Ambient office  = 89 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 88 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 86 nanosieverts per hour

Carrot from Central Market = 50 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 124 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 117 nanosieverts per hour

        The U.S. nuclear industry is not doing well. The U.S. had about one hundred nuclear reactors in operation for the commercial generation of electric power. Six reactors have been retired in the past few years and there are plans to retire another sixteen reactors in the next ten years. Attempts to build two new reactors in South Carolina have collapses. The project to build new reactors in Georgia is having serious problems.
       One of the proposed ways to expand the use of nuclear power in the U.S. is the creation of factory-made small modular reactors (SMR) that generate three hundred megawatts or less. It is claimed that this new type of reactor will be safer and cheaper than the current gigawatt plus conventional nuclear reactors. 
       NuScale Power is a private limited liability company with headquarters in Tigard, Oregon. NuScale was founded based on research on SMRs funded by the Department of Energy carried out between 2000 to 2003. The company was set up in 2007. NuScale has announced plans to construct its first reactor at the Idaho National Laboratory. A Utah utility is in talks with NuScale to build a NuScale reactor in Utah. It has been projected that the first commercial NuScale reactor will be on the market around 2025. Earlier this month, NuScale signed a memorandum of understanding with Ontario Power Generation, Inc. (OPG) that OPG would assist NuScale with its vendor design review that will be evaluated by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.
        Bruce Power is a privately-owned utility company in Canada. It provides about thirty percent of the electricity in the Ontario province. About six and a half gigawatts of the electricity from Bruce power come from commercial nuclear power reactors.
        Last May, Bruce Power and the County of Bruce announced that they were entering into a partnership to create the Nuclear Innovation Institute (NII). This institute is intended to be an international center of excellence for applied research and training. This mission will include evaluating application for new nuclear technologies such as SMRs.
       This week, NuScale signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Bruce Power to develop a business case for the introduction of a NuScale SMR to the Canadian power market. The agreement says that Bruce Power will assist in evaluation, planning and licensing activities. Bruce Power said, “all of which will serve an important role in demonstrating the business case for why NuScale’s technology is the right choice for Ontario and Canada.” The agreement also included carrying out studies on the impact of deployment of a NuScale plant in Ontario Province. There will be feasibility studies for proposed SMR sites and other risk evaluation activities to demonstrate how the deployment of SMRs can be of use in Canada.
       Mike Rencheck is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Bruce Power President. He remarked that the development of the NuScale SMR had reached the point “where Bruce Power can participate in understanding and developing a conceptual business case” for making SMRs a power source in Canada. He also said that “We look forward to working with NuScale.”
       NuScale also has two laboratories in Italy and is working with the U.K. government on the possibility of building SMRs there.

Ambient office  = 93 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 118 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 121 nanosieverts per hour

Crimini mushroom from Central Market = 64 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 112 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 95 nanosieverts per hour

       The Thorp nuclear fuel reprocessing plant at Sellafield, Cumbria, in the U.K. has been closed. No more spent nuclear fuel will be reprocessed there. Now the plant will undergo decommissioning which will require decades and billions of dollars. In order to successfully and safely dismantle and decontaminate the plant, it will be necessary to develop some new technology.
       Five sieverts of radiation absorbed in an hour is considered enough to kill a human being. The Head End Shear Cave (HESC) section of the Thorp facility is where the spent nuclear fuel rods are removed from their fuel rod assemblies and cut into sections. Then the sections are dissolved in hot nitric acid. The radiation level in the HESC is two hundred and eighty sieverts per hour, far above a lethal dose of radiation.
       The only way to dismantle and remove this equipment is with the use of robots. Once that has been accomplished, water and acids will be used to wash out the room and lower the level of radiation. It is hoped that it can be made safe enough for human beings to enter. New decontamination washing agents may have to be developed.
        It will require robots and remotely operated vehicles to clean up other parts of the plant. It is hoped that such systems in use in other industries such as oil and gas, car manufacturing and even space industries can be adapted for the Thorp decommissioning. However, some of the needed systems will have to be developed from scratch. Very small robots which are able to change shape may be needed to go through small apertures to get into some of the contaminated areas. On the other extreme, very large mobile platforms might be needed to move around other equipment.
        There other facilities that have been or are being closed in the Sellafield site. These other facilities are also very heavily contaminated. The equipment being developed for the Cave decommissioning will be of use in the dismantling and decommissioning the other facilities.
       A flying drone has already been used to map radiation contamination in parts of the site that are difficult or impossible to access via usual methods. Remotely operated robot submarines have also been used to explore and begin cleaning up old storage ponds that contain radioactive materials.
       There is a large network of specialist companies which will be developing the machines necessary to decommission the Thorp facility and other facilities on the Sellafield site. Many of these companies are located in Cumbria.
        There is a growing business in the U.K. to decommission old nuclear reactors and other facilities such as Sellafield. Almost five hundred nuclear facilities scattered around the U.K. are slated to be decommissioned in the next forty years.
       The Centre for Innovative Nuclear Decommissioning Engineering was just opened in Workington, a community in Cumbria. The Center will assist in the research and development of new decommissioning technologies to help with the decommissioning work at Sellafield. It is hope that research at the Centre and experience at Sellafield will help the U.K. export decommissioning services to other countries.

Ambient office  = 106 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 103 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 99 nanosieverts per hour

Blueberry from Central Market = 117 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 100 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 98 nanosieverts per hour

       The three major nuclear armed powers are the U.S., Russia and China. While the U.S. and the Soviet Union built up huge stockpiles of nuclear warheads which were then reduced by disarmament treaties to a few thousand warheads each, China only has a few hundred warheads. They have a policy of not being the first to use nuclear weapons in a war. Their nuclear weapons exist only for the purpose of deterrence.
       In the past few years, there has been an escalation of tensions between Russia and the U.S. that has prompted both countries to develop new nuclear weapons and expand their nuclear arsenals. Because of this, China has been reconsidering its nuclear policy and arsenal. China is working on expanding their nuclear deterrence.
       There are three main delivery systems for nuclear weapons; bombers, ICBMs and nuclear submarines. China has bombers and ICBMs but does not have many nuclear submarines. They have been working to develop a reliable nuclear submarine fleet for decades with limited success. Analysts think that a reliable and effective Chinese nuclear missile submarine fleet would ultimately have a stabilizing influence on the balance of nuclear weapons in the world. However, there is fear that in the short term, it could be destabilizing.
       China did not actual finish its first nuclear missile submarine until the late 1980s. It was called the Type 092 SSBN but it was never dispatched on any operational patrols because it was noisy and unreliable. In addition, the missiles it carries were very short range.
       The current generation of Chinese nuclear missile submarines is called the Type 094 SSBN. They were put into service in 2006 but only started deterrent patrols in 2015. Each one carries twelve JL-2 missiles with nuclear warheads which have much longer ranges than the first missiles that China put on submarines. There are only four Type 094 submarines in existence. They have been operating in the South China Sea recently. U.S. military analysts believe that China will be building from five to eight more Type 094. The U.S. is working on enhancing its anti-submarine capabilities in response to this expectation.
       Tong Zhao is a fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, based at the Carnegie–Tsinghua Center for Global Policy in Beijing. He recently issued a report on Chinese nuclear missile submarines. He said, “A fleet of survivable nuclear ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) would reduce China’s concerns about the credibility of its nuclear deterrent and lessen the country’s incentives to further expand its arsenal. Such benefits, however, will be tempered by vulnerabilities associated with Beijing’s current generation of SSBNs.”
       In the near to mid-term, developing an SSBN fleet will require China to substantially enlarge its previously small stockpile of strategic ballistic missiles, possibly exacerbating the threat perceptions of potential adversaries and causing them to take countermeasures that might eventually intensify an emerging arms competition. China has obtained, for the first time, a demonstrably operational underwater nuclear capability. This represents the start of a new era for China’s sea-based nuclear forces.”
      The nuclear missiles in China’s current and planned nuclear missile submarines represent about half of China’s long-range nuclear missiles. As they build and deploy more nuclear missile submarines, the proportion of long-range nuclear missiles that can be delivered by a Chinese submarine will rise. In case of a surprise nuclear attack, Chinese submarine missiles have more potential to survive than nuclear warheads delivered by land-based ICBMs or nuclear warheads on bombers.
       Tong wrote that “If China’s SSBNs significantly contribute to the credibility of its overall nuclear deterrent, China would have less of an incentive to further enlarge its nuclear arsenal. China has a few unilateral steps that it should take to ensure that the growth of its SSBN fleet is as undisruptive as possible to regional security dynamics and to its own security interests. If China allows nationalistic sentiments to induce it to build a massive sea-based nuclear capability beyond any practical security needs, this could raise doubts in foreign countries about Beijing’s strategic intentions and contribute to an unnecessary, damaging strategic arms competition.”