October 4, 2016 – ABC.net.au – Marie Curie – Marie Curie was a brilliant scientist who won the Nobel Peace Prize twice and was famous for her work with radioactivity and X-rays . She was born in Poland but spent most of her professional life in France . What was her life like, what shaped her as a scientist in the days when it was unusual for women to work in this profession? Trevor Chappell spoke with Małgorzata Ewa Rosen– who is Curator of a museum dedicated to Marie Curie (The Maria Skłodowska-Curie Museum of Polish Chemical Society in Warsaw).

October 4, 2016 – Triple Pundit – Fukushima Radiation Now Covers the Pacific Ocean – Some rather disturbing news came out this weekend about the impact of the nuclear catastrophe at Fukushima. While the incident took place five years ago and is no longer in the news, that does not mean it has been resolved. A recent report claims radioactive contamination from the accident has now spread across the entire Pacific Ocean, the massive body of water that covers nearly a third of Earth’s surface. Scientists now say the Pacific is at least five to 10 times more radioactive than it was when the U.S. began testing nuclear weapons there. Western Canada experienced levels of radioactive iodine-131 that were 300 times higher than normal background levels since the accident. Pacific herring have been found bleeding from their mouths, gills and eyes. As the contamination made its way across the water, Oregon tuna were found in 2013 with radiation levels triple their previous levels. Starfish began dying off. The following year, California beaches recorded radiation levels that had increased by 500 percent.

October 4, 2016 – The Recorder – Neal, in Rowe, backs federal bill for nuke fuel storage – Congressman Richard E. Neal brought good news to Heath in the form of an $88,343 grant that will pay for up-to-date breathing apparatus for a dozen members of the Heath Fire Department. But any news about how long Rowe will keep storing nuclear waste from the former Yankee Rowe nuclear plant is more complicated. Meeting with Selectmen’s Chairwoman Marilyn Wilson, Yankee Rowe’s Robert Capstick, state Rep. Paul Mark, and members of the Yankee Rowe Spent Fuel Storage and Removal Community Advisory Board, Neal said he has signed on to the Dold bill, which would provide up to $100 million for 13 communities, including Rowe, that have borne the responsibility for temporary storage of spent fuel for dozens of years.

October 4, 2016 – The Engineer – Manchester student makes thorium breakthrough – Elizabeth Wildman, a member of a Manchester research group led by Prof Steve Liddle, found compounds where unusual forms of phosphorus – known as the devil’s element – are stabilised by thorium, a radioactive chemical element named after the Norse god of thunder that can be used as a nuclear fuel. “This has been an exciting experience and I am delighted my work has been recognised in this way,” said Elizabeth. “It seems the Norse god of thunder has tamed the devil’s element.” The research examined how ‘soft’ elements such as phosphorus can interact with thorium in unusual bonding environments. It examined species with single and double thorium-phosphorus bonds, and managed to trap a naked phosphorous atom between two thorium ions. The work was published in the journal Nature Communications.

October 4, 2016 – Daily Dunkin Democrat – Tests underway on creek in Hazelwood area that turned white – Water samples from an eastern Missouri creek that turned white over the weekend are still being tested and it’s too early to conclude what caused the problem, the state Department of Resources said Monday. Coldwater Creek, which runs through the Hazelwood area of St. Louis, has been a source of concern for area residents for years after radioactive contamination was confirmed in several yards that back up to the waterway. The milky white water raised new worries on Sunday morning, but the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers insisted Monday that whatever is in the water has nothing to do with the agency’s remediation efforts to remove soil contaminated by remnants of the nation’s early nuclear weapons program.

October 4, 2016 – Doctors Lounge – CT Colonography May Be Useful for Aneurysm Detection – Routine assessment of the aorta during a computed tomography colonography (CTC) may aid in aneurysm detection, according to a study published online Sept. 21 in the Journal of Medical Imaging and Radiation Oncology. Manar Khashram, M.B.Ch.B., from Christchurch Hospital in New Zealand, and colleagues sought to determine the impact that CTC had on small aneurysm referrals and to compare baseline characteristics of those referred by CTC with those referred by other radiological modalities. The researchers found that 96 of the 566 consecutive patients with small aneurysms (17 percent) had their aneurysm detected by CTC. The rest of the patients with small aneurysms had them detected by other radiological modalities. Patients with small aneurysms detected by CTC were two years older, on average, and were less likely to have a smoking history.

October 4, 2016 – Eurasia Review – Misguided Perceptions On Nuclear Terrorism – Nuclear terrorism in real is a quite petrifying phenomenon, but there is no tangible study available that this threat is genuine in a world where nuclear technology is heavily regulated and secured. Since there is no terrorist incident have yet been reported which involves nuclear weapons, there is disagreement among the analysts that how serious the threat of nuclear terrorism could be. However, such arguments should not be a source of complacency. Few states have played this threat up for political purposes as a lever against countries that are not likeminded. For example the same approach was used after 9/11, when terrorism was being used to achieve certain interests. The main aspect of Nuclear Security Summits started from 2010 and beyond was to highlight the nuclear dangers emanating from Iran and other countries were played up. While there was a narrative against these countries, none of the forums allowed them space to appear and give their perspectives on the issue.

October 4, 2016 – EasternEye – Unease in Marshalls over controversial nuclear case taking on Pakistan, India and UK – AS the Marshall Islands awaits an international court ruling on October 5 over whether its lawsuit against three nuclear powers can proceed, many in the western Pacific nation question the merit of the David-versus-Goliath legal battle. The country of 55,000 people is taking on India, Pakistan and Britain in the International Court of Justice (ICJ), arguing they have failed to comply with the 1968 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Initially the lawsuit was even more ambitious – also including China, France, Israel, North Korea, Russia and the United States – none of which recognised the ICJ’s jurisdiction on the matter. The Marshalls has a long, bitter history with nuclear weapons, making it one of the few nations that can argue with credibility before the ICJ about their impact.

October 4, 2016 – Deseret News – Students encouraged to submit artwork for the 2016 National Radon Poster Contest – The Utah Department of Environmental Quality is encouraging schoolchildren to submit artwork for the 2016 National Radon Poster Contest by Oct. 20. Children ages 9-18 enrolled in a public, private, territorial, tribal, Department of Defense or home school are eligible to participate. Members of a sponsoring club, such as a Scouting organization or an art, computer, science or Four-H, also are eligible. The contest focuses on raising awareness of radon, an invisible gas that can cause lung cancer. According to the Department of Environmental Quality, 1 in 3 homes in Utah have elevated levels of radon gas. All posters will be subject to the following judging criteria: content-accuracy, visual communication of topic, reproducibility and originality.

October 4, 2016 – NDTV – Supreme Court to Scrutinise Impact of Mobile Tower Radiation; Seeks Centre’s Report – The Supreme Court Monday initiated a scrutiny of “deleterious” effects of radiation emanating from mobile towers and sought a report from the Centre on several aspects including steps taken to enforce standards for such emissions. “What are adverse impacts of such mobile towers? Is there any agency to monitor? Have you (Department of Telecom) got a system in place to enforce the standards, if any, for radiation from such towers,” a bench comprising Chief Justice T S Thakur and Justices C Nagappan and A M Khanwilkar asked. The bench directed Additional Solicitor General P S Patwalia, appearing for the DoT, to file a report apprising the court about issues including the effects of radiation and steps taken to contain them.

October 4, 2016 – Gas to Power – China to account for over 50% of world nuclear growth through 2040 – Keen to clean up hazardous air pollution, the Chinese government is embracing nuclear power and seeks to shift from coal to gas generation – although fuel costs still make operators favour coal. As for new nuclear, China has an additional 20 reactors under construction, which, if completed, will add more than 22 GW to its existing base.

October 4, 2016 – The Herald-Palladium – Cook Unit 2 offline; $250 million project planned – The Unit 2 reactor at the Cook Nuclear Plant was shut down this morning for a planned refueling and maintenance outage. Work during the outage will include a $250 million project to replace the reactor’s high-pressure turbine and all three low-pressure turbines, said plant spokesman Bill Schalk. That work has been in planning stages for more than five years, he said. The reactor is expected to return to service by the end of the year. The reactor was scheduled to be shut down at midnight. In advance of the outage, power for Unit 2 was reduced to 50 percent Sunday night, he said.

October 4, 2016 – NL Times – Report: Keeping Borssele nuclear plant open can cost €500 mil. – If electricity prices stay at their current level or decline further, losses suffered from the struggling Borssele nuclear plant can amount to 500 million euros, according to an investigation done by consultancy Spring Associates, ANP reports. Only a doubling in the electricity prices would make it worthwhile to keep the plant running, according to the consultancy. They believe the best option is to close the nuclear power plant now and dismantle it later. This would keep the losses from increasing. The dismantling can happen once there is money for it. According to Spring Associates, the same was done with the Dodewaard nuclear power plant. It was closed down and the costs for deconstruction were postponed indefinitely.

October 4, 2016 – The Standard – Kenya not ready to generate nuclear energy – Six years ago, Kenya announced it was going to build a nuclear power plant, which would generate 1,000MW (1GW) of electricity. By 2030, the country hopes to produce 4GW from nuclear sources. This implies that nuclear will at that time account for 19 per cent of Kenya’s total energy output, second to hydroelectric power. I am highly pessimistic about Africa’s largest geothermal energy producer’s capacity to harness and safely utilize nuclear energy.

October 4, 2016 – MassLive – Rowe seeks federal compensation for hosting nuclear waste at former atomic power plant – Yankee Rowe Nuclear Power Station shut down in 1992, and was demolished and decommissioned by 2007, but the fenced and isolated site on the upper Deerfield River still hosts 127 tons of spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste in 16 concrete casks under 24-hour security. The tiny town of Rowe is one of about a dozen communities nationwide affected by the presence of nuclear waste, but no longer benefiting economically from the presence of a functioning reactor. On Monday, U.S. Rep. Richard Neal and state Sen. Paul Mark (D-Peru) toured the site as guests of the Rowe Board of Selectmen. Mark is a member of the Yankee Rowe Spent Fuel Storage & Removal Citizens Advisory Committee. Neal, who represents the state’s 1st Congressional District, assured local officials that he supports bipartisan legislation in Washington that would compensate communities that are forced to store nuclear waste.

October 4 ,2016 – Inquisitr – Russia Preparing Its Citizens For A Nuclear War With The West As The US Suspends Ceasefire Negotiations – Russia is reportedly preparing its citizens for a full blown nuclear war against the West. The country’s officials and its media have claimed that the West, led by the United States of America, is planning to launch a nuclear attack against Russia, Mirror reports. Russian officials are now trying to prove that they are ready for whatever is to come, as they announced on Friday that Moscow already has enough underground shelters for its 12 million people and the rest of the nation will soon follow on its footsteps. Zvezda, a channel of the country’s defense ministry, had released a headline last week that said “Schizophrenics from America are sharpening nuclear weapons for Moscow.” Also as part of their preparation for war, the country’s officials have announced that a staggering 40 million of its citizens are set to take part in a nuclear disaster drill between October 4 and 7. That is almost a third of Russia’s population. Along with them, almost 200,000 specialists from the “emergency rescue divisions” with 50,000 different equipment are set to be involved in the four-day drill. The Russian Ministry for Civil Defense made the announcement via its official website and has called the 4-day long program a “civil defense, emergency evacuation and disaster preparedness drill”.

October 4, 2016 – The Daily Progress – Reactor at Cook Nuclear Plant getting refueling, maintenance – Officials say a nuclear reactor in southwestern Michigan is being shut down for a refueling and maintenance outage. Cook Nuclear Plant spokesman Bill Schalk says work during the outage for the Unit 2 reactor will include a $250 million project to replace the reactor’s high-pressure turbine and all three low-pressure turbines. The reactor is expected to return to service by the end of the year. Indiana Michigan Power says the work will ensure reliable power generation for decades.

October 4, 2016 – Los Angeles Times – 50 years after ‘we almost lost Detroit,’ America’s nuclear power industry faces even graver doubts – The history of nuclear power in the United States has been marked by numerous milestones, many of them bad — accidents, construction snafus, engineering incompetence, etc., etc. One anniversary of an incident that has cast a long shadow over the nuclear power industry’s claim for safety will be marked this week. On Oct. 5, 1966 — that’s 50 years ago Wednesday — Detroit Edison’s Fermi-1 nuclear plant suffered a partial meltdown, caused by a piece of floating shrapnel inside the container vessel.

October 4, 2016 – ScientistLive – 3D-printed ‘AbdoMan’ could transform radiotherapy – A 3D-printed human torso is helping doctors safely and reliably model ‘internal radiation’ treatments for cancer. AbdoMan, created by a team at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, replicates the uptake of radioactivity within the abdomen of a human patient. Researchers fill AbdoMan with a radioactive solution to replicate the complex distribution of radioactivity in tumours and normal tissue within a body organ, such as the liver. This allows them to create images that simulate the distribution of the radiation doses delivered by internal forms of radiotherapy. Researchers at the University of Oxford, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the company Sirtex Medical Limited will use AbdoMan to model radiation doses from Y-90 resin microspheres – an internal radiation therapy that delivers radiation directly to liver tumours.

October 4, 2016 – New York Daily News – Sen. Schumer pushes feds to fix lax laws that allow almost anyone to get radioactive bomb-making materials – The feds need to revamp nuclear licensing rules to restrict terrorists from getting their hands on radioactive materials that can be used to make a dirty bomb, Sen. Schumer said Sunday. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission currently has rules that are so lax almost anyone can buy dangerous amounts of radioactive materials, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report cited by Schumer. “The GAO did the right thing by exposing this ‘dirty bomb’ secret and now we must finish the job by pushing to close this loophole while taking a hard look at just who is being granted access to these dangerous materials,” Schumer said. The call for better nuclear oversight comes a little over two weeks after suspected bomber Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28, detonated bombs in Seaside Park, N.J. and in Chelsea 11 hours later on Sept. 17.

October 4, 2016 – WRDW 12 – Nuclear waste shipment from Canada to Savannah River Site have been suspended – A shipment of liquid high-level nuclear waste from Canada to the Savannah River Site was postponed. Officials with the SRS said several environmental groups filed a lawsuit in August 2016 seeking a full Environmental Impact Statement of the proposed waste shipments from Ontario to SRS. The DOE did not prepare the statement and only prepared a supplement analysis that was conducted without public input. “For over three years since our initial request, DOE has staunchly refused to allow formal public input into a full EIS on the unnecessary import of highly radioactive waste liquid waste from Canada and we are optimistic that our initial victory in halting the shipments will yield the EIS we are seeking,” said Tom Clements, director of SRS Watch.

October 4, 2016 – Key West News – FPL starts plume work at Turkey Point – Florida Power & Light has started the process to draw back hyper-saline water generated from the Turkey Point nuclear power plant cooling canals that is threatening the Florida Keys water supply. Several years ago, FPL dug a deep well at the plant just north of the Keys and the company, starting last week, began using it to draw back the saltwater plume from the Biscyane Bay.

October 4, 2016 – MIT News – Benoit Forget: Unraveling complexities of nuclear reactors – In order to devise new designs for safer, more efficient nuclear reactors, it is essential to be able to simulate the reactors’ performance at a very high level of detail. But because the nuclear reactions taking place in these reactor cores are quite complex, such simulations can strain the capabilities of even the most advanced supercomputer systems. That’s a challenge that Benoit Forget has been tackling throughout his research career: how to provide efficient, high-fidelity simulations on modern computing architectures, and thus enable the development of the next generation of reactors. Addressing those challenges has earned Forget tenure in MIT’s Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, where he is now an associate professor.

October 4, 2016 – San Antonio Express News – Do nuclear plants have a future in low-carbon world? – Nuclear power is not only emissions-free, but also generates constant streams of electricity, regardless of whether the sun is shining or the wind is blowing. And with pressure building to cut carbon emissions, the threat of nuclear power plants going out of business is prompting government regulators to tinker with power markets and look at direct subsidies.

October 4, 2016 – KRWG – Trinity Test Site Tour Met With Protest – New Mexico residents living near the site of the first atomic bomb have held their annual demonstration as visitors caravanned into the Trinity Test Site for a tour. The Alamogordo Daily News reports Tularosa Basin Downwinders protested Saturday as caravanners enter the site that is opened twice a year to visitors. The group says the 1945 Trinity Test irreparably altered the gene pools of residents in surrounding communities such as the historic Hispanic village of Tularosa. Members say descendants have been plagued with cancer and other illnesses.

October 4, 2015 – Albuquerque Journal – Ground fall at WIPP – Worker safety at WIPP is at front and center after a collapsed portion of the ceiling was discovered earlier this week.
According to a letter sent to WIPP employees from Nuclear Waste Partnership president Phil Breidenbach on Friday, the ground fall occurred at the entrance to Panel 4, which has been sealed since 2010. A U.S. Department of Energy spokesman said the ground fall was discovered on Sept. 27 during an inspection, but it is unknown when the collapse actually occurred.

October 3, 2016 – 81 FR 68066-68067 – NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION – Sunshine Act Meeting – DATE: October 3, 10, 17, 24, 31, November 7, 2016. PLACE: Commissioners’ Conference Room, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland. STATUS: Public and Closed. Week of October 3, 2016 Wednesday, October 5, 2016 9:00 a.m. Hearing on Combined Licenses for William States Lee III Nuclear Station, Units 1 and 2: Section 189a. of the Atomic Energy Act Proceeding (Public Meeting); (Contact: Brian Hughes: 301-415-6582) This meeting will be webcast live at the Web address–http://www.nrc.gov/. Thursday, October 6, 2016 10:00 a.m. Meeting with Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) (Public Meeting); (Contact: Mark Banks: 301-415-3718) This meeting will be webcast live at the Web address–Http://www.nrc.gov/. Week of October 10, 2016–Tentative There are no meetings scheduled for the week of October 10, 2016. Week of October 17, 2016–Tentative Tuesday, October 18, 2016 9:30 a.m. Strategic Programmatic Overview of the Decommissioning and Low-Level Waste and Spent Fuel Storage and Transportation Business Lines (Public Meeting); (Contact: Janelle Jessie: 301-415-6775)

October 3, 2016 – Olean Times Herald – Plan for radioactive liquid over Peace Bridge raises concern – New York lawmakers say more review is needed before liquid radioactive waste is trucked over the international Peace Bridge and driven across New York’s highways. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Congressman Brian Higgins have asked the U.S. Energy Department for a new environmental impact statement on plans for tractor-trailers to carry nuclear waste from Ontario, Canada to the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The trucks would cross from Canada into Buffalo by way of the Peace Bridge before continuing their 1,100-mile trip. The lawmakers say more than 150 shipments are planned between Dec. 1 and January 2018. They say a new review is needed because one done previously evaluated only solid, not liquid, material.

October 3, 2016 – Australian Broadcasting Corporation – Why does the NT need a PET scanner and how do they work? – Positron emission tomography (PET) scans are used to diagnose and detect a host of diseases and are particularly useful for patients with cancer, heart disease, epilepsy and other neurological diseases. They are often used in conjunction with computed tomography (CT) scanners. The Northern Territory currently has no PET scanner, although during this year’s federal election campaign both the Coalition and Labor promised to provide one for Darwin. President of the Australian Medical Association (AMA) in the Northern Territory, Dr Robert Parker, said a PET scan would be welcomed by doctors in Darwin. “We are always interested in better health outcomes in the NT,” he said.

October 3, 2016 – NewKerala.com – Method to control ‘hot’ electrons comes a step closer – In a promising step towards being able to manipulate and control the behaviour of high energy, or ‘hot’, electrons, scientists have, for the first time, identified a method of visualising the quantum behaviour of electrons on a surface. Hot electrons are necessary for a number of processes and the implications of being able to manipulate their behaviour are far-reaching — from enhancing the efficiency of solar energy, to improving the targetting of radiotherapy for cancer treatment. “Hot electrons are essential for a number of processes — certain technologies are entirely reliant on them. But they’re notoriously difficult to observe due to their short lifespan, about a millionth of a billionth of a second,” said one of the researchers Peter Sloan from University of Bath in England.

October 3, 2016 – The Founders Daily – Cameco Corporation (CCJ) Shares are Down -3.17% – Cameco Corporation (CCJ) : During the past 4 weeks, traders have been relatively bearish on Cameco Corporation (CCJ), hence the stock is down -7.46% when compared to the S&P 500 during the same period. However, in the past 1 week, the selling of the stock is down by -3.33% relative to the S&P 500. The 4-week change in the price of the stock is -7.96% and the stock has fallen -3.17% in the past 1 week.

October 3, 2016 – Daily Mail – North Korea sees a surge in deformed babies and radiation deaths as Kim Jong-un’s nuclear bomb tests claim their first lives – his own people – North Korea has reportedly seen a surge in incurable diseases and radiation deaths after it carried out its fifth nuclear test. Last month the secretive state triggered a magnitude 5.3 earthquake with a successful explosion which drew immediate condemnation from North Korea’s neighbours and Washington. Now those living close to the Punggye-ri nuclear site, in the north-east of the country, are paying the price for the nuclear tests, a defector has claimed.

October 3, 2016 – Business Standard – SC scrutinises impact of mobile towers; seeks Centre’s report – The Supreme Court today initiated a scrutiny of “deleterious” effects of radiation emanating from mobile towers and sought a report from the Centre on several aspects including steps taken to enforce standards for such emissions. “What are adverse impacts of such mobile towers? Is there any agency to monitor? Have you (Department of Telecom) got a system in place to enforce the standards, if any, for radiation from such towers,” a bench comprising Chief Justice T S Thakur and Justices C Nagappan and A M Khanwilkar asked.

October 3, 2016 – PS News – Graduates invited to go nuclear – The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation’s (ANSTO) graduate program for engineers is open for applications. Successful candidates will be offered a two-year placement to work alongside Australia’s only nuclear multi-purpose reactor and leading science infrastructure. Lucy Griffith (26) joined ANSTO in February 2015 after studying for a double degree in electrical and electronic engineering, and mathematics and computer science, at The University of Adelaide. “I was looking at a whole bunch of engineering graduate programs towards the end of my degree, but there were a couple of things that really drew me to ANSTO,” Ms Griffith said. “Firstly of course, was the chance to work with unique nuclear technology, and secondly, were the structured rotations and development opportunities across the organisation.”

October 3, 2016 – Business Day – Another delay for SA’s contentious nuclear programme – SA will have to wait a little longer before pressing ahead with a highly contentious and very costly expansion of its ageing nuclear power fleet. Last week was supposed to mark a key step forward in plans formulated back in 2010, but at the 11th hour the government balked. Early in September, the Department of Energy announced it would finally issue a tender for the construction of between six and eight power stations with a combined capacity of 9,600MW on September 30.

October 3, 2016 – Twst.com – AZZ Inc. Announces the Divestiture of its Nuclear Logistics LLC Operating Unit to Westinghouse Electric Company – AZZ Inc. (NYSE:AZZ), a global provider of galvanizing, welding solutions, specialty electrical equipment and highly engineered services to the power generation, transmission, distribution and industrial markets, announced today that it has entered into an agreement to divest its Nuclear Logistics LLC (“NL”) operating business unit to Westinghouse Electric Company. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed, and are subject to customary terms and conditions. The transaction is expected to close in the fall of 2016.

October 3, 2016 – PressTV – Putin suspends plutonium disposal deal with US – Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the suspension of a plutonium disposal agreement with the United States due to Washington’s “hostile actions” against his country. The Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement (PDMA) was suspended for “a threat to strategic stability posed by the hostile actions of the US against Russia,” according to a document signed by Putin on Monday. Among other reasons mentioned in the document are “the radical change in the environment, and the inability of the US to deliver on the obligation to dispose of excessive weapons plutonium under international treaties, as well as the need to take swift action to defend Russian security.” Russia stressed that it would not use its fissile material for any military purpose.

October 3, 2016 – LongIsland.com – Governor Cuomo Inspects Indian Point Nuclear Facility By Boat and Provides Update on Oil Spill – Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today inspected Indian Point Nuclear Facility by boat and provided an update on the State’s response to an oil spill reported at the facility. On Friday, September 30, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation immediately responded after being notified by Entergy that an unspecified amount of oil leaked from a heat exchanger into a cooling water discharge canal inside the facility.

October 3, 2016 – iNews.co.uk – Meet ‘AbdoMan’ – whose radioactive torso could help researchers treat cancer – Cancer researchers have created a replica human torso they hope will lead to personalised treatments for patients. Dubbed ‘AbdoMan’, the sophisticated 3D printed model allows experts to safely and reliably improve radiation therapies. Created by a team at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, AbdoMan replicates how radioactivity is distributed within the abdomen of a human patient. The researchers fill the model torso with a radioactive solution to replicate the complex distribution of radioactivity in tumours and normal tissue within a body organ, such as the liver. This allows them to create images that simulate the distribution of the radiation doses delivered by internal forms of radiotherapy.

October 3, 2016 – WRDW 12 – Aiken SFR Group wants to bring nuclear waste and solutions – A question many in South Carolina are trying to answer. “What are we going to do with spent fuel?” said Mike Stake. A letter sent to the Nuclear Regulatory Committee says bring it to Barnwell, basically says putting all the waste in the state in one spot is the best bet for everyone. “It really has no benefits for the people from Aiken and Augusta,” Tom Clements said, Director of SRS Watch. Clements says moving the waste here only exposes more workers to radiation and opens up the risk of transportation problems. Further more, he says moving it around solves nothing.

October 3, 2016 – Statehouse Report SC – COUICK: Best decision made for two nuclear units – The consumers’ advocates at the state Office of Regulatory Staff negotiated an important settlement that could have a positive effect on millions of South Carolina electricity users, and we hope the state Public Service Commission will agree. The agreement was reached between SCE&G and a number of parties, including electric cooperatives, that intervened in an SCE&G request to the PSC about construction contract changes for two nuclear power units being built near Columbia. The agreement grew out of SCE&G’s request for a so-called “fixed price option,” which the utility claimed would provide more cost-certainty for a project that has gone several billion dollars over budget so far.

October 3, 2016 – Business Wire – U.S. Department of Energy Selects Fluor Joint Venture to Operate the Depleted Uranium Hexafluoride Conversion Facilities – Fluor Corporation (NYSE: FLR) announced today that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) selected Mid-America Conversion Services, LLC (MCS), a joint venture comprised of Atkins, Fluor and Westinghouse, to operate the depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) conversion facilities at DOE’s Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Paducah, Kentucky, and the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio. The contract is valued at $318 million for the joint venture over a five-year period of performance beginning in 2016. Work will begin in the first quarter of 2017. The project includes the operation of DUF6 conversion facilities for the purpose of processing DOE’s inventory of stored DUF6, a co-product of the uranium enrichment process. The facilities convert DUF6 to depleted uranium oxide for possible future reuse, storage or disposal. A co-product of the conversion process is hydrofluoric acid, which can be reused in industrial processes.

October 3, 2016 – Pilot-Tribune & Enterprise – OPPD offers performance plans at nuclear plant – Since the Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) Board of Directors voted June 16 to close the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station (FCS), 141* employees so far have signed Key Employee Performance Plan (KEPP) agreements totaling approximately $12.7 million** if they all meet their conditions. All incentive payments are in addition to each exempt and union employee’s current salary, usual incentives or pay opportunities, benefits and severance pay. The figures were tallied at the end of August. OPPD will update its numbers at the end of each month. According to OPPD, KEPPs are “an effective and industry-proven tool to assist in retaining talent.” OPPD says the plans are a nuclear industry “standard for utilities faced with decommissioning.”

October 3, 2016 – KOB 4 – Coalition opposes tax exemption for LANL, Sandia – A New Mexico coalition is pushing to prevent tax-exempt operators from taking over the Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories and depriving the state of the labs’ hefty tax contributions. The Los Alamos Monitor reports that the Regional Coalition of Los Alamos National Laboratory Communities has asked state lawmakers to consider eliminating the exemption status for any potential future nonprofit contractors at the laboratories. The coalition wants the state to continue to receive the roughly $200 million in annual gross receipts tax, even if nonprofit management takes over.

October, 3, 2016 – NBC San Diego – Critics Question Plans For Nuclear Waste Storage At San Onofre – The threat of a nuclear meltdown is no longer a concern at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station because it’s shut down. A shuttered nuclear plant does present another potential threat to public safety, according to an editorial in the April 2016 edition of Scientific American Magazine. The article warns of a greater danger, and says “more threatening than a meltdown, it’s the steady accumulation of radioactive waste.” The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station was permanently retired by its owners, Southern California Edison, SCE, and SDG&E in 2013. The plant’s operations left 3.6 million pounds of radioactive waste behind. If all goes as planned that radioactive waste is headed to bluffs just north of the dead reactors above San Onofre State Beach. It will sit near Interstate 5 in Southern California between two major metropolitan areas, San Diego and Los Angeles, where 17 million people call home.

September 29, 2016 – 81 FR 67014 – NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION – Talen Energy Combined License Application for Bell Bend Nuclear Power Plant – The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is granting the Talen Energy request to withdraw its application for a combined license (COL) for the Bell Bend Nuclear Power Plant (BBNPP). This new reactor would be identified as the BBNPP located adjacent to the existing Susquehanna Steam Electric Station in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. DATES: The effective date of the withdrawal is September 22, 2016.

September 29, 2016 – Medical Physics Web – Reference dosimetry for hadron therapy – Clinical reference dosimetry of high-energy radiation is performed using methods such as water calorimetry, which measures the temperature rise when radiation interacts with matter at a point in water. Currently, however, dose standards only exist for high-energy photons and electrons. For proton and heavy-ion beams, and lower-energy radiation, no primary absorbed dose standard exists. To address this shortfall, a team headed up by James Renaud at McGill University has designed a portable water calorimetry system for use with non-standard particle beams with reference depths of 6–20 mm. The short-range water calorimeter (SHREWcal) operates without a large water phantom, instead using a small glass vessel filled with pure water as the absorber. As a result, SHREWcal requires collimated radiation fields with diameters no greater than 70 mm and can accommodate electron energies as low as 6 MeV.

September 29, 2016 – 9&10news.com – Healthy Living: High-Dose Brachytherapy – Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death among American men. Patients have several different treatment options, including two types of internal radiation therapy — a low dose option, and a high dose option. Both involve having radioactive seeds implanted near the tumor. For years, very few patients took advantage of the high-dose option, but that may begin to change. A study by the Cleveland Clinic found that brachytherapy was the cheapest of all treatments for prostate cancer, with an average cost of $2,500. It is used only in patients whose cancer has not spread to other organs.

September 29, 2016 – Greenwood Democrat – HISTORY MINUTE: Dick Powell, a 1940s and 1950s noted actor – Though often forgotten today, Stone County native Dick Powell was one of the most familiar faces in Hollywood in his 30-year film career. His hard work and talent led him from Arkansas to tour the world and work with some of the most famous actors of the day. Richard Ewing Powell was born in Mountain View in 1904. His father was a salesman, and his mother taught him music. In 1914, his family moved to Little Rock, where Powell’s interest in performing expanded as he sang in church choirs and local bands. In 1957, Powell directed The Enemy Below, a story set in World War II that pit the captain of an American destroyer against a German submarine commander. The film won an Academy Award in 1958 for special effects. Powell later developed cancer. Some film historians have theorized that that he contracted it while on the set of The Conquerors, as the Utah set was near the site of an above-ground test detonation of eleven nuclear warheads. The test had been two years before filming, but the ground was apparently still contaminated in spite of reassurances from the army that the area was safe. Cancer rates of those on the set were reportedly three times higher than normal in the ensuing years, and producer Howard Hughes allegedly blamed the illnesses on the radioactive fallout. Whether these cancer cases were related, however, may never be known.

