Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant’s deadly hazard – highly radioactive sandbags
Nuclear sandbags too hot to handle, https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/the-times/nuclear-sandbags-too-hot-to-handle/news-story/87b811443cb8e2881f55e17108872880 By RICHARD LLOYD PARRY, THE TIMES. APRIL 1, 2020
- Japanese engineers trying to dismantle the melted reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant face a new hazard — radioactive sandbags so deadly that standing next to them for a few minutes could be fatal.
The sandbags were intended to make life easier for the teams dealing with the aftermath of the nuclear disaster in 2011 when three reactors melted after a tsunami destroyed their cooling systems. Twenty-six tonnes of the bags were placed in basements beneath two of the reactors to absorb radioactivity from waste water.
They were stuffed with zeolite, minerals that can absorb caesium. Nine years after the disaster, the submerged sandbags have sucked up so much radiation that they now represent a deadly danger themselves.
Samples of zeolite removed from the bags contain caesium, producing huge amounts of radiation, while the sandbags are giving off up to four sieverts of radiation an hour. Fifteen minutes of exposure to this could cause haemorrhaging. After an hour, half of those exposed would eventually die as a result. The maximum lifetime recommended dose of radiation for humans is less than half a sievert.
Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco), which operates the plant, had intended to remove the contaminated water by the end of 2020. The complication caused by the sand means it will take three years longer, the latest delay to the decommissioning.
Tepco managers have admitted that the technology needed to finish the job does not exist and they do not have a full idea of how it will be achieved. Their stated goal of decommissioning by 2051 may be impossible, they said.
One of the biggest problems is the 170 tonnes of irradiated water coming out of the plant every day, much of it natural ground water that flows through the earth towards the sea, picking up radiation on the way. Tepco pumps it out and stores it in huge storage tanks, filtered of some, but not all, of its contaminants — 1.17 million tonnes so far. In two years, the storage space will run out.
The government wants to pour the water away, insisting that the diluting effect of the Pacific will render the radiation harmless, but it is opposed by North and South Korea and the local fishing industry, whose reputation has been ruined by the disaster.
Plutonium contamination at Rocky Flats
How Colorado’s nuclear past is affecting its future, Colorado Springs INDY, GONE FISSION, by Heidi Beedle 25 Mar 20, IT WAS FEB. 25 AND BROOMFIELD City Council was done. It unanimously voted last month to withdraw from the Jefferson Parkway Public Highway Authority (JPPHA), a proposed north-south toll road that would ostensibly help mitigate traffic congestion in the Northwest Metro Denver area. The route would have taken the road through the eastern edge of the Rocky Flats Wildlife Refuge, just south of the Boulder County line, bordering Arvada and Broomfield. The council vote was influenced by preliminary soil samples taken by the JPPHA in July 2019, specifically one sample that showed plutonium levels more than five times higher than the acceptable standard (the rest of the samples taken at that time were within acceptable standards). Before its current existence as a wildlife refuge, Rocky Flats was the site of a nuclear weapons plant, which has caused concern about plutonium contamination in the area. Forty-eight subsequent samples taken by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages the refuge, showed levels well below cleanup standards of 50 picocuries per gram.
The city council vote is the latest installment in the ongoing conflict between concerned residents and public officials, and Rocky Flats and Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE). For decades, residents and at least two directors of Jefferson County Public Health, have claimed that plutonium released from the plant is responsible for the high rate of cancers in the area. These claims have been consistently disputed by CDPHE and the Department of Energy (DOE). ……..
Johnson was concerned about the instances of cancers in Jefferson County and questioned the official measurements of plutonium in the soils around Rocky Flats, finding in his own testing that plutonium levels in the soil were 44 times higher than reported by the Department of Public Health. Johnson grew increasingly concerned about an increase in cancer deaths in Jefferson County, and in a paper published in 1981, noted that a rise in certain kinds of cancers Johnson was seeing in Jefferson County, such as leukemia, “supports the hypothesis that exposure of general populations to small concentrations of plutonium and other radionuclides may have an effect on cancer incidence.” Johnson noted that “plutonium concentrations in the air at the Rocky Flats plant are consistently the highest (1970-1977) in the US DOE monitoring network,” based on his studies of the DOE’s own data. He also asserted that the DOE’s measurements were likely an underestimation.
Almost 40 years later, and the current head of the Jefferson County Public Health Department, Dr. Mark Johnson (no relation) has come to the same conclusion. In 2018 he spoke outagainst opening the wildlife refuge to the public, and he thinks the recent discovery of plutonium near the proposed parkway site should give people reason to reconsider. “
“There are clear studies that have shown there is an increased risk or rate of plutonium in the dirt there,” agrees Mark Johnson. “I have concerns already about the digging around with the subdivisions and the commercial enterprises that have gone into that area that were basically kicking up a lot of stuff — and we don’t know what is there.”
Carl Johnson was fired in 1981 for his persistent, outspoken criticism of the plant, but won a subsequent whistleblower lawsuit. Partly due to Johnson’s criticism, the FBI and the EPA began looking into operations at the Rocky Flats Plant starting in 1987. The investigation was aided by Jim Stone, an employee at the plant who also became a whistleblower over what he saw as grave safety violations……..
THOUGH EXHAUSTIVE DOCUMENTATION of waste sites and deposits exists, questions remain as to the effectiveness of the now-completed cleanup. Jon Lipsky, a former FBI agent who led the raid on Rocky Flats in 1989, criticized the decision to open the refuge to the public in 2016, and has claimed there is still work to be done. Originally, the DOE estimated it would take 65 years and $37 billion to clean up the site. It was completed in 2005 for $7 billion.
During the process, there were still surprises to be found. ……..
The questions of the lasting effects from the operations at Rocky Flats may never be answered to the satisfaction of residents like Hansen, who are dealing with serious health issues. Jeff Gipe, the artist behind the Cold War Horse memorial that was erected in 2015, is currently working on a documentary about the plant, Half-Life of Memory, which may draw more attention to the issue.
President Donald Trump, who has a good shot at re-election, has reduced the effectiveness of agencies like the EPA while also advocating for an increase in nuclear arms development.
In 2019, the federal government proposed a new plutonium pit production facility near Aiken, South Carolina. But that is presumably not our problem. https://www.csindy.com/coloradosprings/how-colorados-nuclear-past-is-affecting-its-future/Content?oid=21526239
A new low-cost solar technology for environmental cooling
A new low-cost solar technology for environmental cooling https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-03/pdt-anl032320.php POLITECNICO DI TORINO Space cooling and heating is a common need in most inhabited areas. In Europe, the energy consumed for air conditioning is rising, and the situation could get worse in the near future due to the temperature increase in different regions worldwide. The increasing cooling need in buildings especially during the summer season is satisfied by the popular air conditioners, which often make use of refrigerants with high environmental impact and also lead to high electricity consumption. So, how can we reduce the energy demand for building cooling?
A new study comes from a research group based at the Politecnico di Torino (SMaLL) and the National Institute of Metrological Research (INRiM), who has proposed a device capable of generating a cooling load without the use of electricity: the research has been published in Science Advances*. Like more traditional cooling devices, this new technology also exploits the evaporation of a liquid. However, the key idea proposed by the Turin researchers is to use simple water and common salt instead of chemicals that are potentially harmful for the environment. The environmental impact of the new device is also reduced because it is based on passive phenomena, i.e. spontaneous processes such as capillarity or evaporation, instead of on pumps and compressors that require energy and maintenance.
“Cooling by water evaporation has always been known. As an example, Nature makes use of sweat evaporation from the skin to cool down our body. However, this strategy is effective as long as air is not saturated with water vapour. Our idea was to come up with a low-cost technology capable to maximize the cooling effect regardless of the external water vapour conditions. Instead of being exposed to air, pure water is in contact with an impermeable membrane that keeps separated from a highly concentrated salty solution. The membrane can be imagined as a porous sieve with pore size in the order of one millionth of a meter. Owing to its water-repellent properties, our membrane liquid water does not pass through the membrane, whereas its vapour does. In this way, the fresh and salt water do not mix, while a constant water vapour flux occurs from one end of the membrane to the other. As a result, pure water gets cooled, with this effect being further amplified thanks to the presence of different evaporation stages. Clearly, the salty water concentration will constantly decrease and the cooling effect will diminish over time; however, the difference in salinity between the two solutions can be continuously – and sustainably – restored using solar energy, as also demonstrated in another recent study from our group**”, explains Matteo Alberghini, PhD student of the Energy Department of the Politecnico di Torino and first author of the research.
The interesting feature of the suggested device consists in its modular design made of cooling units, a few centimetres thick each, that can be stacked in series to increase the cooling effect in series, as happens with common batteries. In this way it is possible to finely tune the cooling power according to individual needs, possibly reaching cooling capacity comparable to those typically necessary for domestic use. Furthermore, water and salt do not need pumps or other auxiliaries to be transported within the device. On the contrary, it “moves” spontaneously thanks to capillary effects of some components which, like in kitchen paper, are capable of absorbing and transporting water also against gravity.
“Other technologies for passive cooling are also being tested in various labs and research centres worldwide, such as those based on infrared heat dissipation into the outer space – also known as radiative passive cooling. Those approaches, although promising and suitable for some applications, also present major limitations: the principle on which they are based may be ineffective in tropical climates and in general on very humid days, when, however, the need for conditioning would still be high; moreover, there is a theoretical limit for the maximum cooling power. Our passive prototype, based instead on evaporative cooling between two aqueous solutions with different salinities, could overcome this limit, creating a useful effect independent of external humidity. Moreover, we could obtain an even higher cooling capacity in the future by increasing the concentration of the saline solution or by resorting to a more sophisticated modular design of the device” commented the researchers.
Also due to the simplicity of the device assembly and the required materials, a rather low production cost can be envisioned, in the order of a few euros for each cooling stage. As such, the device could be ideal for installations in rural areas, where the possible lack of well-trained technicians can make operation and maintenance of traditional cooling systems difficult. Interesting applications can also be envisioned in regions with large availability in water with high saline concentration, such as coastal regions in the vicinity of large desalination plants or nearby salt marshes and salt mines.
As of now, the technology is not yet ready for an immediate commercial exploitation, and further developments (also subject to future funding or industrial partnerships) are necessary. In perspective, this technology could be used in combination with existing and more traditional cooling systems for effectively implementing energy saving strategies.
[*] Matteo Alberghini, Matteo Morciano, Matteo Fasano, Fabio Bertiglia, Vito Fernicola, Pietro Asinari, Eliodoro Chiavazzo. Multistage and passive cooling process driven by salinity difference, SCIENCE ADVANCES (2020), URL: https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/11/eaax5015
[**] Eliodoro Chiavazzo, Matteo Morciano, Francesca Viglino, Matteo Fasano, Pietro Asinari, Passive solar high-yield seawater desalination by modular and low-cost distillation, NATURE SUSTAINABILITY (2018), URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-018-0186-x
Meet the Climate Science Deniers Who Downplayed COVID-19 Risks
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Meet the Climate Science Deniers Who Downplayed COVID-19 The very next day, the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) published an article titled, “Coronavirus in the U.S.: How Bad Will It Be?” “Is coronavirus worse than the flu?” it began. “No, not even close.” “It already has spread from person-to-person in the U.S., but it probably won’t go far,” ACSH added. “And the American healthcare system is excellent at dealing with this sort of problem.” ACSH is one of several organizations promoting climate science denial that are now spreading misinformation on the coronavirus, with potentially deadly consequences. American Council on Science and Health?The ACSH presents itself to the public as a proponent of “peer-reviewed mainstream science,” in the words of the organization’s mission. Their experts have frequently been quoted in mainstream newspapers and magazines, and they pen columns criticizing journalists who write critically about companies like Monsanto. The group has received funding from oil giants including ExxonMobil, as well as from the agribusiness, chemical and tobacco industries to name a few. When it comes to climate change, ACSH has published a steady stream of articles downplaying climate science and criticizing efforts to slow carbon emissions — even in the face of a mountain of peer-reviewed research on the climate crisis. ACSH slammed the medical journal The Lancet as “an ideologically driven outlet with a very clear political agenda where being sensationalist and culturally woke trumps evidence and reasonability” (after the Lancet published an article titled “The carbon footprint”). The purported “pro-science” advocacy group has labeled Greta Thunberg’s activism “doomsday prophesying.” It has (falsely) suggested that climate change is less of a concern because “more people die in winter than in summer” (they don’t). And that’s all just in the past nine months. The ACSH’s stance against climate action dates back to at least 1997. When it comes to coronavirus, now a global pandemic, ACSH’s authors rushed to judgment. They assured readers that there was little to worry about, and put some of the same faulty thinking that underlies their stance on climate change on display. ACSH isn’t alone. Other organizations that have also engaged in climate science denial made similar missteps on COVID-19, including prominent organizations that fanned the flames of conspiracy theories or confidently promoted complacency when circumstances required rapid action. To be clear: No one should be faulted for failing to foresee precisely how severe of a problem COVID-19 would prove to be. None of us has a crystal ball and few, if any, expected this situation to unfold in this particular way. But these organizations published positions that not only wound up being laden with false reassurances, but they did so based on claims that they made confidently at the time that now appear to have been false or misleading. Defending Conspiracy Theorists Continue reading |
Ozone-depleting chemicals appearing again in the atmosphere
 The Global Victory Over Ozone-Killing Chemicals Is Coming Undone https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-20/the-virus-is-teaching-everyone-what-runaway-growth-really-means
Mysterious emissions have been slowing the atmosphere’s healing. Scientists think they’ve finally discovered the source. By Eric Roston, March 18, 2020, Ozone-destroying chemicals once thought to be successfully banished are now making their way into the air again, slowing down our atmosphere’s recovery after those same chemicals effectively ripped a hole in it in the mid-20th century. Slowing things down still further: scientists haven’t been able to figure out where the chemicals are coming from.Before the rapidly changing global climate seized our collective attention, destruction of the Earth’s protective ozone shield became an environmental cause célèbre. Chemists in the 1970s predicted the damage to the atmosphere that could be done by chlorofluorocarbons, which were common in everything from aerosol hairspray to refrigerators. (They won the Nobel Prize in 1995.) The 1987 Montreal Protocol phasing out CFCs was eventually signed by 197 countries—every country in the United Nations, plus entities like the European Union and the Holy See—making it one of the pinnacles of global environmental diplomacy.
Then something funny started to happen. In 2012, two years after the treaty mandated all CFC production should cease, unexpected blips in atmospheric levels of a key chemical, CFC-11, started to appear. They’ve been attributed in part to unauthorized production of the chemicals in China—but that still wasn’t enough to make sense of the concentrations scientists were seeing. Now a team led by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have a possible answer. Their research, published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, shows that equipment and materials manufactured legally before the phase-out still hold enormous volumes of CFCs. As these products decay, the chemicals leak out. . Emissions from these previously underestimated “banks” of CFC chemicals are enough to slow ozone recovery by about six years if they’re not disposed of, according to the researchers.
CFCs—and their eventual replacements, hydrofluorocarbons—also trap heat. While there’s far less of them in the atmosphere than there is of carbon dioxide, they’re much more potent. The chemicals being released have the warming potential of 9 billion metric tons CO₂, or roughly 30% more than the European Union has pledged to eliminate by 2030.
Given how prevalent CFCs once were, properly disposing of them would be a huge, disruptive challenge. It would mean dismantling buildings with CFC-based foam insulation, replacing old refrigerators and air conditioners, and either destroying or burying the whole lot to lock the CFCs out of the atmosphere. “While 100% destruction of the banks is unrealistic,” the authors write, “certainly some material can be recovered and destroyed.”
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Nuclear Power Plants: Tritium is a lot more hazardous than they say
tests for statistical significance have been misused in epidemiological studies on cancers near nuclear facilities. These in the past have often concluded that such effects do not occur or they downplayed any effects which did occur. In fact, copious evidence exists throughout the world – over 60 studies – of raised cancer levels near NPPs.
Most (>75%) of these studies found cancer increases but because they were small, their findings were often dismissed as not statistically significant. In other words, they were chucked in the bin marked “not significant” without further consideration.
The Hazards of Tritium, Dr Ian Fairlie, March 13, 2020
Summary
Nuclear facilities emit very large amounts of tritium, 3H, the radioactive isotope of hydrogen. Much evidence from cell/animal studies and radiation biology theory indicates that tritium is more hazardous than gamma rays and most X-rays. However the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) continues to underestimate tritium’s hazard by recommending a radiation weighting factor (wR) of unity for tritium’s beta particle emissions. Tritium’s exceptionally high molecular exchange rate with hydrogen atoms on adjacent molecules makes it extremely mobile in the environment. This plus the fact that the most common form of tritium is water, ie radioactive water, means that, when tritium is emitted from nuclear facilities, it rapidly contaminates all biota in adjacent areas. Tritium binds with organic matter to form organically bound tritium (OBT) with long residence times in tissues and organs making it more radiotoxic than tritiated water (HTO). Epidemiology studies indicate increases in cancers and congenital malformations near nuclear facilities. It is recommended that nuclear operators and scientists should be properly informed about tritium’s hazards; that tritium’s safety factors should be strengthened; and that a hazard scheme for common radionuclides be established. Continue reading
Dr Ian Fairlea on Epidemiological Evidence of Cancer Risks
The Hazards of Tritium,https://www.ianfairlie.org/news/the-hazards-of-tritium/ , Dr Ian Fairlie, March 13, 2020 “……….Epidemiological Evidence of Risks Because of methodological limitations, epidemiology studies are a blunt tool for discovering whether adverse effects result from radiation exposures. These limitations include:
- under-ascertainment, …
- strict data requirements….
- confounding factors: the true causes of morbidity or mortality can be uncertain due to confounding factors such as socio-economic status and competing causes of death.
- bias: ……
- poor signal to noise…..
- uncertain doses:……
- wide confidence intervals……
The Abuse of Statistical Significance Tests
“Peaceful” and military nuclear reactors always inextricably linked
Anne McMenamin Nuclear Fuel Cycle Watch Australia, 19 Mar 20, . I’m referring to the structural links between the commercial and military uses of nuclear reactors, and, to some extent, the way THEY see it – which doesn’t always line up with the technical realities. History shows that the 2 industries have been inextricably linked from the beginning.
“Great efforts have been and still are made to disguise the close connection between nuclear energy for war and for power stations. Two reasons are suggested for this: political convenience in avoiding additional informed protests against nuclear weapon production and industrial convenience in carrying on without public protest what has become a very profitable industry.”
Sir Kelvin Spencer CBE FCGI LLD (HON)
First issue of Medicine and War, in 1985
Similarly, a document from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in August, 1981, states:
“There is no technical demarcation between the military and civilian reactor and there never was one. What has persisted over the decades is just the misconception that such a linkage does not exist.”
“Some Political Issues Related to Future Special Nuclear Fuels Production,”
LA- 8969-MS, UC-16
In 2013, historian Dr David Palmer said,
“The issue is processing uranium for nuclear power that then can be used for defence. You have to understand this in terms of Adelaide; it’s a military, industrial and intelligence complex.”
Palmer was commenting on the notable push for nuclear energy and nuclear submarines coming from numerous academics and business people in Adelaide. He considered the real motive behind the nuclear push is security in energy supply for the military, and hence the need to solve the problem of waste disposal, which is currently discouraging investment in nuclear power. Major military/weapons corporations such as Raytheon, Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root, Lockheed Martin, Babcock and General Atomics are now a noticeable presence in the SA economy.
