South African power provider Eskom has proposed building a nuclear power station on a site that may be at risk of surge storms and tsunamis, a geological report suggests, but the state-owned utility disputes the findings. voanews.com

A multi-disciplinary US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) team has begun a ‘top-to-bottom’ review at Entergy’s Pilgrim nuclear power plant. The review will take a total of three weeks and is the third and largest NRC inspection conducted as part of the regulator’s heightened scrutiny of the Massachusetts plant. world-nuclear-news.org

The excavation of an underground used nuclear fuel final disposal facility at Olkiluoto, Finland, is set to begin next month. Last week the country’s Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (Stuk) declared waste management company Posiva to be in a position to start construction of the repository. world-nuclear-news.org

Japan’s government estimates the cost of cleaning up radioactive contamination and compensating victims of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster has more than doubled, reports say. The latest estimate from the trade ministry put the expected cost at some 20 trillion yen ($180bn, £142bn). bbc.com

 

 

 

 

 

       As I have said many times on this blog, nuclear waste is a terrible problem. There are millions of tons of nuclear waste around the globe. It will either have to be buried in the geological repositories under construction or recycled into new nuclear fuel. There are schemes to build special nuclear reactors that can directly burn nuclear waste. There are other projects to find ways to utilize it such as creating batteries that draw power directly from nuclear waste. There has been a recent breakthrough in England regarding nuclear waste batteries.

        Most electricity generated from nuclear power uses turbines to move magnets through coils of copper wire to generate a current. The turbines are spun by steam generated from the heat produced in the core of the nuclear reactor. Nuclear power reactors are the most complex and expensive ways to boil water that has been invented by the human race.

       The Cabot Institute at the University of Bristol in England is the U.K.’s first cross-disciplinary research institute. A group of researchers there has announced the creation of a man-made diamond that can produce electricity when it is placed near radioactive material.

       Tom Scott is a member of the Cabot Institute from the University’s Interface Analysis center who is working on the project. He said, “There are no moving parts involved, no emissions generated and no maintenance required, just direct electricity generation. By encapsulating radioactive material inside diamonds, we turn a long-term problem of nuclear waste into a nuclear-powered battery and a long-term supply of clean energy.”

      The original experiment that showed proof of principle for utilizing a radioactive material to directly generate electricity employed the radioactive isotope nickel-63. The team is currently working on using carbon-14, a radioactive isotope that is created in nuclear reactors as carbon graphite moderators are bombarded with neutrons. Since this is a common byproduct of nuclear power generation, it would make sense to focus on the use of this particular isotope. There are currently almost a hundred thousand tons of used graphite blocks in the U.K. Extracting the carbon-14 would yield fuel for the new nuclear batteries and would reduce the radioactivity of the used graphite blocks making disposal easier.

       Carbon-14 emits short range radiation which makes it dangerous as far as inhalation or ingestion is concerned but also makes it an excellent choice for use in nuclear batteries. Embedding it in artificial diamond would trap its radioactive emissions. The new batteries being developed at the Cabot Institute have relatively low power when compared to current general use batteries but the use of carbon-14 will make them very long-lived.

         A carbon-14 battery would take over five thousand years to reach half-power. This would make the new batteries ideal for remote locations and space missions where there is need for longevity with no necessity or capability for maintenance. One possible application for such batteries would be warning lights and signs at nuclear waste repositories that could function independently for thousands of years.

Extending U.S. sanctions on Iran for 10 years would breach the Iranian nuclear agreement, Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei said on Wednesday, warning that Tehran would retaliate if the sanctions are approved. ca.news.yahoo.com

South African utility Eskom will stick with its plan to invite this year applications from companies interested in building new nuclear plants. This is despite the government’s newly announced aim to increase the country’s nuclear capacity by 1359 MWe by 2037 – less and over a longer timeframe than the previously announced target. world-nuclear-news.org

New York State’s Court of Appeals has ruled that part of Entergy’s application to renew the operating licenses for the Indian Point nuclear plant must be reviewed at the state level. The New York State Department of State (NYSDOS) has already concluded that the application is inconsistent with its coastal management requirements. world-nuclear-news.org

