Part 1 of 2 Parts

       The U.S. and the Soviet Union were locked in a Cold War for decades. They both built huge arsenals of nuclear warheads and delivery systems that would have been able to destroy human civilization many times over and might have made humanity extinct. The two super powers did manage to sign a treaty to reduce nuclear weapons and today the U.S. and Russia (which inherited the arsenal of the Soviet Union) each have thoudands of nuclear weapons instead of the tens of thousands that they had at the height of the Cold War.

       For a variety of reasons, the relationship between the U.S. and Russia have been deteriorating in the past few years. Both the U.S. and Russia have accused the other of violating the arms reduction treaties with the development of new weapons and dedication of massive funding to modernize their nuclear weapons arsenals.

      Every eight years, the U.S. carries out what is called a nuclear posture review (NPR). The previous NPR was in 2010 and the U.S. just released the new NPR in January of 2018. Besides mention of the modernization, there was also a section dedicated to the creation of low yield, highly accurate tactical nuclear weapons. The U.S. is saying in the NPR that they might consider a serious cyberwar attack as sufficient reason to attack the enemy with these tactical nuclear weapons. Russia has also been talking about responding to non-nuclear military situation with tactical nukes.

        Vladimir Putin is running for his fourth term as President of Russia. He recently delivered an annual speech on the state of Russia that analysts say was mainly intended to excite his hardcore supporters. He specifically mentioned some nuclear weapons systems that he said were “new.” He claimed that these weapons were powerful and unstoppable but only intended for defensive use. He also made belligerent comments to the effect that the West had failed to “contain” Russia and that other nations must “listen” to Russia now. Here are brief descriptions of some of the nuclear weapons that he mentioned in the speech.

       The Avangard is an intercontinental ballistic missile that Putin says can fly at twenty times the speed of sound and strike a target like a meteorite. He claimed that it is so fast the it would be impossible for any anti-missile system in the world to stop it.  He said that it is so maneuverable that it could easily fly around and between zones of detection for antimissile systems. It is supposed to have an unlimited range and it could fly over the North or South Pole to strike any target on the other side of the globe.

       The controversial part of his announcement and the thing that makes this system “new” is that instead of the propulsion system that the existing version of the missile utilizes, this version is supposed to have a nuclear engine. While Putin brags about the capability of the new engine, non-Russian analysts say that they have been monitoring the Russian development of a nuclear engine and claim that most of the test flights they watched were failures. They are skeptical that the Russians really have a reliable version of such an engine ready to deploy.

Please read Part 2

Avangard Missile:

 

 

Next month, Saudi Arabia will announce the finalists of a sweepstakes. The prize? Multibillion-dollar contracts to build a pair of nuclear power reactors in desolate stretches of desert along the Persian Gulf. Washingtonpost.com

Glasgow’s forgotten nuclear warning system. Glasgowlive.co.uk

Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom unveiled plans this week to build up to 600 megawatts of wind energy in the Krasnodar region in southern Russia in what appears to be part of the company’s tentative diversification within renewable energy. Bellona.org

The International Atomic Energy Agency reached a compliance milestone this week, noting on its website that, for the 200^th time a review team had been sent out to inspect a nuclear power plant to judges its safety and security. Nuclearstreet.com

 

 

 

      I have blogged before about the possibility of a shortage of critical radioisotopes used for diagnosis and treatment. After the shutdown of a Canadian nuclear reactor in late 2016 which had provided a major share of radioisotopes for medical applications, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine produced a report warning of a potential shortage of such isotopes as Molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) and Technetium-99m (Tc-99m) which are used for nuclear imaging. The current global market for these isotopes is nearly ten billion dollars. It is estimated that by 2021, the market for them will grow to around seventeen billion dollars.

       Anticipating the future shortage of medical radioisotopes and concerned about possible terrorist capture of uranium being shipped to other countries for processing, in 2013, the Obama Administration signed legislation to encourage private industry to work on solving the medical isotope supply problem. SHINE Medical Technologies is building a one hundred million dollar plant to produce medical isotopes in Janesville, Wisconsin. The U.S. government is providing twenty-five million for the SHINE plant. NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes in Beloit, Wisconsin is getting fifty million dollars of federal money under this program.

       SHINE has designed eight particle accelerators for the Janesville plant. The NRC approved construction of the Janesville plant in 2016. SHINE and Northstar both face the problem of raising a lot of private capital to move forward with their plans. One problem with the SHINE and Northstar projects is that they are planning on using old nuclear fission technology such as nuclear reactors or very expensive particle accelerators to produce the neutron flux needed for the generation of the medical radioisotopes.

        Magneto-Inertial Fusion Technologies, Inc. (MIFTI) is a company that is working on nuclear fusion. MIFTI has received recognition and awards from the U.S. Department of Energy for its innovative approach to nuclear fusion research. MIFTI is a pioneer in the development of ZETA pinch plasma confinement. While their ZETA pinch nuclear fusion device has not yet been able to produce a sustained fusion reaction, it does produce a lot of neutron which are just what is needed for the production of medical radioisotopes. A compact and high powered ZETA pinch fusion reactor is currently being designed for MIFTI.

      U.S. Nuclear Corporation is a company “…specializing in the development and manufacturing of radiation detection instrumentation.” They have signed an agreement with MIFTEC, a subsidiary of MIFTI, to build MIFTI ZETA pinch fusion reactors for the production of medical radioisotopes.

       Potential problems for the production and deployment of ZETA pinch technology for medical radioisotope production include the following: First and foremost, the technology must be proven in a real-world commercial environment. Second, the management of these two companies must find sufficient private funding to bring a product to market. Third, while regulations could be an impediment, the MIFTI approach only uses tritium extracted from seawater. Without any uranium being involved, it should be easy enough to get regulatory approval.

       U.S. Nuclear and MIFTEC believe that if everything goes according to their plan, they should have a working medical isotope machine producing commercial quantities within the next twenty-four months.

 

        With the worsening of relations between the U.S. and Russia, the increasing hostility of North Korea and ongoing concerns about a possible nuclear weapons program in Iran, investment in anti-ballistic missiles systems to protect the U.S. has increased. The Ohio State Congressional delegation would like to see Ravenna, Ohio selected to be the host of battery of missiles to protect the East Coast.

       Last week, the Pentagon announced that the U.S. Secretary of Defense and President Trump will make a decision about siting U.S. missile defenses in the Ballistic Missile Defense Review which may be released as soon as early March. The question being considered is whether or not the Trump Administration is willing to spend as much as three billion six hundred million dollars in the construction of a third site in the continental U.S. that could provide ballistic missile defense for cities on the U.S. East Coast. If the answer to that question is “yes”, then a new site could be selected by May of this year.

      President Trump is apparently more interested in expanding U.S. ballistic missile defenses than President Obama was. He has requested almost ten billion dollars for missile defense in 2019. The continuing belligerent statements coming from North Korea regarding nuclear war and their testing of missiles that could hit the U.S. have supported his request.  

       Currently there are two sites that host anti-ballistic missiles in the U.S. One site is in Alaska at Fort Greely. There are forty interceptors stationed there because the greatest threat to the U.S. is across the Pacific Ocean. Vandenberg Air Force Base in California hosts four interceptors.

        While it is still not known whether or not the U.S. will be investing in a third anti-ballistic missile base, there are three finalists sites for hosting one. Camp Ravenna Joint Military Training Center is the Ohio candidate. Fort Custer Training Center near Battle Creek, Michigan is a second candidate. And Fort Drum in New Your near Syracuse is the third candidate.

       If it is decided that there should be a third anti-missile base, it would bring a couple of thousand constructions jobs and almost a thousand full time employees to the selected site. The Ohio Congressional delegation says that Ohio has the open space, the dedicated acreage, river and rail transport, construction experience and the workforce needed for such a site. They also point out that their site is close to the NASA Glenn Research Center and the National Air and Space Intelligence Center at Wright–Patterson Air Force Base where ballistic missile threats are assessed.

       James McKeon of the Center for Arms Control and Non–Proliferation said that an East Coast anti-missile base would be used primarily to protect the U.S. East Coast from Iran but not North Korea. Intercontinental ballistic missiles would be fired north to cross over the Pole and then head south to hit a target. He said that the technology is not perfected and that even with optimal conditions for tests, missile interceptors only have about a fifty percent rate of hitting their targets. McKeon said that “The problem is there is no evidence thus far that this system is very effective. In fact, all the evidence suggests it cannot be relied upon to protect the United States homeland.”

