My Geiger counter is in the shop for maintenance.

         I have posted about nuclear weapons and nuclear disarmament before. One of the problems with disarmament is the question of verifying that a nation has actually reduced their nuclear stockpile. While direct inspections are one method, you have to trust that the nation being inspected does not have a hidden stash of warheads or weapons grade nuclear materials tucked away somewhere. This is especially relevant when we are talking about the situation in Iran. Iran swears that it has no interest in developing a nuclear bomb while Israel swears that that is exactly what Iran is doing.

         Neutrinos are “electrically neutral, weakly interacting elementary subatomic particles with half-integer spin.” They are generated by nuclear processes such as those taking place in the Sun and in nuclear reactors. Neutrinos travel at the speed of light and are not affected by electromagnetism or the strong nuclear force. Because they are “weakly interactive,” they easily pass through normal matter as if it were not there. About sixty five billion solar neutrinos pass through each square centimeter of the Earth perpendicular to the Sun each second. Neutrinos have related antimatter particles called antineutrinos.

         Antineutrinos are very similar to neutrinos but they have the opposite spin. The antineutrino spectra of uranium 235, plutonium 239 and plutonium 241 were determined in the 1980s. However, the absence of a spectra for uranium-238 made it difficult to get an accurate reading of nuclear fuel in a reactor core. Physicists at Technische Universität München have now found the antineutrino spectra for uranium 238 which provides the mission information needed for analysis of antineutrino emissions from a nuclear reactor core.

         A group of scientists at Virginia Tech are currently exploring the possibility that antineutrinos could be used to detect the mix of nuclear materials in a reactor core because they are generated by nuclear reactions and cannot be blocked by any type of shielding. A measurement of antineutrinos emitted from a nuclear reactor building could indicate the amount of plutonium inside the reactor.

        Neutrino detectors have been built that are roughly one cubic meter in size. The researchers say that minor modifications of current neutrino detectors would allow a complete antineutrino detection system to be packaged into a twenty foot shipping container. Such a detection system could be shipped to the Iranian reactor at Arak to monitor compliance with international agreements. The Arak reactor is ideal for creating plutonium which is a prime material for construction nuclear warheads. The detection system that the researchers envision would even be able indicate the enrichment level of the fuel in the reactor. It would also be able to differentiate between antineutrinos emitted by isotopes of uranium from isotopes of plutonium. The system they envision should be able to function within about thirty feet of a nuclear reactor core. There is no other system in existence that would allow for such close monitoring of reactor fuels.

        The existence of a reliable, compact and cost effective system for detecting antineutrino emissions remotely from a nuclear reactor core will assist the International Atomic Energy Agency in its work on verifying compliance with non-proliferation agreements.

LENS neutrino detector model:

Injecting water into Fukushima reactor accelerated the meltdown of the reactor core. enenews.com

Japanese scientists say that Fukushima radiation is causing “serious biological effects” in the environment. enenews.com

The Australian government has said that it is still open to nominations from traditional land owners in Northern Territory for a site for a national radioactive waste management facility. world-nuclear-news.org

A safety system erroneously tripped unit 3 at New York’s Indian Point nuclear plant Wednesday. nuclearstreet.com

My Geiger counter is in the shop for maintenance.

             While there is wide spread concern about nuclear waste in the United States, some small towns are lobbying to host nuclear waste dumps. I have posted several blogs about the problems at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, New Mexico. After particles of plutonium and americium were detected twenty miles away from the WIPP site, the repository was shut down. It was found that a waste drum had exploded and released its contents. While the exact cause of the explosion is still being debated, there is concern that there are more drums that could explode. Some analysts say that the WIPP may never be reopened. Investigators found that there was a “culture of unsafe practices and history of irregular inspections” at WIPP.  

          The U.S. Energy Secretary announced Monday that he would get the WIPP repository operating again. Residents of Carlsbad supported the announcement and endorsed the reopening of the WIPP in spite of the problems. With all the financial problems that many small communities are having, even if an industry is dangerous, it is still welcome if it brings jobs to the community. The siting of the WIPP near Carlsbad brought a thousand jobs to the area. Most of the two hundred million dollar annual budget of the WIPP goes to wages for those thousand jobs. The federal government has spent over six billion dollars at the WIPP and, if the site is reopened, billions more will be spent in filling the repository with low-level nuclear waste from U.S. nuclear weapons programs.

         Officials in Loving County, Texas have been lobbying the federal government to spend twenty eight billion dollars to dispose of high-level radioactive waste in their area. There are only ninety five people living in the county. A county judge said that the money brought in by a nuclear waste dump would allow the county to incorporate a town, seat a city council, build a school and pay for other improvements such as paved roads.

         Many communities are not interested in having a nuclear waste repository anywhere near them. When the Obama administration canceled the Yucca Mountain Repository in Nevada, many Nevada residents were happy to see the project abandoned. It is estimated that there are at least seventy two thousand tons of nuclear waste in the U.S. and there will not be a permanent geological repository in the U.S. before 2050. In the meantime, temporary storage will have to be developed or the waste will overwhelm the storage capacity of spent fuel pools at reactor sites.

        Some of the radioactive materials in nuclear waste can be dangerous for hundreds of millions of years. Where ever the waste is eventually stored, it is imperative that future generations know that it is dangerous. In millions of years, any current language will have disappeared. There have been suggestions that some sort of graphic symbols be developed that would serve to warn future humanity of the danger which may or may not be possible. Perhaps the idea of drilling deep holes in bedrock, burying the waste and filling in the holes would be better than storage in a salt mine such as the WIPP. With the waste miles below the surface of the Earth and a pristine landscape above, future generations do not even need to know or worry about the nuclear waste left over from our era.

The Japanese government will launch an investigation into scrap iron exported to South Korea that was contaminated with radioactive materials exceeding the maximum permissible level, trade ministry officials said Tuesday. japantimes.co.jp

Fukushima radioactive particles can’t be dissolved, even with hot nitric acid! enenews.com

The UK’s Office for Nuclear Regulation has said it is satisfied that EDF Energy is taking “appropriate and conservative action in the interests of continued nuclear safety” in its decision to shut down its reactors at the Heysham 1 and Hartlepool sites.  world-nuclear-news.org

Duke Energy issued an emergency declaration at its Brunswick nuclear plant as a precaution Tuesday after the Halon system activated in its control room simulator.  nuclearstreet.com

My Geiger counter is in the shop for maintenance.

             I have been blogging about nuclear issues for two years now. As I have researched  for my posts, I have discovered that there are many more problems with the use of nuclear energy to generate electricity than are widely known. Beyond concerns with environmental impact of mining and refining nuclear fuel, lax governmental regulation, corporate incompetence or misbehavior, lack of a permanent disposal system for spent nuclear fuel, danger of natural disasters or deliberate sabotage, etc. there are also problems with the cost of decommissioning, dangers from fires and floods, damage to the ecosystem from hot water from reactor cooling, falling uranium fuel production, etc.

       With so many reasons not to use nuclear power, why are we still building more nukes around the world? As I see it, there are several main drivers for expanding the use of nuclear power. One of these drivers is simply money. There are billions of dollars involved in construction, fueling and operating nuclear reactors. Among other things, this means that there is plenty of money to grease the palms of anyone who can contribute to the expansion.

       Another driver is the desire of governments and corporations to have centralized control of important resources. With fossil fuels under fire for contributing to global warming, nuclear power is another centralized power generation system based on a scarce fuel. During armed conflicts such as invasions and civil war, power generation facilities are one of the prime target for bringing a civilian population to its knees.

       A third driver is the use of nuclear power reactors as a bargaining chip in international trade and foreign policy. Several major nuclear nations including France, Russia, China and Japan are working hard to sell their reactors to third world countries. Given that cutting off fuel has already been used as an economic weapon in Europe and other parts of the globe, it would seem to be a questionable proposition for a third world country to buy one of these power reactors since it would make that country very vulnerable to “energy blackmail” in the future.

      A democratic government is supposed to yield to the will of the majority with suitable protection for minority interests. Recently in the United States, there are examples of eighty and even ninety percent of people polled wanting something done that still does not get done because of the influence of money in our national politics. I am afraid that nuclear power is one of these failures of democracy. In Japan, the vast majority of the people want an end to the use of nuclear power but the government is pressing ahead with nuclear power and nuclear exports.

      It is encouraging to note that not only that many citizens of countries using nuclear power are opposed to it, but also a lot of the financial community is wary of investing in nuclear power because it is failing in the only arena that they respect; the marketplace. When another major nuclear accident occurs as will certainly happen, the public backlash will be too big for even the bought politicians to ignore.

     Nuclear power is going to be abandoned. The only question is when and how much more money and lives will have to be wasted before it happens.

 

 

Currently no decommissioning work is on-going in the crippled reactor buildings of Fukushima plant because the workers are on summer vacation. fukushima-diary.com

Future appears bright for indoor veggie farms in Japan. japantimes.com

On Monday, the majority owner of two reactors under construction at the V.C. Summer nuclear plant in South Carolina announced that the units will come online a year later than expected. nuclearstreet.com

Peoples Climate March scheduled for September 21, 2014. nirs.org

My Geiger counter is in the shop for maintenance.