The reactor pressure vessel for unit 5 of the Fuqing nuclear power plant has completed hydraulic pressure tests. The unit – the first of two demonstration Hualong One units being built at the site in China’s Fujian province – is expected to start up in 2019. World-nuclear-news.org

According to India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), an agreement between the two countries’ governments on cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear energy was signed by Bangladesh’s Ministry of Science and Technology and India’s Department of Atomic Energy (DAE). World-nuclear-news.org

AREVA and KAZATOMPROM signed a major agreement Monday to strengthen their long-standing cooperation in the uranium mining sector in Kazakhstan, the companies announced from Paris. Nuclearstreet.com

The board of directors at French utility EDF have voted to continue operations of the Fessenheim nuclear power plant that has received international pressure to close and was slated to do so as part of the French government’s commitment to reduce the country’s dependence on nuclear power. Nuclearstreet.com

       Some advocates for nuclear power are turning to mobile applications to help them push their agenda. There is a new App named Atomic Action created for Generation Atomic, a new non-profit grassroots organization that “specializes in door-to-door canvassing operations and gamifying nuclear advocacy.” Gamification is the application of game-design elements and game principles in non-game contexts.

       Atomic Action was created by UCampaign which is a pioneer in gamifying advocacy. They successfully created and deployed such Apps for issues and political campaigns in the 2016 election. Atomic Actions is being released for free through the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store on April 5th.

        The base for this particular campaign is located on the campuses of the  University of Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania State University. G.A. has created officially-recognized student chapters on each campus. To date, G.A. volunteers have had thousands of conversations as they went door-to-door. The signup rate for this campaign has been fifty-three percent or over half of the people canvassed.  

       The Atomic Action App is intended to replace the clipboards that are usually carried by door-to-door canvassers. The Organizing Director for G.A. said “I don’t think I have ever met someone who enjoys being talked at. People enjoy conversations, they like to be heard and they like to share what is important to them. So that’s what we do.”

       When a G.A. volunteer knocks on a door, they show the prospective supporter (subject) the screen on a smartphone. Listed on the screen will be several general topics related to nuclear power.

·      Jobs & Economy

·      Affordable Energy

·      Environment 

The volunteer allows the subject to select one of the topics that interest them. Then the volunteer and subject engage in a conversation about the topic. Finally, the volunteer sends the subject a text message that invites the subject to download the application. People who download the A.A. App can earn points by sharing information, attending meetings, contacting legislators and decision makers and, finally, by recruiting new supporters.

        The conversations have ranged over a wide variety of subjects including the economics of nuclear power, problems with nuclear waste and safety, possibilities for jobs and stimulation of local economies, and environmental issues. The conversational approach engages the subjects much better than being asked to listen to a scripted statement, read a portion of text or watch a short video clip.

       The G.A. Executive Director said “We felt like there had to be a better way than paper-and-pencil. We had both worked on campaigns where smartphones could be used as digital data collectors, but this still seemed limited. We wanted to democratize and even gamify nuclear advocacy. That’s why we developed Atomic Action.  “It’s like Pokémon Go for nuclear advocacy.”

       The volunteers also enjoy the new approach. Instead of having to repeat the same information over and over again, or stand idly by while the subject reads or watches a video, the volunteer gets to engage in a variety of conversations on different topics during the course of an afternoon of canvassing. One volunteer said, “It makes this work way less awkward.”

 

Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) has approved the restart of Global Nuclear Fuel-Japan’s (GNF-J’s) fuel fabrication plant in Yokosuka in Kanagawa Prefecture. Last month the regulator concluded the facility meets revised safety standards. world-nuclear-news.org

French utility Engie plans to transfer its 40% share in UK nuclear power plant developer NuGeneration (NuGen) to Japan’s Toshiba. NuGen, which plans to build three Westinghouse AP1000 reactors at Moorside in West Cumbria is “facing some significant challenges”, Engie said, that have led to the decision to exercise its contractual right to transfer its stake to Toshiba. world-nuclear-news.org

Ohio lawmakers will consider a bill to provide subsidies to FirstEnergy Corp to keep its two nuclear power plants operating in Ohio. Senate Bill 128 would establish zero-emission credits to subsidize the plants in the name of maintaining a mix of power sources in Ohio and supporting generation with cleaner emissions than coal. bizjournals.com

If Germany Goes Nuclear, Blame Trump Before Putin. Yes, Berlin has reason to fear the Kremlin’s aggression. But the U.S. president’s refusal to provide a security umbrella is the real problem. foreignpolicy.com

 

 

 

       The growth in the availability and use of small drones is a serious security problem for nuclear weapons facilities. In a highly publicized incident, drones invaded the airspace of a French nuclear power plant in 2015. ISIS is beginning to employ weaponized drones on battlefields in the Middle East. If a drone loaded with explosives entered the grounds of a U.S. nuclear weapons facility, it could cause serious damage. In the U.S., the Pentagon is working on the problem of securing U.S. nuclear weapons against drone attacks.

      The Pentagon has been concerned about drone surveillance or attacks for several years. Last September, General Robin Rand, head of U.S. Air Force Strategic Command said that on several occasions small drones had been seen hovering around nuclear weapons facilities. Around the same time the Secretary of Defense, Ash Carter, made a public comment about his concern over the threat of small drones near nuclear bases.

      General John Hyten, the head of the U.S. Strategic Command, has just issued new guidelines for nuclear weapons security against the threat of small drones. General John Hyten told the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday that last week he had issued orders on how forces should respond if an unidentified drone entered the airspace of any military facility such as an airbase, a submarine base or an ICBM missile field.

       General John Hyten said “I’ve signed out guidance to my forces to give them kind of parameters on how they should respond if they see a threat UAV or a surveillance UAV, and to give them specific guidance so that it — so a young Marine at Kings Bay or an Airmen at F.E. Warren doesn’t have to worry about, ‘what should I be doing when I see that?’”

       “If you watch what is happening overseas in [Syria and elsewhere] with the use of lethal UAVs and the use of UAVs for surveillance on the part of a terrorist adversary — I’m very concerned that those same kind of UAVs could be employed against our weapon storage facilities, especially on the nuclear weapon storage facilities” Hyten told the Congressional committee. 

       The exact nature of the new “guidance” is classified. Hyten’s deputy, Vice Admiral Charles Richard, told a reporter for Defense News after a speech at the  Navy League Sea Air Space conference. “The details are best not discussed in public. Gen. Hyten basically made it clear to those commanders what authorities, what they are allowed to do, and removed some level of uncertainty from that. He’s been pressing us very hard for that, and I think for very good reasons, and I’m happy we were able to finally get something to his satisfaction.”

      Unfortunately, it has been difficult to coordinate all the agencies that need to be involved to deal with possible drone incursions. With respect to the U.S. military, North American Command, Strategic Command, the Air Force and the Navy all need to be involved in dealing with the problem. Outside of the U.S. military establishment, the Federal Aviation Authority, the Department of Energy, the Department of Justice and other law enforcement agencies must be also be involved.

Civilian Drone with Camera:

China and Thailand have a signed an agreement to cooperate in the peaceful use of nuclear energy. The agreement was signed in Beijing on 29 March by Nur Bekri, director of China’s National Energy Administration (NEA), and Thai energy minister Anantaporn Kanchanarat. world-nuclear-news.org

A national poll has shown that 83% of the residents of the United Arab Emirates “highly favour” of the country’s planned use of nuclear energy as part of its electricity generation mix. The UAE’s Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (Enec), which commissioned market research company Kantar TNS to conduct the survey, said today the figure was an increase of 13% since the last poll conducted in 2013. world-nuclear-news.org

Is the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) having second thoughts about the sale of the unfinished Bellefonte Nuclear Power Plant in Jackson County, Alabama? nuclearstreet.com

Japanese conglomerate Toshiba announced Wednesday that French utility Engie had decided to back out of the Moorside project, selling its 40 percent stake in NuGen to Toshiba for $139 million. nuclearstreet.com

       India is in a difficult situation with respect to energy production. It has modest internal resources but is projecting a need to increase energy production ninety percent in the next 13 years. It does not share any borders with energy exporting countries and is thus vulnerable to possible interference with energy delivery depending on geopolitical problems in its neighborhood.

