Part 1 of Iranian Breakout Time Misperceptions:

         I have posts many links to articles dealing with the efforts of major nuclear powers to negotiate regulation of Iran’s nuclear program. The exact details of the negotiations have been kept secret so I have not posted my own comments on these efforts. The Prime Minister of Israel just gave a speech to the U.S. Congress about the dangers of a Iranian nuclear weapons program. The PM has been accusing Iran of developing nuclear weapons for years but even the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service disagrees with his arguments that Iran is on the verge of creating nuclear weapons. Today I am going to post the first of two articles reviewing some misperceptions about the Iranian nuclear program.

        One of the big arguments between the U.S. and Israel with respect to the Iranian nuclear program is the fact that some of the technology being discussed could, in theory, be repurposed to the creation of nuclear weapons. The U.S. is willing to allow Iran to keep their uranium enrichment equipment as long as there is a strict international program for inspecting Iran’s nuclear facilities. The PM of Israel has said that it is unacceptable for Iran to even have the technology that could be used to enrich uranium to weapons grade. One of the key measures that the U.S. Congress will be using to weigh any agreement with Iran will be something called the “breakout time” which is defined as the minimum time Iran would need to create fifty five pounds of weapons grade uranium. This is the amount of fissile material needed to create a single atomic bomb. Critics of this criterion say that the breakout time is a misleading and inadequate criterion for judging agreements with Iran for the following reasons.

1. Proponents of the breakout time criterion say that it is a good indicator of the time that would be required to build an nuclear bomb. Obtaining fifty five pounds of weapons grade uranium would only be the first step. Converting the enriched uranium fluoride gas into a powder, turning the power into a metallic core, surrounding the core with explosives and integrating the whole assembly into a miniaturized warhead would then follow. It is estimated that it might take from six months to eighteen months for this additional processing. Then the bomb would need to be tested.

2. Proponents of the breakout time criterion say that it can be measured accurately. Actually, only estimates are possible and they can vary widely depending on some underlying assumptions with respect to centrifuge efficiency, chemical conversion of uranium to feed the centrifuges, setting up centrifuge cascades and recycling waste. Often breakout time estimates are also assuming that Iran has none of the technical problems that have plagued its nuclear program in the past. Realistically, Iran would need two bomb to start in order to test one. This doubles breakout estimates. Simply proving that it could make a bomb would not serve as a nuclear deterrent. Even a small arsenal would multiply the breakout time again.

(Continued in Part Two tomorrow)

Iranian nuclear sites:

Around 71 percent of Fukushima Prefecture residents remain dissatisfied with the central government’s handling of the nuclear disaster four years after the triple meltdown forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homes, a survey showed. ajw.asahi.com

It was a year of renewal and milestones at the Idaho National Laboratory, which celebrated 2014 with a video that runs through its many fields of research, including ongoing testing labs and major initiatives to develop fuel systems that make greater use of the power within the fission process. nuclearstreet.com

French nuclear powerhouse Areva on Wednesday said it would combine cost cutting with a sharper focus on nuclear power growth to overcome daunting financial difficulties that include losses of about $5.4 billion in 2014. nuclearstreet.com

Westinghouse Electric Company said 42 of its fuel assemblies will be loaded into Unit 3 at the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant after inspections showed that the company’s fuel assemblies had performed well through at least three fuel cycles at the plant. nuclearstreet.com

 

         One of the big problems with the cleanup at Fukushima is the fact that it is unknown exactly what the situation is inside the destroyed reactors because of the high levels of radioactivity. Specifically, the operators do not know where the melted cores are. I have mentioned in the past that it would be theoretically possible to use cosmic ray detectors to image the inside of the damaged reactors.

         Cosmic rays consist mostly of highly energetic electrons and alpha particles generated by astrophysical processes such as supernova explosions. When they hit the Earth’s atmosphere, they collide with atoms and decay into a variety of particles including neutrons, pions, positrons and muons. Muons are in the family of leptons and only weakly interact with normal matter. Thousands of muons hit every square meter of the Earth’s surface every minute. Many of them travel deep into the Earth before they stop.

        A team at the U.S. Los Alamos National Laboratories is working on a system that may allow imaging of the damaged Fukushima reactor cores. The basic idea is to dig holes and place two huge muon detectors on either side of the destroyed reactors at Fukushima. Muons will go through one detector, the general area where the cores are thought to be and then the other detector. Passing through the super dense core material will alter the path of the muons. When the readings from the two detectors are compared, they should provide an image of the area between the detectors.

       The new Fukushima muon detectors are currently under construction. They are about twenty feet square and are encased in three inches of steel for protection against the high radiation outside the wall of the reactor. Normally, it would be best to place one detector above the core building and one under. However, given the problems with excavating a hole beneath the core building, the detectors will be placed on either side. This means that only a few of the incoming muons will be traveling horizontally and travel through the core and the detectors. Only a few thousand muons a day will be useful at Fukushima. The new muon detectors may be able to deliver muon data as early as this week but it will take months to build up detailed images.

        A technique related to the Fukushima design is called muon stop tomography. This method only considers whether a muon passes through an area or is stopped by something that is very dense. This system has already been used to image volcanoes and the great Pyramid at Giza. This system has been used by other groups at Fukushima. However, it is believed that, considering the small size of the cores, the greater detail provided by the new muon system from LANL will be necessary to precisely locate the cores. The teams cleaning up Fukushima will need very detailed information about exactly where the small dense  currently are in order to complete the cleanup.

Workers maneuvering a muon detector at Fukushima: 

France’s oldest nuclear plant at Fessenheim was shut down due to a defective pipe. sputniknews.com

Netanyahu warns against ‘bad’ nuclear deal with Iran; Obama disagrees. latimes.com

Duke Energy Florida on Monday filed for permission to drop most of a $54 million charge on electric bills that had been paying for a two-reactor project in Levy County that was canceled in August 2013 as construction costs soared. nuclearstreet.com

GDF Suez said that financially-troubled French nuclear plant builder Areva has given it assurances that it would honor a commitment signed in May 2013 to deliver four nuclear reactors in Turkey. nuclearstreet.com

         The European Union’s twenty eight member states are working to integrate their markets and increase security of energy production in what they are calling the “Energy Union.” The Energy Union is a major E.U. project under the new president of the European Commission. The vice president of the Commission has the responsibility for implementing the Energy Union goals. Documents outlining the strategic framework for the project stated, “Today the European Union has energy rules set at the European level, but in practice it was 28 national regulatory frameworks. This cannot continue.” “Our vision is of an integrated continent-wide energy system where energy flows freely across borders, based on competition and best possible use of resources, and with effective regulation of energy markets at E.U. level where necessary.” The Energy Union envisions an “energy transition” that would involve the citizens taking ownership of E.U. energy delivery with smart meters, domestic generation and a choice of energy suppliers from the whole E.U.

         In order to implement the Energy Union, the first step will have to be major changes in energy related infrastructure including the way that energy is moved between countries. By 2020, each E.U. country must be able to import ten percent of its electricity. A new energy market must be created for the E.U. members. The ultimate intention is to expand markets to the point where consumers have the ability of buy their electricity from any supplier in the E.U. In order to achieve this plan, the energy regulators in each E.U. member country will have to be regulated by the E.U.

        “Market integration of renewable electricity generation requires flexible markets, both on the supply and demand side, within and beyond a member state’s borders,” said the European Commission. “There is a need to expand the possibilities for distributed generation and demand-side management, including intraday markets, to develop new high-voltage long distance connections and new storage technologies.” It concluded, “The Commission will prepare an ambitious legislative proposal to redesign the electricity market linking wholesale and retail.”

         Nuclear power is the E.U. largest low-carbon source of electricity supplying about twenty seven percent of the E.U. power needs. It was not a major focus of the report. Since much of the nuclear fuel and nuclear services required for the E.U. fleet of nuclear power reactors are imported, the report did point out the need for more diversity in nuclear fuel suppliers and services as part of energy security. The report said that the E.U. was falling behind other regions of the world in the implementation of low-carbon power generation.

         All the members of the European Union are signatories of the Euratom Treaty which pledges to “create the conditions required for the development of a powerful nuclear industry which will provide extensive supplies of energy, lead to the modernization of technical processes and in addition have many other applications contributing to the well-being of their peoples.” There is a section of the Euratom Treaty which calls for “production targets for nuclear energy and the various types of investment required for their attainment.” The Energy Union program calls for following the Euratom Treaty in this regard. However, the fact that some E.U. members are now calling for a nuclear production target of zero would suggest that support for nuclear power in the E.U. is not universal. Austria is leading the faction of E.U. members who want to end the use of nuclear power in the E.U.

Countries in orange are E.U. members who generate nuclear power:

Four years on, Tohoku towns in Japan still waiting for schools, homes, answers. japantimes.co.jp

Experts believe “other sources of contamination” are flowing into ocean from Fukushima. enenews.com

Australian landholders have until 5 May to put forward potential sites for a national radioactive waste management facility under a voluntary site nomination process launched by the Australian government. world-nuclear-news.org

Georgia Power Co. filed documents with the state on Friday that said overrun costs for Plant Vogtle expansion would push the project price tag above $7.5 billion in a filing that could prompt the Georgia Public Services Commission to decided on who pays for the overruns sooner than was expected. nuclearstreet.com