Japan’s nuclear regulator has given the go-ahead to Chubu Electric Power Company to start removing “peripheral” equipment from units 1 and 2 of its Hamaoka nuclear power plant in Shizuoka prefecture. Both units were permanently shut down in January 2009. world-nuclear-news.org

Scientists in Germany are poised to conduct a nuclear fusion experiment they hope will advance the quest for a clean and safe form of nuclear power. theguardian.com

When Russian planes carried out a simulated attack against Sweden in 2013, it included nuclear warfare, a NATO report has revealed. thelocal.se

French water and waste giant Veolia announced on Wednesday that it’s acquired a startup called Kurion that’s developed technology that cleans up nuclear waste. fortune.com

        I have blogged about thorium as a possible fuel several times. There are thorium enthusiasts that believe that thorium would be a better fuel for nuclear reactors than uranium. There are critics who would disagree.

        Thorium reactors would utilize a fission reaction which would share many problems of uranium reactors. Thorium is abundant and easily accessible uranium reserves are running out. Thorium reactors do not produce plutonium and other transuranic elements like uranium reactors do. On the other hand, there would still be problems with mining and fabricating fuel, safety of reactors, creation of radioactive wastes and proliferation of nuclear weapons even without plutonium production.

        With respect to safety, the U.S. Department of Energy conducted a review in 2009 and concluded that “the choice between uranium-based fuel and thorium-based fuel is seen basically as one of preference, with no fundamental difference in addressing the nuclear power issues [of waste management, proliferation risk, safety, security, economics, and sustainability].”

      With respect to waste, thorium fuel produces long-lived hot isotopes which means that there would still be radioactive waste that would have to dealt with. It turns out that spent thorium fuel is actually more radioactively toxic than spent uranium fuel in the long term.

       With respect to proliferation dangers, while it is true that thorium reactors do not produce plutonium, thorium can be converted to uranium-233 which is fissile and can be used to make nuclear bombs. A report commissioned  by the U.K. Department of Energy and Climate Change ended with the conclusion that “claims by thorium proponents who say that the radioactive chemical element makes it impossible to build a bomb from nuclear waste, leaves less hazardous waste than uranium reactors, and that it runs more efficiently, are overstated.”

        There were early experiments with thorium reactors but these efforts were abandoned decades ago. Currently there are only laboratory experiments, computer studies and possible designs for thorium reactors. When and if prototype commercial thorium reactors are built, unanticipated problems might arise to complicate the design of thorium fuelled reactors. In any case, it will be more than a decade before any thorium reactor could go into commercial operation.

        Some studies of thorium for use as a fuel have concluded that they cannot compete economically with uranium reactors because thorium fuel would require a more complex process for fabricating the fuel rods. A Norwegian thorium commission said that there were many uncertainties and problems associated with the use of thorium as a fuel. The commission concluded that any such reactors were far in the future at best and that a massive international research effort would be necessary to design and build them. India which has massive reserves of thorium has expressed interest in developing thorium reactors so they can be self-sufficient. Other countries are conducting research on thorium reactors.

        Unfortunately, the bitter lesson has been learned from over a half-century of nuclear power that the promise of cheap, safe and clean nuclear energy has failed to materialize and similar promises for thorium power should be taken with a  grain of salt.

 

Restarting a second reactor at the Takahama nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture will raise the amount of highly toxic spent mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel present there to an estimated 18.5 tons, Jiji Press has learned. japantimes.co.jp

Stormont to sell off its nuclear bunker in Ballymena in Ireland. bbc.com

The governments of Denmark and Greenland have confirmed the signing of a series of agreements last month setting the framework for future cooperation on foreign, defense and security policy issues related to the mining and commercial export of uranium. world-nuclear-news.org

Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers has approved a revised project to upgrade the South Ukraine nuclear power plant’s water supply system, increasing its annual electricity output by up to 2.5 terawatt hours. Energoatom said yesterday that the project aims to “remove restrictions” on the plant caused by the insufficient cooling capacity of the Tashlykskaya reservoir. world-nuclear-news.org

        Historically, India contracted with Canada for the construction of nuclear reactors. The former chairman of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board in India, A Gopalakrishnan, said in an interview with the Times of India that the India-Canadian relationship was quite successful. “We had a relationship with Canada – they kept 150 engineers of ours for almost three years in Canada, telling us about their computer codes, how they are analyzing, etc. We learned through tutorials and then we installed 20-odd reactors [of Canadian design].”

       Things did not go as smoothly when the Indians contracted with Russia for the construction of two reactors based on Russian designs at the Indian Kudankulam nuclear power plant. The first reactor reached criticality in July of 2013. The reactor was connected to the Indian national electrical grid in October of 2013. However, it was more than a year later in December of 2014 before the reactor actually began to function as a commercial source of power. In six months, the reactor had to be shut down for what was expected to be a two month outage but actually developed into a seven month outage.

       Gopalakrishnan said that many of the problems stemmed from a desire to do as much of the work as possible with Indian engineers being directed by Indian supervisors with a “made in Indian” attitude. The Russian consultants were rarely consulted. Gopalakrishnan went on to say that many Indian components were used at Kudankulam. An early priority was to keep costs down. Indian quality control for materials was also not adequate.

        One example of the difficulties at Kudankulam involved the electrical wiring for the plant. Some of the work done followed Canadian practices because India had built so many reactors with Canadian designs and Canadian assistance. Some work had to be redone because the Russia approach turned out to be significantly different than the Canadian approach and there was electromagnetic interference when the equipment was turned on. 

      Gopalakrishnan pointed out that the Russians had had great success in building nuclear reactors in China because of the concept of a “reference plant.” “The Russians took 100 percent responsibility — brought their own equipment , selected Chinese engineers who were working there, but the Russians had complete control over them. All liability was initially with Russians. And after two or three years of satisfactory operation, as Russian reactors, they became Chinese plants.” Gopalakrishnan suggested that things would have gone better for the construction of the Kudankulam reactors if India had followed the same procedure as the Chinese in contracting Russian assistance.

        I have often blogged about my concern over the boom in sales of nuclear reactors on the international market. When a country such as France, Russia, Japan or China contracts with a foreign nation for the construction of nuclear power reactors, it is not just a matter of the quality of the components or the integrity of the design or the technical expertise of the country providing the nuclear technology. The culture, government and attitude of the country buying the reactor is also very important. Arrogance, incompetence and/or corruption can cause serious problems even with the best design, components and consultants.

Kudankulam nuclear power plant:

French diplomats met with Ukrainian parliamentarians last week to discuss increased cooperation between the two countries in nuclear energy. Ukrainian nuclear power plant operator Energoatom announced on 29 January that a meeting with the parliamentary Committee on the Fuel and Energy Complex, Nuclear Policy and Nuclear Safety had been held the previous day on the initiative of the French embassy in Kiev. world-nuclear-news.org

Niger has approved GoviEx’s mining permit application for the Madaouela 1 tenement area, the company announced today. The approval means that the project is now fully permitted for construction and production. world-nuclear-news.org

AREVA said that it had completed production validation testing of a new component asset management process known as ultra-high-pressure cavitation peening that is meant to prevent stress corrosion cracking in nuclear reactor components. nuclearstreet.com

Officials from Russia, India and China at a nuclear energy conference here confirmed Monday their countries’ interest in developing nuclear technology including, a fast neutron reactor. nuclearstreet.com