I have blogged about nuclear fusion before. Scientists have been researching the possibility of generating energy by nuclear fusion, the energy source of stars, for decades. The basic concept of nuclear fusion is the combination of lighter elements into heavier elements accompanied by a huge release of energy.

          Billions of dollars have been poured into this research but no fusion power generator has yet been constructed. There is a major international project called ITER which is using a well-known approach based on the Russian tokamak design. A tokamak is a donut shaped chamber surrounded by magnets to stabilize and energize the fusion reactions. This is a strictly proof of concept project where they are just trying to get to the point at which more energy is coming out of the generator that is being supplied to the generator. Billions more will be spent and years will pass before it is known if their approach will actual work. Recently there have been several companies working on very different approaches to nuclear fusion. The U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin is one of these companies.

        Lockheed Martin is the Pentagon’s biggest supplier. They have been research nuclear fusion for over sixty years and they have been working on a nuclear fusion project for the past four years at their Skunk Works laboratory. It is a “high beta fusion reactor” or “4th generation prototype T4″ design for a compact fusion reactor (CFR).

        In the Lockheed Martin CRF, two isotopes of hydrogen, deuterium and tritium are the fuel. Deuterium contains a single neutron in the nucleus along with the proton. In tritium, there are two neutrons in the nucleus. First the electrons are stripped off the deuterium and tritium atoms creating a plasma. Then the plasma is compressed and heated which overcomes the normal mutual repulsion of two nuclei. The hydrogen isotopes fuse into a helium atom and a energetic neutron. The energy is then transferred to a coolant that drives turbines to produce electricity. Deuterium is available in ocean water. Tritium, which is rare on Earth, can be produced in nuclear reactors. A CFR reactor will require very little fuel and will create very little nuclear waste compared to a fission reactor.

        The LM CFR uses magnetic mirrors for confinement. It is about the size of a jet engine which permits a faster development cycle than giant reactors like ITER. One set of mirrors are rings at either end of the CFR cylinder and the other set wraps two rings around the CFR cylinder The first set pushes the plasma toward the center of the cylinder and the second set pushes the plasma toward the ends of the cylinder. The lack of any current flowing in the plasma removes the main source of plasma instabilities that have proven a major challenge for tokamak style reactors. The LM superconducting magnets reduce the size of the reactor to about a tenth the size of the tokamak design so a finished compact fusion power system could be small enough to fit on the bed of a truck for transport. Currently microwaves are used to heat the plasma for ignition but LM says that they are designing a system that will inject neutral deuterium atoms into the cylinder where their energy will transfer to the plasma.

        LM recently released the news that they will build and test a compact fusion reactor in less than a year. They are aiming to have a working prototype of a commercial generator within five years and a commercial production model in ten years. After four years of secretive work on the CFR, LM is now looking for public and private partners to advance their fusion program.

        Nuclear fusion has been promised for decades but actual development of a working system has been very difficult. With all the problems of nuclear fission power, nuclear fusion would be much cheaper and smaller with less fuel required and less waste generated. There are other designs that use other fuels that are more available and they don’t generate any radioactive waste. With increasing demand for electricity, nuclear fusion would be a good way to supplement sustainable alternative sources with base-load power.

Lockheed Martin compact fusion reactor diagram:

More clarity on Japan’s nuclear future came today as the first unit slated for restart gained technical approval, while two further older reactors were announced for retirement rather than being put through the restart process. world-nuclear-news.org

Japanese government model shows Fukushima radioactive gas near Tokyo skyrocketed to 10,000,000,000 times normal levels soon after 3/11.  enenews.com

A first-of-a-kind Royal Commission investigating South Australia’s potential participation in the nuclear fuel cycle has formally commenced. world-nuclear-news.org

The US Nuclear Regulation Commission (NRC) has found no significant environmental impact from a proposed expansion of capacity for the Urenco USA uranium enrichment facility with the flexibility to use depleted uranium feedstock. world-nuclear-news.org

 

 

          Iran has been in the news a lot lately with respect to the possibility that they may develop nuclear weapons. The U.S. and six other major nations are negotiating with Iran over uranium enrichment and sanctions. The primary issue is to have Iran stop enrichment and open facilities to inspection in return for ending the crippling sanctions. I wrote recently about the attempt of Republicans in the Senate to scuttle the deal before it is signed. They want to impose even more sanctions on Iran but the risk of that is for the other six countries to end sanctions and any hope of a real deal. The Republican answer seems to be that we should consider invading Iran if they don’t comply. Israeli leaders have said that Iran should not even have the equipment to enrich uranium and they have threatened to take unilateral actions. I also recently blogged about the use of the questionable concept of breakout or how long it would take for Iran to enrich enough uranium for a weapon as a key element of the negotiation.

         Recently there was an article on the Internet VICE channel about what would happen if Iran were to obtain nuclear weapons. They interviewed two experts on International Affairs for their opinions. William H. Tobey is a Senior Fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard and Kamran Bokhari is a Stratfor advisor on the Middle East and South Asia.

        Bokhari says that he thinks that the Iranians would secretly develop a nuke but would be hesitant to test it because of the international backlash. Tobey says that it would totally change the way that Iran approached regional actions. He thinks that the Iranians would figure that they could do just about anything to its neighbors and the neighbors would not dare to react with force. But, that would require that the neighbors knew they had the bomb which brings up Bokhari’s point about major nuclear power reacting and the risk of sanctions again.

       With respect to a threat to Israel, Bokhari says that Israel is so small that even a single nuclear strike would be devastating. He thinks that they will have to assume the worst and take action to prevent Iranian nukes. Tobey agrees that Israel is afraid of Iran having even one nuke and that if the situation does not change, more extreme Israeli governments might be elected with apocolyptic inclinations.

       When asked about whether Israel could attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, Bokhari said that there were very serious logistical constraints that might prevent Israel from successfully wiping out Iran’s nuclear capability. These concerns include the distance to Iran, number of planes required, permitted flight paths and enough powerful bombs to penetrate the concrete and dirt covering underground Iranian facilities.

       The interview then switched to what a nuclear attack would do to Israel. Tobey said that the main topic of current discussion was about political and economic fallout. A single bomb would not directly wipe out Israel but the hit to the economy and the reaction of those who survived would be devastating.

        If Iran did nuke Israel, the international community would recoil in horror and Iran would become a pariah. They can threaten other nations but could they threaten world powers to trade with them? Very unlikely. They would have to know that the current sanctions would look like a slap on the wrist compared to what would happen if they did nuke Israel.

      Another concern about an Iranian nuke is the possibility of an accidental launch. There has also been the fear that Iran could provide a nuclear weapon to a terrorist group but Bokhari is very skeptical about this as am I. You need a serious infrastructure to handle nuclear weapons which the terrorists don’t have. It would come back on Iran anyway.

       And, finally, Israel’s nuclear arsenal has to be taken into account. I am absolutely certain that there are contingency plans for Israel to nuke major cities and oil fields in the Middle East if they feel that they are losing a fight for survival. It is possible that an Iranian nuclear strike might trigger that doomsday scenario. Nobody wants that.

Israeli Prime Minister testifies about Iranian nuclear weapons:

On 3/16/2015, TEPCO announced they measured the highest density of Cs-134/137 at 2 boring wells located in Reactor 2 seaside. The sampling date was 3/16/2015. fukushima-diary.com

A rice export association has launched an initiative to sell more rice to Singapore, taking advantage of the wealthy city-state’s appetite for Japanese cuisine. japantimes.co.jp

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has approved Westinghouse’s testing approach for its small modular reactor design. world-nuclear-news.org

Poland will be an important market in Europe for Westinghouse, Mike Kirst, the company’s vice president for strategy and external relations for Europe, said in an interview with EurActiv published today. world-nuclear-news.org

          I strive for accuracy in this blog. I recently encountered a very disturbing story. All news accounts I have seen trace back to a single article published by on Truthstream Media on March 6, 2015. This is a website created by Aaron Dykes and Melissa Melton. They claim to have found newspaper articles from the 1960s which say that contractors and the U.S. government worked together in the development of a system for injecting cement mixed with low-level nuclear waste from weapons development into fracking wells drilled in the Conasauga shale formation which lies under parts of Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia.

        The U.S. Defense Department had little concern about environmental damage when it started the U.S. nuclear weapons program in the 1940s. The Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington States is still cleaning up the mess the DoD left there where millions of gallons of low-level waste was just poured into dirt trenches and allowed to soak into the ground. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico which is charged with disposing of similar waste just had a drum of waste explode, releasing plutonium and americium into the environment. The WIPP will be shut for several years while they work on repairing the damage.

        There are five articles in Texas newspapers in 1964 that mention the waste fracking program. Four of them have identical text and the fifth has the same text with a few minor changes. The accounts talk about how Union Carbide which operates the nuclear materials division of the U.S. Oak Ridge National Laboratories in Tennessee teamed up with Halliburton. Halliburton’s contribution was the creation of a special cement. The low-level waste was mixed with the cement and the mixture was injected into a well. The injected mixture fracked the earth around the well hole. After forty eight hours, the mixture hardened into a solid layer underground.

         Fracking is very controversial. The supporters talk about energy independence and jobs. The critics talk about polluted ground water, release of methane which exacerbates global warming and the occurrence of earthquakes near fracking wells in what had been stable geology. If it is true that the U.S. government, Union Carbide and Halliburton started fracking nuclear waste in 1960, this should have been public long ago.

         The big question at this point is whether or not the U.S. government has any records that specify where this waste was injected into fracking wells. It would also be nice to know how long this program lasted. Considering the fact that the documentation at Hanford was very shoddy with respect to disposal of similar waste, it is possible that the records of this waste fracking do not exist. This is regrettable because it would allow a study of long term effects of using this method of nuclear waste disposal. Liquids and gases from fracking escape into the ground water and atmosphere near fracking sites. It would be informative to compare the location of clusters of cancers and birth defects with the sites where nuclear waste was injected into the ground.  

Conasauga shale:

 

The creator of a slogan on signboards touting a “bright future” from nuclear energy opposes plans to remove them from a deserted town in Fukushima Prefecture, saying they bear an important new message. ajw.asahi.com

Kansai Electric Power Company and the Japan Atomic Power Company (JAPC) have decided to decommission three nuclear power plants shut down after the Fukushima accident of 2011 rather than applying to restart them. world-nuclear-news.org

South Korea said Tuesday that North Korea was behind the cyber-attacks and hacking attempts that included online postings of Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Company Ltd. data and demands to shut down nuclear reactors. nuclearstreet.com

Construction of the Chernobyl New Safe Confinement on the site of the 1986 nuclear accident is entering its final stage, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said yesterday. world-nuclear-news.org

          I have been monitoring the negotiations between the Iranian government and six major world powers consisting of the United States, Russia, Germany, France, Britain and China over Iran’s nuclear program. Iran did have a deal with the European Union from 2004 to suspend uranium enrichment but had repeatedly threatened to resume enrichment in violation of the agreement. In order to put pressure on Iran to suspend uranium enrichment that could lead to weapons grade uranium and to submit to international inspections, the six negotiating nations have maintained severe sanctions on trade with Iran. Now the parties are negotiating on reaching an agreement on the framework for a final settlement this month. The final settlement would be signed by the end of June.

         On March 9th, forty seven Republicans signed a letter to the Iranian government authored by a freshman Senator named Tom Cotton. Basically the letter says that whatever deal is settled upon in the negotiations better be acceptable to the Republicans in the U.S. government or the next Republican in the White House will just cancel the agreement. The Iranians pointed out that if the United States President signs an agreement with other nations, it has the force of international law and cannot be simply ended with the stroke of another President’s pen.

         The hard-liners in Iran pointed to the letter as proof that the U.S. does not negotiate in good faith and cannot be trusted. The other nations that are part of the negotiation were upset by the letter. If a deal cannot be reached with Iran because of U.S. confusion and infighting between political factions, the other nations may drop the Iran sanctions and end any chance of a new agreement on curtailing Iran’s uranium enrichment in the near future.

        U.S. law and tradition place the power to negotiate with foreign powers squarely in the hands of the President. Congress is to advise but the President defines the agreements. Some critics of the Republican letter have cited an old law called the Logan Act dating from the founding of the U.S. However, that law says that people who have no authority in the U.S./ government cannot negotiate with foreign powers. An argument could be made that they do have some authority because they are Congressmen. Others say that the Republicans are guilty of treason but that is not possible because that charge can only be leveled if the U.S. is in a declared war with another country and it is not.

        While the forty seven Republican who signed the letter may not be guilty under the Logan Act or laws pertaining to treason, it is clear that they are interfering with President Obama’s ability to negotiate an acceptable arrangement with Iran and the other six nations. A recent article pointed out that while Republicans have sharply criticized a previous U.S. deal with North Korea to halt its nuclear program  as being a failure, supporters of the agreement respond that the N.K. nuclear activities were curtailed for ten years because of the U.S. deal. If we can slow Iran’s potential to build anuclear weapons for a similar period, then the current negotiations should be considered a success.