North Korea appears to have reopened a plant that produces plutonium for its atomic weapons drive, the UN nuclear watchdog has said. the guardian.com

A shipment of plutonium and highly enriched uranium from Japan Atomic Energy Agency’s (JAEA) Fast Critical Assembly reactor has arrived at two US Department of Energy sites. Japan and the USA announced their commitment to remove the material at 2014 and 2016 nuclear summits. world-nuclear-news.org

The Watts Bar Unit 2 reactor near Knoxville, Tennessee shut down early Sunday afternoon two days after it was connected to the grid as start up testing ran into a glitch in the turbine control systems, according to reports. nuclearstreet.com

Premier Lin Chuan was pressed Tuesday on the fate of the First Nuclear Power Plant and the government’s promise of a “nuclear-free homeland” by 2025, a day after the Cabinet indicated the plant could remain in operation. chinapost.com.tw

 

 

         Much has been written and said about the need for international security for nuclear weapons, nuclear reactors, stockpiles of nuclear materials and nuclear waste. There are international treaties and institutions dedicated to global nuclear security. There are some trouble areas in the world that need special attention to deal with nuclear security. The area south of Poland and north of Greece has seen horrible turbulence in the past few decades. There have been civil wars, NATO interventions, attempted genocides, national breakups and the effects of the disintegration of the Soviet Union to unsettle the area.

         I have already written about the fact that Moldova in is a hotbed of smuggling for nuclear materials. National law enforcement and U.S. agents have broken up attempts by terrorists from the Middle East to obtain nuclear materials but there is no way to know if other unknown attempts have been successful.  

         A great deal of nuclear smuggling has occurred on the Armenian-Georgian border through the unstable and unmonitored areas of South Ossetia which is controlled by separatists. Many Armenians have been caught smuggling nuclear materials suitable for use in building nuclear weapons such as uranium-235 which is highly radioactive and used in making bomb. Other nuclear materials such as cesium have been intercepted which could be used to make dirty bombs.

       Armenia shares a border with Iran. Iran has been an international pariah for years because of fears that it is developing nuclear weapons. There have been severe trade sanctions against Iran to prevent it from getting nuclear technologies and nuclear materials. There has been a great deal of truck traffic going from Armenia into Iran for years and there are fears that Iran might have obtained U-235 from foreign sources via that route.

      Armenia has been closely allied with Russia since the breakup of the Soviet Union. Armenia looks to Russia for international security. There have been reports that some of the nuclear materials that were smuggled into Armenia via South Ossetia were traced back to Russia nuclear facilities. Russia supplied fuel for the Metsamor nuclear power reactor which is the only nuclear power plant in Armenia. The question is whether or not the Russia government has also sanctioned illegal shipments of nuclear materials to Armenia.

       There are reports that Armenia has been working on a clandestine nuclear program. The International Atomic Energy Agency has documented Armenia’s illegal acquisition of nuclear materials beginning in 1999.  In April of 2016, a former Prime Minister of Armenia announced that Armenia has “nuclear capabilities and the means to further develop them.” Armenia has uneasy relations with its neighbors, Turkey and Azerbaijan and may feel that it must have nuclear weapons in order to deter their potential future aggression. Turkey, of course, denies that Armenia needs such weapons but points out that it is more powerful militarily than Armenia which does nothing to dispel Armenian concern.

       In addition to concerns about a secret Armenian program to obtain nuclear materials there are also serious international concerns about the safety of the Metsamor nuclear power reactor. The reactor is very old and lacks proper safeguards and safety mechanisms. The area around the Metsamor reactor is very seismically active increasing the danger of an accident.

       There are a lot of reasons to be concerned about nuclear security and safety in Armenia. The international community should work to bring pressure on Armenia to deal with these problems.

South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. (SCE&G) has informed state regulators that its share of the development of two new nuclear units has increased significantly, rising about $852 million to reach $7.7 billion. utilitydive.com

The Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) has announced the initiation of the formation of its operating subsidiary, Nawah Energy Company. arabianbusiness.com

Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA’s) Watts Bar unit 2 has supplied its first electricity to the power grid. The 1165 MWe (net) pressurized water reactor was synchronized to the grid on 3 June. world-nuclear-news.org

Environmentalists blasted the first reactor of First Nuclear Power Plant Sunday as a very dangerous facility, and said they will sue the premier for an offense against public safety after he revealed that he might allow the reactivation of the reactor. chinapost.com.tw

 

 

 

Was the Iran nuclear deal, signed last summer, a prelude to proliferation across the Middle East? brookings.edu

Nuclear capacity is playing a significant part in the ongoing decarbonization of the economy, Ontario Power Generation’s CEO Jeff Lyash told a Canadian senate committee meeting last week. world-nuclear-news.org

As nuclear plants shutter, state efforts to save them are coming too late. utilitydive.com

Behind the Lourdes Matha church in Idinthakarai, a fishing village at the southern tip of India, five women have abandoned their chores to protest at the Kudankulam nuclear power plant. Today is day 1,754 of their relay hunger strike, which began when the plant was fuelled in 2011. theguardian.com

 

 

The Japanese government has withheld an investigative report it compiled on health effects from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe despite spending 50 million yen on the survey in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, it has been learned. mainichi.jp

North Korea may have reactivated a plant for reprocessing plutonium for use in nuclear weapons, the UN atomic watchdog said Monday, citing satellite imagery and echoing recent comments from a US think-tank. yahoo.com

Russia’s Research Institute of Atomic Reactors (RIAR) and the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) have signed a memorandum of understanding on scientific and technical cooperation. world-nuclear-news.org

FTSE 100-listed engineering company Rolls-Royce has been shortlisted to build a fleet of mini nuclear reactors, City A.M. understands. cityam.com

 

       Monju is the name of a sodium-cooled fast breeder reactor located at the Tsuruga Nuclear Power Plant in the Fukui Prefecture of Japan. Monju uses mixed oxide fuel (MOX) that is a combination of uranium and plutonium. It has three coolant loops and is capable of producing two hundred and eighty megawatts. Construction began in 1986 and first criticality was achieved in 1994.

       Monju has a breeding ratio of 1.2. This means that as the fuel is burned, more fissile atoms are produced than are consumed. In other words, this is what is called a breeder reactor because it “breeds”  or make more fuel than it consumes.

       There was a fire in late 1995 caused by a sodium leak which shut down the reactor. After the fire, there was a scandal because the operators did not accurately report the scope of the fire and damage. The resulting controversy and public outrage delayed restarting the reactor. In 2000, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) announced that they were going to restart Monju. Public resistance led to major battles in Japanese courts. Finally, in 2005, the Japanese Supreme Court overruled a lower court ruling and authorized the restart of Monju.

       The fuel had to be replaced because of radioactive decay. Monju was scheduled to restart in 2009 but the restart was delayed  because holes were found in an auxiliary building. Finally, the reactor was tested and resumed operations in May of 2010.  During a routine fuel replacement operation in August of 2010, a three ton fuel transfer machine was accidentally dropped into the reactor vessel. It took until June of 2011 to pull the dropped machine back out of the reactor vessel. Restarting the reactor was delayed until mid-2012 due in part to the Fukushima nuclear disaster in March of 2011. In June of 2012, there was a problem with the heater for molten sodium in a secondary coolant loop but it was not considered a major problem and was not made public until much later.

       The Japanese Nuclear Regulatory Agency in a 2013 series of safety inspections discovered that thousands of pieces of equipment at Monju had not been properly inspected. Safety inspections in 2014 revealed more equipment that had not been inspected. In 2015, it was discovered that the mandated assessments of degradation in the thickness of sodium pipes had not been carried out since 2007. All of these problems delayed restart of Monju for testing and operation.

      There have calls for Monju to be permanently shut down but the Japanese ministry that oversees Monju is opposed to that option. In November of 2015, Japan’s NRA demanded that the JAEA be replaced as operator of Monju within six months or that the reactor be decommissioned. By this time, Monju had been operational and produce power for less than one year by twenty years after its construction. To date, Monju has cost close to ten billion dollars.

        There has been a great deal of research and development in other countries on sodium-cooled fast breeder reactors for decades but this technology is very complex and has not been perfected to the point where it is commercially viable. Perhaps it is time to give up on this type of fast breeder reactor.

Monju reactor:

Yucca Mountain – Sacred Native Land & Proposed Nuclear Waste Dump farmwars.info

Democratic frontrunner attacks Trump’s ‘personal feuds and outright lies’ in blistering speech that questions GOP candidate’s suitability for the White House.  theguardian.com

At a plenary session on 1 June, the Nuclear Safety Council (Consejo de Seguridad Nuclear, CSN) issued a favorable decision on the renewal of the Juzbado nuclear fuel fabrication plant’s operating and manufacturing permits, which were due to expire next month. world-nuclear-news.org

Britain’s Office of Nuclear Regulation (ONR) on Friday said it had granted its consent to allow the EDF Energy Nuclear Generation LTD to return the Sizewell B nuclear power station to service following a statutory periodic shut down for maintenance, inspection and refueling. Concerns had been raised over the integrity of the reactor vessel after it was found that some other steel vessels manufactured by the Le Creusot foundry in France contained too much carbon which weakened them. nuclearstreet.com