      Under the Paris Accords, India has committed to reduce carbon emissions by a third by 2050. It also committed to getting at least forty percent of its energy from non-fossil fuel sources. These commitments may cause problems with India’s demand for water. Attempts at “clean” coal energy production and nuclear power demand huge quantities of water. Even alternative sources like solar-thermal and geothermal are water intensive. Only solar-photovoltaic and wind are light in water consumption.

      India is offering incentives to stimulate more renewables in its energy mix but renewables are intermittent. Hydro and nuclear power can supply steady base load power but there is strong public resistance to both. Wind power currently produces more power in India than nuclear power. Although India is committed to producing at least twelve percent of its power from nuclear by 2030, many think that this is unrealistic.

      The global nuclear energy industry has serious problems. Increasing costs of construction, major delays in construction schedules, expensive modification required by post-Fukushima safety upgrades and heavy government subsidies make new nuclear plants uncompetitive in the current energy market of cheap natural gas and oil.

       Another problem for nuclear power is that fact that some major companies that have been contracting to build nuclear power reactors have been facing severe financial problems. Areva in France is having trouble meeting commitments and will need five billion dollars from the French government to survive. Westinghouse in the U.S. has cost its parent company, Toshiba, over six billion dollars and it has just declared bankruptcy. Toshiba is getting out of the reactor construction business which is leaving the completion of projects in India and Britain in doubt.

       A third problem for nuclear power in India specifically is serious grass-roots resistance to new builds.  This resistance caused major delays in commissioning the Kudankulam project and forced the relocation of the first planned Westinghouse project from Gujarat to Andhra Pradesh.

       I have blogged before about problems that India was having obtaining nuclear technology because it had not signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. It also had severe penalties for industrial accidents that scared off prospective investors and suppliers for nuclear projects. In 2005, India signed a deal with the U.S. that was supposed to ameliorate these problems and has been working on changing specific features in its laws on industrial insurance. India publicly announced a major move into nuclear power as a result of the changes.

       In 2006, Toshiba purchased Westinghouse nuclear division partly in anticipation of the expanding market for power reactors in India. Now, ten years later, the global market for nuclear has cooled and Toshiba is getting out of the reactor business. India has never signed any nuclear power project based on the projections and enthusiasm of 2005.

      Perhaps these problems that have prevented a bold expansion of nuclear power in India have been of benefit to India. Considering that Areva’s reactor project in Finland is behind schedule and over budget and Toshiba’s Westinghouse projects are in serious trouble, India’s ratepayers may have escaped being stuck for soaring costs for their own new nuclear reactors by the problems India is having in financing and building new nuclear power reactors.

Kudankulam nuclear power reactor:

Horizon Nuclear Power announced today it has applied for a nuclear site licence for the proposed development of Wylfa Newydd nuclear power plant in North Wales. Established in 2009 and acquired by Hitachi in November 2012, Horizon plans to deploy the UK Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (UK ABWR) at two sites – Wylfa Newydd, which is on the Isle of Anglesey, and Oldbury-on-Severn, in South Gloucestershire. world-nuclear-news.org

A joint delegation from the European Union and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has held talks with the government of Kyrgyzstan on addressing the environmental legacy of uranium mining in Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan formed an important uranium-producing region in the former Soviet Union, and more than 9000 tonnes of uranium were produced in Kyrgyzstan’s Mailuu-Suu district between 1946 and 1967, and the Kara Balta Mining Combine was set up in the 1950s to mine and process ore near Bishkek. Uranium mining had ceased by the mid-1990s, leaving large accumulations of radioactive contaminated material in waste dumps and tailing sites. Very little remediation work has been done at these sites.  world-nuclear-news.org

Much attention of late has rightly been paid to Donald Trump’s first budget proposal, which would, among other things, gut federal funding for the arts and public television, cripple the State Department and decimate funding for the EPA, Planned Parenthood, and regulatory oversight agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission. thenation.com

Jeff Baldock defends the decision to formally nominate his land in Kimba, South Australia, as a site for the federal government’s national radioactive waste management facility. It would serve as a repository for intermediate-level waste from the Lucas Heights nuclear site in New South Wales and low-level waste from across Australia. theguardian.com