Taiwan follows South Korea into WTO complaint over new US solar duties – Now two countries, major trade partners with the United States, have joined a legal case against the Suniva+Solar World solar tariff. I wonder how quickly these groups could push a case like this through the World Trade Organization. When I inquired on this topic with a smart professional in this field a long while ago, they said court cases like this took two plus years before any results were yielded, if that (note that the US and India have been in a similar trade case since 2011-2013). Electrek.co

French Polynesia’s pro-independence leader Oscar Temaru has accused France of nuclear racism for testing its nuclear weapons in the Pacific. Radionz.co.nz

China is putting two of its largest nuclear-power firms back together as it seeks to bolster its state-owned enterprises and create a corporate powerhouse that can better compete for contracts in other countries. Wsj.com

Uranium production from the Inkai joint venture in Kazakhstan is forecast to increase by more than 25% this year, according to a new NI 43-101 technical report filed by 40%-owner Cameco. The operation is forecast to reach maximum production of 10.4 million pounds U3O8 per year in 2020. World-nuclear-news.org

                I have blogged in the past about research projects that are using molybdenum to produce a better nuclear fuel for reactors. Now researchers at the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI (Russia) Russia are working on improving the covering of nuclear fuel rods with a special form of molybdenum.

        Currently, zirconium alloys are used to create the material called cladding that is used to cover the uranium fuel pellets in most nuclear fuel rods. Zirconium alloys are resistant to corrosion and erosion in water. They also have a low thermal neutron capture cross-section. This is a measure of the probability of a chemical interaction between neutrons and the atomic nuclei of the alloy. The smaller the cross-section, the lower the probability.

        Zirconium alloys have several problems with their use for nuclear fuel rod cladding. They can generate heat in water and produce hydrogen gas which is highly explosive. This will happen if the temperature in the core of the reactor gets above thirteen hundred degrees Fahrenheit. This means that if there is a major problem with the cooling system at a nuclear power plant that is cooled by water, the zirconium cladding could caused explosions and fires. Hydrogen gas generated from zirconium cladding on the fuel rods at Fukushima totally demolished one of the reactor buildings and seriously damaged another.

      Molybdenum alloys have been considered as a replacement for zirconium alloys in the cladding of nuclear fuel rods. Molybdenum alloys have high corrosion and erosion resistance like zirconium alloys, but they have a greater thermal conductivity which reduces their tendency to build up heat. The main problem with the use of molybdenum alloys for nuclear fuel cladding is the expense of their use. The uranium being used in the fuel rods would have to be more highly enriched than the fuel currently in use which would also add to the expense of their use.

       The Russian researchers believe that they can overcome some of the problems of molybdenum alloy use by changing the proportions of the different isotopes in the molybdenum from the composition of naturally occurring molybdenum. The same centrifuges that are used to enrich uranium can also be used for this purpose. This allows the creations of alloys with a thermal cross-section that is as small or smaller than the thermal cross-section of zirconium alloys. The use of these alloys for nuclear fuel rod cladding would definitely increase nuclear power plant safety.

      A professor at MEPHI’s Department of molecular physics said that the study carried out by the researchers has provided “all the information necessary for the design of a separation system for the large-scale production of isotopically modified molybdenum on the basis of existing Russian technology for the separation of non-uranium isotopes in gas centrifuges.”

       The study at MPEhI was funded by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research. It was carried out in cooperation with the department of engineering physics at the Tsiunghua University in Beijing, China.

Few nuclear powers have ever volunteered to dismantle their arsenals, but Kazakhstan’s U.N. ambassador makes the case that a country stands only to gain by such a dramatic gesture. Asia.nikkei.com

New renewables will be cheaper than existing coal plants by the early 2020s.  electrek.com

The Japanese Government Is Lying to the International Community: the Radiological Situation in and around Fukushima is NOT Safe. Blog.torikaesu.net

The South Australian Premier’s apparent change of heart on a national nuclear waste dump in South Australia is a late but welcome development, according to Greens SA Parliamentary Leader, Mark Parnell MLC. Publicnow.com

 

 

         Uranium is a very common element on Earth. It combines with many other elements to form a wide variety of minerals. There are deposits of uranium ore in many locations that can be mined. Uranium is a main contributor to background radiation that is found in varying amounts all over the Earth.

        There is a tiny amount of radium mixed in with naturally occurring uranium. All isotopes of radium are highly radioactive. The most stable isotope of radium is radium-226 which has a half-life of sixteen hundred years. R-226 decays into radon which is a gas.

        The Environmental Working Group (EWG) website says that the EWG is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to protecting human health and the environment. They have just released the results of an important study on radioactive elements in U.S. drinking water. The study was conducted between 2010 and 2015.

        The EWG investigation found that over half of the drinking water available in the U.S. contains radioactive elements. During the investigation, the EWG tested almost fifty thousand public water systems. They estimated that the water consumed by over one hundred and seventy million citizens of the U.S. contain radioactive elements. The EPA sets safe limits for such elements in drinking water and twenty-seven states have water supplies in which the radioactive elements exceed what is considered safe by the EPA.

       The most common element that was found in drinking water by the EWG was radium. Radium is dissolved out of soil and rock by the passage of water. Radon gas is also released into underground water as the radium decays. In areas where the Earth is shocked and strained by the process of fracking, the amount of radium in the water is greater. Radium releases ionizing radiation which is potentially carcinogenic which means it can cause cancers.

       The EWG found that in one hundred and fifty-eight public water supply systems used by two hundred and seventy-six thousand U.S. citizens, the level or radium is greater than that allowed by the EPA. The EPA requirements say that there should not be more than seventy cases of cancer caused by drinking water out of one million consumers. Texas was found to be the state with radium in the most water supplies. It is estimated that about eighty percent of Texans have some radium in their water supply.

       The EPA guidelines for safe drinking water have been criticized as being too lenient. In 2006, California released much more stringent requirements for safe levels of radium than the EPA. The California standards say that there should not be more than one case of cancer caused by drinking water in a million consumers. By these standards, over one hundred and twenty-two million people nationwide are drinking water with too much radium in it.

       A senior science advisor with EWG issued a statement that said, ““Most radioactive elements in tap water come from natural sources, but that doesn’t take away the need to protect people through stronger standards and better water treatment.” “Millions of Americans are drinking water with potentially harmful levels of radioactive elements, but the outdated federal standards mean many people don’t know about the risk they face when they turn on the tap.”

       The EWG has created this interactive map of U.S. water supplies that contain radium.

       

      

 

Framatome said yesterday it had received approval from the French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) and EDF to resume the manufacture of forgings for the French nuclear fleet at its Le Creusot site. The approval reflects the improvement plan launched at the site at the beginning of 2016, which Framatome said is now 90% complete and will be fully closed out in the first half of this year. World-nuclear-news.org

The current Hollywood movie “The Post,” about the Washington Post’s decision to publish the Pentagon Papers has made Daniel Ellsberg a household name again. While he is best-known for leaking the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times and Washington Post, at that time he also copied a lot of nuclear weapons planning documents, but they were lost. Now declassified, Daniel Ellsberg has written a book based on these documents, called “The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner.” Mprnews.org

Poland will decide later this year whether to build its first nuclear power plant to lower carbon emissions as part of a plan to reduce dependence on coal in the long term, the country’s Energy Minister Krzysztof Tchorzewski said on Monday. Reuters.com

WAR between the US and North Korea could result in one of the largest ever surges in the price of gold, according to precious metals expert Jim Rickards. Express.co.uk

A group of powerful state senators wants to limit the money Georgia Power can collect from ratepayers for the construction of nuclear power plants in Georgia. Wabe.org

FirstEnergy Corp.’s nuclear plant near Toledo is likely headed for closure and the outlook is just as bleak for its two other plants near Cleveland and Beaver Valley, Pennsylvania, a company executive said Thursday. Mcall.com

Zambia’s Information and Broadcasting Services Minister, Kampamba Mulenga, has recently called on media to assist in driving a nuclear education campaign amongst the country’s residents. Esi-africa.com

There are dozens of dimensions in the arguments for and against nuclear energy as a source of clean electricity. But there’s one aspect that trumps all the rest: cost. Grist.com