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              Russia is one of the major players in the global nuclear industry. They are building nuclear reactors for domestic use and export. They are also conducting a great deal of research on nuclear reactor design and advanced nuclear fuels. TVEL is the nuclear fuel subsidiary of Rosatom, the Russian state-owned nuclear corporation. They are working on what they call a “dual-component” approach to closing the nuclear fuel cycle. They are also working on accident-tolerant fuel (ATF) and innovations in fuel for their VVER reactors.
       Last year, Russia laid out a hundred-year plan for the use of nuclear reactors. This plan is based on fast neutron reactors and thermal neutron reactors. TVEL is working on mixed-oxide fuel and REMIX fuel which both use recycled uranium mixed together with plutonium. They call this “dual-component.”
       Konstantin Vergazov is TVEL’s senior vice-president for Science, Technology and Quality. He said, “We’re very actively engaged in this and right now it is cost-intensive. That’s just the first stage, but in the future, once we’ve involved plutonium and regenerated uranium into the fuel cycle, then the fuel cost of electric power production will decrease.” Rosatom plans to launch commercial fast neutron reactors first. “No other country currently has such technology in operation,” Vergazov said. “At the Siberian Chemical Combine [SCC] site, in Seversk, we’re building a demonstration centre, a reactor installation, a facility for recycling used nuclear fuel and a shop floor for fabrication of nuclear fuel for the fast reactor. This is an R&D investment project and once we obtain the results we’ll apply them all over the world in the nuclear market, but we’ll start in Russia first.”
       The site is “at a high stage of readiness”, he said. “All the necessary equipment for that fuel fabrication facility has been purchased and delivered to the site. The next stage will be to build the fast neutron reactor BREST-OD-300.”
       The BREST-OD-300 lead-cooled fast-neutron reactor is part of Rosatom’s Breakthrough project to enable a closed nuclear fuel cycle. The ultimate goal of the project is the elimination of radioactive waste from nuclear power production. The Breakthrough project combines a fuel production/refabrication module to produce dense uranium plutonium fuel for fast reactors, a nuclear power plant based on a BREST reactor and a used fuel retreatment module.
       In December of 2018, TVEL began batch production of MOX fuel for the BN-800 fast neutron reactor. Vergazov said, “But these are the first steps in a long journey. To build a commercial fast reactor is unique in the global nuclear industry and to build a new shop floor for batch production of MOX fuel means a certain amount of investment. But as our strategy is looking 50 to 100 years ahead we are ready to invest today in order to pick the fruits in the future. The strategy is based on saving costs for nuclear fuel because by incorporating plutonium and recycled uranium in the nuclear fuel cycle we save raw materials and gain economic efficiency. And we will also reprocess the nuclear waste from thermal neutron reactors – from VVER units – to obtain fuel for fast neutron reactors.”
Please read Part 2

Ambient office  = 114 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 101 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 98 nanosieverts per hour

Red bell pepper from Central Market = 135 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 112 nanosieverts per hour

Filtered water = 97 nanosieverts per hour

       It is well known that Hitler’s Third Reich was working on the development of nuclear weapons during the World War II. At the end of the war more than six hundred small uranium cubes were confiscated by Allied forces from one research laboratory. They were shipped to the United States where they were scattered to public and private collections.
       Timothy Koeth is a physicist at the University of Maryland at College Park. He is a collector of World War II memorabilia, including some artifacts relating to nuclear weapons research. In 2013, he received a small metal cube from a mysterious source. The cube was about two inches on a side. It was wrapped in a piece of paper which had writing on it. The writing said “Taken from the reactor that Hitler tried to build. Gift of Ninninger.”
       Koeth decide that the cube was from the cache of German uranium cubes that had be confiscated at the end of the war. The surface of the cube was pockmarked with bubbles. This indicated that it had be created with primitive technology such as that available to the Germans during the War. The name “Ninninger” on the piece of paper was another clue to its origins. It turned out that the name was probably a misspelling of “Nininger,” the last name of Robert Nininger who had been involved in the Manhattan Project, the U.S. project to develop a atomic bomb for use in World War II. The widow of Nininger told Koeth that her husband did, in fact, own a small cube of German uranium which he eventually gave to a friend. Koeth believes that the cube was passed along by several people until it was ultimately was passed to him. There was no danger from radioactivity to the people who handled the cube.
      Most nuclear reactors today are fueled with uranium in which the ratio of U-235 to U-238 has been raised to at least five percent. It is known that the Germans were trying to develop a nuclear reactor with naturally occurring uranium which is mostly U-238. When Koeth tested the cube, it turned out to be emitting gamma rays consistent with naturally occurring uranium. Additional tests indicated that the cube had never been a part of a working reactor. If the cube had been in a functional reactor, it would have contained cesium-137 but none was detected.
      Computer models of possible German nuclear reactor designs suggested that German cache of six hundred and sixty-four cubes of uranium were not sufficient to create a working nuclear reactor. In order to create a self-sustaining nuclear reaction, what is called a “critical mass” must be assembled. It turns out that the Germans would have needed hundreds of addition uranium cubes in order to achieve the necessary critical mass. Records from World War II show that there was another German nuclear research group that had four hundred of the uranium cubes. It was only the competition of the two German research groups that prevented them from assembling enough cubes to actually make a nuclear reactor. It would have taken a great deal of additional work to actually produce an atomic bomb.
       Koeth displays the cube as part of his World War II memorabilia collection. He intends to give it to a museum at some point. It is fortunate that Hitler never obtained an atomic bomb because he had missiles that could have delivered such bombs to his enemies. This could have changed the outcome of World War II and the world would be much different today.

Ambient office  =  66 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 119 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 120 nanosieverts per hour

Carrot from Central Market = 127 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 80 nanosieverts per hour

Filtered water = 73 nanosieverts per hour

        The U.S. government is planning on modernization and expansion of our nuclear forces in response to the behavior of Russia in the past few years. Having three quarters of a trillion dollars this year allocated to the defense budget has encouraged the Pentagon to throw a lot of money at a variety of old and new weapons systems. I have mentioned the nuclear triad before which consists of ICBMs, nuclear armed submarines and nuclear bombers.
       The Department of Defense projected recently that three hundred and twenty-five billion dollars on modernization of the U.S. nuclear forces thru 2026. However, with current estimations for new programs rising in cost and new programs being discussed, it is likely that this estimate will fall far short of needed funds for Pentagon plans. The needed funds to maintain current and future weapons systems being planned will tax the Pentagon budget, especially if there is a turn down in the economy. Some defense analysts believe that it is time to rethink one leg of the nuclear triad.
       The U.S. has six hundred and seventy-eight Minuteman III ICBMs currently in service. At any given time, there are four hundred Minuteman missiles operationally deployed. The function of this missile fleet as a nuclear deterrent is not so much as an attack force but rather a retaliation force that the Russians would need to destroy if they attacked us. This would require them to spend a lot of missiles attacking the Minuteman installations scattered across the center of the nation which could have been used to attack other targets. The bunkers that house the Minutemen are hardened against nuclear attack and would probably require multiple direct hits by Russian missiles to reliably destroy. The nickname for the Minutemen fleet is a U.S. “nuclear sponge.”
      While there is an abstract logic to this idea of a nuclear sponge, the truth is that it invites a massive attack with hundreds of nuclear warheads on the center of the country where a great deal of our food is grown. Such an attack would cause horrendous devastation and the fallout and refugees would spread quick to the rest of the country.  The entire global weather system would undergo huge changes that might spell the end of human civilization. Many defense analysts question the actual deterrence value of the U.S. Minuteman fleet.
       The U.S. Minuteman fleet of deployed missiles is currently targeted at the open ocean just in case there is an accidental launch. Considering the time and complexity of retargeting these missiles reinforces the suggestion that these missiles are just there to be draw enemy warheads.
       There are plans for replacing the Minuteman III missiles with new missiles. The reuse of the Minuteman infrastructure will help reduce costs. However, the current estimate for a single new Minuteman replacement is one hundred billion dollars but that price appears to be to low and estimates are already rising. The Pentagon says that competition should bring the price per missile down and the new missiles will be cheaper to maintain but that may not turn out to be the case. The forty trillion-dollar price tag to replace the Minutemen is just too high.
      The money saved by eliminating the ICBM leg of the nuclear triad could be applied to the B-21 Raider Stealth Bomber program and the Columbia class nuclear ballistic submarine program. Both of these programs are more flexible and potentially effective in a conflict than the Minutemen.

        The U.S. government is planning on modernization and expansion of our nuclear forces in response to the behavior of Russia in the past few years. Having three quarters of a trillion dollars this year allocated to the defense budget has encouraged the Pentagon to throw a lot of money at a variety of old and new weapons systems. I have mentioned the nuclear triad before which consists of ICBMs, nuclear armed submarines and nuclear bombers.
       The Department of Defense projected recently that three hundred and twenty-five billion dollars on modernization of the U.S. nuclear forces thru 2026. However, with current estimations for new programs rising in cost and new programs being discussed, it is likely that this estimate will fall far short of needed funds for Pentagon plans. The needed funds to maintain current and future weapons systems being planned will tax the Pentagon budget, especially if there is a turn down in the economy. Some defense analysts believe that it is time to rethink one leg of the nuclear triad.
       The U.S. has six hundred and seventy-eight Minuteman III ICBMs currently in service. At any given time, there are four hundred Minuteman missiles operationally deployed. The function of this missile fleet as a nuclear deterrent is not so much as an attack force but rather a retaliation force that the Russians would need to destroy if they attacked us. This would require them to spend a lot of missiles attacking the Minuteman installations scattered across the center of the nation which could have been used to attack other targets. The bunkers that house the Minutemen are hardened against nuclear attack and would probably require multiple direct hits by Russian missiles to reliably destroy. The nickname for the Minutemen fleet is a U.S. “nuclear sponge.”
      While there is an abstract logic to this idea of a nuclear sponge, the truth is that it invites a massive attack with hundreds of nuclear warheads on the center of the country where a great deal of our food is grown. Such an attack would cause horrendous devastation and the fallout and refugees would spread quick to the rest of the country.  The entire global weather system would undergo huge changes that might spell the end of human civilization. Many defense analysts question the actual deterrence value of the U.S. Minuteman fleet.
       The U.S. Minuteman fleet of deployed missiles is currently targeted at the open ocean just in case there is an accidental launch. Considering the time and complexity of retargeting these missiles reinforces the suggestion that these missiles are just there to be draw enemy warheads.
       There are plans for replacing the Minuteman III missiles with new missiles. The reuse of the Minuteman infrastructure will help reduce costs. However, the current estimate for a single new Minuteman replacement is one hundred billion dollars but that price appears to be to low and estimates are already rising. The Pentagon says that competition should bring the price per missile down and the new missiles will be cheaper to maintain but that may not turn out to be the case. The forty trillion-dollar price tag to replace the Minutemen is just too high.
      The money saved by eliminating the ICBM leg of the nuclear triad could be applied to the B-21 Raider Stealth Bomber program and the Columbia class nuclear ballistic submarine program. Both of these programs are more flexible and potentially effective in a conflict than the Minutemen.

Ambient office  =  89 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 80 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 80 nanosieverts per hour

Beefsteak tomato from Central Market = 66 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 80 nanosieverts per hour

Filtered water = 69 nanosieverts per hour