July 27, 2016 – Bridgeport Daily Voice – Radioactive Device Recovered After It Was Stolen From Car In Bridgeport – A potentially dangerous radioactive device stolen from a Bridgeport car Monday night was recovered at a city pawn shop and a suspect was in custody Tuesday afternoon, police said. Bridgeport and state police were still on the scene of the unfolding story at 6 p.m., according to Av Harris, Bridgeport’s director of communications. Police released a surveillance video and asked for the public’s assistance in finding the man they believed stole the device from a car on Douglas Street Monday night or early Tuesday morning. It is unclear whether a tipster directed police to East Coast Pawn on Glenwood Avenue, where it was found.

July 27, 2016 – Information Nigeria – Nuclear Scientists Arrive Adamawa To Inspect Site Of Uranium Radiation – Nuclear-ScientistsScientists from the Nigeria Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NNRA) have arrived Adamawa State to inspect the site of uranium radiation that allegedly killed villagers in Michika Local Government Area. The Commissioner for Solid Minerals, Shanti Sanshi Victoria, yesterday said an expert team from the NNRA, Abuja, had arrived the state to inspect the site of possible radiation. The commissioner, who rejected assertions that radiation killed several people in five villages in Michika, stressed that the outcome of the scientific tests by the experts would provide a clue to the possible health problems in the area as there was still no proven scientific evidence upon which to draw conclusions.

July 27, 2016 – Twinfinite.net – Starbound: How to Get Fuel and Put It in Your Ship – Starbound is all about surviving as you travel across the galaxy, and to do that, you’re going to need plenty of fuel for your ship. Travelling within a star system is free, but travelling between these systems will cost fuel proportional to the distance traveled, with a 500 max cost. There are four sources of fuel within Starbound: Uranium, Solarium, Plutonium, and Liquid Echirus, which replaced Coal as a fuel source a while back. Each of these sources can be mined on planets and moons. Uranium is often on radioactive planets, Plutonium can be found deep beneath the surface of moons, and planets near a hot star are most likely to house Solarium. Liquid Echirus, meanwhile, can be bought at the outpose or found under the surface of a moon. To put fuel into your ship, stand behind the cockpit at the console, and hit E. This will bring up an interface, where you can place your fuel sources then click Fuel to convert them into usable, ship-moving energy.

July 27, 2016 – Dickinson Press – Judge says he won’t dismiss illegal radioactive waste meeting lawsuit – A district court judge said Monday he won’t dismiss a suit against the North Dakota Health Council for holding an illegal public meeting when it approved rules for a new radioactive waste disposal in North Dakota last year. Two environmental groups want the judge to enforce the state’s public meeting laws that were violated when the advisory council to the state Health Department approved the new waste rules last August. The North Dakota Energy Industry Waste Coalition and the Dakota Resource Council say the proper remedy is for the meeting to be held over with proper notice to the public. The Health Council asked the court to dismiss the suit, but South Central District Judge Thomas Schneider denied that motion after hearing arguments last week. Schneider said some facts need to be clarified, including whether anyone was harmed by not having notice and whether they could have made comments at the meeting.

July 27, 2016 – Boston Herald – Firm cited for missing radioactive tool – An engineering firm in Connecticut that admitted a radioactive construction gauge had been stolen from the trunk of a worker’s vehicle was cited by nuclear officials five months ago for violations relating to storage security, according to Nuclear Regulatory Commission documents. HAKS Material Testing Group, of Bridgeport, Conn., reported a portable moisture-density gauge missing yesterday after a technician’s truck was broken into and chains holding the tool’s carrying case were cut, NRC officials said. The device contains small amounts of cesium-137 and americium-241 — which were once used in home smoke detectors. NRC officials said when the device holds the 
radioactive materials in a shielded position it is no danger to the public, but if the device is tampered with, the radioactive materials could expose someone to harmful radiation.

