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Danger in Trump’s decision to keep nuclear weapons data classified

June 13, 2019 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | 1 Comment

Holtec and Ukraine developing Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (dodgy underground devices)

Consortium established for SMR-160 deployment in Ukraine, WNN 12 June 2019

The consortium document was signed by Holtec CEO Kris Singh, Energoatom President Yury Nedashkovsky and SSTC President Igor Shevchenko. The signing ceremony – held at Holtec’s headquarters in Camden, New Jersey – was attended by senior Holtec officials and delegations from Mitsubishi Electric, the US Department of Energy and Energoatom.

The consortium is a US company registered in Delaware with each of the three parties owning allotted shares. Its technology operation centre will be based in Kiev, Ukraine…….

The MoU includes the licensing and construction of SMR-160 reactors in Ukraine, as well as the partial localisation of SMR-160 components. The Ukrainian manufacturing hub is to mirror the capabilities of Holtec’s Advanced Manufacturing Plant in Camden, and will be one of four manufacturing plants Holtec plans to build at distributed sites around the world by the mid-2020s.

Holtec’s 160 MWe factory-built SMR uses low-enriched uranium fuel. The reactor’s core and all nuclear steam supply system components would be located underground, and the design incorporates a wealth of features including a passive cooling system that would be able to operate indefinitely after shutdown….

The SMR-160 is planned for operation by 2026.

The SMR-160 is currently undergoing the first phase of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission’s three-phase pre-licensing vendor design review process. State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine, the nuclear regulatory authority in Ukraine, is expected to coordinate its regulatory assessment of SMR-160 under a collaborative arrangement with its Canadian counterpart.  http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Consortium-established-for-SMR-160-deployment-in-U

Edwin lyman on the safety of these reactors “Holtec SMR-160. The Holtec SMR-160 will generate 160 MWe. Like the NuScale, it is designed for passive cooling of the primary system during both normal and accident conditions. However, the modules would be much taller than the NuScale modules and would not be submerged in a pool of water. Each reactor vessel would be located deep underground, with a large inventory of water above it that could be used to provide a passive heat sink for cooling the core in the event of an accident. Each containment building would be surrounded by an additional enclosure for safety, and the space between the two structures would be filled with water. Unlike the other iPWRs, the SMR-160 steam generators are not internal to the reactor vessel. The reactor system is tall and narrow to maximize the rate of natural convective flow, which is low in other passive designs. Holtec has not made precise dimensions available, but the reactor vessel is approximately 100 feet tall, and the aboveground portion of the containment is about 100 feet tall and 50 feet in diameter (Singh 2013)

For these and other SMRs, it is important to note that only limited information is available about the design, as well as about safety and security. A vast amount of information is considered commercially sensitive or security-related and is being withheld from the public. ….

 in the event of a serious accident, emergency crews could have greater difficulty accessing underground reactors.

Underground siting of reactors is not a new idea. Decades ago, both Edward Teller and Andrei Sakharov proposed siting reactors deep underground to enhance safety. However, it was recognized early on that building reactors underground increases cost. Numerous studies conducted in the 1970s found construction cost penalties for underground reactor construction ranging from 11 to 60 percent (Myers and Elkins). As a result, the industry lost interest in underground siting. This issue will require considerable analysis to evaluate trade-offs…. ” https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com/2017/11/29/edwin-lyman-on-small-modular-reactors/  erious accident, emergency crews could have greater difficulty accessing underground reactors.

June 13, 2019 Posted by | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, Ukraine, USA | Leave a comment

Trump is more interested in helping nuclear companies to sell to Saudi Arabia, than in the well-being of Americans

WASHINGTON ,WATCH: IS TRUMP HELPING THE SAUDIS GO NUCLEAR?   https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Washington-Watch-Is-Trump-helping-the-Saudis-go-nuclear-592310,BY DOUGLAS BLOOMFIELD, JUNE 12, 2019

US President Donald Trump recently took another step toward bringing Saudi Arabia into the nuclear club. While Israeli-Saudi ties have warmed in recent years, helping the desert kingdom go nuclear – with its ongoing support for the most extreme Islamic radicals in the world – can hardly be good for the Jewish state.

