China’s operating nuclear generating capacity will double over the next five years under the country’s latest Five-Year Plan. The plan also calls for the preparation for construction of inland nuclear power plants and work on a reprocessing plant to start by 2020. world-nuclear-news.org

As of Tuesday this week, 140 extra Belgian troops were guarding the Doel and Tihange nuclear power plants, while the county was put on the maximum Level 4 heightened security status following two deadly terrorist attacks in Brussels that left 34 dead. nuclearstreet.com

Federal efforts to speed up the removal of spent radioactive fuel from power plants like the mothballed San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station are gaining momentum and inspiring guarded optimism among local officials. ocregister.com

Donald Trump is not ruling out the use of nuclear weapons in the U.S. fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), according to an interview with the GOP front-runner that aired on Bloomberg TV Wednesday. cbsnews.com

 

 

 

One of the big problems with nuclear power reactor construction has to do with the materials selected to withstand the impact of temperatures, pressures and bombardment of neutrons that occur inside a nuclear reactor. The stainless steel alloy used in containment vessels must be manufactured correctly to withstand the stresses it will encounter. A French manufacturer of containment vessels recently used the wrong amount of carbon to make steel which resulted in a containment vessel being about half as strong as it was supposed to be. Even when the alloy is made correctly, the steel of containment vessels becomes brittle over the decades of operation of a nuclear reactor. Newer reactors are running at higher pressures and generate more fast moving neutrons which puts even more stress on the steel.

        Now researchers in Finland and the U.S. have discovered a new type of alloys that may be able to withstand the stress of nuclear power reactors better than stainless steel. These new metals are called “high-entropy” alloys (HEAs). These alloys are created by combining equivalent quantities of five or more metals. Traditionally, alloys were made by taking one or two “base” metals and adding other substances to the mix to create an alloy with specific desirable properties. One technical definition of HEAs says that they were alloys of five or more metals that could form a solid solution with no intermetallic phases where two metals in the alloy formed special relationships. HEAs are considerably lighter, with a higher degree of fracture resistance, tensile strength, as well corrosion and oxidation resistance than conventional alloys. HEAs have been researched for more than two decade but only since 2014 has there be sufficient quantities manufactured to allow for serious research into applications.

       Neutron bombardment damages steel by dislodging atoms from the crystalline structure of the steel. These damages to the crystal lattice can result in the formation of tiny cracks that weaken the structural integrity of the steel. Because these steel alloys consist mainly of iron atoms, most of the dislodged atoms will be iron atoms. On the other hand, a HEA has similar proportions of five different metals atoms so the probability of any one type of atom being dislodged is distributed over the different elements which reduces the impact of the damage.

         The researchers tested sheets of two different HEAs against a steel plate made of an iron and chromium alloy. Each plate was bombarded with atoms of gold and nickel to simulate the bombardment inside a nuclear reactor. The result was that the two HEAs had one half to one third of the defects found in the steel. The next series of tests that the researchers need to carry out will involve testing the HEAs against the actual steel alloy that is used in nuclear reactors.

          Unfortunately, the new HEAs are very expensive to manufacture. Even with the huge amount of money needed to construct a nuclear reactor, the HEAs are just too expensive to replace steel. It is hoped that eventually with the evolution of manufacturing methods, HEAs may drop in price to the point where they could be used in future nuclear power reactors.

Artist’s concept of a high entropy alloy:

Iron atoms are magenta, cobalt atoms are green, chromium atoms are blue, nickel atoms are cyan and manganese atoms are yellow. 

Sixteen American nuclear reactors are more than 42 years old, according to government data compiled and mapped by The Daily Caller News Foundation. dailycaller.com

Cemetery full of dead babies missing brains next to US Hanford nuclear site.  enenews.com

The Swedish nuclear regulator has said it believes the country’s radioactive waste management company can meet all the safety and radiation protection requirements for its planned used nuclear fuel encapsulation plant next to the Clab interim storage facility in Oskarshamn. world-nuclear-news.org

The UN-accredited World Energy Council (WEC) has warned that water shortages, which could reach critical levels as soon as 2030, will have a heavy-handed impact on power plants, many of which rely on large quantities of water to generate electricity. nuclearstreet.com

Sixteen American nuclear reactors are more than 42 years old, according to government data compiled and mapped by The Daily Caller News Foundation. dailycaller.com

Cemetery full of dead babies missing brains next to US Hanford nuclear site.  enenews.com

The Swedish nuclear regulator has said it believes the country’s radioactive waste management company can meet all the safety and radiation protection requirements for its planned used nuclear fuel encapsulation plant next to the Clab interim storage facility in Oskarshamn. world-nuclear-news.org

The UN-accredited World Energy Council (WEC) has warned that water shortages, which could reach critical levels as soon as 2030, will have a heavy-handed impact on power plants, many of which rely on large quantities of water to generate electricity. nuclearstreet.com

        I recently posted a list of forty problems with nuclear power. Several of my concerns had to do with security. One in particular dealt with the fact that nuclear power plants would make great targets for terrorists. This concern is now in the headlines because of the recent suicide bombing in Brussels, Belgium. The security of Belgium nuclear power plants has been called into question.

        Today, at about eight AM Brussels time, two terrorists wearing suicide vests detonated their explosives near check-in desks at the Brussels international airport. The shockwave generated by the explosions tore through the terminal building blowing out windows and dislodging ceiling tiles. Fourteen people were killed and dozens more were injured. About eighty minutes later, another terrorist detonated a suicide vest at a Metro station about four hundred yards for the headquarters of the European Union in central Brussels. This attack killed twenty people and injured many more. In all, the two attacks killed thirty four people and injured one hundred and seventy. ISIS claimed credit for the attack. The French government shut down the border with Belgium following the attack. Belgium seems to be a center for Muslim terrorist activity in Europe.

