tagged w/ Nuclear Energy
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Professor Bob Cywinski is every inch the academic: a wavy-haired, bearded man with a voice like hot coffee poured on a Sunday morning. But he is also a man with a dream: to change the nuclear landscape of the UK.
Conventional nuclear power (fission) is controversial and carries inherent risks, but no other energy source has a chance of securing our energy needs for the future. Nuclear fusion – for many scientists the ultimate goal of energy production – is still a long way off.
Cywinski is part of a team of scientists who are working towards an entirely new type of nuclear reactor: one that could be operated safely and without generating long-lived radioactive waste. This new reactor could even consume the toxic waste generated by conventional nuclear reactors, removing it from the ecosphere.
It's called the Accelerator-Driven Subcritical Reactor (ADSR), or Energy Amplifier, and in a recent lecture hosted by the Leicester Literary and Philosophical Society, Cywinski outlined his vision of an ADSR-powered future.
The concept was first proposed in 1993 by Nobel prizewinning physicist Carlo Rubbia. The basic idea – and what distinguishes it from all other nuclear reactors – is the coupling of a particle accelerator, like the ones at Cern, with the reactor core.
That may sound bizarre upon first reading, but there's good science here.
Conventional reactors are fuelled by uranium – specifically, the uranium isotope U-235. That's a lively old isotope that likes to split: it is "fissile". When U-235 splits, it releases neutrons, and these go on to initiate an energy-generating nuclear chain reaction by splitting still more U-235 atoms.
But there are downsides to the use of uranium-235 as fuel: first, it produces plutonium as waste. Second, the uranium-235 fuel cycle is what engineers call "critical": once it gets going it's self-sustaining, so there is a risk – albeit a tiny risk – of loss of control.
In the ADSR proposed by Rubbia, we wouldn't use uranium-235 as nuclear fuel at all. Instead, we would shift two spaces to the left in the periodic table, to uranium's unsung cousin: thorium. Despite being named for the god of thunder, thorium sits quietly in the Earth as a safe, unreactive mineral – and it sits there in great abundance, especially in Welsh earth.
Unlike uranium-235, the thorium atom does not easily split, making it safe to store and handle. But we need a fissile atom to initiate the energy-generating nuclear reaction. Since thorium is not fissile, it must be converted to something that is.
That's where the particle accelerator comes in.
In an ADSR, the thorium-containing reactor core would be coupled to a particle accelerator. This would fire up a beam of protons before slamming them into a block of lead inside the reactor core. The bombardment induces the lead to release neutrons, in a process called spallation. Those neutrons are then smashed into the thorium atoms, turning them into atoms of uranium-233, which is fissile – and so the reaction begins.
It's still nuclear fission, but a crucial safety difference between a conventional nuclear reactor and an ADSR is that in the latter the reaction operates at subcritical levels: it is not self-sustaining. So in the event of a problem, all the operator has to do is switch off the proton beam. Almost immediately, the reaction will cease.
Furthermore, the small amount of toxic waste generated by the thorium/uranium-233 fuel cycle ceases to be radioactive after a few hundred years, rather than the thousands of years during which uranium waste remains toxic. Better yet, an ADSR could actually utilise, as fuel, the plutonium waste created by current reactors, eliminating toxic waste while generating further energy.
But surely that particle accelerator needs a lot of energy to operate? Yes, it does. However, you get far more power out at the other end. That's where the ADSR's unofficial name – Energy Amplifier – comes from. The Thorium Energy Amplifier Association, ThorEA, calculates that an ADSR would generate 600MW of electrical power – pretty much the same as a conventional power station.
Yes, the accelerator will require power input – around 20MW – but that power can be taken from the ADSR's own output, leaving an excess 580MW of electric power.
So what we have, in principle, is a reactor running off stable, abundant fuel, producing an excess of energy, with no danger of meltdown. If ADSRs are really this perfect, how come we don't already have one?
The problem is that, for the moment, our available options for the accelerator are limited. Commercial accelerators are pretty big, not to mention expensive to build and run. We can't have a Cern in every city. If we're going to have ADSRs as standard power stations, we have to get around this.
That's where Emma comes in. The Electron Model of Many Applications, Emma for short, is a new type of accelerator designed to be the perfect partner for an ADSR. A prototype Emma lives under the grounds of the Daresbury Laboratory in Cheshire. Emma's unique selling point is that she is a new hybrid of a cyclotron and a synchrotron, combining the advantages of both into a compact, economical form.
Last month, Nature Physics published the first results of Emma's operation, showing that she is indeed, despite her petite proportions, capable of stably accelerating electrons to the kind of velocities needed.
Emma is a proof-of-principle for the new hybrid. She accelerates electrons, not protons, so will never be connected to an energy amplifier. But what we learn from Emma will be used to construct proton versions in the near future.