Links can be clearly seen, e.g. Heathgate, which owns the Beverley mine, is a wholly owned subsidiary of General Atomics, one of the world’s largest weapons manufacturer/servicer. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1021186047913052/
Nuclear-powered submarines – fraught with legal and political problems
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The Complex Policy Questions Raised by Nuclear Energy’s Role in the Future of Warfare, Just Security by Alex Gilbert, Morgan Bazilian and Julia Nesheiwat, March 16, 2020 The United States military, as well as other militaries around the world, are racing to develop high-energy weapons—lasers, high-powered microwaves, and electromagnetic rail guns—in order to compete with near-peer competitors on the next generation of military technologies. But the electricity to power these systems will need to derive from somewhere, and so military planners are eyeing a new generation of energy-dense nuclear reactors, despite potential policy and legal challenges to doing so…….. The Army is considering mobile nuclear power plants, in part to drive high-energy weapons, an idea one retired three-star hailed as a potential logistics revolution. And should the U.S. build space-based lasers for missile defense, nuclear energy may be the only way to provide the needed megawatts. All this raises key policy concerns in relation to international law, rules of engagement, and the laws of warfare. Basing, or even deploying, nuclear reactors in the territorial waters or land of an overseas ally requires the permission of the host government, which may be averse to expanding nuclear power as in the case of major bases like Yokosuka, Japan. Diego Garcia, an island in the Indian Ocean, provides another challenging case as the ongoing territorial dispute between the United Kingdom and Mauritius threatens the U.S. base there, and a nuclear plant would only complicate the existing dispute. The U.S. Navy already faces constraints on where their nuclear-powered ships can visit. Floating nuclear power plants, like those developed by Russia and China, face similar concerns if they transit foreign waters or, in the case of the South China Sea, are stationed in disputed territories. Similarly, mobile reactors, like those considered by the U.S. Army, would likely be transported by air, requiring permission of all overflight countries. Beyond basing, a critical question is whether the U.S. military would own and operate these new reactors, as the Navy currently does, or whether they would pursue commercial alternatives, as the Army is considering. The U.S. Army report on mobile reactors noted that, with either government or commercial ownership, there are concerns about international rules and licensing that present potential barriers to deployment. In some cases, potential host countries do not even have nuclear regulatory agencies. Further, commercial ownership raises liability concerns, both in the case of a military incident or an accident. International nuclear liability treaties are not well harmonized between the U.S. and most of its allies, especially when it comes to the unique concerns of transportable reactors. Using nuclear power for high-energy weapons also creates targeting dilemmas for the U.S. and foreign militaries. High-energy weapons and their support infrastructure, including reactors, may be initial targets in a conflict. The social, environmental, and reputational impacts of damaging a nuclear reactor, particularly on a country’s home territory, or with effects on a third country, could lead to conflict escalation and international condemnation……. Nuclear-powered laser satellites could aggravate concerns about nuclear arms controls as such systems could be used for anti-ballistic missile or anti-satellite applications. While the Outer Space Treaty prohibits weapons of mass destruction in orbit, it does not prohibit other types of weaponry. During the Cold War, Soviet military space reactors raised calls for bans on space nuclear power, particularly after one accidentally crashed in Canada. Recent calls for space arms control have been unsuccessful. As with terrestrial nuclear-powered lasers, the unique role of laser satellites would make them early targets in any major power conflict, leading to risks of collateral damage from radioactive and dangerous space debris, as occurred after the accidental 2009 collision involving a decommissioned Soviet nuclear satellite.. The article below is not about Australia, but it is about small nuclear reactors. Everybody knows, (just quietly) that Australia won’t be getting small nuclear reactors for providing electricity. The real aim is for nuclear-powered submarines. So this article, about the legal and political problems of nuclear reactors for Defence is applicable to Australia, too
The Complex Policy Questions Raised by Nuclear Energy’s Role in the Future of Warfare, Just Security by Alex Gilbert, Morgan Bazilian and Julia Nesheiwat, March 16, 2020 The United States military, as well as other militaries around the world, are racing to develop high-energy weapons—lasers, high-powered microwaves, and electromagnetic rail guns—in order to compete with near-peer competitors on the next generation of military technologies. But the electricity to power these systems will need to derive from somewhere, and so military planners are eyeing a new generation of energy-dense nuclear reactors, despite potential policy and legal challenges to doing so…….. The Army is considering mobile nuclear power plants, in part to drive high-energy weapons, an idea one retired three-star hailed as a potential logistics revolution. And should the U.S. build space-based lasers for missile defense, nuclear energy may be the only way to provide the needed megawatts.
All this raises key policy concerns in relation to international law, rules of engagement, and the laws of warfare.
Basing, or even deploying, nuclear reactors in the territorial waters or land of an overseas ally requires the permission of the host government, which may be averse to expanding nuclear power as in the case of major bases like Yokosuka, Japan. Diego Garcia, an island in the Indian Ocean, provides another challenging case as the ongoing territorial dispute between the United Kingdom and Mauritius threatens the U.S. base there, and a nuclear plant would only complicate the existing dispute.
The U.S. Navy already faces constraints on where their nuclear-powered ships can visit. Floating nuclear power plants, like those developed by Russia and China, face similar concerns if they transit foreign waters or, in the case of the South China Sea, are stationed in disputed territories. Similarly, mobile reactors, like those considered by the U.S. Army, would likely be transported by air, requiring permission of all overflight countries.
Beyond basing, a critical question is whether the U.S. military would own and operate these new reactors, as the Navy currently does, or whether they would pursue commercial alternatives, as the Army is considering. The U.S. Army report on mobile reactors noted that, with either government or commercial ownership, there are concerns about international rules and licensing that present potential barriers to deployment. In some cases, potential host countries do not even have nuclear regulatory agencies. Further, commercial ownership raises liability concerns, both in the case of a military incident or an accident. International nuclear liability treaties are not well harmonized between the U.S. and most of its allies, especially when it comes to the unique concerns of transportable reactors.
Using nuclear power for high-energy weapons also creates targeting dilemmas for the U.S. and foreign militaries. High-energy weapons and their support infrastructure, including reactors, may be initial targets in a conflict. The social, environmental, and reputational impacts of damaging a nuclear reactor, particularly on a country’s home territory, or with effects on a third country, could lead to conflict escalation and international condemnation…….
Nuclear-powered laser satellites could aggravate concerns about nuclear arms controls as such systems could be used for anti-ballistic missile or anti-satellite applications. While the Outer Space Treaty prohibits weapons of mass destruction in orbit, it does not prohibit other types of weaponry. During the Cold War, Soviet military space reactors raised calls for bans on space nuclear power, particularly after one accidentally crashed in Canada. Recent calls for space arms control have been unsuccessful. As with terrestrial nuclear-powered lasers, the unique role of laser satellites would make them early targets in any major power conflict, leading to risks of collateral damage from radioactive and dangerous space debris, as occurred after the accidental 2009 collision involving a decommissioned Soviet nuclear satellite…. …… https://www.justsecurity.org/69056/the-complex-policy-questions-raised-by-nuclear-energys-role-in-the-future-of-warfare/
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The clean-up of the Fukushima nuclear mess is not going to schedule – continual decommissioning delays
 Japan’s 3/11 Recovery Stalled by Fukushima Decommissioning DelaysDelays in dismantling the disaster-stricken nuclear power complex cast doubt on whether recovery goals will move forward according to schedule. The Diplomat By Thisanka Siripala, March 13, 2020 Nine years after a quake-triggered tsunami sparked a triple meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, decontamination and decommissioning continues in northeastern Japan. The ultimate goal of removing all debris is expected to take anywhere between 30 to 40 years, but progress has been slower than originally planned. So far just one-fourth of decommission work has been completed, drawing attention to work that has not yet begun. The Fukushima decommissioning and decontamination draft has been amended five times. While changes published in December offered a specific time frame for the first time, the latest timetable for debris removal has been pushed back five years, citing the need for additional safety precautions. Previously, the process of removing spent fuel was scheduled from 2021 to 2024. But work on reactor two looks more likely to start in 2025 and last until 2027, followed by reactor one work commencing sometime between March 2028 and March 2029. ……..
The next decommissioning stage sets out the removal of 4,471 spent fuel rods inside the cooling pools of reactors one to six. But the biggest obstacle is finding a way to locate and remove the molten nuclear fuel. With frequent delays, evacuees face a constant sense of uncertainty,
tangled in a waiting game to see whether decommissioning work can be completed in 30 years.
Reactor two is seen as the safest and easiest option to start full-scale debris removal since it suffered the least structural damage with only “some fuel” melting through the pressure vessel and accumulating at the bottom of the containment vessel. But with no established method for debris retrieval, attempts to survey the location and distribution of molten nuclear fuel among the rubble requires a lengthy trial and error process. In mid-February 2019 an attempt to probe and collect samples from reactor two failed to find and lift the main nuclear fuel debris, instead lifting portions of pebble-like sediment with the lowest radiation readings from the surface. At this stage there is no way for TEPCO, the company that owns the Fukushima Daiichi plant, to determine where fuel debris lies among the rest of the metal debris. It’s estimated that reactor two alone contains 237 metric tons of debris while reactors one and three contain a combined 880 tons. The complexity of debris removal requires developing specialized technology that does not yet exist.
Also plaguing decommissioning efforts is the battle over how to safely dispose of 1 million tons of contaminated water that were used to cool nuclear fuel. Currently, huge tanks on the premises store the polluted runoff, which could fill 400 Olympic swimming pools, but space is expected to run out by mid-2022. On average 170 tons of contaminated water is produced to cool fuel in nuclear reactors. Without constant cooling, nuclear fuel risks melting from its own heat in a process called decay heat. With two years needed to prepare a disposal method, time is running out for a final decision. Government proposals to slowly release contaminated water into the ocean has sparked fierce backlash from locals and the agriculture and fishing industries, who argue traces of radioactive materials such as tritium still found in “treated” water could further harm a region still struggling to restore its international reputation……..
To make matters worse, decommissioning operations have been temporarily suspended due to the spread of coronavirus. Tepco was forced to cancel on-site inspections of reactor one scheduled during March, which would have brought together some 1,800 experts and members of parliament, as well as local residents and student groups. https://thediplomat.com/2020/03/japans-3-11-recovery-stalled-by-fukushima-decommissioning-delays/
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Canisters for high level nuclear wastes likely to corrode faster than expected
Corrosion poses risk in nuclear waste storage https://frontline.thehindu.com/science-and-technology/article30913130.ece March 13, 2020 The materials the United States and other countries plan to use to store high-level nuclear waste are likely to degrade faster than previously thought because of the way those materials interact, new research from Ohio State University shows.
The findings, published in a recent issue of “Nature Materials”, show that corrosion of nuclear waste storage materials accelerates because of changes in the chemistry of the nuclear waste solution and the way the materials interact with one another. “This indicates that the current models may not be sufficient to keep this waste safely stored,” Xiaolei Guo, lead author of the study was quoted in the news release issued by the university.
The team’s research focussed on storage materials for high-level nuclear waste that is highly radioactive. While some types of the waste have half-lives of about 30 years, others like plutonium have a half-life that can be tens of thousands of years.
With no long-term viable nuclear waste disposal mechanism yet in operation, in most sites nuclear waste is stored near the plants where it is produced. While countries around the world have debated the best way to deal with nuclear waste, only Finland has started construction of a long-term repository for high-level nuclear waste.
In general, proposals involve mixing nuclear waste with other materials to form glass or ceramics and then encasing those pieces of glass or ceramics, now radioactive, inside metallic canisters. The canisters are buried deep underground in a repository to isolate it.
Researchers found that when exposed to an aqueous environment, glass and ceramics interact with stainless steel to accelerate corrosion, especially of the glass and ceramic materials holding nuclear waste. The study measured the difference between accelerated corrosion and natural corrosion of the storage materials. “In the real-life scenario, the glass or ceramic waste forms would be in close contact with stainless steel canisters. Under specific conditions, the corrosion of stainless steel will go crazy,” he said. “It creates a super-aggressive environment that can corrode surrounding materials.”
To analyse corrosion, the research team pressed glass or ceramic “waste forms” (the shapes into which nuclear waste is encapsulated) against stainless steel and immersed them in solutions for up to 30 days, under conditions that simulate those under Yucca Mountain, the proposed nuclear waste repository in the U.S.
Those experiments showed that when glass and stainless steel were pressed against one another, stainless steel corrosion was “severe” and “localised”. The researchers also noted cracks and enhanced corrosion on the parts of the glass that had been in contact with stainless steel.
Part of the problem lies in the Periodic Table. Stainless steel is made primarily of iron mixed with other elements, including nickel and chromium. Iron has a chemical affinity for silicon, which is a key element of glass.
The experiments also showed that when ceramics, another potential holder for nuclear waste, were pressed against stainless steel under conditions that mimicked those beneath Yucca Mountain, the ceramics and stainless steel corroded in a “severe localised” way.
Tritium – more hazardous than gamma rays and most X-rays
Ian Fairlie 13th March 2020, The Nuclear facilities emit very large amounts of tritium, 3H, the radioactive isotope of hydrogen. Much evidence from cell/animal studies and radiation biology theory indicates that tritium is more hazardous than gamma rays and most X-rays.
However the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) continues to underestimate tritium’s hazard by recommending a radiation weighting factor (wR) of unity for
tritium’s beta particle emissions. Tritium’s exceptionally high molecular exchange rate with hydrogen atoms on adjacent molecules makes it extremely mobile in the environment.
This plus the fact that the most common form of tritium is water, i.e. radioactive water, means that, when tritium is emitted from nuclear facilities, it rapidly contaminates all biota in adjacent areas. Tritium binds with organic matter to form organically bound tritium (OBT) with long residence times in tissues and organs making it more radiotoxic than tritiated water (HTO).
Epidemiology studies indicate increases in cancers and congenital malformations near
nuclear facilities. It is recommended that nuclear operators and scientists should be properly informed about tritium’s hazards; that tritium’s safety factors should be strengthened; and that a hazard scheme for common radionuclides be established.
UK’s nuclear regulated asset base (RAB) financing passes all financial risks to electricity customers
Times 15th March 2020 David Lowry: I read with incredulity the claims of Horizon nuclear chief Duncan Hawthorne that his company, which is really a Japanese shell company with no products, could build nuclear plants offering power at half the currently projected cost from the Hinkley Point C plant being built.Fukushima Daiichi reactors in Japan on March 11, 2011 — costs $250bn
(£200bn) and rising — suggests Horizon has not learnt the full lessons
of that. The regulated asset base (RAB) financing mechanism Horizon
advocates transfers all financial investment risk to electricity customers
before a single unit is delivered to a home, allowing the foreign nuclear
company to build plants without having to pay attention to keeping costs
under control. This is an extraordinarily one-sided proposal. Surely even
this nuclear-friendly government cannot fall for it.
Steps to nowhere on nuclear disarmament – USA’s “Creating an Environment for Nuclear Disarmament” (CEND)
The Virus of Nuclear Proliferation https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/03/12/virus-nuclear-proliferation, March 12, 2020, by In Depths News
Rather than addressing the promising path forward provided by the new Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons to finally ban the bomb, the U.S. launched a new initiative, by Alice Slater
Ironically, it is not nearly so well-reported, that the 50-year old NPT is threatening the world with an even worse illness then the new terrifying coronavirus.
The NPT’s critical requirement that the nuclear armed states, which signed the treaty in 1970, must make “good faith efforts” for nuclear disarmament is virtually moribund as nations are developing new nuclear weapons, some characterized as more “usable” and destroying treaties that contributed to a more stable environment.
These include the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty which the U.S. negotiated with USSR and walked out of in 2002, and its repeated rejections of offers from Russia and China to negotiate a treaty to keep weapons out of space, and from Russia to ban cyberwar, all of which would contribute to “strategic stability” which would enable the fulfillment of the NPT’s nuclear disarmament promise.
Further, this year the U.S. withdrew from the Intermediate Nuclear Force agreement it made with Russia in 1987, left the nuclear deal it had negotiated with Iran as well, and just announced it would not meet with Russia to discuss a renewal of the Strategic Arms Control Treaty (START), due to expire this year, which limits nuclear warheads and missiles.
It also created a whole new branch of its military, the Department of Space, which was formerly housed in the U.S. Airforce. And in an obvious breach of “good faith” [i] ,this February the US staged a “limited” nuclear battle against Russia in a war game!
It cannot be denied that the NPT contributes to even more burgeoning nuclear proliferation by extending its misbegotten “inalienable right” to “peaceful” nuclear power, currently promoting this lethal technology to Saudi Arabia, UAE, Belarus, Bangladesh and Turkey which are all constructing their first nuclear power plants — expanding the keys to the bomb factory in more and more countries, while almost all of the current nuclear weapons states have new nuclear weapons under development.
The U.S., for example, is planning to spend over a trillion dollars over the next 10 years and is working with the UK to replace Britain’s Trident nuclear warheads.
Rather than addressing the promising path forward provided by the new Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons to finally ban the bomb, the U.S. launched a new initiative, Creating an Environment for Nuclear Disarmament (CEND), to develop yet another set of possible new steps to comply with its 50 year old “good faith” promises for nuclear disarmament.
At a recent meeting in Stockholm with fifteen of its allies, new measures were announced for nuclear disarmament now being described as “stepping stones”, having graduated from various commitments over the years for “steps” and “an unequivocal commitment” to those steps, since the NPT was extended in 1970, indefinitely and unconditionally.
These new “stepping stones” bring to mind M.G. Escher’s stunning drawing of a series of steps to nowhere with people endlessly trudging up a staircase, never to reach their destination!
Polar ice melting at an accelerating rate
Polar ice caps melting six times faster than in 1990s https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/11/polar-ice-caps-melting-six-times-faster-than-in-1990s
Losses of ice from Greenland and Antarctica are tracking the worst-case climate scenario, scientists warn Damian Carrington Environment editor @dpcarrington,Thu 12 Mar 2020 The polar ice caps are melting six times faster than in the 1990s, according to the most complete analysis to date.
The ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica is tracking the worst-case climate warming scenario set out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), scientists say. Without rapid cuts to carbon emissions the analysis indicates there could be a rise in sea levels that would leave 400 million people exposed to coastal flooding each year by the end of the century.
Rising sea levels are the one of the most damaging long-term impacts of the climate crisis, and the contribution of Greenland and Antarctica is accelerating. The new analysis updates and combines recent studies of the ice masses and predicts that 2019 will prove to have been a record-breaking year when the most recent data is processed.
The previous peak year for Greenland and Antarctic ice melting was 2010, after a natural climate cycle led to a run of very hot summers. But the Arctic heatwave of 2019 means it is nearly certain that more ice was lost last year.
The average annual loss of ice from Greenland and Antarctica in the 2010s was 475bn tonnes – six times greater than the 81bn tonnes a year lost in the 1990s. In total the two ice caps lost 6.4tn tonnes of ice from 1992 to 2017, with melting in Greenland responsible for 60% of that figure.
The IPCC’s most recent mid-range prediction for global sea level rise in 2100 is 53cm. But the new analysis suggests that if current trends continue the oceans will rise by an additional 17cm.
“Every centimetre of sea level rise leads to coastal flooding and coastal erosion, disrupting people’s lives around the planet,” said Prof Andrew Shepherd, of the University of Leeds. He said the extra 17cm would mean the number of exposed to coastal flooding each year rising from 360 million to 400 million. “These are not unlikely events with small impacts,” he said. “They are already under way and will be devastating for coastal communities.”
Erik Ivins, of Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in California, who led the assessment with Shepherd, said the lost ice was a clear sign of global heating. “The satellite measurements provide prima facie, rather irrefutable, evidence,” he said.
Almost all the ice loss from Antarctica and half of that from Greenland arose from warming oceans melting the glaciers that flow from the ice caps. This causes glacial flow to speed up, dumping more icebergs into the ocean. The remainder of Greenland’s ice losses are caused by hotter air temperatures that melt the surface of the ice sheet.
The combined analysis was carried out by a team of 89 scientists from 50 international organisations, who combined the findings of 26 ice surveys. It included data from 11 satellite missions that tracked the ice sheets’ changing volume, speed of flow and mass.
About a third of the total sea level rise now comes from Greenland and Antarctic ice loss. Just under half comes from the thermal expansion of warming ocean water and a fifth from other smaller glaciers. But the latter sources are not accelerating, unlike in Greenland and Antarctica.
Shepherd said the ice caps had been slow to respond to human-caused global heating. Greenland and especially Antarctica were quite stable at the start of the 1990s despite decades of a warming climate.
Shepherd said it took about 30 years for the ice caps to react. Now that they had a further 30 years of melting was inevitable, even if emissions were halted today. Nonetheless, he said, urgent carbon emissions cuts were vital. “We can offset some of that [sea level rise] if we stop heating the planet.”
The IPCC is in the process of producing a new global climate report and its lead author, Prof Guðfinna Aðalgeirsdóttir, of the University of Iceland, said: “The reconciled estimate of Greenland and Antarctic ice loss is timely.”
She said she also saw increased losses from Iceland’s ice caps last year. “Summer 2019 was very warm in this region.”
1 This Month
23 April – WEBINAR – Why new nuclear reactors are the wrong tools for decarbonization Thursday, April 23 • 1 AM – 2 AM AEST
World Nuclear Power. Reactors 1951-2026, 75 Years of Nuclear Power.
Interactive Map– https://dv.worldnuclearreport.org/
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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