him brutally removed in April 2019.
Maybe it was simply that Duncan’s hatred for Assange, whom he referred to as a “miserable little worm” in Parliament in March 2018, was too pure to be tempered in our meeting. Duncan’s published diaries certainly attest to the fact that Assange’s arrest became an overriding obsession and eventually a personal trophy. When the time came, Duncan watched Assange’s extraction from the embassy — which he refers to as Operation Pelican — on a live feed and later held “drinks in my office for all the Operation Pelican team.”
Duncan’s deeply felt disdain for what he called “the supposed human rights of Julian Assange” are probably part and parcel of his fervent allegiance to the Anglo-American security partnership. Duncan served on the U.K.’s Intelligence and Security Committee in 2015–2016. He is also a member of the secretive, transatlantic organization “Le Cercle,” an ultra conservative think tank with strong links to the intelligence community in Europe and the United States.
We can only speculate whether Duncan’s close relationship with whom he calls his “good friend and Oxford contemporary Ian Burnett,” the Lord Chief Justice who gave the green light to Assange’s extradition, interfered with the judicial process. But the extradition proceedings have been problematic from the beginning. A coalition of major human rights and press freedom organizations — including Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders, and First Look Institute’s Press Freedom Defense Fund — have urged the U.S. Justice Department “to dismiss the indictment of Mr. Assange” on the grounds that it “threatens press freedom” and marks a precedent that “could effectively criminalize … common journalistic practices.” The top editors of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Washington Post, and others have agreed with these experts.
The attempt to extradite Assange to the United States is a clear breakdown of the rule of law, which is continuing in the post-Trump era. The yearn to punish and send a warning to others has been given precedence over human rights, rule of law, and freedom of expression. The persecution must end now.
UK government study shows that nuclear test veterans were more likely to have cancer and die
More than 20,000 men, many on National Service, were ordered to take part in 45 nuclear weapons tests and 593 radioactive ‘minor trials’ in America, Australia and the South Pacific between 1952 and 1991.They later reported cancer, blood disease, miscarriages for their wives and 10 times the usual rate of birth defects in their children, but the MoD spent millions denying war pensions and compensation, insisting there was no proof.
Nuclear test veterans were more likely to have cancer and die, government study finds, Mirror, By Susie Boniface 25 Feb 2022
A study found out that nuclear test veterans were more likely to die. There are now cross-party calls for a public inquiry and immediate compensation, as well as a medal, Men ordered to take part in Cold War radiation experiments WERE more likely to die, according to a government study which has blown apart 70 years of official denials.
- Nuclear test veterans told to watch atomic blasts then live, eat, and drink amid the fallout have raised rates of multiple cancers, the research has found.They are nearly four times more likely to die from a bone marrow cancer seen in survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and more likely than other servicemen to take their own lives.The shocking research proves:
- HALF the crew of HMS Diana, ordered twice to sail through fallout in 1956, died from tumours;
- Atomic scientists were SEVEN times more likely to kill themselves;
- RAF decontamination crews were FIVE times more likely to die from leukaemia;
- There were more cancers than deaths, meaning some veterans have fought multiple malignancies;
- And despite Ministry of Defence claims servicemen were well-protected, three-quarters were not checked for radiation, while clean-up workers were both unmonitored, and more likely to die from blood cancer.
- There are now cross-party calls for a public inquiry and immediate compensation, as well as a medal.Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham said: “This is all the evidence required to seek a formal inquiry into the issues and injustices that more than 20,000 veterans of nuclear testing have faced. It appears to be incontrovertible proof that their service led to serious health issues.“They need recognition and for the government to give them the respect owed to them by acknowledging what they have known for years: they paid a devastating price for their vital role in protecting our country. We are at a critical moment in this journey for justice and we need to see action now.”
- His call for speed was echoed by Tory grandee Sir John Hayes, patron of the British Nuclear Test Veteran Association, who said: “There can be no doubt and no more excuses. Based on these facts, we need to act with no delay to recognise these exceptional veterans’ extraordinary sacrifice.”
- More than 20,000 men, many on National Service, were ordered to take part in 45 nuclear weapons tests and 593 radioactive ‘minor trials’ in America, Australia and the South Pacific between 1952 and 1991.They later reported cancer, blood disease, miscarriages for their wives and 10 times the usual rate of birth defects in their children, but the MoD spent millions denying war pensions and compensation, insisting there was no proof.
The new research comes eight months before the 70th anniversary of Britain’s first nuclear test, Operation Hurricane, on October 3, 1952. It was published without warning on the morning that Russia invaded Ukraine.
It looked at causes of death among 21,357 veterans compared to a control group of servicemen who were not at the tests. It traced only 85 per cent, but found three per cent more veterans had died from cancer and two per cent more veterans died from other causes.
Test veterans were 20 per cent more likely than controls to die from stomach cancer or pleural cancer, 59 per cent more likely to die from skin cancer, and 26 per cent more likely to die from acute lymphatic leukaemia.
- There were 12 per cent more deaths from suicide, and 377 per cent more deaths from chronic myeloid leukaemia.
- CML is caused by genetic mutations in the bone marrow. By-products of nuclear weapons, including plutonium-239 and strontium-90 are considered “bone-seeking” when absorbed by man, and it is known that they can damage DNA.Stuart Ross, whose dad Archie was a RAF corporal at Christmas Island in 1958 and died in 2015 from aggressive leukaemia, said it was time to released the veterans’ military medical records.
- “My dad suffered for years with a layer of skin growing between his eyelid and eyeball, a daughter born with an outsized arm, and a grandson with Down’s syndrome. Then he died within six weeks of being diagnosed with blood cancer,” said Stuart, 57, of Hertford.“I’ve asked for the blood tests dad and many other veterans had taken when he was on the island, and officials tell me they don’t exist. They’re hidden somewhere. The Defence Secretary must order them to be released to the families. We deserve the truth.”The latest research studied an extra 19 years of data, and found higher rates for many types of death than were in three previous studies, first ordered by Margaret Thatcher in 1983.The report’s authors at the UK Health Security Agency warned that the MoD could no longer rely on dodgy dose records from the 1950s, saying that there should be no raised risk of death or cancer if the records “accurately reflect the broad levels of exposure”. They added that risks they found should be expected “if, in fact, doses… had been much larger than recorded”.
- The Mirror has campaigned for justice for the test veterans since the 1980s………….. https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nuclear-test-veterans-were-more-26331008
Increased radiation levels around Chernobyl probably due to military’s disturbance of soil around exclusion zone
Chernobyl radiation levels increase 20-fold after heavy fighting around the facility, Live Science, By Ben Turner 25 Feb 22,
Gamma radiation has increased to 20 times its usual levels in the area. The Chernobyl nuclear power plant and its surrounding area are showing increased radiation levels after heavy fighting between Ukrainian and Russian troops in the region, Ukrainian officials said Friday (Feb. 25).
Online data from the Chernobyl exclusion zone’s automated radiation-monitoring system shows that gamma radiation has increased twenty times above usual levels at multiple observation points, which officials from the Ukrainian nuclear agency attributed to radioactive dust thrown up by the movement of heavy military equipment in the area.
The defunct Chernobyl nuclear power plant has been under occupation by attacking Russian soldiers since Thursday (Feb. 24) after Russian president Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in the early hours of the morning. Workers at the facility, stationed there to monitor and maintain radiation levels within safe bounds, have been taken hostage by Russian troops, according to Anna Kovalenko, a Ukrainian military expert.
“The station staff is being held hostage. This threatens the security of not only Ukraine but also a significant part of Europe,” Kovalenko wrote on Facebook.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a news briefing on Thursday (Feb. 24) that the Biden administration was “outraged” by reports of Russian troops holding Chernobyl plant staff against their will and demanded their release. She warned that the action “could upend the routine civil service efforts required to maintain and protect the nuclear waste facilities.”
As one of the most radioactive places in the world, large parts of the Chernobyl exclusion zone have been closed off since the disastrous meltdown of Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986. In that year, two enormous explosions inside the plant’s reactor flipped its 2,000-ton (1,800 metric tons) lid like a coin, blanketing the surrounding 1,000-square-mile (2,600 square kilometers) with radioactive dust and reactor chunks. Following evacuation and the dousing of the nuclear fire — which cost many firefighters their lives — the reactor was sealed off and the area deemed uninhabitable by humans for the next 24,000 years.
Heavy fighting around the plant on Thursday (Feb. 24) led to concerns that stray munitions could accidentally pierce the exploded reactor’s two layers of protection — consisting of a new, outer safe-confinement structure and an inner concrete sarcophagus — and release the deadly radioactive fallout trapped inside.
In a contradictory statement, Igor Konashenkov, the spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, said that radiation around the plant was within normal levels and that Russian forces were working with the facilities’ staff to ensure the area’s safety……..
The site, which is just 60 miles (97 km) north of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, lies on a direct invasion route between Kyiv and the Russian forces’ northern entry point to Ukraine at the Belarusian border.
Claire Corkhill, a professor of nuclear material degradation at the University of Sheffield in the U.K., wrote on Twitter that the gamma radiation around the Chernoybl plant “looks to have increased by around 20 times compared with a few days ago.” However, caution should be taken “not to over-interpret at this stage,” she said.
“This appears to be based on a single data point,” Corkhill added in a separate tweet. “What is intriguing is that the level of radiation has increased mostly around the main routes in and out of the Chernobyl exclusion zone, as well as the reactor. This would tend to suggest that increased movement of people or vehicles may have disturbed radioactive dust.”
The highly radioactive fuel inside the Chernobyl reactor is buried deep beneath the defunct plant and is unlikely to be released unless the reactor is directly targeted, Corkhill said……. https://www.livescience.com/chernobyl-radiation-levels-rise-after-fighting
French nuclear regulator halts assembly of huge ITER nuclear fusion reactor
French nuclear regulator halts assembly of huge fusion reactor https://www.science.org/content/article/french-nuclear-regulator-halts-assembly-huge-fusion-reactor
ITER must satisfy safety concerns before welding reactor vessel. 24 FEB 2022, BY DANIEL CLERY France’s nuclear regulator has ordered ITER, an international fusion energy project, to hold off on assembling its gigantic reactor until officials address safety concerns.
This month, the ITER Organization was expecting to get the green light to begin to weld together the 11-meter-tall steel sections that make up the doughnut-shaped reactor, called a tokamak. But on 25 January, France’s Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) sent a letter ordering a stoppage until ITER can address concerns about neutron radiation, slight distortions in the steel sections, and loads on the concrete slab holding up the reactor. ITER staff say they intend to satisfy ASN by April so they can begin to weld the reactor vessel by July. “We’re working very hard for that,” says ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot.
Radiation levels increased at Chernobyl, after Russian troops seized the area.
Radiation levels have increased at Chernobyl after Russian troops seized
the area yesterday, Ukraine warns. Russian forces took control of the
defunct plant in a ‘fierce’ battle on Thursday. The condition of the plant
was unknown, but sparked fears of a radiation leak. Ukraine’s State Nuclear
Regulatory Inspectorate said Friday that higher gamma radiation levels have
been detected in the Chernobyl zone. Russian officials denied this,
claiming radiation levels at the site were normal.
Daily Mail 25th Feb 2022
France’s nuclear ”energy independence” is a fake, as it has to import all its uranium fuel
As the Ukraine crisis continues to push fuel prices up, France’s
championing of nuclear power as a way of ensuring its energy sovereignty
sounds great.
But a group of researchers says it’s a red herring given
France imports all its uranium. Production of nuclear power relies on
uranium – a metal ore found in rocks, and in seawater, in many parts of
the world. When France first developed nuclear following the 1973 oil
crisis, it produced some of its own uranium – reaching a peak of 2,634
tonnes in 1980.
But by the end of the 1990s, France stopped building new
plants and its last uranium mine was closed in 2001. Of the 138,230 tonnes
of uranium imported between 2005 and 2020 official Euratom data shows three
quarters came from just four countries: Kazakhstan (27,7France has control
over its uranium supplies because they’re not concentrated in one region of
the world according to French nuclear group Orano (formerly Areva).
Morevoer, 44 percent of the uranium comes from OECD countries its director
general Phillipe Knoche said.
But a group of French researchers and
specialists say France’s reliance on imported uranium “poses a serious
challenge to the idea that nuclear power allows France to ensure its energy
independence”. In an open letter published in Le Monde daily on Tuesday
they write: “We are as dependent on foreign countries for uranium as we
are for gas and oil.” “France’s energy independence is a red herring,
it’s utopian,” socio-anthropologist Eric Hahonou, one of the
signatories, told RFI.48 tonnes), Australia (25,804 tonnes), Niger (24,787)
and Uzbekistan (22,197).