September 29, 2016 – Korea Herald – World’s first permanent nuclear waste disposal site under construction – The world’s first permanent nuclear waste repository is under construction on the small and tranquil island of Olkiluoto here. This storage facility, named Onkalo, which means cave or cavity, is being built in the granite bedrock deep underground about five kilometers from the two nuclear power plants at Olkiluoto just off the southwest coast of Finland. It is designed to keep high-level radioactive waste, the most worrisome by-product of nuclear power generation, secure for at least 100,000 years. High-level nuclear waste, which consists of spent fuel and some of the fuel’s decay products, can emit dangerous radiation for tens of thousands of years. To date, high-level waste has mostly been stored in water-filled pools at the atomic power plants where it was produced or in temporary offsite dry storage facilities. But these are impermanent and insecure solutions. Many experts say the only fundamentally viable solution may be facilities like Onkalo.

September 29, 2016 – Korea JoongAng Daily – Korea builds advanced particle accelerator – Researchers at Pohang University of Science and Technology have built a fourth-generation synchrotron radiation facility, a type of particle accelerator that emits incredibly bright X-rays. Korea has become the third country, after the United States and Japan, to design and produce the cutting-edge facility. Postech as well as the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning celebrated its completion on Thursday at the Pohang Accelerator Laboratory in the North Gyeongsang port city. The facility, otherwise called the X-ray Free Electron Laser, is capable of emitting X-rays at 0.1-nanometer wavelengths, which are 10 billion times brighter than third-generation facilities.

September 29, 2016 – PhysOrg – Superconducting part of the European XFEL accelerator ready – An important milestone in the construction of the X-ray laser European XFEL has been reached: The 1.7-km long superconducting accelerator is installed in the tunnel. The linear accelerator will accelerate bunches of free electrons flying at near-light speed to the extremely high energy of 17.5 gigaelectronvolts. The bunches are accelerated in devices called resonators, which are cooled to a temperature of -271°C. In the next part of the facility, the electron bunches are used to generate the flashes of X-ray light that will allow scientists new insights into the nanocosmos. The European XFEL accelerator will be put into operation step by step in the next weeks. It will be the largest and most powerful linear accelerator of its type in the world. On 6 October, the German Minister for Education and Research, Prof. Johanna Wanka, and the Polish Vice Minister of Science and Education Dr Piotr Dardziński, will officially initiate the commissioning of the X-ray laser, including the accelerator. User operation at the European XFEL is anticipated to begin in mid-2017.

September 29, 2016 – heraldextra.com – Childhood cancer and radon gas awareness – SWAT Environmental, a leading radon mitigation service provider, has compiled key facts and advice about radon risks for concerned families. Since its discovery as a cause of lung cancer among uranium miners, scientists have found that the risks of radon gas are widespread and can be increased by modern housing trends. Radon is a naturally occurring radioactive gas that is found in soil and water, and makes its way into homes through cracks and openings in the foundation. Radon is an extremely dense gas and the heaviest concentrations can be found close to the ground. Radon is the leading cause of lung cancer among non-smokers.

September 29, 2016 – PhysOrg – Making the world’s best radon detectors even better – The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) recognises ANSTO radon detectors as the best in the world for global and regional atmospheric composition and baseline studies. However, ANSTO researchers are making computational refinements to data collected by its instruments in less than ideal conditions. Until now, to achieve high-sensitivity measurements with ANSTO detectors required a 45-minute response time, which has slightly compromised the usefulness of the two-filter dual-flow-loop style of detector under conditions of rapidly-changing radon concentrations. This is all about to change. With the help of an algorithm, inspired by methods used on early images from the Hubble Space Telescope, Alan Griffiths and a team of ANSTO researchers have developed a novel deconvolution method to computationally correct for the radon instrument’s relatively slow time response.

September 29 2016 – Gizbot – Here Are Battery Radiation Effects on Human Body and Ways to Avoid Them – The more we use our smartphone, the more we tend to affect our health. Thanks to the increasing amount of mobile phone radiation.The increasing usage of wireless mobile telephony is the reason behind the rise of phone battery radiation, which in turn causes serious health hazards.SEE ALSO: Amazon Deals: Top 10 Devices For Audiophiles to Buy in September 2016In case a person is on a call for hours together, it is common that the smartphone will tend to heat up. The heating effect will the ear pinna, internal ear, head surface and in turn, the brain to a great extent.SEE ALSO: Reliance Jio Offers Free International Calls? Check OutWe at GIZBOT have come up with the effects of mobile battery radiation, and the ways to avoid the same.

September 29, 2016 – Belaruse News – IAEA-compliant system to monitor radiation around Belarusian nuclear power plant – The automated radiation situation monitoring system in the Belarusian nuclear power plant area will work taking into account recommendations of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The information was released by Maria Germenchuk, Head of the National Center for Hydrometeorology, Radioactive Pollution Control, and Environmental Monitoring of the Belarusian Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Ministry, during an online conference hosted by the BelTA website. The official remarked that the monitoring system is fully compliant with the IAEA requirements and recommendations. “Our leading specialists, who work in this field, are IAEA experts, this is why we put all the recommendations of the agency into practice right away,” remarked Maria Germenchuk.

September 29, 2016 – Courier-Gazette – DOC groping for alternatives after ditching X-ray body scanners – Maine Department of Corrections is considering new ways to detect contraband at correctional facilities after discontinuing use of transmission X-ray scanners, possibly because of concerns about radiation exposure. The Bureau of Labor Standards cited DOC earlier this year for “serious” safety violations related to operation of a body scanner at Maine Correctional Center. The scanners were introduced by former Corrections Commissioner Joseph Ponte and were used in at least two facilities, Maine Correctional Center and Maine State Prison, for two to three years starting around 2013, according retired MCC correctional officer Don Piper, who serves as the central Maine union chairman for the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees union.

September 29, 2016 – The Straits Times – Britain’s Hinkley Point contract set to be signed – The contract with a French-Chinese consortium to build Britain’s first nuclear power plant in a generation is to be signed in London on Thursday (Sept 29) at a ceremony that is being kept low key, sources said. Following a delay over concerns about China’s involvement in the deal, Britain earlier this month gave the green light for the construction of the £18 billion (S$31.9 billion) complex. But it set the condition that EDF pledge not to cede majority control of the project.

September 29, 2016 – Bloomberg – French Power Surges Amid Low Availability at EDF Nuclear Plants – French power prices jumped amid concerns that reduced availability at Electricite de France SA’s nuclear plants may limit supplies as the winter heating season starts. Year-ahead prices surged to a 13-month high while the October contract rose to a record Thursday. EDF has 64 percent of its 58 reactors available compared with 76 percent a year ago, according to data from French grid operator RTE. Several halts have been extended as the French nuclear regulator inspects steam generators for potential anomalies.

September 29, 2016 – The Guardian – Mini-nuclear reactors could be operating in the UK by 2030 – report – The first small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) could be operating in the UK by 2030 with the right government support, according to a new report from the Energy Technologies Institute (ETI). The analysis, released today by the government and industry-backed energy research body, examined the steps needed to support the first SMR in the UK and concluded a credible schedule for implementation can be set out – as long as a policy framework is developed to reduce risks for SMR developers and increase investor confidence.

September 29, 2016 – PhysOrg – Student’s surprise finding could improve future handling of nuclear waste – A researcher at The University of Manchester has made a surprise finding after observing variations of a chemical bond with a radioactive metal called thorium – and this newly revealed relationship could one day contribute to improving nuclear fuel management. Elizabeth Wildman, a PhD student in the research group led by Professor Steve Liddle, has reported compounds where unusual forms of phosphorus – known as the Devil’s element – are stabilised by thorium, a radioactive chemical element named after the Norse god of thunder which can be used as a nuclear fuel in the nuclear power industry.

September 29, 2016 – The Japan News – Hitachi, Toshiba, MHI seek to merge nuclear fuel units – Hitachi Ltd., Toshiba Corp. and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. (MHI) have started talks on merging their nuclear fuel units, with the aim of reaching an agreement by the end of this year, it has been learned. The most likely plan would be to establish a new holding company — with each firm investing one-third of the required capital — and place each nuclear fuel business under its wing. As momentum for constructing new nuclear power plants has slowed globally since the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture, the government ultimately aims to merge the nuclear power plant businesses of Hitachi, Toshiba and MHI.

September 29, 2016 – Cancer Network – I-131 for Thyroid Cancer Metastases – Cancer Network: How do you determine whether distant metastases are appropriate targets for I-131 treatment? Can you describe the strengths and limitations of whole-body radioiodine imaging as a staging tool before radioiodine treatment? Dr. Van Nostrand: I think that there are several ways, but at this point there are a lot of controversies, as well. The most appropriate approach is a radioiodine scan to see if metastatic tumors are taking up I-131 and are thus I-131 functioning cancer. The problem with the scan is that at lower doses, scans don’t pick up all functioning metastases. The dilemma becomes whether or not the patient should be considered to be radioiodine-refractory. Some proponents say when the scan is negative, the patient is refractory. But nobody really knows at that point that they are refractory. There is literature suggesting that if you treat with radioiodine therapy 20% to 64% will have I-131 uptake on a post-therapy scan. Hence, they are radioactive iodine functioning. Now, that doesn’t mean they would get a therapeutic benefit—but it implies they would have that possibility.

September 29, 2016 – UVA Today – UVA Scientists Create Novel Imaging Technique with Potential for Medical Diagnostics – A unique new imaging method, called “polarized nuclear imaging” – combining powerful aspects of both magnetic resonance imaging and gamma-ray imaging and developed by physicists in the University of Virginia’s departments of Physics and Radiology ­­– has potential for new types of high-resolution medical diagnostics as well as industrial and physics research applications. “This method makes possible a truly new, absolutely different class of medical diagnostics,” said Wilson Miller, who, along with his colleague Gordon Cates, directed the research. “We’re combining the advantages of using highly detectable nuclear tracers with the spectral sensitivity and diagnostic power of MRI techniques.” A paper detailing the new imaging modality and related spectroscopic techniques, for which a patent is pending, appears in Thursday’s edition of the journal Nature.

September 29, 2016 – Fox 13 News – Results are in from first round of Mosaic water testing – The first round of radioactivity well water test results stemming from the Mosaic sinkhole came back Wednesday and, while the news was good, neighbors weren’t convinced they’re totally out of the woods. According to Environmental Consulting and Technology, a private company hired by Mosaic to test private well water, there were only trace amounts of Uranium, which is normal in Florida. The results indicate that for these nine wells, all nine of the wells meet EPA drinking water standards,” said Gary Uebelhoer, a Vice President for ECT. “The land and the limestone beneath us naturally contains Uranium at some level, literally from Pinellas County to Orange County.”

September 29, 2016 – Science Magazine – Protests spur rethink on deep borehole test for nuclear waste – Along the way to testing an old-but-new concept in nuclear waste storage—burying spent fuel in a hole drilled kilometers below the surface—the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and its contractors relearned a lesson that seems frequently forgotten: Get the locals on board first. Failure to gain the trust and approval of residents in rural North and South Dakota doomed the start of a $35 million project that would have drilled a borehole 5 kilometers beneath the prairie into crystalline basement rock. Early this year, the agency tapped Battelle Memorial Institute, a large research nonprofit based in Columbus, to lead the effort. The hole would not have been used for radioactive material, but was rather intended to garner insight to the geology and technical challenges of such drilling. That message would not be heard by residents of Pierce County in North Dakota or Spink County in South Dakota said Mark Kelley, the Battelle project manager who had the “dubious honor” of leading the effort for only half a year, at a presentation yesterday at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America. “They were not to be convinced,” he said. “They were quite opposed to it.”

September 29, 2016 – Patriot Ledger – Pilgrim nuclear power plant braces for sweeping inspection – Entergy Corp., owner-operator of Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, notified federal regulators Sept. 2 that the plant was ready to undergo a huge, comprehensive inspection of its equipment, staff and procedures. But just four days later, operators were forced to shut down the Plymouth plant for nearly two weeks when a faulty valve caused a water leak in the reactor containment building. Time will tell if the plant is truly ready for a swarm of 20 experts from all over the country, sent by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to scrutinize Pilgrim’s systems, starting Nov. 28. The event marks the third and final special inspection in a three-phase process that began in January.

September 29, 2016 – CapeCod.com – Mass. Congressional Delegation Urges NRC to Reject Pilgrim Request – The full Massachusetts congressional delegation has asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to deny a request by the owners of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant to delay the implementation of federally-mandated post-Fukushima safety requirements. Earlier this year, plant-owner Entergy asked the NRC for an extension on its requirement to upgrade boiling-water reactors to include hardened containment vents. Following the Fukushima disaster, federal regulators issued a new policy mandating plants in the U.S. with similar designs to make safety upgrades.

September 29, 2016 – Wayne Post – Wayne County supervisors participate in nuclear exercise – In August, I participated in the annual Ginna nuclear power plant exercise along with supervisors John Smith, Ontario; Laurie Crane, Huron; Monica Deyo, Marion; and Ken Miller, Palmyra, and over 100 well-trained Wayne County, Monroe County, New York State and Ginna employees and several volunteers. Each year, a select number of our county staff shift around their busy schedules to participate in these exercises. This is to ensure that Wayne County is ready to act and protect the public in the event of an emergency at the Ginna nuclear power plant located in Ontario. I am very impressed with the investment of time and energy that our employees and volunteers put into these trainings and response exercises. George Bastedo, Wayne County emergency management director, and staff take these drills very seriously and our public can rest assured that every precaution has been taken to ensure their safety in the event of serious emergency.

September 29, 2016 – Mid-Hudson News – Efforts to stop widening of AIM pipeline near Indian Point are fear tactics, says spokesman – The efforts to have the courts put a halt to the project to enlarge the AIM pipeline as it runs past the Indian Point nuclear power plant is nothing more than “fear-mongering,” according to an official of plant owner Entergy. The group said if an enlarged natural gas pipeline was to fail and explode, it would take Indian Point with it. Indian Point spokesman Jerry Nappi said that claim has no basis in science or engineering. Nappi said independent studies demonstrate Indian Point is safe, even from the worst-case pipeline accident. And he said additional safeguards are going to be put in place. He said Indian Point owner Entergy has requested and the owners of the pipeline have made a number of enhancements to the pipeline in the village where it goes by Indian Point.

September 29, 2016 – Aiken Standard – Barnwell potential new home for additional nuke facility – Barnwell County could become the home of yet another nuclear waste repository, if an Aiken group sees its plans come to fruition. Mike Stake, president of the Spent Fuel Reprocessing Group in Aiken, penned a letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in July. In the letter, Stake officially announced intentions to apply for licensure that would allow the group to construct and operate a processing and disposition facility near Savannah River Site, just outside of Barnwell.

September 29, 2016 – Aiken Standard – Nuclear watchdog lawsuit against DOE stalls in court after attorney withdraws – A lawsuit filed against the Department of Energy over proposed shipments of liquid nuclear waste to the Savannah River Site has stalled in court. Legal counsel recently withdrew from a coalition of environmental and nuclear watchdog organizations that filed suit against the Department of Energy over proposed shipments of liquid nuclear waste from Chalk River in Ontario, Canada, across American roadways to SRS. Washington, D.C.-based attorney Diana Curran, legal counsel for the coalition, submitted a notice of withdrawal last week, notifying the judge in the case, Tayna S. Chutkan.

September 29, 2016 – World Nuclear News – L-3 MAPPS to upgrade Fermi 2 simulator – As part of the upgrade, the simulator’s plant models will be updated to account for FLEX modification. The “diverse and flexible coping capability” (or FLEX) strategy was an industry initiative announced in February 2012 to implement the NRC’s Fukushima task force recommendations. The FLEX update on the simulator includes the addition of an alternative source of cooling water and an external compressor to drive the non-interruptible air supply system. The simulator’s off-gas control system will also be modified to reflect updates performed at the plant. September 29, 2016 – Seattle Times – Report says NW nuke plant not ‘chilled’ workplace but still has issues – The Pacific Northwest’s only nuclear-power plant does not appear to have a chilled work environment where employees are afraid to raise safety concerns, according to a report released Monday by independent investigators. But the report did find some workplace problems at the Columbia Generating Plant north of Richland, including tensions between some employees and some managers who made sarcastic or demeaning comments, and behaved “in an intimidating matter.” The report by Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman was spurred by whistleblower allegations that employees were afraid to report safety concerns for fear of retaliation.

September 29, 2016 – Public News Service – Bill in U.S. Senate Would Protect Whistleblowers at Nuclear Sites – A bill introduced in the U.S. Senate would further protect whistleblowers at nuclear sites. Senate Bill 3394 is designed to level the playing field in cases where employees bring forward safety concerns, and even expands the definition of whistleblower to include anyone who reports on fraud, waste or abuse. Jeff Sprung, a lawyer in Seattle who specializes in representing whistleblowers, said the bill has particular significance in Washington state because of the Hanford Site, a contaminated nuclear reservation currently being cleaned up. Sprung said employees have voiced their concerns about the cleanup. “There has been a series of employees who have come forward to complain about particular problems with the cleanup at Hanford, and they’ve charged that they’ve been retaliated against,” he said. “This bill is designed to make sure that those people can come forward and give you and me, the public, information about what’s really going on.”

September 29, 2016 – San Luis Obispo Tribune – SLO County leaders should support Diablo nuclear plant’s retirement – Gene Nelson wants our local elected officials to follow the lead of New York in propping up the continued operation of an aging nuclear power plant (“SLO County leaders should save Diablo,” Sept. 14). Bad idea. They should support Diablo’s retirement. In the words of former Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner Peter Bradford, New York is “committing at least $7.6 billion in above-market payments to three of its six plants to assure that they operate through 2029 … Long-term subsidies for uneconomic nuclear plants also will crowd out penetration of these markets by energy-efficiency and renewables.” (“Compete or suckle: Should troubled reactors be subsidized?” www.theconversation.com)

September 29, 2016 – Bipartisan Policy – Moving Forward with Consent-Based Siting for Nuclear Waste Facilities – For decades, the United States has been grappling with the problem of what to do with the tens of thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste generated by the nation’s commercial nuclear power industry and defense programs. Despite many efforts by the executive branch, Congress, industry, citizen groups and others—and despite the expenditure of billions of dollars, the United States still has no workable, long-term plan for permanently disposing of these wastes. Meanwhile, the federal government’s financial liability for failing to meet its contractual obligation to accept spent fuel from the nation’s commercial nuclear power reactors—a liability that is already in the billions of dollars—increases with every year of continued paralysis and delay.

September 28, 2016 – 81 FR 66699-66700 – NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION – Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Notice of Meeting – In accordance with the purposes of Sections 29 and 182b of the Atomic Energy Act (42 U.S.C. 2039, 2232b), the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) will hold a meeting on October 6-8, 2016, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland.

September 28, 2016 – 81 FR 66700-66701 – NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION – License Renewal Application for Fermi 2 Nuclear Power Plant – The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is issuing a final plant-specific supplement, Supplement 56, to NUREG-1437, “Generic Environmental Impact Statement for License Renewal of Nuclear Plants” (GEIS), regarding the renewal of the DTE Electric Company (DTE) operating license NPF-43 for an additional 20 years of operation for Fermi 2 Nuclear Power Plant (Fermi 2). DATES: The final Supplement 56 to the GEIS is available as of September 28, 2016.

September 28, 2016 – Science Magazine – Protests spur rethink on deep borehole test for nuclear waste – Along the way to testing an old-but-new concept in nuclear waste storage—burying spent fuel in a hole drilled kilometers below the surface—the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and its contractors relearned a lesson that seems frequently forgotten: Get the locals on board first. Failure to gain the trust and approval of residents in rural North and South Dakota doomed the start of a $35 million project that would have drilled a borehole 5 kilometers beneath the prairie into crystalline basement rock. Early this year, the agency tapped Battelle Memorial Institute, a large research nonprofit based in Columbus, to lead the effort. The hole would not have been used for radioactive material, but was rather intended to garner insight to the geology and technical challenges of such drilling.

September 28, 2016 – Horizon Magazine – Nuclear clock could help blind people, autonomous cars navigate – Measuring energy fluctuations in the nucleus of a rare radioactive element could improve the accuracy of GPS from metres to centimetres, while marbled volcanic magma is being used to create eruption countdowns, thanks to groups of European researchers who are pushing the boundaries of timekeeping. From grains of sand in an hourglass to the position of the sun, people throughout history have used different physical attributes in order to accurately tell the time. Today’s gold standard of timekeeping are so-called microwave atomic clocks, which use microwave radiation to measure the oscillation of electrons within a caesium atom. The best of these are off by just one nanosecond in a month. Atomic clocks are used in the synchronisation of our increasingly complex power networks, stock markets and mobile phone communications, but they don’t just set the world’s time. In the same way that the first portable timepiece allowed sailors to navigate at sea, the relationship between distance and time means atomic clocks underlie today’s satellite-based global positioning system (GPS).

September 28, 2016 – News Medical – Tau PET imaging in Alzheimer’s disease increases opportunities for developing effective drugs – Tau PET is a new and promising imaging method for Alzheimer’s disease. A case study from Lund University in Sweden now confirms that tau PET images correspond to a higher degree to actual changes in the brain. According to the researchers behind the study, this increases opportunities for developing effective drugs. There are several different methods of producing images showing the changes in the brain associated with Alzheimer’s disease. The tau PET method reveals the presence of a protein in the brain, tau, with the help of a gamma camera and a specially selected radioactive molecule (F-AV-1451).

September 28, 2016 – GlobalResearch.ca – Radioactive Cesium Builds Up In Fukushima Dams, Contamination of Water and Agriculture – Dams surrounding the stricken Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) have become de facto storage facilities for high concentrations of radioactive cesium as the element continues to accumulate. With no effective countermeasures in sight, the government insists that water from the dams is safe, but to local residents, the government’s stance comes across as the shelving of a crucial problem. “It’s best to leave it as it is,” an official from the Ministry of the Environment says, with the knowledge that in 10 dams in Fukushima Prefecture, there is soil containing concentrations of cesium over the limit set for designated waste — or over 8,000 becquerels per kilogram.

September 28, 2016 – Idaho State Journal – INL Radiological Control director honored for commitment to profession – Cheré Morgan, INL Radiological Control director, has received the Charles D. (Bama) McKnight Memorial Award from the National Registry of Radiation Protection Technologists for her outstanding efforts in the radiation protection field, leading to increased knowledge and professionalism among radiation protection technologists. She is the fifth recipient of the prestigious award since it was established in 2005. The NRRPT’s objective is to encourage and promote the education and training of radiation protection technologists and, by doing so, promote and advance the science of health physics.

September 28, 2016 – 7th Space Interactive – Multi-analytical investigation into painting materials and techniques: the wall paintings of Abuna Yemata Guh church – Abuna Yemata Guh is one of the nine Saints who are traditionally claimed to have come to Northern Ethiopia in the beginning of the sixth century and established monasteries in the Tigray region. The church, named after him, is hewn out of the side of one of the highest sandstone spires in the Gheralta area. Though the local tradition claims earlier dates, the paintings in the church are suggested to belong to the second half of the fifteenth century on the basis of their theme, style and iconography. We report here the investigation into the materials and techniques of the paintings using diverse complementary analytical techniques: Polarized light microscopy (PLM), portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometer (pXRF), scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM–EDS), synchrotron-based X-ray diffraction (SR-XRD), pyrolysis gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (Py-GC/MS), micro-Raman spectroscopy (MRS) and micro-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (micro-FTIR).

September 28, 2016 – DefenseWorld.net – North Korea Possesses 88 Pounds Weapons-Grade Plutonium – North Korea has drastically progressed in miniaturization of its nuclear weapons and allegedly possesses at least 88 pounds of weapons-grade plutonium. The North had reinforced its strategic capabilities and is continuing development of nuclear and biochemical weapons and ballistic missiles, South Korean Defense Ministry was quoted as saying by Sputnik News Wednesday. “We suppose, that North Korea possesses 40 kilograms [88 pounds] of weapons-grade plutonium and the uranium enrichment program is underway,” the ministry said.

September 28, 2016 – Cancer Network – Higher RT Dose in Pediatric Brain Tumors Limited Vocabulary Development – A small study has found that among children with primary brain tumors who were treated with cranial radiation, cerebral volume and radiation dose may affect the rate of vocabulary development. The results of the study were published in Cancer. “Although the treatment of primary brain tumors in children, and medulloblastoma in particular, is associated with neurocognitive deficits, the underlying pathophysiology is unknown,” wrote Harold Agbahiwe, MD, of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, and colleagues. “We found a significant relation between cerebral volume and performance on the PPVT-3 (an IQ estimate), with larger volumes associated with higher scores.” Cranial radiation is required in most children with primary brain tumors in order to achieve long-term disease control. Use of cranial radiation is associated with cognitive impairments later in life. As survival from primary brain tumors has improved, researchers have shifted their focus to improving long-term consequences of these diseases.

September 28, 2016 – PhysOrg – X-ray laser speeds up the process of determining protein structures – An international team of scientists has learned how to determine the spatial structure of a protein obtained with an X-ray laser using the sulfur atoms it contains. This development is the next stage in the project of a group led by Vadim Cherezov to create an effective method of studying receptor proteins. A detailed description of the study has been published in the journal Science Advances.

September 28,2 016 – Tech 2 – Government scouting possible sites for Nuclear plants in Punjab, Haryana and Uttarakhand – The central government is looking at possible sites in the northern states of Uttarakhand, Punjab and Haryana for setting up new atomic power plants, a minister said on Tuesday. “We are exploring the possibility of having such establishments in other places, for example near Dehradun in Utarakhand and near Patiala in Punjab. We are also looking for a place in Bhiwani in Haryana,” Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office Jitendra Singh said while addressing a conference here on nuclear power organised by industry chamber Assocham. “The present government can stake claim of having set up an atomic energy plant in Gorakhpur in Haryana, so we have brought atomic energy northwards which it had been waiting for 60-70 years and we made it to cross through Delhi because atomic energy never had the opportunity to see the capital of this country,” he added. The Prime Minister’s Office looks after the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE).

September 28, 2016 – BDLive – Nuclear new build programme thrown into disarray, again – SOUTH Africa’s intended nuclear new build programme has been thrown into renewed turmoil‚ after a senior minister contradicted Energy Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson on the commencement date for the call for proposals‚ intended to officially start the much-anticipated process. Three weeks ago‚ Joemat-Pettersson told Parliament that the request for proposal on nuclear new build — the first official indication of what the government expects the scale and cost of the project to be — will be published this Friday‚ September 30. But on Tuesday‚ while addressing the parliamentary press gallery on behalf of the economics cluster to which the Energy Department reports‚ Science and Technology Minister Naledi Pandor flickered a red light‚ saying she believed the request for proposal on the deal — which industry experts believe could be worth between R700bn and R1.6-trillion, depending on scale and specifics — would not be announced by Friday because the relevant government policies were not in order.

September 28, 2016 – Sputnik International – Rosatom Helping Bolivia Formulate Requirements for Nuclear Research Center – The Russian nuclear agency is helping the Bolivian side formulate requirements for the construction of the Nuclear Research and Technology Center El Alto.VIENNA (Sputnik) — Russia’s Rosatom nuclear energy corporation is helping Bolivia to formulate precise requirements for the construction of the Nuclear Research and Technology Center (NRTC) in Bolivia’s El Alto, Rosatom Deputy CEO Vyacheslav Pershukov told Sputnik on Wednesday. “We [Rosatom] are helping them [the Bolivian side] to formulate their requirements [on the construction of the scientific nuclear center] in the right way, they cannot do it all by themselves because of the lack of experience, which is normal for many newcomers. Our goal is to help them,” Pershukov said. In August, Rosatom signed the first commercial contracts with the Bolivian Nuclear Energy Agency (ABEN) on the center’s construction.

September 28, 2016 – Reuters – German nuclear commission warns of delay to waste storage deal – Germany should speed up implementation of recommendations requiring operators of nuclear plants to pay billions of euros into a fund to cover the costs of waste storage, a commission urged the chancellery in a letter seen by Reuters on Wednesday. The commission tasked with finding a solution for how to fund the storage of radioactive waste said in April it wanted utilities to pay 23.3 billion euros ($26.08 billion) into a state-fund to cover the costs.

September 28, 2016 – The Independent – Secret US nuclear base hidden in Greenland icecap to be revealed thanks to global warming – A secret abandoned nuclear base is likely to be revealed by the melting of a large icecap in Greenland due to global warming, experts have warned. Toxic waste is expected to leak into the sea if the ice continues to melt around Camp Century, a research facility decommissioned by the US military at the height of the Cold War in 1967. The base became home to the world’s first mobile nuclear generator when it opened its doors to 200 soldiers in 1959, and included a 3km network of tunnels buried within the icecap.

September 28,l 2016 – Economic Times – Would Donald Trump ever use nuclear weapons first? The answer is not clear – Donald Trump often says he never wants to signal to the nation’s adversaries what he would do as commander in chief — an embrace of the concept of “strategic ambiguity” that is as old as warfare. But on the critical question of whether the United States should ever be the first to use nuclear weapons, he appeared somewhere between contradictory and confused during his debate with Hillary Clinton on Monday.

September 28, 2016 – Lexology – DOE Heavily Criticized in New Nuclear Whistleblower Program Audit – The Department of Energy (“DOE”) touts the importance of safety in the nuclear industry – and with good reason. The impact of a catastrophic failure at a nuclear plant can last for years and affect people who live far from a reactor. Even smaller-scale safety deficiencies can seriously harm hundreds of workers. Despite its stated emphasis on compliance, however, the DOE does little to protect civilian contractors who speak up about nuclear safety issues, according to a scathing report issued by the Government Accountability Office (“GAO”) on July 14 of this year.

September 28, 2016 – Reuters – Finnish client takes new legal action against Areva over nuclear project – Finnish utility Teollisuuden Voima (TVO) has started fresh legal action against French nuclear group Areva to avoid further delays at its Olkiluoto 3 nuclear reactor in Finland, company spokesman said. The project, almost a decade behind its original schedule, is nearly complete, but TVO wants assurances that a restructuring of plant supplier Areva won’t cause further delays and that the plant would be ready to begin production in 2018 as planned. “We have asked for this several times but have not received the necessary assurances,” he said by phone, adding that TVO is now seeking assurances through a case filed in Nanterre Commercial Court, in France.

September 28,2 016 – Power Engineering International – CGN Power acquires $1.5bn of nuclear assets – CGN Power has agreed to acquire two nuclear power plants and an engineering unit from its parent company, China General Nuclear Power, for $1.5bn. China’s nuclear power operator will acquire 61 per cent equity interest in Fangchenggang nuclear power station in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The Fangchenggang project will have a combined generation capacity of 6 GW on completion. CGN Power will also acquire 100 per cent interest in the 2.5 GW Lufeng Nuclear and 100 per cent interest in CGN Engineering, a project construction management firm.

September 28, 2016 – Public Citizen – U.S. Court of Appeals to Hear Flawed Arguments Against Nation’s Landmark Clean Power Plan – Early media previews have billed litigation over the Clean Power Plan as key to President Obama’s “climate legacy.” But the legacy belongs to all of us. The question is whether we will muster the political will to curb climate change before we lose the chance to prevent catastrophic harm to our health, economy and way of life. Time is running out. Opponents of the Clean Power Plan greatly rely on arguments that the rule will hurt consumers by raising electricity prices. They are wrong. In a series of studies, Public Citizen found that electricity bills will decline under the rule. Although the price of electricity likely will rise modestly, the rule will spur energy efficiency improvements so that people use less electricity and as a result pay lower bills. In our 50-state study of the final rule, we found that electricity bills will be lower in nearly every state by 2025 under the Clean Power Plan, and in all states by 2030.

