Every now and then, nuclear materials get mentioned in discussions of terrorism. One fear is that terrorists could get their hands of radioactive materials and create a conventional bomb with a shell of these materials which is referred to as a dirty bomb. When detonated, the bomb would spread radioactive fallout over a wide area. Another fear is that terrorists could get enough weapons grade uranium or plutonium to actually construct a nuclear bomb. Even a small nuclear bomb could devastate a city and kill hundreds of thousands of people. Someone even pointed out that a small amount of plutonium could be ground up and put into gasoline. Just driving around a city with that fuel could poison thousands of people. The only drawback is that it would not be as dramatic as a bomb explosion. All of these scenarios depend on the terrorists accessing radioactive materials. Recently accounts have emerged from Moldavia about attempts to traffic in radioactive materials.

       Earlier this year, a plot was being hatched in the Cocos Prive, a dance club and sushi bar in Chisinau which is the capital of Moldavia in Eastern Europe. A smuggler was trying to sell radioactive cesium for use in a dirty bomb for two and a half million Euros. He suggested that if the buyer had contacts with the Islamic State, they would be able to easily sell the cesium to those radical Arabs.

       It turned out that the client was not real. He was an informant but after twenty face to face meetings, he had been able to convince the smuggler that he actually was a representative of the Islamic State. Eventually, the informant was able to purchase a sample from the smuggler and the smuggler wound up in jail.

       This incident is one of at least four attempts by criminal networks connected to Russian gangsters in the last five years to sell radioactive materials to extremists through Moldavia. The Associated Press conducted the investigations that reported these incidents. In one case, there was an attempt to sell weapons grade uranium to a Middle Eastern buyer. The middle man of the gang involved repeatedly expressed hatred of the U.S. as he plotted to smuggle uranium and blueprints for a dirty bomb. The investigation of this incident showed that the Russian gangs were specifically trying to sell to buyers who were enemies of the U.S. and other Western nations. This incident, the first of its kind to be uncovered, proved that the fear of attempts to by Middle Eastern radicals such as the Islamic State or al-Qaida to create an dirty bomb or atomic bomb was real.

        The FBI and some Moldavian investigators partnered to uncover the black market in radioactive material. They spent five years infiltrating smuggling network and setting up sting operations. Although they were able to successful carry out four of these stings, they fell short of their goals. Major traffickers escaped, the gang members who were jails did not get long sentences and often went right back to working the black market for radioactive materials. Most of the arrests were made after samples of the radioactive materials had been purchased. This meant the bulk of the product remained in the smugglers hands and may have been successfully sold to terrorists later.

        There is a thriving black market for radioactive materials in Moldavia, a poor country that used to be part of the Soviet Union. The break down in relations and cooperation on nuclear smuggling between Russia and Western nations means that the degree to which smugglers have been able to access the huge Russian stockpile of radioactive materials remains unknown. It is inevitable that eventually some of these materials will be made into bombs and detonated in terrorist attacks.

Assembly members of a small town 466 miles southwest of Tokyo have unanimously agreed to allow the restart of a nuclear power reactor operated by Shikoku Electric Power Company. nuclearstreet.com

The prime ministers of France and Japan attended high-level talks in Tokyo on enhancing nuclear cooperation between the two countries. The talks included cooperation in nuclear safety and research on decommissioning nuclear facilities. world-nuclear-news.org

Russia and Armenia have signed an intergovernmental agreement on the exchange of information related to nuclear and radiation safety. The agreement was signed yesterday in Yerevan by Sergey Kirienko, director general of Rosatom, and Yervand Zakharyan, Armenia’s energy minister. world-nuclear-news.org

The California Coastal Commission on Tuesday approved the building of a nuclear waste storage facility near San Onofre. abc7.com

        There are many reasons to oppose an increase in nuclear power generation in the U.S. There are economic, political, social, military, environmental, and public health issues to name a few. The U.S. nuclear industry has been plagued lately by competition from cheap oil and natural gas as well as distrust by the public and lack of interest on the part of investors. They are fighting back by claiming that nuclear power is the only way to quickly low carbon emissions to combat climate change.

       Recently Bisconti Research and Quest Global Research conducted a survey for the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI). The NEI is a nuclear industry lobbying group in the U.S. The survey found that there was strong public support for nuclear power once the responders were told that nuclear power lowered carbon emission. One thousand adults were surveyed and eighty four percent agreed that nuclear energy “should be important in the future.” Fifty percent agreed that nuclear power was a “very important” part of the nation’s future energy mix. Sixty four percent indicated strong support for nuclear power even without being told that nuclear power had low carbon emissions. Twenty four percent said that nuclear power was “very important” without being informed of low carbon emissions.

      Ann Bisconti, President of Bisconti Research referred to the results of the survey as “eye-opening.” She also said “Once they are made aware of the magnitude of nuclear energy’s impact in the low-carbon electricity mix, Americans’ belief in nuclear energy’s future value is almost universal and crosses gender and political party.”

      Supporters of the U.S. nuclear industry feel that a good argument could be made for nuclear power expansion even if the costs were higher than alternate forms of energy generation because of the low carbon issue. They hope to be able to convince the government that shutting down nuclear plants would be a threat to efforts to combat climate change.

      The nuclear industry in the U.S. will fall from providing nineteen percent of the nation’s energy to eighteen percent of the nation’s energy by 2030 according to a report by UBS bank. According to the nuclear industry, every time a nuclear plant is shut down, it will have to be replaced by a coal or gas fired plant which will increase carbon emission in the U.S.

        Under the new national Clean Power Plan (CPP), states will have to document how they cut carbon emissions from power generation by one third. The nuclear industry tried to push for the continued operation of all nuclear power plants to be part of the CPP. When the final plan was drafted, only new nuclear power plants or significant upgrades of existing nuclear power plants were covered by the Plan.

        The nuclear industry avoids discussing the possibility that alternative sustainable energy sources such as wind and solar power which are also generate no carbon emissions might be a better choice for the nation’s future energy mix than nuclear. They fail to point out that nuclear power reactors takes a long time to license and construct. There are huge upfront costs and there is a lot of carbon emitted during construction. We need to address climate change and alternative sources can come online faster. Battery technology is advancing rapidly and may be able to solve the problem of intermittency that is one of the chief criticisms against wind and solar power generation. Nuclear power would be a bad choice to combat climate change.

GE Hitachi and DTE Energy on Monday said they would explore advancing the detailed design of the Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor, known as the ESBWR. nuclearstreet.com

AREVA TN said Monday that it had signed a contract with Xcel Energy to provide wide-ranging dry fuel storage management services for Xcel’s Prairie Island and Monticello nuclear generating plants. nuclearstreet.com

Kazakhstan became the leading supplier of uranium to US nuclear power plants in 2014, overtaking Australia, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). world-nuclear-news.org

NuScale aims to deploy its small modular reactor (SMR) technology in the UK with the first of its 50 MWe units in operation by the mid-2020s. The company is looking for partners to make this happen. world-nuclear-news.org

 

        I have blogged in the past about problems that the French nuclear reactor company AREVA is having with its new European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) design. The EPR is a third generation pressurized water reactor design. It was designed and developed by AREVA and EDF (the French utility company). The EPRs are supposed to be more efficient and safer than the older reactor designs. There is an EPRs being constructed in Finland and another in France. Another two EPRs are being built in China.

       Construction of the Finnish EPR at Olkiluoto was started in 2005 with a targeted completion of 2009. However, it has suffered numerous construction delays caused by quality control problems, inexperienced contractors  and safety related design and manufacturing deficiencies. The reactor is now scheduled to go online in 2018 and the cost estimate has risen from about four billion dollars to about eight billion dollars.

       Construction of the French EPR at Flamanville started in late 2007 with completion expected in sometime in 2012. In 2008, it was found that one fourth of the wends in the secondary containment steel liner were not within specifications. Cracks were found in the concrete base. More weld problems were found in 2010. In 2015, AREVA told the French nuclear regulator that problems had been found in the steel used for the reactor containment vessel that lowered its mechanical toughness. There was too much carbon in some parts of the vessel. The containment vessel intended for the construction of the Hinkley C reactor in the U.K. was repurposed for testing the quality of the steel. Investigators found that problems with the steel were known long before they were reported. Faults were also found in the cooling system safety valves. Construction delays have pushed out the expected completion to 2018. Cost have risen from three and a third billion dollars to ten and one half billion dollars.

      The two EPRs being built in China have been delayed at least two years by component delivery and project management issues. Their estimated cost has not risen as much as the European EPRs. Originally, they were supposed to be finished in 2014 but now they are expected to go online in 2016.

       While some issues have been raised about the actual design of the EPRs, most of the construction delays and cost overruns appear to have been caused by incompetence. Poorly made steel, inexperienced contractors, late component delivery, bad project management, etc. have all contributed to delays and cost increases. A nuclear power advocacy group in Europe is pushing for the construction of three reactors a year for the next thirty five years. That would mean a hundred new reactors by 2050. I strongly believe that the spectrum of problems that have plagued the construction of the EPRs call into question the wisdom of such a bold plan for the construction of European nuclear reactors. I don’t believe that the European nuclear industry has the competence to carry out even a much more modest nuclear power expansion within any projected schedule and budget.

Computer graphic rendering of an EPR installation:

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Thursday that it had completed its Final Safety Report for the combined licenses for the South Texas Projects Units 3 and 4 and that there were no safety impediments that would preclude issuing licenses for construction and operation of the two proposed reactors. nuclearstreet.com

The European Union’s Court of Justice on Thursday said that a tax in Sweden on nuclear power plants that is based on production capacity rather than the amount of electricity sold could stand, because it did not violate the international mandates that the court is expected to uphold. nuclearstreet.com

The final used fuel element has been removed from unit 2 of the Oldbury nuclear power plant in the UK, the last of more than 52,000 fuel elements from the two Magnox reactors there. world-nuclear-news.org

A report from the think tank Chatham House, which involved 18 months of research, concludes that nuclear power plants around the globe are vulnerable to cyber-attacks and that the risk of cyber-oriented plant disasters is increasing. nuclearstreet.com