Ambient office = 75 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 104 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 94 nanosieverts per hour

Tomato from Central Market = 78 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 89 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 89 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient office = 72 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 98 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 95 nanosieverts per hour

Blueberry from Central Market = 95 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 99 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 82 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 152 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 149 nanosieverts per hour

Red bell pepper from Central Market = 79 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 91 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 72 nanosieverts per hour

Dover sole – Caught in USA = 95 nanosieverts per hour

Part 3 of 3 Parts (Please read Part 1 and Part 2 first)
     Nickolas Roth said, “I would hope that the Biden administration is choosing to engage with China on non-proliferation issues.” The U.S. embassy in Beijing has received questions about whether the new Biden administration was talking to China about the halt to its plutonium reporting, but such questions were not answered by the embassy.
     These questions are becoming critically important according to Frank von Hippel because of the rising tensions between the U.S. and China. The island nation of Taiwan is a potential flashpoint between the two countries. There are even suggestions that the U.S. and China have entered into a Cold War 2.0. It is unknown whether China is interested in discussing these matters with the U.S. and/or its neighbors.
      Robert Wood is the U.S. ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations Conference on Disarmament. On Tuesday, he accused China of being unwilling “to engage meaningfully” with the Biden administration on nuclear weapons talks. Wood told a U.N. conference that “Despite China’s dramatic build-up of its nuclear arsenal, it continues to resist discussing nuclear risk reduction bilaterally with the United States – a dialogue we have with Russia.” China’s representative to the U.N. pushed back on that claim. He said told the same conference that China is “ready to carry out positive dialogue and exchange with all parties.”
     The increasing acrimony that characterized U.S.-China relations under the administration of President Trump certainly did not instill a lot of confidence with respect to engagement on nuclear security issues according to von Hippel.
     Gregory Kulacki is a senior analyst on nuclear policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists who is now based in Japan. He said that the previous good level of engagement that had developed between the U.S. and China on nuclear policy prior to the year 2000 is just a distant memory now. He blames the U.S. for the current silence from China.
      Kulacki said, “The [George W] Bush Jr administration’s decision [in 2002] to withdraw from the ABM [1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile] treaty pretty much gutted any real interest in China in pursuing arms control talks of any substance with the United States.”
      The Bush administration had a strong commitment to the deployment of missile defense systems in order to protect the U.S. from “growing missile threats” at the time from a nuclear-armed and belligerent North Korea. China interpreted those U.S. actions as an attempt to counterbalance China’s own military capabilities in its own neighborhood.
     According to von Hippel and his co-authors, the U.S. should work with Japan, South Korea and China to declare a “commercial plutonium timeout.” The U.S. could offer to delay the development of U.S. breeder reactors and commercial plutonium production programs if China would do the same. If all of these countries could increase the amount of transparency with resect to their uranium and plutonium stockpiles and related activities, it could serve to boost confidence for all parties to scale back those programs. The problem is deciding who will be willing to take the first necessary steps.

Ambient office = 108 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 99 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 99 nanosieverts per hour

Tomato from Central Market = 85 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 120 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 109 nanosieverts per hour

Part 2 of 3 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
     The Chinese Atomic Energy Authority (CAEA) is the agency responsible for submitting plutonium stock reports to the IAEA but they have not responded to questions about why they have stopped reporting. China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the National Energy Administration and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology have also refused to answer questions about plutonium reporting.
     China has fifty nuclear power reactors in operation and fourteen other conventional nuclear reactors under construction. This count does not include the two breeder reactors mentioned above. China was seven gigawatts short of its last five-year target. Now it appears to be making a major push to increase its nuclear capacity in the next five to ten years.
      Currently, China has about fifty-one gigawatts of nuclear power capacity. They have expressed the intention to have seventy gigawatts of nuclear power capacity operational by 2025. That may double by 2035 to one hundred and forty gigawatts. Some of the highest estimates reach one hundred and eighty gigawatts.
      Both Nickolas Roth and Frank von Hippel said that based on the experience of other nations that have developed the kind of plutonium breeder reactors now being constructed by China, those type of reactors are among the least economical ways of generating electricity from nuclear power.
     Roth said, “There’s a strong case, and we’ve seen this in other countries, that reprocessing [spent fuel] is not economical. The reality is it’s cheaper not to reprocess your fuel than it is to reprocess. A once-through fuel cycle with low enriched uranium is a more economical approach.”
     If the breeder reactors are not economical, then why is China so intent on constructing and operating them? If they were intended for dual use to expand China’s nuclear arsenal, that would explain why. Unfortunately, China’s move to produce plutonium has put pressure on Japan and Korea to speed up their plans to produce plutonium.
     Roth has noted that Japan has been working towards production of plutonium for years. They have attempted to construct a plutonium production facility and have halted attempts to complete construction several times. Japan currently has a small stockpile of plutonium and it does not have reactors capable of burning plutonium-based fuel.  South Korea has definitely been considering the construction of breeder reactors to produce plutonium but they really do not have an obvious commercial need for any. There are reports that India is also working on a closed fuel cycle to supply nuclear fuel for its reactors. Roth said, “I think it’s in China’s best interest not to go down that path. From an economic perspective, from an environmental perspective, and the impact it has regionally … they seem set on pursuing this reprocessing path, but I don’t think it is going to help them with their nuclear power goals.”
       Roth thinks the way forward is for the U.S. to question China to find out why it stopped its voluntary plutonium reporting to the IAEA. The U.S. should also find a way to reduce the incentive of other neighboring nations to pursue their own program of plutonium processing.
Please read Part 3 next

Ambient office = 104 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 104 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 107 nanosieverts per hour

Avocado from Central Market = 102 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 111 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 73 nanosieverts per hour