Secret negotiations with the US Energy Department over many months have led Washington to “transfer highly sensitive US nuclear technology, a potential violation of federal law,” to Saudi Arabia, according to House Oversight Committee sources cited by The Washington Post.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) revealed last week that at least two transfers were approved since the assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The Saudis say they want to begin building their own nuclear power plants with their own enriched uranium, even though it could be purchased elsewhere more cheaply. That raises suspicions that their real goal isn’t producing electricity. By enriching their own uranium, they could begin diverting it to highly enriched weapons grade, especially if they bar international inspectors, as they’ve insisted.
Given its record of obeisance to Saudi demands for top technology and weapons, it is unlikely the Trump administration would object, but instead continue helping to conceal the kingdom’s plans.   Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, the de facto ruler, has said that the kingdom would build nuclear weapons if the Iranians did. He may have taken encouragement from a speech in the UAE last month by Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton.

The Iranians are threatening to leave the nuclear pact with the major powers – the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – in the wake of the Trump administration’s unilateral exit last year and imposition of sanctions to tighten the economic screws on Tehran.

There’s “no reason” for Iran to walk away from JCPOA, “unless it is to reduce the breakout time to nuclear weapons,” said Bolton, a decades-long advocate of regime change in Iran. Bolton offered no evidence to back his claim.

That should give MBS the rationale he seeks to develop his version of the bomb.

When he turns to Trump for help, he will remind the president that if America won’t sell it to him, there are others who will. Trump is a sucker for that pitch.

North Korea would be a good place to go shopping, since they tried helping Syria build nukes until the Israeli Air Force stopped the plan, something it had done earlier in Iraq. Then there’s Pakistan, which is believed to have built its own nuclear weapons stockpile with Saudi financial help.

THERE MIGHT BE some resistance on Capitol Hill, where Saudi support is low and sinking, but Trump has shown himself more responsive to the wishes of the Saudis than the US Congress.

Republicans like Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina may moan and groan and make threatening sounds toward Riyadh, but he and majority leader Mitch McConnell are Trump’s poodles, and will make sure the president gets what he wants.

All US administrations – Republican and Democratic – have indulged the Saudi appetite for top technology and weapons. They’ve been driven by pressure from industry and its friends in the Pentagon to sell, sell, sell – and an inexplicable attitude that we need the Saudis far more than they need us. Trump has just raised this to a new level.

Trump’s latest selling spree includes 120,000 conversion kits to produce smart bombs. It is part of an $8.1 billion package that Trump labeled “emergency” to bypass Congressional review.

Most alarming is the Trump administration’s approval for the transfer of highly sensitive weapons technology and equipment to Saudi Arabia so the kingdom can produce electronic guidance systems for Paveway precision-guided bombs, according to congressional sources cited by The New York Times.

The administration assured Congress that it is confident in the Saudi ability to protect the technology, that the need is urgent and that it won’t alter the balance of power in the region – which is exactly what it is intended to do.
Look for Trump to justify massive sales to the Saudis and the UAE as also helping protect Israel from Iran. Historically, all administrations have justified arms sales around the Middle East as harmless to Israel’s qualitative military edge. But they aren’t. Especially when the US is selling the Arabs the same planes, missiles and technology it sells Israel. Trump values his oil-rich customer so much that he has rejected the findings of his own CIA that the crown prince was complicit in Khashoggi’s murder.

Saudi Arabia is the Pentagon’s favorite cash cow. Arms sales are a lucrative business for the US Defense Department, which charges commissions and other fees, and gets economies of scale for its own purchases while selling off old inventory to help pay for replacements. Military attachés around the world are top salesmen for defense contractors as they lay the groundwork for post-uniform careers. Then there are the former – and possibly future – defense industry executives at the highest levels of the Pentagon, starting with the Secretary of Defense.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut) said the administration “has effectively given a blank check to the Saudis – turning a blind eye to the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi and allowing their ballistic missile program to expand.”