September 28, 2016 – Forbes – Passive-Aggressive Fight Against Plutonium Economy Continues Unabated – Late Friday afternoon, the Department of Energy released an updated performance report on the MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF). DOE’s internal Office of Project Management Oversight and Assessment in partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers produced the report using assumptions and data provided by DOE leadership. The report concludes that if the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) — the semi-independent branch of the DOE that is running the project — continues managing and supporting the MFFF with the same enthusiasm and oversight that it has been investing for the past half dozen years, the facility won’t be completed until 2048. It will cost $12.5 billion more than has already been spent.

September 28, 2016 – Vermont Public Radio – Vermont Yankee To Sell Equipment, Supplies Worth $20 Million At Public Auction – The Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant closed in December 2014, and now the plant is auctioning off decades worth of accumulated inventory. The owners of the VY plant had to keep a lot of spare parts around to keep the facility running. While the plant was open, the company had a warehouse filled with equipment that workers might need in case something broke down. For 25 years, Dave Bauer was the supply manager at Vermont Yankee, and it was his job to purchase and inventory all of the spare valves, gauges and pumps Entergy needed in case something had to be replaced.

September 1, 2016 – Boston Globe – State ought to have an interest in closing Pilgrim nuclear plant – WAS IT serendipity that The Boston Globe’s editorial “Too risky to wait for Pilgrim plant’s shutdown” appeared at about the same time that Cape Cod’s Downwinders hand-delivered a letter to Governor Baker requesting immediate closing of Plymouth’s Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station? This group has been calling for the plant’s closing for years. One might say that such a move is a function of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, not the state. Yet aren’t the health and welfare of the residents a responsibility of the Commonwealth? From the partial meltdown of Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979 to the Chernobyl accident in 1986 to Fukushima in 2011, we see that nuclear power is not what it was cracked up to be.

September 28, 2016 – Platts – Talen will shut Pennsylvania nuclear unit for repairs soon – Talen plans to shut its 1,330-MW Susquehanna-2 nuclear generating unit in Berwick, Pennsylvania, “within the next few weeks” to repair a turbine blade that has shown indications of cracking, the company said Monday. The steam turbines at the Susquehanna station have experienced cracking since 2011, and many turbine blades have been replaced at a cost of at least $150 million so far. Susquehanna-2 will be shut for an unspecified amount of time so the turbine blade in question can be replaced, spokesman Todd Martin said Monday. Talen said the outage would be “brief,” but gave no specifics.

September 28, 2016 – Bloomberg – Mosaic’s Radioactive Sinkhole Problem Could Mean Mine Delays – As the world’s largest producer of phosphate fertilizer, Mosaic Co. is used to digging up parts of Florida to recover the mineral. But lately, one particular hole is causing the company some headaches. A sinkhole 45 feet (14 meters) wide has opened up in a pile of mining waste at the company’s New Wales site in Polk County, about 30 miles east of downtown Tampa, swallowing about 215 million gallons of radioactive wastewater — enough to fill about 326 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Mosaic says it believes the sinkhole has reached the Floridan aquifer, which provides the local community’s water supply. While Mosaic first noticed the problem in late August, it didn’t make a public announcement until Sept. 15. Three local residents are now suing the company, alleging improper storage of chemical waste. The spill could mean increased hurdles for Mosaic’s expansion plans in Florida, according to Jonas Oxgaard, a New York-based analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.

September 28, 2016 – Tri-City Herald – Ticket sales end Sept. 27 for historic B Reactor concerts – Reg Unterseher has sung in venues around the world. But, “I’ve never sung in any place remotely like this,” he said. “This” is Hanford’s historic B Reactor. And on Sept. 30 and Oct. 2, Unterseher — an acclaimed composer and performer — will take part in a pair of ground-breaking concerts at the site. The shows by Mid-Columbia Mastersingers are the first-ever choral concerts to be in a decommissioned nuclear reactor anywhere in the world. “It is such an amazing thing,” Unterseher said. “I think it’s our responsibly to tell our stories. That’s what this concert does.”

September 28, 2016 – San Luis Obispo Tribune – PG&E wants to limit discussion on what happens after Diablo Canyon closes – PG&E doesn’t want to talk about its post-closure plans for Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant or requests to close the facility early, but it does want to discuss how to replace the lost power with greenhouse gas-free and energy-efficient resources. Those are some of the key takeaways from the utility’s response to comments and protests filed with the California Public Utilities Commission regarding its application to close the plant by 2025. The utility company filed its official response Monday to the 29 comments and protests filed by various community groups and organizations since PG&E announced its plan in June to not relicense its two nuclear reactors when they expire in 2024 and 2025.

September 27, 2016 – 81 FR 66301-66314 – NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION – Biweekly Notice; Applications and Amendments to Facility Operating Licenses and Combined Licenses Involving No Significant Hazards Considerations – Pursuant to Section 189a.(2) of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended (the Act), the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is publishing this regular biweekly notice. The Act requires the Commission to publish notice of any amendments issued, or proposed to be issued, and grants the Commission the authority to issue and make immediately effective any amendment to an operating license or combined license, as applicable, upon a determination by the Commission that such amendment involves no significant hazards consideration, notwithstanding the pendency before the Commission of a request for a
hearing from any person.

September 27, 2016 – 81 FR 66301 – NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION – Establishment of Atomic Safety and Licensing Board; Tennessee Valley Authority – Pursuant to delegation by the Commission, see 37 FR 28710 (Dec. 29, 1972), and the Commission’s regulations, see, e.g., 10 CFR 2.104, 2.105, 2.300, 2.309, 2.313, 2.318, 2.321, notice is hereby given that an Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (Board) is being established to preside over the following proceeding: Tennessee Valley Authority (Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant Units 1, 2, and 3). This proceeding involves a challenge to an application by Tennessee Valley Authority for an amendment to the operating licenses for the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant Units 1, 2, and 3, located in Athens, Alabama. In response to a Federal Register Notice, “Applications and Amendments to Facility Operating Licenses and Combined Licenses Involving Proposed No Significant Hazards Considerations and Containing Sensitive Unclassified Non-Safeguards Information and Order Imposing Procedures for Access to Sensitive Unclassified Non-Safeguards Information,” published on July 5, 2016, see 81 FR 43661-43669, the Bellefonte Efficiency & Sustainability Team/Mothers Against Tennessee River Radiation (BEST/MATRR) filed a Petition to Intervene and Request for Hearing on September 9, 2016.

September 27, 2016 – 81 FR 66199 – DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY – Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage Contingent Cost Allocation – On August 3, 2016, the Department of Energy (DOE) issued in the Federal Register a notice and request for comments on a proposed information collection developed in connection with its proposed rulemaking under the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA). The notice stated that comments on the proposed information collection were to be submitted by October 3, 2016. At a public workshop held on September 16, 2016, to discuss the information collection proposal, and in written comments thereafter, members of the public requested an extension of time within which to submit comments. This document announces that the period for submitting comments on the proposed information collection is extended to November 7, 2016.

September 27, 2016 – Roanoke Times – Fight flares again over uranium mining at 5th District debate – The fuse trailing from an attack ad by Democratic candidate Jane Dittmar against state Sen. Tom Garrett’s energy and environment record sparked Monday at the Appomattox debate. The audience question regarding each 5th Congressional District candidate’s stance on uranium mining lit the confrontation toward the end of the debate that until then had been marked by general agreement private businesses are overregulated. “This is like some crazy convoluted cartwheels that we’re getting here, but the bottom line is that 127 people voted to form the Virginia Nuclear Energy Consortium,” Garrett said. “You need to learn to read bills. This one says nothing about uranium mining.”

September 27, 2016 – ZDNet – iPhones ’emit double the radiation’ of Galaxy handsets: Korean agency – Apple’s iPhones and iPads had the highest electromagnetic radiation specific absorption rate (SAR) out of electronic devices sold in South Korea, a national assemblyman claimed, citing data from a state-backed research agency. At a hearing on Tuesday, assemblyman Choi Myung-gil of the country’s telecom committee said data from the National Radio Research Agency shows the average radiation SAR for iPhones was 1.166 watts per kilogram (W/kg). Samsung’s, in comparison, showed an average of 0.517W/kg, for products launched this year.

September 27, 2016 – Sputnik International – Russia, Finland Sign Protocol on Nuclear Security Cooperation – 0Russian state nuclear agency Rosatom and the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK) have signed a protocol on cooperation in the field of nuclear security on Tuesday in Vienna. The protocol on realization of practical measures on fulfillment of obligations of the 1995 agreement between the two countries was signed by Rosatom CEO Sergei Kirienko and STUK Director General Petteri Tiippana on the sidelines of the IAEA 60th General Conference in Vienna. In January 1995, Russia and Finland have signed an agreement on early notification about nuclear accidents and the exchange of information concerning nuclear facilities.

September 27, 2016 – The Post Star – New Type of Radiation Treatment May Up Survival for Older Lung Cancer Patients – Cutting-edge radiation therapy seems to provide a significant survival advantage for older people with early stage lung cancer who aren’t strong enough for surgery, a pair of new studies suggests. The therapy is called stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) and it’s been available for about a decade. The first study reviewed national cancer data and found that survival rates for older lung cancer patients treated with radiation therapy increased dramatically between 2004 and 2012. Those are the years during which SBRT use became widespread in the United States, said lead researcher Dr. Andrew Farach, a radiation oncologist at Houston Methodist Hospital. A second study based on Veterans Affairs cancer treatment data appears to corroborate the national findings, directly linking increased use of SBRT with improved survival rates in elderly patients.

September 27, 2016 – The Cable – 7 ways your WiFi could be causing you harm – Many are on edge because they can’t imagine a world without the internet. But every good thing has it’s bad side and it’s better to educated yourself to be safe. When exposed to electromagnetic radiation, you will have more difficulty falling asleep. So when you can’t sleep maybe you should just turn off your phone. Wireless radiation reduces sperm movement and fragments your DNA. Sleeping with your phone next to your head can affect your ability to concentrate. Experiment: One set of plants was grown in a room free of wireless radiation; the other group grew next to two routers that released the same amount of radiation as a cell phone. Result: The plants closest to the radiation didn’t grow. This radiation has the ability to alter and stunt to growth of body tissue. Young children are more likely to be affected during their developmental stages.

September 27, 20-16 – MedGadget – Lesser Exposure Of Individuals To Radiation Drives Demand For Digital X-Ray Systems Market – MarketResearchReports.biz has announced the addition of a new research report to its online repository. The research report, titled “Global Digital X-Ray Systems Market 2016-2020,” discusses the market drivers and restraints influencing the trajectory of the global digital x-ray systems market. The report has been put together using primary and secondary research methodologies that assure an accurate assessment of the given data. The document includes opinions of market experts and provides a holistic outlook of the market with projections for the forecast period of 2016 and 2020. According to the research report, the global digital X-ray systems market is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of 13.19% between the years of 2016 and 2020. These systems include amplifiers, displays, X-ray sensors, and image processing computers.

September 27, 2016 – Science World Report – Favorite American Foods Emit Radiation: Pizzas, Hot Dogs And More – Food photography reached a new height recently when New York-based artist Brea Souders collaborated with VSCO, an art, and tech company, to create a series of thermographs that capture the radiation emitted from popular American foods. On the list are all time favorites, which are not just restricted to the US, such as pizzas, hot dogs, and fries among junk/fast foods.

September 27, 2016 – The Royal Gazette – Medical imaging and increased radiation risk – There has been a lot of coverage in the media lately about radiation exposure from medical imaging and it’s important to sort out fact from fiction. People are rightly concerned whether radiation from mammograms, bone density tests, computed tomography scans and the likes, would increase their risk of developing cancer. For most people, there is very little risk from routine X-ray imaging but many experts are concerned about an explosion in the use of higher radiation dose tests, such as CT and nuclear imaging. As an example, it is estimated that in 2015, about 90 million CT scans and nuclear tests were performed in the United States, compared with just three million in 1980.

September 27,k 2016 – Press Release Rocket – Newer Radiation Technique Has Fewer Side Effects Than Traditional Techniques for Recurrent Head and Neck Cancer – When a patient’s cancer comes back, he or she is often left with limited treatment options and higher odds of debilitating side effects. But a University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) study presented today at the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) 2016 Annual Meeting in Boston offers positive news for people with recurrent head and neck cancer. Stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT), a technique for delivering pinpoint radiation to kill cancer cells and shrink tumors, resulted in only half as many patients with recurrent head and neck cancer suffering severe, long-term side effects as compared to previously reported studies using more traditional treatment techniques. This discovery by UPCI scientists was made in the largest and longest follow-up analysis to date of patients with recurrent head and neck cancer treated with SBRT. The findings make SBRT a more attractive possibility for patients with few options left.

September 27, 2016 – Lynchburg News Advance – Areva lays off 12 employees in Lynchburg, part of 50 in U.S. – Areva North America has laid off 12 people in Lynchburg, part of a nationwide reduction of 50 employees. According to the company, the changes are a result of a shrinking demand for Areva’s support for existing nuclear reactors. All of the employees affected worked in the “Installed Base” department, which works on existing nuclear reactors, either in operations or administrative capacities.

September 27, 2016 – Open Democracy – Whose work was the inspiration for the first nuke-free country? – New Zealand was the first country in the world to pass national nuclear-free legislation. Marilyn Waring reflects on how Dr. Helen Caldicott’s influence culminated in the passage of the cornerstone of New Zealand’s foreign policy. If you were growing up in New Zealand and Australia post World War II, there’s a chance you knew about the United States using the Marshall Islands as a nuclear testing site from 1947 until 1962. In an agreement signed with the United Nations, the U.S. government held the Marshall Islands as a “trust territory” and detonated nuclear devices in this pristine area of the Pacific Ocean—leading, in some instances, to huge levels of radiation fall-out, health effects, and the permanent displacement of many island people. In all, the U.S. government conducted 105 underwater and atmospheric tests. You would have also known that the British conducted seven atmospheric tests between 1956 and 1963 on traditional Aboriginal land, in Maralinga, Australia. It may be that you read Neville Shute’s 1957 novel On the Beach, in which people in Melbourne, Australia wait for deadly radiation to spread from a Northern Hemisphere nuclear war. This book made a memorable impact on Helen when she read it as a teenager. When I was a teenager, some years later, I read Bertrand Russell’s 1959 classic, Common Sense and Nuclear Warfare.

September 27, 2016 – Military.com – Pentagon Chief Pledges $108 Billion to Fix Nuclear Force – Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Monday the Pentagon is committed to correcting decades of short-changing its nuclear force, including forging ahead with building a new generation of weapons that will cost hundreds of billions of dollars in the coming decades. In his first nuclear-focused speech since taking over the Pentagon in February 2015, Carter implicitly rejected arguments for eliminating any element of the nuclear force or scaling back a modernization plan that some consider too costly.

September 27, 2016 – Belaruse News – Radiation information in Belarusian nuclear power plant area to be available online – Information about the radiation situation near the Belarusian nuclear power plant will be available in the Internet. The relevant statement was made by Belarusian First Deputy Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Minister Iya Malkina during the online conference hosted by the BelTA website on 27 September. According to the source, an automated multilayer multifunctional system will be created under the aegis of the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Ministry to monitor the radiation situation within a 12.9km radius of the nuclear power plant and within a 30km radius and beyond. Information about the radiation situation will be available online.

September 27, 2016 – Times Live – Nuclear corporation’s spending comes under scrutiny of Auditor-General – The Nuclear Energy Corporation of SA (Necsa) incurred R128 million in irregular expenditure in its 2015 financial year because it failed to comply with the government’s preferential procurement regulations‚ the Auditor-General has found. The annual report of Necsa‚ which processes nuclear material and undertakes research and development in the nuclear field‚ was tabled one year late in Parliament on Tuesday. Necsa management and its board are currently being investigated by a task team appointed by Energy Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson. The investigation related to “serious mismanagement”‚ the auditor-general said in his report‚ included in the annual report.

September 27, 2016 – Fortune – The U.S. Sanctions a Chinese Firm Tied to North Korea’s Nuclear Program – The United States said on Monday it had sanctioned a Chinese industrial machinery and equipment wholesaler, a new step in tightening the financial noose around North Korea’s nuclear program after its fifth nuclear test this month. The U.S. Treasury said it was sanctioning Dandong Hongxiang Industrial Development Co (DHID) and four of its executives, including the firm’s founder, Ma Xiaohong, under U.S. regulations targeting proliferators of weapons of mass destruction. It accused the firm of acting on behalf of North Korea’s Korea Kwangson Banking Corp (KKBC), which has been under U.S. and U.N. sanctions for supporting proliferation of such weapons.

September 27, 2016 – Fox News Latino – Cuba, Russia sign nuclear energy cooperation deal – Cuba and Russia relaunched their relations on Tuesday with a pacific nuclear energy deal signed in Vienna alongside the International Atomic Energy Agency’s General Conference. Cuban vice Minister of Science, Environment and Technology José Fidel Santana signed the deal with Sergey Kirienjo, director of the Russian state nuclear energy company Rosatom. Santana said that, after two years of negotiations, the deal would give both countries a framework to immediately begin developing bilateral projects, especially related to the medical and agricultural uses of nuclear energy.

September 27, 2016 – ChronicleLive.co.uk – North East engineering firm close to £100m Hinkley Point nuclear power contract – North East engineering firm Darchem has been named as the preferred bidder for a £100m contract at the Hinkley Point nuclear power station. The Stockton-based company has been selected by Bouygues TP/Laing O’Rourke (BYLOR) along with Efinor for the multi-million pound EDF Energy nuclear project at Hinkley Point in Somerset, a huge programme which will involve the manufacture and installation of the reactor and fuel pool stainless steel liners. The agreement comes nine months after Darchem and Efinor joined forces to create EDEL, an unincorporated joint venture aiming to seize opportunities to develop, supply and service forthcoming nuclear power plant build projects in the UK.

September 27, 2016 – Metro – Buried ‘secret city’ under Greenland’s ice could leak nuclear waste as ice sheet melts – Often working in secret, U.S. Army engineers built a network of tunnels in the ice in Greenland in the early Sixties – a ‘secret city’ powered by its own nuclear weapons. The base ‘Camp Century’ was highly publicised – but its real purpose was secret, to build nuclear missile launch sites close to the Soviet Union. But the long-abandoned base could pose another kind of nuclear threat as Greenland’s ice melts. The nuclear reactor at the base – which also had a hospital and a church in its tunnels – has long since been removed, but radioactive waste remains. ‘Camp Century’ was built by U.S. Army engineers in 1959, but abandoned in 1967, as the researchers realised that the glacier was moving.

September 27, 2016 – Myrtle Beach Sun-News – Plan surfaces for new nuclear disposal ground in SC – A plan has surfaced to establish another nuclear waste disposal ground in South Carolina, a state with a history of taking atomic refuse from across the country. An organization called the Spent Fuel Reprocessing Group wants federal approval to open a disposal area near Barnwell and the Savannah River Site nuclear weapons complex. Spent fuel, a type of highly radioactive waste, would be moved from the state’s four nuclear power plant sites and stored indefinitely at the new facility, records show. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in July received notice of the plan. The proposal is a long way from becoming reality, but if eventually approved by the federal government, it would create a place for nuclear waste disposal that is likely to draw opposition.

September 27, 2016 – Luxemburger Wort – Cattenom evacuation was ‘non incident’, says EDF – The owners of a nuclear power plant that was evacuated on Monday morning have said the evacuation was prompted by a false alarm and posed no risk to people outside the centre. News emerged on Monday that the building of unit 3 at Cattenom’s nuclear power plant on the French side of the border with Luxembourg had been evacuated and staff underwent medical checks. For the remainder of the day, however, no further information emerged from 30-year-old centre, which is managed by EDF. The lack of information released by EDF to the Luxembourg media coupled with growing safety concerns in Luxembourg prompted two Green party politicians to submit a parliamentary question asking if the Luxembourg authorities were informed.

September 27, 2016 – Albany Times-Union – Pipeline spurs nuclear fears – Opponents of a pipeline being proposed along a nuclear energy complex in the Lower Hudson Valley protested the construction outside the governor’s mansion Sunday evening, citing environmental, health and public-safety concerns.
A “Climate Justice Vigil” was held from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Sunday at 138 Eagle St. in Albany in an effort to urge Gov. Andrew Cuomo to take action to stop the Algonquin Incremental Market (AIM) pipeline. Sponsored by Stop NY Fracked Gas Pipeline, the event drew 21 people to the sidewalk outside the mansion. Many took turns speaking over the course of the hour, including a Buddhist monk, members of several anti-fracking and anti-pipeline groups and an Eagle Street resident who wandered over, curious, then lifted a sign and joined in.

September 27, 2016 – Vermont Journalism Trust – Vermont Yankee gets $143 million fuel storage project in gear – Vermont Yankee administrators waited two years for the state’s permission to build a new storage facility for nuclear waste at the defunct Vernon plant. When they finally received that permit in late June, they didn’t waste any time getting started. Entergy representatives on Thursday said the construction of a spent fuel storage facility is well under way, with a few dozen contracted workers having recently installed a massive generator to provide emergency power to the complex. Construction will continue into 2017. But officials say getting the generator in place was a major milestone as crews begin a $143 million effort to transfer all of the plant’s radioactive spent fuel into sealed casks.

September 27, 2016 – SF Bayview – Community welcomes agreement to reexamine radiation risk at Hunters Point Shipyard – In a breakthrough for environmental health and justice, on Sept. 13, 2016, Angeles Herrera of the Superfund Division of the Region IX U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in alliance with Janet Naito, branch chief of the Department of Toxic Substances Control, directed a letter to Lawrence Lansdale, Environmental Director of Naval Facilities Engineering Command stating: “(T)he Navy will not propose any further transfers of Navy property at the HPNS (Hunters Point Naval Shipyard) without results of investigations necessary to clarify the actual potential public exposure to radioactive material at and near the HPNS.”

September 26, 2016 – 81 FR 66004-66005 – DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY – Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board, Paducah – This notice announces meetings of the Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board (EM SSAB), Paducah. The Federal Advisory Committee Act (Pub. L. 92-463, 86 Stat. 770) requires that public notice of these meetings be announced in the Federal Register. DATES: Saturday, October 15, 2016, 11:00 a.m.; and Thursday, October 20, 2016, 6:00 p.m. ADDRESSES: West Kentucky Community and Technical College, Emerging Technology Center, 4810 Alben Barkley Drive, Paducah, Kentucky 42001; and Barkley Centre, 111 Memorial Drive, Paducah, Kentucky 42001. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Jennifer Woodard, Deputy Designated Federal Officer, Department of Energy Paducah Site Office, Post Office Box 1410, MS-103, Paducah, Kentucky 42001, (270) 441-6825. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Purpose of the Board: The purpose of the Board is to make recommendations to DOE-EM and site management in the areas of environmental restoration, waste management and related activities.

September 26, 2016 – Utility Dive – House committee votes to lift 2020 deadline on nuclear power tax credit – The House Ways and Means Committee has voted 23-9 on a bill to remove a 2020 deadline for a nuclear power plant tax credit, The Hill reports. The credit, enacted in 2005, will likely benefit the Vogtle nuclear reactors being built by Southern Co. in Georgia and the Summer reactors being built by SCANA in South Carolina. The bill would not change the 6,000-MW cap on the tax credit. Nuclear opponents called the bill a bailout for plant owners who have failed to deliver new reactor projects on time.

September 26, 2016 – FedScoop – Nuke commission operated several systems without authorization – The Nuclear Regulatory Commission operated several national security systems without authorization, potentially making classified information vulnerable or subject to unauthorized disclosure, according to an agency watchdog. The recently released Cybersecurity Act of 2015 audit of the NRC found seven national security systems did not have authorization to operate. The problem stemmed from a “lack of clarity in the agencywide policies and procedures over the systems and no integrated process across relevant offices,” according to the NRC inspector general’s report on its audit findings.

September 26, 2016 – Cartermatt.com – ‘NCIS: Los Angeles’ season 8, episode 1 review: Deeks’ proposal to Blye delayed; mole tears unit apart – In the eighth season premiere of “NCIS: Los Angeles,” fans are thrilled to see there might be wedding bells ringing at some point this season. While the unit faces serious scrutiny from the Under Secretary of Defense Corbin Duggan as the mole still hasn’t been found, it hasn’t stopped LAPD Detective Marty Deeks desire to ask Special Agent Kensi Blye’s hand in marriage. The two-hour premiere kicked off with chaos in the squad. The unit is once again under examination for the mole and is being ripped apart piece-by-piece by a Washington investigation unit. Known to keep the team together, even through the tough spots, Agent G. Callen and Agent Sam Hanna keep one eye on the investigation of their unit while focusing on a new case that includes the concerns of international security. A container full of radioactive saline was found by Homeland Security. Traced back to Ahmed Han Asakeem, the saline was being illegally sent to the Middle East.

September 26, 2016 – Medgadget – Gamma Knife Market to expand at a CAGR of 9.1% through 2015 to 2025 – Future Market Insights (FMI) announces the release of its latest report titled, “Gamma Knife Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment 2015 – 2025”. According to the report, the global gamma knife market was valued at US$ 156.8 Mn in 2014 and is anticipated to reach US$ 411.0 Mn by 2025, registering a compound annual growth rate of 9.0% over the forecast period. Global Gamma Knife market growth is majorly driven by rising ageing population, increasing incidence of cancer and increasing prevalence of neurological disorders. By disease indication, brain metastasis cases undergoing Gamma Knife treatment accounts for highest market share as compared to other indications. Painless and non-invasive elective surgeries with high success rate have recently become the treatment of choice. Leading Gamma Knife manufacturers are entering into tie-ups with premium healthcare organisations in developed and emerging economies for setting up Gamma Knife surgery centres and Gamma Knife installations. However, lack of awareness about Gamma Knife treatment, negative perceptions of the radioactive elements and lack of trained professionals to operate these systems are expected to hamper market growth during the forecast period.

September 26, 2016 – San Francisco Bay View – Community welcomes agreement to reexamine radiation risk at Hunters Point Shipyard – In a breakthrough for environmental health and justice, on Sept. 13, 2016, Angeles Herrera of the Superfund Division of the Region IX U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in alliance with Janet Naito, branch chief of the Department of Toxic Substances Control, directed a letter to Lawrence Lansdale, Environmental Director of Naval Facilities Engineering Command stating: “(T)he Navy will not propose any further transfers of Navy property at the HPNS (Hunters Point Naval Shipyard) without results of investigations necessary to clarify the actual potential public exposure to radioactive material at and near the HPNS.”

September 26, 2016 – CCTV – 60th atomic energy conference opens in Vienna – The 60th annual General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency has started in the Austrian capita, Vienna. IAEA members will deliberate the agency’s work, set priorities and review budgetary matters. At the opening session, Director General Yukiya Amano, reported on the organization’s achievements from the past 60 years. He also highlighted the agency’s role in monitoring the nuclear programs of Iraq, Iran and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

September 26, 2016 – PSNews.com.au – Booklet aglow with radiation data – The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) has announced the availability of a new booklet explaining radiation and how it affects life on our planet. ANSTO said the United Nations Environment Program had just published Radiation Effects and Sources, to help people understand radiation. “The fully illustrated, 55-page guide is largely based on the findings of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation [UNSCEAR], a subsidiary body of the United Nations General Assembly,” ANSTO said in a statement. “As the foreword explains, while the scientific community has published information on radiation sources and effects, it has tended to be technical and perhaps difficult for the general public to understand.”

September 26, 2016 – News Medical – Hypofractionated RT can reduce treatment time by half in stage II and III NSCLC patients – For patients with stage II and III non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) unable to receive standard treatments of surgery or chemoradiation (CRT), hypofractionated radiation therapy (RT) results in similar overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) rates, limited severe side effects and shorter treatment times when compared to conventional RT, according to research presented today at the 58th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO). NSCLC is responsible for the most cancer-specific deaths globally, and many of these deaths are associated with the high percentage of patients who present with stage III cancer upon diagnosis. Additionally, due to other medical issues or poor performance status (a measure that considers a patient’s quality of life and ability to function during treatment), some stage III NSCLC patients are unable to receive the standard treatment of concurrent chemotherapy and RT.

September 26, 2016 – All Africa – South Africa: The Nuclear Build Risk Is Not Yours to Take, Mr Molefe – I find it quite alarming and disturbing when Eskom’s CEO, Brian Molefe, issues statements that “South Africa’s nuclear build programme doesn’t need to be funded by the fiscus, and that there are potential financiers who would be willing to take the risk”. Add to this, Eskom’s Executive for Generation, Matshela Koko’s comments that “Eskom can pay for the nuclear programme from projected future cash pile of R150bn over the next 10 years”. We’ve seen this situation play out before, when Sanral thought it could sidetrack the need for Treasury to support the Gauteng freeway upgrades, hatching a privatised funding mechanism supported by an expensive e-toll scheme to suck money from the users to pay for the expensive (overpriced) roadway. The fact that Sanral botched their numbers and expectations has given rise to a failed scheme and this has ultimately become Treasury’s problem to fix. Our problem.

September 26, 2016 – PRNewswire – Susquehanna Nuclear Plans Brief Unit 2 Maintenance Outage – Talen Energy is planning to take a brief maintenance outage on Unit 2 at the Susquehanna nuclear power plant in Luzerne County, Pa., within the next few weeks. As the company has discussed publicly for several years, Susquehanna has been working with the manufacturer of the main steam turbines for both units at the plant to understand and address issues associated with the formation of very small cracks in the metal blades. Susquehanna generates electricity by boiling water to make steam that passes through the turbines, which have many rows of fanlike metal blades. The spinning blades turn a generator that produces electricity.

September 26, 2016 – Belaruse News – IAEA ready to assist developing countries in implementing their nuclear programs – The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is ready to assist developing countries in implementing their nuclear programs, IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano said at the 60th regular session of the IAEA General Conference in Vienna on 26 September, BelTA has learned. “Nuclear power should not be the preserve of developed countries. Developing countries should also be able to use it. Nuclear power can make a significant contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving energy security, while delivering energy in the large and growing quantities needed for development,” Yukiya Amano said. He noted that some 30 developing countries are considering introducing nuclear power into their energy balance.

September 26, 2016 – Eurasia Review – Preparing For Radiological Emergencies And Terrorism – India is still coming to terms with the aftermath of the terrorist attack on an army camp at Uri. More names have been added to the long list of Indians who have died in incidents that have been conceived and executed with the support of elements in the ‘deep state’ of Pakistan. Given that Rawalpindi shows no inclination to abandon its strategy of inflicting terror on India, one cannot but be prepared to handle acts of terrorism that may breach new thresholds in the future. Preparedness and response for a radiological emergency is, therefore, a task that the country must plan for. A news item in the Times of India of 22 August 2016 reported the conduct of a mock drill to rehearse Indian preparedness for a radiological emergency at an airport. The news was welcome for two reasons.

September 26, 2016 – Information Nigeria – Do You Know These Interesting Facts About Bananas? – 1. Banana used for cooking is called plantain. 2. Bananas grow in at least 107 countries. 3. If you think wines are made with grapes and apples, you should know that Banana wine and Banana beer are one of the most delicious tasting alcoholic beverages. 4. Scarlet Banana, Blue Banana, Pink Banana, Snow Banana and False Banana are some of its interesting varieties. 5. Banana is naturally radioactive and in fact ‘banana equivalent dose of radiation’ is used in measuring radioactivity.

September 26, 2016 – Vermont Public Radio – State Scales Back Emergency Plan For Shuttered Vermont Yankee Plant – The Vermont Division of Emergency Management and Homeland Security says it is reducing its emergency planning around the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon. When VY was fully operational, the department ran frequent drills in the towns surrounding the plant. But without active nuclear fuel at Vermont Yankee, there’s less risk of radiation emergency, according to Glenn Herrin, the emergency planning zone planner and training coordinator for the Radiological Emergency Response Program. Herrin and Planning Section Chief Scott Carpenter talked about the state’s new emergency plans at a meeting of the Vermont Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel in Brattleboro on Thursday evening.

