Bangladesh to start work on first nuclear reactor next month: minister via Reuters

Posted on 2017/11/02 by nfield

[…]

Bangladesh has been planning to build nuclear plants since the 1960s but a lack of support and other factors have delayed the much-needed project in a country known for frequent power cuts.

Two nuclear reactors, each with 1,100 megawatts of capacity are being built by Russia’s Rosatom, which is also funding 90 percent of the costs, Yeafesh Osman told Reuters on the sidelines of a nuclear conference in Abu Dhabi.

 […]

Russia has already built two VVER reactors in neighboring India, at Kudankulam and is planning to build two more.

Nuclear power will contribute about 10 percent of the country’s energy mix when both reactors are ready. Currently, Bangladesh relies on hydro, coal and expensive gas to meet the country’s surging power needs.

Bangladesh has plans to continue with its nuclear power program by building two more reactors in the short-term, Osman said, without giving details.

The director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) visited the site and has given the thumbs-up for the project, he added.

 

 

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Beatrice Fihn Thinks We Can Abolish Nuclear Arms via The New York Times

Posted on 2017/11/02 by nfield

Congratulations on your Nobel Peace Prize! How did you become interested in nuclear disarmament? I’ve always been interested in international issues. But as with many people who grew up after the Cold War, nuclear weapons didn’t feel relevant.

[…]

How so? Nuclear weapons just don’t make any sense! They’re sitting there with their papers talking about these crazy weapons that can end us all, and no one said: “This is crazy! What are we doing?” I was fascinated by the power dynamics, and I just got hooked.

[…]

We saw, for example, with the Land Mines Treaty, that the United States or Russia or China didn’t sign it, but they change their policies and behaviors. This treaty creates a norm that nuclear weapons are bad.

[…]

People think nuclear weapons are like a natural disaster or an asteroid hitting Earth, because the consequences are so awful. But we need to see them as just weapons; we can control them. They’re just really giant, expensive, dirty bombs that could end us all. We built them; we can take them apart.

Are there ways to change people’s minds about nuclear bombs? We have to keep talking about the humanitarian impacts of what would happen if you use them. We get a glimpse of it when we talk about North Korea, but we don’t think about how American nuclear weapons are aimed right now. They can be launched within 20 minutes. If the U.S. nuclear arsenal all went off, it could kill civilization, and Donald Trump has the ultimate authority to do that, as commander in chief. But if you’re really uncomfortable with Trump having that power, you are really uncomfortable with nuclear weapons in general. There are no right hands for these weapons. There’s no one who should have that kind of power.

 

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＜日本原燃＞放射性廃棄物搬入　本年度は見送り via 河北新報

Posted on 2017/11/02 by nfield

　日本原燃は３１日、低レベル放射性廃棄物埋設センター（青森県六ケ所村）へ６月に予定していた北陸電力志賀原発（石川県）の廃棄物搬入を、本年度は見送ると発表した。１０月中としていた関西電力美浜原発（福井県）分は延期する。
搬入予定だったのは両原発合わせドラム缶１７６０本。今年８月、志賀原発などで使っていた放射能測定プログラムに不具合が見つかり、原因究明に時間がかかっているという。
原燃はまた、ウラン濃縮工場（六ケ所村）の新型遠心機のうち１台で故障警報が作動し、９月以降、運転停止していることを明らかにした。同工場では同月１２日以降、ウランの生産を停止中だが、故障機以外の遠心機は稼働している。

原文

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Russia to build nuclear power plants in Nigeria via BBC

Posted on 2017/11/01 by yukimiyamotodepaul

Russia has signed a deal to build two nuclear power plants in Nigeria, as Africa’s largest economy seeks to end its energy crisis.

Russian state-owned company Rosatom will build one in the south, the other in the centre, sources at the Nigeria Atomic Energy Commission told the BBC.

The deal’s exact worth is unknown, although some reports suggest it is likely in the region of $20bn (£15bn).

It is one of a number that Rosatom has been eyeing on the continent.

The company is also involved in discussions in Ghana and South Africa.

An initial agreement with the latter to build a plant was ruled unlawful in a South African court earlier this year.

[…]

Nigeria is one of Africa’s largest oil producers, but much of its oil wealth has been squandered over the years.

Corruption at all levels has left the country out of pocket, and producing a fraction of the energy its 180 million citizens need.

Construction of the new power plants is expected to begin in the next two years.

Read more at Russia to build nuclear power plants in Nigeria 

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South Korea will not develop or possess nuclear weapons, President Moon says via Chicago Tribune

Posted on 2017/11/01 by yukimiyamotodepaul

President Moon Jae-in told lawmakers on Wednesday that South Korea would not seek to have nuclear weapons and said that Seoul would never accept its neighbor North Korea as a nuclear-armed state.

“According to the joint agreement by the two Koreas on denuclearization, North Korea’s nuclear state cannot be accepted or tolerated. We will not develop or possess nuclear weapons either,” the president said in his second state of the nation address at the National Assembly, South Korea’s parliament.

[…]

The United States stationed nuclear-armed weapons in South Korea during the Cold War until 1991, when President George H.W. Bush withdrew all tactical nuclear weapons deployed abroad, though the country remains protected by North Korean nuclear weapons under the U.S. nuclear umbrella.

After North Korea conducted its sixth nuclear test on Sept. 6, a number of politicians suggested that the South should reconsider its own nuclear weapons program. In the weeks after that test, a group of lawmakers from South Korea’s opposition party, the Liberty Korea Party, came to Washington to ask for the redeployment of U.S. nuclear weapons to the country.

[…]

However, Moon has remained adamantly against nuclear weapons in South Korea and repeatedly said he would not consider redeployment due to the possibility of raising tensions with North Korea unnecessarily. During a recent visit by U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to Seoul, both Mattis and Song dismissed the idea of redeploying nuclear weapons.

“When considering national interest, it’s much better not to deploy them,” said Song, while Mattis said that U.S. strategic assets already provided the necessary deterrence.

Despite Moon’s strong opposition to nuclear weapons, recent polls have shown that a majority of South Koreans favor them. A poll conducted by Gallup Korea in September found that 60 percent of South Koreans supported nuclear weapons for their country in theory, a number consistent with other polls conducted recently.

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Radioactive Material Accumulating In Sands & Brackish Groundwater Of Beaches Up To 60 Miles From Fukushima via Clean Technica

Posted on 2017/11/01 by yukimiyamotodepaul

Radioactive material from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant disaster is accumulating in the sands and brackish groundwater beneath beaches up to 60 miles away from the nuclear power plant itself, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on October 2.

The new study is the first to identify radioactive accumulations in this previously unsuspected place — the accumulations in question being radioactive cesium.

[…]

The theory proposed in the new study is that high levels of radioactive cesium-137 were transported along the coast following the 2011 nuclear disaster, and subsequently got “stuck” to surfaces of grains of sand, rather than being nearly immediately dispersed and diluted as was “expected.”

“No one expected that the highest levels of cesium in ocean water today would be found not in the harbor of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, but in the groundwater many miles away below the beach sands,” stated researcher Virginie Sanial of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

That may well be true, but it’s also true that there people who acknowledge that accurately modeling systems as complex as those found in the natural world is essentially impossible — and who would argue that the precautionary principle should be kept in mind when dealing with something as dangerous as nuclear power. After all, predictions relating to outcomes are only ever going to be of related accuracy.

[…]

So, what the new research does in essence is provide yet another example of the way that nuclear disasters and nuclear contamination can impact the natural environment in ways that aren’t immediately expected or intuitive to most.

Read more at Radioactive Material Accumulating In Sands & Brackish Groundwater Of Beaches Up To 60 Miles From Fukushima

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東海第2原発　17市町村「延長反対」　議会意見書 「廃炉」含めると6割 via 茨城新聞

Posted on 2017/11/01 by yukimiyamotodepaul

来年11月に運転開始40年を迎える日本原子力発電(原電)東海第2原発(東海村白方)について、運転期間の20年延長に反対する意見書を、県内44市町村のうち17市町村議会が可決したことが、分かった。廃炉や再稼働中止を求める意見書を可決した自治体も合わせると全体の6割の計27市町村議会に上る。延長申請の期限が今月末に迫る中、原電は申請に向けた「特別点検」を31日までに終え、最終評価を進めている。

国は東京電力福島第1原発の事故後、原発の運転期間を原則40年と規定。原子力規制委員会の認可を受ければ一度に限り最長20年間延長できるが、40年を迎える前に新規制基準に基づく審査に「合格」した上で、延長認可も受ける必要がある。

1978年に営業運転を始めた東海第2は間もなく稼働39年を迎える。国の適合性審査はほぼ終了したが、40年を超えて運転するには今月28日までに規制委に申請し、2018年11月までに認可を得ないと自動的に廃炉が決まる。

（略）

今年6月に30キロ圏内で唯一延長反対の意見書を可決した茨城町議会は「首都圏唯一の原発で、30キロ圏内に全国一多い約100万人が生活する」と立地地域の特異性を挙げ、自治体の避難計画の策定作業が難航している点も強調、「速やかな廃止」を求めた。

ほかには「20年延長はあくまで例外。老朽化による危険性は無視できない」(利根町)、「深刻な事態が発生すれば影響は県全域、さらには首都圏全域に及ぶ」(守谷市)などの意見が出た。

