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Fukushima evacuees on return visits find radiation signs confusing

Radiation criteria sow confusion for evacuees,   https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/02/26/national/fukushima-radiation-criteria/—, 25 Feb 21, New Year holiday, with people avoiding traveling back to see their relatives due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Roadside signs show the radiation levels of areas near the no-go zones put in place after meltdowns in 2011 at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, reflecting the fact that, even after 10 years, Fukushima residents are unable to return to their homes.

The no-go zones, which are considered uninhabitable for the foreseeable future due to high radiation levels, stretch through six Fukushima towns and villages: Tomioka, Okuma, Futaba, Namie, Katsurao and Iitate. Parts of those zones are now designated as special reconstruction districts, where the government will concentrate its decontamination efforts so that residents can return to their homes in the future.

A decade after the tsunami-triggered nuclear disaster, decontaminating the areas damaged by the fallout is a crucial part of the reconstruction that will pave the way for evacuees to come back to their homes and resume the life they had before the disaster.

But two figures of radiation exposure levels — 20 millisieverts a year and 1 millisievert a year — that the government provides as safety criteria are causing confusion among residents, triggering criticism of what could be called a double standard.

One of the criteria for the government to lift evacuation orders is whether the area’s annual cumulative radiation level has become 20 millisieverts or below, based on a recommendation from the nongovernmental International Commission on Radiological Protection.

When there is a nuclear disaster similar to that at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, the ICRP recommends that annual radiation exposure should be limited to between 20 to 100 millisieverts immediately after the disaster. It then recommends the exposure is lowered to between 1 to 20 millisieverts during the reconstruction period.

As the minimum recommended exposure level right after a disaster, the 20 millisieverts mark became the radiation level yardstick for the central government to order the evacuation of a certain area after the nuclear meltdowns.

Meanwhile, the government has set up a long-term decontamination goal of reducing the radiation levels of contaminated areas to an annual 1 millisievert and below. This is to keep a lifetime exposure level below 100 millisievert — the level at which it starts to affect one’s health.

Therefore, the government stipulated the annual 1 millisievert exposure level in its reconstruction policy plan for Fukushima approved by the Cabinet in July 2012. The Environment Ministry aims to keep radiation levels in the special reconstruction district under 1 millisievert as a long-term goal.

However, the no-go zones had been above 50 millisieverts on an annual basis immediately after the nuclear meltdowns. The radiation level is on the decline with natural attenuation of radioactive cesium as well as weathering effects, but there are still patches with high radiation levels.

Even within the no-go zones, there is no easy way to carry out decontamination. Typically it is done by mowing lawns, raking up fallen leaves, washing down roads and other surfaces with a high-pressure water hose, and wiping off the walls and roofs of buildings and housing.

“It’s not easy to bring down radiation levels to 1 millisievert or below just with decontamination,” said an Environment Ministry official in charge.

In Article 1 of the radiation decontamination legislation established after the nuclear disaster, it is stipulated that the purpose of decontamination is to “minimize the health risks of radioactive exposure as much as possible.”

Despite the criteria for easing evacuation orders and the long-term goal on bringing down radiation levels, it is unclear how the government can lower radiation levels to 1 millisievert after evacuation orders are lifted for no-go zones.

The two figures are creating a confusion among local residents, who are torn between the desire to return to their homes and concerns over the radiation level.

“I won’t feel safe until annual radiation levels are below 1 millisievert,” one resident said, while another said, “Can you say for sure that an annual exposure of 20 millisieverts won’t affect our health in the future?”

February 27, 2021 Posted by | Fukushima continuing | Leave a comment

Jennifer Granholm becomes U.S. Energy Secretary: the nuclear lobby is pleased, but not certain

Granholm becomes US energy secretary, WNN 26 February 2021  Jennifer Granholm has been sworn as the 16th US secretary of energy. …..  Maria Korsnick, president and CEO of the US Nuclear Energy Institute, said Granholm will play a pivotal role…….

