Robot probes sent to one of Japan’s wrecked Fukushima nuclear reactors have suggested worse-than-anticipated challenges for the plant’s ongoing cleanup. cbsnews.com

Panelists Weigh Nuclear Waste Solution Post-Obama. rtoinsider.com

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called here on Sunday at the 53rd Munich Security Conference for the abolition of nuclear weapons worldwide. english.cctv.com

U.S. Air Force deploys WC-135 nuclear sniffer aircraft to UK as spike of radioactive Iodine levels is detected in Europe. theaviationist.com

 

 

The Trump administration’s arrival has forced the U.S. nuclear industry to revise its climate-based pitch for government assistance for at-risk reactors. sciencemag.org

Republicans on Thursday introduced bills that would take steps to hold Russia in compliance with a nuclear arms treaty formed with the U.S. in 1987. pbs.org

On August 1, 2016, the New York Public Service Commission (“PSC”) adopted a sweeping energy bill, the Clean Energy Standard Order, with the goals of combating climate change and ensuring a diverse and reliable low-carbon energy supply. One provision implements a nuclear-specific zero-emissions credits (“ZEC”) program that is intended to prevent the premature retirement of three of New York’s nuclear power plants. Nuclear power plants generate zero carbon emissions. mondaq.com

Australia will boycott global negotiations on a treaty to ban nuclear weapons at the United Nations next month. theguardian.com

       As nuclear power plants age, they are subjected to “cracking, fatigue, embrittlement of metal components, wear, erosion, corrosion and oxidation.” Embrittlement is a is the formation of cracks in the steel components over time as they are bombarded by neutrons. This creates tiny holes inside the crystal matrix of the steel. These tiny holes combine to form bigger and bigger holes that eventually become visible cracks. It is a major problem at nuclear power plants. As more and more cracks develop from damage to the crystal matrix, the steel becomes increasingly brittle and the danger of leak developing or a component actually breaking increases. Cracks in the steel containment vessel that encloses the core could lead to a breach of containment and a serious release of radioactive materials.

        Regular inspections of steel components are necessary but such inspections are subjective, boring, and time consuming. In addition, many of the components are submerged in water and are too dangerous for human inspection because they are radioactive. Robots with video cameras can be sent to do the inspections but the underwater conditions make visual inspection of the video images by human operators difficult. Recent analysis of the accuracy of direct human inspection and human inspection of videos recorded by robots are not sufficient to satisfy modern safety requirements.

       Automated systems are being developed to carry out these inspections but they have had problems because cracks are often small, have low visual contrast, and are similar in appearance to welds, scratches and grind marks. The Lyles School of Civil Engineering at Purdue University has recently created an advanced automated inspection system for cracks in nuclear components. Their new system is superior to previous systems in the identification of such cracks. The new system is called CRAQ which stands for “crack recognition and quantification”. They used machine learning to develop an advanced algorithm that uses the changing visual texture around cracks to identify them.

       Previous automatic inspection systems were only able to process single images. The new CRAQ system can process multiple video frames for better results. They are using Bayesian data fusion that combines data from multiple video frames to enhance crack detection. The Bayesian approach allows the system to excel at determining whether a particular visual feature is actually a crack or some other type of marking such as a weld or scratch. The system outlines detected visual features with a box on the screen so a human operator can easily find them. The color of the box is a measure of the confidence of the algorithm with a red box indicating the highest confidence for the presence of a crack.

        Future work will involve developing a completely automated system that utilizes computational software and advanced simulations. The second version of the software will utilize Constitutional Neural Networks and “deep learning” to improve performance. This type of artificial intelligence has been found to be particularly good at developing sophisticated visual recognition systems. 

 

Nuclear energy’s share of Ukraine’s electricity mix is “rapidly approaching” 60%, President Petro Poroshenko said at a meeting of the country’s National Security and Defence Council yesterday, according to a statement on the presidential website. The president did not give a date by which the increase would be achieved. world-nuclear-news.org

The European Union and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) agreed to strengthen their cooperation in a range of nuclear activities, including nuclear science applications, during a meeting in Brussels this week. world-nuclear-news.org

Energy Fuels Inc., said Friday that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had issued the company an aquifer exemption for the Jane Dough wellfield in the Nichols Ranch ISR Project , a necessary regulatory step for the company to sustain long term production at the in situ recovery facility in northeast central Wyoming. nuclearstreet.com

Toshiba’s dramatic exit from the business of building nuclear power plants lands another blow to a beleaguered sector, undermining new development and research on advanced reactor designs. technologyreview.com

 

       Sellafield is a nuclear fuel reprocessing and nuclear decommissioning site, is northwest of London on the Irish Sea. A great deal of the development and manufacture of U.K. nuclear weapons took place there from the 1950s on. Hundreds of tons of radioactive waste were stored in huge cooling pools and ignored as the facilities deteriorated.

       The U.K. government is finally dedicating two and a half billion dollars a year to cleaning up this horribly polluted site before disaster strikes and releases radioactive contamination across the countryside. The radiation is so intense that it is dangerous for human beings to work on the cleanup. The U.K. is turning to robotics for help in the cleanup and Sellafield has become a major research and development center for robots dedicated to working in highly radioactive environments.

        Small robots from several different companies are currently working at Sellafield. They scoop up sludge and other debris from the bottom of the cooling pools and place it in steel containers for disposal. Thousands of pieces of radioactive debris have been removed by the little robots.

        Forth Robotics is working on a six hundred and fifty thousand dollar robot at Sellafield. The robot has six legs and is about the size of a coffee table. Sensors and cameras are attached to the exterior so the robot can keep track of its environment and movements. There are magnets on the feet of the robot that will allow it to climb up walls. The robot has a giant pincher on the front like the claw of a crab. The pincher will allow the robot to grab pieces of contaminated material and break them up for disposal. There will be groups of these robots working on cleanup. Onboard artificial intelligence will allow the robots to communication with each other and make their own decisions without the need for constant human control.

       Forth has constructed a working prototype but actual production models are at least eighteen months away. The robots will have to be permanently plugged into a power source and they will have to trail a power cord behind them. Human operators will have to monitor operations and give permission for the robots to carry out delicate operations such as moving a nuclear fuel rod. It is not yet known how well the robots will be able to withstand the intense radiation of their working environments. Once sent into a highly radioactive environment, they will not be able to be recovered and used elsewhere.

       A company called Createc is working on drones at Sellafield. They have developed a quadcopter drone that can fly around in restricted spaces. The drones carry “cameras, air-pressure sensors, gyrometers, accelerometers, and other measuring tools that stream back 3D maps to aid in locating radioactive material.” Createc is also working on the cleanup of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

       The head of robotic and autonomous systems development at Sellafield says that technological advances in the next decades will equip robots with more power artificial intelligence that will allow them to “improvise within unpredictable environments”.

The shipment of transuranic wastes from generator sites to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico is set to resume in April. The US Department of Energy (DoE) expects a total of 128 shipments to be made to WIPP over the next 12 months. world-nuclear-news.org

The landmark law in Illinois that provides support for the Quad Cities and Clinton nuclear power plants –both of them owned by Exelon Corporation – may be decided in a court battle, as fossil-fuel based power generators have filed a lawsuit claiming the law skews the purpose of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s energy market auctions. nuclearstreet.com

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah called on Israel to dismantle its nuclear reactor in Dimona on Thursday, warning that it poses a threat to Israel’s existence should it be hit by one of Hezbollah’s missiles. jpost.com

 Japanese conglomerate Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has ruled out rescuing Toshiba’s stricken nuclear reactor business, warning there are too many differences between their respective technologies to make a tie-up possible. ft.com