September 26, 2016 – The State – Exclusive: Recurring problems cited at Westinghouse nuclear plant – An internal review of a Columbia nuclear fuel factory has identified multiple problems with how the site has been managed for atomic safety through the years. The report, compiled by plant operator Westinghouse, says the company wasn’t always tough-minded enough about safety and it didn’t ensure employees knew enough about nuclear safety while operating some of the factory’s equipment. Westinghouse’s report cited “long standing deficiencies’’ that led to a buildup of uranium in excess of federal nuclear safety standards in part of the Bluff Road plant.

September 26, 2016 – Augusta Chronicle – Savannah Remediation recognized for safety efforts – The liquid waste contractor at Savannah River Site has been recognized for its safety efforts. Savannah River Remediation was awarded the 2016 Star of Excellence, and two SRR employees were recognized with Safety and Health Achievement Awards at the 32nd annual National Voluntary Program Participants’ Association annual conference held recently in Kissimmee, Fla. The association is a nonprofit organization working to drive safety, health and environmental excellence.

September 26, 2016 – Fox 13 News – Class action lawsuit filed against Mosaic for sinkhole – A class action lawsuit has been filed against Mosaic after a massive sinkhole opened up, leaking 215 million gallons of “slightly radioactive” water into the Florida aquifer. Attorneys at Morgan and Morgan law firm say they are investigating and are asking those who have questions about the safety of the drinking water to contact them. The lawsuit seeks financial retribution for residents who live within a 5 mile radius of the New Wales facility.

September 26, 2016 – Fremont News Messenger – Davis-Besse back in service after shutdown – The Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station returned to service Thursday morning after a rainwater leak forced the plant to shut down Sept. 10. FirstEnergy spokeswoman Jennifer Young said the plant went back in service at 10:27 a.m. Thursday. Young said that during a heavy rain storm, water leaked through the plant’s turbine building roof vents into a breaker box and affected electrical components in the building. Plant workers normally open the roof vents during hot weather to keep the turbine building cool, Young said.

September 26, 2016 – Detroit News – Close nuclear plants, watch carbon emissions soar – Nuclear power accounts for more than 60 percent of the nation’s carbon-free energy, but in the past few months, due to an abundance of low-cost natural gas, utilities have announced plans to shut down six safe and efficient nuclear plants. And many other plants are at high risk of early retirement. Nationally, and in Michigan, there has been growing concern about carbon emissions and how to address the issue. While the focus has been on “renewable sources” such as emission-free solar and wind power, it is important to remember that nuclear power is not only nonpolluting but reliable, supplying electricity around the clock. In Michigan, three nuclear plants produce 26 percent of the state’s electricity. It is important to think about how to coordinate the expansion of solar and wind power with the U.S. fleet of nuclear plants.

September 26, 2016 – Idaho Statesman – Energy Department: E. Idaho radioactive cleanup moving ahead – The U.S. Department of Energy says workers have successfully removed and packaged about 10,000 cubic yards of exhumed hazardous and radioactive waste stored for decades at the department’s 890-square-mile site in eastern Idaho. The department in a statement Thursday says the waste generated from the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons production plant near Denver, Colorado, was buried in Idaho in the 1950s and 1960s. Removing the waste from the site that also contains the Idaho National Laboratory is part of a deal the department made with Idaho in 2008.

September 22, 2016 – 81 FR 65412-65413 – NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION – Information Collection: NRC Form 327, “Special Nuclear Material (SNM) and Source Material (SM) Physical Inventory Summary Report,” and NUREG/BR-0096, “Instructions and Guidance for Completing Physical Inventory” – The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) invites public comment on the renewal of Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) approval for an existing collection of information. The information collection is entitled, NRC Form 327, “Special Nuclear Material (SNM) and Source Material (SM) Physical Inventory Summary Report;” and NUREG/BR-0096, “Instructions and Guidance for Completing Physical Inventory.”

September 22, 2016 – 81 FR 65349-65350 – DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY – Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board, Oak Ridge Reservation – This notice announces a meeting of the Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board (EM SSAB), Oak Ridge Reservation. The Federal Advisory Committee Act (Pub. L. 92-463, 86 Stat. 770) requires that public notice of this meeting be announced in the Federal Register. DATES: Wednesday, October 12, 2016; 6:00 p.m. ADDRESSES: Department of Energy Information Center, Office of Science and Technical Information, 1 Science.gov Way, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Melyssa P. Noe, Alternate Deputy Designated Federal Officer, U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management, P.O. Box 2001, EM-942, Oak Ridge, TN 37831. Phone (865) 241-3315; Fax (865) 241-6932; Email: Melyssa.Noe@orem.doe.gov. Or visit the Web site at www.energy.gov/orssab. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Purpose of the Board: The purpose of the Board is to make recommendations to DOE-EM and site management in the areas of environmental restoration, waste management, and related activities.

September 22, 2016 – 81 FR 65349 – DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY – DOE/NSF Nuclear Science Advisory Committee – This notice announces a meeting of the DOE/NSF Nuclear Science Advisory Committee (NSAC). The Federal Advisory Committee Act (Pub. L. 92-463, 86 Stat. 770) requires that public notice of these meetings be announced in the Federal Register. DATES: Friday, October 28, 2016; 8:30 a.m.-4:00 p.m. ADDRESSES: Hilton Washington DC/North Gaithersburg, 620 Perry Parkway, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20877, (301) 977-8900. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Brenda L. May, U.S. Department of Energy; SC-26/Germantown Building, 1000 Independence Avenue SW., Washington, DC 20585-1290; Telephone: (301) 903-0536 or email: brenda.may@science.doe.gov. The most current information concerning this meeting can be found on the Web site: http://science.gov/np/nsac/meetings/. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Purpose of the Board: The purpose of the Board is to provide advice and guidance on a continuing basis to the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation on scientific priorities within the field of basic nuclear science research.

September 22, 2016 – 81 FR 65359-65360 – DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES – Food and Drug Administration; Technical Electronic Product Radiation Safety Standards Committee; Notice of Meeting – The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announces a forthcoming public advisory committee meeting of the Technical Electronic Product Radiation Safety Standards Committee. The general function of the committee is to provide advice and recommendations to the Agency on FDA’s regulatory issues. The meeting will be open to the public. DATES: The meeting will be held on October 25, 2016, from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and October 26, 2016, from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. ADDRESSES: Gaithersburg Holiday Inn, Ballroom, Two Montgomery Village Ave., Gaithersburg, MD 20879. The hotel’s telephone number is 301-948-8900. Answers to commonly asked questions including information regarding special accommodations due to a disability, visitor parking, and transportation may be accessed at: http://www.fda.gov/AdvisoryCommittees/AboutAdvisoryCommittees/ucm408555.htm. Agenda: The general function of the committee is to provide advice and recommendations to the Agency on the technical feasibility, reasonableness, and practicability of performance standards for electronic products to control the emission of radiation from such products, and may recommend electronic product radiation safety standards to the Agency for consideration.

September 22, 2016 – Nature World News – How the Earth’s ‘Hardiest Animal’ Could Pave Way to Radiation-Resistant Humans, Life on Mars – Researchers have discovered the secrets of tardigrades, the world’s “hardiest animal,” and how these water bears could survive extreme temperatures and radiation. Could humans one day survive X-ray and Mars? According to a study published in the journal Nature Communications, a team of researchers from the University of Tokyo has found a specific kind of protein that protects the tardigrades’ DNA. Tagged as “Dsup” (short for “damage depressor”), the said protein envelopes the animal’s DNA This breaks previous scientific assumptions that tardigrades survive radiation and extreme conditions by having the ability to repair the damage done on their DNA.

September 22, 2016 – Financial Express – Cows in Fukushima radiation zone find new purpose – In an abandoned Japanese village, cows grazing in lush green plains begin to gather when they hear the familiar rumble of the ranch owner’s mini-pickup. This isn’t feeding time, though. Instead, the animals are about to be measured for how they’re affected by living in radiation – radioactivity that is 15 times the safe benchmark. For these cows’ pasture sits near Fukushima, a name now synonymous with nuclear disaster. The area was once a haven for agriculture with more than 3,500 cattle and other livestock. Ranchers who refused a government order to kill their cows continue to feed and tend about 200 of them. The herds won’t be used as food; now science is their mission.

September 22, 2016 – NetworkWorld – Cisco: Yes, cosmic radiation could have caused router bug – Yesterday we reported on the reaction to a Cisco bug report that speculated “partial data traffic loss” on the company’s ASR 9000 Series routers was possibly triggered by “cosmic radiation causing SEU soft errors.” Reaction to that contention on a Reddit forum ranged from the obvious — acknowledgment that cosmic radiation is an issue — to sharp-tongued skepticism and tales of the cosmic radiation villain being used as a tongue-in-cheek place-holder meaning “we really don’t know what caused the problem yet.”

September 22, 2016 – All Africa – No Nuclear By 2035 Could Mean Another Power Crunch – If South Africa doesn’t have nuclear power by 2035, the country will be in the same position as in 2008 when there was a serious shortage of power supply, Eskom CEO Brian Molefe said on Wednesday. Molefe was part of an Eskom delegation who briefed Parliament on the power utility’s tariff increase for 2016/17 and its amended pricing structure for municipalities. He was responding to a question from an MP, who asked him to elaborate on the cost slippage and delays of Eskom’s build programmes.

September 22, 2016 – National Review – Hillary Takes the Nuclear-Energy Option – Amid the avalanche of criticism aimed at Hillary Clinton in recent weeks about Pneumonia-gate, the Clinton Foundation, and her never-ending e-mail troubles, the Democratic nominee actually made an important policy statement, one that puts her directly at odds with America’s biggest environmental groups as well as her own party’s platform. What did Clinton do? She endorsed nuclear energy. In a candidate questionnaire published in the September 13 issue of Scientific American, she said that addressing climate change is “too important to limit the tools available in this fight. Nuclear power . . . is one of those tools.” She went on, pledging to make sure that the “climate benefits” of existing plants are “appropriately valued,” adding that she will “increase investment in the research, development and deployment of advanced nuclear power.”

September 22, 2016 – Idaho Statesman – ‘Interim storage’ of nuclear waste no real solution for Idaho – In the face of Nevada’s adamant opposition to the Yucca Mountain repository for spent nuclear fuel and the lack of needed land and water rights, in 2015 the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission declined to issue a construction permit for the disposal facility. Even if construction were to begin, working through the mountain of legal opposition would take years. So, the Department of Energy is beginning to develop a consent-based approach for siting interim and permanent disposal facilities for the nation’s spent nuclear fuel and high level waste. This year the department held meetings around the country, including one in Boise. The public input has now been summarized online at.energy.gov/ne/consent-based-approach.

September 22, 2016 – New Hampshire Union-Leader – Hazmat team called to Keene High School – A radioactive material in the science lab at Keene High School caused a scare at the school Wednesday.The Keene Fire Department was notified at 10:36 a.m. of a possible hazardous materials incident at the school. Initially, firefighters evacuated the second floor wing of the building as a precaution until the hazardous material response team evaluated the situation, city officials said in a statement Wednesday afternoon. The personnel entered the area with radiological monitoring equipment.Personnel from the NH Radiological Health Office eventually determined that the source of the radiation was Cesium 137, which was located in a science lab. Cesium 137 is used for demonstration purposes in the science labs, according to officials.“The readings at the source were found within permissible limits outside the box. The source, however, was removed from the area and taken off site to prevent any further occurrence or alarm,” officials said.

September 22, 2016 – electronics-eetimes.com – Swiss researchers develop cost-effective gamma ray detector material – A research team from the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Material Sciences (EMPA) and the ETH Zurich university has developed monocrystals of lead-halide perovskites that can be used to measure radioactive radiation at very high accuracy. The achievement could enable significantly lower prices for gamma ray detectors – for scanners in security areas, for wearable dosimeters in nuclear power plants and for medical test and diagnosis equipment. Experiments showed that monocrystals of lead-halide perovskites made from aqueous solutions or from cost-effective solvents have the same quality like the cadmium telluride semiconductors in use today – whereas the production process for the latter is far more complex and thus expensive.

September 22, 2016 – Horizon-Magazine.eu – Augmented reality could let us see radiation – SOFT Prize winner Jonathan Naish – Engineers at the Joint European Torus (JET) nuclear fusion experiment could be using augmented reality through Microsoft’s HoloLens technology to see where radiation hotspots are, according to Jonathan Naish, at the UK’s Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, who has developed an award-winning system to check exposure using virtual reality.‘For this VORTEX project, we were concerned about the gamma radiation after the upcoming … campaign (to perform a reaction at JET in 2017). To get a better understanding of the radiation fields calculated from computational models, complex 3D radiation data has been integrated with (computer-aided design) models to form a virtual reality environment using the HTC Vive (virtual reality headset). ‘When the headset is put on and the controllers picked up, an operator can walk around a virtual model of the reactor to practice scenarios. So if there is a piece of the machine that needs fixing, or equipment needed to be retrieved from the machine whilst it’s radioactive, we can plan this procedure and see how much radiation would be received by an operator in a virtual environment.

September 22, 2016 – Sputnik International – Russian Armata Tank Becomes Impervious to Depleted Uranium Shells – A new modification of an active protection system designed by Russian scientists has effectively made the Armata tank impervious to depleted uranium armor-piercing discarded sabot (APDS) shells. © Sputnik/ Evgeny BiyatovCloak of Darkness: Russia Testing Unique Smokescreen for Armata TanksThe Afganit active protection system Russia uses to shield its tanks is capable of protecting an armored vehicle from various types of anti-tank rockets and grenades, incoming from all directions. Now however, scientists from the KBP Instrument Design Bureau have taken it to a whole new level by making the Afganit system capable of intercepting and destroying depleted uranium armor-piercing discarded sabot shells (APDS), according to the Russian newspaper Izvestia.

September 22, 2016 – The Japan News – Decommissioning of Monju reactor must not disrupt nuclear fuel cycle – The nuclear fuel cycle is a cornerstone of Japan’s nuclear energy policy. The cycle must not be derailed. The government has decided to thoroughly overhaul its plans for the development of a fast reactor. It will consider options including decommissioning the Monju fast breeder nuclear reactor. A “fast reactor development council” including representatives from electric power companies and manufacturers will be established to discuss the issue, and will make a final decision before the end of the year.

September 22, 2016 – Nikkei Asian Review – Japanese manufacturers lead the way in particle-beam cancer treatment – Responding to growing worldwide demand, Japanese companies are at the forefront of developing new types of cancer radiation therapies. In particle-beam radiotherapy protons or carbon ions are accelerated to almost light speed and focused on cancer cells. Compared with conventional X-ray radiotherapy, the new method can target a tumor precisely, with minimal damage to the surrounding tissue. X-rays are at their most powerful near the surface and weaken as they move inside the body. However, they run the risk of damaging healthy organs as they pass through to malignant tissue. Particle-beam therapy systems can increase the level of precision using the distribution characteristics of the radiation dose absorbed by the body.

September 22, 2016 – Napoleon Northwest Signal – Activists: Old uranium mines polluting Angostura – Members of three activist groups say recent research shows that abandoned uranium mines are contributing to elevated uranium levels in Angostura Reservoir in the southern Black Hills. The research was recently published in the journal Environmental Earth Sciences by authors that included two South Dakota School of Mines & Technology scientists, Rohit Sharma and James Stone. The article is titled “Stream sediment geochemistry of the upper Cheyenne River watershed within the abandoned uranium mining region of the southern Black Hills.”

September 22, 2016 – NorthJersey.com – Why should radon be on my radar during my home search? – Q: Because of a job relocation, I’m considering a move to the northern New Jersey. Coming from South Jersey, radon was not an issue when I bought our first home. Now that I am looking here, I’m being told about radon. What exactly is radon and should I be concerned with high levels in this part of the state? A: Susan, northern New Jersey is a beautiful place to live and work. Welcome. Radon, which has always been a part of our environment in New Jersey, is a naturally occurring radioactive gas found in soil in varying concentrations. The gas typically accumulates in enclosed places, such as a house, but its presence, even in high concentrations, cannot be detected by human senses because the gas is invisible and has no odor. Hence, when buying a home in New Jersey, it is advisable to have a radon test to determine exposure levels. If levels are elevated, you would be urged to consider remediation. For the most part, communities in northern New Jersey have low potential for radon as determined by a Tier-level system put in place by the NJ Department of Environmental Protection.

September 22, 2016 – BDLive – Nuclear waste less lethal than solar – NEIL Overy’s long, wrong article (Where will SA put lethal nuclear waste? September 20) shows he does not understand even the basic physics of the subject. Nuclear waste presents less of a problem than the waste of any other energy technology, including solar, wind and coal. All leave “lethal” wastes that remain dangerous forever. These include arsenic, cadmium, lead and mercury. Only nuclear has procedures for storing its waste safely, which is easy to do since it is tiny in volume, solid and stable. Vaalputs in the Northern Cape that now takes our low and medium-level radioactive waste with complete safety, could take all our high-level waste (spent fuel) safely too. There is no technical problem; it just needs political permission.

September 22, 2016 – NewsMaker – Nuclear air filtration industry size is anticipated to exhibit potential growth from 2016 to 2023 – Nuclear air filtration market size is anticipated to exhibit potential growth from 2016 to 2023. Rising safety concerns regarding emission of radioactive particles is expected to drive industry growth over the forecast period, with the global industrial air filtration market size expected to exceed USD 6.7 billion by 2023. Nuclear power plant and equipment market is likely to exceed USD 67.3 billion by 2020. These systems play vital role in nuclear power plants, as it completely relies on proficient filtration of water, air as well as process fluids for efficient operation. Proliferating demand of these filters from nuclear industries is estimated to positively impact nuclear air filtration market growth. In addition, implementation of these filters also aids in enhancing reliability and also assures safety.

September 22, 2016 – Wall Street Journal – EDF Warns on Profit as Nuclear Plant Outages Increase – State-controlled power utility Electricite de France cut its earnings outlook on expectations of lower nuclear output from an increase of plant outages, sending its share price down. EDF, which last week got the go-ahead from the British government to build the £18 billion ($23.4 billion) Hinkley Point nuclear plant in the U.K., said it expects earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of between €16.3 billion ($18.3 billion) and €16.6 billion. It previously had forecast a range of €16.3 billion to €16.8 billion. The company had already lowered its nuclear output forecast in July, but had maintained its earnings target.

September 22, 2016 – E&T – Costly Japanese prototype nuclear reactor shuts down – The Monju nuclear reactor in Japan, which has operated for less than a year in more than two decades at a cost of 1tn yen (£7.6bn), is set to be scrapped. The prototype fast-breeder reactor was designed to burn plutonium from spent fuel at conventional reactors to create more fuel than it consumes. The process is appealing to a country whose limited resources force it to rely on imports for virtually all its oil and gas needs. But Tokyo believes it would be difficult to gain public support to spend several hundred billion yen to upgrade the Monju facility, which has been plagued by accidents, missteps and falsification of documents.

September 22, 2016 – Cache Valley Daily – Nuclear power may be an option for Logan City in the future – It won’t happen right away, but there is a chance that Logan residents will someday utilize nuclear power. Members of the Logan Municipal Council agree that is a decision that would be up to the public to decide. At Tuesday’s council meeting, the group discussed a recent seminar hosted by the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems where the organization’s Carbon Free Power Project was discussed. Council Chairman Herm Olsen said if Logan wants to it could become involved in a proposed development of a small modular reactor, or SMR, at the Idaho National Laboratory near Idaho Falls, Idaho. Olsen said it would be at least nine to 10 years before anything was generated.

September 22, 2016 – Mondaq – NY Creates New Emissions Credit For Nuclear Plants – The New York Public Service Commission’s (PSC) Clean Energy Standard (CES), adopted in August, includes a new emissions credit—the ZEC. The ZEC, or zero-emissions credit, is the first emissions credit created exclusively for nuclear power. The ZEC is the result of a highly politicized effort to support New York’s struggling nuclear power plants. New York’s four nuclear plants account for 31 percent of the state’s total electric generation mix. According to the PSC, “losing the carbon-free attributes of this generation before the development of new renewable resources between now and 2030 would undoubtedly result in significantly increased air emissions due to heavier reliance on existing fossil-fueled plants or the construction of new gas plants to replace the supplanted energy.” The ZEC Program is intended to keep the state’s nuclear plants open until 2029 and provide an emissions-free bridge to renewable energy.

September 22, 2016 – Business Standard – India seeks loan from U.S. for nuclear reactors, snags remain – India is negotiating with U.S. Export-Import Bank for an $8-9 billion loan to finance six Westinghouse Electric nuclear reactors, two sources familiar with the talks said, although a lending freeze at the trade agency threatens progress.

September 22, 2016 – Lexology – House Committee Approves Nuclear Production Tax Credit Extension – Today, the U.S. House of Representatives Ways & Means Committee approved H.R. 5879, a bill to extend the production tax credit for new nuclear power plants. It would remove any deadline on awarding the 6,000 MW of nuclear capacity available under the tax credit. The Committee commented that the bill “ensures the effective operation of the tax credit for nuclear energy production.” From here H.R. 5879 will continue to move through the legislative process, hopefully soon to the House floor.

September 22, 2016 – Asharq Al-Awsat – Argentina Looking Forward to Boosting Nuclear Energy Cooperation with KSA – Argentina is seeking to boost its cooperation with Saudi Arabia in the field of nuclear energy, transform the agreement signed between the two countries in 2011 on peaceful use of nuclear energy into action and work on increasing Saudi investment and trade exchange to build a promising future of bilateral strategic cooperation, according to an Argentine diplomat. Argentina’s Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Jaime Sergio told Asharq Al-Awsat: “We hope our strategic relations with Saudi Arabia would reach their highest levels in different political and economic fields.” Sergio said that the agreement between the two countries on using nuclear energy for peaceful purposes was signed between King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy (KACARE) and Ministry of Federal Planning, Public Investment and Services of Argentina.

September 22, 2016 – Los Angeles Daily News – Looking for place to dump nuclear waste? Ask the public – There are barbs about “mobile Chernobyls” and “floating Fukushimas,” fears of “coerced consent” and “economic racism,” and deep philosophizing about the nature of “consent” itself. Is such a thing is possible when generations unborn will be impacted by decisions made today? “‘Consent’ to dump nuclear waste in America’s back yard is not going to be approved by the American people no matter how your PR strategists massage the lipstick on that pig,” David Osinga told the U.S. Department of Energy in an email. The DOE’s latest idea for figuring out where to stash millions of pounds of nuclear waste garnered more than 10,000 comments from concerned citizens nationwide, according to documents released last week. And while many disagree vehemently on the particulars, they are largely united on one point: After decades of dithering, the federal government must finally take action on its long-broken promise to permanently dispose of highly radioactive spent fuel.

September 22, 2016 – Newburyport Daily Press – NRC wants more information from Seabrook nuclear plant – The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is requiring more information from NextEra Energy Seabrook nuclear power plant officials before it reviews the plant’s recently filed amendment to its 20-year license extension request. After years of research, the nearly 400-page Aug. 1 amendment deals with a concrete issue that has dogged the plant ever since its 2009 request to the NRC to have its operating license extended from 2030 to 2050. The condition, known as alkali-silica reaction, or ASR, was identified and reported to federal regulators by Seabrook Station staff in 2009. Discovered first in the reinforced concrete walls in a plant electrical tunnel about 40 feet below ground, ASR was later found in concrete walls throughout the plant. A slow chemical reaction between the alkaline cement and reactive silica found in some concrete aggregates when moisture is present, ASR forms a gel in the concrete that expands, causing micro-cracks that can affect concrete properties and cause deformation of walls.

September 22, 2016 – CapeCod.com – Cape Downwinders to Appeal State House Ban Restriction – On September 9, Mary Conathan, Doug Long and Diane Turco were arrested for participating in a sit-in in the Governor’s offices. The group refused to leave the office until Governor Charlie Baker addressed concerns about the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth and were charged with trespassing. The station is set to close by June 2019.

September 22, 2016 – Aiken Standard – In new letter, S.C. says DOE has no plans to ship transuranic waste out of Savannah River Site through July 2017 – A letter entered this week into the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility federal case indicates the U.S. Department of Energy has no plan for shipping transuranic waste out of South Carolina through July 31, 2017. The letter was entered into court records by the South Carolina counsel in its case against the Energy Department. In its address to the judge, the state’s counsel points to a declaration submitted during the case which expressed a potential pathway out of the Palmetto State for transuranic waste, or TRU waste, based upon the expected opening of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, or WIPP, in New Mexico. The semi-annual letter from the DOE is inconsistent with that declaration.

September 22, 2016 – Sarasota Herald Tribune – Lyons: Mosaic? You mean that environmental organization? – The Sierra Club’s Andre Mele says he has been talking for a while about filing a federal lawsuit against Mosaic, the multibillion-dollar phosphate mining company whose logo and ads he sees everywhere. That lawsuit wouldn’t necessarily be about the massive environmental degradation caused by Mosaic. It would involve the Federal Communications Commission, of all things. The suit he would love to file would charge Mosaic with flagrantly false advertising. I so get that. That company’s ads and public relations efforts are wonderfully effective. They show happy Mosaic employees proudly reciting the “I am Mosaic” mantra, often while doing something cool to protect the environment.

September 22, 2016 – WIZM 1420 AM – As nuclear plant near La Crosse gets decommissioned, residents express worries – A nuclear power plant located just 20 miles from La Crosse was shut down three decades ago but much of the Dairyland Power Cooperative reactor at Genoa is still standing. That will change over the next few years, as it is being decommissioned – something neighbors of the facility are concerned about. “People are concerned about the removal of the radioactive waste and the transportation of it,” Bruce Watson, a chief at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said.

September 21, 2016 – 81 FR 64955-64956 – NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION – Shipping, Receiving, and Internal Transfer of Special Nuclear Material – The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is issuing for public comment Draft Regulatory Guide (DG) DG-5051, “Shipping, Receiving, and Internal Transfer of Special Nuclear Material.” This DG would consolidate in one document NRC guidance concerning the material control and accounting requirements pertaining to shipments, receipts, and internal transfers of special nuclear material. The DG is part of the NRC’s “Regulatory Guide” series. This series was developed to describe and make available to the public information regarding methods that are acceptable to the NRC staff for implementing specific parts of the NRC’s regulations, techniques that the staff uses in evaluating specific issues or postulated events, and data that the staff needs in
its review of applications for permits and licenses.

September 21, 2016 – 81 FR 64954-64955 – NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION – Nuclear Power Plant Instrumentation for Earthquakes – The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is issuing for public comment draft regulatory guide (DG)-1332, “Nuclear Power Plant Instrumentation for Earthquakes.” This DG is proposed Revision 3 of Regulatory Guide 1.12, “Nuclear Power Plant Instrumentation for Earthquakes.” The NRC proposes to revise the guide to incorporate advances in seismic instrumentation and operating experience since Revision 2 of RG 1.12 was issued in 1997. The proposed revision describes the seismic instrumentation criteria, including instrumentation type, locations, characteristics, and maintenance, that the NRC staff considers acceptable for nuclear power plants.

September 21, 2016 – BooksLive.co.za – Glowing all the way to the grave: Michele Magwood reviews The Radium Girls – It usually started with their teeth. Young female factory workers in the United States were complaining of toothache, and it being early in the last century, when cosmetic dentistry was unheard of, the problem teeth were simply removed. But their mouths didn’t heal, and more teeth were rotting. The dentist in Newark, New Jersey, was confounded, until the day he tried to remove yet another tooth from a young woman’s mouth, and her entire jawbone came away in his hand. The patient’s name was Mollie Maggia and she worked at the Radium Luminous Materials Corporation. When she died soon afterwards, the doctors insisted the cause was syphilis. In this gripping account of appalling corporate malfeasance and awing courage, Kate Moore presents a roll call of the bright young things who went to work in the factories producing luminous dials for clocks and watches and also for military instruments. The job was well-paid and glamorous. The paint they used contained radioactive radium, which made it glow.

September 21, 2016 – ABC Action News – Mosaic apologizes for not notifiying community sooner about sinkhole and radioactive water – After a massive sinkhole drained millions of gallons of radioactive water into the Floridan aquifer, Mosaic executives are coming forward saying that they handled the situation poorly. Tuesday morning, two of the company’s executives took responsibility for not notifying the public sooner of the crisis. “I deeply regret and apologize that I didn’t come forward and communicate with them sooner. Any explanation that I could provide as to why we didn’t do that, to me would ring hollow,” said Walter Precourt, Mosaic Senior Vice President of Phosphates, to the Polk County Commissioners.

September 21, 2016 – Albawaba – Rio’s Olympic X-ray machines to be reused in Brazil’s jails – X-ray machines and metal detectors used in the 2016 Rio Olympic Games are set to be recycled in jails across Brazil, according to the country’s Justice Ministry. It said scanners with a total value of 44.6 million reais (13.6 million dollars) were due to be moved to jails in the coming weeks. The state of Sao Paulo alone was set to receive 66 x-ray machines and 170 metal detectors from the Games. Brazil’s jails are notorious for high levels of crime and drugs.

September 21, 2016 – Progressive.org – How Nuclear Power Causes Global Warming – Supporters of nuclear power like to argue that nukes are the key to combatting climate change. Here’s why they are dead wrong. Every nuclear generating station spews about two-thirds of the energy it burns inside its reactor core into the environment. Only one-third is converted into electricity. Another tenth of that is lost in transmission. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists: Nuclear fission is the most water intensive method of the principal thermoelectric generation options in terms of the amount of water withdrawn from sources. In 2008, nuclear power plants withdrew eight times as much freshwater as natural gas plants per unit of energy produced, and up to 11 percent more than the average coal plant. Every day, large reactors like the two at Diablo Canyon, California, individually dump about 1.25 billion gallons of water into the ocean at temperatures up to 20 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the natural environment.

September 21, 2016 – HealthDay – More Breast Cancer Patients Should Get Radiation, New Guidelines Say – New guidelines issued by three leading cancer organizations suggest that more breast cancer patients should get radiation therapy after a mastectomy. Overall, the guidelines say there’s enough evidence to show radiation treatment after a mastectomy decreases the risk of breast cancer recurrence, and that even women with smaller tumors and three or fewer lymph nodes involved can benefit from the therapy. “The new guidelines say there is clear evidence that the benefit of [post-mastectomy radiation therapy] extends to women with limited lymph node involvement,” said Dr. Stephen Edge. He is vice president for health care outcomes and policy at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, N.Y. Edge was co-chair of the panel that developed the new guidelines.

September 21, 2016 – Fuel Fix – Firing at Energy Department prompts criticism from Congress – Texas Congressman Lamar Smith, long a critic of the Obama administration’s treatment of climate change as a scientific priority, wants to know whether the Department of Energy terminated one of its scientists for going “off message” during a congressional briefing two years ago. The subject this time was not climate change, but the health impacts of low doses of radiation – something humans are routinely exposed to in everyday life and the Department of Energy had moved to cease researching. But in 2014 House Republicans were pressing the energy department to increase research into low doses of radiation – towards better understanding the impacts in the event of a “dirty bomb” containing radioactive material or to workers at nuclear plants or medical imaging facilities. When a government biologist studying radiation was terminated after giving a briefing to congressional staff that she said went against instructions to downplay the importance of the research, Republicans on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, of which Smith is chair, launched an investigation.

September 21, 2016 – Business Tech – If we don’t go nuclear, SA will face 2008-level power crisis: Molefe – If South Africa doesn’t have nuclear power by 2035, the country will be in the same position as in 2008 when there was a serious shortage of power supply, Eskom CEO Brian Molefe said on Wednesday. Molefe was part of an Eskom delegation who briefed Parliament on the power utility’s tariff increase for 2016/17 and its amended pricing structure for municipalities. He was responding to a question from an MP, who asked him to elaborate on the cost slippage and delays of Eskom’s build programmes.