一方、笠間市議会は9月定例会で、拙速に結論は出せないなどの意見が出て、延長申請に反対する請願を不採択。水戸市議会も同様の請願を6月と9月の定例会で継続審査とした。原発が立地する東海村は、再稼働や運転延長の是非に言及する請願や意見書を可決した例はない。

県内の市町村議会では福島の事故後、東海第2の廃炉や再稼働中止を求める意見書や決議を可決する動きが相次いだ。既に22市町村議会に上り、延長反対の意見書と同様、県南・県西地域の自治体が多い。

全文は東海第2原発　17市町村「延長反対」　議会意見書 「廃炉」含めると6割

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Fears of Radiation Leak Soar After North Korea Nuclear Site Collapse Kills 200 via Common Dreams

Posted on 2017/10/31 by nfield

The disaster is believed to have resulted from Pyongyang’s hydrogen bomb test, which sparked earthquakes and landslides

by
Jake Johnson, staff writer

Experts are issuing urgent warnings of a possible radiation leak following the collapse of a tunnel at North Korea’s Punggye-ri nuclear test site, an accident that reportedly killed at least 200 people.

[…]

The tunnel’s collapse, first reported by the Japanese outlet TV Asahi on Tuesday, is presumed to have occurred as a result of the destabilization caused by Pyongyang’s powerful hydrogen bomb test last month.

[…]

Business Insider‘s Alex Lockie reports that according to North Korean sources, the tunnel initially “collapsed on 100 workers, and an additional 100 went in to rescue them, only to die themselves under the unstable mountain.”

[…]

If the debris from the test reaches China, Beijing would see that as an attack on its country, Jenny Town, the assistant director of the U.S.-Korea Institute and a managing editor at 38 North, previously told Business Insider.

Reports of the deadly accident come on the heels of an analysis by the Washington Postsuggesting that North Korea’s nuclear tests may have become “so big that they have altered the geological structure of the land.”

“Some analysts now see signs that Mount Mantap, the 7,200-foot-high peak under which North Korea detonates its nuclear bombs, is suffering from ‘tired mountain syndrome,'” the Post noted. “The mountain visibly shifted during the last nuclear test, an enormous detonation that was recorded as a 6.3-magnitude earthquake in North Korea’s northeast. Since then, the area, which is not known for natural seismic activity, has had three more quakes.”

 

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A tunnel collapsed at a North Korean nuclear test site, reportedly killing 200 people via Business Insider

Posted on 2017/10/31 by yukimiyamotodepaul
  • Japanese media reports 200 North Koreans died in a tunnel collapse at their nuclear test site.
  • In September, North Korea tested a powerful nuclear weapon that experts say rocked the mountain and made it unstable.
  • If the test site is totally compromised, the hazardous radioactive material could spread across the region.

After North Korea’s most powerful ever nuclear test underground at Punggye-ri in the country’s northeast, Japan’s TV Asahi reports that up to 200 have been killed in a tunnel collapse. 

In early September, North Korea detonated a nuclear device under a mountain that experts assess to have been a hydrogen bomb about ten times more powerful than the first atomic bombs dropped on Japan at the close of World War II.

[…]

North Korean sources told TV Asahi that initially, a tunnel collapsed on 100 workers, and an additional 100 went in to rescue them, only to die themselves under the unstable mountain.

The tunnels in and out of the test site had been damaged previously, and the workers may have been clearing or repairing the tunnels to resume nuclear testing. 

Additionally, with the test site compromised, hazardous radioactive material left over from the blast may seep out, which could possibly cause an international incident.

Read more at A tunnel collapsed at a North Korean nuclear test site, reportedly killing 200 people 

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Fukushima ghost towns abandoned after 2011 nuclear disaster revealed by filmmakers via Independent

Posted on 2017/10/31 by yukimiyamotodepaul

‘It’s heartbreaking to see how people fled and left all their belongings behind,’ says Bob Thissen

A film team that specialises in surreptitiously accessing abandoned places has produced new footage showing the ghost towns left behind after the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

The trailer for “Abandoned Fukushima”, a new series by the Exploring the Unbeaten Path group, shows cobweb-covered supermarkets still filled with 2011-era products and classrooms where children’s bags and coats are still hanging.

[…]

In the most dangerous areas access is restricted and people travelling through are not allowed to stay overnight.

But the film crew, led by Dutchman Bob Thissen, captured handheld and drone footage of the abandoned, irradiated areas while dodging police and constantly measuring contamination levels.

Read more at Fukushima ghost towns abandoned after 2011 nuclear disaster revealed by filmmakers

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