French nuclear technology company Areva has announced a €2.0 billion ($2.2 billion) net loss for 2015 due to additional provisions for the delayed completion of the Olkiluoto 3 EPR as well as impairments for restructuring and weak market conditions. world-nuclearnews.org

The two most highly contaminated pieces of processing equipment have been removed from the former Plutonium Finishing Plant at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Hanford site in preparation for the plant’s demolition later this year. world-nuclearnews.org

Time to begin modernizing the country’s nuclear weapons is running short, Pentagon leaders say. They contend the force is still in fighting shape — “safe, reliable and effective” is the official mantra. But they also argue the time has come to begin modernizing the force or risk eroding its credibility as a deterrent to attack by others. twincities.com

Iran has carried out most of its commitments under the nuclear agreement reached in July, the United Nations’ atomic agency said Friday, although for a time it exceeded the permitted amount of heavy water, which can be used to produce plutonium. wsj.com

 

 

       Radioactive waste is a major global problem. It can be left over from various stages of the mining and refining of uranium. It can be a by-product of the creation of weapons grade nuclear materials. Radioactive materials are used in medicine and industry and must be disposed. Nuclear power reactors generate huge quantities of spent nuclear fuel which must be dealt with. Radioactive wastes are separated into high-level and low-level. Each has its own recommended methods of disposal. There can be problems with the competent execution of these disposal method. In addition, there are many cases in which no attempt was made to dispose of the materials in any legitimate way. Illegal dumping of radioactive waste is also a global problem.

       There are naturally occurring radioactive isotopes in soil and rock. When fracking wells are drilled and fluids are pumped down into rock formations to shatter the rock and release oil, the mixture of fluids that returns to the surface carries some of these radioactive isotopes. Many states have laws against dumping radioactive waste in state landfills. This poses a serious problem for fracking operations that are constantly generating such waste materials. Unscrupulous companies which prefer profit to following the law have a track record of illegally disposing of radioactive waste from fracking operations.

        A company in West Virginia recycles the fluids from fracking operations in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. This concentrates the radioactive isotopes in the fluids. The Kentucky Division of Waste Management has reported that forty seven sealed boxes of radioactive wastes from this company’s operations was illegally sent to the Blue Ridge landfill in Estill County, Kentucky between July and November of 2015. It is believed that the boxes have been buried since November.

        The Waste Management Division is working with the Cabinet for Health and Family Services and its Radiation Health Branch on are working on the Blue Ridge landfill investigation as well as investigation of other possible illegal dumping at a landfill in Greenup County. They think that the illegal waste sent to Greenup County was not put through the full recycling process. This would mean that the radioactive isotopes had not been concentrated and so this waste would not be as dangerous as the waste that was sent to Blue Ridge.

        The WMD sent letters out to operators of landfills, waste haulers, transfer station operators and local waste management offices. The letters warned the recipients about the recent shipments of illegal waste to Blue Ridge and Greenup County. The recipients were admonished to be certain that they were following the law with respect to banned radioactive wastes.

        The WMD is working with the operators of the Blue Ridge landfill to obtain more details about exactly how the radioactive waste made its way to the landfill. They are trying to determine if any of the workers at the landfill might have been exposed to radiation from the waste. At this time, they do not believe that there is any continuing danger of exposure from the buried waste.

Blue Ridge Landfill:

 

Nearly five years after the nation’s worst nuclear accident, Tokyo Electric Power Co. has admitted that its staff failed to follow damage assessment guidelines, according to which they should have reported the meltdowns almost immediately. japantimes.co.jp

Terrestrial Energy is submitting its Integral Molten Salt Reactor (IMSR) design to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) for pre-licensing review, the Canadian company announced today. The submission marks a first step towards an eventual licence application. world-nuclear-news.org

A chemical oceanographer from the University of Victoria said that the 2015 study of salmon off the coast of British Columbia, Canada, found no traces of cesium-134, the radionuclide that could have been attributed to the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which suffered from three reactor meltdowns due to a tsunami event that flooded back up power systems. nuclearstreet.com

Ratepayers in Florida are challenging Duke Energy and Florida Power & Light in a class action suit that alleges they were illegally forced to pay $2 billion in nuclear power plant construction costs for abandoned projects that were never completed. nuclearstreet.com

        In August of 2015, President Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency announced the Clear Power Plan (CPP). They said that this new plan was intended to reduce carbon emissions from U.S. power plants by thirty two percent by 2030 in order to mitigate climate change. The EPA says that ” the plan is fair, flexible and designed to strengthen the fast-growing trend toward cleaner and lower-polluting American energy. With strong but achievable standards for power plants, and customized goals for states to cut the carbon pollution that is driving climate change, the Clean Power Plan provides national consistency, accountability and a level playing field while reflecting each state’s energy mix. It also shows the world that the United States is committed to leading global efforts to address climate change.”

       When U.S. representative went to the Twenty First Conference of the Parties (COP21) on climate change in Paris last November, they held up the CPP as proof that the U.S. was very serious about addressing climate change. The CPP went into effect on December 22 of 2015. Compliance with the CPP is mandated to begin in 2022.

        The CPP calls for states to reduce the carbon emissions from their power plants thru adoptions of a variety of low or no-carbon power sources. One of the controversial provisions in the CPP was to only allow states to count power from nuclear power plants for up to six percent of their quota for compliant power sources. This aroused strong opposition from the nuclear power industry and its supporters in the U.S. Congress. They complained that nuclear power was a good source of low carbon power generation and that it was critical to the effort to mitigate climate change. There were bills against the CPP passed  by the House and Senate but vetoed by the President. There was also a bill proposed that would delay implementation of the CPP until all legal challenges were resolved.

       In January of 2016, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia denied a request to stay the federal carbon regulations. Twenty nine states and state agencies appealed to the Supreme Court to stay the regulations. On February 22, the Supreme court ruled in favor of the states and their agencies. The CPP will be put on hold until the D.C. District Court of Appeals reviews the plan and any other appeals to the Supreme Court are resolved.  Thirty four Senators and one hundred seventy one House members filed an amicus brief against the CPP with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals following the Supreme Court ruling.

      The CPP caused great confusion and consternation in the nuclear industry because it required them to rethink their investment in nuclear power reactors, both existing and planned. Now the stay on the CPP has caused even more confusion. The nuclear industry does not know whether or not the CPP will stand after the various lawsuits and appeals have been dealt with which could take years. In the meantime, it will be difficult for the industry to make decisions because nuclear power may or may not be allowed to play a larger role climate change mitigation. If they guess wrong, it could cost billions of dollars. On the other hand, if they hold off investments, they may miss opportunities as other forms of low carbon power generation become cheaper and attract investment.

 

Five years ago this month a devastating tsunami engulfed Japan’s northeastern coast, triggering the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. scientificamerican.com

French utility EDF is calling for “rapid and radical reform” of Europe’s electricity market structure to allow for future investments in new generating capacity. This is needed, it says, to “face up to current challenges of the energy transition and to consumers’ expectations”. world-nuclear-news.org

A series of measurements of the thickness of the steel walls of some of the evaporators at Areva’s La Hague reprocessing plant in northern France has indicated faster than expected corrosion. The country’s nuclear regulator, the Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire (ASN), said it will monitor Areva’s work to minimize future corrosion of these evaporators. world-nuclear-news.org

Canada’s Environment Minister Catherine McKenna has told Ontario Power Generation that their plan to build a nuclear waste repository underground on the shores of Lake Huron will require further study. nuclearstreet.com

        I recently posted a list of problems with nuclear power. I thought that my list was pretty comprehensive but I keep discovering new problems so I will have to make additions to the list. I also touched on nuclear weapons as they related to nuclear power but there is a new threat caused by nuclear weapons that I have not blogged much about. Thought that I would blog today about an unexpected but understandable issue with both nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons.

        There are volcanoes all over the world of varying sizes. Some are ancient and quiet, others are still active. We have historical evidence of horrendous eruptions of what are called super volcanoes like the one under Yellowstone Park in the U.S. When they erupted, they can cover continents with ash and alter weather patterns all over the world for decades. In human history, we have not had one of those eruptions but we have had major volcanic eruptions that cut down sunlight and lowered temperatures all over the world for years. In some cases, they may have led to the decline and collapse of major empires. The recent Icelandic eruptions interfered with air traffic for weeks.

         Japan has a great deal of seismic activity and a lot of volcanoes, some of them active.  Mount Sakurajima is an active volcano in the Kagoshima Prefecture of Japan.  It used to be on an island but an eruption in 1914 generated enough lava to form a land bridge to the nearby coast. When it erupts, it drops a lot of ash on the surrounding land.

          Japan turned off all of its nuclear power plants after the disaster at Fukushima in March of 2011. One of the first nuclear power reactors to be turned back on last year was the Sedai nuclear power station operated by Kyushu Electric Power. It is located on the same former island as Mount Sakurajima just thirty miles from the volcano. The volcano erupted recently, shooting ash into the sky and throwing big boulders miles from the volcano. If that volcano has a major eruption, the ash fall could interfere with operation of the reactor. Seismic events could crack the reactor containment vessel and release radioactive materials. Maybe it is not such a good idea to operator a reactor so close to a live volcano.

       Mount Paektu is an active volcano on the border between North Korea and China. There was a huge eruption in 947 that sent ash all the way to Japan. The volcano erupts about every hundred years and is due for another eruption. In 2014, the government of North Korea invited English volcanologists to North Korea to study Mount Paektu and the possibility of an eruption in the near future.

       North Korea has been conducting nuclear tests recently at their Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site which is about one hundred and fifty miles from Mount Paektu. Volcanologists are concerned that the seismic shock of the nuclear tests could trigger an eruption of the volcano. Such an eruption could threaten the lives of millions of people. Unfortunately, the North Korean regime is so insular and arrogant that they will probably claim that the fears of a volcanic eruption are propaganda spread by their enemies to slow down their nuclear weapons research.

Mount Sakurajima:

Heaven’s Lake in the caldera of Mount Paektu:

Japanese footballers to train for the 2020 Tokyo Games near the exclusionary zone surrounding the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant. sputniknews.com

Fukushima Gov. Masao Uchibori expressed regret Monday over the cancellation of an event that the Foreign Ministry had planned to hold in Seoul over the weekend to promote recovery in Tohoku after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. japantimes.co.jp

US uranium production in the fourth quarter of 2015 was at its lowest level since 2002 and total 2015 production was the lowest since 2005, according to figures released by the US Energy Information Administration . world-nuclear-news.org

Westinghouse Electric has delivered the first batch of “upgraded” nuclear fuel assemblies to the Zaporozhe nuclear power plant in Ukraine, with fuel loading at unit 5 planned for May, pending regulatory approval. world-nuclear-news.org