Spanish nuclear regulators have approved new post-Fukushima design modifications at the country’s nuclear power plants, including final approvals for emergency management centers. world-nuclear-news.org

Switzerland votes in a referendum on Sunday on whether to make a speedy withdrawal from atomic energy production, a move that would reduce nuclear risks but raise reliance on fossil fuels from Germany or imported nuclear power from France. reuters.com

The South African government’s decision to stall plans championed by President Jacob Zuma to build nuclear plants has exposed his waning authority. mg.ca.za

China’s linkage of cooperation on North Korea to U.S. trade issues would be close to using the nuclear weapons of a proxy country to blackmail the United States. forbes.com

India’s target to rapidly step up nuclear power capacity may be stumbling because many suppliers have not been paid. The Government is now trying to borrow from state-owned companies to complete the projects. sputniknews.com

 

Extending U.S. sanctions on Iran for 10 years would breach the Iranian nuclear agreement, Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei said on Wednesday, warning that Tehran would retaliate if the sanctions are approved. ca.news.yahoo.com

South African utility Eskom will stick with its plan to invite this year applications from companies interested in building new nuclear plants. This is despite the government’s newly announced aim to increase the country’s nuclear capacity by 1359 MWe by 2037 – less and over a longer timeframe than the previously announced target. world-nuclear-news.org

New York State’s Court of Appeals has ruled that part of Entergy’s application to renew the operating licenses for the Indian Point nuclear plant must be reviewed at the state level. The New York State Department of State (NYSDOS) has already concluded that the application is inconsistent with its coastal management requirements. world-nuclear-news.org

Spanish nuclear regulators have approved new post-Fukushima design modifications at the country’s nuclear power plants, including final approvals for emergency management centers.

       I have blogged about the U.K. nuclear program in the past. The most recent such blogs have mostly been about the big Hinkley Point C project. The European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM) was created by a treaty signed in 1957. It forms the basis for regulation of the peaceful use of nuclear energy in the European Union. A major current question confronting the U.K. is what effect the “Brexit” vote to leave the European Union will have on the U.K. nuclear program. EURATOM membership is not the same as E.U. membership but it has the same process for withdrawal as the E.U. and it is assumed that the U.K. will also leave the EURATOM.

       It is possible that the U.K. could choose to stay in the EURATOM after leaving the E.U. If the U.K. stays in the EURATOM, it will participate in the framework for bilateral nuclear cooperation with the other 27 E.U. members who are also members of the EURATOM. In addition to access to E.U. members, the EURATOM would also provide the basis for bilateral nuclear cooperation with Australia, Argentina, Canada, Japan, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Ukraine, the United States, and Uzbekistan. The EURATOM also provides the basis for a consistent approach to dealing with radiation safety and nuclear waste management for its members.

        A lot of the U.K. nuclear commerce is conducted through the EURATOM. Leaving the EURATOM could interfere with U.K. trade in fissile materials and reactor components. The U.K. would have to negotiate separate bilateral agreements with nuclear trading partners which could take years to accomplish. In order to continue uninterrupted nuclear trade, the U.K. would need to remain in the EURATOM until new bilateral agreements had been forged.

       While the regulatory framework of the EURATOM provides numerous benefits to the U.K. nuclear industry, that sort of external regulation by the E.U. was one of the motivating factors for those who voted to leave the E.U. If the U.K. chooses to stay in the EURATOM, its nuclear trade will be regulated by the Euratom Supply Agency (ESA) which was created for that specific purpose. Any country in the E.U. who wants to buy or sell fissile materials for use in a nuclear power plant must first get its contract approved by the ESA. The control of the ESA over fissile materials amounts to ownership of all members’ fissile materials that are traded to other countries. The countries buy the right to use the fissile materials as fuel in power reactors but they do not buy ownership. And, finally, leaving the EURATOM could result in delays or even cancellations of projects involving other EURATOM members. This would be to the benefit of countries such as China which have independent bilateral agreements with the U.K. but it would certainly disrupt the global nuclear market.

      Taking all this into consideration, it would be best for the U.K. to delay withdrawal from the EURATOM until well after its withdrawal from the E.U. so as to insure a stable transition from EURATOM regulation and trade frameworks to other arrangements.