September 21, 2016 – WBUR 90.9 – Pilgrim Nuclear Plant Gas Release Ignites Outrage From Plymouth Fire Chief – Earlier this month, hydrogen gas built up in the generator room at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth. The amount of gas was beyond the federal allowable limit and had to be released into the air. Hydrogen gas is highly flammable — and potentially explosive. It’s what blew up the reactors at Fukishima Japan. And while plant officials knew about the hydrogen release, the coastal town’s fire chief said he is outraged that he was not notified beforehand. ‘We Should Have Got An Email Or A Phone Call’ “In order to protect the public safety — which is my job — I need to have to get as much information about what is going on as I can possibly get,” said Ed Bradley, chief of the Plymouth Fire Department.

September 21, 2016 – Tech Central – Eskom’s Molefe pushes the case for nuclear – A nuclear build programme for South Africa doesn’t need to be funded by the fiscus. There are enough potential financiers who would be willing to take the risk, said Eskom CEO Brian Molefe on Wednesday. Speaking on the sidelines of a parliamentary meeting, Molefe said he doesn’t believe a nuclear build programme would put a significant burden on the fiscus. Molefe said he had not asked national treasury to consider making provision for any nuclear costs for the medium term. “It’s possible for nuclear to finance itself. Asking the fiscus for money is going overboard. We should be able to arrange some kind of funding for nuclear energy.”

September 21, 2016 – Newsday – Growing criticism over Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s plan to subsidize New York’s nuclear plants – In recent weeks, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has tirelessly defended his Clean Energy Standard plan that forces taxpayers and electric customers to bail out the state’s failing nuclear energy industry. The governor should save his breath. The controversial scheme, which Cuomo and state regulators approved in August without the consent of state lawmakers, has been hailed as a model for other states to achieve reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. But critics rightly view the Clean Energy Standard (CES) a raw deal for electric ratepayers and taxpayers that amounts to little more than an indefensible corporate welfare racket.

September 21, 2016 – International Business Times – Pakistan refuses to curb nuclear programme despite US insistence – Pakistan on Wednesday reportedly refused to comply with the request by the United States to limit its nuclear programme. The development comes just a couple of days after Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja M Asif said in an interview to Pakistani channel Geo TV’s Saleem Safi that the country would not think twice before exercising nuclear option if there was any threat against it. Pakistan’s permanent representative to the United Nations (UN), Maleeha Lodhi, was quoted by Pakistani media as saying in New York that the country’s nuclear programme would not be restricted. She also said that Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had, in his interaction with US Secretary of State John Kerry, impressed upon him that India should also be held to the standards being set for Pakistan.

September 21, 2016 – Sputnik International – Nukes of Hazard: 180 Mishaps Befall UK Nuclear Convoys – Anti-nuclear campaigners say that the regular transportation of nuclear weapons across the UK is putting lives at risk. Military convoys carrying nuclear materials have suffered collisions, breakdowns and brake failures.There have been at least “180 mishaps in 16 years” involving military convoys carrying nuclear bombs around the UK. That’s the startling news according to a “Nukes of Hazard” report by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), published on Wednesday (September 21). The report, based on Ministry of Defense logs released due to Freedom of Information requests, reveals that materials for nuclear weapons are driven through or flown over 122 separate local councils in the UK. They include densely-populated areas in major cities such as Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Sheffield, Manchester and Newcastle.

September 21, 2016 – GBTimes – Hinkley Point nuclear plant unites China and France – Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and French President Francois pledged on Tuesday to ensure the implementation of the UK’s Hinkley Point nuclear power plant project, as well as enhance cooperation in third-party markets. The two countries reached the consensus on the side-lines of a series of UN conferences in New York City. The Hinkley Point nuclear project is Britain’s first nuclear power plant in two decades. It will be co-built by China General Nuclear Power Corp., which has a one-third stake, and French state-owned company EDF. During their talks, Li hoped all those concerned could work together to deliver a smooth partnership on the nuclear power program while at the same time calling for China and France to boost their cooperation.

September 21, 2016 – Penn Energy – Reporters get rare look at SC nuke reactor project – Reporters are getting a rare look at some of the first nuclear reactors of their kind to be built in the U.S. in more than 30 years. South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. and Santee Cooper are building two new reactors at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station near Jenkinsville. The reactors are slated to come online in 2019 and 2020. Reporters get a look on Wednesday. The project has continued to cost more for SCE&G power customers. SCE&G is seeking a 3.1 percent residential raise that would be the largest single rate increase since it began charging its 700,000 customers for construction.

September 21, 2016 – The Mercury News – Storing nuclear waste: Is ‘consent’ OK when future generations can’t weigh in – There are barbs about “mobile Chernobyls” and “floating Fukushimas,” fears of “coerced consent” and “economic racism,” and deep philosophizing about the nature of “consent” itself. Is such a thing possible when generations unborn will be impacted by decisions made today? “‘Consent’ to dump nuclear waste in America’s back yard is not going to be approved by the American people no matter how your PR strategists massage the lipstick on that pig,” David Osinga told the U.S. Department of Energy in an email. The DOE’s latest idea for figuring out where to stash millions of pounds of nuclear waste garnered more than 10,000 comments from concerned citizens nationwide, according to documents released last week. And while many disagree vehemently on the particulars, they are largely united on one point: After decades of dithering, the federal government must finally take action on its long-broken promise to permanently dispose of highly radioactive spent fuel.

September 21, 2016 – Sentinel-Tribune – Latta legislation to modernize nuclear technology approved by House – Bipartisan legislation authored by Congressman Bob Latta, R-Bowling Green, to modernize the nation’s nuclear technology has been approved by the U.S House of Representatives. The bill, H.R. 4979, the Advanced Nuclear Technology Development Act, requires the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to establish a framework for issuing licenses for advanced nuclear reactor technology and requires the NRC to submit a schedule for the implementation of the framework by 2019. Approximately 50 companies have invested over $1 billion in nuclear power technology, but the lack of a regulatory framework to license this technology has said to threaten continued investment and implementation. “Nuclear power must play a significant role in American energy policy for our nation to become truly energy secure, and the future of the nuclear industry needs to start now,” Latta said. “It is imperative that we develop the right regulatory framework so advanced nuclear technologies can be developed, licensed, and constructed here in the United States. The Advanced Nuclear Technology Development Act will help the U.S. remain a leader in the nuclear industry and continue to develop clean, reliable power.”\

September 21, 2016 – The Bahamas Weekly – IAEA Receives US $3.96 Million from the United States to Boost Fight against Zika-transmitting Mosquitoes – The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will receive a contribution of US $3.96 million from the United States to step up work on a nuclear technique to suppress mosquitoes spreading Zika and other viruses, such as dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever. The United States announced the grant at a meeting of the IAEA’s Board of Governors in Vienna today. The U.S. Department of State grant will enable the IAEA and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to significantly accelerate research and development activities to refine the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT)—an insect birth control method—in order to assist countries affected by Zika.

September 21, 2016 – ChemEurope.com – Single crystal measures radioactivity – A research team at Empa and ETH Zurich has developed single crystals made of lead halide perovskites, which are able to gage radioactive radiation with high precision. Initial experiments have shown that these crystals, which can be manufactured from aqueous solutions or low-priced solvents, work just as well as conventional cadmium telluride semi-conductors, which are considerably more complicated to produce. The discovery could slash the price of many radio-detectors – such as in scanners in the security sector, portable dosimeters in power stations and measuring devices in medical diagnostics.

September 21, 2016 – WIZM 1410 AM – Genoa plant still has residual radioactivity needing decontamination – A nuclear power plant located just 20 miles from La Crosse was shut down three decades ago but much of the Dairyland Power Cooperative reactor at Genoa is still standing. That will change over the next few years, as it is being decommissioned – something neighbors of the facility are concerned about. “People are concerned about the removal of the radioactive waste and the transportation of it,” Bruce Watson, a chief at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said. Watson was speaking to about a dozen people at a public meeting about the project. Within a few weeks, demolition will begin on the tall smokestack next to the old reactor building.

September 21, 2016 – Tech Radar – Nuclear fusion: what’s taking so long? – It could provide a cheap, safe, clean, abundant and reliable source of energy for mankind, but nuclear fusion has so far remained tantalisingly out of reach. Despite being a theoretical replacement for both fossil fuel and nuclear fission energy production for over 60 years, nuclear fusion still hasn’t become commercially possible in power stations. So what’s taking so long?

September 21, 2016 – Tennessee Journalist – UT Science Forum tackles nuclear energy – Dr. Stephen Skutnik, Assistant Professor at UT’s department of Nuclear Engineering says that the future of nuclear energy depends on if it’s viewed as trash or a treasure. Skutnik addressed multiple forms of proposed storage methods such as geologic disposal, hydrogeologic disposal, ice sheet disposal and more outlandish solutions such as extraterrestrial and volcanic disposal. Although scientists have the ability to store used fuel for decades, it is not seen a viable permanent solution. According to Skutnik, geologic disposal is the only feasible option at this time. It involves storing the radioactive elements deep underground long enough to “run out the clock” on the materials so they are no longer radioactive.

September 21, 2016 – Beyond Nuclear – We almost lost Detroit but we’ve still got Fermi 1 – On October 5 it will be 50 years since the Fermi 1 prototype liquid metal fast breeder reactor, located near Monroe, MI, suffered a loss of coolant accident and partial meltdown that narrowly missed turning into a major catastrophe, as recounted in John Fuller’s landlmark book, We Almost Lost Detroit. But as a warning to those who think a shut down reactor then vanishes, the Fermi 1 reactor (pictured) still sits on site, essentially mothballed. Beyond Nuclear will be participating in events next month in Detroit to mark the anniversary and expose the fact that emergency planning, while no longer virtually non-existent as it was 50 years ago, remains woefully inadequate and deeply flawed.

September 21, 2016 – Tri-City Herald – Hanford whistleblowers awarded $216,000 in back pay, compensation – Two Hanford whistleblowers have been awarded $216,000 in back pay and compensation, plus interest and attorney fees, after being suspended from their jobs by Computer Sciences Corp. The decision by a U.S. Department of Labor administrative law judge followed a six-day trial in Kennewick that began in November after the company appealed an earlier decision. The whistleblowers were represented by Hanford Challenge, a Seattle-based worker advocacy group for the nuclear reservation, and an additional attorney.

September 20, 2016 – No relevant citations.

September 20, 2016 – Phoenix Business Journal – Potential $1 billion work to clean up Arizona’s dangerous Navajo uranium mines – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is starting what could be a $1 billion, years-along process to clean up abandoned uranium mines on Navajo Nation land in northern Arizona. There are more than 500 abandoned uranium minds on the sprawling Indian reservation that cuts across northeastern Arizona as well as parts of Utah and New Mexico. From 1944 to 1986, mining companies extracted more than 30 million tons of uranium from mines on Navajo land. The mining was fueled by the U.S. Cold War with the former Soviet Union and the super powers’s nuclear arms race.

September 20, 2016 – EINPresswire – Southern California Commercial UAV Company Teams Up With a Radiation Detection Company to Create a Groundbreaking UAV – You may have seen FlyCam UAV’s aerial production work, but the UAV company that’s known for its stunning cinematography recently partnered with US Nuclear Corp (OTCBB: UCLE) to create a new device that’s right out of the movies — and can save real lives. FlyCam UAV launched the Cypher 6, a commercial-grade hexacopter, and The NEO, an all-weather commercial co-axial octocopter. The platforms are designed for use with US Nuclear Corp’s DroneRad aerial radiation detection system. DroneRad detects particles that contain alpha, beta, gamma and neutron radiation. A gas collection option tests for the presence of chlorine, biological particulates, and aerosols such as anthrax and poison gases, making the FlyCam UAV/US Nuclear Corp UAV suitable for radiological, chemical and biological detection missions. Future upgrades to the DroneRad package will detect methane and diesel. The UAVs can be used to detect radiation leaks in nuclear power plants or flown into plumes of smoke from a burning building to give first responders immediate data about what kinds of hazards might be present. It can also be used for to monitor public events, seaports or geographic areas to detect possible dirty radiological bombs or the use of chemical and biological agents.

September 20, 2016 – Novinite.com – EU Audit Office to Unveil Report on Kozloduy N-Plant Funding – The European Court of Auditors is set to publish its report on the use of EU funding by Kozloduy Nuclear power plant (NPP) in northern Bulgaria. The document is to establish what progress Bulgaria has made in decommissioning the units and managing the radioactive waste. It will also contain a forecast about whether the funding disbursed will be sufficient.

September 20, 2016 – Independent Online – Nuclear corruption rumours dispelled – The Department of Energy released yesterday further details of the companies it had used, in a bid to thwart reports that a company belonging to businessman Vivian Reddy’s son was among the firms getting a slice of the mooted nuclear build programme. The department said Empire Technology, a company that is owned by Reddy’s son, Shantan, was one of several companies that it had used in the past five years. It issued two statements within 72 hours to assure the country of the integrity of the procurement process.

September 20, 2016 – Nanowerk – Single crystal measures radioactivity – A research team at Empa and ETH Zurich has developed single crystals made of lead halide perovskites, which are able to gage radioactive radiation with high precision. Initial experiments have shown that these crystals, which can be manufactured from aqueous solutions or low-priced solvents, work just as well as conventional cadmium telluride semi-conductors, which are considerably more complicated to produce. The discovery could slash the price of many radio-detectors – such as in scanners in the security sector, portable dosimeters in power stations and measuring devices in medical diagnostics. Gamma photons virtually always accompany the radioactive decay of unstable isotopes. In order to identify radioactive substances, cost-effective and highly sensitive gamma detectors that work at room temperature are thus in great demand.

September 20, 2016 – Talk of the Town – O’Dowd calls on Minister to seek talks on safety of Sellafield – Local TD Fergus O’Dowd has expressed his serious concerns about issues raised in the recent Panorama programme on Sellafield and has called on the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment Denis Naughton to seek discussions over the matter. The recent BBC programme highlighted safety concerns at the Cumbria facility, which is just across the Irish Sea from Co Louth. In a statement on the matter, the Fine Gael TD said: “I have called on the Minister of Communications, Climate Action and Environment Denis Naughten to meet urgently with his UK counterpart to discuss the serious safety issues arising from the programme.

September 20, 2016 – eXchange – Food Scientists Using X-rays to Figure Out Fats – University of Guelph researchers studying the intimate structure of edible fats are getting help from the United States Department of Energy (DOE). The researchers hope to replace unhealthful trans and saturated fats with better non-saturated versions – all without compromising texture. That swap could have great implications for the food industry, says Maria Fernanda Peyronel-Svaikauskas, a research associate working with food scientist Prof. Alejandro Marangoni. To conduct their studies, Peyronel-Svaikauskas and the other U of G researchers use the DOE’s Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, Illinois. X-rays generated at that facility enable scientists to study and characterize the structure of edible fats at meso and micro levels (hundreds of nanometres to a few micrometres in size).

September 20, 2016 – Business Standard – Another Chernobyl or Fukushima risk plausible – Catastrophic nuclear accidents like Chernobyl disaster in the US that took place in 1986 and the more recent Japan’s Fukushima disasters in 2011 may not be relics of the past. But the risk of such disasters are still more likely to occur once or twice per century, a study has warned. The study found that while nuclear accidents have substantially decreased in frequency, this has been accomplished by the suppression of moderate-to-large events. The researchers estimated that Fukushima and Chernobyl-scale disasters are still more likely than not once or twice per century, and that accidents like 1979 meltdown at Three Mile Island in the US are more likely than not to occur every 10-20 years.

September 20, 2016 – Caixin Online – China to Get Community Feedback on All Nuclear Projects – The Chinese government plans to issue new rules making it mandatory for developers of all nuclear projects to solicit public comments before selecting a construction site. The decision follows a string of protests that have derailed projects. Expert debates and public hearings about possible nuclear plants and radioactive waste-recycling centers are now required before developers finalize a site for development or submit plans for official approval, according to draft regulations published Monday by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the National Energy Administration. China’s atomic ambitions have grown in recent years as it plans to generate a fifth of its national energy supply using non-fossil fuels by 2030. The Chinese mainland has 36 operating nuclear reactors, and another 20 are under construction, the International Atomic Energy Agency said. Zheng Mingguang, a deputy general manager of State Nuclear Power Technology Corp. said earlier this month that another 30 reactors are in the planning stages and may be built within the next five years.

September 20, 2016 – Sputnik International – MEPhI Researchers Figure Out How to Improve Centrifuge Efficiency – Russia’s leadership in the global production of inexpensive enriched uranium for nuclear power plants is based on a technology that was developed in the mid-20th century. The modern gas centrifuge method for uranium enrichment requires no more than 2% of the energy consumed by the previously used diffusion method. At present, the cost of Russian uranium is dramatically lower than the equivalent US fuel. However, to stay ahead, we constantly need to improve the technology, the scientists note. The gas centrifuge method for uranium enrichment is based on the separation of uranium isotopes in strong centrifugal fields. It is important to determine the dependence of the optimal separation capacity of a centrifuge on the parameters of the centrifuge and the gas used. In other words, professionals need to understand how changing the parameters of the centrifuge – the rotor speed, length, diameter, etc. – will change the effectiveness of the isotopic mixture separation.

September 20, 2016 – The Japan Times – Japan’s Cabinet to hold meeting to decide fate of Monju reactor – The government said Tuesday it will hold a ministerial meeting on nuclear power the following day, with the fate of the trouble-plagued Monju fast-breeder reactor in focus. The meeting scheduled for Wednesday evening is expected to bring together officials from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, which oversees the currently shuttered reactor in Fukui Prefecture, with other ministries and related entities.

September 20, 2016 – Guam Daily Post – Navy discovers elevated radon levels on base – Military officials discovered elevated levels of radon during regular testing carried out as part of the Navy’s Radon Assessment and Mitigation Program (NAVRAMP). Lt. Tim Gorman, Joint Region Marianas public affairs officer, said the elevated levels were discovered in non-housing buildings across Naval Base Guam. “In November 2015 several buildings were tested, none of which resulted in elevated radon levels,” he said in an email to the Post. “During the period of July 18 to Aug. 15, 2016, 325 buildings were tested. Of those, 46 were above the Department of the Navy required-action levels for radon.”

September 20, 2016 – Medscape – New Guideline: No Single Formula for Postmastectomy RT – There is no one-size-fits-all formula for physicians to determine which patients with breast cancer are the best candidates for postmastectomy radiotherapy (PMRT), according to the authors of a new joint clinical practice guideline update. Instead, the new guideline will help clinicians make more informed decisions and move toward more individualized patient care, say expert panel members from the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO), and the Society of Surgical Oncology (SSO) who developed the update. The guideline report was published online September 19 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology and Practical Radiation Oncology.

September 20, 2016 – WIZM 1410 AM – Genoa nuclear power plant heading into final stages of decommission – The future of the former nuclear power plant at Genoa is the topic for a meeting tonight in La Crosse. The plant, which shut down in 1987, is in its final stages of being decommissioned. At 6 p.m. tonight, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will discuss plans to terminate the license for the boiling water reactor. The project is expected to take about two years. The plant was operated by Dairyland Cooperative for 20 years near the Genoa Lock and Dam in Vernon County. The reactor itself was removed from Genoa nearly a decade ago, but spent nuclear fuel is still being stored on the site.

September 20, 2016 – Union of Concerned Scientists – NRC’s Nuclear Maintenance Rule – The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) identified a disturbing trend in the mid-80s—the number of safety problems caused by inadequate maintenance was increasing. In some cases, ineffective practices during routine maintenance such as replacing worn-out gaskets or lubricating rotating machinery resulted in equipment that had been operating satisfactorily breaking down soon afterwards. For example, the NRC was receiving an increasing number of Licensee Event Reports (LERs) from plant owners about safety problems caused by inadequate maintenance. The NRC already had a regulation requiring owners to find and fix safety problems in a timely and effective manner, but the trends showed the regulation alone was not properly managing the risk.

September 20, 2016 – All Africa – South Africa: Energy Dept Urged to Elaborate On Nuclear Bid List – A list of consultants and firms that helped create the Department of Energy’s (DoE) nuclear strategy over the past five years leaves more questions than answers, according to the Democratic Alliance (DA). In a statement on Monday, the DoE revealed firms it had sourced or procured to “conduct thorough investigations on different aspects of the nuclear new build programme before a procurement decision is taken”. It said the National Development Plan (NDP) said South Africa needed a thorough investigation on the implications of nuclear energy, including its costs, financing options, institutional arrangements, safety, environmental costs and benefits, localisation and employment opportunities, and uranium enrichment and fuel fabrication possibilities.

September 20, 2016 – Belarus News – Belarus prepares seventh national report on nuclear safety convention fulfillment – The seventh national report on fulfilling the Convention on Nuclear Safety has been prepared in Belarus, BelTA learned from representatives of the Belarusian Emergencies Ministry. According to the source, the document was put together by the Nuclear and Radiation Safety Department of the Belarusian Emergencies Ministry (Gosatomnadzor) in association with interested government agencies. In accordance with international commitments the report has been forwarded to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The document is also available to the general public on the Gosatomnadzor website in the section Knowledge for Everyone.

September 20, 2016 – The Ecologist – WIPP nuclear waste accident will cost US taxpayers $2 billion – The clean-up after the February 2014 explosion at the world’s only deep underground repository for nuclear waste in New Mexico, USA, is massively over budget, writes Jim Green – and full operations won’t resume until at least 2021. The fundamental cause of the problems: high level radioactive waste, poor regulation, rigid deadlines and corporate profit make a dangerous mix. The facility was never designed to operate in a contaminated state. It was supposed to open clean and stay clean, but now it will have to operate dirty. Nobody at the Energy Department wants to consider the potential that it isn’t fixable. An analysis by the Los Angeles Times finds that costs associated with the February 2014 explosion at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) could total US$2 billion. The direct cost of the clean-up is now estimated at US$640 million, based on a contract modification made in July with contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership.

September 20, 2016 – EurActiv.com – EU’s ex-Soviet nuclear reactors’ decommissioning over-budget and behind schedule – A slew of USSR-era nuclear reactors within the EU are years behind schedule in decommissioning and still require billions in funding, a damning Court of Auditors report found today. Eight reactors across sites in three countries – Lithuania, Bulgaria and Slovenia – were originally promised to be decommissioned as part of those countries’ EU accession process. Yet all still have funding gaps, and long-term storage solutions are still at a “conceptual” stage and decades away from being built or ready, the report finds. In an uncharacteristically strongly-worded report from the auditors, chief author Phil Wynn Owen said, “I am concerned that key decommissioning projects have suffered delays, that financing gaps remain, and that insufficient progress is being made towards final disposal of high-level waste.”

September 20, 2016 – Environmental Leader – Great Britain Gives the Go-Ahead to Build First Nuclear Plant in Twenty Years – Before the vote to exit the European Union, Great Britain had considered nuclear power its silver bullet — the one to help it reduce its carbon emissions while also keeping the lights on. But all that almost changed after the so-called Brexit vote — when the newly sworn in Prime Minister Teresa May hesitated, saying that she feared it would give the Chinese too much control over the nation’s electricity supply. Last week, though, Prime Minister May went ahead with the deal that Former Prime Minister David Cameron had started: Hinkley Point C, which will cost an estimated $24 million. The Chinese will invest about a third of the money while the largely stated-owned Electricite de France will build it.

September 20, 2016 – Yale Environment 360 – In Fukushima, A Bitter Legacy – Japan’s Highway 114 may not be the most famous road in the world. It doesn’t have the cachet of Route 66 or the Pan-American Highway. But it does have one claim to fame. It passes through what for the past five years has been one of the most radioactive landscapes on the planet – heading southeast from the Japanese city of Fukushima to the stricken nuclear power plant, Fukushima Daiichi, through the forested mountains where much of the fallout from the meltdown at the plant in March 2011 fell to earth. It is a largely empty highway now, winding through abandoned villages and past overgrown rice paddy fields. For two days in August, I traveled its length to assess the aftermath of the nuclear disaster in the company of Baba Isao, an assemblyman who represents the town of Namie, located just three miles from the power plant and one of four major towns that remain evacuated. At times, the radiation levels seemed scarily high – still too high for permanent occupation. But radiation was just the start. As we climbed into the mountains, the radiation measurements on the Geiger counter increased. More worrying, I discovered, was the psychological and political fallout from the accident. While the radiation – most of it now from caesium-137, a radioactive isotope with a half-life of 30 years – is decaying, dispersing, or being cleaned up, it is far from clear that this wider trauma has yet peaked. Fukushima is going to be in rehab for decades.

September 20, 2016 – Buffalo News – Tainted soil due for burial at RiverBend – Soil and slag with low levels of radioactive material – a remnant of the steel-making process that once took place at RiverBend in South Buffalo – would be buried underneath a foot of clean soil at two locations on the property where workers are finishing the SolarCity solar panel factory. About 50,000 cubic yards of the contaminated soil – enough to fill nearly seven blimps – would be buried on 10 to 15 acres of the 90-acre site, according to a plan from the state’s Colleges of Nanoscale Science and Engineering. A smaller amount – not quite enough to fill a blimp – would be taken to a hazardous-waste landfill in Ohio. The level of radiation detected at the site about a year ago does not pose a threat to human health, officials said.

September 20, 2016 – BDLive – Where will SA put lethal nuclear waste? – ENERGY Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson’s announcement that the procurement of 9.6GW of nuclear power will begin at the end of September demonstrates the government’s commitment to its nuclear plans despite opposition. The opposition has almost exclusively focused on the potential financial costs of the procurement as they relate to the build of nuclear plants, and on the relative costs of electricity produced by nuclear power compared to other forms of generation. Surprisingly little has been said about the substantial additional costs of managing the radioactive waste that will be produced by new nuclear plants.

September 20, 2016 – Water Online – EPA’s Nuclear Emergency Drinking Water Guidelines Take Heat – The U.S. EPA has proposed a rule that could allow the public to temporarily drink water containing radioactive contamination in the case of a nuclear emergency and it isn’t sitting well with some. The Wall Street Journal reported that the EPA “thinks it would be acceptable for the public to temporarily drink water containing radioactive contamination at up to thousands of times normal federal safety limits.”

September 20, 2016 – Bradenton Herald – Mosaic starts to test wells at request of homeowners – Mosaic started to test wells at the request of homeowners after a sinkhole at the Mulberry plant leaked slightly radioactive water into the ground. James Maxwell, a resident near the plant, called Mosaic to have the company test his well for free. “I’m 75,” Maxwell said. “I’ve lived my life, but I’ve got grandchildren. And I worry about what this (will) do to them.” Almost 30 other residents also opted to have Mosaic test their wells by a third party. The company is looking for sodium, sulfate, fluoride and radioactivity. Mosaic executives said no contaminated water made its way from the plant to private wells, but Maxwell said he doesn’t buy it.

September 20, 2016 – Center for Public Integrity – Proposed export of enriched uranium runs counter to U.S. commitment, critics say – The Obama administration won praise for promising in 2012 to curtail the use of bomb-grade uranium in the production of medical diagnostic tools. But now the U.S. Energy Department is getting brickbats for proposing to send such materials to several European nations, including Belgium, where a shaky nuclear program has in recent years been plagued by sabotage, radicalization and terrorist surveillance. It’s not the first time that the administration has been accused of failing to fulfill one of its nuclear weapons-related commitments. In this case, in 2012, the United States, Belgium, France and the Netherlands declared at a summit meeting in South Korea that they would begin phasing out the use of highly-enriched uranium (HEU) for making medical isotopes, with the understanding that by a 2015 deadline, the material would be replaced with less concentrated uranium that could not be used by terrorists to construct a nuclear weapon.

September 20, 2016 – National Geographic – Can Reusing Spent Nuclear Fuel Solve Our Energy Problems? – Nuclear power, always controversial, has been under an especially dark cloud since Japan’s Fukushima disaster five years ago. And in the United States, few new nuclear plants have been ordered since the 1979 partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, thanks to ongoing safety concerns, high capital costs, and the availability of lower-cost energy sources. But nuclear engineer Leslie Dewan believes that a safe, environmentally friendly, next-generation nuclear reactor isn’t just feasible—it’s commercially viable. As cofounder and CEO of Boston-based startup Transatomic Power, Dewan and fellow Massachusetts Institute of Technology grad Mark Massie are working on commercial-scale development of a molten salt reactor first prototyped in the 1960s at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. “We’ve changed the design to make it more compact, power dense, and able to run on spent nuclear fuel,’’ says the 31-year-old Dewan, a National Geographic Emerging Explorer whose energy and hip style belies the public image of a nuclear scientist as a lab-coated, pocket protector–wearing middle-aged man.

September 20, 2016 – Johnstown Tribune-Democrat – Plans to truck nuclear waste on the interstate sounding alarms – Government plans to truck nuclear waste along the interstate in western Pennsylvania and five other states is akin to allowing a series of potential “mobile Chernobyls on steroids,” said Kevin Kamps, radioactive waste watchdog for the group Beyond Nuclear. Environmentalists are sounding alarms about the possible consequences, especially if a truck crashes, catches fire and causes the waste to escape its container. Kamps likened the possibility to the 1986 disaster in the Ukraine that killed 30 people, injured hundreds more and contaminated huge swaths of land. Beyond Nuclear and five other groups are suing the Department of Energy, hoping to halt the shipments until the government can study their impact.

September 20, 2016 – Charlotte Business Journal – As major power players queue up to extend nuclear plant licenses, Charlotte’s Duke Energy mulls the same – Dominion Resources’ Surry Nuclear Power Station or Exelon Corp.’s Peach Bottom Atomic Power Plant are poised to test the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s willingness to extend licensing for nuclear plants to 80 years. The reactors at both plants were built in the early 1970s. Their current licenses are set to expire in 2032 to 2034. Both companies have announced plans to ask the commission to extend license for 20 years beyond that.

September 20, 2016 – UPI – Sinkhole opens, drops radioactive water into Florida aquifer – A massive sinkhole has opened at a fertilizer plant in Florida, dropping millions of gallons of radioactive water into the Florida aquifer, threatening drinking water and recreational areas nearby. About 215 million gallons of radioactive water have spilled in to the sinkhole in Mulberry, which fertilizer company Mosaic said is about 45-feet wide and 800-feet deep. The aquifer is the source of drinking water for millions of local residents and empties into springs that Floridians use for recreation, WFTS reports.

September 20, 2016 – Denver Business Journal – Lawyers looking for Rocky Flats neighbors to share in $375M settlement – Lawyers are looking for homeowners near the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant in the Standley Lake area to share in a $375 million class-action settlement. Earlier this year, a 26-year lawsuit filed by Rocky Flats neighbors was finally settled for $375 million. ​Lawyers are looking for homeowners near the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant in the Standley Lake area to share in a $375 million class-action settlement. Now, lawyers are looking for homeowners who owned property in the area on June 7, 1989. Up to 15,000 Rocky Flats neighbors may be eligible for settlement money in the suit, filed against the plant’s operators, Rockwell International Corp. and Dow Chemical Co., for devaluing the neighbors’ property values. “Did you own property near and downwind from the former Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant in Denver, Colorado on June 7, 1989? Are you an heir of someone who did? Are you the successor of an entity that did? If so, you could get money from a proposed $375 million class action settlement,” lawyers asked today in a statement.

September 20, 2016 – Mint Press News – Following Decades Of High Cancer Rates & Birth Defects, EPA Begins Cleanup Of Uranium Mines On Navajo Reservation – A cleanup effort funded by a $1 billion bankruptcy settlement is underway to reverse the devastating effects of uranium mine pollution on the Navajo Nation. Hundreds of abandoned mines are scattered across their territory in Arizona and New Mexico, and on Aug. 31 the Environmental Protection Agency issued a request for bids, offering $85 million to environmental assessment firms that can document the damage and determine where best to focus resources. “EPA’s contract is a vital step in the effort to clean up the legacy of uranium contamination in and around the Navajo Nation,” said Enrique Manzanilla, director of the EPA Superfund in the Pacific Southwest, in a press release.