Judi Greenwald, executive director of the Nuclear Innovation Alliance, said the think tank is looking forward to working with Granholm and her team on the development, demonstration and deployment of the advanced nuclear reactors …

Granholm made no mention of nuclear power……in the article, nor in a video address released to coincide with the swearing-in…… https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Granholm-becomes-US-Energy-Secretary

February 27, 2021 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Yakama Nation, state of Washington and environmental groups call on Jennifer Granholm to reconsider nuclear waste rule

February 27, 2021 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Fukushima nuclear mess 2021 – the tasks ahead

The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster: Then and Now, The Chemical Engineer 25th February 2021 by Geoff Gill 

“………..Decommissioning and contaminated water management

The work to decommission the plants, deal with contaminated water and solid waste, and remediate the affected areas is immense. A “Mid-and-Long Term Roadmap”2 was developed soon after the disaster to set out how this will be achieved. Also, to facilitate decommissioning units 1-6, and dealing with contaminated water, TEPCO announced, at the end of 2013 the establishment of an internal entity: the Fukushima Daiichi Decontamination & Decommissioning Engineering Company, which commenced operations in April 2014. The entire decommissioning process will take 30–40 years, and, as noted above, the volume of tasks is gigantic. Therefore, the Government of Japan and TEPCO have prioritised each task and set the goal to achieve them. Essentially, it is a continuous risk reduction activity to protect the people and the environment from the risks associated with radioactive substances by:

  • removing spent fuel and retrieval of fuel debris from the reactor buildings;
  • establishing measures to deal with contaminated water; and
  • establishing measures to deal with radioactive waste material.

Fuel removal from the reactor buildings

In the Fukushima Daiichi design of reactor, used and new fuel rod assemblies are stored in the upper part of the reactor. The used fuel rods are highly radioactive and continue to generate heat, and thus require continued cooling.

Depending on the degree of damage, the process of removing the fuel assemblies presents different challenges in each of the reactors. For example, one of the significant challenges is to firstly remove the large quantities of rubble caused by the hydrogen explosions. As noted above, reactors 5 and 6 were shut down at the time of the accident. The reactor cores were successfully cooled, and thus suffered no damage. Given that the conditions of the buildings and the equipment for storing the fuel are stable, and risks of causing any problem in the decommissioning process are estimated to be low compared to the other units, the fuel assemblies of units 5 and 6 continue to be safely stored in the spent fuel pool in each building for the time being. The next step will be to carefully remove the fuel from the fuel pools in units 5 and 6 without impact on fuel removal from units 1, 2 and 3.

All the remaining units are going through a number of stages to achieve fuel removal. They differ slightly for each unit, but essentially the stages are: survey of internal state, removal of rubble, installation of fuel handling facility, and removal of fuel. By way of example, the position regarding unit 3 is shown in Figure 3 [on original].

At unit 3, rubble removal and other work at the upper part of the reactor building, together with installation of a cover for fuel removal was completed in February 2018.

After all preparations were in place, work to remove the 566 fuel rod assemblies, including 52 non-irradiated fuel assemblies, began in April 2019. The process of fuel removal is shown diagrammatically in Figure 4.

The four stages are:

  • Fuel rod assemblies stored on fuel racks in the spent fuel pool are transferred in the water one at a time to transport casks, using fuel handling equipment;
  • after closing the cask cover and washing, a crane is used to lower the cask to ground level and load into a trailer;
  • the cask is transported to a common pool on the site; and
  • the fuel in the cask is stored in the common pool.

As of 8 January 2021, 468 assemblies including the 52 non-irradiated fuel assemblies had been removed from unit 3. Measurements of airborne contamination levels are being monitored in the surrounding environment throughout the fuel removal operations. The plan is that all fuel will have been removed from all of the reactor units by sometime during 2031.

