Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) have been working on the science of scintillators which can be used to detect nuclear threats. They have made a significant breakthrough that will allow such devices to be both more efficient and cheaper to make. The new scintillators are made of an organic glass which is a carbon-based material that can be melted but does not crystallize when it is cooled. It also does not become translucent or opaque when cooled.

        For forty years, the crystalline form of a molecule called trans-stibene has been the best material for scintillators. Trans-stibene can tell the difference between gamma rays which are common in the natural environment and neutrons which are primarily produced by materials such as plutonium and uranium which are dangerous radioactive materials that can be used to make weapons. Trans-stibene produces bright light in the presence of both of these types of radiation. Unfortunately, trans-stibene is very expensive to produce and is not common in devices used outside of a laboratory.

        The most common materials used in scintillators for use in the field are plastic. They are cheap and can be made into large shapes which is important for the sensitivity of the scintillator. Plastics are not good at distinguishing gamma rays and neutrons. The detectors have to include a tube of helium to make this distinction. The particular isotope of helium used for these tubes is rare, expensive and non-renewable which makes the detectors more expensive and complex. Plastics are also less sensitive and emit less light than trans-stibene.

      SNL began working on scintillator technology in 2010 with the goal “strengthen national security by improving the cost-to-performance ratio of radiation detectors at the front lines of all material moving into the country.” The team worked on combining the best and most sensitive scintillator material with the lower cost of less sensitive materials.

      The SNL team tested different scintillator materials that they had synthesized to better understand the relationship between molecular structures and radiation detection properties. They were able to create scintillator materials that could differentiate between dangerous radioactive materials that could be use for weapons and other non-threatening nuclear materials used in industry and medicine.

       A major breakthrough happened in June of 2016 with the realization that scintillators were a lot like light-emitting diodes (LEDs). LEDs produce light when electrical current is supplied to a material. Scintillators produce light when bombarded with radiation. Depending on the intensity of light and the speed of the appearance of the light, the nature of the radiation can be identified. It turned out that fluorine, a light emitting material used in some LEDs could be included in the scintillator compounds being made by the lab. This led to the best combination of features including stability, transparency and brightness.

       The organic glasses being developed at SNL are much brighter than the plastics and they can distinguish gamma rays from neutrons. The incorporation of fluorene yielded stable organics glasses that could be made into large shapes for detectors that could be deployed for wide use. The next step is to create prototype detectors that can be tested in real life conditions. The team also needs to give their new scintillators the ability to tell the difference between dangerous radioactive materials and normal-use radioactive materials. The National Nuclear Security Administration is funding the project for an additional two years. 

The House Energy and Commerce subcommittee yesterday passed HR 3053, the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017, by 49 votes to four. The legislation aims to reform US nuclear waste management policy to ensure the government can meet its obligations to dispose of used fuel and high-level waste. It will “preserve” Yucca Mountain as the “most expeditious path” to achieving this. World-nuclear-news.org

The French nuclear regulator has provisionally ruled that EDF’s Flamanville 3 can start up safely, but that the head of its reactor pressure vessel (RPV) will need to be replaced by the end of 2024. The Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire (ASN) said yesterday the unit, which is under construction in northwest France, is fit for operation despite issues with its steel. World-nuclear-news.org

US President Donald Trump has ordered his national security team to develop a new approach to defuse North Korea’s missile and nuclear weapons threat with a military option on the table to finally denuclearise the Korean Peninsula as “the only appropriate and acceptable” solution, Trump’s national security adviser H.R. McMaster said on Wednesday. Scmp.com

Around 100 young people from 54 countries are raising their voices and harnessing social media to help mobilize support for a world free of nuclear weapons, and advance the entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. Un.org

       In 2010, the Stuxnet computer worm was discovered in the centrifuge control systems in Iran’s nuclear program. It did a great deal of damage to the infected systems. It was designed to influence control systems for industrial equipment. Among other things, it caused some of the centrifuges to spin so fast that they were destroyed. Although neither country has admitted anything, it is commonly assumed that the U.S. and Israel created the worm to attack Iran and retard its nuclear program.

       There have been many hacking attacks on various public and private computer systems in the U.S. in the past decades. Pentagon computers have been accessed illegally raising national security concerns. Commercial databases have been hit and the financial and personal information of millions of Americans has stolen.

       The Russian attack on political party email systems and voting registration databases in 2016 influenced the U.S. Presidential and Congressional elections. It has not yet been revealed to what degree these attack may have altered the outcome of the elections. This sustained and massive attack on the computer systems that underpin our democracy has brought the issue of computer attacks to broader public awareness.

        There has been a growing concern over the last few years that major infrastructure like power systems in the U.S. might be attacked by malicious software in what is being called cyberwarfare. A television news show demonstrated how a computer attack could cause a generator at a power station to explode. Hydroelectric systems could be hacked to release water and flood downstream communities. Traffic systems could be hacked to cause massive traffic jams. Financial systems could be crashed wiping out billions of dollars. One of the biggest fears is that a computer attack on the systems that operate a nuclear power plant could cause a major nuclear accident that would threaten millions of people.

       This week, there was a major malware attack on companies around the world. The Petya virus was something called ransomware. In this type of attack, all the records on the infected computer are encrypted and the perpetrators then demand ransom in return for a key to decrypt the files. One of the targets hit in the attack was a nuclear power plant in Chernobyl. A system that monitored radiation levels was encrypted and the operators could not access the records of operations. They had to manually monitor radiation levels.

       Now ABC has reported that a U.S. nuclear power plant was also a victim of the ransomware attack. Fortunately the attack penetrated and encrypted administrative computer systems at the plant and did not hit any operational or safety systems. No safety alert was issued by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or the International Atomic Energy Agency. This indicates that attack posed little risk to public safety or the environment.

      As I have commented in the past, the level of computer security in the U.S. public and private computer systems is abysmal. Governmental computer systems at all levels are chronically underfunded and behind the latest technology including security. Private companies are too cheap to install decent security unless forced to by the government. Hopefully, this situation can be remedied before there is a truly horrific event like the melt down of a nuclear power plant.

Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant:

 

Speaking at the Nuclear Industry Association’s Nuclear New Build 2017 conference in London yesterday, Harrington said the government is committed to following through on its big initiatives, including the clean growth plan and industrial strategy. The nuclear industry, he said, “certainly has a big part to play in both of those as we look forward to expanding and decarbonising our economy”. Having a diverse mix of energy sources “will be a real asset”. World-nuclear-news.org

A senior official from the Bihar government of India has said that the northeastern state has decided to pursue nuclear power, aiming to construct a four-unit plant with a 3,000 MW capacity. Nuclearstreet.com

A transport of three containers carrying nuclear waste is being shipped on the Neckar river in southwestern Germany with heavy police protection. Abcnews.go.com

South Korea’s largest power company is in talks with Toshiba to prop up its plans to build Europe’s largest new nuclear plant in the UK. Telegraph.co.uk

       I recently wrote a post about problems at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The LANL is not the only national laboratory with a poor record for safety. Other national labs transgressions have also been reported by government inspectors.

       In the spring of 2014, ninety-seven nuclear researchers from the U.S. and other countries convened in Nye County, NV. They met at the place where the U.S. had conducted hundreds of nuclear weapons tests. The testing of nuclear weapons at that site had ended. The scientists had come to the National Criticality Experiments Research Center (NCERC) to use a piece of equipment called Godiva. The purpose of their visit was to test nuclear pulses.

       The Godiva machine had originally been located at Los Alamos, N.M. but was moved to Nevada nine years before the gathering of scientists. There was a cover for the machine that was intended to prevent the escape of any loose radioactive particles but that cover was not reinstalled after the move to Nevada.

        When Godiva was operating, it often set of radiation alarms at the NCERC so the staff decided to turn off the alarms. Unfortunately, the alarm system was designed to turn on ventilation and air filtration so when the alarms were shut off so was the ventilation system. The only operational ventilation system left was a small exhaust fan that moved air into a room where scientists watched next to the room where Godiva was located.

      The Godiva test runs were completed in mid May of 2014. On June 16^th, routine tests of the facility revealed that there were radioactive particles in the room where the scientists had been working. When the room that contained the Godiva machine was tested, it was found to have twenty times more radiation than the adjacent room. The site operators had the rooms decontaminated. However, they did not notify and check the scientists who had attended the test sessions.

       On July 17^th, a researcher at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California who had participated in the Godiva tests at NCERC had a routine exam for radiation exposure. Particles of highly enriched uranium were found in his urine. Following that revelation, National Securities Technologies, the lead contractor at the NCERC, tested the urine of NCERC staff members who had been in the Godiva room when the tests were being conducted. The results showed that three technicians had inhaled highly-enriched uranium.

       No public announcements of the findings were made. Eventually, all ninety seven scientists who had gathered for the Godiva tests were contacted. The testing of the group for radioactive exposure proceeded slowly and by 2016, it was found that thirty one of them had inhaled uranium. Though the amount of uranium was small, uranium particles can keep emitting radiation for years and pose a serious cancer risk. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said in a letter to the NCERC that the exposures were “safety-significant and preventable.”

       NCERC had been warned in 2010 that there could be problems with the Godiva machine installation. The warning even explicitly mentioned that there were concerns about the ventilation system. Even with advanced warning, workers and visiting scientists were still exposed to uranium particles. In other words, this exposure should not have and did not need to have happened.

       The Center for Public Integrity conducted a review of over sixty violations of safety regulations at ten federal nuclear weapons facilities. Their review said that the protective system for such facilities was dysfunctional. Contractors continued to make high profits while fines were often reduced or entirely waived. Auditors said that federal agencies such as the NNSA and the DoE which were supposed to overseen these facilities were so understaffed that contractors were basically left to police themselves.

       During the Cold War, there was great pressure to complete nuclear weapons projects as quickly as possible. A system evolved where profits were based on the ability to deliver results and safety issues took a back seat. Unfortunately, this culture of “profits first” still exists today. Some workers feel that “safety is completely gone.” 

Areva NP is to supply advanced fuel to four different nuclear facilities from 2020 under recently signed contracts worth $560 million. The contracts involve the company’s Atrium 11 boiling water reactor (BWR) and Gaia and HTP pressurised water reactor (PWR) fuel designs. World-nuclear-news.org

President Moon Jae-in of South Korea has ordered the temporary halt of construction of two Shin Kori reactors on the country’s eastern coast in order to assess how the public feels about completing the projects. Nuclearstreet.com

Chernobyl nuclear power plant has been suspended after being hit by ransomware cyber attack, which has been causing chaos across Europe. Express.co.uk

Renewable energy sources are now providing more electricity than nuclear power for the first time ever in the United States, according to figures issued by the US Energy Information Administration and highlighted by Ken Bossong’s Sun Day Campaign. Cleantechnica.com

 

       Helium is a chemical element with He for the symbol and it has an atomic number of two. It is next most abundant element in the universe after hydrogen. About twenty four percent of the elemental mass of the universe is helium. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert, monatomic gas.

       Helium is rare on Earth. It is present in the atmosphere in the ratio of about five parts per million. Helium is naturally produced by radioactive decay of of elements such as uranium and thorium. There were concerns that the world supply of helium was declining but recent studies suggest that there may be great quantities of helium trapped in cavities far below the surface of the Earth.

       Helium is a very important element with many industrial uses including medical imaging, manufacturing and nuclear reactors. About a quarter of the helium produced in the world is used to cool superconducting magnets for MRI scanners. It is used as a protective atmosphere for arc welding and in processes that grow crystals for production of silicon wafers for electronics. Helium is a potential fuel for fusion reactors and is used as a coolant for the superconducting magnets that compress and restrain the plasma in the reactor. Russian companies are working on the Gas Turbine Modular Helium Reactor. It uses fast neutrons, is more efficient than conventional reactors and can transmute nuclear waste.

       The U.S. was an early producer of helium from natural gas deposits under the center of the country. The Helium Natural Gas Reserve was established in 1925 in Amarillo, Texas to store gas for blimps. In 1927, the Helium Control Act was passed to ban the export of helium. After World War II, the market for helium was depressed but expanding industrial demands such as the use of liquid helium as a coolant to create oxygen/hydrogen rocket fuel increased the market for and production of helium. After the Helium Acts Amendments of 1960, the U.S. created five production plants for helium and routed pipelines from them to the gas reserve in Texas.

       By 1995, there was a billion cubic meters of helium in the reserve and the reserve was over a billion dollars in debt. The Helium Privatization Act of 1996 directed the sale of the helium in the reserve and sales started in 2005. The U.S. had been the primary producer of helium for many years but then plants were built in other countries such as Qatar and Algeria. In 2012, the U.S. reserve held about thirty percent of the helium in the world. World demand and consumption increased and it was estimated that the U.S. would run out of helium from the reserve in 2018.

       In 2013, the biggest helium production plant went operational in Qatar. In 2014, the world helium supply passed demand briefly but continued increases in demand have led to concerns about supply and prices. In June of this year, a consortium of Gulf states in the Middle East with the support of the U.S. administration set up sanctions on Qatar because of supposed support for terrorist groups and activities. By this time, Qatar was supplying about one third of the helium being produced in the world. Analysts fear that the sanctions on Qatar could destabilize the world market and send prices to new heights. Although the U.S. still has major reserves of helium and helium producing fields and plants, it is unlikely that U.S. producers could make up for the shortfall that may be caused by the Qatar sanctions which call for a air, land and sea blockade of Qatari products including helium.

       The Qatar helium plants have been shut down and prices will soon rise. The thirteen demands on Qatar in order to have the sanctions lifted are being rejected by Qatar as an attempt to punish Qatar for its independence. The U.S. has supported the embargo so far but the U.S. has important military bases in Qatar and that may ultimately undermine U.S. support of the sanctions.

Qatar helium plant: