Japan will revoke evacuation orders for most of the people who were displaced by the Fukushima nuclear disaster so the government can save on compensation payouts and expedite reconstruction. sputniknews.com

Government officials from Japan and South Korea are to meet in Geneva later this month to discuss Seoul’s ban on fishery imports from northeastern Japan. nhk.or.jp

China National Nuclear Power Co Ltd , a unit of one of the country’s two state nuclear reactor builders, on Thursday said it locked up $272.69 billion of funds in its IPO this week. reuters.com

A CIA agent says that  the U.S. government is covering up the health effects of radiation. enenews.com

A professor from Japan’s Fukushima University Institute of Environmental Radioactivity (Michio Aoyama) told Kyodo in April that the West Coast of North America will be hit with around 800 terabecquerels of Cesium- 137 by 2016. washtingtonblog.com

The removal of spent uranium fuel rods from the Fukushima power plant will begin three years later compared to the originally planned date, the Japanese government said in a roadmap published on Friday. sputniknews.com

Could the Islamic State build a nuclear weapon? catholic.org

A state-based study group in Virginia, the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy, says that nuclear power is clean and safe and could help turn the state’s energy deficit into an energy surplus. nuclearstreet.com

         I have written in the past about problems with the supply of critical radioisotopes for medical uses. The U.S. and Canada are working on new methods for creating the radioisotopes and hope to make up the shortfall soon. The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) Lucas Heights OPAL reactor in Sydney, Australia is working on increasing its production of nuclear medicine.

          Since the OPAL reactor started operations in 2006, it has produced four million doses of nuclear medicine. It produces about ten thousand doses a day that supply two hundred and fifty hospitals around Australia. Small amounts of radioactive materials are used to “diagnose, treat and determine the severity of a variety of diseases.” This process can assist in “the diagnosis of many types of cancers, heart disease, gastrointestinal, endocrine, neurological disorders and other abnormalities.” According to estimates, one out of every two Australians will have illnesses diagnosed and treated by nuclear medicine some time in their life.

          A new production plant is under construction that expand production to thirteen million doses a year. ANSTO is planning on taking advantage of the fact that most of the world’s nuclear reactors are almost sixty years old and their design does not permit them to produce large amounts of medical radioisotopes. The new facility will be able to produce over twenty five percent of the global demand for nuclear medicine. The isotopes that the new plant can produce are used in eighty percent of the nuclear medicine procedure around the world.

         The HIFAR reactor put into operation at Lucan Heights in 1958. In 2006, it was replaced by the OPAL reactor which became the only operating reactor in Australia. Unlike the Fukushima site, the Lucas Heights site is geologically stable and miles from the coast. The waste generated by the OPAL reactor has been shipped to France in the past for reprocessing but that arrangement is ending and intermediate waste is being shipped back to Australia. Nuclear medicine production constitutes thirty percent of the business activities at Lucas Heights but it generates over eighty percent of the waste. ANSTO has allocated over twenty two million dollars this year for the refit of two waste storage facilities which will take four years.

          The Lucas Heights facility has been the center of controversy and protests for decades. Anti-nuclear activists oppose the existence of a nuclear reactor on the outskirts of Australia’s largest city. ANSTO claims that the Lucas Heights site is “one of the most secure infrastructure facilities in the country.” The protestors complain that there is no plan for permanent storage of the waste in Australia and that ANSTO plans to temporarily store it on site at Lucas Heights pose a threat to the citizens of Sydney.

          I have blogged in the past about the interest that some parties have in seeing Australia build nuclear reactors for power generation. A nuclear expert has analysed the available commercial reactors in the global nuclear market and concluded that there are no reactors that have a sufficient record of safe operation to be a safe source of Australia electricity. Considering the strong opposition to the OPAL reactor at Lucas Heights, it is obvious that there will be strong public opposition to adopting nuclear power generation in Australia.

 OPAL reactor pools at Lucas Heights:

The potential restart of Japan’s Sendai nuclear plant has now been pushed back to mid-August at the earliest. JAIF is now saying the plant may miss the entire summer energy peak season. fukuleaks.org

Japan needs about 35 working nuclear reactors by 2030 to achieve the government’s long-term energy strategy to return the country’s dependence on nuclear energy to slightly under the level it was before the 2011 Fukushima disaster. ajw.asahi.com

The U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency said its Board of Governors has approved an agreement with Kazakhstan for the establishment of a nuclear fuel Low Enriched Uranium Bank, which will maintain a reserve of LEU “as an assurance supply mechanism for Member States in case they cannot obtain LEU on the global commercial market, through State-to-State arrangements or through any other means.” nuclearstreet.com

Lithuanian state enterprise Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant has applied to the country’s regulator, Vatesi, for a licence to construct and operate a surface storage facility for low- and intermediate-level short-lived waste, known as the B25 project.  world-nuclear-news.org

          Nuclear power is often praised for its low-carbon emissions as a way of slowing climate change being fed by the use of fossil fuels worldwide. I have blogged before about the overlap between radioactive contamination and oil drilling. There are filters like huge socks that capture naturally occurring radioactive materials brought up from fracking wells. Disposal of these radioactive filters is causing a major problem in North Dakota.  There is overlap between oil drilling and nuclear power being planned for the Arctic.

       Russia is working on the development of floating nuclear reactors that could provide power for ports, industries and offshore oil and gas drilling in the Arctic. The first Russia floating reactor design is called the Akademik Lomonosov. It will be about four hundred and fifty feet long and will be able to produce seventy megawatts of electricity. The current design will have to be towed because it has no engines for propulsion. Future designs are being planned that will have independent mobility. The small floating reactors will be carried on icebreaking hulls so they will be able to plow through ice on the Arctic Ocean. Once the prototype has been developed and tested, the plan is to mass produce these floating reactors.

      Russia began construction of the Akademik Lomonosov in 2007 but there have been delays that have put the project behind schedule. Now Russia hopes to have an operational floating reactor by 2016. This first reactor will be used to power Pevek, a town on the coast of the East Siberian Sea. They will dock the reactor near the town and run a cable to the town’s power grid.  

      Rosatom, the Russian government owned nuclear consortium has announced that fifteen countries have expressed interest in purchasing Russian floating nuclear power reactors. China, Algeria, Indonesia, Malaysia and Argentina have been mentioned as potential customers. Last year, Russia and China signed an agreement to cooperate in the construction of one of these floating nuclear power plants.

       A Canadian company named Dunedin Energy Systems is also working on small floating nuclear reactors which could provide energy for remote mining projects in Canada’s Arctic region. The company’s president points out that floating nuclear power reactors have been in use for decades to power nuclear vessels. This may be true, but these reactors are special rugged designs built to cope with turbulent ocean conditions and potential combat damage. They are built by national militaries and are very expensive. Nuclear reactors for commercial vessels have never caught on.

        I am concerned that these small floating nuclear reactors may not be held to the high construction and regulatory standards of military vessel reactors. The Russians have already polluted the Barents Sea near their border with Norway by sinking nuclear reactors for disposal. Now the radioactive pollution is threatening Norwegian fishing grounds. The Arctic ocean is a harsh environment. There have already been problems with drilling rigs being damaged by storms. I think that have floating nuclear reactors in the Arctic ocean is a very bad idea and could lead to serious nuclear accidents.  

Artist’s concept of the Akademik Lomonosov:

No one knows what to do with Fukushima’s endless tanks of radioactive water. nautil.us

Nuclear power lobbyists in Washington are squaring up to face down a critical end-of-the-year deadline, which is when an export agreement with China concerning nuclear technologies would end if Congress does not renew the plan. nuclearstreet.com

Stressing the importance of a secure system for nuclear power plant computer systems, a Pittsburgh-based software company SpiralGen Inc. said Thursday it would use Department of Energy Small Business Innovation Research funding to adapt technologies developed for military use “to provide new inner layers of defense against cyber attacks in nuclear power plants.” nuclearstreet.com

The Ranger 3 Deeps uranium project will not proceed to a final feasibility study under the current operating environment, Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) announced today. The decision was driven by market conditions and project economics. world-nuclear-news.com

Ambient office = 100 nanosieverts per hour