The first shipment of used nuclear fuel assemblies from Russian nuclear submarines has arrived at the radiochemical plant Mayak in Chelyabinsk, near the Ural Mountains, from the former base of the Russian Northern Fleet at Andreeva Bay. World-nuclear-news.org

Ukrainian state nuclear corporation Energoatom has this week hosted the working group created five years ago to achieve a zero-failure rate of nuclear fuel. The group visited the Khmelnitsky nuclear power plant. World-nuclear-news.org

Since the recent cancellation of one of only two new nuclear reactor projects in the United States, the fate of nuclear power has received significant attention. With cheap natural gas, decreases in energy demand and an increase in renewable energy, nuclear power’s high capital costs, technological challenges and massive accident and waste liabilities make it too risky for private investors. As a result, taxpayers have been the backstop keeping the industry afloat for years. Usenews.com

Can Next-Generation Nuclear Power Meet World Energy Needs? Forbes.com

 

 

       With all the concern about North Korean missiles and nuclear weapons, attention is being focused on other countries which might be supplying critical technology to North Korea for their nuclear weapons program.

        Last Monday, the New York Times published an article about a report by Michael Elleman that claimed that N.K. may have gotten advanced rocket engines left over from the Soviet Union missile program from a company in Ukraine. Elleman was the director of a cooperative nuclear missile dismantling project in Chelyabinsk, Russia. He ran the program from 1995 to 2001. He is a respected expert in the field of missile defense and arms control. Ellman is now at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

        In Elleman’s report, he commented that there were similarities between N.K. new missile engines and engines that had been produced by Yuzhmash, a rocket factory in Ukraine. Yuzhmash constructed the Zenit, Dnepr and Cyclone rockets that were used by the Soviet Union to launch satellites. They also constructed the main stage of Orbital ATK’s Antares rocket which NASA used to deliver supplies to the International Space Station.

        The initial reaction of the Ukraine social media was to deny the Ellman report and to attack Ellman. There were some claims that he might be a Russian agent that was deliberately spreading negative news stories to smear Ukraine. The CEO of a Ukrainian communications firm posted some comments on his Facebook page last Wednesday to the effect that Ellman does not like to show pictures of his wife. Along with the comments, the CEO also posted photos of Ellman’s wife in a Russian military uniform. The authenticity of the photo has been questioned. Ellman has deleted his social media accounts and has refused to comment publicly on the matter.

       Ukrainian authorities initially agreed with the claim that the Ellman’s report was Russian disinformation. Following this negative reaction which really had nothing to do with the veracity of Ellman’s report, the Ukranie authorities have now started an investigation into the allegations.

       On Wednesday, two days after the report and the NYT story were published, Petro Poroshenko, the Ukrainian President, issued this statement on his Facebook page. “No matter how absurd the accusations, as responsible partners…we shall carefully verify…the alleged supply of missile engines … to North Korea.” Poroshenko has ordered Yuzhmash and state investigators to carry out a thorough investigation into the charges and report their findings. The investigation is expected to be carried out quickly.

      Also on Wednesday, the research and development branch of Yuzhmash issued a statement refuting the claims of the Ellman report and the NYT story. The statement said that the report and story were full of technical inaccuracies and represented an “amateur level assessments of technology, and a clear lack of understanding of rocket and missile technology.”

        The initial negative reaction by the Ukrainian public and government officials is quite understandable given that the Russians annexed the Crimea from Ukraine a few years ago and they are actively supporting a secessionist movement in Eastern Ukraine.

         An expert with the Russian Center for the Analysis of Strategies and Technologies claims that politics played a role in the creation of the original Ellman report. “This excessive searching for ‘foreign assistance’ in the North Korean missile program is purely political in nature,” Barabanov argued, “and is the result of shock, especially in the United States, from North Korea’s recent missile success.” He went on to say that N.K. had been working on missiles for fifty years. On the other hand, he also said, “This story would be completely in the spirit and customs of Ukrainian military-technical cooperation. Ukraine has a bad reputation with regards to the sale of former Soviet military hardware, including high-tech equipment.”

Antares rocket launch:

 

The first steam generator has been placed in the containment of Vogtle unit 3, the first major lift carried out since Southern Nuclear took charge of oversight activities at the AP1000 construction site in Georgia. World-nuclear-news.org

France’s nuclear safety regulator has opened a public consultation on a draft decision governing the review of manufacturing files at Areva NP’s Le Creusot forge. This draft decision requires EDF to examine the manufacturing records of all components produced by the facility that are in use at its operating nuclear power plants. World-nuclear-news.org

Last week, when North Korea was threatening to send a ballistic missile toward the U.S. territory of Guam, the island’s inhabitants were warned that in the case of a nuclear attack, they should not condition their hair. Livescience.com

For educators at the Air Force Institute of Technology, nuclear engineering has been a mainstay of their engineering physics program for more than 60 years, teaching Airmen and their joint colleagues how to deal with every aspect of nuclear weapons, from treaty monitoring and proliferation to nuclear weapon effects and how to protect against them. It’s a course of study virtually impossible to duplicate in the civilian world. Daytondailynews.com

 

 

       I have blogged a lot about the project to build two new Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear power reactors at the VC Summer power plant in South Carolina. This was a very important project because no new nuclear reactors had been built in the U.S. in decades. Serious cost overruns and construction delays plagued the project and resulted in the bankruptcy of Westinghouse, the prime contractor. First, the construct of the reactors was suspended and then it was announced that the project would be abandoned on July 31^st.  South Carolina Electric & Gas (SCE&G) petitioned the South Carolina Public Service Commission (PCE) for approval of its plan to end the project.

       Following the principles of the Base Load Review Act, SCE&G wanted to amortize the project cost and a return at the weighted averages cost of capital on the unamortized balance until it was fully recovered. They planned to use the proceeds that they anticipated from their settlement with Toshiba, the parent company of Westinghouse, which has agreed to pay up to two billion dollars to SCE&G and its parent, Santee Copper and some of the benefits that SCE&G was able to realize from tax deductions to reduce the impact of the cancellation of the project on the rate payers. However, yesterday, SCE&G said that it had decided to withdraw its petition with the PCE.

        The company issued a statement that “Over the past two weeks, SCE&G management has met with various stakeholders and members of the South Carolina General Assembly, including legislative leaders, to discuss the abandonment of the new nuclear project and to hear their concerns.” SCE&G said its decision to withdraw the abandonment petition was “in response to those concerns, and to allow for adequate time for governmental officials to conduct their reviews.”

       The CEO of SCE&G said, “The purpose of these ongoing meetings is to discuss their concerns and to explain the path that led us to the abandonment decision. In our discussions with the legislature, we have not changed our position on abandonment.” Both bodies of the South Carolina General Assembly have formed committees to review the impact of the cancelled project on the customers of SCE&G. The committees will also consider the regulatory oversight that was applied during the project.

       The CEO of SCE&G also said, “While ceasing construction was always our least desired option, based on the impact of the bankruptcy of Westinghouse on our fixed price construction contract, the results of our evaluation of the cost and time to complete the project, and Santee Cooper’s decision to suspend construction, abandonment was the prudent decision.”

       The CEO said that the withdrawal of the petition was only temporary and that it would be reinstated once the General Assembly reviews were completed. When questioned about the possibility that the project might be revived, the CEO said “For us to restart the project, number one we will have to have a willing partner … We would have to start with drafting a new partnership agreement to determine who would own what percentage of the project going forward.” Part of the consideration for restarting the project would be whether only one of the reactors or both should be completed. “At that point we would have to negotiate a construction contract with the contractor, whether that be Fluor or someone else. We would also have to re-engage Westinghouse in a services agreement because the plant is their design and we would need their design engineering support if we were to go forward. Once all that was accomplished, we would have to go back to the Public Service Commission and have them review the project and agree to the reconstitution of a plan to go forward.”

       The entire review process could take as much as a year. The CEO remarked that “It’s not something that would happen overnight. There would be significant negotiations to pull a project team back together. And once you’ve done that, you would then have assemble the construction team and oversight team back on site.”

