*** Fukushima *** and other nuclear-----updates and links

Approval of UK nuclear reactor draws closer

The Office for Nuclear Regulation is close to granting approval for the reactor favoured for new nuclear plants at Hinkley Point and Sizewell.

The Office for Nuclear Regulation and Environment Agency identifed 31 issues last year to be resolved on the UK EPR reactor design that has been chosen by EDF Energy and Centrica for its new nuclear reactors in the UK.

A total of 13 issues remain unresolved before generic design assessment approval can be granted for the proposed reactor design for new nuclear plants at Hinkley Point C and Sizewell.

In total, 18 issues have been resolved, including five on Tuesday alone.

EDF Energy and Areva said the update from regulators means that the UK EPR remains on schedule to be approved in time for its final investment decision later this year.
[link to www.nucpros.com]
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New cover for Fukushima reactor building

Plans are under way to erect a partially sealed cover over a third reactor building at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, to contain radioactive debris during decommissioning work.

On Nov. 14, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said it would fit a frame and panels around the No. 3 reactor building, whose roof was shattered in a hydrogen explosion and whose reactor core suffered a partial meltdown.

The cover will help to curb additional environmental contamination when workers are eventually able to begin removing the 566 nuclear fuel assemblies lying in a storage pool there--and begin decommissioning the reactor itself.
[link to ajw.asahi.com]
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Cracks Found in SCE&G Nuclear Reactor in Fairfield County, SC

Columbia, SC – The SCANA Corporation has revealed that its V.C. Summer nuclear reactor is suffering from cracks (“flaws”) in welds on the top of the reactor vessel. Such cracks, if of significant depth and if uncorrected, could lead to a serious reactor accident involving loss of reactor coolant water.
[link to aikenleader.villagesoup.com]
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For the downwinders...

School of Medicine offers free radiation screening clinic
[link to dailysparkstribune.com]

Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant to Start Up in First Quarter
[link to www.bloomberg.com]

[snip]

The Omaha Public Power District will delay restart of the 482-megawatt Fort Calhoun reactor in Nebraska until the first quarter after “discovering areas that need additional work,” said Jeff Hanson, a utility spokesman.

Ed Westcott’s Secret City Photos

Seventy years out, the world remembers the Manhattan Project through the artful efforts of a gifted young photographer
[link to www.metropulse.com]

Cracks Found in SCE&G Nuclear Reactor in Fairfield County, SC
[link to aikenleader.villagesoup.com]

[snip]

Columbia, SC – The SCANA Corporation has revealed that its V.C. Summer nuclear reactor is suffering from cracks (“flaws”) in welds on the top of the reactor vessel. Such cracks, if of significant depth and if uncorrected, could lead to a serious reactor accident involving loss of reactor coolant water.

On a call with investors on November 6, Steve Byrne , Chief Operating Officer, stated that a robotic inspection of the reactor vessel head (RVH) had identified four of 66 “penetrations” into the reactor vessel in need of repair. The Vessel Head Penetrations (VHP) are mostly associated with control rod drive mechanism which penetrate into the reactor to control the nuclear reaction.

“The cracks found in the VC Summer reactor pose a clear safety risk and must be immediately addressed,” said Tom Clements of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability. “While SCE&G will want to rush to get the reactor back on line and do a quick repair, the NRC must be deliberate in reviewing the causes of the cracking and how it is addressed. Operation of the reactor with a vessel head subject to cracking poses a safety hazard that both SCE&G and the NRC are responsible for.”

Levels of radiation around Fukushima Daiichi remain stable rather than falling off as predicted
Read more at [link to enformable.com]

In-Focus: Fukushima – TEPCO to construct cover over Unit 3 – Cesium contamination discovered in several products
Read more at [link to enformable.com]

Report: Anti-nuclear blogger’s home raided by police — Computer equipment seized (VIDEO)
[link to enenews.com]

NHK: Tepco doesn’t deny radioactive materials are seeping into Pacific (VIDEO)
[link to enenews.com]

41 Fukushima residents demand 20 million yen each from TEPCO for 'theft of homeland'
[link to mainichi.jp]

Sellafield to be prosecuted over waste at landfill site
[link to www.whitehavennews.co.uk]

Radioactive leak 30 miles away
[link to www.channelonline.tv]

[snip]

There's been a radioactive leak at the Flamanville nuclear plant.

It happened late Wednesday night in the number one reactor.

The vapour was confined to one building and EDF say nothing escaped into the environment.

Radioactive sea water from Fukushima Daichi has hit the west coast of the United States
[link to crackheadawards.newsvine.com]

[snip]

Nuclear power generation process converts Uranium into many different radioactive elements (Argonne National Laboratory).

The Fukushima Daiichi plant has about 1744 tons of spent nuclear fuel and under 100 tons of fuel in the reactors. The irradiated nuclear fuel contains the following approximate quantities of radioactive chemicals that represent a health risk when disbursed into the environment.

