October 11, 2016 – Courthouse News Service – US Owes Entergy $13M More for Breach on Fuel – A federal judge handed Entergy a 67 percent boost to its $20 million judgment against the Department of Energy for not accepting spent nuclear fuel from a Michigan plant. The department is supposed to remove nuclear waste for a fee and store it in Yucca Mountain, Nev., as part of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. Despite a 1998 contract to do so, however, the agency has not accepted any fuel waste from the Palisades nuclear power plant in Covert, Michigan. Entergy and Consumers Power Co., the company that sold Palisades to Entergy in 2007, meanwhile have the Department of Energy $279 million in fees over the life of the contract. The agency settled with Consumers after a federal judge found it liable for breach of contract, but Entergy filed its own suit to recover the costs it has spent related to the breach.

October 11, 2016 – The Nation – N-power plant was hit by cyber attack: IAEA chief – A nuclear power plant became the target of a disruptive cyber attack two to three years ago, and there is a serious threat of militant attacks on such plants, the head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog said on Monday. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director Yukiya Amano also cited a case in which an individual tried to smuggle a small amount of highly enriched uranium about four years ago that could have been used to build a so-called “dirty bomb”. “This is not an imaginary risk,” Amano told Reuters and a German newspaper during a visit to Germany that included a meeting with Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

October 11, 2016 – Santa Fe New Mexican – LANL makes progress on Area G cleanup, but doubts remain – For more than 70 years, Los Alamos National Laboratory dug thousands of deep and shallow graves across mesas and filled them with the radioactive waste, chemicals and solvents used to make nuclear weapons. Workers disposed of the waste in these unlined pits before the widespread contamination that would follow was fully understood or governed by environmental laws. Radioactive particles that live longer than some civilizations mixed freely with the red soil.

October 11, 2016 – CNBC – Could China build the world’s smallest nuclear power plant and send it to the South China Sea? – A top mainland research institute is developing the world’s smallest ­nuclear power plant, which could fit inside a shipping container and might be installed on an island in the disputed South China Sea within five years. Researchers are carrying out intensive work on the unit – dubbed the hedianbao, or “portable nuclear battery pack”. Although the small, lead-cooled reactor could be placed ­inside a shipping container ­measuring about 6.1 metres long and 2.6 metres high, it would be able to generate 10 megawatts of heat, which, if converted into ­electricity, would be enough to power some 50,000 households.

October 11, 2016 – PhysOrg – Highly sensitive X-ray scattering shows why an exotic material is sometimes a metal, sometimes an insulator – Some materials hold surprising – and possibly useful – properties: neodymium nickel oxide is either a metal or an insulator, depending on its temperature. This characteristic makes the material a potential candidate for transistors in modern electronic devices. To understand how neodymium nickel oxide makes the transition from metal to insulator, researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI and the University of Geneva UNIGE have precisely probed the distribution of electrons in the material. By means of a sophisticated development of X-ray scattering, they were able to show that electrons in the vicinity of the material’s oxygen atoms are rearranging. The researchers have now published their study in the journal Nature Communications.

October 11, 2016 – PRNewswire – Explosive Novel Of Espionage Based On Shocking True Story – Author Ruth Anderson drew heavily from real life experience in creating her debut novel, Whistle Blower and Double Agents, a shocking spy thriller penned by a writer who worked intimately for the U.S. Government during a crisis long forgotten. Centered on what Anderson calls “a cover-up of epic proportions,” Whistle Blower and Double Agents is an explosive international thriller inspired by actual events. But what makes Whistle Blower and Double Agents positively combustible is the story behind the story: Anderson didn’t have to look far for a plot: she was working for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the 1970s when 200 pounds of uranium was declared missing or unaccountable at a U.S. nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania. Resplendent with intrigue, action, romance, and drama, Whistle Blower and Double Agents teems with authenticity. When asked why she wrote the novel, Anderson stated: “The novel is inspired by actual incidents around the 200 pounds of uranium missing, or unaccountable, from a US nuclear power plant. The question of responsibility pointed in many directions–the man who operated the nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania, the CIA, and even the President. I’m often asked why I believe there was a cover-up. I interviewed the whistleblower at my house and was haunted by the stories for years. You see, the ‘whistleblower’ found out exactly what happened to the uranium, who was involved—and who received the ‘missing’ uranium. Ultimately, I felt that this was a story that needed to be told.”

October 11, 2016 – Haaretz – 1939: Einstein Makes His Biggest Mistake – On October 11, 1939, Franklin D. Roosevelt received a letter warning him of the possibility that Nazi Germany might develop a nuclear bomb. The letter, signed by Albert Einstein, urged the U.S. president to take action. The result was the “Manhattan Project”, America’s own secret wartime drive that did, in fact, develop the first atom bomb. It was a month after Germany had invaded Poland, triggering World War II. Einstein had signed the letter but it was actually the initiative of a Jewish Hungarian physicist, Leo Szilard, who, like Einstein, had fled the Nazis to America. It was Szilard, a former student of Einstein’s, who is credited with first conceiving of nuclear chain reactions, in 1933. Fearing Germany could obtain Congo’s uranium reserves and utilize his and other discoveries to make a nuclear bomb, Szilard and fellow Hungarian physicist Eugene Wigner felt they had to warn the world. Szilard then thought of his former teacher, who was renowned enough to be taken seriously. (Though Sziland and Einstein had also collaborated in the 1920s on a new design for a refrigerator, which failed miserably.)

October 11, 2016 – STAT – What radiation-resistant space fungus can do for drug discovery – On Aug. 26, the Dragon space capsule dropped into the Pacific Ocean somewhere off the coast of Baja California, Mexico. Onboard were payloads containing fungi that had now grown in two of the most extreme conditions known to man: outer space and the Chernobyl Atomic Energy Station. These fungi are radiation resistant. Thirty years ago, they survived when a routine test led to an explosion that blasted radioactive material throughout northern Ukraine. By sending these fungi to the International Space Station, Kasthuri Venkateswaran, a research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, and Clay Wang, a professor at the USC School of Pharmacy, have tried to push them to adapt again.

October 11, 2016 – Prostate Cancer News Today – PET, MRI Combination Helps Map Prostate Cancer Relapses – Combining two imaging techniques has allowed researchers to study the patterns of prostate cancer recurrence following radical prostatectomy (removal of the prostate). Titled “Contemporary Mapping Of Post-Prostatectomy Prostate Cancer Relapse With C-11 Choline PET And Multiparametric MRI,” the research report was published in the Journal of Urology by Ilya Sobol and colleagues from the Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minnesota. “This study has important implications for men who have a rising prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test, also known as biochemical recurrence, after radical prostatectomy for prostate cancer,” Dr. Jeffrey Karnes, from Mayo Clinic, said in a news release. “In men with biochemical recurrence, determining where the disease has recurred is quite challenging, especially when the PSA level is low.”

October 11, 2016 – Slash Gear – Mars astronauts risk brain damage says new study – We know that the magnetosphere of the Earth protects us all from all sorts of damaging radiation that comes from the sun and other celestial bodies in space. In fact we have known for years that astronauts on missions to Mars would face much higher risks for cancer. A new study reports that the astronauts on future Mars missions may also face brain damage in addition to increased risk of cancer. The study used rodents and exposed the rodents to charged particles and then analyzed the results of the experiments. The scientists found that the rodents in the experiments had brain damage, neural inflammation,and impaired memory among other issues. “This is not positive news for astronauts deployed on a two-to-three-year round trip to Mars,” Charles Limoli, a professor of radiation oncology at the University of California, Irvine, School of Medicine, said in a statement.

October 11, 2016 – NJ.com – Nuclear emergency sirens to sound in South Jersey – Emergency sirens in the 10-mile radius around the Artificial Island nuclear generating complex will be tested Tuesday morning. The test will take place at approximately 10:20 a.m. and the sirens will sound for three minutes. The sirens are part of the alert system that would inform those who live near the Artificial Island complex of an emergency — especially the release of a large amount of radiation at one of the nuclear plants.

October 11, 2016 – TheLocal.ch – Swiss ‘need more time’ to close nuclear plants – The popular initiative ‘For an orderly withdrawal from the nuclear energy programme’, backed by the Green Party, will be put to the public vote in a referendum on November 27th. If passed, three of Switzerland’s nuclear power reactors – Mühleberg and Beznau 1 and 2 – will be closed as soon as 2017, with the remaining two being decommissioned in 2024 and 2029. Supporters say Switzerland’s ageing reactors – Beznau 1 is the oldest in the world, in service since 1969 – pose a threat to the country and the older they get the more risk there is of a major nuclear accident.

October 11, 2016 – Korea Herald – Nuclear-powered submarine can help S. Korea: navy chief – The chief of South Korea’s Navy said Tuesday acquiring nuclear-powered submarines can help the country better counter growing threats from North Korea. In a parliamentary audit, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Um Hyun-seong said that having such assets in the fleet will be “helpful in multiple aspects.” He, however, made it clear that no decision has yet been made on the matter. His remarks came in response to a question by Rep. Kim Hack-yong from the ruling Saenuri Party about the argument for the government to build nuclear submarines to trail and keep close tabs on North Korean ballistic missile subs that can pose serious challenges to national security down the line.

October 11, 2016 – pv Magazine – Nuclear fallout: Vattenfall sues Germany – Swedish energy group Vattenfall is suing the German government for 4.7 million euros in compensation in connection with the country’s phase-out of nuclear energy. The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) began hearings on Monday in the €4.7 billion ($5.21 billion) lawsuit by Swedish utility giant Vattenfall against the German government for its 2011 decision to accelerate the phase-out of nuclear energy. Vattenfall is demanding compensation from the German government for lost earnings and investments made when nuclear power still appeared to have a future in Germany.

October 11, 2016 – Cape Talk – Energy department: Eskom will fund nuclear build on its own – Minister of Energy Tina Joemat-Pettersson has told the Portfolio Committee on Energy that Eskom will be recommended to become the entity in charge of procuring the nuclear programme. EWN reporter Gaye Davis says the minister said Eskom fund the nuclear build programme off its own balance sheet because the Treasury has no money. Members of Parliament from the opposition parties and chairperson of the Committee Fikile Majola raised concerns about transparency if Eskom takes responsibility. “He [Majola] says what does this mean for Parliamentary oversight, and what does it mean for the role of this Committee in putting in place the role of check and balances that are needed to ensure that this process is fair, and just and transparent one.”

October 11, 2016 – The Japan News – Cyber-attacks ‘targeted nuclear lab’ – A research center at the University of Toyama famous for its work on tritium (see below), a substance used to fuel nuclear fusion reactors, is feared to have been targeted by cyber-attacks over a period of about six months, according to an internal investigation by the university and other sources. The possibility of cyber-attacks was discovered in June of this year. Information is feared to have been stolen from the computer terminal of a researcher at the university’s Hydrogen Isotope Research Center. An expert on cybersecurity said: “Pieces of information important to national security were among the data targeted. It is urgent to improve the level of security at universities that store information assets.”

October 11, 2016 – The Guardian – Wind direction is critical in devising response to nuclear disaster – The way the wind is blowing at the time of a nuclear disaster is crucial to the action the authorities need to take to protect the civilian population. Among the first priorities is issuing iodine tablets to protect people’s thyroid from absorbing the radioactive particles from the fallout that may later cause cancer. But in October 1957, when a plume of radioactivity spread out from the burning pile at Windscale in Cumbria, the reaction of the authorities was not to warn the public but to reassure them. Everything was under control. Children continued to pick potatoes in the fields surrounding the plant while the radioactivity showered down on them. While this disaster was not quite on the scale of Chernobyl or Fukushima, there was a radioactive plume that spread for hundreds of miles on a westerly wind across the north of England and deep into Europe. However, on the first day of the disaster, the wind was said to be blowing from the east, across the Irish Sea and dusting Ireland in radioactive fallout.

October 11, 2016 – Business Insider – Militant interest in attacking nuclear sites stirs concern in Europe – Metre-thick concrete walls and 1950s-style analog control rooms help protect nuclear plants from bomb attacks and computer hackers, but Islamist militants are turning their attention to the atomic industry’s weak spots, security experts say. Concerns about nuclear terrorism rose after Belgian media reported that suicide bombers who killed 32 people in Brussels on March 22 originally looked into attacking a nuclear installation before police raids that netted a number of suspected associates forced them to switch targets. Security experts say that blowing up a nuclear reactor is beyond the skills of militant groups, but that the nuclear industry has some vulnerabilities that could be exploited.

October 11, 2016 – Tuoitrenews.vn – Vietnam seeks crisis response to Chinese border nuclear plants – As China operates the first units of three nuclear power plants located as close as 50 kilometers from Vietnamese borders, Hanoi is seeking measures to detect and respond to possible future crises related to the facilities. China currently has three nuclear power plants built near Vietnamese territory, Fangchenggang Nuclear Power Plant in Guangxi, Changjiang Nuclear Power Plant in Hainan Province, and Yangjiang Nuclear Power Plant in Guangdong Province. Fangchenggang is located only 50 kilometers from the northern Vietnamese province of Quang Ninh, while Changjiang lies 100 kilometers off Vietnam’s Bach Long Vi Island in the Gulf of Tokin. The farthest among the three, Yangjiang, is 200 kilometers from Vietnamese borders.

October 11, 2016 – Red Flag – South Australia to become global nuclear waste capital – Sixty years ago, Maralinga went up in a mushroom cloud. The British government had been given permission to test atomic weaponry in South Australia. That is to say, they had been given permission by the right wing Menzies government. The local Maralinga Tjarutja people had no say in it at all. Many of them were not even forewarned of the first blast. Thunderous black clouds condemned them to radiation exposure, illness and death, the survivors being driven from their homeland during the long years of British testing and fallout. South Australia has a dark history with the nuclear industry. Maralinga remains contaminated, despite cheap clean-up efforts. Uranium tailings have leaked from BHP’s Olympic Dam mine at Roxby Downs. Fukushima’s reactors held South Australian uranium when catastrophe struck in 2011.

October 11, 2016 – Daily News & Analysis – Delhi N-leak: Clamour for safety regulator grows – On Sunday, it was suspected that a radioactive leak had taken place, however, later the government issued a statement denying such reports and said the emission was ‘within permissible’ limits’. A suspected radioactive leak reported on Sunday—in the cargo area of Delhi’s international airport Terminal 3, from a shipment—has once again lent voice to the clamour to adopt legislation to put in place a nuclear safety regulator. A bill in this regard was introduced in the Lok Sabha in 2011, but has since lapsed with its dissolution. Even though an inter-Ministerial group last year gave its nod to introduce the Nuclear Safety Regulatory Authority (NSRA) Bill in order to set up a Nuclear Safety Regulatory Authority to replace the existing Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB); the bill seems to have gone into hibernation. This is despite the government, during the last two parliament sessions, hurriedly adopting amendments to other bills relating to the commercial use of nuclear energy.

October 11, 2016 – Eurasia Review – Russia Withdraws From US Nuclear Cooperation – The Russian government has “suspended” a 2013 agreement with the USA on nuclear energy research and development and “terminated” another, signed in 2010, on cooperation in the conversion of Russian research reactors to low-enriched uranium fuel. The decisions were issued in separate documents signed by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and published on the government’s website on 5 October. The decisions follow Russian President Vladimir Putin’s order earlier this week to suspend a 2000 agreement with the USA on the disposal of plutonium from their respective nuclear weapons programs.

October 11, 2016 – AA.com – Nuclear power: its future debated at World Energy Cong. – Nuclear power investments and regulations along with the necessity in taking safety precautions in this industry were argued by a prominent group of speakers at the 23rd World Energy Congress (WEC) in Istanbul on Monday. Speaking at WEC, of which Anadolu Agency is the global communication partner for 2016, Wang Binghua, chairman at State Power Investment Corporation (SPIC) in China, said that the decision process in choosing the best technology, appropriate design and correct location were paramount. “Nuclear power has no frontiers. Security of a nuclear plant has no frontiers either. Any country which intends to develop nuclear energy needs to manage security problems and must consider the others [countries],” he said.

October 11, 2016 – Daily Caller – New ‘Supermolecule’ Could Solve Nuclear Waste Problem – A new “supermolecule” could allow nuclear waste to easily be stored and disposed of, according to a new study published by scientists from Indiana University. Nuclear waste could be transformed using the “supermolecule” into easily held solids through a process called vitrification. The molecule contains two negatively charged ions, which was originally regarded as impossible since it defied a nearly 250-year-old chemical law, and has only recently come under new scrutiny. The “supermolecule” could also be used to neutralize other environmentally hazardous waste. “An anion-anion dimerization of bisulfate goes against simple expectations of Coulomb’s law,” Dr. Amar Flood, an Indiana University chemistry professor who was the study’s senior author, said in a press statement. “But the structural evidence we present in this paper shows two hydroxy anions can in fact be chemically bonded. We believe the long-range repulsions between these anions are offset by short-range attractions.”

October 11, 2016 – Helena Independent Record – A nuclear reactor in Colstrip would be a win for Montana – It has become tiresome to hear people like Bob Lake, Eric Moore and Greg Gianforte talk about saving Colstrip 1 and 2 from the environmentalists and Steve Bullock. Apparently they do not realize, or want to admit, that coal is a declining industry because it is now universally recognized as a dirty fuel. Here is what China is doing to transition away from coal “due to air pollution from coal-fired plants” according to the World Nuclear Association: Mainland China has 35 nuclear power reactors in operation, 20 under construction, and more about to start construction. Additional reactors are planned, including some of the world’s most advanced, to give a doubling of nuclear capacity to at least 58 GWe by 2020-21, then up to 150 GWe by 2030, and much more by 2050.

October 11, 2016 – Energy Collective – U.S. Navy Sets Plans to Upgrade Idaho Spent Fuel Facility – The Associated Press reported October 3 that the Navy and U.S. Department of Energy want to build a $1.6 billion facility at a nuclear site in eastern Idaho that would handle fuel waste from the nation’s fleet of nuclear-powered warships through at least 2060. According to the wire service, the new facility would be built at the Energy Department’s 890-square-mile Idaho National Laboratory, the nation’s primary lab for commercial nuclear energy research. The Navy’s plan is sure to set off a significant response from anti-nuclear groups and two ex-governors who have stridently opposed any new spent nuclear fuel, from any source, being brought to the state.