RFI 23rd Feb 2022
*
12 nuclear power reactors in France shut down, 6 because of corrosion problems
| EDF CEO Jean-Bernard Lévy announced on Tuesday that a total of 12 nuclear reactors were currently shut down in France, including six linked to a corrosion problem on a safety system. “The last time I looked there were 44 in operation, so there were 12 that were not working,” he told franceinfo in response to a question about the number of reactors in operation in France. the French nuclear fleet. “Of the 12 (shutdown reactors) there were about half, I believe six, which were shut down because we detected, very unexpectedly, a corrosion problem in certain places where we should not not see this corrosion at all, and so we stopped them to examine them, to fully understand what is happening, and then there were six others who are in normal maintenance programs, “explained Jean-Bernard Lévy. Les Echos 23rd Feb 2022https://m.investir.lesechos.fr/actualites/edf-12-reacteurs-a-l-arret-en-raison-de-probleme-de-corrosion-pdg-2004147.html |
Finland’s Russian-backed Fennovoima nuclear power station project now coming to a halt
Finland Signals Russian-Backed Nuclear Project Faces Halt https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-24/finland-signals-russian-backed-nuclear-project-faces-halt
Finnish minister says construction permit can’t proceed
Government faces legal predicament in shutting down project
By Kati Pohjanpalo, February 25, 2022,
Finland’s Economy Minister Mika Lintila signaled that the Russian-backed nuclear project Fennovoima Oy would not be granted a construction permit in the Nordic country.
“As the presenting minister, a permissioning authority of sorts, I do not see a scenario in which I could present that to the government,” Lintila said in parliament on Thursday following Russia’s attack on Ukraine. About a third of the greenfield Hanhikivi-1 atomic reactor project belongs to Rosatom Corp., the Russian government-owned plant supplier, and a construction permit was expected this year.
The project underscores the Finnish government’s predicament as it seeks to prevent Russia from operating its critical infrastructure without angering the eastern neighbor with which it shares a 1,300-kilometer (800-mile) border. Finland also imports power and gets much of its oil and gas from Russia
Fennovoima had initially been given a green light by the parliament in 2010, when it was led by EON SE. The German utility withdrew from the project in 2012, and in 2013, Rosatom stepped in. Other owners include a plethora of Finnish energy and industrial companies.
In a further complication, the 1,200-megawatt plant’s pressure chamber looks to fall under the scope of sanctions against Russia, as it’s set to be manufactured in the Ukraine separatist region of Donetsk, Lintila said.
Prime Minister Sanna Marin had earlier indicated that the project’s security implications would face a review. Still, any decision to shut down the project would be against the law, Lintila told lawmakers.
“The Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the counter measures by European Union and western countries as a consequence, pose a major risk for the project,” Fennovoima said on its website on Thursday.
Abandoned mines and old Yunkom nuclear test site in Donbas region of Ukraine pose ”singular threat” of radiation contamination
Abandoned mines in eastern Ukraine are filling up with water at
“alarming” rates, according to new research that has triggered fears of
a radioactive disaster. Satellite images show high levels of swelling in
the ground in the former coal mining region of Donbas, much of which is now
controlled by pro-Russian separatists.
The images have raised concerns
about water contaminated with heavy metals or radioactive material spilling
into rivers and the wider environment. Of particular concern is the high
swelling at the Yunkom mine, which was the site of a small Soviet
underground nuclear test in 1979.
The Organisation for Security and
Co-operation in Europe, the intergovernmental organisation, warned in 2017
that the mine posed a “singular threat”. “Any present destabilisation
of the mine via flooding could release up to 500 cubic metres of
radiation-contaminated mine waters into the ground-water table,” it said.
Telegraph 24th Feb 2022
Warning on faults in EPR nuclear reactors – Commission de Recherche et d’Information Indépendantes sur la Radioactivité
| French nuclear giants are heavily involved in the EPR in Taishan, China: Framatome in terms of design, construction and fuel supply, EDF in terms of operations with its participation (30%) in TNPJVC. Furthermore, the feedback from first years of operation of Taishan 1 and 2 is obviously essential for the safety of other EPRs. EDF must therefore monitor incidents affecting these facilities very closely. In June 2021, the national and international press widely reported on the affair of the problems of ruptures of nuclear fuel cladding for the Taishan 1 EPR reactor in China. This 1,750 MWe reactor of power is the first EPR to be put into commercial service in the world (in December 2018). Degradation of nuclear fuel led its operator, TNPJVC, to a shutdown “anticipated”, on July 30, 2021, i.e. around 6 months ahead of the initial duration of the cycle. Anticipation was quite relative because the sheath rupture problems had in fact been identified as early as October 2020 and the reactor should have been shut down well before July, in order to limit the radiological risks for workers and residents. The CRIIRAD had alerted on this subject in a press release1 published on June 14 2021. Several causes can be at the origin of these ruptures of sheaths. Without being exhaustive, some may implicate design flaws in the reactor, others manufacturing flaws, other more faults involving the operation and/or maintenance of the Taishan 1 reactor. Some could turn out to be generic and also concern the other EPR reactors under construction. CRIIRAD 22nd Feb 2022 http://criirad.org/Surete-nucleaire/220222_Courrier_CRIIRAD_EDF_Flamanville_EPR.pdf |
France’s nuclear company EDF fined a measly 300 million euros for its decades of deception and misuse of its position
The French Competition Authority imposes a fine of 300 million euros on
EDF. The organization accuses the French company of abuse of a dominant
position and illegal collection of its customers’ data.
No less than seventeen years of anti-competitive practice. EDF was fined 300 million
euros by the Competition Authority for having misused its position as a
historical player in electricity since the opening of the market to
competition for companies in 2004, until 2021. The company does not
dispute the facts and has benefited from a negotiated procedure allowing
it to reduce the pain.
According to the law, a fine for this type of
practice could have cost it up to 10% of its annual worldwide turnover,
that is to say 7.6 billion, specifies in its decision the Authority of the
competition.
Le Figaro 22nd Feb 2022
Limitless power arriving too late: Why fusion won’t help us decarbonise — RenewEconomy
A limitless, clean source of baseload power might be within reach – without the nuclear waste of traditional fission nuclear plants. That’s good, right? Not quite. The post Limitless power arriving too late: Why fusion won’t help us decarbonise appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Limitless power arriving too late: Why fusion won’t help us decarbonise — RenewEconomy
| I first heard the standard joke about fusion as an undergraduate physics student in the 1960s: Fusion power is 50 years away – and probably always will be. More than 50 years later, we still don’t have fusion. That’s because of the huge experimental challenges in recreating a miniature sun on earth. Still, real progress is being made. This month, UK fusion researchers managed to double previous records of producing energy. Last year, American scientists came close to ignition, the tantalising moment where fusion puts more energy out than it needs to start the reaction. And small, fast-moving fusion startups are making progress using different techniques. A limitless, clean source of baseload power might be within reach – without the nuclear waste of traditional fission nuclear plants. That’s good, right? Not quite. While we’re closer than ever to making commercial fusion viable, this new power source simply won’t get here in time to do the heavy lifting of decarbonisation. We are racing the clock to limit damage from climate change. Luckily, we already have the technologies we need to decarbonise. On the megaproject front, the next step is the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) being built in southern France. Far too big for any one country, this is a joint effort by countries including USA, Russia, China, the UK and EU member countries. The project is enormous, with a vessel ten times the size of the UK reactor and around 5,000 technical experts, scientists and engineers working on it. Famously, the project’s largest magnet is strong enough to lift an aircraft carrier. Even this enormous project is only expected to produce slightly more power than it uses – around 500 megawatts. The first experiments are expected by 2025. To me, this illustrates how far away commercial fusion really is. Renew Economy 25th Feb 2022https://reneweconomy.com.au/limitless-power-arriving-too-late-why-fusion-wont-help-us-decarbonise/ |
Why nuclear risk from war in Ukraine isn’t missiles, but accidental hits on reactors
“In case of the total destruction of the power plant, I think the consequences would be so much worse than at Fukushima and Chernobyl together,” Mr Gumenyuk said. “If speaking about consequences of this war situation, Europe will be totally contaminated.”
Why nuclear risk from war in Ukraine isn’t missiles but accidental hits on reactors, Kyiv safety expert warns, By Isabella Bengoechea i , 23 Feb 22
Kyiv nuclear safety expert Dmytro Gumenyuk told i while a direct attack is unlikely, military invasion raises the risk of possible accidental hits from missiles or artillery
Ukraine’s nuclear power plants would pose a risk of radioactive pollution in Europe if caught in the crossfire of a Russian invasion, a Kyiv safety expert has told i.
The chance of a direct military attack on such facilities would be highly unlikely but a lack of high-precision weapons in the occupied Donbas suggests there could be an increased chance of sensitive facilities being hit accidentally.
If this happens, radiation could contaminate air, soil and waterways, affecting not only Ukraine but also Russia and much of Europe, according to Dmytro Gumenyuk, head of safety analysis at the State Scientific and Technical Centre for Nuclear and Radiation Safety, a body within the state nuclear inspectorate.
Ukraine has 15 nuclear reactors in four power plants, which provide 52 per cent of the country’s electricity: Khelnitsky and Rivne in the northwest, and Zaporizhzhia and the South Ukrainian plants in the west and south respectively.
Some facilities including a nuclear waste storage site in the exclusion zone at Chernobyl – where in 1986 catastrophic failure at the power plant resulted in the worst nuclear disaster in history – lie close to the country’s borders, where Russia has amassed nearly 200,000 troops.
The plant at Zaporizhzhia is only about 150 miles from the front line in Donetsk, while the South Ukrainian plant is about another 160 miles further west.
While a direct attack is unlikely, military invasion raises the risk of possible accidental hits from missiles or artillery. On Tuesday the thermal power station at Shchastya, near the conflict line in Luhansk, caught fire amid shelling, leaving 40,000 residents without electricity.
Mr Gumenyuk said: “Our NPP [nuclear power plant] wasn’t designed for military protection. Of course it wasn’t designed against tanks, bombs, missiles and so on.
“In case of a military attack it is not a long time for getting from Dontesk to Zaporizhzhia NPP, and of course taking into account the small distances from the Russian Federation, we could suppose that our power plants are not fully protected from military attack from our neighbour.”
A direct attack by Russia is unlikely. Lada Roslycky, founder of the Ukraine-based Black Trident defence and security group, said: “From a military perspective and a defence perspective it would be an idiotic action.”
However, she pointed out the separatists’ lack of high-precision weapons in conflict in the occupied Donbas does raise the chance of sensitive facilities being hit accidentally.
She also suggested that this could be part of a Russian strategy of fomenting uncertainty through psychological warfare, by holding out the threat of attacking such facilities. “I really don’t think they would do it [attack nuclear facilities] but it’s possible … it’s such a wonderful, brilliant instrument,” she said.
The Conflict and Environment Observatory (CEOBS) said it is “right to be concerned about Ukraine’s 15 ageing Soviet-design nuclear reactors”.
“The three reactors at the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant and the six reactors at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant are the two sites most likely to be affected by a Russian invasion,” the observatory added.
The VVER 1000 pressurised water reactors at Zaporizhzhia each contain 163 assemblies – or structured groups of fuel rods. Each assembly contains about 500kg of uranium dioxide, making the total fuel inside one reactor about 80 tonnes.
After the 2011 nuclear disaster at Fukushima in Japan, Ukrainian nuclear authorities implemented extra safety measures to make their reactors safer, and protect against accidents such as fires and flooding.
However, Mr Gumenyuk warned that were the plant to be attacked, in the worst-case scenario, the consequences would be devastating.
“In case of the total destruction of the power plant, I think the consequences would be so much worse than at Fukushima and Chernobyl together,” Mr Gumenyuk said. “If speaking about consequences of this war situation, Europe will be totally contaminated.”
Soon after the disaster, radioactive rain began falling across northern Britain. In Cumbria detectors showed background radiation 200 times higher than normal. In Scotland two months later it was 4,000 times. Sheep in North Wales, Cumbria, and Scotland were found to have increased levels of caesium-137, prompting temporary restrictions on meat sales for 7,000 farms.
A nuclear disaster at Zaporizhzhia would contaminate the water, entering the Dneiper River and travelling down into the Sea of Azov, the Black Sea and then out into the Mediterranean.
In the event of a meltdown, radiation could contaminate the air where, depending on weather conditions, it could spread across Europe, as happened after the Chernobyl accident, when radiation spread as far as Sweden and the UK.
“But this is if all the units are totally destroyed,” said Mr Gumenyuk. “We do our best to prevent this situation. I hope in most cases our power units would survive even in single hits. Our nuclear reactors have containment to protect against the different impacts, including an air crash for example.”
Chernobyl’s nuclear waste
Ukraine’s nuclear waste storage facilities, including in the exclusion zone at Chernobyl, 70 miles south of the Belarussian border, also pose a radiation risk.
Last year Energoatom, the state nuclear operator, announced that Ukraine’s new Central Spent Fuel Storage Facility, in the exclusion zone at Chernobyl, was almost ready to begin operating. Spent fuel will be transferred to the new facility from where it is currently stored at power plants.
At present Russia has about 30,000 troops stationed in Belarus, apparently for joint military exercises, which are armed with short-range missiles, rocket launchers and Su-35 fighters. Leaders including Boris Johnson have suggested that Russia is planning at attack from Belarus, “coming down from the north, coming down from Belarus, and encircling Kyiv itself”. The route could take Russian troops through the exclusion zone.
According to CEOBS: “Decommissioning of the [Chernobyl] site and the packaging of waste is ongoing and will continue for decades. The site is under constant management and monitoring and the disruption caused by a conflict would impact the ongoing work to reduce the risks it poses. It seems likely that foreign companies would withdraw staff in the event of an invasion, impacting activities at the site.”
There are 22,000 assemblies of spent nuclear fuel at the storage site, kept in special casks to protect them.
However, Mr Gumenyuk pointed out that these were not protected against military firepower: “In case of the destruction of these casks, radioactive materials could be released and transferred to Ukraine and other European territories. This is a very dangerous situation.”
While some experts say any disruption to the site would be localised, Mr Gumenyuk said: “I disagree, the number of the fuel assemblies is very big and if all the casks were destroyed it would not only be the problem of Ukraine, maybe not all Europe, but many countries.”
Cyberattacks are another possibility. Last week Ukrainian government websites and banks were shut down by a wave of distributed denial of service attacks, thought to have been carried out by Russian hackers.
In 2015 the country’s energy sector was attacked by the BlackEnergy computer virus that caused a blackout of 800,000 households across 103 towns.
The next year, on the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, Ukraine’s then-President Poroshenko said: “If the BlackEnergy virus was used for attacks on our power distributors, there is no guarantee that such technology will not threaten our nuclear plants”.
“Chernobyl is already volatile,” said Ms Roslycky. “Cyberattacks against Chernobyl call for attention… whether attacking kinetically or through cyber, when that happens this is something that would threaten global security.”
Accident, terrorism or sabotage
Direct attacks on the plants at Zaporizhzhia and South Ukraine are also unlikely, not least because Russia is not far from the power plants, and any radioactive contamination would affect Russia as well as Ukraine.
However, the possibility of an accident, terrorism or sabotage is somewhat higher. According to the Nuclear Security Index for 2020, Ukraine scores highly on global norms for nuclear materials security and implementing international commitments, with 94 and 78 out of 100 respectively.
However, under ‘risk environment’, which considers factors including political stability, effective governance, pervasiveness of corruption, and illicit activities by non-state actors, Ukraine scores 14.
A 2016 report by the EU Non-Proliferation Consortium drew attention to the illicit trafficking of radioactive materials in the DPR, LPR and unrecognised Transnistria in Moldova. “The armed conflict in eastern Ukraine and its related threats are dramatically influencing the nuclear security conditions in the country,” it said.
“Political and social instability amplifies the motivation of criminal or terrorist groups or organisations for illegal business related to the distribution of radioactive materials that are out of regulatory control.”
The danger of these armed insurgencies was highlighted most dramatically in 2014 when Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over Donetsk in eastern Ukraine by pro-Russian separatists, killing all 298 on board. The Dutch-led investigation into the incident concluded that the plane was shot down with a Buk missile supplied by the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade of the Russian Federation. Those responsible may have believed they were shooting down a Ukrainian military aircraft…………………………………………. https://inews.co.uk/news/ukraine-war-nuclear-risk-russia-missiles-accidental-hits-reactors-1478269
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of the week– Nuclear Reactor Information Task Force
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
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