Molybdenum 99

1 months danger (400 pounds)
yellow oxide slightly soluble in water

Iodine 131

2 months danger (200 pounds) potential for a few thyroid cancer deaths
90% thyroid affinity - iodized salt provides some protection
yellow readily vaporized/dissolved

Cesium 137

500 year danger (70,000 pounds) potential for a large number of deaths
liquid near room temperature; readily vaporized/dissolved
electrolyte activity - salt substitute provides some protection (potassium & sodium)

Europium 155

40 year mild risk (300 pounds)
white/pink insoluble 99% affinity for soil
0.02% affinity for liver and bone

Strontium 90

500 year danger (70,000 pounds)
red/yellow/white
10% affinity for bone - calcium supplements provide some protection

Samarium 151

1000 year mild risk (5,000 pounds)
grayish yellow 99% affinity for soil
slight affinity for liver and bone - mineral supplements provide some protection

Plutonium 239

200,000 year danger (300,000 pounds)
yellow 99.9% affinity for soil
potential for 700,000 fatalities

Krypton 85

100 year mild risk (3,000 pounds)
colorless gas - no affinity for the body outside

Nuclear materials are incredibly hazardous. Nuclear fuel is replaced in rounds of 1/3 of the total about every 1000 days.

Radioactive chemicals produce considerable heat in spent/irradiated fuel after power production is shut down. Nuclear waste cannot be buried because of heat produced by ongoing radioactive decay.

Spent fuel rods must remain submerged in water for decades.

Molybdenum - lasts a few months - does not vaporize or dissolve
Iodine - lasts half a year - carried easily by water and air - vaporizes at oven temperatures
Cesium - lasts several hundred years - dissolves in water
Plutonium - lasts millions of years - particles carried by water

Calif. rejects seismic test at nuke plant
[link to www.upi.com]

Last Edited by Waterbug on 11/16/2012 09:46 AM

Cracks at S.C. nuclear reactor call attention to aging issues
[link to chronicle.augusta.com]

Crack repairs follow Shippingport incident
[link to www.timesonline.com]

In-Focus: Japan – Hiroshima and Nagasaki Mayors request President Obama to visit A-Bomb Sites – Radiation levels in Fukushima have not decreased some 60 kilometers northwest of Fukushima Daiichi
[link to enformable.com]

Told ya so....



Another complaint filed over Fukushima disaster against Tepco, ex-nuclear body
[link to www.japantimes.co.jp]

[snip]

FUKUSHIMA — A criminal complaint was filed by 13,000 people nationwide Thursday against 33 senior officials of Tokyo Electric Power Co. and the government's now-defunct Nuclear Safety Commission over the meltdown disaster at Tepco's Fukushima No. 1 power plant that was triggered by the March 11, 2011 megaquake and tsunami.

In the complaint filed with prosecutors, the 13,000 demanded that the accused be investigated and charged with professional negligence resulting in death and injury.

The complaint was the second filed, following one made in June by 1,300 people mainly from Fukushima Prefecture.

Nuclear Engineer: To me it means Tepco knows about a rip in spent fuel pool liner at Fukushima Unit 3 (VIDEO)
[link to enenews.com]

California Slammed With Fukushima Radiation

Fukushima Radiation Plume Hit Southern and Central California

[link to www.washingtonsblog.com]

Fukushima trout log radioactivity level over 100 times gov't limit

A mountain trout caught in a Fukushima Prefecture river returned a radioactive cesium reading of 11,400 becquerels per kilogram, more than 100 times the government-set limit for food items, a survey by the Environment Ministry said Friday.

Presenting its measurement of radioactive cesium contained in fish and insects in rivers, lakes and sea in the prefecture, the ministry said the reading from the trout in Niida River in Minamisoma city, a municipality north of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station badly hit by the 2011 disaster, was way above the regulatory maximum of 100 becquerels.

The survey conducted in June and July also found 4,400 becquerels of radioactive cesium in a smallmouth bass and 3,000 becquerels in a catfish in Mano Dam in Iitate village, another municipality heavily affected by the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant run by Tokyo Electric Power Co.
[link to english.kyodonews.jp]
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SHARP could slash nuclear reactor design costs

Back in the earliest days of nuclear energy, Argonne physicists and engineers used slide rules and their own basic knowledge of reactions and physics to design nuclear power plants. Then, beginning in the early 1960s, they enlisted computers to develop designs with data from experiments and actual reactor testing. Over this entire span, Argonne built over 85 experimental reactors to test its reactor designs and computer programs – each a costly and time-consuming endeavor.
[link to phys.org]
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Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant to Start Up in First Quarter

The Omaha Public Power District will delay restart of the 482-megawatt Fort Calhoun reactor in Nebraska until the first quarter after “discovering areas that need additional work,” said Jeff Hanson, a utility spokesman.
Omaha Public initially aimed to start the unit last September, then pushed the date back to December to improve backup diesel generator reliability and work on containment “internal structure issues,” according to a Sept. 13 presentation to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Crews will now focus on more containment maintenance, Hanson said.
[link to www.bloomberg.com]
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I think it's an opinion of the subject of the post... not the poster.
An Oz pause.

Hi Waterbug....thanks for keeping this thread going!