Retrieval of fuel debris

At the time of the accident, units 1–3 were operating and had fuel rods loaded in the reactors. After the accident occurred, emergency power was lost, preventing further cooling of the cores. This resulted in overheating and melting of the fuel, together with other substances. Fuel debris refers to this melted fuel and other substances, which have subsequently cooled and solidified, and, of course, still remains dangerously radioactive. This clearly poses a very complex and difficult decommissioning challenge.

Currently the state inside the containment vessel is being confirmed, and various kinds of surveys are being conducted prior to retrieval of the debris. The current aim is to begin retrieval from the first unit (unit 2), and to gradually enlarge the scale of the retrieval. The retrieved fuel debris will be stored in the new storage facility that will be constructed within the site.

The distribution of debris between the pressure and containment vessels differs in each of the 3 units. By way of example, Figure 5 [on original] shows the current position in unit 2. Large amounts of debris are located in the bottom of the pressure vessel, with little in the containment vessel.

The investigation to capture the location of fuel debris inside unit 2 was conducted from 22 March–22 July 2016. This operation applied the muon transmission method, of which effectiveness was demonstrated in its appliance for locating the debris inside unit 1. (Muon transmission method is a technique that uses cosmic ray muons to generate three-dimensional images of volumes using information contained in the Coulomb scattering of the muons.) These operations used a small device developed through a project called “Development of Technology to Detect Fuel Debris inside the Reactor’’.

 Use of remote operations for decommissionings;
  • establishing measures to deal with contaminated water; and
  • establishing measures to deal with radioactive waste material.

…….. Understanding of the situation inside the stricken reactors was urgently needed following the accident in order to prevent the spread of damage and to mitigate

the disaster. Tasks had to be carried out in a very complicated, difficult and unpredictable environment. In particular, the environment inside the reactor buildings reached high radiation levels due to the spread of radioactive contamination. To reduce the risk of radiation exposure to operators, remote control technologies  have proved indispensable for examining the reactor buildings and subsequently for decommissioning work. Thus, remote control technology, including robot  technology has been heavily utilised in response to the accident. Figure 6 [on original]shows a typical configuration of remotely-controlled robotic systems for
decommissioning work.
Reducing the risks associated with contaminated water
Water has posed a very demanding challenge for the operators. The problem stems from groundwater flowing from the mountain side of the site toward the ocean.
This flows into the reactor buildings and becomes mixed with radioactive water accumulated in the buildings, increasing the amount of contaminated water already
 there. The solution to the contaminated water problem is being tackled through a three-pronged approach. These are redirecting groundwater from contamination
sources, removing contamination sources, and prevent leakage of contaminated water.
In order to achieve this, barriers have been installed on the land -side and sea-side of the plant. An impermeable barrier on the land-side has been achieved by
freezing the ground. The frozen soil “wall” (which has a circumference of about 1,500 m) has been achieved by piping chilled brine through pipes to a depth of 30 m,
which freezes the surrounding soil. On the sea-side, a wall has been constructed, consisting of 594 steel pipes (see Figure 7   -on original)………

Purification treatment of contaminated water and management of treated water…….

Treatment and disposal of solid radioactive waste
Waste materials resulting from the decommissioning work are sorted based on their radiation levels and are stored on the premises of the Fukushima Daiichi
 Nuclear Power Station. Along with strict safety measures and studies on treatment and disposal methods, a solid waste storage management plan is drawn up
 based on waste generation forecasts for around the next ten years, so that measures to deal with waste materials will be carried out effectively

The storage management plan is updated once a year, while reviewing the waste generation forecasts, taking account of progress of the decommissioning work.

 The illustration in Figure 9 [on original] shows the various facilities planned for treatment and storage of solid waste. TEPCO’s Mid and Long Term Roadmap shows all these
facilities being completed by 2028. The amounts of waste generated are huge.

