The National Nuclear Security Administration manages U.S.-origin enriched uranium for certain needs such as for the production of tritium, which is used in nuclear weapons. After losing its last source of U.S.-origin enriched uranium in 2013, NNSA projected that its supply would run out in 2027. Gao.gov

A proposed bill that would have limited how much Georgia Power customers have to pay to help build nuclear Plant Vogtle doesn’t do that anymore. Now the bill affects any future nuclear power plants but doesn’t change things for Vogtle. Wabe.org

Decades ago they witnessed nuclear weapons tests in the South Pacific. Now some veterans hope new DNA testing will prove it was responsible for their subsequent ill health, which they say ruined their lives. Bbc.com

The US is preparing to spend billions of dollars upgrading its nuclear weapons program in Europe, despite the arsenal posing a significant security risk as “targets for terrorism and theft”, critics have warned. Independent.co.uk

 

 

         The movement of atoms in complex ceramics is strongly dependent on the local structure. When ceramics are heated or irradiated, the atomic structure is damaged. In order to understand how defects in the atomic structure influence the motion of atoms, it is necessary to understand how the properties of the ceramic materials change and what can be done to restore the original atomic structure. These phenomena are the basis of material properties and lifetimes for radiation resistance during energy generation and in containers for storing nuclear wastes.

       Diffusion of atoms in complex ceramic oxides is crucial to how atoms are transported and how the atomic structure of the ceramics evolve under the influence of radiation damages, sintering and aging. Individual atoms in ceramics carry electrical charges that determine atomic structure. Ions that carry a negative electrical charge are called “cations”. Ions that carry a positive electrical charge are called “anions”.

       Pyrochlores are complex ceramic oxides which contain more than one type of cation. The diffusion of the cations through the material and the electrical conductivity of the material are strongly influenced by the structure of the crystal in terms of arrangement of cations. Diffusion and conductivity are very sensitive to cation disorder. The ability of these ceramics to maintain their crystallinity is dependent on cation disorder. This particular characteristic is the reason that pyrochlores are being investigated as a possible material to encapsulate nuclear waste. Radiation resistance and conductivity are increased by cation disorder, but it is not well understood exactly how this disorder influences cation transport.

        Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy have been researching the influence of defects on cation diffusion in gadolinium titanium oxide (Gd2Ti207) which is a pyrochlore. The defects are missing atoms in the ceramic crystalline structure. The researchers have been using standard and accelerated molecular dynamics simulations to track the movement of atoms in the crystal and increase their understanding of cation diffusion. These simulations are for cation behavior of microsecond (millionth of a second) duration. Typical atomic simulation track the behavior over nanosecond (billionth of a second) intervals due to the massive computer resources that are required. In the case of the ceramic simulations, new computational techniques have been used to simplify the dynamics of the individual atoms and reduce computational requirements.

       The researchers found that cation diffusion through the ceramic crystals is slow when there is a low level of disorder. When the level of disorder reaches a specific value, the diffusion of the cations accelerates. One of the important aspects of this behavior is “anti-side defects.” This occurs when one cation of gallium occupies a position a titanium cation would normally occupy. When the threshold level of disorder is reached, the anti-site defects are so numerous that they are almost touching each other at the atomic level. This creates something called a “percolation network.” This network permits the cations to move rapidly through the crystal. The movement of these cations through the network permits the crystal structure to repair itself by destroying the anti-site defects which slows down the cation diffusion.

       This self-healing is different than other behavior models for other complex ceramic oxides and disorder models. This new type of self-healing may be very important in extending the lifetime of complex ceramics that are used in extreme radiation environments.

gadolinium titanium oxide:

 

Government officials said an earthquake centered less than 10 miles from Seabrook Station Nuclear Power Plant didn’t seem to have caused any damage yesterday, but anti-nuclear activists are worried the tremors could have increased instability in already-cracking containment walls. Bostonhearald.com

India has approved the construction of 12 new nuclear power reactors. 10 will be indigenous Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs) with a capacity of 700 MW each and two will be Russian Light Water Reactors (LWRs). Nextbigfuture.com

Russian ‘nuclear leak’ was behind radiation cloud that engulfed Europe. Dailystar.co.uk

RUSSIAN anti-submarine warship has obliterated “mock enemy” targets off the coast of North Korea in an apparent show of force. Dailystar.co.uk

 

 

Tokyo almost built a bomb in 1945 and now has enough plutonium stockpiled for 5,000 nukes. North Korea may give its hawkish government an excuse to build them. Thedailybeast.com

The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) has overseen a “political risk insurance contract” for the Central Spent Fuel Storage Facility (CSFSF) at the site of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. OPIC, the US government’s development finance institution, is providing insurance to support the project trust’s $250 million fixed-rate bond securities issuance in US capital markets. World-nuclear-news.org

Armenia announced a refurbishment project for its one commercial nuclear reactor, which the deputy minister of Energy, Infrastructures and Natural Resources Hayk Harutyunyan said would increase the power of the reactor by 10 percent. Nuclearstreet.com

Global Nuclear Fuel (GNF) said this week it had shipped lead test assemblies of its IronClad and ARMOR accident tolerant fuel solutions to Southern Nuclear Operating Company for plant installation early this year.    Nuclearstreet.com

 

A subsidiary of Kobe Steel Ltd. may have falsified test data on highly radioactive waste disposal, the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) announced on Feb. 14. Asahi.com

Once a military and scientific research base in Greenland during the 1960s, Camp Century is now abandoned with all of its wastes — including chemical, radiological and physical — left frozen, presumably for eternity. But with temperatures rising in northern environments, there is concern of remobilization of the wastes, spelling complications for who is responsible for the removal and how it will affect the surrounding environment. Browndailyherals.com

Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud stressed his keenness to develop bilateral relations between Riyadh and Moscow, reiterating the need to bolster cooperation between the two countries in the field of energy. Aawsat.com

In response to debate over the allocation of tax revenue from Louisiana’s two nuclear power plants, the Louisiana Tax Commission on Feb. 8 announced changes that will give more money to the parishes where the plants are located — a decision some local officials consider long overdue.  Theadvocate.com

 

 

 

        Both China and Russia are investing in the modernization and expansion of their nuclear weapons and delivery systems. I have blogged before about specific weapons projects. The Pentagon is looking to spend a trillion dollars in the next ten years to modernize and expand our nuclear arsenal. Some of their plans were developed as a counter to specific weapons being developed in China and Russia.

       There is a new generation of nuclear missiles under development which fly at many times the speed of sound. These missiles are known as hypersonic. They are being developed to elude conventional anti-missile systems. They can change direction in mid-flight which makes them harder to track.

       A U.S. Admiral who heads the Pacific Command said, “China’s hypersonic weapons development outpaces ours… we’re falling behind. We need to continue to pursue that and in a most aggressive way in order to ensure that we have the capabilities to both defend against China’s hypersonic weapons and to develop our own offensive hypersonic weapons.”

      The U.S. Department of Defense Missile Defense Agency’s (MDA) mission is to “develop, test, and field an integrated, layered, ballistic missile defense system (BMDS) to defend the United States, its deployed forces, allies, and friends against all ranges of enemy ballistic missiles in all phases of flight.”

      The MDA has an annual budget of around ten billion dollars. For 2019, it is requesting an increase of forty-five million dollars from its 2018 budget of seventy-five million dollars for the development of hypersonic missile defenses. Hypersonic missiles with or without nuclear warheads can be launched from planes, ships or submarines. The MDA Director of Operation told Pentagon reporters that possible deployment of hypersonic weapons by potential enemies such as China and Russia could overwhelm our current anti-missile systems. He told the reporters, “The key challenge to US national security and the security of US friends and allies is the emergence of new threats designed to defeat the existing” ballistic missile defense system.”

        The reason that the Pentagon has suddenly become so concerned with hypersonic weapons is the fact that China and Russia have developed and tested hypersonic vehicles. China has tested their DF-17 and analysts believe that Russia is also working on its own hypersonic vehicle called the Zircon. The Russian news agency Tass has reported that the Zircon will go into production this year.

       The U.S. may be behind in the hypersonic race but it has been working on such a weapons for years. The X-51A Waverider cruise missile that was first tested in 2012 can travel at more than one mile a second which is about six times the speed of sound. Future versions are being designed to travel even faster.

       China has been found it easier to develop the DF-17 because it is not party to a treaty restricting short and intermediate range ground launched missiles like the U.S. and Russia. If China were a signatory of the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, over ninety percent of Chinas ground launch missiles would be considered in violation of the treaty.