A convoy of trucks carrying nuclear weapons was passing through Stirling, Scotland at around 5pm on Thursday when two activists staged their protest and stopped the convoy. scotsman.com

Colin Powell leaked emails: Israel has ‘200 nukes all pointed at Iran’, former US secretary of state says. independent.co.uk

The US Navy is test-firing and upgrading its arsenal of Trident II D5 nuclear-armed submarine launched missiles designed to keep international peace — by ensuring and undersea-fired second-strike ability in the event of a catastrophic nuclear first strike on the US. nationalinterest.org

Final decision on nuclear waste repository in South Australia could be years away. adelaidnow.com.au

 

 

Pakistan, estimated to have the world’s fastest-growing nuclear stockpile+ , could be building a new uranium enrichment complex according to commercial satellite imagery analyzed by Western defense experts. timesofindia.indiatimes.com

North Korea’s foreign minister said his country is prepared to respond to military provocations from the United States. upi.com

 A massive nuclear tender in South Africa is open to all bidders prepared to manufacture locally and share technology, and Russia is not the frontrunner, the head of the country’s nuclear agency said. iol.co.za

The European Union is demanding that Iran share with the United Nations atomic agency full details of its manufacture of parts for machines that could be used to make the core of nuclear arms, in a statement reflecting its concern over the sensitive issue. timesofisrael.com

 

       Most nuclear fission power plants use enriched uranium for fuel. Natural uranium is common but it only has about seven tenths of a percent of U-235 which is the isotope needed for nuclear power reactors. There are a few reactors that burn a combination of uranium and plutonium. There are reactors that can burn nuclear waste as a fuel. Breeder reactors can actually produce more fissionable materials than they consume and those reaction products can be used as fuel for other reactors. There have been efforts for decades to develop fission reactors that could burn the element thorium which is also quite common. While there are several options for fueling nuclear power reactors, uranium ore is still the major source for nuclear fuel.

         The world production of uranium has fluctuated in the past few years as the demand and price have gone up and down because of issues in the nuclear industry such as the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan in 2011, cheap natural gas and oil and reduced demand for electricity.

        The period from 1987 to 2007 has been called the “coma” years for uranium production characterized by low prices, stagnant demand and big stockpiles. The next ten years saw a “renaissance” for the uranium market when prices stayed at thirty dollars a pound, demand was expected to rise substantially and investors were interested. Since 2014, the market has cooled off again. Investment is down and mines are being closed or mothballed. Unlike the coma years, reactors are being built, current demand is rising and estimates for future demand are rising. Stockpiles are declining and no new exploration is being carried out.

        The shutdown of all fifty of Japan’s nuclear reactors following the Fukushima disaster was the biggest hit the uranium market took recently. Germany’s decision to close all it nuclear power plants also had an impact. And, the recent and planned closure of non-competitive nuclear power plants in the U.S. has hurt uranium sales.

        Unfortunately, current production cannot be maintained at the present price for uranium. Many long term contracts for uranium are running out in 2017 and 2018. It appears that many operating mines will close in the next few years. The market demand may be rising but it takes from five to ten years to get a new mine up and operating. This means that uranium production will probably fall behind demand in the coming decade. Unless the price of uranium can rise to fifty dollars a pound production will continue to lag demand significantly.

       Analysts say that the near term market will be difficult for producers. The softening of the market for uranium and the big stockpiles have put the buyers in the driver’s seat. The way in which long term contracts are negotiated has changed and not to the benefit of the producers.

       The market for uranium will continue to be volatile and uncertain in the near terms. Lower production of nuclear fuel in the face of rising demand will also make investment in new nuclear power plants less attractive since price increases for fuel will make new plants less competitive in the energy market.

McArthur River Mine in Canada is the world’s biggest uranium mine:

 

        

Iran is ready to share its nuclear experience with other nations in the Persian Gulf through a regional nuclear scientific contact group, Atomic Energy Organization of Iran president Ali Akbar Salehi told the World Nuclear Association’s Annual Symposium today. world-nuclear-news.org

Among the first companies to announce orders following the British government’s approval of the Hinkley Point C project is General Electric, which told Reuters that it would receive $1.9 billion through a contract to supply utility Electricity de France with major components for the two reactors, which are expected to cost close to $24 billion. nuclearstreet.com

More than 6,000 workers cycle through the world’s biggest nuclear plant every day to operate and maintain a facility that hasn’t sold a kilowatt of electricity in more than four years. chicagotribune.com

Iran has fully complied with its commitments under last year’s landmark nuclear agreement, but eight months after the official removal of sanctions, the west is failing to deliver on its promises, the country’s vice president has told the Guardian. theguardian.com

 

 

       North Korea has been in the news a lot because they are testing nuclear weapons and threatening other countries with nuclear annihilation. Following N.K.’s fifth recent nuclear test, the U.S. President gave three reasons that the U.S. will never accept N.K. becoming a nuclear armed nation. (This seems a bit late because N.K. already has a few atomic bombs and could deliver them to South Korea via truck or boat so I guess Obama means nuclear armed missiles that could hit other countries.)  

       The first reason that Obama gave had to do with the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. N.K. signed the treaty in 1985 but withdrew in 2003. The U.S. is concerned that the N.K. withdrawal sets a dangerous precedent that might be followed by other nations which decide to pursue the acquisition of nuclear weapons. If one country withdrew, hostile neighbors might be tempted to withdraw as well and trigger a nuclear arms race in the region.

        The second reason that Obama gave involved the threat to S.K. posed by N.K. nuclear weapons. S.K. is much stronger than N.K. with respect to conventional weapons. The only advantage N.K. has is its nuclear capability. N.K. has repeatedly threatened to attack S.K. with nuclear weapons. Short of actual nuclear attacks, N.K. could attempt to blackmail S.K. with threatened attacks. In the interest of nuclear non-proliferation, the U.S. says that it will respond to any nuclear attack on S.K. with U.S. nuclear weapons. This relieves S.K. of the necessity to develop its own nuclear weapons. The U.S. has already placed anti-missile system in S.K. to protect against N.K. missiles with conventional or nuclear warheads. If N.K. does develop a robust nuclear strike capability, it would make it much more complicated for the U.S. to deliver on its commitment to protect S.K.

      The third reason given by Obama is related to the political system in N.K. Power is consolidated in the hands of a small group with the dictator being the ultimate decision maker. If the current dictator, Kim Jon-un decided to launch a nuclear attack on another country, there would be little in the form of internal political checks and balances to persuade him not to. This concentration the power to use nuclear weapons in the hands of a single individual who may be psychologically unstable would be very destabilizing to Eastern Asia and there is little the U.S. can do about it.

        While it is all very good and well for the U.S. President to make grand pronouncements about what the U.S. will and will not accept in terms of the military capabilities of hostile nations such as N.K., the real question is what the U.S. could do to stop N.K. from achieving its ambitions. Israel once bombed a nuclear weapons facility in Iraq to prevent an enemy from gaining nuclear weapons capability. They have been threatening to do the same thing to Iran recently. Is the U.S. prepared to carry out such a strike on N.K. weapons facilities? Such an attack might be successful in destroying the ability of N.K. to make more weapons but it already has nuclear bombs that might be detonated in nearby nations if the U.S. did launch a preemptive strike on N.K. If the U.S. does nothing, N.K. will build more nuclear bombs and continue to work on miniaturizing them to put on missiles. If the U.S. attacks N.K., N.K. may detonate the bombs it has. Looks like a case of damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Let us hope that peaceful negotiations can persuade N.K. to give up its military ambitions.

Map of North Korea:

The government of the United Kingdom has approved the  £18bn Hinkley Point C nuclear power project after imposing “significant new safeguards” to protect national security. bbc.com

The completed, but never commissioned Bataan nuclear power plant n the Philippines could have an unlikely new sponsor, Slovenia, which is reportedly poised to assist in the rehabilitation and commissioning of the plant where construction was completed in 1984, two years prior to the Chernobyl disaster. nuclearstreet.com

Unilateral sanctions will not help resolve issues on the Korean Peninsula, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his Japanese counterpart over the phone in the aftermath of a fresh round of nuclear testing in North Korea last week. cnbc.com

Scientists expect one of Japan’s most active volcanoes to erupt within the next 25 years. The Sakurajima volcano is situated on Kyushu Island, a mere 49 km away from the Sendai nuclear power plant. rt.com