For example, the latest edition of the roadmap estimates the amount of solid waste which will be generated over the next 10 years to be 780,000 m3

 

February 27, 2021 Posted by | Fukushima continuing, Reference | Leave a comment

Jennifer Granholm seems more muted in her support for nuclear, compared to previous Energy Secretaries

Recent USA Energy Secretaries in USA have been strong promoters of the nuclear industry. Up until January 2021 it was Dan Brouillette, very keen on nuclear power. The two Energy Secretaries before that , Rick Perry, Ernest Moniz pretty well used the job as if they were employees of the nuclear industry

 

In that context, Biden’s new pick for Energy Secretary, Jennifer Granholm, seems much more muted in her support for nuclear 

Jennifer Granholm’s nuke priorities remain hazy,  https://www.postandcourier.com/aikenstandard/news/jennifer-granholms-nuke-priorities-remain-hazy/article_2c6c6f36-6240-11eb-9f33-b745c10da3cf.html  By Colin Demarest cdemarest@aikenstandard.com Feb 3, 2021

    • In written testimony provided to a Senate panel Wednesday, the new president’s pick to lead the Department of Energy said she would prioritize, among other things, American safety and security.

Doing so, Jennifer Granholm explained in a single paragraph, would mean focusing on the department’s offensive-and-defensive arm, the National Nuclear Security Administration, as well as the cleanup of Cold War artifacts – pockets of toxic waste, for example, trapped at sprawling installations like the Savannah River Site south of Aiken.

During her confirmation hearing this week, before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the latter was discussed at decent length; the Hanford Site in Washington, notoriously difficult and expensive to remediate, was brought up several times, and Granholm pledged not to kick the can down the road. Some might argue such remarks are a rite of passage for Energy Department executives.

In written testimony provided to a Senate panel Wednesday, the new president’s pick to lead the Department of Energy said she would prioritize, among other things, American safety and security.

Doing so, Jennifer Granholm explained in a single paragraph, would mean focusing on the department’s offensive-and-defensive arm, the National Nuclear Security Administration, as well as the cleanup of Cold War artifacts – pockets of toxic waste, for example, trapped at sprawling installations like the Savannah River Site south of Aiken.

During her confirmation hearing this week, before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the latter was discussed at decent length; the Hanford Site in Washington, notoriously difficult and expensive to remediate, was brought up several times, and Granholm pledged not to kick the can down the road. Some might argue such remarks are a rite of passage for Energy Department executives.

The former – the National Nuclear Security Administration, its hefty budget and its myriad missions – was sparsely touched, even with Granholm cracking open the door.

The disconnect, though, didn’t catch observers off guard.

“Given the committee in which the confirmation hearing took place and the fact that she’s not yet up to speed on nuclear weapons issues, it’s no surprise that Gov. Granholm was not asked about key NNSA issues,” said Tom Clements, the director of Savannah River Site Watch, an organization that monitors a host of energy- and nuclear-related issues. “I assume she is receiving briefings on NNSA matters and will soon be fully conversant and able to make informed, sound decisions.”

The committee that handled Granholm’s nomination has jurisdiction over nuclear waste, not nuclear weapons – exactly why Sens. Maria Cantwell of Washington and Ron Wyden of Oregon broached Hanford and why Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada railed against Yucca Mountain.

“I wouldn’t want to read the tea leaves too much,” said Marylia Kelley, the executive director of Tri-Valley CAREs, which tracks Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the nuclear-weapons complex, more broadly. “I do know that after the hearing I was left with questions.”

The hearing Wednesday, shy of three hours, served as a digestible introduction to Granholm, a two-time governor of Michigan, auto-industry adept and clean-energy advocate. The conversation was heavy on energy sources and fuels, climate change and job losses, a major concern for some lawmakers as President Joe Biden signs a flurry of environmental executive orders. Kelley, though, is anxious to see where the nominee stands on nuclear-weapons issues: new warheads, new cores, modernization spending and the like. Such topics are a rarity on governors’ desks.

“I am hopeful that our new energy secretary will bring a set of skills that will help her make difficult decisions under pressure in a logical and organized fashion,” Kelley said. She later added: “Of course, from my organization’s perspective, I will be looking toward the Energy Department being more skeptical about expanding pit production, both on the question of what we need and on the question of when we need it, and how much we’re going to spend on it and how we’re going to accomplish it. I’m looking for her to be skeptical.”

Indications of priority – what’s important, and how much – will unfurl in budget requests and related budget hearings, said Nickolas Roth, the director of the nuclear security program at the Stimson Center, headquartered in Washington, D.C.

“That’s where you usually get more into the weeds on this kind of stuff,” Roth said. His hope, he explained, “is that the Biden administration will look for ways to curtail a very expensive nuclear-weapons modernization program” and strike a better balance with the nonproliferation portfolio.

If confirmed, Granholm would take the reins at a department very much devoted to the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

“The National Nuclear Security Administration is the largest part of the budget when you figure that environmental management is related to the nuclear weapons mission,” Kelley said. “It’s the lion’s share of the budget, by far.”

The Energy Department’s fiscal year 2021 budget request added to $35.4 billion; the National Nuclear Security Administration earmark totaled $19.8 billion. Of that sum, a vast majority was for weapons activities. (Daryl Kimball, the executive director of the Arms Control Association, has branded the DOE as the NWD: Nuclear Weapons Department.)

In the weeks before the 2021 blueprint was unveiled, dozens of lawmakers, including three Palmetto State Republicans, lobbied then-President Donald Trump to funnel more money to the NNSA and its weapons work. Insufficient funding, the elected officials wrote, would risk U.S. national security and embolden “anti-nuclear Democrats who oppose your effort to rebuild our military,” a red meat appeal.

Clements, who leads SRS Watch, anticipates Granholm “will make tough decisions reshaping U.S. nuclear weapons policy in a way that increases our collective security while reducing financial costs and reducing reliance on nuclear weapons.”

That remains to be seen.

February 27, 2021 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Well-funded pro nuclear lobby has wishlist for Joe Biden

 

Is the Biden government going to buy these lies?   Nuclear –  clean? renewable?

February 27, 2021 Posted by | politics, USA | 1 Comment

The JCPOA nuclear deal from the point of view of Iran

February 27, 2021 Posted by | Iran, politics international | Leave a comment

Israel should come clean about the expansion at its secret nuclear weapons plant

Secretive Israeli nuclear facility undergoes major project, 9 news, By Associated Press

 Feb 26, 2021
A secretive Israeli nuclear facility at the center of the nation’s undeclared atomic weapons program is undergoing what appears to be its biggest construction project in decades, satellite photos analysed by The Associated Press show.
A dig about the size of a soccer field and likely several stories deep now sits just metres from the aging reactor at the Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center near the city of Dimona. The facility is already home to decades-old underground laboratories that reprocess the reactor’s spent rods to obtain weapons-grade plutonium for Israel’s nuclear bomb program.
What the construction is for, however, remains unclear. The Israeli government did not respond to detailed questions from the AP about the work. Under its policy of nuclear ambiguity, Israel neither confirms nor denies having atomic weapons. It is among just four countries that have never joined the Non-Proliferation Treaty, a landmark international accord meant to stop the spread of nuclear arms.
The construction comes as Israel — under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — maintains its scathing criticism of Iran’s nuclear program, which remains under the watch of United Nations inspectors unlike its own. That has renewed calls among experts for Israel to publicly declare details of its program.
What “the Israeli government is doing at this secret nuclear weapons plant is something for the Israeli government to come clean about,” Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Washington-based Arms Control Association, said.
With French assistance, Israel began secretly building the nuclear site in the late 1950s in empty desert near Dimona, a city some 90 kilometres south of Jerusalem. It hid the military purpose of the site for years from America, now Israel’s chief ally, even referring to it as a textile factory.
With plutonium from Dimona, Israel is widely believed to have become one of only nine nuclear-armed countries in the world. Given the secrecy surrounding its program, it remains unclear how many weapons it possesses. Analysts estimate Israel has material for at least 80 bombs. Those weapons likely could be delivered by land-based ballistic missiles, fighter jets or submarines………….https://www.9news.com.au/world/secretive-israeli-nuclear-facility-undergoes-major-project/b417213f-9548-49f3-828d-fe674985c6b4

February 27, 2021 Posted by | Israel, secrets,lies and civil liberties, weapons and war | Leave a comment

France slow to leave nuclear power, (cheaper to extend lives of reactors)

France to extend lifetime of old nuclear power plants  https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/france-extend-lifetime-old-nuclear-102331756.html

Thu, 25 February 2021,   French safety officials on Thursday gave the green light to extend the lifetime of the country’s oldest nuclear power plants as it seeks to boost the share of renewables in its power mix.

Nuclear energy currently provides nearly 70 percent of French electricity, more than in any other country.

France, hoping to reduce that share to 50 percent by 2035 — a target pushed back from an earlier 2025 date — with the help of renewables, has been holding off from building new reactors.

The number of French reactors, at 56, is second in the world only to the United States which operates 85.

French safety officials on Thursday gave the green light to extend the lifetime of the country’s oldest nuclear power plants as it seeks to boost the share of renewables in its power mix.

Nuclear energy currently provides nearly 70 percent of French electricity, more than in any other country.

France, hoping to reduce that share to 50 percent by 2035 — a target pushed back from an earlier 2025 date — with the help of renewables, has been holding off from building new reactors.

The number of French reactors, at 56, is second in the world only to the United States which operates 85.

The safety of French nuclear plants is checked every decade.

ASN asked state-controlled electricity provider EDF, which manages the country’s nuclear plants, to undertake any necessary work to safeguard their security.

The main target was to “limit the consequences of any accident, especially any serious accident involving the meltdown of a reactor”, ASN’s deputy director-general Julien Collet told AFP.

Another objective was to improve the resistance of the plants to outside shocks including earthquakes, floods, extremely hot weather, or a fire in the reactor.

Anti-nuclear campaigners have long demanded the closure of veteran nuclear power stations, and last year obtained the decommissoning of France’s oldest plant at Fessenheim in the east of the country.

“Active French nuclear power plants were built to operate for 30 or 40 years. Beyond that, nuclear reactors enter an unknown ageing phase,” said NGO Greenpeace, calling for more plants to be closed.

ASN president Bernard Doroszczuk told the Ouest France newspaper that there were still “weak points” in the stations’ security equipment, requiring “vigilance”, but that there had been improvements.

France’s nuclear reactors, grouped in 18 sites, are all second-generation pressurised water reactors.

EDF in 2015 estimated the cost of dismantling all the reactors at 75 billion euros ($92 billion) but a parliamentary report said the real cost would be more.

A third-generation reactor called EPR and under construction since 2007 in Flamanville in northern France was supposed to go online in 2012, but the launch date has been delayed repeatedly and is now fixed for next year.

Flamanville’s cost has run over 10 billion euros, more than three times the initial estimate. Once operational, it will have an estimated life span of 60 years.

February 27, 2021 Posted by | business and costs, France, politics | Leave a comment

France’s nuclear reactors’ lives to be extended beyond 40 years

Le Monde 25th Feb 2021, The oldest nuclear reactors extended by ten years. EDF’s 32 900-megawatt reactors are the oldest in operation in France. They were originally designed to operate for forty years. This is a decision that officially opens the way to extending the life of the oldest reactors in France’s nuclear fleet beyond forty years. In an opinion published Thursday, February 25, the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) considers that “all the planned provisions open the prospect” of a continuation of the activity of the 32 French 900 megawatt (MW) reactors for a ten-year period. While French regulations do not provide for a maximum “lifespan” for reactors, an assumption of forty years of operation was adopted during their design.

https://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2021/02/25/l-autorite-de-surete-nucleaire-autorise-la-poursuite-du-fonctionnement-des-plus-vieux-reacteurs-nucleaires-francais_6071140_3244.html

February 27, 2021 Posted by | France, politics, safety | Leave a comment

The media revels in rockets to Mars, ignores the horrible risk of plutonium pollution

Plutonium, Perseverance and the Spellbound Press https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/2/24/2017916/-Plutonium-Perseverance-and-the-Spellbound-Press, Karl Grossman 

            With all the media hoopla last week about the Perseverance rover, frequently unreported was that its energy source is plutonium—considered the most lethal of all radioactive substances—and nowhere in media that NASA projected 1-in-960 odds of the plutonium being released in an accident on the mission.

“A ‘1-in-960 chance’ of a deadly plutonium release is a real concern—gamblers in Las Vegas would be happy with those odds,” says Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space.

Indeed, big-money lotteries have odds far higher than 1-in-960 and routinely people win those lotteries.

Further, NASA’s Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) for the $3.7 billion mission acknowledges that an “alternative” power source for Perseverance could have been solar energy. Solar energy using photovoltaic panels has been the power source for a succession of Mars rovers.

For an accident releasing plutonium on the Perseverance launch—and 1 in 100 rockets undergo major malfunctions on launch mostly by blowing up—NASA in its SEIS described these impacts for the area around the Cape Kennedy under a heading “Impacts of Radiological Releases on the Environment.” Continue reading →

February 25, 2021 Posted by | - plutonium, 2 WORLD, space travel | Leave a comment

Assange’s partner exposes ongoing denial of his legal and democratic rights, 

February 25, 2021 Posted by | civil liberties, politics international, UK | Leave a comment

Former SCANA nuclear executive pleads guilty to fraud

Former SC utility CEO pleads guilty to nuclear plant fraud
The utility executive who spent billions of dollars on two South Carolina nuclear plants that never generated a single watt of power pleaded guilty in two courts, By MICHELLE LIU Associated Press/Report for America, 25 February 2021,   COLUMBIA, S.C. — The utility executive who spent billions of dollars on two South Carolina nuclear plants that never generated a single watt of power pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy charges Wednesday.

Former SCANA Corp. CEO Kevin Marsh will likely spend two years in prison and pay $5 million back to ratepayers, per the plea agreement prosecutors presented to U.S. District Judge Mary Geiger Lewis in Columbia.

Marsh’s formal acknowledgement of his role in the conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud comes more than three years after the project imploded publicly and federal and state agencies began investigating.

Marsh, 65, will be free on bond as he cooperates with federal authorities until he is formally sentenced. He headed to Spartanburg in the afternoon to plead guilty on a state charge tied to the investigation. Officials said he will serve any state sentence he receives concurrently with his federal sentence.

A judge will hand down the final sentence after the investigation concludes. Prosecutors haven’t given indication of when that might be.

Marsh and other executives insisted the project to build the two reactors at the V.C. Summer site north of Columbia was on track ever since it started in 2008. The company hiked rates on customers nine times between 2009 and 2017 to help fund the project.

Prosecutors said that as the project lagged, Marsh lied repeatedly to investors, regulators and the media, claiming the reactors would be making power by a 2020 deadline to get $1.4 billion in federal tax credits needed to keep the $10 billion project from overwhelming SCANA and its subsidiary, South Carolina Electric & Gas.

An independent report commissioned by SCANA in 2015 estimated the reactors would not be finished in 22 years. Executives fought to get the estimate removed from the copy of the report shared with state-owned utility Santee Cooper, which held a 45% stake in the new reactors, prosecutors said.

Santee Cooper ended up $4 billion in debt from the project. Lawmakers are still arguing over whether to sell or reorganize the utility.

Dominion Energy of Virginia bought out SCANA in 2019 after the former Fortune 500 company was crippled by the nuclear debacle.

In December, the Securities and Exchange Commission said both SCANA and its subsidiary agreed to settle a civil lawsuit filed by the SEC in February for $137.5 million, including a $25 million civil penalty.

Former SCANA Executive Vice President Stephen Byrne pleaded guilty to federal charges similar to Marsh’s in July. He is also awaiting sentencing. AT TOPhttps://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/sc-utility-executive-plead-guilty-courts-76084865

February 25, 2021 Posted by | Legal, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Move in Ohio Senate to repeal nuclear bailout law

February 25, 2021 Posted by | politics, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Luxembourg’s continued fight against nuclear power in Europe

“IT’S A CONSTANT BATTLE”: LUXEMBOURG’S FIGHT ON NUCLEAR POWER  https://delano.lu/d/detail/news/its-constant-battle-luxembourgs-fight-nuclear-power/213619

20.02.2021 •INTERVIEW BY CORDULA SCHNUERIn March 2011, an earthquake and tsunami off the coast of Japan triggered an explosion at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986 and a stark reminder for environment minister Carole Dieschbourg (déi Gréng) that nuclear has got to go.

How do you remember the nuclear incident at Fukushima?

For me, it was a déjà vu of Chernobyl, which I remember very well. I felt for all the people who lost their homes and livelihoods. But you also immediately think: What would happen if there was a disaster like this at Cattenom, right on our doorstep? It’s terrifying. Nuclear energy always comes with a risk, but public awareness has increased enormously.

Some countries still see it as a cheap, emissions-free source of power. What will it take to change their minds?

It’s a constant battle. Some countries, also in Europe, see nuclear energy as a solution to the climate crisis. That is a fallacy. First, it’s not cheap. Hinkley Point in the UK, for example, will only work out economically at a fixed tariff that is higher than the price for renewable energy. The waste problem hasn’t been solved.

With a nuclear power station, money is locked in for decades and production is centralised. Renewables help make energy more democratic. We want to be more flexible, decentralised and allow people to participate in the energy transition, rather than moving from one energy dependency into another.

The European Commission is technology neutral, leaving it up to member countries to decide whether to use nuclear power. What challenges does this pose?

Luxembourg in recent debates–the EU taxonomy, the European Green Deal and Climate Law–has always tried to keep nuclear wording out of the texts. We must consider scenarios for climate solutions that are 100% renewable. We respect that every country chooses its energy mix. But we cannot accept that Luxembourg public money is invested in nuclear projects as part of EU funds.

Luxembourg still uses nuclear energy in its network. By when would you like to see this phased out?

We are in a free energy market. We cannot dictate to big industrial players where they buy their electricity. What we have achieved is that in the residential domain we are 100% renewable, and that this commitment extends to public players. For the rest, I hope that bit by bit the economic players will pull in the same direction.

You came out strongly against Belgium exploring nuclear waste storage sites near Luxembourg, with the Belgian environment minister citing a “serious diplomatic incident”. Would you react in the same way again today?

I would do exactly the same today. It wasn’t a diplomatic incident. This ministry was officially informed that the consultation procedure had been launched. We are directly affected in the border region and for us that meant we should have been involved from the start, not just informed. There was some disagreement on this, but for us it’s important to respect cross-border cooperation and for us to have our say. One of the potential sites is near our biggest drinking water reservoir; we need to be very clear about this.

France is in the process of exploring lengthening the lifespan of some of its reactors. What do you hope will happen with the Cattenom site in the next ten years?

Obviously, I want Cattenom to close and for there to be no extension. If I look towards the future, the best solution would be a switch to renewables, to new jobs and in favour of a circular economy. It’s about enabling a transition for the people working in this sector, too. Cattenom is a big power station.

We want to think in terms of the Greater Region, and we want to reach our sustainability goals together with our neighbours..

February 25, 2021 Posted by | EUROPE, politics, politics international | Leave a comment

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