July 27, 2016 – EngineerLive.com – Nuclear inspection benefits from new sensor lens – Resolve Optics Ltd reports on increasing demand from the nuclear industry for radiation hard lenses optimised to operate with the latest generation of colour sensors. Mark Pontin, Managing Director of Resolve Optics, commented: “Increasingly the nuclear energy industry has adopted colour CMOS sensors able to withstand the effects of radiation encountered in inspection of radioactive sites. Unfortunately most non-browning glasses traditionally used to produce radiation-hard sensor lenses are yellow tinted which gives colour images acquired by CMOS cameras an unhelpful yellow appearance”. He added “A recent project for a nuclear energy industry operator demonstrates the advances that Resolve Optics has achieved in order to mitigate this problem.” A major European organisation involved in the nuclear energy industry sought a lens for their CMOS sensor that could provide natural colour images while still retaining non-browning performance in environments subject to radiation.

July 27, 2016 – Water Online – Environmental Groups Sue Florida Power Plant For Contaminant Discharges – In a testy back-and-forth, environmental groups in Florida are squaring off with a local power plant for what they claim are violations of the Clean Water Act. The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) and the Tropical Audubon Society recently filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court of Southern Florida, accusing Florida Power and Light (FPL) of allowing a canal cooling system at Turkey Point Power Plant to pollute Biscayne Bay and the Biscayne Aquifer. According to rt.com, some environmental groups have also filed a lawsuit against FPL, saying that the company violated the Clean Water Act by discharging contaminants from the plant, impacting nearby drinking water.

July 27, 2016 – Bloomberg News – France’s Radioactive White Elephant – EDF’s board meets on Thursday to approve the construction of two nuclear reactors in the U.K., which will cost about 18 billion pounds ($23.6 billion). Cosma Panzacchi, a Bernstein analyst, expects EDF to green light the project. He’s probably right, though investors should pray otherwise. Under the terms of a deal struck in 2013, British electricity customers will fund large guaranteed payments to EDF for 35 years in return for the French utility shouldering much of the construction risk for Hinkley Point. Because of lower projections for future wholesale electricity prices these subsidies are estimated to have risen to a staggering 30 billion pounds.

July 27, 2016 – Army-Technology.com – Decision Sciences to supply contraband and threat detection system to US DoD CTTSO – Decision Sciences International has been contracted by the US Department of Defense (DoD) Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office (CTTSO) to supply and install an advanced contraband and threat detection system. Under the $5.26m contract, Decision Sciences will supply and install its multi-mode passive detection system generation 3 (MMPDS GEN3) to help CTTSO to combat terrorism. The contract is Decision Sciences’ third of its type with CTTSO.

July 27, 2016 – Europe & Middle East Outlook – Contamination Expo Series 2016 – The Contamination EXPO Series is a major new European event for professionals working in contamination. With 120 seminars, 200 suppliers, 80 masterclasses and exclusive panel discussions, this exhibition and conference will be the top networking event in the industry’s history, bringing together every party from across six sectors. Each co-located event is committed to providing the latest knowledge, products and innovations to manage all aspects of contamination. The event is free to attend and takes place on the 12-13 October at ExCeL London.

July 27, 2016 – Lexology – Wilson v. Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.: Supreme Court of Canada Confirms that Certain Non-Unionized Federal Employees are Entitled to Protection from Dismissal Without Cause – On July 14, 2016, the Supreme Court of Canada (the “Supreme Court”) affirmed that sections 240 to 246 of the Canada Labour Code, R.S.C., 1985, c. L-2 (the “Code”), referred to as the “Unjust Dismissal” provisions of the Code, protect certain non-unionized federally-regulated employees against termination of employment “without cause”. The Supreme Court confirmed that these protections were intended by Parliament to be similar to those enjoyed by the majority of unionized employees in Canada. In many, if not most, circumstances, it will no longer be considered sufficient for a federally-regulated employer to terminate a non-managerial employee’s employment without cause and simply provide that employee with statutory notice of employment termination (or pay in lieu thereof) and severance pay. Under the Unjust Dismissal provisions of the Code, an employee has the ability to challenge his or her termination and the employee, or an inspector investigating the employee’s complaint, has the right to request reasons for the dismissal.

July 27, 2016 – Labmate Online – Is Time Travel Impossible After All? – It’s the basis of countless Sci-Fi film plots, but will time travel ever be possible? We know that there’s no proof of its existence yet. If there were evidence of time travel, we would clearly know about it. Of course, the theory goes that if time travel will exist at any point in the future, we would already know about it, because somebody would travel back in time to tell us. But can we rule it out scientifically? Current theories suggest charge, parity and time are symmetrical. So parity is possible for all atoms, charge is reversible, and time can theoretically move in both directions. CP-symmetry is the product of Charge-symmetry and Parity-symmetry. According to this theory, the make-up of an atom should be unchanged in a mirror image. So a particle and its antiparticle should behave in the same way. However, research has found that some atoms (so far Radium-224 and Barium-144) have an asymmetrical distribution of particles. The protons and neutrons are skewed towards one end of the nucleus – they are pear-shaped. This violates CP-symmetry because there is an uneven mass, which would suggest that the time (T) symmetry may also be violated.

July 27, 2016 – WDAZ – Radon at dangerous levels in 40% of Minnesota homes – Radon is an odorless, colorless gas that comes from soil. It’s the leading cause of lung cancer for non-smokers. The health department says 52% of homes in Clay County have radon numbers higher than what the EPA says is safe. You can get a test kit at city and county health departments, hardware stores, or directly from radon testing labs.

July 27, 2016 – WYFF 4 – Greenville County School District adds system to regulate radon levels in one school – The Greenville County School District has added a ventilation system to monitor radon levels at Buena Vista Elementary School. Spokeswoman Beth Brotherton said the school district conducted a radon test in September 2015, which showed when the HVAC system was operating normally from Monday through Friday 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., it maintained radon levels well below EPA standards. She said the test showed that when the building was unoccupied for extended periods of time and the HVAC was off, radon levels increased slightly but not enough to require corrective action. According to Brotherton, a cost analysis showed that running the HVAC year-round in “occupied” mode was not a long-term, economical solution.

July 27, 2016 – MTV – A Radiation Therapist Has Impersonated Famous Instagram Pics For Charity, And Totally Nailed It – During ‘Dry July’, people usually avoid drinking alcohol for the month to raise money for charity. BUT a group of radiation therapists at Liverpool Hospital are doing something a little bit different. They’re doing a Dry July Shave Off by shaving their heads to raise money for Cancer sufferers. And these guys are raising money for it in the best way ever – by recreating some of the most recognizable celeb shoots and Instagram pics around. Take Mark Udovitch, for example. He’s raising money for the Liverpool Cancer Therapy Centre by impersonating both Kim AND Kendall Kardashian in his very own charity photoshoot. His gf apparently took the photos and was chief stylist and director… and she did a damn good job!

July 27, 2016 – WRVO – Nuclear Regulatory Commission: FitzPatrick had a safe year – The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) says the FitzPpatrick Nuclear Power Plant in Oswego County performed safely over the past year. NRC officials say that its staff devoted 4,790 hours reviewing the plant over the past year, but did not finding anything that caused the agency to increase oversight. “They met all of the requirements for our reactor oversight process inspection program for the year, kept them in their licensee response program, so routine inspections — no inspections that would be out of the ordinary,” said Eric Miller, the acting senior resident inspector at FitzPatrick. The positive review for FitzPatrick comes about a month after it had to shut off because a minor equipment failure caused a leak of non-radioactive oil into Lake Ontario.

July 27, 2016 – 3D Printing Industry – Russian nuclear agency builds industrial metal 3D printers! – Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy corporation, Rosatom, has committed to additive manufacturing and the first Russian-made, industrial 3D metal printer will go on sale in 2018. The agency has worked behind the scenes for more than two years and now and revealed the first Russian-made metal 3D printer at the Innoprom industrial trade fair earlier this month in Yekaterinburg. It has a 1000-watt laser, a three-axis scanning system and produces metals at a rate of 15-70cm3/hour. It can also produce parts from titanium, copper, aluminium or iron powders.

July 27, 2016 – Los Angeles Times – Citizen science takes on Japan’s nuclear establishment – As other Tokyo office workers poured into restaurants and bars at quitting time one recent evening, Kohei Matsushita went to the eighth floor of a high-rise for an unusual after-hours activity: learning how to assemble his own Geiger counter from a kit. Hunched over a circuit board, the 37-year-old practiced his soldering technique as Joe Moross, a former L.A. resident with a background in radiation detection, explained how to fit together about $500 worth of components – including a sensor, circuit board, digital display, GPS module, battery and case. “My family has a house near a nuclear power plant,” Matsushita said, explaining his motivation. “I want to take this there and collect data, and contribute to this pool of information.”

July 27, 2016 – Yuba-Net.com – Ultra-High Radiation Coming To Your Drinking Water; EPA Hiding True Impacts and Limiting Public Comment on Radioactive Water Plan – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is in the final stage of implementing a controversial plan to allow vastly greater radioactive contamination in drinking water than permitted by the Safe Drinking Water Act for long periods following release of nuclear materials, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and a coalition of public health and environmental organizations. Compounding concerns are the unusual tactics EPA used to mask the plan’s effects, block commenters from including their identities and hamstring the ability to put documents on the record. Public comments closed yesterday on EPA’s curiously named “Protective Action Guides” (or PAGs) that would dramatically increase allowable concentrations of radioactive material in public drinking water following a radioactive release. The PAGs have been expanded to cover not just large accidents but any release of radioactivity for which a protective action may be considered. They cover the “intermediate phase” after “releases have been brought under control” – an unspecified period that may last for years.

July 27, 2016 – Blue & Green Tomorrow – ‘Stop Hinkley’ Campaign writes to new Secretary of State – The Stop Hinkley Campaign has written to the new Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to ask him to stamp his own mark on energy policy by ditching proposals for a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point C. Stop Hinkley Spokesperson Allan Jeffery said: “Now even the financial press says Hinkley Point C has become a laughing stock. The cost keeps rising while the cost of renewables is falling rapidly, and the potential to make savings with energy efficiency is huge. We could replace Hinkley much more quickly and cheaply without the safety fears and without producing dangerous waste we don’t know what to do with”.

July 27, 2016 – World Nuclear News – Approval for Korean repository expansion – Plans to more than double the current capacity of South Korea’s low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste disposal facility at Gyeongju have been approved by the government. Construction of the second phase of the facility is expected to be completed in 2019. The Korea Radioactive Waste Agency (KORAD) announced today that the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy has approved the construction of the second phase of the Gyeongju facility in North Gyeongsang province. Preparatory groundwork for the expansion of the repository will begin soon, KORAD said. However, approval from the South Korean nuclear regulator – the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission (NSSC) – must be obtained before full-scale construction of the new facility can start.

July 27, 2016 – Belfast Telegraph – Electricity price at Welsh power station ‘should be below Hinkley Point deal’ – The Government should negotiate a price for electricity at a planned new nuclear power station in Wales below that agreed for the delayed site at Hinkley Point, according to a committee of MPs. Ministers have agreed a so-called strike price with EDF Energy of £92.50 per megawatt hour (Mwh), or £89.50 if the French giant develops another new reactor in Sizewell, Suffolk. Environment groups have criticised the figure, arguing that renewable energy could be produced much more cheaply. The Welsh Affairs Committee said there was great potential for developing nuclear power in north Wales, with a proposed new power station at Wylfa on Anglesey, as well as at Trawsfynydd. But the MPs said the Government still had more work to do to prove the financial viability of the proposed projects.

July 27, 2016 – Taipai Times – Campaigners call for nuclear plant’s budget to be axed – Campaigners against nuclear power yesterday called on the legislature to slash the maintenance budget for the sealed Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮) ahead of a special legislative session set to review the budgets of state-run businesses, as they said the budget cut was necessary to phase out nuclear power. A coalition of environmental groups yesterday gathered in front of the Legislative Yuan in Taipei and put up flyers that read: “Scrap the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant” and “Mothballing is unnecessary,” urging lawmakers to block a NT$1.35 billion (US$42.05 million) budget to maintain the unfinished nuclear plant, which was mothballed in July last year following protests.

July 27, 2016 – USNRC Press Release – Nuclear Gauge Reported Stolen in Connecticut; Recovery is Sought‌ – A Connecticut company has notified the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that a portable moisture-density gauge containing sealed sources of radioactive material has been stolen. HAKS Material Testing Group, of Bridgeport, Conn., reported that the device was stolen early on Tuesday, July 26, from a technician’s vehicle while it was parked in Bridgeport. The vehicle’s trunk was broken into, chains securing the gauge in place were cut and it was removed. The device contains small amounts of cesium-137 and americium-241. The gauge is used to make measurements by projecting the radiation from the two radioactive sources into the ground and then displaying the reflected radiation on a dial on its top.