Blog
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Geiger Readings for Apr 19, 2018
Ambient office = 99 nanosieverts per hourAmbient outside = 158 nanosieverts per hourSoil exposed to rain water = 158 nanosieverts per hourBartlett pear from Central Market = 101 nanosieverts per hourTap water = 65 nanosieverts per hourFilter water = 48 nanosieverts per hour -
Radioactive Waste 338 – South Carolina Nuclear Waste Landfill Is Before the South Carolina State Supreme Court
For decades radioactive pollution has been leaking into groundwater and a creek from a landfill for nuclear waste near Barnwell, South Carolina. The landfill opened in 1971 and is currently managed by the Chem-Nuclear company.
Chem-Nuclear is a subsidiary of Energy Solutions which is located in Utah. Energy Solutions is also the manger of a low-level nuclear waste repository in Utah. Much of the waste that goes to Utah is lower-level than the waste destined for the landfill in S.C.
The two hundred and thirty-five acre Barnwell site is one of only a few low-level nuclear waste repositories in the U.S. Once the site took in three quarters of the low-level nuclear waste generated in the U.S. Now it only takes waste from South Carolina, Connecticut and New Jersey. The types of waste that are sent to the landfill includes low-level waste such as lightly contaminated hospital gloves and gowns, but also includes more radioactive refuse, such as nuclear reactor parts.
Legal battles over the site have been raging for the past thirteen years. In 2015, the state Court of Appeals issued a ruling saying that Chem-Nuclear, who manages the site, had not done much to keep the rain water out of the trenches that contained the waste. A state regulation states that the company is supposed to prevent rain water from flowing into the pits of waste.
A representative of the Sierra Club told the Court in new hearing today that the state Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) had done nothing to make Chem-Nuclear adhere to the law. They recommended to the Court that it order Chem-Nuclear to employ better disposal practices to prevent rain water from falling into the open pits where the waste was buried. This might include construction of roofs over the burial pits or the construction of water-tight vaults made of concrete to hold the waste.
A representative of Chem-Nuclear told the state Suprement Court that the law actual said that the company had to “manage the water” but not necessarily to keep all rainwater out of the waste trenches. It could take months for the Court to decide the case. If the Court takes the side of the environmentalists who filed the complaint, it could require that Chem-Nuclear makes expensive changes at the landfill.
The primary concern about the landfill is that radioactive tritium is leaking out of the waste filled trenches. Tritium can pose a threat to the health of people who are exposed to it. The pollution is leaking into the groundwater below the site and is also flowing into a creek that is a tributary of the Savannah River.
At least a quarter of the monitoring wells around the landfill have measured tritium levels that are at or above the level allowed by the federal government safe drinking water standard according to data collected by the DHEC. The DHEC says that the tritium pollution levels are stable or decreasing. Some citizens are concerned by the DHEC claims that there is no danger to public health.
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Geiger Readings for Apr 18, 2018
Ambient office = 69 nanosieverts per hourAmbient outside = 93 nanosieverts per hourSoil exposed to rain water = 94 nanosieverts per hourGarlic bulb from Central Market = 82 nanosieverts per hourTap water = 103 nanosieverts per hourFilter water = 97 nanosieverts per hour -
Nuclear Weapons 354 – Prominent Russian Military Man Says That Nuclear War Between The U.S. and Russia Is Inevitable
The world has lived under the threat of all-out nuclear war for sixty years. At the height of the Cold War, the U.S. and the Soviet Union each had tens of thousands of nuclear warheads. Now the U.S. and Russia have under five thousand warheads each thanks to disarmament treaties.
Studies of the effects of nuclear detonations on the atmosphere have led to the idea of nuclear winter where there is so much smoke and dust in the atmosphere that sunlight is blocked, plants cannot grow and billions of people will die. It has been estimated that only one hundred nuclear warhead detonations would be enough to destroy human civilization. This means that seven nuclear armed countries could bring the end of humanity if they launched their nuclear arsenal.
The Bulletin on the Atomic Scientists has the Doomsday Clock which basically shows a graphic representation of the probability of World War III fought with nuclear weapons. For awhile after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, it was believed that the world could pull back from the possibility of nuclear war but recently, cooling relations between some nuclear power suggest that we are still in danger.
Evgeny Buzhinskiy, a former Lieutenant-General under the Soviet Union is now concerned that nuclear war is inevitable. Buzhinskiy was with Russia’s General Staff for sixteen years. He said that because Russia is “lagging behind” the U.S. in terms of military power, Putin would start using tactical nuclear weapons if Russia were losing a conventional ground war other nations. The use of tactical nuclear weapons could easily escalate into the use of strategic nuclear weapons. Because he believes that a confrontation between the U.S. and Russia is inevitable, he believes that the use of nuclear weapons is also inevitable. With the use of chemical weapons in Syria by the Assad regime, the chances of conflict between the U.S. and Russia in the war-torn country are rising.
