Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

Reuters: Bomb alert at French nuclear plant was a hoax-EDF
‘A bomb alert at a French nuclear power station proved a hoax and no explosives were found, power supplier EDF said after checking the entire site. EDF evacuated the Chinon plant after an anonymous phonecall was made at dawn from a nearby phonebox.’

You can now follow Nuclear Reaction on Twitter here: www.twitter.com/nukereaction.

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

Indian Catholic: Bishop brands debt-laden nuclear plan immoral
‘SAN JUAN CITY : Church leaders have branded as immoral plans by the government to increase debt to reopen the Bataan nuclear power plant in the north of the country that has previously been condemned as unsafe.’

Fifteen years ago, Greenpeace activists went to the radioactive waste repository at Drigg, near the Sellafield nuclear facility in Cumbria, UK. What they found was shocking…

Radioactive material, that shouldn’t have been dumped in easily accessible trenches, was ‘either intentionally thrown in or somehow slipped through the net of monitoring carried out by British Nuclear Fuels’.

Fifteen years later and what do we find?

Two cans of radioactive material have disappeared at Sellafield. The cans, about the size of Thermos flasks, contain old radioactive solid material from historic work.

They are said to be "missing" from a sealed cave but might just have been moved to a different place. Operators Sellafield Ltd said there was "no cause for concern".

A route stock take showed the cans were not in their "expected location" but a search was taking place and it was still to be confirmed that they were missing from the cave system.

‘No cause for concern’? Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they? Wherever those two flasks are, it’s clear that Sellafield’s procedures for storing and tracking the dangerous nuclear waste it’s supposed to be storing safely are woefully inadequate. Just as they were 15 years ago.

This shouldn’t even be possible let alone tolerated. The nuclear industry is uniquely dangerous and complex and yet its owners and operators seem to want to run it along the lines of any other business.

As nuclear engineer John Large says in the video, ‘they don’t really know what’s going on.’ And you see it all over the world not just at Sellafield. Sub-standard welding in the construction of state of the art reactors. Faulty steel being used in the construction of Mixed-Oxide (MOX) reprocessing plants. Hugely complex arrangements between hundreds if not thousands of contractors, sub-contractors, sub-sub-contractors, sub-sub-sub… which leads to extremely poor levels of communication and accountability…

Public trust is hugely important to the nuclear industry. Why does the nuclear industry continually betray it?

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

AFP: Niger's president opens work on new uranium plant
’NIAMEY (AFP) — The first stone of a giant uranium mine was laid Monday at Imouraren in the north of Niger, during a ceremony attended by the west African country's President Mamadou Tandja, state radio reported.’

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It’s a step in the right direction by the Japanese government but no way does it go far enough…

The Japanese Diet has unanimously approved a bill to revise the country’s nuclear damage compensation laws. Under the revised law, the nuclear liability of plant operators will be doubled by 2010.

From January next year in Japan, a nuclear power plant operator’s financial liability in the event of an accident will double from ¥60 billion ($600 million) to ¥120 billion ($1.2 billion). If any accident costs more than ¥120 billion to clean up, the Japanese taxpayer will have to pay the rest. ‘Beyond that, the government provides coverage, and liability is unlimited.’

When you look at some of the figures that surround the costs of cleaning up nuclear accidents, you see that even doubling the liability in Japan is still incredibly, unbelievably generous to the country’s nuclear power plant operators.

In his book, Nuclear War I and Other Major Nuclear Disasters of the 20th Century, Samuel Upton Newtan shows the truly staggering amounts of money that have been required to clean up after the Chernobyl disaster:

• The evacuation costs exceeded $5 billion.

• Cleanup costs for the first three years were about $19 billion.

• In the late 1980s, the Soviet government estimated the total losses, to the end of the 20th century, at $120 billion.

• Looking far into the future, another estimate by the Research and Development Institute of Power Engineering (in the former USSR) put the cost of Chernobyl at $358 billion. It is noted that this cost far exceeds the value of all Nuclear Power Plant electricity generated in the USSR up to 1986.

• In 1996, Belarus estimated the total cost to them would reach $235 billion by the year 2015.

•The Ukraine claimed Chernobyl could require up to 20 percent of its annual budget if the resources are available.

It goes without saying that the $1.2 billion liability figure doesn’t even scratch those numbers. It isn’t even near the cost of clearing up a far, far smaller accident.

Some countries are even more generous than Japan. In the UK the maximum liability is just £140 million (approximately $212 million) and even that has been waived for the lucky companies bidding to clean up the radioactive nightmare at Sellafield. The UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority will also compensate operators for their loss of income after an accident, even if it was their fault.

It shouldn’t need spelling out why nuclear operators get such a sweet deal and why the economics of the nuclear industry are so distorted. Such are the doubts and the lack of trust in nuclear power it is unable to operate under the usual terms of any other business. And when we have governments and taxpayers so willingly opening their wallets and purses, why should it? Asked to stand on its own two feet, the nuclear industry would immediately fall over.

This leaked communication between the Finnish nuclear regulator STUK and the constructor of Olkiluoto AREVA has revealed that there are severe problems with designing the control systems of the world's largest, prototype nuclear reactor, the European Pressurised Reactor (EPR).

Helsinki, December 9, 2008

Anne Lauvergeon
Chief Executive Officer
AREVA
33, rue La Fayette
F-75442 Paris Cedex 09

Dear Mrs. Lauvergeon,

With this letter I want to express my great concern on the lack of progress in the design of Olkiluoto 3 NPP automation.

The construction of Olkiluoto 3 plant seems to proceed generally well but I cannot see real progress being made in the design of the control and protection systems. Without a proper design that meets the basic principles of nuclear safety, and is consistently and transparently derived from the concept presented as an annex to the construction license application, I see no possibility to approve these important systems for installation. This would mean that the construction will come to a halt and it is not possible to start commissioning tests.

I expressed my concern on this already in spring 2008, in a meeting with Mr. Xavier Jacob and TVO’s management. After that Areva organised a workshop at professional level in Erlangen on April 23-25, 2008. The goal of the workshop was to clarify the open technical issues. I was told afterwards that it was a successful event where our concerns were conveyed to your experts and were well understood by them. It was expecially encouraging to hear that after the workshop a group led by an expert of high repute, Dr. Graf, was given a task to make sure that the issues be addressed promptly.

Since then there have been several meetings among our experts but we have not seen expected progress in the work on Areva side. The systems with highest safety importance are to be designed by Areva NP SAS but unfortunately the attitude or lack of professional knowledge of some persons who speak in the expert meetings on behalf of that organisation prevent to make progress in resolving the concerns. Therefore, evident design errors are not corrected and we are not receiving design documentation with adequate information and verifiable design requirements. This is unfortunate because I am convinced that within your organisation there is enough competence to resolve all open issues. I wonder how this competence is actually being used in this project and whether an input by Dr. Graf and his group has been actually utilised.

I sincerely hope you could initiate some action in this area, in order to ensure bringing the construction of Olkiluoto 3 to a successful end.

With my best regards,

Jukka Laaksonen
Director General, STUK

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

World Nuclear News: Delay in groundwork for Florida nuclear
’New nuclear power in Florida has been put back by 20 months after regulators
ruled that no excavation may take place ahead of full permission to build.’

Read that headline again. Take a deep breath…

Due for completion in 2012 at the earliest, the so-called state of the art and third generation OL3 European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) being built at Olkiluoto, Finland has been under construction since 2005.

Four years later, documents leaked to Finnish YLE television news make for disturbing reading. STUK, the Finnish governmental authority for the nuclear industry overseeing the project, is still yet to receive design documents that would show how the basic principles of nuclear safety are going to be met in the reactor when it is completed.

Don’t take our word for it, here’s Jukka Laaksonen, Director General of STUK, in his letter to the Anne Lauvergeon, CEO of the reactor’s builder Areva…

Without a proper design that meets the basic principles of nuclear safety, and is consistently and transparently derived from the concept presented as an annex to the construction license application, I see no possibility to approve these important systems for installation. This would mean that the construction will come to a halt and it is not possible to start commissioning tests.

[…]

[E]vident design errors are not corrected and we are not receiving design documentation with adequate information and verifiable design requirements.

(See the post below this one for the full letter)

Four years after construction began and a year after concerns were raised, the designs for the most vital and fundamental part of this untried and untested nuclear reactor are not yet in place. We’re talking about the safety systems of the world’s largest nuclear reactor – the systems that control everything in a reactor, from power levels to control rods and cooling systems. These designs should have been in place years ago.

How can the construction of a nuclear reactor be approved without these things being done? How has this happened? How has it been allowed to happen? Is it incompetence or cover-up? Which would you rather it was?

And this is just the latest in a long line of incompetence and cover-up in the construction of the OL3. Massive cost and budget overruns. Substandard construction and safety oversight. The gagging of workers from speaking out about concerns. A previously cosy relationship between STUK and Areva.

This project is supposed to be the launch of the world’s flagship nuclear reactor. EPR is supposed to stand at the forefront of an over-hyped nuclear ‘renaissance’. Instead it has degenerated quickly from joke to farce to very really danger – a byword for everything that’s wrong with nuclear power.

And yet this is a reactor design that Areva wants to build all over the world – France, China, UK, United States, India, Italy, Abu Dhabi. Areva are clearly incapable of managing a project of this size and complexity with anything approaching transparency or competence. The company’s construction permit should be cancelled immediately.

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

Your Industry News: Israel rebuffs call to sign nuclear pact
’An Israeli official on Wednesday criticised a U.S. call to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as hard to understand, citing the pact's failure to prevent countries from obtaining atomic arms.’

Following hot on the news that Areva have been building a state-of-the-art nuclear reactor for the last four years without the designs for the safety systems being ready, France’s nuclear embarrassments have just announced their intentions to start producing low-carbon cars. The vehicles don’t have brakes, steering wheels or airbags but Areva say they are 100 per cent safe and the company is confident the cars will be popular amongst the gullible. ‘We’ll get back to you when we’ve finished counting our money,’ said an Areva spokesman.

The Israelis government announced this week that it has no intention of signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty ‘citing the pact's failure to prevent nations from obtaining atomic arms’. India gave similar reasons for not signing the NPT last year when it was re-admitted to the nuclear club after being expelled in the early 1970s for testing nuclear weapons. It’s an interesting defence – not abiding by the rules because other people don’t – but we don’t recommend you try using it should you ever find yourself charged with robbery, murder or other crimes. We’re not lawyers but even we know that telling the judge that you broke into a house because ‘the law against housebreaking has failed to prevent other people from breaking into houses’ may not be looked upon in your favour.

There was much hilarity last month when, as an April Fool joke, two apprentices for Atkins Nuclear, a UK nuclear, IT and engineering services company, moved a colleague’s car from one car park to another. Unfortunately, the car park they moved the car to was restricted access and belonged to VT Nuclear Services which provides ‘services to the nuclear and security industry’. The 65 member of staff were evacuated after they suspected a terrorist threat. A spokesman for VT Nuclear Services said, ‘the receptionist saw two men drop off the van and then run away.’ Atkins Nuclear’s Come To Work Dressed As Your Favourite James Bond Villain competition has been cancelled.

(You can read other tales of nuclear insanity here)

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

Your Industry News: Russia to start building world's first offshore nuclear plant
’A St. Petersburg-based shipyard will start building the world's first offshore nuclear power plant on May 18, the city's governor said on Tuesday.’

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

The State: Despite Taliban turmoil, Pakistan expands nuke plants
‘Pakistan's government is completing two new nuclear reactors to produce plutonium for weapons that would be smaller, lighter and more efficient than the 60-odd highly enriched uranium-fueled warheads that Pakistan is now thought to possess, the officials and experts said.’

So, the news that Areva are building the world’s largest nuclear reactor in Finland without submitting designs for its safety systems is spreading rapidly. Nuclear Engineering International write of the scandal-prone Olkiluoto 3 reactor’s reputation being ‘dealt another blow’.

The article speaks of Finnish nuclear regulator STUK being ‘very critical of Areva's performance’ and describes the episode as an ‘embarrassing row’. Areva’s attitude and alleged expert knowledge are also questioned.

After that, one wonders how many people will be clicking on the advertising banner at the top of the page…

All in all, it’s a story we’re still struggling to believe. A reactor without a safety system? We wouldn’t be surprised to hear that the staff restaurant at Areva headquarters doesn’t serve food.

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

Reuters: Spain fines Asco I nuclear plant 15.4 mln euros
‘Spain's government said on Monday it has fined the operators of the 1,000 megawatt Asco I nuclear plant 15.4 million euros ($20.95 million) for six charges of breaching safety rules over a radioactive leak in November 2007.’

There’s yet more trouble at the disastrous construction of the OL3 reactor at Olkiluoto in Finland. Pipes for the reactor’s primary coolant system have been found to have faults on their outer surfaces. Finnish nuclear regulator STUK has ordered welding to be stopped until the country’s utility TVO, the reactor’s owner, submits an assessment of the safety significance of the faults. TVO will need to show that the pipes are not damaged in a way that would affect the safety of the plant.

When the pipes that connect the reactor and the steam generators were welded in the Spring, faults were found on the outer surface of the pipes. The faults are microscopic fractures on the walls of the steel pipes. This is the second time the fractures have been observed.

Three welding processes have been done already and one more is due. In the inspections carried out after the first welding, fractures were observed in a section of the weld. The fractures were 1-2mm long and up to 1.8mm deep. Welding was suspended and samples were taken to determine the cause.

On the basis of the assessments made, STUK required intensified oversight of welding. No fractures were found after the second weld. However, after the third round of welding was completed, the same kinds of problems were found that occurred with the first.

These are the same pipes that had to be recast back in 2006 when it was found that they were of an unacceptable quality. Now there are similar problems with the material of the new, recast pipes. See the pipes pinpointed here in a diagram of a PWR.

The fractures don’t sound big, but the point is they have occurred where the welds attach to the base material. What are know as grain boundary fractures and embrittlement can severely weaken the welds. This, in the primary coolant system of what will be the world’s largest prototype nuclear reactor. What will it take for TVO, the Finnish government and Areva, the reactor’s builders, to realised that OL3 has been and remains an expensive and dangerous joke?

(And just to add to the atmosphere of incompetence, a major fire alert was caused at the construction site in Olkiluoto today when a foreign worker, who hadn’t been properly trained in the necessary fire procedures because of the poor flow of information on the site, called the emergency services by mistake. Every fire brigade in the region was already on their way when the alarm was found to be false.)

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

Reuters: German nuclear lobby sets out post-election plan
‘Germany's nuclear power industry lobby is ready to discuss plans to reverse the country's atomic exit programme with any new government after the Sept. 27 national elections, it said on Tuesday.’

If you want an idea of the long term effects that nuclear power can have on the environment then look to farms in the UK. The government has admitted that 369 farms in Britain ‘are still restricted in the way they use land and rear sheep because of radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear power station accident 23 years ago’.

Huw Alun Evans's farm, Hengwrt Uchaf in north Wales, is one of the 369 inside one restricted area. Thousands of his sheep have been scanned for more than two decades. Evans's animals have failed radiation tests if they have been on higher ground, but the danger levels drop after they have been brought down to graze on lower pastures.

He says: "I remember a meeting with civil servants at the time [1986] and got the impression they thought it would be short-lived. No-one had any idea it would go on this long."

‘No-one had any idea it would go on this long’. And yet there are those who dismiss Chernobyl as an accident that happened long ago in an obscure location. It continues to impact on thousands of everyday lives across Europe.

Earlier this month CEO of French nuclear giant Areva, Anne Lauvergeon, signed an industrial partnership with Erkki Nghimtina, Namibian Minister of Mines and Energy, in the presence of Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba. Lauvergeon declared herself ‘delighted’ at ‘the creation by the Namibian government and Areva of a joint mining exploration company for the country’s future uranium operations‘.

Elsewhere in Namibia, people are rather less than delighted with uranium mining. A report by Namibian research Institute LaRRI, in co-operation with SOMO, the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations, found that uranium ‘mine workers [for Rössing Uranium (Rio Tinto Group)] and others in the surrounding communities inhale dust and radon gas’…

Exposure to radiation is most often associated with cancer, but it can also have other harmful effects. Low level radiation can contribute to birth defects, high infant mortality and chronic lung, eye, skin and reproductive illnesses.

According to Hilma Shindondola-Mote, Director of LaRRI, uranium mine workers are not aware about the true nature of their health status: “During the time we conducted the study, employees claimed that Rössing does not explain what health problems can arise from exposure to uranium”. Shindondola-Mote said further said that workers of the company raised concern that although they are tested annually, the results are never revealed until such a time when they leave the company.

Uranium mining and its consequences is another of the nuclear industry’s great big dirty secrets. It not something you see mentioned in detail in the big glossy brochures, adverts and press releases. Not Caetite in Brazil. Not the Ranger mine in Australia. Not Arlit in Niger.

Areva has already been accused of denying uranium miners proper care in Niger. Where are the assurances that the company’s operations in Namibia will be different?

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

Letter to The Guardian: Carbon cost of nuclear power
‘Your account of the part buyout of British Energy assets (Centrica to buy 20% stake ion British Energy from EDF," 11 May) asserts that nuclear power is "carbon free". It is not, and this sloppy statement demonstrates the democratic dangers of the nuclear industry repeating this falsehood to gain support for its planned UK expansion, as unquestioning journalists repeat it as if it is fact.’

The dominant type of new nuclear power plant, light-water reactors (LWRs), proved unfinanceable in the robust 2005–08 capital market, despite new U.S. subsidies approaching or exceeding their total construction cost. New LWRs are now so costly and slow that they save 2–20x less carbon, 20–40x slower, than micropower and efficient end-use.1 As this becomes evident, other kinds of reactors are being proposed instead—novel designs claimed to solve LWRs’ problems of economics, proliferation, and waste.2 Even climate-protection pioneer Jim Hansen says these “Gen IV” reactors merit rapid R&D.3 But on closer examination, the two kinds most often promoted—Integral Fast Reactors (IFRs) and thorium reactors4—reveal no economic, environmental, or security rationale, and the thesis is unsound for any nuclear reactor.

[…]

In short, the notion that different or smaller reactors plus wholly new fuel cycles (and, usually, new competitive conditions and political systems) could overcome nuclear energy’s inherent problems is not just decades too late, but fundamentally a fantasy. Fantasies are all right, but people should pay for their own. Investors in and advocates of small-reactor innovations will be disappointed. But in due course, the aging advocates of the half-century-old reactor concepts that never made it to market will retire and die, their credulous young devotees will relearn painful lessons lately forgotten, and the whole nuclear business will complete its slow death of an incurable attack of market forces. Meanwhile, the rest of us shouldn’t be distracted from getting on with the winning investments that make sense, make money, and really do solve the energy, climate, and proliferation problems, led by business for profit.

Read the rest

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

Washington Post: U.N. watchdog sees nuclear states doubling: report
‘The number of potential nuclear weapons states could more than double in the next few years unless major powers take radical steps toward disarmament, the head of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog was quoted saying on Friday.’

Al Gore:

‘For the eight years that I spent in the White House every nuclear weapons proliferation problem we dealt with was connected to a reactor programme. People have said for years that there are now completely different [nuclear] technologies. OK, but if you have a team of scientists that can build a reactor, and you’re a dictator, you can make them work at night to build a nuclear weapon.’

Mohamed ElBaradei:

He predicted that the next wave of proliferation would involve "virtual nuclear weapons states", who can produce plutonium or highly enriched uranium and possess the knowhow to make warheads, but who stop just short of assembling a weapon. They would therefore remain technically compliant with the NPT while being within a couple of months of deploying and using a nuclear weapon.

"This is the phenomenon we see now and what people worry about in Iran. And this phenomenon goes much beyond Iran. Pretty soon … you will have nine weapons states and probably another 10 or 20 virtual weapons states."

If you want to see an example of the smug misanthropy that lies behind much nuclear power propaganda and boosting, then take a look at this piece from ‘premier’ financial website Seeking Alpha. Making predictions of an impending bull market in uranium, it has this advice to give to potential investers…

[P]erhaps the most promising way to access uranium right now is to look to the source: producers. Lately, uranium miners haven't been doing half bad, having regained some of the ground they lost in 2007's U3O8 price drop and last year's credit crunch. The same RBC report noted that overall, uranium stocks have rebounded almost 225% from their lows, and that the market could reclaim its previous peaks within the next two years.

This recovery in miners has been driven in part by good discovery news out of Africa. New drilling results from the Rössing South mine in Namibia suggest that the newly discovered source is not only the country's highest-grade uranium deposit, but could be one of the largest in the world. (Extract Resources, which owns the mine, and Kalahari Minerals, which owns a large stake in Extract, have both seen their share prices soar). Meanwhile, in Niger, French nuclear power giant Areva has teamed up with local officials to lay foundations for a new mine in Imouraren, which when completed, will be Africa's largest uranium mine and the second largest in the world.

They simply can’t see the human cost of uranium mining for the dollar signs in their eyes. We’ve already seen this week what Rössing Uranium have done in Namibia. We know what Areva have got up to in Niger.

This thinking from Alpha Seeker is linked to the similar line of thought that says nuclear power is safe or low carbon. It consciously avoids discussion of the health dangers of uranium mining and the carbon costs of producing nuclear fuel. Alpha Seeker don’t say ‘nuclear power doesn't emit an ounce of greenhouse gases’, they say ‘nuclear reactors don't emit an ounce of greenhouse gases’. Notice the difference? This is a wilful, blinkered ignorance on any number of levels.

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

AFP: Pacific Heron with reprocessed nuclear fuel docks in Japan
’OMAEZAKI, Japan (AFP): An armed vessel docked at a central Japanese port carrying the nation's first consignment of reprocessed nuclear fuel to land here in eight years. The Pacific Heron, a specially adapted ship with a British police team on board to guard against possible hijack, arrived in the port of Omaezaki more than two months after leaving France. The convoy, carrying the MOX fuel -- a blend of plutonium and reprocessed uranium -- is expected to unload part of the shipment here and continue its journey to two other ports near nuclear plants in southwestern Japan. Officials have not revealed where and when the shipments will be unloaded, citing fears of terrorist attacks.’

In its North America blog French nuclear giants Areva have been boasting of the wonderful, miraculous properties of Mixed-Oxide (MOX) nuclear fuel:

MOX has many benefits, but among the most important are that it allows utilities to use recycled nuclear fuel and reduces the amount of material that must be disposed in a final repository.

Reasons of time and space must have prevented Areva’s blogger from also telling us that MOX has to be transported under armed guard – as we’ve seen with the Pacific Heron, the ship that has just arrived in Japan with its payload of the biggest plutonium shipment in history, a complement of armed British police, and naval guns.

Also, the Areva blog fails to mention the benefits MOX has for terrorists. Because of the way it’s produced, the plutonium element is easier to extract from MOX than conventional nuclear fuel meaning it poses a greater risk of nuclear proliferation.

The Areva blog did find space in its piece to tell us about the MOX reprocessing plant it is building in America…

In the United States, AREVA is partnering with the Shaw Group construct the MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility in South Carolina. This facility will convert former weapons-grade material into MOX fuel for U.S. electric utilities. Construction began in August 2007 and the facility is now approximately 17 percent complete.

…but failed to mention that the construction project ‘issued a notice of violation’ after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission found that…

…visual inspection procedures for quality control evaluation of piping did not meet basic requirements; one examiner’s credentials did not meet requirements; MOX Services failed to review BF Shaw’s weld repair and quality control memos; BF Shaw failed to track deficiency reports linked to previous audits […] rules for reporting weld defects/repairs to MOX Services were not followed; tanks were fabricated without a formal weld repair/rework procedure in place; MOX Services’ review of welder qualifications failed to detect that a welder who worked on the project was not qualified; an examiner involved in visual and liquid penetrant examinations failed to perform those tasks using approved procedures; tests of repair welds were not done according to specifications.

What is it with Areva and safety and welding procedures? So in Finland, so in South Carolina it seems. We look forward to Areva blogging about it.

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

Salem News: Child Leukemia Rates Increase Near U.S. Nuclear Power Plants
’Leukemia death rates in U.S. children near nuclear reactors rose sharply (vs. the national trend) in the past two decades, according to a recent study. The greatest mortality increases occurred near the oldest nuclear plants, while declines were observed near plants that closed permanently in the 1980s and 1990s. The study was published in the most recent issue of the European Journal of Cancer Care. The study updates an analysis conducted in the late 1980s by the National Cancer Institute (NCI). That analysis, mandated by Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA), is the only attempt federal officials have made to examine cancer rates near U.S. nuclear plants. U.S. Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-MA), a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said "Nothing is more important to American families than the health of their children. It is critical that we continue to improve our understanding of the causes of child leukemia and learn how this heartbreaking disease be prevented, therefore this study deserves critical consideration."’

Remember the two flasks of radioactive material that have gone missing from a sealed storage unit at the UK’s Sellafield nuclear facility run by the Nuclear Management Partners consortium? We don't want to alarm anyone but it seems there may be a sinister and disturbing reason for their disappearance…

Robots are stealing them.

It’s a chilling development. The flasks ‘were stored in a "cave" with such high levels of radioactivity that the canisters can only be moved only by robots’ but ‘the consortium had so far offered no explanation as to how remotely controlled robots could have effected such a removal service unobserved by managers and workers alike, or by the site's security services.’

There can only be one explanation: the robots have become self-aware and are striking their first blow against humanity as prophesised by the Terminator movies. Why else would they be stockpiling nuclear material? Is this a prelude to a robot uprising and a humans vs the machine war? By not offering an explanation, the Nuclear Management Partners are clearly collaborating with our robotic enemies, the traitors!

This must be the reason. The only other explanation is also too terrifying to contemplate – that one of the most radioactive places on the planet is being overseen by a bunch of unbelievable incompetents (they also allowed a 14-month radioactive leak), unable to properly safeguard the highly dangerous radioactive materials in their ‘care’.

(Regular readers will no doubt be unsurprised to hear that French nuclear clowns Areva is a member of the Nuclear Management Partners.)

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

ISN: Sarkozy: Lucrative in Africa
’The visits that French President Nicolas Sarkozy paid to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Congo-Brazzaville and Niger at the end of March this year did not have great humanitarian purposes. Sarkozy gave speeches on the role of peace and democracy for development in Africa, but the “important talks” were happening in other venues, where delegations of businessmen succeeded in signing contracts for the exploitation of mineral resources. The core objective was to accelerate French mining and prospecting deals in the DRC and Niger for the extraction of uranium. The new agreements will allow French public nuclear multinational Areva to double its uranium supplies by 2015 (from 6,000 to 12,000 tonnes per year), and to become the largest player in the global market for nuclear energy, with a 25 percent market share. In this game of global powers and economic interests, African development and human rights seem the biggest losers. According to Nigerien and French civil society groups, uranium mines have caused serious damage to environment and health in the past, while offering only a negligible contribution to prosperity and development for local populations.’

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

UPI Asia: Delays at Japan's ill-fated nuclear plant
’Tokyo, Japan - Japan's Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant, built to extract plutonium from the spent fuel produced in Japan's nuclear reactors, continues to be plagued by technical difficulties that have pushed its start-up date for commercial operations to August this year. The plant in Rokkasho in northern Japan was out of action for nine months from the end of 2007 due to problems in one of its vitrification facilities, a furnace that mixes high active liquid waste with molten glass to seal radioactive waste in glass canisters that can safely be buried in the ground. Attempts to restart the plant failed last October as problems with the glass melting process persisted. Then in January, 150 liters of high-level liquid radioactive waste leaked from pipes in the vitrification cell, forcing Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd. to postpone operations until August. The problems at Rokkasho, especially with extracting plutonium from spent nuclear fuel, are a blow to Japan's nuclear fuel-cycle program, whose goal is to reprocess and re-use recoverable resources from spent nuclear fuel to produce fuel for its power plants. In fact the commitment to a domestic program to increase energy and reduce nuclear waste by reprocessing spent fuel led to the creation of Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd.’

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

IEEE Spectrum: Japan Pushes Forward on Plutonium Imports
’21 May 2009-Japan's power-generation companies are moving full-speed ahead-again-to start plutonium-thermal power generation this fall, in the face of fierce opposition from antinuclear groups. Japan needs to deal with its growing stockpiles of plutonium, a by-product of the fuel used in its reactors. This fissile material must be disposed of by burying it deep underground. Alternatively, it can be recycled and used again in Japan's light-water reactors after it is combined with uranium to produce mixed-oxide fuel, or MOX. The industry's renewed efforts to use MOX is partly in response to the ongoing troubles of Japan Atomic Energy Agency's experimental Monju fast-breeder plant in Fukui Prefecture, 400 kilometers west of Tokyo, which is designed to use the plutonium. But Monju has been closed since 1995, following a series of safety scares. The latest start-up postponement occurred this February, because of delays in final safety checks.’

Following the news that the operators of the UK’s Sellafield nuclear plant have somehow managed to lose control of their remote-controlled nuclear waste management robots, let us introduce you to Reactorsaurus…

A remotely-operated 75-tonne machine nicknamed Reactorsaurus is to rip out the inner workings of a dinosaur of nuclear power production.

Weighing in at 75 tonnes and with arms 16 metres long, we’re hoping Reactorsaurus doesn’t get ideas of his own and go rogue like his robotic colleagues at Sellafield. Still, that’s nuclear power for you - so dangerous you need to think about building gigantic robots to clean up.

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

Domain-B: Sellafield Ltd to be prosecuted for radiation accident news

The operators of the Sellafield nuclear facility in the UK are to be prosecuted after two employees of a contractor, received a "higher than anticipated" dose of radiation. Sellafield Ltd, which operates the Sellafield nuclear facility, has been charged with failure to discharge its duty under Secton 3(1) of the Health and Safety Act 1974 and the case will be heard at Whitehaven Magistrates' Court on 24 July. According to reports, two workers who were engaged in refurbishing a floor at the site's plutonium finishing and storage plant received a ''higher than anticipated'' dose of radiation in July 2007. A spokeswoman for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) said, "The two contractors were exposed during the decontamination of an area of concrete floor.''

Don’t believe us? How about the Massachusetts Institute of Technology…

[F]igures, say the authors of [a new Massachusetts Institute of Technology] report, an update on a similar report in 2003, mean that "even if all the announced plans for new nuclear power plant construction are realized, the total will be well behind that needed for reaching a thousand gigawatts of new capacity worldwide by 2050."

One thousand gigawatts is the number the M.I.T. professors estimated would be needed to ensure that nuclear power provided 20 percent of global electricity needs as well as cut emissions of greenhouse gases from power plants. In the U.S., the number would be jumping from 100 to 300 gigawatts of nuclear-sourced electricity by 2050.

Read the rest

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

Reuters: Kazakhstan arrests head of state uranium company

Kazakhstan's security service arrested the head of the state uranium company on suspicion of theft, it said on Monday, the latest in a string of high-profile criminal cases in the Central Asian state. The deepening financial crisis has sharpened divisions among Kazakhstan's ruling elite and triggered a chain of criminal investigations and arrests in government and industry. In the latest case, KNB, the successor service to Soviet-era KGB, said it had arrested Mukhtar Dzhakishev, the long-serving head of Kazatomprom, one of the world's biggest uranium producers. Dzhakishev, who presided over Kazatomprom's rise as a global uranium major, is one of Kazakhstan's most well-known business figures. He was sacked from the job last week but it was unclear what led to his dismissal. "A criminal case has been opened," said KNB spokesman Kenzhebulat Beknazarov, adding that a group of other executives were also arrested. "A number of managers in Kazatomprom is being investigated in connection to large scale theft."

In the UK’s Parliament, similar to many parliaments, the elected members can ask written questions of government ministers. Here’s a question from Colin Challen to Minister of State for Energy
Mike O'Brien about the assessment of the EPR reactor which companies want to build in the UK:

Nuclear Power Stations: Safety

Colin Challen: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what recent discussions his Department has had with the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate on the safety control systems for the design of the generic European Pressurised Water Reactor; and what the timetable is for the assessment of generic design candidate reactors for new nuclear power stations in the United Kingdom.

Mr. Mike O'Brien: The Nuclear Installations Inspectorate of the HSE is in the process of assessing EDF/AREVA’s UK European Pressurised Water Reactor (EPR) as part of their Generic Design Assessment (GDA). During this process the NII has informed officials from DECC’s Office of Nuclear Development (OND) that it has raised issues with EDF/AREVA on the Control and Instrumentation (C&I) systems of the EPR design.

We expect the GDA process to be completed by June 2011.

'The highest level of technical issue' about the ‘Control and Instrumentation (C&I) systems of the EPR design’? This wouldn’t be the same control systems the designs of which the nuclear inspectorate in Finland expressed concerns about earlier this month, would it?
Doesn't sound good, does it?

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

Xinhua: DPRK seemingly have restarted nuclear facility: Yonhap
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) seems to have restarted its nuclear reprocessing facility at Yongbyon, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency said Wednesday, citing its source. "The Yongbyon nuclear facility was spotted to have opened the plutonium fuel rods in mid-April, in addition to smoke rising from the steam facility later in the month," the source was quoted as saying by Yonhap.

The US Department of Energy is…

‘…to establish what it called a 'blue-ribbon' commission to evaluate options for the country to meet its commitment to manage high-level military wastes as well as used nuclear fuel on behalf of nuclear power utilities. The panel will give recommendations the DoE said "would form the basis for working with Congress to revise the statutory framework for managing and disposing of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste."’

Some, however are sceptical or the commission’s chances (and we don’t just mean Greenpeace and other environmentalists). No, it seems World Nuclear News (‘supported, administratively and with technical advice, by the World Nuclear Association and the World Nuclear University also has its doubts…

Many observers have wondered what such a panel would uncover that many millions of dollars of research failed to find.

So there you have it. Don’t take our word for it, take the word of the nuclear industry. Many millions of dollars of research failed to find options for the country to meet its commitment to manage high-level military wastes as well as used nuclear fuel on behalf of nuclear power utilities.

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

Bloomberg: Siemens Would Look At Areva's Power Transmission Unit, CFO Says
Siemens AG, Europe's largest engineering company, would look at Areva SA's power transmission and distribution unit if it was approached by the French state- owned company, Chief Financial Officer Joe Kaeser said. "We would look at it: they know where to find us" Kaeser told reporters yesterday evening in Frankfurt. Siemens, based in Munich, has said it's "actively" looking for purchases in transmission and distribution, a market that's expected to benefit from government stimulus packages.

Sweden’s nuclear reactor Oskarshamns is shut down, due to the cracks found in newly replaced control rods. Officials are pretty certain that the problem could be anything, and they favoured a step by step approach to solve the problem. According to the plant spokesperson:

"Now it's important that we find the definitive cause. Without that, we can't eliminate the problem."

So they are planning to do the following:
1. Identify the problem
2. Solve the problem

Pretty straight forward, they really cannot fail with it, but we cannot help being suspicious. After all we know them from their rapid response when they used janitors as guards when the alarm systems failed.
We sincerely hope, they will manage to follow the two step plan.

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

The Bulletin: The North Korean nuclear test: What the seismic data says
According to early reports, Monday's North Korea event certainly seems like a deliberate explosion in the right place. However, it was too small to be a successful Hiroshima-class crude explosive device, by a factor of three or four. The reported estimates of Richter magnitude spread from 4.5-5, and the standard conversions to explosive yield suggest a yield of 2-6 kiloton-equivalents of TNT. Most of the latest Richter magnitude estimates have come in the low half of the 4.5-5 range, so it seems likely that the yield was 4 kilotons or smaller.

(The 101 is an occasional series examining the claims made by the nuclear industry on behalf of nuclear power. You can read the series introduction here, part one ‘clean and safe’ here, and part two ‘cheap’ here.)

If nuclear power is as reliable as the industry and its supporters claim, why is it so unreliable?

Nuclear reactors are a massively complex way of boiling water. That’s all they do – boil water to create steam to turn turbines that generate electricity. They are huge, complicated kettles.

This complexity means that reactors can be temperamental beasts. The smallest of faults can stop electricity generation or prevent reactors running at full power. The history of nuclear energy is littered with examples and the every day news shows that things are not getting better.

Look at the technical problems Japan’s Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant. Look at the country’s supposedly earthquake-proof Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant, closed for nearly two years by an earthquake and a series of fires. Technical problems at the THORP reprocessing plant in the UK that may close it for years. South Africa’s Koeberg nuclear power station shut down after ‘an unspecified technical fault’. The US’s Prairie Island nuclear plant Unit 1 is offline after an electrical fault its coolant system. ‘Most of the UK's reactors have performance figures in the lowest 25% of the world league table, with only two in the top 50%’. We could go on all day.

Can we expect an improved performance from the next generation of nuclear reactors? Judging by the long list of problems and setbacks seen at the construction sites of the new EPR reactors at like Olkiluoto and Flamanville, we wouldn’t bet on it.
Critics of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind say that they are unreliable. And yet these sources are built on tried, tested and above all, simple (meaning easily mass-produced and repairable) technologies. The history of nuclear energy shows its unreliability and shortcomings all too clearly.