Given sufficient investment, ADSRs could be operational in the UK by 2025. But do we really need them, given that conventional reactors, however unpopular, do still work? Yes, says Cywinski, because it's time to move on. As he puts it: "The Stone Age didn't end because we ran out of stone."Professor Bob Cywinski is every inch the academic: a wavy-haired, bearded man with a... more
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pdy
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1 day ago
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The Asahi Shimbun...
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Asahi poll: 57% of Japanese say no to nuclear power
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December 13, 2011
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Fifty-seven percent of voters are opposed to nuclear power generation, while 30 percent are in favor, according to an Asahi Shimbun survey.
The 57-percent figure compares with 48 percent recorded in a survey in October. The latest nationwide poll was conducted Dec. 10-11.
Since April, one month after the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, The Asahi Shimbun has incorporated questions on the use of nuclear power in its monthly poll.
In the December survey, male respondents opposed to nuclear power outnumbered those in favor for the first time.
The non-support rate for nuclear power has continued to exceed the support rate since an Asahi poll covering several countries in late May.
The non-support rate among females, which has consistently been higher than the support rate since mid-May, hit the 60-percent mark for the first time in the latest poll at 65 percent.
For males, the support rate came to 47 percent in the October survey, and the non-support rate was 38 percent.
The figures, however, came out in reverse in the latest poll, with the non-support rate at 49 percent and the support rate at 43 percent.
Concern about radioactive substances remains strong.
When asked to rate their concern, in terms of the effects on their own health and that of family members, four choices were offered. The answers "Greatly" and "fairly" accounted for a combined 67 percent.
A majority of those who answered "Not very concerned" supported nuclear energy in the September survey. However, the majority of those who chose that answer in the December poll was opposed to its use as a source of power generation.
Seventy-seven percent of the respondents favor the phasing-out of nuclear power in the future.
But when asked about the Noda administration's policy on natural energy promotion, 70 percent responded that they either "Cannot expect much" or "Cannot expect (anything) at all," a substantial spike from the 44 percent recorded in September.
.The Asahi Shimbun...
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Asahi poll: 57% of Japanese say no to nuclear power... more
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Besides making a huge profit, the "nuclear gypsies" set-up is a great way for the Japanese government and Tepco to maximize their use of these disposable workers.
"Nuclear gypsies," or the contracted, subcontracted, and subsubcontracted workers that do over 80% of the work at the nuclear power plants, only work at a NPP until they have reached their maximum yearly radioactive dosage, at which time they are laid off.
These "nuclear gypsies" then move on to the next NPP, which does not ask what exposure they have had previously in that year. This allows these workers to be exposed to many, many times more radioactivity than is allowed.
Because the exposure of contracted workers is not tracked from plant to plant, over years, when the physical damage of radioactivity exposure begins to show up in the way of cancers and other diseases, the workers have no way to prove their medical issues are due to radioactivity exposure at Japanese NPPs.
The system is constructed such that, about the time they are no longer suited for back-breaking labor of all such contracted work (nuclear and other), the exposure to radioactivity at plants like Fukushima will have started to take their toll.
Therefore, they will not be able to seek payment from Tepco for their cancers and other radioactivity-related diseases.
Tepco and its investors will NEVER be charged for the TRUE price--including long-term medical issues from its contracted workers--for the nuclear energy enjoyed by Japan.
Thinking of the price the "nuclear gypsies" have paid and will have to pay for it, I certainly view the bright lights of Toyko very differently after reading this article.
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JAPAN'S 'NUCLEAR GYPSIES' FACE RADIOACTIVE PERIL AT POWER PLANTS
(http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-japan-nuclear-gypsies-20111204,0,347252.story)
Unskilled contractors make up most of the workforce and face higher doses of radiation than utility employees at Fukushima and other nuclear power plants in Japan.
Reporting from Namie, Japan—
(excerpts of article)
Kazuo Okawa's luckless career as a "nuclear gypsy" began one night at a poker game.
The year was 1992, and jobs were scarce in this farming town in the shadow of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant....
...He became what's known in Japan as a "jumper" or "nuclear gypsy" for the way he moved among various nuclear plants. But the nickname that Okawa disliked most was burakumin, a derisive label for those who worked the thankless jobs he and others performed....
...Solicited from day labor sites across the country, many contractors are told little of the task ahead....
...After an earthquake-triggered tsunami deluged the Fukushima plant in March, a disaster that cascaded into reactor core meltdowns, activists are calling for better government regulation of what they call the nuclear industry's dirtiest secret.
For decades, they say, atomic plants have maintained a two-tiered workforce: one made up of highly paid and well-trained utility employees, and another of contractors with less training and fewer health benefits.
Last year, 88% of the 83,000 workers at the nation's 18 commercial nuclear power plants were contract workers, according to Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, a government regulator....
...A study by the Citizens' Nuclear Information Center, a Tokyo-based watchdog group, found that contractors last year accounted for 96% of the harmful radiation absorbed by workers at the nation's nuclear power plants. ...
...Okawa, a small man with powerfully built hands, said contractors knew they faced layoff once they reached exposure limits, so many switched off dosimeters and other radiation measuring devices.....
...Since the start of Japan's nuclear boom in the 1970s, utilities have relied on temporary workers for maintenance and plant repair jobs, while providing little follow-up health training, activists say.
"Typically, these workers are only told of the dose they get from an individual or daily exposure, not the cumulative dose over the time they work at a particular plant," said Shrader-Frechette. "As they move from job to job, nobody is asking questions about their repeated high doses at different sites. We're calling for a nuclear dosage tracking system in Japan and other nations"....
----------------------Besides making a huge profit, the "nuclear gypsies" set-up is a great way... more
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By DANA LIEBELSON
Dr. Strangelove fans had an exciting news cycle last week, with the release of two new reports that focus on the bomb (and tangentially, one on nuclear energy oversight.) First, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded the U.S. has no reliable way to track uranium and plutonium shipped to more than two dozen countries. Then Bloomberg reported that the U.S. Air Force is overstating the number of nuclear arsenals in service. Finally, the Nuclear Regulatory Committee (NRC) released a report asking for immediate reevaluation of the risks posed by earthquakes and floods to reactors. So put on your cowboy hat, here’s a closer look at these reports.
The U.S. has shipped 17,500 kilograms of highly enriched uranium and separated plutonium—material
that could potentially be used for weapons—to 27 countries with which it has peaceful nuclear cooperation agreements. According to the GAO report, the U.S. can only verify the location of about 1,160 kilograms of this material. Call me crazy, but it seems like a bad idea to track nuclear weapons material like Halloween candy.
The GAO report also reveals that the agencies (NRC, Department of State and the Department of Energy) responsible for visiting countries holding the highest proliferation risk quantities of U.S. nuclear material have not done so. In fact, of the 55 visits made between 1994 and 2010, countries only met international security guidelines about half the time.
“This could be a major violation of America’s international treaty obligations” wrote Adam Weinstein, Mother Jones’ national security reporter.
Bloomberg reported on Thursday that the Air Force claims that it has 555 ‘Minuteman IIIs,’ which are land-based intercontinental nuclear missiles. However, according to congressional investigators and Air Force documents, 105 of these missiles are disassembled. Several officials pointed to this discrepancy as evidence of a lack of accountability.
Senator Tom Carper (D-Delaware) told Bloomberg, “If the Air Force accounting and inventory systems can't accurately count the number of intercontinental ballistic missiles in its possession, it's fair to question whether the Air Force and other military services can count other, more common and more numerous assets.”
The NRC also released a report last week requesting immediate reviews of seismic and flooding risks at 104 nuclear reactors throughout the country. This report comes about in response to the catastrophic Japan earthquake—and also last month’s East coast quake, which knocked over a couple chairs.
According to the report, knowledge of seismic hazards in the U.S. has evolved to the point where it’s time to reevaluate the designs of existing nuclear power reactors to ensure safety standards are met. Additionally, some plants still rely on “temporary flood mitigation measures”—like sandbagging.
The NRC recommends that their recommendations for regulatory actions be initiated “without delay.” Whether this will actually happen remains to be seen: as POGO’s executive director, Danielle Brian wrote recently: “regulators have been knowingly giving a pass to nuclear operators on 'seismic qualification' - i.e. earthquake preparedness - for years.”
Perhaps these kinds of reports would fly with Dr. Strangelove after all—he did say, “the whole point of the Doomsday Machine is lost if you keep it a secret.” Hopefully he was also referring to nuclear transparency—in war and energy.
Dana Liebelson is POGO's Beth Daley Impact Fellow.By DANA LIEBELSON
Dr. Strangelove fans had an exciting news cycle last week, with... more
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Uploaded by MsMilkytheclown on Aug 12, 2011
Dial "M" for Meltdown - by Brian Rich
http://fairewinds.com/content/dial-m-meltdown-brian-ric...
Long time Fairewinds.com viewer and filmmaker Brian Rich has created a moving and high energy chronology of nuclear power and its impact upon the world.
Our website has transitioned in a manner Arnie and I never imagined when I started setting it up several years ago. We have received incredible public acknowledgement and support since we first began putting up videos about Fukushima, nuclear power, and answering questions sent to us by viewers. Thanks to all of our viewers for their emails, questions, data, and report information. We also could not do any of our work without the ongoing professional dialogue with scientists around the world. As time progresses, I will be using this column to feature frequently asked questions and some of the material that I receive daily from the 250 emails we receive and from the professional dialogue we have throughout the world. Together, we all can fill the void the main stream media and various world governments have left.
In that vein, I want to share this high energy video created by the young and dynamic filmmaker Brian Rich, a long-time viewer of our site. Please watch it and share it with your friends. I think you will be as moved as I was.
Only two days after publication, Brian's video has already been viewed more than 5,000 times around the world! You may also see footage you have never seen, and certainly this mini-film puts images in context in a manner that has never been done before.
The people of Japan need our attention and support. My friends in Japan are asking for this opportunity. To this end Fairewinds Energy Education Corp will continue our analytical analysis, outreach, and my commentary.
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"And the final Darwin award goes To???"Uploaded by MsMilkytheclown on Aug 12, 2011
Dial "M" for Meltdown - by... more
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KB723
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6 months ago
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A Swedish man, arrested after experimenting with radioactive material in his kitchen, has said he was trying to find out if it was possible to split the atom at home.
Richard Handl was detained for unauthorised possession of nuclear material when police found quantities of radium, americium and uranium in his flat.
He told the BBC he bought some of the material off the internet.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14403432A Swedish man, arrested after experimenting with radioactive material in his kitchen,... more
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Friday, July 1, 2011
Radiation in Japan: Professor Kosako: "Come the harvest season in the fall, there will be a chaos"
Professor Toshiso Kosako of Tokyo University, who resigned in protest against the Kan Administration's policy to allow 20 millisieverts/year external radiation exposure for children which he called unacceptable and unconscionable, gave an interview for the first time since his resignation to Wall Street Journal (or so it looks).
Kosako says:
There will be chaos and scandal when the rice is harvested in the fall, as it will contain radioactive materials;
Japan is looking like a developing country in East Asia without democracy;
The government uses the high ceiling for radiation in schools so that it doesn't need to spend money to ameliorate the situation;
The government hasn't done enough to investigate ocean contamination.
So far, I am unable to find the equivalent Japanese article in the Japanese version of WSJ. Interesting by itself, but not surprising as the paper has put out dramatically different versions of the same news in Japanese and in English.
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From WSJ (Yuka Hayashi, 7/1/2011):
TOKYO—A former nuclear adviser to Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan blasted the government's continuing handling of the crisis, and predicted further revelations of radiation threats to the public in the coming months.
In his first media interview since resigning his post in protest in April, Toshiso Kosako, one of the country's leading experts on radiation safety, said Mr. Kan's government has been slow to test for possible dangers in the sea and to fish and has understated certain radiation dangers to minimize what it will have to spend to clean up contamination.
And while there have been scattered reports already of food contamination—of tea leaves and spinach, for example—Mr. Kosako said there will be broader, more disturbing discoveries later this year, especially as rice, Japan's staple, is harvested.
"Come the harvest season in the fall, there will be a chaos," Mr. Kosako said. "Among the rice harvested, there will certainly be some radiation contamination—though I don't know at what levels—setting off a scandal. If people stop buying rice from Tohoku, …we'll have a tricky problem."
Mr. Kosako also said that the way the government has handled the Fukushima Daiichi situation since the March 11 tsunami crippled the reactors has exposed basic flaws in Japanese policymaking. "The government's decision-making mechanism is opaque," he said. "It's never clear what reasons are driving what decisions. This doesn't look like a democratic society. Japan is increasingly looking like a developing nation in East Asia."
Specifically, Mr. Kosako said the government set a relatively high ceiling for acceptable radiation in schoolyards, so that only 17 schools exceeded that limit. If the government had set the lower ceiling he had advocated, thousands of schools would have required a full cleanup. With Mr. Kan's ruling party struggling to gain parliamentary approval for a special budget, the costlier option didn't get traction.
"When taking these steps, the only concern for the current government is prolonging its own life," Mr. Kosako said.
Mr. Kan's office referred questions about Mr. Kosako's remarks to a cabinet office official, who declined to be identified. The official said the government is making "utmost efforts" to improve radiation monitoring in the sea and working closely with fishermen and others.
"Particularly close attention is paid to the safety of rice as Japan's staple food," the official said, adding that the government would suspend the shipment of crops if radiation exceeding a set standard is detected.
As for schools, the official said the government was working to lower the ceiling for acceptable radiation, and "is also considering additional steps. "
Mr. Kosako, a 61-year-old Tokyo University professor who has served on a number government and industrial panels, stepped down from Mr. Kan's nuclear-advisory panel on April 30, fueling concerns about the government's handling of the accident. Saying that many of his recommendations were ignored, the scientist described the government's ceiling on schoolyard radiation levels as "unacceptable." The image of him wiping tears at a press conference as he said he wouldn't subject his own children to such an environment was widely broadcast.
Having spent the past two months focusing on teaching radiation-safety courses at his university, Mr. Kosako said he is now ready to begin speaking his mind again, starting with foreign audiences. Over the coming weeks, he will be giving speeches in the U.S. and in Taiwan.
He said he is especially concerned with contamination of the ocean by the large amounts radioactive material from the damaged reactors dumped into surrounding waters. The government has released only sketchy information about what's drained into the sea as a result of efforts to cool the smoldering Fukushima Daiichi reactors. Mr. Kosako has urged more seawater monitoring, more projections of the spread of polluted water and steps to deal with the contamination of different types of seafood, from seaweed to shellfish to fish.
"I've been telling them to hurry up and do it, but they haven't," he said.
As he resigned, Mr. Kosako submitted to government officials a thick booklet that contained all the recommendations he had offered during his six-week tenure. A copy of the booklet was obtained by The Wall Street Journal from an independent source.
From the time of his appointment on March 16, Mr. Kosako and some of his colleagues were offering recommendations touching on a broad range of topics. It was weeks before the public learned of some of them, such as a March 17 call for using the government's SPEEDI radiation-monitoring system to project residents' exposure levels using the "worst-case scenario based on a practical setting."
On March 18, they urged the government's Nuclear Safety Commission to re-examine the adequacy of the government's initial evacuation zones, based on such simulations by SPEEDI.
The SPEEDI data weren't released to the public until March 23, and the evacuation zones weren't adjusted until April 11. Critics say the delay in the adjustment may have subjected thousands of Fukushima residents to high levels of radiation exposure.
Professor Kosako had been considered a pro-nuke "government scientist" until his resignation. Maybe he is still pro-nuke, but it was during his press conference at the end of April when he announced resignation that many people were made aware of this thing called WSPEEDI, which can predict radioactive fallout dispersions globally, not just Japan. Only after that revelation by the professor, the government decided to quietly sneak in the WSPEEDI simulation results sometime in mid May on the Ministry of Education website. They showed a very extensive contamination in Tohoku and Kanto.Friday, July 1, 2011
Radiation in Japan: Professor Kosako: "Come the harvest... more
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According to these numbers, even rooftop solar is more dangerous!
On a per TWh basis at least.
The writer suggests that integrating solar into roof-tiles, or requiring professional installation would address those dangers.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.htmlAccording to these numbers, even rooftop solar is more dangerous!
On a per TWh basis... more
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JoFerg
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8 months ago
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Minute amounts of plutonium have been detected for the first time in soil outside the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
Shinzo Kimura of Hokkaido University collected the roadside samples in Okumamachi, some 1.7 kilometers west of the front gate of the power station. They were taken during filming by NHK on April 21st, one day before the area was designated as an exclusion zone.
Professor Masayoshi Yamamoto and researchers at a Kanazawa University laboratory analyzed the samples and found minute amounts of 3 kinds of plutonium.
The samples of plutonium-239 and 240 make up a total of 0.078 becquerels per kilogram.
This is close to the amount produced by past atomic bomb tests.
But the 3 substances are most likely to have come from the plant blasts, as their density ratio is different from those detected in the past.
Professor Yamamoto said the quantities are so minute that people's health will not be harmed.
But he recommended that the contamination near the plant should be fully investigated, saying that a study may shed light on how radioactive materials spread in the air.
Sunday, June 05, 2011 23:21 +0900 (JST)
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/05_21.htmlMinute amounts of plutonium have been detected for the first time in soil outside the... more
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Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition declared on Monday it would shut all nuclear reactors by 2022, in a policy u-turn drawn up in a rush after the Fukushima disaster in Japan.Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition declared on Monday it would shut all... more
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WNN...
Last Updated : 27 May 2011
G8 fixed on nuclear safety
Only ten minutes were allocated for leaders of the G8 countries to discuss nuclear energy at the summit in Deauville, France. Host President Nicolas Sarkozy of France said, "Many among the G8 think that there is no alternative to nuclear power, even if we are convinced of the need to develop alternative energy, renewable energy."WNN...
Last Updated : 27 May 2011
G8 fixed on nuclear safety
Only ten... more
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WBEZ...
Nuclear energy in Japan in post-Fukushima era
by Worldview May. 25, 2011
Click on Link to Listen to This Story
(Getty Images/Athit Perawongmetha)
http://www.wbez.org/sites/default/files/imagecache/story_image_medium/segment/photo/2011-May/2011-05-25/112053597.jpg
Photo: A dog wanders the abandoned streets of Futaba, a town within the exclusion zone near the Fukushima power plant.
This week, the Tokyo Electric Power Company admitted that three reactors at the Fukushima nuclear power plant suffered meltdowns shortly after the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan in March.
From the somber legacy of World War II to this latest crisis, nuclear energy in Japan has a complicated history. Now, as bad news continues to emerge out of the Fukushima catastrophe, Japan is forced to do some soul searching about nuclear power, which supplies thirty percent of the nation’s energy.
Norma Field is a professor of Japanese studies at the University of Chicago. Field recently had a conference on nuclear energy in Japan. She dropped by with a longtime critic of Japan’s nuclear energy policies, filmmaker Hitomi Kamanaka. Kamanaka was screening her latest documentary, Ashes to Honey: Toward a Sustainable Future, when the earthquake and tsunami struck in Tokyo.WBEZ...
Nuclear energy in Japan in post-Fukushima era
by Worldview May. 25,... more
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On April 27, Greg Mello--a tall, intense man whose natural state is vague dishevelment--was in court, watching his witness annihilate (at least in Mello’s view) the US Department of Energy’s case.
Mello is the Harvard-educated co-founder and executive director of the Los Alamos Study Group, a nuclear disarmament advocacy organization based in Albuquerque, but with a concerted focus on the activities of Los Alamos National Laboratory. Last year, LASG sued to stop the construction of the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement (CMRR) project, a new facility at LANL designed to process--and possibly produce--plutonium-based nuclear warheads.
On this particular Wednesday, Mello’s lawyer had called Frank von Hippel, a nuclear physicist and Princeton professor, to testify against the facility--essentially a costly, heavily fortified nuclear warhead processing facility situated over a geologic fault zone (see sidebar: “Price Point”).
In his prepared testimony, Von Hippel argued the need for new warheads “has vanished”; the earthquake hazard is now “much larger” than previously thought; the last full environmental assessment of the project--completed eight years ago--is insufficient for a project whose cost has swollen from $350 million to more than $3 billion.
All of this, Von Hippel says, amounts to a more fundamental question: Does New Mexico really need to be researching and building new nuclear weapons?
Mello doesn’t think so--but says the political momentum isn’t on his side.
“New Mexico is viewed as a place with a compliant government, where nuclear contractors can get federal money,” Mello explains. “There’s no private sector demand for most of this stuff, and a great deal of it could never be licensed or permitted.”
Even so, the CMRR facility--along with its budget--has expanded virtually unheeded since it was first proposed in 1999.
“It’s terrifying,” Mello says. “It’s frightening for New Mexico, both in itself and because of what it’s not: renewable energy; investment in our housing and building stock, our infrastructure, our schools. A very tiny group of people have captured an outsize amount of attention from a political elite and are setting far too much of our agenda.”
Greg Mello of Los Alamos Study Group is challenging the lab's new plutonium facility.
Within Santa Fe, Mello’s view is relatively common. At the LASG meetings and study sessions he hosts in the basement of a local church, attendees are routinely knowledgeable to the point of expertise. And in addition to various environmental protection and renewable energy groups, Santa Fe also hosts two other nuclear disarmament organizations, Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety and Nuclear Watch of New Mexico.
Southern New Mexico, though, is a different story. There, lawmakers and academics extol the virtues not only of nuclear research and development, but they also court uranium processing plants and waste disposal facilities with gusto--and, in some cases, financial incentives.
In fact, the morning of Von Hippel’s testimony, a collection of public officials, scientists and executives had gathered in a conference room in Hobbs, some 350 miles south of Santa Fe. They were discussing New Mexico’s future as a focal point for the new nuclear age, in which economies rely increasingly on nuclear power and entire processing industries spring up around the “uranium fuel cycle,” which begins with mining and ends with waste disposal. Every stage of that process can be monetized--and nearly every stage has commercial operations in New Mexico.
“The state currently has a stake in a lot of aspects of this cycle--the mining, the enrichment, the storage,” Mat Lueras, vice president for corporate development at Uranium Resources Inc., a mining outfit that owns 183,000 acres of uranium mineral rights in New Mexico, tells SFR. Because of that, Lueras says, URI has “seen widespread local and state support from New Mexico politicians” for its efforts to restart uranium mining.
To Daniel Fine, a research associate at New Mexico Tech and at the Center for Energy Policy in Hobbs,
such enthusiasm is simply an acknowledgment of the inevitable.
“Nuclear energy, worldwide and in the United States, has a very strong future,” Fine says. “Twenty percent of our electricity is nuclear. There’s potential planning for 50 percent more.”
In Fine’s view, New Mexico’s role in that future remains to be determined. But given what’s already here, and the gradual buildup of a nuclear fuel cycle complex in the state’s southeastern counties, a nuclear future may indeed be unavoidable. Take the beginning of the fuel cycle, for instance.
“New Mexico,” Fine says, “is the Saudi Arabia of uranium.”
Daniel Fine of New Mexico Tech predicts a bright future for nuclear energy.
New Mexico had its first exposure to the nuclear industry in 1943, with the founding of Los Alamos National Laboratory. Two years later, near Alamogordo, LANL scientists conducted the Trinity test with a prototype of the atomic bombs that, less than a month later, would raze Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Sandia National Laboratories, the Albuquerque lab charged with turning LANL’s nuclear weapons concepts into deployable missiles, was founded in 1949.
While the labs were located near northern New Mexico’s population centers, less populous areas of the state became nuclear hubs in their own right. In southern New Mexico, a huge swath of desert scrubland became the White Sands Proving Groundsnow the White Sands Missile Rangefor nuclear weapons testing. In far western New Mexico, on the outskirts of the Navajo Nation, uranium mines sprang up in the 1950s.
Since the US government promised to buy all mined uranium, it was good business, and northwest New Mexico’s mining industry boomed for close to two decades with relatively little oversight. But in the 1970s, reports of elevated levels of radon, a radioactive element that can cause cancer, began to surface and so began what Fine calls “the sad chapter” of widespread radioactive contamination from New Mexico’s uranium mines.
“[Uranium] mining, from the 1950s to the early 1970s, was very high risk, and the methods then did expose uranium miners to radioactivity,” Fine says.On April 27, Greg Mello--a tall, intense man whose natural state is vague... more
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Unclear - a shaky story
Unclear is a video piece inspired by recent events which occurred in Fukushima, Japan.
Alessio, of ADV associates, was on a business trip in Tokyo during the earthquake of February 11th 2011. This experience became deeply rooted in our conscience and the piece was created. “Unclear” is meant to be a suggestion, a “what if...” piece, to awaken viewers conscience and instill doubts.
The opening shows a quiet landscape with a nuclear power plant in the background. Rapidly the atmosphere changes, making the viewers realize that the point of view is the one of a power plant worker, who, frustrated, questions himself from the inside of another nuclear plant.
http://www.vimeo.com/23748850 (**)
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ADV associates (*) is a creative agency based in New York, that works internationally in both the commercial and the fine art world.
Best regards,
ADV associates
http://advassociates.net/
info@advassociates.net
(*) ADV was founded in 2010 by Alessio De Vecchi (art director and cg artist), later joined by Clefi Lee (3d artist and animator), Gemma Fleming (art director, video maker and photographer) and Ben Vaccaro (photographer and video maker).
(**) Music by Ayumi Hatai, sound artist raised in Japan and residing in New York.Unclear - a shaky story
Unclear is a video piece inspired by recent events which... more
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It seems to be déjà vu with Tepco and Fukushima -- like Bill Murray in "Groundhog Day."It seems to be déjà vu with Tepco and Fukushima -- like Bill Murray in... more
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From the Current-Argus
Posted: 04/29/2011 08:54:12 PM MDT
By Levi Hill
Hobbs News-Sun
HOBBS — One day after the anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the Ukraine, one of the only places in the world where nuclear energy was being discussed as a part of the future of the world's energy portfolio was Hobbs.
A two-day nuclear energy conference kicked off Wednesday at the Lea County Event Center where nuclear industry representatives from around the world and media from as far away as Japan sat down to separate fact from fiction and discuss making nuclear energy a viable and essential piece of the world's energy portfolio.
The keynote speaker for the first day of the event was former U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, who has been called by many in the industry the godfather of the nuclear renaissance in the United States.
"We are very proud to be part of what we think is unique," Domenici said.
"We don't run and hide when we hear the words nuclear or radioactive. We sit down to learn about the facts and myths and make sure they are completely understood."
Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., opened the talks Wednesday, also discussing the problems with nuclear energy being a part of the nation's future.
"Nuclear does not have technological problems in this country. Nuclear has political problems in this country," Pearce said. "The United States developed the nuclear power field and then regulated it out of existence. We have built no new nuclear power plants in 30 years."
New Mexico Economic Development Secretary
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Jon Barela was more optimistic:
"New Mexico has a long history of being a leader in energy production. If we play our cards right, New Mexico can be the center of energy production in the country. New Mexico is uniquely positioned to assume that role in this country. We have the national resources and the know-how."
It was Thursday, the second day of the conference, when Dr. Dan Fine, research associate for New Mexico Tech and the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy, pointed to Lea County and the surrounding area as one of the premiere energy corridors in the world.
Discussion for a portion of the day focused on new technology and modular nuclear reactors — smaller nuclear reactors that are less expensive, safer and require less space than traditional nuclear power plants.
John Kelly, deputy assistant secretary for Nuclear Reactor Technologies at the Department of Energy's Office of Nuclear Energy, discussed the future of modular reactors, citing New Mexico as a perfect place to begin using them.
"The smaller units don't require the cooling systems that bigger plants do," he said. "There is less water usage and they can be looked at in places like New Mexico."
Unlike traditional reactors, the modular units require only about 15 acres of space, produce less power — about 250 megawatts per unit — and are more completely contained, reducing the threat of pipe breaks that could lead to radiation leakage, Kelly said.
"All the key components are inside the primary vessel," Kelly said. "The large pipe breaks of the current generation of reactors is eliminated. They can use passive cooling systems and can withstand long-term loss of power."
Kevin Butterfield, director of business development for Babcock and Wilcox Nuclear Energy, also spoke about the modular reactors. Butterfield said his company hopes to have the first modular reactor permitted and working by 2020. Permitting is the time-consuming process of getting the modular facilities working, Butterfield said, while construction would only take three years.
The plan is to develop modular plants in such a way that the central core could be manufactured in a facility, which could produce dozens or hundreds of them in a year to meet world energy demands, he said.
Butterfield said the facility his company is planning would have a life span of 40 years and could be expanded to easily add 250 megawatt increments as power demands increase.
Butterfield also talked about the strong likelihood that New Mexico could be one of the first sites for such reactors.
"Over the last couple of days it is very obvious to me that New Mexico is a very willing community," he said. "There are a lot of available sites in the area. We are the vendor that works with utilities. My advice to you is begin the dialogue with the utilities. New Mexico has a can-do attitude. There is no reason why it can't happen here."
The last piece of the future nuclear renaissance is the needed work force. The last panel of the two-day convention discussed the training and work force needed for future nuclear expansion world wide.
Robert Rhodes, vice president of training and outreach for New Mexico Junior College, said the nation will need 120,000 workers trained in nuclear energy in the next 20 years. Of those 100,000 will not be engineers.
Other presenters discussed the kinds of jobs that will be needed and the skill sets, such as math, science and writing skills that will be needed by these employees.
Fine also said the plan is to bring in the two leading Republican candidates for president to next year's conference and discuss with them energy policy for the nation.From the Current-Argus
Posted: 04/29/2011 08:54:12 PM MDT
By Levi Hill
Hobbs... more
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HOBBS, N.M. (AP) — U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce says the U.S. nuclear energy industry doesn't have technological problems — it has "political problems."
The "United States developed the nuclear power field and then regulated it out of existence. We have built no new nuclear power plants in 30 years," Pearce said Wednesday, the first day of a two-day international nuclear energy conference in Hobbs.
The Republican New Mexico congressman said nuclear power is essential to the nation's energy future, and suggested that the Fukushima nuclear crisis in Japan brought on by a devastating earthquake was an incident to build from, not run from.
"We should be analyzing exactly what went on, instead of saying 'no' to all nuclear," Pearce told the gathering, which is considering how to make nuclear energy a viable and essential piece of the world's energy portfolio.
Former U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico, a longtime supporter of nuclear energy, thanked Lea and Eddy counties in southeastern New Mexico for being open to the nuclear industry. The counties are home to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the federal government's underground nuclear waste repository; Urenco USA, which runs a uranium enrichment plant near Eunice; and International Isotopes, which proposes to provide uranium deconversion services for the plant.
Domenici said the area is unique because the people "don't run and hide when we hear the words 'nuclear' or 'radioactive.' We sit down to learn about the facts and myths, and make sure they are completely understood."
In the next year, the United States must find a way to finance some nuclear power plants and make a commitment to dispose of the nuclear waste now spread across the country, Domenici said.
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Information from: Hobbs News-Sun, http://www.hobbsnews.comHOBBS, N.M. (AP) — U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce says the U.S. nuclear energy industry... more
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On April 26, 1986, reactor number four at the Chernobyl nuclear power facility in what is now Ukraine exploded. The largest civil nuclear disaster in history led to mass evacuations, and long-term health, agricultural, and economic distress.On April 26, 1986, reactor number four at the Chernobyl nuclear power facility in what... more
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Hobbs, N.M. will play host to the Uranium Fuel Cell Conference on Wednesday and Thursday.
U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, R-Hobbs, and New Mexico Secretary of Economic Development Jon Barela will present state and federal viewpoints on the economic impact of nuclear energy.
According to a news release, the event is the first of its kind to feature leaders who can speak on all aspects of the uranium cycle, from mining and exploration to nuclear energy and spent fuel storage.
The event will include a panel discussion on the Fukushima reactor in Japan, which was damaged in the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, with a technical presentation comparing it to the 1979 Three Mile Island incident.Hobbs, N.M. will play host to the Uranium Fuel Cell Conference on Wednesday and... more
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