In an interview with a U.K. news presenter, Buzhinskiy said, “I think it’s worse than the Cold War, which we have been waging for 40 years after the Second World War. In the Cold War time I was in the armed forces and I was quite comfortable I’d say. There were definite duels and definite red lines – everybody knew what to do. There were no threats, no sanctions, no isolation, no cornering, no nothing. There was just ideological confrontation, but people on both sides knew how far they could go.”
When the new presenter asked if he was serious or just trying to scare people, Buzhinskiy said “I am scared myself, because I have children and grandchildren, so I’m scared for their fate.” He pointed out that there are thousands of Russian advisors in Syria and that, if any Russians die because of actions by U.S. forces, Russia will retaliate.
The Russian Foreign Minister said that relations between the U.S. and Russia are worse than the Cold War. He went on to say that the normal channels of communication between the U.S., the U.K., NATO and the European Union that were intended to prevent confrontation have been shut down.
Evgeny Buzhinskiy:
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Nuclear News Roundup Apr 17, 2018
North Korea Is Firing Up a Reactor. That Could Upset Trump’s Talks With Kim. Nytimes.com
Piping weld issues reported at Électricité de France’s Flamanville nuclear reactor project last week threaten to delay similar reactor builds across Finland and the UK, eroding confidence in the technology’s future role in western Europe’s energy mix. Petroleum-economist.com
The European Union failed to agree new sanctions against Iran on Monday amid Italy’s opposition and fears that punishing Tehran for its missile program and regional role would not stop U.S. President Donald Trump from abandoning a separate nuclear deal. Usnews.com
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Geiger Readings for Apr 17, 2018
Ambient office = 96 nanosieverts per hourAmbient outside = 117 nanosieverts per hourSoil exposed to rain water = 113 nanosieverts per hourGinger root from Central Market = 113 nanosieverts per hourTap water = 147 nanosieverts per hourFilter water = 139 nanosieverts per hour -
Nuclear Reactors 554 – Russian Duma Considering A Bill To Cut Off Nuclear Trade With U.S. Companies
Last year, Congress passed a tough sanctions bill against Russia and Russian oligarchs in retaliation for their interference in our 2016 elections. The Trump administration refused to implement the sanctions until the political pressure made them impossible to ignore. On April 6, Trump finally implemented the sanctions on twenty-four government officials and powerful Russian businessmen.
The State Duma, the lower house of the Russian legislature, is now considering the draft of a bill to ban all trade between Rosatom, the Russian state-owned nuclear monopoly and all U.S. nuclear power companies. The bill was submitted jointly by several of the factions in the Duma and Vyacheslave Volodin who is the chairman of the Duma. It could be debated and might be adopted in the next Duma session this week.
Beginning in 2016, Volodin has been the personal target of sanctions. He is a member of President Putin’s inner circle. His assets in the U.S. were frozen in reaction to the Russian annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. The European Union also hit him with travel-restriction and sanctions.
In addition to the stopping of trade with the U.S. nuclear power industry, the bill would also impose restrictions on software, hardware, pharmaceutical and farm products exported from the U.S. to Russia. The U.S. would also be prohibited from joining in the privatization of Russian state-owned assets. In addition, the bill sets up similar restrictions that would be imposed on any other countries who followed the U.S. lead in sanctions against Russia and Russians.
Rosatom currently has multiple projects with companies in the U.S. TVEL is Rosatom’s nuclear fuel division. In April of 2016, TVEL signed a contract to deliver test batches of its TVS-K fuel rod assemblies to pressurized power reactors in the U.S. starting in 2019.
It is unclear just how damaging such a freeze of nuclear trade would be. The most important nuclear exchange between the U.S. and Russia was the Megatons to Megawatts program which ended in 2013. This exchange agreement was signed between the U.S. and Russia in 1993, shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The U.S. purchased low-enriched uranium from Russia which was created by diluting highly-enriched weapons grade uranium which was in excess of what Russia needed for their nuclear weapons program.
The Megatons to Megawatts program ultimately converted five hundred tons of weapons grade uranium into fifteen thousand tons of nuclear fuel grade uranium for use in U.S. nuclear power reactors. This program was called the greatest disarmament program in the history of the world. We got cheap nuclear fuel to burn in our reactors and Russia made a seventeen billion dollar profit.
After the ascension of Vladimir Putin to the presidency of Russia, Rosatom began to complain that the Megatons to Megawatts program was forcing Russia to sell their uranium fuel to the U.S. at a price below other sources of uranium fuel. After 2013, Rosatom wanted to sign nuclear fuel import contracts with the U.S. for uranium that would be priced at the current level of world nuclear fuel prices.
Russian Duma:
