October 13, 2016 – Columbus Dispatch – Film pulls back the curtain on Arkansas nuke disaster that wasn’t – On Sept. 18, 1980, Air Force officials struggled desperately to prevent an American thermonuclear warhead from blasting Arkansas off the map. “Before Sept. 18, the only warheads that we thought would go off in the United States were Soviet warheads,” Allan Childers, a former missile-complex crew member, says in the documentary “ Command and Control,” which chronicles the events of that day. “We never considered that our warheads could detonate on our own continent.” The film, directed by Robert Kenner and based on the book by Eric Schlosser, will open on Friday at the Gateway Film Center. It centers on a critical moment in American history that few people know about. If the warhead had detonated, the blast and radioactive fallout would have killed millions of Americans.

October 13, 2016 – The Japan News – Accelerate water-purifying work at Fukushima plant to cut leakage risk – The volume of contaminated water continues to increase at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. Efforts to deal with this problem must be reinforced. TEPCO has compiled a new set of measures to deal with the radioactive water. The steps are aimed at reducing to nearly zero the contaminated water inside reactor buildings, the prime source of the tainted water. Under the new measures, the contaminated water accumulated in the basements of reactor buildings is to be purified and then transferred to storage tanks. At the same time, facilities exclusively used for purifying the tainted water are to be doubled, and the existing storage tanks will be replaced with larger ones, increasing the overall storage capacity.

October 13, 2016 – Business Wire – Carestream Ultrasound Systems Receive Health Canada License – CARESTREAM Touch Prime and Touch Prime XE Ultrasound Systems (video link) have received a Health Canada license and are currently available for sale in Canada as well as the United States. “Our ultrasound systems provide exceptional image quality and streamline measurements to expedite clinician access to critical imaging information while boosting staff productivity” The Touch Ultrasound platform’s design is based upon recommendations by sonographers and ultrasound professionals across the world and offers an all-touch user interface, compact profile, easy maneuverability and adjustable features. Swipe-and-go system activation configures the interface to each user’s preferences and a bar code reader reduces key strokes to save time. Its glass console is easy to clean and wireless connectivity provides rapid transfer of images and data to PACS, RIS or other systems. Carestream offers specialized transducers for radiology, OB/GYN, musculoskeletal and vascular imaging.

October 13, 2016 – Vanguard – China bans X-ray scanners at airports – China has ordered the removal of full-body X-ray scanners at airports and railway stations due to radiation risks. In an urgent document sent to the Department of Environmental Protection of Sichuan Province (DEPSP) on Monday and published on Wednesday, the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) urged DEPSP to strengthen law enforcement and stop producing, selling and using full-body X-ray scanners without authorisation to ensure the safety of the people. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); The document came after some travellers complained about radiation hazards and the use of full-body security scanners at airports and railways stations in Sichuan’s capital city Chengdu and other areas.

October 13, 2016 – Scicasts – New Atomic-Scale MRI System Holds Promise for New Drug Discovery – Researchers at the University of Melbourne have developed a way to radically miniaturise a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machine using atomic-scale quantum computer technology. Capable of imaging the structure of a single bio-molecule, the new system would overcome significant technological challenges and provide an important new tool for biotechnology and drug discovery. The team propose the use of atomic-sized quantum bits (qubits) normally associated with the development of quantum computers, but here would be employed as highly sensitive quantum sensors to image the individual atoms in a bio-molecule.

October 13, 2016 – New Haven Independent – Nuke “Safety” – In 1958, officials at the new Fire Department training school reported on how they’d handle “peace-time radiation which will develop when atomic power is used in local industries.” Welcome to This Day In Fire Prevention History, as your host Allan Appel and the New Haven Museum’s Jason Bischoff Wurstle travel back in time.

October 13, 2016 – RTT News – Denison Acquires 80% Ownership In Hook-Carter Property – Denison Mines Corp. (DML.TO,DNN) announced it has executed a definitive agreement with ALX Uranium Corp. (AL.V) to acquire an immediate 80% ownership of the entire Hook-Carter property in exchange for the issuance of 7.5 million common shares of Denison. The Property consists of 28 claims, totaling 16,805 hectares, and is located near the southwestern margin of the Athabasca Basin, in northern Saskatchewan. Denison’s CEO, David Cates, stated: “While this transaction expands Denison’s project portfolio into the western side of the Athabasca Basin, Denison remains focused on advancing our flagship Wheeler River property in the infrastructure rich eastern portion of the Athabasca Basin. The acquisition of the Hook-Carter property is about building our project pipeline and generating our own success in the very exciting western portion of the Athabasca Basin. We believe the western Basin has the potential to emerge as a mining camp in the long-term, and could eventually represent an important part of the uranium mining industry in Canada.”

October 13, 2016 – Can-India.com – Homes should be tested for cancer gas Radon – In North American homes, smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors are common devices. But while homeowners may think that these monitors are sufficient for ensuring their families’ wellness and safety, there is another gas that needs to be detected which is equally as important for health and wellness: radon. Radon exposure is the leading cause of lung cancer among non-smokers and the second leading cause for smokers, claiming the lives of approximately 21,000 Americans each year. That’s more than five times the number of deaths attributed annually to carbon monoxide poisoning and house fires.

October 13, 2016 – Quartz – Want to go to Mars? Be prepared for irreversible damage to your brain – You can’t go many days without someone talking about going to Mars. Just in the last few weeks: Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, laid out his plans to sell tickets to the red planet for $200,000; Dennis Muilenburg, CEO of Boeing, vowed to get there before Musk; and US president Barack Obama reiterated his plans to send humans to Mars by 2030. Before these fantasies become reality, there are many problems to overcome. One of them might be the most difficult: how to stop astronauts from suffering irreversible damage to brain functions that are crucial to completing a space mission? This damage is predicted to be caused by space radiation. When we’re on Earth, the planet’s magnetic field shields us from most of it. A spacecraft’s hull can’t provide that level of protection. The result, a 2015 study predicted, would be brain damage that would affect astronauts’ cognitive powers.

October 13, 2016 – dprem.com – Proton therapy: A new hope for cancer treatment – Proton Therapy, alternative of Proton Beam Therapy, is a form of radiation treatment highly effective in treating different types of cancer. As the name implies, it involves a beam of protons (positively charged particles) instead of X- Ray beam. Protons at a high energy state have immense ability to destroy the cancer cells. Our body tissues are comprised of innumerable molecules with atoms being the basic building blocks. Negatively charged electrons orbit around the nucleus of each atom. High energy protons while passed through the electrons cause ionization of those atoms pulling electrons off their orbits. Ionization causes a considerable change in the characteristics of the atom and consequently the molecules too undergo subsequent changes that ultimately damage the genetic constituent of the tissues. It has a beneficial aspect in destroying the cancer cells but care should be taken not to cause any damage to the surrounding cells and tissues. Radiation therapy of any kind is based on this cell ionization principle.

October 13, 2016 – DC Velocity – CERN Uses Automatic Hook to Lift Concrete Beam During Irradiation Tests – CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is using an automatic hook from Barcelona, Spain-based manufacturer Elebia to lift and lower a 750kg concrete beam used for radiation tests at the Franco-Swiss site. At CERN, physicists and engineers are probing the fundamental structure of the universe. They use the world’s largest and most complex scientific instruments to study the basic constituents of matter—the fundamental particles. The 2.5t capacity e2 automatic hook works beneath a 25t capacity overhead crane with a 10t capacity hoist, which combine to lower the beam that contains samples for irradiation (a process by which an object is exposed to radiation) at the shielding benchmark facility.

October 13, 2016 – Indian Express – India, Russia ink pact to set up 25 irradiation centers for perishable food – India and Russia Thursday signed a pact to set up 25 integrated infrastructure centers for irradiation treatment of perishable food items to improve shelf life and cut post-harvest losses. At least 7 centers will be set up in Maharashtra, with the first centre near Shirdi to be ready next year. Perishable items ranging from flowers to fish will be treated there on a commercial scale. The agreement was signed between Russia’s United Innovation Corporation (UIC) — a subsidiary of Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation — and Hindustan Agro Co-op Ltd on the sidelines of the BRICS Business Forum here.