         The Tihange nuclear power plant is located about fifty miles south of Brussels. It is operated by a French utility company named ENGIE. Hours after the attack the Belgium government sent a request to ENGIE to evacuate the plant. It was originally reported that the entire staff of the power plant was being evacuated but it was subsequently learned that only the non-essential staff had left. Although the government had no intelligence that any sort of attack was planned for the nuclear power plant, Belgian authorities decided to evacuate the plant as a precautionary measure.

          The Belgian security services had seen indications that ISIS was interested in Belgium’s nuclear facilities. Following the capture of one of the Paris terrorist attackers hiding in Belgium, video surveillance tapes of a senior Belgian nuclear official were found in terrorist’s house. The authorities speculated that ISIS was considering kidnapping the official and using him to gain access to secure areas of a Belgian nuclear research facility. If ISIS was able to obtain radioactive materials from the research facility, they would be able to construct a “dirty” bomb. Detonation of such a bomb in a major European city would cause wide-spread chaos and require that that city be essentially abandoned at great cost.

           If terrorists seized control of a nuclear power plant, they might be able to deliberately cause a nuclear disaster provided they had sufficient knowledge of nuclear technology. There would be a number of ways that they could sabotage a nuclear power reactor to cause it to overheat, melt down and cause explosions that would release radioactive materials over the countryside. The resulting public panic and evacuation would be chaotic and the radioactive pollution of the countryside would cause environmental damage and incur huge costs.

          Given the increasing terrorist activities in Europe being carried out by ISIS and other groups, nuclear power plants represent a very serious liability as targets for attacks. Sabotage of a nuclear power plant would result in more damage and cost that just about any other facility except perhaps a major dam.

Belgium Tihange nuclear power plant:

A facility for incinerating miscellaneous solid low-level waste has begun operating at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan. The incinerator will be used for disposing of items such as used protective clothing and construction waste. world-nuclear-news.org

Russian President Vladimir Putin is deploying nuclear-armed submarines “dangerously close” to the United States and European allies, a Senate Democrat said following a trip to the Arctic Circle. washingtonexaminer.com

Belgian nuclear power plants evacuated after terror attacks. enenew.com

Nuclear plant operator Exelon said operators at the LaSalle County Generating Station 11 miles southeast of Ottawa, Ill., had removed Unit 1 from service on Saturday to replace seals on two pumps that were not performing at optimum levels. nuclearstreet.com

 

 

 

For a blogger on nuclear energy, the Hinkley Point C project in Britain is a gift that just keeps giving. There are many different groups, issues, nations, etc. that are involved in Hinkley Point C. New things keep coming to light and new things keep happening that need to be updated. Basically, the U.K. has contracted with the French company EDF to build two nuclear power reactors at Hinkley Point. EDF and the U.K. could not finance the whole project so they are cutting a deal with the Chinese for about one third ownership. This has upset some groups in the European Union and in the U.K. The U.K. is going to be shutting down most of their existing nuclear reactors and some of their old coal power plants in the next ten years. These power generation sources will have to be replaced by new power generation and Hinkley Point C is expected to play a major role in that replacement. The lower limit for the estimated cost for the two new reactors is around twenty five billion dollars. This is far beyond the suggested price of six billion dollars for economically competitive nuclear power reactors.

       One big concern about the Hinkley Point C project is the fact that the U.K. government is going to guarantee the owners of the two new reactors a price for their electricity that is three times the current price being paid by U.K. ratepayers. This guarantee extends for thirty five years after the new reactors are turned on. The deal provides for subsidies up to sixty billion dollars and includes government guarantees with respect to nuclear waste disposal and accident insurance. The new reactors don’t have to start producing electricity before 2033.

       Should the new reactors be shut down in the future for any reason other than safety or security, then there is a provision for payments to EDF of up to thirty billion dollars. This has been referred to as a “poison pill” provision in the contract. Supporters of the project say that guaranteed prices for electricity and provisions for waste disposal, insurance, and unexpected shutdowns of new nuclear power reactors are standard in contracts of this type. They point out that there will be twenty five thousand constructions jobs and that the new reactors are critical for replacing retired energy sources. Critics say that the poison pill virtually guarantees that there is zero risk for EDF and backers such as the Chinese. They feel that the high price for construction of the two new reactors, the price guarantee for the electricity and the generous subsidies are already overly generous to the owners of the new reactors without the poison pill.

      In 2007, EDF said that the new reactors would be generating electricity by 2017. After repeated delays, they now say that the new reactors will start generating electricity in 2025. As mentioned before, the contract allows the start date to be pushed back as far as 2033. Two other reactors based on the EDF design for the Hinkley Point C reactors are way behind schedule and way behind budget. The final commitment of EDF to the project has still not been signed and the Chinese contract has also not been finalized.

Prof Catherine Mitchell, an energy policy expert at the University of Exeter said that,”This is a dreadful agreement for the nation. The government is already paying a high price, index-linked for an incredibly long 35 years. This should be more than sufficient for a professional, business contract. ” and she also said, “Energy economics are changing rapidly and so the momentum is towards decentralized, smart and flexible energy systems. It is moving away from large, inflexible power plants like Hinkley. If it ever gets funded, it will be a white elephant before it is even finished and this government, with this £22bn ‘poison pill’, will have tied the next generation into paying for it, for no reason that I can understand. If it is simply political saving face, it really is pitiful.”

Artist’s concept of Hinkley Point C reactors: