Nuclear waste overflowing into Pacific Ocean at Fukushima.  enenews.com

The restart of unit 1 of Switzerland’s Beznau nuclear power plant, currently offline for an annual overhaul, has been postponed while flaw indications detected in its reactor pressure vessel (RPV) are investigated further. A maintenance outage at unit 2 has been brought forward so that its RPV can also be checked. world-nuclear-news.org

With EDF Energy publishing its Japanese Earthquake Response Programme ONR Recommendation Closeout Report in mid-June, concerning nuclear plant safety enhancements in Britain, it turns out the U.K. Office of Nuclear Regulation wants more from the company. nuclearstreet.com

French engineering and nuclear power contractor Areva said Wednesday it had signed two significant contracts, including one to perform outage and maintenance services for five U.S. nuclear power plants and one involving decommissioning at 12 sites in Britain. nuclearstreet.com

          One of the things that bothers me the most when I write about nuclear affairs is the fact that all over the world there are areas where due to accidents, deliberate dumping or nuclear tests there are heighten levels of radiation. Metastudies have shown that, although there are natural radioactive materials that generate a low level of “background” radiation everywhere, there is no real “safe” level of radiation for human beings. Any nuclear radiation from any source will increase the incidents of birth defects, cancers and other diseases.

         Near Los Alamos, New Mexico, there is a major nuclear research center called the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). The Laboratory was one of the two principle facilities where the U.S. developed nuclear weapons. Near the Laboratory, there is a small canyon called Acid Canyon. During the Manhattan Project, the canyon was use as a dump for pipes, culverts and other debris by local residents and the staff of the LANL. A chemical waste treatment plant was located near the canyon and between 1943 and 1964, more than thirty million gallons of treated and untreated radioactive and chemical waste was flushed into Acid Canyon. The waste included tritium, strontium, plutonium and other radioactive substances that coated the rocks and soaked into the soil of the canyon. Children of the LANL staff played in the canyon in the 50s and 60s.

         There have been three cleanups of Acid Canyon over the past forty years. There are still radioactive particles in the soil but the monitors from the Laboratory say that the radiation levels are under the national health standards. No one is sure exactly what remains and construction and repair crews sometimes find old waste drums when they dig in the area.

         There are over two thousand dumpsites on the LANL forty three square-miles property. There thousands of other dumpsites at a hundred and eight sites around the U.S. where waste from the Manhattan Project and subsequent nuclear weapons programs was dumped with little regard for environmental or health threats. People working at or living near Cold War nuclear weapons facilities were exposed to a lot of nuclear radiation. People have requested compensation from the federal government for a variety of illnesses including cancers that they say were cause by their work on nuclear weapons. Over a hundred thousand nuclear workers have received almost twelve billion dollars in compensation and medical coverage.

         Unfortunately, nuclear waste is exempt from many federal environmental laws including the Clean Water Act. The state of New Mexico has been granted some control over hazardous waste from LANL by the courts. In 2014, LANL was working on the removal of about four thousand cubic meters of hazardous and radioactive waste. The waste is being shipped to the WIPP near Carlsbad, New Mexico. Some of the waste was mixed with the wrong absorbent material and a drum sent to WIPP exploded, releasing radioactive contamination into the environment. There are hundreds of drums of LANL waste that may be at risk for exploding. There are still thousands of cubic meters of waste at LANL in an area that is above a regional aquifer.

                Decades and billons of dollars have been spent trying to clean up this Cold War legacy but the work is not finished and it may never be completed at some sites. There are millions of cubic feet of nuclear waste than needs to be cleaned up and hundreds of contaminated buildings that have been or need to be demolished. The banks of the Savannah River in South Carolina and the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State are two major sites of nuclear pollution but there are a dozen more sites that have very serious contamination. These site pose a long-term threat to human health. The U.S. spends hundreds of billions of dollars on defense. More of that money should be spent on cleaning up the nuclear legacy of the Cold War. 

 

Cesium-134/137 measured over 200 percent of safety level from Fukushima rice. fukushima-diary.com

India awaits windfall from Iran nuclear deal.   Money.cnn.com

Finland’s Ministry of Employment and the Economy announced today that it has been unable to confirm whether Migrit Energija, the Croatian company intending to take a stake in the Hanhikivi nuclear power plant project, is in fact European-controlled. world-nuclear-news.org

A ceremony was held in Beijing yesterday to mark the official launch of China’s State Power Investment Corporation (SPI), formed through the merger of China Power Investment Corporation (CPI) and State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation (SNPTC ). world-nuclear-news.org

        I have mentioned in previous blogs that attempts were made to design nuclear powered aircraft during the Cold War. Both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. considered nuclear power for propelling aircraft but neither one actually succeeded in making a practical nuclear aircraft. Different designs were developed and engines were tested. One of the major problems was that heavy shielding necessary to protect the crew would add too much weight. Some flights of conventional bombers were made with reactors onboard to test radiation shielding. Ultimately, all the research programs were cancelled.

       Boeing recently applied for a patent on an airplane engine design that would use nuclear fusion for propulsion. The design calls for a hemispheric shell at the rear of the engine pointing back behind the plane. Pellets of fuel composed of deuterium and tritium would be expelled into the hemisphere and then high powered lasers would blast the pellet, triggering a tiny thermonuclear explosion. The blast pushes against the hemisphere, propelling the plane forward. The heat generated in the material of the hemisphere by the explosions would be harvested to provide power for the lasers.

       Here is a quote from the patent application: “The laser system comprising one or more free-electron lasers for providing pulsed laser beams to vaporize pellets comprising the propellant [deuterium and tritium]. As a result of the compression of the deuterium and tritium, the gas mixture reaches sufficiently high temperatures to cause a release of energy… beyond the ‘breakeven’ level… increasing the overall thrust and exhaust velocity. …A specific impulse of 100,000 – 250,000 seconds may be provided.”

        Boeing has been working on free-electron lasers since 2009. This type of laser utilizes the vibrations of electrons to generate the laser beam. They can be tuned to produce a wide range of frequencies from microwaves to x-rays. One disadvantage is that the equipment currently required for a free-electron laser is big and heavy which could be a problem for an airplane engine.

      With respect to the idea of using lasers to ignite a pellet of deuterium and tritium, this process is also under development. The National Ignition Facility has been able to trigger fusion reactors by concentrating almost two hundred laser beams on the pellets. The equipment required for this process is currently massive and fills a large room. Once again, this could be a problem for designing an airplane engine.

       The generation of the specific impulse mentioned in the patent may be a bit optimistic. The new engine would have to be about ten times as efficient as any existing engine to generate a specific impulse that big.

        Critics who have analyzed the Boeing patent say that although it does not violate any laws of physics and components and processes that it utilizes are under development, it would take a long time to perfect and miniaturize them into a working airplane engine. It is probable that better technologies would have been developed long before the Boeing engine could be perfected. Analysts doubt that Boeing is actively working on the development of such an engine. 

Image from United States Patent and Trademark Office: 

Mutated plants near Fukushima gain internet fame. enenews.com

Japan’s nuclear regulator has given Shikoku Electric Power Company permission to make changes to the reactor installation of unit 3 of its Ikata nuclear power plant in Ehime prefecture. It marks the first of three regulatory approvals required for restarting the unit. world-nuclear-news.org

A road-map for “the clarification of past and present outstanding issues” regarding Iran’s nuclear program was agreed yesterday between the country and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). All issues should be resolved by the end of the year. world-nuclear-news.org

There are no technical issues that stand in the way of 20-year license renewals for two Exelon Generation Company nuclear power plants in Illinois, the Byron and Braidwood plants that house two reactors each, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said. Nuclearstreet.com

 

 

         I have been following with great interest the negotiations between Iran and the U.N. Security Council members including the U.S., U.K., France, Russia, China and Germany over the Iran nuclear program. Fearing that Iran may be working on the development of nuclear weapons, severe trade sanctions have been instituted against Iran. After months of negotiations and missed deadlines, a deal has finally been reached. Moderates and liberals in Iran and the Security Council nations hail the agreement as a win for diplomacy while conservative factions among the U.N. members complain that the deal is a loss for the world community and that Iran will continue on the path to nuclear weapons. Here are some of the details about the new Iranian agreement:

1.Iranian Nuclear Program. Iran will be allowed to continue its nuclear power program. For the first eight years of the agreement, Iran has agreed to limit uranium enrichment  as well as related research and development.

2. Iranian low-enriched uranium stockpile. Iran has agreed to reduced its current stockpile of low-enriched uranium (enriched less than 3.67 percent) to about six hundred and sixty pounds. This means that they will have under two percent of their current stockpile remaining.

3. International sanctions. Under the new deal, all the sanctions imposed by U.N. members will be removed as well as other international sanctions such as the embargo on Iranian oil sales which has reduced the Iranian economy by one fifth.

4. Monitoring Iran Compliance. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will be charged with monitoring and verification of Iranian compliance. The IAEA will inspect Iranian nuclear sites and obtain answers to past Iranian nuclear weapons research and development.

5. Iranian Violations. The time it takes to develop a nuclear weapon is called the “breakout period.” The new agreement is supposed to insure that for the next fifteen years, Iran would need more than a year to create a nuclear weapon if it breaks the agreement.

6. Iranian Purchase of Nuclear Weapons. Iran will be prohibited from purchasing major weapons on the international market for at least five years and prohibited from purchasing missile technology for at least eight years.

7. Iranian Nuclear Facilities. Iran has promised to convert a major nuclear research facility named Fordrow into an international center for nuclear and physics research. Iran will be allowed to rebuild and modernize the Arak heavy water reactor for peaceful research and medical purposes. Iran has promised not to use the reactor to create weapons grade uranium.

8. Next Steps in the Process. The U.S. Congress has sixty days to review and vote on the agreement. Many Republican members of Congress are skeptical of the deal. The U.S. President has said that he will veto any Congressional action to back out of the agreement. The U.N. Security Council will have to vote to approve the agreement. Hardliners in Iran are also against the deal and may prevent Iran from ratifying the agreement.

9. Ongoing Review. Ministers from the ratifying nations including Iran will meet every two years to review Iranian compliance.

         If all parties vote to approve the new agreement, only time will tell if Iran will comply faithfully. It is true that lifting the sanctions will result in a lot of oil revenues for Iran that would make it possible for Iran to covertly work on nuclear weapons if they wanted to. Israel was not involved in the negotiations and is very upset about the deal. They have threatened to attack Iran if they feel that Iran is working on nuclear weapons.  

         Even if the U.S. Congress has enough votes to reject the agreement over the U.S. President’s support, some or all of the other members of the U.N. Security Council may decide to drop the sanctions and trade with Iran. This new agreement may be the best that the U.S. can hope for. 

U.S. oil prices wavered Tuesday after the market recovered from a more than 2% drop on news that Iran reached a nuclear agreement with world powers that could eventually pave the way for the return of Iranian barrels to global crude markets. wsj.com

Republican leaders in Congress said Tuesday that they were prepared to reject the Iran nuclear deal, while many Democrats remained skeptical but willing to hear out President Obama’s pitch. nytimes.com

Sixteen drums of waste within a concrete disposal container were put within one of the facility’s silos on 13 July, the Korea Radioactive Waste Agency (KORAD) announced today. The milestone marks the start of operations at Asia’s first underground radioactive waste disposal facility. world-nuclear-news.org

EnergySolutions announced yesterday the successful completion of the first large commercial reactor vessel segmentation in the USA.  world-nuclear-news.org