October 13, 2016 – Independent – University of Malta researchers contribute toward world’s largest nuclear fusion reactor – Researchers at the University of Malta are contributing toward the construction of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), a €20 billion nuclear fusion reactor that aims to ‘ignite a star on Earth for energy’. The reactor, known as a tokamak, is being constructed in Cadarache, France and it will be the world’s largest machine of its kind. The European Union, the United States, Russia, China, India, Japan and South Korea have all joined forces to build this international experimental magnetic confinement machine to prove the feasibility of nuclear fusion as a large-scale and carbon-free source of energy based on the same principle that powers our Sun and stars. ITER is designed to produce net energy and maintain fusion reactions for long periods of time. It will be the first fusion device to test the integrated technologies, materials and physics regimes necessary to build power plants for the commercial production of fusion-based electricity.

October 13, 2016 – Daily Mail – EDF CEO says hopes more nuclear reactors will return online by year-end – The chief executive of French utility EDF said on Thursday he hoped more offline nuclear reactors could return to production before the end of the year, following reports that France could face tight supplies this winter. “We are working to make sure reactors that are on outage resume production,” EDF CEO Jean-Bernard Levy told reporters. “We are still carrying out demonstrations with ASN and we hope that some of these reactors will resume production by the end of the year,” he said.

October 13, 2016 – Novinite – Bulgaria Mulls Completing Belene Nuclear Plant through Privatization – Bulgarian authorities are exploring options to privatize Belene nuclear power plant (NPP) project, Deputy Prime Minister Tomislav Donchev has said. Russia has given its consent in principle, the Bulgarian National Radio quotes him as saying. Donchev has underlined the need to “halt the clock of interest,” in a reference to the EUR 0.167 M piled up on the EUR 620 M principal on a daily basis since June. The controversial project, on which Bulgaria was working with Russia, was abandoned during Boyko Borisov’s first term as Prime Minister. In June, however, Bulgaria was told by an arbitration court to pay hundreds of millions of EUR to Atomstroyexport, the Russian company which had already produced a reactor and some equipment for the plant.

October 13, 2016 – Times Live – ‘Zuptas’ insisting on nuclear build programme because they have taken a bribe from Russia – “Zuma and the Guptas – or the Zuptas as we call them – are primarily responsible for the insistence on the nuclear building programme which will cost South Africa more than R1 trillion because they have already accepted a bribe from the Russians. “The recent announcement by Eskom CEO Brian Molefe and a Gupta agent that Eskom will implement a nuclear building programme is part of the corrupt insistence of the Gupta family to make corrupt gains out of the programme. “The reality is‚ if the programme continues to go ahead‚ South Africa will be deprived of all the resources needed for basic services‚” Malema said.

October 13, 2016 – Richmond Times-Dispatch – Va. man, woman who entered Pa. nuclear plant property enter pleas – A Virginia couple who entered the property of a Pennsylvania nuclear plant after they say they got lost pleaded guilty to some charges in exchange for no additional jail time. Timothy Stewart, 29, and Jenilee Simpson, 33, both of Chesapeake, entered the pleas Tuesday in York County Court. Authorities said they were driving to New York on May 27 and cut the chain at Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station while trying to get on the right road. Stewart told the court he was lost and had not gotten a lot of sleep. He had bolt cutters because he was “going to use them to work at a carnival,” the York Daily Record reported.

October 13, 2016 – IOL – When a ‘radiological hotspot’ is your home – Thandeka Mkhehlane pushes her twins in their dusty second-hand pram, navigating the dirty, narrow alleys that separate the shacks of Tudor Shaft, an informal settlement on the forlorn fringes of Krugersdorp. She would rather be anywhere but here. The bleak shack where she is raising her three sons – the eldest is nine – is less than 10m from the yellow mine dump that encircles Tudor Shaft, and which she blames for her children’s near-constant poor health. The Tudor Shaft community in Krugersdorp is living in terrible danger. Some of the residents have been relocated, while those remaining believe they’ve been forgotten. When it rains, the tailings from the mound of toxic soil pour into her and her neighbours’ homes. And there’s nowhere to escape when the dust billows. “My children are always sick,” says Mkhehlane, looking worried. “They have runny noses and rashes that don’t go away. They struggle to breathe. I need to leave this place for the sake of my children’s health. It’s a disaster.”

October 13, 2016 – The Recorder – In ‘Power Struggle,’ filmmaker explores efforts to shut down Vt. Yankee – When Entergy Corp. announced plans to shut down its Vermont Yankee nuclear plant in August 2013, Wendell filmmaker Robbie Leppzer had already been filming his documentary for 3½ years. Leppzer, whose latest film, “Power Struggle” chronicles the conflicts over the Vernon, Vt. reactor’s relicensing, will be screened in an Oct. 23 “sneak preview” 2 p.m. showing at the Academy of Music in Northampton, as well as a Nov. 3 showing at the Latchis Theater in Brattleboro, Vt. The 104-minute film, for which Leppzer is trying to raise $10,000 for post-production work, will be aired on HBO sometime next year, says the documentary filmmaker. He also received support from NHK, the Japanese Broadcasting Corporation.

October 13, 2016 – Science Daily – 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 two 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.”

October 13, 2016 – GCR – China designs “baby reactors” to power islands in South China Sea – A Chinese research institute has developed a nuclear reactor small enough to transport in a shipping crate, with the aim of deploying it on islands in the South China Sea in the next five years. Just 6.1m long and 2.6m high, it can generate 10MW of electricity, enough to run 50,000 households and provide heat to desalinate seawater, reports The South China Morning Post. Called the hedianbao, or “portable nuclear battery pack”, the “baby” reactor is being developed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Nuclear Energy Safety Technology. The design is derived from reactors installed in Soviet nuclear submarines in the 1970s. It uses fast neutrons to minimise waste and molten lead as a coolant, and if it meets its goals, it will be able to produce power continuously for decades without refuelling.

October 13, 2016 – NewsInEnglish.no – Nuclear reactors closing down – Norway’s two aging nuclear reactors, located in Halden and Kjeller, are being shut down in what officials are calling a “temporary” move but one that has set off speculation over whether they’ll ever be reopened. Magazine Teknisk Ukeblad reported this week that the reason for the shutdown was largely financial, after lower oil prices led to a slowdown in the energy industry and a fall in the number of research assignments coming in to Norway’s Institute for Energy Technology (IFE), which operates them. Companies using nuclear energy are also struggling as a result of more use of alternative and renewable energy, reported the magazine.
A total of 127 IFE employees will be laid off or furloughed in the coming weeks, 72 in Halden and 55 in Kjeller. Some will be kept on to work 50 percent at the reactors, both of which date from the 1950s and have been dedicated to international research projects under the OECD’s Nuclear Energy Agency.

October 13, 2016 – Blue & Green Tomorrow – Risky Move Toward Nuclear Energy Taken At Hinkley Point – Following a final six-week review and after agreeing a ‘golden share’ deal, the UK Government has given the green light to two nuclear reactors at Hinkley Point in Somerset. The controversial move will see the first new nuclear plant built in the UK for 20 years. As a leader on tackling climate change, the decision can be viewed as a major milestone to achieving a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 80% by 2050. Low and zero carbon sources represented slightly less than 50% of the UK energy mix in 2015. At 20%, nuclear power is the fourth biggest source of energy after gas, renewables and coal – contributing significantly to the 38% drop in greenhouse gas emissions since 1990. So why do I have reservations?

October 13, 2016 – KOMO News – Washington state seeks to protect Hanford workers – Washington state wants a federal judge to issue an injunction requiring the Department of Energy and its contractor to take steps to protect workers at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. The Tri-City Herald reports that from January through July, Hanford workers reported suspicious smells or symptoms that indicate exposure to chemical vapors.
The Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson says more than 50 workers have been exposed to toxic vapors and the “culture of indifference to worker safety must end.” The state plans to make that argument during a federal hearing set for Wednesday morning in Spokane. The agency has claimed that the plaintiffs in the case have not shown harm to Hanford workers from vapors. It has argued that symptoms like headaches are common and don’t necessarily indicate exposure to vapors.