September 19, 2016 – 81 FR 64209-64211 – NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION – Environmental Properties Management; Cimarron Facility; Decommissioning Plan – The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has received a license amendment application from Environmental Properties Management (EPM or the licensee) for the Cimarron Facility, located near Crescent, Oklahoma. The licensee is requesting an amendment to its Source and Byproduct Materials License SNM-928 to authorize decommissioning of the Cimarron Facility for unrestricted release.

September 19, 2016 – 81 FR 64212-64215 – NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION – Tennessee Valley Authority; Sequoyah Nuclear Plant, Units 1 and 2 – The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is issuing an exemption in response to a March 10, 2016, request, as supplemented by letter dated June 24, 2016, from the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA or the licensee). The exemption permits a one-time reallocation of surplus funds from the nuclear decommissioning trust funds (DTFs) for the Sequoyah Nuclear Plant (SQN), Units 1 and 2, to the DTFs for the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant (BFN), Units 1, 2, and 3, and the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant (WBN), Units 1 and 2.

September 19, 2016 – 81 FR 64207-64209 – NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION – Issuance of Updates to NUREG-1556 (Consolidated Guidance About Materials Licenses), Volumes 1 (Portable Gauges), 2 (Industrial Radiography), 3 (Sealed Sources and Devices), 4 (Fixed Gauges), 10 (Master Material Licenses), 15 (Changes of Control and Bankruptcy), and 19 (Reciprocity) – The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has issued Revision 2 to NUREG-1556, Volumes 1 and 3 and Revision 1 to NUREG-1556, Volumes 2, 4, 10, 15, and 19, revising licensing guidance for various materials licenses. These documents have been updated to include information on updated regulatory requirements, safety culture, security of radioactive materials, protection of sensitive information, and changes in regulatory policies and practices. The documents are intended for use by applicants, licensees, and the NRC staff.

September 19, 2016 – Washington Examiner – House panels investigate claims of Energy Dept. stifling science – A House committee this week will question if the Department of Energy fired a biologist for promoting her program to Congress against agency wishes. Two House Science, Space and Technology subcommittees will hold a hearing Wednesday titled “Examining Misconduct and Intimidation of Scientists by Senior Department of Energy Officials.” The hearing will examine claims that a scientist in the department was fired after briefing Congress about the Low Dose Radiation Research Program, which was being discussed as a part of House legislation. According to a February letter sent to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, a senior radiation biologist briefed the committee on the program in October 2014. Shortly thereafter, she was terminated. Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, wrote in the letter that he believed it was because of the briefing.

September 19, 2016 – The Hankyoreh – After Gyeongju earthquake, stress tests for nuclear power plants moved up one year – A recent earthquake in Gyeongju has prompted the South Korean government to move up planned stress tests for all nuclear power plants by one year and bolster their earthquake resistance. But no measures have yet been suggested for reducing or closing plants built in earthquake-vulnerable regions like Gyeongju. The decision by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy to further bolster the “extreme natural disaster countermeasures” pursed in the wake of the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant came at an earthquake follow-up measures review meeting presided over by the minister on Sept. 18 at the Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) southern Seoul headquarters in Seoul’s Yeouido neighborhood. As a first step, stress testing of nuclear power generation facilities is to be completed by late 2018. The project had an original completion date planned for late 2019, but was moved up one year in response to growing concerns about power plant safety. First introduced in the European Union after the Fukushima disaster, stress testing involves assessing the soundness of nuclear power plants against natural disasters and other outside influences.

September 19, 2016 – EDN Europe – Chip-scale atomic clocks extend temperature ranges – With full operating and storage temperature, these Microsemi devices are aimed at high-reliability applications in defence, underwater geophysical survey and scientific markets. The thermally improved Chip Scale Atomic Clock (CSAC) components offer the lowest power holdover atomic clock technology without compromising size, weight and power (SWaP) while operating at a wide temperature range. With an operating temperature range of -10 to 70C the components feature improved product design, process enhancements and robust product verification/validation. Their technology enables new applications and missions not possible in the past with traditional OCXO and Rubidium clocks, offering the lowest SWaP clock technology at 17 cm ³ in size, 35g weight and 120 mW power. Microsemi’s CSAC product offers ±5.0E-11 accuracy at shipment and a typical ≤ 9.0E-10/month ageing rate, which makes it suitable for many low power atomic clock holdover applications.

September 19, 2016 – Physicsworld.com – Flash Physics: TRIUMF licenses isotope-production technology, Marsquakes may help to sustain microbial life, PandaX-II spots no dark matter – A consortium of Canadian research institutes including the TRIUMF accelerator lab in Vancouver has granted ARTMS Products a licence to use its proprietary technology to produce the medical-isotope technetium-99m using medical cyclotrons. These cyclotrons can be found in many large hospitals and the move is part of a Canadian effort to produce the isotope without the need for a nuclear reactor. This is necessary because the NRU reactor at Chalk River, Ontario – which currently supplies all of the technetium-99m used in Canada and the US – will stop making technetium-99m at the end of October. ARTMS is based in Canada and run by Paul Schaffer, who also heads up the life-science research division at TRIUMF. The technique involves firing a proton beam at a special target and then rapidly extracting the short-lived technetium-99m.

September 19, 2016 – Mirror.co.uk – Radioactive water leaks from 45ft sinkhole – with enough liquid to fill 300 Olympic swimming pools – Radioactive water – enough to fill 300 Olympic swimming pools – is leaking from a 45ft sinkhole that has opened up in Florida. The hole, spanning 45 feet (13.7m) in diameter, opened at a Mosaic Co phosphate fertiliser facility leaking 215 million gallons of “slightly radioactive water,” a company spokesman said. Mosaic said the monitoring system at its New Wales facility at Mulberry, Florida, showed a decline in water levels on August 27 from the retention pond of a phosphogypsum stack, a hill of hazardous waste. Phosphogypsum is a radioactive byproduct resulting from the production of phosphate.

September 19, 2016 – Focus Taiwan News – Taiwan Photon Source opened – President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) attended the inauguration of Taiwan Photon Source (TPS) and its multidisciplinary experimental facilities at the National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center (NSRRC) in Hsinchu on Monday. While visiting the facility, which had been under construction for more than six years, Tsai expressed the hope of seeing more Taiwanese researchers conduct advanced research as did Nobel laureate Lee Yuan-tseh (李遠哲), who accompanied her at the ceremony.

September 19, 2016 – StreetInsider.com – ViewRay’s (VRAY) MRIdian Linac Receives CE Mark – ViewRay, Inc. (Nasdaq: VRAY) announced that the company has received CE Mark approval for its next generation linear accelerator-based MRI-guided radiation therapy system, the MRIdian Linac. The MRIdian Linac builds on the first generation MRIdian system, but replaces cobalt with linear accelerator technology. The MRIdian is the world’s first and only clinical MRI-guided radiation therapy system.

September 19, 2016 – CRIEnglish.com – China to build 60 nuclear power plants in upcoming 10 years – China plans to build more than 60 nuclear power plants over the next 10 years. The country’s three major nuclear companies—State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation (SNPTC), China National Nuclear Corporation, and China General Nuclear Power Corporation will each build at least two nuclear power plants annually. SNPTC vice president Zheng Guangming made the announcement at the World Nuclear Association Symposium in London. Among the 60 plants, Zheng said six to ten will use Chinese-developed CAP1400 technology.

September 19, 2016 – Creamer Media – DoE insists ‘compliant’ nuclear management system contract part of procurement preparations – South Africa’s Department of Energy (DoE) has listed the names of several expert advisers whose services it has used over the past five years in relation to the country’s controversial nuclear procurement programme. However, the value of the various contracts was not immediately provided. The list was released on Monday in response to media articles suggesting that individuals with strong ties to President Jacob Zuma were the beneficiaries of the first major nuclear-related contract awarded by the department. The Mail & Guardian reported that a company trading as Empire Technology was awarded a R171-million contract for the procurement of the nuclear build programme management system. It noted that the company’s sole director is Shantan Reddy, the son of a long-time Zuma associate Vivian Reddy.

September 19, 2016 – WMGT 41 – Shaky Nuclear Program Could Get U.S. Bomb-Grade Uranium – The Obama administration won praise for promising in 2012 to curtail the use of bomb-grade uranium in the production of medical diagnostic tools. But now the U.S. Energy Department is getting brickbats for proposing to send such materials to several European nations, including Belgium, where a shaky nuclear program has in recent years been plagued by sabotage, radicalization and terrorist surveillance. It’s not the first time that the administration has been accused of failing to fulfill one of its nuclear weapons-related commitments. In this case, in 2012, the United States, Belgium, France and the Netherlands declared at a summit meeting in South Korea that they would begin phasing out the use of highly-enriched uranium (HEU) for making medical isotopes, with the understanding that by a 2015 deadline, the material would be replaced with less concentrated uranium that could not be used by terrorists to construct a nuclear weapon.

September 19, 2016 – Bellona – “Academian Lomonosov”: Mooring trials now being conducted – Mooring trials have started for the world’s first floating nuclear power plant. The trials are planned to be finished by the 30th of October next year, after which the floating NPP will be undocked and ready for transport. Loading of nuclear fuel will commence in the first quarter of 2017, according to the news agency RIA Novosti. The prototype, “Academian Lomonosov”, will be sent to the harbor-city of Pevek from the Baltic shipyard in St. Petersburg. The route will take it from the Baltic Sea, along the Norwegian coast, through the Barents Sea and further along the Northeast Passage to the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. The floating NPP will secure the energy needs of the region, replacing the Bilibino NPP, which is projected to close in 2019.

September 19, 2016 – GovConWire – General Dynamics Electric Boat Lands $330M Nuclear Submarine Contract Option – General Dynamics‘ (NYSE: GD) Electric Boat subsidiary has secured a $329.6 million contract modification to perform design, planning yard, engineering and technical support work on active nuclear submarines for the U.S. Navy. The service branch obligated $284,038 from its fiscal 2016 “other” procurement funds at the time of award of the modification, the Defense Department said Friday. Seventy-three percent of the work will take place in Groton, Connecticut and the rest will occur at various locations in Washington, Virginia, Rhode Island, Georgia and Hawaii.

September 19, 2016 – BBC News – Radioactive material flown from Scotland to US – Radioactive material that was being kept at the Scottish nuclear power site Dounreay has been flown to the US. Saturday’s flight was the first movement of material held at the Caithness plant to the US since an announcement in February. David Cameron, who was prime minister at the time, said the UK and US governments had agreed to an exchange of nuclear materials. He said the UK would receive a type of uranium used to diagnose cancer. But Highlands and Islands SNP MSP Maree Todd has criticised the weekend’s flight and the level of secrecy surrounding the handling of nuclear material at Dounreay. She said there should not be a need for an exchange of nuclear material, and the UK should be able to purchase what it requires for medical diagnoses.

September 19, 2016 – Arka News Agency – Armenian nuclear power plant to be halted for planned repair – Armenia’s Nuclear Power Plant in Metsamor will be halted on September 20 midnight for the scheduled annual repair and refueling, a statement on the official website of the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources said. The ministry said the halt will be used also for the major repair of the operating unit ‘with the aim of extending its service life period.’ Due to this the halt period this year will be longer than usual, the ministry said adding that the facility will be reconnected to the power grid on November 20th. The ministry noted that the planned halt of the nuclear power plant will not affect the electricity tariffs in the country.

September 19, 2016 – East Anglian Daily Times – Lib Dems give thumbs down to new nuclear power station deal which could pave the way for Sizewell – Grassroots, who vote for party policy at their conference each year, agreed the deal to build Hinkley Point – which was given the green light by Theresa May last week – was poor value for money. This was despite a plea not to rule it out from the senior Liberal Democrat and former energy minister Ed Davey who negotiated the original deal. He told activists they should not be dismissing any sources of low-carbon energy, adding: “We should not be taking nuclear off the table because of the risks posed to our children and their children by climate change.”

September 19, 2016 – Charlotte Business Journal – As major power players queue up to extend nuclear plant licenses, Charlotte’s Duke Energy mulls the same – Dominion Resources’ Surry Nuclear Power Station or Exelon Corp.’s Peach Bottom Atomic Power Plant are poised to test the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s willingness to extend licensing for nuclear plants to 80 years. The reactors at both plants were built in the early 1970s. Their current licenses are set to expire in 2032 to 2034. Both companies have announced plans to ask the commission to extend license for 20 years beyond that.

September 19, 2016 – Daily Energy Insider – License termination plan and partial site release requested for La Crosse nuclear power plant – The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a request for comment on Wednesday in relation to the La Crosse Boiling Water Reactor nuclear power plant’s request for a partial site release and license termination plan. The license termination plan revealed current site radiological information, future plans for demolition and decommissioning tasks. It also included plans for final radiological surveys and data required to permit termination of the plant’s NRC license. The partial site release requested that “unrestricted use” designation be granted for all areas within the La Crosse site that have are not affected by nuclear reactor operations. If granted, the areas would be removed from the plant’s licensed area.

September 19, 2016 – UT Tennessee Today – UT Student Spent Summer Conducting Tests at Nuclear Sites in Pacific – Nashville native Adam Stratz got to experience what might be considered an ideal summer vacation just before the start of the fall semester, spending eighteen days in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean. But for Stratz, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Nuclear Engineering, his mission was anything but vacation. Stratz was the lone student taking part in the recent radiation survey of former United States atomic and thermonuclear test sites in the islands on a team led by Terry Hamilton, scientific director of the Marshall Islands Program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

September 19, 2016 – WTVC 9 – Delays expected for Watts Bar reactor replacement – The process of bringing TVA’s newest nuclear reactor to generate power has been dealt a setback. A transformer now has to be replaced in the switch yard at the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant after a fire two weeks ago. A TVA spokesperson says that transformer served the Unit 2 reactor, which has been undergoing testing to get it ready for full power operation. Since the fire, Unit 2 is not producing any power, and will not until the transformer is replaced.

September 19, 2016 – WPSD 6 – Paducah leaders urge DOE for 10-year cleanup contract – The gaseous diffusion plant in Paducah played an important role for more than 60 years from fighting the cold war to enriching uranium. Now, the focus is on cleaning up the site. There are more than 1,200 employees currently doing the decontamination and decommissioning. That number could increase for the next cleanup contract cycle, which our leaders hope to be for a longer term. But it’s also a wish for business owners who rely on the workforce to keep them open. Business has not always been as usual for Kenny Forthman. When word of plant layoffs reached his grocery store, he wasn’t sure what to expect.

September 19, 2016 – St. Louis Post-Dispatch – Korte Co. constructing support building at uranium processing facility – Korte Co. has begun construction of a $19.5 million design-build project at the Uranium Processing Facility planned at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn. The project includes the design and construction of a three-story Construction Support Building for the facility. The 64,000-square-foot building will include offices and meeting rooms as well as warehouse space. The building is expected to be completed next summer.

September 19, 2016 – Santa Fe New Mexican – New report details scope of LANL cleanup: 20 years, $4B – A new draft report detailing the federal government’s plans to clean up decades-old hazardous waste from nuclear weapons production during the World War II-era Manhattan Project and the Cold War says Los Alamos National Laboratory and neighboring areas won’t be free from the legacy waste for more than 20 years, and the project’s costs could reach nearly $4 billion.
The August report by the lab’s Environmental Management Office, released publicly this week, provides the clearest picture the public has seen of the scope of work left to rid the lab and surrounding canyons of radioactive waste and environmental contamination. It lists 955 sites that could contain contamination and says 5,000 cubic meters of legacy waste remain at the lab — half the total that workers began cleaning up 25 years ago.

September 19, 2016 – Pacific Coast Business Times – Mayors urge CPUC to deny PG&E proposal to close Diablo Canyon – A group of mayors from six San Luis Obispo County cities asked the California Public Utilities Commission to deny a proposal to close the Diablo Canyon Power Plant because the proposal does not fully outline steps to be taken to mitigate effects of the closure. In a request filed with the utilities commission on Sept. 15, mayors from San Luis Obispo, Pismo Beach, Paso Robles, Atascadero, Morro Bay and Arroyo Grande said Pacific Gas and Electric did not adequately outline the economic effects the plant’s closure will have on their communities in its proposal to close the plant. The request also asks for an independent third party to analyze the effects of the plant’s closure and for PG&E to disclose its long term plans for handling nuclear waste and spent fuel rods at the site.

September 15, 2016 – 81 FR 63503-63504 – NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION – In the Matter of Duke Energy Florida, Inc., and Seminole Electric Cooperative, Inc., Crystal River Unit 3 Nuclear Generating Plant – The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is issuing an order approving the direct transfer of the 1.6994 percent of Crystal River Unit 3 Nuclear Generating Plant (CR-3) currently owned by Seminole Electric Cooperative, Inc. (SEC), to Duke Energy Florida, Inc. (DEF). The NRC is also amending the facility-operating license for administrative purposes to reflect the license transfer of the 1.6994 percent ownership from SEC to DEF. The NRC confirmed that the transfer of the license is otherwise consistent with the applicable provisions of law, regulations, and orders issued by the Commission. The order approving the transfer of the 1.6994 percent of CR-3 currently owned by SEC, to DEF became effective on August 10, 2016.

September 15, 2016 – 81 FR 63500-63503 – NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION – James A. FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant; Consideration of Approval of Transfer of License and Conforming Amendment – The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) received and is considering approval of an application filed by Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc. (ENO), and Exelon Generation Company, LLC (Exelon) on August 18, 2016. The application seeks NRC approval of the direct transfer of DPR-59 and SFGL-12 for James A. FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant (FitzPatrick), from the current holder, ENO, to Exelon. The NRC is also considering amending the renewed facility operating license for administrative purposes to reflect the proposed transfer.

September 15, 2016 – Platts – Progress on waste issue key to support for nuclear: US senator – US Senator Dianne Feinstein of California said at an appropriations subcommittee hearing Wednesday that she cannot continue to support nuclear power if there is “no strategy for the long-term storage of the waste.” Feinstein, the senior Democrat on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, criticized the nuclear power industry in her opening statement on what she called its failure to speak with “one voice” on the need for interim storage of utility spent fuel. The country, she said, “should be working to establish interim [spent fuel] storage far away from reactors and population centers.” The hearing was scheduled to look at the future of nuclear power.

September 15, 2016 – Sputnik International – Seoul Finds No Traces of Radionuclides After Pyongyang’s Nuke Test – South Korea’s Nuclear Safety and Security Commission has not found radioactive contamination in environment following North Korea’s recent nuclear test, the commission said in a statement on Thursday.MOSCOW (Sputnik) — On September 9, Pyongyang confirmed that it had carried out a nuclear test at its northeastern nuclear test site. The nuclear experiment is believed to be the fifth and largest since North Korea started pursuing nuclear and ballistic missile programs, drawing condemnation from the international community. “The Nuclear Safety and Security Commission has not found any traces of radionuclides, such as xenon, in its tests of soil, water and air samples following North Korea’s fifth nuclear test,” the statement said, as quoted by the Yonhap news agency.

September 15, 2016 – Lab Manager – FSU Chemistry Professor Explores Outer Regions of Periodic Table – A little known—and difficult to obtain—element on the fringes of the periodic table is broadening our fundamental understanding of chemistry. In the latest edition of the journal Science, Florida State University Professor Thomas Albrecht-Schmitt captures the fundamental chemistry of the element berkelium, or Bk on the periodic table. “What this really gives us is an understanding of how chemistry is changing late in the table,” Albrecht-Schmitt said. “The purpose is to understand the underlying chemistry of the element. Even after having it for almost 70 years, many of the basic chemical properties are still unknown.” Berkelium, discovered in 1949, resides at the very end of the periodic table among a group of elements called the actinide series. These elements are some of the heaviest, yet least understood chemical elements on Earth.

September 15, 2016 – Med Device Online – FDA Approves Zeiss’ Less Invasive Laser System For Nearsightedness – The FDA has approved the VisuMax Femtosecond Laser for small incision lenticule extraction (SMILE) procedures, which are indicated for the correction of nearsightedness in patients age 22 and older. Carl Zeiss Meditec (Zeiss) developed the SMILE procedure as a less-invasive alternative to LASIK and PRK surgery. LASIK, one of the first laser eye corrections developed, uses one laser to create a flap in the cornea and a separate laser to reshape the cornea and correct vision. In comparison, the SMILE procedure, which is the third generation of laser eye surgery, uses an all-in-one laser system to cut a slim disc of tissue (lenticule) which is then removed through a tiny incision. The removal of tissue causes the shape of the cornea to permanently change, which corrects nearsightedness. Authors of a 2012 comparison study argued that the simpler, less invasive procedure could reduce risk of side effects and procedure costs.

September 15, 2016 – News Medical – The SkyScan 1276 High-Resolution, Fast In-Vivo Desktop Micro-CT from Bruker Biospin – The SkyScan 1276 is a high performance, stand-alone, fast, desk-top in vivo micro-CT with continuously variable magnification for scanning small laboratory animals (mice, rats, …) and biological samples. It has an unrivalled combination of high resolution, big image size, possibility for round and spiral (helical) scanning and reconstruction, and low dose imaging. The image field of view (up to 80 mm wide and more than 300 mm long) allows full body mouse and rat scanning. The variable magnification allows scanning bone and tissue samples with high spatial resolution down to 2.8 µm pixel size. Variable X-Ray energy combined with a range of filters ensures optimal image quality for diverse research applications from lung tissue to bone with metal implants. Further, the SkyScan 1276 in vivo micro-CT administers low radiation dose to the animals allowing multiple scans in longitudinal preclinical studies without the risk of unwanted radiation – induced side effects. The system can perform scanning with continuous gantry rotation and in step-and-shoot mode with fastest scanning cycle 3.9 sec.

September 15, 2016 – Japan News – Even if Monju axed, N-fuel cycle plan to stay – The government has begun making final arrangements with a view to possibly decommissioning the Monju fast-breeder nuclear reactor, a move that would have massive ramifications given that the facility has been the pillar of a government policy to recycle nuclear fuel. The government intends to firmly maintain the fuel cycle, even if the curtain comes down on the Japan Atomic Energy Agency’s Monju reactor in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture. The fuel cycle is a system in which uranium and plutonium from spent nuclear fuel at nuclear power plants is reprocessed and extracted, and then processed into mixed oxide (MOX) fuel, which can be reused.

September 15, 2016 – Gainesville Sun – ‘These Shining Lives’ illuminates workers’ plights in the ’20s – There are few things more empowering than a group of women who are willing to fight the power. On Friday, the Acrosstown Repertory Theatre open its latest production, “These Shining Lives,” a play written by Melanie Marnich. “We have been rehearsing for about a month and a half with a cast of four women and two men,” said Laura Jackson, director of “These Shining Lives.” “There were quite a number of technical challenges with this play.” The play is based on the true story of four hard-working women who worked at the Radium Dial Company in Illinois, set in the 1920s. The job for these women is to paint the numbers on watch dials using a glow-in-the-dark radium-based paint.

September 15, 2016 – CCT News – Ted Talks: How Fear Of Nuclear Power Is Hurting The Environment – Michael Shellenberger began his speech by introducing to the audience that he comes from California, and at first, he believed that we are in a clean revolution – at least until they went and researched the statistics. Michael goes on to inform the audience that despite these enterprises and governments working on developing clean power; the numbers are showing that clean power is being used at a diminished rate despite the hopes of development. Michael further explains how one of the best and safest clean energy sources – Nuclear power has declined the most out of the various sources. Michael explains this is due to people’s unfound fear at the waste, the radiation and of course of the possibility of the development of weapons.

September 15, 2016 – Digital Journal – Virginia Residents Vehemently Oppose Elementary School Cell Tower 50′ from Playing Children – Parents and neighbors in the affluent Fairfax County, Virginia community are fighting to move the proposed cell tower away from their children at the local Crossfield Elementary School. Anticipating the revenue from the tower, instead of prudence and compassion for the children, School Board officials haven’t engaged to stop the tower approved by their Assistant Superintendent, Jeffrey Platenberg. Mr. Platenberg manages Fairfax County Public Schools facilities, buses and a growing profitable cell tower business on school property – over thirty towers and more planned. The proposed Crossfield tower is the second for an elementary school (50′ from the playground and less than 200′ from the building) and not placed in a stadium away from the school.

September 15, 2016 – Domain-B – Study reveals how ionising radiation damages DNA and causes cancer – For the first time, a team including University College London (UCL) researchers has identified in human cancers two characteristic patterns of DNA damage caused by ionising radiation. These fingerprint patterns may now enable doctors to identify which tumours have been caused by radiation, and investigate if they should be treated differently. Published in Nature Communications on Monday the results will also help to explain how radiation can cause cancer.

September 15, 2016 – Ship-Technology.com – Arktis Radiation Detectors to provide nuclear detection solution to Port of Antwerp – Switzerland-based Arktis Radiation Detectors, along with its distributor partner for the Benelux region Bavak Security Group, has been chosen to provide nuclear detection systems to the Belgian Government for use at the Port of Antwerp. As part of the deal, Arktis and Bavak will supply radiation detection equipment, which will be installed at the container terminal located at the Left Bank in the Port of Antwerp. The equipment includes Arktis’ Flash radiation portal monitors and two Modes_Snm mobile radiation detection systems. “We look forward to supplying our customer with systems that will play a key role helping to secure the port.” Bavak will integrate as well as provide technical support and maintenance during the contract.

September 15, 2016 – BDLive – Nuclear sector aims to boost reactor capacity – The world nuclear industry aims to build about 1,000 gigawatts of new nuclear reactor capacity by 2050, World Nuclear Association director-general Agneta Rising said on Thursday. Past installations have often been less than 5 GW a year, but in 2014 the industry built 5 GW, which doubled to 10 GW in 2015. One gigawatt is the equivalent of about a medium-size nuclear reactor. “We should be able to deliver 1,000 GW of new nuclear by 2050,” Rising said at the opening of the annual WNA conference in London.

September 15, 2016 – WGNS Radio – U.S. Senator Alexander of Tennessee Says Nuclear Power is Best – At the first of two planned oversight hearings on the future of nuclear power U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, (R-Tenn.), who leads the Senate appropriations subcommittee overseeing federal energy and water funding, said today that nuclear power is the “nation’s best source of low-cost, reliable, safe, and pollution-free electricity” and that Congress should take four specific steps to ensure its future development: replacing or safely extending the use of some current reactors, solving the nuclear waste stalemate, doubling funding for basic energy research, and ending wasteful subsidies for mature technologies. “The United States uses about 25 percent of all electricity in the world to power our industries, our computers, our homes and most everything else we depend upon. Our 100 nuclear reactors provide about 20 percent of that electricity – which doesn’t turn on or off when the wind blows or the sun shines and is available 90 percent of the time. It is cheap, reliable and safe. At a time when the science academies of 20 developed countries and many Americans say climate change is a threat – and that humans are a significant cause of that threat – nuclear power provides about 60 percent of our country’s carbon-free electricity. It is our nation’s best source of low-cost, reliable, safe and pollution-free electricity, and it must be part of our energy future.”

September 15, 2016 – All Africa – South Africa: Why Government’s Nuclear Deal Will Destroy SA – The nuclear build programme will end up costing the South African economy over R3trn in debt, according to civil society group Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa). The organisation released a video this week unpacking the economic impact of the deal. South Africa’s current debt level is at R1.89trn and a nuclear deal can escalate this to above R3trn. It is estimated South Africa will have to borrow R1.2trn for the deal. “R1trn will be enough to build 100 million RDP houses. Two houses for every man, woman and child in the country,” stated the organisation. The repayments on a R1.2trn loan come to R100bn a year. This will put a dent in government’s budget to supply basic needs such as education, healthcare, social welfare and public transport.

September 15, 2016 – Fiscal Times – Toshiba, Engie UK nuclear group says wants clarity on government special stake proposal – “NuGen will continue to work with the government to understand more about the proposal to ‘take a special share in all future nuclear new build projects’ and how this might affect NuGen’s Moorside project,” the company said in a statement. NuGen plans to build a 3.8 gigawatt nuclear power station in northwest England. The station is expected to start operating in around 2024.

September 15, 2016 – Environmental Leader – Nuclear Energy May Rise Again – A different kind of nuclear reactor may be in the offing now that Terrestrial Energy has cleared a hurdle to get financing. The US Department of Energy has just asked it to submit the second part of an application to get a loan guarantee. In 2014, the Energy Department said it could potentially make $12.5 billion available to build advanced reactors. As for Terrestrial, it is asking for as much as $1.2 billion to build a 195 megawatt molten salt reactors. They can burn “thorium” that may not only be safer but also create less radioactive waste than uranium.

September 15, 2016 – Isle of Man Today – Manx government reierates call for closure of Sellafield nuclear plant – The Manx government has restated its commitment to press for the complete closure of Sellafield. It follows further claims about the safety of the plant highlighted in a TV documentary last week.The BBC Panorama expose alleged ‘years of neglect’ had left parts of facility – which is just 34 miles from the Manx coast – ‘rundown and vulnerable’. There were not always enough workers to maintain safety levels, it claimed, and liquid containing plutonium and uranium is being stored in degrading plastic bottles. The claims have been dismissed by both the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and Sellafield Ltd who said in a joint statement: ‘Sellafield is safe, there is no question about that.’

September 15, 2016 – The Guardian – It’s absurd that Hinkley is going ahead while cheaper, cleaner options are blocked – It’s finally happened. After weeks of speculation, and despite a hastily called review by Theresa May, the government has given a green light to the most expensive white elephant of a project in British history. The nuclear power station proposed at Hinkley Point is no ordinary piece of infrastructure. Indeed, according to Greenpeace it will be the most costly object ever built on Earth. A large chunk of the funds for the construction will come from China as part of a deal that will see it lead on the development of another reactor in Bradwell, Essex. EDF, an energy company owned by the French state, will stump up the rest of the construction costs. Just months after people in this country voted to “take back control”, ministers want to place a big chunk of our energy system in the hands of foreign governments.

September 15, 2016 – World Nuclear News – Report warns of medical isotopes shortage in USA – The current supply of molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) and technetium-99m (Tc-99m) is sufficient to meet domestic and global demand, but changes to the supply chain before year-end could lead to severe shortages and impact the delivery of medical care, according to a new report by the USA’s National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The Washington DC-based Academies, which are private, non-profit institutions, said the “congressionally mandated” report examines the production and use of Mo-99, Tc-99m, and associated medical isotopes iodine-131 and xenon-133, and also assesses the progress made in eliminating highly enriched uranium (HEU) from Mo-99 production. Canada’s National Research Universal reactor, built at Chalk River in 1957, produces 40% of the world’s supply of Mo-99.

September 15, 2016 – Utility Dive – Nevada energy company submits $38M bid for TVA’s unfinished Bellefonte nuke – Phoenix Energy of Nevada (PENV) has submitted a $38 million bid for the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) partially-constructed Bellefonte nuclear plant near Hollywood, Alabama. The price is just under the $36.4 million minimum bid, and far below the $5 billion that TVA spent over the past 40 years – construction on the site was halted in 1988 – at what was supposed to be a 1,200-MW nuclear plant. PENV hopes to use the 1,600 acre site and retrofit it with its magnetic induction generation technology that the company claims has zero emissions and can cost as little as $0.03/kWh.

September 15, 2016 – Sandusky Register – Davis-Besse shut down – The Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station shut down Saturday after its turbine generator was forced offline. The plant was still offline Tuesday afternoon, spokeswoman Jennifer Young said. The station will likely remain out of service for several days. “Operators identified water from heavy rains moving through the area had entered the turbine building through a roof vent that wasn’t fully closed,” Young said. “Some of the water ran to an expansion joint on the turbine deck floor.” The water leaked into an electrical box for the turbine controls. The incident shut down the turbine at about 3:45 a.m. Saturday.

September 15, 2016 – Pueblo Chieftain – Cotter Corp. to pay EPA nearly $1 million for oversight costs – Cotter Corp. has agreed to pay the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency nearly $1 million to cover past costs the government agency incurred while working at the Superfund site during a two-year period. The Cotter Corp. oversees a now-defunct uranium mill just south of Canon City which has been on the EPA’s Superfund cleanup list since 1984. Officials are in the process of decommissioning the mill. The agreement requires Cotter to pay EPA $957,604 for past oversight costs, incurred between 2012 and 2014. Funds are required to be paid to the EPA by Sept. 23 and will be placed in a special account and used to pay for any future costs at the site, according to Richard Mylott, EPA spokesman.

September 15, 2016 – Navaho-Hopi Observer – EPA announces plans to begin next phase of Navajo uranium cleanup – Federal officials took the first step Sept. 2 toward a planned $1 billion cleanup of abandoned uranium mines in and around the Navajo Nation, seeking bids to assess the problem and begin planning the project. The Environmental Protection Agency expects to use about $85 million for the planning, part of a nearly $1 billion settlement with Kerr-McGee Corp., later Tronox Inc., which operated mines in Arizona and New Mexico. “This is only one element of a much larger project since 2008,” said Clancy Tenley, the EPA official who is directing the cleanup program in the Navajo Nation. “EPA and five other agencies have invested more than $100 million in cleaning up and assessing abandoned mines on the Navajo Nation.”

September 15, 2016 – NRDC.org – Important Deadline for California Nuclear Plant Retirement – There is an important state regulatory deadline this week for the historic and widely supported Joint Proposal to retire and replace California’s last remaining nuclear plant, Diablo Canyon, with lower-cost zero-carbon resources within nine years. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) will accept comments through tomorrow (Sept. 15) on the plan to replace the two reactors at the Pacific Gas & Electric facility 250 miles south of San Francisco in August 2025 upon expiration of its U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission licenses. The Joint Proposal –which was negotiated by PG&E, the plant’s principal union, NRDC, and Friends of the Earth, among others –would replace Diablo Canyon’s electricity with energy efficiency, renewable resources like wind and solar, demand response (compensating customers for altering their energy use at specific times) and using energy storage. PG&E, one of the nation’s largest combination natural gas and electric utilities, serves 16 million people in northern and central California.

September 14, 2016 – No relevant citations.

September 14, 2016 – Nature – Modernize radiation measurements to save lives – There are two types of nation: those that use the metric system and those that have put a man on the Moon. The reliance of the United States on feet and pounds, along with its refusal to embrace metres and kilograms, baffles outsiders as much as it warms the hearts of some American patriots. But it is time for the country to give up on the curie, the roentgen, the rad and the rem. Instead, US regulators and scientists should adopt the appropriate SI units for the measurement of radioactivity. They should do so not only for the sake of international harmony, but also to protect the health and safety of US citizens. After years of wrangling, on 29 September the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will hold a workshop to discuss whether the United States should adopt the international system of units for radiological measurements. The negotiations will affect every­one from NASA astronauts and air crews to emergency responders.

September 14, 2016 – Atlas Obscura – Watch Five Alarmingly Calm Men Stand Under an Exploding Atomic Bomb – In 1945, the first atomic bomb was set off during the Trinity Test in the New Mexican desert. This marked the birth of the Atomic Age, a period of nuclear experimentation that would alter the world on a sociocultural level, not to mention an elemental one. Today we know the danger of exposure to atomic bombs. First there is the initial fiery explosion, caused by the splitting of an atom. However, the arguably more dangerous effect of the atom bomb is its radiation, both from the original blast and the residual radioactivity left in its wake. This can spread over a miles-long diameter, but is most concentrated at ground zero, the point directly underneath the detonation. Hence why this video of five men standing directly beneath an atomic bomb test is a bit disturbing.

September 14, 2016 – Science World Report – The Effects of Ionizing Radiation on the Human DNA: can it Cause Cancer? – Even today cancer is the most dreaded disease that is affecting thousands of lives all over the world. Recently a team of researchers at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute have identified that a significant amount of DNA damage can be caused by an ionizing radiation and lead to cancer. Ncbi.nlm.nih.gov reported that the effects of radiation found in this research can bring a huge change in the way certain types of cancer are treated by the specialists. It will help the doctors to treat the tumors that have been caused due to radiation differently. The results of this cancer research will not only make the treatments much more effective but will also help the oncologists to understand how radiation affect the cells and causes cancer. The findings of the research suggest that any kind of ionizing radiation like X-rays, gamma rays as well as radioactive particles are capable of damaging the human DNA. But the process of damage and the number of tumors that can be caused due to radiation and ionization still unknown to the world.

September 14, 2016 – Japan Times – Court recognizes two A-bomb survivors as hibakusha, rejects claims of two others – The Nagoya District Court on Wednesday recognized two men who were exposed to the August 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima as hibakusha, overturning the government’s rejection of their certification bid despite standards eased in recent years. The court, however, dismissed similar claims made by two women in the same case who were present during the nuclear attack on Nagasaki three days later, while acknowledging a causal relationship between the diseases suffered by all four plaintiffs and their exposure to radiation. Presiding Judge Yoshitaka Ichihara said in the ruling that while the men needed surgery or repeated hospital visits for medical treatment when they applied for certification, the women faced a lower probability of needing such help as their conditions had not deteriorated in the extended time since last undergoing surgical procedures.

September 14, 2016 – Healio – Brentuximab vedotin with chemotherapy, radiation effective for unfavorable risk Hodgkin lymphoma – Chemotherapy plus radiation therapy is the standard of care for patients with early-stage, unfavorable risk classical Hodgkin lymphoma. Although studies have shown that a chemotherapy-alone approach can improve outcomes in some patients, many of these studies excluded patients with bulky disease. Due to a concern for toxicity from radiation when used in a combined-modality approach, many patients now receive reduced doses with involved-nodal radiation. Brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris, Seattle Genetics) appears highly active in the treatment of patients with relapsed and refractory Hodgkin lymphoma. However, limited data exist on the agent’s safety and efficacy when used with combined-modality treatment for front-line therapy.

September 14, 2016 – The Royal Gazette – Radiation facility gets $500,000 donation – Bermuda Cancer and Health Centre will benefit from a half-a-million-dollar donation from two local companies as it prepares for the installation of new radiation therapy equipment. BF&M Limited and the Argus Group are each giving $250,000 to support the new BCHC building, which will house Bermuda’s first radiation facility. Patients who require radiation can presently only get the treatment overseas. John Wight, president and CEO of BF&M Limited, said: “As leading healthcare providers on the island, we have a responsibility to make a difference in the quality of treatment offered locally to our community.

September 14, 2016 – Burlington Hawk Eye – Former IAAAP nuclear workers learn about medical screening, compensation program – Former nuclear weapons workers and their families were given the opportunity to learn about free health screenings and potential compensation opportunities during a town hall meeting Tuesday in Burlington. Hosted by the U.S. Department of Labor, representatives from labor department, the Department of Energy, the Office of the Ombudsman and University of Iowa College of Public Health were on hand to discuss the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program and answer questions from the audience. In the morning session, about 100 people gathered to learn about the program and share their experiences. About 20 people were present at the Comfort Suites for the evening session. “Congress recognized that there were individuals who worked as contractors and sub-contractors for the Department of Energy in the production of nuclear weapons that were put in harms-way without their knowledge, often times,” said Rachel Leiton, director of compensation at the Department of Labor.

September 14, 2016 – Sputnik International – Multipurpose Fifth-Gen Nuclear Submarine Design to Be Developed by 2020 – The development of multipurpose fifth-generation multi-purpose nuclear-powered submarine design will continue until 2020, according to alakhit’s General Director Vladimir Dorofeev.ST. PETERSBURG (Sputnik) – Russia’s Malakhit design bureau plans to develop a multipurpose fifth-generation multi-purpose nuclear-powered submarine design by 2020, its director said Wednesday. © Photo: Ministry of defence of the Russian FederationRussian Missile System, Submarine Engage Simulated Targets at Kavkaz-2016 DrillsMalakhit’s General Director Vladimir Dorofeev said early last month the bureau had signed a contract with the Russian Defense Ministry to design the advanced nuclear submarine with construction to start sometime after 2020.

September 14, 2016 – World Nuclear News – UK civil nuclear job count rises by 2000 – More high quality, high skilled jobs are being created by the UK’s civil nuclear industry, new statistics from the Nuclear Industry Association (NIA) show. Some 65,791 people are now working in the sector, an increase of more than 2000 on last year. The NIA’s Civil Nuclear Jobs Map also highlights the number of women, apprentices and graduates employed in the industry. More than one-fifth of all employees are female, almost 2000 are on an apprenticeship program and over 1000 are part of a graduate scheme.

September 14, 2016 – Evening Standard – Theresa May set to allow Chinese-backed nuclear plant at Hinkley Point – Theresa May is poised to give the go-ahead to the controversial Hinkley Point nuclear power plant within days, sources indicated today. Downing Street insisted no decision has been reached but sources in Whitehall told the Standard the “mood” at No 10 is for a swift approval. Mrs May is said to have planned to make the announcement last Monday and lined up a telephone call to French President François Hollande – only for it to be cancelled at the 11th hour when fresh questions were raised. The £18 billion reactor in Somerset, to be built by French company EDF with Chinese investment, is planned to power 5.8 million homes when it comes on stream from 2025, easing the UK’s looming energy crisis.

September 14, 2016 – Pirate FM – Plymouth Tests Response To Nuclear Reactor Emergencies – How would Plymouth cope with a nuclear reactor emergency? A siren will sound across the city on Wednesday as part of a test. Devonport dockyard and the MoD are among those running operation Short Sermon. Personnel will have to take shelter or evacuate but locals will not be affected. A Royal Navy spokesperson said: “As a routine part of the Ministry of Defence, Babcock and Plymouth City Council’s contingency planning, a one-day nuclear emergency response exercise will take place on Wednesday 14th September. “Code-named Exercise Short Sermon 16, the day is designed to test the procedures in place for dealing with a nuclear reactor emergency involving a nuclear-powered submarine at Devonport. During the day personnel from approximately 27 agencies will be responding at the tactical, operational and strategic levels in Plymouth, Exeter, and Truro.

September 14, 2016 – Forbes – Terrestrial Energy’s Advanced Nuclear Technology – The IMSR – Takes Several Steps Forward – Terrestrial Energy USA recently announced that it had achieved a significant progress step in its push to move from a reactor design to a completed and operating reactor. The US Department of Energy was sufficiently satisfied with the information the company provided in Part 1 of its application for a loan guarantee under Title XVII of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, as amended, that it issued an invitation to the company to submit Part II. Terrestrial Energy is asking the US government to provide a co-signature for a loan of between $800 million and $1.2 billion. The money will finance a project to license, construct and commission its first 195 MWe IMSRTM. Though the company is evaluating several potential locations, it is currently in discussions with the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) to create a site somewhere on the nearly 900 square mile federally owned facility.

September 14, 2016 – New York Times – ‘Command and Control’ Warns of Decline of Nation’s Nuclear Complex – An understated warning comes toward the end of a new documentary on a Titan 2 missile accident that shook the small town of Damascus, Ark., in mid-September 1980. The missile exploded in its underground silo, throwing aloft a thermonuclear warhead with a destructive potential greater than all the bombs dropped in World War II. Its detonation would have leveled much of Arkansas and sent clouds of deadly radioactivity raining down on the East Coast. Harold Brown was the defense secretary who breathed a sigh of relief once miliary officials had managed to locate the missing warhead and render it safe. As a young physicist, he had designed nuclear arms and risen to serve as Secretary of the Air Force and director of Defense Research and Engineering in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. For President Carter, he ran the American military. Dr. Brown gives his take on the modern implications of the Titan 2 accident as part of the new documentary, “Command and Control,” released this month. He casts it as a cautionary tale, warning that the nation’s atomic complex has fallen into decline.

September 14, 2016 – Pricenomics – The Towns That Say “Yes in my Backyard!” to Nuclear Waste⁠⁠⁠ – On November 10, 2011, a hundred or so residents of Andrews, Texas, gathered at a large hole in the ground to celebrate the grand opening of America’s newest nuclear waste dump. Assembled amongst the locals were political and business luminaries from Dallas, Austin, and Washington D.C.. For the ribbon cutting, hedge trimmer-sized scissors were passed out to the various men in suits responsible for making Andrews County a repository for the nation’s radioactive trash. Among them were the senior managers of Waste Control Specialists (WCS), the company that owns the site, Harold Simmons, the conservative Dallas billionaire who owned that company; and Bob Zap, the mayor of Andrews at the time. The inauguration of the low-level radioactive waste facility, Texas’ first, ended with a barbecue. Most communities would not find the prospect of housing nuclear refuse cause for celebration. And yet, two years earlier, the town had narrowly voted to fund the construction of the disposal site with a $75-million bond.

September 14, 2016 – Albany Times Union – State wants radiation detectors in landfills – The sites hardly glow in the dark, but all of the state’s active landfills would have to be equipped with radiation detectors according to new regulations proposed by the state Department of Environmental Conservation. It’s an idea that environmentalists support but that counties oppose as an unneeded cost. The proposed requirement is part of a vast overhaul of landfill regulations, which haven’t been updated in about a decade.

September 14, 2016 – Global Research – Fukushima Backlash Hits Japan Prime Minister. Fukushima is NOT under Control – Nuclear power may never recover its cachet as a clean energy source, irrespective of safety concerns, because of the ongoing saga of meltdown 3/11/11 at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Over time, the story only grows more horrific, painful, deceitful. It’s a story that will continue for generations to come. Here’s why it holds pertinence: As a result of total 100% meltdown, TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) cannot locate or remove the radioactive molten core or corium from the reactors. Nobody knows where it is. It is missing. If it is missing from within the reactor structures, has it burrowed into the ground? There are no ready answers. And, the destroyed nuclear plants are way too radioactive for humans to get close enough for inspection. And, robotic cameras get zapped! Corium is highly radioactive material, begging the question: If it has burrowed thru the containment vessel, does it spread underground, contaminating farmland and water resources and if so, how far away? Nobody knows?

September 13, 2016 – 81 FR 62935-62937 – NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION – Service Level I, II, III, and In-Scope License Renewal Protective Coatings Applied to Nuclear Power Plants – The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is issuing for public comment draft regulatory guide (DG)-1331, “Service Level I, II, III, and In-Scope License Renewal Protective Coatings Applied to Nuclear Power Plants.” This DG is proposed Revision 3 of Regulatory Guide (RG) 1.54, “Service Level I, II, and III Protective Coatings Applied to Nuclear Power Plants.” The NRC proposes to revise the guide to update the latest American Society for Standards and Testing (ASTM) International standards approved for use in the prior revision of this guide. In addition, the NRC proposes to expand the scope of the regulatory guide to address aging management of internal coatings and linings on components within the scope of the NRC’s license renewal regulations.

September 13, 2016 – 81 FR 62972-62973 – DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION – Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration – Hazardous Materials: International Regulations for the Safe Transport of Radioactive Material (SSR-6); Draft Revision Available for Comment – PHMSA seeks public comment on a draft revision of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) “Regulations for the Safe Transport of Radioactive Material” (SSR-6), which is scheduled for publication in 2018. PHMSA and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) will submit comments jointly to the IAEA regarding the draft document. PHMSA thereby requests public input to assist in U.S. comment development.

September 13, 2016 – Boston Globe – It’s too risky to wait for Pilgrim plant’s shutdown – The Pilgrim nuclear power plant in Plymouth isn’t aging gracefully, and that’s reason to worry. Twice in less than three weeks the reactor had to be shut down as a safety precaution. Last Tuesday, operators pulled the switch after detecting an unexpected fluctuation in water levels. The prior stoppage, which lasted four days, was prompted by a malfunctioning valve that’s supposed to keep radioactive steam from leaking. While the Nuclear Regulatory Commission says neither incident put employees or the public in danger, they lend more credence to critics’ calls for an expedited decommissioning of the 44-year-old plant, which is now scheduled to go offline in the spring of 2019. In announcing the impending closure last October, the plant’s owner, Louisiana-based Entergy Corp., said cheap natural gas and the many millions of dollars needed for safety upgrades made it too expensive to keep generating electricity from the shore of Cape Cod Bay. The decision was made public shortly after regulators classified Pilgrim as one of the three worst-run nuclear stations in the country.

September 13, 2016 – Register-Herald – Deputies investigating theft of gauge containing radioactive materials – Police are working to recover a piece of construction equipment that contains a small, sealed amount of radioactive material. A press release issued by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Monday said that a portable moisture-density gauge was stolen Sept. 10 from a Thrasher Engineering truck parked in Beaver. Raleigh County Sheriff Steve Tanner said police believe the incident is a simple burglary and the public is not at risk. “We expect this was stolen to be sold as a unit — that the point of the theft was to sell it as a piece of equipment — not for the nuclear material to be removed,” he said.

September 13, 2016 – Trend News Agency – S.Korea says Armenia poses nuke threat to entire region – The Armenian Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) poses a nuclear threat and the international community must assess that fact, Choe Chong-dae, president of Dae-kwang International Co., said in an article in The Korea Times. Choe Chong-dae, who is also director of the Korean-Swedish Association, said that Hrant Bagratyan, former prime minister of Armenia, stressed that Armenia has created nuclear weaponry. The author said that Bagratyan’s comments raise profound concern. “Armenian former prime minister’s comments should not be taken lightly, the author said. “Armenian citizens have played an instrumental role in smuggling nuclear and radioactive nuclear waste materials, as reflected in media reports exposing them.”

September 13, 2016 – Expatica – More cases of leukaemia around Mol-Dessel nuclear site – Children living within a 15 kilometre radius of the Mol-Dessel nuclear facility have between twice and three times more chance of contracting leukaemia than children living in other parts of the country. The figures come from study and appear in an article published in Monday’s edition of the daily ‘De Morgen’. However, despite the study showing that children in the area are statistically more likely to contract leukaemia, in absolute figures still only “a handful of children are affected”. The Mol-Dessel facility has produced, processed and stored nuclear material for many years. After a German study revealed that children living in the vicinity of nuclear facilities run a greater risk of cancer, it was decided to carry out a study in the area around Mol-Dessel. Moreover, the study, the results of which are published in the European Journal of Cancer Prevention says that a correlation has been found between the instances of leukaemia and distance from the site and the wind direction “into which radioactive gas would be emitted”.

September 13, 2016 – Wall Street Journal – EPA Proposes New Water Rules for Nuclear Emergencies – In the wake of a nuclear emergency, the Environmental Protection Agency thinks it would be acceptable for the public to temporarily drink water containing radioactive contamination at up to thousands of times normal federal safety limits. The agency is proposing this in new drinking-water guidelines for use in the weeks or months after a radiological event, such as a nuclear-power-plant accident or terrorist “dirty” bomb. The EPA has been looking for years at issuing drinking-water guidelines as part of a broader set of recommendations about what to do if radioactive material is released into the environment. Agency officials have said the 2011 accident at the Fukushima nuclear complex in Japan, where radiation was released, influenced their thinking on the matter.

September 13, 2016 – GovConWire – VPI Wins $165M Contract to Develop Radiological Detection Tech for Army – The U.S. Army has awarded VPI Technology Group a potential $165.2 million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to help the military branch develop a radiological detection system. Nine bids were submitted to the Army Contracting Command for the contract through an online solicitation, the Defense Department said Monday. VPI will perform work through March 11, 2027 and the service branch will determine work locations and funds upon issuance of each order. Draper, Utah-based VPI designs, engineers and manufactures hardware and software platforms as well as offers professional services to support customers throughout the product life cycle.

September 13, 2016 – OpenPR – Non Destructive Testing Market to Cross US$ 22.0 Billion by 2022 – The Global Non Destructive testing market is projected to reach USD 22.20 Billion by 2022, at a CAGR of 7.80% from 2015 to 2022. Non Destructive Testing (NDT) is viewed as an essential need in commercial ventures, for example, in aviation industry, oil and gas industry, petroleum industry, and in construction sector. Developments in the NDT equipment market have expanded economically after the presentation of cutting edge X-ray equipment, for example, micro focus X-ray apparatuses, integrated X-ray tubes, glass X-ray tubes with window, radiation protected X-ray tools, etc. Over the past few years, demand for Non Destructive Testing (NDT) services has expanded rapidly.

September 13, 2016 – (e) Science News – New laser provides ultra-precise tool for scientists probing the secrets of the universe – Researchers have developed a new laser that makes it possible to measure electron transition energies in small atoms and molecules with unprecedented precision. The instrument will help scientists test one of the bedrock theories of modern physics to new limits, and may help resolve an unexplained discrepancy in measurements of the size of the proton. The team will present their work during the Frontiers in Optics (FiO) / Laser Science (LS) conference in Rochester, New York, USA on 17-21 October 2016. “Our target is the best tested theory there is: quantum electrodynamics,” said Kjeld Eikema, a physicist at Vrije University, The Netherlands, who led the team that built the laser. Quantum electrodynamics, or QED, was developed in the 1940s to make sense of small unexplained deviations in the measured structure of atomic hydrogen. The theory describes how light and matter interact, including the effect of ghostly ‘virtual particles.’ Its predictions have been rigorously tested and are remarkably accurate, but like extremely dedicated quality control officers, physicists keep ordering new tests, hoping to find new insights lurking in the experimentally hard-to-reach regions where the theory may yet break down.

September 13, 2016 – NBC Montana – Developers plan subdivision near Bozeman’s old landfill – The north side of Bozeman is a less developed area with more open fields and unpaved roads. It’s also where the old Bozeman landfill used to be and where one developer hopes to build more than a dozen homes. Residents like David Cook appreciate areas like Bozeman’s north side. He walks his dog at the East Gallatin Recreation Area and doesn’t like the idea of seeing construction there. “It is nice, quiet and peaceful. A lot of people are out here walking their dogs and enjoying the day. All that would change. Then you would have traffic, commotion, and people will be unhappy,” he said. A new subdivision with up to 20 lots is in the works. It would sit next to the East Gallatin Recreation Area. The park was site of the city’s landfill in the 1960s. Some studies show it’s emitting small amounts of radon, a naturally occurring contaminant. The city spent millions in a settlement earlier this year after residents near the Story Mill Landfill filed a lawsuit. Commissioners want to avoid that in the future and expressed concern at their Monday night meeting.

September 13, 2016 – News-Medical – Adolescent females have low rates of pregnancy screening prior to cancer treatment – A new study indicates that adolescent females with acute leukemia have low rates of pregnancy screening prior to receiving chemotherapy that can cause birth defects. The findings are published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. Although many chemotherapy drugs can cause birth defects, there are no standardized guidelines for pregnancy screening in adolescent female cancer patients and little is known about how often they are screened prior to treatment. To investigate, a team of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine and The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia examined pregnancy screening patterns among adolescents with acute leukemia compared with adolescents with an emergency room (ER) visit who received computed tomography scans of the abdomen or pelvis. (In emergency medicine, pregnancy screening protocols exist for adolescents prior to receiving radiation due to known teratogenic risks of radiation.)

September 13, 2016 – American Free Press – Fukushima: The Nightmare Continues – Some global problems fade from our consciousness all too early. One example is the continuing environmental disaster resulting from the 2011 meltdown of nuclear power reactors in Fukushima, Japan. While some clean-up progress has been made, the overall status of one of the world’s most horrific atomic disasters continues to deteriorate, with no solution in sight. We are speaking here of radioactive poisoning of unimaginable proportions, and not just in Japan, as the Pacific Ocean continues to carry significant radiation levels wherever its currents reach. On land and sea, God’s creatures continue to show high exposure levels and ensuing harm. Yet Pacific Ocean fish is still sold in America and elsewhere without a warning label. Moreover, the Japanese tourism industry is pushing the “safety” of the surrounding, still highly radioactive region, and Fukushima itself is so “hot” that robots sent into the plant fail almost immediately. The Japanese government promotes the lie, too, as it wants to stop paying relocation monies to displaced citizens.

September 13, 2016 – The Guardian – Nigeria: How Ionising Radiation Damages Genetic Material, Causes Cancer – For the first time, researchers from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and their collaborators have been able to identify in human cancers two characteristic patterns of Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA)/genetic material damage caused by ionizing radiation. These fingerprint patterns may now enable doctors to identify, which tumors have been caused by radiation, and investigate if they should be treated differently. The results will also help to explain how radiation can cause cancer. Published in Nature Communications Monday, the results will also help to explain how radiation can cause cancer. Ionising radiation, such as gamma rays, X-rays and radioactive particles can cause cancer by damaging DNA. However, how this happens, or how many tumours are caused by radiation damage has not been known.

September 13, 2016 – The Republic – Radiation Detection, Monitoring and Safety Equipment Market Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Analysis To 2022 – Research Corridor has published a new research study titled “Radiation Detection, Monitoring and Safety Equipment Market – Growth, Share, Opportunities, Competitive Analysis and Forecast, 2015 – 2022”. The Radiation Detection, Monitoring and Safety Equipment market report studies current as well as future aspects of the Radiation Detection, Monitoring and Safety Equipment Market based upon factors such as market dynamics, key ongoing trends and segmentation analysis. Apart from the above elements, the Radiation Detection, Monitoring and Safety Equipment Market research report provides a 360-degree view of the Radiation Detection, Monitoring and Safety Equipment industry with geographic segmentation, statistical forecast and the competitive landscape. Browse the complete report at http://www.researchcorridor.com/radiation-detection-monitoring-safety-equipment-market/

September 13, 2016 – Birmingham Business Journal – Phoenix Energy submits $38M bid for Bellefonte Nuclear Plant – The Nevada-based Phoenix Energy submitted a $38 million bid for the Bellefonte Nuclear Plant near Hollywood – a fraction of the facility’s $5 billion overall investment. The company originally offered to buy the plant outright for the same amount as its bid for the site, but the Tennessee Valley Authority, which manages the facility, insisted the plant sell at auction instead. The company intends to use the facility for a new type of magnetic inductive power generation known as induction energy fuel conversion after investing a few hundred million dollars.

September 13, 2016 – CTV News – Amherstburg looks to update nuclear protocols – The Town of Amherstburg is looking to update its nuclear protocols in order to better align with industry standards. Officials say there are some gaps in the official emergency management program, one of which is the size of the primary zone. The current zone is 23 kilometres from Fermi, but stateside where the reactor is located, the zone is 16 kilometres. Amherstburg is looking for clarification on the standard. The Town is also looking to get more financial compensation from Detroit Edison, the owners of Fermi. It currently collects $25,000 each year to pay for training, staff, and facilities.

September 13, 2016 – BDlive – Nuclear industry welcomes request for proposals – THE Nuclear Industry Association of SA (Niasa) has welcomed the request for proposals for the nuclear procurement programme. In a statement issued on Friday, the nuclear trade association said it supported the calls for transparency in the nuclear programme but wanted local content and the development of skills to be considered as founding principles when venders were selected. “The nuclear project will not only support industry and create much-needed employment, it will also create a platform upon which our economy can grow and develop,” said Niasa director Knox Msebenzi.

September 13, 2016 – Gulf News – South Korea earthquake triggers nuclear safety concerns – Two earthquakes that jolted South Korea on Monday night, including the largest ever recorded in the country, prompted concerns about the safety of nuclear plants clustered in the quake-prone southeast. Korea’s Meteorological Agency said the two earthquakes, of magnitude of 5.1 and 5.8, occurred near the city of Gyeongju. They could be felt in the capital Seoul, over 300km to the northwest. Fourteen people were injured but there were no reports of serious damage, a Ministry of Public Safety and Security official said. Nonetheless, Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co shut down four nuclear reactors at the Wolsong complex in Gyeongju as a precaution.

September 13, 2016 – NRDC.org – Expansion of the National Source Tracking System – In the wake of September 11th attacks, lawmakers and nuclear policy experts raised concerns over the possibility of terrorists using radioactive materials to construct radioactive dispersal devices – to try to harm people, damage cities and cause chaos and panic by blowing up stolen radioactive materials. These concerns strengthened the need for secure management and tracking of sealed radioactive sources which are abundantly used in various industries. A sealed radioactive source is radioactive material that is used as an ionizing radiation source (a radiation source with enough energy to overcome the binding energy of electrons in atoms or molecules) for a specific product or device – and that source is permanently sealed in a capsule or bonded in a solid form. The capsule of a sealed radioactive source is designed to prevent the radioactive material from escaping or being released from encapsulation under normal usage and probable accident conditions. In most cases, a sealed radioactive source is installed in a device that is designed either to allow the source to move safely out of the shielded device to where the radiation beam is used and to be returned to the shielded device after the operation is complete, or to allow a beam of radiation to be released from the device while maintaining shielding around the source.

September 13, 2016 – Katrina Pitas on the NNSA, producing Mo-99 and the future of SHINE Medical Technologies – SHINE Medical Technologies, a Monona, Wisconsin-based medical isotope manufacturer founded in 2010, announced back in October 2015 that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) had recommended approval of its construction permit for a new production facility in Janesville, Wisconsin. The facility is being built for the production of molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) without highly enriched uranium. Katrina Pitas, vice president of business development for SHINE, is in St. Louis this week to speak at the 2016 Mo-99 Topical Meeting. While preparing for her presentation, Pitas took time to speak with Health Imaging about what SHINE has been up to this year and what she will be discussing at the meeting.

September 13, 2016 – Cleveland.com – Davis-Besse reactor shut itself down over the weekend, no injuries or radioactivity reported – Davis-Besse engineers and electricians are wrapping up repairs to the electrical controls of the nuclear power plant’s generator today following an automatic shutdown over the weekend. In a routine filing with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, FirstEnergy reported that the reactor automatically and instantly shut itself down early Saturday morning after the plant’s main generator shut itself off.

September 13, 2016 – UKProgressive.co.uk – Fukushima Backlash Hits PM Abe – Nuclear power may never recover its cachet as a clean energy source, irrespective of safety concerns, because of the ongoing saga of the meltdown in March 2011 at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Over time, the story only grows more horrific, painful, deceitful. It’s a story that will continue for generations to come. Here’s why it holds pertinence: As a result of total 100% meltdown, TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) cannot locate or remove the radioactive molten core or corium from the reactors. Nobody knows where it is. It is missing. If it is missing from within the reactor structures, has it burrowed into the ground? There are no ready answers.

September 13, 2016 – Scoop – Will Christie Whitman Apologise for Her Nuke Shill Game? – Soon after the 9/11 terror attacks 15 years ago today, then-US EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman assured New Yorkers the air was safe to breathe. Today she has issued a “heartfelt” apology, admitting that her misleading advice caused people to die. But will she also apologize for pushing lethal atomic reactor technologies that could kill far more people than 9/11?

September 13, 2016 – Aiken Standard – Elite professionals handle nuclear cleanup – The men and women working to clean up the inactive PuFF facility are an elite team of experienced professionals. Called “the Dream Team” by facility management, the crew was handpicked to take on one of the site’s riskier environmental management cleanup activities. As the field activities associated with the cleanup of the inactive Plutonium Fuel Form (PuFF) facility in Building 235-F enters its second year, the risk reduction approach is paying off. To reduce the risk of a facility fire, the team has been able to safely and efficiently remove and control fixed combustibles, upgrade the fire detection system, and de-energize unneeded electrical circuits. To aid removal of materials from the cells and support material characterization, the team is draining and cleaning shield cell windows after their partial disassembly, installing lighting and mechanically isolating the cells. The 18-member crew was chosen primarily for their experience in handling radioactive materials, which – for most of the crew – came during the SRS transuranic waste, or TRU, campaign. TRU wastes typically consist of protective clothing, tools, rags, equipment and miscellaneous items contaminated with small amounts of plutonium.

September 13, 2016 – New York Ties – Unfinished Nuclear Plant, 4 Decades and $5 Billion Later, Will Be Sold – After spending more than 40 years and $5 billion on an unfinished nuclear power plant in northeastern Alabama, the nation’s largest federal utility is preparing to sell the property at a fraction of its cost. The utility, the Tennessee Valley Authority, has set a minimum bid of $36.4 million for its Bellefonte Nuclear Plant and 1,600 surrounding acres of waterfront property on the Tennessee River. The deal includes two unfinished nuclear reactors, transmission lines, office and warehouse buildings, eight miles of roads and a 1,000-space parking lot. Initial bids are due Monday, and at least one company has expressed interest in the site, with plans to use it for alternative energy production. But the utility is not particular about what the buyer does — using the site for power production, industrial manufacturing, recreation or even residences would all be fine, said Scott Fiedler, an agency spokesman.

September 7, 2016 – 81 FR 61721 – NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION – Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Meeting of the ACRS Subcommittee on Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactors (ESBWR); Notice of Meeting – The ACRS Subcommittee on ESBWR will hold a meeting on September 22, 2016, Room T-2B1, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland. The meeting will be open to public attendance.

September 7, 2016 – 81 FR 61719 – NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION – Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Meeting of the ACRS Subcommittee on APR 1400; Notice of Meeting – The ACRS Subcommittee on APR 1400 will hold a meeting on September 21-22, 2016, Room T-2B1, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland. The meeting will be open to public attendance with the exception of portions that may be closed to protect information that is proprietary pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 552b(c)(4).

September 7, 2016 – 81 FR 61719-61721 – NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION – Southern Nuclear Operating Company, Inc., Vogtle Electric Generating Plant, Units 3 and 4; Diverse Actuation System Cabinet Changes – The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is granting an exemption to allow a departure from the certification information of Tier 1 of the generic design control document (DCD) and is issuing License Amendment No. 50 to Combined Licenses (COLs), NPF-91 and NPF-92. The COLs were issued to Southern Nuclear Operating Company, Inc., and Georgia Power Company, Oglethorpe Power Corporation, MEAG Power SPVM, LLC, MEAG Power SPVJ, LLC, MEAG Power SPVP, LLC, Authority of Georgia, and the City of Dalton, Georgia (the licensee); for construction and operation of the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant (VEGP) Units 3 and 4, located in Burke County, Georgia. The granting of the exemption allows the changes to Tier 1 information asked for in the amendment. Because the acceptability of the exemption was determined in part by the acceptability of the amendment, the exemption and amendment are being issued concurrently.

September 7, 2016 – E&E Publishing – ‘Dead Plant Society’ lobby group booms as reactors close – When utility executives gathered over dinner in 2001 to commiserate about looming reactor closures and start lobbying Congress for help, their first order of business was picking a name for their advocacy group. “The Dead Plant Society,” lobbyist Tim Smith offered. His tongue-in-cheek reference to “Dead Poets Society,” a 1980s movie about a secret group of poetry lovers at an all-boys prep school, landed with a thud. “Nobody,” Smith recalled recently, “wanted to write a check to a group called the Dead Plant Society.” But 15 years later, the name lives — and is more fitting than ever. Reactors are closing as nuclear utilities struggle to compete with cheap natural gas, low demand for power and no national energy policy. And when the behemoth nuclear plants close, the Dead Plant Society grows.

September 7, 2016 – The Spectrum – Downwinders documentary screens during DOCUTAH – DOCUTAH began in earnest with a full roster of films Tuesday, including “Radioactive Veteran,” which focuses on the above-ground nuclear testing in Nevada during the Cold War. It was the first time a full audience had seen the 24-minute documentary, which was screened in the Eccles Main Stage Theater at Dixie State University — host of the annual documentary film festival in St. George. “Radioactive Veteran” is one of 69 films in this year’s festival. Most Southern Utahns are probably familiar with our own “Downwinders,” those who lived through the nuclear testing and were later diagnosed with certain types of cancer attributed to the testing. However, “Radioactive Veteran” tells the story of the late Donald Guy, a North Carolina resident, and his widow Mary. Guy was stationed at the test site while serving in the U.S. Marine Corps.

September 7, 2016 – BBC News – Radioactive liquid waste at Dounreay ‘made safe’ – Radioactive liquid waste at the Dounreay nuclear power site has been made safe, according to a team working on decommissioning the plant. The liquid called raffinate was drained from the Dounreay Fast Reactor (DFR) at the complex in Caithness. It was immobilised by mixing it with cement powder inside 875 500-litre drums, which will be stored on-site. The team has now begun preparations to deal with raffinate in Dounreay’s Prototype Fast Reactor. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has described the completion of the DFR work as “a milestone” in the wider project to decommission the power plant near Thurso. The drums of cemented waste will be stored at Dounreay until a decision is made in the future on how it should be disposed of.

September 7, 2016 – EOS – Melting Ice Could Reveal Toxic Cold War Era Waste in Greenland – In 1959, during the height of the Cold War, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built Camp Century, a military base in northwestern Greenland encased completely within the Greenland Ice Sheet. The camp’s official purpose was to test construction techniques in the Arctic and conduct scientific research, but it doubled as a top secret site for testing the feasibility of deploying nuclear missiles that could reach the Soviet Union in case of nuclear war. Greenland is a Danish territory, and although the United States had Denmark’s approval to build Camp Century, the missile launch program, known as Project Iceworm, was kept secret from the Danish government. Several years after the camp became operational, however, Project Iceworm was rejected by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the camp was decommissioned in 1967. The Army Corps of Engineers removed the nuclear reactor that powered the camp but left the camp’s infrastructure and waste behind, under the assumption they would be frozen and buried forever by perpetual snowfall.

September 7, 2016 – Prostate Cancer News – Metastatic Prostate Cancer Patients in UK Can Now Have Routine Radium-223 Therapy – The U.K.’s National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) has approved radium-223 to treat prostate cancer that has spread to the bones for routine National Health Service (NHS) use. The approval comes in the wake of new information about how the effectiveness of radium-223 internal radiation therapy compares with treatments currently available for this type of prostate cancer, according to a news release.

September 7, 2016 – Utah Public Radio – Citing Spills, The Nuclear Regulatory Commission Halts Uranium Waste Shipments to SE Utah – Twice a year, the Cameco uranium mine in central Wyoming sends a truckload of a mining byproduct known in the trade as “barium sludge” to the White Mesa uranium mill south of Blanding. The last two truckloads have resulted in highway spills. The most recent was on March 29th. Ken Vaughn is a Cameco spokesman for the Smith Ranch uranium mine, which is near Casper, Wyoming. “We’re at work to make sure we address all the issues directed by the NRC. We’re not aware of any impacts to environment or public health. I think we need to let the process work through and then we’ll know what actions to take that both we and the NRC are comfortable with and feel appropriate. It’s more important to us that we get it right than we worry about how long it’s going to take.”

September 7, 2016 – Telecompaper – Nkom finds 4G technology has not led to more radiation – Norwegian telecoms regulator Nkom and national radiation protection agency Statens stralevern have presented a report on their long-term test at the Nkom Frequency Forum. The report concludes that when it comes to outdoor radiation, levels are consistently below three permille of permitted levels. They said the introduction of new systems, such as 4G technology, does not necessarily lead to an overall rise in radiation. Measurements were taken from June 2013 until June 2015 in Kristiansand, which was chosen as it was considered to be a typical, largeish Norwegian town with plenty of activity. Measurements were taken every three months in the same spot and the same way. The project will continue for several more years.

September 7, 2016 – Digital Journal – US Nuclear Corp. UCLE Makes Third Acquisition as Part of Aggressive Growth-Through-Acquisition Strategy – US Nuclear Corp. (OTCBB: UCLE) announces the acquisition of Electronic Control Concepts. ECC makes test equipment; kVp, mAs and exposure time meters so x-ray techs can fine tune the performance of the world’s many x-ray machines. This is US Nuclear’s third acquisition which is part of their growth-through-acquisition. Overhoff Technology and Optron Scientific are the previous two. ECC complements Overhoff and Optron since ECC products go to the same markets, same specialties, and same customer base

September 7, 2016 – YLE.fi – STUK still waiting on documents from Russian-owned nuclear plant – Finland’s nuclear regulators are still waiting for documents from the Russian nuclear firm Rosatom that should have arrived at least six months ago. The papers relate to a plant Rosatom is slated to build for the Finnish company Fennovoima in Pyhäjoki, north Ostrobothnia. Key documents relating to Fennovoima’s planned nuclear reactor at Pyhäjoki are more than six months late in arriving at Finland’s nuclear regulator, STUK. The supplier of the reactor, the Russian state-owned firm Rosatom, has not provided the papers required according to a timetable proposed by Fennovoima in 2015. The plan had suggested that the documents would arrive in tranches, deliveries starting at the start of this year and continuing until 2017. Construction would–according to this timetable–begin in 2018.

September 7, 2016 – Reuters – Norway’s fund barred from investing in U.S. firm Duke Energy – Norway’s $900-billion wealth fund can no longer invest in Duke Energy, the biggest U.S. power firm by generation capacity, due to alleged breaches of environmental law at its coal-fired plants, Norway’s central bank said on Wednesday.
The fund, which owns 1.3 percent of the world’s listed company equity with stakes in some 9,050 firms, is barred from investing in companies that make nuclear weapons, anti-personnel landmines or tobacco, among other ethical criteria. Duke Energy and its subsidiaries Duke Energy Carolinas, Duke Energy Progress and Energy Progress Inc were excluded “based on an assessment of the risk of severe environmental damage”, the central bank’s board said in a statement.

September 7, 2016 – Inside Cybersecurity – Nuclear regulators model cyber reg guidance after NIST framework, manufacturing ‘profile’ – New Nuclear Regulatory Commission draft guidance cites the federal framework of cybersecurity standards and a related, industry-specific manufacturing “profile” as a model for a nuclear fuel-cycle facility cybersecurity programs that will be required under a forthcoming regulation. “The [regulatory guide] offers a licensee guidance on addressing the necessary cyber security controls for an existing or new digital asset,” the document states.

September 7, 2016 – Sputnik International – Russian Scientists Develop Nuclear-Powered Underwater Drone Carrier – Russian scientists have unveiled the latest concept in UAV warfare: a nuclear-powered carrier platform which would serve as a ‘mothership’ for unmanned subs.Vladimir Dorofeyev, chief of Malakhit Design Bureau, has announced this new design at the Army-2016 international military forum that kicked off in Moscow on September 6. He explained that the new platform is expected to perform as both a carrier unit and a recharge station for underwater drones, according to RIA Novosti. “Students and young specialists at Malachite came up with this concept, the goal of which is to create a universal platform that could facilitate the use of unmanned underwater vehicles,” Dorofeev said.

September 7, 2016 – GCR – Russia offers to build Saudi Arabia’s $100bn nuclear industry – As the Syrian war grinds on Russia has stepped up diplomatic overtures to Saudi Arabia by offering to build all 16 reactors in the kingdom’s intended nuclear programme over the next 20 years. Yury Ushakov, an aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, made the offer last week (30 August) ahead of a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Arabia’s young, reformist second deputy prime minister, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman al Saud, on the sidelines of the G20 summit in China, Russian state news agency Sputnik reported. Rosatom, Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy company, was ready to help with the ambitious construction programme, which has been costed at $100bn, said Ushakov. “Our company, which has the most advanced technologies, is ready to join the project to construct 16 nuclear power reactors in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” he said.

September 7, 2016 – The Japan Times – Japan to start background checks of nuclear workers in anti-terrorism effort – The nation’s nuclear watchdog decided Wednesday to require background checks for workers at nuclear power plants and other facilities as part of its anti-terrorism measures. Following recommendations from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Nuclear Regulation Authority will introduce the measure in late September. Still, actual implementation is expected to begin next year or later due to necessary regulation changes needed in regards to handling nuclear materials. It is also unclear how the new measure will be effective in improving security as the operators will conduct the background checks based on information provided by the workers rather than in cooperation with police or other law enforcement authorities.

September 7, 2016 – The Japan Times – Despite dwindling momentum, Koizumi pursues anti-nuclear goals – While Japan’s once-charged anti-nuclear movement struggles to retain its momentum five years after the 2011 Fukushima catastrophe, former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi remains doggedly determined to attain his goal of ending the country’s reliance on atomic energy. On Wednesday, he renewed his pledge to help ill U.S. veterans whose conditions they claim are linked to the release of radioactive plumes from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. Koizumi, who is opposed to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s pro-nuclear stance, says Japan can be put on a sustainable path without atomic power.

September 7, 2016 – WIBW News – Source of Water Leak at Nuclear Plant Near Burlington Found – Staff members at the Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Corporation near Burlington have located the source of a minor water leak and are working to repair it. Communications director Jenny Hageman says Wolf Creek personnel identified a cracked weld as the source of the water leak in the reactor cooling system. Staff members are finalizing a repair plan. The Emporia Gazette reports that the plant was manually shut down Friday due to the leak. Hageman says officials had planned to shut down the nuclear plant on September 24 for a maintenance and refueling outage.

September 7, 2016 – Boston Globe – Pilgrim nuclear plant temporarily shut down over mechanical issue – The Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station was shut down Tuesday morning because of a mechanical issue, the second such incident in recent weeks, officials said. Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, wrote in an email that the Plymouth facility “experienced an unplanned shutdown” around 8:35 a.m. Sheehan said the reactor shut down “due to a high water level resulting from an oscillating (fluctuating) feedwater regulating valve.” Water is pumped into the reactor vessel so it can be boiled, converted to steam, and sent to the turbine to generate electricity, Sheehan said. Commission inspectors “will continue to keep a close eye on Entergy’s troubleshooting activities and any repair plans,” he said.

September 7, 2016 – Mid-Hudson News – Decision on Indian Point relicensing could take another year or more – The decision on whether to grant new operating licenses for the Indian Point nuclear power plants in Buchanan may be another year or more off. Proceedings are continuing by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission with the issues being examined, but the issue of broken or missing baffle bolts may push the process back further, said NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan. “They are seeing some progress on some of the other outstanding issues, but because of the baffle bolts issue and the expectation that there will be some contentions related to that, that is going to ensure that the proceeding is pushed at least into 2017 if not farther down the road,” Sheehan said.

September 7, 2016 – Toledo Blade – Fermi plant’s license topic of talks in D.C. – The future of DTE Energy’s Fermi 2 nuclear plant will be discussed in Washington on Thursday afternoon by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, an independent body of nuclear experts that is a key NRC advisory group. The ACRS has a lengthy talk about the plant’s application for a 20-year license extension on its agenda for that afternoon at the NRC’s national headquarters in Rockville, Md.

September 7, 2016 – Courthouse News Service – Ohio Sues to Contain High Levels of Radiation – The Ohio Department of Health says that a repeatedly vandalized Cleveland business must secure its radioactive material to prevent ground contamination. The department filed an injunctive action against Advanced Medical Systems Inc. and owner Seymour Stein on Aug. 30 in the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas. According to the lawsuit, AMS was licensed to manufacture Cobalt-60 medical radiation devices until its license was not renewed in 2001. After unsuccessfully appealing the decision, AMS was ordered to decontaminate its facility. However, the health department alleges that AMS has failed to comply with the order.

September 7, 2016 – Los Alamos Monitor – Creating the ‘Secret City’ app – When the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) team that developed the “Secret City” app heard I was stuck trying to get into 109 East Palace, they asked if they could meet with me to help me out. As Team Leader Travis Burkett and Lead Programmer Jeff Wauson coached me through the ins and outs of using the app, I learned how they went about developing this complex piece of programming. The two walked me through unlocking security clearances that let me access the Los Alamos town site, the tech area around Ashley Pond, V-Site and Gun Site and finally the Trinity Site itself. The tour is structured to give the user the experience of being a scientist recruited to the project.

September 7, 2016 – State Press Tempe – ASU researchers analyze emotional meltdowns at nuclear plants – Students done letting that Xbox Kinect in the far corner of their dorm rooms collect dust might just want to donate it to a new research project at the Del E. Webb School of Construction. The Kinect devices are being used in an unconventional way. Cheng Zhang, a graduate student in the school of engineering, is using the 3D imaging capabilities of the Kinect sensor to analyze the emotions of nuclear power plant employees during outages. “A refueling outage is a certain amount of time when we need to shut the power plant down and do the refueling, replacing the nuclear fuel for the power plant,” Zhang said. Outages are times when plant workers will conduct repairs on plant equipment, replace about a third of reactor fuel, and perform routine inspections. The period also requires employees to work on maintenance quickly and efficiently.

September 7, 2016 – Sublette Examiner – Lawmakers warm to nuke waste storage site – Wyoming lawmakers and regulatory officials said earlier this month that they’re ready to consider revising laws and possibly take part in a federal effort to build temporary and permanent storage for highly radioactive waste from nuclear power plants. The Legislature’s Joint Minerals, Business and Economic Development Committee kept alive the possibility of participating in what the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) says would be a voluntary and “consent-based” approach. The committee heard testimony and public comment on the topic in Casper, resurrecting a controversial idea for Wyoming.

September 7, 2016 – San Diego Free Press – Nuclear Shutdown News – US nuclear industry reaches a new low with resale of decrepit nuke plant already scheduled to permanently shut down next year. On July 12, Syracuse.com in upstate New York announced, “Entergy to sell FitzPatrick to Exelon in mid-August.” The FitzPatrick nuclear plant is located in Lake Ontario near the Canadian border. It started up in late 1974, not long after Richard Nixon’s reign over the White House permanently shut down. This means the nuke plant’s one reactor has been cranking away for almost 42 years, releasing radiation into the air and water in the Great Lakes region all the while. US nuclear reactors were designed to operate only 40 years.

September 6, 2016 – 81 FR 61100-61102 – NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION – Revision of Fee Schedules; Fee Recovery for Fiscal Year 2016; Correction – The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) published a final rule amending regulations that became effective August 23, 2016. The fiscal year (FY) 2016 final fee rule, published June 24, 2016, amended the licensing, inspection, special project, and annual fees charged to NRC applicants and licensees. This document corrects the annual fee for materials licensees in the category “Nuclear laundries” from the FY 2016 rate of $0 to the FY 2015 rate of $40,100. This correction allows Agreement States to continue to collect fees in this fee category.

September 6, 2016 – 81 FR 61257-61258 – NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION – Lost Creek In Situ Uranium Recovery Project; Underground Injection Control Class V Wells – The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is considering a license amendment request for Source Material License: SUA-1598, for the Lost Creek In Situ Uranium Recovery (ISR) Project located in Sweetwater County, Wyoming. The NRC staff is issuing an environmental assessment (EA) and finding of no significant impact (FONSI) associated with the proposed action.

September 6, 2016 – 81 FR 61215-61216 – DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY – Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board, Northern New Mexico – This notice announces a meeting of the Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board (EM SSAB), Northern New Mexico. The Federal Advisory Committee Act (Pub. L. 92-463, 86 Stat. 770) requires that public notice of this meeting be announced in the Federal Register. DATES: Wednesday, September 28, 2016, 1:00 p.m.-5:15 p.m. ADDRESSES: New Mexico Highlands University, Student Union Building, 800 National Avenue, Las Vegas, New Mexico 87701. fOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Menice Santistevan, Northern New Mexico Citizens’ Advisory Board (NNMCAB), 94 Cities of Gold Road, Santa Fe, NM 87506. Phone (505) 995-0393; Fax (505) 989-1752 or Email: Menice.Santistevan@em.doe.gov. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Purpose of the Board: The purpose of the Board is to make recommendations to DOE-EM and site management in the areas of environmental restoration, waste management, and related activities.

September 6, 2016 – OH&S – DARPA Hails Smartphone-Sized Radiation Detectors – DARPA recently announced that its SIGMA program has facilitated the development of a new tool to help in preventing “dirty bomb” attacks and other nuclear threats — a network of smartphone-sized mobile devices that can detect the tiniest trace of radioactive materials. Used along with with larger detectors, these new devices “promise significantly enhanced awareness of radiation sources and greater advance warning of possible threats,” according to DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). SIGMA began in 2014 with the goal of creating a cost-effective, continuous radiation-monitoring network that can cover a large city or region. And more than 100 of the networked devices have been successfully tested at one of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s major transportation hubs. Besides being up to 10 times faster in detecting gamma and neutron radiation, they are one-tenth the cost of conventional sensors. The program achieved its price goal of 10,000 pocket-sized detectors for $400 per unit, according to DARPA’s announcement.

September 6, 2016 – Bloomberg News – Tepco adviser says treated Fukushima water safe for release into Pacific – Treated water from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant is safe to be released under controlled circumstances into the Pacific Ocean, according to an independent Tepco adviser. “It is much better to do a controlled release in my view than to have an accidental release,” Dale Klein, a former chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said in an interview in Tokyo. “I get nervous about just storing all that water when you have about 1,000 tanks. You have all the piping, all the valves, everything that can break.”

September 6, 2016 – MetroNews.ca – Capitol Hill residents unhappy about proposed cell tower – Plans to build a cell tower in the city-owned Confederation Park Golf Course is meeting resistance from some people in the neighboring community of Capitol Hill. Vera Gartley received a pack of information in mail because she lives within 300 metres of where the proposed tower could be. She’s now hoping to rally others in her community to attend the community meeting on Sept. 15. Gartley said she already suffers from wi-fi sensitivity, and has read lots of information online about potential health hazards from cell towers. Information on the federal government’s website notes that it has created safety regulations with built-in margins to protect the public from any possible radiation hazards.

September 6, 2016 – Novus Light – Radiation Resistant Lens Enables Precision Radiotherapy – Resolve Optics reports that it has developed and is supplying a 24mm diameter fixed focus non-browning lens to a market leader in radiotherapy equipment. The radiotherapy equipment supplier sought a high resolution lens able to withstand, and precisely focus, the high levels of radiation produced by their synchrotron device onto tumours. As increasing numbers of people require radiotherapy as a key part of their cancer treatment, there is a need for treatment delivery systems that can deliver precise and accurate care quickly. Using cerium-doped glasses, Resolve Optics produced a compact f/2.8 lens able to withstand long-term exposure to radiation up to a dose of 100 million radians without discoloration. This new lens is enabling the customer to improve the precision radiotherapy treatment of tumours that its equipment provides.

September 6, 2016 – Science 2.0 – Whole Brain Radiotherapy Offers Little Benefit When Lung Cancer Has Spread To The Brain – People with the most common type of lung cancer whose disease has spread to the brain could be spared potentially harmful whole brain radiotherapy, according to new research published in The Lancet. The phase 3 randomized trial found that whole brain radiotherapy had no beneficial effect on length or quality of survival over treatment with steroids and other supportive care. Despite its widespread use, until now there has been no robust evidence to determine whether whole brain radiotherapy, which can have substantial side effects (eg, fatigue, nausea, neurotoxicity), is better than best supportive care alone in terms of prolonging life or improving quality of life. The authors say that while whole brain radiotherapy may be beneficial in patients who are younger than 60 years old, it should no longer be considered standard treatment for the majority of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) that has spread to the brain.

September 6, 2016 – Union of Concerned Scientists – Nuclear Reactors and Flood Protection – In August 2006, NRC inspectors identified a deficiency in a flood protection measure at the Oconee Nuclear Station in South Carolina. Specifically, the inspectors discovered that workers removed a 6-inch by 10-inch panel in the 5-foot tall flood wall around the Standby Shutdown Facility (SSF) to allow temporary cables to be used during a modification. When the work was completed and the cables removed, the panel was not re-installed. The SSF houses power supplies and emergency equipment that provide core cooling for all three Oconee reactors during certain accidents. The opening in the flood wall could have allowed water to enter the SSF and submerge the equipment, disabling it. The NRC’s preliminary determination was that the problem warranted a white finding. The owner contested the white finding in October 2006 on grounds that the lower end of the opening is 4.71 feet above the ground and no credible flood could cause water to rise high enough to flow through the opening to threaten the equipment inside the SSF. The NRC considered the argument, then decided against it and issued the white finding in November 2006.

September 6, 2016 – WhaTech – Research details developments in the nuclear medicine therapeutics market 2016 – Nuclear Medicine Therapeutics Market 2016 is a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the Nuclear Medicine Therapeutics worldwide. First of all, ” Global Nuclear Medicine Therapeutics Market 2016 ” report provides a basic overview of the Nuclear Medicine Therapeutics industry including definitions, classifications, applications and Nuclear Medicine Therapeutics industry chain structure. The analysis is provided for the Nuclear Medicine Therapeutics international market including development history, Nuclear Medicine Therapeutics industry competitive landscape analysis.

September 6, 2016 – E&T Magazine – Sellafield nuclear plant is understaffed and dangerous BBC alleges – Sellafield nuclear plant is being operated dangerously by its workers as the nuclear material is handled improperly, according to an upcoming BBC Panorama documentary. It is alleged that parts of the nuclear facility regularly have too few staff to operate safely and radioactive plutonium and uranium have been stored in plastic bottles. The BBC said the investigation was prompted by a former senior manager turned whistleblower who was worried about conditions at the site in Cumbria. The company that runs Sellafield has said the site is safe and has been improved with significant investment in recent years, the BBC reported. The whistleblower is reported to have told the programme that his biggest fear was a fire in one of the nuclear waste silos or in one of the processing plants.

September 6, 2016 – The Northlines – Pakistan selling nuclear materials to North Korea – America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has apprised India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) that Pakistan is supplying nuclear material to North Korea. According to reports, Pakistan has been sending nuclear materials to North Korea through sea route. Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) supplied Monel and Enconel (nuclear substances) to Pyongyang in clear violation of United Nations sanctions. Notably, Islamabad was supplied such materials by Chinese company named Beijing Suntech Technology Company Limited. The supplies of the Chinese company to Pakistan were being diverted to North Korea by the Pakistani authorities through cargo ship, it claimed.

September 6, 2016 – The Bahamas Weekly – IAEA holds workshop in Asia on using nuclear technique to fight disease-spreading mosquitos – The IAEA is holding a workshop in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, this week on the potential use of a nuclear technique to help suppress mosquitos spreading Zika and other viruses, such as dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever. Organised in partnership with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the week-long meeting brings together more than 50 scientists and public health experts from around 40 countries in Asia, Africa and the Americas to learn about the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) – an environmentally friendly birth control method for insect pests.

September 6, 2016 – ANTARA News – Nuclear experts from Indonesia, Australia, Japan meet in Bali – As many as 15 nuclear experts from Indonesia, Australia and Japan are holding a meeting in Bali to discuss new standards in measuring the effect of radiation from research, natural processes and human activities. The meeting, taking place in Sanur from September 5 to 9, 2016, is being organized by the National Nuclear Power Agency (Batan), in cooperation with the South Pacific Environmental Radioactivity Association (SPERA). The meeting is expected to recommend new standards in order to protect the public from radiation, Batan Chairman Djarot S. Wisnubroto said.

September 6, 2016 – AIJAC – Radioactive Terrorism – the next big threat? – Concerns about nonconventional terrorism at the Rio Summer Olympics, and reports that persons involved in the November 2015 Islamic State (IS) attack in Paris had conducted video surveillance of a scientist employed at the Belgian Nuclear Research Centre, have revived fears that terrorist groups may be interested in building a “dirty bomb” using radioactive materials – also referred to as a radiological weapon or an explosive radiological dispersal device (RDD). Explosive RDDs are the type of radiological weapon most frequently mentioned in the media. They rely on an explosive charge to disperse radioactive materials to contaminate personnel and facilities in the vicinity of the blast and downwind, to disrupt lives and livelihoods, and to instil fear. Conversely, non-explosive RDDs could involve the contamination of food, water or air with radioactive material (for instance, via a building’s ventilation system). This piece focuses on the threat posed by explosive RDDs.

September 6, 2016 – The Ecologist – Sellafield exposed: the nonsense of nuclear fuel reprocessing – Last night’s BBC Panorama programme did a good job at lifting the lid on Britain’s ongoing nuclear disaster that is Sellafield, writes David Lowry. But it failed to expose the full scandal of the UK’s ‘reprocessing’ of spent fuel into 50 tonnes of plutonium, enough to build 20,000 nuclear bombs – while leaving £100s of billions of maintenance and cleanup costs to future generations. Perhaps the most eye-watering revelations in the BBC programme were that, although reprocessing was going to cease, the waste containment functions of Sellafield would continue for another 110 years at an estimated cost of up to £162 billion. The BBC press release stated this was a “special investigation into the shocking state of Britain’s most hazardous nuclear plant” – and it certainly was.

September 6, 2016 – Newnan Times-Herald – What water bottles, Coke cans, and nuclear material have in common – We put newspapers, water bottles, aluminum cans and all sorts of plastics on the curb in front of our house each week because it extends the life of our landfills, saving us all money. It also is the right thing to do. But when it comes to the used nuclear fuel from our commercial reactors, our long-range plan is simply to bury it. That has been our policy for decades, but changing the policy may be something the next president can bring about. We have in this country more than 70,000 tons of used fuel stored at more than 75 sites in 33 states, and the 100 U.S. commercial reactors produce about 2,000 additional tons of used fuel each year. Because we don’t recycle this nuclear material, it would take nine Yucca Mountain repositories by the turn of the next century to house all of the used fuel being produced.

September 6, 2016 – Eugene Register Guard – Energy Department ending probe into Idaho radiation leak – The U.S. Department of Energy says it’s concerned about a radiation leak two years ago at an eastern Idaho nuclear facility that contaminated nine workers, but the agency says it will not begin a formal investigation. The federal agency’s Office of Enforcement in a letter told Battelle Energy Alliance, a research contractor, that it would continue to monitor the company’s efforts to improve nuclear safety at the Idaho National Laboratory but no additional requirements were being imposed. “The actual nuclear safety consequences of this event were low, but DOE views seriously any event in which workers receive unplanned radiological uptakes,” the letter states.

September 6, 2016 – Daily Evergreen – A radioactive attraction – Entering into the Dodgen Research Facility, all guests are required to clip on a dosimeter, a small device worn with the intent of measuring exposure to radiation. That’s because just up the stairs from the lobby, through a number of secured doors, at the bottom of a 25-foot-deep pool, and surrounded by 65,000 gallons of water, is WSU’s very own nuclear reactor. Despite wearing the sensitive dosimeters, guests should not expect to see the device read above 0.0 millirems, the measure of radiation’s effect on the human body, during their visit. Even operators at the Nuclear Radiation Center never receive more than a tenth of the legal limit, said Senior Reactor Operator Kaitlyn Restis. The reactor fuel at the bottom of the pool gives off an ominous dark-blue glow due to Cherenkov radiation, an interaction between electrons and the surrounding water.

September 1, 2016 – 81 FR 60393-60394 – NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION – Exelon Generation Company, LLC; LaSalle County Station, Units 1 and 2; License Renewal – The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is issuing a final plant-specific supplement, Supplement 57, to NUREG-1437, “Generic Environmental Impact Statement for License Renewal of Nuclear Plants” (GEIS), regarding the renewal of Exelon Generation Company, LLC, operating licenses NPF-11 and NPF-18 for an additional 20 years of operation for LaSalle County Station, Units 1 and 2 (LSCS).

September 1, 2016 – 81 FR 60351 – DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY – Notice of Public Meeting To Summarize Public Input Received on the Design of a Consent-Based Siting Process for Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste Storage and Disposal Facilities – The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is designing a consent-based process for siting facilities that will be a part of an integrated waste management system to transport, store, and dispose of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. As part of this process, the Department issued an Invitation for Public Comment in the Federal Register on December 23, 2015 and hosted eight public meetings across the United States in 2016 to get public input on the elements that should be considered in the development of a consent-based siting process. At the September 15, 2016 meeting, the Department will summarize the comments received and discuss next steps in designing a consent-based siting process. The entire meeting will be broadcast live via webstream at http://consentbasedsitingwebcast.azureWebsites.net.