 

Russia’s State-owned nuclear corporation Rosatom still believes that nuclear energy has a place in the future development of South Africa. This follows comments made by Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba on Wednesday (Budget Day), which suggested that the country’s planned program to build a fleet of new nuclear power plants (NPP) had been significantly postponed. engineeringnews.co.za

Poland’s biggest power producer PGE is ready to cooperate with more partners in a plan to build the country’s first nuclear power plant, the company said on Thursday. Af.reuters.com

A tumultuous year, including the failure of its V.C. Summer nuclear expansion project, took a financial toll on embattled SCANA. Thestate.com

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Wednesday proposed a $145,000 fine for the company building the only nuclear reactors under construction in the U.S. The nuclear regulatory agency says Southern Nuclear Co. staff signed off on inspections of equipment and conditions at Plant Vogtle in Georgia that never happened. Southern committed the violations from August to October 2016. Washintonexaminer.com

 

 

       Desulforudis audaxviator is a bacterium that lives in the depths of the Earth. It has been found almost two miles below the Earth’s surface. There is no light where it lives and the ground water is over two hundred and eighty degrees Fahrenheit. There is also no oxygen or other organic materials there. The bacterium extracts energy from the decay of uranium in the rocks.

        Researchers at the Brazilian Synchrotron Light Laboratory and the University of São Paulo say that this bacterium is a good model for considering the possibility of extraterrestrial life. One of the principle investigators told a Brazilian news agency, “We studied the possible effects of a biologically usable energy source on Europa based on information obtained from an analogous environment on Earth.”

       NASA has suggested that there may be hydrothermal vents on Europa like the kind found on the sea floor on Earth. These vents spew chemicals and heat which provides sustenance for life that surrounds the vents. While the hydrothermal organisms do not rely on sunlight for energy, they do rely on oxygen in the water that is generated by other organisms near the surface which do utilize sunlight.

        Desulforudis audaxviator does not rely on oxygen in the water to survive. It was found in the ground water from the Mponeng gold mine in South Africa. It is the only life form in its ecosystem and does not rely on any other organisms. The principle researcher says “This very deep subterranean mine has water leaking through cracks that contain radioactive uranium. The uranium breaks down the water molecules to produce free radicals. The free radicals attack the surrounding rocks, especially pyrite, producing sulfate. The bacteria use the sulfate to synthesise ATP [adenosine triphosphate], the nucleotide responsible for energy storage in cells. This is the first time an ecosystem has been found to survive directly on the basis of nuclear energy.”

       The researchers say that the same conditions that form the environment for desulforudis audaxviator may exist on Europa. According to NASA, life on Europa would require three ingredients. These three ingredients are water, heat and chemicals necessary to life.

        Astronomers believe that there is a vast ocean on Europa beneath the icy crust. Heat is generated by the elliptical orbit of Europa around Jupiter. The tidal forces intensify at certain points in Europa’s orbit. The resulting deformations of the moon results in the generation of heat. The chemistry of Europa’s ocean is the most difficult to identify.

        The principle investigator says that radioactive materials have “been detected and measured on Earth, in the meteorites that come to Earth, and on Mars. So we can say with some certainty that this must have occurred on Europa as well. In our study, we worked with three radioactive elements: uranium, thorium and potassium, the most abundant in the terrestrial context. Based on the percentages found on Earth, in meteorites and on Mars, we can predict the amounts that probably exist on Europa.” The research showed that radioactive materials probably exist on Europa in the same amounts that are found on Earth. The only open question is whether or not there are sufficient pyrites on Europa to provide the sulfur needed by Desulforudis audaxviator-type organisms.

       The principle investigator said “The ocean bed on Europa appears to offer very similar conditions to those that existed on primitive Earth during its first billion years. So studying Europa today is to some extent like looking back at our own planet in the past. In addition to the intrinsic interest of Europa’s habitability and the existence of biological activity there, the study is also a gateway to understanding the origin and evolution of life in the Universe.”

Desulforudis audaxviator: