August 29, 2016 – Science Alert – US physicists just revealed plans to build the most viable nuclear fusion devices ever – Physicists around the world have been racing to build a nuclear fusion machine that can replicate the atom-fusing process that’s fuelled our Sun for the past 4.5 billion years, in a bid to provide humanity with clean, safe, and practically limitless energy. And now the US government has just backed plans for physicists to build a new kind of nuclear fusion device that could be the most viable and efficient design yet.

August 29, 2016 – Mexico Star – IAEA Director General Focuses on Cancer at Kenya Conference – In three separate speaking engagements at the sixth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), which was held in Africa for the first time, he highlighted the work of the IAEA in making nuclear technology available for development. Mr Amano focused in particular on cancer, noting that breast and cervical cancer are an important focus of IAEA technical cooperation in many African countries. TICAD is an initiative launched by the Japanese government in 1993 to bring the world’s attention to Africa’s development needs and promote high-level policy dialogue between African leaders and development partners. This year, for the first time, health was one of the main themes.

August 29, 2016 – The Advertiser – Nuclear industry forum for SA students’ held in secret over safety fears – SAFETY concerns over potential anti-nuclear protests have forced a student forum on the industry’s future in South Australia to be staged in secret. More than 150 students from across the state will take part in the forum, organised by the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission Consultation and Response Agency and the Education Department. When asked where the debate was being held, agency director of engagement John Phalen would only say that “safety of the students is our No. 1 priority”. He said the youth voice was an important part of the consultation program being run across the state. The safety concerns come after anti-nuclear protests in June. During a Citizens’ Jury, Premier Jay Weatherill had to walk through a group of noisy anti-nuclear protesters chanting “no dump” outside the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute on North Terrace.

August 29, 2016 – Pharmabiz.com – Radiologists to stop use of ultrasound from Sep 1 citing lack of clarity in PCPNDT Act – Radiologists from across the country are planning to stop using ultrasound machines from September 1, 2016 onwards citing lack of clarity in Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act. Since ultrasound examinations can help to diagnose a variety of clinical conditions and to assess organ damage following illness, stopping use of ultrasound will hamper diagnostic services for millions of patients. Ultrasound is a painless procedure to produce pictures of the inside of the body using sound waves. Also called ultrasound scanning or sonography, it involves the use of a small transducer (probe) and ultrasound gel placed directly on the skin. This comes in the wake of government’s hesitation to modify PCPNDT Act which has led to harassment of radiologists by the authorities for minor administrative lapses and not actual sex selection in violation of the Act. Radiologists explain that the violation of the said Act amounts to equal punishment for sex determination and clerical errors.

August 29, 2016 – EIN News – Four Brookhaven Lab Projects Selected as R&D 100 Award Finalists – Four projects from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have been selected as finalists for the 2016 R&D 100 awards, which honor the top 100 proven technological advances of the past year as determined by a panel selected by R&D Magazine. “This was a very strong year for research and development across various markets, led by many outstanding technologies that broadened the scope of innovation,” said R&D Magazine Editor Anna Spiewak in a press release announcing the finalists. “We are honored to recognize these products and the project teams behind the design, development, testing, and production of these remarkable innovations and their impact in the field.”

August 29, 2016 – Time – Why the International Day Against Nuclear Tests Is Special This Year – The Aug. 29 date marks 25 years since a major Soviet Union nuclear test site in Kazakhstan closed. he Soviet Union detonated hundreds of nuclear devices over a period of 40 years at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in Kazakhstan—but all of that stopped when the test site closed 25 years ago, on Aug. 29, 1991. Fallout from the mushroom clouds above ground and explosions below ground did severe damage over time on the surrounding populations, especially in the town of Semipalatinsk (now Semey) almost 100 mi. east of the site. Radiation levels are still as much as ten times higher in the soil and water near the town, and babies were born with deformities during and after the period of testing. Cancer leveled the population so that, according to a 2016 report, more than half of the town does not live to 60.

August 29, 2016 – Radio Free Asia – North Korea Sets Up Special Force for Radioactive Bomb Attacks – Top soldiers from North Korea’s military are being selected to serve on new “nuclear pack” attack units under each corps of the People’s Army, North Korean sources said. “Outstanding soldiers were selected from each reconnaissance platoon and light infantry brigade to form the nuclear pack unit the size of a battalion,” said a source from North Hamgyong province who declined to be named. The special units have been formed since March this year, he said. The nuclear pack of the 9th corps stationed in North Hamgyong province was organized as a battalion affiliated with the 45th division, which is located in Munhwa-dong, Chongam-district in Chongjin city, he said. The formation of the new squads of soldiers came at around the same time that the members of the U.N. Security Council unanimously agreed to impose a new round of sanctions on North Korea, following the country’s fourth nuclear test on Jan. 6 and the launch on Feb. 7 of a satellite-bearing rocket that the world viewed as a disguised ballistic missile test.

August 29, 2016 – Copenhagen Post – Danish particle therapy cancer patients to be treated in Sweden instead of the US – Cancer patients in the Capital Region now have a shorter distance to travel for radiation treatment using particle therapy. The Capital Region has signed an agreement with Region Skåne to send cancer patients to Sweden’s Skandionkliniken in Uppsala. Previously, Danish patients had been sent to the United States. “It is very gratifying we now have the agreement in place,” Sophie Hæstorp Andersen, the regional chairman of the Capital Region, told News Øresund.

August 29, 2016 – PRNewswire – Importance of Myocardial Perfusion Positron Emission Tomography Recognized in New Joint Position Statement by the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology and the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging – Bracco Diagnostics Inc. (BDI), the U.S. subsidiary of Bracco Imaging S.p.A., a global leading company in the diagnostic imaging business, announced today that the American Society for Nuclear Cardiology (ASNC) and the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) have e-published a Position Statement to explain why myocardial perfusion positron emission tomography (PET) is most useful in the diagnosis and management of coronary artery disease (CAD), and to provide guidance as to when it should be considered for optimal patient care.

August 29, 2016 – tctmd.com – Optical Coherence Tomography Improves Stent Placement, Ups FFR in NSTE ACS – The addition of optimal coherence tomography (OCT) to standard fluoroscopy can influence physician decision-making and quantitatively improves post-PCI vessel function in patients with non-ST-elevation acute coronary syndromes, results from the DOCTORS trial show. The study, said lead author Nicolas Meneveau, MD, PhD (University Hospital Jean Minjoz, Besançon, France), is the first randomized controlled trial to support a role for OCT in this setting, although hard clinical endpoint studies are warranted. “We need additional data,” he acknowledged in a morning press conference. “We need additional studies with clinical endpoints before considering incorporating OCT as the standard to use in ACS patients. But this is an important first step—the first randomized controlled trial showing the potential positive effect by FFR on the results of PCI in ACS patients.”

August 29, 2016 – International Business Times – Nuclear Fusion: US Physicists Examine The Viability Of Spherical Tokamaks In Producing Clean, Limitless Energy – Nuclear fusion has been powering our sun for the past 4.5 billion years. Unlike fission — the process that powers our current nuclear facilities — fusion generates energy by fusing the nuclei of lighter atoms into heavier ones, and produces no long-term radioactive waste. Imagine if we manage to replicate and miniaturize the process taking place in the core of stars. This would not only provide us a low-cost, clean and virtually limitless source of energy, it would also end our unsustainable reliance on polluting fossil fuels. In a recent paper published in the journal Nuclear Fusion, a team of physicists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), has detailed the design of a viable and efficient fusion device — one that already exists in an experimental form.

August 29, 2016 – WRVO Public Media – Exelon purchase of FitzPatrick will save its jobs, but how many? – Local IBEW 97 labor union president Ted Skerpon said the past year has been a roller coaster for the employees he represents at the FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant and the nearby Nine Mile Point Nuclear Facility. Both were on the brink of closure at one point because of economic losses. But now that New York will subsidize the state’s nuclear industry, Exelon says it will continue operating Nine Mile Point and take over at FitzPatrick. So the next step for the union regarding jobs, Skerpon said, is negotiations. “We will sit down with Entergy and Exelon for the transition and basically determine what’s needed,” Skerpon said. “But everybody should be good. hopefully we can do this all through attrition, and obviously looking at the efficiencies now that you have three plants what’s really needed.”

August 29, 2016 – MehrNews.com – Iran joins stable isotope producers – AEOI deputy Zarean has announced the setting up of a pilot plant for production of stable isotopes which adds Iran to the short list of global producers. Deputy Head of the Atomic Energy Organization Asghar Zarean made the remarks asserting “only countries like Germany, Russia or Ireland could produce stable isotopes while Iran has also joined them.” “The pilot plant to produce raw material for stable isotope was put into operation today in Uranium Conversion Facility (UCF) of Isfahan,” said the official Sunday, congratulating the Iranian nation on the great achievement.

August 29, 2016 – Construction.RU – Worker dies at Belarus NPP construction site – On the 26th of August, one of the workers died in performing his duties at a construction site of the nuclear power plant in the Republic of Belarus. As the Information & Public Relations Department of the Belarussian NPP enterprise announced on Monday, the fatal accident occurred in a Russian sub-contract group. At present, investigation into the worker’s death has been opened. Unconfirmed reports suggest that the builder’s death was caused by the fall of an oxygen container upon him. We should remind you that the Belarussian nuclear power plant, being constructed with the participation of Russia in the vicinity of the town of Ostrovets, will consist of two VVER-type power units with a total capacity of up to 2400 MW.

August 29, 2016 – Financial Express – Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant Unit-2 synchronised with southern grid – The 1000 MW second unit of Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KNPP) was test synchronised with the southern power grid today, marking generation of electricity from the unit and its supply to the grid, a top KNPP official said today. “Unit two of KNPP was test synchronised with the southern power grid today at 1117 hours. Presently the unit is supplying 245 MW to the southern grid,” KNPP Site Director R S Sundar said. He said clearance was obtained from Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) for the first synchronisation of the unit with the southern grid. Sundar said the unit would be shut down for mandatory inspection of turbine-generator after a few days of operation.

August 29, 2016 – BDlive – Outa appeals for signatures on nuclear plants – PEOPLE opposed to Eskom’s “surreptitiously slipping” requests in regional government gazettes to approve Thyspunt and Duynefontein as locations for nuclear plants are urged to sign an online petition by the deadline at midnight on Monday, August 29. The online petition is at www.outa.co.za/nuclear (http://www.outa.co.za/site/comment-eskoms-nuclear-license-applications/Organisation) and was set up by Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa). It said it had attracted 17,000 individual submissions by Sunday.

August 29, 2016 – The Mirror – Russians fear nuclear doomsday as giant mushroom cloud appears over skies in Siberia – An enormous mushroom-shaped cloud rises ominously above a Siberian town – sparking fears among witnesses that doomsday has arrived. The terrifying sight could be seen for miles around and was captured on video from the city of Kemerovo, in Russia’s Kemerovo Oblast region. Emergency services were inundated with calls from worried onlookers that a nuclear bomb had been dropped and that annihilation was imminent. The terrifying cloud formation led many to believe Judgement Day was upon them. Others feared there had been an explosion at the coal mines in the nearby Kuzbass region. In fact, the terrifying-looking spectacle was in reality a rather beautiful, naturally occurring thunderstorm cloud.

August 29, 2016 – PhysOrg – Lab team uses pulsed ion beams to probe radiation defect dynamics in nuclear materials – Materials scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have developed a novel experimental method to access the dynamic regime of radiation damage formation in nuclear and electronic materials. Their approach is based on using pulsed ion beams for measurements of defect lifetimes, interaction rates and diffusion lengths. The creation of stable radiation damage in crystalline solids often occurs during migration and interaction of radiation-generated point defects—lattice vacancies and interstitials. Such dynamic damage formation is a complex phenomenon that could span the spatial range from atomic to macroscopic and the temporal range from femtoseconds to years. Due to this complexity, a full predictive capability of radiation damage accumulation still does not exist even for the simplest and best studied materials.

August 29, 2016 – The Telegraph – Iran deploys air defence system around its nuclear facility – Iran has deployed a Russian-made S-300 air defence system around its underground Fordo nuclear facility, state TV reported. Video footage posted late Sunday on state TV’s website showed trucks arriving at the site and missile launchers being aimed skyward. It did not say whether the system was fully operational. Gen. Farzad Esmaili, Iran’s head of air defence, declined to comment on the report in an interview with another website affiliated with state news. “Maybe if you go to Fordo now, the system is not there,” he was quoted as saying Monday. He added that the S-300 is a mobile system that should be relocated often. Russia began delivering the S-300 system to Iran earlier this year under a contract signed in 2007. The delivery had been held up by international sanctions over Iran’s nuclear program, which were lifted this year under an agreement with world powers.

August 29, 2016 – Sputnik International – Tehran Allocates Funds for Bushehr-2 Nuclear Plant Project – Behrouz Kamalvandi, the deputy head of the Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization (AEOI) stated that Tehran allocated money for the construction of two new nuclear reactors at the site of the Bushehr nuclear power plant.MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Iran has allocated money for the construction of two new nuclear reactors at the site of the Bushehr nuclear power plant, known as the Bushehr-2 project, the deputy head of the country’s Atomic Energy Organization (AEOI) was quoted as saying by local media. © Sputnik/ Valeriy MelnikovIran’s Bushehr Nuclear Plant 2nd Unit’s Start-Up Planned for October 2024Behrouz Kamalvandi did not reveal the amount allocated by Tehran to fund the project when speaking on the matter on Sunday but noted that President Hassan Rouhani gave the go-ahead for construction to commence, Iran’s state news agency IRNA reported.

August 29, 2016 – Aljazeera – Fukushima’s surfers riding on radioactive waves – On 11 March 2011, at 2:46 pm, Japan was hit by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake which generated a tsunami along the coast. The casualties of the disaster included 18,500 dead, 90 percent of whom drowned in the tsunami wave. The bodies of 2,561 people were never recovered. The tsunami hit the Daaichi nuclear power plant as well, a level-7 catastrophe that was the equivalent of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant meltdown disaster. Over the course of five years, nearly 50,000 people have worked to decontaminate the plant and stop leaks according to government press releases. They remove between 5 and 30 cm of contaminated soil every day and place them in plastic bags, which are stored on the outskirts of town, pending a better solution. In Tairatoyoma beach, a prefecture of Fukushima and some 50km from the nuclear plant, was among the most popular areas for Japanese surfers prior to the nuclear accident.

August 29, 2016 – Deutsche Welle – Problems persist at Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear reactors – It has been five years and five months since three of the reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant were crippled by the biggest earthquake and tsunami to strike Japan in living memory. Work continues at the site to clean up the radioactivity that escaped into the atmosphere and to regain control of the reactors. In its press releases, the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) insists that steps taken since the accident are slowly but surely having an effect. But not everyone accepts their assurances – or those of the wider nuclear industry as it seeks public support to restart reactors across the country that have been mothballed since March 2011.

August 29, 2016 – WRVO Public Media – Environmentalists point to FitzPatrick safety incidents in new report – Environmental critics of nuclear power are seizing on a few safety incidents at the FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant detailed in a report from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The report notes multiple mishaps, like the oil leak into Lake Ontario that was connected to a temporary shutdown of the plant, and another event when two FitzPatrick employees were unintentionally exposed to radiation. The starkest finding is that solid nuclear waste which had spilled onto the floor of a contained room in the plant has been left untreated for at least four years. NRC spokesperson Neil Sheehan said that spill did not leave the site. “This is a locked, highly shielded portion of the plant,” Sheehan said. “Certainly no one from the public can get access to that, but even plant employees can only get in there after they’ve been fully approved to do so.”

August 29, 2016 – Aiken Standard – First Cycle unit at Savannah River Nuclear Solutions’ H Canyon revitalized – On Aug. 5, Savannah River Site’s H Canyon restarted the First Cycle unit operation for the first time in more than five years, giving the uranium from spent nuclear fuel currently stored at SRS a pathway out of South Carolina. In First Cycle, uranium from spent nuclear fuel is separated from aluminum, fission products and other impurities. This is the fourth out of five unit operations to restart since the Department of Energy’s Amended Record of Decision in 2013, allowing SRS to process 1,000 bundles of spent nuclear fuel and 200 High Flux Isotope Reactor, or HFIR, cores.

August 29, 2016 – WPLG 10 – Turkey Point workers prepare nuclear power plant for possible rough weather – The Turkey Point nuclear power plant is gearing up for the coming storm as workers prepare for bad weather. “Should a storm come like the one that is approaching now, we make sure the site is ready,” emergency preparedness manager Kevin O’Hare said. “As a result of Fukushima, (we) needed another level of protection,” Sergio Chaviano, project manager of the Flex Building, said. Inside a box are backup systems that can deliver power to the entire plant. “We have a pump here to the right, a smaller pump to the left. We have trailers that can carry hoses throughout the plant,” Chaviano said. The hoses can carry water to cool reactors in the event of an emergency, but crews said they’ve been preparing for hurricane season since March.

August 29, 2016 – Richmond Times-Dispatch – Siren test at North Anna station to be repeated – The North Anna Power Station Early Warning Siren test on Aug. 17 revealed an anomaly in the siren duration and the test will be done again at 11:10 a.m. on Thursday. The quarterly tests, which are required by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, occur on the third Wednesday of February, May, August and November to ensure the public will be properly notified in the unlikely event of a radiological emergency. Sixty-eight sirens are sounded and heard within a 10-mile radius of the station in Louisa County. If the primary siren system failed during an actual emergency, there is also a back-up siren panel system that can be activated.

August 29, 2016 – The Oak Ridger – Historic day: Last wall to be demolished at last of big five uranium-enriching buildings at ETTP (K-25) – The last wall of the last of the big five buildings once used to enrich uranium at the former K-25 site will be demolished Tuesday. Demolition on the last building, the K-27 Building, started in February. The other four buildings—K-25, K-29, K-31, and K-33—were demolished between 2006 and 2015. All five of the huge buildings once used a process called gaseous diffusion to produce highly enriched uranium for atomic weapons and commercial nuclear power plants, starting during World War II and continuing through the Cold War. The largest was K-25, a mile-long U-shaped building. When K-27 demolition is complete, it will be the first time that all of a site’s uranium-enriching gaseous diffusion buildings will have been cleaned up anywhere in the world, officials said.

August 29, 2016 – The Chattanoogan – Environmental Group Opposes Increase Of Output At TVA Nuclear Plants – The Tennessee Valley Authority has asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for a license amendment to allow an extended power uprate (EPU) for the three nuclear power reactors at Brown Ferry Nuclear Plant. This would amend its already-licensed steady-state reactor core levels and allow a power level increase of approximately 20 percent for all three units, according to an environmental group that is opposed. BEST/MATRR, a Scottsboro-based chapter of Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, alleges that TVA “has presented analyses that under-predicts the reaction of zirconium and steam that would occur in a loss-of-coolant accident at higher temperatures.”

August 29, 2016 – KRCU 90.9AM – State wins approval to test groundwater near radioactive waste at West Lake Landfill – A special master has allowed the state to proceed with groundwater testing at wells in the portion of the West Lake Landfill where World War II-era radioactive waste has been detected. The decision Wednesday in a circuit court of St. Louis County comes after landfill owner Republic Services tried to stop the testing from moving forward. The tests were scheduled to begin Aug. 22, but the work was delayed when Republic Services attorney Peter Daniel wrote Assistant Attorney General Thais Folta to inform her the company would not permit the sampling. Daniel argued that the Missouri Department of Natural Resources has no jurisdiction over the northern portion of the landfill. The Environmental Protection Agency presides over that section of the landfill, labeled as Operating Unit 1, which contains radioactive waste. The state only has jurisdiction over the southern portion, Operating Unit 2, where there is an underground smoldering fire. But the EPA did not object to MDNR’s plans to sample groundwater wells in Operating Unit 1.

August 29, 2016 – Santa Fe New Mexican – Criticism mounts after PRC decides to reopen PNM rate case – The state Public Regulation Commission is facing criticism over its decision this week to reopen hearings for an electric rate increase proposed by the Public Service Company of New Mexico after a hearing officer in the case recommended a drastically reduced rate hike. Commissioners said Wednesday that the PNM rate case could be extended through December if the utility decides to submit more evidence showing that its energy investments are prudent. Reopening the proceedings, which began in April, would undermine a determination earlier this month by hearing officer Carolyn Glick. On Aug. 15, Glick recommended a 6 percent rate increase, a total of $42 million, rather than the 15.8 percent PNM was seeking to cover some $123.5 million in costs. PNM should not be allowed to include in its rate base a $153 million nuclear power investment, she said, because the company failed to show any evidence that the purchase was the utility’s most cost-effective choice.

August 19, 2016 – Business Insider – A typo and a bag of kitty litter might cost US taxpayers billions in nuclear waste cleanup – A typo and a bag of organic kitty litter may end up costing United States taxpayers more than $2 billion in nuclear waste cleanup, according to a new report by Ralph Vartabedian at the Los Angeles Times. Back in February 2014, a drum of nuclear waste burst open inside the cavernous Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP), which is drilled out of a salt deposit nearly half a mile below the deserts of Carlsbad, New Mexico. The US Department of Energy (DOE), which funds the company that runs the nuclear waste dump, quickly suspended operations and launched an investigation to figure out the cause. In their 277-page report, investigators determined the blast vaporized nearly 7.5 lbs of the material inside a single barrel, labeled “Drum 68660.” That material included some radioactive isotopes of americium, plutonium, and uranium — byproducts of Cold War-era nuclear weapons production.