August 1, 2016 – Daily Star – Lucky teen inches from death as METEORITE crash lands next to him – Matej Rejfek, 17, had popped outside to lock his garden gate when the lump of rock smashed to the ground with a thud right in front of him. Mr Refjek, who lives in the northern Czech Republic village of Ledce, initially thought someone was throwing stones at him. But then he realised that there was nobody else around and that the small rock had come from the sky. Mr Refjek said: “I realised that it was 1am and it was not very likely that someone would be throwing anything at me. “I picked up the stone and felt that it was warm so that gave me a clue that this could be a meteorite.” He took the rock inside his home and put it inside a plastic bag because he was worried that it might be radioactive.

August 1, 2016 – Homeland Preparedness News – Stolen portable nuclear gauge recovered in Connecticut – HAKS Material Testing Group, a Connecticut-based company, notified the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on Wednesday that a portable nuclear gauge reported to be stolen has been recovered. The gauge, typically used for industrial purposes like measuring the density of soil at construction sites, was located by police at a pawn shop in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and reportedly had no damage. A Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection inspector traveled to the shop to inspect and confirm that the gauge was not damaged. The gauge contains small amounts of radioactive material that are shielded within the device when not in use. The gauge was stolen from a technician’s vehicle while it was parked in Bridgeport. The vehicle’s trunk was broken into and the chains securing the gauge in place were cut and removed.

August 1, 2016 – Pravda.ru – Islamic State to explode dirty bomb at Rio Olympics – The Islamic State terrorist group (banned in Russia) plans to use a “dirty bomb” to attack the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Daily Mirror said. According to the publication, UN security experts sent special equipment to Brazil to help prevent the potential threat. it was also said that the IAEA provided portable dosimeters to delegates of the Games. A “dirty bomb” is a radiological weapons consisting of a container with a radioactive isotope (isotopes) and an explosive device. The explosion destroys the container with isotopes and distributes the radioactive substance on a large territory. The size of the bomb may vary depending on the amount of the material it is made of. In addition, Islamic State terrorists published a video threatening to attack Russia. In the video, the terrorists threaten Russian President Putin and the population.

August 1, 2016 – African Review – Nigeria to generate electricity from uranium – In March, the Federal Government had announced that it was working towards generating 4,000 MW of electricity from nuclear sources. Towards this end, experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have been invited by the government to conduct a week-long training for nuclear practitioners and security officers on the extraction, exploitation and utilisation of uranium. Speaking at the opening ceremony of the National Training Course on Nuclear Security for the Uranium Extraction Industry in Abuja, the minister of solid minerals development Kayode Fayemi, stated that it was important for Nigeria to exploit available resources in order to meet its power needs.

August 1, 2016 – Zawya – Major plan to check radiation hazards – Saudi Arabia has embarked on a major plan to check hazards posed by radiation at health facilities and ensure adequate safety arrangements to avoid possible danger to lives of health workers and patients. The plan is to generate awareness about dangers of radiation, make radiation safety improvements, enforce regulatory measures, and impart technical knowledge of equipment-related radiation safety features. “The Saudi Food & Drug Authority (SFDA) has teamed up with the Ministry of Interior and has already carried inspections of about 510 health facilities in the Kingdom,” said a statement released by the SFDA.

August 1, 2016 – FrenchTribune.com – Astronauts flying to moon have higher cardiovascular mortality rate than those to ISS – The Earth has the only atmosphere so far discovered to support human life, rest of celestial body are devoid of sources that help sustain life. Same could be said for moon, which unlike the Earth has hostile atmosphere for living beings found on our planet. A study recently published in Scientific Reports asserted that astronauts on moon are fivefold likely to die from cardiovascular disease than astronauts in low-Earth orbit on the International Space Station. Michael Delp, a professor of physiology at Florida State University in Tallahassee and the first author on the paper, explains why this may happen. According to Delp, space radiation travel very fast to moon and damages tissues a lot. This causes more serious damage than caused by any radiation falling on the Earth, where living creatures, including humans are protected because of two factors. First, magnetic field of the Earth deflects majority of the charged particles that enter into our planet via solar system. The field is also known as magnetosphere. But, if in case a charged particle breaks through this magnetic shield, it enters into the atmosphere and dissipates a lot of its energy. That comes as a second line of defense.

August 1, 2016 – WhaTech – Report explores the global radiology oncology surgical robots market 2016: industry insights, review, demand, study and research to 2019 – Market Research announces that it has published a new study Radiology Oncology Surgical Robots Market Shares, Strategy, and Forecasts, Worldwide, 2016 to 2022. The 2016 study has 557 pages, 82 tables and figures. Worldwide Radiology Oncology surgical robot markets are poised to achieve significant growth as next generation systems provide a way to improve traditional open surgery and use radiology for cancer surgery. New systems pinpoint the delivery of radiation precisely, eliminating the radiological overdosing that has been such a problem previously, limiting the quantity of radiation that can be delivered.

August 1, 2016 – IPE – Joseph Mariathasan: Rejecting nuclear power is height of folly – UK prime minister Theresa May’s decision to delay a final decision on the Hinkley Point nuclear power station is another stumbling block for nuclear power. Yet it can be argued nuclear power represents an invaluable source of energy that has been misrepresented in the public perception. The Fukushima Daiichi radiation disaster in March 2011 epitomised the problems countries face in their attitudes to nuclear energy. The disaster led to all nuclear plants in Japan being shut down and 100,000 people being evacuated. There was worldwide news coverage and huge blame placed on the operator, TEPCO. Other nations such as Germany panicked and shut down their nuclear power plants, despite the absence of any problems. Subsequent German policy became to cease the use of nuclear energies. Yet, despite the considerable escape of radiation, ranked in the most serious category in the Fukushima Daiichi radiation disaster, there has not been a single death, nor even a single health casualty, attributable to the leak. This, as Oxford professor Wade Allison argues in his book, “Nuclear is for life – a cultural revolution”, calls for an explanation.

August 1, 2016 – Sputnik International – Rosatom Dismisses Rumors of Accident at Belarus’ Nuclear Power Plant – Media claimed that an accident occurred on the night of July 9 at the construction site of Belarus’s first nuclear power plant. “It is wrong to use misleading words like ‘hit the ground’ or ‘fell’ because the reactor was moving toward the ground at a pace below that of a pedestrian,” Rosatom’s First Deputy CEO for Operations Management Alexander Lokshin told reporters. Lokshin said a subcontractor firm was relocating the reactor horizontally some 30 feet within the construction site with a crane when it malfunctioned. The massive cargo was left strapped to the crane for half an hour and tilted slowly to one side until it was handing diagonally from the sling and touched the ground.

August 1, 2016 – Burlington Hawk Eye – China’s nuclear power ambitions sailing into troubled waters – China’s ambitions to become a pioneer in nuclear energy are sailing into troubled waters. Two state-owned companies plan to develop floating nuclear reactors, a technology engineers have been considering since the 1970s for use by oil rigs or island communities. Beijing is racing Russia, which began developing its own in 2007, to get a unit into commercial operation. In China’s case, the achievement would be tempered by concern its reactors might be sent into harm’s way to support oil exploration in the South China Sea, where Beijing faces conflicting territorial claims by neighbors, including Vietnam and the Philippines. Chinese news reports said plans call for deploying 20 reactors there, though neither developer has mentioned the area.

August 1, 2016 – SF Gate – Wildfires burning in Washington, forcing evacuations – A wildfire was burning toward the Hanford Nuclear Reservation after spreading from Grant and Yakima counties into Benton County. The Tri-City Herald reports (http://bit.ly/2abnLmJ ) it was one of several wildfires burning Sunday in Eastern Washington. Those blazes include a 1,000-acre fire that had an undetermined number of residents evacuating a rural area near Prosser Sunday evening. The larger fire burning toward Hanford was estimated to have burned about 94 square miles by early Sunday evening. The paper reported that firefighters were working to stop the fire before it reached the large wildland security zone maintained around a portion of the nuclear site.

August 1, 2016 – Sputnik International – Time to Wake Up? US Nuclear Expansion Might Lead to Catastrophic Consequences – Expansion of US missile defense has become a subject to a vivid debate in the international community and might lead to serious negative consequences if Washington doesn’t rethink its policy. For instance, China has severely protested the decision of the United States to place an advanced missile defense system in South Korea, with experts claiming that the move is likely to further increase tensions between Washington and Beijing. “China strongly urges the United States and South Korea to stop the deployment process of the THAAD anti-missile system, not take any steps to complicate the regional situation and do nothing to harm China’s strategic security interests,” China’s Foreign Ministry said early July, cited by Reuters.

August 1, 2016 – Climate Home – Atomic shambles: UK nuclear plans need urgent rethink – The British government astonished the nuclear industry last week by refusing to go ahead with plans to build the world’s largest nuclear plant until it has reviewed every aspect of the project. The decision was announced hours after a bruising meeting of the board of the giant French energy company EDF, at which directors decided by 10 votes to seven to go ahead with the building of two 1,600 megawatt reactors at Hinkley Point in Somerset, southwest England. One director, Gerard Magnin, had already resigned in protest before the meeting, saying the project was “very risky”. All six union members, who are worker directors, said they were going to vote against because they believed that any new investment should be directed at making ageing French reactors safer.

August 1, 2016 – RT.com – UK balks last minute at Hinkley Point nuclear deal with China, Beijing decries ‘suspicious approach’ – Theresa May’s government has backtracked just hours before signing a deal for a China-backed nuclear power station. Beijing state media says the UK is acting irrationally by delaying the project, jeopardizing the hard-won ‘Golden Era’ of China-UK ties. The US$24 billion deal, with France’s EDF as producer of two nuclear reactors and China’s General Nuclear Power Corp as principle investor, has been put on hold, despite Britain having abandoned coal as a source of electricity production. A comment from China’s official Xinhua agency says that while Beijing understands and respects Britain’s decision to reconsider the deal, it cannot understand the “suspicious approach that comes from nowhere to Chinese investment in making the postponement.”

August 1, 2016 – Albany Business Review – Manufacturers oppose proposed $7 billion nuclear power subsidy – Big energy users, including large manufacturers in the state, oppose a plan to subsidize nuclear power plants that could cost as much as $7 billion. New York’s utility regulator is set to consider the proposal on Monday. Nuclear power is seen as a bridge source to help the state achieve higher renewable energy goals. The plan, intended to keep upstate New York nuclear power plants operational, would provide funding based on the social costs of carbon emissions avoided by the plant. The cost in the first two years would be about $1 billion. A staff analysis found those costs are outweighed by economic and environmental benefits valued at $5 billion over the same period.

August 1, 2016 – Independent Online – At what cost nuclear? – A new study by EE Publishers looks at the initial capital cost as well as the levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) generated by the proposed 9.6 GW new-nuclear build in South Africa. The EE Publishers study estimates an initial overnight capital cost (including owner’s development costs, but excluding interest during construction) of the 9.6 GW new-nuclear build at $50 billion (R776 billion at a rate of exchange of $1 = R14).

August 1, 2016 – Focus Taiwan News Channel – President demands report on nuclear waste storage on Orchid Island – President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) demanded Monday a report on policymaking about the storage of radioactive waste on Orchid Island, which lies just off the southeast coast of Taiwan and is home to the Tao aboriginal tribe, called the Yami people by the Taiwan government. Tsai issued the directive in a ceremony at the Presidential Office in which she formally issued an apology to Taiwan’s 16 recognized aboriginal tribes on Taiwan’s Indigenous People’s Day. During the ceremony, Yami elder Capen Nganaen urged the government to come up with measures to move radioactive nuclear waste away from Orchid Island.

August 1, 2016 – Free Press Journal – Scientists simulate nuclear explosion of asteroid – In a step that may help protect the Earth from potentially dangerous celestial bodies, scientists have simulated the nuclear explosion of an asteroid in such a way that its irradiated fragments do not fall on our planet. With the help of supercomputer SKIF Cyberia, the nuclear explosion of an asteroid 200 metres in diameter was simulated. “The way we propose to eliminate the threat from space is reasonable to use in case of the impossibility of the soft disposal of an object from a collision in orbit and for the elimination of an object that is constantly returning to Earth,” said Tatiana Galushina, from Tomsk State University (TSU) in Russia. “Previously, as a preventive measure, it was proposed to abolish the asteroid on its approach to our planet, but this could lead to catastrophic consequences – a fall to Earth of the majority of the highly radioactive fragments,” said Galushina.

August 1, 2016 – Sky News Australia – Nuclear waste dump site proposed for SA – A wide ranging community consultation program over a proposal to build a high level nuclear waste dump in South Australia is set to begin. Premier Jay Weatherill will open the first information session in Adelaide’s Rundle Mall on Friday. The consultation program over the proposal to build the nuclear waste dump will go over the weekend while moving to regional centres next week. The consultation includes scale models and interactive displays. The South Australian premier won’t rule out holding a referendum on whether the state should host a proposed nuclear waste dump but says it’s unlikely.

August 1, 2016 – National Geographic – Fukushima in New York? This Nuclear Plant Has Regulators Nervous – Could what happened in Fukushima happen 35 miles (56 kilometers) north of New York City? That’s what many activists and former nuclear regulators fear for the Indian Point Energy Center, a nuclear power plant that has operated in Westchester County for more than four decades. The plant provides a good chunk of the energy needs for the surrounding area, but it has come under fire in recent years for safety and environmental concerns, including its warming of the Hudson River and a recent case of bolts missing in one of its reactors. Two of the plant’s three reactor units are currently operating on expired licenses, with the state of New York having denied parent company Entergy’s extension requests due to suspected violations of the federal Clean Water Act. Following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that caused catastrophic damage to Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant and surrounding area, the safety of nuclear energy as a whole has come under even greater scrutiny.

August 1, 2016 – Manitoulin Expositor – Study by OPG on nuclear waste vault near Lake Huron not specific enough, says Nuclear Waste Watch – Ontario Power Generation’s (OPG) study of a proposed nuclear waste vault near Lake Huron is not specific enough, says Nuclear Waste Watch. Alerting the federal Minister of the Environment and Climate Change to signals from Ontario Power Generation (OPG) that the utility intends to once more side-step information requirements related to a proposal to bury nuclear waste beside Lake Huron, 50 public interest groups from Canada and the US have sent an open letter to the federal minister with advice and analysis. In response to a letter from the minister dated July 4, the open letter critiques OPG’s outline of its intended approach to responding to the minister’s request for additional information which she had issued in February.

August 1, 2016 – KING5.com – Nuclear worker: ‘Retaliation is very real at Hanford’ – A veteran worker at the Hanford Site says he was harassed, isolated and reassigned to cleaning tasks after he made repeated attempts to bring attention to safety problems in the lab where he works. “Retaliation and harassment is very, very real at Hanford and that’s a fact. I lived it and I’m living it right now,” said Dave Lee, an instrument technician assigned to the 222-S Lab at Hanford. “I’m cleaning closets and I’m replacing filters and if that’s not degrading and retaliatory, explain to me what is.”

August 1, 2016 – Asian Scientist – ‘Smashing’ Radioactive Particles Can Help Clear Nuclear Waste – Scientists in Japan may have found a way to manage nuclear waste more easily, by converting two major radioactive isotopes found in nuclear waste into more easily managed isotopes. Their research was published in the journal Physical Letters B. “Treating the nuclear waste generated by nuclear power plants and other facilities is a major problem around the world. There are two types—minor actinides, which can be dealt with using fission reactions, and fission products, for which more scientific research on nuclear reactions is needed,” said RIKEN chief scientist Dr. Hiroyoshi Sakurai, who is the head of the Radioactive Isotope Physics Laboratory at the RIKEN Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science in Japan.