Ambient office = 115 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 99 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 96 nanosieverts per hour

Shallot from Central Market = 97 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 113 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 100 nanosieverts per hour

Part 2 of 3 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
     Chavers of Southern Nuclear also covered the transportation involved in the nuclear fuel supply chain. “Historically, utilities have not paid that much attention to the logistics. We depended on the suppliers just to ensure that things were moving as it needed to and got to the deliveries that we needed,” however, uranium mined out of an asset in North America “may cross the Atlantic multiple times before it’s in a final fabricated fuel assembly that’s put into our nuclear reactors”. This indicates that inventories have been built higher to ensure cover for any supply chain disruption “so frankly today we’re getting by and we’re creating some insurance policies, for lack of a better word” for any logistics disruptions. “If we really have this demand growth and build-out of nuclear capacity do we have the logistics infrastructure in place to support that additional volume that’s going to be needed to go back and forth, especially between Europe and the US to ultimately get us to a final fabricated assembly?”
     When asked if there was a single thing to help in terms of the tripling nuclear capacity goal, he said that all those involved in the symposium discussion in London were from different companies and parts of the industry, but were all nuclear professionals, and “we’re always just one bad news story away from losing the momentum that we have” so the priority was “safety first and superior performance – as long as we execute on those, all the rest of it will work out”.
     Boris Schucht is the CEO of Urenco. He said that the momentum “which is now expressed in the tripling of nuclear is fantastic – that is something we have not seen”. There were questions about whether or not the goal was realistic but, considering the example of China today and France between 1970 and 2000, it should be possible to triple capacity. However the current momentum needed to be maintained, he said and “it should not be a straw fire”. It was also necessary for political ambitions to be translated into political action with respect to people and education, nuclear regulations, financial regulation, supporting the supply chain, “and I think a lot of countries are working on that”. The other issue was that the nuclear industry had to deliver projects on time and on budget.
     Schucht referenced the chicken and egg situation, saying that when it comes to HALEU supplies, Urenco was prepared to sign contracts with advanced and small modular reactor projects. “I want to use the opportunity to motivate our potential new customers in the room and to go ahead … it’s about the whole ecosystem. You need transport packages, you need a lot of things, a lot of regulatory questions … a lot still that we have to develop … that needs to be based on real contracts on real projects so that we really understand what is needed. So I’m optimistic on it, but we are not yet fully there. We have done the first, I think important step, but that needs to continue.”
Please read Part 3 next

Ambient office = 108 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 112 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 113 nanosieverts per hour

Avocado from Central Market = 100 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 96 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 87 nanosieverts per hour

Part 1 of 3 Parts
    Prominent figures from across the nuclear fuel cycle say they are ready to meet increased demand, but pointed out areas where change is required to help make it happen, in a World Nuclear Symposium session.
     Over one hundred and twenty nuclear energy and technology companies and twenty-five countries have signed up to the pledge to aim to at least triple global nuclear energy capacity by 2050. One main question is how fuel supplies will be able to expand if such a goal is to be achieved. Here are extracts of what some key sector figures said during a discussion on the subject.
     Nicolas Maes is the CEO of Orano. He said that with respect to mining Orano’s current strategy was to expand existing projects, while in the medium term it was “revisiting our exploration policy and the means that we are allocating to exploration … we believe that there are many areas in this world that have been vastly unexplored”. Orano was also developing “mining techniques to make deposits that were today not so accessible, accessible – or non-conventional deposits that could make sense now”. Maes used the analogy of “peak oil” saying that it was talked about in the 1920s “people were already fearing they would miss oil, and then techniques developed, and they found new deposits and all the rest, and peak oil still hasn’t materialized. We believe that in investing in exploration and exploration techniques as well as in mining techniques” will increase the uranium sources available and will cater for the “medium term”, which he categorized as the next forty to fifty years. In the longer term, he said that recycling was a big focus.
     With respect to conversion and enrichment he said that production had been expanded over the past few years.  Orano plans to extend enrichment capacity at its Georges Besse II uranium enrichment plant in France. Maes continued that the aim is for first concrete for the extension in October this year, targeting the start of production in 2028. He said that expanded capacity required a “massive investment compared to our scale and that can only be done if we’ve got visibility, and the utilities support us in doing that”. For LEU and HALEU, he said that the technologies exist, but it was “chicken and egg stuff from the market”, and transport issues need to addressed. For MOX-fuel based fast breeder and molten salt reactors he said that the designers should be “thinking from the very early days about the fuel supply chain because that fuel supply chain doesn’t exist yet” and also that “standardization is key”.
     He added that “we need strong decision-making and timely decision-making from politicians. We need creative financing schemes, and we need the industry to deliver on time and on budget”.
     Jonathan Chavers is the Director of Nuclear Fuel and Analysis at Southern Nuclear. He said that there was a chicken and egg situation between the suppliers and end users. “Utilities desire firm pricing, predictable scheduling. The suppliers want firm contracts before they’ll make the capital investments to get you the material you want on the schedule you want” and that the question is how to get people “to take the big bet”. He mentioned as a success the accident-tolerant fuel program “where you have policymakers, utilities and suppliers all aligned and working together”.
Please read Part 2 next

Ambient office = 105 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 87 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 81 nanosieverts per hour

English cucumber from Central Market = 80 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 75 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 67 nanosieverts per hour

The U.S. Air Force is planning a tabletop exercise to gauge U.S. readiness to react to a wide spectrum of nuclear-related scenarios. This will be part of a larger effort to prepare for them, a service leader said on Wednesday.
     Lt. Gen. Andrew J. Gebara is the deputy chief of staff for strategic deterrence and nuclear integration. “What if, God forbid, there was a low yield [nuclear weapon] use in Europe tomorrow?” he asked at the Air & Space Forces Association conference outside Washington, D.C. “Or what if there was a demonstration of nuclear use, or a nuclear test? What if we had to adapt the INDOPACOM regional fight because a nuclear power had a red line [that meant] we couldn’t fly in certain areas? These are the kind of things that our warfighters need to understand from the beginning. It doesn’t need to be just at the presidential level with no other discussion.”
     That question represents a big change in the way the U.S. military has historically talked about the possibility of nuclear war. It used to be that intelligence or analysis about the effects of such weapons on a given conflict was carried out at the highest possible, “strategic” level. That emphasis was a reflection of the times when two great powers were locked in a largely conventional arms race with knowable “rules” or at least principles of play. It no longer represents the modern role of nuclear weapons in conflict. They may include far more players and means of delivery of nuclear effects.
     Gerber said, “When I was younger, at the end of the Cold War, the biggest threat we had was no-notice-1,000 ICBMs just coming over the North Pole, and how would you handle that? That’s horrific to even think about. But it’s actually a pretty simple tactical problem. There’s only a couple things you can do with something that bad.”
     Today, ICBMs look quaint compared to new types of missiles and weapons that can deliver nuclear effects. They include some that don’t even appear to be weapons at first. If the Soviet Union’s one hundred-megaton Tsar Bomba was the pinnacle of the Cold War arms race, the new arms race is best represented by the lower-yield “tactical” nuclear weapons that Russia has threatened to unleash on Ukraine or, possibly, in space.
     Gerbera remarked that weapons instructors at Nevada’s Nellis Air Force Base are already teaching these kinds of lessons to more pilots. He said, “So what does it mean if you’re flying through this area and there’s a radiological threat? What’s it mean for the airplane?”
     Now, Gebara said, he’s working to broaden training for such scenarios across the U.S. Air Force. “I think at all levels we need to build that experience, not just at the tactical level and not just at the strategic.”
     The tabletop exercise is slated for later this month. The results of the exercise will be briefed at a CORONA commanders conference.  CORONA conferences are held for the most senior Air Force leaders to discuss strategy and policy.

Ambient office = 138 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 89 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 86 nanosieverts per hour

Blueberry from Central Market = 97 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 100 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 86 nanosieverts per hour