 

Southern California Edison (SCE) has notified the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) that the parties in the San Onofre nuclear plant closure settlement were unable to reach agreement on possible changes the CPUC had unanimously approved in 2014. SCE has urged the commission to “affirm the existing settlement of issues related to the premature retirement of San Onofre in 2013 and bring closure to this protracted proceeding”. World-nuclear-news.org

The restart of units 3 and 4 at Kyushu Electric Power Company’s Genkai nuclear generating station is being postponed from this coming fall to later in the winter, possibly until early 2018, the company said. Nuclearstreet.com

North Korea ROCKED by two earthquakes sparking fears of yet another missile launch. Express.co.uk

The 9 Most Nightmarish Movies About Nuclear Attacks. Io9.gizmodo.com

        Former Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz released a report today stating that the fact that the U.S. nuclear energy sector is in decline constitutes a risk for U.S. national security. The report was issued by the Energy Futures institute. One of main benefits of a robust nuclear energy sector, according to Moniz, is preventing terrorists for getting their hands on uranium processing technology as well as supporting nuclear Navy vessels.

       Moniz is a nuclear scientist who served as President Obama’s Energy Secretary. He is also the CEO of the Nuclear Threat Initiative which is a nonprofit organization dedicated to nuclear disarmament, securing nuclear materials and the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons. He says that we need to expand loan guarantees, tax incentives and research on nuclear technology.

      At the present, about twenty percent of the electricity in the U.S. is generated by nuclear power plants. However, the U.S. nuclear power sector has serious problems. Since 2013, five U.S. nuclear power plants have been shut down. They were generating about five gigawatts of power. Over the next nine years, six more nuclear power plants are scheduled to be permanently shut down. There were four nuclear power reactors being constructed in the U.S. after decades of no new reactor builds. The construction of two of those reactors has been halted and the other two may also never be finished.

       Westinghouse Electric Company, a subsidiary of Toshiba of Japan, was a pioneer of nuclear technology and a builder of nuclear power reactors. Over half the four hundred nuclear power reactors in the world use Westinghouse technology. The four AP1000 power reactors that Westinghouse was building in the U.S. encountered serious cost overruns and delays. This led Westinghouse to declare bankruptcy. Following the bankruptcy, Westinghouse stated that it was going to refocus its activities in the dismantling and decommissioning of existing nuclear power reactors.

       The current Trump administration and Energy Secretary Rick Perry have said that they want to help the nuclear industry. Perry is conducting a study on the importance of nuclear power for what is called baseload power plants that operate twenty four/seven to provide the base for the U.S. electrical supply.  However, the proposed budget by the Trump White House includes severe cuts to the budget for the Energy Department. One of those cuts would be the end of the loan guarantee program.

       Moniz says that the U.S. needs to have companies that can “build and run nuclear enterprises.” The U.S. Navy has to have nuclear components and nuclear engineers to maintain its fleet of nuclear surface ships and submarines. This means that a functioning private nuclear industry is essential to the Navy because such companies it with provide nuclear technology and nuclear services.

       “A shrinking commercial enterprise will have long term spillover effects on the Navy supply chain, including by lessened enthusiasm among American citizens to pursue nuclear technology careers,” according to the report. The report goes on to say that the U.S. government should direct the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to “place a greater emphasis on the national security importance of nuclear power and its associated supply chain.” 

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has issued a confirmatory order to Westinghouse following the May 2016 discovery of an accumulation of uranium-bearing material at a fuel fabrication facility. The regulator has said it will not issue a civil penalty or cite the company for violations because of the commitments Westinghouse has made under the order. World-nuclare-news.org

The US government should hold “a structured conversation” with the country’s nuclear industry on ways to restore and develop the sector, according to an essay from Mark Hibbs, senior fellow of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s nuclear policy program. World-nuclare-news.org

For the first time since 2012, processed and treated transuranic waste is leaving Oak Ridge’s Transuranic Waste Processing Center for permanent disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, New Mexico, the program’s Office of Environmental Management said. Nuclearstreet.com

North Korea’s leader has delayed a decision on firing missiles towards Guam while he watches US actions a little longer, the North’s state media said on Tuesday, as South Korea’s President said Seoul would seek to prevent war by all means. Independent.co.uk