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Thorium: the wonder fuel that wasn’t

“ Thorium-Fueled Automobile Engine Needs Refueling Once a Century ,” reads the headline of an October 2013 story in an online trade publication. This fantastic promise is just one part of a modern boomlet in enthusiasm about the energy potential of thorium, a radioactive element that is far more abundant than uranium. Thorium promoters consistently extol its supposed advantages over uranium. News outlets periodically foresee the possibility of " a cheaper, more efficient, and safer form of nuclear power that produces less nuclear waste than today’s uranium-based technology."  Actually, though, the United States has tried to develop thorium as an energy source for some 50 years and is still struggling to deal with the legacy of those attempts. In addition to the billions of dollars it spent, mostly fruitlessly, to develop thorium fuels, the US government will have to spend billions more, at numerous federal nuclear sites, to deal […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Thorium: the wonder fuel that wasn't

“ Thorium-Fueled Automobile Engine Needs Refueling Once a Century ,” reads the headline of an October 2013 story in an online trade publication. This fantastic promise is just one part of a modern boomlet in enthusiasm about the energy potential of thorium, a radioactive element that is far more abundant than uranium. Thorium promoters consistently extol its supposed advantages over uranium. News outlets periodically foresee the possibility of " a cheaper, more efficient, and safer form of nuclear power that produces less nuclear waste than today’s uranium-based technology."  Actually, though, the United States has tried to develop thorium as an energy source for some 50 years and is still struggling to deal with the legacy of those attempts. In addition to the billions of dollars it spent, mostly fruitlessly, to develop thorium fuels, the US government will have to spend billions more, at numerous federal nuclear sites, to deal […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Japan Court Blocks Reactor Restarts

A court ruled Wednesday that Kansai Electric Power Co. can’t restart two of its reactors due to safety concerns, dealing a setback to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s efforts to jump-start Japan’s idled nuclear power plants. The ruling marks the first time since the Fukushima nuclear crisis erupted in March 2011 that a court has ordered a power supplier not to bring a nuclear plant online. The Fukui District Court prohibited a restart of the Oi Nos. 3-4 reactors in western Japan. Judge Hideaki Higuchi cited uncertainty surrounding the plant’s ability to withstand earthquakes, local media reported. "If there is any real risk, it is natural to ban operations," Mr. Higuchi was quoted as saying. Kansai Electric, Japan’s second-largest utility after Tokyo Electric Power Co. , will appeal to the region’s high court, a spokesman said, although the decision probably won’t come this year. "It is deplorable that we couldn’t […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Panicked Workers Fled Fukushima Plant in 2011 Despite Orders, Record Shows

At the most dire moment of the Fukushima nuclear crisis three years ago, hundreds of panicked employees abandoned the damaged plant despite being ordered to remain on hand for last-ditch efforts to regain control of its runaway reactors, according to a previously undisclosed record of the accident that was reported Tuesday by a major Japanese newspaper. The newspaper, The Asahi Shimbun, said that the episode was described by Masao Yoshida, the manager of the Fukushima Daiichi plant at the time of the accident, in a series of interviews conducted by government investigators several months after the March 2011 disaster. The newspaper said it had obtained a copy of a 400-page transcript of the interviews, which had been referred to in government accounts of the accident but had never been released in its entirety. Such a transcript could represent the only testimony of the accident left by Mr. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Fukushima Seawater Radiation Rises To New All Time High

The mainstream media may have long forgotten about the Fukushima tragedy (as it certainly goes against the far more popular and palatable meme of a Japan “recovery” courtesy of Abenomics) but that does not mean it is fixed or even contained. Quite the contrary. As a rare update from Japan’s Jiji news agency reminds us, on Friday radiation at five monitoring points in waters adjacent to the crippled Fukushima No. 1 power station spiked to all-time highs according to the semi-nationalized TEPCO. The measurements follow similar highs detected in groundwater at the plant. Why the surge in radioactivity? Officials of Tepco, as the utility is known, said “the cause of the seawater spike is unknown.” This is the same Tepco which for years lied that there is nothing to worry about in Fukushima, which arbitrarily hiked the maximum radiation exposure threshold as it saw fit, and which with the […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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China to set up nuclear emergency team

BEIJING, May 12 (Xinhua) — China is working to form a 300-member state-level rescue team specialized in nuclear emergencies, said a senior official here Monday. This team will respond to "serious nuclear accidents in complicated circumstances", said Yao Bin, head of the nuclear emergency and security division under the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence (SASTIND). They will be tasked to support operators of nuclear facilities to handle contingencies, such as cordoning the radioactive source in nuclear accidents, rescuing trapped people, controling the spread of contamination and minimizing the damage, said Yao, also deputy head of a national nuclear emergency response office. The fast-response team will be equipped with the latest devices, and the country will also build a training base for the team. The SASTIND and the General Staff Headquarters of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) are jointly working on this program, which is […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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China Starts 19th Nuclear Power Reactor Amid Construction Push

China fired up its 19th nuclear reactor as the nation pushed to more than double its expansion of atomic power generation capacity this year, which may boost demand for imported uranium. The Ningde No. 2 reactor in the southern province of Fujian started commercial operations yesterday, according to a statement posted on the website of the State Council’s State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission today. The facility is owned by China General Nuclear Power, the nation’s biggest nuclear producer. Its No. 1 reactor resumed production on April 29 after maintenance , the statement shows. China may need to import more than 80 percent of its uranium by 2020 as it expands its nuclear construction and operations, compared with about 60 percent currently, Tian Miao, an analyst at North Square Blue Oak Ltd., a London-based policy researcher, said by phone today. The nation will add 8.64 gigawatts of atomic capacity […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Chernobyl: Capping a Catastrophe

Against the decaying skyline here, a one-of-a-kind engineering project is rising near the remains of the world’s worst civilian nuclear disaster. An army of workers, shielded from radiation by thick concrete slabs, is constructing a huge arch, sheathed in acres of gleaming stainless steel and vast enough to cover the Statue of Liberty. The structure is so otherworldly it looks like it could have been dropped by aliens onto this Soviet-era industrial landscape. If all goes as planned, by 2017 the 32,000-ton arch will be delicately pushed on Teflon pads to cover the ramshackle shelter that was built to entomb the radioactive remains of the reactor that exploded and burned here in April 1986. When its ends are closed, it will be able to contain any radioactive dust should the aging shelter collapse. By all but eliminating the risk of additional atmospheric contamination, the arch will remove the lingering […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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ITER: How a new star will be born

The ITER project is truly at the frontier of knowledge, a collective effort to explore the tantalising future of free, clean and inexhaustible energy offered by nuclear fusion. Where the Large Hadron Collider at CERN pushes the boundaries of physics to find the origins of matter, the ITER project seeks to give humans an endless stream of power which could have potentially game-changing consequences for the entire planet. In this article, Robert Arnoux from ITER offers us his vision of nuclear fusion. Opinion: A new star will soon be born, a star unlike any other … a man-made star. ITER— both the Latin word for “The Way” and the acronym of International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor—will light up in the early years of the coming decade. From a scientific and technological point of view, it will be one of mankind’s major accomplishments. The creation of an artificial star and the […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Unskilled and Destitute Are Hiring Targets for Fukushima Cleanup

Fukushima Daiichi workers boarding a bus to take them to the damaged nuclear plant. The workers are housed in a village where, they said, there was little to do. NARAHA, Japan — “Out of work? Nowhere to live? Nowhere to go? Nothing to eat?” the online ad reads. “Come to Fukushima.” That grim posting targeting the destitute, by a company seeking laborers for the ravaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, is one of the starkest indications yet of an increasingly troubled search for workers willing to carry out the hazardous decommissioning at the site. The plant’s operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, known as Tepco, has been shifting its attention away, leaving the complex cleanup to an often badly managed, poorly trained, demoralized and sometimes unskilled work force that has made some dangerous missteps. At the same time, the company is pouring its resources into another plant, Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, that it […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple