Japanese court says 45-year-old nuclear reactor can operate abcnews.co.com

Vladimir Putin unveils world’s biggest supersonic bomber in new nuclear warning mirror.co.uk

Kazatomprom completes trans-Caspian uranium delivery world-nuclear-news.org

Energoatom and Urenco discuss enriched uranium supply world-nuclear-news.org

 

Ambient office = 105 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 107 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 112 nanosieverts per hour

Grape from Central Market = 106 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 119 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 111 nanosieverts per hour

Kyiv Says Russian ‘Kamikaze’ Drone Flies Over South Ukraine Nuclear Plant usnews.com

Holtec to reapply for funding to restart Palisades world-nuclear-news.org

Second Belarus unit targets start-up in first quarter 2023 world-nuclear-news.org

B-2 nuclear bomber fleet grounded amid search for safety defects airforcetimes.com

Ambient office = 87 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 100 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 93 nanosieverts per hour

English cucumbers from Central Market = 73 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 99 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 89 nanosieverts per hour

China calls on US to lift Iran sanctions to revive nuclear talks scmp.com

Balfour Beatty backs US mini nuclear reactors for UK constructionenquirer.com

Further delay to Flamanville EPR start up world-nuclear-news.org

U.S. flies nuclear-capable bombers and stealth jets as show of force against North Korea cbsnews.com

Ambient office = 121 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 103 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 108 nanosieverts per hour

Blueberry from Central Market = 76 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 91 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 79 nanosieverts per hour

Dover Sole from Central = 93 nanosieverts per hour

      The U.K. Space Agency and the National Nuclear Laboratory are collaborating to create the world’s first space battery powered by americium-241. The isotope will be extracted from spent nuclear fuel stored at the Sellafield site in Cumbria.
      Radioisotope power systems are sometimes referred to as nuclear batteries. The current technology uses plutonium-238 as a fuel. Radioisotope thermoelectric generators and radioisotope heater units can supply power and heat continuously over long missions into deep space. Pu-238 is made by irradiating neptunium-237. The Np-237 is recovered from research reactor fuel or special targets in research reactors. Pu-238 is only produced in small amounts in the U.S. and Russia. An alternative is urgently needed.
     This NNL work is commissioned and funded by the U.K. Space Agency. It will be delivered in a new twenty-three million dollar laboratory at NNL’s flagship Central Laboratory on the Sellafield site in Cumbria. The new laboratory will be filled with next generation equipment and technology.
     NNL said that it will deliver a sovereign supply of fuel for space batteries in the context of a global shortage. This will enable the U.K and its partners to pursue new space science and exploration mission.
     The support from the U.K. Space Agency follows the U.K. record investment in the European Space Agency for a variety of new programs. One of the investments of this program is twenty-two million dollars for the European Devices Using Radioisotope Energy (ENDURE) which will use radioisotopes to develop systems for warming and powering spacecraft.
     NNL said that it had been working on this project since 2009 when its researchers first discovered that americium-241 is produced during the radioactive decay of spent nuclear fuel from commercial nuclear power reactors. The isotope emits power for four hundred years. In 2019, NNL and the University of Leicester announced that they had generated usable electricity from americium. This achievement was a major step towards potential use of americium in space batteries.
      With the plentiful supply of Am-241 at Sellafield, the new collaboration “will turn a proven scientific concept into a fully-realized technology”, the collaborators said. The Am-241-powered space battery is expected to be operational within the next four years. It is likely to be used first on the European Space Agency’s Argonaut mission to the Moon and for future missions into deep spaced.
     George Freeman is the U.K. Science Minister. He said, “Being able to offer a globally unique supply of americium-241 will encourage investment and unlock growth opportunities for all sorts of UK industries looking to explore nuclear energy.”
     Tim Tinsley is the account director for this project at NNL. He said, “For the past 50 years, space missions have used plutonium-238 to stop spacecrafts from freezing but it is in very limited supply. At NNL we have identified significant reserves of americium-241, a radioisotope with similar properties to plutonium-238 but game-changing potential for the UK’s space ambitions. This work, which is being made possible through the support of UK Space Agency, will see us applying decades of experience in separating and purifying used nuclear material in order to unlock great public benefits, and it goes to the heart of our purpose of nuclear science to benefit society.”
     Paul Bate is the CEO of U.K. Space Agency. He said, “This innovative method to create americium to power space missions will allow us not only to sustain exploration of the Moon and Mars for longer periods of time, but to venture further into space than ever before. Supporting the National Nuclear Laboratory’s expansion will make the UK the only country in the world capable of producing this viable alternative to plutonium, reducing the global space community’s reliance on limited supplies, which are increasingly difficult and costly to obtain. The UK Space Agency is committed to keeping space activities sustainable, and this resourceful technology exploits otherwise unused waste plutonium biproducts without generating additional waste.”

Method developed for Sellafield floc retrieval world-nuclear-news.org

Iran’s says Tehran backs revival of 2015 nuclear deal if its red lines are respected jpost.com

Nuclear history in New Mexico celebrated in national stamp collection, despite impacts currentargus.com

North Korea slams Japan’s military buildup, promises action Aljazeera.com

Ambient office = 87 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 93 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 97 nanosieverts per hour

Avocado from Central Market = 126 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 84 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 67 nanosieverts per hour

Part 4 of 4 Parts (Please read Parts 1, 2 and 3 first)
    Small modular reactors have aroused great interest among venture capitalists who are interested in investing in nuclear fission reactors.
     MIT’s Parsons said “These are going to be very expensive at first. But the goal is to find something that is a product that’s much more flexible, can go on to the grid in many more different places and serve different functions, and go off grid also.”
     Similarly, fusion startups claim that they will generate energy much faster than government research projects like ITER which has already been in progress since 2007.
     This quick-return approach to investment is certainly stimulating experimentation. New generations of nuclear reactors will have different sizes, different fuels, and different coolants. Some reactors are being designed for companies or communities in isolation areas. Others are being made to operate at extremely high temperatures for industrial processes.
     Matt Crozat is the senior director of policy development at the Nuclear Energy Institute. He said, “It really is expanding the range of what nuclear can mean. Many won’t succeed, but time and the market will figure out what’s needed and what’s possible.”
     Because venture capitalists are hungry for returns, this also stimulates nuclear startups to chase multiple revenue streams as they are getting their big-bet technology up and running.
     Nuclear innovation company TerraPower is working on a demonstration of its advanced reactor in Wyoming in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE). In the meantime, TerraPower is using its capacity to produce isotopes that are also used in medical research and treatments. Advanced nuclear company Kairos Power is developing the technology to produce salt for molten salt reactors, both for internal use and to sell to other companies.
     Critics of this new wave of investments in nuclear power say that venture capitalists are ignoring the troubled history of nuclear power as a business.  
     David Schlissel of the Institute for Energy, Economics and Financial Analysis said, “Investors have forgotten or are ignoring the lessons from earlier generations of nuclear plants which cost 2 to 3 times as much to build and took years longer than was promised by the vendors.”
     A project to put two new reactors at the Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia was originally estimated to cost fourteen billion dollars and ended up costing more than thirty-four billion dollars. It took six years longer to complete that expected.
      Harvard’s Oreskes says that the nuclear industry is a “technology with a long history of broken promises.” She said that she was skeptical of the sudden investor interest in the nuclear industry. She also said, “If you were my daughter, and you had a boyfriend that had made repeated promises to you over months, years, decades, constantly breaking them, I would say, ‘Do you really want to be with this guy?’”
      Oreskes is not categorically anti-nuclear. She supports the continued operation of nuclear power plants that already exist. However, she is particularly skeptical of nuclear fusion as a power source. It has been promised to be “just around the corner” for decades. She said that this new round of investments in fusion “doesn’t pass the laugh test.”
      Ultimately this new crop of nuclear startups has to figure out how to create nuclear energy in a cost-competitive way or nothing else matters, according to Rothrock. He said, “More money means more startups and to me that means more shots on goal (improving odds of success). The issue in nuclear is economics. Plants are complicated and take a while to build. Some of these new startups are tackling those issues making them more simple and thus cheaper. No one will buy an expensive power plant, especially a nuclear plant. Economics drives it all.”