The United States is not allowed to sell ballistic missiles, so the Saudis have turned to China. CNN reported last week that American intelligence believes Beijing is helping enhance the kingdom’s strategic missile program. In the 1980s, it secretly bought Chinese DF-3 missiles and based them within range of Israel. It bought more advanced missiles in 2007 with the approval of then-president George W. Bush. Unconfirmed published reports suggest they also bought other missiles from Pakistan, which produces a version of the North Korean Nodong missile.

If the Saudis decide to pursue nuclear weapons, they can turn to Trump’s dear friend Kim Jong Un, whose cash-strapped regime has developed its own and the missiles to deliver them.

With Trump looking for business that will create jobs he can claim credit for – and with John Bolton rattling sabers and B-52s, and calling for regime change in Iran – can Saudi Arabia be knocking on an open door to the nuclear club?

June 13, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, politics, politics international, Saudi Arabia, USA | Leave a comment

Rick Perry, USA’s Secretary on Behalf of the Nuclear Industry

June 13, 2019 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

A Cool $20 million Bailout to Ohio’s Seven Utility Scammers

June 11, 2019 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Contentious debate expected as USA House debates annual Defense Bill

June 11, 2019 Posted by | politics, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

NO to high-level nuclear waste- governor of New Mexico

New Mexico governor says no to high-level nuclear waste, By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN, June 8, 2019, ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico’s governor said Friday she’s opposed to plans by a New Jersey-based company to build a multibillion-dollar facility in her state to temporarily store spent nuclear fuel from commercial reactors around the U.S.

In a letter to U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said the interim storage of high-level radioactive waste poses significant and unacceptable risks to residents, the environment and the region’s economy.

She cited the ongoing oil boom in the Permian Basin, which spans parts of southeastern New Mexico and West Texas, as well as million-dollar agricultural interests that help drive the state’s economy.

Any disruption of agricultural or oil and gas activities as a result of a perceived or actual incident would be catastrophic, she said, adding that such a project could discourage future investment in the area.

“Establishing an interim storage facility in this region would be economic malpractice,” she wrote…………

Lujan Grisham’s stance marks a shift from the previous administration, which had indicated its support for such a project.

During her last year in Congress, Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, opposed changes to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and the possible development of a temporary storage facility in New Mexico. She was concerned that loopholes could be created and result in the waste being permanently stranded in New Mexico.

The Permian Basin Petroleum Association, the New Mexico Farm and Livestock Bureau and the New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association all have sent letters of concern to the governor.

Several environmental groups also have protested the idea of an interim storage site for spent nuclear fuel. The groups raised their concerns during a hearing before federal regulators earlier this year.

Opponents question the project’s legality, the safety of transporting high-level waste from sites scattered across the country and the potential for contamination if something were to go wrong.

The governor’s letter came as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission considers whether to issue a 40-year license for the facility proposed by Holtec. ……..

Municipalities elsewhere in New Mexico and Texas have passed resolutions expressing concerns about an interim storage proposal in the region.

Reams of documents have already been submitted to the regulatory commission, and the overall permitting process is expected to be lengthy.

A Texas-based company also has applied for a license to expand its existing hazardous waste facility in Andrews County, Texas, to include an area where spent fuel could be temporarily stored.  https://www.apnews.com/25e295f2157343b7b644c82936aee01d

June 10, 2019 Posted by | politics, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s “Reference Man” gives a distorted, inaccurate picture of radiation impacts

Mary Olsen: Disproportionate impact of radiation and radiation regulation. Journal of Interdisciplinary Science Reviews (accessed) 9th June 2019 
Abstract.  Reference Man is used for generic evaluation of ionizing radiation impacts,  regulation, and nuclear licensing decisions made by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (US NRC).
The United States Code of Federal Regulations, 2018 edition, Chapter 10: Part 20 ‘Standards for Protection  Against Radiation’ contains eight references to ‘reference man’ as the basis for regulation and calculation of radiation exposure.
Findings from 60 years of A-bomb survivor data show that Reference Man does not represent the human life cycle with respect to harm from radiation exposure. Findings reported here show females are more harmed by radiation,
particularly when exposed as young girls, than is predicted by use of Reference Man; the difference is a much as 10-fold. Since females have been ignored in regulatory analysis, this has resulted in systematic under-reporting of harm from ionizing radiation exposure in the global population.

A critique is also offered on the US Environmental Protection Agency’s attempt to include females in its regulation. Recommendations for interim regulation to provide better protection, and questions forfurther study are offered.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03080188.2019.160386

June 10, 2019 Posted by | radiation, Reference, USA | Leave a comment

USA court deliberates on whether or not global warming violates children’s rights

US court weighs if climate change violates children’s rights    Business Mirror, By The Associated Press, June 10, 2019 PORTLAND, Oregon—In a courtroom packed with environmental activists, federal judges wrestled last week with whether climate change violates the constitutional rights of young people who have sued the US government over the use of fossil fuels.

A Justice Department attorney warned three judges from the ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals that allowing the case to go to trial would be unprecedented and would open the doors to more lawsuits.

“This case would have earth-shattering consequences,” Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark said.

He called the lawsuit “a direct attack on the separation of powers” and said the 21 young people who filed it want the courts to direct US energy policy, instead of government officials.

The young people are pressing the government to stop promoting the use of fossil fuels, saying sources like coal and oil cause climate change and violate their Fifth Amendment rights to life, liberty and property.

The judges seemed to feel the enormity of the case, which the plaintiffs’ lawyer compared in scope to the US Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education ruling that mandated desegregation of schools in the 1950s.

The dire threat to people, particularly the young, demands such action, said Julia Olson, chief legal counsel for Our Children’s Trust, which is representing the plaintiffs.

“When our great-grandchildren look back on the 21st century, they will see that government-sanctioned climate destruction was the constitutional issue of this century,” Olson told the judges.

The  lawsuit  asks the courts to declare federal energy policy that contributes to climate change unconstitutional, order the government to quickly phase out carbon-dioxide emissions to a certain level by 2100 and mandate a national climate recovery plan…….

The young people argue that government officials have known for more than 50 years that carbon pollution from fossil fuels causes climate change and that policies promoting oil and gas deprive them of their constitutional rights.

Lawyers for President Donald  J. Trump’s administration say the young people didn’t find any “historical basis for a fundamental right to a stable climate system or any other constitutional right related to the environment.”

The lawsuit says the young are more vulnerable to serious effects from climate change in the future. The American Academy of Pediatrics, 14 other health organizations, and nearly 80 scientists and doctors agreed in a brief filed with the appeals court.

They pointed out that the World Health Organization estimates 88 percent of the global health burden of climate change falls on children younger than five. The case has become a focal point for many youth activists, and the courtroom in Portland was packed.

If the ninth Circuit judges decide the lawsuit can move forward, it would go before the US District Court in Eugene, where the case was filed. The appeals court judges will rule later.  https://businessmirror.com.ph/2019/06/10/us-court-weighs-if-climate-change-violates-childrens-rights/

June 10, 2019 Posted by | climate change, legal, USA | Leave a comment

USA in a real mess over nuclear wastes: stalemate in storage options

June 10, 2019 Posted by | USA, wastes | 1 Comment

Mike Pompeo thinks that climate change is not really a serious problem, could be good for trade

Pompeo downplays climate change, suggests ‘people move to different places’

FOX 8 , JUNE 9, 2019, BY CNN WIRE  Secretary of State Mike Pompeo downplayed climate change as a longstanding trend, suggesting modern societies could adapt to a changing environment, possibly with people moving to different places.

“The climate’s been changing a long time. There’s always changes that take place,” Pompeo said during an interview with the Washington Times published Friday, when asked whether he thought climate change was man-made and how best to address it. He did not mention anything about man-made pollution in his remarks…..

The comments aren’t Pomepo’s first foray into controversial climate assessments.

In May, Pompeo praised the Arctic’s rapidly shrinking sea levels for their subsequent economic opportunities, despite continued warnings about the catastrophic effects of climate change….. https://myfox8.com/2019/06/09/pompeo-downplays-climate-change-suggests-people-move-to-different-places/

June 10, 2019 Posted by | climate change, politics, USA | 1 Comment

A mistake for USA to deploy the low-yield Trident nuclear warhead

Stop the low-yield Trident nuclear warhead, The Hill BY STEVEN PIFER,   — 06/08/19 On Tuesday,  the House Subcommittee on Strategic Forces debated the draft Fiscal Year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act.It voted out, on party lines, language that prohibits deployment of a low-yield warhead on the Trident D5 submarine-launched ballistic missile. That makes sense: The rationale for the warhead is dubious, and the weapon likely would never be selected for use.

The Trump administration’s 2018 Nuclear Posture Review called for a low-yield warhead on some Trident D5 submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). The plan modifies a W76-1 warhead, which has an explosive yield of 100 kilotons — seven times the size of the weapon used against Hiroshima — to produce the W76-2, reportedly with a yield of “just” five-seven kilotons.

Adding this weapon to the arsenal would risk lowering the nuclear threshold. To be sure, Pentagon officials assert that new low-yield weapons would not lower the threshold.

Yet the Nuclear Posture Review argued for low-yield weapons out of concern that Russia might feel it could use its “small” nuclear weapons free of concern about U.S. retaliation because the United States arsenal consists mainly of large-yield weapons.

So, at a minimum, the goal of new U.S. low-yield nuclear weapons would appear to be to persuade Moscow that the United States is more likely to go nuclear.

It is in the U.S. interest to maintain the highest possible threshold against the use of any nuclear arms. We should avoid steps that might signal, even inadvertently, that the use of “small” nukes is somehow acceptable………

SLBMs on submarines at sea constitute the most important and most survivable leg of the U.S. strategic triad, because the submarines can hide underwater and have lots of ocean in which to roam.  Each submarine at sea carries a significant portion of the survivable U.S. nuclear deterrent.

The problem with launching an SLBM with a W76-2 is that it would reveal the submarine’s location. The submarine could maneuver away from the launch point, but it still would have compromised its general position, putting at risk the boat and the other 80-90 warheads it carried. Would the U.S. military run that risk, particularly given the availability of other low-yield options?

A bigger problem is discrimination. The Russians could not tell whether a launched SLBM carried a W76-2 or a W76-1 (100 kilotons) or, for that matter, a W88 (450 kilotons) until the weapon (or weapons) detonated………

The problem is that a launch from many parts of the Atlantic toward the Baltics would also appear, at least initially, to be a launch against Moscow.

Would the U.S. leadership launch a W76-2 — and run the risk that the Russians misread it as larger warhead intended to flatten Moscow in a decapitation strike — when F-35s and B61-12 bombs are available in Europe (as they will be in the early 2020s)?

The W76-2 makes little strategic sense, could inadvertently lower the nuclear threshold and likely would never be used, even in the most dire circumstances.

The Trump administration made a mistake by deciding to produce it. Congress should use the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act to correct that mistake and prohibit its deployment.

Steven Pifer is a William Perry fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/447514-stop-the-low-yield-trident-nuclear-warhead

June 10, 2019 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | 1 Comment

America came close to having its own Chernobyl-level nuclear catastrophe

Command and Control, Chapter 1

 

America Never Had a Chernobyl. But It Came Close.  https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a27729387/chernobyl-broken-arrows/  

The U.S. kept nuclear accidents like the Damascus Incident secret for decades.

HBO’s Chernobyl is over, but if you’ve seen the series, you’ll remember it for a long time.

Coming on the heels of the mega-hyped Game of Thrones series finale, the five-part miniseries—created and written by Craig Mazin, and directed by Johan Renck—quickly overtook the fantasy story with its astonishing performances and commitment to its immersion in a world that Americans never really understood.

The focus in the discussion around Chernobyl lies where the miniseries has gone: nuclear reactors meant for peaceful energy. The safety of nuclear plants is of upmost importance, but that’s not the only place nuclear energy is located. According to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, the Department of Defense maintains an estimated stockpile of approximately 4,000 warheads. Mishaps with these weapons of mass destruction are referred to as “Broken Arrow” accidents.

The United States has officially had approximately 32 of these incidents, often involving the transport of weapons from one location to another. None of these incidents caused a major disaster, let alone a Chernobyl-like event. Two nuclear weapons were dropped on Goldsboro North Carolina in 1961 and are now commemorated with an historical marker. But there’s no such memorial for the 1980 accident in which a Titan II missile carrying a thermonuclear reactor exploded near Damascus, Arkansas.

Chernobyl offers a new chance to examine these Broken Arrows. Fortunately, both the stories of Goldsboro, the Damascus Incident, and other Broken Arrows have already been documented in the film Command and Control, directed by Robert Kenner and based on a book by Eric Schlosser.

Available on PBS, Netflix, and other streaming services, the documentary shows that the story of lies and of nuclear mismanagement is not limited to Soviet borders.

On September 18, 1980, routine maintenance on an Titan II went awry. A Propellant Transfer System (PTS) team was working on the missile under the authority of the Air Force. A ratchet was used instead of a torque wrench, and that was all it took for a socket from the missile’s oxidizer tank to fall 80 feet down, where a freak bump allowed it to puncture the missile’s first-stage fuel tank.

Efforts to stabilize the missile failed, and late into the night, it exploded. Two men sent in to vent the gas were presumed dead. One of them, Senior Airman David Livingston, died 12 hours later. The nuclear warhead was later found in a field.

There are many differences between Damascus and Chernobyl, of course. Honesty was maintained within the chain of command, although the man who dropped the socket had trouble articulating the truth of the situation for half an hour afterward. And while safety protocols couldn’t keep the 7-story missile from exploding, they did keep the warhead in check.

But when it comes to nuclear incidents, Command and Control makes it clear that the U.S. shares more with the scientists of Chernobyl than many feel comfortable to admit.

There may not be a deeply embedded culture of lying stateside, but the U.S. was as willing to cover up the truth of Damascus, as well as thousands of other nuclear accidents, for decades. And when it came down to the final decision making in Damascus, the documentary paints a picture of an out-of-touch Strategic Air Command that issued commands without any understanding of the situation on the ground—decisions that resulted in Livingston’s death.

Mazin has made it clear that his Chernobyl is not primarily focused on nuclear power. It’s a complex subject, as Valery Legasov, played masterfully by Jared Harris, makes clear in the final episode. But perhaps the greatest similarity between Damascus and Chernobyl was the confident belief that nuclear power could be safely managed at all.

Explaining how nuclear power works in a Soviet court, Legasov describes a dance that can generate tremendous energy. But as Adam Higginbottom shows in Midnight in Chernobyl, it’s a dance that people have been trying to get right for many years.

The Soviet system might have set up the scientists at V.I. Lenin Nuclear Power Plant for failure. But even with the best dancers in the world, there’s eventually a missed step.

June 8, 2019 Posted by | incidents, USA | 1 Comment

Holtec” nuclear waste canisters – a pot of gold for the company – a load of trouble for the future?

Halting Holtec – A Challenge for Nuclear Safety Advocates, CounterPunch, by JAMES HEDDLE  7 June 19, The loading of 3.6 million pounds of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel has been indefinitely halted at the San Onofre independent spent fuel storage installation (ISFSI), operated by Southern California Edison and designed by Holtec International.

Last month, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) fined Southern California Edison an unprecedented $116,000 for failing to report the near drop of an 54 ton canister of radioactive waste, and is delaying giving the go-ahead to further loading operations until serious questions raised by the incident have been resolved.

Critics have long been pointing out that locating a dump for tons of waste, lethal for millions of years, in a densely populated area, adjacent to I-5 and the LA-to-San Diego rail corridor, just above a popular surfing beach, in an earthquake and tsunami zone, inches above the water table, and yards from the rising sea doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense from a public safety standpoint.

The near drop incident last August, revealed by a whistleblower, has drawn further attention to the many defects in the Holtec-designed and manufactured facility.  It has been discovered that the stainless steel canisters, only five-eights inches thick, are being damaged as they are lowered into the site’s concrete silos.  Experts have warned that the scratching or gouging that is occurring makes the thin-walled canisters even more susceptible to corrosion-induced cracking in the salty sea air, risking release of their deadly contents into the environment and even of hydrogen explosions.

Furthermore, critics point out, these thin-walled canisters are welded shut and cannot be inspected, maintained, monitored or repaired.

Systems analyst Donna Gilmore is the founder of SanOnofreSafety.org, and a leading critic of the Holtec system.  She explains her concerns this way in a recent email:

The root cause of the canister wall damage is the lack of a precision downloading system for the canisters.  Holtec’s NRC license requires no contact between the canister and the interior of the holes. The NRC admits Holtec is out of compliance with their license, but refuses to cite Holtec for this violation.

NRC staff said the scraping of the stainless steel thin canister walls against a protruding carbon steel canister guide ring also deposits carbon on the canisters, creating galvanic corrosion. The above ground Holtec system has long vertical carbon steel canister guide channels, creating similar problems.

Once canisters are scraped or corroded they start cracking. The NRC said once a crack starts it can grow through the wall in 16 years. In hotter canisters, crack growth rate can double for every 10 degree increase in temperature.

Each canister holds roughly the radioactivity of a Chernobyl nuclear disaster, so this is a critical issue people need to know about.

Unless these thin-wall canisters (only 1/2″ to 5/8″ thick) are replaced with thick-wall bolted lid metal casks – the standard in most of the world except the U.S. – none of us are safe. Thick-wall casks are 10″ to 19.75″ thick. Thick-wall casks survived the 2011 Fukushima 9.0 earthquake and tsunami.

U.S. companies choose thin canisters due to short-term cost savings. These thin-wall pressure vessels can explode, yet have no pressure monitoring or pressure relief valves. The NRC gives many exemptions to ASME N3 Nuclear Pressure Vessel standards (a scandal in and of itself).

The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board December 2017 report to Congress raises concerns of hydrogen gas explosions in these canisters. The residual water in the canisters becomes radiated and results in buildup of hydrogen gas.

The gouged canister walls reduces the maximum pressure rating of these thin canisters, creating the perfect storm for a disaster.  Ironically, Holtec calls their system “HI-STORM”.

How many “Chernobyl disaster can” explosions can we afford? There are almost 3000 thin-wall canisters in the U.S.  Yet the NRC has no current plan in place to prevent or stop major radioactive releases or explosions.

Many are advocating that the San Onofre storage facility be moved to higher ground in thicker casks housed in more securely hardened structures.  Others are advocating for the waste to be shipped across country to New Mexico to a facility being proposed there by Holtec and a local group of entrepreneurs calling itself the Eddy-Lea Alliance.

Holtec International, a family-owned company, based in Camden, New Jersey, with mixed reviews from employees.  True to its name, the company has international ambitions for building small nuclear reactors (SMRs) and become dominant in the burgeoning global market of radioactive waste management.  It is working hard to convince the NRC and members of the public that concerns about its San Onofre ISFSI are over-blown and unfounded.

Holtec canisters are reportedly installed at three-dozen other reactor sites around the country, including Humboldt Bay in California.  Holtec is in the running, too, for a waste storage facility at the state’s Diablo Canyon nuclear site, scheduled for shutdown in 2025.

Holtec is also offering to buy four other US phased out nuclear power stations, – Oyster Creek in New Jersey, Pilgrim in Maine, Palisades in Michigan and Indian Point in New York.  As of this writing three of those proposed deals have yet to be approved, but on April 18, 2019, Holtec announced that it has closed the deal with Entergy to acquire the leaking and controversial Indian Point energy center just outside New York City after the last of its three reactors shuts down.

The pot of gold in the radioactive waste business is that, thanks to fees charged to ratepayers over the years, each plant has accumulated hundreds of billions of dollars in a decommissioning trust fund, which would all go to Holtec once the sales have been completed.

With Three Mile Island now scheduled for shutdown by the end of September, will Holtec attempt to buy TMI, as well?………… https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/06/07/halting-holtec-a-challenge-for-nuclear-safety-advocates/

June 8, 2019 Posted by | Reference, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION IS DOWNGRADING TOXIC NUCLEAR WEAPONS WASTE TO CUT DISPOSAL COSTS—SHOULD WE BE WORRIED? 

THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION IS DOWNGRADING TOXIC NUCLEAR WEAPONS WASTE TO CUT DISPOSAL COSTS—SHOULD WE BE WORRIED? https://www.newsweek.com/trump-toxic-nuclear-weapons-waste-disposal-reclassify-1442573  BY SHANE CROUCHER ON 6/6/19 The Trump administration announced on Wednesday that it is moving forward with plans to reclassify toxic nuclear waste from Cold War weapons research, downgrading some of it from the highest level, in order to cut costs and quicken the disposal process.

The waste under review is currently located at three DOE Defense Reprocessing Waste Inventories: the Hanford Site in Washington, the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, and the Idaho National Laboratory.

Environmental campaigners hit back, accusing the Department of Energy (DOE) of risking the health and safety of Americans through what it characterized as a reckless and dangerous departure from decades-long convention in the country’s handling of its nuclear waste.

But an expert in nuclear waste management said DOE’s shifting approach is both reasonable and desirable—provided it is transparent with the American public in order to build confidence that it is disposing of the toxic material responsibly and safely.

Currently, DOE treats most of its radioactive waste as “high-level” (HLW) because of how it was made rather than classifying it by its characteristics, such as radioactivity. HLW must be buried deep underground when it is disposed of.

DOE said in a release that this “one size fits all” approach to waste management has caused delays to permanent disposal, leaving toxic waste stored in DOE facilities, which causes health risks to workers and costs the taxpayers billions of unnecessary dollars.

Now, DOE will seek to lower the classification of waste of lesser radioactivity, meaning it can be disposed of with greater ease because it does not need to be stored deep below ground—and both sooner and at a lower cost.

Professor Neil Hyatt, an expert in nuclear materials chemistry and waste management at the U.K.’s University of Sheffield, told Newsweek this is potentially a positive change by the DOE.

“DOE is proposing to manage waste on the basis of risk rather than how it was produced, which is quite reasonable—and desirable. We would want resources to be focused on dealing with the waste of highest risk,” Hyatt said.

“That said, it is important that this is achieved with regard to the risk to health and the environment over the full lifecycle of waste management—including the period of waste disposal, which is some 250,000 years.”

Hyatt added: “The new interpretation has the potential to radically change the location, inventory, and nature of waste disposed of, which will be of concern to local communities.”

For the new interpretation of HLW to succeed, Hyatt said, those communities will need to be engaged by authorities in a transparent way.

“The problem is that the action will be seen as moving the goalposts, for unfair means, whilst the game is in progress,” Hyatt told Newsweek.

“If you have agreed that waste is to be classified and managed in a certain way for decades, how do you now build confidence in a new approach?

“This cannot be taken for granted. Transparency, effective public engagement and independent expert scrutiny, in evaluating the risk, will be key. But with a new approach comes a new opportunity to get that right.”

Another expert concurred. Pete Bryant is a consultant in nuclear waste management and president of The Society for Radiological Protection in the U.K. He also teaches in the field at the University of Liverpool.

“By characterizing the waste and classifying it according to its radioactivity and ultimately the risk it poses to human health and the environment, it is possible to dispose of some of the less hazardous waste, reducing the burden of managing them all of HLW,” Bryant told Newsweek.

“As long as this is done under appropriate arrangements and checks this will not present a risk to members of the public and the environment,” he said, adding that this is all in line with global standards of toxic waste management.

After DOE’s announcement, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRD), an environmental campaign group, hit out at the imminent reclassification of some HLW.

“The Trump administration is moving to fundamentally alter more than 50 years of national consensus on how the most toxic and radioactive waste in the world is managed and ultimately disposed of,” Geoff Fettus, a senior attorney at NRDC, said in a statement.

“No matter what they call it, this waste needs a permanent, well-protected disposal option to guard it for generations to come. Pretending this waste is not dangerous is irresponsible and outrageous.”

DOE said the change will bring its practices in line with international standards on nuclear waste disposal.

June 8, 2019 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

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