The destructive earthquake and tsunami that triggered a catastrophe at Japan’s Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant are now four years behind us, but the effects of that disaster are still being felt today.  natureworldnews.com

On 4/17/2015, TEPCO published the monthly seafood contamination report of Fukushima plant port. However the report contained only 10 samples data of 5 kinds of seafood. The highest reading of Cs-134/137 was 3,200 Bq/Kg. fukushima-diary.com

China’s ACP100 multi-purpose small modular reactor (SMR) design is to undergo a safety review following the recent signing of an agreement between China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). world-nuclear-news.org

The National Union of Electricity Employees believes that the Federal Government is building a nuclear plant facility. ynaiji.com

 

 

    I have posted essays about India’s nuclear programs before. Indian has major issues with their supply of electricity with frequent lost of power in major cities and over three hundred million people having no access at all to electricity. The Indian government has been pushing hard to increase nuclear power in India. Prime Minister Modi is pressing the Department of Atomic Energy to triple India’s nuclear power output by 2025 from about six gigawatts to around eighteen gigawatts.

        The main problem that India faces is the fact the it has very stringent liability laws with respect to industrial accidents including the possibility of suing manufacturers of equipment involved in serious accidents. This has prevented the U.S. and other major nuclear players from being interested in building nuclear reactors in and transferring nuclear technology and materials to India. There is also a concern among other nuclear nations that India may divert imported nuclear technology and fuel intended for civilian use to their military nuclear program because India has never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Recently there have been negotiations within India and with potential international nuclear suppliers to deal with these two serious issues.

        Last week, the Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) signed a contact with the French firm, Areva. Areva will be helping India deal with problems at the Jaitapur nuclear power plant in Maharashtra which is being held up because of costs and liability issues. Areva has also signed a contract with Larse & Tuobro which is an Indian engineering company. There is a plan to have some of the equipment for the Jaitapur project manufactured locally in India.

        Last week, Canada announced plans to sell about two hundred and ninety million dollars worth of uranium to India. This will amount to about seven million pounds of uranium over five years. After India used Canadian nuclear technology to build a nuclear bomb, Canada had banned uranium exports to India. Australia had also refused to sell uranium to India but that may be changing as the two countries negotiate.

        Because India has little indigenous uranium, it has been exploring the use of thorium as a nuclear fuel. India has abundant reserves of thorium. Supporters of thorium say that it will be more easily controlled and safer. Opponents point out that thorium reactors generate waste that is even more radioactive than the waste from a uranium or MOX reactor and that such reactors could still have major accidents.

        It is estimated that building a nuclear power plant in India will be about thirty percent cheaper than building one in the United States. The big question is whether that lower cost will be low enough for nuclear power to be competitive in the Indian energy market. Coal is the most common source of electricity in India but it produces a lot of carbon dioxide. India has been under increasing pressure from the international community to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Supporters of the nuclear push in India point out that the adoption of nuclear power on a large scale in India would certainly reduce their carbon footprint.

       However attractive nuclear power might seem to India at the moment, I think that they would be better served by conservation and distributed sustainable alternative energy sources such as solar, wind and hydro. India has a lot of sun, wind and water.

India’s nuclear facilities:

The bill for shutting down Germany’s nuclear power plants and building a safe disposal site for nuclear waste could rise to 70 billion euros ($75 billion), the head of a government commission told daily Frankfurter Rundschau in an interview. news.yahoo.com

Iran on Monday pushed its call for peace talks to end the fighting in Yemen, and offered assurances that a nuclear deal would pave the way for greater cooperation with its neighbors. news.yahoo.com

A federal judge in San Diego on Friday referred the complaints over a cost-management plan involving the closure of the San Onofre nuclear power plant to state courts, but otherwise held to an earlier agreement that utility customer would pay $3.3 billion of the decommissioning costs of the plant. nuclearstreet.com

Work is continuing at the construction site of an EPR unit at Flamanville in northern France, French utility EDF said yesterday. Preparations are underway to conduct further tests on the unit’s vessel after anomalies were identified in the composition of the steel in certain parts of it. world-nuclear-news.org

TEPCO releases video from second robot probe at Fukushima reactor. ajw.asahi.com

A second flexible robot sent inside the No. 1 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station in Japan has been abandoned due to radiation damage to its cameras, TEPCO said Monday. nuclearstreet.com

A new simulator is nearing completion at unit 2 of the Oskarshamn nuclear power plant in Sweden, operator OKG said today. The simulator is part of a safety modernization of the unit started in mid-2013. world-nuclear-news.org

Hungary said Monday that the EU’s nuclear body Euratom has signed a fuel supply agreement, clearing the way for Russia to build the extension of the country’s sole nuclear plant. news.yahoo.com

China submarine sale to Pakistan ups nuclear clash risk  economictimes.indiatimes.com

Iran is ready to resume nuclear enrichment “without any limitations” unless sanctions are totally and immediately removed at the end of negotiations, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said Friday. news.yahoo.com

Later this month the United Nations hosts an important review conference for the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) – the landmark deal aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.  voanews.com

The Underline is a project to transform the underutilized land below Miami’s Metrorail from the Miami River to the Dadeland South Station into a ten-mile urban trail and green space. But part of the area dedicated to the Underline is also the possible home of new transmission lines for two nuclear reactors being proposed for Turkey Point Nuclear Generating Station by Florida Power & Light. miaminewstimes.com

 

(This is Part Two of a two part article. Please read Part One before reading Part Two.)

         Deep borehole disposal (DBD) is superior to mined geological repositories (MGR) which are mined about sixteen hundred feet underground.

1) MGRs can cost billions of dollars to prepare before they can take any waste. Deep boreholes will cost in the tens of millions of dollars each and can be drilled one at a time as needed.

2) DBD requires granite formations which are found under much of the continental United States. There are far fewer sites that are suitable for MGRs.

3) It would take about five years to drill a deep borehole, fill it with waste and seal it. In contrast, a prospective MGR in the U.K. will begin construction in 2040 and not take any waste until 2075. A final site for such a repository has not yet been selected. In the U.S., it is estimated that the soonest a MGR could be ready to accept any waste would be 2050.

4) DBD puts the nuclear waste much deeper than MGRs and is much safer. With many potential sites available in the U.S., it should be easier to find a site that will meet with public approval than trying to site a MGR.

5) DBD does not require a big site and has much less environmental impact than MGRs. The diameter of the borehole for DBD would be about two feet. Multiple holes could be drilled at the same site if they are spaced about a hundred feet apart. Once the waste has been placed in the borehole and the hole filled and covered, all infrastructure can be removed. With proper landscaping, the disposal location could be invisible.

6) Seismic activity could possibly crack the containers of waste, fracture the rock around the borehole and damage the deepest barriers. However, such seismic activity would not destroy the isolation of the waste or make it possible for any radioactive materials to make their way to the surface or into the ground water above the waste.

       While a great deal of research on DBD has been done in the U.K. at the University of Sheffield and other institutions, it will be tested first in the U.S. A trial hole about half a yard in diameter will be drilled. Tests will be conducted to guarantee that waste packages can be inserted into the borehole and retrieved, if necessary. These tests will be conducted in 2016. If the tests are successful, real Hanford waste capsules will be inserted into boreholes that are about eight inches in diameter for permanent disposal.

       Compared to all the other existing and proposed methods for disposing of high-level radioactive waste, DBD appears to be the safest and cheapest alternative. In many cases, deep bore holes could be drilled on site at existing nuclear power plants. Only a few holes should be necessary at each site to dispose of the spent nuclear fuel filling up cooling pools and dry casks. The U.S. should immediately pursue such DBD. Nuclear waste disposal via DBD will be much faster, cheaper, safer and easier than proposed MGRs.