Eight small businesses have been chosen to receive a share of a $2 million pilot project to help them access the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) nuclear energy-related knowledge and capabilities under the department’s Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) initiative. world-nuclear-news.org

The retrieval of mixed waste from the underground chambers at the decommissioned Berkeley nuclear power plant in the UK is progressing. Clearance of these vaults will enable the two Magnox units to enter a period of long-term passive storage. world-nuclear-news.org

U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz has announced $82 million for nuclear energy projects in 28 states as part of the government’s plan to reduce carbon emissions. abcnews.go.com

Environmental groups in New Jersey lost their bid to force PSEG Nuclear to build two expensive cooling towers for the company’s Salem Unit 1 and Unit 2 reactors in Hancocks Bridge, N.J., as the state’s department of environmental protection granted the company a five-year permit to continue with their current open-loop cooling system that draws 3 billion gallons of water per day from the Delaware River. nuclearstreet.com

 

         There have been a lot of stories in the press lately about increasing tensions between nuclear armed nations and the need for nuclear disarmament. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) is a think-tank that is partially funded by the Swedish government. It was created in 1996 to focus on global security, arms control and disarmament. It just issued its annual report on the status of the world’s nuclear arsenals. This report presents the current status of the nuclear weapons possessed by the nine nations currently recognized to have nuclear fission and nuclear fusion weapons.

         The following numbers are estimates of the major nuclear warheads possessed by each nation. Russia has seven thousand and three hundred. The United States has seven thousand. France has three hundred, China has two hundred and sixty, United Kingdom has two hundred and fifteen, Pakistan has one hundred and thirty, India has one hundred and twenty, Israel has eighty and North Korea may have up to ten. The total number of warheads is thought to have fallen by about four hundred since last year. About four thousand warheads are currently on missiles or at bases with operations forces and ready for immediate launch. These warheads are possessed by the U.S., Russia, Britain and France. At the height of the Cold War, there were about seventy thousand nuclear warheads in the world.

       Although the number of warheads has dropped sharply since the Cold War because of severe reduction in U.S. and Russia nuclear arsenals, both countries are in the process of modernizing their nuclear forces with the U.S. committed to spend up to one trillion dollars in the next thirty years. China, India and Pakistan have announced plans for new delivery systems. North Korea claims to have created warheads that are compact enough to be fitted on a missile but that cannot be verified.

       The U.S. and Russia have committed to deploying a maximum of one thousand, five hundred and fifty nuclear warheads as required by the 2010 START treaty but they have yet to fully comply with that goal. Many skeptics say that they doubt that the world’s nuclear armed nations, especially the U.S. and Russia would ever give up all their nuclear warheads. In any case, regardless of what any nation claimed, it would be just about impossible to verify the absence of nuclear weapons.

       Russia has been threatening to use tactical nuclear devices in eastern Europe against NATO ground forces in a future conflict. Pakistan is deploying tactical nuclear weapons to its border with India for use against Indian ground forces. The U.S. is working on a nuclear bomb that has variable yield and much greater accuracy. China is considering deploying nuclear missile subs in the South China Sea because of territorial disputes. The U.S. is deploying antimissile batteries in eastern Europe and South Korea which is destabilizing the situations there. The possibility of all out nuclear war is increasing. 

        SIPRI Nuclear Weapons Project head and study co-author Shannon Kile commented that “Despite the ongoing reduction in the number of weapons, the prospects for genuine progress towards nuclear disarmament remain gloomy. All the nuclear weapon-possessing states continue to prioritize nuclear deterrence as the cornerstone of their national security strategies.”

In preparation for the installation of a fuel removal machine and a protective cover over unit 3 of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan, workers have carried out a practice run of installing roof modules onto the base of the fuel handling machine. world-nuclear-news.org

The construction of the United Arab Emirates’ first nuclear power plant has seen 14,000 Emirati companies share contracts worth a total of over $3 billion over the past six years, benefitting the economy and stimulating the growth of heavy industry in the country, the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (Enec) announced today. world-nuclear-news.org

India’s American-backed bid to join the prestigious Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) has once again isolated Pakistan in South Asia. bbc.com

Ghana on Monday sought India’s cooperation in civil nuclear energy in an attempt to harness clean and sustainable energy to shift its energy mix which is at present focused on traditional energy sources. firstpost.com

 

Japan needs to review its current method for screening nuclear plant safety, seismologist and former senior regulator Kunihiko Shimazaki said in a recent interview. japantimes.co.jp

In tests to determine if the northern Marshall Islands are safe for resettlement after nuclear testing nearly 70 years ago, scientists discovered that the areas are worse off than previously thought. gizmodo.com

Sweden has thrown its weight behind the stuttering revival of nuclear power in Europe, saying it could build up to 10 new reactors in the coming years. ft.com

A federal court in Tennessee is the site of what could be described as a nuclear legal experiment. The test subject is Szuhsiung “Allen” Ho, a nuclear engineer accused of engaging in a nuclear power conspiracy. blogs.wsj.com

 

 

 

A two-day meeting in Vienna of the Nuclear Suppliers Group to decide on India’s application for membership to the 48-nation club ended on Friday without a breakthrough. ndtv.com

A new international radiation monitoring information system launched by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will collect and display data to help countries respond rapidly in nuclear or radiological emergencies. world-nuclear-news.org

The Swedish parliament has today agreed to abolish a tax on nuclear power as it recognizes nuclear’s role in helping it to eventually achieve a goal of 100% renewable generation. world-nuclear-news.org

Ur-Energy said Wednesday that it would cut its workforce at three locations in Wyoming and re-assign staff as a response to depressed uranium market conditions. nuclearstreet.com

        The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency began operating in December of 1970. It was created by the Nixon administration to protect human health and the environment. It writes and enforces regulations that are passed by the U.S. Congress. The Agency has established standards for acceptable levels of pollutants in water and air including acceptable levels of radioactive contamination.

        The EPA just issued proposed Protective Action Guides to allow a great increase in acceptable levels of radioactive contamination during nuclear disasters. The new upper limits are far above the current allowable level in the Safe Drinking Water Act. The new PAGs would permit the general population to drink water up to thousands of times more radioactive than the current standards allow.

         Currently, the acceptable limit for iodine-131 in drinking water is three pico-curies per liter (pCi/L). The new guidelines would allow over ten thousand pCi/L). This is an increase of over thirty thousand percent! The current limit for stontium-90 is 8 pCi/l. The new guidelines would allow over seven thousand pCi/l which is an increase of over eighty seven thousand percent.

       Critics are outraged that the EPA would propose such radical increases of acceptable radioactive contamination that would pose a huge health risk to the public. The current model of the health impact of radioactive materials is based on the linear no-threshold theory. This theory states that there is absolutely no safe level of radioactive exposure and the threat rises linearly as the level of radioactive exposure rises. Exposure to radioactive materials can result in a number for serious health problems include many forms of cancer that can take years to manifest.

       The proposed PAGs would be applicable to any release of radioactive materials such as detonation of a nuclear bomb, detonation of a dirty bomb, accidental or deliberate release of radioactive materials from a nuclear power plant, a spill of radioactive materials during transport or many other extraordinary occurrences. If any of these events happened, the PAGs would not be immediately applied. Following the stabilization of the level of radioactive contamination caused by the incident, the PAGs would be invoked and could supersede the SWA for up to several years. Critics of the proposed PAGs point out that recent research has shown that exposure to radioactive materials is even more dangerous than previously thought. They say the EPA should be tightening the limits for radioactive contamination, not loosening them.

         The EPA under the George W. Bush administration made an attempt to raise radioactive contamination levels but failed to get them approved. When the Obama administration came it, the call for new higher contamination levels was withdrawn. Now in the last months of the Obama administration, the EPA is once again lobbying for a lowering of standard for water contamination. The new proposals are even worse than the proposals from the Bush EPA. There will be a forty five day period for public comment during which people can express their concerns about the proposed PAGs.